And see also Rick Moran, at FrontPage Magazine, "The True Face of Occupy Wall Street":
More than 400 Occupy Wall Street protesters in Oakland were arrested after a wild night of violence, vandalism, and confrontations with police. “Officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares,” reports the New York Times. The rioters also broke into historic Oakland City Hall, smashing display cases, spray painting graffiti on the walls, cutting electrical wires, and with the crowd chanting “Burn it! Burn it!” set fire to an American flag. City authorities estimate that damages to city property amounts to about $5 million since the protests began last October.Continue reading.
A CNN headline reporting on the riot: “Occupy Oakland demonstrations, arrests inject new life into movement.” Perhaps this is true. But at the cost of rampaging rioters destroying public property? What kind of movement needs that kind of impetus to receive “new life”?
The Oakland riot is proof positive that whatever claim to innocence and idealism the movement purported in the early days of occupations around the country has been lost to the gimlet-eyed revolutionary left, now openly seeking violent confrontation with authorities using the bodies of the naive and foolish who still believe that OWS is a protest against income inequality and corporatism. Cadres of organized leftists came prepared to the Oakland protest with homemade gas masks and shields — a clear indication that they fully expected to provoke a police response. Innocent protesters do not come armed with “bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares.” The transformation of the occupy movement from protest to “direct action” — the preferred tactic of the European Communist Left for generations — is nearly complete. There can be no sniveling denials from OWS apologists any more: The driving force behind the OWS movement — the goal of those who control the streets — is revolution and the overthrow of America’s capitalist system.
PREVIOUSLY: "Manifesto: Occupy for the Revolution."
