Gus was here yesterday, helping me to get the final things in place before winter, even as winter asserted her primacy of place and disdain for the plans of man.
While we were back inside, warming and drying, we started talking about OWS 'movement' and I told him I'd not really bothered to watch much of the video coverage, and he responded, "oh, you have to watch, so you can point and laugh."
So we did.
Today I'm not laughing quite so much, however.
Those people are tools, they are just too stupid to know it. I think the good side of that is that they do not have the brains to actually continue this thing by themselves, and after a while several things will happen.
ReplyDelete1. Some of the smarter ones will realize that they have been had, and they will be pissed.
2. The dumbest ones won't realize it but will be lost.
3. The rest of the country will get tired of that stuff and the movement will become less and less relevant.
We also have to consider what will begin to happen when these unsanitary cesspools begin to fester and people start getting seriously ill. And how about business such as the African Arts Coffee Shop in Oakland whose business has gone down 80% since this thing started? I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the owners originally would have sided with the OWS gang -- but I doubt they do any more.
So yes, these are troubling times, but I believe there is reason for optimism. We must remain hopeful -- their goal is to make us feel hopeless.
Dances, great post. I've been reading AdBusters off and on for a long time (since before I remotely considered self-identifying as "conservative" with any finite number of qualifying prefixes).
ReplyDeleteAdBusters is interesting. IMHO they go down in my book as evil because they are essentially misanthropes. They hate people and would see us all burn. Ultimately it seems they hate themselves.
But that itself is a pretty harsh indictment of a group of people, and so I can't advocate for it other than to say "this is how they seem to me".
And yet, having said that... if you had read this passage:
But it did feel like there was this kind of a soft regime that was controlled by the power of finances and by the power of lobbyists and by the power of corporations to get their own way. And it felt like some kind of a soft regime change was necessary there.
and it had been attributed to a Tea Party person, would it have really read so implausibly? I think your average Tea Partier might have inserted the qualifier "crony" before "corporations" (understanding that not every entity with and "Inc." in it's name is complicit in the "regime"), but really, the idea that Big Business and Big Government (and Big Hollywood) are all part of the same crummy "regime" isn't a concept to which the Left has exclusive license, is it? 'Cause I don't see them enforcing that license on Andrew Breitbart...
Back on Planet Portland: there was an effort to extend the occupation to the (very upscale) Pearl district last night. The uber-lib city government drew a line in the sand. The Pearl is their oyster. It's both hip _and_ rich and they sure as hell didn't want the smellies polluting their donor base. Jameson park, where the occupiers had wanted to set up, is where said political donors walk their dogs and take their kids.
So the liberal city government had a choice between being hypocrites (because they had condoned the occupation in parks which were not adjacent to neighborhoods critical to their own occupation of city hall) or being at war with their own constituents. The city government got off easy this time; there were 27 arrests but no violence (unlike other cities).
Clearly there is nationwide (likely global) coordination between the groups as other cities are seeing escalations this weekend.
As a protest, occupy portland has failed utterly. It is, however, the most successful homeless camp I've seen. There are young, motivated volunteers working really hard at making it work as well as it does - which isn't saying much, but we're talking homeless camp here, so the bar to "excellence" is low.
In short they're taking better care of the homeless people than I've ever seen anyone do here, and that includes said liberal city government, and the radical "activists" and "advocates" who pull down full time salaries from 501c3 charities to "serve" the homeless.
The homeless are going to be very disappointed when the bright young kids become fed up and go home.
lewy, I love reading your take on the WSO stuff. It always gives me pause to consider a new slant on things, thanks.
ReplyDeleteSomething about the "homeless" and people of that ilk: they cannot be forced to do anything they do not want to do.
ReplyDeleteIn Vancouver several years ago, a homeless person died of exposure on the streets. Of course, the usual suspects squawked and said that more money must be spent on the homeless problem.
The problems is that an aid car crew tried three or four times to convince the man to get some shelter. The crew even wanted to take the man to a shelter. However, he refused -- and he was within his rights to refuse.
In Seattle when I drove a bus, I twice saw aid car crews assaulted by homeless types whom the EMTs were trying to help.
If they have rights, fine. Then they can bear the consequences of their decisions. If "society" is going to be held accountable for the deaths of homeless people on the streets, then society should be able to take those people against their will and put them into treatment.
The left cannot have it both ways.
These OWSers seem to be quite the bowl of minestrone...a little bit of everything. I'm sure there are bright young kids amidst the angry Che-groupies, homeless people along for the ride, hippie-types, union goons, and upper-crust idiots with nothing better to do but stamp their little feet and run their mouths.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in what the bright young kids are thinking. The others? Not so much.
There is no doubt in my mind that this whole thing has been carefully orchestrated, with months, if not years, of preparation. I'm hoping the BYKs figure it out.
As a sidenote, the media coverage and support of this ongoing "event" is beyond the pale. Brian Williams and his comrades may as well wear lapel buttons that read "tax the rich" or "we are the 99%". It's THAT bad. Is the media response part of the orchestration? I wonder.
It does my heart good to hear how your son is reacting to this madness, DWT. He has a good head on his shoulders. You must be very proud of him! :)
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