Operation Occupy Wall Street

[Wallapuctus]

Scuzz might as well be this guy

[Wallapuctus]

Scuzz might as well be this guy

[Jibble]

Bringing up the civil rights struggle at all is a waste of time in this discussion. Fighting for an end to plutocracy isn’t even close to the same thing as fighting for the equality of an entire race. Corporations aren’t dragging poor people out of their homes and hanging them from trees.

While I find recent police action unacceptable and abhorrent, it simply pales in comparison to what happened to the Freedom Riders in Anniston. No sane person can claim that macing protesters at point blank range is even in the same league as pairing with violent extremists and standing idly by while they firebomb a bus and block the doors off in an attempt to burn everyone inside to death.

To be clear, I’m not saying that this in any way excuses the way the OWS protesters are being treated. I’m just saying that the civil rights struggle isn’t an apt comparison.

[Scuzz]

Scuzz might as well be this guy

Some mornings I feel (and probably look) like that guy.

[Andy_Bates]

I agree with dawn here.
Unless protesters are actually violent, this is the correct approach. In fact, I’ve had ‘non-violent-direct-action’ training. The aim, of a demonstrator is to simply make it inconvenient for the police to remove you, requiring up to four of them to carry you away, thus meaning the protest can continue until a very large number of polcie are present*

So you’re saying that police should not respond to any non-violent protest until they have four times as many officers present, and should be restricted from using any violent means otherwise?

Calmly pepper spraying a bunch of non violent young men and women sitting on the ground is one thing, trying to do the same against angry extremists who feel the need to point to the fact that they are carrying a gun is another.

Name a single instance where a Tea Party protest was occupying any area and refused to leave when asked. One. Otherwise, your cry of “police didn’t use violence against Tea Party members” is irrelevant. By the way, I love how you characterize the Tea Partiers who do not do anything illegal as the “angry extremists.”

[Scuzz]

Aaaaaaaand you’re not worth talking to any longer

What you wrote there and the rest of your post contradict themselves. Nice try.

[Wallapuctus]

Name a single instance where a Tea Party protest was occupying any area and refused to leave when asked. One. Otherwise, your cry of “police didn’t use violence against Tea Party members” is irrelevant. By the way, I love how you characterize the Tea Partiers who do not do anything illegal as the “angry extremists.”

All the things the Tea Party want directly benefit the 1%. Why would the police be called in to disrupt a bunch of people demanding the rich get richer?

[madkevin]

By the way, I love how you characterize the Tea Partiers who do not do anything illegal as the “angry extremists.”

Yeah, it’s not like they named themselves after a historically famous violent protest or anything.

[Andy_Bates]

All the things the Tea Party want directly benefit the 1%. Why would the police be called in to disrupt a bunch of people demanding the rich get richer?

Strawman. I’m talking about the actions of the two groups, not their overall goals. So again, if we’re talking about police actions to disrupt peaceful civil disobedience, in what cases were Tea Party members peacefully disobedient and refusing to comply with police orders?

Yeah, it’s not like they named themselves after a historically famous violent protest or anything.

I could name myself after Attila the Hun; that doesn’t make my actions any more violent. And do you really consider destruction of property without any risk to human life “violent”?

[The_Mad_Hatter]

It’s no more absurd than the opposite extreme you are presenting, where you claim they have nothing in common. It can be useful to analogize specific aspects of popular protests and the response to them by authorities, but it’s too easy to get sidetracked with smears and attempts to trivialize OWS by aggressively polarizing the extent to which they resemble x every time it comes up.

It’s not that the OWS doesn’t have a legitimate cause, but they aren’t fighting a repressive regime that brutalizes and kills people who protest against it. It’s not like the Syrians or the Egyptians, facing down bullets and tanks and helicopter gunships because they wanted a country free of dictatorship. The 99% in a developed country like the US or Canada have vastly more than those people do, even now that they have a chance at freedom. Just being where we are makes us part of the world’s privileged. I hear protesters talking about having “nothing” when they’ve spent their whole lives as middle class Canadians and it’s just ridiculous. They have absolutely no idea what nothing really is.

[Scuzz]

Yeah, it’s not like they named themselves after a historically famous violent protest or anything.

Actually I don’t know how much violence occurred, unless you consider tossing tea a violent act.

[Calistas]

America still hasn’t answered for its crimes against tea!

[Wallapuctus]

Strawman. I’m talking about the actions of the two groups, not their overall goals. So again, if we’re talking about police actions to disrupt peaceful civil disobedience, in what cases were Tea Party members peacefully disobedient and refusing to comply with police orders?

The police take orders from the 1%. The Tea Party takes orders from the 1%. Why would the police betray their own team?

Edit: The Tea Party is not being disobedient. They are, in fact, obeying. See the picture I posted of Scuzz.

[madkevin]

I could name myself after Attila the Hun; that doesn’t make my actions any more violent.

