“They’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party.” — Barack Obama on Occupy.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, “Occupy Oakland protesters broke into City Hall, stole an American flag from the City Council chamber and set it on fire Saturday night, punctuating a wild day in which police deployed tear gas, arrested more than 400 marchers and dodged hurling objects. Demonstrators spent the day trying to break into a convention center and temporarily occupying City Hall and a YMCA.”
According to Occupy, it it’s the fault of the police. “In a news release Sunday, the Occupy Oakland Media Committee criticized the police conduct, saying that most of the arrests were made illegally because police failed to allow protesters to disperse.”
The New York Times reports “the clashes began just before 3 p.m. when protesters marched toward the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center and began to tear down construction barricades.”
Several hours later, some of the protesters broke into City Hall, the police said. On Sunday, Jean Quan, the mayor of Oakland toured City Hall to survey the damage to the building. Glass display cases had been smashed and graffitti was splashed on the walls, The Associated Press reported . At one point during the protest, The A.P. quoted Mayor Quan as saying that demonstrators who broke into the hall burned flags, broke an electrical box and damaged art displays, including an exhibit of recycled art that had been made by children.
Nothing will come of it. Just as when ‘students’ smashed and burned the Conservative Party headquarters in Britain, or trashed Trafalgar Square; or just as when objects are thrown at John Howard or glitters pitched at Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich the conclusion will be the same. It was nothing but the natural reaction of those who are angry at the heartless politics of greed. As the man who threw glitter on Santorum said, “feel the Rainbow. Stop the Hate.”
The narrative is it’s always the other guy’s fault. The message is: ‘What else could I do but put the glitter in my hand, throw the pie at Rupert Murdoch, pitch the shoe at John Howard, burn the flag at Oakland, trash the kid’s exhibits, shit on the police car. It’s not my fault.’
It’s a rehash of ‘Bush made me do it’. But maybe the real term to describe what Occupy and their clone brands are out to achieve is much simpler: intimidation. They are scaring people and politicians into realizing that this too could happen to you if you know what I mean. Nice campaign you’ve got there, Mr. Candidate, it would be a shame if something happened to it. Nice private life you have there, Mr. Pillar of the Community. But we know what you did last summer.
Warren Buffet caught the tone exactly when he described a Presidential meeting with some businessmen. “I think the president felt, ‘My God, look at all the things we did for business, and they’re unappreciative, and I’m all that stands between them and the pitchforks’.” But to make that work you need pitchforks. So you produce them.
But it’s not really the kids, jobless people and aborigines on welfare. They are just the buck privates in the reserve street army of the Left; the real masterminds are elsewhere. In many respects these just are the modern day Brownshirts.
The Brownshirts were political auxiliaries of the the Nazi Party. They were recruited from the ranks of the no-hopers to do things like defend the beer halls where the Nazis met and break up meetings in other beer halls where other militant political parties, like the Communists, met. Of course they weren’t called Brownshirts at first. They had nicer names.
There was little organization or structure to this group, however. The group was also called the Ordnertruppen around this time. More than a year later, on 3 August 1921, Hitler redefined the group as the “Gymnastic and Sports Division” of the party (Turn-und Sportabteilung), perhaps to avoid trouble with the government. It was by now well recognized as an appropriate, even necessary, function or organ of the party. The future SA developed by organizing and formalizing the groups of ex-soldiers and beer hall brawlers who were to protect gatherings of the Nazi Party from disruptions from Social Democrats and Communists.
What many have now forgotten was that the Brownshirts were also a global phenomenon. There were the Blackshirts in Britain, the Blueshirts in Canada and in Ireland and even the Silver Shirts in America. Like the man said, “Feel the Rainbow.”
There are two obvious ways to deal with such groups. The first is to organize a paramilitary structure of one’s own and the other is to rely upon the regular police forces of government to maintain peace and order. The preferred option is to rely on the police, otherwise civil order is compromised. But where the administration in power tacitly employ these paramilitaries to carry out their dirty work, in certain corrupt cities for instance, then the police protection option often fails. Sometimes things just get out of hand, surprising even their sympathizers.
