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.
So it seems that this anarchist flag was thrust like a spear at the police officerNow you're just making shit up, BobbyVan.
Pepper spray was deployed only against subjects who were either refusing a lawful order to disperse or engaging in assaultive behavior toward officers.You can claim that an 84-year-old women deserved to be pepper sprayed, but unless you are calling the police liars you cannot say that she was not intentionally targeted. The police identified valid targets, by their own account, and deployed pepper spray against them and only them.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.We protested the Iraq War, and our government still sunk trillions of our dollars into a lie. We voted for change; we didn't get it. The left-ish side of the spectrum has proposed cuts to social programs in exchange for tax hikes and the end of corporate loopholes to help with the budget, and they are still saying no.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham...
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
A traffic stop of a speeding vehicle led to the arrest of three men, who claimed to be Occupy Portland demonstrators, and the seizure of incendiary devices, gas masks and fireworks.posted by BobbyVan at 9:29 AM on November 17, 2011
...
In addition to the marijuana, Postlewait found a quantity of firecrackers and two commercially manufactured mortars like those fired into the air during professional pyrotechnic displays. The mortars were contained in glass "Ball" canning jars. One was found on the floorboard at Luff's feet; the other was in a jacket belonging to Luff. Also found in the car were two gas masks, some protective eye goggles, and safety helmet.
All three suspects said that they had spent the night at the Occupy Portland demonstration. They admitted that they brought the seized items to the demonstration in preparation for a confrontation with police when they expected to be forcibly removed from the park. They admitted being at the protest during the police confrontation and had left about an hour before Postelwait stopped them.
During the earlier Occupy Portland confrontation between police and protesters, a Portland Police Officer was injured when protesters began throwing fireworks at them. These subjects denied being involved in throwing the fireworks at the Officer.
The subjects were questioned further about the explosives. Each of them said that they knew the "Ball" canning jar would explode and cause glass shrapnel to fly out and possibly cause injury to anyone close to it.
The subjects were questioned further about the explosives. Each of them said that they knew the "Ball" canning jar would explode and cause glass shrapnel to fly out and possibly cause injury to anyone close to it.posted by BobbyVan at 9:43 AM on November 17, 2011
Salzwedel-Kemp and Patterson [the arrested Occupy Portland demonstrators] described an incident that occurred when they were younger. They put a homemade "Piccolo Pete" explosive inside a beer bottle and detonated it. The resulting explosion caused a shard of glass to fly into Salswedel; lacerating his leg so badly that he required stitches to close the wound.
The march this morning wasn't going to do anything, despite the hopeful rumors that the stock market opening bell had been delayed (it wasn't). No, the point was, like the rallies for Obama before them, that there is power in numbers. And that power needs to be exhibited and enacted.posted by genehack at 11:54 AM on November 17, 2011 [7 favorites]
When the Supreme Court, in the Citizens United decision, said that corporations are people with First Amendment rights and affirmed that money is the equivalent of speech, it essentially was saying that some people have more speech than others. The wealthy and the corporations can never be matched in terms of the speech effect of their dollars. But they can be matched and overcome by the sheer volume of people. That's why we say we are the 99%.
“I think we should have a moment of silence in solidarity for the person they said was from the Washington, D.C. Occupy. Maybe, why did he feel the need to shoot the White House window today? So I think we should have a moment in solidarity for the White House, and for the guy that shot at the White House today. I don’t know if you heard, but someone shot at the White House window today.”Maybe we should also have a moment of silence and solidarity for the lunatic who left a bomb along the civil rights parade route in Spokane, and for balance we'll also observe a moment of silence and solidarity for the civil rights marchers themselves. No objections? Great, moment of silence observed...
Washington Post's Dana Priest reports on the sprawling post-9/11 terrorism-industrial complex — and its growing reach into the lives of ordinary Americans.Hundreds of billions of dollars that must be justified, somehow.
§ 155.30 Grand Larceny in the fourth degree.posted by Jahaza at 4:21 PM on November 17, 2011
A person is guilty of grand larceny in the fourth degree when he
steals property and when:
1. The value of the property exceeds one thousand dollars; or
...
5. The property, regardless of its nature and value, is taken from the
person of another; or
...
