I think I can understand the anger against some banks and corporations from my end, and certainly from the end of some of my hard working tax paying friends who have lost quite a bit in this economy.

I do not understand the rage from their end. How can you be angry against a system for cheating you, when you have invested little or nothing into that system.

Granted, I don't know much about these two. But I suspect they have not lost homes to foreclosure after years of making payments. I doubt they put themselves through college by working part time jobs, only to find it difficult to get work. Could it be they have taken it upon themselves to be the duly appointed activists for everyone else?

I think it is more likely they just like to break things, and if everything was hunky dory in the world we would still be looking at their booking photos.

Smurf Attack!!!

I think the same thing about most of the Occupy folks. What exactly have you lost? For most of these idiots, it's just a protest fantasy. They don't have any skin in the game.

You would think that people vandalizing banks wouldn't emulate Donald Trump's trademark combover. Know your enemy, I guess.

I remember when my family was evicted from my lifelong home when I was in high school; then my father entered the ranks of the long term unemployed recovering only to the permanently under-employed when I was in college. When I graduated college unemployment was 9.0 percent, not the 8.1 percent that the White House finds oh so wonderful today. I didn’t whine, protest or destruct anything. Instead, I redoubled my efforts and worked my tail off to make something of myself.

I am tired of this working off rage excuse crap from the occupiers. If these people are angry they need to look inside themselves and find within what they need to subsist and then thrive. If they work hard they will find plenty of people willing to lend a hand along the way, and while young will have opportunity after opportunity to succeed on some level if they keep on persisting. When they fall on their rears, get up and try again. I wish that politicians, the media and bloggers would stop glorifying the thugs.

How can you be angry against a system for cheating you, when you have invested little or nothing into that system.

Hasn't political protest generally been that way most of the time?

In my lifetime, the Vietnam War era might have been the one exception - we had a lot invested that potentially might evaporate overnight if you received a draft notice. That provided a pretty strong motive to speak out.

If the occupy types of today would have organized the Vietnam war protests of the past we would still be fighting that war today.

Both of these putzes need to spend some time in jail. Unfortunately, the Oregon criminal court system and County jail will give both a slap on the wrist. Too bad Portland has a sorry excuse for a DA and an equally loose jail system.

Re: "If these people are angry they need to look inside themselves and find within what they need to subsist and then thrive."

Newleaf,

Consider yet another way of responding to the inequities and disharmonies of American capitalism:

"In the fall of 2000, Suelo (who changed his name from Shellabarger), decided to stop using money altogether. That meant no 'conscious barter,' food stamps or other government handouts. His mission was to 'use only what is freely given or discarded and what is already present and already running,' he wrote on his web site, Zero Currency."
http://gma.yahoo.com/going-without-money-hurt-economy-one-mans-quest-211049892--abc-news-topstories.html

"Suelo wasn't always a modern-day caveman. He went to the University of Colorado and studied anthropology, at one point considering medical school. He lived in a real house, with four walls, a window and a door, and shopped in stores, not their dumpsters.

But over time he says he grew depressed, clinically depressed, mainly with the focus on acquisition. 'Every time I made a resume for a job, signed my name to a document, opened a bank account, or even bought a banana at the supermarket, I felt a tinge of dishonesty,' he said."

Mr Suelo's current response to cultural hypocrisy may stem from the sort of revulsion that prompted Puritans and Pilgrims -- reviled in their own culture -- to seek a new land off which to live. Similarly, utopian efforts that emerged in part in response to industrialization during the 18th and 19th centuries were mocked and derided by the dominant culture; yet such dropouts have added, for example, Shaker æsthetics, as evidenced in furniture and other practical items, to contemporary capitalist culture even as the Shakers themselves have nearly disappeared owing to a short-term concept of social intercourse.

This is not to suggest that the two individuals -- one of whom has especially besmirched anarchism as the later Proudhon conceived it -- should be admired for either their intentions or their actions. But it would be wrong to condemn the Occupy movement by attributing their behavior to an imagined membership in it.

Portlandia needs to do a "sociopaths on the street" episode, featuring occupy Portland.

I watched a hilarious interview with an occupy leader this morning. Turns out he's living on student loans! A soi-distant anarchist who wants to reinvent the entire political system and dismantle capitalism, sponging off bank loans guaranteed by the government! Too funny.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/05/03/sean_hannity_takes_on_occupy_wall_street_leader.html

Well these two guys certainly didn't have the economic means to send a message to the banks like we all did.

It was empowering when we closed accounts and transferred money into local credit unions, wasn't it?

It was a triumphant moment to then see BofA and others back down on their predatory fee structures which preyed on the economically challenged. Not necessarily you and I, but the fellow citizens we stood up for.

Yet I bet these two guys scare the crap out of the big banks just the same. So I'm fine with them. Bad hair and all.

Hey, elf-man has supporters over at anarchist.org, who describe him thusly:

"forest defender, punk diy-er, squatter, collectisvist worker – our comrade has been active in anarchist projects since his teens, and his arrest touches on the lives of many people in the portland area"........

I have to put my hands over my eyes to try to prevent myself from imagining what "anarchist projects" this misguided rager-waif has been pursuing since his teens.

What do they do, bash the ATMs with their heads? Yikes. Looks like they started their vandalism in the mirror at home. But, Skeezicks is right to ask that open question.

Re: "...we had a lot invested that potentially might evaporate overnight if you received a draft notice. That provided a pretty strong motive to speak out."

