NYPD forcibly evicts Occupy Wall Street, banning Press

@post replying to mine on page 3: no V was in a fictional totalerain England. OWS needs a V.

Court rules for OWS protesters but also against them.

My feelings are mixed.

They need to just pick a side. However, saying no should only cuase more tension against the gov't than there is now.

At this point, if I truly was one of the OWS protestors there, I'd be re-thinking how to go about all this. Like, I don;t know - finding a clear/logaical/necessary reason to make our voices heard, if only to feel united on a positive goal, which OWS seems to lack to many people, as well as some semblance of organization.

And this is hence why only so many people attached to the mainstraeam (AKA the nation's majority that ACTUALLY ARE suffering from what OWS protests as they sleep in their warm comfy beds at night) take OWS seriously and instead continue to suck corporatist teet/hang on to obselete "Crony Capitalist" ideas only continuing to hurt us as a whole!

I think OWS should just drop the occupy pretense and just start doing regular protests now.

I mean whats the difference? It would show you are still protesting but it would end the whole "get out of the property you are ruining it" thing.

That would be the best thing for them. No one's even paying much attention to them now, they gotta do something.

That ruling is confusing and contradictory. They can take in tents but not camp out in them?

@ Van; Yeah, no. Our government is not the government of a fictional movie, and anyone trying to be V right now is fucking deluded.

you read it wrong, the way cops are acting is the way the state acted in V For Vendetta. I fear that sooner or later we will need a V to save us.

We don't need a V, we need a Freeman, a figure who not only can inspire, but someone who they can't catch, can't arrest...can't kill.

A V for the US wouldn't "save" anyone, he or she would just give us a totally different set of problems to deal with.

If we have a V, it'll be a straight-up dictator. I'd even vote for one at that point, because the government is totally corrupt and there aren't many alternatives right now.

edited 15th Nov '11 8:27:12 PM by johnnyfog

But with a Freeman, you could just set him loose, let him fuck shit up, and let the rest of the resistance figure out what to do next.

edited 15th Nov '11 8:31:35 PM by RocketDude

In general any political agendas which involve assassination are probably somewhat far fetched and impractical in the long run.

Yeah, didn't our 'side' try that already? The Weatherman? Unabomber? Mcveigh?

(Not to strawman the left, but those guys were resolutely populist and anti-authoritarian.)

Murder and mayhem usually lead to more authoritarianism, as even John Adams shrugged and admitted.

A wonderful rant about the stupidity of Bloomberg.

fuck yes Mr. Olbermann fuck yes.

So here is an example of the kind of thing that OWS, and this nation as a whole needs to fix.

I truly do understand that for many people, the system hasn't worked. But; no matter how much you hate it, there are those for whom it does work. Getting a degree and out-performing the competition has yielded a job with a livable wage and benefits for a great many people. So while it might be "Crony Capitalism" or the "wretched corporate teet" to some, it's reality to others.

As it stands now, there is a large part of OWS's message that seems to resent the fact that there are people like me who were unemployed and couldn't find work, and simply waited it out, sent resumes to every corner of the Alpha Quadrant, and outperformed other people to land a job. I committed no crime, and I stepped on no one. I worked hard.

"Capitalism Sucks" and/or "We should get to decide how much people get paid (even though we're not the ones who hired them)" are never going to get people on your side.

What you just pointed out... I bet that's why no one in the mainstream takes OWS seriously (even though they should be,if only to prevent fascism/austerity's dominance over them), and sees them as whining babies...

Then again, you can't feel empathy for people who don't work and live off those who actually do for a living, so yeah. OWS needs to find a new platform to stand on in their "crusades" against the rich/corporates who ruined our country, besides "Capitalism Sucks" and "We should decide to who/who doesn't get what", then.

And they need to be organized/united on it, instead of divided on all these implausible causes for protest. It'll take time for them to be takeen seriously, but hey, it's better than nothing but the mainstream's ignornace.

Provided they realise this (if only to seem like a noble cause), this is their second - no, better yet - last chance to do something to not look like ccomplete hippies with too much time on their hands In the mainstream's eyes, anyway).

Because though they claim to be fighting for our future, they have yet to prove it! I'm sorry I just sidn't see that earlier on...

edited 16th Nov '11 6:55:08 AM by LostAnarchist

Not true. I can feel empathy for those who don't work and live off others because 1) I was one of them and I'm still not fully back to being completely self-sufficient, so I cast no stones against anyone and 2) That's not the whole truth. The rich/corporates very much live off of the poor. The minute the government took our taxes, which are taken from our paychecks, and gave it to these greedy cunts, who in turn, played X-box with it, lost it, and then got a blank check to take more. Fuck THOSE bastard dogs.

There isn't a sane American, Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican, gay or straight, Red Sox or Yankees, that cannot stand united on that point.

If thats the case, where's our fight against it?!!

