Occupy’s Attack On Democracy Posted 05/01/2012 07:10 PM ET
The Left: After a day of mayhem, Occupy protesters have shown themselves to be little more than a dangerous mob. Democrats coddle them even as their outrages escalate. Criminal behavior has no place in a democracy.
After turning New York and other cities’ public parks into open sewers with their extended camp-outs last year, the left-wing protestors of Occupy had little more to do than look for ways to remain relevant after public sentiment turned on them, crowds thinned and donations dried up. By descending into a mob that is the antithesis of democracy, they found one.
May Day arrived and suddenly Occupy decided the holiday of the international left was its ticket to getting names in the news again. But instead of peacefully assembling to present their dog’s breakfast of causes — from hating capitalism, to amnesty for illegal aliens, to halting foreclosures — they descended into violence and criminality that can only mean worse to come.
Five anarchists were arrested in Cleveland by the FBI for trying to bomb a bridge. Authorities said they had a wish list of other targets, including the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the Justice Center of Cleveland and another bridge. Two of the arrested — Brandon Baxter and Anthony Hayne — were named in past news reports as leaders of Occupy Cleveland.
Around New York, 10 envelopes full of white powder imitating anthrax were mailed to seven banks, to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office and to two media outlets, including Fox News. “This is a reminder that you are not in control,” the menacing notes read. “Happy May Day.” A police spokesman told Reuters: “The messages indicated a link to today’s May Day demonstrations.”
In San Francisco, Occupy’s black-hooded goons got started a day early, massing and smashing shop windows of small businesses in San Francisco’s startup alley, the Mission District, as well as slashing tires, hurling paint bombs, vandalizing buildings, setting fires and assaulting news photographers.
This descent into mobbery goes well beyond Occupy’s worst excesses this year — which include “occupying” private homes to protest foreclosures, blocking ports like Longview, Wash., to halt trade, barricading gates to keep trucks from taking cargo from ports, and taking over warehouses, as happened in Oakland, Calif.
These acts are far worse than the original Occupy protests that turned public spaces and nearby private property into lawless, filthy, pest-ridden encampments without permits — until they were rolled up by authorities. So let’s get facts straight: These are the acts of a mob that’s gone unchecked for too long.
Coddled by authorities, and openly supported by members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose members claim to advance its aims in the House and Senate, Occupy is an outrage. That any democratically elected political leader could support this fundamentally anti-democratic show of power is sickening. When groups like this are allowed to go unchecked, they destroy institutions of democracy even as they claim to be exercising free speech and assembly rights.
There’s one overwhelming fact about Occupy that the mainstream media will never admit in its fawning and slanted coverage of the protestors: The U.S. already is a democracy. The protestors have every right to participate in the U.S. political system as citizens — speaking out, running for office, lobbying lawmakers, electing leaders, writing editorials and taking out ads. That they have utilized none of these essential elements of democratic participation speaks mountains about their true intention — ending democracy.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented for such mobs to succeed, either. Chile in the early 1970s during the lawless, Marxist regime of Salvador Allende saw the same thing happen as mobs took over factories and preened before cameras until Chile’s congress ordered the military to restore democracy.
Democracies can die when mobs are tolerated, not controlled. With the latest string of Occupy outrages, authorities need to throw the book at this lawless mob. If not, a warning: Only worse will come.
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