Monday, October 10, 2011
The answer to "Occupy Wall Street"
Occupy Berkeley!
Posted By Steven Plaut On October 11, 2011
The focus of the country has lately been on the "Occupy Wall Street"
movement, or "OWS." You know, the people who claim to speak for the
99% of Americans who are not wealthy capitalists and who think they
can create social justice and equality by marching around the New York
Stock Exchange and other centers of capitalism, like Greenwich
Village.
Here is how the leaders of the leaderless OWS describe themselves on
their Web site: "Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement
with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one
thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer
tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the
revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the
use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants." They
go on to promise: "We are growing. Block by block – city by city. We
will see change in this country, in this world. It will happen sooner
than you can imagine."
Now it occurs to me that there is only one appropriate and sensible
response to the "Occupy Wall Street" anarchists and street urchins.
And that is to create a competing grassroots mass movement that will
challenge the attention OWS is receiving in the media, while offering
a rational and constructive alternative agenda for real social change.
I propose that the alternative mass movement be called "Occupy Berkeley."
OB will be a mass movement holding protests and street demonstrations
in Berkeley, California. Its first order of business will be to
occupy Telegraph Avenue. The slogan of OB should be, "We are the
other 99.999999%," referring to the fact that people who despise
Berkeley street hippies and "anarchists" represent exactly that
proportion of the general population.
OB will specialize in civil disobedience and street theater. Among
its initiatives will be a mass roundup of Berkeley hippies who will be
conducted to the central facilities of OB, where they will all be
given free baths. A special re-education campus will be set up in
Orange County, California, where all Bay Area communists and drug
users will be sent to learn about the disadvantages of communism.
OB will also rid Berkeley of those asking passersby for spare change.
Instead, OB will promote entrepreneurship for panhandlers and for
homeless youths. Anyone in the Bay area stopping passersby and asking
for spare change will be ordered to do pushups, where the first 40 are
unpaid but after that, payment will be made to the panhandlers at the
rate of 20 cents per pushup. Tax free. Pregnant panhandlers and
those over 70 will be permitted to do their pushups from the knees.
Telegraph Avenue will be renamed "Wall Street West" and Shattuck
Avenue will be renamed "Milton Friedman Boulevard." The area within 4
miles of the University of California (CAL) campus will be declared a
tie-dye-free zone, where no tie dyed clothing may be worn. Discounts
to the BART and other forms of public transit will be offered to
Berkeley residents wearing ties and jackets. All the "head shops"
selling drug paraphernalia along Telegraph Avenue will be converted
into barber shops and Bible stores. When not using public transit,
travel in SUVs will be not only permitted but made mandatory.
Special retreats will be held for Berkeley residents still believing
in communism. There they will be housed in Gulag barracks, woken up
at 5 AM, and ordered to do physical labor without getting paid.
Berkeley socialists can also be sent to the retreats, but they will
only be woken up to work at 5:30 AM. Non-competitive sports will be
prohibited during leisure time, only competitive sports allowed.
Afternoon breaks at the camp will be devoted to generating greenhouse
gases. On Saturday nights, "Dirty Harry" movies will be screened.
Attendance will be mandatory. Vegan foods will be absolutely
prohibited there.
Berkeley is of course only the beginning. After Berkeley is occupied
by masses of marching conservatives, it will be the turn of Madison,
WI; Amherst, MA; and of course San Francisco. Any city or state
approving of medical marijuana will next be targeted. Cities
undergoing occupation by OB will see reverse affirmative action
implemented, whereby anyone who was harmed in the past by affirmative
action programs will be entitled to preferences, compensation, and
reparations.
Occupy Berkeley is growing, town by town, block by block, taser by
taser. We are drawing bipartisan support from people sick and tired
of the selfish indulgence of leftwing radicals and hippies. Unlike
OWS, the only genders we represent are men and women. And we are
accepting donations because we believe in materialism and selfishness.
We chant: "The world is watching!"; "This is how democracy looks!";
"We are the ones we've been waiting for!"; and "It is never too late
for a spanking."
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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/11/occupy-berkeley/