Having been without power all week, I haven't had a lot of time for blogging or even keeping up with recent goings on. So you can imagine my amusement at coming online again to find this wonderfully entertaining story about Occupy Wall Street.
Officials with the revamped ACORN office in New York -- operating as New York Communities for Change -- have fired staff, shredded reams of documents and told workers to blame disgruntled ex-employees for leaking information in an effort to explain away a FoxNews.com report last week on the group’s involvement in Occupy Wall Street protests, according to sources.
NYCC also is installing surveillance cameras and recording devices at its Brooklyn offices, removing or packing away supplies bearing the name ACORN and handing out photos of Fox News staff with a stern warning not to talk to the media, the sources said.
“They’re doing serious damage control right now,” said an NYCC source.
NYCC Executive Director Jon Kest has been calling a series of emergency meetings to discuss last week’s report—and taking extreme measures to identify the sources in their office and to prevent further damage, a source within NYCC told FoxNews.com.
Two staffers were fired after NYCC officials suspected them as the source of the leaks, a source told FoxNews.com. “One was fired the day the story came out, the other was fired on Friday. (NYCC senior staff) told everyone that they were fired because they talked to you,” a source said.
We always knew ACORN would reinvented itself, but as the KGB? Who would ever have dreamed?
NYCC is also monitoring its staff’s behavior, cracking down on phone use and socialization. Officials have ordered all papers -- even scraps -- to be shredded every night, the source said.
“And all the supplies—everything around the office that said ‘ACORN’ -- is now all in storage until this blows over,” the source said. “People literally have to cover up the cameras on the back of their cellphones in the office.”
“Now there’s no texting in the office, no phone calls in the office. They tell us to take our phone calls out into the waiting room where there’s an intercom, and then they turn on the intercom to hear our conversations. They’re installing new cameras and speakers around the building so they can hear everything.
Gee, wasn't just a couple of weeks ago that Nancy Pelosi was bubbling over with praise for Occupy Wall Street, as if it were some powerful, spontaneous grass roots campaign.
“The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment in every place,” she told reporters in a Capitol press conference. “The message of the American people is that no longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street.
“God bless them for their spontaneity,” Pelosi added. “It’s independent people coming (together), it’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.”
"Grass roots" doesn't quite match reality, a fact which became hilariously evident when FoxNews.com reported that NYCC, formerly known as ACORN, was paying protesters to protest.
A source said that immediately following publication of the FoxNews.com report staff were called into the Brooklyn office for meetings headed by NYCC’s organizing director, Jonathan Westin. Westin handed out copies of the article and went through it line-by-line, the source said.
Staffers were also given copies of photos of Senior Fox News Correspondent Eric Shawn and three other Fox News staff members, including this reporter [Jana Winter].
“They reminded us that we can get fired, sued, arrested for talking to the press,” the source said. “Then they went through the article point-by-point and said that the allegation that we pay people to protest isn’t true.”
“‘That’s the story that we’re sticking to,’” Westin said, according to the source.
The source said staffers at the meeting contested Westin’s denial:
“It was pretty funny. Jonathan told staff they don’t pay for protesters, but the people in the meeting who work there objected and said, ‘Wait, you pay us to go to the protests every day?’ Then Jonathan said ‘No, but that’s your job,’ and staffers were like, ‘Yeah, our job is to protest,’ and Westin said, ‘No your job is to fight for economic and social justice. We just send you to protest.’
“Staff said, ‘Yes, you pay us to carry signs.’ Then Jonathan says, ‘That’s your job.’ It went on like that back and forth for a while.”
"Progressive" and "grass roots" are mutually exclusive terms. Progressive movements are top down affairs where the elites tell the lesser ones what to think, what to say, and when to say it. Ideas come from the top. Those at the bottom must be persuaded, coerced, or paid to take their enlightenment.
Occupy Wall Street is a good metaphor for the "hope and change" that Barack Obama has been working to impose these last few years. It's fitting that Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the progressive leadership have embraced the Occupy Wall Street movement. "Movement" is a good word, too. Especially as it seems the movement is hitting the fan.
Oooo....Somebody's been taking lessons from Old Mr. Hubbard.
Kinda like Narconon "recovery" centers, whose back offices, secured-unless you have to make payment arrangements, are crammed with boxes of
official "Church" of Scientology junk.
And WHO is currently supervising/financing
ACOR.."(fill in the blank)Communities for Change" again?Posted by: CaptDMO | November 05, 2011 at 06:23 PM
I believe it was ALSO ex-speaker Ms. Pelosi that pronounced Tea Party
efforts as Astro Turf, although I can't, for the life of me, figure out who instructed her to say that.
How come "evil doers" (and other assorted professional wackos) that inevitably crashed Tea Party events were quickly ousted, along with their "litter", but they're find a growing "presence" in co-opting OWS band wagons as time drags on?
How come working Wall Street folks that bombarded the "predominately white" protester crowd with McDonald's job applications didn't include Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Ben and Jerry's, and (ahem)Solindra ones as well?
Posted by: CaptDMO | November 06, 2011 at 10:49 AM