‘Hoovervilles’ and ‘Occupy’: Any Shared Roots?
If Herbert Hoover deserved to have the shantytowns of the ‘30s named after him, does Barack Obama deserve the same with the “occupy” encampments now? The parallels are striking, although in both cases many factors combined to produce the misery that tears people from their homes.
Overall trends, the actions of predecessors, Congress, the Federal Reserve, state governments, and the collective decisions of millions of individuals all play a role in creating the economic stew. But fairly or not, presidents tend to get the blame for conditions on their “watch.” And it would be hard to argue that Hoover’s policies after the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 were effective. But what of Obama, who enjoyed the enthusiastic support of so many of the young people now living in Zuccotti Park and so many other ‘villes?
The people camping out around the country have issued sundry demands and generally are having an enjoyable time acting out. With the pure indignation unsullied by experience that is the hallmark of youth, they’ve indicted society, cited grievous oppression, and proclaimed that they’re not going to take it anymore.
Many commentators have pointed out that the occupy “movement,” if that’s what it is, is to incoherence what Everest is to mountains. Do they want a new socialism? A benign anarchy in which a kind of transcendent reasonableness leads to a level of cooperation hitherto unknown? The old style of coercive socialism with the iron fist just under the red glove, and re-education camps and bullets for those who don’t “get it”? Or what? Per John Lennon in “Workingclass Hero,” they seem to think they’re so “classless and free.”
Are the protests fundamentally a social or economic phenomenon? Some of the campers seem to want the heads of Wall Street types — presumably those who received big bonuses after steering their companies into a ditch — on pikes. If so, that would indicate a desire for justice or revenge. Were the Hooverville-ians looking for revenge? Maybe, but that’s generally not the story that has trickled down to us over the last 80 years.
Research the term “Hooverville” and you’ll find a lot of material on genuine hardship — the builders of these shantytowns tended to be men, sometimes with families, who’d lost their homes because they could no longer afford them — and the desperate search for work. Did they rail about punishing the “fat cats”? Some surely did, but that doesn’t seem to have been the primary point. Given how widespread stock and other speculation was in the 1920s, it’s quite possible that many of the dispossessed realized that greed is hardly limited to plutocrats.
No doubt some of their modern counterparts (assuming they are in fact counterparts) are genuinely hurting as well. But how many of the occupiers are truly destitute?
Mostly young people, #OWS protesters are, from their name, against Wall Street. But they really need to protest the Federal government and crony capitalism. They have protested at conservative meetings and Presidential candidate speeches. For the most part, they are leftists, communists, anarchists, etc. Same groups, different generation as the ’60′s. Back then it was the SDS, Liberation Army, etc. They want to overthrow this gov’t. And this is all BHO has left of his base. They’ve been given so much leeway, there is very little utcry from city mayors, the MSM, etc, the Tea Party would have been ousted long before this.
bluemont you are 150% correct. these SLIMEBALLS remind me of the SLIMEBALLS of the 60′s. yes I was there I was in the Air Force defending their rights to show the world what a damned bunch of STUPID IDIOTS they were,
Vagabond, Thank you so much for your service. Back in 60′s military was spat on, treated shabbilly, especially those who came back from Vietnam. Despicable! My friends in college then were pretty split up, for/against the war. But the protesters such as Senator Kerry used the war protest for their own selfish purposes. Just as #OWS protesters are “gimmee! gimmee! I want what’s yours”. Very disgusting. But they seem to have plenty of capitalist money and corporate products (IPADS, IPHONES, camping equipment, etc) Hmm, makes you wonder.
The Tea Party would never do what these folks are doing. They have been taught to hate our country. The Tea Party is grass-roots. This “movement” is a well-organized, well-funded use of dupes to break down western civilization. It can go two ways: this can be the beginning of the end of freedom everywhere in the world, or it can be the beginning of the end of progressives, socialists, communists, Marxists, anarchists, and nazis. They are out in the open now and endorsed by the democrats and the press and the White House.
They are not grass roots, not even astro-turf. They are Soros-turf!
