re: #5 Killgore Trout

The camping in urban parks was a very bad idea. It attracts criminals like this guy, homeless, drug addicts, mentally ill people, etc. Some of the crimes, rapes and violence have come from the protesters, some crime has come from people attracted to the camps. In the end these camps are a magnet for crime. They have a serious effect on the local communities and businesses. Human waste, sanitation, crime, vandalism, fire hazard, drug use, etc. These are all real problems. The cost to local businesses and governments is pretty significant and it’s the very real reason these camps are being shut down across the country.
This whole thing was a very bad idea.

Aren’t these kind of like modern day Hoovervilles? Which I would guess attracted plenty of crime, drug use, unsanitary conditions, etc, and probably ran afoul of the police quite often.

The reason I won’t totally condemn OWS, despite its manifest flaws, is that the articulate sane members of the movement are at least complaining about the right things, namely banking practices and economic injustice.