Written by Allen Jones   

It is disheartening, if unsurprising, to find members of corporate media disparage the Wall Street occupation for a lack of focus and definite aim. Even worse, in the initial days of the protest, the NY Times took to portraying the protesters as quixotic and naïve, as if they were merely misguided youth who, having wearied of playing video games and watching MTV, had taken to the streets to assuage their adolescent boredom by pretending that it is 1968.[1] This couldn’t have been further from the truth.

In another New York Times article, we found an attempt to mitigate the responsibility of the NYPD’s violent, unprovoked attacks on the protesters. Comparing the protesters to the London rioters, the author claims that “to the NYPD, the protesters represented ... a visible example of lawlessness akin to that which had resulted in destruction and violence at other anti-capitalist demonstrations.” This piece stops just short of suggesting that, because the much more malign threat posed by terrorists is among the NYPD’s main concerns, they should be forgiven for their disproportionate response to the “unorganized and, at times, uninformed” Wall Street protesters.[2][3][4]

These are but two of numerous articles of this sort that appeared in the days following the initiation of the occupation. Mainly, the corporate media was silent about it, which is why its few treatments are so telling. On the rare occasion that they broke their silence, overwhelmingly the tendency was to dismiss the effort as feckless, misdirected and juvenile. If they didn’t undertake a defense of the actions of the NYPD like the latter, then, like the former, they criticized the protesters because they lack clearly defined goals. [3]

The advantage of newspaper journalism is that the work of reporters and commentators can be reviewed before going to print. Editors are (ostensibly) tasked with identifying the more dubious arguments that are advanced by their team of writers, filtering out purely emotional reactions and obvious deviations from journalistic integrity and common sense. How, then, did these pieces fall through the cracks?

The most obvious answer is that they did not. In the absence of thoughtful responses to the courage, resolve and peaceful exuberance of the protesters, the New York Times apparently had little more than sneering derision and ad hominem attacks to offer its readers in these first moments of the occupation. And if these articles are indeed telling of the attitudes within this institution, they indicate a kind of fit of uneasiness within the established order. As an institution, at least with regards to this matter, the establishment media was unable to maintain even the appearance of equanimity and fairness.

In traditional psychotherapy, the analyst knows that she approaches an essential psychic conflict when the patient becomes uneasy. The façade of rationality and quiet control is dashed away, and what remains are symptoms of anxiety. The patient often becomes uncooperative and lashes out irrationally. This uneasiness suggests that the analyst is on the right track. But there is also danger here. In these moments, the patient is inclined to violently resist any attempts to bring these tensions to consciousness, and is given to infantile outbursts of anger. The patient may personally attack the analyst, who comes to represent the unconscious tensions that the patient seeks to avoid.

The occupiers obviously hit a nerve. Like good analysts, they proved themselves to be effective in initiating the first stages of therapy. These outbursts from an otherwise silent media establishment suggest something symptomatic. Indeed, even this silence does not signify an attitude of indifference toward the occupation and what it heralds. Quite the contrary, it betrays the degree to which this occupation, because it confronts the media establishment with the hidden limit of its entire ideology, marks the beginning of a formidable challenge to it.

In these first days of the occupation, our worst fears about the media establishment were confirmed: they are incapable of speaking affirmatively to the necessity of radical change. And so the occupiers, along with those who are sympathetic to their cause, are correct in holding that the corporate media functions as little more than an organ of propaganda for the moneyed interests of Wall Street. Because of this fitful response, it is now painfully obvious that, while Wall Street manages and controls the infrastructure, the corporate media complex administers its complementary ideological superstructure. Its inability to respond to the Wall Street occupier’s presence in a rational way has effectively demystified the corporate media, revealed it for what it is. Their collusion with those against whom the protesters are arrayed is exposed. [4]

It is important to note that this event of demystification is not one that is seen merely from the standpoint of the occupation movement. It now becomes obvious even to those within the media establishment what their actual role is. After all, institutions such as these are comprised of human beings, and they too are vulnerable to disillusionment, as the purported walkout of nearly 100 NYPD officers in the wake of Saturday’s police violence demonstrates. Battle lines were drawn within these institutions. Writers and editors were forcefully confronted with the choice between their newly realized roles as propagandists for the establishment and what they formerly understood their role to be; namely, journalists, whose primary directive is to seek the truth.

How difficult it must be to maintain the illusion when you are the one who has been chosen to write the opinion piece that chastises these courageous occupiers for being “uninformed” practicers of “pantomime progressivism,” or engages in the gymnastic contortions of reason necessary to excuse the use of violent police force against this peaceful, righteous occupation. How quickly these writers have resorted to platitudes, dismissals and empty rhetorical attacks.

These writers were deployed by the establishment to defend itself against the forces of change (the other main instrument being the police), and tasked with quieting the rumblings of democracy. Poking fun and diminishing the protesters efforts was intended to function as a deterrent, destroying the morale of the people in the street and discouraging others from joining them for fear of humiliation. They raised the specter of what Jean-Paul Sartre calls fraternity terror, putting those within the establishment on notice that open sympathy with the occupation movement will not be tolerated. Like the occupiers themselves, these sympathizers will be summarily judged, humiliated and driven out. And for those who are merely afraid of the implications of the movement for their positions of affluence and security, they provide assurances that the distant thunder that they’re hearing won’t be followed by a storm.

