'Occupy' Protests

[hitchcockgreen]

No tents allowed, they're back but not occupying. Freedom of speech does have limits - when it impedes on the rights of others or compromises the safety of others. OWS prevented the general public from using the park which is illegal.

The original court order allowed them to take tents back in. NYC switched out judges for the hearing on the order.
Occupying the park may be illegal... Although I'm uncertain as to what level of law it would apply to. Bylaw? Municipal? State?

Not true, local business owners and residents around the park were pressuring the property owners to do something. Bloomberg could have enforced the laws regarding the park usage but he stated publicly that he was deferring to the property owners. Once they said clean it up, Bloomberg moved S&S in to clean the park. Whether you want to believe it or not, the park conditions were not sanitary. There's no running water, no bathroom facilities, no ability to truly clean the park with all the tents, tarps and people in it. There are numerous reports from local businesses that OWSers were putting bags of human waste in their trash containers. That is not sanitary.

Now they can peacefully assemble and protest without compromising the park.

Eddy

Yes, I got the 'order of operations' mixed there.
While the protesters had been cleaning the park, I don't think that they were maintaining that level of cleanliness...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery ... cotti-park

They've managed to raise a good deal of money, and other Occupy sites rented portable facilities... OWS should have at least done the same.

I forgot to mention, the OWSers were complaining that S&S threw away all their books. Not true...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... bled=false

If you had watched the stream (I don't know what kind of media coverage/footage there is...news copters weren't allowed in the airspace during the raid, and reporters weren't allowed within a few blocks of it - three or four reporters that got in were arrested) you'd certainly have thought everything was tossed at the time. They lined up large red truckbed dumpsters and the police and home land security were throwing everything in them.

The next night they had some unexpected support.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zihj6HjWnVc

[Blunt Force Trauma]

The huge mixed bag of complaints, gripes and whining has pretty much made the entire, "Occupy _fill in blank__ " idea so watered down, its relevancy now is the politics around why it lasted as long as it did.

And. . .anyone HAD to know the tent ghetto was going to end soon, as there was no way you can stay sanitary in such a situation for more than a week or so. Yes, they had porta-Johns, but what was the ratio? 100 to 1 . . .or less? If the argument is that it is against a person's constitutional rights to prevent protesting and camping out, all I need to do is make a sign saying I'm protesting against there are too many Starbucks in NYC and pitch a tent anywhere and wave the sign.

I've seen a lot of photos of the living/protesting conditions. Image the nastiest college dorm you've ever seen and multiply that by 5000.

The irony is the protesters obviously weren't willing to pay for sanitary conditions, they wanted the taxpayer to foot the bill.

[hitchcockgreen]

The irony is the protesters obviously weren't willing to pay for sanitary conditions, they wanted the taxpayer to foot the bill.

I don't know if they even wanted that. When it was cleaned previously it was of their own volition and with unions backing them.

The movement itself has not been watered down. But start a march and people with too much time on their hands without much to say will jump right in.
Of course, they're the ones more than willing to mumble out a few nonsensical sentences to the press, and those guys get good airtime.

The message is still clear, and there is already some organization towards forming a party and deciding on a leader.

[Blunt Force Trauma]

The movement itself has not been watered down. But start a march and people with too much time on their hands without much to say will jump right in.
Of course, they're the ones more than willing to mumble out a few nonsensical sentences to the press, and those guys get good airtime.

Yes, exactly. OWS has lost its focus.

[BZROM]

Police: 7 N.Y. officers injured in clashes with Occupy protesters
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/17/oc ... -officers/

[Sno]

Yes, exactly. OWS has lost its focus.

Now it's just a bunch of nitwits pumping their fists in the air demanding those who worked for their wealth to split it, instead of them attacking just the greedy and their political influence. I'd like to know the percentage of OWS people that have a college degree, what major, if they dropped out of college, and if they dropped out of high school.

I have a theory we'd see...

