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The Future of Protest In Panopticon Nation
Hugh Pickens writes "James Fallows writes that you don't have to idealize everything about the Occupy movement to recognize the stoic resolve of the protesters at UC Davis being pepper sprayed as a moral drama that the protesters clearly won. 'The self-control they show, while being assaulted, reminds me of grainy TV footage I saw as a kid, of black civil rights protesters being fire-hosed by Bull Connor's policemen in Alabama. Or of course the Tank Man in Tiananmen Square,' writes Fallows. 'Such images can have tremendous, lasting power.' We can't yet imagine all the effects of the panopticon society we are beginning to live in but one benefit to the modern protest movement is the omnipresence of cameras (video) as police officials, protesters, and nearly all onlookers are recording whatever goes on bringing greater accountability and a reality-test for police claims that they 'had' to use excessive force. 'What's new is that now the perception war occurs simultaneously with the physical struggle. There's almost parity,' writes Andrew Sprung. 'You have a truncheon or gun, I have a camera. You inflict pain, I inflict infamy.'"
First Post
"There's almost parity,' writes Andrew Sprung. 'You have a truncheon or gun, I have a camera. You inflict pain, I inflict infamy.'""
haha come on, parity?
Has this guy ever been pepper sprayed or beaten up before?
People shouldnt have to endure this to receive justice
Its a sad day our society thinks this is some kind of achievement or "balance" of power
With the proliferation of video and photographic 'evidence', people seem much more ready to believe an event didn't happen nowadays if there isn't visual 'smoking gun' evidence to prove it.
Look for more incidents involving agents provocateurs in future protests. It's easier to "justify" whatever actions are taken if they can show footage of a "protester" acting in an "unreasonable" fashion.
The public footage is having a huge impact right now because people are seeing people like themselves at the protests and NOT causing problems ... and hearing the official reports contradicting the footage.
The blacks and Tank Man couldn't be sure the government wouldn't kill them on purpose. They faced down the very real threat of death for participating in their movements.
For the OWS movement, any deaths caused by the government will be accidental.
Oppression is ugly and this 99 percent one percent thing isn't likely to get better and will probably get a whole lot worse in your lifetime.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Morally equating the UC Davis self indulgent snivelers with the civil rights movement is really sickening. I am not sure if you are stupid or an outright racist. The only reason the kids sat there was because the cop used weak sauce pepper spray and casually doused them. Had they been up against dogs or firehouses or the police of segregated Alabama the little hippie wannabes wouldn't have shown up.
As for the argument that cops used excessive force, the video proves they didn't. The protestors got sprayed with something that did not effect them, it wasn't like each one of them got the full don't tase me bro treatment.
Blog explaining the protest:
http://studentactivism.net/2011/11/20/ten-things-you-should-know-about-fridays-uc-davis-police-violence/
Sig? Heil
The bathos of it becomes apparent when you realize the OWS protesters live in $300,000 homes or $1500/month apartments, have been oversupplied with everything they could possibly want (quick- count how many $400 cell phones are in that picture, $100 pieces of clothing, or people with $3000 laptops. Hell, how many of those POOR kids are drinking $5 cups of coffee?) or are raging because, having accumulated massive amounts of debt getting educations of little actual value, they now suddenly realize that they actually might be held responsible for their shitty self-choices or a basic heedlessness that "good times don't go on forever"?
My goodness, the tears- how they flow!
Sure, compare a bunch of spoiled, whiny hypocritical narcissists to civil rights people standing up for basic human rights, or some guy standing alone against a TANK.
Yeah, we're pretty much in the end days.
-Styopa
You inflict pain, I inflict infamy.
That's nice. I will never meet or deal with the police officer who maced those protesters. I've already forgotten his name. When 90% of the population sees these things, they think "huh, sucks to be them. glad they're out there fighting the good fight and not me. What's for dinner?" When the sadists and psychopaths see them, they say to themselves "wow, they take the punishment and stay put for more."
We all know the 1% (or "powers that be," if you prefer) are tracking us now and will continue to expand the scope and depth of how they track us.
But we in the 99% (or "little people/hoi poloi/peasants," if you prefer) have access to most of the same technology at an affordable price point. There is no technical reason we cannot track them as much or more than they can us, especially if we use our vastly superior numbers to crowd-source the most difficult part of tracking: making sense of the deluge of data.
