The accompanying parade, the Rose Parade, predates the game, dating way back to 1890. It’s a tradition that normally goes off without a hitch–that is, until this year, when “Occupy the Rose Parade” has decided to disrupt the festivities.

Peter Thottam, right

Led by Peter Thottam, who we will return to in a moment, the Occupy the Rose Parade activists will follow the long parade with their own demonstration. It won’t be the first time that Thottam has tried to disrupt the parade.

In 2008, he–along with supporters from the Los Angeles National Impeachment Center–worked with Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, and Iraq Veterans Against the War to try to make a statement about impeaching Bush and Cheney.

But this year, Thottam obtained approval for a protest to follow the parade. At the parade’s conclusion, his group plans to pilot an “Octupy Octupus,” a puppet made from recycled plastic bags and bamboo that takes 40 people to operate. The organizers say that the puppet symbolizes Wall Street’s tentacles, strangling American politics.

To prepare for the Occupiers, who will include Sheehan and filmmaker Michael Moore, the City of Pasadena had to double its police presence to deal with the supposedly peaceful protestors.

Thottam makes clear that his beef is with the parade, not the game. “A total of nine floats are underwritten by banks. We believe the parade has not only been corporatized but militarized,” Thottam told the local press.

Of course, what particularly bothers Thottam are the Obama administration’s foreign wars, and the fact that J.R. Martinez, a wounded veteran, is leading the parade.

“You have a grand marshal who is an Iraq soldier and we have nothing against him, but those two wars–Iraq and Afghanistan–were wrong and the government took money away from social services to fight those wars.”

Thottam wasn’t always so “supportive” of the troops. In March 2003, he headed a radical anti-war group, known as Answer L.A. The war in Iraq was being waged, according to Thottam at the time, not for democracy or to remove a tyrant, but for “empire” and “oil,” he told The Boston Herald as he protested the war outside of the 75th Academy Awards.

Thottam appears to have contempt for the kind of rule of law that American soldiers like J.R. Martinez and others sought to promote abroad.

In June 2003, Thottam was arrested for theft in Mexico. The incident was written up in an August 2003 article by The Village Voice. Thottam spent four nights with thirteen other prisoners in a crowded Mexican prison cell. A friend came to the rescue and posted the $1,100 bail and Thottam, in his words, “hightailed” it out of the country. Thottam claims that he was looking for a lost guide book when he nearly stepped out of the store with a pair socks in hand. In 2004, Thottam was later caught shoplifting at a clothing store on the East Coast, according to court documents filed by his estranged brother and sister.

Thottam was also convicted that year of petty theft in Irvine, CA, for stealing $71 worth of books from a bookstore. He was placed on probation for one year, and ordered to complete 20 hours of community service and pay $130 in fines and fees by an Orange County court.

But Thottam, who graduated from UC Berkeley Law in 1999 and passed the bar in 2000, failed to disclose the theft and had his law license suspsended in 2008.

Here’s how the California bar described it.

After practicing law for several years, Thottam enrolled in an MBA program at UC Irvine. He decided to transfer after a year and tried to return his textbooks, worth hundreds of dollars, to the Irvine bookstore for full price. When the bookstore refused, Thottam became upset and took two other books, worth $71 from the store.

At the time, he was under a great deal of stress because his mother had had one leg amputated for gangrene but refused to allow doctors to remove the other diseased leg. She died a few weeks later of septicemia, gangrene of the lower extremities. Thottam admitted taking the books and told police about the stress he was under.

He failed to appear in court for the criminal matter and a bench warrant was issued. He ultimately pleaded guilty to misdemeanor petty theft but did not report the conviction to the State Bar.

On March 11th, 2007 Thottam spoke at one of many 9/11 Truth conventions. You can watch him talk about the strategy behind 9/11 denial here in his own words. He coordinated with other Truthers to disrupt Bill Maher’s show on October 23, 2007, and he is pictured here, next to a sign saying that “World Trade Building 7 Didn’t Just Blow Itself Up!”

