Evicted Occupiers on NPR
Nov. 15th, 2011 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameI just read an NPR piece that popped up in my facebook feed, about the Occupy Wall Street people getting evicted from the park in NYC. As NPR is somewhere between a non-biased and a very liberal source, depending on the particular writer and the given reader's perspective, I figured it was a safe bet to try to read their description in an effort to relate and understand where the protesters are coming from. From the statuses and videos I was seeing from other facebookers and on tumblr, I was anticipating some serious injustice that would make me angry.
This is the piece, fyi - http://www.npr.org/2011/11/15/142333918/wall-street-protesters-ousted-from-zuccotti-park?sc=fb&cc=fp
I'm sorry, though, I just...don't get it. The city's let them be there for 2 months and is just asking them to get out of there long enough to clean the park and then they can come right back. The city has been ignoring groups of local residents and business owners who want the protesters out, even though those residents and owners have just as much right to a say as the protesters do. I understand people are angry about police brutality in the face of a peaceful protest, but what else are police supposed to do when they won't move their damn bodies out of the fucking way until "brute force" is used??
I've never been involved in a protest, let alone an ongoing one, so maybe I'm missing something about how the movement is weakened by taking a break for them to clean the park, but from where I'm sitting it seems pretty plausible that the place is getting gross after two months with no sanitation workers and a serious crowd gathered. Most of the protesters come and go individually ANYWAY. Obviously if the city were saying "this protest is over!!" and people refused to leave, that could be a very powerful thing, send a message, whatever. But standing around getting pepper sprayed and arrested and posting about it, rather than doing something else for one day in cooperation with a city that has totally cooperated with you, and then swooping back in for another couple of months seems...pointless, to me. Theatrical.
Blah.
Note - I may still be feeling irked against protesters in general, in the immediate wake of seeing Penn State people burn things, overturn cars and scream in the streets on camera because someone was fired for protecting a child rapist and it interfered with their football. That is not really similar to what the OWS people are doing on any level, it was just dumbfounding in and of itself.
This is the piece, fyi - http://www.npr.org/2011/11/15/142333918/wall-street-protesters-ousted-from-zuccotti-park?sc=fb&cc=fp
I'm sorry, though, I just...don't get it. The city's let them be there for 2 months and is just asking them to get out of there long enough to clean the park and then they can come right back. The city has been ignoring groups of local residents and business owners who want the protesters out, even though those residents and owners have just as much right to a say as the protesters do. I understand people are angry about police brutality in the face of a peaceful protest, but what else are police supposed to do when they won't move their damn bodies out of the fucking way until "brute force" is used??
I've never been involved in a protest, let alone an ongoing one, so maybe I'm missing something about how the movement is weakened by taking a break for them to clean the park, but from where I'm sitting it seems pretty plausible that the place is getting gross after two months with no sanitation workers and a serious crowd gathered. Most of the protesters come and go individually ANYWAY. Obviously if the city were saying "this protest is over!!" and people refused to leave, that could be a very powerful thing, send a message, whatever. But standing around getting pepper sprayed and arrested and posting about it, rather than doing something else for one day in cooperation with a city that has totally cooperated with you, and then swooping back in for another couple of months seems...pointless, to me. Theatrical.
Blah.
Note - I may still be feeling irked against protesters in general, in the immediate wake of seeing Penn State people burn things, overturn cars and scream in the streets on camera because someone was fired for protecting a child rapist and it interfered with their football. That is not really similar to what the OWS people are doing on any level, it was just dumbfounding in and of itself.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 03:32 pm (UTC)I have no love for people rioting to defend enablers of child abuse in Pennsylvania, but this is not the same thing. We were down there on Saturday to give our homeschooled son a living civics lesson. Yeah, the camp was a little ripe, but the people were peaceful and the city's response is entirely disproportionate.
These protesters are disorganized and arguably not as effective as their predecessors from the 1960s, but this is still America, and they have the right to petition for redress, and that is what they are doing. Peacefully. I can't do anything other than support people in the peaceful exercise of their constitutional rights. Even if they smell. (And maybe they wouldn't smell so bad if the city had provided portapots on site, instead of three blocks away. But they aren't trying to make it easy for them to stay. They want conditions to suck so people give up and go home.)
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 04:36 pm (UTC)This is a health hazard and all by itself is enough reason to roust them at 2am when they will be surprised and easy to move. Otherwise this is going to turn into Occupy the Oregon Trail.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:15 pm (UTC)Is the city preventing the OWS folks from renting portapots? Or is the city supposed to subsidize this? And if so, are they to subsidize every protest in the same way? What should the money be taken from? Already cities are having to reallocate public safety personnel. And not for a 4 hour march, but rather, there are neighborhoods that now have less access to police because of the OWS folks.
