Slashdot Mirror
Conflict Between Occupy Wall Street Protestors and NYPD Escalating
phx_zs writes "Today marks the tenth consecutive day that thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Manhattan, specifically the financial district. ... Sunday marked a change of events as high-ranking NYPD officers exhibited brutal, unprovoked aggression on the peaceful group, reportedly arresting at least 80 people. Many photos and videos have surfaced of NYPD officers slamming protesters on the ground or into parked cars, and in one well-covered incident a NYPD officer (with pending police brutality charges from 2004) maced innocent female protesters point blank for no apparent reason. Many eyewitnesses and several news articles report that the NYPD specifically targeted photographers and media teams streaming the event live on the internet."
Do any Slashdotters have eyewitness reports to share? There seems to be a lot of misinformation originating from all parties involved making it difficult to know how large the protest actually is at this point and whether or not the police are being quite as universally violent as the protestors imply.
there is a conflict between occupy English and Slashdot, as well.
In Canada at least, there has been a serious lack of news about this protest. It's mentioned in passing sometimes, but that's about it. I don't even really know what it's about. I heard "protesting corporate greed in America", but I mean that's a tough thing to protest.. you're basically protesting capitalism..
Anyways, my question is why is there such a media gap about this protest? Is it on purpose (tin foil hat), or is it just because it's vague and nobody really cares about it, so the media doesn't bother?
Everyone should be protesting, and have the right to protest.
Police that don't understand the right to protest should be charged and removed from work ( fired if the attack is unprovoked )
One sad thing that protesters bring upon themselves is when then charge forward and attempt to become menacing, that in the eye's of the police looks like an attack. They will respond with an overwhelming amount of force. Which is sad, since a peaceful protest goal is for the attention of the problem and to have those in power look and find a solution.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Is there any reliable coverage outside of these first person blogs?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
He excoriates the police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UHsLccXQUY
Spoken like someone who has never really been to or experienced living in a real police city-state. It seems the protests today are more about seeing how far you can push the authorities attempting to keep things civil before you get your head bashed in. The actually reason or target of the protest gets lost in the background noise.
And I know I'll probably take a karma hit for this, but I'm still not posting AC, because I am trying to point out what I see as a major hypocrisy in the US protest culture these days: entrapment on the part of police is always decried as immoral, wrong, or illegal, but it is perfectly fine for protestors to entrap police.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
because to do that they'd have to be in Secaucus, NJ.
Wall Street is a major supporter of this administration, if not every administration before this but this one seems to be heavily stacked in favor of Wall Street this time (and I propose that Wall Street isn't the same as what most people know as Big Business)
So the political machine is not behind it, specifically the unions are not in this. Never under estimate the ability to move people when and how needed. Students don't stand a chance (if this is truly student based) and the really big organizations that would gin up a protest on demand when Bush was in office aren't being given marching orders. Since they aren't giving marching orders their contacts in the press don't have reason to report.
See this is this dirty little secret about protests in America now, they have to be sanctioned by the political parties to receive attention. Sponataneous protesting or groupings of people politically are not favored and about anything that can be done to ignore them is done. If they don't go away then they most be portrayed as a whole as having the very worst traits that can be found in individual members .
So until certain political elements need this protest it doesn't exist.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
No real agenda, no real leadership, no real solutions, no real propose.
Frankly just causing more harm than good and now Moore to make things even worse.
He will make a movie about it, his Dittoheads will go and feel all righteously indignant and he will collect another nice paycheck.
If you say it is the Republicans fault you are just a drone.
If you say it is the Democrats fault you are just a drone.
If you say that President Obama is all to blame you are a troll.
If you say that none of it is President Obama's fault you are a mindless fanboi.
If you think that being a Democrate makes you better than a Republican you are a fool.
If you think that being a Republican makes you better than Democrate you are fool.
If you are a Libertarian well your just in fantasy land.
The solution.
Talk less, listen more, stop treating elections like sporting events, stop vilifying those that disagree with you, and vote in the primaries.
Oh and treat the election like this, this is a job interview and you are the boss. Grill them and then pick.
And don't waste your time sitting on the street eating donated pizza and babbling.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You can find links on google's new page, like this one: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-27/wall-street-protesters-joined-by-susan-sarandon.html
The protesters are actually fairly well organized with planned events, a voting process for making immediate decisions, and a goal of getting Obama to acknowledge the wealth gap and appointing a commission to recommend actions for dealing with it.
