Before there was #Ferguson, there was #Occupy
A little too similar, maybe?
The Ferguson protesters have proven themselves to be destructive, violent, and completely uninterested in anything having to do with “justice.” Not only are they okay with this assessment—they’re completely proud of it.
In fact, they’re beginning to look an awful lot like another “justice movement” we got to know quite well a few years back.
Back in August, an enterprising writer over at Buzzfeed engaged in some solid journalism and noticed that the Ferguson protests—namely, the evolving encampments were beginning to look a little like the Occupy Wall Street protests:
As the marches in Ferguson grow smaller, this apparently semi-permanent encampment has echoes of Occupy Wall Street and other radical encampments who sought to claim and hold territory in 2011 and 2012.
“Why do we need a leader?” Alexander asked. “I’m saying everybody can be leaders.” The camp even has a few Occupy veterans who drifted in during the last week and are giving them pointers on how to deal with things like tear gas — a threat Alexander said is still present, especially as their numbers grow.
A couple of miles away in downtown Ferguson, across the street from the still-under-construction police station, another group is also digging in. Unlike the protesters on W Florissant, the gathering downtown is older and includes more women than men. Many of the demonstrators leave by the middle of the night, though someone is always out and always will be until they “get some answers,” according to organizer Angela Whitman.
“We come out when it’s storming and raining,” she said. “We don’t play around. We don’t care what the weather is. We’ll be out here as long as it takes.”
The atmosphere downtown is almost familial, with chairs and tables spread out across the street corner. Friday night, the group had prayers and competing chants between men and women, among other things.
In fact, Occupy is more interconnected with Ferguson than was immediately apparent when people started to organize.
The community organizers who turned Zuccotti Park in New York and McPherson Square in DC into public urinals back in 2011 didn’t just fade into the background once city officials scraped their filth off the sidewalk; they’ve been protesting Walmart (and plan to do so on Black Friday, just in case you were planning on standing in line for a $10 DVD player or something,) and more recently using their microphone to help promote uprisings not only in Ferguson, but all across the country. They’re providing an online home base, movement updates, resources for protesters, and help connecting to local protests like the ones we’ve seen in Portland, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.
They’re even participating in violent assaults on public officials.
So, violence. Assault. Destruction of property. What’s next? Occupy’s history isn’t really encouraging:
Occupy brought us filth, violence, rampant drug use, and rape and sexual assault—and the people of Ferguson deserve much better.
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Comments
Occupy Oakland, one of the more violent, has been active in Ferguson since the first week. Hamas is also represented, they were even nice enough to send some gas masks.
“In fact, Occupy is more interconnected with Ferguson than was immediately apparent when people started to organize.”
Toldja.
Lisa Fithian. Look her up.
There are real, human names associated with these repeated waves of activity, and we are entitled to know them.
And surely the NY Times would feel it incumbent on them to publish the home addresses.
Oh, it’s MORE than individual people! It is organizations and even government agencies.
And you can, of course, know who they are. You just have to do the work that the Mushroom Media won’t do. And you have to believe what you learn.
There really are people who want to see the whole world burn… And they’re working at it.
I’ve noticed a fair number of Guy Fawkes masks in the videos as well as a lot of white guys committing violence. The original occupy was disgusting, but not violent. I think a number of occupiers have been longing do something besides occupy, and this was their chance.
They wear the masks for the same reason the KKK did, they’re cowards and don’t want to be held accountable for their crimes when they inevitably cross the line to killing.
It’s not clear that there’s any structural connection between these annoying people.
Superficial similarities abound, certainly. All the totalitarian, anti-intellectual, “triumph of the will” groups display a certain sameness. But there are no fundamental principles in common, only tactical maneuvers.
The Ferguson unpleasantness began as pure black racism. Others trying to horn in on the excitement and the press coverage don’t generally share that motivation. The anti-Israel bunch aren’t particularly racist, although they’d dearly love to tap into America’s well-developed race-baiting industry. And the goals of the Occupy types remain nebulous; they’re vaguely communist, though not particularly Marxist. But whatever they want, they want it now, and they’ll do … well, not much, aside from being annoying … until they get it.
None of them have hit on a formula for success. The black racists, though, are the stupidest of the bunch ‒ they’re the only ones playing the Blazing Saddles defense ‒ “One move, and the n….r gets it!” Their threats injure nobody but those in the area which is actually destroyed by looting and arson.
Burn down your own economic base just to show ’em who’s boss. Brilliant. Not since Jonestown have we seen such a suicidal bunch in action.
“Burn down your own economic base just to show ‘em who’s boss. Brilliant.”
