Tag Archives: Occupy Wall Street

Occupy What?

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I’ve always loved a good protest. Mostly because I enjoy both pointing and laughing. Even so, I was delighted to see the particularly dismal turnout for the “General Strike” called by our friends at Occupy. In case anyone out there missed it, yesterday was May 1st, also known as International Workers’ Day. Back in the heyday of the Soviet Union, it was marked my parades and rallies in Red Square. If you’re a kid of the 80s, you’ve got to remember the footage of smiling, waving Soviet strongmen standing atop Lenin’s tomb watching the cream of the Red Army passing in review. You could always depend on the USSR to put on a good show. Their dependability is something I’ve come to miss in an international adversary as of late, but I digress.

Occupy Wall Street was a media darling last Fall. They were going to change the world and now they’re barely a whisper. It’s got to be hard for a movement when even their own spokesmen can’t really identify what they’re for and against, or even really what they’re doing other than causing problems for working stiffs like cops and small business owners unfortunate enough to be in the areas they’ve decided to “occupy.”

So it seems their call to action went largely unheeded by rest of us who celebrated International Workers’ Day by, you know, going to work and earning our pay for the day. Now that’s something worth celebrating. Happy belated IWD, Comrades.

Big Mac knew…

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This country use to know what to do with subversives, malcontents, and other undesirable elements who set up shop in our cities and made trouble for people just trying to do their jobs. One thing’s for sure, 80 years ago, we didn’t just turn off the electricity and hope they’d go away on their own.

On July 28th 1932, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by a column of Renault tanks commanded by Major George S. Patton, formed up on Pennsylvania Avenue. Thousands of people left work to line the street and watch. The protestors, who believed the troops were marching in support of their cause, cheered until Patton’s cavalry charged their position. After the cavalry charge, the infantry fixed bayonets and under cover of vomit-inducing gas, cleared the protestors from their makeshift camp on Anacostia Flats. Big Mac had plenty of faults, but he knew how to get a job done.

I’d give real money to see General Odierno and Colonel Allen go to work cleaning up the parks, town squares, and centers of commerce that have already been tied up for too long. If the Occupy Wall Street crowd that claims to be “peacefully” demonstrating continues breaking into public and private property, committing arson, vandalism, and violent acts, they need to be put down as the collection of common criminals that they seem bent on being. The 1st Amendment protection of free speech doesn’t mean we should allow a small subset of people to cause chaos on the streets of American cities.

We use to know the line between legitimate protest and creating a public nuisance. It’s a pity we’ve forgotten where that line is while we’ve been busy coddling everyone and telling them that they’re special and important.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, that’s what annoys Jeff this week.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Iran. A country that’s our sworn enemy planned to carry out a terrorist attack on US soil and our response is the diplomatic equivalent of telling Iran that gee wiz it would be great if you wouldn’t do things like that anymore. Call me an hawk if you want, but when a sovereign country decides it wants to threaten the United States, I want a house-sized bomb to fall on their head. Maybe that’s just me.

2. People who say “I don’t believe in social media.” I think what you actually mean is you don’t like social media or maybe even that you don’t understand social media. But since it exists and is becoming pervasive, I think the ship has sailed on the decision to believe in it or not. That’s probably just semantics, but I just don’t understand the mindset of someone who wants to exert their moral superiority by abstaining from Twitter.

3. Occupy Wall Street. Who, exactly, are these people that apparently have unlimited free time to do nothing all day but defecate in the street, paint witty signs, and generally make a nuisance of themselves? If they went home, took a shower, and spent as much time looking for jobs as they have squatting in the financial district, they’d have a better chance getting themselves into the top 20% or 5% or 1% of incomes earned. I wonder how many people with a little skin in the game are so eager to burn the system down. America isn’t about guaranteeing success, it’s about getting the opportunity to be successful. Knowing the difference between the two is important.

4. UPS. How damned difficult is it to get your website to say MD instead of DE? This should not be a major technical challenge for a company that generally manages to move massive amounts of product around the globe within 24 hours. I’m just saying.

5. Sleep. It’s what I won’t be getting much of tonight because it’s the fanboy’s equivalent of Christmas Eve.