‘Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me’: Occupier Tries To Re-Create Zuccotti Park in His Brooklyn Apartment
- Posted on June 15, 2012 at 9:46pm by
Erica Ritz
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Occupy Protesters (Photo: AP)
An article in Reuters Friday describing the current activities of evicted Occupiers is prompting jokes from conservatives, with one commenter saying: “These people have become a caricature of themselves.”
The New York Post introduces an excerpt of the article as “cruel, sad, or hilarious, depending on where you’re sitting,” before describing one Occupier’s latest “communal living experiment” in Brooklyn:
The spacious apartment in Crown Heights where Austin Guest, a 31-year-old Harvard University graduate, lives with another seasoned protester is a far cry from the crowded, chaotic Zuccotti Park of last fall, where hundreds of protesters camped out each night.
Nevertheless, inspired by Zuccotti, with its free meals and free books, Guest said he and his friends are pursuing an Occupy-like experiment in mutual aid.
In the apartment, for example, the protesters follow a code of conduct designed to prevent one person from dominating a conversation. Guest, who majored in performance and media studies at Harvard, said he has had to “unlearn” the sometimes “impenetrable” rhetoric of the Ivy League.
“I was trained to speak in, like, five paragraphs at a time, with really clearly delineated, bulletproof arguments. And that kind of communication doesn’t leave a lot of space. That’s the point. It’s impenetrable. And that’s not how we talk in OWS,” he said. [Emphasis added]
Splitting the $1,400 monthly rent with another protester while they look for a third roommate, the two are often joined by other Occupiers who “come and go but don’t pay rent.”
So how do they get by?
Reuters continues:
Austin Guest (Photo: AP)
Several times a week, Guest bicycles to wealthier Brooklyn neighborhoods, like Park Slope and Cobble Hill, where he and other protesters help themselves to the bread and vegetables that gourmet shops deem spoiled or unfit for sale.
On a good night he might find trays of sushi stacked neatly in an oversized trash bag or still-fresh-looking loaves of bread from Caputo Bakery.
[...]
Guest struggled with convention at Harvard as well. Antics tied to his experimental theater work and academic problems that he described as writer’s block, prompted school officials to ask him to leave, twice. He graduated in 2007, eight years after enrolling.
Toward the end of his time at Harvard, Guest and several friends showed up at the university’s career fair, dressed as superheroes, to protest the participation of U.S. military recruiters. Guest, in Captain America garb, was kicked out before he could approach the recruiters.
These days, Guest spends most of his time planning protest actions and refining the model of group living and self-reliance inspired by his experience at Zuccotti Park. He earns money by working for a friend’s moving company and by doing freelance community organizing.
Guest said there is “no going back” to the life he knew before Occupy – a full-time job in Manhattan and a comfortable apartment in Prospect Heights. [Emphasis added]
The Occupier who spends most of his day “planning protests” and eating other people’s discarded food– while also somehow refining the model of “self-reliance” he learned in Zuccotti Park (“with its free meals and free books”)– concludes: “It’s like, are we going to live in a world where we throw each other under the bus every chance we get, or are we going to live in a world where we take care of one another?”
People have certainly taken care of him, it seems.
Which leaves one lingering question: if they really are trying to re-create the magic of Zuccotti Park, how long until the fleas and the police arrive?
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Comments (56)
piper60
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 7:33amI’ll bet you a dime to a dollar, that his parents went to woodstock in 1969. Even if they did not, I’d bet that he got his attitude of the world owed him a living from them. What a waste of the gene pool.
Report Post »HKS
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 9:02amTruth be known, he’s just another lazy ass. Lives in squallier.
Report Post »pavepaws
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:23pmFreakin loser. Essentially he does nothing useful. Somewhat parasitical.
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 4:10pmMr. Guest doesn’t want to provide for himself and just wants to be a permanent “guest” on society.
Report Post »deadend
Posted on June 17, 2012 at 12:46pmThe shallow end of the pool at that
Report Post »Crazy Times
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 7:14amHa Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha ……. what an idiot.
