The Charlotte Observer did a fabulous job of painting the Occupy Charlotte protesters who descended upon the city this weekend as your righteously disgruntled, average-guy neighbors next door.
They aren’t. If they really do plan to camp out and continue their protest for a year (a length of time that conveniently coincides with the re-election of Barack Obama, which is their real goal) the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department better brush up fast on who these people really are.
CMPD brass also better start asking themselves why they are studying the manuals used by the violent communist anarchists who tore Seattle apart in the infamous 1999 protest/riots.
While the protests in most mid-sized cities will probably fizzle out, Charlotte could be different. It has Bank of America, a key target of these people, and will have the Democratic National Convention, which Barack Obama’s people will no doubt want them parked directly outside of. You almost have to wonder if Charlotte was being set up for this when they chose to put the convention here.
While there were no doubt well-intentioned, useful idiots who showed up for the protests this weekend, the leaders of Occupy Charlotte, per their own website, are following a well-known, hardcore, anarchist communist playbook. The founders of the Ruckus Society, whose materials the Occupy Charlotte protesters have linked to on their website and suggested their followers follow, played a major role in the planning of the violent, destructive Seattle occupation of 1999.
Seattle protesters did $3 million of property damage, caused $17 million in lost sales due to the violence and looting and cost Seattle and surrounding cities over $10 million, $7 million of which was due to extra policing costs to control violence by protesters.
No surprise there, given that the founders of the Ruckus Society are self-avowed communists dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism using violent means.They first achieved fame for putting spikes in trees so loggers who harvested them would be impaled. They seriously hurt several people. They were also leaders in the radical anarchist environmental movement.
The Observer, doing its usual repacking job on otherwise unpresentable leftist radicals, managed to find only sweet, motherly types to interview, like Gyni Garner:
“I want to see Americans go to work,” Garner said. “I want to see the 50-somethings being hired just as much as the 20-somethings.”
Garner, who carried a sign that read “American workers = Profit$,” said she worries about her son, a recent college graduate who is now in the workforce but earns what she described as poverty-level income.
Uh huh. But you have to wonder why, if this movement is made up of a bunch of motherly types, they’d need this guide for resisting the police that advises them that police “are sneaky” and can’t be trusted. Check out the link on the Occupy Charlotte webpage, which has a link that reads:
“I am going to remain silent. I want to see a lawyer”, Dealing with Law Enforcement
It takes you to the US Day of Rage website’s guide on how not to cooperate with police, the CIA and the FBI. Why on earth would sweet old Gyni Garner need that advice?
One of the Ruckus Society’s projects was to “train people to disrupt events such as political party conventions using street blockades and other violent techniques. Its director has publicly stated that, “you can use vandalism strategically.”’
Here’s how the chairman of one of their targets, the tree farming company Boise Cascade, described dealing with what the Ruckus Society calls “direct action” but what he said is just a euphemism for aggressive harassment and violent intimidation. The Ruckus Society might specialize in turning radical left wing demonstrations into benign-appearing, wacky, media friendly events, but:
“But a disruptive freak show is still a disruptive freak show no matter how big the clown shoes are. Behind the big banners….remain the same old messages of anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism…. Go ahead and paint a happy face on the Earth Liberation Front…. The FBI still knows that they’re a domestic terrorist group.
Go ahead and give members of the Communist Party USA a shave and a haircut. Maybe you can even teach them how to smile. Doesn’t matter.” (“Anarchism,” Ruckus leader Sellers declared, “has gotten a really bad rap, like communism.”)
While the Charlotte group, which is clearly here to target Bank of America, was peacful enough this weekend, the groups that have been camped out in New York — they’ve been there since Sept. 17 — are already turning violent.
Note: One of the Days of Rage banners posted here earlier has been confirmed to be a fake and was removed.
