The continuing saga of Occupy’s Nkrumah Tinsley
In the following video, shot at the RNC, you can see Occupiers assailing delegates who are walking by, slinging verbal insults at them and giving them the finger.
There is also the following exchange ~:44.
One occupier screams, “We are the coming insurrection,” as he bounces up and down.
“Prepare for the civil war, jacka**es,” screams another who was seen giving obscene gestures earlier in the video.
“I’ll be going in your houses,” he adds. Then having a moment of recognition that what he said might be a problem, he turns to the cameraman and says, “Don’t put that on camera”.
Followers may recognize the person threatening civil war and “going in your houses”. It is Nkrumah Tinsley, also known as “Joseph”, who was arrested for threatening to “burn NYC to the m–f–in’ ground” in November. He also was reportedly arrested in October 2011 for assault on a police officer. See more here. At last report, the terrroristic threat case was still open against Tinsley, pending a psychiatric review.
Tinsley was at the NATO protests in May and at both the RNC and DNC protests. He was at the anniversary celebration yesterday.
One wonders how he continues to be able to get to all these protests, how he continues to make threats and if the NYPD are aware of his actions elsewhere.
Final words and pictures from protest at RNC
Citizen Journalist has already noted the Occupy’s disappointment with their time at the RNC.
But we had a few more words and photos for you.
1. Small number of protesters at RNC
There were under 200 protesters there from multiple groups, only about 60 from Occupy. This was not just a function of the hurricane. This is a function and evidence of the dwindling onto death of any real numbers on the street for Occupy events. 60-after busing people in and advertising for months. Most of the rest of the 200 or so folks were the “professional activists” that attend all such events-Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, and various other anarchist, leftist and union groups.
Of the 200, there was also the unusual appearance of Scientologists, pushing Way to Happiness brochures and trying to evangelize to the protesters. I’m willing to guess that they were not received particularly well. Scientology has a big base nearby in Clearwater, and apparently couldn’t resist the temptation of groups of people anticipated.
2. Nature of protests
In Tampa as in many of the Occupy groups, the remaining people in the groups tend to be the “professional activist”, the white upper/middle class student playing at living in the park, and the mentally ill/homeless/drug addict contingent. The media tends to ignore these aspects of Occupy, particularly the latter contingent. Yet it is this makeup that is one of the reasons for constant friction and failure to get anything done.
Media tends to push the impression of the high minded protester focused on bailouts and money in politics. But that is not a clear picture of Occupy now, if it ever was.
As Tina Trent noted in Front Page, what did they do at their camp at Voice of Freedom Park?
they turned the site into a self-important summer camp for their own adolescent preoccupations and hobbies: beer-brewing, puppet-making, endless general assemblies, craft sessions for making furniture out of trash, clown lessons, a scavenger hunt, lectures on things like “Voudou and the Haitian Revolution,” and, most jarringly, a screening of the French art-film, The Gleaners and I, which celebrates the insights of well-off dropouts who choose to dumpster dive in order to express anarchic fellowship with actually poor people who dumpster dive in order to eat.
Not that the Occupiers are dumpster diving. They are relentlessly demanding donations to subsidize their camps and complaining that people aren’t giving them enough money to support their cause.
It is difficult to imagine more offensively self-referential or narcissistic behavior. Occupiers and Food Not Bombers in peasant skirts sit cross-legged decorating bits of scrap metal with poster paint, while homeless men sit on stoops outside boarded-up businesses watching them. In the end, city sanitation workers will clean up after the aging children, and real homeless people will reclaim the park.
3. Occupy Tampa -days are numbered
Now that the convention is over, Occupy Tampa will be booted out of Voice of Freedom Park. They had been allowed to stay by the park’s owner Joe Rednor, but had caused such consternation and trouble to the neighborhood, that Rednor, a strip club owner, finally agreed to kick them out after the convention.
4. Use of children
There is a policy of putting children or other attention getting people up front of a march or on the lines in a potential conflict situation with these groups. Veterans, old people, pregnant women, disabled people, kids. This is done deliberately for PR effect. If something happens, it is not the fault of the protesters, it is the fault of the evil police that would attack a veteran or elderly woman. This policy was repeated in Tampa, with kids that were clearly being used.
As we start the DNC, we can see this being repeated there as well.
When there have been so many confrontations at such events, it beggars the imagination that parents would go along with this. But time and again, we have seen they do.
The Daily Caller has some good, but disturbing coverage of children participating:
In full swing, chants were rattled off and gentle faces mutated into anger. Jostled and shoved as tension grew thicker, the marchers slowed to a crawl.