If we repeat what we did with searching for Steve Fossett's plane using Google Earth crossed with FoldIt and SETI@home we can develop a real-time picture of exactly what the 1% are doing, where, and when. That's a tremendous amount of intelligence we can leverage in many ways.
So, for example, if we map radio transponders used by our friendly neighborhood shock troo, er, police then we can equal the spying they're already doing on peaceful protesters (Google "NYPD spying protest groups." What would they do if we knew exactly where they keep their LRAD cannons and pepper spray depots and stage sit-ins at the entrances before they can deploy? What if every single Lt. John Pike gets followed home by the protesters who surround his home, quietly sitting and linking arms?
Or, more to the point, what if we made sure that the puppet masters never have a moment's peace and that they know we all know them exactly for the scum they are?
That, I believe, is what needs to happen next to break the back of this beast.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I am posting in anon-mode for reasons that will become obvious.
As terrible as police brutalty is, and as unjustified as the pepper spray incident obviously was, many of us UCD students are still not really on-board with the protesters now occupying our campus. While there are many students, a large percentage of the protesters are outsiders who have come from Berkeley, LA and further. They are camping on our lawn and drumming up support for various causes that our mildly conservative campus is not fully in support of (Davis typically serves the people from the central valley of CA). Our quad is now a mesh of ragtag tents, a pipe-frame geodesic dome, and dozens of media vans. Personally, I just want to do my homework and hopefully graduate so I can move out of california and find a job.
Is tuition high? Yes. Should taxes be more equitable? Yes. Is blasting reggae music till 11:30 PM right next to our library going to effect those changes? Probably not.
To end on a quip; protesting for the right to protest is like having sex for virginity.
We're learning from the past. "You inflict pain; I inflict infamy" isn't new; it's making a comeback, that's all.
Tiananmen Square protests really didn't do anything for civil rights in the People's Republic of China, while the US Civil Rights movement did change things, the Occupy movement doesn't really have a tangible goal that is achievable in the short term.
I almost immediately thought that it looked like the cops were fertilizing the tree of liberty.
There's a good idea there for a political cartoon, if it hasn't been done already.
At least, we hope it's the tree of liberty and not just weeds; but it's certainly something.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Can big brother withstand the onslaught of a hundred thousand little brothers?
I remember a comic book put out by Omni Magazine about a guy who took down criminals and dictators by walking into their headquarters and declaring their reign of power over. He was followed by thousands of tiny flying webcams being remote controlled by random people all over the world. I could honestly see something like that happening sometime soon.
Technoli
What, is there an Occupy Gallifrey movement now?
From the summary:
"'What's new is that now the perception war occurs simultaneously with the physical struggle. There's almost parity,' writes Andrew Sprung. 'You have a truncheon or gun, I have a camera. You inflict pain, I inflict infamy.'"
No, what you inflict is spin - because all you have to is show a carefully focused video showing the police swinging their truncheons or spraying pepper spray, and those who believe video bites represent the entire truth will defend your interpretation, and forward it, and 'like' it, etc... You'll hang 'em in the court of public opinion, but that's much more important than reality.
The funny part is that the OWS hippies are protesting because they want to impose the very kind of government which rolls tanks over protestors like that.
They were told to escalate and to be prepared for the pepper spray so they could get just these optics. And comparing it to the Civil Rights movement or the guy at Tienanmen Square is disingenuous and the preferred liberal chamber echo. Obama's Brats are acting just the way the little snowflakes were raised by the liberal democrat schools. And surprise, surprise a college degree (Which YOU did SIGN the LOAN papers for knowing the PAYBACK rules) doesn't guarantee you get the best parking spot and $200,000 a year right out of school. So encouraged by these same democrats, main stream media, and union agitators they throw a fit. Get pepper sprayed on camera, beat opposition over the head with it. This is what really happened.
The point of the "agent provocateur" is that he works WITH the authorities while POSING as one of the protesters.
So when the calm protesters are engaged in non-violent protests, the agent provocateur becomes violent. That "violence" is used to "justify" the violence against the non-violent protesters.
And it is that one "violent protester" who is shown in the media as an example of how "unreasonable" the protesters (as a group) are.