The dangers inherent in this were highlighted when it emerged that aides of Australian Prime Minister Gillard were largely responsible to for raising an aboriginal mob to protest allegedly racist comments which they themselves had concocted and siccing them on Opposition Tony Abbott. Unfortunately, the mob wound up threatening everyone at the venue, leading to evacuation of Prime Minister Gillard.
Malicious untruths were told, gullible people ready to believe the worst of a conservative leader were incited to violence.
And, let there be no mistake, the protest was violent, despite post-facto declarations to the contrary.
The 100 people trapped at an awards ceremony with Gillard and Abbott inside the Lobby, a 1968 building wrapped on three sides by floor-to-ceiling glass, felt rattled as protesters outside screamed obscenities and banged on windows.
But it would have worked out OK if only Tony Abbott was discomfited.
Eventually these street mobs, as in Oakland, become an inconvenience to their puppeteers. The rent-a-mobs begin to assume airs and believe that they themselves, not their hidden masters, are the real powers behind events. What eventually happens to them was demonstrated by the fate of Brownshirts during the Night of the Long Knives. Accustomed, no doubt into believing “police brutality” consisted of the their own overblown engagements with regular street cops, they met the real thing one night at the hands of executioners dispatched by the Nazi Party. Then they learned what real police brutality was.
The same fate met the Red Guards. “By February 1967 political opinion at the center had decided on the removal of the Red Guards from the Cultural Revolution scene in the interest of stability”.
The PLA violently put down the national Red Guard movement in the year that followed, with the suppression often brutal. A radical alliance of Red Guard groups in Hunan province called the Sheng Wu Lien was involved in clashes with local PLA units, for example, and in the first half of 1968 was forcibly suppressed. At the same time the PLA carried out mass executions of Red Guards in Guangxi province that were unprecedented in the Cultural Revolution.
The Occupy members are probably approaching the stage where they’ve become more of a liability rather than an asset to “them”. A photo gallery at the Washington Post provides a visual update of all their ‘peaceful protests’. Have they finally worn out their mandate from “them”? Or are they just warming up for 2012? For those who don’t believe in “them” here are the words of Aboriginal Leader Michael Anderson.
Embassy co-founder Michael Anderson now complains: “Someone set us up. They set the Prime Minister up. They set Abbott up.” Indeed. But Gillard insists: “Mr Hodges [her press aide] in taking these actions acted alone.”
Sure he acted alone. And if and when the media discovers a mastermind behind it all the conclusion will be unsurprising. Bush did it. Feel the Rainbow. Stop the Hate.
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This is a rhetorical question, but I’m sure you all will give an answer anyway.
What do you suppose will happen when an occupy group eventaully comes face to face with the tea party? Both in the short and long run.
KRB
No – hate is a feature – not a bug:
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/01/28/occupy-oakland-now-is-the-time-to-spread-hate/
1. Kae Arby
1)OWS will attack the Tea Party.
2)The Tea Part will sustain losses and retreat.
3)The violence will be blamed on the Tea Party.
4)Someone will do massive violence to OWS.
5) See #3 above.
a better question is: has there ever been an instance when one political side has this kind of militia (and the other side didn’t) and didn’t end up with total political power?
because it doesn’t look like the police or military will ever be anything but lapdogs to whomever is in power.
#1 Kae:
It will depend on the context. If the Occupiers come to a Tea Party event trying to look intimidating (which I think is far more likely than the reverse) then the Tea Partiers will try their best to make sure that their wives, girlfriends and medically infirm members will be safely out of the way then they’re going to be ready to face off, if the Police allow it to happen. If that happens, it’s going to get really nasty, really quick.
Do not forget the Sparticist Rebelliom in postwar Berlin. They were Marxists and Anarchists, much like the Occupy Creeps and they began violent. Then they ended violent. Ask Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg how that worked.
