[Wizard]

When it comes to the Occupy movement as a whole I'm pretty ambivalent to the entire thing. Usually I can't help but think this is just another demonstration of first world problems. I suppose I tend to be critical of any group of people who might have a valid argument, but choose to use the most bombastic rhetoric possible.

There are incidents like this.

Quote:

About 300 people were arrested Saturday during a chaotic day of Occupy protests that saw demonstrators break into City Hall and burn an American flag, as police earlier fired tear gas and bean bags to disperse hundreds of people after some threw rocks and bottles and tore down fencing outside a nearby convention center.

Burning the flag while distasteful to me, is I believe a valid form of expression protected under the First Amendment. So it's not this part that has me annoyed.

Quote:

The group assembled outside City Hall late Saturday morning and marched through the streets, disrupting traffic as they threatened to take over the vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center.
The protesters walked to the vacant convention center, where some started tearing down perimeter fencing and "destroying construction equipment" shortly before 3 p.m., police said.

Disrupting traffic? What if they had stopped an ambulance mid-route to the hospital. Then of course there is the destruction of private party, which I'm sure is very feel good but someone is going to have to pay for the damage they inflicted. My guess it's either going to be the taxpayers, or somebody else who can ill afford it.

Quote:

The protest group issued an email criticizing police, saying "Occupy Oakland's building occupation, an act of constitutionally protected civil disobedience was disrupted by a brutal police response today."

I must have missed the part of the first amendment that guarantees anyone the right to destroy private property, and put the public in danger.

Quote:

"It was very emotional. I thought it was a very good day for the movement because it brought us back together," Davis said. "We all were here in spirit and everybody actually helped everyone today."
"What could've been handled differently is the way the Oakland police came at us," Davis said. "We were peaceful."

Quan blamed the destruction on a small "very radical, violent" splinter group within Occupy Oakland.

"This is not a situation where we had a 1,000 peaceful people and a few violent people. If you look at what's happening today in terms of destructing property, throwing at and charging the police, it's almost like they are begging for attention and hoping that the police will make an error."

This part has to be the one that pisses me off the most. Because of course it was a "radical" splinter group within Occupy movement itself that did all that awful property destruction. It's complete crap, and it's like the President saying.. "Well it was a small radical group of CIA officers who did whatever" It's a cheap tactic designed to stop blame from descending upon an entire movement.

I don't read anywhere a condemnation for the violent acts of these "radicals", nor did I read anyone talk about expelling them.

Quote:

Quan said that at one point, many forced their way into City Hall, where they burned flags, broke an electrical box and damaged several art structures, including a recycled art exhibit created by children.

Well thank Christ they showed those kids, I'm sure the 1% is trembling in their boots now.

I usually do my best not to get to emotional about the political machinations of anybody. I understand that politicians, political organizations, etc are all groups designed to promote the self-interest of a select group of people.

That is the nature of politics, and it has been that way for thousands of years. I'm afraid I just can't stand the arrogance of the Occupy movement to claim to speak for the 99%. Those morons don't speak for me, and I wish to god someone would teach them a bit about the political process in general.

[Giovonny]

No need for a complex economic or social analysis of them. They are straight anarchists!

I mean the real deal. Half of them don't even know what Wall St. is, but the can protest their ass off. Alot of them come from Oregon , Washington, Utah, etc. Most are white. They come to Oakland because they know they can get away with alot of crazy shit in Oakland. The cops are more concerned with murderers then they are with commie, hippy, anarchist kids from out of town.

These are the same kids that go protest in Seattle at the G8 summit and all that kind of stuff. They are anti-capitalism, anti-government, anti-rich people, etc.

Half of them are couldn't even explain the issues to you. They just look for something to protest about. They will accomplish nothing.

[Tuthmosis]

Occupy is a misguided, and somewhat naive, way to address real social problems. I don't particularly support the movement, but I agree that shit's fucked up: corporations have too much power, income inequality has gotten ridiculous, the jobs aren't coming back, etc. More than anything, what it has managed to demonstrate is that you can't achieve real gains by conventional means (old-fashioned, 1960s-style protest).

