This ‘Occupy Wall Street’ thing is simply getting out of hand. The media showed admirable restraint in ignoring this foolish prank when it started in September, effectively pretending that the demonstration did not exist. But now, more news outlets are mistakenly beginning to give it the ‘oxygen of publicity’ as the Sainted Margaret Thatcher said of IRA propaganda.

Admittedly, most mainstream coverage has managed to maintain an attitude of bemused aloofness, belittling the sound bites from absurdly dressed and painted demonstrators in a suitably condescending way. But this is playing with fire. Who knows what evil PR geniuses are lurking down there in Zuccotti Park, ready to sneak a subversive message past a harried and unsuspecting news reporter?

The gullibility of the average CNN viewer is legendary and there is every danger that some whose brains have not been completely washed might begin to think that the demonstrators actually have a point or two. I mean, lots of them believe everything the Tea Party tells them.

It would be far more responsible of the media to return to its original position of maintaining the status quo and accepting without question the current economic system by ignoring anything said down in that squalid encampment.

This should not be difficult, since this rabble is so unorganized they have not even been able to nominate an official leader or spokesperson. So what on earth can a news channel do if it wants to present their point of view? Surely reporters can’t be expected to talk to ordinary people, listen carefully to what they say, and report that?

For one thing, their ‘message’ is so incoherent. Whatever misguided anti-Americanism instigated this sorry affair, and some of it has to be blamed on the so-called ‘anti-capitalism’ movement, it seems that protestors are motivated by a wide range of concerns, far too many for the average news anchor to express in the allotted 20 seconds per item. It can’t be the job of mainstream news agencies, accustomed as they are to regurgitating corporate and government press releases, to collect information, analyze it and then explain it.

But something must be done before this movement gets any bigger. It has already spread right across the United States and into other capitalist countries, although the third world, while equally capitalist, thank goodness, does not seem to have been infected yet.

While physical violence can be effective (and the security forces seem to be using mass arrests effectively in places where national news coverage is so thin that they can get away with it), the backlash from the unprovoked pepper spraying in New York shows that police brutality carries a risk that may not be worth running.

The stakes are in fact quite high. Organized labour is getting involved, and while flaky pseudo-celebrities like Michael Moore will always be attracted to jamborees such as this, like flies to a dog turd, it seems that some politicians are beginning to waver. Corporate sponsors have a duty to ensure that the politicians in their pocket look the other way, even if they can’t be persuaded to denounce the movement in suitably apocalyptic terms.

What is perhaps particularly important is to ensure that no one gets the idea that these demonstrations are related to democracy or anything that can be labelled as ‘constitutional’. America has worked hard to ensure that those with most money can speak loudest; so the simple-minded rules giving everyone an equal opportunity to speak at the daily meetings are plainly un-American. Free speech is not something that any tom-fool citizen can claim. It is a right that has to be earned, with hard cash.

What must never get out is any idea that there is anything wrong with the way the present economic system works. There are, admittedly, a few glitches that have to be worked out, and the working people of the world may have to spend a few generations paying for them.

But the economy is safe in the hands of the politicians and the corporations who own them and who strive night and day to ensure things are managed properly. The CEOs and Board Members of our largest corporations spare no effort to maintain this, the most perfect of all possible systems.

That is why we have to pay them so much.