I'm aware that I'm more radical than the average American worker. Therefor, my goal would be to lead others towards my way of thinking. Isn't that what everyone does? I don't really see you making a point there except to say that my views are currently in the minority, which I'm extremely aware of. There's a lot to be said about false consciousness and American exceptionalism in all this.

As for the American governmental system being proto-fascist... the truth hurts. Can't help you there.

That guy in the video seemed to have his messages muddled. He complained about losing gun rights in the states, but argued that gun access in Mexico is a problem. Anyway, you don't have any concern that self proclaimed border patrollers might have less pristine logic and reasoning for their actions? Potential populism is more unnerving than potential racism? Sure... I support an armed proletariat, but frankly guns aren't something that you should be to into on general principles. When you go around wearing fatigues and carrying machine guns to something that isn't a battlefield then you are way, way to into it and should be treated like the creep you probably are.

They have had a lot of success and do a lot of good. We will not derail the thread to much with it here as that is a completely separate topic. They do have a close relationship with Law Enforcement agencies and the Border Patrol, and have had many successful apprehensions of illegals crossing the border. To my knowledge, that particular group has never had any nasty incidents hurt their image yet. They patrol on private property, so I don't see the issue there. Simply watching the border for those who might attempt to illegally enter our country.

I don't have much fear in them doing something ill thought out, no. You say self-proclaimed as if that lessens what they are. Citizens who patrol the border for illegals entering out country. Law Enforcement agencies can only cover so much ground, no reason citizens cannot step up and help carry some of that work load, these are illegals after all. Besides, the Government has never taken a strong stance against them, on the local level they even work with them to varying degrees and give them quite a bit of freedom to do what they do.

The fatigues and semi-automatic rifles, are a bit of a grand display to some I am sure. That is simply what they patrol in, and obviously is quite necessary for in the field activities. I used to share his fears and would have been open carrying to support public ownership of Assault Weapons as well. When Obama was elected into office, Biden was muttering those three nasty words "Assault Weapons Ban" and was caught saying he would consider it. They retracted it after the public backlash. Polls from about three days ago that you can google say gunownership is up among Democrats and Women, and for the first time ever, the majority (53%) oppose the Assault Weapon Ban being reintroduced. Gun Control at the moment is political suicide at the moment, I am not worried about a return to the days where you had to wait three months to buy a black rifle because people were grabbing them off the shelf like they were free.


Anyways, I did not dig so much the entire "I am there to make sure 1st amend rights are respected" because they already are. That crowd also looked peaceful enough, it is exactly how a demonstration should be. So I doubt anything bad will come of it, interesting all the same.


I get what you are saying about leading others to your way of thinking, I suppose in general it is what others do. Personally, I never feel the need to try and do that. More or less I am set in my own ways and I enjoy sitting back and observing. The political views of others no matter how extreme never really phase me. The only exception being if they cross the legal line, in which case I fully support and endorse the Law to deal with them accordingly.

You openly admit you know your views are in the extreme minority, yet you also seem to be grounded in realism. Do you see it as beneficial to parade them the way you do, even knowing most would brush it off? Do you not think finding common ground someone and taking "baby steps" would be a more likely way to achieve your end goal of people seeing more in line with you?

Not picking at you or anything like that. I have a sincere interest in what you think to those regards. Hearing other peoples view points who are actually willing to explain them in an intelligent manner is always a great learning experience, and something I thoroughly enjoy. Pretty sure both of you would wish I would drop dead, but so far I have enjoyed your responses. It is nice to have two people back up everything they are saying like this. The others I have chatted with on other blogs and forums are more into that emotional response I spoke of earlier and have not offered much in return when it comes to explaining themselves.

To T15b,

Much appreciated on that post directed towards me. It's good to see some support because, believe me, it come few and far between. Being able to set aside all the bullshit and just deal with the problem at hand is usually what distinguishes someone who has a passion for the job and someone who's just in it for the "great pay and good benefits." In case you couldn't tell, I used quotes because I know some departments make a ton of money, but my department sure isn't one of them.

