Editor’s note: To get David Horowitz’s perspective on the OWS movement, see his recent lead feature, Communism Reborn. For the whole story behind Occupy Wall Street and how this movement marks a new phase in the rebirth of the communist Left, read the new broadside by David Horowitz and John Perazzo, Occupy Wall Street: The Communist Movement Reborn. This essential pamphlet exposes the roots, leaders and hidden agendas of the radical movement and its war on capitalism and free societies.
Having been anointed collectively as “Person of the Year” in 2011 by the desperate and irrelevant Time magazine, the unwashed masses of the Occupy movement seem to have let the dubious honor go to their collective head. Never known for their restrained, orderly behavior, the Occupiers have even begun turning against and repulsing their supporters among the religious left.
Initially, the Los Angeles Times pronounced the Occupy movement as “a predominantly secular undertaking,” although it did note that “some left-leaning religious groups see a golden opportunity in the Occupy movement, whose central message of greater economic equality resonates deeply among faith-based progressives.”
Sure enough, religious progressives did rush to anoint the movement as it began to swell. FrontPage contributor Mark Tooley noted that such religious left icons as Jim Wallis and Shane Claiborne rhapsodized about the Occupiers standing with Jesus in their defense of the poor, even resembling St. Francis of Assisi. “Whether or not the Wall Street Occupiers are ‘ordinary people,’” Tooley wrote, “much less resemble St. Francis, the Religious Left is bursting with pride over their naughty demands.” Wallis urged his followers to embrace the movement, literally:
Our faith communities and organizations should swing their doors wide and greet the Occupiers with open arms, offering them a feast to say “thank you” for having the courage to raise the very religious and biblical issue of growing inequality in our society.
By the beginning of December The Huffington Post asserted that “more than 1,400 faith leaders from around the country [had] signed a pledge of solidarity with Occupy protesters.” They conducted services and provided counseling, and their churches hosted Occupy meetings. Religious communities of all stripes rushed to offer the Occupiers shelter and solidarity:
In addition to spiritual ministry and space to assemble and sleep, religious communities have provided the Occupy movement with material support such as food, clothing, tents, blankets and heaters.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams wrote that Jesus would be among the Occupiers of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and that the movement had prompted people to examine themselves and ask, “What would Jesus do?”
But the behavior of the Occupiers themselves belied all this spiritual praise. If the Occupiers did ask themselves “What would Jesus do?” then they apparently came to the conclusion that Jesus would expose himself, rape, urinate and defecate in public, endanger children, steal, trespass, trash public and private property, harass and denounce Jews, assault non-protesters and police, block traffic, take drugs, hurl Molotov cocktails and blood and vinegar, and more. Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website has posted a jaw-dropping, ongoing “rap sheet” of the Occupy movement’s reprehensible if not actually criminal behavior that numbers well over 400 incidents. But that list hasn’t been updated for a month. To date, arrests at Occupy events number over 6,000, including over 400 in Oakland alone last weekend. By contrast, the Tea Party movement doesn’t even litter.
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