Why, you ask, do we here at LA Weekly care about Zuma Dogg, the sometimes-utterly-insane City Hall gadfly? We don't always agree with his politics, and his tweets about taking his last breaths for want of food and cash can be annoying.

But you have to admit — he's entertaining. His forays into Occupy L.A. (to “occupy Occupy, y'all!“) are riveting.

Few have had the balls (radio conservatives John & Ken did) to put themselves in the middle of Occupy L.A.'s City Hall encampment in order to challenge the groupthink (or lack thereof) there. Z.D. did it again this week:

Video streaming by Ustream

And he claims he was attacked by a “mob” and greeted as a “non-occupier.” His video appears to show (and tell) that people in the Occupy crowd unplugged his microphone, took a chord, and generally tried to shout him down.

At times he called for police intervention. (Ironically, Senor Dogg has been a critic of police and has even threatened to sue).

While the events captured on-video aren't as bad as he describes, Mr. Dogg does have to shout and argue his way to a successful denouement, in which he decries the L.A. City Council for allegedly being in bed with the kinds of “1 percenter” foes hated by the Occupy movement.

(The council officially endorsed the movement and, even though there are signs it's wearing out its welcome on the City Hall lawn, has generally tried to hitch its trailer to the populist train engineered by the “99 percenters”).

Zuma Dogg put the gist of his argument in a blog item posted yesterday:

Occupy LA is a joke. Zuma Dogg has been “walkin' the walk” the last four or five years against exactly what they claim to be protesting against. He has pointed out in the proper forum the fraud, waste and abuse that has taken place in Los Angeles all in the name of Corporate greed. As City Council has funneled hundreds of million dollars to large corporations in the form of tax breaks, subsidies and outright gifts, Zuma Dogg has been there every step of the way trying to inform a disinterested public about exactly what has been going on. Occupy LA will cry about the First Amendment rights the first time they feel threatened. Zuma Dogg has done more for the fight to protect that crucial right than anyone in recent history. If Occupy LA was for real, instead of attacking Zuma Dogg when he walks through their encampment, they should welcome him as the true leader in the fight against the evils of corporate greed and a complicit city government.

It's a fair point of view. One that could have been made from the comfort of one's pajamas at home.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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