A few days ago I noted that the reactions to the Occupy movement by Missouri’s senators, Democrat Claire Mcaskill and Republican Roy Blunt, ran true to their usual form. But what about the gaggle of GOPers who are vying to be the Republican candidate for McCaskill’s Senate seat?

Two of those in the running, Sarah Steelman and Rep. Todd Akin (R-2), are both currently on the record with a few predictably dismissive comments. The third and newest contender, St. Louis businessman John Brunner,  has, so far as I can determine, not made a public statement on the Occupy movement. However, since he doesn’t seem to have said much of anything about anything in public, that’s not especially surprising.

On the topic of the Occupy protesters, Sarah Steelman observes that:

Yes, they have a right to be angry that there are no jobs. But they shouldn’t sit back and act like somebody should do something about it. They need to do something about it

Hunh? She thinks it’s just another symptom of apathy when protesters take a stand in order to articulate the essential powerlessness so many Americans feel in the face of a corporate culture gone off the rails and taking our government with it? If she means that they should go out and get a job, of course, maybe somebody ought to remind her what unemployment figures actually mean about the availablity of jobs.*

Steelman also wags her metaphorical finger at the protesters, declaring that the poor babies are “misguided and they don’t understand what capitalism is.” But isn’t this the kind of thing lazy thinkers always say when they aren’t willing or capable of of responding to an argument, in this case the Occupy movement’s critique of the laissez faire capitalism that is favored by Steelman and her GOP cohorts? Greed and its effects  aren’t really hard to understand – especially for its victims.

The best that one can say about Rep. Akin’s logically tortured contribution to the discussion is that it is, as are so many of his utterances, at least unique:

The thing that I find sort of amusing about it is it is the liberal whole philosophy which destroys the average person,” Akin said. “They’re screaming about there’s rich and poor, and they’re the ones that create that more than anyone else by just taxing the hide and regulating the dickens off of an average American.”

This is coming from a man who has actively supported the mislabeled “fair tax,” which would increase the tax burden of the poor and middle class while decreasing taxes on the wealthy. Tell me again who it is who wants to tax “the hide” off of the average person? As for “regulating the dickens off an average American,” does that maybe have something to do with protecting that average American’s food, air and water from greedy corporations? Makes you wonder just who Akin thinks “average Americans” really are.

What we really learn from these comments is that the Occupy movement is getting harder and harder for politicians to ignore, no matter what ideological hidey-hole they inhabit. As Eugene Robinson observes in his column today:

The biggest impact of the Occupy Wall Street protests has been to provide a focal point for generalized economic and political discontent. Frustrated voters on the left and the right may disagree on, say, immigration policy or health care reform. But they can agree on a critique of the financial sector – and, potentially, on specific measures to bring about necessary change.

Ms. Steelman to the contrary, I’m willing to bet that that a viable critique of the financial sector that will satisfy the Occupy folks and their myriad sympathizers will not include a sermon on the sanctity of the untrammeled market and its Wall Street acolytes. Nor, despite Todd Akin’s liberal-hating spleen, will many of these folks endorse his efforts to force the 99% to pay for tax cuts for the 1%.

*Sentence added.

Today there was a big rally at Kiener plaza in support of the OccupySTL demonstration. The estimates I’ve read give the attendance at around 500* people. Union members and progressives of every stripe showed up. The Occupy folks have persisted, gained adherents and allies, and now nobody can ignore them. However, today’s response to the movement from various local media and our Missouri senators seems to offer a Rashomon moment, telling us more about the those characterizing the protest than about OccupySTL itself.

Senator Roy Blunt allowed as to how free speech and demonstrations are all just fine and dandy, but added that he didn’t “know that this is the best way to channel that energy in getting the economy going again.” Since Blunt is presumably touting the new GOP jobs plan – the one where they propose to keep on keeping on with the old GOP jobs plan, where we cut taxes for Wall Streeters and millionaires and let banks run wild and regulation free – this comes as no surprise.

Claire McCaskill, as might be expected, was more sympathetic to the message, but why does she try to draw a parallel between Eric Cantor, who called the Occupy folks a “mob,” and Nancy Pelosi, who, as I remember, was reasonably controlled on the topic of the Tea Party, even though some rampaging Partiers actually spat on a Democratic congressmen? That act alone might have merited an accusation of at least incipient mobbiness, but last year Pelosi even managed to claim that she shared ” some of the views of the Tea Partiers in terms of the role of special interest in Washington, D.C.” Hardly an unbalanced and intolerant response. Is McCaskill just trying to take advantage of four years of GOP anti-Pelosi demogoguery to buy a little outstate good will?

