Today’s New York Times reports that OWSers’ squalid outdoor encampment is making people sick.
Guys: Time to move inside. NOW.
OWS: Cesspool of Contagion
Ted Rall
http://rall.comTed Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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18 Comments.
Move inside? Where? The Goldman Sachs lobby? Then the police will start showing OWS what real brutality is. Of course, OWS being all about “defense-only” will take their beatings, stand in front of the cameras with blood dripping from their skulls and ……… hope for sympathy. Perhaps some of the bankers will feel sorry for them and offer a pack of band-aids.
Cesspool of Contagion? Gee, that sounds like a heavy-metal band to me.
Ted, do you always believe what the New York Times says? The same NYT that lied us into a major war? Seriously, every time I here crap stories like this it makes me want to put a dollar in the Zucotti Park general fund, just to spite the people who write them.
Typo:
“hear”
Looks as if the NYPD has decided to help the Occupiers make their decision, as Zucotti Park was cleared, with 70 or so arrested, late last night:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/nyregion/police-begin-clearing-zuccotti-park-of-protesters.html?_r=1&hp
@ntm1972, We can count on the authorities’ oppressiveness to amp up the volume and further radicalize the situation. They are playing into our hands. When the revolution comes, we will raise a statue of Michael Bloomberg.
True, Ted, some of the protesters will be further radicalized – but (and I hope I’m wrong) most of the protesters will end up packing their bags and going home, while many more would-be revolutionaries will decide to continue to sit on the sidelines.
TPTB smell blood, in Portland, Salt Lake City, Oakland, Philly, NYC and elsewhere, and they’re betting that they not only have the firepower to win the battle, but that they also have the public support to violently put an end to the Occupy movement. A lot of the comments I’m seeing from readers in the Times and elsewhere make me think that, unfortunately, law enforcement does indeed enjoy the support of a large swath of the American populace.
The revolution is coming… but at the moment, it seems to be moving more at a snail’s pace than at a gallop.
ntm-
There will not be a revloution, at least not in the sense you and Ted are hoping for, and that is a good thing because the left would LOSE. The fascists will win, and the state they will put in place will make those who wished for revolution incredibly sorry that their wish was granted.
Ted-
You are right about one thing, Bloomberg will be getting a statue. But it won’t be from the side of the left.
Damn, Whimsical, and I thought **I** was pessimistic….
You’ve branded American-style fascism as an inexorable force against which it is useless to resist.
We’ve got three options, right? Revolution, which you dismiss outright; reform, which we know to be utterly ineffective under the current system; and retreat, which is not only an admission of defeat, but which fosters hopelessness and despair.
Let’s Make a Deal… so, which door do I choose, Monty?
As if on cue, Gauleiter Bloomber cracks in on the encampment. I hate to say I told you so, but I did say that local ordinances on “public health” that you leftists seem to love so much were going to be used as a pretext to dissolve the camps. Perhaps it’s an object lesson for you guys on why hating the state is more important than hating rich people.
On a completely unrelated note, and just as a reminder to those who are going to claim I’m “retarded” for speaking against the Almighty State, this is what the state is all about:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57324779-281/doj-lying-on-match.com-needs-to-be-a-crime/
ntm-
I reject entirely the conclusion that reform is useless within the current system. The left has been doing it incorrectly, and incorrectly claiming that their poor performance means that reform is useless; this is the intellectual equivelent of claiming “I lost the chess game because I couldn’t move my rook diagonally.”
Lacking the understanding of the rules or the skill to use the rules to win does not mean winning is impossible. It just means you’re bad at it.
The system is entirely reformable, but not with the tactics the left is currently using. And it seems to me the left would rather stick their nose in the air and whine about the moral superioty of their position then adjust their tactics.
Whimsical,
Money talks. The corporatists on both sides of the political divide have all the money, and therefore carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, to whomever the hell they want.
Under the current system, if you’re anti-corporatist, you don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of reforming anything.
If the leftists working within the system are doing it incorrectly, as you put it, then what should they do differently in order to achieve their goals in a manner that is, per their philosophy, ethically defensible?
ntm-
Well, for starters, they could lose the notion that there is ANYTHING “ethically indefensible” when it comes to reforming the system; other than the moronically obvious, of course- I’m certainly not saying that kindapping family members of those in power is somehow suddenly ethical.
Look, the system can be taken from the muck and slime encrusted monsters who hold it now and be repaired- but, and here’s the key, NOT without getting in the muck and slime of their playing field to battle with them.
The left currently seems to think that they’re somehow “above” getting down in the muck and slime encrusted trenches- I’ve had more than one lefty tell me “I shouldn’t HAVE to do that.” That’s nice. I shouldn’t HAVE to work to pay my rent, but if I don’t, my ass is going to get kicked just like the left’s is getting kicked now.
No, rather than sully themselves in a way that would actually get them forward progress on the goals they claim to want, the left prefers to stick their nose in the air and talk about the things they shouldn’t HAVE to do. That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee, if you’ll pardon the expression.
Or worse- they foment pipe dreams of revolution. And pipe dreams are all they’ll ever be-because not only can the revolution they desire not be won, I doubt those talking of it are even willing to fight.
I mean, c’mon, folks- you’re unwilling to get your hands dirty with muck and slime. Why should I believe you’ll be ok in covering them with blood?
Whimsical,
I expected the response you offered, but only because there is no other logical reply one can provide if one advocates reform.
The following quotes come to mind:
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
“We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
A lot of leftists are unwilling to do what you recommend, not because they operate in a self-righteous fog, but because they don’t want to become the monsters they abhor. They’re convinced that anyone who is truly reform-minded, and who tries to work within the system, would be hopelessly co-opted prior to the realization of any meaningful reform, and there’s precious little evidence to prove them wrong on this point. Kucinich’s about-face on Obama’s health-care reform bill is but one example in this regard.
ntm-
Allow me to share a Neitzche quote with you:
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”.
Some would say that it proves your point, but I like to think it proves mine, because you wouldn’t need a warning if it wasn’t possible to battle monsters without becoming one.
As for evidence, I’m afraid it’s a chicken and the egg scenario: From my POV the lack of evidence is a direct result of their lack of effort. I’m sure they regard their lack of effort as a direct result of the lack of evidence.
All I know for sure is what they’re doing isn’t working. It’s time to try something else.
Whimsical,
We will agree to disagree on the reform issue.
Perhaps the solution (referring to the 3 R’s I used earlier – revolution, reform, and retreat) is a combination of internal revolution and external retreat, secure in the knowledge that eventually, implosion will occur and the system will collapse in on itself. You also have to be content with the fact that, due to the relative resiliency of the current system, none of us might be alive when collapse finally occurs. I don’t like the idea of internalizing revolution, and of playing the waiting game, but often it’s difficult to imagine how a widespread revolution in the old-fashioned sense would be successful.
ntm-
That’s probably the best course, if you’re unwilling to attempt reform. As you already know, we agree that a revolution in the old-fashioned sense would be unlikely to succeed (and I believe it’s failure would have catastrophic consequences).
However, playing the waiting game requires a level of patience I fail to see in the left, currently.