Occupy Yourself! Zombies of Occupy Defecate on Everyone

Young persons who sense that there is something wrong with the world, and who have never been exposed to the boggling complexity of circular causation interwoven into the real world, may be attracted to the Occupy! movement, as a novelty. The movement appears to be "accomplishing something," as opposed to meekly taking it on the chin from an indifferent world ruled by wealthy narcissists. To such relative babes in the world, Occupy may seem to hold a promise of ultimate justice for all the wrongs done to the weak.

In the real world, Occupy is a herd of naive assholes being led by well-paid and cynical professional activists, who bring out the worst behaviour in everyone they influence.

Here's another point of view, from California Occupy! observers:

Last night, San Diego residents held a fundraiser for two street vendors whose carts were burglarized and vandalized, with blood and piss, by Occupy protesters. The protesters were angry that the vendors would not “donate” their wares to the movement. CBS Los Angeles reports that the vendors, one who sold hot dogs, and one who sold coffee, also received death threats for refusing to give away their goods.

At the Port of Oakland earlier this month, workers and observers could only enter—and more horrifying, leave—the port after the mob “voted” their permission. When one trucker tried to break through the blockade, his vehicle was attacked. The protester who did the attacking had this to say: "These people tried to kill us. I can't believe they are being that aggressive over a paycheck, over your own people fighting for you." (Savor the irony.) While people waited into the early morning hours for permission to see their families and do their jobs, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who gave the OK for Oakland Police to fire tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of Occupy Protesters, sat safely in a government building.

Even if we are to assume that the bulk of these crimes have been committed by members of Black Blocs—groups of anarchic nihilists who cover their faces in order to wreak meaningless havoc, yet are not really on board with the wider aims (whatever they may be) of the Occupy movement—and other minorities of the movement, there’s still no good explanation for why Occupy protesters on the whole are causing more harm to their local economies than they are to their government.

Show me an Occupy demand that can be met by destroying the livelihoods of people who are on the cusp of poverty (due to government regulations on food vendors), smashing the windows of a Men’s Warehouse and a coffee shop, trashing the bathroom of a Manhattan restaurant, pushing an old lady down a flight of D.C. stairs after imprisoning her and her fellow conservative conference attendees using a human chain, or "clobber[ing] a store manager with a credit-card reader." You can’t. That’s because the government holds the strings here, not the people who Occupy is hurting. The government gives away corporate welfare, controls cops, sends perverse signals to the market, drops bombs, exposes itself to regulatory capture, deals out special favors to big interests, operates drones, prohibits drugs, and destroys immigrant families through deportation. Hot dog vendors sell hot dogs, restaurants sell food, store managers manage stores, truck drivers drive trucks.

While disrupting local businesses is significantly easier than disrupting local and national government (Hot dog vendors don’t pack heat, the government—and sometimes, the NYT—does), screwing over the rest of the 99 percent simply because it's easier isn't going to accomplish Occupy's goals, unless of course triggering schadenfreude and alienating possible allies are agenda items on one of the dozen-or-so lists of demands floating around the web. _Reason

Occupy! will never go after the real source of all the problems they bemoan. Because that would mean going after their backers and their heroes. The naivete of the true believers in the camps is both heart-rending and sickening, as is the ease with which they are manipulated.

No one ever said that dumbing down entire societies would be without its repercussions.