When the “Occupy” protests started, they sure did appear to be a dirty & smelly bunch. But things have gotten so bad that they’re now posing a health risk to themselves and others. In between praising them for being the greatest ever addition to the world, didn’t their “Progressive” Mommys and Daddys ever teach them the basics of hygiene?
h/t Bemused
“OWS” = Out Whazoo Stuff.
The one thing that saved emerging cosmopolitan giants like New York and London was proper sewage. Indeed, some of the biggest killers after earthquakes, ect are things like cholera and diarrhea. Do we need these “Occupy…” pigsties to remind us how bad things were?
These terrorists are planning to disrupt the santa clause parade in Victoria this weekend. I urge anyone who is a resident of Victoria to occupy the parade and shout these idiots down. They do not represent even .01% of the population.
My cat is smarter and more civilized that those twits, she buries her poop and no one had to tell her.
Even a middle ages peasant was smarter.
I can’t remember the link but it seems about 3/4of a million $ of stimulus money went to renovate the Washington Park that #ocuppy Washington has now destroyed….
Note from the videos…most of St. James Park, TO now has no grass…just mud.5
Now ya know why the horse-culture on the great plains moved their villages every 4-5 days….
It’s like that old tale of Bowels….
Bowels gotta move…teepee full of S***t.
At least Occupy Edmonton is no more. Police removed them at 4 this morning. The park is now fenced off. I wonder if the boys and girls in hazmat suits are going to show up to decontaminate the place.
…I wonder if the boys and girls in hazmat suits are going to show up to decontaminate the place.
Posted by: Joe at November 25, 2011 9:04 AM
Just leave it. Now the lefties on council can have a spot for their community organic gardens.
Someone should follow the Victoria bunch with those pooper scoopers they use for the Stampede Parade.
Victorias santa parade what a joyous family event.
My daughter and I are looking forward to the protesters we’re bringing eggs. I hope there is some diversity there you know rotten tomatoes, old heads of lettuce be creative people.
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Cif America
The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy
The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class’s venality
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wolf
Naomi Wolf
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 November 2011 17.25 GMT
Article history
Brandon Watts lies injured as Occupy Wall Street protesters clash with police in Zuccotti Park
Occupy Wall Street protester Brandon Watts lies injured on the ground after clashes with police over the eviction of OWS from Zuccotti Park. Photograph: Allison Joyce/Getty Images
US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.
But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that “New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers” covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that “It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk.”
In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on “how to suppress” Occupy protests.
To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.
I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors’, city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.
Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.
That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually “OWS has no message”. Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online “What is it you want?” answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.
For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, “we are going after these scruffy hippies”. Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women’s wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).
In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.
But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the “scandal” of presidential contender Newt Gingrich’s having been paid $1.8m for a few hours’ “consulting” to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies’ profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.
Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists’ privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can’t suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organised Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.
So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.
Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.
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jimmyhill123
25 November 2011 5:40PM
Having seen the UC Davis campus police + pepper spray incident, I wanted to take a look at the police serving my University.
These are the ‘cops’ that keep order at Leicester University.
Campus Cops
America is a scary place.
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resisttheoccupation
25 November 2011 5:44PM
It’s daft isn’t it because if the authorities hadn’t cracked down on the protestors they would have the situatuion at Occupy London which is essentially people playing the didgeridoo until they are blue in the face and tapping bongos until their bean feast is ready.
The availability of time has distinguished Occupy London from the other International Occupy movements. Uniquely they have not been moved on batoned or pepper sprayed. Given this time to develop – how have they used such a golden opportunity the very chance denied to so many others around the globe…
I think they have been scuppered by their location which has proved utterly diverting from the their many causes. They have lost the moral high ground because their choice of location is so anti-social (death threats to the clergy etc) it completely undermines them. I don’t think there will be the same casual brutality in their removal as we have seen in America – the campers removal from Trafalfgar Square was very civilised.
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Ohiero
25 November 2011 5:46PM
Land of the free.
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Strummered
25 November 2011 5:47PM
This is an insidious and barbaric orchestrated crackdown – It makes a mockery of supposed freedoms and democracy and shows the state to be the corporate sponsored plutocracy it is………Persevere.
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SpinningHugo
25 November 2011 5:48PM
The contrast with the UK is fairly stark. The Occupy protesters are, in my view, pretty silly, as starkly treated by the series of crackpot articles on the day that they occupied CiF but they are just a harmless bunch of well intentioned people freezing in tents thinking they are making the world a better place. The violence all seems to be in the US. Is it because US authorities are less used to dealing with protesters?
It is also interesting to read Wolf’s list of the three core demands. The first is unnecessary in the UK: it is already the law. The second is being brought in here (although for myself I don’t think it is the core of the problem). The third has no application to UK conditions.
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buono
25 November 2011 5:50PM
The way this kind of behaviour from security forces in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain was portrayed, it is amazing that Americans generally sit back and take it.
They love people standing up for freedom as long as it is not Americans.
The USA is turning into the most oppressive regime on Earth and it is just being allowed.
Ron Paul is their only hope.
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xtrapnel
25 November 2011 5:51PM
“Force is the midwife of any old society of every old society pregnant with a new one”.
In this case, one hopes that the American public will become sickened of the images of their children being beaten up by the forces of “law and order”. One hopes that a Kent State incident won’t occur.
Then one remembers that the American public are probably watching Fox News.
It is time for change, it is time for the 99% / 1% inequality to change. But will the revolution be televised ? And will the Occupy movements across the globe unify and provide us all with an alternative from our decrepit, ineffectual and amoral political parties ?
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Incurable
25 November 2011 5:52PM
The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Not a bad idea actually.
kevinw – look, you can be a troll or you can write a saga, but I don’t think you should try to achieve both things in the same comment.
Mamba said it, so I won’t./ What’s your game? (Who are you)?
Actually, trash is something that will happen when large numbers of people gather in one place. It happens all the time everywhere around the world. If you care about having a truly developed/informed opinion,
compare attendance levels between different rallies.
Compare the amounts of trash to a greater number of rallies.
Consider whether or not there was a systematic cleanup planned by organizers of the rally.
Consider whether or not the importance of cleanliness was a part of a speech directed at the people who attended the rally.
If you want to talk about actions that speak to the character of people who tend towards a specific political viewpoint, you could consider that republicans are more likely than democrats to be Christian/religious. You could also consider which side makes more inane arguments like the one in your blog post. Of course, it’s neither relevant to most political issues, or even accurate.
I think that there are more conservative people than liberal people who don’t mind being ignorant to fact.