The Occupation of Wall Street Spreads

[Broomstick]

I can't imagine the police enjoy situations where the crowd substantially outnumbers them, either. Mob violence is ugly, and when you've got a group of protestors the potential is certainly there, though thankfully most groups of people don't turn into riots.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Fine then lets change the example what if I said one day "Frank didn't get punched today, it's amazing what happens when he doesn't run his mouth". Would you assume I'm saying 'Frank gets punched for different reasons depending on the circumstances. Or would you assume I'm saying Frank norm to talk shit gets him in trouble?

In this example - we don't know enough information about each time Frank was punched. To blame him is not fair. Though let's assume that Frank would not have been punched if he would have kept quiet. That doesn't mean it is his fault that he was punched just because he ran his mouth. Just like with protestors. Yea, if they follow the law then it is highly unlikely they would be subject to police contact. That doesn't mean it is their fault when they're a victim of police brutality just because they broke the law.

Does your department use a system like comp stat?

My department tracks each officers work. The number of reports we write, our arrests and type of arrests, and the number of citations we write. There are goals set in place for what they would like to see for us it is 20 citations, and 10 citizen contacts per rotation (3-4 months). The only officers that ever got in trouble are the ones with a zero next to these stats. In other words, officers with at least one were not talked to. The ones with zeros were not formally disciplined but told that they would receive a negative work review because they didn't do any work.

[Alphawolf55]

And that probably is the big difference between your experience with the police and the NYPD. Comp Stat has made it so the NYPD is very pressured to have increasing lower crimes committed so as to appear successful but at the same time have a high rate of arrest so that it sends the message that crime is being lowered because the NYPD is catching more criminals in the act, rather then crime naturally decreasing through other methods like better social services, since if it appears that the NYPD isn't constantly busy they'll have reduced funding. This has created incentives for departments to downplay crimes committed to lower crime rates, but to commit more arrest to appear more productive.

NYPD is far more of a political organization and tool then most police departments which is why it has to looked at differently then most police forces.

[Punarbhava]

I know this is totally off topic for the current discussion, but I didn't know where else to put this.

I was screwing around on facebook or twitter or something and found one of the Occupy Wallstreet pages. Linked on it was this website, with a quote saying "this is the idea we need": Global Debt Realignment. Anyone know anything about this? It sounds good to me, but I know nothing of economics.

[defanatic]

I read the first page of this thread after hearing about this. It seems to be a lot larger than that page makes out. :/ When did that happen?

[loomer]

Probably sometime after the media convinced a lot of people that this was an inconsequential matter. Same damn thing happened to me - checked it out when it first started up, thought it dissipated, and then found out it's turned into an even bigger thing.

[Flagg]

Happened when the NYPD went all Rodney King on the protesters. Looks like the same is going to happen tomorrow so I expect it will get bigger.

[Block]

I read the first page of this thread after hearing about this. It seems to be a lot larger than that page makes out. :/ When did that happen?

When the Unions started participating in drips and drops it started gaining much more recognition, and snowballed from there.

[Lonestar]

Just what the bloody fuck is an "illegal gathering" anyway? Is the US just as "democratic" as Russia where you have to get a permit from the government to assemble in groups? In this case it doesn't matter whether the protest is "legal" or "illegal", the US system of "allowances" for protests is just bullshit from the beginning to the end. But if I got something wrong, tell me now.

No, you do have to get a permits depending upon the Areas. For example, you have to get a permit on stuff that's owned by the National Park Service, which is a lot of DC, because, frankly, lots of people protest in open areas in DC and it's a pain in the ass if Group A wants to protest at Freedom Plaza on one date, and Group B wants to protest on Freedom PLaza on another, and neither have anything to do with each other.

It's usually a formality, unless they expect large groups, then questions about portajons etc. come into play.

(The NPS told the Occupy protesters in DC that they had to skeddaddle from Freedom Plaza after a week because another group was scheduled to protest there. Eventually they were permitted to stay when the other group decided they didn't want to compete for attention and cancelled the protest)

FWIW we have protestors outside the Metro entrance to the Pentagon 24/7, so there may NOT be a premit requirement there, or a requirement only for very large groups.

[K. A. Pital]

FWIW we have protestors outside the Metro entrance to the Pentagon 24/7

Haven't seen any of those in 2005.

[Lonestar]

Haven't seen any of those in 2005.

Well, since *I*ve worked there since 2006, I've seen them there everyday. Both when I was in the building fulltime(sometimes on weekends and holidays) and working off site but occassionally visiting.

They Bang drums.

[K. A. Pital]

Well, since *I*ve worked there since 2006, I've seen them there everyday. Both when I was in the building fulltime(sometimes on weekends and holidays) and working off site but occassionally visiting. They Bang drums.