The "traditional" media is indeed ignoring it. There's an on-going debate on twitter about whether or not the twitter admins are actively suppressing the #occupywallstreet hash-tag from trending.
Under current case law the permit system is largely allowed, though it may violate the Constitution depending on how it's applied. The government may place "reasonable" "time, place and manner" restrictions on protests in order to maintain public order and safety, but is not supposed to prohibit protests entirely, or treat them differently based on the content of the protest (this is easiest to show if they treat protestors for and against some position differently).
I don't, for the record, think that interpretation of the Constitution is correct. Were it up to me, I would treat public protest similarly to publication: the government may prosecute actually illegal activity (libel for publication, or violence in the case of protests) if it ever takes place, but there should be an extremely high bar for prior restraint through anything like a permitting or imprimatur system before the speech even takes place.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Slashdot is also for "stuff that matters".
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The "pendulum" will not even begin to swing back until the people:
1) Withdraw all of their savings from the big banks.
2) Reclaim personal control over the money in their IRAs or 401Ks or 403Bs or whatever, and invest it themselves instead of letting corrupt corporations use these assets for their own goals.
3) Place a value on the dollar that is connected to real-world resources and human advancement instead of some false "economy" construct that is programmed into them by their slave-masters.
Street protests are stupid and futile. Many of the idiots who are getting beaten by the cops have credit/debit cards, savings/checking accounts, retirement accounts, etc with the very corporations against which they protest.
Promote change by moving your money,not raising your voice. That the ONLY kind of change that will affect the financial "institutions".
I just took my lunch break off from work to check out the protest in Liberty Square. There seems to be about as many people there - staying with sleeping bags - as the small park can hold. It's no bigger than a block, and a small one at that. The estimates of about 200 people staying in the park are likely accurate.
From my understanding after talking with some of the protesters there, the incidents in New York happened when they attempted to march through the streets. In addition, I found out that the numbers of people over the weekend were not just limited to the people staying in the park; there are a lot of people who are not roughing it in the concerete jungle of NYC and are staying with friends or relatives during 'off period times' of the protest.
I can't speak to any police brutality during my brief visit. The protest was extremely peaceful while I was there (unless you consider a drum circle violent), but I did see several of the officers in the YouTube videos present at the square - although noticeably they were not the ones who perpetuated or committed any act of brutality (although you could argue they did nothing to prevent it). In fact, the officers I did recognize were the ones who had doubtful expressions on their faces in most of the videos. The officers were mostly staying out of it. There were also no "white shirts" there - the higher ranking officers whom, over the weekend, seemed to be largely responsible for the more egregious assaults. I also heard that some 100 officers refused to patrol the protest after the incidents over the weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if the commissioner or someone else "gave the department a talking to".
IMHO, it's really hard to discount the video evidence that there was unjustified force, given the multiple angles of the YouTube videos available.
I've heard some people say that some of the protesters' were "over-reacting" to the actions of the police. I think that is ridiculous. I would love to see how anyone would react to being pulled across a concrete street by four armed men. Additionally, one of the women maced in the YouTube video was deaf , and thats why she was screaming at a great volume.
It's not unheard of for police officers to attempt to arrest people videotaping them - and given a recent ruling in a Federal Appeals Court that declared video taping a police officer a constitutional right, the actions of some of those officers was foolish and irresponsible, a fact probably made more evident to not just the public, but their superior officers, by their absence today.
If you couldn't have all three, a black man wouldn't be the president. American history is full of occupations of public and private spaces for civil and worker rights, and they worked in the 30s as well as in the 60s. That's why you have a 40 hour workweek and the right to vote regardless of your gender or skin color.
But what would an uneducated crypto fascist like you know about that?
Well... yes and no.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Did you even watch any of the videos? Did you even look into this at all? I can't understand how you could have done so and still hold such an opinion.
As far as I can tell, I don't agree with any of these people protesting. I am pretty much convinced their protests are ineffective and a waste of time, and that the individuals involved may, in fact, be wastes of perfectly good protoplasm.
THAT BEING SAID, there is no excuse for the behavior of the NYPD in this incident. The behavior of the NYPD Commanders during this protest has been disgusting, immoral, illegal, and against everything we as a Nation are supposed to stand for. But what is even more disgusting is how the NYPD immediately closed ranks on this matter, excusing their behavior as completely reasonable. What is even MORE disgusting than that, however, is citizens such as yourself who are willing to give the Police a blank check to do whatever they want to people you dislike or don't agree with.
Shame on you. You aren't worthy to lick the boots of those who shed blood to secure the rights you'd see others denied.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
The level of violence of U.S. cops "on the scene" is pretty surprising by most civilized standards. I will agree it's not a "police state" because the biggest marker of those is what happens more generally if you're arrested (e.g. do thousands of people get disappeared?). In the U.S. a typical arrested protestor will just be released, sometimes cited, though occasionally prosecutors do go overboard with charges intended to intimidate. There are a handful of more worrying terrorism detention-without-trial cases, but I haven't heard of that being used in relation to street protests.
It does seem strange that the level of violence on-the-scene is needed, though. Sure, it's not mowing people down, Tiananmen style, but it seems pretty excessive. I don't know if it's an attempt to scare off "normal" people from showing up (which leads to a vicious cycle of only more-extreme people being willing to show up), or if it's just the individual work of not-very-disciplined cops.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The video was a single continuous shot. Nothing was edited out of it, and anyone can tell this just by watching it, as I did. All your comment proves is that you're an idiot.
Oh for fuck's sake. I saw coverage of this crap on CNN on the 18th. Two weeks ago.
The reason it isn't getting much coverage in the major media is because it is a couple hundred dirty twenty-somethings (I'm barely not a dirty twenty-something, judgement not particularly intended) complaining that a bunch of rich people are rich.
And they don't even understand what they are complaining about; sure, the government bail out of the banks was a bit of a raw deal for the taxpayer (I bet the protesters don't have much to complain about there) and a bit of a terrific deal for the bank, but the thing no taxpayer wants to talk about is that their entire existence is made better by some sort of stability/existence of the dollar. The richer taxpayers really don't want to talk about all the fixed income funds of theirs that the bank bailout saved.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
as of 2005, top 5% of american society takes 72% of everything. bottom 85% (includes YOU), take only 15%.
in medieval western europe, the law of the land was in the below manner :
lord gets 33% of produce from fields>
church gets 33% of produce from fields>
serfs get 33% of produce from fields.
no lord could ever dream of being able to actually take 72% of economy, and a medieval peasant would be pitying a modern 'well to do' person in terms of the share of the wealth he is taking from at a measly 15% - for, he, as a medieval peasant, got double the rate you are currently getting from your society's wealth.
thats what happens when you get a job. you live TWICE worse off than a medieval serf.
moron. the one whose skull should be cracked is you. you are dragging the average level of humanity down. and if you made your name and address available, im sure someone from new york could offer you the courtesy in a back alley.
Read radical news here
Hopefully it will turn out like this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article515384.ece
I had plenty of experience with anti-CIA recruitment protesters in college, and the charming anti-Republican protesters last year in St Paul. I really couldn't imagine possibly feeling sorry for them. They're repellent self-righteous zealots who are utterly obnoxious regardless of their cause, or even whether they're right or not. Even if I'd agreed with their point of view, I'd want them off my side.
-Styopa
If you've experienced living in a police-state, you're well aware that agents provocateur are standard tools of the trade. What reason do you have to believe that they're not being used here?
Which makes more sense? A peaceful protest being held for a week suddenly turning violent for no apparent reason? Or police tolerating a peaceful protest for a week, at which point they find or make excuses to turn the protest into a riot?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Say I own a small electronic repair store along a major street that also runs past the state capitol. People want to demonstrate against the state government, so thousands of people march down the street, clogging traffic and keeping people from entering my store. Now, while the government may(or may not) have done something wrong, obviously I have not. There is no way you could justify (morally, ethically, or legally) denying me my right to make a living and feed my family to protest something with which I have had no part in. This is why many cities have permits or designated areas for protests to be legally carried out.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
If the authorities really wanted to keep things civil, they would do something about the elite minority committing wholesale theft against everyone else in the country. They also might try to uphold constitutionally protected rights, or not pepper spray kettled peaceful protesters in the face, or impose disciplinary action on those who represent them poorly instead of promoting such despicable activity.
I know this is slashdot and facts are irrelevant here, but the NYPD hasn't used mace since 1994: http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/pdf/pepperreport.pdf. There is a difference between mace and pepper spray (most significantly that mace is illegal in most of the civilized world).