As to the feelings of my fellow officers, at least at my department, in regards to OSW protests, it's pretty much a non-issue. I say that because, as I previously stated, the protestors we do have aren't breaking any laws and aren't causing us any additional work. The officers who tend to follow the news a little more and I would consider a little more educated tend to have a lenient view of the whole situation. The general view seems to be that the protest is a disorganized stab at the tea party. I've heard a lot of sentiment that the protests are just a bunch of flower children, hippies and kids with nothing better to do. As I said, we only have about 10 to 15 of these protestors standing around holding signs. I imagine some of the officers would attempt to educate themselves a little better if we started seeing more protestors.

Has anyone here actually taken part in any occupy movements?

The one in Toronto is pretty cool, I helped build a yurt today. Something I never really thought I'd ever do. Really easy to meet people there too. Interestingly, a lot of social barriers that people put up are broken down there.

While I do agree with most of the sentiment for the local Bay Street protests, I thik its pretty much a proxy protest and even if it isn't, it will be seen as that. It might be because of the americanization of our culture or the proximity to NY but everyone i've talked to has unfortunately thought it was either the general "damn hippies and hipsters" or "trying to relive the 60s and/or cashing in on the bigger American protest". I personally find the suburban radical streak in protests annoying and I wish more working class people were involved in the process. There was a great article in the Toronto Star about this very issue but I do not remember the link or title, yet at least. I do have a slight aversion to "low politics" though .

Labor is always marginalized at these kinds of things. Luckily more pro-labor sentiment is starting to crop up among the new left. I believe they've gotten over the impression of laborers being stodgy communists who'd stop them from having fun while revolutionizing. Most likely the biggest hurtle now is getting the kids to get over the attractiveness barrier.

So, which is it--the protesters are a bunch of unarmed hippie pussies who wouldn't dare look a LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER in the eye and so their movement can be dismissed as a failure -or- the protesters should endeavor to keep the movement as toothless as possible by complying to arbitrary laws and not raising their voices above 15 dB so their message can be conveniently ignored by everyone and, as such, be dismissed as a failure.

For the record, I strongly believe OWS should be closely critiqued--but as an encouragement to improve it rather than dismantle or dismiss it. Many people are trapped between a rock and a hard place and their suffering should NOT be dismissed just because the status quo happens to work out quite comfortably for massive corporations and the wealthy. Various protests in various cities will have different needs depending on local politics but as a bystander who lives too far away to actively participate and is relegated to just observing, I'd like to see more outreach to traditionally disadvantaged groups (that often tend to be ignored by 'progressive' 'liberal' 'activist' movements) and more distribution of comprehensive educational materials about the current finance system and why things turned out as they did. There needs to be more outreach to working class folks, more outreach to the youth and the elderly, more outreach to people literally and figuratively crippled by the healthcare system, and WAY more outreach to people of color (look up unemployment rates, especially comparing white populations versus traditionally poverty-stricken groups like indigenous, black, hispanic folks--the media calls it a 'recession' but it's definitely a 'depression' for people of color).

I have cautious hopes for this movement provided that they actively work on pushing it past its initial flush of excitement into maturation but as it is right now I have fears that it will end up falling apart in its infancy or even resulting in tragic deaths, especially if the violent crackdowns and mass arrests by cops continue.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/11/0 ... J520111103

Thousands of Oakland protesters shut down the port today. Just like I said...Police brutality, heavy handedness, whatever you wanna call it, will only inflame this shit.

Also, apparently, tens of thousands of people have transferred their money out of big banks to credit unions and its expected there will be a similar outpouring over the weekend, especially on bank transfer day on saturday. I don't have my money in a credit union but I do have it in a local bank that is only in my state so I won't be joining in.

As for participating in protests...I haven't but I'm friends with one of the guys helping with movement in my town and I'm probably gonna contact him soon and see how I can help. Don't really have a lot of time around school and work to protest, especially seeing as how minute the movement is in my town(hasn't been any higher than 20 or so people and sometimes drops down to just one or two), but I'd like to help. Aside from that I've just been trying to raise some awareness on the net, such as I've tried on this board, for instance.

