Predictably, the eviction of hundreds of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) squatters from their squalid “tent city” in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park on Tuesday, November 15, brought howls of protest from the ACLU and liberal-left commentators in the major media.

New York City Police arrested dozens of OWS activists who refused to leave Zuccotti, and on November 16 and 17 arrested hundreds more who tried to reoccupy the park or who attempted to disrupt business at the nearby New York Stock Exchange. Dozens more protesters were arrested on the 17th when they attempted to block traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. OWS activists in Chicago, Seattle, and other cities also attempted to block or close down bridges as part of a “Day of Disruption” strategy.

For more than two months, the privately owned Zuccotti Park has been jam-packed with thousands of protesters, tourists, journalists, and media camera crews. Local residents and business owners have complained that the OWS invasion has caused the 33,000-square-foot “pocket park” to become a magnet for crime and disruptive, unruly, and unsanitary behavior, including public urination and defecation, public lewdness, nudity, vandalism, assaults, theft, and illegal drug use.

This writer visited Zuccotti five times during the period of October 11-16. The packed space did indeed reek of raw sewage, unbathed bodies, and marijuana. And, contrary to the OWS propagandists and their media allies, the occupiers do not in any way resemble the 99 percent of Americans they claim to represent. Unlike the much larger Tea Party events all across the country over the past several years that drew millions of working-class and middle-class Americans fed up with run-away government spending, taxing, and regulation, the Occupy Wall Street gatherings can be aptly described (for the most part) as counter-culture freak shows: bongo-banging tie-dyed Sandalistas and Woodstock wannabes spouting Marxoid drivel and socialist cant. Banners and posters featuring images of, and quotes from, Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Che Guevara, are plentiful. Some protesters do indeed also invoke Jefferson and Madison, but usually in a manner intended to fuse the statements of America’s Founding Fathers into an endorsement of anarchism, communism, or socialism.

Most of the liberal-left media commentators have tried to downplay or even deny the dominance of the OWS demonstrations by the extreme, radical fringe elements. Matthew Yglesias, for instance, writing for The New Republic, claims: “The notion that Occupy Wall Street is a fundamentally radical anti-capitalist movement is completely without foundation.”

According to Yglesias, “The participation of some radicals in the initial organization of the Zuccotti Park protest shouldn’t distract from the fact that the movement has grown by attracting a diverse set of adherents united primarily by an appropriate sense of grievance.”

Similarly, Jonathan Cohn and John B. Judis, senior editors at The New Republic, assert (in “Why Liberals Should Embrace Occupy Wall Street”) that the OWS activists are just normal, plain, peace-loving folks, in marked contrast (supposedly) to those vicious Tea Party activists. Cohn and Judis acknowledge that the actions of “members of an extreme antiwar clique free-riding on the Occupy protests and invading the Air and Space Museum, a favorite weekend destination for visiting tourists and their children, in order to protest a display of drones” were probably counterproductive. But, they claim, “These actions are not on a par with Tea Party members spitting on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.... They pose no serious threat to civility or order. Most important, they do not seem emblematic of the movement as a whole.”

The main problem with the Cohn-Judis claim above is that there is no proof the alleged Tea Party spitting incident ever took place, and much reason to believe that the entire incident is fictitious. Nevertheless, it has been repeated so many times by the anti-Tea Party media mavens that the myth has become fact in the minds of many on the Left. However, even if that incident had occurred as claimed by those who seem to believe it, it would constitute one minor act of incivility by a small group of individuals out of millions who have participated in numerous Tea Party events. As such, it would hardly justify the accusations and levels of attack aimed at the entire Tea Party movement.

This is where the Occupy Wall Street mobs stand in stark contrast to the Tea Party. Tea Party events, although much larger, were devoid of the crime (rape, theft, assaults, vandalism) that have marred the OWS venues. The Tea Party organizers paid for permits, police, security, and porta-potties, and cleaned up after themselves; they did not stick the taxpayers with the tab. They did not camp out for days, weeks, and months on end, making nuisances of themselves; they responsibly exercised their rights to assemble and express themselves without violating the rights of others to use the same public spaces.