People shouted. And the children began to take on a starring role in the protest. Ahead of the crowd, as the leaders droned on about lineage and generational awareness,
the two children we had met were being led to the front of the march, walking through a rainstorm and the threat of police violence.
There were other kids too: We spotted another little boy holding a miniature bullhorn and shouting along with the crowd, stopping every so often to adjust his glasses:
Kids were pushed, boxed in by their group. One of their mothers flew off the handle.
Some occupiers harassed the police, but the uniformed cohort held their position. Chants of “we are the proletariat” and “a… anti… anti-capitalista” rang out and fueled the mob.
We lost sight of the children. We didn’t see them again.
Daily Caller video editor Grae Stafford managed to grab a shot of the children being led away. One of them was sobbing as an organizer snatched him up from the fray.
As the rain picked up, a lone child — seemingly without parents nearby — biked by us and shouted, “Fuck this shit — I’m not homeless.”
We saw so much yesterday. We spoke to Occupiers, we spoke to security forces, we understood the tension. But seeing children placed in front of conflict-seeking adults as they marched toward possible armed conflict rattled us to the core.
Ditto.
Photos by Zach Gorelick of the Daily Caller, except for last photo by Grae Stafford.
Occupy the RNC disappointed
Somber occupy member at the end of the RNC. Credit the Daily Caller.
As Republicans wrapped their time at the Republican National Convention, protesters, including Occupy, also were ending their time in Tampa. Protesters seemed sad and disappointed at the small turnout, blaming it in part on the fears of Hurricane Issac. “I think the rain really discouraged a lot of people. We lost sixteen buses that were going to come down here”, one occupier named Mike remarked. “I think we’ll have a lot more people in Charlotte.”
They also claimed to be upset that they were unable to have any dialogue with leaders at the RNC. One protester named Lash said, “I love that we have an anarchist forum here, and I really love us, but I hate that our forum can’t even talk with their conservative forum,” he said. “The police just silence us, the Republicans just silence us. We are just getting silenced everywhere we go. It’s like no one wants to even hear what we have to say.”
“Dance for that Anarchy!”. Credit Citizen Journalist
Occupiers had several marches over the time in Tampa, although they seemed mainly rambling and lacking in direction. At one point, on Monday, as they got stuck in the rain, they had an “Anarchy Dance”.
Occupiers interviewed by Al Jazeera. Credit Citizen Journalist.
Occupiers blocking an intersection. Credit Citizen Journalist
There were other protesters there as well, including the Dancing Vaginas of Code Pink and Vermin Supreme. Supreme, who is commonly dressed with a rubber boot on his head, runs for President every four years and has promised every voter a pony.
Vermin Supreme speaking to police. Credit Citizen Journalist
Citizen Journalist noted one protester there appeared to be Nkrumah Tinsley who seems to be one of the Occupiers making a career of traveling to all the various events in different parts of the country. Tinsley was arrested in NYC in November for threatening to “burn [Macy’s] to the ground”. He was charged with a felony terroristic threat. See more on his case here. When asked about Tinsley in November, Occupiers disavowed him. Ed Needham, a spokesman for Occupy, said “We wouldn’t have anything to do with this guy. Certainly everything we do is centered around us being a peaceful and nonviolent movment”. But despite this statement, OWS coughed up $7,500 for his bail. He still seems to be in their company for someone disavowed. Somehow he also manages to have been at at the NATO protest in May.
Since most of the protesters have few funds and are bused in, it would be interesting to find out who is funding the buses and the ability of some of the occupiers to travel.
Nkrumah Tinsley. Credit the Daily Caller
There was no major incident during the event. Prior to the start of the RNC, there had been bricks and pipes found on a roof of a building tagged with an Anonymous and Occupy graffitii. Two people were also arrested on another roof for carrying weapons including a bb gun and a knife. One man was arrested in the event zone for carrying a machete strapped to his leg. One man was arrested during the event for wearing a mask, which is against the law.
DNC Convention Chair calls for more taxes and spending to solve economy
Democratic Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa decided it would be classy to show up to grab some media in Tampa where the Republican National Convention is being held. Villaraigosa is also the Democratic National Committee Convention Chair. As you can also see, courtesy of PJ Media, the mayor believes the way out of California’s debt and economic crisis is to spend and tax more:
Of course, this may be no suprise, given the Mayor’s political association with the Democratic Socialists of America and his “community organizer” past. At their 2005 conference, the DSA spoke about helping to get him elected:
Now we have a progressive mayor, thanks in large part to this impressive network of grassroots organizations, labor unions and community and environmental organizations. Many of them have lifted up some of their leaders into positions of electoral power.
Citizen Journalist 