The Occupation of Wall Street Spreads

[Count Chocula]

To Stark and Los:

If the city is not allowing more toilets to be brought in to the area, they should be able to cite where doing so for a multi-day event violates a city ordnance. If they can cite that, take action and change the ordinance. If they can't, then they're wrong.

And Los, if the cops aren't responding to 911 calls and you have a record of it, they're assholes.

[TithonusSyndrome]

When he suggested contracting security, I was immediately wondering if the cops would let them actually hire soldiers like that. If they won't let them have toilets - in another obvious attempt to get them to give up - then is becomes less about dirty hippies and more about people living in shit becuase the government is repressing them.

How much security can you get for $500K and for how long, anyways? This obscene, towering sum that decisively tars OWS as clear ASTROTURF may be insufficient to keep this socialist orgy of reprobate anarchy unfetted by personal responsibility and rule of law and bootstrapping and getting der jarb unless someone goes back to Soros and pleads for more handouts.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

Actually, Chocula is representative of one of the major problems Occupy faces: that the mainstream media's misreporting encourages people not already sympathetic to the movement to remain deliberately ignorant of it, so that they can argue from their ignorance plus any negative soundbites to reinforce their existing hatreds without having to come into contact with the dangerous content of the message by pretending there isn't any there. That said, it is obvious that not every member is a credit to the movement. But of what movement is that not true?

[Losonti Tokash]

Chocula, we're working on that. They just denied permission today, so we're sending a rep up to the mayor's office for a discussion before we go to a lawsuit or anything.

[Stark]

The police don't respond if we call 911 so we're on our own.

Isn't that illegal?

[Losonti Tokash]

Probably. But realistically, we haven't got any short term options. It's not like we can call the police on them, after all.

[Stark]

I bet the blue wall knows what it's doing. Don't question, citizen.

It's just a laugh that the stuff people dislike about OWS is often caused bynthengovernment or the police being deliberately obstructive. How can anyone trust the police in America where they'd I'll simply ignore people they don't like?

[Count Chocula]

Well Los, you could all just pack off to the local university and camp out until the governor calls out the National Guard.

Sick joke, sorry. I'm from Ohio, born 15 miles from Kent State. Seriously, if your group is complying with local regs and the local grandees and law enforcement are not performing their duties then THEY are in the wrong. IIRC, OWS Omaha had three people charged with refusing to leave, but have not had the sanitation and crime problems of other sites. The city should at least meet you halfway.

[Losonti Tokash]

I'm actually in Lincoln, I just keep forgetting to update my location. We had four people get arrested for a sit in at a Wells Fargo but that's about the only interaction we've had with the police. Our presence is mostly educating people about why we're out there but lately we've been getting more pressure to leave and people coming by at 3am and making threats. I think part of the previous ambivalence was because people thought we'd be gone by now, since it's almost winter and all.

Edit: we've also had our part in opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, which has gotten us a bit of attention and support around here.

[Count Chocula]

Edit: we've also had our part in opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, which has gotten us a bit of attention and support around here.

Why would you oppose the pipeline? From what I've read, it would be a huge job creator, further reinforce our ties with our Canadian allies, and reduce our dependence on ME oil. If the right of way is established, what's the downside? If anything, any fear of oil spills vs. say the Alaskan pipeline should be mitigated by the ability to get emergency crews to a possible burst site quickly.

[Losonti Tokash]

To be perfectly honest, I'm not super involved with that thing. I'll ask for more details tonight when I get off work, but the general issues seem to be risk of spills, damage to the sandhills, and further expansion of eminent domain. But I'll ask around for you and try to get some sources to back them up. One I have heard and think is a bit silly is that the jobs will only be temporary until it's finished.

[Kamakazie Sith]

The police don't respond if we call 911 so we're on our own.

Isn't that illegal?

Yes, it is. If they are deciding to not respond to calls for service at OWS locations then that's one of those decisions that amazes me. Assuming you're in a city with a semi-modern police force then the call takers in dispatch should be recorded along with dispatch and arrival times for assigned units. In addition, units may be equipped with GPS. It's amazing because there is no pay off for them. The risk to their careers is significant.

Los, what kind of calls for service are being ignored?

[Stark]

That's interesting, because I don't really understand what the upside is for the police either. I'm very interested in the attitude the police have towards these people and where that comes from, because I recall in the past various police forces worldwide have been 'pre-set' to negative or violent attitudes by the quite biased information or briefings they recieve immediately before deployment on dangerous tasks.

