Gettin' Spicy Up In Here, Up In Here

[kevbone]

It looks like we are okay to occupy any country but our own.......

[ivan]

Are you seriously suggesting there are business hours to the bill of rights?

 

i'm sure our resident aclu-klan lizard can reel off a # of instances where the supreme court has permitted restrictions on the freedom of speech

 

again, if there was a coherent demand for somethign that might tangibly be accomplished in a few months, the occupuation-element of the protest wouldn't be an issue - as i currently understand it's framing though, folks are prepared to go hang out all day n' night in public parks in perpetuity

[kevbone]

Are you seriously suggesting there are business hours to the bill of rights?

 

i'm sure our resident aclu-klan lizard can reel off a # of instances where the supreme court has permitted restrictions on the freedom of speech

 

again, if there was a coherent demand for somethign that might tangibly be accomplished in a few months, the occupuation-element of the protest wouldn't be an issue - as i currently understand it's framing though, folks are prepared to go hang out all day n' night in public parks in perpetuity

 

 

I think it is simply to raise awareness. Hopefully with awareness raised we "might" vote them out.

[rob]

Are you seriously suggesting there are business hours to the bill of rights?

 

 

again, if there was a coherent demand for somethign that might tangibly be accomplished in a few months, the occupuation-element of the protest wouldn't be an issue - as i currently understand it's framing though, folks are prepared to go hang out all day n' night in public parks in perpetuity

 

Are you saying that you can only peaceably assemble if your protest is "coherent" enough, or if what you're demanding only takes a few months to accomplish?

[ivan]

Are you seriously suggesting there are business hours to the bill of rights?

 

 

again, if there was a coherent demand for somethign that might tangibly be accomplished in a few months, the occupuation-element of the protest wouldn't be an issue - as i currently understand it's framing though, folks are prepared to go hang out all day n' night in public parks in perpetuity

 

Are you saying that you can only peaceably assemble if your protest is "coherent" enough, or if what you're demanding only takes a few months to accomplish?

are you saying that me n' my friends can build "awareness" barricades across i5 until the government confesses all it knows about ufo's?

 

life's messy and no right is absolute, even the right to life as the pro-capital punishment crowd will attest - the occupy movement has many lofty goals, most of which i imagine i support, none of which will be fully accomplished by turning their movement into a percieved bunch of petulant children demanding they be able to sleep in a pup-tent in my local park till doomsday

 

i, personally, am not to set the parameters of peaceable speech of course - i recon that's what the whole framework of our republic is supposed to do, no? laws, executives and courts (and yes, public opinion as it is expressed in a million ways) all are in the business of making our many rights and needs coexist as well as possible.

Edited November 17, 2011 by ivan

[rob]

I'm pretty sure they're not putting barriers across I5.

 

But if a hundred thousand people wanted to assemble in Pioneer Square and protest the government's concealment of aliens, I would think that would be their right.

 

I fully recognize, though, that the supreme court and I tend to disagree on these sorts of matters. I'm sure they'll end up doing whatever they can to protect the elite wealthy.

[j_b]

I am not sure where you got their demands were incoherent and unquantifiable. From TV, perhaps?

i don't watch tv, so i doubt it.

 

Good for you, but I suspect it isn't the case for most people around you including here. Did you ever hear the corporate media complain the Tea Party didn't have specific demands within the first 2 month?

 

i've seen a wide variety of signs n' video clip sound-bites from occupiers - sure, the message is generally anti-corporate, but what specifically each person said they want has not shown a clear pattern to me - of course this is a different kind of protest than say vietnam or recently in egypt, there the object was very easy to make clear and quantifable - end the war, get the fuck out of office.

 

what specifically will the occupiers of any one of the cities currently in play require in order to be happy? when will they know they have it?

 

you're missing the point indeed if you think i'm anti-occupier. of course i agree w/ many of their points, more so at any rate then i'd disagree. i do understand though how folks who are a good deal more conservative then myself are put off by the greyness of their demands. some of the protesters seem to be unwilling to accept anything less than the complete abandonment of the capitalist system we've been using for centuries though - what rational person could possible conceive of that occurring?

