Is The Occupy Wall Street Movement an Answer to The Tea Party Movement?

[Gaspar]

There are two ways to get what you want in life. 

You can be a victor or a victim.

The victor develops ideas and innovations.  The victim relies on the sympathy of others.

[Conan71]

There are two ways to get what you want in life. 

You can be a victor or a victim.

The victor develops ideas and innovations.  The victim relies on the sympathy of others.

Here comes two pages of flaming.  Hope you've got your Nomex on today.

[Townsend]

Here comes two pages of flaming.  Hope you've got your Nomex on today.

I think many have learned Gaspar's posts tend to be empty and meaningless.

[Gaspar]

Here comes two pages of flaming.  Hope you've got your Nomex on today.

You know I live for it.

Bring it on pantie-wads.

[Townsend]

You know I live for it.

Bring it on pantie-wads.

Ta-da

[we vs us]

What is disturbing is these people know the ultimate consequences so they are inviting confrontation to try and get sympathy for basically doing nothing but attempting to disrupt other's lives and business.

The police response can be as big or as little as the police want it to be.  The protesters are unarmed, the great majority have been peaceful, and for almost two months the maximum threat to the social order has been sanitation issues, the occasional noise ordinance violation, and well planned marches. These are not riots.  There have been groups like Occupy Oakland who went much farther, but those are rare and in most cities, the Occupy encampments have been peacefully protesting since they began.  What's more, almost all of the encampments have had extended dialogues with their cities' administrations.  They've negotiated terms to stay in their parks or move, depending.  They've negotiated for how to deal with those sanitation and noise ordinances.  They've continued (like Tulsa's Occupy group has) to apply for permits.  Even that whole human megaphone thing, which you think is kuh-razy, is a strategy to work within the existing framework of ordinances and laws to make the situation work.  

So it makes no sense to me why cops in full battle regalia, sporting all of their shiny new sub-military crowd control tech have been deploying in such force and cracking the skulls of a group that has up till now tried to come to accommodation with law enforcement while still protesting.  

[Conan71]

 The protesters are unarmed,

Except those armed with penises who have committed sexual assaults 

[Gaspar]

The police response can be as big or as little as the police want it to be.  The protesters are unarmed, the great majority have been peaceful, and for almost two months the maximum threat to the social order has been sanitation issues, the occasional noise ordinance violation, and well planned marches. These are not riots.  There have been groups like Occupy Oakland who went much farther, but those are rare and in most cities, the Occupy encampments have been peacefully protesting since they began.  What's more, almost all of the encampments have had extended dialogues with their cities' administrations.  They've negotiated terms to stay in their parks or move, depending.  They've negotiated for how to deal with those sanitation and noise ordinances.  They've continued (like Tulsa's Occupy group has) to apply for permits.  Even that whole human megaphone thing, which you think is kuh-razy, is a strategy to work within the existing framework of ordinances and laws to make the situation work.  

So it makes no sense to me why cops in full battle regalia, sporting all of their shiny new sub-military crowd control tech have been deploying in such force and cracking the skulls of a group that has up till now tried to come to accommodation with law enforcement while still protesting.  

Probably because the picture you are painting is not true.  They stopped traffic for hours yesterday by refusing to get out of the street.  When you are breaking the law, you don't "negotiate" your way to continuing to break the law.  

When you purposefully delay commerce, you are stealing from someone else.  You are stealing part of someone's life; the folks on the bus who work for a living, or the taxi cab driver that pays $100 an hour cab lease, or the mom & pops who own a sidewalk diner and rely public access to their business, or the 54 year old school janitor stuck in an ambulance having a heart-attack trying to get to the hospital. These people are suffering because you want to throw a tantrum.

You are angry because you don't have as much as someone else.  BFD!  What right do you have to the lives of these other people.  If you want to stand in a park and wave a flag or sign, then good for you, but the moment you try to make your point by negatively affecting the lives of others you become engaged in a criminal activity.

[we vs us]

Probably because the picture you are painting is not true.  They stopped traffic for hours yesterday by refusing to get out of the street.  When you are breaking the law, you don't "negotiate" your way to continuing to break the law.  

When you purposefully delay commerce, you are stealing from someone else.  You are stealing part of someone's life; the folks on the bus who work for a living, or the taxi cab driver that pays $100 an hour cab lease, or the mom & pops who own a sidewalk diner and rely public access to their business, or the 54 year old school janitor stuck in an ambulance having a heart-attack trying to get to the hospital. These people are suffering because you want to throw a tantrum.

You are angry because you don't have as much as someone else.  BFD!  What right do you have to the lives of these other people.  If you want to stand in a park and wave a flag or sign, then good for you, but the moment you try to make your point by negatively affecting the lives of others you become engaged in a criminal activity.