Grand larceny in the fourth degree is a class E felony.
While thousands of people her age are busy camping out in various Occupy movements around the country, a Florida woman decided last night to occupy the sidewalk outside her local Best Buy in order to be the first person to be disappointed by the Black Friday offerings on Nov. 25.posted by grouse at 6:32 PM on November 17, 2011
"You can't beat some of the deals they have on plasmas, flat screens and laptops," the young woman, who has coordinated her camp-out with three other families, tells Tampa's NBC affiliate. "We're all students; you've got to pinch a penny; it's affordable right now."
600000+ millionaires in NYC.The New York metropolitan area, not NYC. The metropolitan area has nearly three times the population of NYC itself.
To end the amazing marches to Foley Sq, then to BK bridge today/tonight, SOMETHING AMAZING HAPPENED AT G.A IN ZUCCOTI PARK, couple friendly police officers started talking to me with some hebrew, one needed to say Kaddish, we ended up assembling about 15 various Jewish/protestors/ ppl walking by, and he had the minyan (quorom of ten) for kaddish. A beautiful thing I saw was one of the Jewish protesters who was one of the first to join the minyan, was holding up a sign "NYPD: GET THEM OUT!" standing right next to the officer saying Kaddish with him!!That's one story you probably won't hear on Fox.
Is that actually true?I don't understand what you mean by this. OWS is not going to pay our bills if we lose our jobs.They'll feed you and give you a place to crash out if you really hit rock bottom though.
AFAIK, that's the first that the letter had been posted. A tweet from the Mayor's office had gone out with a photo of undamaged books, but the letter adds more detail on the pickup procedures. It's helpful information, and a pretty far thing from a derail.The People's Library says that that photo represents a small proportion of the books that they had, most of which are just gone. And some that are not just gone are not undamaged.
I told her what I wanted to do, and she was enthused. The more I described, the more excited she got.posted by genehack at 10:01 AM on November 18, 2011 [7 favorites]
Her parting words were, "let's do this."
She wouldn't take my money. That was the day of the eviction of Zuccotti, the same day. And she'd been listening to the news all day, she saw everything that had happened.
"I can't charge you money, this is for the people," she said.
By the end, the Occupy Memphis members and their audience – made up mostly of whites over 40 years old – reached common ground on some issues, such as their perception that the government and politicians no longer listen to and serve the people they represent.posted by BobbyVan at 11:05 AM on November 18, 2011 [5 favorites]
They also found some agreement in their stances against taxpayer-sponsored government bailouts and "crony capitalism," the idea that close ties between lobbyists, businesses, and other self-serving interests can influence government officials and the exercise of capitalism.
"We all want the same form of government, which is one that listens to its constituents," said Tran, a business and American history student who said he served in Iraq in 2009 and 2010 with the Army.
But some disagreements also emerged. Tea party members expressed frustration with big, intrusive government, while the Occupy Memphis speakers opposed what they perceive as the corporate world's manipulative influence on government policy. Some tea party members noted that each of their protests were one-day events and they cleaned up after themselves, while the Occupy movement calls for long-term encampment at sites officials say have become unsanitary.
Tea party members praised themselves for using the power of the vote to bring about the change they desired, and that the Occupy movement won't be successful until it does the same.
tr33hggr: But man this thread is huge. It takes like 30-45 seconds to refresh for me.Yah, I know- if only there were some kind of optional pagination or "start from comment #N" parameter in the URL you could use to just load the latest comments. It would save time, Metafilter bandwidth, and make these types of threads much more readable on a mobile device. But alas...
BobbyVan: Here's an Occupy Portland protester, facing off against riot-gear clad police and heckling them while holding a young child in front of himOr as the certainly impartial youtube user LaughingAtLiberals put it, an "infant shield"?
tr33hggr: But man this thread is huge. It takes like 30-45 seconds to refresh for me.
hincadenza: if only there were some kind of optional pagination or "start from comment #N" parameter in the URL you could use to just load the latest comments. It would save time, Metafilter bandwidth, and make these types of threads much more readable on a mobile device. But alas...
