{"id":8444,"date":"2011-10-09T19:52:25","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T23:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=8444"},"modified":"2011-10-09T20:17:15","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T00:17:15","slug":"the-tea-party-never-was-any-fun-if-you-wanna-make-love-not-war-occupy-wall-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/the-tea-party-never-was-any-fun-if-you-wanna-make-love-not-war-occupy-wall-street","title":{"rendered":"Tea Partying never was any fun; if you want to make love not war, go Occupy Wall Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

The media never has liked the Tea Party — a bunch of grumpy conservatives saying the government shouldn’t do this and shouldn’t do that.<\/p>\n

It’s no fun. But Occupy Wall Street is.<\/p>\n

The hundreds of youngsters camped out in New York City’s financial district is beginning to look like the fun times of the 1960s, when kids smoking pot happily placed flowers in the rifle barrels of scowling National Guardsmen.<\/p>\n

The street protest, reports the British daily the Daily Mail<\/em><\/a> has been “infiltrated by party goers and homeless looking for sex, drugs and free food.”<\/p>\n

“It started as a gathering of furious youngsters, protesting about the supposed lack of opportunities for the average American,” writes the Mail<\/em>‘s Hannah Roberts and Paul Bentley. “But then the freeloaders came along.”<\/p>\n

And it’s beginning to look a little more like Woodstock or the Burning Man festival.<\/p>\n

“As the Occupy Wall Street protest continued in full strength in Manhattan this weekend, the atmosphere in New York’s financial district became increasingly debauched,” reports the Mail.<\/em><\/p>\n

Conspicuously living among the politically active in the makeshift village in Zuccotti Park are opportunistic junkies and homeless people – making the most of the free food on offer.<\/p>\n

Also present and infuriating the hard core of activists are a number of teens looking to turn the gathering into an urban rave.<\/p>\n

“Among the banners and flags are now discarded packets of condoms, cigarettes and bottles of spirits, while naked youngsters happily get together with just sleeping bags covering their modesty,” reports the Mail<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Those who are there for political reasons, have raged against corporate greed and influence over American life, the gap between rich and poor, and hapless, corrupt politicians.<\/p>\n

“Among the activists, however, clearly there are some on the ground with less noble intentions.<\/p>\n

“Most of the kids are trust-fund babies. They don\u2019t need to be here,” Andre, a 40-year-old activist told the New York Post. “<\/em>I\u2019ve seen some making out, having sex. It doesn\u2019t look good.”<\/p>\n

On Saturday morning a 23-year-old man named Zachary was rushed to hospital after drinking a combination of liquor and cough syrup.\u00a0He stopped breathing and was rushed in a serious condition to Downtown Hospital.<\/p>\n

“The leaders of the protest are furious at the manner in which it has been hijacked and have set up a make-shift internal police to stop the debauched behavior,” reported the Mail.<\/em><\/p>\n

‘We want to make sure everyone is here for the right reason,’ Ricky Torres, 23, who is part of the security unit, told the New York Post.<\/em><\/p>\n

Zuccotti Park, the site of the New York demonstration, is showing signs of strain. “Sanitation is a growing concern,” Brookfield Office Properties — which maintains the park — said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Normally the park is cleaned and inspected every week night. . . because the protesters refuse to cooperate. . .the park has not been cleaned since Friday, September 16th and as a result, sanitary conditions have reached unacceptable levels,’ CBS News reported.<\/p>\n

Despite the protester’s claim that they represent “the 99 per cent,” of Americans who are not bankers or Wall Street moguls, not all Americans are behind the Wall Street protests.<\/p>\n

The Financial Times<\/em>\u00a0writes that President Obama is unofficially backing their cause.<\/p>\n

The paper wrote: “While not endorsing the protests, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have expressed understanding of the movement that has spread rapidly across the country.\u00a0Obama said people were angry because Wall Street had not been ‘following the rules.<\/p>\n

“His vice-president even compared the movement on Thursday to the Tea Party, the conservative movement which has upended national politics in the past two years.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The media never has liked the Tea Party — a bunch of grumpy conservatives saying the government shouldn’t do this and shouldn’t do that. It’s no fun. But Occupy Wall Street is. 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