[kosko]

The Occupy movement is a complete joke. Still don't get it twisted you really think todays feeble youth can actually rise up above passive group think to go on violent destructive tirades? No. I was in Toronto for the G20 protests and participated in them, ALL of the violent elements came from the small anarchist (police) group called Black-Bloc. I have to correct you on this part because I have seen this shit first hand as police protected groups went around .. Burning cop cars... Blocking traffic... Destroying private property. Same tactics.

The cops use these violent elements so they them selves can ramp up their response.

After the G20 situation I became sour to the whole "protest" movement. As our generation is a complete joke I refuse to support there failed attempts to bring change. The current Occupy movement was a fart on the radar, the only real legitimate movement was in Oakland so I still give them a shred of slack as they were able to organize a public mass strike in the 100Ks and shut down the Oakland Port, not small feats.

But the Occupy movement in whole shows how lazy and weak our generation is. They scour Wikipedia on the summers of 67 and 68 and think they are doing the same if not more, when American on those days was on the brink of revolution these Occupy fools can barley decide what to have for lunch.

[TudoBem]

Occupy Oakland Demonstrates It's Stupidity

If you are going to call someone out on their stupidity...

Its versus It's

[ColSpanker]

With St. Barak cranking up all the populist rhetoric these days, I can't help but wonder if OWS is going to transform itself into an Imperial DNC strike force this summer and fall.

[WesternCancer]

(01-29-2012 11:11 AM)Giovonny Wrote:  

No need for a complex economic or social analysis of them. They are straight anarchists!

I mean the real deal. Half of them don't even know what Wall St. is, but the can protest their ass off. Alot of them come from Oregon , Washington, Utah, etc. Most are white. They come to Oakland because they know they can get away with alot of crazy shit in Oakland. The cops are more concerned with murderers then they are with commie, hippy, anarchist kids from out of town.

These are the same kids that go protest in Seattle at the G8 summit and all that kind of stuff. They are anti-capitalism, anti-government, anti-rich people, etc.

Half of them are couldn't even explain the issues to you. They just look for something to protest about. They will accomplish nothing.

I used to know a few people like this in highschool, they would go to protests with bullshit ideals. They had no knowledge to back it up just dumb song lyrics. So they would just go do dumb shit, break stuff and take away from the larger or more peaceful group they were pretending to be a part of. Reminds me of the Vancouver stanley cup riots. The '94 riots were hyped up so much leading up to the game people took it as an opportunity to just smash shit. There are pictures of people in shirts that say "I'm just here for the riot"

[Tuthmosis]

(01-29-2012 11:56 AM)TudoBem Wrote:  

Occupy Oakland Demonstrates It's Stupidity

If you are going to call someone out on their stupidity...

Its versus It's

Same thing crossed my mind.

[[email protected]]

(01-29-2012 11:56 AM)TudoBem Wrote:  

Occupy Oakland Demonstrates It's Stupidity

If you are going to call someone out on their stupidity...

Its versus It's

Incorrect grammer is not a sign of stupidity; it's either an oversight or, at the very worst, ignorance. These are very different things.

[speakeasy]

Most OWS demonstrations across the country have been overwhelming peaceful. It's always people's tendency to focus on the most extreme examples and them up as exemplary even when that isn't necessarily the case.

Given that the movement is completely decentralized and has no national leaders calling the shots, it's not surprising to have splinter groups who are way out of line. Some as in Oakland are just anarchists who want a battle with the cops. However there are many OWS demonstrators with legitimate grievances concerning wall st money in politics and the ability of the super wealthy to rig the system in their favorite.

Let's not let some extremist goons in Oakland take away from what is a very cogent message.

[thegmanifesto]

(01-30-2012 01:16 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

Most OWS demonstrations across the country have been overwhelming peaceful. It's always people's tendency to focus on the most extreme examples and them up as exemplary even when that isn't necessarily the case.

Given that the movement is completely decentralized and has no national leaders calling the shots, it's not surprising to have splinter groups who are way out of line. Some as in Oakland are just anarchists who want a battle with the cops. However there are many OWS demonstrators with legitimate grievances concerning wall st money in politics and the ability of the super wealthy to rig the system in their favorite.

