Conflict Between Occupy Wall Street Protestors and NYPD Escalating 961
phx_zs writes "Today marks the tenth consecutive day that thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Manhattan, specifically the financial district. ... Sunday marked a change of events as high-ranking NYPD officers exhibited brutal, unprovoked aggression on the peaceful group, reportedly arresting at least 80 people. Many photos and videos have surfaced of NYPD officers slamming protesters on the ground or into parked cars, and in one well-covered incident a NYPD officer (with pending police brutality charges from 2004) maced innocent female protesters point blank for no apparent reason. Many eyewitnesses and several news articles report that the NYPD specifically targeted photographers and media teams streaming the event live on the internet."
Do any Slashdotters have eyewitness reports to share? There seems to be a lot of misinformation originating from all parties involved making it difficult to know how large the protest actually is at this point and whether or not the police are being quite as universally violent as the protestors imply.
Apparently, (Score:4, Insightful)
Lack of news (Score:5, Interesting)
In Canada at least, there has been a serious lack of news about this protest. It's mentioned in passing sometimes, but that's about it. I don't even really know what it's about. I heard "protesting corporate greed in America", but I mean that's a tough thing to protest.. you're basically protesting capitalism..
Anyways, my question is why is there such a media gap about this protest? Is it on purpose (tin foil hat), or is it just because it's vague and nobody really cares about it, so the media doesn't bother?
Re:Lack of news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lack of news (Score:4, Insightful)
Big government paired with cronyism is not part of capitalism. It never was.
You are soooooo wrong. Big government + cronyism is the default steady state of capitalism. The capitalist system can have no other outcome. Wealth concentrates. The rich use it to brainwash the masses and pay for political favors. The two dynamics amplify each other until you get what we have today. It's inevitable.
Not just Canada (Score:3)
This protest has failed to make headlines in the US as well. The only coverage I've seen is on blogs and Slashdot.
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CNN had a brief blurb. Huffington post is covering it. NY times had something. Google it.
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Probably because it is not a tea party protest.
Those things seem to get a LOT of news reports these days...about how violent they are, etc....
If it isn't a protest by a conservative group...well, the mainstream press doesn't seem to feel the need to take much interest in it...
Then again..I don't see fox on it either....so, maybe both sides have a reason to ignore it....
Re: (Score:3)
I think you misread me. I meant that many news reports, on the left/liberal side or those giving speeches about the TP (Shelia Jackson Lee and the like) constantly berate the TP as having meetings that are violent, express and advocate violence as part of their platform....but no, there isn't any documentation to this fact in reality. Yet, you see violence show up at left/liberal protest...li
Re:Not just Canada (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh for fuck's sake. I saw coverage of this crap on CNN on the 18th. Two weeks ago.
The reason it isn't getting much coverage in the major media is because it is a couple hundred dirty twenty-somethings (I'm barely not a dirty twenty-something, judgement not particularly intended) complaining that a bunch of rich people are rich.
And they don't even understand what they are complaining about; sure, the government bail out of the banks was a bit of a raw deal for the taxpayer (I bet the protesters don't have much to complain about there) and a bit of a terrific deal for the bank, but the thing no taxpayer wants to talk about is that their entire existence is made better by some sort of stability/existence of the dollar. The richer taxpayers really don't want to talk about all the fixed income funds of theirs that the bank bailout saved.
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And I am sure there is some police who are being little more harsher then they should be, but I expect the protesters are not as peaceful as this article has you believe. I remember a while ago a friend of a friend who we were having lunch with was stating that she was going to get a bullet proof vest before she went to go protest...
Why because her goal was to egg on the authorities until an "Accident" happened so she can show everyone that she had the higher moral ground.
Wall Street isn't really to blam
Re:Not just Canada (Score:4, Insightful)
Why because her goal was to egg on the authorities until an "Accident" happened so she can show everyone that she had the higher moral ground.
If the authorities do something illegal, then it doesn't matter how much they were "egged on." They're supposed to be trained professionals.
I don't get it with people like you. You're generally anti-government but pro-authority. Don't you see the disconnect there?
--Jeremy
Re:Not just Canada (Score:4, Insightful)
Please don't be so sure. If you recall earlier this past year, there were massive protests in Wisconsin. As someone who personally took place in a lot of them, I know that our media is terrible. For example, during these protests, the rallies were larger than the biggest Tea Party rally ever [go.com], even though it was during a snowstorm in Wisconsin in February. [madison.com] That certainly strikes me as news, but when you turned on CNN, all you saw was a 10-second sound bite on Wisconsin, followed by a 3-minute long piece on the history of the Tea Party in US politics. (I don't have links handy.)