Too bad I already left the USA, that would be fun to behold.

[Broomstick]

Haven't seen any of those in 2005.

Well, since *I*ve worked there since 2006, I've seen them there everyday. Both when I was in the building fulltime(sometimes on weekends and holidays) and working off site but occassionally visiting.

They Bang drums.

Omigosh! Protesters were doing that regarding military operations back in the 1960's and early '70's - wonder if they've been doing it all along or someone simply revived the practice?

[Simon_Jester]

Stas, did you ever see the permanent anti-nuclear protest?

[K. A. Pital]

Stas, did you ever see the permanent anti-nuclear protest?

No. I wandered around Washington a lot (I was unemployed for like a month or so) and I saw no protests whatsoever. In NYC I ran into an anti-war protest straightaway though I was there only for a few days.

[Starglider]

I was screwing around on facebook or twitter or something and found one of the Occupy Wallstreet pages. Linked on it was this website, with a quote saying "this is the idea we need": Global Debt Realignment. Anyone know anything about this? It sounds good to me, but I know nothing of economics.

This person seems to be proposing that we pay off, or at least greatly reduce, every single debt in existence (sovereign, corporate and individual) with newly created bank reserves. Aside from being grossly unfair (people and countries who went recklessly into massive debt get off scott free), this would obviously create massive global inflation, probably instant hyperinflation. That said we are in fact going there anyway, due to endless state bailouts that ultimately have to be funded by monetisation of deficits, but at a slower pace and in a way that doesn't allow even temporary benefits to the less well off. I admitt that it's debatable whether it would be better to just hyperinflate now and get it over with, or drag it out and postpone the recovery but allow more time for adjustment.

[Lonestar]

Omigosh! Protesters were doing that regarding military operations back in the 1960's and early '70's - wonder if they've been doing it all along or someone simply revived the practice?

They don't Bang the fuck out of them(unless it's a Big Day with a large group), I'm sure someone would force them to go away if they did, but they bang the drums every 5 seconds or so with one short, sharp, beat.

[Temujin]

Well the NYPD made a fine showing of themselves yet again today:

Occupy Wall Street protest march marred by video appearing to show NYPD scooter hit man

Disturbing video that appears to show an NYPD scooter run over the leg of a lawyer during an Occupy Wall Street protest march Friday has rocketed through the blogosphere.

Wrenching screams can be heard before Ari Douglas, a legal observer from the National Lawyers Guild, is seen on the street with his left foot wedged under the front wheel of the scooter near Maiden Lane.

A few frames later, Douglas is seen thrashing on the ground and screaming with his right foot pinned beneath the scooter's back wheel.

"He was observing the protest and he was run over by a police motorcycle," said Zainab Akbar, 31, another legal observer with the lawyers group.

"His leg was stuck under the bike, and he kicked his leg to get the bike off his leg, and then the police attacked him and shoved him into the ground and put a night stick against the back of his neck," Akbar said.

Douglas was taken to Bellevue Hospital for treatment.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Douglas' face got scratched up while he was resisting arrest - and that he faked everything else.

"Douglas had repeatedly disregarded lawful orders to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk, and then feigned being run over before kicking over the police scooter," he said.

Douglas was charged with resisting arrest, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct and other charges, Browne said.

Daily News photographer Joe Marino, who witnessed the confrontation, partly backed the NYPD account.

"The bike definitely hit him," but the officer didn't run him over, he said.

"I saw him sticking his legs under the bike to make it appear he was run over," Marino said of Douglas.

Here's video of the NYPD 'scooter' cop running over a National Lawyer's Guild legal observer's leg with his scooter. There was better video on Olbermann from someone closer, but I couldn't find it online yet.



And here's more ruckus and another white shirted supervisor punching a protestor (at 1:40):



And a view from the other side of the street can be seen here


Also, apparently the Occupy Movement is 'officially' going global tomorrow:

Wall Street sit-in goes global Saturday

Oct 14(Reuters) - For an October revolution, dress warm.

That's the word going out - politely - on the Web to rally street protests on Saturday around the globe from New Zealand to Alaska via London, Frankfurt, Washington and, of course, New York, where the past month's Occupy Wall Street movement has inspired a worldwide yell of anger at banks and financiers.

How many will show up, let alone stay to camp out to disrupt city centres for days, or months, to come, is anyone's guess. The hundreds at Manhattan's Zuccotti Park were calling for back-up on Friday, fearing imminent eviction. Rome expects tens of thousands at a national protest of more traditional stamp.

Few other police forces expect more than a few thousand to turn out on the day for what is billed as an exercise in social media-spread, Arab Spring-inspired, grassroots democracy with an emphasis on peaceful, homespun debate, as seen among Madrid's "indignados" in June or at the current Wall Street park sit-in.

