Occupy protesters these days are fond of chanting “This is what democracy looks like!” — a slogan they borrowed from other far-left protests in recent decades.
But at Occupy Los Angeles, fellow photojournalist Ringo captured what democracy really looks like in the OWS milieu. Yeah, Occupations have their “General Assemblies” and their up-twinkles and so forth, but that only works when everyone is already in essential agreement after the real dissenters have already been expelled, leaving the “democratic assembly” to at most bicker over minor details.
But what happens when there is deep fundamental disagreement on some point — in this case the key point of who is allowed permission to speak in the first place? Do the Occupiers have their own version of the First Amendment, or perhaps something even better?
In a word: No.
The deeply disturbing underbelly of Occupy groupthink was captured by Ringo a couple weeks ago at the Occupy LA encampment when two disgruntled protesters wanted to have their say on the camp’s “open mike” stage which is supposedly free for anyone to use. According to the Occupy philosophy, this system is even better than the First Amendment, because with an open mike, every single person has an equal voice (not just those who control the broadcast media).
Except what happens when one of your own starts saying things that the other Occupiers don’t want to hear?
Below you will find a series of videos taken from Ringo’s report Infighting, Pot Smoke & Chemtrails – One Hundred Minutes at Occupy L.A. (In this post we’ll be focusing on the “infighting” part; read Ringo’s full report for more on the Chemtrails lunacy and open drug use.)
Captions (in quotation marks) are by Ringo, with a few clarifications by me:
“No sooner did I turn away from this scene before I heard another argument breaking out – this one was on the stage, and much of it was being amplified across the park.
“Seems a man who wanted to make a short speech walked up on the empty stage with his own portable P.A. system, but as soon as he began to speak he was quickly surrounded by fellow occupiers who were intent on preventing him. They repeatedly unplugged his microphone. In the picture below you can see the man who wanted to speak in the brown sweater being faced off by a very angry Aztlan-warrior-hippie in a yellow shirt.
“Here is video of how it looked as I approached”:
This is the essence of what the future would look like in an Occupied nation, boiled down into a two-minute video: When there are no laws and/or no one to enforce those laws, then the bullies will control society.
“A guy in a striped tank-top and flat cap came over to cool things down. He kept saying, ‘Listen to me, I’m from San Francisco, I know how this works, I’m from San Francisco, listen to me.’ …Nobody seemed to care that he was from San Francisco. The shouting and shoving continued.
“Evidently a moment of silence had been scheduled for noon – just about the exact moment the ruckus began. The ‘moment of silence’ was to be followed by a one hour yoga session on the main stage, accompanied by Indian chanting – the purpose of which was to exorcise the bad energy and heal the rifts between the various factions. As the yogis took the stage, the imbroglio continued. As you can hear in the next video, the man who was being prevented from speaking starts calling for the police to help him…but there were no police around”:
As you watch the video above, keep in mind that if the Occupiers actually took over the country, this is how our nation’s new parliament or congress would act.
“What I gathered from talking to a few people who were standing nearby is that libertarians, and others, including some of the anarchists and hippies and conspiracy theorists, were angry that the use of the main stage was being controlled by Communists and Left-wing radicals. They claimed that opposing viewpoints were not allowed. One guy with a black bandana tied around his neck told me that ‘organized groups’ were trying to take over OLA. He said this movement should be leaderless. Another girl who looked to me like a hippie, countered that ‘somebody has to be in charge.’
“Meanwhile, as flaring tempers and shouting continued on one side of the stage, a woman sat down on the other side with a Hare Krishna-style pump organ and began chanting over the public address system – the system controlled by the ‘Commies and Leftists.’ This all made for a very surreal scene”:
“…After nearly half an hour of shoving and yelling and fighting over the right to speak the two men who wanted to address the crowd had ultimately been defeated, their voices silenced.
The Leftists, using thug tactics, had maintained their control over the microphone and the main stage…”
Now, this final video is the most important of all. A short while later, the argument continued at the foot of the main stage. Let Ringo set the scene:
“The big fellow with the beard had had enough of the yoga and the chanting. He was determined to address the crowd about the ‘Communists and Leftists’ who were taking over Occupy L.A. and preventing others from speaking. He was immediately surrounded by Communists and Leftists who were determined to stop him from speaking”:
Here is a transcript of the action starting at 0:13 (as best as I can make out – people are talking over each other):
Anti-authoritarian Occupy protester: I’m speaking!
Leftist Occupy protester: But you’re an asshole.
Anti-authoritarian Occupy protester: So who’s gonna constitute what an asshole is? You?
Woman occupier: 99%…
Anti-authoritarian Occupy protester: Really? So 99 wolves and one sheep, and we get to vote on what’s for dinner? Communism doesn’t work!
Leftist Occupy protester: You are a sheep!
