Occupy Wall Street: Turning violent?

(Image credit: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson)

last updated 8 January 2015

The video: An Occupy Los Angeles protester has been caught on camera telling fellow demonstrators that nonviolence is a dead end. He calls Gandhi a "tumor" who created an Indian society in which 600 million people live in "maximum poverty." Instead, he says, Occupy Wall Street should use the bloody French Revolution as its model. (See the video below.) "The bourgeoisie won't go without violent means. Revolution!" the unidentified man says. "Long live revolution! Long live socialism!" His comments are met by a smattering of applause from the surrounding crowd. Is this just one guy's random rant, or is Occupy Wall Street turning dangerous?

The reaction: Leftist uprisings start with talk of justice, says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, "but always end up demanding redistribution — and the guillotine." Note to the journalists who painted the Tea Party as violent: I've never seen a Tea Party speaker advocate the "bloody" overthrow of America, as this guy does. This Marxist "clown" certainly isn't the first Occupier to call for destruction, says Susan Duclos at Wake Up America. President Obama wanted a class war to distract from his "dismal record," and he got one. Hold on, says Katty Kay at BBC News. Occupy Wall Street may be fueled by the same frustration that has people throwing stones in Athens, but "the most extraordinary thing about the U.S. protests so far" is not the level of anger — it's "that they have been so mild." Watch the un-Gandhi-like speech, and judge for yourself: