Eat the rich

“Occupy Unmasked” is a documentary featuring Andrew Breitbart and David Horowitz. It's directed by Stephen Bannon, the same Bannon who took over Breitbart News after Andrew Breitbart's death and is now a presidential advisor.

The documentary is run-of-the-mill pro-capitalist, pro-banker, pro-war, at least implicitly pro-globalization, while also being anti-union, anti-Obama and, surprise, anti-socialist. Breitbart had connections with the Tea Party movement, but “Occupy Unmasked” sounds more Neo-Con or “Con in general” than specifically conservative-libertarian-isolationist. Perhaps it's a deliberate move to get a wider audience? The main theses of the film is that Occupy Wall Street and the wider Occupy movement weren't spontaneous and that they were dominated by anarchist and Communist groups which really want a violent revolution in the United States. However, there is also another more conspiratorial theme running through the documentary. While Occupy are a bunch of unreliable reds, they are apparently also a front for the Obama administration, which uses the movement to deflect attention from the Tea Party, the real opposition, and from the administration's own problems (deficits, etc).

Personally, I wasn't particularly shocked by “Occupy Unmasked”. Of course it wasn't spontaneous. Neither was the Tea Party, so what's your point? Of course most activists were leftists of various stripes. Like most such movements, there were moderate and militant factions, with Team Breitbart-Horowitz concentrating on the latter. Except sometimes, when they smear union leaders such as Jimmy Hoffa Jr (sic) as some kind of unpatriotic pinkos! A more interesting fact emerging from the documentary is that the media establishment and sections of the political ditto *did* express strong sympathies for the Occupy movement. “Occupy Unmasked” claims that this proves the liberal establishment were behind the protests. A more sober interpretation is that they tried to co-opt it, the usual Democratic strategy towards protests of this sort.

It's interesting to reflect on the trajectory of the radical anti-capitalist left. During the 1990's, large segments of the left were anti-globalist. Most of the right was associated with globalization. One of the few exceptions, Pat Buchanan, actually expressed some sympathy for the “battle of Seattle” in 1999. Today, by contrast, the left has been obviously co-opted by the DNC and the globalists. The “revolutionary” left is simply the unruly tail of the neo-liberal/left-liberal globalist coalition. Meanwhile, the alliances have changed. Steve Bannon now works for Donald Trump, who won the presidential elections thanks to the “deplorable” White working class vote. And guess who says he wants to work with Trump? None other than Jimmy Hoffa Jr, the supposed bête noire of the unionista underworld! Clearly, somebody somewhere decided to change tactics. It's also interesting that none other than basic bitch Cold Warrior Horowitz have jumped unto the Trump Train, presumably hoping that the new POTUS will finally decide to nuke 'Nam or whoever is the godless enemy this week.

On the one hand, this means that “Occupy Unmasked” feels very anachronistic. On the other hand, however, it also (ironically) means that the documentary was prescient on one point: yes, the left really does work with the Democrats. However, it's not an alliance against “capitalism”. Rather, it's an alliance with its globalist sector against the nationalists and populists!

Perhaps Darth Bannon should make a new documentary…