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.
Well, considering that they are protesting the heart of America's economic system, and considering that mainstream media outlets have long refused to publicize movements that run counter the American economic policy, I would not be surprised if the black-out was deliberate.
Palm trees and 8
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
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.
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
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
You mustn't be looking hard enough. Techdirt has a post with links to at least four videos of the same incident, all from different angles. With plenty of time before the cop comes up and shoots the women directly in the face with pepper spray. Even the blue shirts around him appear surprised.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110927/09480916110/can-nypd-back-up-its-claim-confrontation-that-required-pepper-spray-despite-more-video-evidence.shtml
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A friend of mine works downtown and has a view of the protest, and the reason it isn't getting coverage, is that it has been quite small. I hear that it has been growing in size each day, but last Friday, the number of protesters was laughable, it looked to be about 100 people from the cellphone picture I saw- the plaza they are protesting in is more crowded during rush hour when people are going to/from work. Not much of a protest, especially by NYC standards. I mean every time the UN meets there are gatherings there many times that size.
I also get within a block of that park on my commute home. They certainly aren't making much of a splash, as I don't even notice them. I think this is a very small protest that is getting national media coverage only because its such a provocative subject.
When I peacefully protest or commit an act of peaceful civil disobedience, I fully expect to be charged for violating the law, and have legal charges brought against me. I expect to have to spend some time in jail, or pay a fine, if I break a law. What I do not expect, though, is having my face smashed into a parked car, being beaten by police officers for non-violently refusing to disperse, etc. I expect that my infractions against the legal system will be responded to withing the limits of the legal system.
Violent attacks against peaceful protesters is exactly the kind of police behavior that we usually heavily criticize when they are committed by police in various totalitarian regimes.
AccountKiller
The only permit anybody should need to hold a peaceful protest is the first amendment.
Making fun of dumb people since 2009