In twenty years, the young protesters will be in the board rooms that they now protest. Been there, done that. Long live the 60's
Infamy ? It should be worse than that, like years in jail. But I'll go with infamy: I have a cousin who's a cop. I haven't been in touch with him in the last decade or so, but if I ever saw him on youtube do one tenth of what that asshole cop did, you can bet your ass I'd be insulting him on the phone right now, AND I'd be calling everyone in the family to make sure they know what an criminal asshole he is. I don't understand how asshole cops like this can live over this.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
You don't have a lot of real-world experience, do you? Incidentally, everything you said about "$3000 laptops" and "$400 smartphones" and "$5 cups of coffee" is both false and irrelevant.
The pervasive presence of cameras does not, by itself make a panipticon. The theory of the Panopticon is that the prisoners self regulate behavior because they are unaware of whether they are being observed, because the guard in the tower is hidden. While omnicient surveilance is a big concern, it is more often the visible presence of police at protests that keep people's behavior controlled.
The interesting thing about this is that protestors' behavior is more beholden to their chosen audince than the authority figures. There are a mass of bystanders who could obviously physically step in and stop the cop from spraying their freinds. Its easy to do, but protestors are performing an act of nonviolence and no one wants to deviate from that performance.
My father was a college student and newspaper photographer in Ohio circa May 1970. His photos of student protest and civil disobedience remind me of what I'm seeing with the Occupy movement.
A year or more ago, I commented that I didn't think the Tea Party would have a long-term affect because they weren't motivated enough to burn down an ROTC building nor were the police scared enough of them to hit them with tear gas.
Agree with them or not. Understand them or not. The Occupy movement is going to leave a mark upon this country because they are willing to have skin in the game.
Cheers, Matt
They can't leave the square, or they will look like losers. The police can't let them hang around, or they will look like losers.....
We'r in for a looooong ride.
WillZ recall that it
Exactly.
The general populace understands that the State is the only entity that has a legitimate right to project force. Whether via the military (hopefully outside the country) or the police (inside the country). I include the CIA / FBI / etc in those categories.
Anyone else using force (particularly outside their social group) is IMMEDIATELY identified as a criminal. A threat to society.
There may be problems in society. And the majority of the population may even AGREE with you about those problems. But they do NOT want to have to deal with non-State violence. They see enough of that (and its effects) from criminals.
Fuck your rights, hippies!
America First. You don't like it? Move to communist gookistan and bitch about your "universal human rights", see how your comrades in Marx support your struggle for equality of the naturally unequal.
COMMUNISM IS A DISEASE.
In the present, police departments are already arresting people for video tapping them.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
I mean permanently injured. But the officers who did it are being investigated. There will be trials, lawsuits, etc.
But the Chinese protesters knew they'd be killed without repriasal to those who did it. If not killed, they'd disappear into the prison system to be shot or waste away the rest of their lives, no recourse for them or their families. The blacks knew there were organizations out to kill them, and many died. They knew no cops who beat them on marches and protests would be charged with anything. They could be attacked with impunity.
It's not like leftists didn't shoot up the Holocaust Museum or fly their planes into IRS buildings (the media tried to portray Stack as Tea Party, but he left behind a leftist manifesto).
Individual kooks do things like that. I'm talking about the organized ones, like the Democrat KKK during the civil rights movement, and the goverment.
No intent to kill.
The Chinese shot them, drove over them with tanks. The Democrat KKK killed civil rights activists with impunity under the tacit approval of local governments, even having victims handed to them by the police (who were often KKK themselves anyway). Khadaffi used snipers and helicopter gunships to kill dozens of people in just one protest. The protesters in Syria know full well their protesting is very likely to be deadly, with thousands dead so far.
An OWS protester has no real fear for his life in comparison to them.
The tanks won. In the end, the people were oppressed, and nothing changed. Also, you're making the mistake that our master and rulers didn't learn from Vietnam. It wasn't photos of protestors being gunned down that changed public sentiment; it was the pictures of body bags and caskets coming home. And being black in southern America still sucks.
The OWS protestors were sent a message: Go ahead and play around as much as you want, but don't forget; as soon as there's any chance of you changing the narrative our goons'll clear you away, and there's nothing you or anyone can do about it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Posting as AC, as this is something people really won't want to hear:
OWS won't mean shit in six months, just as the worldwide anti-war demonstrations in 2003 did -nada- to stop anything with Iraq. Those protests were far greater in number. If those couldn't stop the Iraq invasion, think some mascara wearing hipsters will be able to do much? If so, I have a bridge to sell you in NYC. Cheap.