As functionaries, they are not even free to affirm the courageous efforts of the protestors—not, at least, without violating their functional directive and compromising their position within the establishment. And if they are nothing more than mere functionaries, restricted in act and understanding by the directives handed down to them by the establishment, they will be forever incapable of truly comprehending the profundity of the indignatos protest. This is because the resistance of the protesters involves a genuinely free act. Only those who have embraced their own freedom are capable of truly grasping the free acts of others.

Whatever their actual motivation for acting as instruments of the establishment—whether they really identify themselves with it or whether they’ve become enamored of its comforts, or some combination of the two—it should now be clear that these writers are little more than tools of the system. If they merely identify themselves with what they argue, we can hope that witnessing these protests triggers some hidden sympathy for the effort that escapes this self-identification and begins to undo it.

Sadly, a darker possibility remains the more probable explanation; that they are so enamored of the comforts of the establishment, so isolated from the suffering that pervades American society, that they truly wish to see the effort fail, since its success would mean precisely the loss of these extraordinary luxuries and their position of power. Girded by these luxuries against sympathy and self-doubt, their identification with the corrupt establishment is allowed to stand unencumbered by conscience or scruple. Any sympathies that they might have had have been buried alive and, because they neither act on them nor allow them to become a part of their social identity, these sympathies suffocate under the weight of their own lassitude and complacency.

There is a word for what has just been described: resentment. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche describes this emotion most succinctly in The Genealogy of Morals.

"Resentment defines such creatures who are denied genuine reaction, that of the deed, and who compensate for it through an imaginary revenge…the resentful person is neither sincere, nor naïve, nor honest and forthright with himself. His soul squints; his mind loves hiding places and back doors; everything concealed gives him the feeling that it is his world, his security, his balm."

It is impotence that engenders resentment, an inability to “react genuinely” in “the deed.” Consigned to their function within an institution—a role that they embrace for the comforts and stability that it promises—they bitterly attack those who have the strength and genuine creativity to act outside of it.

What precisely it means to (re)act genuinely outside of these institutions is difficult to say. When we consider the enormous influence that these institutions have in shaping the discourse, it becomes clear that alternatives to the prevailing order will have to be articulated in a space that has—at least momentarily—been liberated from these influences. Where better than in the shadow of the buildings in which these harmful institutions are housed should such a liberated space emerge? The protesters confront our communities with the starkest of choices: embrace the necessity of change and stand with those who have the courage and conviction to create a better society, or stand with those who have ravaged our communities with their greed and avarice.

Against those who charge that the occupation is meaningless because it lacks a coherent message and definite aim, we offer only this rejoinder: The actions of the Wall Street occupiers are profoundly meaningful. This is because they reaffirm our power to withdraw from the existing order, to say no to it. This is the most fundamental gesture of freedom, and clears the boards for realizing something superior, something healthier.

To the occupiers themselves, we say, ignore the demands placed upon you by the establishment to translate your efforts into terms that can be assimilated to it. Continue to gather strength from the assertion of your freedom from the totalizing determinations of this system. Know that, as Günther Anders asserts, “to be free means to be strange, to be bound to nothing specific, to be cut out for nothing specific, to be within the horizon of the indeterminate.” For this reason, do not be hasty to articulate your goals precisely, other than to reject the violence, greed and inhumanity of the existing system. Continue to unite around the necessity for neutralizing the corrupt powers of Wall Street and, for now at least, orient yourself only with the broad ideas of participatory democracy, the communal spirit, and freedom.

Leuven, Belgium.





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[1] Bellafante, Ginia. “Gunning for Wall Street, with Faulty Aim” The New York Times: 9/23/2011

[2] Goldstein, Joseph. “Wall Street Demonstrations Test Police Trained for Bigger Threats” The New York Times: 9/26/2011

[3] See also: N.R. Kleinfield and Cara Buckley. “Wall Street Occupiers, Protesting Till Whenever” The New York Times: 9/30/2011,

And this: S. Greenhouse and Cara Buckley. "Seeking Energy, Major Unions Join Protest Against Wall Street" The New York Times: 10/6/2011. The piece claims that the "far-left" activists have "denounced the U.S. Government," but produce no evidence of this. This is supposed to be the basis of "others...questions about the protestors' hostility to the authorities." This is an absurd charge, given that it is the NYPD who have consistently been the aggressors.

[4] To be fair, as Nathan Schneider of wagingnonviolence.org pointed out to me, Colin Moynihan's writing on the occupation has been rather good. And there does seem to be something of a change in tone at the paper over the last couple of days. The paper now senses which was the wind is blowing, and they do not want to be identified as hostile to the cause. But, given their initial response, we can wonder how genuine this change of attitude is.

[5] Over the last few days, the New York Times has moved from a period of repression of the occupation to an attempt at managing the narrative regarding it. At this point, the persistence and exponential growth of the movement cannot be denied. If the paper continued with univocally negative coverage, they would loose their credibility with the growing numbers who identify themselves with it. Given the overwhelming tendency for blithe dismissals and outright attacks on the value of the occupation in their initial days of coverage, we can be forgiven for suspecting that the editors' reasons for this change of tone is not without cynicism and calculation. Furthermore, we should also be unsurprised when, in the future, the paper excessively highlights any aberrations in the peaceful Occupy Wall Street movement, such as riots or the damaging of property. When this happens, count on them to take it as an opportunity to malign the movement and destroy its credibility. We saw the same during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, when powerful newspapers attempted to use the Watts Riots to interrupt the momentum of the movement.