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New Documents Detail FBI, Bank Crack Down On Occupy Wall Street
jvillain writes "The Guardian has up a story detailing the crack down on Occupy Wall Street (OWS). It goes on to show how the FBI, DHS, Terrorist Fusion Centers and the banks all worked together to stifle dissent. From the article: 'This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protesters organizing with the Occupy movement These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.' The next question is how many Americans are now listed as part of a 'terrorist group' by the government for their support of OWS?"
Really? "Stifle descent?" You couldn't have corrected that to something that makes sense?
Is this the hope or the change?
What the hell does an "astroturf movement" mean?
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
If you love freedom of speech and association, here is your chance to do something concrete about it. Make out a physical check in the amount of $1 or $5 or whatever you want. Mail the check to OWS (http://occupywallst.org/donate/) and copies to the FBI and the DHS.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
What the hell does an "astroturf movement" mean?
Seems like it would be sort of like an earth quake, except then you realize that there's actually someone to blame for your fall because someone yanked the rug you were standing on.
Our Constitution guarantees us a number of ways to work through government for change.
One of those constitutional guarantees is freedom of speech to say you disagree with what the government is doing. Nothing about that "damages" the constitution.
Astroturf == Fake Grass
astroturf movement == fake 'grass roots' movement
Caution: Do not stare into laser with remaining eye.
and the evidence that it was an astroturf movement would be?
Obviously a scare-term that imbeciles have made up on the spot to 'justify' cracking down on protests & activists who don't cheer about rampant corruption between the government and the financial sector.
You're confusing them with the Tea Party protests.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
that "Descent is the highest form of Patriotic"?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unpossibles/3462246191/
So the FBI silently investigated people who reasonably could have resorted to lawlessness, and that's now stifling dissent? As someone who supported the idea of OWS, even that doesn't make any sense to me. As the saying goes, civil disobedience is still disobedience. When you walk the thin line of breaking the law, you should expect the organizations which investigate crimes to be interested.
The summary, and the article attached to it, seem nothing more than sensationalist in order to drive web traffic. More than sensationalist, outright biased. Just reading a few paragraphs of the summary pretty well shows this article was not at all interested in truth, but rather just spreading biases against the many agents and officers who were simply doing their job.
This article and summary make very little sense. Or, would that be "since", in order to keep in step with stifling descent?
"Cracking down" as in "allowed an illegal occupation of a private park for months before getting fed up with the ghetto that resulted"?
Wow, super harsh. OWS was full of itself from day 1.
Joe McCarthy, is that you?
How many videos have you seen? How many minutes, total? Do you realize that the protests have been ongoing for well over a year? Can you comprehend how utterly stupid it is to extrapolate the motivations and behavior of a movement with thousands of people, spanning millions of man-hours, from a few minutes of cherry-picked video?
No, I suppose you can't... because Fox News hasn't explained that to you.
I mean seriously this reeks of paranoia. There's a very valid reason for banks cracking down on OWS. In the USA there are really only two ways to legally create a bank account. One is as an individual the other is through an incorporation. Individuals can obviously have multiple co-signers such as in a family. And, incorporated entities can be businesses, non-profits, cities, etc... OWS organized itself as the antithesis of any incorporated entity. There were no official leaders, no board or leadership who was legally responsible for filing taxes, nothing. Their use of banks to collect donations, organize and pool funds, and then disperse them therefore broke pretty much all the laws that were put in place to stop groups like organized crime and terrorists from utilizing banks in the same way. The folks who work at banks can lose their jobs and face criminal prosecution if they don't report activity that looks exactly like what OWS was doing with the bank accounts they were opening. So please, use your brain and think things through before you post an article like this that simply reeks of paranoia. You may not like the system or the laws, but they exist, and the banks and FBI are simply following them.
Back in the day Janet Napolitano put out a report warning of right-wing extremist at the time of the Tea Party. Here is a bit of ranting by the progressives on how it should have been pursued: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/06/1117242/-Remember-the-DHS-Right-Wing-Extremist-Report
At the time that the crackdown happened to the OWS people I wrote the following:
"I’m very sorry to hear about your forceful removal from Zuccotti park where you were peacefully demonstrating against what you see as what is wrong with our country. You were exercising your free speech and free assembly rights and I hate to see this taken from you. Let me tell you that I know how you must be feeling right now. About two and a half years ago several of my friends and I joined a movement to protest the government bailing out the bankers that you are so upset with (first time I ever protested anything BTW). We had rallies around the country with the theme of promoting individualism over corporate cronyism. This movement was attacked by the press and government as being racist, gay-bashing, “Astroturf” (term for grass-roots effort sponsored by big money sources), and heartless (I’m sure there were cases where people on the fringe were causing such issues, the same can be said about the fringe in the OWS crowd, but for a majority of people I met while involved this was not the case) but now the whole movement has been marginalized. It is unfortunate that we were unable to convince you at the time of the importance of the issues we were facing and that you chose to sit on the sidelines mocking us as “Tea Baggers” and such. I do hope we can find some common ground now that you are awake and we can take our government back from the statist and big money influences we’ve ceded it to."
