Occupy Oakland: One of the most sickening things I have heard

She added, "Occupy Oakland has a policy that has been passed through the General Assembly that we do not negotiate with politicians and we do not involve political parties."

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com...

Forgive me if this has been posted as I neglected to search if it was. I just arrived from class and while on the internet I found this and just had to post it as soon as I got home.

I do understand that Occupy Wall Street is badly organized but each group has one common goal: To change the government and fix the economy. Some groups may think they have the right solution some think others have the wrong solution. I am 100% for Occupy Wall Street, and the newer Occupy protests I will defend as people are stepping up to change their local governments as well.

But how can any change com about if they won't negotiate with politicians? And the mayor??? Come on. I mean i am for actively participating in these reform movements but seriously? What does Oakland hope to accomplish if they do not negotiate with their politicians? That's where the changes hit big.

"If individuals called the mayor's office they do not represent Occupy Oakland."

This is also sickening. But folks. "...do not represent Occupy Oakland"? They need to call the mayor's office. They need to work to remove, purify, and change politicians. How can that happen If Oakland won't contact the mayor. I hope they discuss in their council meeting. Hopefully someone there is smart enough to realize what's needed to be done. They need to keep in touch with their politicians so that they have a way of getting through to washington.

But how can any change com about if they won't negotiate with politicians? And the mayor??? Come on. I mean i am for actively participating in these reform movements but seriously? What does Oakland hope to accomplish if they do not negotiate with their politicians? That's where the changes hit big.

I'm afraid the answer to that isn't one the OWS leadership cadre really want talked about much right now. The solution is simple, though. It isn't to change the system from within or even from influence brought to bear from the outside. Listen to their own words coming right out of General Assembly and statements out of Leadership members. The solution is to BRING DOWN the system entirely....not fix it.

This would be why they are losing some of their more intelligent and promising people who could really bring things to assist with a protest. People such as myself and others who want to protest...don't fit it well with a revolution...and that seems to be the mindset and ideal of some big camp locations...like Oakland, based on those statements.

More power to them.....I guess....I just ask they stop talking as if 99% of the United States population is for their brand of revolt. That's absurd. We aren't...and 99% are likely to fight back if the public face of OWS these days are also those who actually fantasize having real power in this new world they seem to want. No way..No way in hell.

reply to post by mr10k


Politicians are mere sock puppets of Wall Street and the top 1%...why would you wanna talk to sock puppets until the system is fixed?

From the link in the OP.

Things got testy, however, when another member of the media committee, Shake Anderson, said participants in the encampment outside City Hall had called the mayor's office early Thursday to disavow the people who were causing damage.

Heller interrupted him, saying that Occupy Oakland had not cooperated with the mayor. "If individuals called the mayor's office they do not represent Occupy Oakland."

She added, "Occupy Oakland has a policy that has been passed through the General Assembly that we do not negotiate with politicians and we do not involve political parties."

I hope that Heller person gets voted off the media committee. Her statements seem in direct contrast to where the movement nationwide is going.

This adheres fully to the following :


THE OFFICIAL STANCE OF THE #OOCUPYEVERYTHING - OCCUPY TOGETHER - #OCCUPYWALLSTREET MOVEMENTS AND ALL ASSOCIATED MARCHES & OCCUPATIONS THROUGHOUT THE PLANET CURRENTLY :

This group wants absolutely nothing to do with the corrupt 2 party oligarchy as both have been bought and paid by the banks, The Federal Reserve and Wall Street and does not need nor require money from 1%'rs and to say anything otherwise is a major dis service to this group and movement as a whole as we see people like Soros as being apart of the problem and does not endorse millionaires or billionaires. No corporate dollars are welcomed and if one were to attempt to finance this movement it would be rejected and returned with a note saying "No sale!"!

To believe anything else means you are being seriously deceived and tricked and said source should not be trusted or taken seriously and if it does not come from the aforementioned it is not to be taken as the official stance. No General Assembly in any group throughout the planet will amend this ever!

All are welcomed from all faiths, ethnic groups, political persuasions, LBGTI, animal and kid friendly as we will not discriminate, we will be friendly to all. Illicit narcotics (marijuana to meth while all scrips prescribed to a fellow protester are obviously allowed) and liquor (all forms) use are banned and will get someone expelled and turned over to law enforcement. Come as you are! Remember, there is no member of the 1% that is on this website which means we are all The 99%!

