'Occupy' Protests

[Blunt Force Trauma]

The reason I used motorcycle maintenance and welding certificate is I personally knew a down on his luck guy that was dating a neighbor of mine a few years ago. He bounced around with crap jobs, then scraped up the money to attend some fancy Harley Davidson maintenance school down in Florida for a few months. He came back to the Raleigh area and got a job at the big dealership here and has been doing well since. This was in the mid 90's and he started in the upper 30's. After working in grocery stores and stocking shelves, he said it was worth every penny.

The welding certificates I see a lot being in the structural engineering field. I have to verify the welding contractors are current in regard to the specific welding expertise called for in the job. We don't give a crap about a guy's broad spectrum education, whether or not he has a degree, etc. If his certifications are current, and has no arrest record, he's good to go. The irony is, I've seen guys with 20 years experience, be able to put down a perfect "stacked dimes" pattern, but later it is found they let their certification expire, so they are told to go home. It's all about liability and playing the game.

[FirBirGir]

There are jobs to be had, just go look at monster.com or your local paper to see what's available. These aren't the jobs that many college graduates are looking for. But really, now many college graduates walk straight into their dream jobs? Is that even a realistic expectation within the first 5 years? I spent 10 years in construction after college because that industry paid a whole lot better than programming did (mid-80's before the PC proliferation) and then another 5 years in construction management and training from the owner side before landing the job I really wanted. It was pretty easy since I had a variety of experience, good work record, established and stable lifestyle and I could afford to shop for the right job with out going hungry.

Guidance counselors and college recruiters along with parents should be preparing young adults for the real world. There should a mandatory college course on life management...

Eddy

[hitchcockgreen]

Guidance counselors and college recruiters along with parents should be preparing young adults for the real world. There should a mandatory college course on life management...

Haha absolutely.

I remember being solicited by the Ministry of Education during college for a survey - they wanted to know how well high school had prepared me for the 'real world.'

Let's just say my review was less than stellar.

[hitchcockgreen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaruH5wZ ... r_embedded
This Iraqi war veteran went to the hospital with a ruptured spleen as a result of his beating on behalf of the police.
And for what?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU9Dx0x9 ... r_embedded
After dragging a woman away, police refuse to show their badge number (VERY illegal).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU9Dx0x9 ... r_embedded
Guy gets taken down violently with a knee to the throat for doing nothing but waving a flag.


84 year old woman gets pepper-sprayed. WTF? She most have been one hell of a threat to the police.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjSWxbUS ... r_embedded
Seriously? Dever? LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLA6HkK8 ... r_embedded
Retreating protester punched in the face (there are far better videos of this one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Z05rWx1pig
Non-violent, entirely women protesters corralled and pepper sprayed. Eh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Z05rWx1pig
It is actually stricly forbidden to fire flashbangs and teargas directly at a crowd.


Necessary? How threatening is a woman in her early 20s? Not. That's how much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMk ... r_embedded
Again, uneccessary pepper spraying of a non-violent crowd.
When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

What has happened in the U.S. since 1999? Highly militarized police forces. Since around 1999 vendors have been pushing ridiculous technology and weapons on police agencies in the U.S.
Since when do police need tanks? Or low frequency sound weapons? WTF? Save that for the military.

The duty of police is to protect the public and enforce the law...not perform military precision strikes. What has gone wrong?

What will freak me right out is one day, the protesters are going to realize.... "holy s**t. we outnumber them 3 to 1."
Given the right circumstances, all hell could break loose.

[FirBirGir]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaruH5wZ ... r_embedded
This Iraqi war veteran went to the hospital with a ruptured spleen as a result of his beating on behalf of the police.
And for what?

Did you happen to see the fires in the background? That was a riot scene. The guy was ordered to get down and he defied the cop. Once he was down, the beating should have stopped. But up to that point, the cop did what he was supposed to do. There's no excuse for clubbing him after he was down though.

After dragging a woman away, police refuse to show their badge number (VERY illegal).