Are you out of your fucking mind ?
Can you name any major political change that happened through normal democratic methods without widespread protests ?
Getting rid of the monarchy, getting rid of slavery, votes for women, civil rights, whatever. None of these happen through people simply going through the motions of voting. "Change must come through the barrel of a gun ..." might be an exaggeration, but it is not far off. Non-violent protest is sometimes sufficient, I hope that this is all it will take to reduce the current "government by Goldman Sachs" but sitting on your backside righting letters to congress or voting for a particular candidate definitely is not going to do it.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Yup, and another, tight beside that speech, is the right to peaceful assembly.
Hmm right to speak out, and a right to assemble.... sounds like protest to me!
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Any reasonable definition is going to include terrorists primarily targeting civilians or using civilians for shields. The founders didn't do that.
They're not comparable.
The poor bankers and oil companies behind the "grassroots" Tea Party don't have a chance against the overwhelming financial might of the tree-hugging hippies!
The next question is how many Americans are now listed as part of a 'terrorist group' by the government for their support of OWS?
Get some historical perspective and look at the stings the FBI ran on MLK Jr and the Civil Rights Movement. This is nothing.
Aye, because unlike the Tea Party protesters and their corporate backers and media conglomerates with special interests, OWS hasn't singled out a political movement/activist group as its supposed mortal enemy and started compiling lists of every time a member of that enemy group goes to sleep, goes to the toilet, scratches his or her arse, and everything else in between. Of course you're going to document some of them smoking weed (etc.) if you're watching them like a hawk. You're also going to document particularly nasty things like murders, rapes, and assaults that happen in the area and are not, in fact, caused by the protest, as websites like that would have us believe.
If the Tea Party protests were subject to such unhealthy, obsessive scrutiny, I can guarantee that you would find a similar frequency of crimes documented.
Here's one example of that unhealthy interest, across the pond:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053463/Occupy-London-90-tents-St-Pauls-protest-camp-left-overnight.html
Looking through tents with heat-detecting cameras, FFS. If that isn't an unhealthy and chilling manifestation of the special interests of a media conglomerate, nothing is.
And for the record, "some of the protesters are committing petty crimes" is not a justification for clearing protests. It is unconscionable to support the silencing of either political movement.
Our various governments propose ways of "petitioning for redress of grievance", and, as each becomes popular, strive to cut them off.
In British law, as applied to the 13 colonies, a signed petition could be presented to a governing body and it had a duty to respond. As the Yale law journal points out, that was so heavily used in response to slavery that it was withdrawn in the U.S. (see http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/796438?uid=3739448&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21101604364957) A certain well-known president is trying to bring it back, but that's a different discussion.
With organized petitioning unavailable, personal appeals to one's representative became popular. It soon became impossible to meet your representative, and written letters turned into counts pro and con that their staffs reported.
Groups and companies then banded together and hired lobbyists, to button-hole legislators in the lobby of their building, where the public was allowed. When these became too bothersome, only selected lobbyists were invited to meetings, and the general public was excluded from the buildings.
The press is still allowed in some selected lobbies, but there is always a back corridor available for legislators to use to bypass them.
Groups then started petitioning in person, on the front lawn of the parliament buildings, and occasionally their representatives would come out and meet them. More often, the police closed off access to the building and its vicinity.
No organization, whether legislative or commercial, enjoys hearing criticism. As soon as they get too much from a given channel, that channel will be cut off. Only the occasional brave, duty-oriented legislator will ask their electors for comments.
In my own country of Canada, this last happened when the government of the day asked for broad comments on amending the copyright law, when my local city councilman needed opinions and options on a garbage-collection proposal, and most recently when the CRTC asked for suggestions to moderate the bad practices of cell-phone providers.
Redress of grievance still exists, but it's genuinely rare.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
You would have preferred that they throw their vote away on the Libertarian candidate, who, by the way, caucused with the GOP? Or the Green candidate, who didn't even manage to get press coverage? Face it: we're in a two-party system, and they voted in the lesser of the two evils. Unless you're in it for the GOP to take over all branches of government, then voting Dem. was the only viable option.
Don't let a little thing like reality get in the way of a good self-righteous rant, though.