To judge from all the videos I’ve watched from day one of the Occupy Wall Street up to yesterday’s videos of the NYPD clearing out Zuccotti Park, most of the “protesters” have lacked for nothing. Aside from all the tents, tarps and other camping paraphernalia they brought with them, I was astounded by the number of them who could afford all the fancy electronic gear, from cell phones to iPods (or are they iPods?) to some very fancy camera equipment with which to record everything. One video showed a bunch of them “flicking their Bic” lighters in some protest I could not make sense of. Their clothing looked right off the rack of TJ Max. Although scruffy looking, they looked well-fed and healthy (although many of them have probably contracted some major illness from the camp-in). So, where did all the money come from that enabled these creatures to live so well before they decided to make a mess of a private park? From their parents, no doubt, but they are the product of our public education system: indoctrinated, lobotomized, ignorant, hostile, and clueless pawns in someone else’s or some other organization’s bid for power. These creatures are not destined to hold productive jobs in the private sector; they are destined to become public “servants” ready to “reorganize” America at the point of a gun, just as the POTUS was and continues to be. There wasn’t a single thing the OWSers used that wasn’t produced by a major corporation, that is, by free enterprise. Confront them with that fact, and their brains would go into mind-lock.
what brain Sparrowhawk?? if they had a brain they would be home and gainfully employed,
Yes, they have been indoctrinated. Leftover Leninists and SDS veterans have taken over the humanities and our major foundations reward them, so that American history has become the history of the evil empire, at war with native peoples and nature. I wrote about some of their hooligan teaching here, and elsewhere on my website. See for instance http://clarespark.com/2009/09/06/the-hebraic-american-landscape-sublime-or-despotic/.
“indoctrinated, lobotomized, ignorant, hostile, and clueless pawns in someone else’s or some other organization’s bid for power”
^^^^^^^
“It’s probably fair to surmise that if more of these occupiers had jobs, there would be fewer of them drumming up a storm on the new campuses of protest. Some might still be marching for socialism or anarchism and joining activist groups, but probably on a part-time basis. People with jobs cannot spend days, weeks percussing and shouting slogans.”
Don’t you count on it. The few that DID have jobs in these protests were not your high-powered executives. If you’re flipping burgers or a counter clerk, socialism is looking pretty good to you, especially if you’re getting “free stuff” from the government in the form of social-welfare benefits that everyone else has to pay for. These people were nothing but communists and anarchists or even homeless people that had no better place to go. And for the mainstream media to keep compairing these people to the Tea Party protests is shameful and disgusting. The big difference between the Tea Parties and these other protesters was that the Tea Party people actually HAD lives and went home after protesting for a grand total of one day. The Occupy Wall Street scum decided that your property was now THEIR property and decided to forcibly take it away from you. THAT was the dangerous difference between the two and THAT is what must be stopped.
At any level of national community comfortability there will be those who give rise against the whole that, “We’ve had it too good for too long.”, when in fact, always must there be those who at any level of wealth have not internalized of decency and inspiration to manly pursuit and noble cause—in all times, technology and financial wizardry have outpaced the sociology of human concern and sustainability—though, withal, the rich have grown richer and the lives of those others has become ever so much better, . . . whether the lives of those rich has improved all that much, I cannot vouch for, . . .
I was dismayed to see the YT video showing various of those whose time is occupied in the stuff of complaint, come out of their fancy buildings, flaunting toasts in mockery toward the Occupiers. Such base antics demonstrated poorly formed character in those of whom better things might well have been expected, . . . and was at least as bad as the confuse characters in possession of the Occupiers—or, so I think, . . .
While it is hardly likely that, police clearing the parks will contribute to any clearing of confusion in the minds and hearts of the Occupiers, the return to normal, had to be begun.
As in: “Why do I have to get up in the cold, and build a fire?”, in many things, Nature in general, has a way of bring one to deal with the cold hard facts of human existence—both, as being alone, and, as in community with others. As greatly contributing to the health cycles of life, with Winter (I like the seasons with initial cap.) coming, it is too much to hope that, some of the Occupiers with be brought to some appearance of common sense—no form of Christian decency, sure, but just something, . . .
But “shared roots”? M-m-m-m, . . . no-o-o, . . . In that earlier day, expectations of the work world could be much different: Nowadays—in the USA, anyway—for a large and growing work-force to demand to live by jobs pulling handles on big machines and thus stamping out parts which fall into bins to be carted off to be deburred and washed, is very much out of touch with reality. Nowadays, the would be worker must make capital investments in tools, education, square footage of space (You see where we’re going with this? We don’t want to say “capialism”—right?), and so forth, to make his own job, or, he must find a spot in what is now called “the service related sector” of the economy. And just how many pairs of pants and shoes would the dear reader wish to have pressed and polished in one week?
