Last year, during the heyday of the Tea Parties, our friends on the Left routinely denied that the Tea Party was not the spontaneous grassroots expression of citizen outrage that its defenders claimed. It was, on the contrary, carefully orchestrated by powerful corporate interests. It was, in a word, "AstroTurf."
In light of what's been going on at various "Occupy" events around the country, I am coming to believe that these critics may have been correct. You see, the Tea Party organizers were new to the realm of popular protest, so they failed to incorporate several elements that are clearly the hallmarks of genuine demonstrations. Left-wingers, who tend to be experts at this sort of thing, recognized the absence of these elements right away, while conservatives remained in the dark. Until now, that is.
So what are the telltale signs that an event is not "AstroTurf," but, indeed, a genuine reflection of an engaged, public-spirited citizenry? Based on the experience of the "Occupy" movement, they would appear to include the following:
1.
Tuberculosis, or other
respiratory infections.
2. A campaign against
microphones, even those being used by supporters.
3. Seemingly sympathetic
celebrities cashing in.
4. The creative use of
blood and urine.
5. Assaults on the
elderly.
6. Violent clashes with the
police.
7.
Suicide.
8.
Murder.
Memo to all sinister corporate interests: If you really want to stage a convincing simulation of a grassroots campaign in favor of limited, constitutional government, you might want to consider incorporating at least a few of the above into the show.
Ye shall know them by their fruits.
Matthew 7:16.
You forgot the ever insightful writings of the 2011 drug-induced whack job hippies. They spray painted the word F$$K on a church in downtown Oakland whose members are minorities This church also helps provide food, clothing and shelter for homeless people.
The only upside to this is at least the word was spelled correctly. Have to give credit where credit is due - the broken public school system is at least teaching them all how to spell foul words correctly.
I knew a post like this would come to NLT eventually - I expected it to be sooner - but I am a bit surprised it came from you, John.
Were you inspired to write it because of the historical revisionist comic book artist Frank Miller's recent rant? Your tone is only slightly more measured.
After slogging through your awkward exercise in ham-fisted sarcasm, I couldn't determine if it was an actual attempt to demonstrate that the Tea Party protests were genuinely grassroots in origin and nature (you didn't seem to actually get to that) or if you were merely trying to take your hastily compiled list of tired hippie hatred (they're dirty, dangerous, and disease-ridden!) and finger-paint these incidents into being the intrinsic nature of the OWS protesters and the movement generally.
When you have large groups of people who engage in committed, long-term protests - contrast it with a picnic on a hot day for a Glenn Beck & Sarah Palin double-header - there is the chance that some humanity will surface and the endeavor will not always resemble a... tea party (I mean this kind:
https://i.imgur.com/4n87F.jpg
not this kind:
https://imgur.com/C1JYh
)
None of that is to say that the various problems experienced by, with, and at the OWS protest(er)s - genuine grassroots movements will not be comprised wholly of saints - are actually exemplified in your links (the "assaults on the elderly" one is especially dodgy and inconclusive - although when you scrape bottom by digging into FoxNation (not even FoxNews, but the site for their uncritical groupies!) I guess that's to be expected, really.)
And perhaps you just cut-and-pasted the numbered list from FoxNation, WorldNetDaily or NewsMax or whatever, but certainly it is in keeping with the cruel and inhumane tone of recent Tea-infused GOP events (cheering for letting an uninsured person die, cheering for the death penalty, cheering for torture, etc.) that #1 on your list of Occupy Wall Street evils (elements of "the show") would be that some of them have become ill. "Oh my God, can you believe it, some of these protesters are so icky that they get SICK! And when they're all packed together behind those hideously tacky metal fences and orange plastic barricades, the diseases may SPREAD! Only hippie diseases spread around like that. Okay, let's drive to the mall."
George Washington - he of the monument that towered over the DC-occupying Beck & Palin fans, too - had TB twice, and 8 or so other serious illnesses. How lame of him!