OWS can't be taken seriously. Its message is too far diluted and has just become an excuse to protest just because it is in style. Beck's rally had far more impact a few years ago where he managed to get 2 million people to the US capital. Total arrests during that rally? Zero. Heck, even the local PD commented that what they thought were Wal-Mart people left DC cleaner than it was before. Congress has zero interest in listening to OWS. In fact, they are considered losers.
Here is what is going to happen, one of two scenarios:
Winter is going to come, people get tired of having their generators and tents taken up, and being arrested for criminal trespass repeatedly (remember, NO employer will hire someone with a criminal record gotten due to OWS protests. In fact, it is just as good as a felony on the rap sheet.) People get tired of it and leave, and the die-hards soon get laughed at just like the Hare Krishas.
The police will start doing live round target practice because someone decided to be stupid. Kent State ended the whole 60's protest culture completely. Once people realize that they might get shot with something harder than words or pepper spray, this movement will end, period. The whole election protest movement in Iran ended when the students realized the police were serious and would shoot back. Same with the Chinese. This is sad to say, as OWS has some truth in what it has, but cops can shoot and get away with it.
"you don't have to idealize everything about the Occupy movement"
I don't idealize anything about the movement.
The kids are essentially tools for the DNC and SEIU.
And what the kids actually believe is silly and childish. It smacks very much of pampered children who when faced with reality think reality is wrong.
The ones protesting are the ones who couldn't get a job in the best of economic times. The british word "weed" applies very well to them.
What is this propagandist tripe doing in Slashdot? I don't idealize anything in the Occupy movement, and am part of the growing 65% who feel the same way. I don't recognize it as stoic resolve, but rather unending stupidity, on the part of the protesters who refused to leave after multiple warnings by the police that it was long past time to go. I don't consider obstructing the police to be "peaceful" or "protected" protest, and if I'd been there myself with a pepper spray container the size of a small fire extinguisher I would have hosed them down myself as a lifelong lesson to quit being so stupid. There are valid ways to protest -- and this was none of them. Those protesters won nothing in my book.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Seems to me (though not having been quite old enough myself to be drafted at the time) that the American audiovisual access to events in Vietnam during the war there, while not quite the real-time access being discussed here, might arguably be considered the genesis of this Panopticon Nation.
You know, in gun verses camera, I'm betting on gun. It's bad to try to hurt me when I'm capable of hurting you much worse in return and you're only counting on my good nature not to. It's the same as rock verses gun, bottle verses gun, molotov cocktail verses gun, or even bringing a knife to a gunfight. You may survive today, but you can only afford to be wrong once.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It also helps that the protesters are playing an asymmetrical game with reporters who are sympathetic to their cause.
Meaning the various transgressions taking place in the Occupy movement (the rapes, the thefts, the public masturbation, shitting on cop cars, lobbing human waste at street vendors who don't give them freebees, etc) are all being ignored and will be ignored because they don't play into the story of the downtrodden standing up to The Man. But the handful of cops who lose their cool and snap, or the frightened police officer who suddenly discharges his weapon when it wasn't called for--that is what will be reported ad-infinitum until it becomes the only reality that anyone remembers.
The panopticon won't matter, simply because with more information we don't get more truth; we just get a flood that more people will tune out. Oddly in the flood of information it will become easier, not harder, for the spinmeisters to weave a tale that their target audience will eat up without question.
Worse, because each of us have conformation bias, we'll tend to throw out the ten thousand images that don't confirm our bias, while clinging onto the one image that does as the grain of truth in the flood of lies.
Comparing the "Occupy" kids with the black civil rights movement? That is a disgrace to every one of our dark skinned brothers and sisters!
If some fucking pig held my mouth open like that I'd do everything I could to hunt him down and kill him. Fucking sadistic authoritarian filth.
The sheer inanity of the OWS crowd is only one-upped by the people attempting to analogize a bunch of spoiled rich kids demanding more 'free' stuff (and refusing to accept responsibility for their tragic error in 2008) to actual freedom-fighters of America's past and the world's present. You know how these kids like to chant "the world is watching"? Yeah, the world is watching ... and laughing. All around the world we are the laughingstock of poorer nations.