Blogs and Facebook pages devoted to "October 15" - #O15 on Twitter - abound with exhortations to keep the peace, bring an open mind, a sleeping bag, food and warm clothing; in Britain, "Occupy London Stock Exchange" is at pains to stress it does not plan to actually, well, occupy the stock exchange.

That may turn off those with a taste for the kind of anarchic violence seen in London in August, at anti-capitalism protests of the past decade and at some rallies against spending cuts in Europe this year. But, as Karlin Younger of consultancy Control Risks said: "When there's a protest by an organisation that's very grassroots, you can't be sure who will show up."

Concrete demands are few from those who proclaim "We are the 99 percent", other than a general sense that the other 1 percent - the "greedy and corrupt" rich, and especially banks - should pay more, and that elected governments are not listening.

"It's time for us to unite; it's time for them to listen; people of the world, rise up!" proclaims the Web site United for #GlobalChange. "We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers who do not represent us ... We will peacefully demonstrate, talk and organise until we make it happen."

By doing so peacefully, many hope for a wider political impact, by amplifying the chord their ideas strike with millions of voters in wealthy countries who feel ever more squeezed by the global financial crisis while the rich seem to get richer.

"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"

"We have people from all walks of life joining us every day," said Spyro, one of those behind a Facebook page in London which has grown to have some 12,000 followers in a few weeks, enthused by Occupy Wall Street. Some 5,000 have posted that they will turn out, though even some activists expect fewer will.

Spyro, a 28-year-old graduate who has a well-paid job and did not want his family name published, summed up the main target of the global protests as "the financial system".

Angry at taxpayer bailouts of banks since crisis hit in 2008 and at big bonuses still paid to some who work in them while unemployment blights the lives of many young Britons, he said: "People all over the world, we are saying 'Enough is enough'."

What the remedy would be, Spyro said, was not for him to say but should emerge from public debate - a common theme for those camping out off Wall Street since mid-September, who have stirred up U.S. political debate and, a Reuters poll found , won sympathy from over a third of Americans.

A suggestions log posted at 15october.net ("This space is ready for YOUR idea for the revolution") range from a mass cutting up of credit cards ("hit the banks where it counts") to "use technology to make education free".

For all such utopianism, the possibility that peaceful mass action, helped by new technologies, can bring real change has been reinforced by the success of Arab uprisings this year.

"I've been waiting for this protest for a long time, since 2008," said Daniel Schreiber, 28, an editor in Berlin. "I was always wondering why people aren't outraged and why nothing has happened and finally, three years later, it's happening."

Quite what is happening, though, is hard to say. The biggest turnouts are expected where local conditions are most acute.

Italian police are preparing for tens of thousands to march in Rome against austerity measures planned by the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Yet in crisis-ravaged Athens, where big protests have seen violence at times of late, a sense of fatigue and futility may limit numbers on Saturday. In Madrid, where thousands of young "indignados", or "angry ones", camped out for weeks, many also feel the movement has run out of steam since the summer.

Germans, where sympathy for southern Europe's debt troubles is patchy, the financial centre of Frankfurt, and the European Central Bank in particular, is expected to be a focus of marches calling by the Spanish-inspired Real Democracy Now movement.

Complicating German sentiments, however, a series of small bombs found on trains has stirred memories of the left-wing guerrilla attacks that grew in the 1970s from frustration at a lack of change after the student protests of 1968.

CITY OF LONDON

British student protests a year ago were marked by some acts of violence by what authorities say were hard-core anarchists. Days of looting in London in August were put down to motives that mingled political discontent with criminal opportunism.

As an international centre of finance, the City of London is key target. But organisers know strong police powers make setting up a Wall Street-style protest camp there far from easy.

"There's quite a bit of fatigue setting in," said one young veteran of last year's protests against higher university fees. "But if it's still going by Monday or Tuesday, I think that will excite students and they will head down. The City is much more the focus of people's anger now, compared to a year ago."

A long Saturday of rallies may start in New Zealand, where the Occupy Auckland Facebook page provides links recommending "suitable clothing ... a sleeping bag, a tent, food" -- but, in a family-friendly spirit, strictly no drugs or alcohol.

Asian authorities and businesses may have less to fear, since most of their economies are still growing strongly.

Tracking across the time zones, through towns large and small ("Occupy Norwich!" reads a website from the picturesque English city), the New York example has also prompted calls for similar occupations in dozens of U.S. cities from Saturday.

In Houston, protesters plan to tap into anger at big oil companies. As the world's day ends, hardy souls will be marching in Fairbanks. "We will be obeying traffic lights," insist the authors of OccupyAlaska.org, and they "will be dressed warm".