I'm actually interested in this sort of attitude/narrative on all levels, really. People like Chocula being negative is just part and parcel of demonstrating about anything, but it's very much the responsiblity of the powers that be to facilitate rather than limit this sort of thing. The refusal to allow the installation of toilets is, if true, straight out of the civil rights era.

[Lord Zentei]

The really stupid thing is that this sort of thing is not only bad for the police, but outright counter-productive for any anti-OWS ideas too. Every violent reprisal or act of general dickishness by the police only causes the protestors to become more intransigent, not to mention that it raises sympathy for them when they might have had less before.

[Skgoa]

Its not the first death. There's been deaths from drugs and exposure already in a few cities, and at least one fatal stabbing.

You know, muddying the water is always an underhanded debating technique... but when you do it to protect baby-murdering police officers, you are crossing a totally different line. At least according to my sensibilities.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Its not the first death. There's been deaths from drugs and exposure already in a few cities, and at least one fatal stabbing.

You know, muddying the water is always an underhanded debating technique... but when you do it to protect baby-murdering police officers, you are crossing a totally different line. At least according to my sensibilities.

By all means, point out where I did anything but clarify what actually happened, and I will gladly accept admonishment. Show me which murderers I protected now. As was said in a post after mine, it wasn't the first death, but it WAS the first death due to police brutality.

Now, run along and engage your smug self-righteousness in a rectal/cranial inversion.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Its not the first death. There's been deaths from drugs and exposure already in a few cities, and at least one fatal stabbing.

You know, muddying the water is always an underhanded debating technique... but when you do it to protect baby-murdering police officers, you are crossing a totally different line. At least according to my sensibilities.

If you accuse someone of a faux pas, at least try not to commit the same offense in the same post. In the same sentence, too! Name me one cop at an OWS event convicted of killing a child.

[Dominus Atheos]

Einy, put down the bong. The post Chewie was responding to was about a miscarriage caused by a police officer at an OWS rally.

[Broomstick]

I bet the blue wall knows what it's doing. Don't question, citizen.

It's just a laugh that the stuff people dislike about OWS is often caused bynthengovernment or the police being deliberately obstructive. How can anyone trust the police in America where they'd I'll simply ignore people they don't like?

Well, for one thing, not all police in America are the same. It's only the worst examples that are getting into the media. Truly peaceful demonstrations where the cops do their duty and don't pepper spray sitting people or assault pregnant women just don't show up on the evening news, you know?

"Occupy Hammond", as in Hammond, Indiana, recently had a march and the police gave them the same service as any other parade, the city was OK with it, and... nothing happened. So who the hell heard about it, right?

[TithonusSyndrome]

Edit: we've also had our part in opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, which has gotten us a bit of attention and support around here.

Why would you oppose the pipeline? From what I've read, it would be a huge job creator, further reinforce our ties with our Canadian allies, and reduce our dependence on ME oil. If the right of way is established, what's the downside? If anything, any fear of oil spills vs. say the Alaskan pipeline should be mitigated by the ability to get emergency crews to a possible burst site quickly.

Among other things, it's an environmental whitewash, it appears to fail to take into consideration certain native rights, and call me selfish but the oilsands here are white-fucking-hot already and in no need of being devoured any faster with reckless abandon. Go build some nuke plants if you want genuine energy independence, it's not like Canada would ever cut the US off from existing oil supply.

[Skgoa]

Its not the first death. There's been deaths from drugs and exposure already in a few cities, and at least one fatal stabbing.

You know, muddying the water is always an underhanded debating technique... but when you do it to protect baby-murdering police officers, you are crossing a totally different line. At least according to my sensibilities.

By all means, point out where I did anything but clarify what actually happened, and I will gladly accept admonishment. Show me which murderers I protected now. As was said in a post after mine, it wasn't the first death, but it WAS the first death due to police brutality.

And that little nit-pick is of absolutely no consequence to the post you responded to. Maybe I am misinterpreting your post, but to me that exchange read like this:
- He said: Police officer killed baby by kicking pregnant women in the belly.
- You said: Yeah, but it's not the first time someone died. People died there from drugs and exposure, implying that the damn dirty hippies can't be trusted to camp in peace.
I don't know if you meant that, but that's how it reads.

