The Occupy Wall Street movement started almost two months ago when a ragtag bunch of anti-capitalist demonstrators attempted and failed to take over the famous street that is home to the New York Stock Exchange.
Police had security set so that protesters could not approach the financial institution so the movement .. moved – to Zucotti Park.
The 33,000 square-foot space is privately owned by Brookfield Office Properties – a commercial real estate company – and is named after that company’s chairman. It is not the occupiers’ property to do with as they wish. It is not their park as they so often claim. It is someone else’s private property and they are trespassing.
Over the two month occupation, cardboard box parts, tents, pavilions, cooking centers and electrical generation equipment have moved into the squatter’s camp – also known as an “Obamaville” or a “Class Warfare Shanty Town”.
This has occurred on a medium-to-large scale in several U.S. cities. Oakland, Portland, Denver, D.C. and New York City. Smaller efforts have struggled in cities like Chapel Hill, NC.
Due to long hours of incessant drumming for dollars and crowd-powered “Mic Checks”, neighbors around these movements had started to tire. Add in the businesses that were losing revenue and laying off workers due to the presence of the unpleasant, unkempt and unhealthy tent villages and that the city’s leadership was getting an earful from the citizenry, a series of sexual assaults, health issues, assaults on non-protesters, trespassing issues, thefts, an attack on an EMS crew and more – and the real 99% (or whatever) started a revolt of their own – the occupation of parks had to end – NOW.
The struggle: capitalism and individual liberties/property rights vs. collectivism and “redistributive change”. The free-market philosophy favored by Conservatives vs. the class warfare strategy in-use by President Obama. Even the Pew Research Center decided that a poll pitting the Occupiers against the TEA parties was necessary. Everyone wanted a war between those working hard to keep what they earn and those working hard to take it from someone that earned it.
Some label the battle as the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have nots’, but in truth, it’s the ‘haves’ vs those that envy what the ‘haves’ have done with their lives. Why is this tiny group of do-nothings getting so much say and the majority of hard-working Americans not protesting in return? Where are those loud and rowdy TEA partiers?
It does bring to light an important point – how serious are Americans about their rights to pursue happiness, own property and be free from an oppressive government ? In 2009, the liberty-loving TEA parties were a force to be dealt with. In 2010, they molded an election but, in 2011, the energy behind the TEA party may be waning.
The results in Ohio show that the Unions out-organized Conservative groups. More people showed up to vote down the public union collective bargaining reform than all that voted for Governor Kasich in the last election. How does that happen? Simple – apathy.
There is no denying a strong link between Unions, progressives like Michael Moore and the Occupy movement just as there is no denying the link between The TEA Parties and Conservatives like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. The battle lines are drawn – each side has it’s communicators and techniques and whichever is better motivated will shape the 2012 elections as the TEA Parties did in 2012.
It’s time to raise that Gadsden flag. It’s time to dust off that pocket version of the constitution. It’s time to volunteer, march, read, write, email, call, register, donate, and most of all – VOTE!! Get informed and vote in the primaries. The caucuses and primaries start in just a few short weeks. Are you working for a candidate,
Conservatives don’t need to take over a park for two months to bring together several hundred to a few thousand like-minded as-did the Occupiers. Marches like the 9-12 Marches and events like those at the Lincoln Memorial in 2010 show that there are hundreds of thousands of willing, active and awake Americans that will come to the call. A call to activism.
Activism against sloth; a revolt against class-warfare; a revolution against socialistic change; a rebuke against most-everything for which the occupiers stand.
We cannot be silent any more. Just sitting and watching as an entire generation idolizes the failed ideology of wealth redistribution that has been tried in nations near and far. We have to speak out and say “not now” – “not HERE” – “NOT EVER”.
When will the true defenders of freedom speak out in public and tell these small groups of ill-thinking trespassers that they are NOT the 99%. They aren’t the 50%, or even the 1%. They are a scrambled set of failed liberal ideas trying to join together against a common enemy – success – and those willing to work for it.
It’s time for a little activist on activist action. This is not a call to violence – but a call to challenge the loudmouth, small-minded, short-term thinking coming out of places like Zucotti park.
The occupiers probably wouldn’t generate as much support if the job market was improving, but it’s not. And truly all Americans should be mad as heck at these huge corporations that are unwilling to do more with less… who stick their hand out to the government and say, “Help Me” then take American tax dollars and without conscience or accountability pour the money into their corporate coffers and then into upper management’s pockets. Not all corporations who were bailed out have done this, but a majority have and it has been done at the expense of hard working average Americans… No work, higher and higher prices, no raises of middle American workers (those still working), and huge profits by corporations have created this volatile environment. Congress doesn’t do anything about it because they have been preying on taxpayers for years and years and years… Unchecked greed, avarice, and corruption have brought us to this point… in reality the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street groups aren’t all that far apart… they both know that something has to change… the difference is the method of change… but neither group has a workable and fair answer… This is a conundrum of Biblical proportions and only divine intervention will bring about a “fair & balanced” response and plan of action. That’s my opinion and I’m stickin’ to it. Shalom y’all.
Yes Debbie, the corporate welfare needs to be stopped 100% The problem is not the corporations, nor the lobbyists so much as the politicians whom enrich themselves by selling their souls for reelection through pushing crony-capitalism-favoring legislation and handing out taxpayer dollars/tax breaks/ grants, etc. to friends, family members, and their corporate bed-pals. Without the political corruption, Lobbying, crony-capitalsim and bailouts would never have been possible.
Look at the recent exposure of members of Congress “legally” using insider information to enrich themselves through the stock market for a good example.If you or I were caught doing that we would face severe fines and prison time. We need to reestablish the rule of law and cut out the loopholes politicians have written into legislation that prevents members of Congress from being put on CRIMINAL trial for their transgressions, period. A few prison sentences would go a long way towards putting the breaks on crony-capitalism and it would deter others from running for election simply to enable them to steal from the working class taxpayers.