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000

But how can any change com about if they won't negotiate with politicians? And the mayor??? Come on. I mean i am for actively participating in these reform movements but seriously? What does Oakland hope to accomplish if they do not negotiate with their politicians? That's where the changes hit big.

I'm afraid the answer to that isn't one the OWS leadership cadre really want talked about much right now. The solution is simple, though. It isn't to change the system from within or even from influence brought to bear from the outside. Listen to their own words coming right out of General Assembly and statements out of Leadership members. The solution is to BRING DOWN the system entirely....not fix it.

This would be why they are losing some of their more intelligent and promising people who could really bring things to assist with a protest. People such as myself and others who want to protest...don't fit it well with a revolution...and that seems to be the mindset and ideal of some big camp locations...like Oakland, based on those statements.

More power to them.....I guess....I just ask they stop talking as if 99% of the United States population is for their brand of revolt. That's absurd. We aren't...and 99% are likely to fight back if the public face of OWS these days are also those who actually fantasize having real power in this new world they seem to want. No way..No way in hell.

See, this is why you won't ever change anything. No offense meant here, it's just that with the state of the system, little tweakings won't change anything.

So how would you protest? What would you do? I challenge you to go out there and protest like you think we should. If it's good enough, people will follow you.

Just as a side note here, the Occupy movement does not represent the 99%, and they never claimed to. They ARE the 99%, you are as well. They do NOT represent the 99%, you don't. The thing is that no one can claim to represent the 99%, because it's basically the whole population. You'd have to represent every single people's movement, religion, culture, and so on. Just impossible.

Anyone claiming to represent the 99% is simply in misconception. I had a deep talk on this with one of the OWS occupant (yes, I often go to OWS and I'm going to college, have a job, and I'm not a dirty public defecating hippy...who would have thought! ).

What they do represent though, is the people's ultimate goal: financial equalities (even though the movement is now way more than just economics).

So here's the thing, the problem is too big for the politicians to change something. Politicians will tweak the system, bring reforms. That's not the aim here, what OWS want is the system to go away, and bring forth a new fair system.

But then deniers go on saying "how can you accomplish that without dealing with politicians?". Right now, the movement is too small, all it is doing is spread the knowledge and more or less wake some people up to the fact that our system is unfair. Who didn't hear about OWS now?

But just look at Greece. It'll crash, let's be realistic. What it'll do is domino into the Euro Zone, then cascade in the whole world economy, including here in America. Just watch when the Euro will crash, how people will take the streets. There are over 2,500 cities now with a Occupy movement, and it's just the beginning. Looking at the police crackdowns and the media marginalizing the movement, I can conclude the Elite (1%) are scared of the potential of this movement. Look further into the future. With the actual economic situation, I ask you, do you think the movement will grow, or fade away? With the increasing debt, increasing inflation, decreasing economic health...

No, I just don't see it go away and as more people take the streets, it'll get more serious than it is right now. A time bomb it is, one day it'll be big enough to actually change the system, not just tweak it.

EDIT: Oh! I had not read your last sentence: We aren't...and 99% are likely to fight back if the public face of OWS these days are also those who actually fantasize having real power in this new world they seem to want. No way..No way in hell.

Actually disturbing. Are you saying you are against power to the people? Wow...

Originally posted by TheImmaculateD1
This adheres fully to the following :

All are welcomed from all faiths, ethnic groups, political persuasions, LBGTI, animal and kid friendly as we will not discriminate, we will be friendly to all. Illicit narcotics (marijuana to meth while all scrips prescribed to a fellow protester are obviously allowed) and liquor (all forms) use are banned and will get someone expelled and turned over to law enforcement. Come as you are! Remember, there is no member of the 1% that is on this website which means we are all The 99%!

that is the most disingenuous statement ever i think.

unless by friendly you mean drunk and rapey?

Originally posted by pngxp

Originally posted by TheImmaculateD1
This adheres fully to the following :

All are welcomed from all faiths, ethnic groups, political persuasions, LBGTI, animal and kid friendly as we will not discriminate, we will be friendly to all. Illicit narcotics (marijuana to meth while all scrips prescribed to a fellow protester are obviously allowed) and liquor (all forms) use are banned and will get someone expelled and turned over to law enforcement. Come as you are! Remember, there is no member of the 1% that is on this website which means we are all The 99%!

that is the most disingenuous statement ever i think.

unless by friendly you mean drunk and rapey?