Now, run along and engage your smug self-righteousness in a rectal/cranial inversion.

I didn't mean to attack you, personally. (And yes I know I could have phrased my post better.) It's just that I couldn't get my head around the fact that someone can react in an other fashion than "damn, that cop is an asshole."

[CaptainChewbacca]

The post from Tith said "And the OWS movement suffers its fatality."

All I was doing was pointing out that it wasn't the first fatality, but that a half-dozen people had already died from various circumstances. I didn't need to affirm the moral/professional deficiency of the officer in question, because that really wasn't up for debate. I was just keeping things clear and factual.

I accept your appology.

[Skgoa]

[Broken]

I love the constant drumbeat of "dirty hippies" that gets thrown around whenever OWS gets discussed. As Bill Maher points out "Woodstock was 42 years ago".

One of the reasons the OWS is getting traction is because the perception that the system is rigged has been growing for years and the bank bailouts were the cherry on top of the whole mess. It may have been in this thread, or an editorial in a newspaper that asked the question, could this whole recent financial mess have been avoided if even a fraction of the resources dedicated to clearing out Occupy's dangerous encampments had been used to police Wall Street's big players in the first place? But that would imply that someone at the top of an organization can be held responsible for things that happen on their watch, which seems to be an increasingly Unamerican idea. After all, America is a country, as Matt Taibbi relates where a mother of two, with several drug convictions in her past, gets 3 years in prison for lying on her food stamp application. Who was the last big bank executive to get three years of prison time for anything? How many "robo-signers" were charged with fraud and felonies?

Here’s another thing that boggles my mind: You get busted for drugs in this country, and it turns out you can make yourself ineligible to receive food stamps.

But you can be a serial fraud offender like Citigroup, which has repeatedly been dragged into court for the same offenses and has repeatedly ignored court injunctions to abstain from fraud, and this does not make you ineligible to receive $45 billion in bailouts and other forms of federal assistance.

This is the reason why all of these settlements allowing banks to walk away without "admissions of wrongdoing" are particularly insidious. A normal person, once he gets a felony conviction, immediately begins to lose his rights as a citizen.

But white-collar criminals of the type we’ve seen in recent years on Wall Street – both the individuals and the corporate "citizens" – do not suffer these ramifications. They commit crimes without real consequence, allowing them to retain access to the full smorgasbord of subsidies and financial welfare programs that, let’s face it, are the source of most of their profits.

Why, I wonder, does a bank that has committed fraud multiple times get to retain access to the Federal Reserve discount window? Why should Citigroup and Goldman Sachs get to keep their status as Primary Dealers of U.S. government debt? Are there not enough banks without extensive histories of fraud and malfeasance that can be awarded these de facto subsidies?

Yes, the Occupy movement is far from perfect. Yes, as with any other large gathering of primates, it is going to have issues with individuals behaving badly. I would love to see it be a model of civil and calm demonstrations, but if it has to be rowdy and rude as it is now in order to finally kick start our political "leadership" into reining in their "peers" on top of the financial/economic dogpile, so be it.

[Terralthra]

​Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants Occupy L.A. to decamp by next Monday, according to notes of a meeting between the mayor's office and Occupy protesters.

The mayor's office and the protesters are trying to work out an agreement. But those negotiations took a big step backward today, following disclosure of City Hall's offer of office space at last night's General Assembly.

That offer is now off the table, and most of the Occupy protesters have dismissed it anyway.

The notes of today's meeting are pretty fascinating...

... because it seems that the mayor's staff and the Occupy delegation fundamentally misunderstand each other.

The mayor's office can't quite grasp why the Occupy folks need unanimous consent to approve an agreement. For their part, the Occupy folks don't seem to have a complete grasp of the political cross-currents affecting the mayor.

To make a deal, the Occupy folks need to negotiate in public, and their General Assembly meetings. But the mayor has to worry about council members and department heads, and so his office has to negotiate in secret. That's a pretty fundamental conflict. Doesn't seem like there's much room there to make a deal.

Where does that leave it? Villaraigosa seems insistent on getting a deal by next week. If there's no deal, he wants a Nov. 28 "evacuation date." The Occupy negotiators are pleading for more time, so they can leave with a flourish.

Also of note from today's meeting: Seems Villaraigosa is OK with renaming City Hall park as "Liberty Park," provided the City Council agrees.