Wretchard: …a visual update of all their ‘peaceful protests’.
Regarding the pictures, all I can say is wow. Are there this many “useful idiots” in America?
Great question and good answers. The real issue is who controls the message. The mainstream media will never let the Tea Party win that fight. So the TP must not accept battle on the enemy’s ground. If OWS crashes the hall, the videos of their vandalism should be posted in real-time. And TP would melt away, re-form, hold their rallies where OWS thugs are not. And then without any warning or fingerprints the OWS membership finds itself with missing data, broken legs, lost property, damaged financial scores, allegations of criminal conduct requiring expensive lawyers, etc. Curious, how that might happen.
What is the difference between the SA, the Red Guards and Obama’s armed civilian corps he promised? Only the manner of their deaths.
Yes it would seem
That guys like Roehm
Just never see it coming
And the Red Guards
Thought they were pards
With Mao to keep things humming
And so with those
Obama chose
To occupy the masses
With burning flags
And hurling bags
Of crap on upper classes
Oh yes the time
Will come when I’m
Afraid their days are over
As Obie Wan
Disbands the con
And sends them all to clover
Wow, that story of what happened to The Red Guard™ ‘ll send shivers up yer spine. I wonder if the chinese have a word for irony, and was the red guard was able to mutter to themselves how ironic this all was before they were executed.
In appreciation for all they had done
for the regime.
“someone set us up the bus”. Said one…
“All your bus are belong to us. Get it?”.
…was the only reply.
Well, sure, but I hope anyone who wants pictures sees Zombie’s posts right here on PJM:
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/11/16/occupy-cal-time-travels-back-to-the-60s/
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/11/10/elite-berkeley-students-upset-theyre-in-the-1-throw-occupy-tantrum/
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/11/09/fresh-anti-semitic-videos-coming-out-of-occupy-wall-street/
Now, on the one hand, I might be a small bit charitable to the OWS’rs and say that there might be a core of half-way serious protesters in there somewhere (unlikely as that may be). Let me at least say, I *wish* there were, because such might have something in common with the Tea Party after all. If only there are a couple of leaders on either side, perhaps some kind of coexistence, at least, could be arranged.
OTOH, the reality is much more that the OWS group is 90% deranged people looking for any excuse to act out, and while there might be some of those hanging around Tea Party events, the core of the Tea Party *is* serious and thoughtful (which is not the same as effective, mind you), and of course, the departure point for this discussion, outrageous events are NOT associated with Tea Party gatherings, unless you count fabricated and rabid leftist press coverage as outrageous events.
So, (when) will OWS go violent and be banned? I dunno. Perhaps never. They are sort of the Renaissance Faire of our time, were the yutes can dress up, and the old people bring their costumes out of the closet, to go spend a nostalgic afternoon. Here in California, it’s just about as likely it will become an official school holiday, perhaps once a month, with every child expected to go and march in the Children’s Brigade, and only the kids of right-wing extremists excused to sit and read books or practice their handwriting or something archaic like that, probably while wearing t-shirts with big red R’s on them, and Ronald Reagan masks.
L @ 12: The battle space is already being shaped by psyops
Yeah but that goes back to the “teabagger” business and the fabricated story of Congressman Cleaver being spit on by Tea Party protesters, which has been disputed heavily by Andrew Brietbart and Powerline, events of March 2010. Compare the story to reams of pictures of OWS stuff now. Not too worried.
The battle space is already being shaped by psyops:
http://practicaldemocrat.blogspot.com/2010/03/tea-party-taking-on-role-of-brown.html
Kae Arby,
It’s already happened in Madison, although the Occupiers weren’t calling themselves Occupiers yet.
Still, they were using the same tactics — trying to claim they spoke for the vast majority and trying to occupy a public space. The Tea Party folks held a rally at the Capitol, with Sarah Palin as the featured speaker.