Anti-authoritarian Occupy protester: Yes I am. Yes I am. I ain’t no wolf though.
[Shoving in the crowd surrounding him]
Anti-authoritarian Occupy protester: I’m not involved in the pushing. Not involved in pushing and confrontation. I just use my mouth and my mind. Communism doesn’t work. Occupy LA is being controlled by the Democratic Party, by the communists! See how they’re all around me? See how the communists –
Aggressive occupy protester: Don’t you fuckin’ put me in no category. Don’t say “they.” ‘Cause I stand alone.
Anti-authoritarian Occupy protester: What you gonna do? What you gonna do? Violent and aggressive manner. See? the 99 sheep– the 99 wolves coming against the one sheep.
Aggressive occupy protester #2: How much did they pay you? How much did they pay you to come here?
Anti-authoritarian Occupy protester: What are you talking about? You don’t have to spit on me sir. Please finish eating before speaking.
Aggressive occupy protester #2: Do you sleep here?
Anti-authoritarian Occupy protester: I sleep right there!
…etc. The argument continues for several minutes afterward.
It’s heartening to see that at least some of the Occupiers are trying to resist being totally co-opted and taken over by the far left. But unfortunately I fear they are far too few in number to make any difference at this point. Whenever the communists and the anarchists try to cooperate on a project, the communists always take control and elbow the competition out of the way. It’s happened before, it’s happening now, and it will surely happen in the future should the anarchists be foolish enough to ever hook up with the communists again.
For the complete report, with more insanity that you can even digest in one sitting, see Ringo’s full photo essay Infighting, Pot Smoke & Chemtrails – One Hundred Minutes at Occupy L.A.
Test
…icular fortitude is what America needs to stand up to these creeps.
Notice in the first video how the “peoples pulpit” at the top of the steps is occupied by a few tents? What would you be willing to bet that those tents belong to the communists and leftists and a big part of the confrontation stemmed from an animalistic instinct to protect their territory. Orwellian indeed!
It’s a good place for the more equal to look down on the less equal.
If we had any our wives and chikdren would not be gropped at the airport. Our Congress would not be getting rich off insider trading. WE allow them to do this to us !
Water cannons, too.
So you’re pro-test, then? I’m rather more on the con-test side myself.
Credit where it’s due, communists may not be able to govern without gulags and killing fields, but they sure know how to take charge of a stage.
The dissenting protester’s line, ‘Occupy LA is being controlled by the Democratic Party, by the communists!’ struck a nerve. I grew up in a Democratic household, and remember a time when Democratic Party leaders and elected officials actually loved freedom and hated communism. Yeah, I know: crazy talk, but there it is.
Just about time for the guillotines to be rolled in, don’t you think?
The OWS gatherings actually followed earlier “occupy” camps in Israel this past summer. The biggest was in Tel Aviv where, towards its end, someone *did* set up a guillotine! Was someone trying to tell us “OK, it’s time to chop off some heads because demonstrations are leading nowhere”, or were the more sensible among the protesters warning, “This is where your movement is heading”?
An idiot here in the Seattle area chopped his arm off with a guillotine. I read the news and thought, “What the hell was he doing with a guillotine?” Turned out he was going to take it to an “occupy” event.
Everyone should read Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia
That way they’d be prepared for the Garbage and Catatonia which are the “Occupy” protests.
Look up “stupid” and “ignorant” in the dictionary. This not a subtle situation.
There are good reasons why our Founders created this country as a representative republic and not a democracy. Your article is good illustration of that. May we never live in a true democracy or it’ll be mob rule like OWS everywhere.
State sponsored agitprop. Viva Villaraigosa!
Do lumpenproletariat dream of electric sheep?
I quit being a total anarchist when I realized: “Organize in self defense, or be put in chains.”
Commies and leftists are thugs. Nobody votes them into power, they have to “assume” it for the stupid masses’ own good. Needless to say, free speech is extraneous, make that antithetical to that process.
99% is the new proletariat, and 1% is the new bourgeoisie. The more things change…
Sounds like Animal Farm to me!
There are several examples out there of how divided the OWS (bowel) movement is. I say we encourage more of it by injecting the truth in dramatic fashion. Get solid facts about those manipulating them and present those facts as “look at how they are using us”. For example presenting info on Michael Moore’s wealth that HE IS a 1%’r using them for his own personal gain etc. The goal Im suggesting is to get them to cannibalize/ Eat Their Own! http://tinyurl.com/bshowgw
Just one of many Tactics I have to combat the left civil within the rule of law!
CLUELESS.If there ever were ‘zombies’,these folks take the cake.
I would like to see one of the PJTV personalities address an Occupy Wall Street general assembly. I’d like to see Bill Whittle or Alfonzo Rachel present a speech to the Occupiers. Maybe a field trip?
