Crime Surging at "Occupier" Sites - Scenes From "Lord of the Flies"

Human Events ^ | October 20, 2011 | JWF

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

As the national media continues to promote the idea that these absurd "Occupy" protests demonstrate some groundswell of popular opinion, reports continue to emerge from localized media showing how ugly these encampments are becoming. A report out of Cleveland that  police are investigating a rape claim made by a 19-year-old woman last weekend has received little attention. Do you suppose if a rape claim was made against a tea partier that it would receive more attention?

It's gotten so bad in Baltimore that organizers are discouraging alleged victims from going to the police (maybe they should go to Sheriff Biden).

Meanwhile, out in Oakland "occupiers" have taken to threatening reporters who dare enter their space. Ironically, it's public space, but I guess they've claimed it as their own. Also in Oakland they've been overrun by the dregs of society, resulting on what one police office says it a scene akin to the Lord of the Flies.

The tent city that has sprung up on the steps of Oakland City Hall has attracted a diverse range of people, many with competing ideologies and world views. Homeless people, ex-convicts, at least one registered sex offender, students, unemployed hotel workers, anarchists and reform-minded activists freely mingle together in what amounts to a democracy free-for-all.

Sometimes, everyone appears to be on the same page. But the skein of civility has been frequently shattered as bullies, the mentally ill, drunks, thugs and anarchists have threatened the safety and well-being of the camp's more peaceful residents.

Whenever you see the media insisting things are peaceful, think the opposite.

One Oakland police officer, who asked to remain anonymous for reasons of police protocol, described the scene in tent city as akin to a scene from "Lord of the Flies." And, indeed, the on-the-fly rule-making can often veer into an oppressive, anarchic mood.

Journalists are routinely shooed away and told off by angry residents. One Oakland police supervisor said that the participants first appeared to him as "freethinking activists" but have since devolved into something more sinister. He said it was "interesting for a group that claims to be against current civilization and rules to set up a far more oppressive society than our own."

 Down in Los Angeles the "occupiers" have already trashed their current location and are looking to upgrade their digs. They also have hopelessly confused about what they want and, since they're apparently stoned out of their minds, can't come up with an actual list of demands, outside of recurring requests for munchies, it appears.

There are a lot of big ideas floating around Occupy L.A., but not a whole lot of consensus. The protesters have yet to codify a list of demands. In recent days, tensions within the group have spiked over drug use and growing numbers of homeless who have joined the camp.

Rachel Goldie, 20, decided to leave the protest Wednesday because she felt it had been corrupted by people who didn't care about economic justice. "Everybody is pretty much just partying it up," she said.

Police have been watching the protest closely from a command post inside City Hall. The department sent more than 30 officers to monitor the protest last weekend, Smith said. The daily and weekend deployments are not costing the city extra money, he said. But, he said, the protest is "taking police services away from the rest of the city where they should be out answering 911 calls."

So if someone is raped and police are unavailable, just blame Joe Biden.

Up in Boston things are also teetering out of control.

The incident highlights an emerging rift between the Occupiers and homeless, who have moved into the tent city to feast on freebies. Occupy protesters and a law enforcement source said cellphones, laptops and other items have been swiped from tents, but Driscoll said the department has received no reports of robberies.

“The homeless people are down there lurking around,” a law-enforcement source told the Herald. “Some of them are mentally ill and criminally insane. The potential is there for problems.”

How they can tell the difference between protesters and the mentally ill is unclear.

Looks like we've also got a developing Lord of the Flies scene brewing there.

Demonstrator Andrew Warner, 36, said homeless people are hijacking tents, getting drunk, “passing out” and stealing.

“It’s turning into us against them,” Warner said. “They come in here and they’re looking at it as a way of getting a free meal and a place to crash, which is totally fine, but they don’t bring anything to the table at all. It gets really frustrating.”

Jackson Bush, manning the Occupy information tent yesterday, said some homeless people have been hoarding free items, including donated coats.

Funny how a mob who wants to redistribute the wealth becomes upset when the homeless want to help themselves to other people's property.

The irony escapes them.

---

JWF is a guest blogger for Human Events and the proprietor of Jammie Wearing Fool

[antceecee]

You must be smoking what these idiots are. NO we are not witnessing the decline and fall of the American Republic (though that may be your hope). We ARE witnessing freedom in action and that freedom includes the freedom for some to display their idiocy. The only travesty is the lack of law enforcement cracking down on the lawlessness that has engulfed their demonstrations, but then again the liberal mayors of these towns have decided that this will help their commie cause. This crappola has been tried before... and with much more violence in the sixties and seventies. They are on their last gasp for these lib programs and policies so they have taken to the streets. Astroturfers....