Personally, I don't know enough of the ground truth of what is happening on Wall St. to comment, but I very highly suspect that anything that has been said on any major network news is woefully inaccurate at best.
Re: (Score:3)
Are there any other kind of police?
That was unfair, they are trained to do this and there supervisors surely approve.
Re:Lack of news (Score:5, Informative)
Easy, Bush is not President (Score:5, Insightful)
Wall Street is a major supporter of this administration, if not every administration before this but this one seems to be heavily stacked in favor of Wall Street this time (and I propose that Wall Street isn't the same as what most people know as Big Business)
So the political machine is not behind it, specifically the unions are not in this. Never under estimate the ability to move people when and how needed. Students don't stand a chance (if this is truly student based) and the really big organizations that would gin up a protest on demand when Bush was in office aren't being given marching orders. Since they aren't giving marching orders their contacts in the press don't have reason to report.
See this is this dirty little secret about protests in America now, they have to be sanctioned by the political parties to receive attention. Sponataneous protesting or groupings of people politically are not favored and about anything that can be done to ignore them is done. If they don't go away then they most be portrayed as a whole as having the very worst traits that can be found in individual members .
So until certain political elements need this protest it doesn't exist.
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I live in the US, tend to watch a good bit of news on all the networks (let things balance out a little that way)...and read headlines on the internet.
It has barely made a blip on the 'map' on any n
Re:Lack of news (Score:4, Insightful)
you're basically protesting capitalism..
Basically protesting Crony capitalism. A Big difference there....
Re: (Score:3)
That is not a no true Scotsman argument.
They are protesting the corruption in capitalism, not "basically capitalism"
Re:Lack of news (Score:5, Insightful)
The only permit anybody should need to hold a peaceful protest is the first amendment.
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I don't even really know what it's about. I heard "protesting corporate greed in America", but I mean that's a tough thing to protest.. you're basically protesting capitalism..
I'm not sure the protesters know either.
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THIS!
The people who haven't seen anything about this haven't been paying attention. I've heard "nobody is paying attention!" since day one. Al-Jazeera, MSNBC, CNN, the NY Times, the Guardian, Keith Olbermann on Current TV, and NPR are all sources I've encountered this on, to say nothing of social media. Hell, even Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert covered this. (I don't know if The Daily Show did or not).
The reporting I've seen and heard has all played more or less the same... reporters looking for a sto
Re: (Score:3)
Part of the media gap may be because such an ill-informed, ill-aimed and intellectually diffuse protest is meaningless. Here's an article from the left-leaning NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wall-street-with-faulty-aim.html [nytimes.com]
I would say that coverage in one of the major newspapers of record is hardly a big gap. Certainly less of one than these wastrels seem to deserve.
Re:Lack of news (Score:5, Informative)
A friend of mine works downtown and has a view of the protest, and the reason it isn't getting coverage, is that it has been quite small. I hear that it has been growing in size each day, but last Friday, the number of protesters was laughable, it looked to be about 100 people from the cellphone picture I saw- the plaza they are protesting in is more crowded during rush hour when people are going to/from work. Not much of a protest, especially by NYC standards. I mean every time the UN meets there are gatherings there many times that size.
I also get within a block of that park on my commute home. They certainly aren't making much of a splash, as I don't even notice them. I think this is a very small protest that is getting national media coverage only because its such a provocative subject.
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I should imagine the media in the US are much the same as the UK when it comes to the police. They do not like criticizing them unless someone dies. Even if there is plenty of footage of police hitting unarmed peaceful protesters it will just be reported as "Police Scuffled with Protesters".
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Your post inadvertently reveals why protest is so important here. Capitalism is NOT supposed to be about unbridled greed. Certainly it is not supposed to be about greed that results in scrapping all morals and ethics.Wall Street has come to epitomize everything that capitalism is NOT supposed to be. It is intimately tied to those investment banks that knowingly and willfully risked the entire world's economy in order to extract even more profit from the system, often resorting to outright fraud to do it. Wi
Not really capitalism (Score:3)
you're basically protesting capitalism.
You are? Since when was it capitalism that when an investor (or many) made failed investments, the government would jump in and cover their losses? The banks did badly. The "Capitalist" reaction to that, from the government should have been "OK. So what? Good luck". Instead the government took tax-payer money and started shoring up those failed investments. If it hadn't been for this government stupidity, which is 100% the opposite of capitalism, the crisis of 2008 would have been significantly worse, but e
Re: (Score:3)
why is there such a media gap about this protest?
Manufacturing Consent [youtube.com]
The film presents and illustrates Chomsky's and Herman's thesis that corporate media, as profit-driven institutions, tend to serve and further the agendas of the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society. A centerpiece of the film is a long examination of the history of The New York Times' coverage of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which Chomsky says exemplifies the media's unwillingness to criticize an ally of the elite.
