San Failcisco: Occupy Anniversary Rally Flops in SF
Some Occupiers wore party hats to celebrate the movement’s one-year birthday.
I’ve been taking pictures of protests for ten years now, and in all that time I have never seen anyone get the idea to make a sign and hold it on his face with a pair of glasses. Until today. It’s very very rare to see an original idea at a protest, so this guy gets my Occupier of the Week award.
A sign left behind by the organizers listed “spongeing” as a topic of serious discussion by the General Assembly. I appreciate the honesty! (“Drugs/alcohol/idiocy” also seems to be an area of concern.)
Don’t accuse the Occupiers of being liberals! No. They are “post liberal,” as this protester clarifies.
Poor liberalism. It used to be an honorable concept. It’s now a dirty word to the right and the left.
I guess Assata Shakur has never heard of Gandhi and the Indian independence movement.
Oddly, there was practically no mention of the presidential election at the rally, aside from this one LGBT endorsement of Obama and a couple of jabs at Romney’s tax rate. Aside from that, Occupy has deliberately and consciously divorced itself from electoral politics — and in so doing relegated itself to eternal irrelevancy. (The theory being that we need a complete anti-capitalist revolution, something that can only happen outside the existing political structure.)
“The True terrorist of our world do not meet At the docks at midnight or scream ‘Allah Ackbar’ before some violent action. The true terroist of our time Wear 5,000 dollar suits and work in the Highest Position of finance, goverment & business.”
If you can’t decide whether the plural of “penny” is spelled with a “y” or an “i,” then use both!
Apparently school teachers don’t need to know how to spell in “Chicgo,” wherever that is.
We were entertained by the abominable Brass Liberation Orchestra, seemingly composed of high school marching band rejects. Approximately 30% of their notes are in tune.
The entirety of the march walking down California Street. If you want your own crowd estimate, count ‘em.
The only “resistance” I see in this crowd are the STDs becoming resistant to antibiotics.
Occupy: The jilted girlfriend who still stalks you a year later.
When the party was over, there was nothing left but “Smash the State” and Birkenstocks.
Happy Birthday Occupy!
After spending the afternoon hanging out with a bunch of fringe radicals who claimed to speak for “the working class,” I got onto a rush-hour BART train, overflowing with corporate employees, and thought to myself, “These people are the real working class. People who actually work. And none of them have the slightest interest in the Occupy movement.”
There were three times as many people on that one subway train than there were at the entire rally. And trains were loading up commuters every two minutes for hours and hours. They went home and relaxed, leaving an irrelevant, pathetic and tiny cluster of aimless revolutionaries to wander the streets.
Although interesting, time spent on the Occupy Movement is a waste of valuable time. What’s important is the election, and how to win it. Romney needs to listen to real people. We should brainstorm and send Romney concise, easy to understand, sound-bite messages for Romney to direct to the “undecided voters”. Perhaps, “Tax credits – big ones – to companies that stay in America and hire Americans, and to those that return to America and hire Americans”.
Romney’s staff is too removed and maybe too intellectual. The “undecideds” need simple – very simple.
Anything that points out the ridiculousness of leftist thought is (hopefully) another drop in the bucket in the Ideology Wars.
I (and others as well) post frequently about the election too. A little comic relief can’t hurt.
My dearest Zombie,
You are a national treasure. Your posts from the Bay Area really take me back to my fruity salad days of useful idiocy. In 1971 I lived in Bezerkley, had been the president of an SDS chapter at SUNY Oneonta and was subscribing to David Horowitz’s ‘Ramparts,’ reading it as avidly as I now read Front Page Magazine. Naturally, with the benefit of hindsight, if I could do it all over again… well, never mind, you can’t. But when we were organizing against the War in Vietnam and on behalf of civil rights and feminism, we had a freakin’ program which, however wrong-headed and foolishly utopian, at least HAD A POINT! (Not to mention all the good-looking women, as opposed to today. Compare and contrast the audience of the the two national conventions.) These Occu-pod clowns flail around like drowning lemmings, can’t piece together a coherent substantive sentence when the media sticks a microphone in their face, have no program unless ranting against success, self-interest and Natural Law constitutes an ideology, burn and loot, prevent the 99% from going to work (Oakland) and come off like spoiled little brats who are clueless as to why borrowing thousands and thousands of dollars to finance a degree in grievance studies turned out to be something less than a sound investment. Lucky for most of them their parents, who incidentally played the game, own a house with a finished basement for them to…occupy. If they ever bothered to pick up a history book not authored by Howard Zinn, they might be aware that communism was the light that failed and was overthrown by multitudes sick and tired of life without freedom or hope, time-sharing of hovels in Siberia and having to wait on line all day to buy an egg. They are every bit as uninformed as their Dear Leader, Urkel, who, for allegedly being the sharpest tack in the box displays an abominable ignorance of American and world history, Constitutional law and Economics 101 every time he opens his fat yap. In 2008 many conservatives wondered out loud if he weren’t some sort of postmodern Manchurian Candidate hellbent on destroying America. But whether he literally was or wasn’t getting his marching orders from Tehran, his policies have produced the same effect.
