The Washington Examiner reports (hat tip):

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., embarked on a 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity with four Occupy DC protesters who have gone without food since Dec. 8 to advocate for D.C. voting rights. Ellison, the first Muslim to serve in the House, met with the hunger strikers Thursday and pledged to read their declaration – which calls for full voting rights for District residents as well as legislative and budget autonomy – on the floor of the House of Representatives to enter it into the congressional record.

What a dope. Who the heck puts a time frame on a hunger strike? Aren’t they supposed to be indefinite until your “demands” have been met/”point” made? Bryan Preston is on the same page:

One day is not a hunger strike. It’s a diet. Maybe a fast. Not a hunger strike, in which one commits slow suicide to make a political point.

I was thinking when I read about this story about the small group of Occupy DC hunger strikers that I bet it’s not a “real” hunger strike in the traditional sense of the term, and sure enough, I was right:

The men are consuming only electrolyte-enhanced water and vitamins. Parsons, Mears and Jewler, all district residents, began their hunger strike at noon on Dec. 8 after a nutritious last meal of fruit smoothies and stir-fried vegetables. Gray, of Gaithersburg, Md., joined them the next morning after chowing down on an egg burrito.

I guarantee you they’re having more than this – I’ve seen this in other “hunger strikes”, where the “hunger strikers” eat ice cream and soup broth but claim neither really are “food.”

Continuing:

While they insist they won’t declare victory until they’ve accomplished their numerous goals, the strikers say they are not suicidal. Each has signed a document that specifies what kind of medical intervention he would want if he becomes incapacitated. Mears, a 24-year-old freelance software developer, said he was still struggling with how much he was willing to endanger his health. “It’s not that I want to die,” he said. “I very well could end up in the hospital on an IV.”

In other words, they’ve just told the DC politicos they’re trying to emotionally blackmail into “doing something” about what they perceive is a “voting dilemma” for Washington, DC citizens that this “protest” is symbolic only, so even if a few politicos were willing to intervene in order to keep the “strikers” from dying, they aren’t going to do it now. Not even Ellison himself was willing to go for more than 24 hours.

In spite of that, there’s no doubt in my mind that these “occupiers” view themselves as modern day revolutionaries “for the cause.” Morons.

Oh, and the sob story the Washington Post wrote about the poor suffering and weak OccupyDC hunger strikers wouldn’t be complete without the requisite photo of them in – you guessed it – wheelchairs:

About the wheelchairs, the Post writes:

They’ve walked the halls of congressional office buildings, sometimes being pushed in wheelchairs to conserve energy, and they’ve met with a few members of Congress and staffers for several others.

“[T]o conserve energy” my a**. This is all about images. Remind you of anything?

Push youngest/oldest to the front lines….This is a battle over images, not just over the park.

– Charles Lenchner, Occupy Wall Street activist, Oct. 13, 2011

These idiots have become so predictable at this point that I almost feel bad for feeling obligated to point it out again and again and again and again.

Almost.