Free Flu Shots For Occupy Wall Street Mob
by Gary Krasner (11/20/11)
My friends have been sending me this link all day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWJP3Dlz8jY
It shows people at OWS rolling up their sleeves to get flu vaccinations. Here are a couple of news reports on it:
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-703401?hpt=hp_t1
http://www.observer.com/2011/11/america-furious-over-occupy-wall-streets-free-flu-shot/My friends and colleagues were horrified and perplexed by this. One, from Australia, had written:
QUOTE---------This is horrifying! It makes me cry to watch it. I can’t believe how naive these occupiers are, that ironically they are willing victims to the worst, most sinister aspect of all, of the very corporatization of America about which they are there protesting!!-------------UNQUOTE
I suppose one could also be bewildered over the fact that their devotion to their iPhones and iPads seems unaffected by its corporate origins. Or even the fact that such technology wouldn’t be available today, and at such low prices, were it not for open markets, globalism, and capitalism----that is, the ethic of accumulated wealth and the incentives we call “profits.”
Admittedly, it’s hard to discern their ideas, if any, from reading placards that say, “debt is evil”; “war is evil”, etc. Although Rick Santorum might be happy to learn that they at least believe in some form of “evil”. Wouldn’t that mean they have values?
What values? Well, they believe that Jews “occupying” any part of Palestine is illegal, but their occupation of the public commons is alright. They believe that the “one percent” should be prosecuted for breaking the law, but it’s OK for them to break the law, and make their fellow 99 percenter’s lives miserable in the process.
But my colleague’s have a point: How can these protesters be so gullible as to accept poison in their bloodstreams, when any idiot knows that pharma makes huge profits from the sale of vaccines.
Hmmm, maybe they think that because it’s being given to them free of charge, that no one is profitting from it? No, not even a college student can be that stupid. Pharma always makes someone pay. And that contributes to their wealth and power.
No, I think the answer lies in the fact that the vast majority in the OWS mob are students. And all students think they know better how the world should work. I sure did, when I graduated college in 1974. And my peers did as well. Those 60’s radicals went on to teach the college students who are occupying public areas of our cities today.
But students really don’t know how the world works. What they know is only what their left wing college professors told them how the world works. Or more accurately, how the world doesn’t work. They don’t teach them how to solve problems. Rather, they teach them what is wrong with the world, especially what is wrong with the US. In other words, they become experts in complaining, and how to ACT OUT those complaints through demonstrations ("direct action").
As with most liberals, these leftists consider their emotional acting out----their expressions of concern and outrage----to be all that is necessary to obtain the (unwarranted) media attention and approval that they’re receiving now. And they’re right!! The liberal media has done just that, and have ignored really pressing issues of the day. For 3 months, a few thousand students across the country have attracted lauditory reviews from most of the MSM. Quite in the same superficial way in which the MSM lauds vaccination and portrays anti vaccine activists as loons. And all despite these students having offered not one bit of consensus in a manifesto describing a proactive policy for change. As I said, offering solutions and showing results is not expected of them, nor was that part of their education. They were taught they have the right of speech. Nothing about the efficacy of it’s content.
But what is it about their education that would make them inclined to accept vaccinations?
Economic students have an understanding of capitalism. But the departments of history, philosophy, political science, etc all denounce capitalism. Those infectious disease nurses that set up their tent at Zucotti Park were selling Obamacare as much as they were promoting flu vaccine. John Jacoby, MD, representing Physicians for National Health Program was on hand there also. The students may have felt they were making a political statement by getting vaccinated. Again, ACTING OUT takes precedence for them----as opposed to THINKING OUT an issue or problem.
Could it be that it is just “free” healthcare and “free” vaccines that appeals to their political biases. Essentially, yes. All public health policies appeal to their ideal of an egalitarian, collectivist, redistributionist society.
Obamacare, progressives promise, will bring the benefits of health insurance to all----and fine or jail those who don’t purchase it. The reason Obamacare and vaccine mandates are broad and uniform is for control of the population. It is based on the paternalistic liberal philosophy that the locals are idiots, and the central government knows best. Families get it wrong, so “it takes a village” to get it right.
Obamacare, I’m instructed, specifies those provisions that make for a good insurance policy, whether I agree or not. It prohibits those which do not conform to that ideal, whether I agree or not. Because liberal theology instructs us that what is good for one is good for all. The philosophy is “one-size-fits-all”, because----as progressives believe----if we all have equal civil rights, then we must all have the same wants and needs and dreams (i.e. the rationale of socialism). And based upon that paradigm, a vaccine that is safe for one, is safe enough for all. Complain all you want about chain stores and corporate conformity, at least it’s done through persuasion----by attending to the price and quality of their product or service. Under socialism, it’s done through government fiat.
“One-size-fits-all.” Everyone has heard that slogan. It has been NVIC’s mantra for many years, and echoed by other “safe vaccine” advocates. For what is “vaccination policy” anyway? It’s government policy. And government doesn’t provide choices or makes suggestions. It makes requirements. And a federal government makes broad centralized requirements. And it makes these determinations internally----within the ranks of allopathic-trained doctors who run health agencies----without helpful suggestions from parents or “safe vaccine” advocates. That is what any fool knows about CDC and HHS. And that’s what you get when you bargain with them: Nothing. There is no legislation you can draft that they cannot implement in such a way as to mold and slant it towards their own purposes. Legislation cannot be made specific enough to tie their hands. Their discretion is as wide as the Potomac River. It is true of all executive branch agencies, but especially the health agencies. Legislators do not tell doctors how to run public health departments.
