Protesters on Wall Street. Capitalism quakes in fear?
Comments
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LOL @ the protesters and their supporters on the site!
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Armchair, I am with you 100%. If you look at the youtube videos it is the same people being arrested over and over again. Makes you think if anyone really is supporting this small group of rowdies.
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If they make it to next weekend I will agree that it is petering out if the numbers remain so low. My understanding, though, is that people continue to go to work and come back as they can, which would explain why there are so many more protesters during the weekend than during the work week.
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great report on the police brutality that's happening on wall street
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witch-king said:
The problem is that non-mainstream methods are likely to be as ineffective as mainstream ones.Likely? Sure. I mean, realistically nothing is likely to change.
Investment banks either own the politicians or in the case of Obama's financial advisers, ARE the politicians.
However I still refuse to begrudge people speaking their vote publicly and attempting to get spread their opinion wider.
There is simmering anger in this country over distribution of wealth, Wall Street excess, hardship caused by the stock market and speculation, the subprime mortgage crimes, lack of accountability, bailouts for banks but not for many homeowners, cutting payroll in order to raise stock prices, the list is almost endless.
The traditional media and the two traditional parties can and will continue to ignore it for the most part, but it's not going to go away.
As Michael Moore said on Real Time last week, protests against our economic and financial situations are going to catch on at some point.
It's going to be one bank sit-in.
One foreclosed homeowner who marches to the state capital.
Or, gasp, a bunch of very diverse people occupying a park in a major city.
Because there is one thing I can promise you:
You cannot squeeze the American middle and working classes until eternity.
There is a breaking point, one way or the other.
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someone is supporting them on site. I mean you can't be there that long without food or water or bail or fare to get them back on site right?
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I wonder if the rain that is forecast for Thursday will allow all sides to declare victory and go home.
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armchair_warrior said:
someone is supporting them on site. I mean you can't be there that long without food or water or bail or fare to get them back on site right?There is an extensive support network for these kinds of demonstrations.
Despite what many may assume.
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have any of you been down there to see what they're doing?
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According to Gothamist, Cornel West is going down to spend the evening and support the protesters.
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Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore have sent words of support as well.
Let's see if by acting as leaders, they can form a coherent "actionable" message the gets picked up by some of the politicians and broader media.
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lol bunch of losers LOL.
especially Michael Moore. Fat bastard could just stop eating one meal to feed all of those protesters. Plus he is rich enough to donate his money where his mouth is.
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I really like Dr West. He is presently on a Poverty Tour that has effectively put faces on America's large impoverished population, and provided accounts about how they are poor (for the most part) not due to any character flaws or poor ethic, but instead due to the larger forces in our economy: Globalization/jobs/bank/mortgage/housing crisis/etc.
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Ouch. This is what can happen when you have leaderless protest: Thinking they are helping the cause, attendees end up damaging it by embellishing details of their story. Here's an instance at Occupy Wall Street. Predictably, Glen Beck's right wing site "The Blaze", is doing everything it can to make it news.
Meanwhile, the reputation of NYPD continues to take a beating as mainstream media believes that "the story" from the protest is not whatever the protesters' cause is, but police brutality:
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Ouch. This is what can happen when you have leaderless protest: Thinking they are helping the cause, attendees end up damaging it by embellishing details of their story. Here's an instance at Occupy Wall Street. Predictably, Glen Beck's right wing site "The Blaze", is doing everything it can to make it news.
Meanwhile, the reputation of NYPD continues to take a beating as mainstream media believes that "the story" from the protest is not whatever the protesters' cause is, but police brutality:
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If only the NYPD had pepper sprayed the CEOs of Lehman Brothers and AIG for speculative looting.
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witch-king said:
If only the NYPD had pepper sprayed the CEOs of Lehman Brothers and AIG for speculative looting.That would actually be the job of the SEC.
Sadly, the SEC has no pepper spray. They have only been given the "relatively harmless" Dodd-Frank Act, along with inadequate staffing and funding to implement and enforce it.
"Houston, we have a problem."
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whynot_31 said:
So, they are sending out desperate twitters for food and additional members as a charade?Desperate huh?
whynot_31 said:
Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore have sent words of support as well.Let's see if by acting as leaders, they can form a coherent "actionable" message the gets picked up by some of the politicians and broader media.
Let's see if traditional media and Republicans and 99% of Democrats will pick up on populist anger against the criminal banking industry and actually do something with this anger rather than simply steal it as a political crutch?
Yeah - don't hold your breath. Martin Luther King Jr himself couldn't get the traditional media to wake up what our banking industry is doing.
The idea that the traditional media or our two main political parties are open in any way to what the protesters (and millions of people across the globe) are angry about is laughable.
It's precisely why demonstrations like this are important.
