Bullies

by Ben Shapiro

  It wasn’t just my perception. They self-perceived that way. An April 2012 poll of the occupiers of New York’s Zuccotti Park—the leading wing of the Occupy Wall Street crowd—showed that 53 percent opposed “American-style capitalism,” 71 percent wanted “massive redistribution of wealth,” and almost 80 percent wanted free health care, education, and retirement. Were they violent? You bet they were: 63 percent said they had engaged in civil disobedience, and 13 percent said they’d gotten violent before.56

  The Occupiers followed through on their violent rhetoric, too. Just as the SEIU did with Greg Baer, Occupiers made routine practice of invading private property, or staking out private persons unaffiliated with the government. In Los Angeles, one hundred Occupy protesters who wanted an eviction reversed pitched their poop-tents outside the home of a Bank of America executive.57 Complaining about the “willingness to hoard wealth at the expense of the 99 percent,” New York Occupiers descended on the home of Rupert Murdoch (who was not bailed out by the federal government), chanting, “Hey Murdoch, pay your fair share.”58 They descended on JPMorgan Chase executive Jamie Dimon’s home. And who was heading up this activity? All the usual community-organizing suspects: the Working Families Party, UnitedNY, New York Communities for Change. All of Obama’s friends, in other words.59

  It wasn’t just occupation. Rape reports spread across the Occupy movement. As it turns out, when you have a bunch of lawbreaking vagrants with degrees in mental illness, you end up with crime. Overall, there have been at least three murders at Occupy camps, 500 thefts, almost 7,000 arrests, and millions of dollars in property damage. On May 1, 2012, the authorities foiled an Occupy Cleveland plot to blow up a bridge.60 Videos of Occupy violence cover the Internet.

  And Occupy was insanely dirty. In fact, they’re a public health hazard. In Occupy Santa Cruz, drug use, public defecation, littering, and vandalism were commonplace. The Santa Cruz sheriff’s office stumbled upon a two-hundred-pound pile of human poop near the Veterans Memorial Building.61 In Occupy Atlanta, tuberculosis broke out. As it turns out, when you live like residents of Sudan, you end up with their health problems, too. The only difference is that the people of Sudan are victims of outside forces; the people of Occupy are victims of their own stupidity.

  Nonetheless, the Occupy slogan, “We are the 99 percent,” quickly gained ground in media coverage—and in political circles. Suddenly, it seemed, every major politician was separating Americans by income.

  Including Obama. Just days after ripping Bank of America for instituting a $5 debit card fee—something that was not illegal—Obama went full-bore Occupy. “I think people are frustrated and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based suspicion about how our financial system works,” said the president of the United States about this criminal enterprise.62

  On October 14, 2011, Obama-friendly Washington Post reporter—but I repeat myself—Peter Wallsten ran a piece stating flatly, “President Obama and his team have decided to turn public anger at Wall Street into a central tenet of their re-election strategy.” That decision sprang not only from Obama’s FDR-esque populism but from his need to wield a club against Mitt Romney, who even then was presumed to be the presidential front-runner. “We intend to make it one of the central elements of the campaign next year,” said Obama senior advisor David Plouffe.63

  Sure enough, on October 16, 2011, one of Obama’s press secretaries informed the media that Obama would represent “the interests of the 99 percent of Americans.” Jay Carney, Obama’s press secretary, repeated the same line to the press.64

  The press itself decided to back Occupy to the hilt. They’d never seen anything this inspirational since their parents were engaging in mud-soaked threesomes with hirsute hippies back during the glorious 1960s. Some of the reporters were so inspired that they effectively joined Occupy themselves. Natasha Lennard of the New York Times joined a discussion at the radical bookstore Bluestockings on October 14. For background, Lennard had reported on the Occupy takeover of the Brooklyn Bridge; there, she’d been arrested, supposedly for being a member of the press. It’s more likely she was arrested because she was one of the protesters.