The OccupyWallStreet activists have, so far (this is Day 11 of the protest), been unable to articulate much their philosophy or objectives. There is no single leader; some of them are undirected anarchists, some are communists, and some seem to have no coherent viewpoint.
The clash with police referenced in the article, during a march from lower Manhattan to Union Square and back, actually occurred on Saturday. On Sunday, the protesters were visited by journalist Chris Hedges, who gave an excellent interview (even if you don't agree with his politics or anything else). The full interview is posted at http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/chris-hedges-occupy-wall-street-is-where-the-hope-of-america-lies/ [rawstory.com]
Chris Hedges is the first person who has been able to clearly summarize the position of the protesters. Although, it's really just his own viewpoint--some of the activists view Hedges as a "reformer, not a revolutionary" and therefore not a spokesman for their movement--it's the best statement that has emerged from Zuccotti Park since this thing started. Hedges makes it clear that he views the two dominant political parties in the US as equally corrupt and controlled by corporate interests. The corporate media will try to ignore this protest as much as possible, as it does not fit the political agenda of any major news organization.
Personally, I disagree with most, if not all, of what these protesters say, but I emphatically support their right to say it. The behavior of the NYPD was disgusting.
Here's the gist:
*) There are no "Wall St" firms on Wall St anymore (nor anywhere close). NYSE trading floor is not that important in grand scheme of things. The neighbourhood became residential about 15 years ago, and now there's 20,000 residents like me.
*) When the protest started (two weeks ago), there were minimal number of protesters (1000) despite the protesters claims to have 20k people.
*) There's "OVER 9000" cops downtown, and it makes getting around quite annoying since I have to navigate police barriers (not a big deal, but just annoying). There's definitely more cops than protesters at any given area. At the beginning of protest, they had a 2-cop shoulder-to-shoulder line blocking Wall St. The only protesters were 6 people dressed in white robes (could pass for either Star Wars freaks or priests), cops were quite bored.
*) Cops are polite and keep to their business (that is, stand there and look serious). I can't say same about the protesters.
*) Protesters themselves...oy. Whatever it is they are protesting, they are an embarassment to their cause. I've chatted to a few, and had a few come over for drinks, and uh...Well, it's exactly what you'd expect, well-meaning but clueless younger people who are looking for attention and "feeling of doing something".
*) They protest evil corporations. Nevertheless, most of them have latest iphone4 (just look at the videos - they are ones taping). It doesn't bother them that Apple is largest corporation in the world who isn't very nice to its users.
*) There's a huge number of DSLRs at the protest - combined with iphone4, means nobody there is really starving.
*) I started speaking to one of protesters about bitcoin. He was very interested in it and buying some if they are likely to appreciate. He was *shocked* when I pointed out that's exactly what "evil bankers" do.
*) Cops don't really give a damn about protesters. They are charged with enforcing certain rules - such as, no "permanent structures". So, every so often, a cop walks through the protest site checking things out. Each time a cop does so, there's 10 people with cameras surrounding said cop to make sure any "brutality" gets videotaped. It gets quite silly since these kids don't really understand they need to move away for a cop to walk through (and since they are looking into their viewfinder, they don't realize that the cop is a foot away, resulting in a cop having to push the photographer out of the way - "omg brutality").
*) Protesters are completely disorganized - there's nobody who is "in charge", which leads to interactions with cops that could go much smoother, if a single person was designated to be liaison to cops. Protesters also can't/won't police their own - so if someone does something illegal, its becomes up to cops to enforce (vs, protesters saying "this is not cool, please do not do it" and avoiding police involvement).
*) When cops walk by, most protesters just ignore them, continuing with conversations etc. However, there are a few who get "in your face" to cops and start shouting/etc - and yes, I'd say that the protesters are trying to provoke conflict, whether they intend to or not.
*) As far as professionalism goes, I'd say cops are generally acting professional, if bored and annoyed at having to deal with hippies who hate their guts.
*) There is serious "victim mentality" among protesters - such as "media is suppressing coverage" (no, its just not important enough - the protest is much smaller than an average union rally).
Please don't be so sure. If you recall earlier this past year, there were massive protests in Wisconsin. As someone who personally took place in a lot of them, I know that our media is terrible. For example, during these protests, the rallies were larger than the biggest Tea Party rally ever, even though it was during a snowstorm in Wisconsin in February. That certainly strikes me as news, but when you turned on CNN, all you saw was a 10-second sound bite on Wisconsin, followed by a 3-minute long piece on the history of the Tea Party in US politics. (I don't have links handy.)