Disrupting commerce is actually not a crime.  It is an inconvenience but it isn't a crime.  You can serve no time for the crime of depriving a business of rightful profit by standing in the road.  If this were true, most largescale urban construction projects would also be crimes.  So would the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  You're actually confusing your personal Randian moral universe and the codified law of the US.  Thankfully, two very different environments. 

Again, the OWS people have been protesting mostly peacefully for two months. I understand you disagree with their purpose for protesting.  That's a separate issue from how best to treat them as protesters.  Unless, of course, you see their position as somehow making them less than human, or less than full citizens, or somehow undeserving of all the rights and privileges we have as Americans.  Is that the argument you're making? 

[patric]

Disrupting commerce is actually not a crime.  It is an inconvenience but it isn't a crime.  You can serve no time for the crime of depriving a business of rightful profit by standing in the road.  If this were true, most largescale urban construction projects would also be crimes.  So would the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  You're actually confusing your personal Randian moral universe and the codified law of the US.  Thankfully, two very different environments. 
Again, the OWS people have been protesting mostly peacefully for two months. I understand you disagree with their purpose for protesting.  That's a separate issue from how best to treat them as protesters.  Unless, of course, you see their position as somehow making them less than human, or less than full citizens, or somehow undeserving of all the rights and privileges we have as Americans.  Is that the argument you're making? 

Perhaps what the OT people are saying isnt so much as important as their right to say it, or, more to the point, how far people in authority have been going to stop them.  Tulsan's also dont seem to have much say in how much resources should be going into enforcing inconsequential ordinances, yet when the city cries "we spent $2 Million battling protestors" or somesuch obscene pricetag, we'll get the familiar "how can you NOT pay for police protection" tactic that they laid on us when city departments were facing cuts and layoffs.

On the other hand, visualizing Inhofe being unsaddled by SWAT beanbag rounds at a christmas parade...

[Red Arrow]

You can serve no time for the crime of depriving a business of rightful profit by standing in the road. 

I believe obstructing traffic is a ticketable offense.  Might depend on the locality.

[patric]

What is disturbing is these people know the ultimate consequences so they are inviting confrontation to try and get sympathy for basically doing nothing but attempting to disrupt other's lives and business.

A lot of Americans went to wars, knowing the ultimate consequences, to sacrifice themselves so that we could have the freedom we now squander.

[heironymouspasparagus]

You are angry because you don't have as much as someone else.  BFD!  What right do you have to the lives of these other people.  

And another doublespeak moment!!! 

Exactly correct!!  Just the wrong direction.  What right to the 1% have to the lives of everyone else?  OWS is not very coherent at times, but they do appear to understand that a fundamental unfairness and inequity exists and they are protesting it.  (Much the same way the tea baggers did.)  You remember that one...where the richest are disproportionally rewarded and the 99% subsidize it for them so they can keep their 15% tax rates....let's not keep losing track of reality, shall we?

[Teatownclown]

Looks like the cops idiotic Mayors and the Corporate shil Chamber of Commerces have finally had enough of OWS.

 

[Gaspar]

A lot of Americans went to wars, knowing the ultimate consequences, to sacrifice themselves so that we could have the freedom we now squander.

Precicely! They fought and died to protect our rights; to protect our way of life, and our freedom to persue all of the endevors allowed in a free society.  Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are indeed among the most important of these.

OWS is allowed freedom of speech, and they have been successful in disseminating their message through every vein of media on the planet.  Their megaphones (human and otherwise) have had an open mic for months.  OWS has enjoyed the freedom to assemble across the country.  Their groups have sprouted up in nearly every population center.  No one has impeded them from coming together and sharing ideas, or showing their solidarity with each other.

The problem is that when their message is convoluted or otherwise not strong enough to meet their expectations, they have found it necessary to take activist action outside of the tenants of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.  Like children who feel their parents are ignoring them, they have sought more disruptive ways of getting attention.  Refusing to comply with; laws that govern public safety, laws that protect private property, laws that promote public health and welfare, and they do all of this under the misguided perception that they are simply exercising their rights.

As a citizen you have a right to pursue happiness.  That includes your right to go to work, or simply walk down a sidewalk without being verbally assaulted because you are wearing a tie.  You have a right to hold your child's hand and walk them to school without verbal assault from an angry mob.  You have a right to utilize the public transportation, that as a taxpayer you funded, to get to your job without it being shut down so that someone can make a statement.  

I can celebrate free speech, I can even celebrate free speech of a seditious nature.  When the rights and/or safety of others becomes threatened the protest no longer falls under the rights that members of my family died to protect.