Unless that post you made was a poor attempt at generalizing and marginalizing the movement. I'm a OWS member and I'm never drunk or high when I'm there. Poor...poor attempt at discrediting the movement. Move your ass and go see for yourself what it's about instead of watching obvious propaganda Youtube videos. Yes, there are drunk and high people there, guess what, they're the 99% no matter what. So you never got drunk or high or what? Drugs are a personal decision, and not to be prohibited by the government. This is against the constitution. But anyways, it does not matter here, the fact is that these people are from the 99% and have all the rights in the world to voice their opinions, regardless of their lifestyle...

EDIT: And note that there are a lot of paid agent provocateur present at the Occupy movement, here's the proof:

Most people tried to stop these black hoodie wearing thugs, but obviously they had an agenda, and it was to cause trouble. It would give yet another great opportunity for the MSM to generalize the movement right...saying it's a violent and thugy movement...

Well...

reply to post by Gab1159


The easiest way for the top 1% to discredit the movement is to hire idiots like that. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those guys are hired

reply to post by Gab1159

I certainly don't oppose the power of the people and I certainly wish Occupy had worked out. It doesn't seem to be, and would appear to be destined for a bad end the way things have begun changing.

Having said that...I'll point to one example of why OWS has become something of a joke. It's a dangerous one...but not to the 1%. The communities around the camps seem to have more to fear than any Politicians or Financial executives. The example that comes to mind is Israel. Over simple cost of living issues...they managed to hit the street with 400,000 people! Why? The rent is apparently too high.

OWS started as a great movement with good, energetic people fighting something much more serious than basic cost of living issues. Arguably, I'm going to say the United States is also feeling a higher level is general rage and dissatisfaction with it's leaders and overall system. Over 40 MILLION on food stamps represents several TIMES the total population of Israel as a nation....yet 400,000 vs....?

Lets see.... Oakland just about blew gaskets with happiness that 20,000 showed up...WITH the city letting people off work for it AND the Unions backing it to the hilt. 20,000 vs. 400,000?

St Louis, where I was, was thrilled to death with a couple thousand..again, that took a day with Union manpower coming in and a major effort had by all. Average on-site numbers were at 50 or so at night to a couple hundred at the height of a normal days activity.....vs Well, you get the idea.

We won't even get into London, Greece, Egypt or Tunisia. Our numbers from almost day 1 have been pathetic and embarrassing. They do NOT reflect a public in support and with sympathy. Not even remotely close. I wish it were different.....but there it is.

If one actually DID drop the chronically homeless, criminals and fugitives so only true and dedicated protesters remained....well... Hell, the numbers wouldn't even warrant news coverage. Here is hoping change can come another way because this wasn't it.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Gab1159

 

I certainly don't oppose the power of the people and I certainly wish Occupy had worked out. It doesn't seem to be, and would appear to be destined for a bad end the way things have begun changing.

Having said that...I'll point to one example of why OWS has become something of a joke. It's a dangerous one...but not to the 1%. The communities around the camps seem to have more to fear than any Politicians or Financial executives. The example that comes to mind is Israel. Over simple cost of living issues...they managed to hit the street with 400,000 people! Why? The rent is apparently too high.

OWS started as a great movement with good, energetic people fighting something much more serious than basic cost of living issues. Arguably, I'm going to say the United States is also feeling a higher level is general rage and dissatisfaction with it's leaders and overall system. Over 40 MILLION on food stamps represents several TIMES the total population of Israel as a nation....yet 400,000 vs....?

Lets see.... Oakland just about blew gaskets with happiness that 20,000 showed up...WITH the city letting people off work for it AND the Unions backing it to the hilt. 20,000 vs. 400,000?

St Louis, where I was, was thrilled to death with a couple thousand..again, that took a day with Union manpower coming in and a major effort had by all. Average on-site numbers were at 50 or so at night to a couple hundred at the height of a normal days activity.....vs Well, you get the idea.

We won't even get into London, Greece, Egypt or Tunisia. Our numbers from almost day 1 have been pathetic and embarrassing. They do NOT reflect a public in support and with sympathy. Not even remotely close. I wish it were different.....but there it is.

