Occupy Rose Parade: Officials Knuckle Under to Threats of Mayhem, Will Permit Socialist Occupiers’ Plastic “Octopus Puppet” at End of Parade
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on January 1, 2012
Occupiers will be included at the end of tomorrow's Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena, CA
When the Occupy movement said they want to “occupy everything,” they meant everything, including tomorrow’s 122-year-old Rose Parade, aka Tournament of Roses parade, in California, produced by the non-profit Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association.
The leader of the Occupy Los Angeles movement is everything that the destructive, anti-capitalist OWS goons supposedly despise — but only when it’s convenient. A UC Berkeley Law graduate, a wealthy former corporate lawyer and convicted thief, Peter Thottam, who is also a former Democrat assembly politician, couldn’t be happier about the movement’s threats of disruption that have made parade officials and law enforcement knuckle under.
As a result of their “negotiations” (i.e., threats and blackmail of destructive protest if not given their way), the Occupy LA group has been given permission to join in at the end of the Rose Parade with their humongous, ugly, plastic octopus puppet “float” in the Pasadena parade. The parade has featured intricate, beautiful flower-covered floats, marching bands, and horses since 1890 — and now, it will disgracefully showcase the Obama-embraced, Soros-funded, filth-ridden Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Los Angeles movement.
Although the group tried to get a slot to march in the Rose Parade, officials thankfully said” no”, but they will be marching down the street after all the official floats have passed, behind a group of police cars that mark the end of the parade.
Aggressive gradualism is at work here, as is precedent. Hippie Occupods and their liberal corporate lawyer Occuthief are slowly, methodically infiltrating a non-corporate, non-partisan American tradition… spreading their Nanny State, class warfare propaganda with rule-breaking PLASTIC in a parade that has historically had only floats comprised of flowers and other plant life.
Last year, the parade had approximately 47 million television viewers in the U.S. and was seen by approximately 28 million viewers internationally.
Socialist community organizer granddaddy Saul Alinksy is grinning from the grave. Only a matter of time before the insidious Occupy movement will be the parade’s Grand Marshal and in other formerly non-partisan parades and events. Chalk up another one for the thuggish progressives.
Sign in Oakland that communicates prevailing message of all OWS protests: 'Occupy Everything'
'Occupy Everything' graffiti in LA... LAPD personnel surveyed aftermath of Occupy Los Angeles at City Hall
From Los Angeles Times, Police beef up security for Occupy Rose Parade protests:
Facing a protest by Occupy demonstrators, Pasadena police will bolster their already robust presence at this year’s Rose Parade.
Pasadena police and Tournament of Roses officials have been negotiating with Occupy forces for several weeks on a plan that they hope will prevent any disruptions to the Jan. 2 parade. Pasadena officials are allowing the Occupy group to march on the parade route after all the official floats have passed.
Protesters intend to march with large banners that decry wealth inequality in the United States and to unveil a few colorful “floats” of their own, including a giant people-powered octopus, said Pete Thottam, an Occupy spokesman. The octopus — to be made out of recycled bags and stretch 40 feet from tentacle to tentacle — is designed to represent the stranglehold that Wall Street has on the political process, he said.
[...]
Pasadena Police Lt. Phlunte Riddle declined to say how many of the city’s 235 sworn officers will work on Jan. 2, when the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game are expected to attract as many as 800,000 people to Pasadena. But the array of local police, county sheriffs and state and federal law enforcement agents will be larger than usual, she said.
Pro-Occupiers are thrilled and some, I’ve heard, may even take baths:
Tournament of Roses officials have been negotiating with occupiers for several weeks over the planned demonstration in hopes that they will be able to work out a deal that will not cause any distractions to the main event, you know, all the flowers. Officials have ever so graciously granted the protesters access to the road after all their floats have finished the parade’s route.
Pete Thottam, an Occupy spokesman, tells the L.A. Times that local occupiers are planning to draw attention to Wall Street’s grip on the American political system by way of a giant 40 foot people-powered octopus made of recycled bags.
Planned speakers include Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war activist who lost her son during the Iraqi occupation, local occupy activists, and possibly Micheal Moore.
Note the typo of “Micheal” in the last sentence. Socialist Occupiers have problems with spelling as well as supporting American free market principles.
From LA Now in LA Times, Occupy’s Rose Parade float: 70-foot octopus of corporate greed:
Occupy protesters are busy finishing their float that will run at the end of the Rose Parade: a 70-by-40-foot octopus made of recycled plastic bags.
The octopus, said activist Mark Lipman of Los Angeles, represents Wall Street’s stranglehold on political, cultural and social life, with tentacles “that reach into your pocket to get your money and a tentacle to get your house.”
“This is the real Rose Parade, and the other is the Rose Charade,” said Pete Thottam, 40, an Occupy activist.
Protesters will march the parade route after the floats and marching bands have passed. The group has been working with Pasadena police and Tournament of Roses officials on how not to disrupt the parade.
