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Occupy Wall Street: ‘They Want a Class War? Maybe They’ll Get One…’

One of the oddest people I have run into at the Occupy Wall Street protests so far, is a gentleman wearing an East German military uniform. Yes, yes, he is not “representative,” (If there is actually such a thing as such a diffuse and inchoate gathering.) But he does feed in to what I wrote about yesterday — the performance art aspect of the whole thing. During our conversation he flitted between an insistence that he was a serious “Luxembourg Marxist,” and an almost childish obsession with dressing up in military uniforms, like “on Halloween.” It would be amusing, but for the look in his eyes at the end:

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COMMENTS   21

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Norris
   10/07/11 19:30

This chucklehead keeps saying if Republicans want class warfare they'll get it. The problem is that I don't know anyone on the right wanting class warfare. What the right is saying is that class warfare is evil. And then there's the salient little point that it's the left that is promoting the class warfare.

Like so many on the left, this guy is projecting.

N.B.
To post this I had to type in "Everyone's bags fly free."

There's an in-law joke in there somewhere.

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   10/07/11 20:44

His uniform and teeth say old line commie, but his hair says Berkeley professor. (Oops, sorry. Same thing.)

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   10/07/11 21:04

If there really is a class war, the first rich guy he ought to shoot is his dentist.

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ben Gibson
   10/07/11 21:15

How can this work? Doesn't he realize all he is doing is scaring people away from the Democrats?

It is never a good idea to freak the mundanes.

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   10/07/11 22:24

This guy called the East Germans "hamfisted" and "unimaginative". Yeah, that's it. Not evil, but just "hamfisted". And I don't know how they could have been unimaginative. As he says, the uniform is cool.

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   10/08/11 01:26

I guess it's a step up that this New Tea Party actually knows what "hamfisted" is. The last Tea Party thought it meant being able to drive a wheelchair and eat a sandwich at the same time.

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   10/08/11 06:40

Gee, I guess you really don't like the Tea Party if you think that waste is a step up from them. Guess I should just be grateful you didn't refer to them as "teabaggers". After all, isn't that just an inch or so lower that what many probably have called you in your time?

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   10/08/11 17:24

Interesting.

Faced with a video of a man who either cannot identify the starkest evil for what it is, or who is actually OK with evil, you respond by going to the old "conservatives are idiot hicks" canard.

(a) Tea Partiers actually do know what "hamfisted" means.

(b) Every last one of them knows that East Germany was an exceptionally evil regime.

Given the choice, I'd rather be ignorant of a few words than be ignorant of the nature of evil.

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   10/08/11 02:09

Kids, honestly, this is what years and years of drug abuse does to your brain. I'm being 100% serious. I'm certain that this guy abused drugs, heavy drugs, for a long time. That's why he can't speak coherently. That's why his ideas on justice are so "ham fisted". Kids, this is what your brain looks like after years and years of being on drugs.

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cpayne
   10/08/11 11:32

Folks, please: Don't you recognize a vampire when you see one?

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Dave H
   10/08/11 15:03

The thing about Occupy Wall Street is that merely having the protest is the only apparent goal of the protest. It's not "Reform" Wall Street. It's not "Regulate" Wall Street. It's not even "Destroy" Wall Street. Merely "Occupy." It is simply a piece of mass performance art with no greater "meaning." Just like real performance art. It is merely "protest for protest's sake" from the "art for art's sake" crowd.

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Arron
   10/08/11 23:24

Norris, another funny thing; the right has no interest in class warfare, but is typically, generally prepared. The left is screaming for class warfare, with no idea on what to bring. It would be a massacre.

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   10/09/11 12:07

He called the East German leaders hamfisted and unimaginative and his eyes lit up when discussing the Soviets, whom he obviously admired. Old line communist all the way, who likely retains his belief that impatient, punitive methods of dealing with slow converts to collectivism are what destroyed the dream of achieving it.

I bet he believes Alger Hiss was innocent. Not because he didn't lie, but because he lied for the "greater good."

The only pleasure I experienced in watching that clip is in observing how much these 50's/60's old line commies are aging. Their season is nearly past.

It's not the American Autumn. It's the Commie Dreamers' Last Hurrah.

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   05/10/12 10:05

"The only pleasure I experienced in watching that clip is in observing how much these 50's/60's old line commies are aging. Their season is nearly past."

I've been thinking about that for a while. When the 60's radicals are in the nursing homes or pushing up the daisies, who is the next set to pick up the torch? The 60s crew at least had a plan, had large numbers intellectual capacity to infect academia and the media and such.

Seems to me the next generation of libs, even if as large in numbers (debatable), are far less shrewd and more radicalized. Not an impressive farm team.

Contrast to the, imo, much more young and vibrant conserative farm team. The ages and talents of the respective teams in elected positions shows this. Compare Ryan, Rubio, Lee, Rand Paul, Walker, etc. with which rising liberal stars? Liz Warren, Weiner, DWS, Edwards? Who? Their most promising presidential aspirant is Cuomo, and he's tacked to the right and hitting unions, at least superficially so to score points with the general public.

What we may be seeing is the last gasp of the 60's radicals. Should they be defeated in November, and the SCOTUS solidified to the right, then I think it's lights out for a long while. IF the republicans do what we sent them there to do -- big IF, I know.

(Captcha: "old codger"!)

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Dana Brown
   10/09/11 21:40

I love it it when the lefty liberal progressive/commie protester types talk about "revolution" and proceed to issue thinly veiled threats of violence using code words like "class warfare", etc. Uh huh. Bring your threats to my neighborhood out here in "fly over" country and see what happens.

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Dana Brown
   10/09/11 21:41

P.S. To post I had to type in "raise cain". Interesting on several levels.

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Kevin Moriarty
   10/10/11 09:49

Class warfare began with the rhetoric from the right about the government stealing from the wealthy to provide undeserved, unearned benefits to Americans.

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Wendy71
   05/10/12 10:17

Can you really date class warfare or name an originator? If you study history, you know that it's as old as the hills. Just about every poltical party engages in it.

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Another Anon
   05/10/12 11:05

So... wars begin not with the first punch, but the complaint about the first punch?

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BenRB
   10/23/11 20:12

The sarcasm of the interviewer is not helping the situation. Regardless of this guys motives he has the right to wear whatever he wants to the protest. I think an interview that was genuinely curious rather than insultingly sarcastic would have been better. Remember it can take one single pebble to start an avalanche and I think it's important for everyone involved to be open and kind.

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