Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Occupy Wall Street Focused? Come On


Occupy Wall Street (OWS) isn’t “focused” as Nancy Pelosi claims. It’s about as many grievances as there are people in attendance at its multiple sites around the country. I’ve questioned people at two local sites in my futile search for unified themes, but the only constant I found other than discontent was class envy. Those who have worked through envy know it when they see it - and it’s always ugly. That’s why envy is one of the seven deadly sins.

Democrats fertilize and exploit envy, especially of the rich. Evidence indicates they catalyzed OWS through their public-employee unions and remnants of ACORN. Pelosi and Obama both endorsed it but it may backfire on them. Violence, drug dealing, overdoses, sexual assaults, filth, disease, and death are all escalating as OWS gets crazier every day, especially on the left coast. John Nolte of Biggovernment.com is keeping a running tally of lawlessness at all the OWS sites, lately called “Obamavilles” by those of us who see Saul Alinsky fingerprints. Each Obamaville is a microcosm of the Democrat Party: socialists, communists, anarchists, homosexuals, revolutionaries, trust-funders, students, and others including radical Islamists in their keffiyehs spouting anti-semitism. By the time this is published, more violence may have occurred as cities evict left-wing squatters from public parks this week - especially on the left coast.From Zombietime

The old saying that “It’s as if the country were turned up on its side and all the loose nuts rolled into California” is verified again by OWS Obamavilles in the Bay Area. There are left-wing loonies everywhere of course, but San Francisco and Oakland have the highest concentration. Traditional Democrat constituencies at these Obamavilles aren’t getting along with each other though. They’ve segregated themselves in Oakland as evidenced by a Zombietime.com photoessay. One area is fenced off with pink ribbon and a sign declaring “Women, Queer + Trans ONLY.”From Zombietime

Another sign declares “PEOPLE OF COLOR TENT!” Some Obamaville homosexuals “of color” had an identity crisis over what victim group they most identified with, so another area was designated “POC/QPOC - People Of Color - Queer People Of Color - information - conversation.”From Zombietime

If they can’t reconcile, there’s a giant white board featuring workshops to attend at the OWS Oakland Obamaville including: “Medic training with the Black Cross” (What’s the Black Cross? I’m sure I don’t know); “Anti-capitalism”; “Anarchism & Anti-colonialism”; “Marxism 101”; “What To Do When The Police Come”; “Resistance Training”; “Gang Injunction Presentation”; followed by “What Are Gang Injunctions?”; followed by “Student Speaking Out About Gang Injunctions”; followed by “Ken Knabb: The Occupation From A Situationist Perspective.” Yoga and Meditation workshops interspersed all others.From Zombietime

Don’t those sound exciting? What else would we expect from the Bay Area -headquarters for the Land of Fruits and Nuts?

When leftists around Conway, New Hampshire got the urge to join the OWS movement, I had to drop in to ask questions. About 40-50 people occupied four street corners for an hour, and I visited each. At the first corner I asked a man holding a sign declaring: “GET BIG $$ OUT OF POLITICS!” how he proposed to accomplish that.

“Who are you?” he asked, and I identified myself. “I know you,” he said disdainfully. The local Conway Daily Sun has published my column with a picture for years. Others on that corner murmured and cast sidelong glances my way.

“You’re about as welcome as chlamydia!” Someone said over my shoulder. Turning, I recognized a radical feminist who wrote columns in the Sun critical of me and whose email address was “Madamovary@[something-or-other].com”

“You’ve had chlamydia?” I asked her.

“No,” she said, as the conversation continued downhill. A short, bearded guy with a hostile look came over holding a big microphone and I thought it prudent to walk over to another corner. Madamovary mentioned my visit on her web site describing me as “Our local purveyor of hate speech.”

At the next corner another woman recognized me and shouted: “You’re the devil incarnate!”

“And you’re abrasive,” I said.

“I wondered what I’d do if I ever met you - and here you are!” she said.Woman on right called me the devil incarnate

“Yup. Here I am,” I responded, and then spoke to an older couple about their sign as she continued glaring. They were peeved that some corporations paid no income tax but weren’t sure what to do about it. I asked if they would support a flat tax with no deductions for corporations and people. They would, they said, and we found ourselves in agreement.Guy Fawkes guy on right

At the next corner were the local Unitarian/Universalist minister with the obligatory rainbow banner, someone wearing the obligatory Guy Fawkes mask and holding a sign proclaiming: “THE PEOPLE ARE TO (sic) BIG TO FAIL,” and others holding signs you’d see at any OWS site. I wanted to ask the Guy Fawkes guy if he advocated violence - given that the real Guy Fawkes stockpiled gunpowder under the House of Lords in 1606 in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy Parliament. The hour was nearly over however and I didn’t get a chance.

I found no one at local OWS sites who understood Constitutional government. People were angry and resentful but had little idea how to address their myriad grievances. OWS is anything but focused. It’s a discontented mass that could devolve into an ugly mob if history is any guide.

27 comments:

Ol' Hickory said...

Hahahahahah! Wooo Hooooo!!

Wait..Wait..oh, please..it hurts, the laughing....

Ol' Hickory said...

If anyone is interested in what is really happening at OWS NYC:

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/the_people_vs_goldman_sachs_20111108/

Anonymous said...

Here is some real journalism:

By Chris Hedges

Welcome to the revolution. Our elites have exposed their hand. They have nothing to offer. They can destroy but they cannot build. They can repress but they cannot lead. They can steal but they cannot share. They can talk but they cannot speak. They are as dead and useless to us as the water-soaked books, tents, sleeping bags, suitcases, food boxes and clothes that were tossed by sanitation workers Tuesday morning into garbage trucks in New York City. They have no ideas, no plans and no vision for the future.

Our decaying corporate regime has strutted in Portland, Oakland and New York with their baton-wielding cops into a fool’s paradise. They think they can clean up “the mess”—always employing the language of personal hygiene and public security—by making us disappear. They think we will all go home and accept their corporate nation, a nation where crime and government policy have become indistinguishable, where nothing in America, including the ordinary citizen, is deemed by those in power worth protecting or preserving, where corporate oligarchs awash in hundreds of millions of dollars are permitted to loot and pillage the last shreds of collective wealth, human capital and natural resources, a nation where the poor do not eat and workers do not work, a nation where the sick die and children go hungry, a nation where the consent of the governed and the voice of the people is a cruel joke.

Get back into your cages, they are telling us. Return to watching the lies, absurdities, trivia and celebrity gossip we feed you in 24-hour cycles on television. Invest your emotional energy in the vast system of popular entertainment. Run up your credit card debt. Pay your loans. Be thankful for the scraps we toss. Chant back to us our phrases about democracy, greatness and freedom. Vote in our rigged political theater. Send your young men and women to fight and die in useless, unwinnable wars that provide corporations with huge profits. Stand by mutely as our bipartisan congressional super committee, either through consensus or cynical dysfunction, plunges you into a society without basic social services including unemployment benefits. Pay for the crimes of Wall Street........(continued at truthdig.com)

Anonymous said...

Tom, it looks like this crowd had more haves than have nots. How many got into volvos when the event was over and drove home?

Tom McLaughlin said...

They drove Priuses. They were the first thing I noticed. There were three of them parked next to my car.

Tom McLaughlin said...

Okay Ol' Hickory. I watched Hedges' critique of Goldman Sachs.

When I saw Cornel West sitting next to him and the guy in the keffiyeh sitting on the other side I almost deleted it, but I watched. It may surprise you that I agreed with most of what he said.

I did delete it when West started talking however. I've heard him before and I'd rather not hear any more.

Hedges is loopy when he talks about Gaza, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and other things, but his remarks that day on GS were pretty good I must admit.

Ol' Hickory said...

Thanks for watching. But it seems a bit sophomoric to me to dismiss what west had to say based on some past judgement. Personally I don't agree with everything he says, but what he says here is relevant. Also, judgments based on appearances? Really? I can only hope you didn't encourage such things as a teacher. Are you that uncomfortable with the fact that we live in a diverse world?

And where was the free sex party and rampant blatant drug dealing? This mocking of people who are fed up with the system is shocking and amazing. Sure, there are bad elements to any movement or group, but to buy into the fox news machines portrayal is to side with the mega corporations. It simpy isn't true.
Try a site like wearechange.org to get some real reporting on the OWS movement. Also hedges has been writing about OWS at truthdig.com since it started----worth reading.

Tom McLaughlin said...

It's not what Cornel West looks like that bothers me. It's what he says and what he stands for. He's a professional victim and a race-baiter from way back.

The same would apply to Jeremiah Wright. I didn't know anything about Hedges before today and as I said, I agreed with his remarks about Goldman Sachs. The company he keeps, however, tells me about him too. He wasn't thrown together with West and Wright. He's proud of his association with them and birds of a feather flock together.

Ol' Hickory said...

I was referring to your comment about the guy in the keffiyeh. Which was based solely on what he was wearing. Obviously...Anyway, I find west can be obnoxious but he does have some good things to add. As far as hedges goes he is an interesting guy--I urge you to look up his bio and check out his columns at truthdig.com. His resume is impressive. His lectures on YouTube are compelling as well----in particular the death of the liberal class, which is also a great book.

As far as jeremiah wright, well I found hedges article on Obama's abandonment of him interesting. Guys like wright certainly do not get fair exposure in the media. That doesn't mean I agree with everything he says and does either. I don't.

Winston Smith said...

So you take your talking points from Murdoch's New Machine and think you have a pulse on what OWS means? No one needed to read this articve--just watch Fox and, surprise, you'll find the same lies, er I mean facts, about OWS.
Do you know anyone in NYC at OWS? I do. And your inept and pathetic misrepresentation of what is truly going on is egregious and irresponsible.
Free sex and drugs? What? Please specify!

What I really don't understand is this: the american people are truly getting buggered like never before. unapportioned income tax, the state of health care, the fed printing monopoly money, corporations deciding who is president, corporations as people, unconstitutional searches of US citizens, a lame congress who only serves the corporate elite, the cost of a so-called "college education", for-profit prison systems, banker bailouts, predatory lending, and on and on and on...These are not "left" and "right" issues--these things threaten us all!! Its us and them! What don't you get about that? Hello!!!

So, you puppet the main stream medias take on OWS. Wow, how thoughtful and original. Do you realize you are doing the bidding of the Corporations? Do You?

Please tell me Tom, what is an American citizen to do in order to try and affect change in a corporately controlled climate such as ours? We CANNOT vote anyone out of office--obviously!! So, please tell me how you would propose to change this evil and corrupt system. Protesting? Oh wait, what American in their right mind would think about exercising their rights via a protest?! Hippies!!----I love that one---"hippies"..Taking a word Time magazine used as a PR stunt in 67' and applying it to anything you find "wrong"...The only thing that proves is a shallow and limited ability to think critically and freely.
How is the grass in that pasture you occupy?

Haven't you ever read 1984?

Anonymous said...

Hey Winston;

Your true colors are coming out very obviously. I have been reading this column for a long time and noticed that you never defended the Tea Party movement and their points which were far more succinct and defined and had actual permits to have their rallies and followed the parameters of those permits. It seems to me that since you asked the question about how should we protest and organize against the machine maybe you should take a page from their play book and pass it on the the freaks and fairies in Obamaville's around the country.
Another point is that I noticed you never defend the mainstream liberal leaning media but you never hold back shitting all over Fox.
You shit on everybody who is conservative leaning and you complain about everything that is wrong with this country but I never hear any offers of a sollution out of you. What do you want and where would you make that stand of "This is the line at when I will take up arms" to defend the God Given Rights (as our constitution mentions)?

Anonymous said...

One protestor was saying they are not moving till city hall hears them.

Ok, i say, let's hear them out. Then tell them to leave.

Simple, no cops, no riots, they had their 15mins, now goodbye.

I remember another protest when some came into a meeting and started chanting something.

I asked "what's next?" and they stood there like zombies for a second, then one piped up again and started chanting their slogan.

I looked at them and sorta gave a "and the answer is..." look, to which I only got a glazed look back from the chanters.

Yep. This reminds me so much of sourkraut. All the scum comes to the surface after a bit.

Winston Smith said...

Hey anonymous, if you've been reading what I've written before then you would know that I detest playing the partisan game. Tea party? I haven't defended them? Wtf are you talking about? If ever an opportunity presented itself I would. You realize I write in response to the articles right? the very idea that the tea party protesters are allom in your book but the current ,movement is a bunch of aimless hippies is absurd! And a lie!

As stated above by someone else, it's about us vs. them. They control both parties! Cheering for your political team is a silly distraction! How do you not understand that! We all need to come together in order to overthrow these evil scumbags! I don't have any answers anonymous, I merely feel compelled to point out the ridiculous nature of arguing over a system controlled by the elite!

But you and guys like Tom are so insecure you need the political parties and the slander of people who are different than you. The irony? We live in a fre country, yet, you detest freedom!

My advice. Get over yourself. Us vs them.
Unless you want to keep pretending your an elite blue blood son of Rothschild.

Oh, and the " liberal media"??? Seriously? Listen, there are something like five corporations that contriol ALL of the media outlets today. The idea that they are liberal is absurd.
Murdoch, GE and Disney liberal? Please. My advice, start with relearning history. Cause it aint like it says in the text books. Divide and conquer is all they want. And you play right into their hands.

The only solution I have is to stop playing a controlled game. You will never win!!

Winston Smith said...

http://www.infowars.com/philadelphia-police-captain-ray-lewis-joins-occupy-wall-street-calls-nypd-conduct-“disgusting”-“totally-uncalled-for”/

Queers and gags, huh? Which one does this former police captain fit into? Do tell.

Winston Smith said...

Wow----keep supporting those corporations you morons. Social unrest, just like every other fuc**** time in history is the only way to overthrow a fascist dictatorial government. Hello!!???

Oh, sorry, by all means cast a vote to affect change you half wit fluoride head sheep.

You either support the corporate state or you don't. It's that simple.

And do yourself and the rest of us a favor. Be proactive and find some objective source of "news".
You do realize no one takes Murdoch and his "news" seriously? Do I rally have to explain this to so called free thinking adults? And one who called himself a "teacher" ? My god, we are doomed.

Tom McLaughlin said...

Winston. You really must take your meds. And stop watching Fox for a while. It gets you so worked up.

Just think. If you bring down the corporate state, you won't have computers or TV anymore and you can relax. Maybe Ted Kascinski's cabin is available in Idaho. A few months rest out there might do you good. He found it the perfect place to write his anti-corporate manifesto.

Tom McLaughlin said...

Ol Hickory:

Yasser Arafat wore that keffiyeh. Those who wear it today are expressing sympathy with him and what he represented.

He was the father of modern terrorism, sponsoring the first airline hijackings. He sponsored the Black September attack at the Munich Olympics. He ordered the assassination of a US diplomat in Sudan. He embezzled billions in US and European aid and hid it in Swiss bank accounts. He molested boys and died of AIDS. He was one of the worst scumbags in all of history - a scoundrel of the worst order.

Reading essays on the region by Hedges explains why he'd be flanked by someone wearing that keffiyeh. He's an apologist for terrorists who have sworn to kill every Jew in Israel.

As I said before: I don't like the company he keeps.

Ol' Hickory said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utgSqCAKv3E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ns_CnX9Ps&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbaX-TZmFgI&feature=related

Feel the love, huh? Pretty rude for a country who gets BILLIONS a year from us, wouldn't you say?
Do you have any idea what the f^%$ is going on? Any f***$%^ clue?

Brainwashed much, Tom?

Hey, here's an idea, how about going beyond what the corporations tell you and do your own research! Novel idea huh?

Of the top 50 people on the Forbes list at least 20 are Jewish. Now, consider the jewish population in the USA and how miniscule it is...Hmmm.??
Wait a second!

Ol' Hickory said...

So your saying that reporting on the middle east for nearly twenty years, fifteen for the NYtimes, and being part of a nobel prize winning reporting team gives Chris Hedges no credit because he was sitting next to a guy wearing a Keffiyeh? What? And your career as a middle school teacher in rural Maine somehow trumps his knowledge and expertise? What?

He is an apologist for terrorists who want to kill every jew in Israel? You realize he has a degree from Harvard Divinity School? Please, cite the anti-jew passages in his work.

What color is the sky in zionist fantasy land?

Tom McLaughlin said...

Here you go Ol Hickory:

http://www.amazon.com/Sunshine-Joy-53016-Keffiyeh-Arafat/dp/B002X99RNW

Get 'em while they last!

Buy now and you'll also get bound copy of "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"

Ol' Hickory said...

One more thing...I saw a quote left on this blog a few weeks back that said something like:

The only thing I know is that I know nothing. (Plato)

Now, what exactly do you "know" Tom?

Anonymous said...

Here is an idea: Right now there is streaming live video of OWS NYC. Please watch and while watching please report on the rampant drug use and free sex you see there. I will wait.

Tom McLaughlin said...

Ol Hickory:

The Hamas charter, that organization Hedges defends so vehemently, is pledged to destroy Israel and kill every single Jew in it. Look it up.

Israel pulled out of Gaza entirely. Hamas took over and rocketed Israel every day for years, targeting civilians. It deploys its rocket launching sites in schoolyards and next to hospitals. It's a proxy terrorist army for Iran. Hedges defends Hamas. Inexcusable.

My wife was in Israel in 2000. She called me from Galilee and I listened to the sound of Hezbollah rockets hitting in the background. Hezbollah is another Iranian proxy terrorist army army for Iran in Lebanon. Its rocket launch sites were also built in civilian neighborhoods so retaliatory strikes by Israel had to kill civilians - just like in Gaza.

When I was in Israel in May, 2007, Hamas was fighting Fatah - dropping its members from rooftops in Gaza to splatter on the pavement below. Our Palestinian tour guides said it would be unsafe for us to visit Hebron because we were Americans. I saw pictures of the late Yasser Arafat in his keffiyeh all over the West Bank.

I stayed in a Palestinian hotel in East Jerusalem where they danced in the streets celebrating the September 11th attack on America. We were advised not to step foot outside the Seven Arches Hotel because it wasn't safe. It's a Palestinian hell-hole. So is the West Bank where I toured around with Palestinian guides. They train kindergarteners to be suicide bombers in their public schools.

I think for myself. I don't need a degree from Harvard Divinity School to recognize evil when I see it. It didn't seem do Hedges much good, did it.

Anonymous said...

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ows-video-nypd-arrest-philly-police-retired-captain-raymond-lewis.html

Here is yet more proof that the tired "hippies and trustafarians with no direction" are NOT the majority at OWS...

Capt. Raymond Lewis former Philly Police Chief. This guys has balls

Ol' Hickory said...

Hey, I can't blame you for thinking like you do.
I get it, you are brainwashed. The more you rail the more obvious it is. You couldn't be further removed from the reality we are living in. You've been to Israel--good for you. I've been to Washington D.C. many times that doesn't mean I know how DC works or what it's real motives are.

Watch this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0haybEo-Tx4

Ol' Hickory said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00DPOBIK2No&feature=related

More proof......


One day, maybe, you will wake up.

Winston Smith said...

http://www.wearechange.org/?p=10809

Wow--another dirty hippie at OWS--WAIT! No, sorry, this is a former police captain supporting american citizens!!!

And hey Tom--No doubt you think those 11 kids at UC Davis deserved a good pepper spraying huh?