In 2010, Thottam ran for the Democratic nomination for California’s 53rd Assembly seat. He cited his background as “a financial analyst,” a skill he had purportedly learedn from his father, who he watched suffer a bankruptcy in early 1990s. Thottam argued that the example had taught him to be better with money and to plan for the future.

However, as the Daily Kos points out:

But in at least two of his jobs in the financial realm, Thottam was fired.

From 1999 to 2001 Thottam worked for the Silicon Valley law firm of Wilson, Sonshani, Goodrich & Rosati before he was fired for “performance-based” reasons, according to the company as reported in an April 2002 article published by the Communications Workers of America.

In the article about the stigma workers carry for being fired rather than being laid off, Thottam claimed he was actually laid off.

Thottam subsequently went to work for the prestigious law firm of O’Melveny & Myers in San Francisco from 2001 to 2002. Again, Thottam claimed he was laid off according to a March 2002 article in the Daily Journal; the company responded in the article by saying the firm had suffered no layoffs and was, in fact, hiring.

Thottam’s skills were so bad at managing finances that his own siblings fought over his handling of his late mother’s will. That may be a common occurrence among families, but the charges leveled by family members were particularly severe. According to the Daily Breeze:

Allegations leveled against Thottam by his siblings in court documents related to the trust set up for them include:

That his brother and sister, Jameson and Elizabeth, were “considering removing Peter as a co-trustee because Peter lost $800,000 playing the stock market and misappropriated rents” from a property belonging to the trust “to cover margin calls on his personal stock account.”

That he was “an unsuitable trustee because he was convicted of shoplifting from the UC Irvine bookstore and was previously caught shoplifting from a clothing store on the East Coast and again shoplifting from a store in Mexico where he was subsequently placed in jail.”

Despite that history, Thottam still secured the endorsement the Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles.

And now, Thottam is inviting protestors from all around the world to descend on Pasadena. Are they aware of Thottam’s past?

I immediately guessed that it was someone who publicly stands in “solidarity” with “the 99%” as he or she sips chardonnay in seats only the 1% can typically afford. It turned out to be Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, enjoying the good life.

Andrew and I shared a laugh as we agreed that the ironic pattern of wealthy liberals critiquing “the rich” while simultaneously living high on the hog was just too rich in itself.

And Andrew wondered aloud how someone who flies coach, as he travels multiple times a week, gets attacked as a rich and uncaring capitalist, while someone like Jodie Evans can fly first class and still relish her undying support from lefties.

Sadly, I both comprehend the answer and have experienced such moments of clear contradiction–with Jodie Evans herself.

Years ago, I was asked by anarchist Lisa Fithian to help her shut down the 2004 Halliburton shareholders’ meeting. She dispatched me and another young activist to go to the intended site of the meeting, specifically the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston. We followed our directions and scoped out the entrances and exits. We mapped out every possible way to shut the program down and to prevent access to the building or meeting room.

A room had been rented for several of us in the hotel the day before the meeting. Though nice, our room was very crowded and on the lower levels. The organizers had only rented one room for all of the activists involved. Though I knew Fithian was directing the operation, I still didn’t know who else was behind the scenes.

Fithian called me late that night and told me to come up to a penthouse suite on the upper levels of the hotel. She asked me to come alone, and I did. I didn’t seem to raise any suspicion from hotel staff as I made my way up to the top floors. I knocked, the door opened, and lo and behold–there sat Lisa Fithian next to the famed Jodie Evans. A woman named Andrea Buffa who worked for Medea Benjamin’s Global Exchange was also present. They instructed me on what I was to do during the shareholders’ meeting in the morning and what they wanted the other embedded activists to do. I agreed and told them I’d make sure it happened. They said the other embedded activists and I would be arrested, and that “everything would be okay.”