The protestors surrounded that group and made as much noise as possible to drown out the tea Party rally, but they didn’t have the numbers — and bear in mind the Madison protests were much larger than any of the Occupy protests — to do much more than that.
I think Occupy will stick to hit-and-run tactics against small gatherings/groups rather than direct confrontation with equal or greater numbers. In spite of their bravado and boasting, I don’t think they really have the stomach for a brawl that they might lose.
According to this link youth gangs and politics have an ongoing relationship.
“Immigrants from Ireland, Poland, Italy and other countries in 1800s came to U.S. cities and sparked periods of intense ethnic and class conflict. The building of urban machines relied on ethnic politics and clashes of immigrant groups were the norm in Boston, New York, and many cities.
In New York City, the dominant yankees were challenged by the Irish who mobilized “voting gangs” to intimidate rivals. Corner kids, who gathered in loosely organized groups, were recruited by politicians to bully Tammany Hall’s electoral opponents. These second generation children were attracted to gangs both as an act of rebellion against their traditional parents, but also in ethnic solidarity.
Racism against African Americans and Mexicans has also been an undercurrent in U.S. white ethnic gang life. In New York City, Irish gangs led the assaults on African Americans during the Civil War “Draft Riots” and Klan activity helped keep Los Angeles Mexicans politically quiet in the early 20 century as well as terrorize southern Blacks. The nadir of racist gang activity was to occur in Chicago in the period after World War I.
Youth gang politics in Chicago, as in New York City and elsewhere, mainly consisted of gang members acting like thugs on election day for the Democratic Party. But unlike other cities, ethnic gangs in Chicago were also part of an on-going violent enforcement of a segregated, racial order. Chicago’s white “social athletic clubs,” or gangs tied to the Democratic Party, were responsible for the intensity and duration of the 1919 race riot that killed 38.”
If this link is correct then it appears that OWS is simply carrying on the tradition. I disagree with the conclusion at the end of the essay that I linked to – basically that the gangs are there because no-one is looking after their interests and if only some political party did that, there would not be OWS type violence. I agree with wretchard that the gangs seem to be there because some political party thinks physical intimidation of the opposition is a good strategy.
I’d like to know how or if these gangs were countered, nullified or overcome in the past. I think that shining a giant spotlight on the barbarity of OWS is the best strategy.
As for the hypothetical confrontation between OWS and the tea party – who knows what the outcome would be? It depends on the physical structure of the location (boxed in by narrow city streets or out in an open city park); the specific individuals in each crowd; behind the scenes scripts for political theatre; whether the tea party folks believe they have to physically defend themselves and the random things that happen when a crowd turns into a mob. The confrontation could be anywhere from a shouting match to a full blooded hand to hand battle. If people get their blood up, these confrontations can easily turn into beserkers.
1) OWS is at the Ordnertruppen stage. We have most of the cycle to go; including Saalschlacht and Zusammenstöße. Not to mention whatever the equivalent of Kristalnacht is going to be.
2) They are functionally immune from legal processes, being sponsored by the regime and protected by the Department of Justice and the MSM.
3) Mention was made of the Spartacist Uprising. There was an answer to it. It was called Freikorps q.v.
4) Eventually, if the regime itself is lawless, it will provoke a response outside the law. The times will be interesting.
After Romney is nominated [and you have no idea what kind of nasty taste saying that leaves in my mouth]; any attempt at political action more conservative than Trotsky will face street violence. The soganannte “opposition” will be clueless and harmless in the face of the violence.
It will be after this stage, and the establishment of some form of elite guard for the Left that they will have their inevitable betrayal a’la Night of the Long Knives.
Subotai Bahadur
How many universities burned [beyond sports wins or loses] after Kent State? We also have a long American tradition about the using the militia be it the National Guard [organized] or the militia [unorganized]. Of course, they’ll then play the victim card. I suspect many such cards are long over drawn.
“Look what you made me do.” Right out of the wife-beater’s script. And our leaders encourage that excuse.
