"A Marxist ... logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism."
Saul Alinsky (1909-1972)
Slide Show:
I woke up very early on Sunday morning and thought the Relentless Conservative (RC) should head on down to see what Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was all about. The night before, the protestors had trekked up to Times Square to help the NYPD spend untold millions more protecting them and others from themselves.
A video was sweeping the Internet--but not the mainstream Liberal media--of a mob of OWS beating a black, NY policeman. To make matters and perceptions much worse for the OWS mob, apparently one of their own who was HIV positive hurled some type of liquid at the same police officer.
So I was eager to see if these protestors had anything articulate to say for themselves.
Having been heartily endorsed by no less than President Obama and then been cheered with "God bless them" by Nancy Pelosi, the Occupy Wall Street protesters remain in the makeshift, outdoor, 'Woodstock-style' campground in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.
Obama said, "Dr. King would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing those who work there" adding the dramatic flourish of equating these squalid squatters to the leader of the civil rights movement.
Don't politicians like Pelosi and Obama have any common sense? They're like Czar Nicholas before the October Revolution or Marie Antoinette before the French Revolution; they seem to think these people would never turn on them and they should befriend them. Beware Obama and Pelosi.
After reading copious media endorsement from the likes of Rachel Maddow who tweeted chirpily about the "great band" and other charming entertainment while jawing happily with Bill Maher who called the OWS protestors, "a great thing," I was appalled.
We've got disgraced former New York governor, prostitute-frequenter and short-time CNN talking head, Elliot Spitzer talking about what "the single best public relations" was for Occupy Wall Street, as if he should know. Keith Olbermann egging him on was an unexpected treat in hypocrisy.
And in the surreal world of Hollywood where actors think they can take the lead on political and governmental issues, we've got 'Johnny-come-lately' Mark Ruffalo, showing up at the NYC park when he's not filming his new movies or promoting one of them and then tweeting incessantly about OWS. Ruffalo drones on and on endlessly in this article, as if anyone cares. (Sadly, I had to read the article to comment on it.)
Dapper gentleman Kanye West, Russell Simmons and husband/wife anarchist team Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have all showed their support in some way. Omnipresent bag-o-wind Michael Moore was of course weighing in heavily too.
So after all this excellent 'objective journalistic coverage,' why did I feel the RC might have a different view? Because I smelled a rat with all this submissive coverage of a band of seeming slackers with nothing better to do than muck up one of the world's biggest tourist centers.
Arriving shortly before 6am yesterday and walking up the subway stairs, I immediately encountered the pungent odor of urine and this was more than a block away.
The first thing I witnessed was also a real delight: a white and black man in a near fist fight with cursing and yelling over--get this--a pack of cigarettes. This kind of set the tone for the following four hours I spent trying to understand these, for the most part, unintelligible imbeciles.
Here's a blurry photo of the "Cigarette Scuffle" being broken up by another OWS protester while police look on.
After taking a few photos and seeing this near brawl, I spent the better part of the next hour trying to find intelligent life forms. It wasn't easy because the 20 people I talked with in this hour or so were homeless, just out of jail, uneducated, on drugs or drunk and therefore inarticulate (or NY Times' staffers).
Though the OWS people rail on continuously about how "there were way more people there than the press estimated," I had to estimate the total amount of protesters who spent the night at only about 200 or so. It's just not all that impressive and once again the Liberal media is blowing the number out of proportion to justify their anti-Wall Street position.
I had heard reports that the unions were down there giving money, supplies and "organizing" this loose band of fragmented riff-raff and that the Socialists, Communist Party USA and even the American Nazi Party were present too, so I was constantly asking about who the protestors themselves were seeing involved.
In what is undoubtedly an extension of and first step in the "Cloward-Piven Strategy to implement socialist revolution," these mob sit-ins replete with violence, arrests, injuries and in Europe extensive looting, have spread like the Ebola virus to Denver, Chicago, Washington DC and numerous other American cities.
The unions' dirty, little fingerprints are all over these ugly uprisings. I was told by more than 10 separate individuals that they had either talked to or received money and support like food and blankets from union organizers. They told me the AFL-CIO was there, the Teamsters, SEIU, ACORN, the UAW and a number of others including the TWU (Transit Workers' Union) who actually walked down en masse to support OWS.
It is the TWU, any New Yorker will tell you, that has singlehandedly created an irreversible $800 million deficit in the MTA, NYC's mass transit system. (See the slide show for UAW signs and table with union hardhats and list of unions involved.)
Also a motivator and hero to these myriad malcontents is Saul Alinsky, whom both Obama and Hillary Clinton adore. To get a Conservative viewpoint on Saul Alinsky, this video of William F. Buckley interviewing him is rock-solid.
So it was, that I walked around this squalid 'public park' for more than four hours, and in that time found only two examples of the aforementioned intelligent life forms. Everybody else I met were what society calls 'unfortunates.' They were either homeless, drunk, stoned out of their gourds, mentally unstable or were grinding political axes like the Marxists, union goons or "OWS staff" ... the latter of which was conveniently never around.
