Let’s Wag the Dog!

By William L. Garvin
“A committee is a group of the unprepared, appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary.” Fred Allen

Did anyone notice that on Monday, the United States debt reached $15.1 trillion? Of course not. We were too busy watching the latest Occupy Wall Street clashes and its semi-related spawn at the University of California Davis campus. Any media distraction from the catastrophic failure of the current administration is welcome relief to the President and classic “wag the dog” tactics.

Let’s dispose of the UCD side show. Another group of students decided to “camp in” and pitch tents in typical Occupy fashion. Predictably, they were ordered to vacate by the police who were subsequently surrounded by additional students. A dozen protestors sat down, linked arms, and declared that they were the immovable object in the face of the irresistible police force.

In the continuum of force, if talking down the suspect and a show of force doesn’t work, they can consider hands on, batons, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, tasers and deadly force. Heeding echoes of “don’t taze me, bro”, the police decided that pepper spray would be best to avoid injuring police or protestors. The police officers told the protestors that they would use pepper spray and then a few minutes later, they did.

OMG! They officers actually did what they said they were going to do! In a direct assault on UCD’s reputation for academic excellence, the students seemed surprised they were sprayed in the face. Did they think they would be sprayed on their Nikes and Birkenstocks? Talk about being unclear on the concept. Then the student whining and media outrage began. Under national media breast beating, two officers and the Chief were immediately suspended. The insatiable student beast now demands the university president also be fired.

If leaders are to be held accountable, the students could have demanded accountability from their own. After all, some of the Occupy sites are not feeding the homeless who show up. Some of the Occupy Wall Street leaders are staying in $700 per night hotel rooms. These Occupy leaders were also conspicuously absent when the police raided Zucotti Park. To paraphrase George Orwell, apparently “some pigs are more equal than others.”

The Justice Department has sold thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels and those weapons have been used to kill American citizens. Maybe they could demand the ousting of AG Eric Holder and his boss, President Obama. Nope. Maybe they should demand the resignation of all the members of the debt reduction committee who cannot come up with a single way to slow the increase in the rate of spending by our gargantuan federal government. Nope. Maybe they could protest the economic policies of a President that will certainly guarantee their non-employment upon graduation and higher taxes if they ever become successful. Nope. How about a hopeless California state government that is so inept that the unfunded liability is worse than Greece and directly leads to a steady increase in student fees? Nope. They don’t protest increases in taxes on other people but they do protest an increase in their tuition. It’s all about them.

As for the media, they continue to ignore the big problems and focus on the minor mistakes of potential Republican candidates. Holder’s “Fast and Furious” fiasco gets scant coverage; the continual failure of “green energy” companies (even though heavily subsidized by billions of government green) here and in Spain is last page business section fodder; the amount of money donated to the President by unions and Wall Street is treated as secretly as his college transcripts; and the National Labor Relations Board coddling of unions and all out anti-business warfare is barely mentioned. Why isn’t there an investigation of the union, socialist, communist, and anarchist influence on the Occupy gatherings? As for the debt committee, Fred Allen also said it’s “a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.” It’s better for the media and their straw President to focus on the trivial and ignore the significant. The lapdogs keep wagging the dog! Happy Thanksgiving, anyway.