The Cleveland Plain Dealer, among other outlets, has the story of five young men who were arrested for plotting to blow up a commuter bridge near Brecksville, OH, roughly 15 miles south of Cleveland city center. Unsurprisingly, the lead paragraph conflates the planned act of terrorism with the May Day protests set up around the country (including in Public Square in Cleveland).
What the PD, and your other corporate-owned media outlets, will manage to move around in an attempt to connect this plot to the May Day protests and the larger Occupy Wall Street movement is this little gem from the FBI in the form of a written statement:
“The public was never in danger from the explosive devices, which were controlled by an undercover FBI employee. The explosives that the defendants allegedly purchased and attempted to use were inoperable and posed no threat to the public.”
Remember that the FBI has taken us down this road before.
Aside from the question of: At what point did the FBI become aware of the plot and how far down the path they led the group from merely talking about their anger and how to do something about it to plotting to blow up a bridge, it will be interesting to see how quickly this will be tied to OWS by the media.
This will be done despite the fact that Occupy has called for a May Day with nothing more than peaceful protests, occupations and a general labor strike to remind the 1% that, while they hold the wealth of this nation, they are still limited in number. Say what you will about the things that have taken place around Occupy, and the anarchists that have tried to set up under the group’s umbrella, but the message from the ‘leaders’ of Occupy has stayed relatively consistent about change through non-violence.
The media is also likely to do all it can to continue to mark this as taking place ‘near’ Cleveland. Never mind that the bridge is 15 miles south of city center, and is not especially heavily traveled, compared to the multiple bridges that go in and out of downtown Cleveland. . If the young men accused of this were truly looking to disrupt the commercial activities of the big businesses still operating in Cleveland, the Brecksville bridge is not a very high value target.
Yet, it is a bridge, and blowing up a bridge, or the prospect of blowing up a bridge, is frightening to the general populace. That’s where the focus of the news stories will be.
Cleveland, bridge, bomb, May Day. A city people know, a target, a violent act and a day Occupy has planned as it’s spring reemergence. It’s the perfect recipe to turn public opinion against the group before they can even gain momentum.
It’s fortunate. We can get back to being scared our bridges will be blown up, rather than worry about them collapsing. More law enforcement is cheaper than infrastructure updates, after all.
*Have a look for yourself how far this bridge is from Public Square, where Occupy Cleveland is planning to operate today.