To Roughcoat, Stoch, et al:
I groaned when I read Confederate H’s listing of the alleged members of the kosher cabal. Another Ron Paul fan Roger Simon can point to and say, “See! That’s the company Dr. Paul keeps,” and nevermind that this is about as idiotic as pointing to Wretchard and saying he keeps company with Whiskey simply because it took W a couple of years before dropping the ban hammer. Whereas Preston and Simon have basically banned most Ron Paul sympathizers from their threads while pointing to how many commenters support i.e. resort to the kind of ‘see? everyone agrees with me!’ fun with Facebook tricks a high schooler might do. Roger and Preston might as well start posting sock puppets under their own names telling themselves how awesome they are.
At the end of the day, as Ben Stein says, if Jews punch well above their share of the population in Hollywood, in politics, or finance — so what ? They seemingly punch well below their weight in the NBA and NFL.
There were lots of Jews, as anti-Semites love to point out, among the overrepresented minority nationalities of the Russian Empire that became the Old Bolsheviks. But as Wretchard points out, nearly all of them were dead or exiled to Siberia within twenty years of 1917 and the most famous Jewish Old Bolshevik Trotsky had his head split open with an axe on Stalin’s orders. And Stalin was planning the ‘doctor’s plot’ mini-Holocaust shortly before he died, and right after he died Berea, his old Georgian partner in crime, was basically killed with extreme prejudice by the people he’d brutally repressed for so long. Some of the most brutal repressors the Bolsheviks employed in the immediate Red Terror happened to have been Latvians, and many Latvians also volunteered as auxiliaries for the SS. But outside of Russian media, this is never discussed, much less in any of the Baltic states to this day.
Hence, the old Jewish joke about the Jew who picks up the anti-Semitic newspaper and tells his friend ‘It cheers me up to read here that we run the world and own everything’ still stands.
And hence, people like Confederate H end up hurting their cause, and hurt the cause Ron Paul is supporting. Because there’s no question there is a ‘conspiracy’ out in the open. It’s not called the Illuminati or the Bildebergers, it’s simply referred to as ‘Too Big to Fail’. And this cabal includes a-hole banksters of both Jewish and Gentile origin, all telling the world that without them and unlimited fiat money printing guaranteeing their profits and bonuses we will all starve to death and the survivors will live in caves. THAT is the con out in the open, that transcends both parties, and is slowly killing off the Almighty Status Quo little minions like Rich Lowry and Jay Nordlinger try to defend, whether by sliming Ron Paul or now turning their venom on Newt.
And with respect to something someone posted quoting National Review’s Jay Nordlinger making excuses for the Embargo against Cuba, where he said it’s impossible for Americans to do business that benefits regular Cubans instead of the Castros, it doesn’t seem too hard for Spaniards, Canadians, and Germans to open businesses and own property in Cuba that provides jobs for impoverished people there.
So once again, the Status Quo has to get quite dishonest and desperate to defend its positions, which makes me think they doth protest too much, and The Man fears cheap Cuban (EU approved) pharmaceuticals and clinics competing with the sick care cartel in Florida and across the South, being only 90 miles away.
Or do you guys think it’s a coincidence that Newt gets savaged not merely before various primaries, but after making transparent bids for some of Paul’s supporters by hinting he’d look at a gold standard? Gold might as well be garlic to bankster vampires.
Reading MSM coverage of OWS, especially with comparisons to the Tea Party, is extremely discouraging. It’s at times like these I wonder if America will ever again be a rational place. Oh I know, the political pendulum will swing back one day, but it has already swung so far to the left that finding a central point at some future time will barely get it back to yesterday’s extreme left. OWS will likely never become mainstream, but society keeps getting pushed leftward and yesterday’s extreme is tomorrow’s norm. I guess every grandfather feels that way, huh?
Subotai Bahadur – Yes, I agree. When it comes so many are going to be surprised.
Viktor (n V) 18,
I asked and you delivered, thank you.
