Ben Shapiro at Big Journalism passes along the following letter to the editor in the Feb. 15 edition of USA Today (emphasis mine):
‘Occupy’ achieved main goal
Anyone who claims the “Occupy” movement has no clear message is either trying to discredit it or simply isn’t paying attention. This protest always has been about economic injustice and the fact that a small handful of people have corrupted our system in their favor (“Editorial: ‘Occupy’ movement fading out in a whimper“).
The fact that so many elites were alarmed and frightened by the initial outcry (including members of Congress, who are supposed to represent all the people — shame on them!) goes to show that they are in fact living in a house of cards.
USA TODAY’s editorial is right to say that Occupy might lack clear goals on how to move forward, but the movement has accomplished its main original goal: to protest these injustices, not by simply holding a rally and going home, but by keeping the rally going to underscore the seriousness of this problem. Your piece accuses the protesters of sitting around and doing nothing. So maybe they should take up their Second Amendment-sanctioned guns and storm Wall Street and our nation’s capitals. If our country doesn’t change, it could very well come to that one day.
Rich Latta; Austin
Wow. Just imagine how Janet Napolitano would react if a “right-wing extremist” talked about “storming Wall Street and our nation’s capitals” with guns. Everybody freaked out when Tea Partiers brought registered weapons to rallies. MSNBC even tried to (literally) frame a black guy as a gun-toting white racist.
It’s headline news when a Tea Party guy gets arrested for going to the airport and trying to check in an unloaded, registered weapon in a lockbox as part of his luggage.
But an Occupier publishes a letter in a national newspaper about “storming Wall Street” with guns, and I don’t find out about it until a week later. It’s not seen as a credible threat, despite the fact that Occupy’s rap sheet dwarfs that of the Tea Party. Rich Latta of Austin, TX isn’t being investigated for his threat, because it isn’t politically convenient.
Watch out for those scary right-wing extremists… as you’re sweeping up the broken glass from the local “Occupation.”
P.S. Latta responds?