Plus, many of those whose place is in the working class, become enamored of the bedazzling world around them, and wonder about why they should go to work. And for but one example, here, in OKC, one tire company lost interest, partly because, all too many of the workers began to use that company for their preferred use and time schedule—they fell into patterns of 3 and 4 day work weeks; so, . . . the result was more or less, predictable, . . .
Sadly enough—these demands for jobs, with a large underclass criminal load, and such as the Occupiers themselves demonstrate, that, to successfully manage their lives, they are most unable—with every passing day unfolding in evermore surprising occurrences, dramatic population reduction appears as the unavoidable and likely eventuality; so, . . .
Huh? What? Are you trying one of those “roomful of monkeys with typewriters” experiments?
First buy this:
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-4th-William-Strunk/dp/0205313426/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321461220&sr=1-1
Next, get a screwdriver and pry comma key off of your keyboard.
Maybe you don’t realize this, but randomly stringing together English words and phrases doesn’t automatically result in actual English sentences.
@ Paul from Hamburg;
Actually the odds of a monkey randomly hitting typewriter keys (assuming only 27 keys; one for each letter and a space bar) to produce even one page of readable and logical text is ZERO.
First of all, there is simply no way that a monkey – or even a human toddler – would ever hit the keys randomly; they will hit many of the same keys over and over and over, thus producing repeating sequences of jibberish, rendering the “math” answer simply a math exercise.
This is why, as an example, if you have an equal number of adult males and adult females, the AVERAGE American or Canadian or German, etc., has one testicle and wears a one cup bra. Another “math answer” that in the real world is meaningless.
And finally, in the real world, tossing a coin 15 times and obtaining 13 heads, though probability speaking has a near zero ( but NOT zero !) chance of occurence, tells folks in the real world that the coin is most likely loaded !
“Actually the odds of a monkey randomly hitting typewriter keys (assuming only 27 keys; one for each letter and a space bar) to produce even one page of readable and logical text is ZERO.”
Ummmm….. That was sort of my point.
Anyway, thank you for your very asymptotic comment.
I doubt that, even if jobs were available, this lot would be “gainfully employed”.
From what I’ve seen, we are dealing with adolescents (yes, including those over 18) whose entire lives have been spent being told how “Special” they are by everybody. And whose parents would never dream of spanking their “precious little darling”, no matter what they did, or to whom they did it.
Their parents put them in college with student loans (probably while still paying off their own). Exactly what their parents do, I don’t know; I suspect many are the “arty” types, as they don’t seem to have even suggested to their children that having real, salable skills is a good idea, and college is a good place to acquire same. Which leads me to suspect that their parents’ skills are not in anything concrete.
I further suspect that the OWSies are the ones who, for the most part, signed on to the same lie as most of their parents; that they were part of an elite’ who should be kowtowed to, and fawned over, by everybody else. And that their purpose in life was to “raise the consciousness” of all those unenlightened boors (Obama’s “bitter clingers”) to their own exalted level. By force if necessary.
Which is how you end up with demands for total “debt forgiveness”, the abolition of the U.S. military, a ban on every power source except Holy Wind and Holy Sun, etc.
And oh yes, someone demanding that a U.S. corporation hire them to teach Critical Dance Theory at Kennedy Center. Or. Else.
Obamavilles are not Hoovervilles. When you factor in the overall philosophy (such as it is), and the amount of delusional thinking that passes for “reality” in the OWSies’ ultimatums, you are left with a cross between the Technocracy movement of the 1930s- and the Heaven’s Gate cult. With overtones of Jonestown.
The major difference being, that this lot is less likely to do themselves in than they are to go after others if their demands are not met. The punch line being that, like their philosophical forebears, their demands are so completely beyond reality that they are impossible to meet. This pretty much ensures that the OWSies will end in hurting others.
I will be very surprised if the OWS “movement” survives the winter. I will be equally surprised if its “hardcore” members do not morph into something along the lines of the various Western European Communist/Fascist terrorist groups of the 1970s, such as Brigade Rosse, the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof) in West Germany, etc. Remember, they too came out of the leftwing “anti-war” movement of the Sixties, and their primary targets were, not in any particular order, capitalism, international banking, Israel, and Western civilization in general. All of which they wanted destroyed so they could build a “world of egalitarian socialist brotherhood” on the ruins.
