Occupy Wallstreet

[Typhoid]

I just wanted to add that Zuccotti Park in NYC, where the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd is hanging out, is actually not public land. Brookfield Properties (a private company) owns the park, but has an agreement with the city of New York to operate it as a "privately owned public space."

Then they should definitely get the fuck out of there. They're trespassing. Charge 'em all. (That sounds like sarcasm but it's not.)

At some point enough is enough.

I wholeheartedly agree.

[Dylflon]

Regardless of whether or not anyone is concerned about the classification of the outdoor spaces currently or previously being occupied, I was more concerned with the violent dispersing of protesters rather than the fact that they were being dispersed. (And I was also perturbed by the news that NYC police would deny access to an area of the city unless you had corporate documentation proving that you work on wall street.)

Acts like taking billy clubs to the stomachs of Berkley students or indiscriminately pepper spraying crowds in Seattle show that the police is more about protecting corporate interests than protecting the first amendment rights of the citizens they're supposedly sworn to protect.


I view this movement as a positive thing. People like to complain that they don't have a concise objective, but reaching consensus among a giant and diverse group of people is never going to be a simple task. The movement is the first step in a process that would hopefully lead to some kind of change. The movement can't create a new system for society or anything, but at least people are voicing the fact that they're not happy. And if nobody stands up and does this, the conversation in the political realm will never change.

However, violently breaking up demonstrations is only going to cause things to escalate in a very negative way.

[KillerGremlin]

What!? Damn kids need to get off my lawn!



I fear it is going to get violent from the protestor side based on how quickly and frequently the police have been trying to deescalate these protests with violence.

If someone pepper sprayed Rosa Parks for not giving her seat up on the bus....

[Professor S]

Here is a question: People are unlawfully occupying as space, and repeatedly asked to leave. They refuse to leave, and make it a point to do things to resist being removed (such as linking arms, making human walls, etc.).

How do you remove them without some form of violence (dragging someone away against their will is a form of violence)?

[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Here is a question: People are unlawfully occupying as space, and repeatedly asked to leave. They refuse to leave, and make it a point to do things to resist being removed (such as linking arms, making human walls, etc.).

How do you remove them without some form of violence (dragging someone away against their will is a form of violence)?

You don't/can't. Which is why protesting is effective.

I think the protesting at the University is somewhat unique. It seems that the University decided to call in the authorities. I doubt the protestors where actually obstructing physical space; I mean walk around them, cripes. But I don't doubt that the protestors were a distraction.

At the end of the day a University is private property and so the police can show up and try to remove the protestors. If the protestors refuse to move and act as dead weight...then the police will take the steps to remove them.

The gray area is "what steps are necessary?"

It doesn't change the fact that America has always celebrated the spirited right to free assembly and to free speech. I almost empathize more with the authorities in the above video than I do with the police removing protestors from New York City.

What is more American than New York City? New York City is the biggest stage in America. If there is a place to express free speech and your right to assembly, New York is the place.

Historically, there has always been "sanctioned" areas where people can protest...and not be seen or heard. That kind of defeats the purpose of protesting. Protesting is supposed to be aggressive, loud, and problematic.

When you saw videos of Civil Rights protestors being sprayed with fire houses and being beat by police...you felt passion and rage. Passion and rage leads to mob beatings, and again, I ask:

If the police continue to deescalate the situation with violence, how long will it be before the protestors mob the police?


So it seems to me that the real question isn't "what can the police do?" The real question is, "what can we do to stop the protestors?"

[Jason1]

That pepper spraying was TOTALLY over the line and completly uncalled for. Pepper spraying a bunch of college students who are just sitting there defenseless? Rediculous. Its a bunch of kids for gods sake, doing nothing wrong. They werent tipping cars or starting fires. Just sitting there. The more I think about it the angrier I get.

Where does it go from here? Kent State? This is America. I hope those police, and whoever higher up than them that authorized them to use pepper spray, are fired immediatley. I also hope they pursure legal action against them.

[Dylflon]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Here is a question: People are unlawfully occupying as space, and repeatedly asked to leave. They refuse to leave, and make it a point to do things to resist being removed (such as linking arms, making human walls, etc.).

How do you remove them without some form of violence (dragging someone away against their will is a form of violence)?

Guys, seriously. If there's a bunch of no-good poor people hanging out outside on this planet Earth in an area that I say is mine, and they won't leave when I want them to, and I don't like what they're saying:

How do I get them to shut up without punching their throats?

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Dylflon

Guys, seriously. If there's a bunch of no-good poor people hanging out outside on this planet Earth in an area that I say is mine, and they won't leave when I want them to, and I don't like what they're saying:

How do I get them to shut up without punching their throats?

Yes, because what I wrote and what you wrote are EXACTLY the same.

The question still stands (as I wrote it) and I have yet to hear a good answer, and I don't think pepper spray and billy clubs is a good answer either, but people aren't allowed to do whatever they want simply because they aren't violent. Laws are laws, and if they would simply not squat on the property there probably wouldn't be an issue. In the end, the protesters have to understand they are inviting pepper spray by refusing all other options given to them by those trying to enforce the law. And the pepper spray was likely used because it doesn't cause permanent damage, and it incapacitates you (I know from experience). In the end, it was used to avoid unnecessary violence and injury.

This episode just goes to show that in the end all laws are enforced at the end of a gun.

[KillerGremlin]

You could argue that human interests/rights supersede laws.

And, apparently pepper spray crossed the moral line this time because UC Davis is in an uproar. The police officers who used the pepper spray are on "administrative leave.*" The UC Davis chancellor apologized for the pepper spray...but now professors are speaking out and there are additional protesters. Students are pissed and feel unsafe on campus. Professors were saying that the protesters weren't blocking anything, and you could walk around them.

They were protesting tuition raises I guess. If no one pays for tuition, how is the University going to stay afloat? I think payers of tuition should have the right to protest. There are worker strikes and unions over unjust treatment.

At any rate, it doesn't look so good for the University, which is now on the national stage. Their students, who pay for the University, were pretty maliciously pepper-sprayed. And now the actual Professors who make up the University are speaking out? Sucks to be UC Davis.

*administrative leave is such bullshit....we could have a whole thread on how cops suck.

But back to this point:

You could argue that human interests/rights supersede laws.

This is the rabbit hole.