Occupy Wall Street Movement &The Krugman Army

By Ed Driscoll

On Friday, James Taranto described Occupy Wall Street as “Krugman’s Army,” and the former Enron advisor certainly has gone all in with the movement:

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• “Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there’s no comparison. I’ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can’t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds. And I can’t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received. So this is something new and ugly. What’s behind it?”–former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, New York Times, Aug. 7, 2009
• “ ‘Kill the Cops!’ Shout Reported During ‘Occupy New Orleans’ Protest”–headline, DailyCaller.com, Oct. 7
• “Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point. … Now, it’s true that some of the protesters are oddly dressed or have silly-sounding slogans, which is inevitable given the open character of the events. But so what? I, at least, am a lot more offended by the sight of exquisitely tailored plutocrats, who owe their continued wealth to government guarantees, whining that President Obama has said mean things about them than I am by the sight of ragtag young people denouncing consumerism.”–Krugman, New York Times, Oct. 7, 2011
• “Almost all the bankers and hedge-fund managers on Wall Street are Jewish. There is a conspiracy in this country in which Jews control the media, finances–if you Google, Google ‘Wall Street Jews.’ Google ‘Jewish billionaires.’ Google ‘Jews in the Federal Reserve Bank.’ The Jews, who represent 2% of the population–it’s similar to Russia, the oligarchs and the plutocrats–a small ethnic minority, they have pooled their money together, amassed their money, to take control of America’s finances. I ask the Russian people to Google ‘Jewish billionaires’ in this country. You’ll find out that half the billionaires in this country are Jewish.”–Occupy Wall Street protester in YouTube video, Oct. 3, 2011
• “When I said that it was the job of policy intellectuals to fill in the details for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, I didn’t mean ‘don’t worry your pretty little heads about it, we’ll work it out,’ I meant job literally as in responsibility: people like Joe Stiglitz and me have an obligation to work on this, helping to translate what justifiably angry citizens are saying into more fleshed-out proposals.”–Krugman, New York Times website, Oct. 7, 2011

Meanwhile, Noel Sheppard responds at Newsbusters to Krugman’s latest column:

It seems New York Times columnist Paul Krugman thinks the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been better behaved than Tea Party attendees.
Read the following paragraph from Monday’s “Panic of the Plutocrats” and you be the judge:

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Maybe Krugman has missed images like these:

Click over for multiple shots of Occupy Wall Street types living in homeless-style squalor, being carted off by the police, etc. And as Noel adds, “As most folks are aware, there are worse pictures as Britain’s Daily Mail reported Saturday including a protester defecating on a police car.”
As Taranto quips today, “Remember when Krugman was making up lies about conservatives employing ‘eliminationist rhetoric?’ He now commands an army that is engaged in a campaign of actual elimination.”
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