Sound familiar?
clear ether
eon
Good comments eon. At least to me, you have hit at the core of what the OWS protests are all about. I would like to add one more thing which to me is the most ominous. The OWS has presented the far left an opportunity to develop a hardened and fanatic cadre for events to come.
It is obvious that the far left powers that be have aided, abetted and financed this movement and for a good reason. I have not forgotten that some months ago Van Jones and others of his ilk made grand pronouncements about the far left organizing their own massive street protests that they said would make the Tea Party look ineffectual. We see the beginnings of it now in the OWS groups. I see them ramping up the violence in the coming months and it will become a major drag on Obama’s ability to get re-elected. Nevertheless they will continue to get support from the major media and the far left of the Democratic Party.
Why, one might ask, would they do that if the the goal is to get Obama re-elected? I think Obama and the rest have figured out that he stands a good chance of being repudiated at the polls and they have two goals in mind. One is to possibly create such a breakdown in society as to make the elections impossible and if that doesn’t work then they have the organizations ready all over the nation to create mass civil strife and possible terrorist cells a la Red Brigades to make the country or parts of it ungovernable after Obama loses the election. The cost to the economy would be horrendous and collapsing the economy after the elections would be one of the objectives. Call it revenge on the American people for daring to vote “a living god” out of office.
Obama’s Barracks?
I had hoped to learn something about Hoovervilles here, but that was not to be.
The OWS folks seem over-educated, the tea partiers, under educated and both have ultimately unrealistic demands. Neither Karl Marx nor Patrick Henry will be elected President any time soon.
The tea partiers already have their social security and medicare, whereas the OWS crew have a ways to go to get theirs. Lefty and righty politicians and media respond to both groups, by goring and puffing in completely predictable ways.
But how about some substance on Hoovervilles, or should I just use Google?
Yes, Dwight, go to Google and look it up. Work, don’t look for an informational handout handout.
I must say it’s a rare privilege to encounter someone who apparently believes he is so optimally educated that he can look down on those voicing their opinions on either end of the sociopolitical spectrum.
What you must be more used to are writers using historical events as vaguely wrought symbols to make their current points. Got it.
Dwight, while I realize the education system doesn’t inform anymore and treats history as a pack of lies, most of us know what a Hooverville was and do not need more than a reference to one, in passing, in order to see and understand relevance. You’re either being disingenuous or, yes, by all means, Google it and leave us in the dark over your ignorance on the subject. A little reading and self-education can be very useful and is nothing to be ashamed about.
http://faculty.umf.maine.edu/walter.sargent/public.www/web%20104/104%20outline%208_08.htm
Dwight reminds me of too many students I’ve encountered in recent years: stunningly lacking in common knowledge, and brainwashed in PC/multiculti relativism (hence his daft conflating of Tea-Partiers with Occupyers).
Let’s just say that I have been on the right; voted for Barry “The Conscience of a Conservative” Goldwater; and been on the left, voted for McGovern, so it is not as if I don’t have some sense of how both sides think and operate.
I will grant you that the Tea Partiers have a lot more life experience than the OWSers, but they also tend to see (a return to) the Constitution as some kind of magical spike in the heart of the new, and worst ever, vampire, Obama.
This talk of Hoovervilles should lead all of us to reflect on how good things are now…for the moment, compared to the Depression with a big D. Was there a time when the country was desperate, hey, no problem; just follow the Constitution. Why blame Obama? I blame the CCC. Where in the Constitution does it talk about a CCC? I rest my case.
Sorry, Dwight, but you ain’t too bright. You have the intellect of a butterfly, metaphorically speaking: flitter flitter, where’ll she sit ‘er?
/ad hominem
Float like a butterfly…
“the tea partiers, under educated”
Waving your ignorance around in public like that might cause talk.
Have you ever listened to the interviews with people at a Palin book-signing event?
Um, actually no. Have you? Do you listen to many of these interviews from other book signings, as a reference, or merely caught some cherry picked moments from Huffpo?
During her book tour, Fox, and most of the networks ran quite a few interviews from these “happenings.”
In my humble experience, almost everyone who announces, “Sarah Palin’s stupid!” have never been president of their debating society, let alone governor of an American state. Something doesn’t add up and Occam’s Razor tells me that the simplest solution is that way she’s smarter then them.
