a little derpy-doo on Occupy's end.
This is the recurring story of OWS. Unlike the tea party which was run largely by adults with a primary goal (albeit a dumb one), OWS can't seem to figure out a message, has basically no leadership, and inundates themselves with projects largely aimed at 'sticking one to the man' that inevitably backfire, and then everybody but them ends up being framed as the bad guy.
I will give that the city of Toronto could have actually done something with the vegetable garden's harvest, like giving it to a food bank or something, and that was super shitty. But the city has the responsibility to maintain the property, issue permits, enforce permits, etc. When somebody comes out and says "fuck the system, I'm taking this land and using it" ignoring that is basically an endorsement of anarchy. At the risk of being "it's a slippery slope" guy, when does it end? Tent villages become permanent shanty towns in the parks? They let us build a garden, let's see if they'll let us build a house! And then six months later when the city does cleanup in the park they get to demolish a bunch of houses and get another story in the paper talking about how heartless the city of Toronto is for tearing up affordable green housing.
IMO, OWS needs some serious leadership and a bit more focus in it's message. Leftist protests in general do, because as it is it's hard to take them seriously since it inevitably devolves into a bunch of hippies who don't know what it is they're acutally protesting, why it's relevant, or what needs to be done to fix it. Protesting is basically the equivelant of a leftist block party, with burning man being the family reunion. If somebody could take these people and point them in a real direction and convince them to start supporting political candidates and pushing for bills to be passed and unify the message, we could have a huge grass roots movement to fight lobbying, corruption, income inequality, etc, with the actual electing power that the TPP had.