Other media were reduced to scouring the site for articulate commentary and having little success, just like me.
The first intelligent people I met were these students who were all there together.
These kids were committed and passionate. And they were ready to talk, intelligently.
Chatting for more than 30 minutes in the early morning, these young people had most of the answers and when they didn't, they admitted that they didn't. The young lady was particularly convincing, as she outlined her reasons for being there because she started off with "I'm not really protesting anything, I'm just here because my friends are." I thought, "How refreshing;" a little honesty for a change. No political diatribe, no union organizing-speak and no Liberal nonsense about "Jail the Bankers" or "Put the Corporations Out of Business."
One of the men told me: "I'm just very afraid. I want to be a teacher and don't know if there'll be a job for me. I don't know what's out there. Will there be a place for me in society?" Wow, that really hit me between the eyes. I remember asking myself the same thing in college. "Will there be a place for me??" Profound.
In a splendidly ironic end to my nice talk with these great students, a man with waist-length dreadlocks who looked like he hadn't showered in weeks, sat bolt upright in his sleeping bag and screamed threateningly at me, "Shut the F&$% Up."
The second example of a really sharp person I found was Stacy.
Stacy was 'manning' a booth offering "Free Empathy." Seeing as how I was absolutely surrounded by people needing advanced empathy, I stopped by to chat with her.
What I found was a mother of four from Florida who had come all the way up for a week and was staying "for as long as it takes." Stacy made me proud to be a human being.
Before approaching her, I listened as she listened as intently as anybody I've ever seen to sob story after sob story with a lot of blame for others and political acrimony thrown in for good measure.
It is people like the college students I met and Stacy who compose the best and most endearing part of this rag-tag assortment of miscreants, serial malcontents and societal deviants. I don't know how or why they can hang out with others who are not thinking as clearly as they are but it's interesting to think about. Perhaps they bring such positive vibrations to the party, it infects and makes the others more positive, I don't know.
There are a couple of restaurants and a Brooks Brothers store on the edges of Zuccotti Park. I thought I'd check with the proprietor's of these businesses to see how they've been faring financially since the OWS 'occupation."
When I asked the people in Charly's if business was "better or worse" since the mob took over the park; they didn't hesitate: "worse." Asking the same thing of the Burger King manager, I was treated to the hilarious reply that, "business is way down, the protestors' don't have any money but business in our bathrooms is way up." When I bought some coffee and tried to use the restroom, ironically it was 'Out of Order.'
I decided that I didn't even have to ask the Brooks Brothers' management how the OWS residents affected their business; it seemed so obvious.
As I spent my early Sunday morning trying to boil down the real reason or reasons for this big media brouhaha, I received very little cooperation from the participants themselves. They went back and forth from issue to issue, vacillating wildly.
It seemed to me in the final analysis that their protest was about greed ... about what they didn't have rather than what they had. And in the end, there was a lot of petty jealousy on their part toward others. As Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman tells Lib whiner Phil Donahue here, "Is there some society you know of that doesn't run on greed? Do you think Russia doesn't run on greed? Do you think China doesn't run on greed?"
I asked all those who said "greed" was the reason they were there, if that wasn't silly, "that greed has always existed, why protest it now?" None of them had anything other than a blank look on their faces. No cogent answers.
As I headed home, I had a fleeting thought: "Wouldn't it be nice if I felt strongly enough about something that I could spend a month without showering, the threat of getting arrested ever-present, living outdoors with a bunch of others believing as I did?"
"Nah," I decided. I went right home to take a good, long shower.
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"A video was sweeping the Internet--but not the mainstream Liberal media--of a mob of OWS beating a black, NY policeman. To make matters and perceptions much worse for the OWS mob, apparently one of their own who was HIV positive hurled some type of liquid at the same police officer."
Here it is again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-o2oXDDk5o&feature=player_embedded
The video shows a protester being attacked by a police officer and the response by the crowd of protesters. Never in the video or the description of the video do they say that the officer was attacked by a mob. Furthermore, the protester warns the cop to get tested because the officer hit him hard enough to draw blood.
My comment now turns to your legitimacy as an author. How can you claim that a video shows the mobbing of a "black, NY policeman" when the video actually shows a protester being beaten by a cop after no provocation (at least in the video)? The protester does state in the description that he did "shoot the officer a look" before the officer attacked him, adding more legitimacy to his post. Never did anyone say he "hurled some type of liquid at the same police officer" at least not in your sources, so again, how can you claim these false convictions as truth?
With so many seeking attention by latching on to OWS your and your friends at Human Events attempts to smear and stretch the facts are actually giving groups like the American Nazi Party exactly what they want. Writing that they "were present too" creates the impression, intentional on your part I have no doubt, that they are part of OWS and there on the ground. This is unfounded and gives unwarranted attention to people who see an opportunity to exploit the situation and endorse OWS to get media coverage because of the incredible traction it has gained. Congratulations - you're giving it too them. Pretty low all around.
