Peter King fears Occupy Wall Street may gain political clout
Posted on Sunday, October 09, 2011 at 10:09 AM
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Speaking on the Laura Ingraham radio show this weekend King did his best to vilify the growing movement as a 'ragtag' band of malcontents, rather than a populist movement riding the surge of anger at the income inequality that is still growing in the United States (and which is now so unequal it puts us closer to Honduras than Sweden, say).
King recalled that such protests arose before in the 1960's. And that's when he also remembered how effective they ultimately were in changing the national debate.
And that's not the sort of message you want to send to the Occupy Wall Street organizers and participants, if you want to oppose them and their reform aganda, that is.
'They have no sense of purpose other than a basically anti-American tone and anti-capitalist. It's a ragtag mob basically,' King told Ingraham, sounding the all-purpose socialist alarm. But then he gave the group more encouragement than he may have intended.
'We have to be careful not to allow this to get any legitimacy,' King warned. 'I'm taking this seriously in that I'm old enough to remember what happened in the 1960's when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy. We can't allow that to happen.'
Accidentally evoking La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France, in the hope of dampening a growing democratic movement is going far off-message.
But perhaps King's sense, and that of the public's are in sync in this way: we are clearly at the start of this movement's effectiveness, not near the end.
34 comments
McNamara31 | Oct 09, 2011, 02:50 PM EDT
Porickseantuny....There's bigger issues here. Wall St and the financial sector invested more than
5 billion dollars on purchasing political "influence" in Washington over the past decade, with 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation that led directly to the current financial collapse that affected us all.
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NYCsheridan | Oct 09, 2011, 01:49 PM EDT
Peter King is such a pompous ass. The nerve of him to call others "un-American".
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Porickseantuny | Oct 09, 2011, 01:48 PM EDT
I doubt that any of the protesters have ever paid income tax. They are so used to having their hands out for entitlements they won't recognize the fact that the upper 10% of the earners pay 70% of the taxes. They compare percentages instead of absolute dollars. When more people have their hands out than those who pay taxes it will be the end of the Republic.
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McNamara31 | Oct 09, 2011, 12:51 PM EDT
As the efforts of Occupy Wall St shine the light on the many problems facing the student and the middle class, resolution of our combined problems will only occur with proper campaign and financial reform. When presidential candidates have to raise 1 billion dollars for re election and Wall St at the same time is allowed to spend billions of dollars for lobbyists to block needed financial regulations, all are tainted by the existing process. “Maplight” an organization that follows money in politics states Peter King himself receives 91% of his contributions from outside his home congressional district and one of his past major contributors was Goldman Sachs.
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failteroibeard | Oct 09, 2011, 12:28 PM EDT
Tá sé seo faic a dhéanamh leis na hÉireann nó na hÉireann!
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McNamara31 | Oct 09, 2011, 12:21 PM EDT
The "real story" in New York this past Wednesday was a dramatic shift from a park once filled with mostly the young, and the college student, to a crowd filled with middle age people who came into the city to support a generation who has had "their futures stolen" by Wall St.I am not speaking only of the union workers who attended the rally; I am talking about the priest who travelled from Scranton Pa who stood to my right, there because he wanted to stand against the social injustice of Wall St against this generation young and old alike. And then there was the retired couple from upstate who wanted to stand with the kids so the media would see this is no longer only a story about the young but also a growing story of the everyday man standing with them. And finally it continues to be a story of a young girl standing on my left who said she was a college student who did “all the right things," got the grades and the scholarships only to have then cut and now she will be unable to attend college in the fall. The real story that Peter King "closes his eyes to" is the American people together were saying they did their job they followed the rules that were once America and they are no longer going to stand quiet while Wall St deals in more “Stolen Futures.”
