Gettin' Spicy Up In Here, Up In Here

[ivan]

nothing like cops laughing at the hippies they're trussing up like turkeys

gonna be reaaaaal hard feeling bad for them when the bad shit starts happening to them too?

[max]

nothing like cops laughing at the hippies they're trussing up like turkeys

 

gonna be reaaaaal hard feeling bad for them when the bad shit starts happening to them too?

 

You talking about the cops or the protracted. My sympathy for people getting smashed up at protests is pretty minimal when it's clear whAts going to happen and they still go.....

[prole]

nothing like cops laughing at the hippies they're trussing up like turkeys

 

gonna be reaaaaal hard feeling bad for them when the bad shit starts happening to them too?

 

You talking about the cops or the protracted. My sympathy for people getting smashed up at protests is pretty minimal when it's clear whAts going to happen and they still go.....

 

You mean the cops, right?

[j_b]

Odd logic. Do you also not have much sympathy for climbers who get hurt because they knew beforehand getting hurt was a possibility? what about soldiers? etc

[tvashtarkatena]

nothing like cops laughing at the hippies they're trussing up like turkeys

 

gonna be reaaaaal hard feeling bad for them when the bad shit starts happening to them too?

 

You talking about the cops or the protracted. My sympathy for people getting smashed up at protests is pretty minimal when it's clear whAts going to happen and they still go.....

 

What a pussy.

[rob]

Odd logic. Do you also not have much sympathy for climbers who get hurt because they knew beforehand getting hurt was a possibility? what about soldiers? etc

 

No, I think he's saying people shouldn't protest. If they do, they deserve to have their heads cracked.

[tvashtarkatena]

While we're on an anti-first amendment rant, I think people who express unpopular opinions by any means should have their teeth kicked in.

 

 

[billcoe]

While we're on an anti-first amendment rant, I think people who express unpopular opinions by any means should have their teeth kicked in.

 

 

That's a mellower version than acting like you want to see everyone who disagrees with you getting curb stomped. I sense that we're seeing some personal progress here. If this keeps up, I can see you voting for a republican in a few years. But you need to make some more progress of course.

 

 

Edited November 10, 2011 by billcoe

[j_b]

Man, do you really have to post that gratuitously violent shit? Is it making you hard? Sheesh.

[prole]

Encouraging.

 

Students Walk Out of Ec 10 in Solidarity with 'Occupy'

By Jose A. DelReal, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Harvard Crimson 11/2/11

 

 

Nearly 70 Harvard student protesters walked out of Economics 10 on Wednesday afternoon, expressing dissatisfaction with what they perceive to be an overly conservative bias in the course.

 

The walkout was meant to be a show of support for the "Occupy" movement’s principal criticism that conservative economic policies have increased income inequality in the United States.

 

"Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course. We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater society," read a statement issued by the organizers.

 

Economics 10—more commonly referred to as “Ec 10”—is taught by professor N. Gregory Mankiw, and has the highest enrollment of any course at the College, boasting over 700 enrollees.

 

Gabriel H. Bayard ’15, one of the walkout‘s organizers, noted that he believes the course is emblematic of the economic policies that have led the financial crisis.

 

“Ec 10 is a symbol of the larger economic ideology that created the 2008 collapse. Professor Mankiw worked in the Bush administration, and he clearly has a conservative ideology,” Bayard said. “His conservative views are the kind that created the collapse of 2008. This easy money focus on enriching the wealthiest Americans—he really operates with that ideology.”

 

Mankiw formerly served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for the Bush Administration, and has worked with former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney. Mankiw declined to comment for this article.

 

Rachel J. Sandalow-Ash ’15, another organizer of the walkout, believes the course too heavily asserts conservative economic claims as fact.

 

“It’s a class that’s very indoctrinating, and does not encourage diversity of views. Economic questions are not always clear-cut. Multiple views should be presented in this course,” Sandalow-Ash said.

 

While many of the protesters sympathized with the walkouts intended message, others were more skeptical of the demonstration.

 

Mark S. Krass ’14 said he believes the walkout’s intended goals were unclear, which detracted from the walkout’s message and comprises its integrity.

 

“Those of us who are supportive of Occupy Wall Street are trying very hard to combat the view that there is no set of objectives or ideology motivating that movement,” Krass said. “It was really distressing for people to advertise a walkout of Ec 10 on the basis of high textbook prices and bad teaching.”

 

Jeremy Patashnik ’12, an economics concentrator who authored a lengthy piece in defense of the course for the Harvard Political Review, rejected the notion that Economics 10 carries a conservative bias.

 

“I self-identify as a liberal on these issues and I don’t see the conservative bias. I think this walkout misses the point of what Ec 10 is supposed to be," Patashnik said. “This class is not attempting to give normative answers about how to address social issues. It’s meant to introduce students to economics as a social science.”

 

Krass states that while it may be true that the economics department might be more conservative than other departments at Harvard, academics are typically very careful to avoid making prescriptive claims regarding public policy.

