Their main complaints seem to be that politics is influenced by people with political influence, and that powerful people have all the power. In other words, they’re protesting the futility of their own protest. That’s the sort of recursive, discursive incursion I can get behind.posted by oneswellfoop at 11:11 PM on November 14, 2011 [94 favorites]
If the vaguely defined “1 percent” have all the power, then no amount of sign-waving, slogan-chanting or locale-occupation will have any influence. So if the protests end in any status other than quo, then the 1 percent is a myth, normal people have plenty of influence, and the protestors were just wasting everyone’s time.
However, if the Occupy movement dies without inspiring any substantial changes in the U.S. political scene, then it will prove that they were right all along.
In other words, the Occupy movement can only succeed by failing completely.
WBAI.Org radio in NYC is reporting that a huge NY Police presence has amassed around Zuccotti park.posted by taz at 11:24 PM on November 14, 2011 [6 favorites]
OWS sent a Tweet and SMS broadcast at a little after 1:00AM announcing that the New York Police Department has begun the eviction of the Occupy Wall Street.
A WBAI radio reporter on the scene said the police are being very aggressive and tearing everything down. Although they made a big show of removing the American flag first and folding it military style.
There is also confirmation from the WBAI reporter on the scene that a provocateur (black with beard dyed blond) was identified by the movement tonight as in the past few days he has instigated trouble and harassed women in the park and tonight was part of the police presence.
The occupiers are chanting: THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING.
Other links:
LiveStream
WBAI Stream
CBS overhead helicopter (should return soon. Refueling.)
OWS Twitter page.
A WBAI reporter mentioned earlier an unconfirmed report that a provocateur (black with beard dyed blond) was identified by the movement. He'd been instigating trouble and had been harassing women in the park and tonight was part of the police presence.The reporter hasn't mentioned the provocateur in a while, what he's talking about is how there is a huge pile of people's belongings being trashed and ruined by the police. Also, he's expressing sadness with the NY Sanitation workers who're are taking part in this./
3:08 a.m. heard on livestream: "they're bringing in the hoses."posted by Phire at 12:14 AM on November 15, 2011 [3 favorites]
3:05 a.m. NYPD cutting down trees in Liberty Square
2:55 a.m. NYC council-member Ydanis Rodríguez arrested and bleeding from head.
If the vaguely defined “1 percent” have all the power, then no amount of sign-waving, slogan-chanting or locale-occupation will have any influence. So if the protests end in any status other than quo, then the 1 percent is a myth, normal people have plenty of influence, and the protestors were just wasting everyone’s time.The same argument could be made against every single social movement in history: if women are really excluded from political influence, the suffragettes won't be able to win themselves the vote; if blacks are really excluded from power, the civil rights movement won't be able to influence anything; if the French really hold all the substantial levers of power in Algeria, Algeria must necessarily remain French. The argument of every liberation movement is that the elite benefit at everyone else's expense under normal circumstances, without upheaval and chaos and the conscious self-assertion of the majority, and the only way for the victims to change the situation is by behaving in a way outside the bounds of normal acceptable behaviour.
Their main complaints seem to be that politics is influenced by people with political influence, and that powerful people have all the power. In other words, they’re protesting the futility of their own protest. That’s the sort of recursive, discursive incursion I can get behind.This is a bunch of jibberish. Lets suppose we could measure power. Let's call our unit of measure "the dollar". If the richest person had $105 and the poorest person had $95, the the poorest person would have about 90% as much power as the richest person.
If the vaguely defined “1 percent” have all the power, then no amount of sign-waving, slogan-chanting or locale-occupation will have any influence. So if the protests end in any status other than quo, then the 1 percent is a myth, normal people have plenty of influence, and the protestors were just wasting everyone’s time.
The frightening thing is the level of tactical thinking that went into this, from a city government nonetheless? Who designed this? Who did the city consult with for this? Why are there (it's being reported) twin rotor Chinooks hovering overhead?Well, this is bloomburg, the NYPD we're talking about here. These guys are pretty efficient, I would imagine, and they have a pretty huge budget.