Cohn and Judis show where their hearts really are. Along with “the continuing protest against autocratic government in Ohio and Wisconsin,” they say, the OWS demonstrations “represent a genuine spark of grassroots political action — a chance, finally, to redeem the promise of Obama’s 2008 campaign.” “We have to make sure we don’t squander it,” say the TNR duo.

The “protests” in Ohio and Wisconsin, need we remind, are similarly violent, lawless, criminal occupations that have resulted in massive vandalism, disruption of traffic and government services and violation of the rights of other citizens who do not share the protesters' aims. The OWS abuses that Cohn and Judis admit to are not rare exceptions, but are indeed “emblematic of the movement as a whole.”

Also emblematic are the extreme fringe beliefs of the OWS “99 percenters.” The liberal-left media choir searched largely in vain to find extreme elements among the Tea Party throngs and shrieked in mock horror whenever they thought they had discovered an intemperate or insensitive sign hypercritical of President Obama. This was evidence, they insisted, of Tea Party racism and neo-Nazi sympathies.

But when it comes to Occupy Wall Street, there is no need to speculate. The leading activists openly display their Communist, Marxist, Socialist, Anarchist affiliations and orientations. One would have to be willfully blind and totally dishonest not to notice this. In this writer’s visits to Ziccotti Park, it was impossible to take more than a few steps without seeing publications of the Communist Party, Revolutionary Communist Party, Communist Workers Party, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Working Families Party, etc., as well as prominent posters with the communist hammer and sickle or the communist clenched fist symbol. In fact, the "official" OccupyWallSt.org website has adopted the communist clenched fist as the symbol for its homepage — as have many of the derivative websites.

In any direction one looked at Zuccotti Park, one would see signs with communist slogans declaring: “Class Warfare Now!”; “Class Warfare is Coming”; “Marx Was Right”; “Smash Capitalism”; “Capitalism Must Be Destroyed”; "Build Socialism”; “From Each According to His Ability, To Each According to His Need.” This appeared to be not completely unique to the New York City demonstrations, but fairly typical of the OWS gatherings across the country and around the world. Unfortunately, much of the OWS-sympathetic media have cropped their photos and video camera angles to minimize exposure of this extreme radical side of the movement. They know that the American public, as angry as it may be over the government bailouts of insider Wall Street firms, would find little sympathy with the solutions proposed by the OWS crowd, almost all of which call for vastly expanded government programs, which would lead to even more corruption and economic destruction.

The Brecht Kasama Project — "a communist effort to re-imagine and regroup for revolution in the U.S.”

One of the critical connections to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that has been  studiously ignored by the major media concerns the steady infusion of intellectual direction, organization, and inspiration provided by a long list of professional revolutionaries operating out of New York City’s colleges and universities and its publicly funded think tanks and centers of counter-culture activism. Foremost among these is the Brecht Forum/New York Marxist School. Named for communist playwright Bertolt Brecht, the Brecht Forum/New York Marxist School has been for years an activist hub for communist-socialist-anarchist organizers. Located just a short three-mile jaunt up West Street from Zuccotti Park, it also serves as a key activist hub for organizing the OWS actions.

The Brecht Forum/New York Marxist School “faculty” includes a rotating lineup of 1960s celebrity activists from the SDS, the terrorist Weather Underground, the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers Party, Democratic Socialists of America, the Black Panther Party, and the like: Angela Davis, Cornell West, Bill Ayers, Todd Gitlin, Francis Fox Piven, Van Jones, and Stanley Aronowitz, to name a few who have been providing intellectual direction to the OWS agitators.

