Congrats, Occupiers -- You ARE the 1%!

[WildCat]

When you ate your breakfast this morning, did you have to fear getting e.coli from the water and salmonella from the eggs? Somewhere along the line a politician worked to get water and food safety laws passed.

Oddly enough, a big reason the occutards are getting shut down all over is because they are violating basic sanitary laws. Urinating and defecating on the street, and preparing food in the midst of all the urine and feces.

 

[WildCat]

Couple things on this - they weren't just protesting economic justice.

Don't Harvard students realize that anyone who can afford the $50,000 tuition at Harvard are the 1%? They must be quite a sight in their Kelty tents and LL Bean protesting outfits...

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Don't Harvard students realize that anyone who can afford the $50,000 tuition at Harvard are the 1%? They must be quite a sight in their Kelty tents and LL Bean protesting outfits...

Trust fun kiddies. It's their way of rebelling against daddy.

 

[Virus]

Around a million people showed up to protest peacefully against the iraq war in the UK in 2003, and achieved precisely zilch. I'm not suggesting that disruptive protest is the only way to achieve anything, but when you give one example of peaceful protest that did, I think you might be cherrypicking.

That's what you get for being led by a Communist in the pay of Saddam Hussein.

 

[Virus]

What's "economic justice"?

 

[theprestige]

What's "economic justice"?

Didn't you see the John Stewart show? Economic justice is when occutards who own MacBooks don't have to share them with anybody, but all the other occutards are entitled to use somebody else's MacBook.

 

[WildCat]

Didn't you see the John Stewart show? Economic justice is when occutards who own MacBooks don't have to share them with anybody, but all the other occutards are entitled to use somebody else's MacBook.

"What's mine is mine and what's yours is everybodys".

 

[SezMe]

What's "economic justice"?

Don't listen to the tools, just talk to your friend Wikipedia. It's usually a good place to start.

 

[Virus]

Don't listen to the tools, just talk to your friend Wikipedia. It's usually a good place to start.

What is "economic justice", in like a sentence?

 

[Ziggurat]

Didn't you see the John Stewart show? Economic justice is when occutards who own MacBooks don't have to share them with anybody, but all the other occutards are entitled to use somebody else's MacBook.

You're totally wrong.

It was an iPad 2.

 

[SezMe]

What is "economic justice", in like a sentence?

"like a sentence". What does that mean? If you mean what is "economic justice" when used in a sentence, the answer is: a two-word phrase. If you are asking what it means, then use the link I provided for you then use the links there to explore the subject. Or use google.

 

[jhunter1163]

No, I'm not a stranger to political protest, or to strikes.

My objection is that these people are ticking off precisely the people they need to get on their side, and they're doing precisely the things they're protesting against.

Strikes are organized and focused. So was the civil rights movement.

This is just a huge mess by people who are aping the surface trappings of protest without understanding the fundamental dynamics that actually make protests work.

 

[JihadJane]

No, I'm not a stranger to political protest, or to strikes.

My objection is that these people are ticking off precisely the people they need to get on their side, and they're doing precisely the things they're protesting against.

Strikes are organized and focused. So was the civil rights movement.

This is just a huge mess by people who are aping the surface trappings of protest without understanding the fundamental dynamics that actually make protests work.

What, in your opinion are the "the fundamental dynamics that actually make protests work"? Please use concrete example to illustrate your theories.

What enables you to judge whether the current, still growing unrest is "working" after only two months?

The NYPD estimates that 36,000 protesters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge last night.

No, I'm not a stranger to political protest, or to strikes.

My objection is that these people are ticking off precisely the people they need to get on their side, and they're doing precisely the things they're protesting against.

Really, I wasn't aware that the protestors were stealing vast amounts money from the economy with elaborate, fraudulent accounting tricks.

Strikes are organized and focused. So was the civil rights movement.

This is just a huge mess by people who are aping the surface trappings of protest without understanding the fundamental dynamics that actually make protests work.

No, that's what you see through your filters. Repeatedly asserting it doesn't make it true. The protests are a response to a huge, life-destroying mess that the finance industry is part of.

Have you?

Yes.

One of the points behind a strike is to raise public awareness of the value of the strikers by demonstrating (ha!) what happens when they stop working.

Wrong. Strikes are about withdrawing labour in order to put pressure on those who control (and profit from) the means of production.

They often cause a lot of inconvenience to the public.

These Harvard occupiers are doing what now? Asking for economic justice from the university, and threatening to ... keep on living in tents ON CAMPUS until they get it? It's activism lamed down to a do-nothing feel-good activity - they get to claim to be fighting the good fight in between going to classes at one of the most elite universities on the planet.

Perhaps their high IQs help them to recognize that their long-term survival depends on stopping the infinite growth machine that is devouring the planet, their futures and that of future generations. They are expressing solidarity with other protestors.