  At the Bluestockings event, she talked about how best to organize. “[B]eing an outright anti-authoritarian or an anarchist is not really something that people like to be live streamed around the world with a f—ing police pen around you,” she explained.65

  Lennard wasn’t the only Occupier in a high place. NPR host Lisa Simeone began using her show, World of Opera, as a bully pulpit for Occupy. NPR had to can her.66

  But the mainstream media support wasn’t limited to actually protesting with Occupy. The media routinely compared the violent, thuggish, and downright nasty Occupy movement with the peaceful and well-behaved Tea Party. They ignored Occupy’s ugly undercurrents of anti-Semitism—as Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post observed, “In the millions of pixels devoted to the radical Occupy Wall Streeters, virtually nothing has been said about its anti-Semitic elements.” But those elements were there, nonetheless—propaganda against Israel, talk about Zionist interests controlling Wall Street, ugly chatter about Jewish influence on fiscal policy.67 The Occupy official Facebook page even posted a Naziesque Jew-hating cartoon depicting an ugly-looking rabbi with large nose and beard, wearing a Star of David hat, driving a car; the gearshift was topped by Barack Obama’s head. The wheel was the logo of the United Nations. The message: the Jews control everything.68 None of the big three networks were interested in covering any of this.69

  The media didn’t want to hear about Occupy’s violent tendencies—they were too busy playing offense on behalf of the Obama-Occupy nexus. When the Cleveland Occupiers tried to bomb a bridge, the New York Times, CBS News, and USA Today ignored it completely. Other outlets like CNN and the Associated Press tried to downplay any Occupy associations.70 When the Oakland police department accidentally wounded an Iraq War veteran at Occupy, the media responded with fury but largely ignored the fact that the Oakland Occupiers had been abusing cops.

  Hollywood showed up to support these thugs, too. Kanye West hilariously showed up to the Occupy rally in Zuccotti Park to hang with the downtrodden; hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons joined him. Said Simmons: “It was amazing to see how people loved seeing Kanye West at Occupy Wall Street. His music and his art has always been about the voice and the power of the people. Kanye just wanted to come down and experience the growing movement that has opened the eyes of many around this country and around the world of the struggles of poor people.” Kanye did not, however, want to experience what it was like to be a poor person—he wore a gold chain and a $300 shirt.71

  Michael Moore took a break from the pork rinds to visit Occupy, too. He’d already denied that he was a member of the “1 percent”; he’d visited Occupy Oakland, which had been replete with violence, and told them, “We’ve killed despair across the country and we’ve killed apathy.” After Oakland police cleared Occupy Oakland, the occupiers returned, and Moore celebrated: “Millions have seen this and are inspired by you because you came back the next night.”72 He headed to New York to do the same thing a couple of months later. The Occupiers were more than happy to chat with the big fella, although he wouldn’t answer questions about his $50 million fortune, which puts him squarely in the 1 percent.73

  The Hollywood who’s who supported Occupy, too—from well within their gated communities off Sunset Boulevard, of course. “It seems great!” exclaimed George Clooney. Susan Sarandon and Mark Ruffalo hung out at Zuccotti Park—presumably before heading back to expensive hotels in stretch limos.74

  The most stirring anthem on behalf of Occupy was penned by none other than Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus, who put together a YouTube video titled “Liberty Walk.” “This,” she wrote, “is Dedicated to the thousands of people who are standing up for what they believe in.” The song’s lyrics are rousing: “It’s a liberty walk, say goodbye to the people who tied you up. It’s a liberty walk, feeling your heart beat again, b
reathing new oxygen.” The video itself mashes together clips from the Arab Spring, the Iranian protests, and, of course, Occupy. No word on whether Miley will be handing out her spare millions to the lice-ridden specimens in the park.75

  While Occupy didn’t actually accomplish much, other than breaking windows, threatening violence, rioting, raping, looting, and spreading disease, they did win Time magazine’s Person of the Year. And they’re always lurking in the background, waiting for the latest astroturfing from Obama and his allies on behalf of the liberal agenda.