I left the room feeling a bit strange that those of us facing arrest were crowded in a small lower floor room while our “leaders” were in a penthouse. The fancy room service with chocolate covered strawberries, champagne, and other delicacies didn’t really bother me until I got hungry later that night and realized our “officers” hadn’t thought to organize any food or beverage for us “soldiers” even though we had been strictly commanded not to leave the room they had provided.

Most of us in the crowded room didn’t sleep that night. The next morning we began to get dressed as I went over the plans with everyone. We left the room in pairs, dressed in suits. Each of us had a single handcuff on each wrist and had a third handcuff bracelet in our shirt pocket. The locks had been epoxied so that police couldn’t use a master key and get them off easily. As we walked past the final layer of security for the meeting, I looked at my watch, and it was just the time I had been instructed to lock on to the banister. I did it. The others did. There wasn’t any turning back at that point.

At that exact moment, several hundred protesters outside were told to lie down in the entrances to the hotel. They did so, and it took the police over half an hour to clear the entrances and exits. This was significant because since the police couldn’t cut us off the banisters, the fire department had to do so. But the fire department couldn’t pass the protesters until the police cleared them out. That resulted in approximately thirty-seven minutes of me and the others saying what we wanted and had been told to say. We talked about Halliburton sending empty supply trucks across Iraq just to charge our government for the “load.” We talked about the contracted truck drivers whose lives were being needlessly put at risk for increased profits. We were finally removed and arrested.

We were all immediately placed in a large cell. The toilets had overflowed and there wasn’t anywhere to sit or lie down. I didn’t really mind the situation because I felt I was “doing it for the shared struggle.”

Well, I started to mind it shortly thereafter. We got word that we hadn’t been provided the attorneys our “leaders” had promised. We also got word that our “leaders” had decided not to “lock down” as we had all agreed to do. Jodie Evans had decided to drop a banner out of her window instead and had walked away after the banner had been removed. Our leaders didn’t go to jail.

The worst part of it all was when I got word that our penthouse-dwelling, chocolate-covered-strawberries-room-service-ordering, champagne-drinking “leaders” had never provided our bail money. So much for “solidarity.”

Various activists raised our bail money and we were released that night. A local attorney agreed to represent all of us and told us that it wasn’t cool to put attorneys on the spot like that. We explained that we had been told attorneys would be provided.

We basically all paid five hundred dollars each and got a trespassing charge on our records. Our action was covered in the business sections of newspapers in several countries. Afterwards, our government investigated our accusations against Halliburton and ordered it to repay something like eighty million dollars for empty loads it had billed and for which it had been paid.

Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised to hear Jodie Evans was traveling in first class on Andrew’s flight.

To be fair, not all of the “elite” leftist leadership is as stingy as Evans.

Take Michael Moore, for instance. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as one former Black Panther, one radical eco- and animal-rights-terrorism supporter, and I were close to an armed standoff with police and a racist militia, Michael Moore put his money where his mouth is.

The Black Panther was Malik Rahim. He was famous for his shootout with the New Orleans police in the 1970s. After earning a long and lengthy rap sheet, he changed his name from Donald Guiton to Malik Rahim and has been adored by the left every since. The eco- and animal-rights-terrorism advocate was Scott Crow. Crow openly gave a speech which the group’s pirate radio station aired over and over again for months. Crow stated clearly that we were a “paramilitary organization,” armed and in “solidarity” with foreign armed movements, including the people of Chiapas. Such talk of being armed and working with foreign armed movements didn’t deter Michael Moore from sending $200,000 through Veterans for Peace to help fund what we were doing. I guess as the closest thing to an armed resistance movement the U.S. had since the 1960s and 1970s, Moore couldn’t pass up drowning us in money.

Michael Moore’s luxury Torch Lake vacation home

Thankfully, we never had to find out whether or not Moore would have followed through with bail money if we had been busted for our almost-revolutionary struggle.

If subsequent history is any indicator, Jodie Evans would have left us high and dry–while she flew away in first class.