In any event, I salute you for your photographic skills, courage and insights into the mortal enemies of the republic. And I’m not using the word ‘courage’ lightly. These thugs must know who you are by now and I pray God keeps you safe from their default position of violence toward those who challenge their narrative. If you ever happen to visit North Carolina, dinner’s on me.
Instead of The Manchurian Candidate maybe we should call him The Siberian Candidate.
Tax credits.
Oh, goody! More economic manipulation by the federal government! Yay! That’s just what we need!
Yes Mark,
TAX CREDITS! It’s the conservative’s method of getting things done. In this case corporate HIRING – which Obama would never do unless a “green” project were involved. Romney, and many of his advisors, are whistling past the graveyard. Unless he begins to speak to those 7-10% who don’t have a clue, the empty suit in the White House will be there for 4 more.
Anything that reminds people this is what the Democratic Party loved and supported (and still would if it didn’t backfire) is electoral politics. The suit wearing DNC liars of tomorrow will probably have gotten their start in this movement.
Another great photo essay. Thanks for this.
Great as always, Zombie. However, having grown up in Santa Cruz myself, I believe that says “spangeing” not “spongeing.” Spangeing is “Spare-changing” ie panhandling.
I’ve never heard of the term “spangeing” until now. If you say so.
Not that panhandling is much more of a reliable and honorable way to fund a movement than the more vague “spongeing.”
If anything, if Occupy is now reduced to “spangeing” as a way of life, then they really are no different than the bums they attract.
Perhaps OWS actually stands for Out-of-Work Spare-changers.
Nice, a “Galaxy Quest” ref…
Please say where!
Oh, I presume it is “Never surrender” — right?
I wish I could remember who commented on the the OWS in NYC but they stated something to the effect that the 99% had been reduced to the 99. That sort of summed it up for me!
The “revolt, resist, reclaim” sign…don’t you have to own it and loose it before you can reclaim it? Wouldn’t that require some kind of work to get it in the first place? Am I overlooking something?
Fantastic photographic collage: Losers of the world, unite. Supply them with sufficient coke, pot, crack, booze and condoms, and they’ll crawl back into their holes. The far Left best and brightest. It is, strangely, reassuring. If this is the enemy, we’re fine, they’re f**ked.
My eldest daughter is one of the SanFran / Oakland Occupy protestors. She CERTAINLY has the right background for it.
Born in a private hospital in Beverly Hills, raised in Laurel Canyon, Nichols Canyon, and Newport Beach (all poverty areas, to be sure)and with a paid-for San Francisco State University degree in Left-Handed Screw Threads.
She has travelled the world; Australia, Europe, Israel, Egypt, New York, South America, all over the West and Pacific Northwest. Her boyfriend is from yet another underprivileged home in Boulder, Colorado.
She has adopted the politics of her mother (stayed-at-home mom, no education),and her two uncles (one a successful attorney, the other a multimillionaire from the sale of his father’s business; both brag that they evaded the draft by swearing to the draft boards that they were gay, which they are not) who were raised in California.
My only hope for her future is that she does indeed have SOME of my genes, and, after her current young age (early twenties), she will exhibit same. ( I joined the Marines during VietNam era, have owned my own businesses, became a lawyer.) I try to remember Churchill’s admontion that “anyone under the age of twenty-five who is not a liberal has no heart; anyone over the age of thirty who is not a conservative has no brains”.
Such is the frustration of a father of the OWS crowd.
Hang in there, Dad. Maybe she will change. I feel sorry for you. Sounds like you did everything for her and she turned on you and everything you believe in.
I have a 5-year-old daughter…this is my worst fear for her life-yet-to-be.
My condolences…
I have a daughter (39 years old) that seldom participates in these sort of things any more and seems to have come round a bit. She is just somewhat to the right of her congressman Jim McDermott but well to the left of her dear ole Dad.
Seems like she’s turning slower than a 2 knot super oil tanker with a full wheel to starboard.
