The Occupy Movement in 2012

new study finds that companies with higher CEO pay more likely to commit fraud.

Not correct, according to the link; companies with high-spending CE Os are more likely to be corrupt. I'm guessing that's because such a company's culture values conspicuous consumption and showing off?

My mistake. Though it follows that a CEO with high pay has higher spending, I can see how the high spending can be true for CE Os with lower pay as well.

Funny, isn't it? You get a bunch of skinny hippies sitting in the middle of the sidewalk singing kumbaya and the cops are awfully ready to bust some skulls. You get an honest to God riot and suddenly they're all reluctant to mix it up.

edited 14th Jun '12 1:18:38 PM by Paul3

and your proof that they represent the entire occupy movement and arent a random mob started by people trying to discredit the movement like we know has happened before is?

My previous post was unclear. The markup tags for this forum are pretty non-standard. They throw me, a bit.

The unwillingness of the police to use violence and force against an actual riot is particularly disturbing in light of their willingness to use it against peaceful protest.

As for the possibility these people are instigators deployed to discredit the movement... they could be. At this point we know for a fact such instigators have been deployed, just not to what extent.

edited 14th Jun '12 1:21:43 PM by Paul3

Those were obviously the black bloc. I didn't see anyone indicating they were part of OWS, but they sure were waving around black flags and such. The Black Bloc has had a presence at bay area OWS protests because many of them wanted the opportunity to start shit, and others because they have common interests. So you could say many black bloc members are also OWS members, but being either does not make you affiliated with the other.

Those cops wanted to jump into that. The reason behind them not going in is with the Police Administration, because frankly doing anything suddenly makes you a fascist, and the bay area police departments have already taken enough heat from all this bullshit. I mean fuck it, if people want to make a federal case out of everything when the cops are doing their jobs, they might as well not do anything so that they don't lose those jobs. Essentially the things that have gone on in Oakland recently have caused such a heated uproar against the police in the bay area that they are hesitant to get into anymore situations that could be judged critically. As a consequence of that they only stood by, probably with orders to only intervene if human life is in danger.

If it were me with the decision making power I would have waded in there, made some arrests, and busted some heads. But that's just me.

edited 14th Jun '12 1:25:59 PM by Barkey

Ah, so all that unnecessary police violence against peaceful citizens has destroyed police credibility and damaged the ability of the police to do their job?

Who could possibly have forseen such an outcome? Certainly, last year, no one was saying that good relations with media and public are important to a police force and that that precious resource was being squandered.

edited 14th Jun '12 1:32:34 PM by Paul3

At the end of the day they were doing their job.

Cops aren't allowed to enforce or not enforce the law on the basis of what they think is right, they do it based on the law. And as far as the law is concerned, what Occupy was doing was essentially squatting if they didn't have city permission.

Not to mention that members of the Black Bloc and other anarchist groups who were at OWS protests didn't help, they specifically were there trying to inflame just this sort of controversy.

I'm not going to elaborate further on the topic since I discussed it in length last year when this all started up, but squatting is against the law. Police enforce the Law. Squatters refuse to leave. Police apply different methods to make them leave.

At the end of the day, there will be a bunch of bitching and complaining because of the fact that the police have to make them leave when they don't disperse cooperatively. What would you do in their shoes? Just turn around and walk away? Good luck with finding another job. The whole camping out aspect of OWS is the part that seriously forces the hand of law enforcement in a big way. That and infiltration of said anarchist groups purposely inflaming things by throwing debris and shouting obscenities at police officers.

edited 14th Jun '12 1:39:46 PM by Barkey

There has to be a better level of agreement between protestors and police. The intent is to force law enforcement's hand; likewise, if us protestors aren't willing to face the consequences (we can sue like hell afterwards) then it's not much of a protest. Is there a nicer way to arrest someone?

If the person being arrested just says "Ok officer, I'll go with you."

Past that it pretty much devolves into manhandling. And if manhandling causes tons of people to jump in, or the person fights back too much, that's when pepper spray and tazing gets involved.

The whole thing just pisses me off. "Let's antagonize the shit out of cops while we're technically breaking the law, and then proceed to cry about it and get all sue-happy when we get arrested for it!"

I support the cause and intent behind a lot of what Occupy is about, I really do. But I don't support the attitudes and methods that lots of the movement tends to have.

edited 14th Jun '12 1:59:08 PM by Barkey

I'm wondering if there's a way to pull it off and then lag the entire law enforcement system to a grinding halt via sheer volume. I mean, there's got to be a limit on how many people you can arrest.

