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<font face="Tahoma" size=3><b>DEAD IRAQIS OCCUPY WALL STREET<br><br>
With
the war in Iraq now officially over and the Occupy Wall Street movement
less visible, life in New York was expected to return to normal. Instead,
several recent passersby in Manhattan’s financial district have reported
seeing thousands of deceased Iraqi civilians taking up residence at
Zuccotti Park. The park served for two months in the fall of 2011 as a
protest base for thousands of OWS activists.<br><br>
Although the Iraqis remain largely silent and immobile, some witnesses
claim to have seen individual deceased mothers, students, and the elderly
holding up the backs of old pizza boxes, on which have been scrawled the
English words, “Remember Me.”<br><br>
Public
reaction has been mixed. Some say the dead are “occupying” the park in
nonviolent protest; others accuse the Iraqis of faking their own deaths
in order to flout U.S. immigration laws. The Bloomberg administration,
having evicted hundreds of living protesters from the park in
mid-November, has thus far maintained a wary tolerance.<br><br>
“I’m
not sure we can give twinkles to this new batch of malcontents,” stated
Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a press conference yesterday, wiggling his
upwardly pointing fingers in the OWS sign of agreement. “But so long as
they don’t discourage business as usual, New York will allow them to
stay.”<br><br>
“In
your face, Bloomberg!” shouted Sally Street, an Occupy movement protester
interviewed in an atrium on Wall Street, where an activist meeting was
taking place.<br><br>
“Just
let the cops try and bust these Iraqis,” continued Ms. Street, one of
Zuccotti Park’s recent evictees. “These folks are impervious to pepper
spray. They don’t mind the cold weather. They never sleep, so they don’t
need blankets or tents. And they’re clearly not going to bug the local
merchants to use their bathrooms. Hey, this is what democracy looks
like.”<br><br>
Other
OWS protesters greeted this statement with downwardly wiggling
“de-twinkle” fingers, to express disagreement. “Why do you have to be
dead in order to occupy public space?” queried Mike Check, frequent
presence at the OWS General Assembly. “I mean, if these Iraqi dudes are
supposed to be, uh, no longer with us, how come they’re still with
us?”<br><br>
“Maybe
we need them here,” called a lone voice somewhere amid the crowd. “Maybe,
if we want the Occupy movement to last, we’ve got to see the ordinary
people our government has killed all over the world as part of the 99
percent.”<br><br>
According to an unofficial count, the number of deceased Iraqis
inhabiting Zuccotti Park is around 126,000. Interestingly, this figure
coincides with the conservative estimate of Iraqi civilians killed as a
direct result of military violence since the war began in March 2003.
Other sources claim the Iraqi death toll is well over 1,000,000, not
counting another 500,000 Iraqis, mostly children, who died due to earlier
U.S. economic sanctions against Iraq.<br><br>
“Oh,
who cares how many of those ne’er-do-wells expired?” remarked Marge N.
Call, financial analyst whose condominium is near Zuccotti Park, and who
had strolled by walking her daschund. “It was bad enough when living
Americans were drumming and defecating here, but dead Arabs? Even if
they’re clean and quiet they’re much more annoying, morally.” Ms. Call
walked briskly away, neglecting to clean up her dog’s leavings.<br><br>
“This
is also an insult to the 3,000 Americans who perished so tragically on
September 11,” added Eustace Tilley, prosperous man-about-town, who
frequently appears on the cover of The New Yorker. Mr. Tilley, who
spearheaded “Bless Our Bull,” an ad hoc committee to protect the Wall
Street “Charging Bull” sculpture from anti-capitalist vandals, explained
by crunching some numbers.<br><br>
“If
you divide 126,000 by 3,000, you get exactly 42. That is the greater real
value of each of the people who were lost at the World Trade Center,
compared to the unwashed Iraqi dead. Please note that the value of those
who died on 9-11 increases almost exponentially when you factor in
additional numbers of ordinary civilians killed in Afghanistan and
Pakistan because of U.S.-sponsored military ventures.”<br><br>
Perhaps it is because they feel an affinity with others of low market
value that the Iraqi dead keep entering the country. Stories have begun
circulating that some of these Iraqis are migrating to various
foreclosure sites, and sit silently among former homeowners and Occupy
movement protesters.<br><br>
Accounts such as these are, to many politicians, cause for alarm. “Isn’t
it obvious these – things – are illegal aliens?” asked Republican
Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum. “As soon as our backs are turned,
they’re going to reproduce. Their little zombie terrorist anchor-babies
will grow up to demand voter ID cards and burn our Bibles.”<br><br>
Anonymous White House insiders, however, describe such opinions as
shortsighted. They add that the U.S. is lucky to be hit with an
occupation of the Iraqi dead, and not the Iraqi living. “Imagine what
we’d have to deal with if the 3.5 million Iraqis made refugees by the war
were to come here,” speculated one source. “We wouldn’t have the faintest
idea what to do.” <br><br>
In
quick agreement, the other anonymous White House sources responded with a
unanimous flurry of twinkle-fingers, earnestly waving skyward.<br><br>
</font>
© Susie Day 2012<br><br>
<br>
</b>References:<br><br>
End of Iraqi to war:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/middleeast/panetta-in-baghdad-for-iraq-military-handover-ceremony.html">
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/middleeast/panetta-in-baghdad-for-iraq-military-handover-ceremony.html</a>
<br><br>
Occupy Wall Street guide:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.nycga.net/resources/general-assembly-guide/">
http://www.nycga.net/resources/general-assembly-guide/</a><br><br>
Occupy Wall Street hand gestures:<br><br>
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/12/17/occupy-wall-street-hand-signal.html">
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/17/occupy-wall-street-hand-signal.html</a>
<br><br>
Iraqi dead + other costs of war:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/iraq-war-in-retrospect-to_b_1172380.html">
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/iraq-war-in-retrospect-to_b_1172380.html</a>
<br><br>
<a href="http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-civilians" eudora="autourl">
http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-civilians<br><br>
</a><a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.org/">
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/</a><br><br>
Over 1 million Iraqis dead:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/">
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/</a>
<br><br>
UNICEF report on Iraqi sanction deaths:<br><br>
<a href="http://iraqwar.org/childunicef.htm">
http://iraqwar.org/childunicef.htm</a><br><br>
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072100-03.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072100-03.htm<br><br>
</a>Eustace Tilley:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/covers/slideshow_tilleycovers#slide=3">
http://www.newyorker.com/online/covers/slideshow_tilleycovers#slide=3</a>
<br><br>
Wall Street Bull:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/12/29/wall-street-bull-kept-behind-barricades-despite-community-pleas">
http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/12/29/wall-street-bull-kept-behind-barricades-despite-community-pleas</a>
<br><br>
Occupy foreclosures:<br><br>
<a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/occupy-our-homes-wall-street-squatters-foreclosures">
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/occupy-our-homes-wall-street-squatters-foreclosures</a>
<br><br>
Iraqi refugees:<br><br>
<a href="http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-refugees">
http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-refugees</a><br><br>
<br>
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