New poem HERDING OCCUPY L.A. OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND BLUES

(for poet Scott Wannberg and his Canine of Truth Sparky)




get along little protesters



get out of the street



get onto the sidewalk



fold your banners



and pack up your tents



because you're making



THE LOS ANGELES TIMES



and television journalists mad as Heck



now the hounds are baying for Charlie Beck



to tear off his peaceful-interaction



make-them-disappear-by-attrition mask



and emerge as the Incredible Two-Headed Hybrid



of Darryl Gates and Ed Davis



crying havoc



and unleashing the tasers and batons



get along little protesters



business must do whatever it wants



we're not going to listen to you Occupy people



since our city is not a city of "the people"



but a city of, by and for



the Very Important People



of AEG



WE NEED A NEW FOOTBALL STADIUM!



get along little protesters



go play with the other weird fuzzy-haired,



fuzzy-brained hippie kids



in Occupy Orange County



or Occupy Long Beach



or wherever you can be more easily ignored



by the state, nation and world



go away little protesters



go home and eat low-fat granola



drink your soy lattes



watch your Noam Chomsky videos



and let us govern,



while the silent majority occupies sidewalks



outside theaters and big-box stores



we love the silent majority



they know to SHUT UP AND CONSUME



and take what they're given



no matter how bad it is now



or how much worse it will be



we'll be glad when



everyone forgets all about



this trouble-stirring business-unfriendly



nonsense of Occupying public space



that we'll always find reasons



to throw you out of



once we're tired of your madness



.

Remember the Bonus Army of 1932 in wake of Occupy crackdowns.

Below is a history lesson that, ideally, should be read by people like NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and L.A. OBSERVED business columnist Mark Lacter (both of which fulminated on the Occupy movement last week, throwing out the usual "dirty, intellectually incoherent, unrealistic hippies" stereotypes).

Wikipedia entry on the Bonus Army of World War One veterans who occupied Washington D.C. in 1932:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

From the Wikipedia article:
Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded the infantry and cavalry supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.
A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt Administration was defused with promises instead of military action. In 1936, Congress overrode President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto to pay the veterans their bonus years early.