That is bad, but consider my plight- my 70-somthing PARENTS in are die-hard Obama-worshipping, Jerry Brown-worshipping liberals and support OWS! In my case, there is no hope that they will ever come around. At least you can hope she will turn it around in her future.
Sounds like a TV series in there somewhere.
Oh wait, Michaell J. Fox already did it.
My first thought was its an issue of maturity and growing up but rejected it. My suspicion is that OWS and the larger part Obama supporters, have never had the ecstatic pleasure of achievement.
It is that exploding moment and the warm afterglow that lasts for years that comes from successfully reaching a goal, surpassing your own expectations, overcoming odds and creating a masterpiece.
It’s the moment the short order cook makes the perfect grilled cheese sandwich that customers rave about; the phone jock solves someone’s account problem. Its the orgasmic moment when the landscaper or artist realizes their goal on that day.
Its the BofA mortgage writer who spent two weeks of her life processing papers so the young couple can dance and kiss in the parking lot upon getting their first home.
It is setting goals, reaching them and breaking through. Work is often the environment and tool. The explosion does not come when parents tape grades or artwork to the frig. Its when the class was so hard you got a B and are proud of it. Its when your art is finally what you wanted even when no one will ever see it.
Its when you create the perfect carbon fiber that everyone had given up on and you also have 200 ways on how not to make it.
The OWS members never had the ‘moment’. They heard of it once and hope to find it vicariously. They hope for group achievement, lowering expectations down to a ‘success’ of 200 people in the street. Its easier to blame the group than make the effort for oneself. It leaves members unhappy, unsatisfied.
Sadly, it is comparable to reading cartoon porn versus having a fulfilled life.
Don’t these people have a day job? I’m guessing that they’re part of the 47% that don’t pay taxes, huh?
The girl with the hashtag sign is just too funny. The very first one, #S17 that is just hilarious. S17 is the espionage organization of the “Alliance” in the online game World of Warcraft. If that does not just sum up the surreal and flat out fictional world these guys live in I don’t know what does.
I have been seeing new panhandlers on exit ramps and median strips in Oakland. They are young, and white, and not yet looking worn down by being on the street. I keep wondering if they came to town for Occupy, thinking they’d find a community in which they’d find food, clothing and shelter for free.
It’s possibly they’ve left abusive situations at home and can’t go back, when I’m so tempted to tell them going home is what they need to do.
12th Street 980 off-ramp and on the strip on the other side of 980, and the foot of the 580 Lakeshore off-ramp. “Like a rolling stone …”
I have seen the same thing off Hwy 580 in West Oakland, except very crusty with large “A” for Anarchy tattoos on the back of their hands.
Lots of white people are moving into formerly black West Oakland, except they look like they have jobs and pay rent.
This happens when real life meets sterotypes. When you have a poor black neighborhood and a rich(er) wihte one, the result eventually is that (1) some black people, who succeeded in joining the middle class, move to the “white”, better neighborhood, attracted by better quality of life; (2) some white people, usu. originally younger ones, move to the “black” neighborhood attracted by lower rent or property prices.
Replace “black” and “white” with any two ethnic groups which were unofficially seperated in history, and it works the same way, too.
Sounds like the 60s. Haight-Ashbury: come for the love, stay for the squalor.
Haight Ashbury is very high end now.
Urbn planners do whatever they can to benefit liberal city votors and kill the suburbs which they call urban sprawl.
How come so many of these women in the OWS movement are fat and ugly?
– tent in front of the Federal Reserve. But did the past year put Frank out of business?
No, Frank was there all right — I just didn’t bother to include him in any of my photos.
– love ‘im!
(A year ago the college kids were doing calisthenics. Now it’s back to good ol’ “‘spange?”)
Maximum wage?
That’s an idea that’s so staggeringly stupid… Really, words fail me. Does that moron have a single working brain cell?
Never mind. That question answers itself.
New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism By Victor Morton April 30, 2012,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/apr/30/new-obama-slogan-has-long-ties-marxism-socialism/
I gotta hand it to Zombie. I couldn’t stand being around Losers, Inc for 5 minutes much less time after time after time.
@oldpoliscimajor,
I’m sorry what happened to your daughter. My daughter decided that her wages belonged to her as a payment for HER TIME. Not that she was ever political. She just got it from an early age.