HAHAH Not suffer the kind of scrutiny??? What networks do you watch? They are heavily scrutinized. They even had false accusation brought up against them, such as the "N" calling incident. But no one could provide proof, even with ALL the cameras rolling. And it's not an EVERYDAY protest because those people actually have jobs that they go to and don't have the luxury of rich daddy and mommy tits to suck on as they sit in their little tents and play on their phones. But I guess you are sitting in your moms basement right now cheering them on. So by all means keep being a leech.
Yes, precisely like the term "useful idiot". Both are cop-outs that are thrown around to trash entire groups; "they're just [bogeyman term here], ignore them or laugh at them and cheer when they get their skulls split open by police batons".
But it really takes an imbecile to believe that ows could spring into existence fully formed, complete with a slick web site and well orchestrated publicity.
What, is this the same movement that has been criticised a million times for not being organised, having no leadership, and having "no clear message"? Are you sure you know what you're talking about?
Can you name any major political change that happened through normal democratic methods without widespread protests ?
Sure, the political changes that led to this for starters (if you count lobbying your representative as part of the democratic process). If you mean changes for good, then no, I haveno examples.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
From *personal experience* Occupy was peaceful and never physically antagonistic...
See, here's your problem, "Captain"...you're judging a the behavior of a few and applying it to a large group. It's false equivalence...
Sort of like if I were to, say, claim that the US military is a murderous organization based on what I'd "seen and heard" of one soldier going house to house murdering civilians.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Fake grassroots. People have gotten quite skeptical these days, in some ways - they always expect a lie. Espicially in politics and advertising. Astroturfing refers to the increasingly common tactic of creating an apparently populist or spontainous movement while hiding the support of a large sponsor (government, pressure group, business, etc) which would have something to gain.
For example, and using entirely fictional elements to avoid getting into politics, imagine that the manufacturer of a particular widget starts taking public criticism for the negative social or environmental impacts of their product (Maybe the widget causes cancer with prolonged use, or the manufacturing process produces toxic waste) and race the possibility of expensive regulation. The company executives could well go on national TV and try to explain that the fears are overblown (truthfully or not), but no-one is going to believe them because they have a personal stake, and corporate PR departments are not respected for their objectivity right now. So they might instead organise an apparently independant 'Widgets for America' fan club to talk of how widgets make the country great, or they might find a group which is opposed to regulation in general terms and anonymously donate money to a 'Hands off Our Widgets!' campaign. If they PR department is feeling particually slimy, they may create a movement from scratch - supplying the funding, designing websites, paying people to attend protests. All to create the impression in the minds of the public that there is massive popular support for widget production, and attempts to regulate them are ill-considered.
It seems unlikely that Operation Wall Street was an astroturf movement though, because there was no-one in a position of power or money to gain from it. Who would benefit from orchestrating such protests?
And crap!
I should never post before my coffee. I've said that before. I had two different posts in mind and blended them together into a mess. I'll go away now and hide.
My apologies, Joss.
You mean the FBI and police sat down with business owners to talk about a large-ish scale protest outside their premises directed at them? Screw that, if there's a mob outside your front door, why would you ever want advice and reassurances from police, it's not like it's their job or anything!
Police drawing up plans in case the OWS potentially resorted to criminal or terrorist behaviour ? How dare they! I demand a police service that doesn't prepare for any eventuality and is always taken by surprise!
It is rather shocking that the police didn't inform the leaders of an organisation that prided itself in having no leaders that they had vague threats of violence against them. Imaginary people have the right to information too!
"Hehehe occupy a job also you're all Obama voters hahahehe!!!" Pull your head out of your arse, you tittering cunt.
Any reasonable definition is going to include terrorists primarily targeting civilians or using civilians for shields. The founders didn't do that.
This "reasonable definition" is rarely used in practice, which makes the definition suspect. Most people use the word to refer to enemies using unconventional tactics, even when they target legitimate military targets. I first learned about "terrorism" as a kid when a lot of kids of my generation did, when a suicide bomber attacking a Marine base in Beirut. Apparently marines are civilians now. The apparent justification for considering this terrorism regardless is that the marines were off-duty. If attacking soldiers while they're off-duty is terrorism, you're completely wrong about "the founders didn't do that". Few wars are won by those who wait at the battlefield patiently for their enemies to show up on their own schedule, and we've bombed plenty of military bases ourselves, barracks and all...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Corporations cant vote, only people can
People can't decide who we get to vote for, only corporations can.
There are exceptions at the low levels of politics, where it doesn't cost so much to get a good percentage of the vote if you're on target. But the higher up the ladder you go, the more it costs to participate, until only corporations can even (effectively) have that much money.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A highly decorated Marine Corps General, and one of only a handful of men to receive the Medal of Honor twice wrote:
"It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."
