We mock the Occupy movement relentlessly because it’s simply impossible to take them seriously. Practically every day in every “occupied” city the protesters either cause problems or make fools of themselves — or both.
Take for example this completely ridiculous incident in Los Angeles captured on video by Ringo recently. An OccupyLA leader rounds up a contingent of 40 volunteers — described by Ringo as “a handful of anarchist types with bandanas around their faces, a few angry young Latino-Communists, a couple of hippies, four or five shady looking guys with shaved heads, punk rock girls with blue hair, some normal looking teenage girls, and a man with a giant psychedelic paper-mache chicken head” — to march through the streets of LA for the specific purpose of blocking traffic.
Ringo followed along, camera in hand, and recorded the action as the protesters for no visible reason other than to piss people off ran into intersections and screamed abuse at random commuters.
For a taste of what this chaotic and supremely pointless “protest” was like, watch this video Ringo took at one of the intersections as the man in the chicken head and his fellow infantile “occupiers” induce traffic havoc on the streets of Los Angeles:
Ringo’s titles for the video sums it all up: “Behaving like idiot children, Occupiers block another intersection.”
But this is just a small sampling of the OccupyLA’s mystifying behavior that day; what they hoped to achieve is anybody’s guess. Ringo’s full report tells the whole story, with lots of photos and several more videos that look like instructional films from an elementary school’s Traffic Safety class warning kids to DON’T DO THIS:
The Occupation of Los Angeles – Traffic Jams for the Revolution!
Our motley crew of traffic-dodgers. Psychedelic chicken man is in the back.
The best part of the video is the part showing the cops sitting off to the side with their thumbs up their asses.
To me, the most amazing thing about the video was the half-dozen bicycle-riding police officers at one corner of the intersection. Don’t they have some responsibility to….I dunno….police the streets?
As Ringo explains in his post, it appears that Mayor Villaraigosa has ordered the cops to stand down and not interfere with the protesters. For two reasons: a. He’s on the Occupiers’ side, and b. He doesn’t want to start a riot like what happened in Oakland.
L.A. cops can be badasses when they want to be, make no mistake.
Those cops should all be fired! It makes my blood boil – they are enabling anarchy. They should consider what they are saying to the people who are in their cars. I’m surprised that people didn’t get out of their vehicles and do citizens arrests. Pisses me off.
Just back from Downtown LA.
Today the LAPD arrested dozens of Occupiers with an overwhelming show of force, both this morning and again this afternoon. And they did an excellent job avoiding violence – I was impressed.
I have to disagree somewhat.
The protestors are becoming more focussed on anarchy.
Villaraigosa is a fool. He tells the police to let protestors block streets because he’s afraid of a riot? What does he think will happen when one of these idiots gets hit by a car (or even just barely brushed by a bumper)? Riots, looting, violence, that’s what, because that’s what they’re aiming for.
Any businesses located in LA County, expecting to be protected by local law enforcement from harassment by the hooligans, should start making plans to relocate. Ditto anyone else who has a job in the vicinity. The Police, apparently, are not looking out for your interests and see you as worthy of scorn.
Every LA mayor has two words ringing in his ears night and day:
Rodney King
They’re all deathly afraid of being the one on watch when the next video goes viral showing the police beating someone, leading to mass riots, chaos in the streets, murders and economic ruin.
So Viilaraigosa, like the rest of them but even moreso, commands the police to stand down when confronting anyone with a political grievance and a video camera.
The fact that this jibes with his leftist beliefs is a two-fer.
Don’t blame the cops. They are obviously under orders. To disobey would be to get fired.
Blame the politicians.
“Rodney King”
Zombie nails it! Wonder what Dunphy’s doing right now…
The effect is the same whether the initiative comes from the LAPD or Hizzoner, The Mayor. Basically the hooligans get preferred treatment, not the productive citizenry. Hence, the latter would be better served in a municipal environment that actually, you know, enforces the laws equally. Clearly LA has failed on all counts in that regard.
OK, CNN just explained it to me: OWS is all about unequal distribution of income.
To which one must ask, “Who said income was supposed to be distributed equally?”
I assume they really mean the “Growing Gap Between Rich And Poor(tm).” Why it matters, I do not know.
No, they really mean unequal distribution of incomes. That’s a much more strongly Marxist expression of the same nonsense as “gap between rich and poor”.
“Who said income was supposed to be distributed equally?”
The same Who that upholds the sacred immutability of the “Social Contract”. Where it is written, who wrote it and what is in it nobody can say.
To which one must ask, “Who said income was supposed to be distributed equally?”
Those who don’t want to work for their income, that’s who.
Ah, time to unveil the “Automobile Cow-Catcher”!
You only need to slow to 35 mph or so, tosses ‘em right back onto the sidewalk!
Ok, so sometimes it’s the wall of a building THEN sidewalk, but all great inventions have their teething pains…
I know what would get those cops into action real quick: defending yourself.
I don’t get why the OWS needs to annoy commuters. Don’t they want working stiffs to join their cause (whatever it is)? You don’t win people over over by annoying and irritating them.
If anything it only turns more people against them.