 

[Piggy]

Around a million people showed up to protest peacefully against the iraq war in the UK in 2003, and achieved precisely zilch. I'm not suggesting that disruptive protest is the only way to achieve anything, but when you give one example of peaceful protest that did, I think you might be cherrypicking.

Disruptive protests have their place.

The problem with Occupy is that once they got the cameras and mikes in their direction, they continued (and continue) to be disruptive, and nothing else.

Once you have your moment, it's time to do something... not camp out, not tape your mouth shut when given an opportunity to state your case, not keep people from getting to work, but something to actually take action on the issues you say you're concerned about.

 

[applecorped]

Perhaps their high IQs help them to recognize that their long-term survival depends on stopping the infinite growth machine that is devouring the planet, their futures and that of future generations. They are expressing solidarity with other protestors.

Proof?

 

[Piggy]

The protests are a response to a huge, life-destroying mess that the finance industry is part of.

I understand what the protests are in response to.

I said up front that I agree with the mainstream ideas that these protestors are in favor of.

That's not the issue.

You want to know what some of the fundamentals of successful protest are?

OK, we can start with....

1. Be righteous. Don't act in ways that others can (and will) easily criticize you for, especially the fence-sitters who you are trying to sway (because folks who oppose you will criticize you regardless).

2. Have dignity. If you're striking, wear a suit, or a uniform, or your work togs. Be respectable, don't clown things up.

3. Do what you want done. If you're black and you want to be served at lunch counters, get some friends and go to the lunch counter and ask for a sandwich. If you're a woman and you want to be able to vote, show up at the registrar's office en masse in order to register. If you're Indian and you want to keep the right to make salt, go to the sea and start making salt.

4. Don't do what you're protesting. You wouldn't toilet-paper your neighbors' yards in order to draw attention to a neighborhood beautification campaign. So why take over a park and keep other people from using it in order to protest the financial sector's takeover of resources?

5. Don't make the people whose support you need angry at you. The Black Panthers did things to anger white America because it didn't care what white America thought, but within its own constituencies it observed rules 1-3. Garbage strikers make people angry, but this strategy stands or falls depending on whether most folks think sanitation workers are already compensated well enough, or that they're underpaid (in which case they blame the city). Disrupting the daily lives and work lives of the real 99%, while turning a nice park into a pup-tent ghetto, is ticking off the wrong people.

5. Make it relevant. "I'm sitting at this lunch counter because every citizen deserves the right to get food at a public restaurant." Tha'ts relevant. "I'm camping in a city park because there's too much wealth disparity in the U.S." Huh? "I'm disrupting traffic at this bridge because the capital gains tax is too low." Wha'?

6. Know when to get organized. At some point, the grousing stops and the business of making change happen starts.

 

[timhau]

Piggy nominated for TLA. That's the best concise explanation of where OWS went wrong.

 

[stokes234]

5. Make it relevant. "I'm sitting at this lunch counter because every citizen deserves the right to get food at a public restaurant." Tha'ts relevant. "I'm camping in a city park because there's too much wealth disparity in the U.S." Huh? "I'm disrupting traffic at this bridge because the capital gains tax is too low." Wha'?

That was a pretty good summation of why they're being inneffective, i'll give you that. In response to point 5, there was a uk organisation called UK Uncut that hasn't been particularly active recently, but whose message was that it should be the bankers and not the uk taxpayers that have to pay for the deficit. Their tactic was to go into bank branches and set up things like creche's and daycare centres, and just generally get in the way of banks and force them to shut for the day. They also protested outside department stores of companies that had been reported to be avoiding tax, and on one day occupied the Conservative Party HQ. I completely agree that OWS would have been more successful if they had tried more focused tactics like that, although it's difficult to say if UK uncut really got anywhere with their campaign.

 

[WildCat]

The NYPD estimates that 36,000 protesters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge last night.

That's because yesterday the movement was co-opted by labor unions pushing their own agenda.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Don't Harvard students realize that anyone who can afford the $50,000 tuition at Harvard are the 1%? They must be quite a sight in their Kelty tents and LL Bean protesting outfits...

Well, the thing is, Harvard's so old that they have a ridiculous amount of money. They only charge tuition to students whose families make over a certain amount a year (can't remember what it is off hand).

A lot of the people I know who went or go to Harvard actually didn't pay any tuition, or were over the income limit still got generous scholarships. Also, if you're good enough to get into Harvard, you're also good enough to get a lot of other scholarships offered by outside sources. They also have an extension school (that's what I attend) that only runs about $975-$2000 a class.

However, there has been criticism that they don't do enough to recruit poor and lower middle class students, even if they do technically get a free ride if they are let in.

There also will be plenty of students who can't afford the 50K, don't get enough in scholarships, and get loans, just like at any other school. I know plenty of kids who went or go to Boston universities that run around 50K or more who definitely aren't anywhere near the 1%.