And by the way: pepper spray IS 'non-violent' law enforcement. The purpose of pepper spray is exactly that for which it has been used: to force compliance from people who have been given every chance to voluntarily comply.
In addition to needing education in economics and politics, it seems our kids now need education in basic rights. You do not have the 'right' to occupy public property indefinitely, or private property at all.
Really? What 'mark' will they leave other than the gigantic piles of feces and garbage they leave behind?
They also stand to get shot and breakout in to civil war by other 99ers that can't stand their shit anymore. Leave a mark? You bet your ass it will! Word to the wise. Stay the hell away from that maelstrom if you know what's good for you.
Life is not for the lazy.
It is only a matter of time before we have another Kent State on our hands. Things will escalate between both sides and there will only be bloodshed before concessions are made. That is the only way I see this playing out. I imagine in the spring of next year, and during the height of 2010 election mania, there will be a surge in OWS as people become even more outraged at the current crop of incumbents. Who knows. Interesting times.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
The Ninth Circuit has already ruled on this sort of situation.. the courts will and must revoke the police's qualified immunity against claims of excessive force. Let the lawsuits begin: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1332957.html
The best dissection of this idiotic 'movement' I have yet to read - not fawning, not pandering, but a realistic evaluation of who and what they are: "The idea is utopian socialism. The method is revolutionary anarchism." http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/anarchy-usa_609222.html
The Revelution will not be televised.
it will be posted to Youtube.
Ghandi was for the liberation of India from the British
The Civil Rights Movement was for equal rights between races
The Vietnam movement was for the end of Vietnam
Simple direct ideas and Goals
The OWS movement seems to be against some people making too much money unless that money is union and its all xx fault while yy also makes too much money but we like yy so xx is completly to blame, NAZI, CAPITALIST, JACKBOOT, ENVIRONMENT, EVIL, CORPORATE, WALL STREET. They lack leadership, a coherant message or an understandable agenda and goal.
Wall Street is corrupt, it is the government's job to police that corruption. Why are they upset at Wall Street but not upset at their own party. This movement will be footnote by election time when the politicians distance themselves for votes, and the media grows bored.
I don't even know what most of these people stand for, or even want.
Well that's clearly a failure of your own research, isn't it? The UC Davis demonstrations were a protest against both the ~80% tuition increases they are facing, and the brutality used by the UCPD in suppressing other demonstrations.
Color Lines
Patch
People's World
Oh, and here's the UC Davis faculty association page
This information exists, and is readily acquired, but you have failed to even look for it. Instead you have enthusiastically swallowed a series of unsupportable right-wing talking points and then dutifully repeated them, thereby proving to the world that you are an outrageous tool.
Everything else you wrote is a similar display of lies and misinformation. You have not provided enough substance to be worthy of a complete response. Please try harder.
'...for police claims that they 'had' to use excessive force. ' .. Your prejudice is showing. Force is not inherently excessive.
A year or more ago, I commented that I didn't think the Tea Party would have a long-term affect because they weren't motivated enough to burn down an ROTC building nor were the police scared enough of them to hit them with tear gas.
The Tea Party took their protests out of the parks and into the voting booths -- and have already had a long-term effect.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The UC Davis demonstrations were a protest against both the ~80% tuition increases they are facing, and the brutality used by the UCPD in suppressing other demonstrations.
The four links provided supporting evidence for this claim, but apparently you were unable to read through to the second sentence.
Do not brazenly display your ignorance, child.
A year or more ago, I commented that I didn't think the Tea Party would have a long-term affect because they weren't motivated enough to burn down an ROTC building nor were the police scared enough of them to hit them with tear gas. ...
The Occupy movement is going to leave a mark upon this country because they are willing to have skin in the game.
Remind me, which party gained control of the House and almost took the Senate in the 2010 elections? And which party gained seats in the elections that happened a few weeks ago?
Check the first amendment, yo. The rest of your nonsense isn't even worth responding to, except to note that you seem to be very confused about actual circumstances and events in 21st century America, and perhaps need to put down the fake news sources a bit.
You are being intentionally stupid. Despite your weak intellect, you are more than capable of understanding that you are being asinine.
Everyone is assuming something will happen. Do not forget that the policeman will be tried in his own town by his "friend" the judge. Suspension with pay for 90 days. Afterwards he returns to be promoted with honors. Justice is blind and smells like the shit on a dollar bill.