Two postulates:
1. There are three nations, with stratifications and fringes, in America and most other places. Call them a) OWS b) Tea Party and c) the Middle.
2. By definition actions (work) consume potential opportunities (energy) and produce consequences.
The depredations of OWS must result in some consequences. Will they impact more on the OWS nation or the Tea Party nation? Whoever the Middle runs away from will lose. The Tea party must focus on communicating the difference between the two movements to the Middle. For the long term the supply of money (energy) available to the OWS nation must be reduced.
Obama intends to win this election using all the tools at his command including intimidation, smears, vote fraud, recounts and whatever other tricks he has in his bag.
If we let this happen, we’ll have a president for life on our hands.
Even if the Republican nominee wins by an avalanche, I expect him to try and remain on the throne.If we don’t make him live by our rules, we’ll have to live by his.
Prepare for the ride.
It bugs me that Bozama and the media try to tarnish the Tea Party (totally peaceful) with the Occupy movement.
I’ve observed on another forum that the insignia of the Sturmabteilung bears an uncanny resemblance to the anarchist symbol. I was really taken aback the first time I saw it. (See the Brownshirts link in wretchard’s post.)
re: “What do you suppose will happen when an occupy group eventaully comes face to face with the tea party? Both in the short and long run.”
- Kae Arby
Looks like KRB’s question hijacked Wretchard’s thread, but I’ll bite to this question and several other hypothetical.
OWS versus Tea Party.
The TP remains non-violent in face of the attack, and even sustains injuries or deaths in the wake of an attack. What happens next depends on what Federal law enforcement does.
1) If Justice and the FBI moves quickly to prosecute the offenders, then there’ll be calls for “all parties” to “lower the rhetoric” (e.g. Gabby Gifford shooting). No matter how flagrant the offense of the left, the most the MSM and Democrats will muster in objection is “well, they all do it and it’s just a shame – both sides need to lower the temperature …”, ignoring the actual prognosticators. But at least, if Justice moves in objectively, things will work out.
2) If Justice and the FBI tries to pull a Jose Guerena style cover up, then the TP will STILL be non-violent and do nothing other than protest. However, other less benevolent groups will form and begin act, having read the “handwriting on the wall” (i.e. lawless Federal government). I’m not talking about “skin heads”, “Neo Nazi’s”, and the normal ilk. I’m talking about serious people with military experience who took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and they will do so. This action will be unavoidably violent, and it’ll be directed not at OWS protestors, but to key people on the left who are directing OWS activities.
Justice will move to counter the threat. It could get real ugly, real fast. Think “Harpers Ferry” in an internet age, with a “rebel” threat in about 46 of the 50 U.S. states.
“When” Mitt Romney win’s the nomination
Sorry, but this will DEFINITELY take this off-topic.
Simple. If the GOP establishment, which represents at best 25% of the party, rolls over the 75% grass roots of the party to elect a liberal, just 12 months after the Tea Party arguably returned the GOP establishment to power, it will destroy the Republican Party. There will be one or more serious 3rd party threats, because conservatives will have nothing left to lose. Obama wins reelection with a minority of the national vote. A new party replaces the GOP in the next election cycle, and that party will have nothing to do with Ron Paul.
Ron Paul may end up being Obama’s most serious electoral threat in 2012, which will be very sad.
To the Mitt-bots out there, let me spell it out for you quick-an-clear. Mitt Romney will never be the U.S. President. He can ruin the GOP and throw the election to Obama, directly or indirectly. With the absolute SH*T he’s responsible this election against GOP conservatives, plus his liberal policy history, THIS lifelong Reagan-Republican-activist pulls the lever for Obama before considering a vote for Mitt. My vote will not be wasted by sitting home. My vote WILL help stop Romney in the General Election. There are enough conservatives that remember how the GOP establishment treated Reagan through three National elections, how H.W.Bush threw away the Reagan legacy, how Dole secured Clinton’s re-election, how McCain’s own staff savaged Sarah Palin behind the scenes and gave us Barack Obama, and that Romney was one of the most liberal Governors in U.S. history, of any state in the Union.