Zombie,
1. I love you.
2. “Consider a Maximum Wage” guy above (IMG_8550.jpg) looks to my untrained eye to possibly be the “artist” you photographed in 2005.
http://www.zombietime.com/churchill_in_bay_area/churchill_sf_anarchist_bookfair_march_26_2005/156-5635_IMG.JPG
Wow — great catch! You very well could be right! The artist behind Inflatable Scrotum Man strikes again!
What can I say? I am fascinated by your work. I’ve never lived in the bay area (too many free range mimes and clowns), but the circus is fun to study from afar.
This all reminds me of Berkeley, of course–and of what a truly wonderful place Berkeley was before the so-called Free Speech Movement and anti-Vietnam War madness. What I wouldn’t give to have Berkeley and San Francisco back to their pre-Hippie days!
Women wearing gloves and hats when they went to work, or shopping at Blum’s or the City of Paris.
Loons, has beens and never will be’s.
Z, I could be wrong, but I believe the refrain that the singer is singing is:
“The answer is there; it’s Tax the Millionaire.”
(I hate to quibble, but we must give credit where it’s due. I’m sure the parodist worked long and hard on that rhyme.)
Nice to know that the protesters have been reading your blog: Every peace sign was actually a peace sign and not a Mercedes symbol.
Either that, or Mercedes just let their sponsorship deal with OWS expire.
What- no anti-Israel/anti-Jew signs? I guess the antisemite lobby took the day off.
Actually, some people at the rally were handing out signs for an anti-Jew rally coming up soon in SF, so maybe they were saving up their energy for that one. Unfortunately, however, I don’t think I’ll be able to cover that one.
I live just a few blocks from Market and I didn’t even notice this thing until later in the evening when I noticed a couple of news helicopters hovering outside my windows. I turned on the news and had to flip through a few channels until I could figure out why they were there. My only recollections of the original Occupy was walking by the Federal Reserve and seeing them checking each other for head lice. Ugh.
The goofball doing the Dylan tribute reminds me of Dave Barry’s riff on the song: “How many times must a man be a man, before a man is a man?”
What’s interesting about your photos is that apparently–this time–there was no crackpot anti-Semitism/Free Mumia/all hail North Korea/ etc signage. If there had been, you certainly wouldn’t have been shy about posting it. What does that suggest to you? That ‘Occupy’ might have been vetting its signs for appropriate content? (if so, it’d be a refreshing change)
I’m pretty sure the brass band was 99% out of tune.
My one question is this–what was the weather like? Half the protestors are dressed for arctic exploration and the other half look like they should be on a beach with Jimmy Buffett. Or is it just that anarchists simply cannot wear too much black at any one time, so it calls for multiple layers?
I see we got a little visit from Peter Pan and the lost boys (and girls) from Never-Never Land. How, uh, colorful!
Thanks Zombie. I’ve been looking over your shoulder for years.
The zany world of Americans who have lost their way continues to amaze me.
Thanks again.
Papa Ray
One day soon {with some kind assistance}you’re gonna be ‘famous’ for what you do.
You are one of the major reasons I tune in this site,no smoke.
Question:Moe Lane and some others wonder how you can do this without photo back up. The General Opine is that you skirt disaster, and risk ‘backshooting’,by Progs who see you as ‘dangerous’.
Any thoughts as to how you get so many shots without retribution?
If it’s a secret to preserve your anonymity, I suppose I’m left ‘just to wonder’.
Don’t ever quit ,Your ZombieNess. You got it Goin’ On…..
I really don’t like talking about myself, but the “secret,” if there is one, is that I am one of them. I stand right in the middle of a big crowd of lefty protesters, and I blend in so perfectly that neither the protesters themselves nor anyone seeing the scene from the outside would have any idea that a non-lefty was present. Who would suspect a Black Bloc-er with a bandana over the face? Who would suspect someone in tie-dye and “We Are the 99%” buttons? Who would suspect someone in a purple SEIU union shirt? Who would suspect someone with a “Tax the Rich” or “US Out of Palestine” sign?
Wait till Zombie finds out that everyone else at the rally was also a conservative blogger in disguise…
My thoughts exactly! Some of the signs are so outrageous that I’m tempted to think that those who brandish them are moles from the right side.
Sorry. No moles. They’re all authentic protesters.
It is amazaing to see how many people actually believe this nonsense.
zombie,
ya think any of em ever wonder if YOU are there?
W
Zombie, I love your work, and I also worried about you, visualized you as a young professional student journalist with a big black long lensed Nikon. But since you wear camouflage, and probably some little point and shoot thing, I’ll worry now about you being found out.
Of course, now the radical left will have to worry that one of their own is an infiltrator…….working for law enforcement……or the CIA?