The tinfoil hat crowd is out in force tonight.
Maybe. But I think the situation may be a bit different today.
There are probably better places to "do drugs" that a place with, literally, dozens of cops standing around you. Who can come in at any time and knock your tent over.
The same with "hook-up with the opposite sex". Not to mention that the ratio is rather slanted to males. Unless you're a woman looking for a guy ... in a cold tent ... in a public place ... with lots of cops around. And while I'm sure that those women do exist, I think we've wandered into fantasy territory.
The party people, sure. As long as there's a party. But there are other parties out there. In warm places. With a lot lower police presence (because the cops are all at the protest).
Again, maybe. They've claimed that the cops were pushing the homeless and regular vagrants to the protest. So there is at least some people there who would not be called "dedicated" to the general cause.
On the other hand, not many people would choose to live in a cold tent in NYC if they had any other options. So those who aren't "dedicated" are indicative of the overall problem.
Now for a great cause like this you need to be prepared. Now when the cops come, they're probably gonna shoot the high-powered hoses at you. If you don't want them to knock you down the street, the best thing to do is tie yourselves to trees or poles.
That doesn't sound fun.
Oh, it's not. Especially if they have dogs. And then when they arrest you, make sure they know you're a juvenile. That way they can only keep you in jail till you're 21. And about jail, the good news is, they have a library so you can still go to school.
-Hank Hill
Movements gain legitimacy by being pepper sprayed, fire hosed, beaten with truncheons, etc. It reveals the evilness and illegitimacy of the oppressive government. This has been the case with movements such as the Aryan Nations, the Wesboro Baptist Church, the Ku Klux Klan, rabid pro-lifers, and many others.
Just kidding - these kids in UC Davis were asshats who got what they deserved. Your movement stands on its own merits, whether or not you're idiots enough to refuse to obey a police officer.
Protesting Iraq did not have a noticeable effect on withdrawal.
Protesting Iraq involved the largest protest in history. There would be steady protests on Iraq until Obama became president. Iraq was a major reason people supported Kerry in 2004. Iraq was a major issue that gave Democrats control of the House and the Senate in 2006. Obama was elected president in 2008. Today, in nearly 2012, the US is going to start a withdrawal because Iraq is threatening to prosecute American Soldiers in the future.
Protesting Iraq failed. Unlike Iraq, most, if not all of the bailout money was paid back. In light of that, how can Occupy Wall Street possibly succeed?
Tanks would be very well justified, whether just rolling over OWS or using the coaxial machine guns on them, were OWS not so utterly irrelevant.
I'm often impressed by how much more subtle the US is at crushing dissent than China. Instead of running students over with tanks and creating a huge image management headache, authorities in the US wage a PR war in chich Occupy protesters are incessantly presented as snotty-nosed stupid brats out for a party. Everyone laps it up and the movement is defused. The pepper spray incident was a tactical mistake but it's only one incident.
The death may not be intended, but you can't call it an accident. Typically, that sort of crime is considered to be manslaughter. As soon as you assault someone, particularly with a weapon like a truncheon, you know you run the risk of killing them. That's why the police should only use that kind of force when their own lives are at risk. To use it against an unarmed, non-threatening individual is criminal. Sadly the police get away with such assaults on a daily basis.
The amount of belligerent, right wing disgust for people trying to assert their democratic right to protest astonishes me. Yet I suppose these right wind nut jobs are the same people who keep ranting about the right to bear arms to defend oneself against the government.
in no shape or form. Big Education is to blame. They simply keep raising their prices to soak up available financing and then market to the same that if you don't have a degree your not going to get the bling. You got part of it right with the chancellors of the school, but its the whole structure of BigEd that is wrong, if not a horrid copy of public ed.
People are kept and paid based on seniority and nothing else, it doesn't matter if you suck or use stand ins all the time. They they lard up with extras like counselors and such so they can hire their whole family.
Students are simply guided by the same people who are the problem to focus instead on another bogeyman. It is no different than some petty 3rd world dictator declaring another nation the "big satan". Best to give the populace an enemy OVER THERE so they forget the one with the boot on their neck.
When you resolve it all it still boils down to the real problem in the US and elsewhere, the political establishment, the truest one percent. They decide the winners and the losers and use your money to make you the enemy of one group or another.