Here's an Occupy Portland protester, facing off against riot-gear clad police and heckling them while holding a young child in front of him.I'm actually astounded that you would describe that video that way. First, it's just a guy sitting on the ground holding his kid in his lap; it's not like he was holding him up as a shield (which the video's title says even more directly than your seeming implication).
Mid-to-late November is typically the season for layoffs, as banks want to avoid making cuts during the holidays in December. By doing it before year-end, these employees aren't eligible for bonuses.Wall Street really knows how to celebrate the holidays, don't they?
They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, and to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this: It’s called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. This is the crony capitalism that destroyed Europe’s economies. It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners – the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70% of the jobs in America, it’s you who own these small businesses, you’re the economic engine, but you don’t grease the wheels of government power.If she pushes that term and people can grok it, then ok, let's use it, too. We mean the same thing on that end of it... I prefer the term plutocracy, oligarchy or kleptocracy, but sure, call it crony capitalism. At least they're not saying "Fascism" or "Socialism" anymore.
It would be only fair to point out that it's nice to see that as much as we lambasted BobbyVan, we should remember can find common ground, and he's not some inhumane automaton. It's that good point in a discussion where you realize you actually agree that there is a line, or some principle you mutually agree upon... but you've just been disagreeing on exactly where to find it. That's a good place to get to, as a start!stagewhisper: Graphic video yt of police spraying peaceful, seated UC Davis protesters with pepper spray about an hour ago.BobbyVan: Now that's some bullshit right there
"Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.I'm disgusted by the actions of the UC Davis police force, but not particularly surprised, following a couple encounters with the police during protests at the university over the last couple years.
What happened next?
Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood."
[Pike] decided against using pepper spray, a baton or sidearm, not wanting to hit either of his partners as they struggled with the patient.Lt. John Pike, from today's pepper spray incident, talking about deciding not to use pepper spray in 2007.
"You've got all these tools on your belt," Pike said, "but sometimes they're not the best tools."
"That the police officer in this photo has not been fired yet is profoundly embarrassing"posted by Rhaomi at 6:12 AM on November 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
"There was no way out of that circle," Spicuzza said. "They were cutting the officers off from their support. It's a very volatile situation."Something I am unsure of, looking at the video (which does indeed clearly show the officer waving his pepper spray can in the air before using it against that unruly crowd) is what is happening at the very end, where one officer is taking pepper spray cans from other officers and shaking them. Is he preparing to duel-wield pepper spray, Max Payne-style, or is he taking spray cans from brother officers because he is concerned that they will discharge them into the crowd and cause a riot?
enhanced arresticatin' techniquespain compliance measuresI always wondered how to say "torture" in newspeak.
Spicuzza's account of the situation is clearly false. The most charitable explanation is that she misspoke.I suppose it's possible that the officers on the scene simply lied in their reports, and she took them at their word, without having seen video.
To this effect, I am forming a task force made of faculty, students and staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report within 90 daysSo, she's going to punt this into February of next year, and hope everyone forgets about it. With leaders like that, does anyone wonder why people are protesting in the streets?
"Driven by our concern for the safety and health of the students involved in the protest, ..."... we shot them point-blank in the face with pepper spray.
"I can't see any legitimate basis for police action like what is shown here. Watch that first minute and think how we'd react if we saw it coming from some riot-control unit in China, or in Syria. The calm of the officer who walks up and in a leisurely way pepper-sprays unarmed and passive people right in the face? We'd think: this is what happens when authority is unaccountable and has lost any sense of human connection to a subject population. That's what I think here."posted by ericb at 12:34 PM on November 19, 2011 [16 favorites]
Deutch’s amendment, called the Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy (OCCUPIED) Amendment, would overturn the Citizens United decision, re-establishing the right of Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance laws, and to effectively outlaw the ability of for-profit corporations to contribute to campaign spending.posted by Rhaomi at 12:57 PM on November 19, 2011 [20 favorites]
Deutch’s amendment, called the Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy (OCCUPIED) Amendment, would overturn the Citizens United decision, re-establishing the right of Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance laws, and to effectively outlaw the ability of for-profit corporations to contribute to campaign spending."
“The problem with protests and the political process is that it is very easy, no matter how big the protest is, for the politicians to simply wait until the people go home. And then they can ignore you.”There is a very simple reason why working for candidates gets you nothing but working for your own ideals achieves lots : You force the candidates into falling in line behind you rather than simply falling in line behind them.