This may be illegal in Canada but not necessarily in the US, it depends on state and local laws. When someone is arrested, the arresting officer's name and badge number must be on the paperwork but if someone walks up to a cop on the street and demands his badge number, he may not have to provide it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjSWxbUS ... r_embedded
Seriously? Dever? LOL

Did you watch the entire newscast? I struggle with the idea that it's not possible to protest and not break laws. This all started when someone put up a tent knowing full well that he couldn't. When the cops told him to take it down, he refused and the crowd started in on the cops. That's several laws broken in a matter of minutes. Willfully breaking the law will get you arrested. Crowds that are turning into mobs get dispersed against their will.

And when did this turn into an anti-police thing? Are they protesting politics or the police? Why would you protest politics by breaking the law and inciting the police?

[FirBirGir]

Guidance counselors and college recruiters along with parents should be preparing young adults for the real world. There should a mandatory college course on life management...

Haha absolutely.

I remember being solicited by the Ministry of Education during college for a survey - they wanted to know how well high school had prepared me for the 'real world.'

Let's just say my review was less than stellar.

I'm right there with you. School was about possibiltiies and exploring your own head, not about preparing to leave the nest.

I knew full well coming out of school that life wasn't a bed of roses and I had to work and fight to make my way. I'm not sure if that was something my parents taught me or something I learned through the hard knocks. My first job paid $1.00 per hour with no overtime. I was happy to have that job even though it was tough, had long hours and dealing with manure all day long really sucked. But it taught me a lot, and what I thought was a hard job was that farmer's way of life. I did it for one summer, he did it every day of his life...

My second job paid $5.00 an hour when the minimum wage was $3.10 or something. By the time I completed college, I had a salary job with full benefits in a field not remotely related to my education. That's how life works most of the time...

What do you think would happen if someone walked up to a group of protestors complaining about a lack of jobs and offered them say $15/hour to clean the streets near the protest area? Do you think they would take it? The smart ones would, that's $30K a year. Certainly better than nothing. The not-so-smart ones would say that's not enough money to survive on and would not take it. How do you live on nothing? That reasoning always baffled me...

[hitchcockgreen]

Did you happen to see the fires in the background? That was a riot scene. The guy was ordered to get down and he defied the cop. Once he was down, the beating should have stopped. But up to that point, the cop did what he was supposed to do. There's no excuse for clubbing him after he was down though.

Preceisly. And that's all I need bring attention to.

This may be illegal in Canada but not necessarily in the US, it depends on state and local laws. When someone is arrested, the arresting officer's name and badge number must be on the paperwork but if someone walks up to a cop on the street and demands his badge number, he may not have to provide it.

Yes, it depends on the region.
It is at least the policy of the L.A. police, and I'm fairly certain it is the law in NYC.

Did you watch the entire newscast? I struggle with the idea that it's not possible to protest and not break laws. This all started when someone put up a tent knowing full well that he couldn't. When the cops told him to take it down, he refused and the crowd started in on the cops. That's several laws broken in a matter of minutes. Willfully breaking the law will get you arrested. Crowds that are turning into mobs get dispersed against their will.

And when did this turn into an anti-police thing? Are they protesting politics or the police? Why would you protest politics by breaking the law and inciting the police?

I did watch the whole thing. I just thought it was funny it happened in Denver.

As for becoming an anti-police thing, well that would depend. First of all, breaking a by-law is small potatoes. In most cases this is what is happening, but certainly not every case. Secondly, the only instances in which police are being protested are in reaction to brutality, which is far more widespread and documented than the small sampling of videos I linked to.
Then you find out things like the NYPD hire themselves out privately, as on-duty police. Or that they are taking private "donations" of literally billions of dollars from corporations. Private sponsorships for police forces? Are you kidding me?

It "became" about the police when the police showed they were corrupt.
Videos I didn't link here but could have:

Police on horseback running down protesters.
Police on motorcycles running down protesters.
Police in cars running down protesters.