This is sort of offtopic, but it has to do with the above article.



I feel like prohibiting your workers from striking would be a good thing to make illegal. If people frivolously claiming to strike as an excuse for missing/skipping work is an issue, then there could be a legal definition of a strike. Of course, that would have to be monitored closely to avoid a situation similar to that which kept many americans of color from voting after the 15th amendment had been ratified.

I foolishly wrote the above before finishing the article, so now I have to ask, what is current state of strikes as a legal mechanism? It has to be endorsed by a union to be considered a strike?

Wow. I was expecting at least 100k.

To be fair, I don't think this project is being marketed well / at all. It seems only Lou Reed and Metallica fans know about this. I brought it up today when some friends and I were discussing the ICP / Jack Black collab and no one seemed to know what I was talking about.

And, just like I said, once it got out of control at night and the same people who had the signs that said "Death to Capitalism" (classy), started to light fires and break into buildings to "reclaim them for the people" (where have we heard that one before?), Police moved in and arrested the more violent and rowdy of the bunch. Several protesters were hospitalized, no Officers had to be hospitalized. I am pleased with the result, the clear message was sent again, right when the law started to be broke that Authorities would not tolerate that type of behavior.

A shame really, would have been a very successful day with the port shutdown if they had not decided to get all "little miss anarchist" at night. Just gave the Police more ammunition to use against them.






http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national ... wed/44501/

The way I understand things, a such a prohibition against anti-strike contracts could itself be prohibited by the Fifth Amendment and perhaps also the Contract Clause of Article I. I am not an expert or well versed on these topics, but strikes seem largely eviscerated legally. In the public sector employers can have anti-strike clauses as conditions of employment. For those without such clauses, I read an article that stated the National Labor Relations Act, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, allows firing employees for striking unless the employer was engaging in unfair labor practices as defined by the Act. This seems plausible given how rare strikes are now. It is important to understand that the basic backdrop for all of this is the concept of at will employment where both employees and employers are generally free to part ways with one another. So, suppose I am a small business owner and one of my employees says to me they are going on strike to support the OWS movement. I believe an entirely legal response is "you're fired."

Since the protesters are calling for a general strike this would also deal with government workers. With the government the analysis is different, basically there is no right to strike. The reasons are many but one is that the government is not like a company because it serves "the people" rather than some set of owners and strikes would harm public interests rather than private ones. Often there are also safety or separation of powers concerns (legislature sets pay, executive can not negotiate with strikers to simply change the preexisting law). This distinction has clearly shown itself in dramatic historical examples via Reagan, Carter, and as far back as Coolidge's "There is no right to strike against the public safety, anywhere, anytime."

But to reiterate, I am not particularly well versed in this stuff.

***
T51b introduction of the quote on public nuisance is helpful because there are a lot of examples from anti-abortion protests that delineate what kind of behavior is acceptable in the context of a protest. Unsurprisingly, stuff like blocking access to public rights of passage comes up frequently. This is however quite different from more obviously illegal activities like smashing windows and setting trash cans on fire that we saw in Oakland.

I don't have any information on how this event went, but I thought this looked interesting, and perhaps something that needs to be driven more. While there are many culprits, Goldman Sachs has, in fact, been the gold standard for fucking people over so I wouldn't mind more direct focus on these crooked bastards.

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/11/03

Update on march on Goldman Sachs: 16 arrested

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/11 ... _news_blog

It has never been a better time to conceal carry a firearm.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... m2ZJbATHc#!

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/133119143.html


I do have to applaud the ones involved with OWS who have spoke out against the anarchist and more violent offenders. You can see some of them attempting to stop them and talk them down. The stories the other night were especially striking of protesters creating a human shield between Police and the more violent agitators, and shouting "PEACE" at them as they hold them back. That is the type of behavior OWS needs.

It is a true shame that the fringe elements are starting to exploit the situation. They will only bring further crackdowns on the movement as a whole from Law Enforcement, which is terribly unfortunate. Hopefully OWS as a whole can continue to distance themselves from the more violent types and Law Enforcement will deal with them as it comes.

