<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Buttle&#039;s World]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://buttle.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[clgood]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://buttle.wordpress.com/author/buttle/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Occupy Wall Street!]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>I hope Jonah Goldberg doesn&#8217;t mind that I&#8217;m, uh, &#8220;quoting generously&#8221; from today&#8217;s G-file. This is just too funny, and I wanted it on a web page I could link to.</p>
<blockquote><p>As I mentioned in the Corner, I love <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/occupy_animal_farm_the_organiz.html?mid=twitter_DailyIntel" target="_blank">this story</a> about the fraying tensions among the Occupy Wall Street crowd.</p>
<p>Aside from the general schadenfreudtasticness of it all, I found this bit to contain some fascinating contradictions. Apparently some of the &#8220;facilitators&#8221; &#8212; you might call them the avant-garde of the avant-garde of the avant-garde of the lumpenproletariat &#8212; have started censoring and taxing the drummers.</p>
<p style="padding-left:30px;">
To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former &#8220;head drummer,&#8221; this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. &#8220;They are becoming the government we&#8217;re trying to protest,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They didn&#8217;t even give the drummers a say. . . . Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.&#8221;</p>
<p>The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. &#8220;Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,&#8221; said Engelerdt. &#8220;We&#8217;re like, what&#8217;s going on here? They&#8217;re like the banks we&#8217;re protesting.&#8221;</p>
<p>Wait a second. The leadership of OWS is imposing a 50 percent tax rate on the most successful and entrepreneurial protesters and they&#8217;re regulating their ability to satisfy the consumer (as it were)?</p>
<p>This Engelerdt guy&#8217;s grasp of political theory is a bit off, though. First he says that the organizers are becoming the sort of government they&#8217;re protesting. Except that has it exactly wrong. They&#8217;re becoming the sort of government they&#8217;re demanding!</p>
<p>He then goes on to say that the decision to confiscate so much of the drummers&#8217; obscene profits makes the organizers like the banks. But the banks don&#8217;t tax anybody &#8212; that&#8217;s government&#8217;s job. In fact, if these guys had their way, the drummers should be taxed at a much higher rate, right? Why should the drummers make so much more than the guy running the seminar on how to make hemp-twine condoms or the lady teaching folks how to recycle everything from urine to toilet paper?</p></blockquote>
<p>For my original content contribution, I&#8217;ll add something I tweeted the other day.</p>
<p>I can, in under 140 characters, sum up everything the Tea Party wants and is about. Is there anybody from the Occupy Wall Street crowd who can articulate what they believe and want <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsJPKMvWDmY" target="_blank">at all</a>? (NB: That&#8217;s a link to some Howard Stern, so expect language.)</p>
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