Plus, the whole appeal of a Gandhi move - saying "Yes I'm guilty, and you have to punish me to the full extent of the law for sitting on a sidewalk and singing" - bears some consideration.

Well, if there's anything OWS can do to law enforcement, it's cost the city tons of money from all the police overtime that happens as a result.

Still don't like the whole idea of provoking law enforcement on purpose though. That type of stuff makes me lose sympathy for the movement in spades.

Well, you have to provoke some sort of reaction or it's not much of a protest, Barkey. It'd be nice if we only inconvenienced the Wall Street bankers who fucked things up, but it can't be done so neatly. We're trying alternatives like the anti-foreclosure movement. Hopefully you'll never be called in to deal with one of those.

Honestly I saw that black bloc riot and started drooling in jealousy, wishing I was there.

Of course since I'm not at the pay grade where I'm equivalent to a police Lieutenant or anything, I'd probably just be pissed off sitting on the sidelines like most of those patrol cops were.

I can understand trying to get a reaction Taoist, it's just the hypocrisy of crying out that what they are doing is so horrible that gets me. That's like poking a bear with a stick, and then going "FUCKING BEAR, DID YOU SEE WHAT THAT ASSHOLE DID TO ME? HE NEEDS JAILTIME!" after it mauls the shit out of you.

The real equivalent is that you antagonize a cop while you are breaking a law, and after hours of sitting around telling people to "Please Disperse" in a megaphone, you realize that you wouldn't mind going home and that you're well into a 14 hour shift. Then you walk up to a particular person, tell them to disperse, and they say no. You grab them and put the cuffs on them while they struggle, and several people start to loom in on you while you do so, jeering at you and shouting obscenities, and possibly even trying to intervene and drag the guy away from you. Your partner shoots pepper spray in their general direction to get some space while the arrest is being made, and you drag the guy kicking and screaming to your car, book him, and then go home.

Later, that guy is going "DID YOU SEE WHAT THAT ASSHOLE AND HIS PARTNER DID TO ME AND OTHER PROTESTORS? I WAS ABUSED, I'LL HAVE THAT GUY KICKED OFF THE FORCE AND SUED FOR THAT SHIT!" It makes me fucking angry, because that asshole was asking for it and he wants to threaten the career and livelihood of a guy who frankly had no other options.

There have definitely been cops who have acted inappropriately where OWS is concerned, but I guess that doesn't feel like it matters much since OWS acts like cops who do anything other than stand there and say things into a megaphone that won't achieve anything is acting inappropriately.

edited 14th Jun '12 2:50:14 PM by Barkey

Well, the problem there is that most of the reactions I've seen was "I was exercising for my First Amendment Right to peaceably assemble, and the police department was out of line for infringing on that in the first place."

It also doesn't help that the NYPD (and Oakland PD) seriously jumped the gun last year and tons of videos hit the web where protesters were being grabbed by plainclothes officers, then charged with "resisting arrest" when they fought back, or being corralled by police and then pepper sprayed without preamble. So this year, the protesters are more likely to assume that the cops are going to continue being that kind of antagonistic, and be less likely to cooperate.

What we saw last year was a lot of police going in to break up protests when they didn't technically have the legal ability to do so, or when the legality of it was questionable.

Now, I understand that there's a chain of command, orders were given, and there's an expectation they be followed regardless of whether or not they are just or even technically legal, but there's still decisions being made there. At the top level, there's a decision being made to wield law enforcement as a weapon against your opponents. That doubles as a decision to degrade the ability of law enforcement to actually enforce the law. At the level of the individual cop, there's a decision being made to allow oneself to be wielded as a weapon, if that's what it takes to keep your job security.

And let's not pretend the law is some monolithic entity descending from heaven that needs be enforced at all costs. Laws are creations of people. In fact, people often create them specifically to use against their peaceful and otherwise law-abiding enemies. There's no divine rule the occupiers were breaking that meant they needed to be arrested.

The bare facts are: skinny hippies sitting in a circle and singing got the shit kicked out of them, (and the scenario you described is not accurate, they did nothing to force the officers' metaphorical hand or invite violence) and people burning and smashing their way down the street got a free pass.

If I was uidealistic I would hope that was because police agree with OWS.