Let's not let some extremist goons in Oakland take away from what is a very cogent message.

Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that the fact that it is "leader-less" is actually an advantage.

If it had a leader, he would have been taken out, Julian Assange style. Or like that Megaupload guy.

[BortimusPrime]

What's funny is that the attitude that people have towards the protesters now pretty much mirrors the attitudes in the 60's. All the Bob Dylan montages they play on TV tend to give the impression that everyone was smoking weed and having sex in the mud back then, when the reality of it was that the average American lived pretty much the same way they did in the 50's. The most counterculture my parents experienced back then was eating Indian food. It wasn't until Kent State that the opinion of the public actually turned against the government and towards the movement. Until then it was exactly the same blathering the then-equivalent of a cnn.com article reader comment against the movement:

"I work hard and do my job, why are these damn hippies not working! Derp!"
"They're just using this protest as an excuse to do drugs, they don't have an actual political opinion! Derpa derp!"
"How dare they make a nuisance of themselves! Why can't they protest in a manner that wont' generate media attention? Herpa-derp da-teedley dum da derp-a do!"

And naturally when the media decides to interview a protester, they find some hipster douche with ear spacers that's blazed out of his mind, and use his incoherent rambling to foster the impression that no one has a cogent analysis of the problem with mounting income inequality in this country. Just reading posts on this forum you can see that lots of people have some real insights on this situation, but you know damn well that's not getting into mainstream media channels any day soon.

Of course when they want to interview someone who opposes the movement, they don't find a Gordon Gekko-esque investment banker who reeks of gefilte fish and hair gel and interview him cackling madly about how many millions he made being CEO for two weeks before his company went bankrupt and fucked the shareholders. No, they find a nice pleasant older man who worked hard to amass his little nest egg for retirement, a nice moderate Republican with a friendly middle-america manner about him. He goes on for a while about pulling himself up by his own bootstraps and stick-to-itiveness, and all the viewers get their feel-good Horatio Alger fantasies reinforced.

The mainstream media has done a good job going out of its way to delegitimize the movement by pointing out all the anarchy, but the thing is that this kind of crap is going to happen with any movement that's moving against the status quo, especially one with no centralized leadership. And this kind of thing can't have centralized leadership, at least not to begin with, it just gives the government a target. People are already calling the protesters "domestic terrorists", which is pretty ridiculous if you think about it, as it's basically comparing some hipster pooping in a city park to the unabomber or Timothy McVeigh.

Ultimately I don't think the economic and social conditions in this country have gotten to the turning point yet where the Occupy movement can really effect change, it's still about a decade out there. People need to experience the police using drones against them, a censored internet, and a bigger hit in quality of life due to outsourcing of production in this country. As it stands my bet is that the whole thing get co-opted by the Democrats and is neutered as a result. Rant over.

[Wizard]

(01-30-2012 01:16 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

Most OWS demonstrations across the country have been overwhelming peaceful. It's always people's tendency to focus on the most extreme examples and them up as exemplary even when that isn't necessarily the case.

Given that the movement is completely decentralized and has no national leaders calling the shots, it's not surprising to have splinter groups who are way out of line. Some as in Oakland are just anarchists who want a battle with the cops. However there are many OWS demonstrators with legitimate grievances concerning wall st money in politics and the ability of the super wealthy to rig the system in their favorite.

Let's not let some extremist goons in Oakland take away from what is a very cogent message.

Occupy groups can't simply expect people to differentiate between the hard-line elements when they themselves refuse to do it. They don't get to simply ignore the millions of dollars in damage done by those groups, and prattle on about how it's only a crazy minority.

I realize that like any group they have a specific agenda to perpetuate, and are interested in protecting the movement as a whole. I also realize the police stepping in to stop the vandalism represents a wonderful opportunity for a PR victory for them, but it's politically stupid.

There is no advantage to gain in not condemning those who are going to force the 99% to pay millions in tax payer dollars to cover the damage. I don't care how noble their intentions are, the consequences of their actions are going to bared by the tax payers.