He [the policeman trying to remove Josh from the park] told me if I stayed in the park I could get hurt. I pointed out that there was no chance of that. I had just been standing around. Cleanup already done for the most part. Then he dragged me in front of a dump truck that was backing up. He said, "Look, this dump truck is backing up, you could get hurt."posted by tzikeh at 12:48 AM on November 15, 2011 [11 favorites]
People are planning to stay here until rush hour 7 am. The whole occupation is at bway and pine. #ows yfrog.com/nxq7tjxjI'm pretty sure the NYPD are going to end up regretting doing this on a weekday.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. You guys defending the right to have a dirty encampment seem oblivious to the fact that you're alienating a majority of the people who pass by you every day. They're not sheeple or conditioned by the mass media or controlled by lizards, they have an understandable and entirely reasonable aversion to things like head lice and random violence. My parents-in-law (who are from North Vietnam and speak little English) thinks it's some sort of weird gypsy encampment/street party despite my wife's best efforts to explain that it's a sort of political movement.Where's the empirical evidence that people, in large numbers, are being alienated? (more so then they otherwise would be, that is) I mean, it's all well and good if Occupy Peoria works with it's local city council, but OWS was intended to be an act of civil disobedience. If the original protest had simply been something in the middle of nowhere, with a permit, and dissipated when the permit expired, none of this would have ever started in the first place. The only reason Occupy Peoria matters is because of the movement that has actually started.
He may have been completely right, but I found his conclusions inconsistent.I'm not sure what AndrewKemendo meant, exactly but Gödel thought he found a 'bug' in the constitution that could allow the U.S. to become a fascist dictatorship.
It doesn't matter how good your intentions are if your actual behavior is perceived negatively.Yeah, like other people said: What about the NYPD, or the Oakland PD for that matter. Perception is a form of power. If people have a positive view of you, that gives you power. But it's not the only way you can get power.
TheClitSlayer is this a joke? You bums get a job and stop crying. Ron Paul 2012!posted by delmoi at 3:12 AM on November 15, 2011 [7 favorites]
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, that, until this matter is heard on the date set forth above, respondents/defendants are prohibited from:The restraining order is making the rounds online right now.
(a) Evicting protesters from Zuccotti Park, a/k/a Liberty Park, exclusive of lawful arrests from criminal offenses; and/or
(b) Enforcing "rules" published after the occupation began or otherwise preventing protesters from re-entering the park with tents and other property previously utilized.
Police are refusing to acknowledge the orderThen it's time to send in the National Guard, like they did in the 50s.
For O.W.S., though, there is danger ahead. Winter is coming. The strategy of static outdoor encampments is straining the patience even of sympathetic mayors in cities like Oakland, where last week riot police stormed the site and a Marine veteran was left in critical condition. If the weather and the cops pare the numbers in the camps, it’s far from unimaginable that ideologues in the mold of the Old New Left—people for whom the problem is “capitalism” per se, as opposed to a political economy rigged to benefit the rich at the expense of the rest—could end up dominant. As it is, the Occupiers’ brand of romantic participatory democracy can too easily render their decision-making vulnerable to a truculent few. In the most notorious example, Representative John Lewis, the revered civil-rights hero, was prevented from speaking at Occupy Atlanta—not because the crowd didn’t want to hear from him (the great majority did, as they signalled, in the movement’s semaphore language, with raised hands and wiggling fingers) but because one man clenched his fists and crossed his forearms, thereby exercising a consensus-breaking “block.” A vegan filibuster, you might say. The pollsters tell us that Americans like O.W.S.’s essential message. They like the Occupiers, too—not as much as they like the message, but more than they like the Tea Party. But if the pressures of hypothermia, frustration, and correcter-than-thou one-upmanship converge to push them toward more provocative, less mellow forms of civil disobedience—“occupying” a nice warm state capitol building, for example—the messengerposted by Miko at 7:42 AM on November 15, 2011 [4 favorites]
...the chief enforcement agency for the New York State Court System. The Sheriff and Deputies service a great variety of mandates, orders, warrants and decrees for the Courts. ...posted by Jahaza at 8:18 AM on November 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
Based on Federal, New York State and City laws, statutes, acts and procedures, designated members of the New York City Office of the Sheriff have the authority and power to:1. Execute any arrest, warrant, order or judgment, etc., for the New York Supreme, Family, Surrogate’s, County, Criminal, District, City and the Civil Courts.
This is a profound statement about who law enforcement works for in this country. What happened on Wall Street over the past decade was an unparalleled crime wave. Yet at most, maybe 1,500 federal agents were policing that beat – and that little group of financial cops barely made any cases at all. Yet when thousands of ordinary people hit the streets with the express purpose of obeying the law and demonstrating their patriotism through peaceful protest, the police response is immediate and massive. There have already been hundreds of arrests, which is hundreds more than we ever saw during the years when Wall Street bankers were stealing billions of dollars from retirees and mutual-fund holders and carpenters unions through the mass sales of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities.posted by homunculus at 9:34 AM on November 15, 2011 [34 favorites]
It's not that the cops outside the protests are doing wrong, per se, by patrolling the parks and sidewalks. It's that they should be somewhere else. They should be heading up into those skyscrapers and going through the file cabinets to figure out who stole what, and from whom. They should be helping people get their money back. Instead, they're out on the street, helping the Blankfeins of the world avoid having to answer to the people they ripped off.
Tea party types stand around with pistols on their belts? Scary intimidatory tactics. Occupy protesters wear masks and combat fatigues and chant 'fuck the police'? Hey, they're just speaking truth to power.A mask and a particular style of pants is just as intimidating as a gun?
WHERE TO MAIL BOOKS TO THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARYI'd like to donate some books, but it's not clear to me what I should be sending: Is this library supposed to be full of books on populist causes and such as educational/inspirational material, or a general purpose library to give people something interesting to do to occupy their time, or what? Thanks.
Since accounting rules rewarded employers for cutting benefits, retiree benefits plans soon morphed into profit centers. Retiree plans became handy earnings-management centers at the expense of the retirees. Yet as workers’ retirement benefits were cut, “supplemental executive pensions” ballooned along with escalating deferred compensation. “Today,” reports Schultz, “it’s common for a large company to owe its executives several billion dollars in pensions and deferred compensation.”If I were the Incredible Hulk, about half of my building would now be in pieces.
It’s these growing “executive legacy liabilities” that account for much of the “growing pension costs”. Executive liabilities are often large, growing, underfunded or unfunded, and hidden, buried within the figures for regular pensions.
“With no punitive damages under pension law, employers face little risk when they unilaterally slash benefits, even when promised in writing, since they can pay their lawyers with pension assets and drag out the cases until the retirees give up or die.”
THE WHELK HAS TO PISS LIKE A PACHYCEPHALOSAURUS!Better than a micropachycephalosaurus, knowwhatimean?
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 13:29 on November 15 [+] [!]
For the last three years I've been sitting around waiting for people to wake up to the fact that we were losing this crisis as a way to roll back decades of terribly de-regulation, and I thought OWS was going to be people finally figuring that out. Once they made it clear they weren't interested in working towards that, but instead was some much bigger amorphous movement I sort of gave up. Admire what they are doing, don't think they are likely to be successful even though I would like them to be.Yeah you're definitely accomplishing a lot more nit-picking the people who are actually doing something on the internet.
Also the early days student loans thing really really struck me as politically deaf. Not something you can build a mass movement off of.
Is President Obama AWAKE?Why would Obama even care about this? Whatever happens it's up to the city and state governments, not the federal. If the city/state is violating the constitution it's up to the courts to correct that. It would take years for something like this to wind it's way up to the supreme court, and the Roberts court would probably just side with NYPD anyway
THE % OF COFFEE AS FLUIDS IN THIS CUP IS GETTING DANGEROUSLY LOWOh my god -- you're creating insanely powerful homeopathic coffee! More bourbon, quickly!
posted by The Whelk at 13:53 on November 15 [+] [!]
Spare me this 'protection against tear gassing' excuse. People were wearing masks and bandanas before there was any tear gassing, and masks enable the agent provocateurs everyone says they are so worried about. If protesters refused to accept masked individuals in their midst then it would be an awful lot harder for bad actors to hijack legitimate protesters, because they would be so easily identifiable on camera. Masks give authoritarians a convenient excuse to crack down, as well as giving vandals a convenient excuse for mayhem.What are you talking about? Seriously, the stone throwing, etc, didn't seem to prevent the Egyptian uprising from being successful, why will it prevent OWS from being successful? What's the actual causal result that leads from 'dressing up as a bandit' to 'losing'? Like how does it cause you to lose? What, specifically, do you lose?