Report Post »EqualJustice
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 9:00amThat’s EXACTLY how I reacted. My stomach hurts. LOL THIS is the BEST thing that ever happened to him? What a pathetic existence! HAHA
Report Post »6thdegreeblack
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 6:59amThe problem today is that human innovation and medical technology has allowed morons like this idiot and his OWS peers to not just exist, but to breed and proliferate. Regardless of your belief in creationism or evolution, the simple truth is that for centuries the struggle to survive and competition amongst ourselves has been the driver of human advancement. Starting from the first family groups in prehistoric times, survival was based on ones skill in food gathering and being smarter or stronger than the other guy. If you won the fight or avoided injury you lived. If you lost or were too slow you died. Simple fact. In historic times people like the current crop of simpletons didn’t make it. The Sapient detritus that plagues the world today is a direct result of our success as a species.
Deep Bow, (eyes up)
Report Post »Stiggs
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 6:00amHarvard scores another point for such a fine, upstanding young member of society….ayup, another baby hits the turf looking for his 5 minutes of fame and maybe a new reality show.
As Bill the Cat would say, “Ick…sputter…thppb!”
Report Post »Put your big boy undies on and grow up is what I say. You couldn’t hack working for a living, eh?
castuslonginus
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 7:24amNow,now,don’t be so judgmental about this harvard grad.I would like to help him re-create the ambiance of zucotti. maybe i’ll go by and take a dump on his coffee table. we can always hope they catch salmonella or botulism from eating the discarded sushi.
Report Post »Stiggs
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:13amYou’re right, I wasted my time and energy with such a wordy comment.
Report Post »Next time I’ll stick with the “put your big boy undies on and grow up” line.
nelbert
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:16amAnd he used his time at Harvard to gain such useful life skills:
“Guest, who majored in performance and media studies at Harvard, said he has had to “unlearn” the sometimes “impenetrable” rhetoric of the Ivy League.”
I knew a guy who did dumpster diving (hunting for food in grocery store dumpsters) when he was in college and still in his early 20s. This bozo when to an Ivy League school, majored in crap, and is now just a bum trying to elevate his sense of self-worth with new-speak jargon.
Report Post »Rashomon
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:17am“communal living” more like commode-ieal living.
Report Post »nocommie
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 5:33amHarvard claims another “victim.”Brain Washed! Keep these Marxist away from your children.
Report Post »LostInTheSpin
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 3:03amImagine what Zoo-cooty park smelled like…now, imagine it being contained behind 4 walls.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 2:52amWhat a crappy life some people make for themselves… then claim to be victims!
Report Post »MRMANN
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:02amWell said
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 2:57pm” Guest, who majored in performance and media studies at Harvard” Yea, with a major like that, he better get used to eating out of dumpsters.
Report Post »Amica
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 2:41amI don’t understand. All OWS did was dominate the conversation. Yelling at people going to work, yelling at children going to school, etc…
Report Post »TheBurningTruth
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 6:01pmNo, the OWS commies did NOT dominate conversation, they PREVENTED conversation. They never stopped whining and crying about things that they could have controlled for themselves. The moaned about not having anything after not achieving anything.
There never WAS any conversation with them.
Report Post »Obamujahadeen
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 2:34amThese poor misguided people are living their lives of their hippie parents or parent and it‘s so painfully obvious they wish to cook up some ’Woodstock’ moment with everything they plan and it all falls on its face. “re create 68” and what not. And they call themselves progressives? Back to the fantasy future..
They laughed at Beck and he delivered nearly a million peaceful and pride filled Americans on the national mall while three different liberal counter attacks only garnered a couple thousand mall trashing war monument abusing malcontents & mopes. It’s pathetic. 12 tractor trailers of food for the homeless in hours, 30 40 grand for a kid named Jett and his family, that’s how we roll lefties. What say you?