[Absolutely Nobama]

“You must be smoking what these idiots are. NO we are not witnessing the decline and fall of the American Republic (though that may be your hope).”

We’re not ? Where have you been ?

We’re witnessing protests that are being organized by the Communist Party USA and cheered on by the American Nazi Party. Radical Islam and CAIR have joined in, while a “Republican” presidential candidate (Ron Paul) gives his blessing, while the President of the United States is giving them his stamp of approval.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t call ANY of the above normal and I certainly wouldn’t call any of this barbarism “freedom”.

Take some time and really think about what’s going on.

[zipper]

Here's another one, from a dry-erase board in the center of the camp.

It's their schedule of events for different days this past week.

Take a close look at the topics and themes. Who do you think runs this camp?

I also attended one of their meetings in which they discussed "security". The white guy up front leading the discussion stressed that 1) nobody should go to the cops or to the hospital if there was a problem -- he said some of the protesters are current or past paramedics, and could drive someone to the hospital if it were called for, and 2) crime issues within the camp should be handled internally without the police. They didn't want the police involved (this was just after a theft incident that escalated and resulted in someone calling the police). It would be bad p.r., and besides many of them are ex-cons (one of them looked around and said he figured maybe 50 percent of them had been in jail or prison).

[Lazlo in PA]

We are witnessing the decline and fall of the American Republic.

Really Dude? This is absolutely a blip on the map of American history. These things are are poorly attended and disorganized. Most people I talk to about this either laugh at it's lameness or have no idea what I am talking about. The Anarchist at the G* meetings put on a better show. For crying out loud, the Zoot Suit Riots in the 40's caused more problems than this garbage. Lay off the Glenn Beck for a week or two. That should calm your nerves.

[punditwannabe]

I know, and can you imagine denying anyone the pleasure of sniffing his girlfriend’s feet?? I mean like how selfish can you get; it’s not even sex, it’s just a little sniffing for gosh sakes! If he can’t even SHARE his girl’s toes, how would he do with his material possessions??! Panty, cop-calling shmo!

[Absolutely Nobama]

Okay, maybe you’re right.

:)

No Glenn Beck for one week. I mean it this time.

[zipper]

This one shows two guys rolling some doobies in the front of Oakland City Hall, juxtaposed with the Frank Ogawa statue in the park.

There was so much dope smoke in the camp you could almost cut it with a knife. Hey, it's California!

There were some racially tense moments there that I witnessed, but this wasn't one of them. I guess all that THC has a calming effect.

[DGHoodini]

It’s not the only rape. There was one reported in Cleveland as well....*reported* rapes.

[zipper]

This was a flyer being handed out at the Occupy San Francisco rally earlier this week.

[livius]

Thanks for the great on-the-ground research! You’ve done some serious investigative journalism here.

[zipper]

Thanks.

These are from the Occupy San Francisco rally last week. They marched from their encampment to City Hall, with a formidable police escort -- squad cars, police on scooters, and on foot.

That rally was peaceful, with the now-standardized speaker-echo audience responses from throngs of Useful Idiots.

There was a female speaker there who thoroughly trashed the founders and the constitution, and called for "starting over"; I don't think she meant having a constitutional convention, either!

I figure probably 2,000-3,000, though the paper said 5,000 were present.

[tanuki]

Actually, I heard it was the sequel, “Lord of the Rats”.

[justa-hairyape]

Warner said. “They come in here and they’re looking at it as a way of getting a free meal and a place to crash, which is totally fine, but they don’t bring anything to the table at all. It gets really frustrating.”

And how exactly will Marxism prevent that ?

[spokeshave]

What do you get when you bum a bum?

dingleberries...?

[livius]

One of the (many) things that I find creepy about this is how Obama has revived a lot of failing, marginal groups that for decades have only been visible in the occasional flyer on a campus lamp post. The Socialist this, the Workers’ that, etc.; in other words, the ragtag groups made up of a few students and mostly a large clump of the older hangers-on and failed academics who always collect around university campuses. They had their moment of glory back in the late 60s and the 1970s. But they caused so much disruption and crime, particularly after their alliance with the “vanguard of the Revolution,” the Black Panthers and other violent black power groups, that they were abandoned even by the Dems and the left, who were mostly motivated by pro-Communist anti-war sentiments and not by domestic events. I think the failure to get McGovern elected was the thing that revealed their lack of larger support or relevance for the average Dem.

But this time these groups, with some of the same players (Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn, for example), have actually managed to get somebody into the White House and now they are reviving all these marginal groups of fruit loops and giving them a legitimacy that they could never have attained on their own. The whole objective, of course, is destabilization, which is a big part of the Alinsky/Ayers technique.

