Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

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Virus said:
It's all part of the revolutionary LARPing and role playing.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks that. I've been reading up on them, one of my brothers is in love with the movement, and figured this would be a great place for information. Good stuff as usual!
 
shawmutt said:
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks that. I've been reading up on them, one of my brothers is in love with the movement, and figured this would be a great place for information. Good stuff as usual!
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Thanks. Check this yo;

Demos represent only the people who are against the government. - It is an obvious point, yet forgotten in media coverage of even miniature demos of a few hundred people. People who are happy enough with what the government is doing simply will not demonstrate. Even if the vast majority supports the government, all public demos will be against the government. The media will cover a few hundred people having a demo. It doesn't cover the vast number of people who didn't demo.
Even huge demos may not represent public opinion. Votes represent public opinion. Demos don't.

Demos represent only the people who have time to go on a demo. - Demos are dominated by young, unmarried people like students. People who have tons of time and energy and are mobile.
People who have serious jobs, mortgages, babies and children to care for, perhaps elderly parents to care for, and so on - not to mention having tired, middle-aged bodies exhausted by their reponsibilities - will not be found on demos, or travelling round the country living in tents and engaging in "direct action". They have opinions just as strong as the carefree, childless students, but they will not express them at demos. They express them at the ballot box. Governments know this, and that is why they do not take demos seriously.

Posters and graffiti don't represent public opinion either. - In every city centre in the west, one sees posters and graffiti representing various points of view. Or rather, all the same point of view, I should say.
"END THE OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE. PUBLIC MEETING ..." say the posters. Why does one never see posters saying: "STOP SUICIDE BOMBINGS. PUBLIC MEETING ..."? It is not because nobody subscribes to that view. It is because only certain types of people go round putting up posters and having public meetings. Posters do not represent public opinion, and should not be taken seriously.

Similarly, "NO WAR" and "DON'T ATTACK IRAQ" reads the graffiti. Why does one never see graffiti saying: "BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE MIDDLE EAST" or "END ISLAMIC LAW"? Again, it is because only certain types of people spray graffiti. Graffiti does not represent public opinion, and should not be taken seriously.
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http://markhumphrys.com/laws.html

Of course these aren't protests anymore . They're hovels for vagrants, drug dealers, junkies and stupid left-wing radicals.
 
But... but... they're the 99%! It says so right there on the sign on their tent!

BTW, that "Demonstrations represent only people who are against the government" only holds true in Western democracies. Pro-government rallies exist in a number of countries elsewhere.
 
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In discussing OWS with the wife the other day, I reached the conclusion that what distinguishes the Tea Party from the OWS movement is that the tea partiers, by and large, believe in the democratic process.

As a result, their movement was essentially a "democratic" movement, in the sense that it was about voters confidently voting to make the changes they wanted. And as we witnessed in 2010, their confidence was well-founded, and they were able to make a difference through the democratic process.

OWS, on the other hand, seems to have no faith at all in the democratic process. This is not a mobilization of voters to the polls to throw the bums out (and replace them with bums more to their liking). It's a mobilization of, well, bums. Whether or not OWS will make any difference at the polls in 2012 remains to be seen.

To me, it seems like the obvious lesson we can learn from the Tea Party's experience in 2010 is that voting works, and that people who care enough to vote can make a difference.

I suspect that the lesson learned by the OWS crowd is that the success of the Tea Party in 2010 is a sure sign that the system is broken, and therefore it's time to move beyond democracy...
 
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theprestige said:
To me, it seems like the obvious lesson we can learn from the Tea Party's experience in 2010 is that voting works, and that people who care enough to vote can make a difference.
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Yes -- if you have the numbers. As distasteful as it may seem to some of us, the Tea Party (as well as various populist parties in Europe) had the numbers. If you don't have the numbers and deep down you know it yourself, but you want power anyway, you naturally eschew the democratic process.
 
Yeah and the Tea Party didn't have drug dealing, assaults, rape, sex offenders, vandalism, riots, arson, a suicide and a murder.
 
Zombie's dispatch on Occupy Berkeley. Witty as always.

A clique of privileged U.C. Berkeley students, upset that they’re the top 1% of elite students in the state and thus disqualified from participating in the Occupy movement, could no longer contain their frustration on Wednesday and threw an Occutantrum, attempting to “occupy” a few square yards of the 1,200-acre campus. The police dutifully played their roles in the street theater performance, showing up in riot gear and looking scary so the privileged students could shout at them and feel properly revolutionary, as instructed by their professors. Following the script, the police repeatedly removed the handful of occupation tents so that the students could feel sufficiently wronged by authority figures and thereby earn their “Berkeley protest stripes,” which have been a requirement for graduation since 1964.
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http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/11/1...n-the-1-throw-occupy-tantrum/?singlepage=true
 
A woman filming the San Diego Obamaville is attacked (profanity, NSFW):



How could anybody not say these folks are peaceful?
 
