From the LA Times:
Los Angeles officials have offered Occupy L.A. protesters a package of incentives that includes downtown office space and farmland in an attempt to persuade them to abandon their camp outside of City Hall, according to several demonstrators who have been in negotiations with the city.
The details of the proposal were revealed Monday during the demonstration’s nightly general assembly meeting by Jim Lafferty, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who has been advocating on behalf of the protest since it began seven weeks ago.
Lafferty said city officials have offered protesters a $1-a-year lease on a 10,000-square-foot office space near City Hall. He said officials also promised land elsewhere for protesters who wish to farm, as well as additional housing for the contingent of homeless people who joined the camp.
Expensive real estate to be offered there, Mayor! It again shows the lack of a spine from our elected politicians. Here you have protesters who have ignored the Rule of Law, tossed aside multiple ordinances as unimportant to follow (that would get me tossed into the hoosegow), taken away a public space from the actual public, inflated crime statisitics, public masturbation, drug usage, public sex, and more, have cowered the local government.
Or given them cover (take your pick). OWS LA have acted like bullies, using the cover of "we are the 99%" to put a stake in the ground. On a national TEA Party email list I’m on came this about the above news:
I’m working on a story about this and thought you all might like to see it as well. The idiot occupiers using taxpayer funded parks and sidewalks is one thing… but getting an entire 10,000 square foot office space to wage war against taxpayers, in a taxpayer funded facility?
Unbelievable indeed.
No, not unbelievable, as my response was:
For the people who ARE the Leaders of this "leaderless" movement and their supporters (Adbuster, AFL-CIO, SEIU, Teamsters, the Progressive Caucus), they are not the idiots – they have accomplished their Alinskying of local govt.
What the local TEA Party should do is the same – and when rebuffed, claim discrimination and "sue in the court of public opinion: for the same deal. And if they have paid fees and such to LA, demand them back.
But to your point, Eric, for the operators behind the scene, it is not idiotic. Rather, it is success as they have brought more crony capitalism (sideways) to bear; more power / goodies for the political advocacy groups of the Left being paid for by the rest. In essence (hmmm, I do need to blog this thought) they are working for and achieving EXACTLY what the OWS movement is against. They claim that the 1% is taking advantage of the 99% by privatizing the profit but socializing the risk / failure. Well, isn’t that what the LA OWS has done – privatizing their gain (10K of office space at a buck year) at the expense of the 99% (the taxpayers who have to actually pay for the space and utilities?
The only idiots in the equation are the taxpayers for allowing it to happen.