-- General Smedley Butler
Who would benefit from orchestrating such protests?
no one with power benefits, directly. if you have say in this world, you would not benefit in OWS's objectives, initially. over time, if things ever got more equal and fair, everyone would benfit (ie, society goes up a notch).
everyone who needs the system to change but whose voice is never heard, they are the direct beneficiaries of OWS. if their voices counted, we would have had change by now. but those in power hear us, ignore us and continue on with the same-old same-old.
yes, its a class war. what are you going to do about it? ignore it? help things get better? or fight to keep your precious status quo?
"which side are you on?"
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
on the part of non-taxpayers
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they pay taxes.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
But it really takes an imbecile to believe that ows could spring into existence fully formed, complete with a slick web site....
Really? What site did you think you were posting to? Yes, making a slick web site. That must take a team of computer nerds and years of labor.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Our Constitution guarantees us a number of ways to work through government for change.
And if the Government obeyed its restrictions in the Constitution, those would be valid methods.
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it." - Spooner
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Er, the election is rigged before it gets to the vote. You can't win a U.S. election without tons of money for TV ads, and you won't get that kind of money without corporate support.
Is this the constitution written by slave owners who didn't allow the poor or female to vote?
The constitution was NOT written to give freedom to all, it was written to give freedom to rich white males. NEVER FORGET THIS. NEVER forget the famous Greek democracy was build on slaves.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It seems unlikely that Operation Wall Street was an astroturf movement though, because there was no-one in a position of power or money to gain from it.
I guess you've never heard of "controlled opposition" and "manufactured dissent..."
People have gotten quite skeptical these days,
Largely, I suspect, because having discovered how weak their critical thinking skills are they're applying their disbelief with a broad brush.
Fake public demonstrations existed before the Internet, but they really took off with the Internet because a single person can pretend to be dozens using the anonymity of Internet forums. With technology and focus a half dozen people could appear to be hundreds, or even thousands.
But there being tigers hiding in the jungle doesn't mean they're hiding under your bed.
I went down to see the Occupy Boston encampment down in Dewey Square last year. I'm no expert in counting people, but there were clearly hundreds of people living in a constricted half-acre tent city -- the densest human habitation I'd ever seen. This is the *opposite* of the labor efficiency of Internet astroturfing. How much would it cost to pay hundreds of people to live like that for two months, or to be arrested as hundreds of the protesters were? Altogether there were over seven thousand arrests, and that was only a tiny fraction of the protesters.
I think the reaction to the FBI documents is overblown. The FBI was keeping tabs on the movement, but that's part of the agency's job, and that *can* be done without violating anyone civil rights (whether it *was* done remains to be seen). But the movement itself wasn't overblown. It's the largest economic protest in this country since the Bonus Army of 1932.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
My god, your grasp of history is fucking flawed.
READ up on the suffragette movement you fucking insane moronic piece of shit before you try spouting your lies.
On November 15th, 1917, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, founders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) were arrested along with 216 other women who had picketed the White House under the Woodrow Wilson administration, bearing signs for the right to vote. By morning, some of the incarcerated women were barely alive. Lucy Burns had been beaten. Her hands had been chained to the cell bars over her head, bleeding and gasping for air. When Alice Paul engaged in a hunger strike, guards tried to force-feed her, tying her to a chair and using a tube to pour liquids down her throat. Thirty-three women endured ongoing torture until word was finally smuggled out to the press.
No violence by the government against the movement my ass.
You are scum.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Step 0: Control media outlets and discredit all that are not under your power, Propaganda!!!
Why is this step 0? Because with the media intact and doing what it is required by society, none of the other crap would have happened, however the buck stops with the people, if the people aren't going to do anything about it then they get what they get.
Step 1: Create a crisis or allow one to happen.
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
-Rahm Emanuel
Create an enemy that will never go away (terrorist) and wage a war that will never end (terrorism) and define the enemy as "those without any rights" and can be held indefinitely (National Defense Authorization Act)
Step 2: Promise to protect the populace from said crisis/enemy by any means necessary, begin by restricting rights in the name of security.
Step 3: Implement a massive trillion dollar (data from The Economist) surveillance network HLS, TSA, NSA, DIA OMG, WTF, BBQ ), record all calls, maintain facial recognition database (thank you Facebook) fill the air with drones and the ground with cameras.
Monitor for dissent. (see: fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy below)
Step 4: Dis arm populace (http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/assault-weapons)
Step 5: Tighten grip further via martial law or other "required security protocols", rename political protest groups as "terrorist" deregulate corporations, dismantle workers rights, remove environmental protections, and finally ammo up. (Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets)
Anyone not complying or protesting is a terrorist. (see step 1)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/09/costs-homeland-security
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/fbi-treated-occupy-terrorist-group/60289/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-28/news/31247765_1_atk-rounds-bullet
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
They have persuaded uneducated fundamentalist Christians and the same poor people who would suffer from their policies to vote for them in the belief that they are somehow aligned to "conservative values". Vote for me and I'll stop abortion. But hey, it won't matter because the rape victim will die for lack of medical treatment.
