PS--we can't afford to only sell Will Bunch's books

PSC CUNY showed up to express solidarity with the protestors at Occupy Wall Street, and at least for a moment I felt a solidarity with the cause-in-itself and almost a euphoria. (I should note that the "one demand" remains undemanded, so it's difficult to know what I am feeling almost in solidarity with.) But Thursday around 9:30 p.m., the presence of teachers on the ground at Liberty Park seemed to offer the whole business a legitimacy, even a way of seeing beyond the usual register, and hoping for better times, even fairer times.

And although young people entering their adult years at a time of high unemployment and terrible worker-participation rates (according to The Fiscal Times, only 55 percent of Americans 16 to 29 are in the workforce at all) were still being dragged off to jail for touching trees, violating boundaries and such, the CUNY teachers helped me move past the cynical notions that this overtly commodified reality TV version of anticapitalist protest could be merely a non-profit's attempt to gain mediashare, a vehicle for Keith Olbermann Studies, or a way for Will Bunch to sell his book. Which of course brought me back to the Less United States of Kudera's original raison d'etre, which was to publish and sell my own. (Note to any young or old, anti or procapitalists reading this blog: although it certainly seems played out, blogging will be part of your expected path to publication, so it could be wise to begin now.)

And so I thought then it would be a shameless omission if I did not once more burden you with new and old views of my own materials: Fight for Your Long Day and The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity. They are of course both packaged and priced for the aforementioned 16 to 29 demographic, and with contents particularly suitable to the 45 percent without work. And with that in mind, here are the 28 libraries where a copy can be lent to you.

And I should also note that when I went back to adbusters.org to copy the link, I believe I saw an ad for vodka ("Genocide and Juice," but when I google, I learn that it is a rap album released by The Coup in 1994), but then also, the livefeed was down but a Democracy Now video segment seemed to offer a clip of an interview with the protestor who was last seen being dragged on the cement and shouting that he needed his inhaler while other scared protestors asked him to say his last name. Well, pardon me if in fact this is not the same protestor, but he looked clean and safe and outside the police precinct and safely expressing his views about "freedom to assembly," America, and such. And now the livefeed reads, "Let's Chill - Live Feeds Back ~ 7AM," and they are playing older video of a kind, young, harmonica-and-guitar-Bob-Dylan-cover protestor. Not the worst I've heard.

And now, it sounds like the loud young people who woke me up at 2:30 a.m. are retreating to their own livefeeds and other indoor activities, and so it could be the optimal time to return to bed.

Or do I shout out the window and quiz them on their workforce-participation rate?

Goodnight.

but a bunch of what exactly, Will?

Will Bunch, blogging for The Philadelphia Daily News, does believe in a Big Media Brownout of the Wall Street Protests:

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Big-medias-shameful-blackout-on-the-Wall-Street-protests.html

It could indeed be the case, but Will Bunch even acknowledges that there has been some Big Media Coverage:

"That's not to say there hasn't been some level of news coverage -- including from the newsrooms of the New York Times. The Times has published three blog posts about the protests, although they were not easy to find on the web site (here and here-- you had to navigate well below the layer of Ray's Pizza) and the Washington Post has also published blog posts (here and here) and even photo essays, which is good way of saying "look at these crazy and colorful kids" without addressing the actual issues. I've noticed that a lot of the American coverage that I found through Google News was in the form of online photo essays. Look, I'm somebody with one foot in the blogging world and the other foot still planted in the mentality of the old-fashioned newsroom, and I can tell you that sometimes buried blog posts and photo essays are a way to say you "covered" something without, you know, actually covering it, not in a way that counts."

(Please see the Will Bunch blog for the links.)

Fair enough, but I'm working on another theory, not necessarily a competing one, but one that could also make sense to Big Media. Well, here goes: the larger media entities are merely good media capitalists, and possibly even thoughtful people (I know!), and, perhaps, they are thinking, "Hey, Adbusters is going to pay for advertising if that's partly what this is about." They've probably seen the ads for Red Bull that play during the livestream of the protests at adbusters.org, and they've probably seen that protestors who don't share in the ad revenue are getting arrested, and they've probably thought through these things a bit and in fact are somewhat genuinely apprehensive about running a lot of stories about such a commodified protest.

Or, Big Media will just do anything to capture and grow their own young audience while fending off a smaller player like Adbusters?

Or, they haven't thought much about it at all because hundreds of protestors just aren't such a Big Story for Big Media?

Or, as Will Bunch notes, they have looked out the skyscraper window--and they're scared?

Sigh and move on, I suppose, but in closing, I'll note that at least one law firm is offering pro bono services to help process arrested protestors through the legal system.

I'm not sure if that's the moral equivalent of giving away the cigarettes for free.