I am not excusing the banks but they are only empowered by the politicians and they return the favor. The US Congress is being nailed now for insider trading and you can see the hilarity as they find excuse after excuse.
Yet come next year people will vote for D or R on the ballot and we lose yet again.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There's no clearly defined objective or demands for these protests, other than to disrupt everyone.
It seems more a protest against society itself. Self-styled 'activists" without a real cause.
So what if CEOs make a lot of money: you can aspire to being one one day.
So what if banks make a lot of profit: you can buy bank shares.
You want everything handed to you on a plate? Go get over yourselves.
I think the fact that homeless people have found OWS encampments does not mean that the entire OWS movement should be defined by the actions of largely mentally ill people. as for shitting on cop cars, well... they've earned it.
However, our taxes pay the organized, professional forces that are, in some locations, regularly lapsing into unnecessary violence rather than dealing with groups of misdemeanor violations in any kind of rational way. They are supposed to be held to a higher regard, because we pay them to wield violent weaponry in our name... to say nothing of the power players behind them, ordering them into these situations in a paramilitary fashion.
Pretending that media coverage of OWS has been largely sympathetic to the movement is ridiculous. very little in the mainstream media outlets has shown any real understanding of the issues or any willingness to really balance the reporting, they just go for the sensationalistic headlines. just a few weeks ago, almost 1,000 simultaneous protests worldwide occurred. that was given one sentence in most stories, and then two paragraphs of the violence that occurred in Rome. Never mind the 900+ other, by any measure incredibly peaceful protests.. nope, it's all about the violence. that's the only part worth reporting, apparently.
the media is not helping OWS. it is only grabbing headlines. If the cops commit the violence, they latch on it. if any violence not exquisitely captured on filmed can then be blamed on the OWS instead, they latch on to that too. fuck your apologetics.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism
"Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a personality and ideological variable studied in political, social, and personality psychology. It is defined by three attitudinal and behavioral clusters which correlate together:[1][2]
1. Authoritarian submission -- a high degree of submissiveness to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
2. Authoritarian aggression -- a general aggressiveness directed against deviants, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.
3. Conventionalism -- a high degree of adherence to the traditions and social norms that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities, and a belief that others in one's society should also be required to adhere to these norms.[3]"
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
- They were given a letter two weeks before the pepper spraying indicating that they were being evicted - They continued to disrupt normal campus business - Several faculty meetings had to be canceled because of threats to faculty members by OWS - Students were unable to attend classes because OWS refused to vacate the premises - They were given an order in writing that indicated that if they did not leave within 24 hours, they would be forcibly removed, and pepper spray was listed as one of the options So, yeah. They wanted this to happen. It happened. Blame the correct people: the morons who have been blocking up business and schools and tying up traffic because of their childish temper tantrum.
"US Federal Appeals Courts ten years ago declared pepper spraying peaceful protesters to be an illegal violation of their 4th amendment rights to be free from excessive force and that officers who cause such felony assault are liable for their actions and do not receive protection of sovereign immunity as their actions are excessive use of force which the 4th amendment prohibits."
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2011/11/21/pepper-spraying-peaceful-protesters-is-illegal-excessive-force-so-says-us-federal-appeals-court or http://wp.me/ps3dI-1nW
"A Long Island woman Monday became the first Occupy Wall Street protester to file a federal civil rights lawsuit, accusing the NYPD of arresting her without cause at a Citibank branch after she closed her account in protest."
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/ows-protester-from-li-sues-over-arrest-1.3337955
"The complaint in Carpenter v. City of New York, filed in the Southern District of New York today, alleges violations of the Fourth Amendment resulting from false arrest and excessive force. "
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2011/11/occupy-wrongful-arrest-and-police-brutality-lawsuits-begin.html
Look - there were no deaths in Vietnam War protests before Kent State. There is always a first episode of massive violence, and nobody knows when that will come.
We are only in the very beginning of these protests - as the economy gets worse, more people will join them. As police forces make more blunders, they will react with more force. We are on a path that very soon now will be irreversible - of peaceful revolution or bloody ruin. The status quo will not hold - Communism is more popular than Congress these days.
Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
Wow, interesting read and great photos. Thanks
...really helped Rodney King.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Boing Boing show a split screen of multiple views at the same time.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Worse, because each of us have conformation bias, we'll tend to throw out the ten thousand images that don't confirm our bias, while clinging onto the one image that does as the grain of truth in the flood of lies.