The Libertarians are the spiritual heirs of Al Capone, and use the same schtick to energise the base.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
PS: How in God's name are all the Fox-News-Hounds & fairly obvious trolls getting 5-point mod's/ratings here while those who point out the facts on the ground are scoring "2, Interesting?"
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
What, is this the same movement that has been criticised a million times for not being organised, having no leadership, and having "no clear message"? Are you sure you know what you're talking about?
It doesn't need that to have been organized by someone. Check it out, it was formed by the anarchist group Adbusters. They carefully planned it as well. Lawyers gave them the advice to stage it in Zuccotti park because it is a privately owned public space, which made it confusing whose responsibility it was to clear it.
Of course, to start a movement, you need people who will go along with you, to carry the movement along. It's not like all those protesters were manipulated into being there, they wanted to protest.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
he's mentally ill. OWS was just the thing he latched onto. There would have been something else. Also, the FBI wasn't watching guys like him, it was watching the leaders of the movement in an obvious effort to shut it down.
OWS had one unforgivable sin: it offered a working and likable alternative narrative. Right now the only narrative in American society is that if you work hard and play by the rules you'll succeed, and if you didn't it's your own damn fault and you're a bad person. It's prosperity gospel by any other name. OWS and the 'We are the 99%' was catchy, simple and made sense. It was a movement that had a real chance, which is why we're even talking about it, and also why it was crushed relentlessly.
In short, you didn't think speech was really free, did you?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
http://wh.gov/UCL9 sign on folks! I can hardly wait to see the mealy mouthed BS answer to this... Oh, and expect to be on some FBI troublemaker list, if you're not yet. Consider it a badge of honor. ;)
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
I went down there (Zucotti Park) and spoke to them too. Their message was pretty clear, so I'll repeat it:
The wealthiest 1% of Americans have most of the income, most of the wealth, and control the political system through their campaign contributions and power generally.
They're not running it very well. They've used health care, education, and housing as a way to make money, driven the costs up, and made them unaffordable to the rest of us.
There's more of us than there are of them. We can vote. We don't have to vote for politicians that will sell us out (50/50 divided on Obama). We can organize to teach people how they're being exploited by the 1%.
Our Constitution guarantees us a number of ways to work through government for change.
Yes, there are. There's even a little ditty to remember them by: Soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box.
The problem with protests is that by working around these methods,
Protest is the most elevated form of the first method we are supposed to use for change, as documented in The Constitution. The soap box is first because it is least injurious. The second box, electing officials based on their position on a single issue, constrains our ability to choose leaders based on their principles, their wisdom, their honesty, or other issues -- you get corrupt, polemic demagogues whipping people into a frenzy over wedge issues like abortion and gun control. The third box, petitioning the government for redress of grievances, weakens the public trust, especially if the predictable response from government is refusal to hear the petition for redress based on a decree of national security or lack of standing. The fourth box is revolution, which is extremely disruptive to the economic engine of the nation, and it kills people.
Given that we have already been using the second and third methods, to no avail, and are loathe to resort to the fourth, an elevated form of the first method is exactly what is appropriate. The correcting mechanism is working perfectly, exactly as the people who were pushed all the way to the fourth box -- the founders of the nation -- documented them. The part of our nation that is causing the distortion is not We The People. We The People are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing, and the engines of the political parties are driving down a different path. Protest is exactly the most responsible action in our current context.
Consider the consequences: If the leadership is responsive to protest, things change and maybe they get better or maybe they get worse and we have to correct again. If the leadership is not responsive, the public grows more unsettled and their propensity to use the other boxes increases. The way the public uses the second and third box will become more disruptive, and there will be a greater risk of people resorting to the fourth.
One great reason to support piracy is to weaken the profits of Hollywood and the news-entertainment media.
A fine example of using the soap box to advocate for disruptive change to a system that you feel has become distorted, and which you believe is unresponsive to less disruptive attempts to use the second and third boxes.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
There was nothing illegal about it.
Zucotti park was a private park open to the public 24 hours a day, according to a legally binding agreement between the City and the original developer. The local Community Board voted to support the occupation. There were court decisions in the past allowing similar protests.
In addition, there's the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gives people the right to peacefully protest, as other people here have mentioned.
I could come down to Zucotti Park at all hours of the day and talk to people about politics. What better use could anyone make of a public space?
Can you name any major political change that happened through normal democratic methods without widespread protests ?