Re:Lack of news (Score:4, Informative)
Anything critical of capitalism - or corporatism, really, 'cause they are not the same - is simply not covered anymore. The protestors are considered pinks by the people who own things, among which are the people who own all the media outlets, and by extension, hire the reporters who cover the events. A reporters who would try to present anti-corporate discussion, other than with derision, would soon be marginalized and then unemployed and unemployable. See what happened 2001-2003 to the very few reporters who tried to disagree with the march to war. They were dumped and disgraced, never to be heard from again. Any reporter knows what happens to any reporter writing to the left of Reagan - you gone.
Re:Lack of news (Score:4, Insightful)
One thing that the people who purposefully conflate capitalism and corporatism fail to mention all the time is that in "Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith was talking about small communities doing deals one-on-one. At the time the corporation wasn't in vogue and Adam Smith thought it was an outdated concept.
Secondly, Adam Smith didn't like monopolies or banks that were "too big to fail" in today's lingo. The ultimate goal of corporatism is working towards a monopoly or trust.
Anyway... a point that can be drawn from this is that you don't need corporations for capitalism to work and, furthermore, the corporation could work against capitalism in the long run.
Being against corporations having too much power and too many rights is not automatically anti-capitalist.
Re:Lack of news (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also a huge difference between equitable capitalism and a feudal system under the the guise of capitalism using corporations as proxies of power for the "noble class".
Re: (Score:3)
Just like Iran, Tunisa, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria, the people in power in America don't want you to know and are more than willing to manipulate the media to keep you blissfully ignorance of their tyranny. Some of those have have fallen, and others have tightened their grasp and brutalized their own people.
have fun protesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone should be protesting, and have the right to protest.
Police that don't understand the right to protest should be charged and removed from work ( fired if the attack is unprovoked )
One sad thing that protesters bring upon themselves is when then charge forward and attempt to become menacing, that in the eye's of the police looks like an attack. They will respond with an overwhelming amount of force. Which is sad, since a peaceful protest goal is for the attention of the problem and to have those in power look and find a solution.
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If they had their permits and weren't breaking any laws, then they should be there.
Nice to see the first amendment requiring permits just like the 2nd ...
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of
Re: (Score:3)
There's lots of protesting for you to do then. Basically every public building has a maximum occupancy, set by some level of Government! The fire marshal is taking away your rights!
Re:have fun protesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Permits for assembly are in violation of the First Amendment. It's not the protest that's illegal, it's the government itself.
Somehow the "law and order" crowd always exempts itself from following the law.
Re:have fun protesting (Score:5, Informative)
If you're doing civil disobedience then you know you are breaking the law and, this in an important and, you accept the punishment for doing so if it is brought against you.
Your cause is more valuable than what the punishment takes away.
If you're just trying to get a message out without the civil disobedience being a protestor isn't a magical get out of jail free card for when you over step your bounds.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And being a police officer isn't a free ticket to smashing somebody's face in.
Being arrested should be the legal and reasonable answer to illegal activity (civil disobedience or no). Being assaulted is not.
Re:have fun protesting (Score:5, Insightful)
When I peacefully protest or commit an act of peaceful civil disobedience, I fully expect to be charged for violating the law, and have legal charges brought against me. I expect to have to spend some time in jail, or pay a fine, if I break a law. What I do not expect, though, is having my face smashed into a parked car, being beaten by police officers for non-violently refusing to disperse, etc. I expect that my infractions against the legal system will be responded to withing the limits of the legal system.
Violent attacks against peaceful protesters is exactly the kind of police behavior that we usually heavily criticize when they are committed by police in various totalitarian regimes.
Re: (Score:3)
Either you a: allow people to protest or b: say that they break the law, causing civil disobedience and massive riots.
Depends on which law you disobey. If the actions they take are violent (in addition to being illegal), then it's not a civil disobedience. It's "violent protests." So your point is off key, while the gp's point is on key.
Re:have fun protesting (Score:4, Insightful)
When the first protest resulted in destruction of property you lose the ability to claim peaceful. Being forceful with the police and taunting them does nothing to change that perception or to create the perception that it was a tiny rogue minority. Sorry but these people came with the intent of being annoying and disruptive and then complain when they get treated like they are annoying and disruptive.
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http://www.nyclu.org/publications/palm-card-demonstrating-new-york-city-2009 [nyclu.org]
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Suppose your neighbor stands on the sidewalk in front of your house and shouts political slogans through a bullhorn at 3AM. You can call the cops and the First Amendment doesn't keep them from arresting him, as long as that's what they always do in cases like this. What they can't do is listen to the guy and treat him differently based on whether they agree or disagree with him.