  SHUTTING UP THE RICH

  President Obama has read the FDR playbook. A copy probably sits inside his nightstand like a Gideon Bible at a low-rent motel (although Obama would never be caught dead reading a Bible—that’s for bitter clingers).

  And just as FDR targeted private citizens like Henry Ford for destruction, simply because they wouldn’t back his fascistic economic plans, Obama has his own enemies list. He checks it twice. Then he pops down the chimney and proceeds to beat the snot out of anyone who has deigned to cross him.

  On April 20, 2012, President Obama’s “Truth Team” campaign website listed eight donors to Mitt Romney. “Behind the curtain,” the caption read, as though readers were about to stumble into a clandestine orgy at the Skull & Bones club.

  What was behind that curtain? Evil rich guys who had the temerity not to donate to President Obama. “A closer look at . . . donors reveals a group of wealthy individuals with less-than reputable records,” said the website. “Quite a few have been on the wrong side of the law, others have made profits at the expense of so many Americans.”76

  String ’em up!

  So, who was on this list of nefarious ne’er-do-wells?

  Frank VanderSloot, CEO of Melaleuca Inc., led it off. In August 2011, VanderSloot gave $1 million to Mitt Romney’s Super PAC. The Obama website named VanderSloot as “litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.” Shortly after that, an Obama surrogate tried to obtain divorce records for VanderSloot—the dirt-digger was a former Democratic Senate staffer. VanderSloot has been attacked by partisan Obama media hacks like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald. “I knew it was like taping a target on my back,” said VanderSloot.77

  VanderSloot is relatively lucky—the Obama campaign has gone after him directly only once. The Koch brothers, David and Charles, run Koch Industries, a massive American job creator. Unfortunately for them, they’re also opponents of the redistributionist Obama economic agenda. That put them squarely in Obama’s crosshairs. And they weren’t just profiled on the idiotic website.

  In 2010, Austan Goolsbee, then Obama’s chief economic advisor, lied in public about the Koch brothers’ tax status and said the company didn’t pay income tax. That prompted a Treasury Department review of Goolsbee.78

  On February 24, 2012, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina issued a letter to his millions-strong email list, targeting the Koch brothers for their support of Mitt Romney’s campaign. “In just about 24 hours,” the email stated, “Mitt Romney is headed to a hotel ballroom to give a speech sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a front group founded and funded by the Koch brothers.

  “Those are the same Koch brothers whose business model is to make millions by jacking up prices at the pump, and who bankrolled Tea Party extremism, and committed $200 million to try to destroy President Obama before Election Day.”79

  This was entirely false. First, the Koch brothers owned zero gas stations, and oil and gas refining—Koch Industries’ real business—lowers cost at the pump. Second, the Koch brothers never pledged $200 million to “destroying” Obama. Third, Americans for Prosperity has tens of thousands of members and donors. As the Koch Industries’ spokesperson stated, “It is understandable that the President and his campaign may be ‘tired of hearing’ that many Americans would rather not see the president re-elected. However, the inference is that you would prefer that citizens who disagree with the President and his policies refrain from voicing their own viewpoint. Clearly, that’s not the way a free society should operate.”80

  Clearly, the Obama campaign disagreed—just a few months later, they issued another false attack on the Koch brothers personally. In early May 2012, deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter picked up Messina’s torch, cutting a video labeling the Koch brothers as “secretive oil billionaires bankrolling Republican campaigns” and stating that the Koch brothers supported Romney just to prevent Obama from removing “billions of dollars in unnecessary oil tax breaks.” The video was vitriolic, angry, vengeful. “They will literally say anything,” said Cutter, playing the victim. But it was clear that the Obama campaign would say anything.81 Their media friends, who are busy demonizing the Koch brothers, and their astroturfed friends, who shout “Koch-suckers!” at rallies, are willing to lend a hand.