- 25% with a college degree. 70% out of that 25% will have a degree that's useless.
- 45% of the 75% without a degree dropped out of college. The remaining 30% just don't have one or have a certificate (I can't find valid statistics on Certificates).
- Somewhere out of this bunch, a total of ~10% of all OWS people are likely to have dropped out of High School (Hard to tell, I'm not sure how good the Northern school system is).

This isn't me being a snob saying a college degree is necessary, but the idiots that I see on TV at OWS aren't exactly college material. The same goes for those dropping out of High School. Kids that dropped out of my high school were idiots to begin with and just didn't care, but expect to be rich nonetheless. This is the attitude I am now receiving from OWS.

[Blunt Force Trauma]

- 25% with a college degree. 70% out of that 25% will have a degree that's useless.
- 45% of the 75% without a degree dropped out of college. The remaining 30% just don't have one or have a certificate (I can't find valid statistics on Certificates).
- Somewhere out of this bunch, a total of ~10% of all OWS people are likely to have dropped out of High School (Hard to tell, I'm not sure how good the Northern school system is).

I agree for the most part with your estimates. But the '25% will have a degree that's useless' is much too subjective. That could mean a post graduate eng-lit degree that pays so little, the standard of living is close to poverty. . . but you're working. . .AND you're paying on a 90K loan. Whereas someone with a motorcycle maintenance or a Ju-Co welding certificate might not be considered a degree at all, but the individual could be making a decent living.

And here's another thing I see a LOT. Jobs that no one wants but the Hispanics, like roofing or crappy low-end construction that pays 'decent' (for this area) ~12-18/hr, but the work is pure hell. In and around the Raleigh area, on the jobs I'm involved in, I see Hispanics make up a good 75% of those positions, whereas 20 years ago, blacks occupied that percentage.

[hitchcockgreen]

The unfortunate thing is we've created a generation that was taught manual labour jobs suck and you need a college / university degree to make something of yourself.

Well personally, if I had gone along with anything my high school guidance counselor had told me I'd probably be in jail by now.

Now I'm not going to draw out statistics on the whole movement based on who TV news interviews...that's a horrible skew I wont even get into again but its hard to argue with the message when they release messages like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ydupqrD ... ata_player

I can get behind that....whatever it is they're saying.

[hitchcockgreen]

Crazy story.

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/18/nypd-c ... supre.html

[FirBirGir]

Hitch, do a google search for the Judge's name. That report only shows up in a few non-mainstream websites. If that happened as it was described, it would be headline news. Sure, you could say the story is being buried but that's not in the best interest of the press. They love a good, juicy cop abuse story...

The topless protestors looked a little too... what's the saying, rode hard and put up wet...

The message is still clear, and there is already some organization towards forming a party and deciding on a leader.

Wasn't that my suggestion early on? That's what they should be doing, getting themselves organized and start working the system to their favor. Yes, it will be difficult and they face a lot of resistance but they can actually do something if they try.

Eddy

[hitchcockgreen]

Hitch, do a google search for the Judge's name. That report only shows up in a few non-mainstream websites. If that happened as it was described, it would be headline news. Sure, you could say the story is being buried but that's not in the best interest of the press. They love a good, juicy cop abuse story...

Wait for it....

A lot of stories and reports have come out about the protests that weren't covered by the mainstream news. Does that mean they aren't true?

Look what happened at the early stages of the protests. There was no coverage. The only coverage available were individually-uploaded videos to YouTube.
At several stages along the way the press were barred from protest sites. The only footage available at all was that that was uploaded live.

Following the protests in New York yesterday(?) a mainstream news reporter went missing following a series of arrests. As of earlier this morning no one had yet heard from them.

[FirBirGir]

Again, what press agency is going to pass up a cop abuse story? Why would they suddenly not cover these types of stories when they are more than eager to do it in the past? Are you saying that because that because OWS didn't have enough sex appeal to warrant national coverage that this equates to media manipulation to not cover a sensational story like a judge being roughed up by an over zealous cop? That has just the kind of sensationalism that the press loves.