Leninists and fascists revealed some knowledge (albeit cherry picked) of history and they had read books or even a pamphlet. Lenin quoted Adam Smith, Hitler; Frederick the Great. The protestors, however, don’t even know who is being quoted (they aren’t sure whether to clap or not when Eugene Debs is cited) or who they are even wearing. I asked one masked protestor why he was wearing a Guy Fawkes’ mask and was corrected in the condescending tones of the hip that it was “V For Vendetta.”

Far from being the products of any studied ideology, they are instead the products of youtube and Comedy Central. Silence greets any invocation of Tom Mooney or Tom Joad and applause rises to a roar when Micheal Moore and Susan Sarandon do a drop-by. They do show a low animal cunning about the alternative media. Aware that the Left no longer owns it, they evince a media savviness that would make Obama envious. Asked by a reporter what system they want to replace capitalism with, a protestor was advised by a comrade not to say it. Image conscious, they know to try to block the limos that bore Sarandon and Moore to the event from camera-view. They know that slogans have consequences, so very few of them wave placards describing Wall Street as crony capitalists, which reveal an awareness that such a slogan might track pedestrians back to the president who bailed out Wall Street.

One matter that keeps them assuredly away from kinship with Leninists and fascists is that the Bolsheviks and Nazis took to the streets against the government. Both groups targeted the rulers of their countries as having to go; winter palaces were stormed, tsars and their children executed, marches on the capitals planned. The Wall Street Protestors, however, desire none of this. Indeed, some of their slogans sound designed for the Obama 2012 campaign. Many of them speak of their President and how they have to help him. If there is a march on Washington it will definitely detour past the White House.

White House, Cabinet Room

First meeting of President Obama’s new team

OBAMA: Listen up, people. I got myself across the finish line but couldn’t bring Congress along.  That’s why you’re here.  Except for Defense, you represent the first entirely recessed Cabinet in American history.  Do me proud.  Michelle?

MICHELLE: I’m the new Chief of Staff. You want to see him, you gotta get past me. Waste my time, I’ll cut your budget 10%.

OBAMA: So, let’s hear some fresh ideas.  HHS?

MICHAEL MOORE: Now that the World Court has overturned the Supremes and ruled the PPACA [ObamaCare] constitutional, sir, amend the program to cover all humanity.  Eventually, include lesser beings, as well.  Innumerable uninsured creatures are suffering out there.

OBAMA: Easy, big guy; we’ll do it in stages.  After people, we insure the remaining mammalians; then, things with legs; finally, air breathers.  Treasury?

PAUL KRUGMAN: I’ve run the numbers, sir: Stimulus IV should tip the worldwide economy into depression within a year.

OBAMA: Good.  That gets us closer to the one-world government mankind will demand I lead to left the—I mean, to right the ship.  I’m getting bored with the Presidency, anyway. OMB?

BERNIE MADOFF: [videoconferencing from Butner Federal Correctional Complex] Paul’s overly optimistic about how long before we foment a global crash, Mr. President.  Economies can be annoyingly resilient.  We need a backup plan.

OBAMA: Agreed.  Eric, task DOJ lawyers to discover extra-constitutional justification for footing a European bailout.  We’ll call our proposal the, uh, “Bosom Allies Relief Fund.” BARF will overwhelm their systems with worthless dollars, bollixing up the euro and paralyzing trade.

RAMSEY CLARK: On it, sir, but, um . . . I’m your new AG; Holder’s been in jail since last month, after he was convicted of directing a Gunwalker conspiracy that was adjudged vast and injurious.

OBAMA: Oh, right.  I’d pardon him, or at least pull him out of solitary, except . . . word is he’s writing a book.  Hmmm.  Ramsey, notify Holder’s warden to allow him weekly unsupervised walks in Fort Marcy Park.

KRUGMAN: Sir, Republicans will yell bloody murder when they learn you’ve BARFed.

