Zombie ventures into the moral wilderness of Occupy’s latest project: 

The farm they seized was not a working farm per se, but rather a “research farm” for the University of California, near its Berkeley campus. The only difference between the way the farm used to be (prior to a week ago) and the way it is now is that the Occupiers have transformed what was essentially a well-maintained and important open-air laboratory into a dishevelled and ultimately purposeless pretend-farm for trustafarian dropouts… The scientists themselves are for the most part royally pissed off at the Occupiers and some may have years of work ruined by the Occupiers’ juvenile prank. 

Ah, but pissing off random people is how a leftist radical gauges just how radical he is. See, for example, this. And this. And this. It’s the Occupy way. 

This being Berkeley, several faculty members felt a need to display their own mighty radicalism: 

Some leftist U.C. professors are lecturing today at the farm to show their solidarity with the Occupiers, including Laura Nader (famous for helping to lead the field of anthropology toward self-critical Political Correctness); Gill Hart, a Gramscian anti-capitalist; and Paul Rabinow, a deconstructionist anthropologist. What do any of these professors know about farming, or plant biology? Nothing. But hey, they know about the significance of what it means to spout off a bunch of revolutionary socialist verbiage while absconding with stuff that isn’t yours.

Property is theft, man. Well, your property is, anyway. Theirs, not so much. 

As these are ersatz radicals with ersatz principles, the “farming” they do is also of the pretend variety.

Breaking into gated property and “liberating” land is exciting; the tedium of then spending endless hours over the next year in the blistering heat, in order to legitimise your actions and prove you’re not just jacking everyone around — not so fun. […] Only a handful of rows, right near the entrance, were planted all along their length, from end to end. Soon enough, those rows gave way to other rows with just a few plants near the walkway, seemingly just for show. Many rows’ plantings were pretty pitiful, or perhaps just symbolic; in this case, for instance, a single full-grown leek was stuck in the ground at the start of one row, to simulate the concept of “farming leeks.” […] Prediction: Very few, if any, of these “crops” will ever be harvested, or even grow to maturity.

Why, it’s almost as if the Occupiers’ “farming” were just a pretext for fatuous grandstanding and self-admiration. Say it isn’t so. 

As the camp’s official volunteer sign-up sheet reveals, nearly 80% of the activities at the “farm” have nothing whatsoever to do with farming. 

But on the upside, they are offering workshops in yoga and poetry. Oh, and group hypnosis sessions. 

Update:

Meanwhile, in entirely unrelated news…  

The FBI arrested five men Monday evening, saying they had planted what were believed to be explosive devices under the Ohio 82 bridge over Cuyahoga Valley National Park as part of a May Day protest… One of the leaders of the Occupy Cleveland movement, Brandon Baxter, is one of those arrested.

Via Daniel in the comments, Jim Treacher has more background here, along with the obligatory disclaimer: “Remember, everybody: Whenever an Occupier commits a crime, he’s not really an Occupier. All Occupier crimes are completely unrelated incidents, because shut up.” Sharp-eyed readers will notice that Mr Baxter – aka Skabby, the would-be ninja of social justice - is seen tapping bongos in front of a banner that reads “greed kills.” Unlike exploding highway bridges, of course, which have no physical consequences whatsoever. 

Update 2: 

Why do men become communists? And more particularly, why do they become communists despite everything that we know about communism? In the last century, as many as 120 million people were murdered by Marxist-inspired regimes. And yet, certainly in the United States and in Western Europe, we have the remarkable spectacle of virtually an entire intellectual class that has been seduced by the allure of Marx’s ideas… It’s not Marx’s labour theory of value [or] dialectical materialism that has drawn people to his philosophy, and it’s certainly not the interminably boring Das Kapital.

Dr Bradley Thompson asks, “Why Marxism?”  

Thompson refers to Marx’s “angry, spitting moralism” as a chief enticement and in this longer video he elaborates on its idiocies, referring to the result as “a philosophy of malevolence.” It seems to me one can’t explain the appeal of Marxism without addressing the psychological license that it offers, specifically for coercion and petty malice. It’s a golden ticket for a certain kind of sadist. Why Marxism? Start with rationalised envy and a vindictive desire for power over others, wrap it in a drag of altruism, and then take it from there.

See also this. 

Or, We’re Much Too Fascinating to Register the Comedy:

I’m tempted to talk about the irony of kids taking out student loans to enrol in a class that will “study” why irate college grads who can’t get jobs are camped out in tents complaining about the amount they owe on student loans; but then I think, no, let’s let whole thing play itself out as a piece of cultural performance art and see if anybody involved in the enterprise is self-aware enough to remove him or herself as one of the brush strokes.

Jeff Goldstein, commenting on this thrilling development: 

New York University will offer a class next semester on Occupy Wall Street… The university’s “Department of Social and Cultural Analysis” will offer a class about the “history and politics of debt and take a deeper look at the economic crisis the movement is protesting.” The undergraduate course: “Cultures and Economies: Occupy Wall Street” will be available next semester and taught by Professor Lisa Duggan.

We learn,

Peter Bearman, professor of sociology at Columbia University, also expressed enthusiasm about the new course. “OWS as a topic of study offers prismatic opportunities to consider the changing shape of inequality in our society and the dynamic processes of repertoire change in social movements globally, from the picket line to the sit-in, to the consideration of life course trajectories, among other themes central to the sociological apprehension of the modern context,” he said.