I’m not thrilled with Santorum or Gingrich, and Ron Paul is a non-starter, but Romney? Hell no! Never.
In my life, I’ve voted for Ford, H.W. Bush first and then Reagan when he won the primary in 1980, for H.W. Bush again in 1989 and 1992, for Dole in 1996, for G.W.Bush in 2000 and 2004 (though I think I went for Forbes in the 2000 primary), and McCain in 2008 only because Palin made the ticket palatable. I AM the GOP “rank and file”. I even voted for Schwarzenegger for CA governor knowing the kind of compromise that represented.
But at this point, I wouldn’t even vote for a Palin/Romney or any GOP ticket including Romney as VP. In Romney I see every Machiavellian evil personified that I’ve seen for over 40 years in both the Democrats and GOP RINOs. I despise him personally for his campaign against conservatives this election cycle.
O.S.
“According to Occupy, it it’s the fault of the police. “In a news release Sunday, the Occupy Oakland Media Committee criticized the police conduct, saying that most of the arrests were made illegally because police failed to allow protesters to disperse.””
What the hell does this mean??
The protestors did something blatantly illegal.
The police tried to arrest them.
The protestors tried to run away.
The police stopped them from running away.
Thus, the police FAILED to allow “protestors to disperse”.
WOW!
Hangtown Bob 27,
You don’t know about the “One free punch” rule? OWS has the ethics of 3rd graders making it up as they play.
I predict that OWS will become _more_ violent as we move toward elections. They “come from” the administration and its multiple headed community org/union beast.
I think the question is not will TP push back, when the two meet (again), but whether _anyone_ will oppose OWS growing street violence; this is only just begun. When asked this way, it seems to shift to: _who_ should oppose it? or shouldn’t someone oppose it? The ongoing, growing, subtly supported OWS violence will become a heavy burden for law enforcement, the lying MSM will add to the weight. There is a general theme to all of it; a dawning, in so many locations, at so many levels of human activity. It is lawlessness; wherein that which previously oversaw, is becoming disregarded and subverted.
I agree this has already happened, at least twice: Madison and at the DC conservative convention.
The OWS movement is doomed because while they presently are protected, the state and local politicians will not tolerate the disruption of their constituants businesses indefinately. The absolute worst thing from their point of view would be a leaked White House or Justice Department e-mail trying to force the local authorties to remain passive in the face of the disruptions. Under normal circumstances there is no chance of this happening but this administration is so stupid that anything is possible. More and more the local authorities will crack down on the OWS encampments because of the damage that they are doing to the local economy and the threat to public health and sanitation. As far as the MSM is concerned, less than on half of the American people use it as the main news source and while they may spin the news there are too many alternate sources to permit them to be as loose with the truth as they have been in the past. I think that the Tea Party will have more and more of its meetings in areas that are not controled by extremely progressive governments and where the local police will be much less sympathic to the OWS types. I also would think that if the justice department tries to prevent the local police from doing their job it will get out. More and more local government are being controled by nonprogressives. The Tea Parties don’t got to the OWS areas and the OWS will be in for a nasty shock if the invade the more conservative areas. I think that even the progressive local politicians will soon be disinclined to put up with the people in the OWS movement, especially when there is a local backlash.
I am afraid that the OWS is the recruiting scheme for a violent effort to “protest the racism in Amerikkka” that will result in Obama’s defeat in November. If widespread enough it could be the excuse for a declaration of some sort suspending civil liberties.
Im just sayin….
Re: 1. Kae Arby: “This is a rhetorical question, but I’m sure you all will give an answer anyway.
What do you suppose will happen when an occupy group eventaully comes face to face with the tea party? Both in the short and long run.”
Perhaps a good tactic when a large tea party crowd meets a much smaller OWS group is for the tea party to simply engulf the OWSers and move them to the center of the tea party – compressing them closer and closer together. Think Cannae. There is both safety and profound intimidation in numbers. Violence is not needed.
