The Moral Equivalent of Gwar

The starving masses of the 99 percent? Not from the looks of this seemingly well-fed gentleman:

As AP reported, “200+ arrested at Occupy Los Angeles, 50 in Philly:”

More than 1,400 police officers, some in riot gear, cleared the Occupy Los Angeles camp early Wednesday, driving protesters from a park around City Hall and arresting more than 200 who defied orders to leave. Similar raids in Philadelphialed to 50 arrests, but the scene in both cities was relatively peaceful.

Police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia moved in on Occupy Wall Street encampments under darkness in an effort to clear out some of the longest-lasting protest sites since crackdowns ended similar occupations across the country.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck praised the officers and the protesters for their restraint and the peaceful way the eviction was carried out.

Officers flooded down the steps of City Hall just after midnight and started dismantling the two-month-old camp two days after a deadline passed for campers to leave the park. Officers in helmets and wielding batons and guns with rubber bullets converged on the park from all directions with military precision [no bias there, right AP? — Ed] and began making arrests after several orders were given to leave.

But why are we seeing such images from the AP all of a sudden? Traditionally, ever since the days of “Clean for Gene” in 1968, whenever a left-leaning protest group emerges, the media gift wraps its representatives in happy shiny United Colors of Benetton fabrics, choosing the most photogenic spokespeople. Today, AP runs the above handsomely festooned gentleman instead, who looks like he’s emerged from some of Zombie’s archives of the 99 percent protestors who don’t warrant MSM photographic coverage.

Ann Althouse gives one explanation, also noting that legacy media coverage of OWS is simultaneously dwindling:

There is this Drudge-linked AP report about campers in LA and Philadelphia getting rousted by the police. That’s a news event — cops in riot gear, people arrested — and it’s covered. What’s missing is all the attention to the demands and critiques of the protesters — the political substance of the movement.

I’m guessing that the expression of the protesters — in form and substance — wasn’t serving the interests journalists favor. Excessively left-wing speech coming out of an angry/confused/unclean face… it’s not helping the mainstream Democrats.

If OWS is winding down — both in terms of its encampments and its media coverage, what happens next? At Big Government, Aaron Klein, the co-author of the recent book Red Army: The Radical Network That Must Be Defeated to Save America, asks, “Will the Occupy Movement Deliberately Turn Violent?”