NYC Letter: Owning OWS -- Instant Karma

Day 1,016 of CHOPE

If you run a business, you are in league with capitalists if you are not one yourself. When the OWS mob comes to town, come forward and confess your capitalist crimes. And make sure your property insurance is paid up.

MEN'S WEARHOUSE: THE PEOPLE'S CLOTHIER
Fashionable Solidarity Suck-up
[Picture credit: Oakland Tribune/Matt O'Brien]

MEN'S WEARHOUSE STANDS
WITH OCCUPY WALL STREET

November 2, 2011 (Atlantic) - Occupy Oakland has called for a city-wide strike and rally on Wednesday to protest income inequality, and several businesses, including Men's Wearhouse and the Grand Lake movie theater, have closed their doors in support. Oakland Tribune reporter Matt O'Brien tweeted the above photo of the shuttered men's clothing store.

... George Zimmer, founder and chairman of Men's Wearhouse, has repeatedly donated to Democratic candidates in multiple election cycles, including progressives like 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean and Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.).

Zimmer is also among the nation's biggest donors supporting the movement to legalize marijuana. Last year, he donated $70,000 to support the Prop. 19 ballot measure to legalize pot in California, according to California campaign-finance records, and his name appeared in the disclaimer on this pro-legalization TV ad.

Someone threw the switch on the Oakland OWS general strike -- surprise! -- and it turned into a riot.

OCCUPY PROTESTS GO
FROM PEACE TO "CHAOS"

OAKLAND November 3, 2011 (CBS News) - A protest that shut down the Port of Oakland to show the broadening reach of the Occupy Wall Street movement ended in violence when police in riot gear arrested dozens of protesters overnight who broke into a vacant building, shattered downtown windows, sprayed graffiti and set blazes along the way. At least four protesters were hospitalized Thursday with various injuries, including one needing stitches after fighting with an officer, police said. Several officers were also injured but didn't need hospitalization.

"We go from having a peaceful movement to now just chaos," protester Monique Agnew, 40, said early Thursday.

Protesters also threw concrete chunks, metal pipes, lit roman candles and molotov cocktails, police said.

The CBS headline is quaint in its disingenuity. The "peace" at these "occupations" has been marred repeatedly by incitements, threats (and this and this), violence, rape (and this and this) and sexual assault (and this -- apparently a lot of this), child prostitution, lewdness, drug dealing, thuggery, theft, vandalism, and hostile hypocrisy long before yesterday. Want more? BigGovernment is keeping a documented running tally -- as of this post, 137 reports and counting. The Oakland protesters already gave the city a taste of what was to come when they defied an order to vacate Frank Ogawa Plaza and battled the police last week.

Investor's Business Daily rips apart the phony revolutionaries:

This violent demonstration was particularly noteworthy because so many in our political class supported it. The rage was fueled by the fawning support uncritically given the rioters by everyone from the U.S. president to congressmen to Hollywood celebrities.

The event was heavily populated by well-paid government employees, with some 18% of Oakland's city workers and 5% of its teachers taking holidays to go rioting against their own city and taxpayers.

And Oakland Mayor Jean Quan actually encouraged them to go. This, just one week after pleading with the federal government for more port funds. She sent her merry protesters to shut the commerce at the port with a taxpayer-provided police escort.

This is OWS' dirty little secret. They're not the poor or downtrodden. The Daily Caller and New York Post investigated the backgrounds of the 700 people arrested last month for shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge and found nearly all of them to be trust-fund idlers from well-off homes.

The poor? The unemployed? The students? All recipients of government checks, with unemployment extended as long as 99 weeks, federally subsidized student debt into six figures, and welfare for years.

... The disgrace of Occupy Oakland was its curious way of making war only on workers and producers. In short, it was the elites on a rampage, declaring war for the first time on those who work and create. But one thing now is clear: It's the takers against the makers.

Lucky for Men's Wearhouse that it had sucked up to the OWSers, sparing its expensive plate glass storefront taking a "Death to Capitalism" brick. Oh. Wait.

MEN'S WEARHOUSE: LOW-END CAPITALIST HABERDASHER
Worn-out Solidarity
[Picture credit: AP/Paul Sakuma]

Caption reads:

Broken glass is shown at a Men's Warehouse building in downtown Oakland, Calif., Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011 after a Occupy Wall Street protest earlier.

CHOPE.

Instant karma's gonna get you.