As for the media at the rally, it strikes me that the variations in the way they reported on the police presence is fairly telling all by itself. For example, the rally described by the St. Louis Beacon sounds like a rousing, good-time-had-by all kind of event. They note that:

St. Louis police, many on bicycles, lined Friday’s march route, but no incidents were reported. Vans equipped to house any rowdy protesters lined a couple side streets, but went unused.

Contrast that with the KSDK (St. Louis channel 5) coverage which, after noting that the protest caused “big headaches for downtown drivers,” ended their piece with a note about police preparations:

St. Louis Metro Police are working a special detail for this event, and they’ve come prepared with their paddy wagons, and their plastic handcuffs.

So far, no arrests have been made.

Notice the slight difference in tone? The fnger-wagging is much more pronounced in this piece from KMOV ((ST. Louis channel 4):

There’s a heavy police presence downtown; streets are closed and there are at least 50 officers with nightsticks and zip-tie handcuffs.

Police say they’re frustrated that the officers have been pulled off the streets away from fighting crime to tame the protest.

The reporter adds that the “Occupy protests have been maligned for lacking focus and even for protesters being dirty and smelly from camping out.” Can any one say dirty hippies? After reading the KMOV coverage, folks who look at the photos made available at the St. Louis Business Journal,  STLtoday, KMOX and FiredUP! might be surprised at the diverse, relatively clean-cut and good-natured looking crowd that turned out to support the message of the Occupy movement.

* Attendance numbers revised.

Addenda to the note above:  St. Louis Beacon gives a 1000 person count – other sources say 500. I changed the number from 1000 to the lowest number because I remember how ridiculous, not to mention scurrilous, Tea Party efforts to inflate their rally attendance numbers seemed to me. Whether the number was really 500 or 1000, OccupySTL, pulled out plenty of good, motivated and respectful people – and for every person present, there were plenty like me who were there in spirit.

Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. there’ll be a labor solidarity march with OccupySTL which will be held in Kiener plaza; according to what I’ve heard, numerous progressive groups will be represented there. It should be big, so be there, as the saying goes, or be square (note: honesty compells me to admit that I will be unable to attend, hence square).

It’s not surprising that folks are rushing to join the 99% – it seems to be a movement whose time has come.  After two years of listening to the Tea Party dead-enders claim the mantle of “We the people,” while providing cover to a GOP intent on gutting our hard-won American social contract, a real populist alternative is actually overdue.  The Occupy movement just might be that alternative – it certainly seems to be taking off. Polls released today show that Americans favor Occupy Wall Street by a two-to-one margin. Even more revealing, only 28% of those polled have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party.

And everybody wants in. Just consider that even Pittsburg, Kansas (population ca. 20,000, located in a hard-core, hard-bitten, red zone), has its own Occupy Pittsburg demonstrators. In Missouri, there’s Occupy Joplin, Occupy Springfield. You name it, seems like somebody’s occupying it.  And this in spite of the fact, as per Matt Taibbi, that it isn’t an intrinsically easy sell:

… it’s extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: Its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can’t be seen by the public or put on TV. There just isn’t going to be an iconic “Running Girl” photo with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup or Bank of America – just 62 million Americans with zero or negative net worth, scratching their heads and wondering where the hell all their money went and why their votes seem to count less and less each and every year.

Taibbi suggests that the generalized focus on financial malfeasance and government corruption rather than on specific demands has been a good strategy that has enabled the movement “to build numbers and stay in the fight.” He adds, though, that the time will come when greater specificity will be necessary, and to that end he offers what he characterizes as an example of a “short but powerful list of demands” – read it and see what you think.

From my perspective – which loses some legitimacy since I’m not out on the streets with the demonstrators – I think Taibbi is totally correct when he suggests that the Occupy movement’s goals should be few in number, and focused on the financial malfeasance that got us in this situation – although, to my mind, his suggestions may be almost too specific, and he fails to mention the most important aspect of that malfeasance, which is the role of money in government (although he does suggest that companies that receive bailout money not be permitted to lobby politicians). As long as Wall Street and big business can purchase politicians, nothing will change.