The Brecht Forum/New York Marxist School web page for November 21 provides this important tidbit on the recent activities of three of its veteran activists in what it calls the “Kasama Project — a communist effort to re-imagine and regroup for revolution in the U.S.”:

From #occupy to revolution
Jed Brandt, Mike Ely, Eric Riebellarsi

Jed Brandt is an editor with the Occupied Wall Street  Journal, and together with Eric Ribellarsi, has recently returned from deep investigations into the "movement of the squares" in Greece and the revolutionary movement in Nepal.
Mike Ely is a veteran revolutionary whose political life started with the early SDS and the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, and covers decades of experience attempting to build revolutionary organization, including among coal miners in the wildcat strike movements of the 1970s.
 
All three are participants in the Kasama Project — a communist effort to re-imagine and regroup for revolution in the U.S. All have been active in the Occupy Together movement in different cities.

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DJ said:

The Real issue is the destruction of the Republic by corrupting influences. You can slander this as a 'communism' front all you want but those involved know that they are only a vocal minority and that their dogma and ideology will never work its way through the consensus process. I disagree with communism and I support OWS and I am no more worried about the impact of communism on OWS than I am with it's impact on American politics in general. The issue you are skirting around here is the fact that our government, as it was intended by our founding fathers and our constitution, has been circumvented by what Thomas Jefferson referred to as the 'Moneycrats'. The Tea Party is perfect example of just how far this vile corruption has seeded itself into the basic systems of our government and just how far we have drifted from what America was suposed to be about. The issue is how our government has come to operate. There are 435 members in the house of representatives, 100 senators and more than 14,000 lobbyist running our country. There is no other 'democracy' on earth with a system where unelected lobbyists wield such Incredible power over the government. Over 2008 & 2009 these lobbyists spent 6.7 billion dollars coaxing our elected officials to do the will of the corporations, institutions, and individuals that hired them. The scariest part of this system is that on average, for every $1 that the lobbyist spends bribing our elected officials the company or interest group doing the bribing makes roughly $100 in benefits, either in avoiding pain- such as taxes and regulations- or in benefits received - such as awarded contracts, grants, or tax payer generated funding (yes they bribe Congress to get handouts in tax payer money). That sort of return on investment you just can't find anywhere else. Yes, our government has been transformed into a wealth generating tool, an investment scheme… How many of those lobbyists represent us and spend money to help us? None. The companies that often effect our lives can easily hire dozens of lobbyists to get legislation passed that they want or to prevent legislation from passing that they don't want.

November 18, 2011

DJ said:

The Real Problem Continued And guess what? They approach democrats and republicans equally. Every year the amount of money spent on lobbying increases. In truth the 14000 number only accounts for officially registered lobbyists - it is believed there are far, far more than that - potentially triple that number - unregistered. Lobbyists work on both sides. They don't care which party they need to approach. And here is the real shocker - a large percentage of legislation, floor speeches, and statements that are entered into congress are not written by members of congress, but by Lobbyists. Yes, lobbyists WRITE laws. Why? Because or legislators don't have time to because they're too busy trying to keep with their competitors in the money arms race for reelection. There is no moral justification for that and it doesn't do any of us any good. It's corruption. It's cheating. No one can even enter a race with the backing of at least a few lobby groups. Politicians and politicians-to-be know this. It is the system. It isn't about us and it never has been. We don't really have a choice anymore. Let me use Obama as an example. Gitmo is still open. Not one executive from Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, or any of the other criminal financial firms went to jail, in fact, Goldman Sachs is seeing record profits thanks to the bailout money and they're still being awarded free money from the government to help do things like build a new headquarters in New York City. Health care is still a mess. Student loans are still a mess. The economy is still a mess. All the homeland security laws are still in place. The campaign finance reform and anti-lobbying talk he had in his campaign never surfaced, the situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan are identical to what they would have been if McCain had taken office. As a matter of fact, NONE of the thing Obama mentioned on his campaign trail that I believed in and that were the reasons I voted for Obama surfaced. NOT ONE. And here we are on the even of the next presidential election and guess what? Obama has managed to get more money from Wall Street for his campaign than all the Republican candidates combined, which can only mean that Goldman Sachs, Chase, and Bank of America like his flavor of 'Hope' and 'Change' enough that they're looking forward to a second term.

