Occupy Wall Street

https://occupywallst.org/

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

Good idea? Futile? Waste of time and resources? Disagree with their platform altogether?

It's quite easy to deride these folks as overly optimistic hippies, but I commend them for being dedicated to a cause that so many of us whom it directly concerns are ignoring.

edited 23rd Sep '11 8:59:54 PM by kashchei

I think this was poorly planned. If they want anything to happen, they need media coverage. From what I understand, there aren't even many people there right now. (I was under the impression it was over.) What are they trying to accomplish here?

While it isn't their fault they are not receiving mainstream media coverage, they could be doing a better job virally, yes.

edited 23rd Sep '11 8:54:35 PM by kashchei

Didn't we already have this thread?

The old thread went far off-topic. It's been locked; this one can stay open.

edited 23rd Sep '11 9:15:02 PM by Madrugada

I have to wonder why they decided to do this.

edited 24th Sep '11 6:45:01 PM by mailedbypostman

What the fuck are those women doing? Some protesters they are, just busting down in tears over something that wasn't a violent action. Somehow I don't see this succeeding if they can't even state what they want.

...How about watching that video a little more closely, Ace? In fact, you might want to start at 0:40 and keep an eye on the senior, white-shirted officer in the top-right, who strides over with (from what I can tell) no prompting whatsoever and hits them with pepper spray. Yeah, some protesters they are, breaking down in tears like that.

You can even hear the subtle hiss of the the pepper spray going off. Instant irritation. Watch what they do. They cover their faces namely eyes one is visibly coughing. They are clearly reacting to being sprayed not breaking down and crying. One of the guys on camera even shouts pepper spray.

Lets remain civil about this.

So why was this particular batch penned in with soft hand held barriers? Why did the officer in white feel the need to spray them?

edited 24th Sep '11 11:49:40 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Start at :40? it only goes forty seconds.

...Wait, what? Oh, apologies. It seems we're watching different yet identical videos. This one is the same, but contains another 32 seconds.

But whatever. Start at 0:14 for the one in this thread, then, or just watch all 40 seconds. Regardless, you should be able to see what we're talking about.

edited 25th Sep '11 12:05:19 AM by darksidevoid

Well, then, he's an idiot.

Why is it that, when police are around anti-establishment protestors, that they feel the need to be aggressive? I'd just sit and wait for them to start shit. Can't claim the cops are bastards if you're the one starting it...

edited 25th Sep '11 12:00:51 AM by USAF713

By the way, here's a couple of relevant NY Times blog posts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_UHJTB2Ijk&feature=channel_video_title

Here's the al jazeera report.

edited 25th Sep '11 2:22:05 AM by kyfhv

I find it interesting that a google search on the protest only brings up on major media outlet. The Guardian from Britain. US media doesn't seem to want to pay that much attention to this one.

Which is just more proof that the US media does not in fact have a liberal bias. I think maybe they're hoping it will just go away if they ignore it? I don't know, but not having even the local news on them is probably hurting their cause. Whoever's in charge of this thing could maybe get more coverage by directly contacting the local news or major networks. Far as I can tell, this was mostly organized on the internet through things like Twitter. Most people don't go to twitter or other networking sites for their news.

There was speculation that Twitter was blocking their hashtag

It's ten thousand people in the middle of New York city. being rounded up and harassed by the police. How can the media miss it? I'm pretty shure the nine (so far) communiqués were sent to the media as well, but the left has a history of distrusting the media on this since Seattle.

What happened in Seattle?

Well... not being an organizer of large group protests, I don't know who else they can contact.

I think that number is inflated. Most I have heard is a couple thousand.

"There are only about 200 of them left now, though they started out 1,500 strong," quoth ABC News.

I find the police response to be more interesting and newsworthy than the protest itself, actually, which is predictably much weaker than it was originally planned to be.

Michael Moore on CNN right now.

@Ace, in 1999 there were protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, called the "Battle of Seattle". SPD determined it a riot and cracked down severely and caused a lot of controversy. It's actually quite similar to Occupy Wall Street- Americans protesting protection of Corporate interests over the interests of citizens and police then cracking down, to minimal media controversy.

"Whoever's in charge of this thing could maybe get more coverage by directly contacting the local news or major networks."

The major networks are refusing to report on this. Yahoo has been accused of filtering out emails regarding the protest. Twitter has been accused of censoring posts pertaining to it. Even livestream, which is hosting a livestream of the event, has apparently had sponsors pull out because they refused to stop reporting.