They could have called themselves anything, though. They chose that reference very specifically, as it buys into the violent rhetoric the right loves to spout and then disavow the second anything bad happens.

So, yes, if you chose Attila The Hun out of every possible name you could call yourself, I would be forced to assume you’re OK with Huns. It doesn’t make you violent, but it clearly marks you as a dude who’s OK with violence.

And do you really consider destruction of property without any risk to human life “violent”?

Yes. And if the OWS suddenly trashed a bank office without actually hurting everybody, it would be called violent too.

[The_Mad_Hatter]

All the things the Tea Party want directly benefit the 1%. Why would the police be called in to disrupt a bunch of people demanding the rich get richer?

It’s the police disruption itself that generated the media attention, you know. The actual occupation is just a curiosity. The easiest way to keep the OWS people marginalized is to ignore them, but there’s unfortunately practical reasons to get them out (other legitimate use of the land they’re occupying, etc). Not to mention the overtly illegal activities…if they were serious about keeping the occupations going, they’d get rid of the potheads and everything that’s just egging the police on to act.

[The_Mad_Hatter]

The police take orders from the 1%. The Tea Party takes orders from the 1%. Why would the police betray their own team?

Edit: The Tea Party is not being disobedient. They are, in fact, obeying. See the picture I posted of Scuzz.

You have an amusingly simple view of the world. I suppose its in the nature of political movements to degenerate in such a way.

[Wallapuctus]

You have an amusingly simple view of the world. I suppose its in the nature of political movements to degenerate in such a way.

I should know better than to wade into P&R, but I have a kid on the way and I’m suddenly very concerned about the world he’ll grow up in, so…

I don’t think it’s a simple view of the world to expect better from the human race. Naive, perhaps, but not simple. What the OWS protesters want is easy to explain. I don’t understand why people keep saying there’s no clear message. There is.

Get money out of politics. Regulate (and enforce those regulations) big business and banks so they stop gobbling up everything they can get their hands on. Provide for the basic needs of every citizen of this country. This includes medical care.

[Andy_Bates]

They could have called themselves anything, though. They chose that reference very specifically, as it buys into the violent rhetoric the right loves to spout and then disavow the second anything bad happens.

The event was throwing tea. Into the water. You know perfectly well why they chose that name, and it has nothing to do with “violent rhetoric.” But that is all tangential to the point that the Tea Party never occupied anything or resisted police orders in any case that I have heard of, so the entire comparison is moot.

So, yes, if you chose Attila The Hun out of every possible name you could call yourself, I would be forced to assume you’re OK with Huns. It doesn’t make you violent, but it clearly marks you as a dude who’s OK with violence.

Not by the furthest stretch of the imagination.

Yes. And if the OWS suddenly trashed a bank office without actually hurting everybody, it would be called violent too.

Destructive, maybe. Violent, no. And in your hypothetical case, would prominent people in OWS decry the action, and demand that those responsible pay back the bank for the damage caused?

Edit: Fine, I’ll bite: Find me some event that the Tea Party participated in that was as violent as the events of the original Boston Tea Party. Otherwise, your analogy is pointless.

[madkevin]

Destructive, maybe. Violent, no.

Destruction isn’t violent?

Edit: Fine, I’ll bite: Find me some event that the Tea Party participated in that was as violent as the events of the original Boston Tea Party.

I never said they participated in something as violent as the original Tea Party (by the way, I’m glad we agree that it was violent now), so I’m afraid you’ll have to play that game with somebody else.

Also, it’s not my analogy. It’s theirs. They picked it. If you don’t like the connotations, take it up with them.

[mrmolecule88]

It’s not that the OWS doesn’t have a legitimate cause, but they aren’t fighting a repressive regime that brutalizes and kills people who protest against it. It’s not like the Syrians or the Egyptians, facing down bullets and tanks and helicopter gunships because they wanted a country free of dictatorship. The 99% in a developed country like the US or Canada have vastly more than those people do, even now that they have a chance at freedom. Just being where we are makes us part of the world’s privileged. I hear protesters talking about having “nothing” when they’ve spent their whole lives as middle class Canadians and it’s just ridiculous. They have absolutely no idea what nothing really is.

“You guys have all the bread and circuses you could want! Why aren’t you satisfied?”

This absolutely worst angle of attack to make. There is absolutely no reason why people who are dissatisfied have to wait to have the iron heel of a dictatorship grinding their neck into the curb. Every time I read a scathing comment involving “entitled protesters and their iphones” I laugh and laugh and laugh because the poster clearly has no clue how to differentiate between reality and fantasy. It turns out most Americans aren’t socialists, and like buying things! Gasp!

You’ve also managed to miss one of the major causes for these protests - protesters who believe they have no future - which makes your “all they know is middle-class” a silly point. Maybe they do in fact know what nothing is, and very much want to avoid it.

How poor do I have to be protest, incidentally? I’m curious.