  VanderSloot and the Koch brothers have been joined on the Obama hit list by many others. Obama has even gone so far as to joke about using the IRS to audit his opponents.82

  But he doesn’t need to audit his opponents. He can just sic his allies in the press on them. During the primaries, Sheldon Adelson, who gave $20 million to Newt Gingrich’s floundering presidential campaign, somehow merited an entire editorial in the New York Times; they called him “the perfect illustration of the squalid state of political money, spending sums greater than any political donation in history to advance his personal, ideological and financial agenda, which is wildly at odds with the nation’s needs.” What makes Adelson such a nasty character? “Mr. Adelson’s other overriding interest is his own wallet.” As opposed to the millions of voters who pull the lever for Democrats so they can assure their welfare benefits. Somehow, the New York Times has never made this argument about George Soros or Warren Buffett or any of the liberal megadonors who populate Barack Obama’s speed dial.83

  The anti-Adelson bullying magnified once it became clear that Mitt Romney would be the nominee. The Obama campaign sent out repeated emails railing against Adelson; when Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan visited Adelson during a campaign stop in Nevada, the Obama campaign unleashed a borderline anti-Semitic screed accusing Ryan of “making a pilgrimage” to “kiss the ring” of Adelson. The message was clear: the Catholic Ryan was traveling to Vegas to bow before his wealthy Jew master. Just a couple of days after the email, the New York Times ran another editorial against Adelson. The editorial said that Ryan “made a pilgrimage” to see Adelson. Same words. No attribution to the Obama campaign. The Times editorial team was so far up the Obama team’s posterior, it was now difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.84

  Actually, the Obama administration and its media and organizational allies have decided that any Republican who spends a lot of money on elections must be stopped. Hence their disgust for the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which made the eminently correct observation that under the First Amendment, government cannot stop groups of people from spending money on elections—even if those groups of people are called corporations. Corporations are evil—except when they’re 501(c)3s run by President Obama’s allies. Then they’re spectacular. Same thing with Super PACs. Those things are the root of all evil, unless they’re run by David Brock.

  So, here’s the bottom line: Scumbags who smash windows, destroy businesses, riot, and call for the murder of the rich are fine with liberals. Rich people, however, pose a serious problem.

  Got it. Robespierre had nothing on these jerks.

  With friends in government like this, it’s no wonder that so many major corporations have done what so many corporations did in FDR’s and TR’s day: cave. A century ago, Thomas Edison bought into the notion that working with the government was more useful than fighting against it. Today, exactly 101 years later, Jeffrey Immelt, who now heads Edison’s General Electric, says that business should work in cooperation with government, and he actually attacks businesses that are opposed to government regulation. “The people who are part of the business sect
or, the people in this room, have got to stop complaining about government and get some action underway,” Immelt told a group of businesspeople in July 2011. Not coincidentally, Immelt is chair of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Also not coincidentally, Immelt’s GE has received millions of dollars in subsidies and billions’ worth of friendly regulations that drive consumers toward their products. As Immelt stated in 2008, “We at GE will continue to support and advocate swift passage of [friendly] legislation that is acceptable to the Senate, the House, and the Administration, and that can be promptly signed into law by the President.” GE spends millions on lobbying for such legislation each year.

  If the class bullies continue to dominate American politics, it won’t be long before every corporation is a GE, dependent on government giveaways. And it won’t be long after that when our entire economy is bankrupt, since a pick-and-choose economy is no match for a free market one.

  CONCLUSION

  Long before Mitt Romney formally won the Republican nomination for president of the United States, Barack Obama had set his sights on the likely nominee. And he knew—he knew—that Romney was vulnerable based solely and completely on class bullying. As one Democratic strategist told Politico, “Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney.” How would Obama accomplish this brutal task, aside from using a chain saw and crowbar? Said David Axelrod, “[Romney] was very, very good at making a profit for himself and his partners but not nearly as good [at] saving jobs for communities. He is very much the profile of what we’ve seen in the last decade on Wall Street.”