OBAMA: Too bad.  Alert Senators Snowe and Collins I’ll grant them private audiences if they agree to be bipartisan about my usurpation of Congressional power.  Moving on, CIA, what’s your take on the ruble these days?

MATT DAMON: Fine choice, sir; go for quality, color, and cut. . . .

OBAMA:  Never mind.  How are negotiations going with al-Qaeda?

DAMON: NSA and I are close to a Gentleman’s Agreement with al-Zawaheri, Mr. President.  He’ll give us nonspecific advance notice of an atrocity if we grant him U. S. citizenship and the right to appeal to the SCOTUS any decision to take him out. Proceed?

OBAMA: Yes.  Which reminds me.  Suppose I’m in the middle of a personal-best round and he manages to hit us?  I can’t leave the course just to rally the public with insipid assurances.  NSA?

SEAN PENN: Tape a general statement in the Oval Office to have on hand in case you’re busy, sir.  You know, “Let me be clear; Make no mistake; They’ll be held accountable,” so forth.  We’ll label it “live.”

OBAMA: Sounds good.  By the way, Chico, congratulations on being adopted by Hugo Chavez.  A real honor for a “gringo.”

PENN: Gracias, Excelente.

OBAMA: Now, Matt, I assume the Zawahiri deal wouldn’t preclude apprehending him should the opportunity arise.   If you tried to lure him to Washington to sign off on our arrangement, would he bite?

DAMON: Very likely, sir.  I recommend we equip the arresting Delta Force team with the Ripp® Restraint Protective Mask system guaranteed to frustrate spitters and biters.

OBAMA:  [sigh] Ramsey?

CLARK:  I advise against such a provocative action, sir.  We should open a dialogue with the man.  He attacks us, we talk with him.  He continues to kill Americans, we talk some more.  He dirty bombs New York, say, we threaten to stop talking after another major event.  That’s how to get his attention.

OBAMA:  I’ll consider it.  Transportation?

AL GORE:  We need an alternative to automobiles, Mr. President.  The Constitution says nothing about a “right to drive.”  Phase out private ownership of vehicles by the end of your third term, when traveling by high-speed rail—whether or not it exists—becomes compulsory. We’ll get off foreign oil and save big on infrastructure.

OBAMA:  Tap the Amish for additional public transport ideas.  Let’s see–Defense, how do we go about standing down to demonstrate America’s not a threat to anyone?

ADAM BALDWIN:  I’d sooner arm ourselves to the teeth to make everyone fear us, Mr. President.

OBAMA:  Alec, this doesn’t sound like you.  We can’t . . . wha? Oh Good Lord, I picked the wrong Baldwin!

MICHELLE:  He’s been confirmed, Dumbo.  Too late to do anything now.

OBAMA:  All right.  But I’ve got my eye on you, Jayne.  State?

YOKO ONO:  Divvy up 95% of our nukes to every terrorist country and jihadist group–throw them off balance. When everyone starts from a position of strength, we can talk about our differences openly, without fear.

OBAMA:  Make it so, Sudoko.  After they’ve taken receipt of the nukes, confirm they’re targeting only us, not each other. God knows, we don’t want some third world conflagration breaking out because of a misunderstanding.  Homeland Security?

SHEILA JACKSON LEE:  [interrupting cell phone conversation] What?

OBAMA:  Um, any policy revamps, suggestions?

JACKSON LEE: In fact, yes.  Given the TSA’s current emphasis on body scanning, I’m changing the agency’s name to the T&A Administration.

MICHELLE:  Meeting’s over.  I’m heading over to Whole Foods for some arugula.  You folks better leave now to beat my motorcade, or you won’t get home before dark.

OBAMA:  But honey, we’re not done with. . . .

MICHELLE:  Cosmo’s coming in tomorrow to do a spread on you.  No nudity.  You hear me, Barack?