 

“That’s true for Ec10 as well ... [but] economics sometimes uses value-charged terms that students often confuse for normative statements,” Krass said.

 

Krass notes that the topic of Wednesday’s lecture—income inequality—might have been particularly interesting to those who participated in the walkout.

 

“The greatest irony of this entire situation was on poverty and inequality. It’s incredible that in the name of advancing a more liberal view of economics they chose to walk out of a class on a social issue they care about,” Krass said.

 

According to those who walked out, part of the unrest with Economics 10 has to do with the limited opportunity to express skepticism or concern with material taught in the course.

 

"I’ve definitely written question marks in my textbook, but we never really get to question [what he says] in section," said Alexandra E. Foote '15, who is currently enrolled in the course. "I don't know very much about economics, and it's not really fair that I'm getting a skewed perspective."

 

[j_b]

[video:youtube]v=hCe0ul5PJt8

[prole]

 

More good news...

 

Ohio Voters Reject Republican-backed Union Limits

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The state's new collective bargaining law was defeated Tuesday after an expensive union-backed campaign that pitted firefighters, police officers and teachers against the Republican establishment.

 

In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers. With more than a quarter of the votes counted late Tuesday, 63 percent of votes were to reject the law.

 

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, among the many union leaders who hailed the outcome, said victory was achieved among Democrats and Republicans in urban and rural counties.

 

"Ohio sent a message to every politician out there: Go in and make war on your employees rather than make jobs with your employees, and you do so at your own peril," he said.

 

Kasich congratulated his opponents and said he would spend time contemplating how best to take the state forward.

 

"I've heard their voices, I understand their decision and, frankly, I respect what people have to say in an effort like this," he said. "And as a result of that, it requires me to take a deep breath, you know, and to spend some time reflecting on what happened here."

 

Kasich said he has made creating jobs his priority and he's beginning to see his policies work.

 

In a signal of the issue's national resonance, White House spokesman Jay Carney issued a statement saying President Barack Obama "congratulates the people of Ohio for standing up for workers and defeating efforts to strip away collective bargaining rights, and commends the teachers, firefighters, nurses, police officers and other workers who took a stand to defend those rights."

 

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern, at a celebration at a downtown Columbus hotel, said Republicans and Kasich overreached.

 

"He literally thought he knew more than everyone else," Redfern said.

 

Asked whether the collective bargaining law, called Issue 2, was a referendum on Kasich, Redfern said, "Absolutely. He was the face of the campaign. John Kasich chose to put his face on this campaign for the last eight weeks. The people of the state pushed back."

 

Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, and turnout was high for an off-year election.

 

The law hadn't taken effect yet. Tuesday's result means the state's current union rules will stand, at least until the GOP-controlled Legislature determines its next move. Republican House Speaker William Batchelder predicted last week that the more palatable elements of the collective bargaining bill — such as higher minimum contributions on worker health insurance and pensions — are likely to be revisited after the dust settles.

 

Earlier Tuesday, voter Janet Tipton, a 46-year-old nurse and a Teamsters union member at a private health care center, said Issue 2 was the only reason she came out to vote.

 

"If they break the union, we won't have anything," she said outside a church on Toledo's east side. "They'll come after us, too."

 

She said retaining the union-limiting law would have affected quality of care for the elderly because it would have meant fewer nurses per patient.

 

Earlier this year, thousands of people swarmed the Statehouse in protest when the bill was being heard. The bill still allowed bargaining on wages, working conditions and some equipment but banned strikes, scrapped binding arbitration and dropped promotions based solely on seniority, among other provisions.

 

Kasich and fellow supporters promoted the law as a means for local governments to save money and keep workers. Their effort was supported by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business-Ohio, farmers and others.

 

We Are Ohio, the largely union-funded opponent coalition, painted the issue as a threat to public safety and middle-class workers, spending millions of dollars on TV ads filled with images of firefighters, police officers, teachers and nurses.

 

Celebrities came out on both sides of the campaign, with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and singer Pat Boone urging voters to retain the law and former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and the Rev. Jesse Jackson urging them to scrap it.

 

Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, with the law's opponents far outspending and outnumbering its defenders.

 

Opponents reported raising $24 million as of mid-October, compared to about $8 million raised by the committee supporting the law, Building a Better Ohio.

 

Tuesday's result in the closely divided swing state was expected to resonate from statehouses to the White House ahead of the 2012 presidential election — potentially energizing the labor movement ahead of President Obama's re-election effort.

 

Ohio residents also voted Tuesday to reject an insurance mandate in Obama's federal health insurance overhaul. Jeff Longstreth, who managed the successful campaign, said he sees that issue as more telling for the president's future in the swing state.

 

"Voters spoke very loudly and very clearly about how they felt about Barack Obama's proudest legislative accomplishment," he said.

[Crux]

Infiltrate this:

 

[video:youtube]

[Off_White]

Man, do you really have to post that gratuitously violent shit? Is it making you hard? Sheesh.

 

American History X is a pretty interesting movie, but it does have a few genuinely cringe inducing moments. That scene popularized the concept of curb stomping, but word is that it doesn't much happen outside that film.