With that statement in mind, how do you feel about about the pepper spraying incident at UC Davis?
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
Face it, unless you're very well prepared, and you have a smartcamera-like app on a phone, and hence you're streaming the video for someone else to record, your evidence will be seized and destroyed - along with yourself. And even then, there's plenty of ways to jam the wireless, and those ways will be used. There's only one way to meet violence, and it's with more violence. Gandhi is long dead, and so is the age he lived in. The free press has long died, the Fourth Power is in the hands of shareholders who decide what you will see and know. The internet is going to be reshaped into intermarketnet. Today the likes of Gandhi would be "disappeared" quietly and the word "terr-ow-reesm" would be used to silence any opposition.
You want change, you target the people responsible for this state of things and you KILL them. Them and their families. No amount of money can raise the dead.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
I think the fact that homeless people have found OWS encampments does not mean that the entire OWS movement should be defined by the actions of largely mentally ill people.
I won't be. It'll be defined by people like Ketchup in the Stephen Colbert interview. Goofy hand signals instead of Robert's Rules of Order. Now ain't that quaint.
It'll be defined by the people that couldn't be bothered to pick up a job application from the recruiting desk set up at the Zuccotti park gate.
It'll be defined by people like the "drama majorette" that wants the government to give her a job as a director.
Taking a dump on a cop car is just a summation of all of those.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Cameras are only effective if they can be used. The police have responded by taking measures to prevent the reporting and recording of their actions. Many of the evictions of occupiers have been conducted at night, when it is hard to get a good shot of what is happening.
Other tactics include surrounding someone being beaten or arrested, so it is impossible to see what is going on, physically keeping reporters or others at a distance, and arresting those who are recording the action, as well as confiscating the recording the equipment.
In NY, they did most of those things. The raid was conducted at night, no one was allowed to get within 2 blocks of Zuccotti Park, and 15 reporters were arrested trying to report what was going on, although I didn't hear of any equipment being confiscated.
I see people breaking laws and being dealt with. A pepper spraying is not excessive force at all. They were given due warning. If you want to change law then you need to do so through the proper channels, ones that legitimately everyone agree with, and those are already in place. Provided, of course, that most people actually do want the change that the Occupy people claim the entire 99% want. In fact, what they want benefits only the bottom 1% most.
Learn to spell the man's name right, ya moron!
Quit making up words like "panopticon" and call it what it is Fascism. We live is a Fascist's state. Yea I know no one like using that word because of the memories of WWII but that is where we are going. Or government IS the 4th Riech
When I went to a state school in 1977, I had to work roughly 11 hours to pay for 1 credit hour. In 2011, a state school education costs on the order of 20-30 hours of labor depending on the school. That represents a decline in the real worth of labor; it’s not just currency inflation.
In the meantime, administration and professor salaries have gone up, a lot. Schools have nice new buildings with landscaping. Dorms are nicer and roomier than my first three apartments. Carpet has replaced linoleum tile and electronic white boards replaced chalk.
How was all this financed? Government subsidized student loans of course. The banks can make the long term loans at reduced rates of interest because the government subsidized and insured them. Of course, the government now OWNS STUDENT LOANS eliminating the middleman. How is that going to make an education any cheaper? It won’t. There isn’t any reason for a university or college to reduce anything. The money spigot is going to keep pouring dollars into the system.
People should remember that a student loan is a voluntary contract. You aren’t required to get a student loan to go to a school you can’t afford any more than you are required to buy a car you can’t afford. You can choose to go to a less expensive school or pay your own way by working or saving.
BTW, an earlier video cut shows the police warning the protesters that they were going to get pepper sprayed and the protesters agreeing to it. The occupy movement isn’t a civil rights movement. Berkley isn’t Atlanta.
The authorities have found the way to stop this already. Just make recording police a felony.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/special_segments&id=8370540
http://bit.ly/tS2ZvF
I noticed that he didn't mention the untold patience of the 99% of police as the loiterers taunted them. Or how they didn't just fire into the ground like other countries do.
That's the problem with being biased, you only concentrate on one thing and ignore the rest. Where he saw the protestors winning, I just saw a bunch of losers in tents with no sense of purpose other than to be a big pain in the ass to everyone.
Impact mostly to those they claim to represent and are fighting for.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Welfare is the new plantation. Keep them dependent.