“Well, Occupy Wall Street [is] a little different. Back in 2008, I wrote that when we will actually see change is when the people come, they set up camp, and they refuse to go home. That appears to be happening now.”
--Karl Denninger, Tea party cofounder, stating his support for the Occupy Wall Street movement and hoping it can learn from the Tea party's mistakes during an interview with RT.com. (via)
I would like to reiterateposted by Flunkie at 5:59 PM on November 19, 2011
I would like to reiterate
This is not a negotiation
This is not a negotiation
This is not a hostage situation
This is not a hostage situation
She can just walk home
She can just walk home
For pepper spray, we've tested a number of substances rumored to help which haven't, including: whole milk, bioshield, baby shampoo, bentonite clay, and rescue remedy. Three other substances which didn't work on pepper spray but are rumored to be helpful with tear gas: baking soda in water, vinegar and water, and lemon juice and water.It doesn't sound as if vinegar is very effective even against tear gas. Most sites call it "just a barrier," that it can't neutralize the gas because both are acidic, and that instead what happens is that when the gas encounteres a moist surface it just situates the first reaction at the moist face/bandanna barrier instead of in the throat, though it will penetrate the throat given a few more seconds. It's mentioned that water is just as good at this.It looks like there's just a ton of misinformation and half-correct information out there.
We also recommend minimizing skin exposure by covering up. A bandana soaked in apple cider vinegar (water if nothing else) and tied tightly around the nose and mouth provides limited protection.Vinegar won't work to counter the effects of pepper spray once it's got into the system - water or liquid antacid and water seem to be indicated for immediate rinsing of the eyes and mouth and topical antacid for treating its immediate effect on the skin.
A bandana soaked in apple cider vinegar (2nd choice is water) and tied tightly around the nose and mouth is a last resort. It is far better than nothing, but is not going to do much for long-term protection, and multiple uses will render it as gassy as the air around you.Both recommend respirators as a preferable alternative, but they are, I think, thinking of events like the G20 summits, where running battles between police and protestors are broadly expected and certainly a lot of gas is going to be flying around. At a peaceful protest, a gas mask would almost certainly represent escalation, and on current form the police would go in with raised batons to pull you out. So the best way to avoid pepper spray is to stay 20 feet away from the police, and if you are prepared to be pepper sprayed in the course of non-violent protest if need be, like the protestors at UC Davis, to accept that it's going to hurt. In the middle ground, some concealable protection could be donned if it was clear that spray was about to be deployed, to stave off the effects for long enough to get clear.
He's a guy who did the wrong thing after administrators forced he and his colleagues out among the students, equipped in such a way that they'd either end up looking like brutes or fools. Put a group of officers in that position and at least one of them will usually act like a brute, figuring it's better than being laughed at and looking powerless.Reminds me of that joke about the Tea Partier and the union guy fighting over the one cookie left, after the fatcat CEO took all the other cookies. Only with different 99%ers: cop vs non-cop citizen, and the fatcat behind the curtain whispering to the cop, "You gonna let them make a fool outta you? Protect your cookie crumbs! Here, military grade weapons for defending yourself against perceived threats!"
From an Occupy Wall Street protest at Lincoln Center, on Dec. 1, 2011. A performance of Philip Glass's Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera has just ended, and in the first three minutes of the video protesters try to get operagoers to ignore the police, walk down the steps, and join the demonstration. Then, after 3:00, Glass recites the closing lines of his opera, which come from the Bhagavad-Gita: "When righteousness withers away and evil rules the land, we come into being, age after age, and take visible shape, and move, a man among men, for the protection of good, thrusting back evil and setting virtue on her seat again."posted by ericb at 11:49 AM on December 3, 2011 [2 favorites]
If you recall, the protestors in New York scored a temporary victory when they sought an injunction from the court in the middle of their eviction.And how'd that work out? If I were participating in Occupy Boston, you'd better believe I'd learn a lesson from that. The NYPD's clearly illegal ignoring the temporary restraining order is precisely what inspired me to get involved in the movement.
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posted by spinifex23 at 10:54 PM on November 14, 2011