But faith in responsive government (which is a myth) is the liberal theology these students were inculcated with for years. And perhaps that supersedes the apparent contradictions that have confused my colleagues with respect to OWS for not kicking out those pro corporate, pro vaccinators from Zucotti Park.
Pardon the self-promotion, but my essay on capitalism vs corporatism here: http://cfic.us/articles/An.Economics.Tutorial.For.Liberals.pdf
would be more of a cure for these students than any flu vaccine would be. Admittedly, it’s polemical----but not partisan. It explains one point of view patiently and civilly. Agree with it or not, at least you understand why I believe it.
By contrast, a liberal, Frank Miller, caused a fuss by caustically attacking OWS: http://www.observer.com/2011/11/frank-millers-vitriolic-anti-occupy-wall-street-rant/
I note he’s a liberal, because it’s common for liberals to be vitriolic and emotional, when a dispassionate, reasoned argument is warranted.
Miller’s anger aside, it doesn’t take great insight to understand why most of the public is fed up with OWS, despite the sympathic coverage from MSM. When you hold up traffic, making people late for work; late to pick up their kids at daycare after work, what do you expect?
Forget their embrace of flu vaccine. The real mystery is why Mayor Bloomberg believes setting up tarps and tents in a public park is dangerous now, but didn’t consider it dangerous weeks ago!
Perhaps he had nostalgia for the 60s? But back then, Nixon’s popularity went up in the polls following anti war demonstrations. The riots in Chicago in 1968 were a disaster for Humphrey and the Democrats. Today, the polls show that the public is as angry as the students at OWS, but consistent with the protests of the 60s, they dislike their method of protest.
You might ask WHY. Unlike Frank Miller, I will explain without vitriole or insults.
I think there are several inherent problems with OWS. As I argue below, it’s an illegal assembly and it’s closed to most of the public. I consider that more akin to a mob, and not a movement.
An illegal Assembly:
1. The only way OWS exists and functions is to violate public spaces. It literally occupies spaces intended to serve the public. The fact that they are not arrested by the liberal Mayors in their respective jurisdictions does not mean that what OWS is doing is legal. It is unambiguously illegal.
2. The violation is not limited to displacing the public from the commons. The violation also involves the act of forcing the public to pay attention to the demonstration. That is the purpose of a demonstration----to force youself on others. One reason protest rallies and such are tolerated at all is because they’re restricted by time and place: You need a city permit to take over the public spaces for just 90 minutes, let alone 90 days!
3. Unlike a homeless person who might occupy a public space solely for his personal use, OWS forces the public to pay attention to them. This constitutes an additional public nuisance. No, I need not cite the rapes or assaults, which is bad enough, and would have terminated the tea party movement had ONE instance of violence been proven. No, I’m just talking about the community board complaints of the drum noise all day and night, and garbage, and drug use, and the blocked traffic, and passersby being accosted and criticized for going to work, or for appearing to be wealthy or Jewish (still lots of anti semitic, anti israel sentiment). Local businesses are suffering too. OWS therefore cannot exist without destroying quality of life for the larger public that legally resides there.
4. Given that OWS is breaking the law, the students at OWS obviously never read Henry Thoreau. The PURPOSE of illegal, nonviolent protest is to get arrested. Martin Luther King Jr. walked into all-white diners in the south, EXPECTING to get arrested. That was the purpose: To demonstrate your willingness to endure hardship from an unjust law. You don’t fight the police. You don’t complain about the arrest. You complain about an existing law, and offer an alternative. OWS has not offered either. They refuse to even admit that they are breaking any laws. They just allege that others are (i.e. the “one percent").
Not Open to the Public:
The liberal media touts the democratic process at Zucotti Park. They have a “General Assembly”, just like the UN! They debate using Roberts Rules of Order. Even the mobs in Seattle voted on whether to be violent with police ("violence" won the vote), or smear feces on bank walls (which must be cleaned up by overworked, non-college educated, members of the “99 percent”, earning minimum wage). How wonderfully democratic! But there are only a couple of hundred people there, and far less who are participating in these parliamentary proceedings.
I’ve complained that OWS has not published an agenda----listing problems and solutions. Something you’d expect from a real movement. My left wing friend countered that I need only go down there to hear their “chants.” But that’s the problem. Just showing up (and not looking too wealthy or jewish), and “putting in a lot of time” (as he wrote), is the only qualification for having a say in what OWS will stand for.
But that process excludes many people who don’t live in NYC. or Manahttan. Or handicapped or otherwise homebound people. I suppose women who are willing to risk getting raped or assaulted are not excluded though. A couple of hundred people is not representative of a small town, let alone NYC, or the nation. OWS does not deserve the attention it is getting, no matter how loud they “chant”.
A bunch of angry (mostly) young people showing up at one place, with myriad complaints, is a mob.
Gary Krasner
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