They’re your children America…You raised them, or rather apple and Google raised them for you.
Enjoy the fruits of you…….er, or rather, the fruits of your “non” labor.
Creation of the “Committee of Public Safety” any day now…
This is not what Democracy looks like in Hell. This is just what Democracy looks like, period. It is why our Founders chose a Republic, not a Democracy. Making it more democratic is how they are tearing down the Republic. Democracy is a terrible thing.
Please do not further propagate the propaganda by speaking as if Democracy is a good thing. It is a terrible thing, and this nonsense is exactly why.
+1
The whole reason Occupy “succeeds” is because it’s made up of people who refuse to disagree with each other. When someone with a different view, even a totally normal view like this guy, tries to approach them, you see that it’s not a democratic movement at all — it’s an evil mob.
– in Ess Eff still stinks.
‘We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything.’”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 2
“He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling.”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 4
“He says things like Piggy. He isn’t a proper chief.’”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 8
“Piggy was… so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood.”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 8
“‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 9
“They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable.”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 9
“‘Maybe there is a beast….maybe it’s only us.’”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 5
“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 5
These videos make LOTF look genteel.
Come see the violence inherent in the system! Look, look, I’m being repressed!
Bloddy peasant.
First of all, where do you go to get a “pump organ” and who teaches Hare Krishna-style chanting anymore? It boggles the mind that people like this are still turning up in this day and age.
Secondly, the utter lack of understanding of the human condition among this group of brainwashed useful(-less?) idiots is astounding. If you don’t think like they think -which is nearly impossible to delineate in the first place- you’re not one of them. One of the 99%. And this is exactly why the utopian society they want to generate will always be limited to a couple hundred people; once you exceed that number, the human condition of individual thought is too difficult to control.
Finally, what did people like the guy in the yellow shirt with the long hair and long beard do before the Occupy movement? Is it any wonder he was likely unemployed? These fools want to stick objects through various parts of their face and imitate Cousin It with the facial hair, then complain that they are being persecuted by the rest of society. I mean, the 1%. There are consequences to your personal choice of appearance- if you make the majority of people you encounter, uncomfortable, you won’t likely be a success in a societal situation.
I disagree with the idea that OWS is “succeeding.” It’s not succeeding so much as it is being tolerated for the time being. It’s similar to a little kid who hangs a “no trespassing – keep out” sign on the bedroom door. If mom and dad humor the kid for awhile and actually keep out it’s not because the kid has successfully established autonomy in the house.
While I’m not willing to condemn all the occupiers as evil (most are undoubtedly of the “useful idiot” variety) there is no doubt that they are embracing a corrupt and corrosive ideology that facilitates evil in the same way that filth facilitates harmful bacterias. Pure Democracy is chaos. Marxism abhors chaos and inevitably becomes the exact opposite: totalitarian. A Lord of the Flies situation quickly mutates into an Animal Farm situation which ultimately leads to a full-blown 1984-style, soul-crushing existence.
Luckily, OWS will fail because of the weakness of it’s motivating ideology AND the strength of our system, which was forged in real blood and sacrifice and tested by even more bloodshed and sacrifice. Our system is so exceptional and successful that it is the very thing that allows these OWS idiots to do what they are doing. In the totalitarian systems that they admire so much THEY would be its first victims. How ironic!
The Occutards are right. This is what democracy looks like.
“Remember, Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a Democracy yet that did not commit suicide”
-John Quincy Adams
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.”
-James Madison
Loved the part where they all settled down for a moment when the three cops walked up, just like a bunch of stupid kids trying not to get caught misbehaving. What would’ve really been great would be if the cops had sat down to watch and started eating popcorn.
God,… I hate communists,.. and any thinking individual would see that raw power is what they want, the only help they give anyone, is in digging their graves when they dare disagree.
A 100 million dead at Marx’s feet,.. and they STILL think it just hasn’t had the right set of thugs running it yet.
Insane, stupid, or just following the quickest most bloody path to siezing power?
You tell me…
“This is what democracy looks like!”
Exactly. “Democracy” looks like exactly what is is: mob rule enforced by the strongest. TRUE Darwinism. That’s why this country was established as a representative republic.
Four words:
“Lord of the Flies.”
“The big fellow with the beard had had enough…He was determined to address the crowd about the ‘Communists and Leftists’ who were taking over Occupy L.A. and preventing others from speaking. He was immediately surrounded by Communists and Leftists who were determined to stop him from speaking”
These are the exact tactics used by Leftists/Democrats and Communists. They shut down free speech when that speech does not promote their Leftist agenda, and bully anyone who does not toe the party line. Leftists follow like sheep, yet act like wolves. However, I mean no disrespect to actual sheep or wolves.
This is precisely what Democracy looks like. James Madison was spot on in Federalist #10.
