Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.
My Sunday school teacher did not show up last week, so we decided to to talk about occupy wall street, and our responsibly toward the poor as Christians.
Near the end of our talk I made a prediction about the occupy wall street movement. I said the give the naive nature of the people running the protest, that criminal elements will take over the protest site and start running things there way.
Well, I hate to say I told you so, but here are at least two examples of what I'm talking about.
Tragic death rocks Occupy Vancouver site
This is a heart wrenching tragedy and it behooves us to look in the mirror and assume some social responsibility. A young woman died Saturday afternoon at the Occupy Vancouver site from what appears to be a drug over dose. Tragic indeed. I can tell you she didn't over dose on pot.Thursday there was a heroin overdose and if there wasn't medical aid on site, that too could have needed in a fatality. These two tragedies illuminate the real problem in East Vancouver. Gangs get rich off of hard drugs and society enables addiction instead of helping to curb it. Vancouver Coastal Health has been handing out free needles on site part of their “harm-reduction” service. Once again they ignore the other three pillars and assume legal liability for handing out free needles without enforcing the law.
In case they didn't notice, it is a public protest not a safe injection site. The police have every right to arrest people for using hard drugs on that public protest. Tolerating it and handing out free needles is socially irresponsible. Then again it's likely part of the NPA's plan to shut the site down. Create a problem so you can rationalize shutting it down without examining the public urgency of the protest.
And then there is this
Deranged homeless man goes on violent rampage in Zuccotti Park
This is the new face of Zuccotti Park!
This is the new face of Zuccotti Park!
A deranged homeless man who has been squatting among the Occupy Wall Street protesters in lower Manhattan went on a violent, early-morning rampage yesterday, cursing incoherently and kicking down tents.
The only thing that could stop Jeremy Clinch from his Godzilla-like rampage was a left hook to the face delivered by a paranoid fellow protester who claimed to be an ex-Turkish diplomat -- and charged that his assailant was carrying out a plot hatched by Mayor Bloomberg.
“I’ve been here from Day One! I haven’t got a tent!” the Cleveland-native Clinch shrieked as he furiously kicked down tents onto sleeping protesters at about 8 a.m.
Now you might want to argue that its not fair calling the homeless person the "Criminal element" But what would you call this behavior? My point is the power abhors a vacuum, and giving the empty headiness of the people who claim to be in the occupy wall street protests, its just a matter of time before some not so nice adults decide they want a piece of the free action.
Meanwhile, there are people who are making a deferring in the lives of the poor.
Anglicans are transforming lives of poor
I know its Africa, different culture and all, but if the protesters expended the same energy just helping the poor one on one, I think It would make a much bigger difference, they just would not be in the spot light all the time :)
