NYTimes Shows Pro-OWS Ickiness: 'For Children's Sake, Taking to the Streets'
In the New York Times's Thursday Styles section, contributor Helaine Olen talked to some liberal Manhattanites who took their children to Zuccotti Park to enrich them with “teachable moments” (i.e. using them as political props) and "to enlighten them on matters ranging from income inequality to the right to protest":“For Children’s Sake, Taking to the Streets.”
Malka Lubelski marched for economic justice last Sunday dressed as Minnie Mouse.
In a pink costume with white polka dots and black mouse ears, she circled Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of the Occupy Wall Street protests, carrying a homemade sign that read, “From the very young, the very old, we are the 99%.”
It would have been one more bit of street theater, except that Malka is 4, an age when girls are generally thought to be more interested in Disney characters than protest marches.
While her father, Abraham Lubelski, publisher of NY Arts magazine, talked about his decision to take Malka and her 1 1/2-year-old sister, Josepha, to the scene so they could “see real human needs,” Malka concerned herself with the more mundane needs of her baby sister, who had been sitting in her stroller munching contentedly on a vanilla ice cream cone till the ice cream tumbled onto her sweater.
“Dad,” Malka interrupted, pointing to her younger sibling.
And so it goes in the second month of Occupy Wall Street, where children are becoming an increasing presence as parents try to seize a “teachable moment” to enlighten them on matters ranging from income inequality to the right to protest.
....
Occupy Wall Street is hardly the first protest movement to include children. They were often present at civil rights marches, and more recently, boys and girls (complete with placards) have become a familiar presence at Tea Party events. There were children at Tahrir Square in Cairo, as well as at many other events that marked the Arab Spring.
One difference between children at OWS and children at Tea Party events: The Times apparently never wrote a flattering story on children attending the Tea Party rallies.
Olen rounded up some true believers, including one woman who has made the Occupy movement her religion.
Others said that they are simply so passionate about the cause, they’ve brought their children too many times to count. “I liken it to forcing them to go to church,” said Rivka Gewirtz Little, an organizer of the 99 Percent School, another group for parents who support the Occupy Wall Street movement. “It’s important for them to learn your beliefs.”
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Comments
What the hell is wrong with
Submitted by motherbelt on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:11am.
What the hell is wrong with these people????
They think they are "teaching" a 4-year-old something by parading her around in a Minnie Mouse costume? Yeah, they're teaching her that Mom and Dad are idiots.
And maybe this profound lesson (LANGUAGE WARNING)
Since Malka and Josepha and the other little learners can't read, their parents will have to read it to them...for teaching purposes, of course.
Come on it's a liberal learning moment
Submitted by frank14 on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:50am.
Kids need to experence what it's like to live in a homeless camp filled with the mentally insane, crack heads and alcoholics. They need to smell the stench of human waste in the guttersand observe human beings at their most debased so that they completely lose their childhood. Then when they grow up they will have no problem throwing conservatives into concentration camps. After all Obama says they are the enemy that wants to pollute the air and starve school kids.
I'm going to invoke Poe's Law
Submitted by Rupert Cadell on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:57am.
I'm going to invoke Poe's Law as an excuse not to respond to this one in any detail.
Partisan hypocrisy cuts both
Submitted by Rupert Cadell on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:29am.
Partisan hypocrisy cuts both ways. I'll take your word for it that there were ("apparently") no positive stories about Tea Party attendees bringing their little ones to rallies. And the "teachable moments" claim by the quoted OWS parent may have actually caused rolling-induced strain in both of my eyes.
But unfairly deploying children as "political props" in the service of causes that they - and in many cases the parents themselves - don't really understand, is a shameful tactic that transcends ideology with its sicky-sweet sentimentalization and tiresome "Let's do it for the children!" rhetoric. The kids in this story are being used in a way that, tenor of media coverage notwithstanding, is not one iota different from this or this.
On a side note (a propos the first link), can you imagine if someone came up with the idea of having a summer camp to teach leftist principles to kids? NB would explode.
On that note, in spite of my semi-supportive comments 2 weeks ago, I don't know which I find more irritating now: The pointless, non-productive, self-righteousness of the OWS protests, or the right's continued efforts to smear them through 60s counterculture/hippie caricaturizations that would have been tired and cliche 30 years ago.
I hate to break this to you Rupie
Submitted by frank14 on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:41am.
They've had camps like that in the Catskills since the 1930s. Why do you think so many New Yorkers are brainwashed liberals even after 9/11? Hate to "explode" your smug commentary.
Really? I am very naive
Submitted by Rupert Cadell on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:52am.
Really? I am very naive then. I thought those New Yorkers were all just produced by subscriptions to Harper's and The Atlantic.
Rupert, maybe if the OWS
Submitted by motherbelt on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:42am.
Rupert, maybe if the OWS protesters weren't ACTING like 60's-counterculture hippies, they wouldn't be characterized as such.
According to Rupert, using
Submitted by ThisnThat on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 12:58pm.
According to Rupert, using past history (e.g., '60s behaviour) to characterize current events (e.g., OWS) isn't allowed. We must all re-learn all our mistakes all over again. Rupert is exposing the limits of his public school education, I believe.
__________
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counterculture/hippie caricaturizations?
Submitted by Agnostic on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:49am.
The OWS protestors are coming off as too whiny to compete with the images of the 60's. Free love and drugs didn't take away from others like the current group of malcontents are demanding.
Using children is one thing - taking children with you to a demonstration is another. The point would be how the media display the children in attendance. Personally, I believe the parents will raise the children to be predisposed to certain ideas so it is not really a that big of deal unless your message is or you allow the media to say it is 'for the children'.
There are liberal camps, Christian camps, Muslim camps, camps for the arts, etc....
It could be easily argued that we send most of our children to liberal indoctrination camps in the way of public schools and college campuses.
No doubt there is hypocrisy on both sides but how the media displays such hypocrisy is vitally important.
a summer camp to teach leftist principles to kids
Submitted by Blonde on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:49am.
That's called taxpayer funded public education.
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Didn't see that coming.
Submitted by Rupert Cadell on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:54am.
Didn't see that coming. Nothin' but net.
Tried and died, you mean
Submitted by CobraMan on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 6:35pm.
"or the right's continued efforts to smear them through 60s counterculture/hippie caricaturizations that would have been tired and cliche 30 years ago."
Don't you mean "tried and died?" Remember what happen during that "counterculture?" The "hippies" started things called "communes" in which to establish their own version of Utopia. Well, what ever happened to those hippies, who like the occupiers of today, blamed capitalism for all the ills of the world? It turns out that, after they experienced a world without capitalism, they decided that it sucks and they went back to capitalism. They became businessmen, stockbrokers, you name it. They became the very thing they claimed they hated the most. They became "The Man!" They became "The Establishment." They said "screw The People, I want the Power." They became the very thing they protested against just a few years previously. They even sent their kids to college so that they could learn and earn (which is ironic considering that most of the 60's counterculture was comprised of college kids, just like the Occupiers of today.).
But what are those kids doing today? Forming their own version of the 60's counterculture and repeating the same mistake. They're protesting "The Man. They're protesting "The Establishment." They chanting "Power to the People" while, hypocritically, driving out the homeless people who are coming into their "camps" (communes, anyone?) looking for something to eat. Which, by the way, is something their parents never did. How long will it take before the Occupiers realize that they're making the same mistake their Hippie parents made just one generation before? I give them until just after the 2012 elections and then they'll all do what their parents did, reject their own "movement" and return, quietly and without fain-far, to capitalism. They'll even send their kids to college, to repeat the cycle all over again.
One thing about the hippies, though. At least they TRIED to create the society they thought was necessary for long term survival. Their kids don't even want to do that. They want it done for them! So your right, in a way, that the comparison of the Occupiers today and the Hippies of the 60's counterculture is invalid. The "hippies" didn't ask someone to do things for them. They just wanted to do things for themselves, and it was allowed. No one tried to stop them.
So, to any and all "Occupiers," and their supporters, who may read my words, I have something to say: You want to create a new Utopia? Fine, go right ahead. There's plenty of open land available where you can create that Utopia you think is waiting. Don't try to do it in OUR public spaces, for that belongs to us Capitalists who created it. This is OUR version of Utopia. We created it from scratch, and you're welcome to share it, so join it or leave it, it's a simple choice. Don't demand we change it for you. Why should we? WE created it, not you.
Occupiers, it's a big country with room for everyone. So go out and do it! Go out and create that Utopia. No one will try to stop you. Why should we? We already have our Utopia. So, please, feel free to create a Utopia of your own, on your own. Just don't be surprise when, just as the hippies of the previous generation discovered, you find out that the Utopia you think is waiting for you isn't real, that it's nothing more than a dream, one that will never be fulfilled, not in the way you expect, anyways. Then come back and join the rest of us, just as the "hippies" did. We'll welcome you with open arms, just as we did for those "hippies." Wadda ya say, are ya up to the challenge?
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Tea Party parents are accused
Submitted by kareling on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:40am.
Tea Party parents are accused of forcing their beliefs down the throats of their children, who according to the left should be allowed to think for themselves and develop their own belief system.
I recall one reporter asking
Submitted by TerryWest on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 3:48pm.
I recall one reporter asking a Tea party participant if he thought it was safe and responsible parenting to bring his young children to the rally.
I wonder where she is now that parents find it educational to bring their children around what the protesters themselves claim are criminals and undesirables, and where violence and crime is a reality instead of a mean stream media fantasy.
I heard a radio news report
Submitted by celator on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 3:54pm.
I heard a radio news report yesterday that talked about elementary school teachers taking their class to the OWS site (I think NYC) to "participate" in the event. If I were school superintendent, I'd fire those teachers on the spot.