Outlawing the slave trade in/by the United Kingdom, followed by outlawing slavery in the UK.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Zucotti park wasn't planned. I was there on day one, originally the plan was to occupy Wall Street itself...but the entire area around it for several blocks was barricaded by the NYPD requiring a corporate ID to walk down the public streets...So we marched for a while until coming across Zucotti, at which point people basically decided "screw it, let's camp here!"
Lawyers wouldn't have made that decision. Zucotti is private property, while there is case law on the books protecting coming on sidewalks for protests.
As for occupy having a fully formed website....big Fuckin deal, so does everything these days. Not hard to find a college kid to buy a domain and install WordPress. Please tell me what corporations were funding the dozen student orgs I did that for in college....because we sure could have used that money....and why the hell did I pay for all those out of my own pocket?
In other words, they were out there minding their own business getting on with their Constitutional right to petition the government and peacfully assemble and some screeching cuckoo jibbers at them for 15 minutes and they were polite enough not to dump you head first into a trash can?
1. Zucotti Park was open to the public 24 hours a day, according to a contract signed between the developers and the City. There was no "after hours."
2. Occupy Wall Street wanted to bring portable toilets like every other big event in New York City. The City denied them a permit. So they used the bathrooms in the MacDonald's across the street and the neighboring restaurants.
3. I was at Zucotti Park a couple of times during the demonstration. They organized a volunteer cleanup crew that cleaned every inch of the park continuously. If you threw a candy wrapper on the floor, somebody would sweep it up within 5 minutes.
4. The local Community Board voted to support the demonstration. So the local taxpayers approved.
5. There were surveys of demonstrators which found that most of them were employed, and their average income was probably higher than yours. So they pay more taxes than you do.
6. You find it offensive. Too fucking bad. That's how we do things in America. If you don't like it, go back where you came from. (If they'll have you.)
Mod Parent 2 - Interesting.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Of course. We (those of us in the US and Western Europe, anyway) have a stable system of government. What this means is that there are negative feedbacks in the system which counter any attempt to change it. Furthermore, the systems learn: When a tactic manages to overwhelm the existing feedback mechanisms and cause an actual change, new feedback mechanisms are set up to render that tactic ineffective in the future. Thus the more the system changes, the more stable it becomes.
It follows that any technique for change actually sanctioned by the system (such as voting) will not work, as those techniques have long since been countered. They still serve a purpose, however -- they waste the energy of those seeking change, and they present an excuse for barring other techniques.
Zucotti park wasn't planned. I was there on day one,
You mean you didn't plan it.
Lawyers wouldn't have made that decision. Zucotti is private property, while there is case law on the books protecting coming on sidewalks for protests.
It's not private property, it's privately owned public space. There's case law on the books for clearing people who try to occupy sidewalks overnight.
As for occupy having a fully formed website....big Fuckin deal, so does everything these days.
It's not a big deal, but if you think OWS was a spontaneous protest, then you're ignorant.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That's the real astroturfing going on here.
OWS was about holding the financial goons responsible for wrecking our economy. The FBI, et. al. was about cracking down on legitimate dissent, and that is unconstitutional.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Corporations once threatened any US state or country that did anything about improving the lives of its workers with moving the factory out of town. This was a central argument of Theodore Roosevelt calling for national regulatory laws.
.1% go from controlling half the wealth in the country to controlling three quarters of it?
Now they threaten any (developed) country that attempts to protect its workers in exactly the same manner, and we're supposed to just suck it up as we're reduced to poverty and the
This has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Seriously. Stupid. Moronic. This "information" had to have come from Fox.
First, understand that Unions are self-funded. They're funded from dues paid by the members. They don't take anyones taxes.
Likewise, pensions are largely funded by contributions from the employees. I know, I was a member of government union. Yes, the government chips in a portion as well, but only to a certain point.
While people that are high up in the ranks may get a 6-figure pension (I doubt it though), 99% of the rest of the union employees don't. And what money the do get comes largely from their own contributions, interest and investment gains.
Fox news pretends that pensions are entirely funded by taxpayers, and that's simply not the case. Most Public employees pensions end up less than $30k per year.
http://www.seiu.org/a/publicservices/fact-check-on-public-sector-pensions.php
Finally, Public Employee Unions taking over OWS? Seriously? Where do you get this shit? Oh yeah, Fox. If you had spent any time there, you would know that this to be flat out wrong. What is the motivation exactly for a PEU to do this? There was absolutely nothing there in the interest of a PEU, either for or against.
This Is just ridiculous. and you're a fucking moron for believing it and worthy of ridicule.
Second,
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You know, I am always surprised at how often those who dismiss OWS choose to do so by pointing out that the people that showed up at the camps were unemployed.