 

OWS participants don't suffer from a lack of demands, they suffer from lack of political representation that would champion these demands. OWS participants not only have specific gripes (jobs, education, health care, etc ..) but they are also fully aware of the take over of government by corporate interests. Taking back power won't happen in a few months so you better get used to the idea of seeing them around ("Petulance"? sheesh! get a hold of youself)

[ivan]

But if a hundred thousand people wanted to assemble in Pioneer Square and protest the government's concealment of aliens, I would think that would be their right.

 

of course it's their right, i'm just saying if they wanted to build a "bonus army" style encampment and stated publicly they wouldn't leave until a flying saucer, piloted by obama, landed in the square, that i and is suspect most reasonable citizens wouldn't feel justice had been shit on when, after a couple of months, they got chased out of the square at night but were allowed back in during the day to "continue the movment."

 

the touchstone of democracy is the necessity of compromise - shit, i'll trade hoboes and occupiers unlimited camping rights on public property if in return i don't have to pay a northwest forest pass to park on public land?

[j_b]

of course it's their right, i'm just saying if they wanted to build a "bonus army" style encampment

 

isn't it what they have done?

 

the touchstone of democracy is the necessity of compromise

 

repression of the movement by the establishment isn't compromise. It's refusal to negotiate.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2011 by j_b

[ivan]

I am not sure where you got their demands were incoherent and unquantifiable. From TV, perhaps?

i don't watch tv, so i doubt it.

 

Good for you, but I suspect it isn't the case for most people around you including here. Did you ever hear the corporate media complain the Tea Party didn't have specific demands within the first 2 month?

 

i've seen a wide variety of signs n' video clip sound-bites from occupiers - sure, the message is generally anti-corporate, but what specifically each person said they want has not shown a clear pattern to me - of course this is a different kind of protest than say vietnam or recently in egypt, there the object was very easy to make clear and quantifable - end the war, get the fuck out of office.

 

what specifically will the occupiers of any one of the cities currently in play require in order to be happy? when will they know they have it?

 

you're missing the point indeed if you think i'm anti-occupier. of course i agree w/ many of their points, more so at any rate then i'd disagree. i do understand though how folks who are a good deal more conservative then myself are put off by the greyness of their demands. some of the protesters seem to be unwilling to accept anything less than the complete abandonment of the capitalist system we've been using for centuries though - what rational person could possible conceive of that occurring?

 

OWS participants don't suffer from a lack of demands, they suffer from lack of political representation that would champion these demands. OWS participants not only have specific gripes (jobs, education, health care, etc ..) but they are also fully aware of the take over of government by corporate interests. Taking back power won't happen in a few months so you better get used to the idea of seeing them around ("Petulance"? sheesh! get a hold of youself)

alright, i suppose it IS an article from a major media site, but still, this seems neutral-enough, and seems to have the conclusion that the mother-ship new york occupy movement in fact can't manage to assemble a set of demands, largely b/c they have no practical leadership:

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45260610/ns/us_news-life/

[j_b]

Did you read my last paragraph because i clearly said there were more demands than what they knew to do with them but the movement had no political representation to articulate these demands, which shouldn't be surprising considering the betrayal by those who are supposed to represent them and the artful job done by regressives of demonizing anything left of Joe Lieberman for the last many decades. OWS is truly an organic grass root movement and it'll take a while before its political expression emerges.

[rob]

I wonder who gets to decide if a protest is "coherent" enough to deserve 1st amendment protection? I hope it's not the banks!

[sobo]

I wonder who gets to decide if a protest is "coherent" enough to deserve 1st amendment protection? I hope it's not the banks!

Why, it's the Seattle PD, of course. Duh.

[ivan]

the touchstone of democracy is the necessity of compromise

 

repression of the movement by the establishment isn't compromise. It's refusal to negotiate.