If you're really worried about tear gas, hold a wet rag up to your face when they start shooting it. Dressing up like a bandit in advance is a losing tactic.
To the extent that City law prohibits the erection of structures, the use of gas or other combustible materials, and the accumulation of garbage and human waste in public places, enforcement of the law and the owner's rules appears reasonable to permitthe owner to maintain its space in a hygienic, safe, and lawful condition, and to prevent it from being liable by the City or others for violations of law, or in tort. It also permits public access by those who live and work in the area who are the intended beneficiaries of this zoning bonus.So simple. Sorry friends, but this is what democracy looks like. It's not a thing where we all get together (WE ALL GET TOGETHER) and scream at each other (AND SCREAM AT EACH OTHER) in very digestible soundbites (IN VERY DIGESTIBLE SOUNDBITES). Or where we make decisions by wiggling our fingers. That model a name, and it's not "consensus" - it's called mob rule.
Flunkie, I'm glad you're sending Pratchett.I'm sorry to disappoint, but that was The Whelk, not me. Pratchett was not among the books I sent.
Going to have some pretty bad numbers for Occupy Wall Street tomorrow...movement not wearing well with votersposted by Rhaomi at 6:10 PM on November 15, 2011
Going to have some pretty bad numbers for Occupy Wall Street tomorrow...movement not wearing well with voters"Good thing they're not politicians or a political party then, eh?
Who convened the mayors call? In an interview with the BBC, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan alluded to her participation in a conference call with leaders of 18 US cities just prior to the raids on encampments across the country. Mayors' associations do exist, but they do not typically organize police interventions or local decision-making in such detail. Given the abuses of the past, such as the notorious COINTELPRO and other intervention programs that the U.S. government organized during the Vietnam protests, the public has a right to know the details of who organized that call.Minneapolis Examiner
according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.(my bold)
"Report! Which dangerous anarchists did we subdue?"posted by running order squabble fest at 6:41 AM on November 16, 2011 [11 favorites]
"An 84-year old grandmother, sir."
"And?"
"A pregnant woman."
"Huh. Anyone else?"
"A guy in a wheelchair..."
"A Black Bloc agitator feigning a disability?"
"It's Professor Stephen Hawking, sir."
"Oh."
"And he had a family of baby otters in his lap, sir. The baby otters are now crying. They don't understand what's happening."
"At least it can't get any worse."
"Sir, we have uncomfirmed reports that Danny Pudi was tickling one of the baby otters when the tear gas hit."
"You have got to be kidding me."
"Who gave you the right to occupy America?” asked Rove to the protesters, apparently unaware of the Bill of Rights. As they repeated their slogan, “We are the 99 percent!” Rove petulantly responded, “No you’re not!” He snidely added, “You wanna keep jumping up and yelling that you’re the 99 percent? How presumptuous and arrogant can you think are!”I wonder what all that was about? That guy is too savvy to go around riling people up for no reason.
Protesters gathered in the intersection of 5th Avenue and Pine Street after marching from their camp at Seattle Central Community College in support of Occupy Wall Street. Many refused to move from the intersection after being ordered by police. Police then began spraying pepper spray into the gathered crowd hitting dozens of people.How were they not doing something illegal? Did the police not order them to disperse? Were they actually not blocking the intersectuin?
The Occupy Wall Street movement is not wearing well with voters across the country. Only 33% now say that they are supportive of its goals, compared to 45% who say they oppose them. That represents an 11 point shift in the wrong direction for the movement's support compared to a month ago when 35% of voters said they supported it and 36% were opposed. Most notably independents have gone from supporting Occupy Wall Street's goals 39/34, to opposing them 34/42.posted by BobbyVan at 10:33 AM on November 16, 2011
Voters don't care for the Tea Party either, with 42% saying they support its goals to 45% opposed. But asked whether they have a higher opinion of the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movement the Tea Party wins out 43-37, representing a flip from last month when Occupy Wall Street won out 40-37 on that question. Again the movement with independents is notable- from preferring Occupy Wall Street 43-34, to siding with the Tea Party 44-40.
Another live feed: wbai.org
posted by spinifex23 at 10:54 PM on November 14, 2011