Recursive moochery

Detail of a Lego hobo camp.
Picture from MOCpages.

New York magazine has an interesting article called The Organizers vs. the Organized in Zuccotti Park. It deals with divisions and frictions within the group of Occupy Wall Street protesters camping in Zucotti Park. The following excerpt amused me (emphasis added):

“The sunshine protestors will leave,” said “Zonkers,” a 20-year-old cleaner and longtime occupier from Tennessee. (He asked that his name not be used due to a felony marijuana conviction.) “The people who remain are the people who care. You get a lot of crust punks, silly kids, people who want to panhandle ... It disgusts me. These people are here for a block party.”

Another argument broke out next to the pile of appropriated belongings, growing taller by the minute. A man named Sage Roberts desperately rifled through the pile, looking for a sleeping bag. “They’ve taken my stuff,” he muttered. Lauren Digion, the sanitation group leader, broke in: “This isn’t your stuff. You got all this stuff from comfort [the working group]. It belongs to comfort.”

And as I spoke to Michael Glaser, a 26-year-old Chicagoan helping lead winter preparation efforts, a physical fight broke out between a cleaner and a camper just feet from us.

“When cleanups happen, people get mad,” Glaser said. “This is its own city. Within every city there are people who freeload, who make people’s lives miserable. We just deal with it. We can’t kick them out.”

Then again, the #OWS protesters also aren't exactly welcomed with open arms by the community they've embedded themselves in. As the New York Post report in the article Angry Manhattan residents lambast Zuccotti Park protesters:

Infuriated lower Manhattan residents went ballistic on Zuccotti Park protesters at a chaotic Community Board 1 meeting tonight while blasting politicians for allowing the siege to continue without any end in sight.

"They are defecating on our doorsteps," fumed Catherine Hughes, a member of Community Board 1 and a stay at home mom who has the misfortune of living one block from the chaos. "A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids."

Fed up homeowners said that they've been subjected to insults and harassment as they trek to their jobs each morning. "The protesters taunt people who are on their way to work," said James Fernandez, 51, whose apartment overlooks the park.

So you have a group of street people and bums, attracted by the free food they can mooch, embedded in a group of protesters camped out in a park. One of the biggest complaints of the #OWS protesters is student debt they've piled up which they would like to be able to mooch their way out of paying back.

Irritating moochery embedded inside of irritating moochery. Hmmm... if one of the street people was a crazy cat lady then you could add neighborhood felines mooching food and spraying tents, and of course the cats would be loaded down with fleas mooching cat blood, and who knows what little parasite mooches are tormenting the fleas.

Aside from the poor neighborhood residents -- a veritable daisy chain of free-loaders getting on each others nerves. Maybe there is justice in this world after all, even if it is just a small hint of justice.