The Other McCain

“Let it sink in: Their protests now need rape shelters. This is actually happening. And New York City lets it go on. . . . [T]he coverage of OWS protests compared to the coverage of tea-party protests is the worst media double standard in recent history.”
— Allahpundit, Hot Air

“These are the people the Democrats and their accomplices in the media stand with.”
— The Lonely Conservative

Michelle Fields has posted her crew’s video of the violence and intimidation perpetrated by the “Occupy DC” mob Friday night:

About the elderly woman you see on the video (3:20) who got shoved to the ground by the “Occupy” mob:

“Her name is Dolores Broderson, age 78. She rode on a bus for 11 hours from Detroit to get there. She went to the emergency room with a bloody nose and bruises on her hand and leg.”

We can no longer tolerate media assertions that this is a non-violent movement. When your purpose is to inspire hatred, to threaten and intimidate, when you trespass and obstruct traffic, when you chant obscenities and deliberately seek to provoke confrontations — no, you’re not being non-violent, no matter how often you claim to be “peaceful.”

But who can expect honesty from such savages? And who can any longer doubt that the mainstream media are acting as accessories to this criminal movement by pretending that the “Occupy [Whatever]” mob’s regular eruptions of violence and criminality are atypical aberrations? Just look at the headlines:

Occupy Protester Arrested In $10M Arson Fire
— KMGH-TV

Occupy Boston Occupies Israeli Consulate
— Ira Stoll

Zuccotti protesters put up women-only
tent to prevent sexual assaults
— New York Post

Fear Of Violence Spreading To OccupySeattle
— Thomas Ferdousi

“Nothing to see here, move along. Just what ‘democracy looks like.'”
— Darleen Click, Protein Wisdom

Yes, in the sense that “democracy” is a mob contemptuous of Western civilization, without respect for private property, ignorant of the Anglo-American Rule of Law tradition, and worked into a fevered frenzy by ritualistic incantations of radical-egalitarian concepts of “social justice” — well, indeed, this is what democracy looks like.

Those smelly hippies probably never even heard of Edmund Burke, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, et al.

Perhaps the malodorous mobsters would reply: “We’re not going to pay money for books, you capitalist vulture!” But even if you offered them Leonard Read’s classic essay, “I, Pencil,” online for free, they couldn’t be bothered to spend the time needed to read its 2,229 words. Even if you could force them to read it, however, they couldn’t possibly understand it, either because they lack the intelligence to comprehend basic reasoning, or else because they’ve been so thoroughly brainwashed into the collectivist mentality as to have become actively hostile to freedom.

As I explained last week, the “Occupy [Whatever]” movement is about “Organized Ignorance.” Once you’ve seen the phenomenon first-hand — chanting slogans or doing their ridiculous “mike check” call-and-response routines — you realize that their insistence on speaking in unison is a function of their inability to think as individuals.

“The good news is that more and more Americans are seeing these disgusting creatures in action. It will help Republican candidates immensely in 2012.”
— John Hinderaker, Powerline

Good news? If you look at it from a short-term partisan perspective, I suppose it’s good for independent voters to be reminded of what the Democratic Party’s “base” really looks like. But there is something genuinely tragic, and profoundling troubling, in watching this sorry “Occupy” farce unfold. So many young people have been so miseducated that they can’t tell “heaven from hell, blue skies from pain,” et cetera.

UPDATE (Smitty): Welcome, Instapundit readers!

PREVIOUSLY:

• Nov. 5: ‘F– Michelle Fields!’ — Interview With Reporter Harassed at Occupy DC Protest
• Nov. 4: #OWS Protesters Attempt to Storm AFP Defending the American Dream Summit
• Nov. 3: Complete Burn-Out Looms: Random Notes on the Road to the American Dream

Michelle Fields stands next to a policeman while
covering ‘Occupy DC’ protests, Nov. 4, 2011

Michelle Fields, a young video reporter for the Daily Caller, was assigned to cover Friday night’s Occupy DC protests outside the Americans for Prosperity “Defending the American Dream” conference at the Washington Convention Center. In an interview Saturday morning, Fields described how she was targeted for harassment:

Robert Stacy McCain: You won’t be going back?
Michelle Fields, Daily Caller: I won’t be going back to cover it. I actually don’t feel safe going back to those protests, because they singled me out, they singled out the Daily Caller. I just don’t think it’s safe for me to be back around those people.
They actually had a person covering me all night, for about three hours, with someone walking around with a camera, screaming things out to me like, “You’re worse than Fox,” and attacking me, attacking what I’m wearing. So I won’t be returning.

McCAIN: Attacking what you were wearing?
FIELDS: Exactly, yes. I think they were just trying to figure out ways to upset me — about the clothing I was wearing, where apparently I shop, really strange stuff.

McCAIN: Where you shop?
FIELDS: Exactly, yes.

McCAIN: You were wearing what? Abercrombie & Fitch or what?
FIELDS: They were screaming out that I was wearing [designer] Ann Taylor. So I’m not sure — I wasn’t wearing Ann Taylor.

McCAIN: Oh, my goodness.
FIELDS: They were screaming stuff out like that. They were screaming like, ‘F– Michelle Fields!’
And when I tried to conduct interviews, an individual would jump in front of the camera and stop the interview, or block it with a piece of paper or cardboard, so that we couldn’t tape anything or talk to anyone.

McCAIN: Oh, my goodness. So while they want all the friendly media they can get, in terms of —
FIELDS: Exactly, yes. And so people started chanting, ‘Right-wing extremists,’ while we were trying to interview people, and they talked to people who were part of Occupy DC and told them not to talk to us. So they chanted that, they chanted songs at me that I’m ugly, like ‘U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi, you’re ugly,’ to me individually, and that I’m a ‘horrible person.’ It was, literally, just attacking me and the Daily Caller, but specifically me.

McCAIN: Wow. Wow. And so they had somebody whose job was apparently to monitor you?
FIELDS: Exactly, yes. So for about three hours, I had someone following me around, harassing me, screaming things out to me. And I actually did not feel comfortable, because at one point there were a whole group of men surrounding me saying, ‘F—Michelle Fields.’  And I went to a police officer and I told him that I felt these people were harassing me. And the police officer said he’d take care of it, but it never ended. These people were harassing me for the entire evening.

McCAIN: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. These are the enlightened, tolerant, liberal, progressives.
FIELDS: Supposedly.

* * * * * *

UPDATE (Smitty): Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II (RSM): Linked by Don Surber, Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom, Dan Collins at The Conservatory, Fire Andrea Mitchell and The Lonely Conservative — thanks! — and welcome, Hot Air readers!

PREVIOUSLY: #OWS Protesters Attempt to Storm AFP Defending the American Dream Summit