November 18, 2011

DJ said:

The Tea Party is the ultimate example of lobbyist corruption and the destruction of our Republic FreedomWorks funded, organized, and hosted the Tea Party from the start. They designed signs, funded the PR research for the Tea Party 'talking points' and created and managed most of the Tea Party press releases. FreedomWorks was founded by Jack Kemp and Dick Armey. Jack Kemp spent his career deregulating the financial sector -which caused many of the problems that inspired the Tea Party in the first place. Dick Armey is full time Lobbyist - obviously someone who wants our political system to remain in the hands of the highest bidder. Before getting a hold of the Tea Party, FreedonWorks played a significant role in running the public relations aspects for George W. Bush's 2005 plan to privatize social security and turn it over to Wall Street. An astroturf called Americans For Prosperity. They're organization has been very secretive but tax records obtained by the freedom of information act show that the Americans For Prosperity was more than 90% funded by a series of donations from the three main Koch Family foundations to 34 different conservative political and policy organizations, and then funneled back to Americans For Prosperity. So why all the covering of tracks and secrecy around these donations and the establishment of this fake organization? Is it because the Koch Family controls Koch Industries, the largest privately owned company in the United States - a company which pays an enormous amount in lobbying and has enjoyed a huge windfall from tax breaks and deregulation - all thanks millions and millions in lobbying efforts and campaign donations... So why would the people behind the marriage of big business and big government want to run an organization that claims to be for 'small government'? So why would the people behind the marriage of big business and big government want to run an organization that claims to be for 'small government'? Why would lobbyists—you know the guys who use tons of money to change laws in favor of their companies—want to support this organization? Why would they fund it? What do they have to gain? Don't you people realize you're working for the enemy? Is this like Stockholm Syndrom or what? Do any of you bother to research where this organization came from and who's funding it or do you just follow soundbites blindly and allow political 'framing' to make all your decisions for you? I bet most of the people who respond to this won't even read it first. That's the problem. You people have sold yourself out to the media's mental shortcuts because you're too lazy to even google the crap you involve yourself with and find out what's really going on. You're easy prey in the PsyOp. READ & RESEARCH. This isn't a conspiracy. It's all out in the open. Just because these guys claim to be against Obama does not mean they are for you.... You don't need to support Obama to oppose this false campaign. START YOUR OWN CAMPAIGN against Obama and make sure it isn't co-opted.

November 18, 2011

DJ said:

The Tea Party is the manifestation of corruption and the most unpatriotic organization around. Dick Armey is a lobbyist - and according to a lot of Washington Insiders, one of the best around. His biggest contracts were with big pharmaceutical companies. Among the things he helped destroy was the ability for US citizens to import drugs from Canada, where they are sold for much cheaper, and a law that would stop pharmaceutical companies from making astronomical markups selling their products in the US while they sell them for pennies on the dollar everywhere else. Obviously any form of public health care was a giant threat to the lobbies that Dick Armey represented. Dick Armey is the closest thing that the Tea Party has to a founder and a leader. Bad mouth Occupy Wall Street all you want but they are the ONLY people out there at the moment with your interests in mind - they are the only people fighting to make your lives better. Let's apply a little common sense here. If Occupy Wall Street is successful in reducing the amount of corruption bleeding off our tax dollars and is successful in getting at least some of the cheaters out of the system, we will ALL BE BETTER OFF. Tea Party People, Occupy People, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Mormons, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Conservatives, Liberals, gun owners, people who don't like guns, people who think abortions are good, people who think abortions are bad, people who ride bicycles to work, people who want to run over the people that ride bicycles to work... ALL OF US WILL BE BETTER OFF. We will have more money. We will have to pay less in taxes. We will have a better economy. We will have more jobs. We will have more dignity knowing that the cheaters are not running our country. So why is that so hard for so many people to grasp? Since it is so strongly in your interest, and in the interest of your family - if you should have one, and your children's future - if you should have any - why on earth would you not be supporting OWS somehow and even more bizarre, why on earth would you be against it? What could OWS do OTHER THAN something good for you? It really is freaky. It's like Stockholm Syndrome. It makes no sense to support a completely sold out corrupt system for dishonesty and cheaters and oppose the people who are trying to fix it.