More about the Occupy Octopus float/puppet from Susan Swift at Big Journalism, Media Hypes Occupy’s Rose Parade “Octopus” Float:
Let’s get this straight: The century old Rose Parade uses gazillions of living fresh natural flowers and all natural organic green materials to decorate floats built by thousands of volunteers, many of them children, and is paid for by voluntary private donations. To protest this supposedly evil symbol of corporate greed, the Occupods have rigged up a 70 by 40 foot “octopus” puppet made of plastic bags and manipulated by just a handful of puppet masters. Just think of George Soros with eight tentacles.
In short, the true Rose Parade volunteers hope to evoke happiness and joy among viewers, while the Occupy frauds hope to evoke class hatred and envy.
And what the LA Times conceals is the ugly irony of the Occupods’ plastic octopus. As of January 1, 2012, the plastic bag – the environmentalists’s equivalent of a cigarette – is outlawed in Los Angeles County retail stores. Yup, grocery stores (eeeevil corporations unfairly profiting from farmers’ efforts to feed the hungry) and pharmacies (eeeevil corporate drug pushers profiting from selling life-saving medicine) are now BANNED by government decree from giving away recyclable plastic bags to customers.
Even small mom and pop convenience stores, the 99% as it were, are banned from giving away plastic bags thanks to a fringe-influenced local government. Customers must now lug their own bags and boxes with them whenever they shop — welcome to 21st Century commerce forcefully bludgeoned with 18th Century inconvenience.
So really when it gets right down to it, the Occupy plastic bag octopus “float” more aptly represents the monstrous tentacles of government oppression of private enterprise and individual freedom. Happy Occupied New Year.
Brief Rose Bowl Parade history:
Members of Pasadena’s Valley Hunt Club first staged the parade in 1890. Since then the parade has been held in Pasadena every New Year’s Day, except when January 1 falls on a Sunday. In that case, it is held on the subsequent Monday, January 2. This exception was instituted in 1893. Local tradition has it that “the Tournament has a deal with God; we’ll never hold the parade on a Sunday, and He’ll never let it rain on the Rose Parade.” However, according to the Tournament of Roses Association Web site, this “Never on Sunday” policy was instituted in order “to avoid frightening horses tethered outside local churches and thus interfering with worship services.” Thus, the parade has never been held on a Sunday. Incidentally, the Rose Bowl Game is also not held on Sunday to avoid competing with the NFL. Other bowl games usually held on January 1 also follow this rule.
Many of the members of the Valley Hunt Club were former residents of the American East and Midwest. They wished to showcase their new California home’s mild winter weather. At a club meeting, Professor Charles F. Holder announced, “In New York, people are buried in the snow. Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.”
So the club organized horse-drawn carriages covered in flowers, followed by foot races, polo matches and a game of tug-of-war on the town lot that attracted a crowd of 2,000 to the event. Upon seeing the scores of flowers on display, the professor decided to suggest the name “Tournament of Roses.”
Over the next few founding years, marching bands and motorized floats were added. By 1895, the event was too large for the Valley Hunt Club to handle, hence the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association was formed. By the 11th annual tournament (1900), the town lot on which the activities were held was re-named Tournament Park, a large open area directly adjacent to Pasadena’s world-famous institution of higher learning, Caltech. Activities soon included ostrich races, bronco busting demonstrations and an odd novelty race between a camel and an elephant. (The elephant won the race.) Soon, reviewing stands were built along the parade route and newspapers in Eastern Seaboard cities started to take notice of the event.
The maker of Wrigley’s chewing gum, William Wrigley Jr.’s, stately Italian Renaissance-style mansion was offered to the city of Pasadena after Mrs. Wrigley’s death in 1958, under the condition that their home would be the Rose Parade’s permanent headquarters. Tournament House is the name given the former home where the organization is headquartered.
The first associated football game was played on January 1, 1902. Originally titled the “Tournament East-West football game,” it is considered to be the first Rose Bowl.
[...]
It is a rule of the parade that all surfaces of the float framework be covered in natural material (such as flowers, plants, seaweeds, seeds, bark, vegetables, or nuts, for example); furthermore, no artificial flowers or plant material are allowed, nor can the materials be artificially colored. Last-minute volunteering opportunities are usually available.
No mention in the Rose Parade summary of political propaganda nor octopuses made of plastic.
'Octopus Puppet' from Occupy the Rose Parade website, h/t Big Journalism
From Whittier Daily News, Occupy the Rose Parade plan begins to gel:
…Thottam said he plans to discuss Occupy in the context of the dawning of a new age.
“Jan. 1 brings the Age of Aquarius. The Age of Pisces officially closes,” he said.
The next Occupy phases – two and three – will occur during the actual parade on Monday.
In full view of network television cameras, protesters will hold signs near the Norton Simon Museum and a group of demonstrators will trail behind the police motorcade that marks the official end of the Rose Parade.
Several demonstrators will hold aloft a copy of the Constitution, while others will form an octopus representing the stranglehold corporations have on the country, Thottam said.
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan plan to participate.
The final phase of the Occupation is a press conference to be held after the parade just to the west of Pasadena City Hall.
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Thanks for putting a pic of the octopus on your site! I was disappointed they didn’t show it on the television broadcast. Having marched in the parade and worked on a float what I saw on the TV show was pretty gross and overdone — it’s been even more turned into a TV show instead of just being a parade — oh well.