Occupy: It's time to fight back

reply to post by petrus4

I've just read about the police crackdown on the first anniversary of the initial Zucotti Park camp.

If you are a Occupy supporter...shouldn't you know that it isn't the first anniversary but a "6 month anniversary"???

Who celebrates a 6 month anniversary anyway?

the type of people that celebrate a 6 month anniversary are ones that are running out of time and don't have the luxury of waiting a whole year.

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

nytimesblog

I specifically said credentialed journalists. Citizen journalists though doing a much better job at reporting, often don't have credentials.

Well, now I agree on the citizens and yes, even the Occupy media people. They're probably better than their network hack counterparts because they aren't just covering the story to a clock and deadline before they find the bar and get drunk after it's been filed.

I was just noting that given the all out war approach law enforcement is now taking, fully credentialed people from CNN, FOX, A.P. or Reuters can expect to get hurt if they don't watch carefully what is happening around them. It'll be accidental, but it'll happen if they lose situation awareness, even briefly.

Citizen/Occupy folks can't expect even a passing thought for accidents. They ARE part of the target to arrest, put down and destroy..so..protect the camera and stay a distance, or...well... Geeze....Cops are likely to hurt them MORE if they can get them without film recording the punishment.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I get what you're saying but I totally reject it. You are asking people to play it safe so they don't get hurt BY LAW ENFORCEMENT when they are doing nothing more than their jobs or nothing more than taking a stand to air grievances. People in America are supposed to be safe to do these things.

People keep getting mad because this is messy and inconvenient, that is the point. When things are going completely wrong in this country it is our duty to make noise about it. Redress and protest cannot be wrapped up in silent, pretty bow.

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

I get what you're saying but I totally reject it. You are asking people to play it safe so they don't get hurt BY LAW ENFORCEMENT when they are doing nothing more than their jobs or nothing more than taking a stand to air grievances. People in America are supposed to be safe to do these things.

People keep getting mad because this is messy and inconvenient, that is the point. When things are going completely wrong in this country it is our duty to make noise about it. Redress and protest cannot be wrapped up in silent, pretty bow.

Messy and Inconvenient for the Government, Financial Industry Leadership and the trans-national corps like Monsanto is a great idea and makes sense. Whenever Occupy wants to start trying to achieve that, let me know. I'll be right there...as I was once before to protest at the World Headquarters for Monsanto in St Louis (There were a couple reasons I picked that Occupy city.. )


Messy and inconvenient for the fellow citizens who are just trying to feed their kids and make ends meet is counter-productive and ultimately self-defeating. There seems to be a near contempt for those who aren't 100% with Occupy AND with every cause and corny concept any major Occupy camp throws out. Well whatever...

The 1960's movements of social change, ending the war and civil rights worked for years and lost people along the way. Occupy has spent a whole few MONTHS trying to burn from both ends at 110% energy. They're getting increasingly desperate and the tactics are getting increasingly aggressive at a speed that is all out of proportion to any logic. Even if change WERE inspired by Occupy, it wouldn't have had the time to even get moving yet....but no mind.. So many in Occupy want change, they want it NOW...and they WILL make everybody who doesn't agree miserable..

That isn't a protest, that is a monument to futility and a lost cause. It was lost as soon as gaining the support of the community became unimportant. We'll see a year from now who was correct. Folks like me or folks returning to the camps and the movement. Next March, lets see.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Messy and inconvenient for the fellow citizens who are just trying to feed their kids and make ends meet is counter-productive and ultimately self-defeating. There seems to be a near contempt for those who aren't 100% with Occupy AND with every cause and corny concept any major Occupy camp throws out. Well whatever...

The problem, Wrabbit, is that this is exactly the type of argument which the police and their psychopathic superiors within government make, in order to try and justify destroying Occupy completely.

I do, however, agree with you about the polarisation of some opinions, that if you're not with Occupy completely, then you're supposedly against them. I was seeing that repeatedly among the usual Guy Fawkes avatar toting, V for Vendetta cliche quoting drones that were coming out of the woodwork around here several months ago; although fortunately, they appear to have almost entirely disappeared back into the dark corners from whence they came, at this point.

I think Kali has been extremely patient and charitable in attempting to answer people here; although I do take some exception to her usual apparent assumption that if someone disagrees with her, it's supposedly only due to their own ignorance.

Occupy has spent a whole few MONTHS trying to burn from both ends at 110% energy. They're getting increasingly desperate and the tactics are getting increasingly aggressive at a speed that is all out of proportion to any logic.

The real question is whether or not Occupy are going to have the stamina to be able to cope with being necklifted, and having their heads driven into footpaths and windows for literally months or years on end; and to be fair to them, I don't think I'd be able to cope with that.

That isn't a protest, that is a monument to futility and a lost cause. It was lost as soon as gaining the support of the community became unimportant.

Actually, from my perspective it's turning out to primarily be an opportunity for American police forces to blow off steam. In the RTAmerica interview I linked, when she asks the speaker how OWS went on the weekend, I seriously half-expected his response to be, "Well, we went to the park and had the crap beaten out of us by the cops."

As flippant as that might sound, however, don't underestimate its' usefulness. Even if Occupy didn't accomplish anything else meaningful, allowing themselves to be hospitalised by the police is still providing a genuinely valuable social service; because it is giving the public the opportunity to see, in graphic terms, exactly what their society has become, in terms of the authorities' attitude towards them.

reply to post by petrus4


Interestingly, we agree on almost everything there. I'd even agree about the way Occupy is becoming something the cops can vent frustrations on and against with a public that is largely indifferent at this point. I don't see that attitude changing, and that is the problem and largest tragedy in what could have been.....

I was asking this here, there and in person in the Fall, but why..oh why..was the support of the community and those living around the camps looked at as a happy side benefit, but really of no importance or anything to be concerned with working to accomodate? The public wouldn't be indifferent to the crackdowns NOW...if Occupy hadn't been so totally indifferent to how many things effected the normal guy in the street THEN.

I fear far too much bad water has gone under this bridge now to correct the damage done in relations with the general public.....but the trials and challenges to come are where that public support I was rudely told to just shut up about because no one CARED what the local community residents thought...would come in REAL helpful.



In terms of how some other folks have been.. Well.. I think we were all far more open, understanding and willing to reach to find common ground in the fall. For a wide variety of reasons...I think some here as well as in all the cities with Occupy has lost most of the flexibility and the lines are pretty much drawn now. Sad.... It truly is. The tragedy is that the point of lines being drawn came so much sooner than numbers would have made viable for the future. It's just nowhere close. :thumbdown:

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
So many in Occupy want change, they want it NOW...and they WILL make everybody who doesn't agree miserable..

Is that really your perception of Occupy? I don't see too many miserable looking people here :

Originally posted by robhines

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
So many in Occupy want change, they want it NOW...and they WILL make everybody who doesn't agree miserable..

Is that really your perception of Occupy? I don't see too many miserable looking people here :

Ugh. Worthwhile message, but I wish they could have used another song. That one makes me cringe.



Here's what I'd use.

Originally posted by petrus4
Ugh. Worthwhile message, but I wish they could have used another song. That one makes me cringe.

Haha, I thought the same thing at first, but the video is just that good that it didn't bother me!