Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

[Virus]

Kalle Lasn, founder of the Occutard movement reveals his next brainchild: OccupyXmas.

Now, says Adbusters, it’s time to take it to the next level, “to launch an all-out offensive to unseat the corporate kings on the holiday throne.”

Lasn said people from the Occupy movement will engage in “pranks and shenanigans,” including mall sit-ins, flash mobs, credit card cut-ups and putting up posters. With the momentum of the Occupy movement behind it, Buy Nothing Day can be a “much more powerful curve ball into consumer capitalism” than it has been in the past, he said.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Vancouver+Adbusters+launches+Occupy+Xmas/5751889/story.html#ixzz1eUWVtdSv

Damn. People buying stuff. It's evil I tell you. Working and then exchanging currency for desirable goods and services. What's the point of that? I don't get it.

But wait, hang on a sec, woah, slow down there, stop. I thought this Occupy stuff wasn't anti-capitalist? This comes as a huge shock to me.

 

[applecorped]

Kalle Lasn, founder of the Occutard movement reveals his next brainchild: OccupyXmas.



Damn. People buying stuff. It's evil I tell you. Working and then exchanging currency for desirable goods and services. What's the point of that? I don't get it.

But wait, hang on a sec, woah, slow down there, stop. I thought this Occupy stuff wasn't anti-capitalist? This comes as a huge shock to me.

I fear for the Occupiers safety. If they thought police were rough just wait until they get in the way of Black Friday shoppers!

 

[portlandatheist]

Thanks for giving some attention to, though not answering, my first question.

Perhaps you could now give your attention to my second question:

"How likely do you think it is that John Pike will get fired?"


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

'Ten Things You Should Know About Friday’s UC Davis Police Violence'

The article expands on the following assertions:

"1. The protest at which UC Davis police officers used pepper spray and batons against unresisting demonstrators was an entirely nonviolent one.

2. The unauthorized tent encampment was dismantled before the pepper spraying began.

3. Students did not restrict the movement of police at any time during the demonstration.

4. Lt. Pike was not in fear for his safety when he sprayed the students.

5. University of California Police are not authorized to use pepper spray except in circumstances in which it is necessary to prevent physical injury to themselves or others.

6. UC police are not authorized to use physical force except to control violent offenders or keep suspects from escaping.

7. The UC Davis Police made no effort to remove the student demonstrators from the walkway peacefully before using pepper spray against them.

8. Use of pepper spray and other physical force continued after the students’ minimal obstruction of the area around the police ended.

9. Even after police began using unprovoked and unlawful violence against the students, they remained peaceful.

10. The students’ commitment to nonviolence extended to their use of language."





Follow-up post, addressing the criticism that, in forming a ring around police and their fellow activists, they were violating the principles of nonviolent resistance:

'Nonviolence, Resisting Arrest, and the Student Movements of the Sixties and Today

Bolding mine. I thought the protesters were nonviolently resisting or am I missing some facts?

 

[portlandatheist]

I'm just trying to figure out whether the tents were still up or not at the moment of pepper spraying. I haven't found a definite answer yet but I found some great irony here:

"Police came and brutalized them and tore their tents down and all that stuff. It was really scary. It felt like there was anarchy everywhere," student Hisham Alihbob told KCRA.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...refuses-resign-article-1.980110#ixzz1eUuAXrFV

Oh my! Did somebody say "anarchy"?!

 

[Taarkin]

I did:
Couldn't be more vague. So what's their purpose again?

Have you honestly not heard an occupier complain about anything or even read a sign? Complaining and waving signs is a protester's bread and butter! The website you quoted has testimonials and articles from occupiers that explain how they feel. Here's a bunch of signs. Call their sentiments wrong and dumb and naive all you want, but don't deny their existence.

 

[WildCat]

But wait, hang on a sec, woah, slow down there, stop. I thought this Occupy stuff wasn't anti-capitalist? This comes as a huge shock to me.

You see, these aren't True Occupiers^TM.

 

[bookitty]

Bolding mine. I thought the protesters were nonviolently resisting or am I missing some facts?

They were sitting, with their arms linked. Which means that they were no danger to themselves, the police or non-occupy students. of course, that doesn't matter in a forum where people think that punishment is the job of the police and not the judge.

 

[Taarkin]

Following your own link, Merriam-Webster online offers the following definition of violence:
Following the embedded link, "violent" in turn is defined as:
There was nothing dishonest about my definition. But thanks for the link to prove it.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violence

If I improperly sprayed a random person, what would I be charged with? Don't say battery, because battery requires physical force.
Does this mean that what happened in the gas chambers wasn't violence? If Al Qaeda flew a sarin-loaded cropduster over Washington, could we condemn them for violence? How about burning? Drowning?

 

[portlandatheist]

They were sitting, with their arms linked. Which means that they were no danger to themselves, the police or non-occupy students. of course, that doesn't matter in a forum where people think that punishment is the job of the police and not the judge.

Understood. I observed the same thing. They posed no danger to the police or themselves but they were still resisting. My question to you is: with the exception of the police just letting them be(which I would guess is what you would propose), if they were to enforce their removal, what would be the best approach for all parties involved? Breaking up the human chain with man handling poses risks as well as does the pepper spraying. If they were going to do said task, how would you suggest they did it more appropriately?

 

[Taarkin]

No: they all expected the reaction, dealt with it, and triumphed after keeping to their message and their conscience. Unless their message is opposition to standard non-lethal crowd control then they've lost their potential audience by acting like brats instead of ascending above the pettiness.