November 18, 2011

Do a little research said:

To DJ DJ: You obviously do not frequent this site often. If you had, you would know that The New American has warned against corporate cronyists who try to subvert the Tea Party. You would also have read explanations as to why the Tea Party as a whole will not likely become subverted: It is too diffuse, making centralized control untenable. This magazine has also pointed out instances of hypocrisy by elements of the Tea Party who sound like big-government neoconservative Republicans. The Tea Party as a whole is not the enemy: It is promoting smaller government. The "Occupy" movements, on the other hand, promote big government solutions almost without fail, apparently through sheer ignorance of the fact that politicians could not be bought out by anyone if voters merely voted into office representatives who adhered to the Constitution and the fact that big government is always the cradle of corruption: payoffs and bribes.

November 18, 2011

Frank M. Pelteson said:

What is behind this Often overlooked is that the Communistic super-capitalists, like the Council on Foreign Relations crowd, are the REAL players behind the OWS movement. Their long-range aim at forming a one-world Socialist Police State has created this anarchist movement as a stepping stone in that direction. This fits into the Marxist "Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis" tactic that is required to REACT the hapless REACTIONARIES into surrendering to World Socialism. It is hard for uninformed people to get the idea that these communistic super-capitalists execute phony, Big Lie campaigns against capitalism in order to bring about this surrender. The effectiveness of such a campaign cannot be measured. Understanding the Marxist dialectic is the key to seeing through such movements as the OWS movement.

November 18, 2011

J. Hill said:

... I am afraid far too many people are going to buy into the lies that DJ has. Is there corruption in our government? No sane person could deny it. How DJ thinks the TEA Party is responsible for promoting corruption is hard to fathom. It was the illegal, crony bailouts of the financial system and GM that was the very genesis of the TEA Party. The financial system of the entire world is in a state of collapse. Every day a few more people are awakening to the utter futility of trying to salvage countries that have spent far, far more than they have received for years. The US is the grand daddy exampple of this. Just print money because no one will buy our debt at ridiculously low interest rates and we have hyperinflation ala Weimar Republic. Raise the interest rates and Uncle Sam could not even pay the monthly debt service and would have to default. What no one is looking at is that the OWS thugs are going to be the leaders of millions of very disgruntled (read furious) Americans that will pour out onto the street once they realize their 401ks, money market accounts, pension funds and stock portfolios have been wiped out. Millions of average Americans like DJ are going to be (rightly) PO'd at the capitalist system they will, as DJ has apparently done, embrace the communist thugs that desire to emulate Che. May DJ and America wake up.

November 19, 2011

Marcy Fleming said:

A READING LIST FOR THE MARXIST DJ Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises Socialism by Ludwig Von Mises Capitalism by George Reisman Economic Controversies by Murray Rothbard (if you can only read one book this is it) Man, Economy And State by Murray Rothbard with Power & Market included in the deluxe edition The Roosevelt Myth by John T. Flynn FDR's Folly by Jim Powell Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Capitalism:The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand Meltdown by Thomas E. Woods New Deal Or Raw Deal ? by Burton Folsom The God Of The Machine by Isabel Paterson The Failure of The New Economics by Henry Hazlitt. Political Economy by Jean-Say Baptiste Anything by Frederic Bastiat Capitalism The Creator by Carl Snyder Capital And Interest by Eugen Bohm-Bawerk The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein The Structure Of Production by Mark Skousen Lobbying is authorized by the US Constitution and no one forces our representatives to take their money. AIPAC, The Israel Lobby, is the most powerful lobby and you ignore it ! What a phony !

November 19, 2011