But I'm cynical and will assume this looked better on tape to let the black bloc riot, blame it on OWS, and further villainize the movement.

It looks better for Republicans, mostly, for a variety of reasons. Not so much the police. I think people prefer to see the police just standing there and not arresting anyone, but I think for the police it's largely damned if you do and damned if you don't. Any choice made in any situation is bound to make them all look bad to someone, and quite possibly lose them their jobs.

The problem for the police is that they lack the cohesive unity and disposition to make a collective move.

I mean, we'd be looking at a very different movement if the police and firefighters' unions had walked out and joined the protestors.

Does the firing of police officers by Republicans (in line with their whole "firing public servants" thing) make that more or less likely?

I doubt it would matter much. The unions are too weak to do anything about it anymore and most police officers and firefighters seem to trend conservative. They're the people we really need, and those in power know it and so have done everything they can to keep them from joining in.

You're right about the chain of command thing, but it is not a reasonable expectation to tell police officers that trying to end a protest is worth walking out on the job and just saying no. Police Officer jobs are highly paid, and the job experience and skills are very niche, as I'm finding out right now. Getting other jobs that don't involve police or security is hell if that's all that you have under your belt. Walking out on the job, being fired, and then having to explain to every other police department that you apply for that you either got fired for disobeying your police chief or resigning over putting down a protest pretty much means you'll never be a cop again.

It isn't reasonable in any way to expect someone to lay down an 80k a year or more job and deal with not being able to get a job better than being a common security guard ever again just because you disagree with your chain of command. It's not worth quitting over until the orders involve using lethal force on protesters.

And as has been mentioned, there's a conservative trend among cops, and at occupy protests there's always a few assholes in the crowd hurling obscenities, which doesn't exactly make police officers think "I should quit rather than oppress these poor people who are calling me a fascist pig."

I would say neither, by and large. It's more like "If we do anything we might lose our jobs, even though these assholes in front of us deserve an ASP to the kneecap." Which means when the people on top tell the police to stand down, observe the situation, and only interfere when human life is threatened, they are relatively ok to follow those orders.

Obviously there's a conflict in motivations here, we all know that. The Occupy protestors want to be heard, and the cops have a job to do. When an OWS group is camping out overnight and such in a public place without permission, they are breaking the law. Faced with that, in a police frame of mind, the only real option is to break it up and disperse everybody involved. When telling people doesn't work, making people leave is the only option. One of the key tenets in Law Enforcement is that once you commit to something, you have to make it happen, otherwise your authority is being undermined, and that leads to nasty precedents.

So you always hope that when you tell someone to do something, they'll just do it. But once you tell someone to do something you can't just walk away if they say no. Psychologically and culturally, it's unthinkable in Law Enforcement to do so, because in that frame of mind it invites the possibility of other people doing similar things and just telling cops "No." and then crying special treatment when they get hauled away.

What I'm trying to say boils down to is that you have to back up the authority of your commands with action, to set a precedent of people following those commands. On a level way larger than OWS, the reason cops are like this is that so people will do what cops tell them, because there is not a doubt in their minds that if you tell a cop no, that he's going to make you anyway. So squatting, being told to leave, and then telling a cop no is essentially an invitation for manhandling and pepper spray.

It's a fucked up situation. I see what Occupy is trying to accomplish, which is awareness, but their goals and the responsibilities of local law enforcement often clash because of the methods used. Unfortunately those methods gain the greatest awareness. It's a shitty deal for both sides.

edited 14th Jun '12 4:44:13 PM by Barkey

That's all well and good I suppose...but the simple truth is the police took a hard-line stance with the protesters from day one, and peaceful solutions were not tried. The police foolishly put the honor of their department on the line by taking such a stance, and I for one see no problem with them suffering consequences for doing so.

I'll start having more sympathy for the cops when they turn around and remember what it says on the side of their squad cars.

edited 14th Jun '12 4:55:22 PM by drunkscriblerian

I wouldn't exactly be enthusiastic or thrilled with serving or protecting people who throw insults and trash at me.

It sucks that the peaceful OWS folks often get shoehorned in with either the protestors who are assholes, or the anarchists who are just looking to start shit.

Though I'll never reverse my stance about the camping out part. It's a variation of squatting, it's illegal, and it's a fucking eyesore to have a small tent city spring up in front of your local government center. I can see why city officials are pretty adamant about it not happening.