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wjb1tex | Oct 09, 2011, 11:57 AM EDT
joan1954
"These people who are protesting against Wall Street are not malcontents, they are American citizens who want jobs who see our financial system as crumbling because American jobs are going overseas"
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If you want a job joinng a protest is not the way to go about it. If American jobs are going overseas protest to the corporations or better yet to the government. Wall Street jobs are not being sent to China. However Apple jobs are. Why not protest them. Oh right, they are a "cool" company. Not one of those evil ones.
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seagreen | Oct 09, 2011, 11:44 AM EDT
Phlutie Phan
This has nothing to do with Obama, he is viewed as a non ally with these people. It is people like you that they are against !!! You do not understand This is not about Republicans or Democrats, but rather people that have used this system to the max. Sent the lower income kids off to get their arms and legs blown off (360,000 since 1965) while the profits and stock did just wonderfully, especially with the war profiteers. Haliburton bailed out to Dubai in order to protect their files and records of no bid contracts in Kuwait and Iraq from bein scrutinized by the GAO. KBR,Dyne Corp, and the rest of these Texas patriots did the same. The kingpin of it all (with 5 deferrments from the Vietnam draft) is still in Washington keeping the lid on in case somebody starts talking. This is what wall St. is about...
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CitizenWhy | Oct 09, 2011, 11:14 AM EDT
Of course Occupy Wall Street will gain political clout because it is promoting the fact that our democracy has been subverted by corporate control and a broken financial system that does not benefit all Americans, instead transferring wealth upward to just the top 10%. Whatever else the Occupy Wall Street crowd is saying, the main message is "Restore Our Democracy."
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joan1954 | Oct 09, 2011, 11:00 AM EDT
We have been stiffed so much by our politicians whether they be local or national. Used to be when immigrant came they learned English, now we have to learn Spanish if we want a job. I know that game all too well have a great interview and bang while very qualified not qualified because I don't speak Spanish. On the other side when I phone to ask a question the person can't answer the queston because my first language is English and theirs isn't. These people who are protesting against Wall Street are not malcontents, they are American citizens who want jobs who see our financial system as crumbling because American jobs are going overseas. Bring these back, give tax relief to do so and employ Americans especially college graduates who are having the worst time finding jobs, even any job because we are told we are too overqualified.
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PhlutiePhan | Oct 09, 2011, 10:53 AM EDT
This is not a democratic movement. It is following a classic textbook maneuver from the book of national socialism. Obama can't win fairly, so his operatives are "taking to the streets". Germany in the 40s is only one example.
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CaptainCon | Oct 09, 2011, 10:23 AM EDT
It hasn't been about 'right' versus 'left' since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has been about corporations versus nation states- including America. When brave, patriotic, American corporation Halliburton moved its headquarters to the Middle East saying 'thats where the money is' having sucked as much money as it could out of Washington it was showing exactly the level of patriotism in corporations everywhere. You think US corporate boardrooms give a damn about the United States? It cares about the dollar- not the symbols on it.
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hollabackgurl | Oct 09, 2011, 10:22 AM EDT
All the Republicans are focused on is getting rid of Obama, not growing the economy. Everyone knows it. These kids have no jobs, massive college debt, their middle class parents are becoming the working poor and they know that the Wall Street elites are laughing at them. America's political system has been hijacked by the super rich and the corporations (who are know people, thanks to the right wing Supreme Court) who will continue to squeeze the workers until our transformation into a third rate banana republic is complete.
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seagreen | Oct 09, 2011, 10:15 AM EDT
King has reason to worry ! If the conversations that I have heard from recent college graduates represent those nationwide. They have no brief for Republicans or Democrats, and feel they are all involved in the sellout of America. They view national members of both party's with contempt, and feel they have been lied to in order to finance educational institutions, while multinational corporations have turned the US into a buisness whorehouse. One girl said "why should I have any loyalty to a country that brings in 3rd nationals to take my job" One kid is now playing hockey in europe, and hoping to acquire citizenship there. Maybe opinions are different elsewhere than those in New England..
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