Occupy LA has an official permit lasting through January 3rd, and the City Council and Mayor wrote a resolution in favor of Occupy LA, passing official language saying they could stay as long as they want.

As protestors in the Occupy movement have been arrested or relocated by force across the nation, the anti-Wall Street crowd in downtown Los Angeles has remained relatively peaceful.

In recent weeks, Jim Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, has been assisting in negotiating with city officials on behalf of Occupy LA on potential places where protestors could relocate from the City Hall lawn, where several hundred tents have remained for nearly two months. Occupy LA's attorney, Carol Sobel, a solo practitioner in Santa Monica, Calif., who is co-chairwoman of the National Lawyers Guild's mass defense committee, said she isn't involved in those discussions — but she said it's no accident that Los Angeles hasn't gone the way of the rest of the country.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

NLJ: How long have you been representing Occupy LA?

Carol Sobel: I've been providing legal assistance to Occupy LA as requested from prior to the first night. The very first concern was: Could they camp? Could they put up tents? My understanding is they spoke to the police even before they put up the tents.

NLJ: It seems like Occupy LA has been incredibly peaceful, compared to movements in other cities. Why do you think that is?

CS: The reason I think that people have not been pursued, beaten, or had their tents destroyed in LA is because there is often a line of communication when people are going to go out and engage in First Amendment activity. It has to do with 20 years of litigation against the LAPD in which they shot people with rubber bullets, pepper sprayed, hit them with batons, charged them with horses. And then finally, the LAPD decided they could do more with less use of force. Instead of making protestors run a gauntlet of police in riot gear, for the most part they took off the riot gear, put their batons in their holsters, and we've had less difficulty. We just don't have the confrontation they have in other cities because the leadership of the police department is committed to trying this committed approach and it seems to be working.

NLJ: Most of the legal issues involved in the Occupy movement have focused on arrests and citations. How much of this has occurred in LA?

CS: There were arrests last Thursday during the day. Twenty-seven or 28 people were arrested, and they have appearances in December, and we'll be assisting them with those appearances. There may have been one or two other arrests. [The arrests came as protestors occupied a separate plot of land near a Bank of America branch in downtown Los Angeles].

NLJ: One of the Occupy LA protestors recently filed an action to stop city officials and police from forcing the tents out without prior notice. What happened with this case?

CS: It's a very strange complaint. It's labeled a federal complaint, but filed in superior court. And while I'm sure the person was well intentioned, it's just not a good piece of legal work. It was a surprise to me. It was a surprise to a lot of people. I was notified, and I spoke to some people and asked: Would you like me to appear and tell the court that you did not authorize this complaint? And they said yes. I never got a chance. I took the escalator up two floors and I waited and nothing happened because the person who filed the complaint didn't show up. What I understand is the next date in this case is Dec. 9, and the city has to file an answer by then or move to dismiss. My expectation is the city will move to dismiss the case.

NLJ: Are you involved in the latest negotiations over relocating Occupy LA to another downtown location?

CS: I am not participating. And neither is the city attorney's office. This is the mayor's office, the police and some representatives of Occupy. And Mr. Lafferty has been attending to assist them. But no lawyers are present, so it doesn't escalate into "I've got this case and you've got this case." It is a discussion among the participants without the lawyers.

NLJ: What prompted this discussion?

CS: I think it's a little difficult to say. I think a few weeks ago, the mayor and other council members began making noise about having them move. Initially, in Los Angeles, the council passed a resolution…saying Occupy could remain there as long as they wanted to. The mayor said the same thing. The mayor brought out tarps for people so they could be protected from the rain.

NLJ: Aren't there concerns about the grass dying and local businesses being hurt?

CS: The grass is a bogus issue, quite frankly. My understanding is the city is now prepared to replace the lawn with a drought-tolerant substance. The city also was concerned about the trees not getting water. But since we had rain in the last few weeks, that problem has been resolved, if it was a problem to begin with. They just want them out.

NLJ: You've represented protestors for decades. Have you ever seen anything like the Occupy movement before?

CS: No, I've never heard of anything like Occupy before. The Occupy movement is organic and unique. And I've been involved both as protestor and organizer and a lawyer, and involved in this kind of stuff since 1966 or 1967. I'm that old. I don't know of any movement quite like this. And it's amazing to watch.

Emphasis mine.