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/1 ... it-unions/

650,000 people switched to credit unions last month, 50,000 more than in all of 2010. Wow. That's pretty awesome considering you have to think that number is going to go up significantly just on saturday alone. I think this is a great step to take in initiating real change or at the very least, upping the ante in the conversation.

I just started working again after being unemployed for several months and I'm pretty deep in debt right now, but once I pay off my overdraft and my credit card, I'm getting my money the fuck out of my bank and into a credit union. To hell with big banks.

And it's an interesting idea to consider that the violent protesters may in fact agents provocateurs, undercover cops whose goal is to discredit the movement and encourage more people to engage in blatantly illegal activities so they can be arrested more easily. I'm aware that it sounds unlikely, but COINTELPRO, an American government organization, employed such tactics in order to infiltrate the Black Panthers, the KKK and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee back in the 60's, and Denver police used them in order to incite violence at the 2008 Democratic national convention.

There's no evidence at this point (at least not that I know of) that the violent protesters at Oakland were agents provocateurs, but it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility. Maze, you're 100% right. The more police action is taken against this, the bigger it will get. Like someone said, if you fuck us, we'll multiply.

Agent provocateurs from the police and from libertarian groups have been found and confirmed in New York, LA and Las Vegas.



Good one.

Not so related, but also not unrelated at all.
The Occupy Televisa momevent here in Mexico seems going to be huge. My University is filled with propaganda demanding we go and take Televisa for a whole day. In case you don't know, Televisa owns pretty much everything here in Mexico. In case you wanna check, the numbers are amazing. Let's see what happens.

"Spys and infiltrators" as they say, are always a part of every grassroots political movement, whether it is democratic reform, green issues, or animal rights. There is always understood to be a surveillance element present. The funniest ones were the police who infiltrated the NOWTO/black block demonstrations, who forgot to change out of their police issue footwear, so some of the photographs that made their way into the media clearly showed people wearing police boots destroying public property...

Go figure, people who get off on power and authority are creeps as well.

Koch Group Gathering Disrupted by Occupy DC Protesters; Things Get Tense as Activists Surround Building

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/ar ... _building/

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regio ... id=1378932



Interestingly enough, this poll was after the violent clashes and media coverage of Oakland. It does me good to know that the majority do not hold the sentiments of some of the people on these forums.


And another interesting article.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45167490




Also of interest in the article is how the protest have actually caused people to lose jobs, due to lay offs at local businesses that are unable to thrive due to the nature of the current environment, and how OWS has been at odds with the cities homeless people.



Now I am all for the homeless going to soup kitchens and not abusing a groups charitable donations. Really want to see OWS sincerely talk its way out of that one though, when the homeless should be a shining example of a group they claim to be fighting for.

Very interested in seeing more polls being done, it looks like public opinion is starting to fade rapidly, despite just a few days ago people arguing here that support was growing.




On a humorous side note, there is a retired Sheriff who does CWP and Training classes with his wife outside of his home near here. I spent Saturday with there with a group for one of the classes. When he introduced his tactical shotgun with a tactical sling he said it as "A perfect weapon for dealing with home intruders and annoying Wallstreet Protesters". We all got a good chuckle out of that.

Shooting protestors with a shotgun. Hilarious.

T51b, you're clearly intentionally trying to get a rise out of people there. That's not a good idea.

Here's an example of a finance regulation from 1975 that was removed in 2004 I just happened upon which legalized some of the finance sector behaviors which caused the crisis, since someone was asking for a smoking gun earlier (this is pretty close to one, though I'm sure there are more and more floating about, like whatever action it was that allowed the CoC to preempt state lending and mortgage regulation comes to mind): http://www.gao.gov/decisions/majrule/d04896r.pdf

In short it allows some big players to disregard the rules that require them to give an honest valuation of their securities, the rules that require them to keep cash on hand to pay off their debts should their be a disruption in their income from those securities, and the rules that prevent them from leveraging them to absurd levels.

