Scanlyze

The Online Journal of Insight, Satire, Desire, Wit and Observation

To: His Lordship, the Right Honorable Richard John Carew Chartres, Bishop of London Re: Occupy London

To: His Lordship, the Right Honorable Richard John Carew Chartres,
Bishop of London
Re: Occupy London

Your Lordship,

I read with concern in today’s New York Times* that you were quoted
regarding the Occupy London camp outside St. Paul’s, “the time has
come for the protesters to leave, before the camp’s presence threatens
to eclipse entirely the issues that it was set up to address.”

I respectfully assert that this is a morally and ethically incorrect
approach to this issue.

You are not behaving as a follower of Jesus; rather, you speak like a
Pharisee. Are you more concerned with making money than with serving
and advocating for the needs of the poor and oppressed?

If Jesus is among us today, he is outside on the lawn at St. Paul’s,
where you have shut the doors of the church against him.

3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.

Psalms 82:3-4 KJV

sincerely,

Henry Edward Hardy
Somerville, MA USA

* http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/26/business/AP-Occupy-Glance.html?hp

Copyright © 2011 Henry Edward Hardy

26 October, 2011 Posted by | media, news, politics, scanlyze | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

David Brooks of the New York Times and the Occupy Wall Street movement

David Brooks of the New York Times and the Occupy Wall Street movement

Mr. Brooks, in “The Milquetoast Radicals” errs in describing the “core theme” of the Occupy Wall Street protests as “If there is a core theme to the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is that the virtuous 99 percent of society is being cheated by the richest and greediest 1 percent.”

As proof, he offers a link to a pdf file allegedly from a 2004 issue of a Canadian left-wing magazine.

This is a straw man argument. It is so shallow because only Mr. Brooks is making this argument, falsely attributing it to Occupy Wall Street by guilt by association in order to make a facile refutation.

Then Mr. Brooks goes on to make a very deceptive and misleading analysis of proposals to tax the rich by considering only those individuals making one to ten million dollars per year and downplaying the supposed impact of increasing taxes on these individuals by ignoring all individuals making more than ten million dollars per year and by comparing the revenue gained not to the balancing effect on the yearly budget but rather to the total, historic, US debt. Mr. Brooks also ignores any discussion of the desirability and effectiveness of increasing corporate taxes and closing corporate loopholes.

Then while castigating the protestors as too extreme, he also attacks them as a “milquetoast” group whose “members’ ideas are less radical than those you might hear at your average Rotary Club”

Mr. Brooks apparently has an axe to grind with the protesters; well and good. His dissent is welcome. But he should not engage in guilt by association or what appear to be outright falsehoods in making his case.

Copyright © 2011 Henry Edward Hardy

12 October, 2011 Posted by | David Brooks, demonstration, media, news, non-violence, Occupy Wall Street, protest, scanlyze | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment