Wednesday, October 26, 2011

END THE OCCUPATION​ NOW!

A week ago, someone sent out a screed that was blinkered sanctimonious ignorance and self-righteousness personified.
And also remarkably un-original and derivative.
It is doubtful that any thought processes had actually taken place - it was more an emotional reaction, rather than a rational and balanced review of data.
Reality is so inconvenient - "don't bother me with the truth, my mind is already made up!"

On any side of any issue, facts are often the first fatalities.

Quote:
"Maybe you should be paying more attention to the blatant anti-Semitism being spewed at the Occupy Wall Street/Atlanta/L.A/S.F rallies or are you too busy deciding Israel's future from your armchairs? Yes, we are here too...but do not have the same self righteousness that others seem to have."

Irrational drivel.


ANTI-SEMITISM AT OCCUPY RALLIES

From an article cited by the JTA:
"After being inundated by concerned calls after anti-Semitic manifestations at the Occupy Wall Street protests, the ADL issued a statement saying it is keeping an eye on the protests but does not believe that there is significant anti-Semitism."
[CUT]
"The only people who yell at us are Jews calling us traitors and self-hating Jews," Sieradski said. "We haven't encountered many anti-Semites, but we're still worried about it. It is in every part of our lives, and we need to be ever vigilant."


End quote.

The ADL doesn't believe that there is significant anti-Semitism in the ranks.

Given that 16% of the United States population still has certain ideas about Jews, it would be remarkable if a movement of any kind did not have any anti-Semites among its members.
The Democratic Party. The Republican Party. The Teabaggers.
Even the Junior Chamber of Commerce.
And the Jewish community itself, of course, has JVP, Barbara Lubin, and Medea Benjamin.

Plainly put, not a problem.
At least not one particular to OWS.


My skepticism was met with a loud Bronx cheer, and another recipient forwarded a crappy spewmet from some bint named Jennifer Rubin, along with a link to a youtube video.
Because, as we all know, if it's on youtube, it's the complete and unvarnished truth.

Jennifer Rubin opined that nobody was paying attention to the outright Nazi-like mob actions of the Commies in the Occupy Wall Street movement, oh the humanity!
Shriek, wail, and foam at mouth.


I wrote in response:

Jennifer Rubin's very first sentence is wrong: "In the millions of pixels devoted to the radical Occupy Wall Streeters, virtually nothing has been said about its anti-Semitic elements."
In actual fact, an enormous amount has been said about it.
To the point that uncritical readers and weak minds are convinced that the movement is sodden with anti-Semitism, and driven by nothing but rampant rabid anti-Semitism.

There are also flying saucer people among the protestors, as well as 9-11 truthers, end of time apocalyptics, and pot heads. The number of people of only marginal sanity is quite a bit larger than among the general population, and both the movement, as well as its adherents, represent the fringes.
It is more likely that the movement will fall apart because of their lack of any concrete platform and hugely different ideas and ideologies than that they will have any lasting impact.
Especially if the Black Block anarchists try to pull the same crap in the U.S. that they did in Rome.

In a large part, these protestors, if they can even be called that, are just mortally jealous of the Arab Spring and the Flower Power Era - "hey guys, let's be significant too!".
This isn't Egypt, and the sixties have been over for forty years. Thankfully even the nasty smell of patchouli and the attendant reek of unwashed frowsties have died away.

I seriously doubt any one will be "occupying Wall Street" once winter hits. Most of them probably won't even remember what the heck they were doing in September and October by that time.

The incidental vandalism of their 'encampments' is more worrisome, and it's only a matter of time before one of these "idealists" rapes a woman - either within their grotty little free-form street communes, or while the cops are distracted by the rest of the squealing herd.

Shoplifting has increased near some of their squats - probably because they have attracted unstable elements.

Frankly, I am more repulsed by their preachy self-righteousness, and the prevalence of medicinal marijuana at their camp in San Francisco, than by any amount of their irrational gibbering and quite evident spoiled brat paranoia.
As Cartman on Southpark would say: "damned hippies".

Patchouli. Yech!

End cite.


Since then, the occupy movement has come ever closer to fulfilling my expectations.

QUOTE:
"The document cited fire hazards, sanitation issues, a growing rat problem and graffiti. It referred to an "increasing frequency of violence, assaults, threats and intimidation" and complained that protesters had denied access to "emergency personnel to treat injured persons and to police to patrol the Plaza."
[CUT]
"As a result of these serious conditions, the Administration has determined that facilitating this expression of speech is no longer viable, nor in the interest of public health and safety," the order said. "Peaceful daytime assembly will continue to be allowed between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily. No tents or overnight camping permitted."" End quote.

SOURCE:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/21/BATM1LKJ24.DTL
[Oakland orders Occupy protesters to leave plaza]


Among other actions, the occupiers beat a crazy man senseless.

Rats, graffiti, filth, and violence.
No amount of patchouli can disguise that.


"No one this side of the moon knows precisely what the Occupy Wall Street movement is trying to do"


From an article in the Washington Post by Richard Cohen:

"Reckless Jew that I am, I muscled my way into the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan despite multiple reports of virulent and conceivably lethal anti-Semitism. Projecting an unvarnished Semitism, I circled the place, encountering nothing and no one to suggest bigotry - not a sign, not a book and not even the guy who some weeks ago held up a placard with the instruction to Google the phrase "Zionists control Wall St." Google "nut case" instead.
This was my second visit to the Occupy Wall Street site and the second time my keen reporter's eye has failed to detect even a hint of the anti-Semitism that had been trumpeted by certain right-wing Web sites and bloggers, most prominently Bill Kristol."

End quote.

SOURCE:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/where-are-the-anti-semites-of-occupy-wall-street/2011/10/24/gIQAP89eDM_story.html

[Where are the anti-Semites of Occupy Wall Street?]


And further to the whole OWS shtuss:
"The camp at Occupy San Francisco is an imminent hazard to health, the city's public health department told demonstrators late Tuesday.
"Evidence of excrement, urine and vomit were observed throughout the park," the department said in a notice. "Fecal material was observed on stairs and grass. A container of human waste was observed along the Embarcadero side of the park.""

End quote.

SOURCE:
http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2011/10/26/public-health-officials-say-occupy-sf-camp-is-dirty-unsafe/?tsp=1
[Public health says Occupy SF camp is dirty, unsafe]



In other words, a filthy hobo camp.
Drunks, punks, and computer gamers.

Yes, there may be some anti-Semitism there. Along several other forms of insanity and loosened brainpans.
As well as conspiracy theorists, poets, North Beach intellectuals, and Jack Hirschman.

But, boruch Hashem, NO Hare Krishnas, or Goths.
Yet.
Just Vandals.


AFTER WORD

I went down to Justin Herman after lunch. It's less than twenty minutes from the office, which, with a leisurely stroll around the perimeter of the settlement, provided enough time to smoke a full bowl of Rattray's Hal O' The Wynd ("A pure Virginian tobacco of a most unusual share of strength").

Rather glad I had the pipe with me -- both the OQS encampment in front of the Federal Reserve as well as the main pup tent and tarpaulin block in the grassy area south of the trinket sellers had a general funk of frowst.
The population seems evenly divided between irredeemables, professional layabouts and opportunists, serious young college kids with heartwarming sincerity and beautifully innocent faces, and several middle-aged dillwads with intellectual pretensions, who are just jealous that they were far too unaware of anything during the sixties and seventies to take full advantage of the revolutionary ferment and the buckets of free love.

The signs and slogans are a tired rehash of 1960's hippie Marxism.
Unlike the Teaparty morons, they do not need spellcheck.
Other than that, there is as little actual depth.
It is a filthy and depressing commune.
This movement will go nowhere.
Best bring on the teargas.
Plus the bulldozers.
And disinfectant
Unsanitary.

It's not anti-Semitism; it's filth, germs, fleas, and lice.

The 'movement' has become an aggragation of unwashed people.



Far-side of the moon commentary and feedback from critical readers will be welcomed.



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6 comments:

Tzipporah said...

I'm considering proposing that any protest which includes more than 2 misspelled or grammatically incorrect signs be immediately closed. So far, these guys are doing alright.

Is it wrong of me to wish only intelligent people to partake in our national political discussions?

The back of the hill said...

I second both of those motions.

Dissenting voices are best when not gibberant.

Anonymous said...

I occasionally have occasion to pass by the Occupy DC encampment at McPherson Square in our Nation's capital, right on K street, ground zero for the lobbyists of the Corporate Overlords. As far as antisemitsm goes, some of them had built a sukkah, which was in fine shape and unvandalized (this was on Hoshanna rabba.) As far as the other stuff goes, it was actually pretty orderly, and I saw some of the folks walking around picking up trash and such. They weren't blocking any of the paths through the park, and thus the "occupation" isn't even an inconvenience as I walk through during lunchtime. I didn't observe any sanitation problems, and I'm beginning to suspect that such concerns are just smokescreen for city governments run by anal-retentive control freaks to crackdown on the "dirty hippies." I'm sure that in any large goruo

I wish these guys all the best, and sympathize 100% with their goals. Don't knock the flower-power people. Had they not done their thing, I may well have been drafted and sent to Vietnam to participate in a pointless, futile war. I might have been killed, and this comment might not even exist. If these folks can do to the banksters what the hippies did to LBJ and Nixon, then kol hakavod to them.

The back of the hill said...

Point taken about the banksters.
With which I agree.

But here in San Francisco, there are too many potheads, too many insane street people, and far too many anarchists and opportunistic wanna-be revolutionaries.

And their camp smells of faces from a block away. I do not doubt that the Oakland squat was as filthy. And please note that it was manifestly NOT the legitimate protestors that threw the rocks and bottles and battled the cops, but the black block - halfbaked anarchist thugs - and they played with the lives and safety of their fellow citizens by doing so.

The back of the hill said...

Further, I would argue that Johnson was by far our best post-war president, whose achievements have been unfairly overshadowed by Kennedy's horrid legacy. The death of Kennedy was, in many ways, a blessing.
A profound blessing.
But it did not come soon enough.

Anonymous said...

"Further, I would argue that Johnson was by far our best post-war president, whose achievements have been unfairly overshadowed by Kennedy's horrid legacy. "

What was so horrid about Kennedy's legacy? I'm not saying he wasn't flawed, but as far ac policy, he more or less set the stage for what Johnson accomplished, mostly by guilt-tripping Congress about Kennedy.

On the other hand, all the good the LBJ did, such as the civil right acts, Great Society, etc. was conterbalanced by his idiocy in escalating the Vietnam war. The war split the liberal/left and paved he way for Nixon and Reagan and the whole sorry rightward trajectory our country has taken since 1968.

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