Occupy Again?

Last week I wrote that the Occupy Wall Street movement was dead. This week I think my declaration may have been premature, or maybe even dead wrong.

Ed Schultz interviewed members of the Occupy movement, including Scott Olsen, the Iraq War veteran who was severely injured during a run-in with police at an Occupy protest in Oakland. They told Schultz that the movement is just getting started, with new protests planned, and Olsen has said that he will continue to keep demonstrating himself.  In fact,  there's a massive encampment on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol next month.

Meanwhile, however, the demonstrations at Zuccotti Park in New York seemed to have diminished to nothing, or next to it, in the wake of the dismantling of the encampment. And the mainstream media seem to be paying little or no attention to any protests now. Ed Schultz and other progressive broadcasters seem to be alone in this assessment that the movement will continue.

Ironically, my pessimism was validated by stories the media have covered. CBS's "60 Minutes" has done stories on the explosion of child poverty in America and on the lack of prosecutions against greedy bankers and investors. So how much is being done in response to that? It almost makes me pine for the days when Ronald Reagan was President - because he always wanted to follow up with his aides on Monday mornings about doing something about what he'd seen on "60 Minutes" the previous night.