Many of the actual participants in these “spontaneous events” are anarchists. Some of them are part of that floating tribe that seems to roam the world and appear at international riots as if they had their own private jets, and others part of that local stratum of youthful and not so youthful losers who blame the world for their failures. But they are all pretty marginal people, and I wonder if Obama and the people behind him are going to use them a little longer and then dump them once they have accomplished their task of destabilization and destruction.

In the years prior to the Spanish Civil War, the Communists made abundant use of the anarchists to provoke confusion, disruption and fear in various stable parts of Spain, and when actual fighting finally broke out, the anarchists were the first ones to charge out to sack churches, burn villages and kill anyone in their way. But as soon as the Communists actually took charge, the first group that they purged...was the anarchist bloc. The anarchists were considered “politically immature,” and once they had served their purpose in destabilizing the political and social world and in sowing fear, they were no longer necessary and many of them were executed or simply killed on the battlefield by the Communists themselves.

[Molon Labbie]

I didn’t see a section for a rousing rendition of “Dosvidanya Rodina”.

[FLAMING DEATH]

Seriously. Do any of these protests take place in right-to-carry states?

[ETL]

Nature of primitive communist societies:

In a primitive communist society, all able bodied persons would have engaged in obtaining food, and everyone would share in what was produced by hunting and gathering. There would be almost no private property, other than articles of clothing and similar personal items, because primitive society produced no surplus; what was produced was quickly consumed. The few things that existed for any length of time (tools, housing) were held communally.[5] There would have been no state.

Domestication of animals and plants following the Neolithic Revolution through herding and agriculture was seen as the turning point from primitive communism to class society as it was followed by private ownership and slavery, with the inequality that they entailed. In addition, parts of the population specialized in different activities, such as manufacturing, culture, philosophy, and science which is said to lead to the development of social classes.[5]

Those groups that advocate a return to or are inspired by hunter-gatherer society are associated with the movement of anarcho-primitivism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_communism

[ETL]

Anarcho-primitivism:

Some anarcho-primitivists state that prior to the advent of agriculture, humans lived in small, nomadic bands which were socially, politically, and economically egalitarian. Being without hierarchy, these bands are sometimes viewed as embodying a form of anarchism. John Moore writes that anarcho-primitivism seeks “to expose, challenge and abolish all the multiple forms of power that structure the individual, social relations, and interrelations with the natural world.”[15]

Primitivists hold that, following the emergence of agriculture, the growing masses of humanity subtly became evermore beholden to technological processes (”technoaddiction”) [16] and abstract power structures arising from the division of labour and hierarchy. Primitivists disagree over what degree of horticulture might be present in an anarchist society, with some arguing that permaculture could have a role but others advocating a strictly hunter-gatherer subsistence.

Primitivism has drawn heavily upon cultural anthropology and archaeology. Within the last half-century, societies once viewed as barbaric have been largely reevaluated by academics, some of whom now hold that early humans lived in relative peace and prosperity. Frank Hole, an early-agriculture specialist, and Kent Flannery, a specialist in Mesoamerican civilization, have noted that, “No group on earth has more leisure time than hunters and gatherers, who spend it primarily on games, conversation and relaxing.”[17][18] Jared Diamond, in the article “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”,[19] said that hunter-gatherers practice the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history, in contrast with agriculture which he described as a “mess” that has tumbled us, and it’s “unclear whether we can solve it”. Based on the evidence that life expectancy has decreased with the adoption of agriculture, the anthropologist Mark Nathan Cohen, expert in the field of population growth and life expectancy, has call for the need to revise our traditional sense that civilization represents progress in human well-being.[20]

Scholars such as Karl Polanyi and Marshall Sahlins characterized primitive societies as gift economies with “goods valued for their utility or beauty rather than cost; commodities exchanged more on the basis of need than of exchange value; distribution to the society at large without regard to labor that members have invested; labor performed without the idea of a wage in return or individual benefit, indeed largely without the notion of ‘work’ at all.”[21] Other scholars and thinkers such as Paul Shepard, influenced by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, have written of the “Evolutionary Principle” which roughly states that when a species is removed from its natural habitat its behaviors will become pathological. Shepard has written at length on ways in which the human species’ natural “ontogeny”, which developed through millions of years of evolution in a foraging mode of existence, has been disrupted due to a sedentary lifestyle caused by agriculture.[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-primitivism#Thought_and_main_concepts

[ETL]

“Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-”civilized” ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of the division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies. There are other non-anarchist forms of primitivism, and not all primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source of modern, civilized problems.

Many traditional anarchists reject the critique of civilization, many even denying that anarcho-primitivism has anything to do with anarchism,[citation needed] while some, such as Wolfi Landstreicher, endorse the critique but do not consider themselves anarcho-primitivists. Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral state of being through “rewilding”.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-primitivism