What the long-standing interpretation of the First Amendment is in such cases is this: the government may regulate the *manner* of
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sorry, were the protesters "peacefully assembling" in someone's living room? Or on a public street? I missed that part. And by the way, I think you have herring in your teeth. Looks kinda red.
Any reliable coverage? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there any reliable coverage outside of these first person blogs?
Re:Any reliable coverage? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell has an excellent report (Score:3, Informative)
He excoriates the police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UHsLccXQUY [youtube.com]
Videos I've seen (Score:3, Insightful)
And I know I'll probably take a karma hit for this, but I'm still not posting AC, because I am trying to point out what I see as a major hypocrisy in the US protest culture these days: entrapment on the part of police is always decried as immoral, wrong, or illegal, but it is perfectly fine for protestors to entrap police.
Re: (Score:3)
If you watch the clip of Lawrence O'Donnell's commentary, as posted by itsybitsy, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UHsLccXQUY [youtube.com], he promises to post the complete, unedited video of the protest on his MSNBC blog. Have a look to see if there's any intentional misleading of the protestors actions.
And I think you're completely off the mark about perceived hypocrisy - if it's anyone getting away with entrapment, it's the cops.
Re:Videos I've seen (Score:5, Informative)
You mustn't be looking hard enough. Techdirt has a post with links to at least four videos of the same incident, all from different angles. With plenty of time before the cop comes up and shoots the women directly in the face with pepper spray. Even the blue shirts around him appear surprised.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110927/09480916110/can-nypd-back-up-its-claim-confrontation-that-required-pepper-spray-despite-more-video-evidence.shtml [techdirt.com]
Re:Videos I've seen (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to be universal that the police force attracts pricks who act out violently. It is only going to get worse when all the rapist, torturer, child murderer soldiers we have in Iraq and Afghanistan come back home and become cops (A CV that lists prior job skills as "killing people" doesn't apply to much other than being a cop).
I know you're trolling, but this is ridiculous. I know many police officers and veterans of Iraq/Afghanistan. None of them have raped or tortured anyone. None of the police I know have killed anyone, and most of the soldiers I know never even fired a shot while in Iraq/A-stan. These "rapists/murderers" are the reason you are still allowed to say things like that about them. Without them you would probably have died or been imprisoned long ago. And notice how, above, I made sure I was logged in when I posted my controversial opinion. You didn't even have the balls to log in for your trolling. These people risk their lives so you can spew this crap, to protect you and your rights that you don't even deserve to have.
Re: (Score:3)
Although I agree that the GP was out of line, I must take exception with your statement:
These people risk their lives so you can spew this crap, to protect you and your rights that you don't even deserve to have.
Perhaps you don't realize this, but the rights mentioned by you are accorded to everyone simply because they are human - deserving them or not does not come into the picture. The idea that some people deserve rights, while others don't, is often a key ingredient to (apparent) overreactions like this article is about. You might want to rethink these words, as they seem to have been typed in anger, rather than in reflecti
Protest - permit required (Score:3)
Re:Protest - permit required (Score:5, Insightful)
Under current case law the permit system is largely allowed, though it may violate the Constitution depending on how it's applied. The government may place "reasonable" "time, place and manner" restrictions on protests in order to maintain public order and safety, but is not supposed to prohibit protests entirely, or treat them differently based on the content of the protest (this is easiest to show if they treat protestors for and against some position differently).
I don't, for the record, think that interpretation of the Constitution is correct. Were it up to me, I would treat public protest similarly to publication: the government may prosecute actually illegal activity (libel for publication, or violence in the case of protests) if it ever takes place, but there should be an extremely high bar for prior restraint through anything like a permitting or imprimatur system before the speech even takes place.
Re:Protest - permit required (Score:4, Insightful)
Say I own a small electronic repair store along a major street that also runs past the state capitol. People want to demonstrate against the state government, so thousands of people march down the street, clogging traffic and keeping people from entering my store. Now, while the government may(or may not) have done something wrong, obviously I have not. There is no way you could justify (morally, ethically, or legally) denying me my right to make a living and feed my family to protest something with which I have had no part in. This is why many cities have permits or designated areas for protests to be legally carried out.
Re: (Score:3)
Once there are ten thousand people in one location it's damn hard for the cops to do anything without being horribly brutal. Moreover if you stuff ten thousand people in one location with no control it's damn easy for the thing to go horribly wrong (see London recently) before the cops even get there. Humans in groups do not behave like rational individuals, they behave like herd animals. Just look at every store in the US on Black Friday.