More likely to be a fight between the Tea Parties and the Republican establishment than OWS and Tea Parties. We are just beginning to learn the level of hatred and fear of the establishment for us. It may take a few years but the establishment will learn that they’ve kicked over a bucket of hornets.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72144.html
Excellent post at #18, Viktor, one of your best. There really is no defense for the Cuban embargo anymore, but I disagree that there is “someone” out there who is scared of what would happen. I believe the situation is much more simple, and much more stupid. The problem comes from 2 converging factors – Cuban-Americans are a large voting bloc in Florida who oppose normalizing relations, and since 2000 Florida has become the biggest “swing state” in the nation. All the other big states vote predictably “R” or “D” but Florida can switch. So, every candidate is terrified of doing the thing that would lose them Florida and thus the next election, and so politicians cater to the perceived whims of this very small population segment and are terrified of making any changes to the status quo. They believe that anyone who makes a change will be punished for it, but as long as nothing changes, everyone is equal. So no one does anything. The motivating factor isn’t greed, it’s simple cowardice.
The only way to normalize relations is to do it a few months after a Presidential election, when there will be 4 years to calm everyone down about it. But really, we’re just waiting for the Castro brothers to die so that we can pretend there will be new “reforming” leadership. There won’t be anything new about it,of course, but we’ll pretend there will be so we can pretend to feel good about it. But the Castro’s have to die first, and they keep hanging on and hanging on, so this current idiotic status quo hangs on as long as they do.
Btw, I’m kinda glad that the Cubans are letting Chinese drilling rigs drill offshore now. It’s going to force Florida (and the US) to confront how idiotically self-destructive the total drilling ban off of Florida is. Of course it should be our oil! But if we throw our chances to get it on the trash heap, we can’t blame the Chinese for recognizing our stupidity and capitalizing on it. They’re good at that.
As far as Newt and the gold standard – come on, that brings up every despicable attribute of Newt. Do you *Really* believe that he meant that for even one second? That was just another last minute pander (he’s good at that) when he’s desperate for votes – he will forget about it tomorrow as though it had never happened, and will blame you for having believed him. That’s the kind of man Newt is. He will say it was a “mistake” or however he explains the love seat interview with Nancy Pelosi these days.
And for Old Salt – I’m no Romney apologist, I see many things wrong with him. But I hate Newt Gingrich almost as much as you hate Romney, to the point that I would consider staying home if Newt was on the ballot. Nothing he says could ever change that, because I don’t believe anything he says and never will. I could rewrite your entire post and simply put “Newt” in where you wrote “Romney” and it would mostly hold true. He’s the only man running who I believe is a more despicable, detestable human being than even Obama is. I hate him. Santorum I see a lot of good in, I wish he was doing better. I have huge disagreements with Ron Paul (but also huge agreements) but I think he’s a decent man, and the same goes for Romney. Newt Gingrich I despise.
And the negative ads? How could anyone ignore the fact that NEWT STARTED ALL OF THIS!!! In South Carolina with the attack ad on Bain Capital and all the other populist-marxist attacks Newt was launching – he never learns! You don’t start a scorched-earth war when you can’t stand up against what will be aimed at you! But Newt never thinks more than 15 seconds ahead of what his ego wants Right Now. And so now he cries crocodile tears about “oh they’re so mean to me” after he has done everything he is complaining about and more.
I could live with Santorum and Paul, and even though I don’t agree with Romney’s positions on things, I don’t hate him as a human being.
Did I mention that I hate Newt Gingrich? I am a conservative Reagan Republican, always have been, I support the Tea Party movment – and I hate Newt Gingrich. And I suspect that quite a few voters feel the same way – certainly enough to destroy him if he makes it to the general election. It has nothing to do with what he says, and EVERYTHING to do with the kind of man he is.
We’re going to find out what kind of staying power Newt has today, won’t we?