Your claim that the widely reported fact that the Nazi Party wasn't really there is itself "unfounded and unwarranted." There are many verified reports of their involvement otherwise my editors wouldn't have allowed it through to publish.
Finally, I'm not "giving it too them" as you illiterately stated. "Pretty low all around" grammar on your part.
This is a typical left-wing, judgemental person that cannot see beyond "what he believes." First, he cannot see beyond what he judges to be "dirty, disgusting people." It's kind of like not eating the apple because it looks deformed on the outside. Anyone, liberal or conservative, that cannot begin to understand two or more sides of an issue really cannot develop what the issue is. I find this very typical of all the left-wingers & the left wingers in my family but at least there starting to see the light. I may have trouble seeing the "full issue," but I am trying to keep my judgement from interfering with the full development of the issue. In this case, let's keep it basic. What OWS wants is a free hand out. Not to work, but have the government and/or Wall St. hand them everything. Entitlement at its finest. Me personally I worked for everything I have and I'm NOT ashamed to admit I worked my butt off for it. Try it, its VERY rewarding. I chose not to live on the handouts of others or the government.
How easy that was to use 99% of your own words against you? Your as blind as you claim the RC is. Your a liberal & in that you totally believe everything you think IS the only way.
PS: I fixed your spelling errors.
As the human torch would say.....Flame ON!
Try "This is too easy.
Damn!! You're right, I could have just written those three words and been done with the column.
But you misread me; I don't hate Liberals. True, I'm not fond of them and I don't relish having a beer with one but I wouldn't kick one through the hedge or anything. What I don't like one bit is the American Left still holding W responsible and totally ignoring what this current President has done--or really to the point--what he hasn't done.
The fun will really begin, when the OWS gang realizes that the best and most central person to blame for current economic and employment conditions is Obama; when they turn on him and they will, it's going to be hilarious!
BTW, I do have a "real job." How about you? Born yesterday were you?
But you are dreaming. OWS will never come to your distorted picture of reality that "the most central person to blame for current economic and employment conditions is Obama". And they've already turned on BO about as much as they are going to.
Do you think for even the briefest moment that there is going to be this great awakening you infer, leading the "OWS gang" to vote for a Republican? If so, you truly are living in an alternate universe.
Meanwhile we encourage the right's demonization and dismissal because with their blinders on, they will not see the tsunami that's coming their way in 2012.
I guess its just baby boomers wanting the 60's to come back soooo much or something. Whatever.
The confusion is because none of us can believe or trace how we got here- to be manipulated and profited on at every step, and yet when we ask for basic dignity earned, to be told we are whiners and slackers. This is not about taxes, and I read the 53% site too- they are missing the point. OWS does not have an affiliation, per se, politically. They want to spread and stand up for the fact that the status quo of the rich owning everything is at the expense of the very survival of the poor and middle class is wrong and must change. Those profits are not earned, they are stolen by depressing the wages and needs of the very employees that help generate them.
What you don't seem to understand is that people who have nothing to lose become unafraid. They don't care that you don't like the smell of urine. They don't care about what you think the rules for protesting are. They don't care that they are unemployed, homeless, that some are alcoholics, mentally ill and that it might bother you. . They don't care that greed is rampant around the world.
What they do care about is people like you and your Marie Antoinette sensibilities. You might want to consider living in your shower since it is going to get pretty dirty.
I actually got a good laugh at this article.
**Thanks OWS for ruining the tourist trade in lower Manhattan.
**Thanks OWS for hurting the restaurants and other businesses having the misfortune to be located within three blocks of your campsite.
**Thanks OWS for selfishly making NYC spend millions more than it has this year to look after the likes of you.
**Thanks OWS for borrowing the idea from the Greek and English criminals who started it all and then spreading your tawdry, violent, looting behavior to other American cities.
**Thanks OWS for saying to the rest of the world on behalf of the rest of us Americans, that we as a people don't believe in self-accountability or governing ourselves freely without government intervention in every aspect of our lives.
**Thanks OWS for showing the rest of us Americans how ugly jealousy of other's hard work and success really can be.
And finally, thanks OWS for showing America and the rest of the world what a bunch of Liberal crybabies really believe in: government handouts, forgiven student loans, forgiven mortgages, big government regulation of banks and businesses, welfare states, Marxism/Socialism and the entitlement bandwagon in perpetuity.
I for one, DO NOT believe in any of these things. So OWS, thanks for nothing.
And I can assure you, there was absolutely no "creeping" or "spying" being done on my part. I spoke with plenty of people to get a consensus and take a barometric reading on these people.
Why don't you go down and live with them for a few weeks or even days, then report back to us your findings?
Join on FB at "Occupy Wall Street Sucks"