[j_b]

I thought it was an excellent movie. The curb stomping moment is horrific but it goes by rapidly. You are probably right that landing just in the right place for curb stomping would almost never happen, though the result would be terrible on any hard surface.

 

[video:youtube]v=msfu8YCCc8Q

[j_b]

[size=10

pt]Democratic establishment abandoned Occupy Wall Street[/size]

 

Author Barbara Ehrenreich accused Barack Obama and the Democratic establishment of betraying the Occupy movement on Tuesday by failing to stop the evictions from Zuccotti Park.

 

Ehrenreich, who has championed the struggles of working class Americans in books such as Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America said her outrage at the police crackdowns was magnified by the acquiesence of Democratic leaders.

 

"One of the appalling things here is that there are so many Democratic mayors involved in these crackdowns or in Bloomberg's case, someone who is seen as a liberal," Ehrenreich said in a telephone interview. "And where in all this was Obama? Why couldn't he have picked up the phone at some point a couple of weeks ago and called the mayors of Portland and Oakland and said: 'go easy on these people. They represent the anger and aspirations of the majority'. Would that have been so difficult?"

 

She said Obama had been practically silent since the protesters first descended on New York two months ago. "There have been a few little muffled comments but he has practically disappeared."

 

For Ehrenreich, who has written in support of the protesters, the Occupy movement was an inflection point in American politics.

 

It was a repudiation of bureaucratic politics - even as pursued by those on the left, she said, and it was embraced across the country.

 

She said she had been astounded to learn that some 1,600 cities were under occupation at one point this autumn from the metropolis of New York to Ehrenreich's home town of Butte, Montana.

 

For years, she said, she had maintained the importance of going out to vote. Now, she suggested she was becoming sympathetic to the argument of some of the protesters that the political system was so corrupted that elections were irrelevant.

 

"I am a responsible citizen. I always tend to drag myself out to vote but I am having trouble making arguments for that. I find myself having a lot of trouble," she said. "We do not seem to be heard or represented."

 

She added: "I just feel so disgusted at this point."

 

For all her anger, though, Ehrenreich said she remained confident that the evictions were not the last for the movement.

 

more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/15/barbara-ehrenreich-occupy-wall-street

[ivan]

hard for folks indefinitely to stand by anyone who's primary message seems to be they'll campout in the middle of a public park till their incoherent and unquantifiable demands are met, no?

[j_b]

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

[mattp]

Yup. I'm with J_B.

 

Their "demands" are pretty clear: they stand for the proposition that 1% of the people in the country or maybe 1% in the world are running things for their economic benefit and 99% are getting screwed. They are asking that this issue be an actual issue of discussion in our public discourse.

 

I understand that you might think it is "unruly" to have protestors camped out in Westlake Mall or Seattle Central, or that you might be unhappy with the fact that there is a small place in Seattle (or Oakland or New York or wherever) that has been as a side-affect invested with rats or drug users, but I don't get the need to stop these particular people from promoting their message in this particular fashion. I just don't.

 

I thought our Constitution protected the right to peaceably assemble, and I don't think these encampments, ugly as they may be, are a threat or a danger.

[Crux]

Party politics versus the politics of a political movement are such that parties normally oppose political movements, or at least withhold support for political movements, even when there is a preponderance of mutually held political goals. Even from a party that you'd think would be a natural ally of the Occupy political movement, there is little support. I think we can expect this to continue until the movement takes the party, which is, quite possibly, a process now underway.

[Crux]

hard for folks indefinitely to stand by anyone who's primary message seems to be they'll campout in the middle of a public park till their incoherent and unquantifiable demands are met, no?

You're talking about the cops, right?

[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.

 

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?

[ivan]

hard for folks indefinitely to stand by anyone who's primary message seems to be they'll campout in the middle of a public park till their incoherent and unquantifiable demands are met, no?

You're talking about the cops, right?

i don't think so

 

i should point out that i don't particularly care if anybody wants to camp out in a city park for the next 50 years, as i don't really like spending time in cities anyhow...

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I thought our Constitution protected the right to peaceably assemble, and I don't think these encampments, ugly as they may be, are a threat or a danger.

 

Here's an idea: come out at 8 am every day to protest. Then, at say 10 pm go the fuck home. Repeat. Right to peaceable assemble? Sure? Right to camp out in the fucking street, parks, etc indefinitely - not so much.

 

 

[rob]

I thought our Constitution protected the right to peaceably assemble, and I don't think these encampments, ugly as they may be, are a threat or a danger.

 

Here's an idea: come out at 8 am every day to protest. Then, at say 10 pm go the fuck home. Repeat. Right to peaceable assemble? Sure? Right to camp out in the fucking street, parks, etc indefinitely - not so much.

 

 

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

 

Also, I guess you're saying you have to be wealthy enough to afford a hotel room in order to protest? And hopefully the number of protesters don't outnumber available hotel rooms.

 

I had no idea about this business hours thing. Does the 2nd amendment only apply during business hours? What about bank holidays?