Who the fuck else can show up there? The employed supporters of OWS had jobs to go to. I would love to have participated in my local OWS protest but it didn't jibe with my work hours at all.
Nonetheless I support the need for change in our system (here in Canada as well as down in the US and over in Europe). The concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few based on their historic control of the political system to leverage things to their own advantage has not and is not working out well for our society. The money the extremely wealth folks earn doesn not trickle down worth a shit, bailing out companies that failed due to massive mismanagement/greed does not work to the public advantage (oh sure, some jobs are preserved, but since the bulk of the money comes from the middle and lower classes taxes its stealing from Peter to pay Paul).
Unfortunately, I think its too late. The Rich (tm) control things and nothing is going to change that.
The only thing that baffles me is the number of folks who flock to support the Republicans down in the US (or the Conservatives up here in Canada) and in effect are saying with their support "Ok, so the rich are trampling on the bulk of the population and fucking the economy up severely so they can keep their position, oh and they are removing our rights to privacy, destroying health care, ruining the environment and all for their own personal gain - but you know? I am okay with that". Blows my mind every time I read a sincere post from some fucking idiot that just doesn't see whats going on around them.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
They're not comparable.
The poor bankers and oil companies behind the "grassroots" Tea Party don't have a chance against the overwhelming financial might of the tree-hugging hippies!
If history keeps repeating itself, today's tree-hugging hippies are tomorrow's bankers and big oil executive.
lucm, indeed.
First, way to take partial, out of context quotes. The first point you make I've already responded tip of you actually read what I posted.
Secondly....Nothing is spontaneous. Obviously you're not going to get hundreds of people out just by....Not doing anything. So yea, the idea was published by adbusters. That doesn't make it astroturf. First, anyone who was there, anyone who spent more than five seconds looking at it knows that. Astroturfers generally try to hide who is behind the campaign. Secondly, they published an idea...that's all. They didn't pay people to attend, not did they provide any material support for the event. What they did is pretty much equivalent too creating a Facebook event.
Finally, if the park is fully public, why was the nypd able to force everyone out at the request of the property developer and with the help of private security? That's why OWS later moved to union square and other parks before the permanent occupation finally dissolved.
Even tho I voted for Reagan and Bush senior, they indirectly put me out of a job via NAFTA/GATT. I highly doubt many middle-calss actually wanted those agreements. Now that the Rust Belt is gutted and people are having to turn to the gov't you're gonna scream about that too?
I *used* to be a Republican... you Wall St bastards need to start making good on what all your pet politicians said re trickle down and job creation. Or else STFU.
Hint, some of us are well into our 40's and 50's and we have *long* memories of the Carter malaise and what the 1986 tax reform act *actually* said. Noticed the Tea Partiers never seem to mention that.
C|N>K
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"
We engaged and educated a large number of people about political issues that the mainstream media refuses to cover.
We provide food and some semblance of shelter to many who had neither.
And above all we did what any political action must - make noise and make change. We've purchased and abolished millions of dollars of debt. We've stopped home foreclosures. We filled (and continue to fill) the gaps of mainstream disaster relief organizations. We provided networking and training for activists. And we altered the political discourse of the nation.
And even if we'd accomplished nothing, who cares? It wasn't "on someone else's dime" -- nobody was forced to pay for a thing related to occupy, except for the police's repression. Everything else was donated by supporters.
Did you actually read that? It says the unions supported OWS, and were in agreement with it. It didn't say that OWS was commandeered by PEU's.
If you're going to cite something, make sure it actually supports your argument.
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The issue is whether it was legal. The answer is yes. It was legal. Zucotti Park was in an unusual legal situation in that they had an agreement with the City to make the park available to the public 24 hours a day. There were also court decisions giving demonstrators the right to sleep in the streets.
Gordon Crovitz, a former Wall Street Journal editorial writer, lives in Battery Park City and went to Community Board hearings to complain about OWS, as he wrote in the WSJ. They heard him out and voted him down. The OWS representatives heard the complaints, and made changes. The Community Board supported OWS. In a democracy, we follow the majority decision.
This is New York City. We have lots of big events. Mayor Giuliani used to declare public celebrations, which tied up the City and disrupted traffic, after his favorite sports team won a game. We put up with it. We have Fashion Week, in which clothing companies put up tents in Bryan Park, a little bigger than Zucotti Park, for a couple of weeks and deprive everyone else of the use of that popular park. We put up with it. The crime in Zucotti Park was no worse than other large events. (There were several reports that police encouraged troublemakers and mentally disturbed people to go to Zucotti park.)