If one actually DID drop the chronically homeless, criminals and fugitives so only true and dedicated protesters remained....well... Hell, the numbers wouldn't even warrant news coverage. Here is hoping change can come another way because this wasn't it.

Note that statistically, 1 protester equals 300 people. The question isn't how many people are there everyday, but how many people support the movement. Yes, this is simply a statistic, but it reflects the situation here in America. I'm fully supportive of the movement, yet I've been there for a total of 2 days. What you have to look at is the number of "likes" on Facebook, or tweets, or similar social tool. It's not everyone who can actually go there and camp for a whole months. Some people still have jobs (#ty or not...), they still have a family to feed, they still have to earn money to pay the rent, etc etc. LOTS of people support the movement, it's in the hundreds of thousands, if not close to the millions (if you are counting every countries, not just America) of supporters.

An easy exercise: 20,000 * 300 = 6,000,000. It is a statistic, as I said, so it does not exactly represents the reality of the situation. It could be more, it could be less, there is no way to tell since it's an abstract statistic. But the logic behind it remains, 20,000 people does not equal 20,000 supporters, it equals a hell more than that.

As I said above, watch out for the economy. I ask you once again, in YOUR mind, with the economic situation, do you see the protest fading away or grow up? I, personally, see it grow, because we all know that what is coming are tough times, politically, socially, and economically. What we are seeing in Israel (to take your example) is a good reflection of what could soon occur in the United States. Did you see it when the Occupy Movement took Times Square! Have you seen the number of people?

So yeah, there might be small movements (St-Louis, as you wrote), there might be troublemakers and criminals, but the fact is that every one of these protesters represent much more people. 1/300 is the generally accepted ratio. It does not matter if it's right or wrong, what's true is that 20,000 is big when you consider that a protester voices many people's opinions.

EDIT: By the way, the video I posted...Most people present aren't criminals, those creating the trouble are agent provocateurs. Yet, the MSM will generalize and tell us Occupy Oakland vandalized the banks. They will never tell you people dressed in black that had nothing to do with the protest caused it.

I don't buy the criminal theory...most of these people are honest citizens who are fed up!

I am part of the 99%, and OWS DOES NOT represent me!

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


The latest Gallup poll show they already have more support than the tea party...so not sure what you're talking about

reply to post by HomerinNC


You may not think we don't represent you but since you are a 99%'r you are represented.

reply to post by pngxp


Zuccotti Encampment at NYC just established an internal security force who are on the lookout for behaviour such as this and will no doubt turn those responsible and accountable to NYPD as Zuccotti is a city park, even though privately owned and managed it is subjected to NYC Dept Of Parks & Recreation rules and regulations that ban both alcohol and narc use in a park regardless of ownership.

reply to post by TheImmaculateD1


you do NOT represent me, get that thru your head

Originally posted by MrXYZ
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

The latest Gallup poll show they already have more support than the tea party...so not sure what you're talking about

Given how quickly the 'Tea Party' as politicians identify with it and have learned to use it, sold out almost immediately after it reached critical mass, that isn't the example that would come to mind.

What I am not watching are Gallup polls or any other poll for that matter. First, I was in one at St Louis for about a week. That isn't enough to know how things are everywhere, and you have a point. Additionally, the more time that passes, the less relevant my experience becomes as this whole movement is changing constantly.

What I am watching instead of polls which can be massaged to say whatever the pollsters want it to, are the chat rooms of the OWS camps themselves. I look at the comments, not the stories, in local news coverage on OWS related headlines. Finally, I'm watching the camps most of the night, every night...as a nod to a historic event unfolding in real time..

Based on all that combined, I come to the conclusion that OWS is changing, those changes are not positive ones, and the whole movement is quickly losing patience and tolerance from the public they're camped in the middle of. We're all entitled to our opinion...and isn't that what OWS is about? The above is my opinion as I believe the facts to be going into the Nov 5 rally day.

reply to post by HomerinNC



You have way more in common with this movement then you'd like to admit.

I found this bit of news quite relieving. If the majority of them feel that way, it means they truly realize that the government is NOT the solution to the problems we are facing. Bravo to them!

reply to post by TheImmaculateD1


Oh? Enlighten me