Yet, as the “movement” began to grow, it became obvious that being “non-violent” is “non-correct.” Quickly, the OWS protesters were co-opted by those who believe in violence as a legitimate means of achieving their objectives:  Van Jones, who wants to see an “American Autumn” emulating the Arab Spring (which was, and still is, very violent), Michael Moore — who has stated publicly that the “rich” can give up their money now, peacefully, or later (though he doesn’t elaborate on what happens to get the money later, one can imagine), and even Roseanne Barr got into the mix. Barr actually said she longed for the return of the guillotine and re-education camps for those who don’t give up their wealth willingly.

In my appearance on CrossTalk, I was joined by Jason Del Gandio – assistant professor of rhetoric at Temple University and author of “Rhetoric for Radicals,” (a handbook for 21st century activists) and Kevin Zeese, organizer of October 2011.org and activist.  In that program a few things came to the surface:

Both Del Gandio and Zeese pushed the meme that the organizations across the nation were non-violent. Zeese made it clear that they were not allowing themselves to be co-opted by Jones, Moore, the Democrat party or anyone else, claiming:

Van Jones is not part of the Occupy movement…he’s a Democrat…if Obama and the Democrats embrace us, they gonna be very sad to see that we will be protesting them as well…we see them as part of the crony capitalist corrupt economy that has resulted in 400 people having as much wealth as 154 million, not because they are smarter or work harder, but because they are politically connected and essentially bribing through campaign donations…

I pointed out that Democrats have both embraced and have co-opted the movement.  How else could you explain the petition on the DCCC website asking people to support the OWS crowd?  I then pointed out that the issue is not “crony capitalism.”  Who wouldn’t be opposed to people who break the law to get ahead? Rather, the issue is that OWS is opposed to Capitalism and people being able to keep what they earn. The conversation went south from there:

Me : “You’re opposed to Capitalism. That’s the problem.  You’re opposed to the idea of people working for what they earn…you think it should just be given to them.  This is what you believe.”

Zeese: “That is not true. That’s not true.  You’re absolutely wrong about that.  You’re absolutely wrong about that, Tony.”

Me: “I’m not wrong about that.  Take a look at your own words and your own actions. Take a look at the video by Andrew Breitbart where people are booing Capitalism.”

Zeese: “Tony is a loudmouth who makes up stuff.  Tony is a loudmouth who makes up stuff….puts out false information.”

Let’s take a look at the video tape – courtesy of Mr. Breitbart:

People. Booing. Capitalism.  It’s not made up.  It’s not false information.

While there is much more in the video, the most frightening moment appears towards the end, when Del Gandio pushed the idea of “direct democracy” (emphasis mine):

Lavalle (Host): “Is this really a test of democracy in the United States?  Because we talked about Capitalism but its about participation, isn’t it?”

Del Gandio: “…it’s about direct democracy.  about reclaiming our democracy, redefining our democracy, repracticing our democracy in a way that is responsive to each of our wants, needs and desires.”

Me: “….we are not a direct democracy, and the Founding Fathers knew better.  We’re a Constitutional Republic, that way we don’t have mob rule.”

Del Gandio: “Well, we can change it. Let’s change it.”

Me: “And from the outside looking in, that’s exactly what you have in Occupy Wall Street. You guys gotta figure that one out.”

Del Gandio: “Let’s change the system.  Change the system.”

There can be no more doubt that Occupy Wall Street is NOT in favor of reforming the system but rather dismantling the system.  The brazen desire of “change the system,” if uttered by a member of the Tea Party, would be front page news for weeks in the mainstream press.  It would be followed up by the usual suspects claiming that the Tea Party is in favor of violent overthrow of the government.

The Tea Party believes in government, just less of it.  Occupy Wall Street has shown that it does not favor free markets, nor our Constitutional foundation.  They wish to change both.

