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mentaires.info TRAGEDY: Smell of “Occupy Wall Street” Demonstrators Giving New Yorkers 9/11 Flashbacks
by Michael Madshack, DP Assistant Editor
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011,
(NEW YORK) —When it comes to evoking human memory, they say nothing works like the power of smell. This sensorial phenomenon is reportedly being experienced more and more by New Yorkers, as the increasing strange malodorous aroma of the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators are triggering morbid flashbacks to the city’s worst day in history: September 11, 2001.
Along with their passion and posters, slogans, chants, and dedication to a litany of Left-leaning causes, the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators in lower Manhattan have also unintentionally unearthed the worst stench residents say they have smelled since the terrorist attacks ten years ago. And although other cities where “Occupy” protestors have gathered are reporting a rise in their ranks (and rank), to New Yorkers their smell is increasingly triggering memories better left dormant.
“I understand (the demonstrators’) frustration. I understand a lot of their issues and why they’re angry,” said Manhattan resident Susan Ortega last Friday. “But please, can’t they demonstrate without recreating that whole ‘Ground Zero-9-12-01’ smell? This is the worst our city has stunk since, and it’s really disturbing to a lot of us.”
From sweat to urine, to feces, to stale marijuana, sacred sage, cheap incense, vomit, burnt hair, rotting hemp bandannas, corncob pipes, greasy sleeping bags, toe cheese, advanced adult acne, armpit yeast, vegan flatulence, open sores, 40-year-delayed-pubescence, scabies, willful ignorance, ancient Nepalese seminal root, palpable ignorance of razors and shaving cream, decaying idealism, corroded sneakers, lifelong dental neglect, and dreadlocks that have not been washed since Cli
nton left office, even New Yorkers sympathetic to the demonstrators’ cacophony of demands claim the unwelcomed odor of “Occupiers” are causing 9/11 flashbacks, and even resurging bouts of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
New York sanitation employee Morris Simms, who helped clear the ruins of the World Trade Center ten years ago said he found the demonstrators’ smell worse than anything he smells at his job each day, and “an abhorrent blend of putrid offenses” he has not experienced since the terrorist attacks.
Said Simms to Duh Progressive Monday, “The last couple weeks I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep. The smell of these people keeps bringing back memories of that day. These kids have their hearts in the right place…But they have no right to smell like this city did ten years ago. It’s like they’re wearing some damn ‘Eau de Ground Zero’ perfume or some shit.”
City officials have mentioned the growing odor of the protestors, both its strength and uniqueness, but only in passing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was overheard by reporters over the weekend commenting, “As long as the (Occupy Wall Street protestors) are not smoking cigarettes, there’s nothing we can do.”
Bloomberg’s comments further confirm fears of many jaded New Yorkers that without government intervention (something they should be all too used to), extinguishing the morbid odor of the demonstrators may have to fall on volunteers, or even city residents themselves. As of Wedesday, the American Red Cross reported fielding over 3000 phone calls from Manhattan residents begging them to send soap and/or cologne (besides Eau de Ground Zero) to the demonstrators.
“The problem isn’t parachuting soap in to these (demonstrators),” said Jonathan Lenny of the Red Cross Saturday. “The real problem is showing them what to do with it. We just don’t have the manpower to teach them all how to use it at once. We might have to call in FEMA for that one.”
Manhattan psychiatrist Mealea Khanh, Ph.D., said she and fellow mental health specialists have been inundated with requests for counsel over the last two weeks, all stemming from the 9/11 flashbacks the smell of the “occupiers” are causing city residents. “Lower Manhattan has become a milieu of rotting, burning, foul debris the city hasn’t endured for quite some time, and many locals don’t know how to handle it,” Dr. Khanh said to Duh Progressive Monday. 
Dr. Khanh, 54, a Cambodian native and Khmer Rouge survivor, said she is not only treating patients whose encounter with the “Occupy Wall Street aroma” are triggering 9/11 flashbacks, but is also treating herself. Having run up Church Street ten years ago to escape the toxic cloud of the collapsing Twin Towers, Dr. Khanh said she not only has had memories of 9/11 uncontrollably exhumed by the rancid throng of New Age anti-capitalists , but other memories as well (the three decades old kind).
“I’ve gone down and mingled with these people. I’ve listened to their demands and their messages,” said Khanh. “On the surface, most of them don’t sound that different than Prime Minister Pot’s. Now that’s a flashback.”
According to Khanh, the acrid, haphazard mishmash of demonstrators have a diversity of pet peeves, however remain adamant around central themes. “They say we’re controlled by corporations –yeah, true, to an extent. They say the ‘system is corrupt,’ that the rich don’t pay their fair share; elections are stolen; polar bears are dying; armadillos are huffing Drano, toothpaste should be outlawed… But underneath all of it is this desire –and a smelly desire– that there should be this ultimate ultra-equal world, where everyone owns everything, everyone deserves what everyone else has, and no one owns more than anyone else, and that Cheetos and Play Station 3s are a human right…”
“We tried that in Cambodia,” added Khanh Tuesday. “It worked great! All of these grand ideas these ‘occupy’ people are promoting..? Yeah, they worked so well for us back then. My mother and father would love to tell just how wonderful all these idealistic and organized ambitions and kindhearted beliefs worked in practice…if they hadn’t died.”
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