Occupy Wall Street

I'm all for debate on any point relevant to the discussion. But I'm not going to respond to people who attack me, it's as simple as that.

I think we can steer this thread back toward the intended topic, can't we?

 

OK.

I'll submit that I am sceptical about OWS at this stage. These things have to keep gathering momentum or they die out. It's easy to play the waiting game.

The decision to bring about a confrontation may be a mistake, or it may be the beginning of the end. We'll see.

 

I think if OWS stands their ground tomorrow, there's going to be mass arrests(thousands), injuries, etc. Eventually the protest will buckle under the power of the police force. The police will win every time, in every city because they are the ones with the weapons.

 

Is that how the USA deals with protest? What happened to freedom?

 

That will be a shame and another slap in the face to the 1st amendment.

On the other hand, when so many Americans are in support of the OWS effort (even Fox News viewers polled 62.7% in favor of the principles behind it ) it may well end up a shot in the arm for the OWS movement.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/10/13/poll_occupy_wall_street_is_twice_as_popular_as_the_tea_party.html
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011...street-protests-represent-your-views-economy/

 

heres another of the many things you dont get, eddie. when cameras are running--and they are---the police lose when they exercise violence. this isnt the confrontation you seem to prefer to imagine it is. this is about undermining consent for dysfunction---political dysfunction brought to us by the republicans, ideological dysfunction brought to the rest of us by more or less everything you've said you believe in--which the rest of us have had to put up with for over 30 years---and which has produced the structural crisis we now are all stuck with--and which people who speak that special dialect can say nothing coherent about--because those who speak that dialect cannot generate even a rudimentary description of the actually existing world--and if they can't generate accurate descriptions, how can they be expected to generate adequate policy? o wait...i can tell you....they can't. and they demonstrably can't because we are in this mess largely because of people who also speak that special dialect, with varying degrees of sophistication. i mean, most do not inform others of the climate around their "sack"--but hey, that seems to be the one thing you can describe accurately that i've seen so far, so why not go with what you know?

 

...unless it's asserted (even if the assertion is later proven to be demonstrably false) that the protesters are acting in any way inappropriately. Back in 1999 in Seattle, the police were brutal and militaristic and much of it was caught on camera, but fast forward 10 years and all anyone says is the protest turned into a riot. No mention is ever made of the agent provocateur presence, the beatings, the tear gas, the electrocutions, the non-lethal projectiles, the mass arrests... all people seem to remember are the black bloc breaking some windows. I'm flabbergasted at how easy it seems to be to turn public opinion against peaceful protesters even as they're being assaulted.

 

because the dominant media is a repetition machine, i think it's important that the occupation movement begin putting pressure on the main television infotainment networks. they are a significant aspect of the problem. they should be at issue. that's how memory is edited in the land of the free. i think it's useful and important that ows is bypassing the dominant media apparatus, but that's not enough. the corporate media is a political media.

 

Attacks? Bloody hell... this has been one of the most civilized discussions I've seen in ages.

 

i guarantee you that anything nypd does tomorrow morning will be worldwide within minutes.

 

That's very true, but that really only reaches a subset, a much smaller percentage of people, imho, than watch the evening news or 24 news to get their daily information. I expect the "blogosphere" will keep very much informed. Hopefully that information will have staying power and be carried on to future generations.

 

I'm not sure how many people can fit into this park, but I wonder what would happen if 10,000 people sat down, linked arms and just didn't move?

 

Well the occupywallstreet.org website has called upon all protesters to show up at the park at 6am and hold their ground. I imagine there will be more than just a few hundred out there. They will probably pour into the streets, I would think thousands of people will be surrounding the park if they all heed the call.

 

I hope it stays peaceful.

 

reports via twitter are that brookfield backed down. but the plan was to make concentric rings of people doing as eddie imagined.