Adbusters Admits OWS Flopped; Now Promoting 'Flash Encampments'

June 10th, 2012 7:10 PM

The Occupy Wall Street movement was first proposed by the leftwing Canadian magazine, Adbusters. However, now even they are forced to admit the obvious about the failure of their creation which you can read in their sad OWS obituary:

Burned out, out of money, out of ideas… seduced by salaries, comfy offices, book deals, old lefty cash and minor celebrity status, some of the most prominent early heroes of our leaderless uprising are losing the edge that catalyzed last year’s one thousand encampments. Bit by bit, Occupy’s first generation is succumbing to an insidious institutionalization and ossification that could be fatal to our young spiritual insurrection unless we leap over it right now. Putting our movement back on track will take nothing short of a revolution within Occupy.

Your humble correspondent begs your pardon for this comparison but does the preceding Adbusters quote not sound eerily similar to this declaration by Bela Lugosi as Dr. Eric Vornoff in that epic film, Bride of the Monster?

Home? I have no home. Hunted, despised, Living like an animal! The jungle is my home. But I will show the world that I can be its master! I will perfect my own race of people. A race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

And what is the Adbusters version of "a race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world?" An equally unrealistic solution as called "flash encampments" as Adbusters explains:

The next big bang to capture the world’s imagination could come not from a thousand encampments but from a hundred thousand ephemeral jams… a global cascade of flash encampments may well be what this hot Summer will look like.

And here is their "glowing example" of a flash encampment:

...The new tone was set on Earth Day, April 22, in a suburb bordering Berkeley, California when a dozen occupiers quietly marched a small crowd to a tract of endangered urban agricultural land, cut through the locked fence and set up tents, kitchens and a people’s assembly. Acting autonomously under the banner of Occupy, without waiting for approval from any preexisting General Assembly, Occupy The Farm was notable for its sophisticated preplanning and careful execution — they even brought chickens — that offered a positive vision for the future and engendered broad community support. While encampments across the world were unable to re-establish themselves on May Day, this small cadre of farm occupiers boldly maintained their inspiring occupation for nearly four weeks.

What Adbusters doesn't tell you was this "flash encampment" turned out to be yet another dopey counterproductive idea as reported by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson:

The group cut through a secured gate to enter the property in mid-April and has been squatting on the land since. Protesters have planted vegetables on 2 acres of land being readied for a corn crop used in biofuel research.

Unfortunately, their claim to the land and the reasons they've cited for their actions are as empty as the section of field they have commandeered.

...George Chuck, a U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher whose work is literally grounded on those same 2 acres, sees it much differently.

...For the past decade, he's worked on mapping corn genes to identify which ones produce energy. His work adding corn genes to switchgrass has more than doubled the yield of biofuels produced by the hybrid crop. His findings were published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

...That research, which has the potential to increase alternative fuel sources sounds more important than the desires of two dozen or so people growing 2 acres worth of anything.

"What's worse is that when I tried talking to (some of) these guys, they just started spouting slogans someone else told them," Chuck said.

And as far as the group's efforts to grow crops on land Chuck said is not yet ready for planting, "They have no idea what they're doing," he said.

Since protesters arrived, they've managed to destroy a fruit tree that was the subject of a research project, created a waste pile, built a rickety chicken coop and left the gate open allowing wild turkeys to escape or be killed by predators that entered the unlocked facility, he added.

It sounds like Dr. Vornoff's race of atomic supermen will have more of a chance of conquering the world than these silly Adbusters-hyped flash encampments have of achieving anything productive.

p.s. Welcome InstaPundit readers!