Occupy Wall Street had some money and wanted to rent portable toilets, the way every other big event in New York City does (including Fashion Week). The City refused to issue them permits. So they used the toilets in MacDonald's down the street, and some of the other local bars and restaurants. So first you refuse permits for toilets, then you complain about inadequate sanitation.
Oh, yeah. Then there was the First Amendment to the Constitution. Zucotti Park was the best example I've seen in my life of people from everywhere assembling to discuss their complaints with the political system and decide what they were going to do about it. That's not only legal, it's one of our basic American rights that we were supposed to have been fighting those wars for. So it's legal. No question about it.
It remains PRIVATE PROPERTY. The public has access, but there are rules, like, I dont know, not setting up your tent and grill.
"Allowing public access" swings both ways, when OWS basically prevents any other use of the park.
Do such rules exist? I am not aware of them. You may well be correct. But, at least for me, that's not really the point.
I posit that you're looking at this backwards. That's not intended as an insult, BTW. Rather than looking for ways to limit and discourage our fellow citizens (and no, I did not take part in any OWS activities) from expressing themselves and their points of view, I believe we should expand and encourage opportunities to do so for all of us.
The NYC government should have provided sanitation facilities and police *assistance* with security to the OWS (and any others, regardless of their point of view) protestors, rather than treating them as criminals for exercising their constitutional rights.
As a native (and life-long) New Yorker, I was ashamed of my city government for debasing the ideals of our once-great nation.
Feel free to disagree with me. I don't expect that everyone should share my point of view. What I do expect is that we, as a society, and our government should be accommodating, assisting and expanding the ways that peaceful protests, dissenting opinions and alternative ideas can be expressed and discussed.
Your thoughts?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Tell that to the people who received aid from Occupy Sandy when FEMA and the Red Cross were nowhere to be found; or to the people who have had thousands of dollars of debt erased by Rolling Jubilee. Or those facing foreclosure who had their homes saved by Occupiers.
I get it, you don't think political activism can ever bring change and nothing I say will change your mind....but OWS has done quite a lot of good with real, concrete action as well:
current.com/groups/news-blog/93963203_four-occupy-offshoots-making-a-difference.htm
Do you know what the alternative is? Blanket socialism / communism or whatever other marxist system that does not allow for private ownership and encourages income distribution.
So, that is the only alternative to the 1% controlling the government? You can't think of any other possible solutions? How about the 99% starts being more politically aware of the corruption of the politicians and votes the ones giving tax breaks to the wealthiest 1% at the expense of everyone else out of office?
"Also, don't you find it ironic that OWS is so heavily staffed by children of privilege like those two?"
No. The investment banker takedown of our economy put lots and lots of middle to upper middle class people out of work. Besides, what is your point? That children of privilege should not care about the country? Or that children of privilege are trying to overthrow the government?
The real conspiracy is that OWS got labeled as a bunch of dirty hippies when in fact they were regular people who were fed up, and the whole country should have been behind them.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I worked hard to get where I am today without taking a dime from the government.
You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
So because someone's salary is paid by tax dollars, that means that tax payers have a right to say what they can do with the money they have earned?
That's BS. Once that money goes into their paychecks, it's no longer "tax money". Whether or not they are a member of the union, they get their money and they can spend it however they choose. They choose to contribute to union dues with THEIR money.
This is crux of the issue, greedy assholes that think they can dictate what people do with their money just because they happen to work for the government.
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That's complete bull. I've worked for a public union in the past (I'm not a fan of them, as I feel I can negotiate my salary a lot better than a union can. In fact, in the private sector I make 3x more money).
Pensions are about 40% funded by the employee, 30-50% funded from interest and investment gains, and only a small amount is matched by the employer (ie, the government, ie the taxpayers).
I *WISH* my retirement had had more than 10-20% match from my employer. That would have made things a lot more palatable. As it was, I was making less than half what the private sector was paying for the job.
The only reason I even took the job was because of the crappy economy, back in the early 2000's.
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This is an interesting point. Why didn't the OWS people try to provide sanitation? Except that they did. Bette Midler even offered to pay for them, but the city of New York refused to issue a permit. The refusal to issue a permit stopped OWS from providing sanitation and de facto created the problem. Then they turned around and made sure the media knew that OWS was causing unsanitary conditions. The city of New York in cooperation with the media presented a situation which they could use to discredit the organization.
The OWS movement had medical tents and cooking tents set up. The city of New York confiscated their generators and created yet another incident to use as media fodder in their battles to discredit OWS.
There were also verified incidents of OWS members approaching NYPD officers to ask for help in dealing with disruptive people. The NYPD officers refused to help and helped create a situation where criminal activity was left completely to the OWS people in direct violation of their promise to serve the needs of public safety. They were also caught sending homeless people released from jail to the OWS protests to cause further problems.
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