When the clip of my appearance was posted to the RT YouTube channel, the commenters went on a violent, homophobic, anti-Semitic rant about my appearance.  While not every comment is crude, below is a sampling of those who favor the OWS movement:

Yeah, bring back the guillotine and start with the tea party bastards! – theHoundsofDoom

Tony makes me with I could punch people over TCP/IP.- HWGuyEG

tony katz is a fat pussy – cornsnakedk

HAs tony ever been punched? Id like to be the first. – MrMrEvin

The only acts of violence are by the police! don’t listen to that Jew! – murmur6666

lol, just what i expected from a tea party douche. Pull the string, get the pre-programmed ideas. Sheesh. – ForestSongUnLTD

The guillotine needs to make a comeback. – bamboo4tameshigiri

T. Katz needs a bitch slappin’. Pick me! Pick me! – phillisthebarbarian

Teabaggers need to be put in re-education camps! Roseanne Barr was right! – petersz98

Tony’s face would look good arguing from the bottom of a basket. – Will224000

What a fat fuck – arturro666

tony should be wearing a white hood… – SHACKTRESS

What a dumb Zionist tool in the bottom right corner – megamogx

will someone please violently obliterate the man on the bottom right – humanboy1221

Who is this stupid Tea Party guy. Make me want to stand up and punch his face. What a dick head!!! – nhu111

Tony do the world a favour and choke yourself, you ignorant pawn/pig of the establishment!!!! – karveljay

OHHHHH I get it, tony must affiliate with the 1% – What a fag – RoyalW1979

FUCK TONY KATZ  I WORK MY FUCKING ASS OFF AND GET PAID DIRT W NO BENEFITS FUCK YOU! YOU STUPID FAGGOT COME TO WALL STREET AND COME SEE ME YOU FUCKING HOMO – fucuts

With similar anti-Semitic statements and calls for violence amongst the rank and file of the OWS crowd, this kind of vitriol is completely unsurprising. Occupy Wall Street has begun to clearly reveal exactly what it stands for–envy, hatred, and destruction.

In a surreal news conference at the United Nations, anti-American radical and rogue financier George Soros (net worth: $22 billion) threw in his lot with the thousands of Communists, anarchists, eco-feminists, malingerers, and professional protesters who have been baiting and taunting police in lower Manhattan as part of a mass demonstration that began September 17.

The protests, which have spread to other large cities, are part of what ACORN’s neo-communist founder Wade Rathke calls an “anti-banking jihad.” Not surprisingly, the remnants of the ACORN network are deeply involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement. New York ACORN’s new front group, New York Communities for Change (NYCC), led by veteran ACORN enforcer Jon Kest, is one of the major protest groups leading the effort to turn America into one big socialist armpit.

Kest explained why NYCC is involved by using what has become the standard Marxist boilerplate about the financial collapse. “When the big banks tanked our economy they took away millions of people’s shot at achieving the American Dream,” he blogged. “It’s about time all these people come together and hold Wall Street accountable for what they’ve done to our futures and the future of this country.” Of course Kest didn’t bother to mention the role that ACORN played in creating the mortgage bubble by strong-arming Fannie Mae, pushing the financial affirmative action scheme known as the Community Reinvestment Act, and blackmailing banks that didn’t want to lend money to people who wouldn’t be able to pay it back.

SEIU board member Stephen Lerner has vowed to do his part to drive a stake through the heart of capitalism and drag the populace into economic misery. Lerner says he wants to “bring down the stock market” through a campaign of disruption. Last year George Goehl, executive director of Chicago-based National People’s Action, said that “the banking crisis” was “the next big thing,” and “the way to build a big economic justice movement in this country.”

Soros said he sympathizes with the rabble. “Actually I can understand [the protesters’] sentiment, frankly,” said the preeminent funder of the American activist Left in remarks to reporters.

But anyone who has followed Soros’s life wouldn’t dare to describe him as a working class hero.

Remember that this corrupt investment banker fired his butler for complaining after his cook used Château Lafite in a stew. The butler won a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Soros. Soros was also convicted of insider trading. A French court fined him millions of dollars.