And that's without anyone, on whichever side (which includes third pa
Re: (Score:3)
Well, you're going to put a hell of a lot of pressure on your representatives to capitulate and get those protesters off your sidewalk, right? This is how protests work.
"That's a nice electronic business you got here. It would be a shame if any
Re: (Score:3)
Who said anything about attacking?
One of earlier posters:
"keeping people from entering my store" is a serious interference with business. This particular anarchy is 10 days old. With low margins of commodity services that electronic repair guy could be bankrupt by now.
If you don't think this is a real attack, let me surround your house with hostile hippies, so that you can't safely enter and your wife and your kid can't safely leave, for ten days. The hippies probably won't hit or stab any of you, bu
I hope they're not trying to disrupt the market (Score:4, Insightful)
because to do that they'd have to be in Secaucus, NJ.
Not much to report. (Score:5, Insightful)
No real agenda, no real leadership, no real solutions, no real propose.
Frankly just causing more harm than good and now Moore to make things even worse.
He will make a movie about it, his Dittoheads will go and feel all righteously indignant and he will collect another nice paycheck.
If you say it is the Republicans fault you are just a drone.
If you say it is the Democrats fault you are just a drone.
If you say that President Obama is all to blame you are a troll.
If you say that none of it is President Obama's fault you are a mindless fanboi.
If you think that being a Democrate makes you better than a Republican you are a fool.
If you think that being a Republican makes you better than Democrate you are fool.
If you are a Libertarian well your just in fantasy land.
The solution.
Talk less, listen more, stop treating elections like sporting events, stop vilifying those that disagree with you, and vote in the primaries.
Oh and treat the election like this, this is a job interview and you are the boss. Grill them and then pick.
And don't waste your time sitting on the street eating donated pizza and babbling.
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Well, the important thing is that inarticulate people parroting a form of lowbrow cynicism have found a way to feel superior to those who care about things and take sides on issues.
You are deluded about the nature of US government (Score:3, Informative)
You speak as if elections matter in the USA. I think you've not been paying close attention, else you are deluded. The two branches of the Money Party each field a candidate, and you get to choose between them. That's effectively one party government. The (mostly) young people protesting in New York have figured this out. I'm surprised you have not.
Also, I'd like to point out that these kids are using the same non-violent resistance techniques that have toppled multiple governments worldwide in the p
Protest is in the news & has a goal (Score:5, Informative)
The protesters are actually fairly well organized with planned events, a voting process for making immediate decisions, and a goal of getting Obama to acknowledge the wealth gap and appointing a commission to recommend actions for dealing with it.
The "traditional" media is indeed ignoring it. There's an on-going debate on twitter about whether or not the twitter admins are actively suppressing the #occupywallstreet hash-tag from trending.
Actually, I was just there. (Score:5, Informative)
I just took my lunch break off from work to check out the protest in Liberty Square. There seems to be about as many people there - staying with sleeping bags - as the small park can hold. It's no bigger than a block, and a small one at that. The estimates of about 200 people staying in the park are likely accurate.
From my understanding after talking with some of the protesters there, the incidents in New York happened when they attempted to march through the streets. In addition, I found out that the numbers of people over the weekend were not just limited to the people staying in the park; there are a lot of people who are not roughing it in the concerete jungle of NYC and are staying with friends or relatives during 'off period times' of the protest.
I can't speak to any police brutality during my brief visit. The protest was extremely peaceful while I was there (unless you consider a drum circle violent), but I did see several of the officers in the YouTube videos present at the square - although noticeably they were not the ones who perpetuated or committed any act of brutality (although you could argue they did nothing to prevent it). In fact, the officers I did recognize were the ones who had doubtful expressions on their faces in most of the videos. The officers were mostly staying out of it. There were also no "white shirts" there - the higher ranking officers whom, over the weekend, seemed to be largely responsible for the more egregious assaults. I also heard that some 100 officers refused to patrol the protest after the incidents over the weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if the commissioner or someone else "gave the department a talking to".
IMHO, it's really hard to discount the video evidence that there was unjustified force, given the multiple angles of the YouTube videos available.
I've heard some people say that some of the protesters' were "over-reacting" to the actions of the police. I think that is ridiculous. I would love to see how anyone would react to being pulled across a concrete street by four armed men. Additionally, one of the women maced in the YouTube video was deaf , and thats why she was screaming at a great volume.
It's not unheard of for police officers to attempt to arrest people videotaping them - and given a recent ruling in a Federal Appeals Court that declared video taping a police officer a constitutional right, [peacefreed...perity.com] the actions of some of those officers was foolish and irresponsible, a fact probably made more evident to not just the public, but their superior officers, by their absence today.
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The estimates of about 200 people staying in the park are likely accurate.