Brainster said:
A woman filming the San Diego Obamaville is attacked (profanity, NSFW):

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The first thing leftists do when they get power is to eliminate the free press, pretty standard operating procedsure. They want rights only for themselves, they don't tolerate others excersizing their rights.
 
timhau said:
Yes -- if you have the numbers. As distasteful as it may seem to some of us, the Tea Party (as well as various populist parties in Europe) had the numbers. If you don't have the numbers and deep down you know it yourself, but you want power anyway, you naturally eschew the democratic process.
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They could have had the numbers if they'd run this thing properly. Take the comments section of any newspaper. At the start of the movement, most of the comments were sympathetic to the protesters. Topics like corporate greed. tax the rich and job creation are pretty easy to get behind.

As time wore on though, the comments went from sympathetic to downright hostile. One of the worst mistakes occupy Vancouver made was shouting down mayoral candidates and effectively ending the mayoral debate. Democracy ? We don't want no stinkin' democracy, this is all about us and our demands.

Toss in woman bites cop ( OV is trying to spin this as self defense ) and man in tree dumping piss on a city worker ( Victoria ) a city worker whose union dues just may have partially financed the movement itself and we're seeing the numbers in free fall.
 
Stout said:
They could have had the numbers if they'd run this thing properly. Take the comments section of any newspaper. At the start of the movement, most of the comments were sympathetic to the protesters. Topics like corporate greed. tax the rich and job creation are pretty easy to get behind.
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True. And that's a clear message. However, instead of building a movement, they seemingly wanted as many people out there as possible, so anyone with any grievance was welcome. If you have any common sense, you know that this isn't going to work; that's just a call for all the cranks and lunatics to join the movement. If you want to build a movement that wants to actually accomplish something other than noise-making, you need to be able to refuse people.

Stout said:
As time wore on though, the comments went from sympathetic to downright hostile. One of the worst mistakes occupy Vancouver made was shouting down mayoral candidates and effectively ending the mayoral debate. Democracy ? We don't want no stinkin' democracy, this is all about us and our demands.
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Naturally. The voice of a disorganized group belongs to those who shout the loudest.
 
Somebody earlier pointed out the folks who are marching from NYC to DC. Yesterday's update includes some amusement:

Our estimated morning prep time of one hour proves far off, actually turning out to be over two hours. We’re all finally packed up in the front yard together at 10:30AM.
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And then:
The first signs of exhaustion fatigue begin to appear by noon. One of our medics sits slumped in a parking lot up against a convenience store wall, “I can’t go on. I’m gonna have to meet up with you all tonight.” Messages are sent out to certain members of our online audience who have offered to help in just such situations. Arrangements are made for a human delivery, the group marches on.
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Yep, an hour and a half later, somebody "can't go on."

Many marchers are visibly uncomfortable by lunchtime, but yet another group of well-wishers is there at just the right moment to replenish us, physically and emotionally.
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Note that per their posted route, yesterday was supposed to be a fairly short walk (18.4 miles). Today they are planning a more ambitious 25.8 miles.
 
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Disease strikes Zucotti Park.

The chorus began quietly at a recent strategy session inside Zuccotti Park, with a single cough from a security team member, a muffled hack between puffs on his cigarette. Then a colleague followed. Then another.

Soon the discussion had devolved into a fit of wheezing, with one protester blowing his nose into the mulch between clusters of tents.

“It’s called Zuccotti lung,” said Willie Carey, 28, a demonstrator from Chapel Hill, N.C. “It’s a real thing.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/nyregion/for-occupy-wall-street-health-is-a-growing-concern.html
 
I wonder when the first injured/sick occutard will sue the owners of Zucotti park for their injuries/illness because they failed to maintain a safe envoronment on their property?
 
Stout said:
They could have had the numbers if they'd run this thing properly. Take the comments section of any newspaper. At the start of the movement, most of the comments were sympathetic to the protesters. Topics like corporate greed. tax the rich and job creation are pretty easy to get behind.

As time wore on though, the comments went from sympathetic to downright hostile. One of the worst mistakes occupy Vancouver made was shouting down mayoral candidates and effectively ending the mayoral debate. Democracy ? We don't want no stinkin' democracy, this is all about us and our demands.

Toss in woman bites cop ( OV is trying to spin this as self defense ) and man in tree dumping piss on a city worker ( Victoria ) a city worker whose union dues just may have partially financed the movement itself and we're seeing the numbers in free fall.
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One of the things that happened in Portland is the city workers that cleaned and maintained the public restrooms were harassed and intimidated by the occupiers to the extent that they closed the bathroom down until they are able to do their jobs in safety. Their delusions of persecution are so over the top that they feel oppressed by just about everybody and everything including people who clean their bathrooms and give them fresh toilet paper.
According to kgw.com's poll(I know, not scientific), 88% support removing them from the parks by force and just as in Victoria, while there was initially a lot of support, just about everybody commenting now wants the circus to end.
 
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