And if you thought the story wasn’t sufficiently stuffed with inadvertent humour…

Ironically, you would need to be in OWS’s hated “1 percent” to pay the tuition bill at NYU, which was ranked 2nd on the 2011-2012 list of America’s most expensive colleges… The College Board lists per credit hour tuition at $1,159 at NYU.

I suppose it was inevitable. A laughable, profoundly dishonest, narcissistic “movement,” cheered on by leftist academics and their credulous protégés – David Graeber and Priya Gopal, take a bow – becomes a subject for “study” by leftist academics and their credulous protégés.

Update:

In the comments, rjmadden wonders whether Professor Duggan will be teaching students about the merits of not wasting money on worthless courses that leave them in debt with little hope of finding a job. He then links to Professor Duggan’s research interests, which include “lesbian and gay studies,” “queer historiographies” and “constructions of whiteness in the United States.” I suspect that sharing such practical advice wouldn’t exactly enhance Professor Duggan’s own career prospects, which depend on students making precisely that mistake.

Update 2:

For newcomers, three more items from the archives.

Freeloading and Snobbery.

Leftwing arts establishment claims to be “suppressed,” sneers at the little people, demands free money.

Note the word “suppressed.” Like “dissent,” it’s a tad grandiose. I’m not convinced that the reduction of taxpayer subsidy for loss-making plays qualifies as “suppression.” And reluctant taxpayers please take note: Despite all the years of providing hand-outs, you’re now on the side of the oppressor. That’s gratitude for you.

Where Reason Never Sleeps.

Professor Thomas Thibeault points out error in sexual harassment policy and is fired two days later.

And so “exposing faculty members” to a book about public figures said to deserve the appellation “asshole” – including Bill Clinton and George Bush – can now be construed as “sexual harassment” and grounds for dismissal. Indeed, mere visibility of the book’s title may be taken as evidence of “divisiveness” and intent to oppress.

The Warm Glow of Socialism.

Student protestors somehow, perhaps carefully, miss the larger issue.

Some view “free” higher education as an entitlement warranting violence. But who’s going to pay for this “free” service when its value is increasingly called into question, not least by employers, many of whom point to dramatically lowered standards and ill-prepared graduates? One complaint we hear is that many students will be left with large debt (or theoretical debt) and limited prospects of a suitable job. But if so, doesn’t that call into question the value of what’s being demanded? In the UK there are currently around 20,000 students of fine art, 10,000 philosophy students and 27,000 enthusiasts of media studies. But is there a corresponding economic need? If the investment of time, effort and (other people’s) money doesn’t pay off with a lucrative and fascinating career in the private sector and a return via taxation, then how is the process justified in its present form?

And by all means wade through the greatest hits.

KC Johnson encounters more protesting intellectuals: 

According to the New York Times, organisers “were protesting not only tuition increases [of $300 per year] but also the university’s push for a public-private partnership,” such as the $1.4 billion in private philanthropy that [City University of New York] has received this year. Of course, if the university received no private support, either tuition bills would have to increase dramatically or services, including the number of faculty, would need to be slashed dramatically. But logic doesn’t appear to be a strong suit of “OccupyCUNY.”

Note the hostility to private and commercial philanthropy, i.e. money given voluntarily, and the simultaneous belief that using money taken forcibly via punitive taxation is a much more righteous endeavour. Apparently, funding by coercion makes the protestors’ education virtuous, or at least more satisfying. It’s a pattern we’ve seen before, of course. Note too the standard “occupy” traits – arrogance, unrealism and a passive-aggressive disregard for the safety and rights of others. Why, it’s almost as if socialism were a license for neoteny and spite.

Charles Kadlec ponders the unspoken meaning of “social justice”:

The OWS movement demonstrates that “social justice” is based on unjust policies similar to those they condemn. The protestors rightfully assail the bailouts of banks and Wall Street executives, but their solution is more of the same including bailouts for student loans and individuals who took out mortgages on houses they could not afford.

In truth, the OWS protestors are only skirmishing over the distribution of the spoils system they claim to abhor. Their demands for higher tax rates on the “1%” show their desire to join those who pillage through the power of government. They call it “social justice.” But its credo is the same as the crony capitalists who exploit the American people through government handouts: Both seek to use political power to satisfy their needs by taking the income of others rather than through voluntary exchanges. In each case, its true name is “greed.”

And Mark Steyn is unimpressed by U.S. budget “cuts”: 

In return for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling (and, by the way, that’s the wrong way of looking at it: more accurately, we’re lowering the debt abyss), John Boehner bragged that he’d got a deal for “a real, enforceable cut” of supposedly $7 billion from fiscal year 2012. After running the numbers themselves, the Congressional Budget Office said it only cut $1 billion from FY 2012. Which of these numbers is accurate?

The correct answer is: Who cares? The government of the United States currently spends $188 million it doesn’t have every hour of every day. So, if it’s $1 billion in “real, enforceable cuts,” in the time it takes to roast a 20-pound stuffed turkey for your Thanksgiving dinner, the government’s already borrowed back all those painstakingly negotiated savings. If it’s $7 billion in “real, enforceable cuts,” in the time it takes you to defrost the bird, the cuts have all been borrowed back. Bonus question: How “real” and “enforceable” are all those real, enforceable cuts? By the time the relevant bill passed the Senate earlier this month, the 2012 austerity budget with its brutal, savage cuts to government services actually increased spending by $10 billion.

As usual, feel free to add your own in the comments.