Occupy Your House

“The Left...views the world not as a conflict between good and evil but between white and black, male and female, and rich and poor... As a general proposition, subject to exceptions that accompany all generalizations, the Left has considerably more compassion for groups (racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and sexual groups it favors) than for individuals.” — Dennis Prager

News Busters reports that Judge on CBS Prime Time Drama Cheers ‘Amazing’ Occupy Protesters: ‘I Salute Them’

“Occupy Wall Street earned a shout-out Sunday night on a CBS drama, the kind of Hollywood affirmation the Tea Party could never dream of receiving. “Before we begin,” a judge announced in a Chicago courtroom on The Good Wife, “I want to take a few minutes to talk about something that is happening a mere one hundred yards from this courthouse: Occupy Wall Street!”

“Judge Charles Abernathy,” played by Denis O’Hare, continued to pay tribute to the leftist cause célèbre: “Yes, these amazing young men and women are braving 36-degree weather, with the grit in their eyes of a shared cause, and all to challenge the system. And I, for one, I salute them.”

The outburst came in a scene, but unconnected to it, of the judge overseeing a lawsuit against a software company which sold data-mining software to Syria which used it to identify and “disappear” American protesters.

Later in the February 19 episode, “Live from Damascus,” the judge loudly sniffles, leading him to explain: “Over lunch I went to offer moral support to Occupy Wall Street and it’s because of the pepper spray.”

Have the Chicago police ever pepper-sprayed the Occupy protesters?

Almost exactly a year ago (February 22, 2011), the show gave prime time legitimacy to the presumption the Tea Party is racist as a lawyer in a courtroom tried to discredit an expert witness (Gary Cole as Sarah Palin supporter “Kurt McVeigh”) who testified against a since-exonerated black defendant, by demanding he admit he’s “a member of the Tea Party.” The lawyer asserts “it is our contention that my client’s prosecution was racist,” citing McVeigh’s “membership in a racist organization,” namely the Tea Party. Video:”

For full disclosure I do not watch this show and never have so I am basing the above report on the News Busters report. You can watch the actual video of the scene by going to the News Buster link.

The New York Post has a very revealing investigative piece this week on the fallout of one offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement – “Occupy Our Homes” – and the effect it had on one individual’s life. The ostensible goal of the project was to take control of properties foreclosed on by the banks and convert them for use by the homeless. The proposal originally attracted the support of Wise Ahadzi, owner of a property in East New York who had been unable to make his mortgage payments and moved his family to a lower rent apartment while he sought to sort things out with the bank. Occupiers proposed that they would fix up the place for Mr. Ahadzi in exchange for taking part, and he agreed. They busted in and soon installed the family of Alfredo Carrasquillo, a homeless man. So popular was the move that a Democratic member of the city council came to pose for a photo op with the new tenant.

So, how did that work out for Wise Ahadzi? The pictures speak for themselves.

“Last week, Wise Ahadzi opened the door to the house he still owns, 702 Vermont Street in East New York.

Inside is a war zone. The walls are torn down, the plumbing is ripped out and the carpeting has been plucked from the floor. It’s like walking through a ribcage.

Garbage, open food containers and Ahadzi’s possessions are tossed haphazardly around the house.

“This is where my kitchen was,” Ahadzi says. There is no sink, no refrigerator and no counter space. Instead there are dirty dishes piled high waiting for a dip in three large buckets of putrid water that serve as the dishwashing system.”

The house is now in such a condition that the owner sees it as being fit for nothing other than being condemned. Even if he could get the mortgage situation straightened out, he couldn’t move his family back in. The property is destroyed.

This really looks like a fitting legacy to a “movement” which never had any leadership, never identified the goals it sought to achieve and attracted some of the worst elements imaginable. As the article goes on to note, large numbers of “participants” in the area of Mr. Ahadzi’s home were never even involved as activists. They were simply castoffs from the local homeless shelters who heard that there was a place to get free food and decent shelter. There was no oversight of these “programs” which had such lofty sounding goals but no clue as to how they might be effectively implemented.

Ahadzi, 28, was the man Occupy didn’t want the public to know about. He owned the Vermont house but was forced to leave in 2009 when he couldn’t make the mortgage payments to Bank of America.

The single father knew he couldn’t raise his two girls, Kwazha, 9, and Imani, 3, with the threat of eviction hanging over him. They found a lower-cost rental in Brownsville while Ahadzi negotiated with the bank to get his house back.

The Post report continues:

“But instead of helping Ahadzi, Occupy cast Carrasquillo as the man to move in, because he was a homeless advocate some of the members knew.

During the December event, Ahadzi was pulled aside and made assurances by Barron and others — we know your predicament, we’ll make it better.

Ahadzi was content with that answer for a while, until it was obvious Occupy wasn’t interested in him.

They didn’t seem interested in the house, either. In January, The Post found squatters in the house instead of the family.

“They only stay here sometimes,” a protester explained. “There’s not enough room for the kids.”

Ahadzi thought about calling the police, until the embarrassed Occupy movement promised him that they’d repair the house and leave.

Two weeks have already gone by since without any progress. Occupy hasn’t even offered to pay him for the damages.

They tore down many interior walls but did not put them back up. A neighbor said that mold corroded one wall, but a complete gutting of the house was unnecessary.

Even in this condition, protesters are still squatting on the floors, cooking using a Bunsen burner and walking around guided by candlelight when a generator is not up and running.

Their efforts have actually made the neighborhood worse — because what used to be an empty house is now a hovel of squatters and probably should be condemned.

Things have gotten so bad that Barron, who once praised the movement, said that Occupy has worn out its welcome.

“The bottom line is that they have to leave,” he said.

Neighbors, who initially welcomed the ragtag bunch into the area, now stay away. Local Doyle Coleman tried to get other homeowners on the street to participate in a street cleanup with the Occupiers, but they all just said, “I don’t want to get involved.”

Another neighbor stood across the street from the house and shook his head, imagining how extensive the damages were inside considering the revolving cast of characters living inside. “It must be in shambles,” he said.”

Wize Ahadzi is no longer such a fan of the Occupy movement. His former home stands as a testament to the destruction which was left behind after the police finally cleared the park. Perhaps if more of the Big Apple’s residents get to see this story it will serve as a reminder for this spring.

Since the Occupy group does not support any political candidates, Democrats are free to ignore Occupy — which many moderate members are happy to do. Without any leaders, the occupation’s small work groups and offshoots are also just too unpredictable and risky to support.

The 2012 election, in fact, is shaping up to be the inverse of the 2010 midterms. In those congressional races, Republican candidates mostly had to embrace and praise the Tea Party movement to avoid incurring its wrath. In 2012, Democrats, especially in swing states, will likely be spending their time making sure they’re not too closely associated with the Occupiers.

Occupy promises a return to larger protests in the spring, under the general banner of “raising awareness about inequality.”

But is any American really unaware of inequality? Does anyone need to be told that more people need jobs, that the middle class and the poor are suffering?

With banners and signs and slogans, “Occupy” raised awareness of the inequities of foreclosures. Then they left a house in Brooklyn in a wretched condition, with an owner wondering who’s going to clean up the mess.

Perhaps the producers of The Good Wife should have visited Mr. Ahadzi’s house before airing this episode. Once again the Hollywood media is pushing the radical progressive agenda and ignoring the facts.