Soros’s hedge fund invested almost $1 billion in shares of Petrobras, the Brazilian oil concern, coincidentally just before the Export-Import Bank of the United States announced it was lending $2 billion to the company.

Soros closed a hedge fund to outside investors rather than submit to the new Dodd-Frank financial regulations – regulations he helped to enact by giving money to groups that lobbied for them. Soros shed a few crocodile tears for small business owners whose credit lines got squeezed after the 2008 financial collapse. “An awful lot of them actually were put out of business,” he said.

Remember also that Soros deliberately collapses national economies for fun and profit, openly expresses admiration for Communist China, and has said European-style socialism “is exactly what we need now.” He wants the American economy to sink into the abyss. “I’m having a very good crisis,” Soros said in 2009.

Even though Soros is the archetype of the Wall Street insider, leftists can’t bring themselves to criticize him, preferring to demonize the invented billionaire bogeymen of the Right.

Plenty of other rich liberals have been holding court near Wall Street in recent days.

Hip hop and credit card mogul Russell Simmons (net worth: $340 million), alleged comedian Roseanne Barr (net worth: $80 million), actress Susan Sarandon (net worth: $50 million), and celluloid propagandist Michael Moore (net worth: $50 million) have all dropped by to cheer on the protesters in their quest to redistribute wealth while radically transforming the nation.

Simmons stood beside Frances Fox Piven as the Bolshevik academic unwittingly created an impromptu parody of the “we’re all individuals” crowd scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. “Wall Street is the center of the neo-liberal cancer that has spread across the world,” Piven said, pausing every few seconds to allow the mob to repeat her words.

After Piven finished, Simmons stood up and did the same routine like an automaton from a creepy cult. As the mob repeated his words, Simmons condemned the “class warfare being waged on the poor and the middle class” and claimed:

The fact is our problem, at least our number one problem, is the corporations and the other special interest groups that are more important to our politicians than the people. The lobbyists and the money gotta get the f*** out of Washington.

Another exercise in Marxist mobocracy is underway in the nation’s capital.

The October 2011 Coalition has taken over Freedom Plaza near the White House to “resist the corporate machine.” The various groups occupying the area are demanding “that America’s resources be invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation.” The group’s stated goal is to make the plaza one block away from the White House “our Tahrir Square, Cairo.”

Plenty more disruptive demonstrations are scheduled.

Next week will be busy, SEIU’s Lerner said during a panel discussion Monday at the Take Back the American Dream conference in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the left-wing Campaign for America’s Future.

About 10,000 demonstrators are expected to hit the streets of Chicago while protesters march on Wells Fargo in Minneapolis, he said.

Activists in New York are planning to campaign to extend that state’s tax on millionaires. “We may go visit some of them,” said Lerner, whose union goons have terrorized the families of many corporate executives in their homes.

Goehl’s National People’s Action group is planning a “Make Wall Street Pay” event on November 3. That’s two days before Guy Fawkes Day, the annual commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot in which English dissidents plotted to vaporize Parliament.

Fancy that.

(This is a modified version of an article that appeared at Front Page Magazine.)

The authors of the books we offered to ban were Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart, Ayn Rand, Michael Savage, Bill Clinton, Michael Moore, Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama. While there were in fact less than two handfuls of individuals who did tell us they don’t think any books should be banned, unfortunately there were a shocking amount of guests at this book fair who were quite open to the idea, and in fact lined up quite excited for the opportunity to voice their opinion.

Participants overwhelming chose Sarah Palin who received 53 votes putting her at 36% overall, Glenn Beck at 23% and Ann Coulter at 22%.

All of the other choices received a very minimal amount of votes, with the next most popular to ban being Adolf Hitler at 0.5%. Ironically, Michael Savage, who has been banned from entering Britain over things he often says, did not receive one vote to have his words banned in Chicago.

Cross Posted at: Rebel Pundit