“From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
They just need to do some more meditation like this group the other day.
http://bluecollarphilosophy.com/2011/11/occupyla-meditation-circle-om-om-video/
Did you see the reparations rig that was parked there?
http://bluecollarphilosophy.com/2011/11/occupyla-wants-to-spread-the-wealth-through-reparations-picture/
Monday should be interesting as the city may actually do something to get them off the property.
#9 ” There are Wolves. There are Sheep. I am the Sheepdog.”
that applies to the three Police.
What a hoot! A rather oxymoronic collaboration, eh, the Commies and the Anarchists. (chuckle) I mean how stupid are they?
I say let ‘em fight it out and let the Beta Male win. (grin)
Yo, criminal trespassers, I got your “occupy” right here.
~(Ä)~
add a little parlimentary procedure and you have congress…take away the parlimentary procedure and add money and you have Soros backed revolution, add some fascist leadership and you have the New World Order…need to get back to law, the constitution and peaceful, mandatory asskicking of Washington…not mindless puppets…
Thanks, Zombie and Ringo for stepping into “the crazy” deep enough to document this… this… whatever it is, it’s very disturbing as these are very disturbed, ignorant, brainwashed people. They are becoming those whom we must prepare to defend ourselves against. This is the face of the coming zombie apocalypse, indeed, the enemy within. (Sorry, no pun intended there, Zombie!)
Sadly, we all bear responsibility for cleaning up this mess. We’ve ceded control of our educational system to the leftists and communists for the past couple of generations, and this is the result. People who know nothing, who value nothing, who don’t know how to work, and who don’t know how to think, or reason, or process information. Their heads are just full of crap. It’s a big problem.
Bring on the water cannons!
This happens at OccupyDSM/OccupyIowa as well. I used to somewhat support this, but after them ignoring anything I tried to contribute, because it was conflicting with their everything for free, entitlement ideals, they didnt want to let me speak, deleted all my posts on the FB page (was not spamming it). Proved just how hypocritical they were, and UN accepting, no matter how open minded they claim to be.
Lenin, you’ll recall, imposed Twenty-one Conditions—the Conditions of Admission to the Communist International—for all socialist parties, which included:
1. All propaganda and agitation must bear a really communist character and correspond to the program and decisions of the Communist International. [...]
2. Every organisation that wishes to affiliate to the Communist International must regularly and methodically remove reformists and centrists [i.e., those who believed in gradual democratic changes, the splitters] from every responsible post in the labour movement [...] and replace them with tested communists [...]
12. The parties belonging to the Communist International must be built on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism. [...]
16. All decisions of the Congresses of the Communist International and decisions of its Executive Committee are binding on all parties belonging to the Communist International. [...]
The “Democratic centralism” of the twelfth condition, as determined by The Sixth Party Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (the Bolsheviks) in 1917, meant (inter alia):
“That there be strict Party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority;
That all decisions of higher bodies be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members”.
In other words, Lenin, made decisions which were accepted by his committee, which were then accepted by his senior executive, which were then accepted by the party; thereafter, all other parties around the world had to accept those decisions as majority decisions.
We are, I submit, seeing in the OWS movement a similar “subordination of the minority to the majority”.
“It’s heartening to see that at least some of the Occupiers are trying to resist being totally co-opted and taken over by the far left. ”
That’s hilarious. This should read: “Its disheartening to see that a few honest people accidentally wandered in the brutal mobocracy of the Communist OWS protests. Who is so stupid that they wander into OWS protests thinking they are other than a mask for Maoism and Stalinism, alien to freedom, democracy, and America? It’s terrible to see someone so brainwashed they believe their enemies are their friends. OWS has no real grievances: only hatred, bloodlust, and mass murder in their minds and hearts.”
Who is that guy making sense in the last video? I for one, would like to hear more of what he has to say. question One-If he understands the lunacy of the movement, why then is he camped out there? Question two-Does he really believe that he can persuade their way of thinking after years of public school indoctrination? Arguing with fools only makes you look foolish.
What comes around goes around it seems. I was a teenager during the “summer of love” in San Francisco where I grew up. Lots of hippies in the Haight Ashbury. Lots of interesting concepts like a “free store”. The movement died out after about 2 years. Must have all ended up in Berkeley where I went for an education. In 1970 there was People’s Park; one block away from my dorm. people camping out like now. It took 17days of occupation by the Army National Guard to clear out the hippies. I can still smell the teargas and have kept my gasmask which was hard to find in those days. One person was shot and killed. These new protesters must have learned from the radicals of then, now in charge of the campuses. Probably funded by Soros and the DNC. Back in the late 1860s, a guy called Robert Owen tried to set up a “perfect society” called New Lanark. that didnt work. Socialism doesnt work. period.
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