John Rettig,

Actually, death -- evaporation on a sunny day -- came without a draft notice. Mythology spun during Vietnam War era is still being unravelled. Just yesterday:

"Survivors of the shooting of 13 students by the Ohio National Guard during an anti-war demonstration at Kent State University in 1970 called on Thursday for a new probe into the incident that came to define U.S. divisions over the Vietnam War."
http://news.yahoo.com/kent-state-survivors-seek-probe-1970-shootings-030628361.html

"In 2010, Alan Canfora, one of the wounded students and director of the nonprofit Kent May 4 Center, asked the Justice Department to review the enhanced recording, which was taken 250 feet from the guardsmen when they fired their shots in 1970.

Canfora and other audio specialists say the enhanced recording shows a clear military order to fire seconds before the shooting. The troops fired 67 shots over 13 seconds.

A Justice Department official closed the matter last month, finding the recordings were still inconclusive."

Much has been "invested" in mythology and such investments might indeed "evaporate overnight" were they to be unwound by evidence to the contrary. Perhaps the mythologies spun in support of more recent conflicts would have been mooted by the timely unravelling of previous mythologies.

Similarly, the investment in a financial system that yields institutions deemed too big to fail or even prosecute is too great to permit unbiased, thorough examination of the evidence. Hence, as JPM's Jamie Dimon noted, in January 2010, to the Congressional commission appointed to investigate -- however feebly -- the recent, continuing distress, we should expect to experience a financial crisis every five to seven years. Such is the destructive power of mythology.

If God gave me ears like those, I'd be angry at the world, too.

Anyone care to make a few side bets concerning either of these guys?

Been in the "Anti Gay" Boy Scouts?
Had a paper route?
Washed dishes (or any job) in a restaurant?
Have some "higher education"? (extra credit for guessing major)
Odds of this being first contact with law enforcement?
Think this is the last time we'll see mugshot?
Where will they be in in 10 years?
Think they will ever contribute to society?
Think they will serve any time?
Think the Oregonian will tell their story?

Gibby - I Nth what you said. Right on.

Sometimes pictures are really worth a thousand words.

Gibby's right on. These folks destroyed what little credibility they may have had when they called off their "occupy Oswego Lake" thing on account of rain. Viet Nam protesters were out there year 'round - and rather than reveling in vandalism and bombings, most distanced themselves from the loons.

They are angry at the system because the system [you and me] has robbed their future.

There are no jobs , no homes , no hope for most of the young and a good deal of the rest of us.

You want them to have 'skin' in the game , go down there and help them , give them a job , give them some of your wisdom.

It is all too easy to sit in your nice safe home , with your big car in the garage , and a full refrig. and spout off on your computer.

It is all too easy to sit in your nice safe home , with your big car in the garage , and a full refrig. and spout off on your computer.

Which, oddly, is exactly what billb's doing.

Billb,

My nice safe home was liquidated in a short sale. I got hung with the income tax bill on the HELOC that wasn't purchase money or used for home improvements.

My refrigerator is empty until I get paid on the 15th...We'll live off the canned goods and dried foods in the pantry because for the next 10 days because we're too proud to go to a food bank.

The big car doesn't fit in the garage of the rental I moved to: that's downsizing storage.

It has 137,000 miles on it and needs a new differential, which I can't afford.

I still have a computer and internet connection, but we disconnected cable TV and Netflix to save money.

Despite a college degree and extensive work experience, I'm working at half the wage I earned 10 years ago.

And yet, I don't vandalize property, blame the rich, or get arrested. I just focus on the things I can control and avoid getting caught up in the cycle of self-pity and self-medication that these asshats have been devoted to for so long.

These are the same gutter snipes that were spanging and vandalizing things when the economy was good: nothing has changed for them because they NEVER participated in the labor force.

Mr. Menifree, you can count me in as a supporter of the Suelo train. I would note, however, this spate of publicity pretty much assures his hermitage days are limited. The sunlight will attract those who want to save him or contain him. Oh well.

Loonies or provocateurs. My bet says provocateurs. Nobody wants actual harm done more than the banks and the police, so they have an excuse for all their violent police state tactics against the peaceful protesters who are 99.9% of those on the street.

A portion of Bryan's (AKA Pax, AKA VeganBikePunk) dating ad!

My self-summary
I'm a queer vegan anarchist interested in anti-oppression theory and praxis. I'm generally a pretty light-hearted "twee" person, but can enjoy indulging a dark sense of humor sometimes.

It should go without saying, but unfortunately doesn't, that bisexual is a really flawed shorthand for how I experience gender and sexuality. While I know these things are different for different people, I experience gender as something fluid and dynamic enough that my identity, as well as the identities I'm attracted to fluctuate rapidly, and simultaneously encapsulate masculinity, femininity, both and neither. As such I find it is rare (though not unheard of) that I'd be happy in a relationship with a straight female or a gay male, as such a person would necessarily have to ignore part of my gender experience.

I'm in kind of a transitional period where I quit the job that consumed my life, but I'm not quite ready to move on to what I've considered to be the next step in my life, so I'm kind of taking things easy, trying to do a lot of self-growth/self-discovery, and generally treat myself well.

I am both vegan and sober. I sometimes adopt the label xvx, but mostly as a joke. Those identities are often highly problematic. Veganism is very important to me, as part of a commitment to anti-oppression work. I'm not sure if it's mandatory that you be vegan if we're going to possibly close, but its most certainly preferable. My sobriety is another matter entirely. Its definitely what I'm into right now, and its a plus if you are too, just so we'd have another level to relate on, but there's honestly nothing prescriptive about it.

Ah, God, remind us to do unto ambisexual confusion-relishers, as we would have them do unto ourselves. Well, with limits, please...