Wait, I thought the /. summary said "the tenth consecutive day that thousands of protesters..."?
Re:Actually, I was just there. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
There are only 200 people staying within the park, as in camping with sleeping bags and plastic bags for shelter. There are thousands who are participating that are staying elsewhere in the city.
I was being a little snarky, but I'd love to get some kind of real confirmation of that. You said you saw 200 people. You seemed to be saying those people told you there were thousands more. Where are they? None of the videos I've seen seem to indicate thousands of people. We have protests here in the Bay Area, too, so I have a pretty decent idea of what a crowd of thousands of people would look like. What I'm seeing in these videos looks like a few hundred loosely-organized people, most of whom are just si
phx_xs numbers are inflated (Score:3)
I hope the protesters up their game a bit (Score:4)
Hopefully it will turn out like this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article515384.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
I had plenty of experience with anti-CIA recruitment protesters in college, and the charming anti-Republican protesters last year in St Paul. I really couldn't imagine possibly feeling sorry for them. They're repellent self-righteous zealots who are utterly obnoxious regardless of their cause, or even whether they're right or not. Even if I'd agreed with their point of view, I'd want them off my side.
Mace versus pepper spray (Score:5, Informative)
What it's about. (Score:5, Insightful)
The OccupyWallStreet activists have, so far (this is Day 11 of the protest), been unable to articulate much their philosophy or objectives. There is no single leader; some of them are undirected anarchists, some are communists, and some seem to have no coherent viewpoint.
The clash with police referenced in the article, during a march from lower Manhattan to Union Square and back, actually occurred on Saturday. On Sunday, the protesters were visited by journalist Chris Hedges, who gave an excellent interview (even if you don't agree with his politics or anything else). The full interview is posted at http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/chris-hedges-occupy-wall-street-is-where-the-hope-of-america-lies/ [rawstory.com] [rawstory.com]
Chris Hedges is the first person who has been able to clearly summarize the position of the protesters. Although, it's really just his own viewpoint--some of the activists view Hedges as a "reformer, not a revolutionary" and therefore not a spokesman for their movement--it's the best statement that has emerged from Zuccotti Park since this thing started. Hedges makes it clear that he views the two dominant political parties in the US as equally corrupt and controlled by corporate interests. The corporate media will try to ignore this protest as much as possible, as it does not fit the political agenda of any major news organization.
Personally, I disagree with most, if not all, of what these protesters say, but I emphatically support their right to say it. The behavior of the NYPD was disgusting.
I live a block away (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the gist:
*) There are no "Wall St" firms on Wall St anymore (nor anywhere close). NYSE trading floor is not that important in grand scheme of things. The neighbourhood became residential about 15 years ago, and now there's 20,000 residents like me.
*) When the protest started (two weeks ago), there were minimal number of protesters (1000) despite the protesters claims to have 20k people.
*) There's "OVER 9000" cops downtown, and it makes getting around quite annoying since I have to navigate police barriers (not a big deal, but just annoying). There's definitely more cops than protesters at any given area. At the beginning of protest, they had a 2-cop shoulder-to-shoulder line blocking Wall St. The only protesters were 6 people dressed in white robes (could pass for either Star Wars freaks or priests), cops were quite bored.
*) Cops are polite and keep to their business (that is, stand there and look serious). I can't say same about the protesters.
*) Protesters themselves...oy. Whatever it is they are protesting, they are an embarassment to their cause. I've chatted to a few, and had a few come over for drinks, and uh...Well, it's exactly what you'd expect, well-meaning but clueless younger people who are looking for attention and "feeling of doing something".
*) They protest evil corporations. Nevertheless, most of them have latest iphone4 (just look at the videos - they are ones taping). It doesn't bother them that Apple is largest corporation in the world who isn't very nice to its users.
*) There's a huge number of DSLRs at the protest - combined with iphone4, means nobody there is really starving.
*) I started speaking to one of protesters about bitcoin. He was very interested in it and buying some if they are likely to appreciate. He was *shocked* when I pointed out that's exactly what "evil bankers" do.
*) Cops don't really give a damn about protesters. They are charged with enforcing certain rules - such as, no "permanent structures". So, every so often, a cop walks through the protest site checking things out. Each time a cop does so, there's 10 people with cameras surrounding said cop to make sure any "brutality" gets videotaped. It gets quite silly since these kids don't really understand they need to move away for a cop to walk through (and since they are looking into their viewfinder, they don't realize that the cop is a foot away, resulting in a cop having to push the photographer out of the way - "omg brutality").
