Human
Events...
Costs
of the Occupiers
by Michelle Malkin
10/14/2011
The
trash generated by the “Occupy
Wall Street” protests keeps piling up. So do the bills. Liberal media
outlets
claim the anarchic, anti-capitalist movement is more popular than the
tea
party. But wait until Americans across the country get a full picture
of the
costs of the aimless occupiers.
In
New York City, government officials
estimate the month-long siege of Zuccotti Park has now imposed $3.2
million in
overtime police costs on the public. On Thursday, as Mayor Michael
Bloomberg’s
office pressured left-wing activists to vacate the park for cleaning,
Occupy
Wall Street urged sympathizers to flood the city’s customer services
lines:
“Call 311 and tell Bloomberg not to evict us!”
In
Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter
told the press that demonstrators outside city hall have incurred
$164,000 in
overtime public employee costs and $237,000 in regular time. “At the
current
rate, if Occupy Philly continues to the end of the month, the city
would spend
another nearly $690,000 on police overtime alone,” the local NBC
affiliate
reported. “Besides the extra police presence being dedicated to the
Occupy
Philly protests, other city departments have also incurred costs.”
In
Seattle, police have so far billed
$30,000 in overtime, and the parks department racked up nearly $4,000
in
additional costs related to the protests there. Occupiers have blocked
traffic,
assaulted an officer and pitched illegal tents. Merchants in the area
have been
hurt as the riff-raff deter customers. One business owner in Westlake
Park,
where hundreds of protesters remain camped out, told Seattle TV station
KIRO:
“There’s definitely fewer people you can identify as people out, just
walking
through the area.”
Seattle’s
pushover mayor, Democrat
Mike McGinn, now faces even greater demands from the insatiable mob --
which
wants a “guaranteed parking space near City Hall Plaza that allows for
around-the-clock parking,” “24-hour access to the first floor of City
Hall for
restroom access, and a written statement from the mayor approving the
protesters’ long-term occupancy of City Hall Plaza.”
In
Boston, City Council President
Stephen Murphy anticipates a $2 million hit to taxpayers if the
protests refuse
to disband by the end of October. The local Fox affiliate notes the tab
represents 8 percent of the yearly budget for police overtime. “While
we’re all
sympathetic with our protesters down there,” Murphy said, “Wall Street
isn’t
picking up the tab on this thing. It’s the Boston taxpayers.”
When
fiscally conservative tea party
activists held protests over the past two years, they filed for all the
required permits and paid for their own power. Occupy Boston, by
contrast,
neither sought nor obtained any proper permits at any level, according
to the
Boston Globe. Instead, city and park officials have been cowed into
providing
them gratis electricity and camp space lest there be “conflict.”
Many
of these occupiers are primarily
occupied as paid rent-a-mobsters for unions, left-wing think tanks and
the
radical Working Families Party. While one collective hand soaks the
taxpayers,
the other hand is busy soliciting free stuff. Occupy Los Angeles
activists took
to Skype on their laptops to solicit donations of iPhones and iPads.
Occupy
Wall Street members on Twitter
organized an ongoing “#needsoftheoccupiers” drive for everything from
batteries
and tarps to “gently used” coats and sweaters, wool socks, sleeping
bags and
energy bars. Occupy Austin organizers publicized their wish list,
including a
free barbecue grill, portable toilets, extension cords, a Bobcat
forestry
cutter for clearing brush and network cameras for a livestream.
These
are not principled advocates of
fiscal responsibility. They are professional freeloaders.
Unlike
tea party activists who focused
like a laser beam on politicians in both parties responsible for
redistributing
wealth to Big Business cronies by force, the Occupy Wall Street
movement is
everywhere and nowhere. The entitled Kamp Alinsky Kids are poaching
WiFi and
trespassing on private property under the guise of “social justice” but
in
plain service of themselves.
Their
T-shirts and speeches glorify
Marxist radicals Che Guevara, Emiliano Zapata and Chairman Mao. They
lionize
convicted death row cop killer Troy Davis and WikiLeaks collaborator
Bradley
Manning. They condemn “Nazi Bankers,” Jews, Fox News, the American
Legislative
Exchange Council, Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker, the Koch family and
the New
York Police Department (“Pigs!”). They promote the illegal alien DREAM
Act and
9/11 Trutherism.
They
spout bumper-sticker profanities
and inanities: “F**k banks.” “Unf**k the world.” “Fuuuuu*k.” “Free
education.”
“Smash nationalism.” “People not profits.”
They
flash peace signs while celebrity
supporter Roseanne Barr calls for beheading financial industry workers
and
fellow marchers call explicitly for “violent revolution” or for Obama
to “Send
SEAL Team 6” to Wall Street.
Then
they huff and puff (preferably in
a creepy uniform chant they call the “human microphone”) that we just
haven’t
taken the time to understand what they’re all about -- as they hawk $20
“Eat
the Rich” polo shirts and license their protest photos to Getty Images.
Viva
la revolucion! Up with people!
Stop the greed! (Cha-ching. Cha-ching.)
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Events
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