 

yeah, i think you're going to lose the man on the street w/ that line of thought - the police generally seem only to be repressing the camping element, which is, what i say, for the masses the whole movement is being reduced to in the absence of several clearly defined and achievable goals

 

the question i keep fielding from a bunch of students, and don't feel i have a decent answer for, is: why can't the protestors sleep somewhere else? i guess any publicity is good if you want to attract awareness, but it does seem, in the admitedly small bubble i live in, to be garnering more negative attention than otherwise.

[j_b]

You have to differentiate between reality and its portrayal in the national discourse. Demonizing occupiers as filth is very effective.

[ivan]

You have to differentiate between reality and its portrayal in the national discourse. Demonizing occupiers as filth is very effective.

yeah, i disagree on the "demonizing" bit - i've seen plenty of sympathetic or at least balanced reporting on them, and as i've said, i'm hardly an enemy of increasing the economic and political power of wee folks like meself

 

one of my best friends works right where the portland occupation's been happenign - he's about as damn screaming-liberal as they come, but he expressed his disgust to me a few weeks back at the general feel of the folks who were representing the movement there, and not b/c he disagrees w/ the general message. sounds like it was a large # of portland homeless and crazy types smokign tons of weed at all hours and basically hanging out and being sketchy. at the basic level of strategy, it seems the movement needs to go back to the drawing board, if that's the face it's going to put forward.

Edited November 17, 2011 by ivan

[j_b]

What do you think the bonus army was if not in great part a bunch of homeless/jobless people? i.e. the disenfranchised. It is normal that those who have least to lose are the ones who are on the front line. What happened to the homeless is right smack at the center of OWS demands.

Edited November 17, 2011 by j_b

[ivan]

It's refusal to negotiate.

 

is it the place of the cops to negotiate demands for national and international political and economic reform?

 

is it possible to negotitate with 99% of 300 million people when they put forth no group to conduct that diplomacy?

 

is it possible to compromise with a group that doesn't have a list of discrete demands?

Edited November 17, 2011 by ivan

[ivan]

What do you think the bonus army was if not in great part a bunch of homeless/jobless people? i.e. the disenfranchised. It is normal that those who have least to lose are the ones who are on the front line. What happened to the homeless is right smack at the center of OWS demands.

i'm pretty certain in our modern poltical environment that the bonus army would have met a much more satisfactory ending - even the media you're quick to castigate fell all over itself to trumpet the near-killing of scott olson in oakland

 

shit, the occupy folks would do well to follow the bonus army's lead:

1. put your best foot forward (veterans and the like, folks who have been working hard, playing by the rules, and are just down on their luck, not tweakers who don't give a shit about politics beyond getting high and sitting aroudn the mission (yeah, i KNOW that's just a fraction of the occupy-movement, but the occupy tactic has attracted those folks to their make-shift camps like flies to shit and is thus making it easy to generalize the whole movement as such))

2. go to where the powers that be do business (the national capital, if your goal is a national one)

3. insist on a specific demand (the bonus army wanted it's goddamn bonus! it was simple to say, simple to understand, not particuarily hard to do, and easy to know if it had in fact been done)

 

anyone want to offer their theory on how the bonus army would go down today?

Edited November 17, 2011 by ivan

[j_b]

It's refusal to negotiate.

 

is it the place of the cops to negotiate demands for nation and international political and economic reform?

 

The police is used to break the movement so the 1% and their politicians won't have to negotiate.

 

is it possible to negotitate with 99% of 300 million people when they put forth no group to conduct that diplomacy?

 

The movement will eventually find its political expression. It's not a matter of if but when.

 

it it possible to compromise with a group that doesn't have a list of discrete demands?

 

There are more discrete demands than they know what to do with. OWS represents the 99%, the overwhelming majority of which wants universal health care, jobs, raises in the minimum wage, etc ..

[ivan]

It's refusal to negotiate.

 

is it the place of the cops to negotiate demands for nation and international political and economic reform?

 

The police is used to break the movement so the 1% and their politicians won't have to negotiate.

 

is it possible to negotitate with 99% of 300 million people when they put forth no group to conduct that diplomacy?

 

The movement will eventually find its political expression. It's not a matter of if but when.