Why doesn't anyone support OWS when no one wants their taxes used for rich//corporate BS by the gov't, who only seems to use taxes for that nowadays, anyway?!

Are people that afraid to support such a cause? Are people that afraid to fight back and have their taxes used towards shit that actually benefits us (Education,Infastructe,Healthcare come to mind, etc.) instead of military spending that only protects the rich/corporates?!

Is that it?!

edited 16th Nov '11 7:09:53 AM by LostAnarchist

@Maxima

I don't think OWS folks resent those who did get lucky and got a job in this current climate. After all, many OWS protesters are employed themselves.

What they/we resent is constantly being told that not being able to get a job in a climate where there's millions more seekers than jobs means there's something wrong with them, as opposed to something wrong with the economy that needs to be fixed.

I mean, I'm glad you were able to out-perform the dozens/hundreds of people that are still competing for each job lately, but the fact that someone else hasn't been able to doesn't mean they're a bad worker. I know I have all the skills and experience needed for the work I want to do, but when there's dozens of people competing, that means the odds are much higher that someone will have a degree and/or more experience and beat me out. What are you supposed to do about it? You can't instantly whip up a degree (especially with no job or money to pay for schooling), and you can't get more experience without being hired first.

@Lost

Yeah, that's what drives me crazy about reading all the comments I see from the naysayers or idiot things like "We are the 53%". All the things that OWS wants would benefit them too. Even anyone currently working and doing absolutely fine would just prosper even more in a healthy, thriving economy with a functioning infrastructure, affordable healthcare, clean air & water, etc., so it's still in their best interest to fight for it, too. Why is there so much opposition to improving everyone's situation? It's why I keep making frustrated comments about how fucking stupid and brainwashed this country is.

I'm glad you see my point... It feels like NO ONE else does!

"As it stands now, there is a large part of OWS's message that seems to resent the fact that there are people like me who were unemployed and couldn't find work, and simply waited it out, sent resumes to every corner of the Alpha Quadrant, and outperformed other people to land a job. I committed no crime, and I stepped on no one. I worked hard."

Not trying to attack you, but the last sentence reveals the kind of thinking that I believe OWS is really fighting against. You worked hard and landed a job. But then, there are thousands (probably millions at this point) who worked just as hard, maybe harder, and are still working hard at it, and are not finding any work, are in debt, stuggling with poverty, fighting just to survive. In America. The truth is, you likely got lucky somewhere along the line. Not that it diminishes your hard work or that your luck was all that fantastic, but there are plenty of folks who weren't so lucky. Yet, your thought process is "I worked hard."

Occupiers do not resent the fact that some people were able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. OWS resents the fact that the system makes that kind of phenomenon a rarity, and yet our society continues to plug it's collective ears and insist otherwise. We would like the American Dream and the ideal of bootstrapping to be true, but the reality is that those things are damn near myth as it stands.

edited 16th Nov '11 8:08:01 AM by sketch162000

Jeysie & Lost: Well, the problem, as I have said before, there's too much in-fighting between people; purposely fomented by the corporacrats, so that we won't unite together. And then we on both sides play into it.

It sounds good to say that "nobody resents those who were lucky enough to get a job." But it is a fact that there have been comments about the "mindless drones" "sucking on the corporate teet". I am not a mindless drone, nor a corporate teet addict, and I should point out I wasn't just lucky. I worked for it. Hard.

So when I and others like me hear that, we feel like we're being dismissed and even mocked, because we found a way to take the same crappy system and make it work because it was better, for us, than camping out and getting into it with the cops. In other words, we feel just the way the Occupiers feel, but in the reverse.

And lost in the translation is the fact that we're up against the same exact fucking enemies.

In other words, there needs to be more of an effort than there has been from both sides to understand each other and understand it's not "hippie communists" vs. "corporate drones" but rather "Americans vs. the Evil Cunts who would destroy us all".

@sketch - One does not preclude the other. All the luck in the universe wouldn't get me the job I have. Equally true, all the hard work and hitting the wall head first wouldn't have made a difference if certain things didn't just happen to go down the way they did.

Nobody knows that better than me. I am fully and completely aware that many hard workers aren't landing work, not because they are lasy, but because the actions of a privileged few have hijacked the efforts of the many.

And like I said, who in their right mind could disagree with that?

And here is where it begins. We can allow our frustrations to let us call people "stupid" and "brainwashed". And we can be shocked that those people say "Oh, well then, I'll be too stupid and brainwashed to listen to you or help you."

Or....we can say, "some people are stupid and brainwashed. Others might just not know what we know, or see what we see. And when they do, they'll join us."

Additionally, when people point out the flaws and misconeptions in your own logic, be prepared to at the very least hear them out. Telling everybody else to be open-minded while being narrow-minded is the easiest way to have people dismiss you.

edited 16th Nov '11 8:23:01 AM by TheStarshipMaxima