History suggests such actions are unlikely, of themselves, to change the world. As one anonymous poster at 15october.net writes, "Fleshing out ideas into living reality has always been the bugbear of radical politics". And while anger at corporate greed is widespread, there are plenty of voters who would agree with the Australian who posted on the OccupySydney site that those marching will be "the lazy, the paranoid, the confused".

But some analysts do see a potential for political change.

Jeff Madrick, a prominent economics writer, speaks warmly of the serious and reasonable debate he found at Zuccotti Park. Revolutions may be rare, but the protests could push lawmakers to act on some of the demands, he said last week: "It may begin to change public opinion enough to give Congress, people in Washington, the courage of their own convictions."

[Block]

You may want to read the first article you posted. The photographer for the paper reporting the incident says

Daily News photographer Joe Marino, who witnessed the confrontation, partly backed the NYPD account.

"The bike definitely hit him," but the officer didn't run him over, he said.

"I saw him sticking his legs under the bike to make it appear he was run over," Marino said of Douglas.

So at worst the bike moving 2 miles an hour nudged him. There's plenty of stuff to be unhappy with the NYPD about, but this shit is faked, and damages the message people are trying to send.

[PainRack]

I agree. The video moving at that speed causing grave injuries enough to cause that wailing?

Furthermore, the reaction of the police appeared to be to cordon off the area so attention could be offered. I can imagine what would have happened next if the protestor was still agitated, which would had required the police to apply more force to control the situation so that medical attention could be offered.

[Block]

The second video looks bad, but there's no context. This guy could've just shoved a cop out of his way to try and walk into the street, which the police were obviously trying to keep clear. It also could've been a completely unprovoked attack. I'm really suspicious when the footage only shows half the incident, and the page you linked to starts just as the protestor gets grabbed.

These chants of "the whole world is watching" really bother me. One, they're meaningless, everyone knows the media is watching, chanting it just makes the atmosphere more hostile. Two, it seems to be encouraging... something, I can't tell if it's trying to encourage more recklessness/bravery on the part of the person being arrested, if it's supposed to annoy the cops, if it's supposed to get them to show more mercy, what?

The shrieking of "leave him alone" at the cops is fucking stupid too. It's not going to change anything, or if it does it'll make things worse, by pissing off cops who may well just be trying to do their jobs.

[d'Artagnan]

Based on my not at all extensive Google research, the chant of "The whole world is watching" goes back to the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago. I'm guessing the Wall Street protesters are using said chant to create some common lineage between them and the 1968 protestors.

[Block]

Based on my not at all extensive Google research, the chant of "The whole world is watching" goes back to the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago. I'm guessing the Wall Street protesters are using said chant to create some common lineage between them and the 1968 protestors.

That's not a legacy you really want though. It has helped give the Republicans ammo for decades.

[Simon_Jester]

To remember the atmosphere of the late '60s, I suggest referring back to an excerpt from Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run ...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant ...

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket ...booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) ... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that ...

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda .... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning ....

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ....

As Thompson notes, eventually the wave broke and rolled back. But to understand the spirit of "the whole world is watching" in the context of 1968, I think you have to grasp this idea of cultural momentum- the sense of a generation that what they said and did in Chicago wasn't just restricted to Chicago, that it was part of something much bigger that would spread across the nation and the world, and that this wasn't just some isolated little thing the police could club into submission.

Did that turn out to be true? Well... no. Once it got violent and the "mean and military" sense of "prevail" came into play, it turned out that the Establishment was very good at playing by mean and military rules.

But for a nonviolent movement trying to establish that yes, something is wrong, that the status quo and its minions are acting in an evil way that must be changed, even if they're not the ones to do it... "the whole world is watching!" is a powerful slogan. It evokes that idea of a worldwide version of the Arab Spring (or other such shifts in power going back for many years), that people will finally get tired of being abused and confront their oppressors in a way that cannot be put down. That's heartening to the protestors, and trying to get out the faith in that is important if the protest is to have any chance of historical significance- it must be clear that the people gathered in this time and place to oppose the status quo aren't here for any mean or narrow or small or temporary reason.

All that motivates the crowd to shout "the whole world is watching!" when the police try to round them up with a dash of violence. Especially when, as in the Occupy Wall Street protests, the world is watching.

[Block]

I understand what you're saying, but as I said, the memory that sticks with most of middle America in relation to those protests is the violence. Using "We shall overcome," would be better, it's linked to non-violence, unification and eventual victory. "We are not afraid," is fine. Any number of other slogans would be better, but the '68 protests are very strongly linked with the violence that followed, and the Arab spring wasn't about making a global movement, it was about the people taking back power for themselves. The chants used there, with the exception of Libya, after the violence broke out, had nothing to do with the world. I get the link people are trying to draw, but I just think it's a bad move.