So, genius, what offended you by them?
Work on your syntax guys; until then, you are makin’ mah point.
Sweetie, you don’t “get” social security and medicare, you are forced to pay into it while you are gainfully employed. It is the ultimate Ponzi scheme, which is going broke, dreamed up by people who weren’t forced to contribute.
Those park rats must have plenty of resources. Where did they go when they were thrown out of the parks? Down into the sewers?
It’s called the O-ba-ma-ville movement.
Repeat after me: The O-ba-ma-ville movement.
‘Ho ho, hey hey, Obamaville is here to stay … Ho ho, hey hey, Obamaville is here to stay … Ho ho, hey hey, Obamaville is here to stay … ” Yeah, that works.
I think that we can work with this. How about we satire “Margaritaville” into Obamaville. The lyrics may be:
Here I am in Obamaville, looking for my lost shaker of coke,some people claim that it is Wall Street to blame, but I know, that it is somebody else’s fault.
Here’s my first cut at it:
Wastin Away in Obamaville
Nibblin on hand outs
And keeping a look out
For all of those hobos covered with grime
Dumping on a cop car
And peeing in a glass jar
Smell those trash dumps covered in slime
Chorus:
Wastin away again in Obamaville
Searching for my lost shaker of salt
Some people claim that there’s a banker to blame
But I know it’s not my fault
I don’t know the reason
I stayed here all season
Nothin to show but this brand new skin rash
I’m coughing my lungs out
My tentmate’s a real lout
And we’re all living in mounds of trash
Chorus:
Wastin away again in Obamaville
Searchin for my lost shaker of salt
Some people claim that there’s a banker to blame
Now I think
Hell, it could be his fault
I graduated with my buddies
In Gender Studies
Can’t get a job to pay off my loans
Nobody will hire me
Why can’t they just see
That soon I’ll have to move in back home?
Wastin away again in Obamaville
Searching for my lost shaker of salt
Some people claim that there’s a banker to blame
But I know it’s not my fault
Yes and some people claim that there’s a banker to blame
And I know it’s not my fault
Bravo! Tighten up the metrics and you have a hit here.
I love it, Larry!
Love the sentiment, but don’t give up your day job, JED.
I loathe these people just as I loathed the 60′s rat-pack. Their whole premiss is one built upon sin. In the 60′s “make love, not war” was just an excuse to be promiscuous – and 101 new deseases later people can’t even be intimate without several layers of protection.
This lot (also, not unlike the last lot) is based on covetousness and stealing – both of which made God’s top ten list of no-no’s. They envy what others have and believe it is a moral imperative to steal it. And forget this crap of redistribution. That’s a lie. THEY want it and seriously don’t care if some homeless person is homeless. They just want their – and yours.
The occupier mobs are generation X on parade. They represent the decadence of the overindulged, short attention-span, drug addled, instant gratification, latchkey kids, entitlement sucking, left wing anarchist utopians who have been permited their street party run amok by the class warfare campaign.
They are destroyers not builders. They are hardwired to play the victim. There is no useful parallel between them and the Hooverville or Oakies of the Grapes of Wrath. The wrath which the OWS demonstrate is the withdrawl pains of comfort addiction. These people, on their own island, would turn Lord of the Flies and cannibal.
The occupier mobs are generation X on parade.
I have to take issue with this statement, at least in part. The Occupier mobs represent a small percentage of the Gen Xers, just as the Hippies of the 60s represented a small percentage of the Boomers. You go too far when you tar an entire generation due to the actions of a relative few.
Just as millions of Boomers served in the military, so have at least a couple million Gen Xers since 9/11. They volunteered for military duty in time of war. They represent the best and brightest of their generation, not the Ivy League slugs who demand handouts and preferential treatment.
Improvement noted Larry J. I was a bit ferverent to pin this phenomena on the author of Obamaville.
As noted by the commentor below, we both got the generation wrong. Whatever they are called, let’s not comdemn all of them for the actions of a few. I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for those young people who enlisted after 9/11. They knew exactly what they were signing up for and they have served with pride, honor and distinction. This old vet salutes them.
The Occupy Crowd, well, not so much.
Generation 0
Is that number zero, or the letter oh.
Anyone care to comment?