Right, these idiots will never get anyone into the White House or Attorney General positions. Oh … wait … they did. Maybe the “get in their faces” agitprop is coordinated OUT OF the WH.
It sure seems like Ferguson Liquor would have been one area that would have been heavily patrolled rather than left to be looted. Nixon spoke with Jarret, but not his own lieutenant governor. Giuliani said “the first guy that throws a rock, arrest him”. But these guys were left to smash and grab, for a long time.
Do rioting and threats get results?
Sure, more people now know to fear the mobs, and they bow a little further to the PC religion gods. Does it hurt the legit business and the law abiding locals? Of course, but it is not strictly a race war, it is gangs, thugs, Marxists, against law abiding working class self reliant capitalists.
One thing that history…and human nature…tells us is that people react to lawlessness, and they don’t react positively (as Barracula would see it).
What we’ll see in coming times is a resurgence in “law and order” demands, and those will come from all quarters. Remarkably, they’ll come strongly from women and minorities because these are populations that know instinctively that they are most vulnerable when the safeties come off and the streets are hunting grounds.
It has already started. HOlder is about to find that his drive to interfere with sound policing on the basis of racial favoritism is going to be extremely unpopular, and some of the strongest voices will be minority police chiefs and city officials. But the opposition will be broad, loud, and active.
That’s a prediction, and all you trolls are invited to mark it well.
I think you’re ignoring the purpose of this lawlessness. It isn’t merely to cow whites, though I am sure that is a desired side effect. Obama, Holder, Bloomberg, and state AGs like Kamala Harris have strong gun control agendas, and those agendas are most easily pushed when the public and the judiciary are conditioned by lies and fear.
Nope. The opposite of your concerns is true. There will be a massive number of guns purchased this weekend…so many the FBI will be overwhelmed.
The tide of law is running strongly against any new gun control, and guess who some of the highest purchasers of guns are? Women.
Ferguson should be another good chance to drive a wedge between the radicals that bussed in destruction, and working class Joe Black that testified for Wilson. The actions of Obama/Holder/Sharpton are troublesome, but then they’ve been blatant for a long time, as I see it.
I won’t pretend to be omniscient about how or when the tide will turn, or exactly which way it will turn. There are more voices speaking out, but so far nothing stops the growth of big government. The last election was promising, but indeed turnout was low, so people are not yet that concerned.
It’s not clear that there’s any structural connection between these annoying people.
It’s quite clear that there is, beyond just Lisa Fithian who’s been at it in Ferguson for weeks preparing the mobs for just these actions, as she did at the WTO convention in Seattle and at Occupy Wall Street. She’s got funding and organizational support, and allies on the ground. They published a list of addresses of buildings to target beforehand, and she appears to have enough influence on the Obama administration that the National Guard was kept inert on Monday night instead of nipping these hooligans-with-leaders-and-press-agents in the bud.
Where was this tolerance for the Tea Party? Imagine the outrage of conservative American’s started using these tactics against the left and say occupied the New York Times building?
Trouble is, we’d leave it cleaner than we found it…
they can only be involved there because the people that live there allowed them to be involved.
They’re the unofficial (with probable official support deep down) enforcers of the left, just like the antifas are in Europe.
Before there was #Occupy there was #TheRevenueAct of 1916 and #TheCreatonoftheFED in 1913. The Revenue Act would include the #EstateTax just in case people acted generously with their children.
The thread between the two rabble mentioned above, other than the paid agitators, is an economic one.
If people had wealth producing jobs I do not believe, among other reasons, that OWS would have melded into a Tofurky of a movement. Nor do I think people would have been suckered into Obamacare or by the need for minimum wage taxation. Nor would they have accepted a number of advertised-as-death-throe environmental issues.
With capital to do with as they please, people gain knowledge. We are dealing with a generation that lacks knowledge about basic economics. That knowledge includes wealth creation, investment, etc. The Paul Krugman’s and Jon Gruber’s of the world can get away with economic murder in this environment.
I don’t believe for a second that government creates jobs. Sadly, our government, at least since 1916, has controlled the economic environment.
Now, for example, our government is focusing on the physical environment, not the economic environment. The most powerful group in Washington next to the IRS-the EPA-will now generate more inane regulations to combat SMOG. Ergo, more jobs will be snuffed out.
The Keystone pipeline would create jobs. And why not help out our neighbor to the north? Why this doesn’t happen? A lack of knowledge coupled with power.
We need somebody of substance to Occupy the WH. When this happens then I believe the madness, the Kulturesmog, on the streets, for the most part, would dissipate under true leadership.
“Without a vision, the people perish.” And, without a penny the people plead and ploy.