 

it it possible to compromise with a group that doesn't have a list of discrete demands?

 

There are more discrete demands than they know what to do with. OWS represents the 99%, the overwhelming majority of which wants universal health care, jobs, raises in the minimum wage, etc ..

is it "breaking the movement" to restrict the camping requirement? it doesn't seem so to me.

 

sure, the movement will ultimately find its political expression, but everybody knows what it it will be (and is less than enthusiastic about it for good reason): the 2-party republican democracy we've been kicking down the road for 2 centuries now. yeah, it sucks, but really, wtf else is going to do it? americans, the likes of de toqueville and james fulbright have pointed out, are a profoundly UNrevolutionary people.

 

not that anyone wants to consult me for strategy, but i think the occupy folks would do best to take just a couple of those issues (at least for each discrete city-based occupy movements) and hammer on them. shit, even the bolsheviks kept it simple, right? land, bread, peace.

 

so...health-care, living wage, home?

 

 

[j_b]

What do you think the bonus army was if not in great part a bunch of homeless/jobless people? i.e. the disenfranchised. It is normal that those who have least to lose are the ones who are on the front line. What happened to the homeless is right smack at the center of OWS demands.

i'm pretty certain in our modern poltical environment that the bonus army would have met a much more satisfactory ending

 

can you cite when it has ever been the case that a popular movement got what it wanted without going through a repression phase?

 

- even the media you're quick to castigate fell all over itself to trumpet the near-killing of scott olson in oakland

 

it doesn't mean they aren't peddling the unsanitary, dope peddling, gang friendly stories the rest of the time.

 

shit, the occupy folks would do well to follow the bonus army's lead:

1. put your best foot forward (veterans and the like, folks who have been working hard, playing by the rules, and are just down on their luck, not tweakers who don't give a shit about politics beyond getting high and sitting aroudn the mission (yeah, i KNOW that's just a fraction of the occupy-movement, but the occupy tactic has attracted those folks to their make-shift camps like flies to shit and is thus making it easy to generalize the whole movement as such))

 

It's not going to be easy to make people understand that people who are left on the street to die are evidence of the type of society that we don't want.

 

2. go to where the powers that be do business (the national capital, if your goal is a national one)

 

the occupy movement is doing it and more, like occupying all centers of power, which gives a chance to act locally.

 

3. insist on a specific demand (the bonus army wanted it's goddamn bonus! it was simple to say, simple to understand, not particuarily hard to do, and easy to know if it had in fact been done)

 

it's not critical at this stage. There is a long road ahead.

[sobo]

of course it's their right, i'm just saying if they wanted to build a "bonus army" style encampment

 

isn't it what they have done?

No, they most definitely have not. The Bonus Army lived in camps that were operated like a city. They tended to their own needs, foremost among them being sanitation and self-policing of their constituency. I have seen nothing even remotely resembling that in any OWS encampment that has been covered by the media, least of all Oakland.

 

"...The camps, built from materials scavenged from a nearby rubbish dump, were tightly controlled by the veterans who laid out streets, built sanitation facilities, and held daily parades. To live in the camps, veterans were required to register and prove they had been honorably discharged..."

 

Source

 

 

[j_b]

It's not easy to build a camp when authorities won't allow tents, generators, etc ..

[sobo]

I do not support the brutality being directed toward the protesters by the police. However, I must agree with ivan that the OWS movement needs to put a better face forward to the public than what they have put forth so far (or at least the face that's being reported: unemployed college-educated folks smoking weed, one-on-one interviews with people that can't even express a coherent thought as to why they are there, violence/vandalism/looting directed at local businesses, gang rapes in the camps, etc.).

 

The movement needs to do a much better job of self-policing and upgrading their PR image before the vast majority of the "silent 99%" get up in arms over their mistreatement at the hands of the establishment. That's the constituency from which they need to gain support, and they haven't been doing a very good job of it. Just my opinion...

 

Oh, and the appointment of a dog to be your representative. That was real smart, yeah... Way to represent yourselves if you're trying to be taken seriously...