Let’s Blame OWS for a Few Bad Apples

Let’s Blame OWS for a Few Bad Apples

When I criticize the Occupy movement, liberals and so-called independents fire back with claims that the movement, in the main, is peaceful and constructive; and that the violence is the result of infiltrators and “a few bad apples.”

Personally, I believe that this is nonsense. From my experience (as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area– Oakland and Richmond to be precise) the protesters are nothing short of Marxist revolutionaries.

Now I’m not talking about passers-by, observers, and folks who go to work but sympathize with the protests. Surely President Obama, who has expressed support for the movement, isn’t an all-out violent communist.

Instead I’m referring to the die-hard campers who are braving the elements and spending days at a time on the bullhorns and in the drum circles. They are extreme. They don’t mind a little violence and destruction, if it comes at the expense of capitalists and bourgeois types.

But let’s suppose that the violence in Oakland, and the more unsavory behaviors in other cities, are the work of outside agitators. Isn’t it perfectly fair to hold a movement accountable for the people it attracts?

If Neo Nazis routinely showed up for Tea Party rallies in support of conservative aims, the Tea Party organizers would rightly be criticized. In fact, the Right is consistently attacked as racist because, as liberals put it, conservative policies find favor in some racist circles.

If violence continues to erupt in the name of Occupy Wall Street, or Occupy Oakland, or Occupy anywhere else, then the public ought to demand accountability from the Occupy movement.

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