The spirit of the movement is about corruption. While the main targets are corporations/banks that have too much control and influence in politics, it is not limited to that.
The kind of forced media blackouts and brutality against elderly, pregnant, and otherwise peaceful protesters looks like Syria, not America.

http://www.motherboard.tv/2011/11/18/wh ... -and-found

[Blunt Force Trauma]

While the videos are disturbing, I find it almost amusing we get so distressed over them.

If this was 90% of the other countries in the world, the police would have racked up several dozens deaths and hundreds of serious injuries by now.

[BZROM]

Every single day the United States inches closer to becoming a subservient police state.

[FirBirGir]

Unfortunately, corruption is everywhere and no organization is immune to it. I can make a prediction that any OWS created/backed organization will sooner than later be hit with a corruption scandal. The fuel for corruption is weak people that are willing to compromise morals for the quick dollar. Where there's money, there's corruption.

The tools to battle corruption are monitoring and enforcement of rules. Of course, rules only apply to everyone other than those writing them. Do the public officials get special consideration not available to the general public? In the US, any Senator or Congressmen that serves any length of time receives a full pension regardless of total income. So we're paying 100% pensions to millionaires...

Did you read anything about some purported factioning within NY OWS about the money and the "general session" leadership? Apparantly some feel that a "1% of the 99%" are trying to call the shots and aren't representing everyone. Seems logical that this could happen since OWS represents a microcosm of society and classes form whether people like it or not. I'll have to dig up the news article I read yesterday.

[FirBirGir]

This is an interesting article. It sounds right leaning but was written by democratic political strategist

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/c ... street-can

In summary, the author is saying that the general public can relate better with the Tea Party than the OWS movement based on polling data. The author seems worried that OWS will hurt the democratic candidates in 2012 if they openly embrace OWS given people's uncertainty about their motivations and goals.

While I can understand his concern, I'm not sure if this will really make any difference in the end. The one demographic that may not turn out for Obama is the 18-25ers but elections were won and lost without them in the past. The incumbent has the advantage if he isn't a total idiot and it takes a lot to unseat one but there is a lot of volatility right now, OWS being just one of many. As with the Tea Party, it will take a long time to significantly influence politics.

Eddy

[Blunt Force Trauma]

More revenge.

[hitchcockgreen]

Lol I've seen that picture before but I'm not sure where or when it was taken.

Uplink from the tundra

[FirBirGir]

lol, one way to give the cops a DNA sample... Too bad we don't have a pic 5 minutes later when the cops find this guy passed out on the sidewalk with his pants still down...

[Sno]

What we see here is a bunch of lunatics from both sides of the political spectrum misinterpreting their rights. There are some matters that need to be addressed with police behavior in the above videos just as much as the "innocent" protestors being disobedient or defying public safety. Too many idiots these days take the 1st Amendment to have a literal meaning of "I can do and say whatever I want." These people are the idiots we see causing havoc at OWS, these are the idiots that don't realize that freedom is not absolute. If freedom was absolute, Nancy Pelosi would be getting nailed by a horse at OWS with the excuse that it's public affection and the life cycle of mammals.

[BZROM]

What we see here is a bunch of lunatics from both sides of the political spectrum misinterpreting their rights.

+1

[hitchcockgreen]

Agreed. There are lunatics on both sides. There always will be.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... treet.html

What astounds me most, I think, is that it's illegal to film the police in most states. That's incredible.

[FirBirGir]

We get these types of proposals (unsolicited of course) at work all the time. We inform the source of the proposals that we do not accept proposals except when requested from contracted sources.

Any company can get trapped by someone or some company sending an absurd proposal to a company then leaking the proposal to the media. Now the company has to defend itself on something it had nothing to do with. I'm surprised that MSNBC didn't take a moment to editorialize that this media/research/lobbyist company was trying to cash in on OWS. Instead, they focused on ABA...

Eddy

[BZROM]

What astounds me most, I think, is that it's illegal to film the police in most states. That's incredible.

I reiterate

Every single day the United States inches closer to becoming a subservient police state.

[BZROM]

Police on administrative leave after for peppering protesters.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/20/us/califo ... l?on.cnn=1