This article has a pretty good basic rundown on the major financial behaviors that caused the crisis: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html

Highly doubt a retired Law Enforcement Officer was sincerely suggesting that be the case, he was making a joke. People joke about extreme things all the time, they rarely ever do them. No different from some people making i inflammatory remarks/jokes against the "1%" earlier in this thread.


Anyways, that was just a side note, the articles posted were the main reason I added to the thread. A few days ago I kept hearing a lot from a couple of people on here of how OWS had the the growing support of the local public and populace nationwide, it would appear that is no longer the case. Still interested in seeing more polls being done.

The fist article you posted said that the pollsters felt the results may have been skewed by the recent news splash from the latest police crackdown and the second one, well...

Exactly, which is why I even made note of this. Going by what some are saying on here, the crack downs should be driving people to OWS, yet according to the polls which was AFTER the crackdown and the supposed "brutality", the polls are showing that more people are starting to oppose OWS as to support it. Great news, just shows that the people will not support a movement that uses violence against Law Enforcement.

And as far as the second one, what is your point? That all barricades should be gone? That Police should just not intervene? The crimes would sky rocket, the barriers are there to maintain public safety. They would not have to be there if it was not because of OWS. The people who read stories like that are not going to blame the Police, they will blame the protesters. It is things like that and the violence, that will continue to cause public support to fall. Watch what happens when patience from local authorities has worn thin and the support from the public continues to fall.

The first indicates that by treating the non-criminal protesters as criminals that the perception has been successfully created that they are criminals. Victim blaming works.

The second one also indicates that it is overbearing policing of the crowd there that is preventing businesses from being able to capitalize on their presence.

You talk about rampant crime, but there is nothing of the sort except situations engineered by people trying to sabotage the movement and petty crime that comes with every human gathering. It's pretty clear that while every thing about these protests, positive and negative, are blown to incredible proportions, the emphasis placed on negative things and neutral things which can be spun negatively is more significant and determined to shape public perception on political grounds.

100-tent Occupy Olympia has become haven for homeless

Also this http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/11/06 -State troopers helping set up tents.

T51b, your obviously biased and not stating the facts objectively. You're cherry picking facts that support one side and only talking about the negative aspects of OWS. If you will only say the positives and ignore the negatives of one side and only point out the negatives and ignore the positives of the other side , how are we supposed to take you seriously?

I went to a pretty cool debate on occupy wall street at my university. It was pretty interesting, and they served some great seafood soup. After the debate the students had a chance to talk and the general feeling was that the protesters had good intentions and that corporate greed is a big problem, but OWS is too unfocused and didn't have a clear message.

By the way does anyone else find the slogan "we are the 99%" a bit silly? The rest of the top 5% are pretty filthy rich as well.

Sounds like your peers are just looking at msm if that's their opinion.

http://gizmodo.com/5857129/an-innocent- ... -no-reason

Protester appears to be shot with a rubber bullet for no reason. More excellent police work I'm sure someone here will inexplicably manage to somehow rationalize into justification.

Wowza....they really did just shoot him. Anyone else think that his slow moving towards the right, with the brief pause of the "This is Ours" statue was pretty badass?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11 ... ll-street/ lol

No no, I yield on that one. Not going to lie, I am sincerely baffled in that instance as to why the cameraman was shot. There was no rushing a barricade or denying direct orders like in the other cases where the protesters were the ones at fault. It was just a very calm and mannered action.

Interested in finding out more on that incident.

Ok

For the things that really matter, there is rarely an opportunity to vote. A recent study has shown that voter wishes from the non-wealthy have precisely zero impact on the actions taken by congressmen.

Most interesting OWS related story of the week: Coward cop hides in a box to spy on protesters and the cop guarding it doesn't know why he's there.

"Did he think they needed this many cops for a protest in a tiny park? “I’m not here to think,” he responded."

Fuck the pigs.

Nothing to say about the links I posted earlier, t51b?

Also, does anyone here read William Gibson or other cyberpunk/dystopian "fiction"? "Pattern Recognition" is a great read.