And frankly there‘s SO SO much of this left wing ghettogutter craziness out there but no one even reports the near worse events and this site surprisingly has published some but it’s far worse and in fact here’s a compilation of 20 great links things lately that the media has ignored that should raise Drudge Sirens all over NON minority America. Be alert at all times. : http://bit.ly/M1tdS9
Report Post »Carlinpa
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:34amRE“code of conduct designed to prevent one person from dominating a conversation” Funny they don’t our moral laws and rules, but when they all get together they are the first to create rules.
Report Post »Ewwwe eating out of the garbage because they don’t want to work.
ColoradoMaverick
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 11:27pmSelf Reliance… really? Stealing discarded trash from the back of fancy restaurants. That’s not self reliance, that‘s dependent bottom feeding at it’s lowest form.
You want to be self reliant fool? Move to the hills with nothing but the clothes on your back, no, better yet, go into the wilderness naked as the day you were born and make your own shelter, your own clothes and everything else you may need. Find or hunt your own food. If you want to prove you don’t need anyone to exist, then just do it.
Report Post »Rayblue
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 11:26pmNot even worth a comment….But since I’m logged back on…
Report Post »“performance and media studies” ?
That’s mime and reading the New York Times
That’s shining the shoes of crime
That’s lighting the fuse and walking the whine
Recusing the confusion of day to day dime making
jespasinthru
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 11:16pmThe best education that money can buy, wasted on a useless piece of human debris like him. It just ain’t fair.
Report Post »Dalady
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:52pmFreelance community organizer? This guy could be the Preezy of the United Steezy.
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:43pmThe best thing that ever happened to him,what a loser and he’ll be an unemployed student for life crapping all over his apartment to re live the crappy zucatti park wank fest.
Report Post »Baddoggy
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:05pmI feel like going and taking a cr@p on his bed to make him feel right at home….Tell him to pretend its a cop car…
Report Post »Baddoggy
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:04pmCan’t fix stupid. Or koolaid drinkers…
Report Post »rickc34
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:03pmThis people have the Peter Pan syndrom when will the grow up and become productive members of society. They sound like little kids. Do they have their own decoder rings? Their parents must be proud harvard grads eatting spoiled food . This is just sad. My 4 children are all employed 2 are married one has two children and the other three they got married then had kids and did not use the pill the know it is unhealthy.
Report Post »Taquoshi
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:20amThis sums it up pretty well…
Guest said there is “no going back” to the life he knew before Occupy – a full-time job in Manhattan and a comfortable apartment in Prospect Heights
So, he’s just going to hang out, eat out of trash cans and bum off everyone else. Well, I guess that speaks volumes for the Harvard education.
Report Post »DoomsdayProphet
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:01pmHe is the embodiment of the 3 P’s. Pathetic Pitiful Pinhead.
Report Post »right
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 9:58pmI feel bad for the folks in his building. Wonder how long before they object to the flow of OWS friends.
Report Post »And eating out of garbage can. That’s how I always dreamt live in the real world would be:)
thegodfather
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 9:57pmI think I’m being converted…to liberalism. Look how swell everything is working out.
Report Post »pavnvet
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 9:55pmSounds as if his Harvard education is really paying dividends. But come to think of it, Obama and Kizinski are alumni also.
Report Post »JACKTHETOAD
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 9:54pmI wonder if he’d let me come over. I’m constipated. Even though I‘M SURE I’ll get bugs. …ick…
Report Post »kaydeebeau
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 9:53pmOh my goodness…I am laughing and crying at the same time over the state of these “people” such a perfect illustration of clueless and delusional. So I guess it is more sad than funny *head shaking*
Report Post »go2gym
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 9:49pmShouldn’t be hard to do. Nearly every 14 year old’s bedroom in America looks like Zuccotti Park.
Report Post »Jenny Lind
Posted on June 15, 2012 at 10:05pmAmen and amen. I have wonderfull grandchildren, but you can tell they weren’t raised by the MasterChief their parents had, except for ones raised by my USMC son. They can scare them into cleaning their rooms by telling them they are going to do what their dad did. Seems to me these idiots could use some military discipline. On second thought, not sure I would be comfortable with them having guns.
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