You got the wrong generation–it’s Generation Y/Millenial/Digital (pick a name). “Generation X” was born in the late 1960s through 1981, meaning we’re all over 30 and we’ve been in the work force (starting with after-school and summer jobs, back when service industries weren’t incentivized to hire illegal aliens to save on payroll taxes–won’t hear “Occupy” mention that because they’re not interested in doing actual work for pay…) for 10-20 years, so no need to whine about “no $75k/yr entry-level Queer Studies jobs!” X-ers are either well-established in a career, or making a change but leveraging their previous experience…and either way, have realistic ideas about what their skills pay. They’re too busy working and taking care of their families to camp out in feces-covered city parks.
(Well, besides the 10-20% of every generation that would rather leech off the system as long as there’s a system to leech off of…and they aren’t at Occupy, either–we won’t hear from them until someone threatens to cut into the meal tickets.)
Other than that, you’ve summed it up pretty well.
Yeah, these are the “Millennials” and I’m still waiting to see if they will ever contribute anything of lasting merit to American culture. The Gen-Xers gave us some kick-ass music in the ’90s. They also gave us the X-Games and some of the funnest new competitions in the winter Olympic games. The Millennials have given us, what? Lady Gaga (Madonna II)?
“The Gen-Xers gave us some kick-ass music in the ’90s.”
–
Really? Please name some of the songs or artists. I can’t think of anyone that has massively impressed me since the 80s.
As for Lady Gaga, gagging is the only reaction I can summon up to her hideous drivel.
I don’t think there has been any new Rock (worthy of the name) since the grunge period, so I’ll volunteer Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Foo Fighters, and Pearl Jam. Other, “alt” groups that I like from the ’90s include Blur, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Dandy Warhols (check ‘em out, it’ll take a listen or two). But anyways, what has the Millennial gen had to offer?
As far as I can tell from a memory and a brief Google, Occupy and Hoovervilles have nothing in common. Hoovervilles were more or less spontaneous gatherings of homeless people. According to Wikipedia, they tended to form in the vicinity of soup kitchens and other charity providers. Despite the name, they were not intended as a political statement although political organizing certainly went on in them and politicians used them existence in party propaganda. The name was coined by a Democrat.
Occupy – 100% political. As far as I know, none of the organizers or their followers are there because they lost their jobs and their homes. Their basic problem isn’t survival – it’s the failure of life to give them what they consider a fair return on their investment.
Hooverville Resident: “I lost my job and got kicked out of my house and I’ll freeze to death if I don’t live in a shack this park. Maybe someday times will get better and I won’t have to live here anymore.”
Occupier: “I was told that if I did X, the System would reward me with Y. Instead, I received Z. I will show the System how angry I am by living in a tent in this park. I’ll stay here until the System gives me what I was promised.”
Very good point and I do agree that the reason for camping is completely different.
Though since the creation of the “occu-camps” the homeless flocked to the camps for the free food and shelter. As have drug dealers and criminals evading police, according to reports from Oakland. I’m sorry I don’t have a cited source. This is based off of memory from a video filmed at the Oakland occupation.
Not surprising. The OWS people may be living on the street but they’re living in relative luxury compared to homeless people. If I were homeless, I want a piece of that action. The drug dealers? They just know the kind of people they’re dealing with in the OWS – immature, privileged, not street wise at all. Easy pickins…
Has anyone bothered to gather the zip codes where these Occupy Wall Street crowds come from? I’ll bet if you did you find some interesting results. It would not suprise me if they don’t come from the more affluent sections of the five boroughs, Bergen county NJ, Rockland County Ny and the upper middle class parts of Long Island.
Yuppie-puppie-squeeker-toys, to be sure. You can see them at any hour of the day at Starbucks (et al.) surfing radical-chic websites (no-fat cappuccino, dry but not too dry, with just a wisp of organic New Guinea nutmeg) and looking really … mod (remeber the Mods vs. the Rockers of The Who days? — yeah, these kids are mods — definitely.
They are indeed the epitome of Obama and his administration. Spoilt rotten, don’t give a damn about anything but themselves, loud, crass, boorish and totally unproductive all living on someone else’s dime. Never done an honest days work in their life, know nothing but what is due to them. They never owe but are always owed.
I really don’t care if they close down the Obamavilles across the country or not. To me, they’re a constant remind of Obama and his administration. Or, you could say, I agree with 14. Ciccio.
I agree. Let them fester and ooze out in the open. Let Americans see what the Left, under Obama, has in store for us.
