The Hippie Stimulus: Occupy Wall Street, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act..

The Wall Street Journal ^ | October 7, 2011 | James Taranto

[2ndDivisionVet]

The so-called Occupy Wall Street movement is drawing some support from beyond the standard assemblage of superannuated hippies, dopey college kids and fatuous liberal journalists. Yesterday "several prominent unions, struggling to gain traction on their own, made their first effort to join forces with Occupy Wall Street," the New York Times reports: "Thousands of union members marched with the protesters from Foley Square to their encampment in nearby Zuccotti Park."

"Several major labor groups--including the Transport Workers Union, the Service Employees International Union, the United Federation of Teachers and the United Auto Workers--took part in the march," the Times adds, although "some more traditionally conservative ones, like those in the construction trades, stayed away."

One common characteristic of the four unions the Times cites is that they all include members who work for the government or, in the case of the UAW, for corporate welfare cases. As Michael Barone noted in a February 2010 column: "One-third of [2009's] $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments--an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions."

Thus far Occupiers have been carrying around largely hand-lettered signs saying things like "I could lose my job 4 having a voice" or "Bank's got bailed-out We got sold out!!!" to quote verbatim a couple of examples from a recent slide show from London's Daily Mail....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Tried-and-true Alinsky tactics.

[matt04]

Where do UAW members work in the NYC area?

[2ndDivisionVet]

In the 1990s, the UAW began to focus on new areas of organizing both geographically (in places like Puerto Rico) and in terms of occupations, with new initiatives among university staff, freelance writers (through the subsidiary National Writers Union) and employees of non-profit organizations, including workers at Mother Jones Magazine and the Sierra Club who are represented by UAW Local 2103.

The UAW took on the organization of academic student employees (ASEs) working at American universities as teaching assistants, research assistants, tutors, and graders under the slogan “Uniting Academic Workers”. As of 2011, the UAW represents more student workers than any other union in the United States of America. Universities with UAW ASE representation include the University of California (UAW Local 2865), California State University (UAW Local 4123), University of Massachusetts (UAW Local 2322), University of Washington (UAW Local 4121), and New York University (UAW Local 2110). In 2008 the 6,500 postdoctoral scholars (”postdocs”) at the ten campuses of the University of California, who combined account for 10% of the postdocs in the nation, voted to affiliate with the UAW, creating the largest union for postdoctoral scholars in the country: UAW Local 5810.[29]

The expansion of UAW to academic circles, postdoctoral researchers in particular, attracted both praise and criticism.[30]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Auto_Workers

[sonic109]

The sad part is that Obama alone is not the problm. We have an entire generation of morons who have been brainwashed by the left in public schools .Anyone under 30 totally believes in global warming and social justice and diversity and all sorts of left wing catch phrases and bullshit. Half the country voted for a Marxist , community organizer for president . Do you know how SICK that is ?
We can dump Obama but what do we do about the useful tools like these idiots who are protesting . There are MILLIONS more JUST like them out there.
These are Marxist backed riots folks..Don’t kid yourself ,this can turn REAL ugly. The left has it’s back against the wall and they will do ANYTHING to stay in power. This can turn into a revolution ..make no mistake about it.
I see these protest gain speed and power . The left is pouring everything they have into trying to start full blown anarchy in the USA before 2012.

[matt04]

Thanks. Seems they wanted more mandatory dues for Dems and their personal paycheck and went for the easiest targets, liberal college students.

[jonascord]

You're looking at this as a "half-empty/half-full" situation. The glass is twice the size it needs to be. How about, "A Final Solution to the Bell Curve problem?"

If they start a "revolution" in an effort to create a "classless world," once the smoke clears, and the ditches are full of Leftist bodies, covered over and re-seeded, we will have moved the Median Peak of the Intelligence Bell Curve 50% to the right...

After 100 years of Communist mental masturbation, the graveyard silence will be welcome. We can then start to re-populate the World with a more intelligent species.

[Bean Counter]

This is nothing. Wait until next summer when it becomes undeniably clear that Premier Hussein is not going to be reelected and people like Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton and a whole lot of others start calling for a scorched earth policy.....

[hattend]

bttt

[hattend]

Good way to look at things.