Stories don't get covered for two reasons-
1. It's not interesting enough
2. Media blackouts like the one around the last OWS eviction

I think it's way too farfetched to believe that competing news companies are working together to occlude OWS. If they were protesting a single new company, I could see that particular news company ignoring them but not all of them voluntarily ignoring them (unless it's just not that interesting on most days).

Eddy

[hitchcockgreen]

Nah, I wasn't saying that. I said wait for it. It will either come to light to be a fraud or be exposed in the media.

And I don't believe it was so much that the story just wasn't 'sexy' enough in the beginning, because when it was addressed by mainstream media, they did their best to paint the protesters in an unflattering light and did their best to dismiss them.

[hitchcockgreen]

An agency may pass up a story if their superiors demand it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWcqxrQgcc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K2pLo8JV5Y

Press censorship has been ongoing at OWS since day one.

http://vimeo.com/32157975

[FirBirGir]

lol, I didn't take the "wait for it.." literally

By sexy, I mean things like making OWS look like idiots (more fun than a PBS interview), or cops out of control, or blood, guts, gore, etc. That's sexy to the press...

When the press couldn't make more of it than what it was, a small group of protestors with no clear message and no leader. It just wasn't headline worthy. Since then, they've had celebrities join them for photo ops, a few performers come by and sing a song or two and the occasional run in with cops. These make headlines. Yes, that's screwed up but that's how media works.

Eddy

[FirBirGir]

Press censorship has been ongoing at OWS since day one.

http://vimeo.com/32157975

So you're saying that a reporter getting arrested is press censorship? Censorship would be a reporter writing a story and the Mayor/Governor killing it. That reporter was standing there with the protestors and did something to get arrested. A reporter does not have special privileges in a situation like that. Cops tell reporters to stay away from situations & crime scenes all the time.

What happened to the days when getting arrested was a badge of honor for a reporter?

Eddy

[Ded10c]

The US is on the Enemies of the Internet list for some reason. Can't figure that out.

[Sno]

I agree for the most part with your estimates. But the '25% will have a degree that's useless' is much too subjective. That could mean a post graduate eng-lit degree that pays so little, the standard of living is close to poverty. . . but you're working. . .AND you're paying on a 90K loan. Whereas someone with a motorcycle maintenance or a Ju-Co welding certificate might not be considered a degree at all, but the individual could be making a decent living.

And here's another thing I see a LOT. Jobs that no one wants but the Hispanics, like roofing or crappy low-end construction that pays 'decent' (for this area) ~12-18/hr, but the work is pure hell. In and around the Raleigh area, on the jobs I'm involved in, I see Hispanics make up a good 75% of those positions, whereas 20 years ago, blacks occupied that percentage.

The Certificate area I'm shady in since I'm not sure how much weight one would hold in an particular industry, I only know one person who has one (ironically, it's in motorcycle maintenance). I also know someone with a English degree...for some reason she was led to believe her skill would be in-demand and universal trait in every company. My mother has her Masters in English, and she's been teaching for roughly 20 years. I think kids today going into college want a skill that looks easy and might-possibly be valuable; unfortunately many don't research the applicable job market

In GA, we've had a major decrease in Hispanics doing construction due to a recent illegal-immigration bill. On the flip side, I suddenly see signs along construction projects saying "Now Hiring."

[hitchcockgreen]

Nah being arrested isn't cencorship....maybe a constitutional right violation, but it depends. Rushing in on a crime scene should get you arrested if you're press. I've seen that before.

Yes media has been sensationalist for far too long and look what its done to you.

Uplink from the tundra

[hitchcockgreen]

I also know someone with a English degree...for some reason she was led to believe her skill would be in-demand and universal trait in every company.

English degree? Yeah you're going to do one of two things with that; treachery English here or teach it overseas.

Uplink from the tundra