Protestors are running out of inherited money and cannot survive on low yield investments. They blame Wall Street bankers for their problems. Only a government bailout can prevent them from becoming homeless.
I happen to know that one of the occupiers in Lower Manhattan is the son of a very famous, wealthy man whose fortune came through an IPO orchestrated by … Wall Street. He’s got unlimited parental support and probably will never have to take a job in his life. Nice “work,” if you can get it.
If World War I veterans knew they’d be compared to….. They’d be mad.
Ah – that was the Bonus March! Same era but a bit different from Hooverville. It was a distinct movement organized by WWI veterans. They had “service certificates” from the government which they could redeem for cash plus interest – but not until 1945. The BM-ers wanted an immediate (1932) cash payout to help them get through the Depression. Like the OWS, they built a shantytown and “occupied” DC.
Unlike the OWS, they had the Army set on them and were brutally expelled with numerous casualties, including two deaths. This probably contributed to Hoover’s loss to FDR in the next election – obviously something to keep in mind when we see various mayors’ hesitation to evict OWS.
I think the main difference is that the Bonus March was all vets AND their families who had materially suffered from the Depression. They were not protesting abstract things like “unequal income distribution” and “corporate greed.” And unlike the OWSers, the Bonus Army wanted ONE, concrete thing that the government could definitely provide: money. Eventually, they got some.
That’s not going to happen with OWS because they can’t put their demands in concrete terms. They want “the system” to change in a dozen different ways. Too abstract, too complicated, too hard to grasp. And that’s only the beginning of their problems.
Here’s another one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coxey%27s_Army
More proof that this is not the first nor the worst financial crisis the country has gone through. Also not the first accompanied by weird behavior and violence.
Interesting that Hoovervilles, the Bonus Army, and Coxey’s Army all seem to come from “working people.” The workers. Labor. The working class. Young and old. Some adult men with families to support. This doesn’t seem to apply to the OWS. What class do they represent?
Shooting Occupiers, Mute MSM
A number of reports have linked Oscar Ramiro Ortega Hernandez, the man arrested for firing two rifle shots at the White House last Friday, with the Occupy Wall Streeters, more specifically the Occupy D.C. branch of that anarchist movement.
Pictures of the scruffy, bearded Ortega Hernandez show him looking like a virtual poster boy for both the OWSers and Anarchy International.
No one was injured in the attack. Not unusually, the First Family was away on travel mode.
It didn’t take the FBI, the ATF, the U.S. Park Police, and the Secret Service long to zero in on the Occupiers at Washington’s McPherson Square in their search for suspects. Ortega Hernandez was captured without incident on Wednesday at a Hampton Inn in Indiana, Pennsylvania by Pennsylvania State Police.
The capture may have gone without incident but the McPherson Occupiers were positively aghast at the government intrusion on their encampment. As Ralph Wittenburg, a spokesman for the leaderless group, told TalkingPointsMemo,com, authorities came through “searching for a so-called terrorist who shot at the White House, with no warrant, they went into everybody’s tents.”
Gasp! How nosy of them going into tents sans warrant, which they didn’t need on public property, trying to find a “so-called terrorist,” who had merely launched a couple of rounds at America’s Executive Mansion!
Our current chief executive just happens to be a big supporter of New York’s Occupy Wall Street mob as well as their offshoots . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5987.)
OWS has been cleared in NYC and only a few diehards remain. They won’t last, winter in NYC is cold! But a note of caution: I believe that although things are going to settle down for the cold weather months (at least in the north) spring is going to see a resurgence of these “protests” in the spring. What then? Although many posters dismiss the protests of the ’60s, those protests had real and lasting (if sometimes undesirable) effects. Much of the so-called Great Society was born in response to those protests. Can we expect those outcomes this time around?
It can be legitimatly argued that FDR deserved to have those shantytowns named after him as the missery in them went on far longer than under Hoover. That said, they were both striking in the dark so to speak. They and Congress acted on the best advice available, neither succeeded. Hoover raised taxes and things got worse. FDR implemented expensive works programs and things got worse. Obama had not only the experiences of Hoover and FDR, and all the intervening presidents and congresses as a guide to what worked and what didn’t. What did Obama do! He picked the signature failures of both Hoover and FDR! I was born as the Great Depression ended I was told by older siblings about boys, they knew, leaving home so that their parents might be able to feed their younger siblings. There is nothing like that going on with OWS.