The Occupation of Los Angeles - Part 3 - 10/01/2011
Vice President Joe Biden recently compared the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters to the Tea Party. He said "they have a lot in common". Is he right? Does the Tea Party really have a lot in common with the protesters sleeping in New York’s Zuccotti Park, or any of the other solidarity "occupations" around the country?
Let’s take a look at the "occupiers" at LA City Hall Park and see how much they have in common with the Tea Party.
Well, I did see a few signs at the occupation of L.A. which featured quotations from America’s founding documents.
That’s just like a Tea Party, isn’t it? Maybe Joe Biden is right. There were also some supporters of crazy Uncle Ron there, too. He’s a Republican, isn’t he?
And there were plenty of anti-Obama sings and placards.
Heck, I even saw a few Gadsden flags.
But how many Tea Partiers would display their Gadsden flags along with a Karl Marx quote from the Communist Manifesto?
And just like at Tea Parties, I saw numerous American flags. But at the Occupy L.A. protest, nearly every U.S. flag I saw was desecrated in some way.
The truth is the Occupation Protests are nothing like a Tea Party…Or to be more precise, the Occupation Protests are the exact opposite of the Tea Party. Walking around Occupy L.A. was like visiting a Tea Party gone through Alice’s "looking glass".
One Occupy L.A. protester even brought along a Tea Party "cownter" protester costume and conducted mock interviews with people who volunteered to pretend to be dumb conservatives…Everyone had a good laugh.
So let’s take a stroll around Occupy Los Angeles see what the protesters have to say. I’ll try to go light on the commentary and let the vanguards of the new revolution speak for themselves.
Please try not to be confused by contradictory or incomprehensible messages. And go easy on the spelling errors. How can you be expected to spell every word correctly when there is a revolution to be won!
Many of the revolutionaries in the park seemed quite young, barely old enough to have ever actually paid taxes.
Protesters held signs telling their sob stories of unemployment, home foreclosures and the astronomical sums of student loan debt they’ve acquired.
By this time the occupiers had spread to the South Lawn of the park, and had now entirely surrounded Los Angeles City Hall.
Of the few pre-printed signs, most were provided by Unions such as the AFL/CIO and The Teamsters.
People gathered around on the grass to listen to impromptu speeches and revolutionary poetry.
This fellow read a passionate rendition of an "abstract anarchist" poem about the festering sores behind his testicles.
The microphone was essentially open to anyone, therefore many of the speeches sounded like this fellow.
One of the most popular revolutionaries to take the mic was a shirtless fellow with a rubber pig nose, an American flag cape, and flag face covering who had been waiting his "whole life for this day".
Ron Kovic, author of Born On the Fourth of July, also made a short speech….well, actually he made the same short speech a number of times at various places around the park throughout the day.
Around park small meetings, or councils, were being held. I approached one called "Demands Committee" where a group of people were sitting around discussing what the demands of the protest would be. I immediately recognized most of the participants as leaders of various Communist, and other extreme Left organizations which I’ve photographed at other leftwing demonstrations over the years.
The big fellow with the goatee sitting on the wall in the above photo is an organizer for the PLP wing of the Revolutionary Communist Party. You can see a picture I took of him here leading a band of red flag waving communist youths in a May Day parade in Los Angeles. And the guy below him with the green glasses and black shirt is an organizer for International ANSWER, which is branch or the Workers World Party. Let’s have a closer look at that tattoo on his arm.
"Proletarian"
In fact, everyone on the "Demands Committee" I recognized as a member of some Marxist group or another. Actually, the whole protest was lousy with Communists.
And although signs were clearly posted informing people that camping would not be allowed in the park, tents were erected as the day came to an end. One young man in a blouse and high heels spent over two hours building a "Union Hall".
I didn’t stick around to see what became of the Union Hall after sunset, but I do know that the park was cleared that evening and all the "occupiers" were forced off the grass and on to the sidewalk. When I returned on Monday morning there was no sign of the Union Hall.
Stay tuned for Part 4 of The Occupation of Los Angeles.
All pictures and video by Ringo’s Pictures.
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