Here's a link about George Washington's various icky diseases:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/07/george-washingtons-medical-chart.html
(But hey, it is from PBS, so it's probably pushin' a lefty agenda of some kind)
What did you mean by this, John:
"...our friends on the Left routinely denied that the Tea Party was not the spontaneous grassroots expression of citizen outrage that its defenders claimed."
Actually, I don't think we (i.e. your friends on the Left) denied that at all. It's true that "the Tea Party was not the spontaneous grassroots expression of citizen outrage that its defenders claimed."
anyone who has ever read the dark knight returns should not be shocked by miller's comments. The scene where the joker kills the doctor who is claiming he is cured and that society has caused his problems rates right up there with the actor getting eaten by cannibals in state of fear as the best clumsy, yet hilarious, attacks on liberal sensibilities.
i see that we on this blog are one step away from reaction images. i am waiting, fingers crossed, for the day that MFW and ISHYGDDT comes to NLT.
I do find it funny that battle that both sides have chosen seems to be about the hygiene or spontaneity of "their" guys. I believe the tea party movement began as a response to bailouts to the banksters. It was then soon absorbed into the Sara Palin book signing borg of the mainline republican movement, but at its roots was about what one would have to consider very similar things that the current protests are over.
I must admit though, both movements are littered with things that would prevent the sides from ever coming to together. rather than say one movement is real and other is not, i think in both you have a lot of people who wish they could do something to stop the sinking that we all feel. However, the media portrayal, or the people we get to see would lead me to say both movements are contrived to keep people firmly divided.
That entire post was just so struthious - it was really hard to stomach. The list was a mix of FoxNews fantasy, embellishment, irrelevance (as though OWS protesters can stop anyone from making shirts), and just inverted reality.
Numbers 5 and 6 on your list have gone from crude mischaracterization (e.g., making the exception the rule) to tragically comic.
"5. Assaults on the elderly" - Check!
https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Pregnant-teen-elderly-woman-among-pepper-sprayed-2271634.php
"A downtown march and rally in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement turned briefly chaotic as police scattered a crowd of rowdy protesters — including a pregnant 19-year-old and an 84-year-old activist — with blasts of pepper spray."
"6. Violent clashes with the police." - Check!
UC-Davis (clearly these police are facing some serious threats from a hostile mob!)
https://i.imgur.com/0UoEz.jpg
Funny, I don't see anyone in this aggressive group of "riff-raff" "trash" (quoting Paulette) holding a semi-automatic rifle or even a sign that says "We come unarmed... THIS time!"
And let's not forget those sinister young women who got Officer Bologna in a pepper-spraying huff in NYC way back when.
So, I came across this nice compilation of videos actually showing police mistreatment, abuse, and brutality towards protestors, and I thought I might as well post it here to pile on more evidence of how ludicrous your post was (yet I have no delusions that it can have an impact on your readers who are impervious to evidence), when I thought, let me look at his link for #7 ("violent clashes with the police") again. It's even worse than I thought - was that what you actually meant to post?
From the article you linked to in #7:
"And while there have yet to be any major clashes between officers and protesters here in L.A...."
This, however, is worth looking through. Go through the videos. Each one is infinitely more damning than, say, the vid you linked to claiming to show OWS protestors attacking/pushing an elderly woman (but nothing could really be seen at all).:
https://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153134/Caught_on_Camera%3A_10_Shockingly_Violent_Police_Assaults_on_Occupy_Protesters/?page=entire
Anyone claiming to be a serious libertarian (beyond the mindset that liberty is solely the right to make a profit and to run a business without any rules imposed by society / government) really needs to address the paramilitarization of America's police forces. I don't think we'll see such a post here at NLT, of course.
Here's a good article from a former chief of the Seattle PD about that very topic:
https://www.thenation.com/article/164501/paramilitary-policing-seattle-occupy-wall-street