Personally, I don't know enough of the ground truth of what is happening on Wall St. to comment, but I very highly suspect that anything that has been said on any major network news is woefully inaccurate at best.
Okay then. How much of the land did the peasants own?
You speak as if elections matter in the USA. I think you've not been paying close attention, else you are deluded. The two branches of the Money Party each field a candidate, and you get to choose between them. That's effectively one party government. The (mostly) young people protesting in New York have figured this out. I'm surprised you have not.
Also, I'd like to point out that these kids are using the same non-violent resistance techniques that have toppled multiple governments worldwide in the past 12 years. These techniques were pioneered by Gandhi and have been refined considerably since then. They have proven, time and again, to be an effective technique, if and only if there is a free press. While I'm not suggesting that as isolated protest in New York City will cause revolution in the USA, I suspect the powers that be are more concerned than they care to admit. Please recall Gandhi's quote about the use of non-violent direct action techniques, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
These protests in New York are largely considered practice by the (non) organizers. I suspect that the protesters will learn, through some unpleasant incidents, that they need to engage in more and better non-violent resistance training. The standard mechanism used to stop protests of this sort is to have agent provocateurs incite violence, which is then used as an excuse to crush the public protest with overwhelming force. The way to avoid this is for all people engaging in non-violent direct actions to first practice, in an organized group training environment, how to respond non-violently when confronted with violence or the threat of violence. I don't believe this first round of protesters have had much training.
Personally, I wish the protesters well, and hope they succeed in raising awareness about just how bad the current US system is. Perhaps, then, some practical ways to deal with the current disaster-in-the-making will be seriously considered. Here is a link to a very mainstream article from the BBC that describes the history of the techniques currently being deployed in New York.
On November 17, 1989, a massive student demonstration took place in Prague. This, by itself, was not all that unusual - another took place the day before in Bratislava, and others took place from time to time in all large cities. What was unusual, though, was the police brutality. They attacked the peaceful protesters to the extent that rumors started circulating that one of the students died. This sparked the "Velvet revolution" that overthrew the police state in Slovakia. What we see here is a similar scenario: instead of lack of basic freedoms we have an economic crisis that started a series of protests. Police is showing a comparable level of brutality. Fortunately, largely thanks to much more fragmented information system with mainstream media downplaying the protests (in Czechoslovakia, the only two TV stations sided with the protesters and informed the public about the police brutality), the brutality on Wall Street won't grow into a much larger movement.
Why because her goal was to egg on the authorities until an "Accident" happened so she can show everyone that she had the higher moral ground.
If the authorities do something illegal, then it doesn't matter how much they were "egged on." They're supposed to be trained professionals.
I don't get it with people like you. You're generally anti-government but pro-authority. Don't you see the disconnect there?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Remember Seattle? No-one does, accurately. Long, peaceful protests against the corporations, then suddenly: Anarchists! OMG! At least a dozen, springing from the protesters, smashing and running and breaking and somehow, not getting caught. Then, of course, in immediate sync, governments across the world instituted a world police state in which the very act of protest caused police violence. In Canada, the UK, the US. Very convenient.
I'd bet much that most "anarchists" are specially trained agents of god-knows-who, governments, quasi-govercorporPR ad hoc committess, whatever. They activate and infiltrate, then disappear.
End result: anti-war protest, Chicago, 2003-ish, where I personally witnessed every unmarked cop car in the city parked on lower Wacker drive, poised to take on Armageddon, or as we know them, anti-violence peace marchers. They rounded everyone up and arrested them. We've not had a mass peace march since. Not to mention the media channels broadcasting nothing but "these pinks are holding up rush hour!", instead of examining WHY the war to come was insane - as it was. The protestors were right, and the cops and everyone else were wrong.Too damned bad no one cared to cover them other than commie-pro-Islam crazies. We'd have about a million more live Iraqi innocents, and twenty thousand fewer brave Americans with their junk burned off.
Sonny, sonny, sonny.
First you ask, "Don't believe me?" And then you fail to provide any coherent proof of your hypothesis.
Then you attempt to assign homework.
Your homework should have been to discover facts that actually support your hypothesis, along with some explanation of their support.
And until you can get an A+... stay off my lawn!