*) Protesters are completely disorganized - there's nobody who is "in charge", which leads to interactions with cops that could go much smoother, if a single person was designated to be liaison to cops. Protesters also can't/won't police their own - so if someone does something illegal, its becomes up to cops to enforce (vs, protesters saying "this is not cool, please do not do it" and avoiding police involvement).
*) When cops walk by, most protesters just ignore them, continuing with conversations etc. However, there are a few who get "in your face" to cops and start shouting/etc - and yes, I'd say that the protesters are trying to provoke conflict, whether they intend to or not.
*) As far as professionalism goes, I'd say cops are generally acting professional, if bored and annoyed at having to deal with hippies who hate their guts.
*) There is serious "victim mentality" among protesters - such as "media is suppressing coverage" (no, its just not important enough - the protest is much smaller than an average union rally).
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Re:Policy City-State (Score:5, Insightful)
The "pendulum" will not even begin to swing back until the people:
1) Withdraw all of their savings from the big banks.
2) Reclaim personal control over the money in their IRAs or 401Ks or 403Bs or whatever, and invest it themselves instead of letting corrupt corporations use these assets for their own goals.
3) Place a value on the dollar that is connected to real-world resources and human advancement instead of some false "economy" construct that is programmed into them by their slave-masters.
Street protests are stupid and futile. Many of the idiots who are getting beaten by the cops have credit/debit cards, savings/checking accounts, retirement accounts, etc with the very corporations against which they protest.
Promote change by moving your money,not raising your voice. That the ONLY kind of change that will affect the financial "institutions".
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Basically he likes peace and free trade
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The market value of a house really does correlate with
Re:Policy City-State (Score:4)
Sonny, sonny, sonny.
First you ask, "Don't believe me?" And then you fail to provide any coherent proof of your hypothesis.
Then you attempt to assign homework.
Your homework should have been to discover facts that actually support your hypothesis, along with some explanation of their support.
And until you can get an A+... stay off my lawn!
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Lemme give an example. The Tea Party. The very name of the "movement" is a perversion of history.
The Tea Party was not a revolt against a tax increase on tea. It was a revolt against a tax removal on tea by the British Parliament designed to benefit the crown corporation. The Tea Party was an anti-corporate rebellion, for godsakes, yet somehow the "Tea Party" of today gets their history wrong in the very meaning of their name! And no one points it out in all the years since they formed, not in any debate or
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I appreciate your general view on this but I respectfully disagree. In the urban jungles, "controls" of this sort might be more readily accepted, but if this were attempted in, say, Texas (my home state) you would see something else occur in response. And frankly, I don't see how or where the police forces I have known in Texas even attempting what is being done in New York city. (That's not to say they don't do bad things in Texas... they do! Lots of injustice to go around.)
But then again, I don't imagi
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Re:Policy City-State (Score:4, Funny)
Well... yes and no.
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Re:Policy City-State (Score:5, Interesting)
The level of violence of U.S. cops "on the scene" is pretty surprising by most civilized standards. I will agree it's not a "police state" because the biggest marker of those is what happens more generally if you're arrested (e.g. do thousands of people get disappeared?). In the U.S. a typical arrested protestor will just be released, sometimes cited, though occasionally prosecutors do go overboard with charges intended to intimidate. There are a handful of more worrying terrorism detention-without-trial cases, but I haven't heard of that being used in relation to street protests.
It does seem strange that the level of violence on-the-scene is needed, though. Sure, it's not mowing people down, Tiananmen style, but it seems pretty excessive. I don't know if it's an attempt to scare off "normal" people from showing up (which leads to a vicious cycle of only more-extreme people being willing to show up), or if it's just the individual work of not-very-disciplined cops.
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You have a couple of things going on.
You have a handful of weirdos who wouldn't get attention if they didn't provoke the police into some kind of action.
You have some number of police who are willing to cross the line, or who have too short a fuse for this kind of work.
You have people only posting the interesting bits of video, such that observers get a skewed view of the scene.
If you actually live in NYC and venture through these "protests", you see a bunch of people standing around and you wonder what all
Re:Policy City-State (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've experienced living in a police-state, you're well aware that agents provocateur are standard tools of the trade. What reason do you have to believe that they're not being used here?
Which makes more sense? A peaceful protest being held for a week suddenly turning violent for no apparent reason? Or police tolerating a peaceful protest for a week, at which point they find or make excuses to turn the protest into a riot?
Re:Policy City-State (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember Seattle? No-one does, accurately. Long, peaceful protests against the corporations, then suddenly: Anarchists! OMG! At least a dozen, springing from the protesters, smashing and running and breaking and somehow, not getting caught. Then, of course, in immediate sync, governments across the world instituted a world police state in which the very act of protest caused police violence. In Canada, the UK, the US. Very convenient.