The occupiers chanted "you can go" to the police. They stood in dead silence as the chancellor left the conference. Is petty bratitude a good way of describing this?

 

[Taarkin]

Understood. I observed the same thing. They posed no danger to the police or themselves but they were still resisting. My question to you is: with the exception of the police just letting them be(which I would guess is what you would propose), if they were to enforce their removal, what would be the best approach for all parties involved? Breaking up the human chain with man handling poses risks as well as does the pepper spraying. If they were going to do said task, how would you suggest they did it more appropriately?

One option: only spray every other protester. Human chain broken, fewer people harmed.

 

[Brainster]

Here's an interesting compilation video with (at times) four different angles:


What I find interesting about this is the discussion the cop has with one protestor at the very beginning. The protestor says, "You're shooting us for sitting here?" The cop says something about "pepper" and the student replies, "No, that's fine." Then the crowd takes up the chant "Don't shoot students!"

It seems pretty obvious that the student was consenting to the pepper spray, and that the bit about "shooting" was a mistake either on the cop's or the student's part. Conclusion: They wanted and agreed to be pepper sprayed.

Also, for the edification of those who claim the students were not given a chance to go peacefully, check out the angle at the top right at about 2:10. A cop grabs one woman's arm and tries to pull her away but she resists. It is at that point that everybody backs up and Officer Pike steps over the line of protestors to give them their requested peppering.

 

[Brainster]

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc? As one of the commenters on the original post at the Stranger pointed out, if it were this easy to cause a miscarriage, there would be no need for abortionists. I also found this phrasing rather curious:



She "received news"? And I found this a little difficult to believe as well:


"Lifted his foot and it hit her in the stomach"? If she means he kicked her, why doesn't she say so? And unless she was lying on her back, I'm having a hard time visualizing it any other way. Ditto with the bike hitting her in the stomach; according to the photos, she was not a petite woman. I smell BS all over this story.

Skepticism in this case seems very justified. Check out the updates to the story at the Stranger:

I tracked Fox down today at the Occupy Seattle encampment at Seattle Central Community College. Had she contacted anyone at the hospital? “I can’t go to the hospital until Sunday or Monday,” she said. Fox said that she’s having a memorial service for her miscarried baby and one of her fellow occupiers is planning a candlelight vigil, which will consume her time until next week. Can't she get away to the hospital for an hour? “No.” I provided Fox a copy of a records release for the hospital, which she put into her coat, but again Fox said she couldn’t go request her records until next week. I offered her a ride to and from the hospital, but she again refused. I explained to Fox that, lacking any evidence of her claim, her story was increasingly subject to scrutiny.

And another update shows that perhaps she used to BSing about being three months' pregnant:

Acting on an anonymous tip, we heard that Seattle police found Fox in a house six nearly nine weeks ago. According to a police report in which the names have been redacted, a suspect who appears to have a three-letter last name "said she is three months pregnant... and began crying when [a suspect] was arrested. [The person with a three-letter last name] began holding her stomach and screaming that it hurt." The woman was transferred to Harborview Medical Center. We are attempting to contact Fox to ask if she is the woman in the police report.

 

[portlandatheist]

One option: only spray every other protester. Human chain broken, fewer people harmed.

Agreed. This would accomplish the task with a lesser degree of harm. I would also suggest this may be a police training issue as much as the actions of the single officer. Another option: spray one person and arrest them and then move on to the next person. As they move on down the line, the next protesters could decide which option they would like to receive.

 

[Brainster]

One option: only spray every other protester. Human chain broken, fewer people harmed.

It's not like they went peacefully even after being sprayed, so every other person would not work.

 

[Taarkin]

It's not like they went peacefully even after being sprayed, so every other person would not work.

Police officers manage to pick perps up off the ground without incident every single day.

 

[shuize]

If I improperly sprayed a random person, what would I be charged with? Don't say battery, because battery requires physical force.

That is not entirely accurate. One can be charged with battery for acts which do not involve physical force. "Offensive touching" without injury -- running your finger up someone's leg without permission, for example -- could constitute a battery. Just because something is a battery, however, does not automatically make it "violent."

Does this mean that what happened in the gas chambers wasn't violence?

Locking people in a room full of Zyclon B would, I believe, satisfy Merriam-Webster's second definition of "violence" posted above: "an instance of violent treatment or procedure" in which "violent" is defined as "marked by extreme force or sudden intense activity."

In my view, misting protesters who've had the opportunity to leave but instead consented for the sake of political theater (so they can cry about it later) does not rise to that same level of "extreme force."

One option: only spray every other protester. Human chain broken, fewer people harmed.

Why do I suspect if the police had misted some but not all of the protesters they would claim discriminatory treatment for being singled out for the spray? It's probably the same reason I suspect that if the police had not used the irritant and piled in to pull the protesters apart by force, other Monday morning quarterbacks would criticize them for not using the less dangerous aerosol option.

 

[Neally]

They were sitting, with their arms linked. Which means that they were no danger to themselves, the police or non-occupy students. of course, that doesn't matter in a forum where people think that punishment is the job of the police and not the judge.

The spray wasn't "punishment" and you know it. They were resisting arrest. The spray was to get them to comply.

 

[GeeMack]

What I find disturbing is that people are posting the personal phone number of the police officer who sprayed the pepper.

Talk about criminal behavior.

Really. Who would do such a thing? I've even seen people posting his photo and home address in pictures like this...

 

[Pardalis]

Maybe you'd like to post your real name, home address and phone number too?

Or maybe you just like to hide behind your anonimity and post other people's personal information. Surely that's not creepy.