Occupy Wall Street

I think the "day of action" is what anyone could have expected as a response. It also answers the question about whether a heavy handed approach to stop the movement would backfire.

Disrupting business as usual by taking to the streets is still within the non-violent realm of protest (the picture of tanks on the announcement notwithstanding)

Yeah, I think people are pissed off but I obviously got something entirely different out of that video than you, cyn. I saw one, somewhat nutty guy spouting off at the mouth. The majority of those around him who didn't decide to just ignore his ravings were laughing at him.

I think you are being a bit disingenuous here:

suggesting that this one nutty guy represents everyone or that his comments refute the non-violent intent of the movement.

Having said that, there may be violence tomorrow but it will undoubtedly stem from the actions of law-enforcement, as it has from the beginning.
--- merged: Nov 16, 2011 11:26 PM ---

I don't know if this an actual question or something more rhetorical.

If it's a question, I would say that the answer lies with whatever judge happens to be hearing both sides of the case at any given juncture.

 

there's a lot of disengeousness flying around at the moment in what amounts to a conflict over how to frame the movement. it's happening in different ways in different cities...in philly, for example, there's been problems with the paulbots deciding to converge on the occupation and another, recent, change from the city in its posture toward the movement, which has to now been relatively friendly--until nutter got re-elected. and then there's this semi-visible co-ordination of responses across cities with some information that connects it back to the justice dept, so a federally co-ordinated move. in nyc, there's obviously an effort happening to build consensus along various lines for bloomberg's hostility to the movement...there seems little doubt that the clip cyn posted above getting framed as anything other than an individual's viewpoint and rhetoric is an example of this.

it should be obvious to anyone not entirely deluded by conservatism (political or tempermental) that the movement is not over with at this point, and that what's likely to happen is a passing over into a greater diversity of action. i think that's necessary, personally. the idea that a plutocracy like the american will simply get shamed into collapsing is naive. at the same time, it's still not clear what exactly that might mean---collapse of a plutocracy. it's obvious to me anyway that ows is operating within the general system, within the range of democratic options that it should have available. and it's also becoming clear some of the implications of the hysteria that followed 9/11/2001, the restrictions of basic civil liberties instituted at that time. in general, as a function of conservative fear of the public and of dissent, processed through the rhetoric of "terrorism", that a longer-standing conservative preference for property rights over the right to dissent has been instituted and an ideological frame put into place that condones that. what's interesting is that this is becoming obvious---i'm not sure that it has been to this time. and as that becomes obvious, the political implications of it are as well. and that will, i think anyway, erode the consent for that thinking as its been written into law and practice. and this could be the kind of political issue that really accelerates the erosion of consent for the plutocratic form of american pseudo-democracy that's taken shape, by degrees, over the past decades.

so it's a really dicey move on the part of these city administrations to create such theatrical demonstrations of all this.
so no, nothing is over.

 

I'll be out tomorrow. I haven't decided whether to head to Berkeley or Oakland, or to just stay at the local one, but I'll be out there.

Anyone else?

 

I'm gonna head up to Union Square after work tomorrow to show support.

 

Evicted? They were squatting on private property.

I certainly hope these protesters don't disrupt the stock exchange as they intend. There's a lot of middle class people who have their 401k's tied up in the market. I guess that doesn't matter to these "activists."

 

Yes, if Wall Street is actually disrupted, it's the middle class that will pay.

And wealth trickles down. And women use abortions as birth control. And Reagan was our greatest president. And liberals control the media. And Obama was born in Kenya.

 

I mean, I don't expect OWS to actually disrupt anything as there's no way in hell the authorities are going to let these mobs mess with our nation's $$ markets, but I was wondering if OWS knew who would be the most wounded if their efforts succeeded. It wouldn't be the rich man.

 

Depends on how far the panic spreads. Markets are already volatile. Any sort of major disruption could trigger a massive sell off.

 

The top 1% of Americans own approximately 38.3% of all stocks, followed by the next 19% that owns about 52.8%. The bottom 80%? They own about 8.9%.

 

just like OWS shouldn't be represented by the nutjobs that've shown up there, the NYPD shouldn't be represented by the violent cops. maybe i'm babbling out of my ass but it seems fair to view both parties objectively

 

OWS has done a much better job controlling whatever violent elements might be in the movement. Considering the worst stuff anyone even associated with the movement have done is some vandalism, nutjob control is going really well.

 

that's what conflicts over framing are about, kids. who gets to control the stereotype that comes to shape perceptions of complicated situations in the short attention span theater of television-land.

 

gee, this is sure getting a lot of press. i wonder why that is.

 

no. i'm just interested in how these little actions work, in watching them happen. i imagine that there are people arrested for expressing fantasies about blowing up sections of nyc every day and you don't read anything about them. well down into the space of routine police work. every day shit. i'm merely pointing out that it's a curious thing, this. it's also not taking, so it floats around inside of articles. it's an interesting little moment for looking into the internet hall of information mirrors.