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whynot_31 said:
Article on NYPD - protester Pepper Stray incident
Earlier in the week, after a different encounter, Mr. Browne said a man had been arrested “for jumping a police barrier and resisting arrest.” A sequence of photographs published on the City Room blog of The New York Times showed precisely the opposite: a deputy inspector tried to pull a protester over a barrier, and then he jumped over to grab the protester. Mr. Browne later said he had gotten his facts scrambled.F-ck the NYPD.
Badly and deeply.
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The protesters seem to have decided that the police are their enemy of the day, and have added them to the list of organizations that should be dismantled.
I think that may be a bigger task than eliminating poverty and forming a harmonious society built on consensus, but I'm open to discussion.
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The protesters seem to have decided that the police are their enemy of the day, and have added them to the list of organizations that should be dismantled.
I'm sorry, I read the article, but I can't find the reference to the group wanting to dismantle the NYPD?
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True, "dismantle" was my word. Despite their present treatment, they may still be able to acknowledge that we need a police department until a harmonious society built on consensus is established. Having now encountered it, they may believe that (like Wall Street) it is also badly in need of reform and additional oversight. If this is the case, this sounds very reasonable to me, and I apologize for not giving them the credit they deserve.
Maybe they could try to give the CCRB some real teeth and join with existing efforts to change the culture that protects those who use unacceptable amounts of force?
Everything I have read says they seem to abhor top down leadership and would like to move us toward a democracy that is more powerful and based more on consensus. While laudable, these goals seem to have impacted their ability to propose unified "steps" we should take to get ourselves out of the mess that we all perceive ourselves as being in.
It is the whole, "We all agree on the problem, but we don't agree on solutions", phenomena that we all suffer.
If they are manage to say anything besides "lack of democracy and lack of corporate accountability sucks", it should emerge here:
https://occupywallst.org/
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreetI also remain hopeful that they will come out with a version of the Port Huron statement soon. I would have just used the old one, but I guess they feel theirs will be more reflect them and the present times.
I support their right to protest, and hope the city does not pursue a misguided "eviction from the private park". This will just cause the city to look worse, and for the protesters to become even more marginalized ....many will conclude that peaceful protest is met with violent retaliation, and therefore not attend any protest (no matter how well designed, led and conceived).
This would be sad, because we have a lot of issues to work on, and well thought out events can achieve lots of positive attention and momentum.
BG-
We would like to clarify that we are still in desperate need of donations.
source: https://occupywallst.org/article/Food-fund-will-be-used-as-a-general-fund/
Their latest pitch for food donations is on the home page of their site:
Mail
The UPS Store
Re: Occupy Wall Street
118A Fulton St. #205
New York, NY 10038Money orders only please, cannot cash checks yet. Non-perishable goods only. We can accept packages of any size. We're currently low on food.
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Yup, it's a big long protest. Support is always needed. Some demonstrations have better support than others.
What's the point again?
Anyway, for those of you who smugly write off these protesters as directionless or unserious:
What's behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests?
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The point is that this protest was poorly planned, and I'll conceived.
I think is telling that this protest is being derided by sympathetic, left media sources such as Mother Jones.
http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/occupy-wall-street
Their four point critique and advice is thoughtful. Unless they can radically change the message and image of this protest by accepting outside help and getting their acts together, Hopefully they will go home, and then come back under the supervision of brighter leaders and organizations.
I would hate for this action to take away from the larger efforts of those who agree with their goals.
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I don't think it's telling.
I think Glenn Greenwald directly addresses your point.
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whynot_31 said:
I think is telling that this protest is being derided by sympathetic, left media sources such as Mother Jones.http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/occupy-wall-street
Their four point critique and advice is thoughtful
It's not thoughtful. It's trite and generic.
Here's a thoughtful rebuttal
First off, nobody in the last week can claim to be reporting on Occupy Wall Street and genuinely claim it isn’t gaining traction. Ellis conveniently leaves out the fact that Occupy Wall Street is inspiring other cities to get organized and hold similar assemblies/occupations. Second, if the protesters did have one demand, does Ellis really think that would improve media coverage? Wouldn’t pundits then be casting doubt on whether the one demand was the appropriate singular demand to be making? Third, so-called members of Anonymous are citizens like Ellis and have a right to participate in the protest. It is elitist for Ellis to suggest Occupy Wall Street should not be all-inclusive. And, finally, there is no evidence that just “dreamers” are getting involved. A union at the City University of New York, the Industrial Workers of the World, construction workers, 9/11 responders and now a postal workers and teachers union have shown interest in the occupation.
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He simply proposes that Mother Jones be added to the list of enemies.
"You are either with us or against us". 2011
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whynot_31 said:
He simply proposes that Mother Jones be added to the list of enemies."You are either with us or against us". 2011
No, he offered thoughtful analysis of why many on the left are enjoying jumping on, criticizing and/or undermining Occupy Wall Street.
Such as yourself.
Howdy, Stranger!
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