I'd bet much that most "anarchists" are specially trained agents of god-knows-who, governments, quasi-govercorporPR ad hoc committess, whatever. They activate and infiltrate, then disappear.
End result: anti-war protest, Chicago, 2003-ish, where I personally witnessed every unmarked cop car in the city parked on lower Wacker drive, poised to take on Armageddon, or as we know them, anti-violence peace marchers. They rounded everyone up and arrested them. We've not had a mass peace march since. Not to mention the media channels broadcasting nothing but "these pinks are holding up rush hour!", instead of examining WHY the war to come was insane - as it was. The protestors were right, and the cops and everyone else were wrong.Too damned bad no one cared to cover them other than commie-pro-Islam crazies. We'd have about a million more live Iraqi innocents, and twenty thousand fewer brave Americans with their junk burned off.
Re:Policy City-State (Score:4, Insightful)
If the authorities really wanted to keep things civil, they would do something about the elite minority committing wholesale theft against everyone else in the country. They also might try to uphold constitutionally protected rights, or not pepper spray kettled peaceful protesters in the face, or impose disciplinary action on those who represent them poorly instead of promoting such despicable activity.
Re:Policy City-State (Score:5, Insightful)
On November 17, 1989, a massive student demonstration took place in Prague. This, by itself, was not all that unusual - another took place the day before in Bratislava, and others took place from time to time in all large cities. What was unusual, though, was the police brutality. They attacked the peaceful protesters to the extent that rumors started circulating that one of the students died. This sparked the "Velvet revolution" that overthrew the police state in Slovakia. What we see here is a similar scenario: instead of lack of basic freedoms we have an economic crisis that started a series of protests. Police is showing a comparable level of brutality. Fortunately, largely thanks to much more fragmented information system with mainstream media downplaying the protests (in Czechoslovakia, the only two TV stations sided with the protesters and informed the public about the police brutality), the brutality on Wall Street won't grow into a much larger movement.
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Re:So this is the new Slashdot? (Score:4, Informative)
Slashdot is also for "stuff that matters".
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I don't see the old slogan on the front page anymore but, when I started coming here, almost 14 years ago, it was "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters".
This stuff matters.
Re:doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
If you couldn't have all three, a black man wouldn't be the president. American history is full of occupations of public and private spaces for civil and worker rights, and they worked in the 30s as well as in the 60s. That's why you have a 40 hour workweek and the right to vote regardless of your gender or skin color.
But what would an uneducated crypto fascist like you know about that?
Don't let Reality hit your ass on the way out (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you even watch any of the videos? Did you even look into this at all? I can't understand how you could have done so and still hold such an opinion.
As far as I can tell, I don't agree with any of these people protesting. I am pretty much convinced their protests are ineffective and a waste of time, and that the individuals involved may, in fact, be wastes of perfectly good protoplasm.
THAT BEING SAID, there is no excuse for the behavior of the NYPD in this incident. The behavior of the NYPD Commanders during this protest has been disgusting, immoral, illegal, and against everything we as a Nation are supposed to stand for. But what is even more disgusting is how the NYPD immediately closed ranks on this matter, excusing their behavior as completely reasonable. What is even MORE disgusting than that, however, is citizens such as yourself who are willing to give the Police a blank check to do whatever they want to people you dislike or don't agree with.
Shame on you. You aren't worthy to lick the boots of those who shed blood to secure the rights you'd see others denied.
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Right, cause I've never been to a well-organized, peaceful and leftist protest.. Oh except for pretty much every well-organized protest I've been to.
Stop blowing smoke out of your ass.
Re:doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
The video was a single continuous shot. Nothing was edited out of it, and anyone can tell this just by watching it, as I did. All your comment proves is that you're an idiot.
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If you watched that video you'd see it was completely unprovoked. If I knew any of those women I'd probably arrange to have him kidnapped and pepper-sprayed repeatedly for about an hour since his identity is known.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
as of 2005, top 5% of american society takes 72% of everything. bottom 85% (includes YOU), take only 15%.
in medieval western europe, the law of the land was in the below manner :
lord gets 33% of produce from fields>
church gets 33% of produce from fields>
serfs get 33% of produce from fields.
no lord could ever dream of being able to actually take 72% of economy, and a medieval peasant would be pitying a modern 'well to do' person in terms of the share of the wealth he is taking from at a measly 15% - for, he, as a medieval peasant, got double the rate you are currently getting from your society's wealth.
thats what happens when you get a job. you live TWICE worse off than a medieval serf.
moron. the one whose skull should be cracked is you. you are dragging the average level of humanity down. and if you made your name and address available, im sure someone from new york could offer you the courtesy in a back alley.
Re:fool. (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay then. How much of the land did the peasants own?