Seems to me in that respect the OWS folks are very much like the Wall Street straw man they're protesting against. "Give us ours, screw you."
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:38 pm (UTC)and taking tax dollars from locals to buy stuff for non-locals who are being incredibly disrespectful of the public space they have uncivilly co-opted is a bigger civil rights infringement than ows having to use some of their 750k+ in donation cash on portapotties.
speaking of, you are aware they have money? so why do you have no expectation that ows will behave as a concert would and come off their own cash for amenities like security and portapotties?
why do they get to keep their own money and spend other people's?
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 07:04 pm (UTC)Look, I'm done. It's gotten a little to nasty in here for me. I don't think these people are perfect, or even particularly wonderful. But I do think that infringing *anyone's* constitutional rights sets a horrible precedent, one that has been set far too many times since 9-11. (4th Amendment, anyone?) I am very concerned with the great increase in police power and erosion of civil rights that has come after 9-11, and I've said my peace. I'm not looking to convert you or anyone else. I just think what is happening on the streets in NYC and other places is cause for concern, and that, especially given the announced intention of OWS to disrupt the city on Thursday, the claims that this was motivated by health hazards are pretextual. The timing is entirely too convenient, and the issue could have been handled in other ways. That's it.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 07:14 pm (UTC)once again, it wasn't a choice between portapotties and cops. having a portapot does not replace cops. i don't even understand how you are getting there mentally, it makes no sense at all.
also once again, ows has its own money, why do you not want them to spend it on portapots and insist the city pony up? people obviously donated for 'expenses', of which portapots would be such.
i literally do not understand your reasoning, because it doesn't really seem to focus on facts at hand, like ows having plenty of money to solve the hygiene issues if they wanted to.
also how is ows keeping people from sleep (sleep deprivation is form of torture), committing petty larceny and vandalism at local businesses, and leaving a privately owned park a big mess (it's privately owned, so the city doesn't have the obligations you assign to it from a legal standpoint, anyhow) somehow not getting all up in a lot of other peoples' civil rights?
the zucotti folks are infringing on a lot of people rudely and illegally to boot. their constitutional rights have not been curtailed. they have protested for weeks on end. there is absolutely nothing in this situation that is remotely equivalent to things like the TSA gropefests.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 07:30 pm (UTC)I'm not sure of the legalities as to the park as private/public, I think it is open to debate and suspect if it was as clear cut as you imply, they would have been ousted long ago.
Is a protest not peaceful because some people involved are commiting crimes? People are standing around holding up signs, not throwing rocks at the cops. That's what I'm referring to. I do not deny that there are individual problems there, and individuals who have engaged in violence and those perpetrators could and should have been addressed on an individual basis by NYPD. Arrest rapists and theives and drug dealers. That's legitimate police action. Stealing people's blankets, IMHO, not so much.
I thank you for the respectful dialog, but real life is calling. And I'm sure Tina is sick of all the emails, LOL. Peace.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 07:56 pm (UTC)If you want to debate something facts are useful things to have.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 08:03 pm (UTC)"Because Zuccotti Park is not a publicly owned space, it is not subject to ordinary public park curfew. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on September 28, 2011, that the NYPD could not bar protesters from Zuccotti Park since it is a public plaza that is required to stay open 24 hours a day. "In building this plaza, there was an agreement it be open 24 hours a day," Kelly said. "The owners have put out regulations [about what's allowed in park]. The owners will have to come in and direct people not to do certain things." "
I'm perfectly aware of the fact that the property is technically privately owned, but has been contractually pledged for public use. Which renders it a bit neither fish nor fowl. In the absence of a court decison definitively addressing the issue, there are arguments to be made both ways. That's what I was saying. Presumanly if it were as black and white as you suggest, they would have been removed on day one. But thanks for being just as snide to me here as elsewhere. Done with you.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-16 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 10:23 pm (UTC)The space was not meant to be camped in. The space is not designated as a camping area, is not prepared or designed to *house* many people. Were this a homeless encampment, it would have been disrupted when it first began.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 07:28 pm (UTC)We have the right to peaceably assemble, yes. But that doesn't mean anywhere we want and for however long we wish. I cannot, for example, #OccupyPlannedParenthood if I disagree with family planning. And I cannot #OccupyYourLivingRoom if I'm jealous of your interior decorator.
I can't even #OccupyTheWhitehouse or #OccupyCongress though I am a citizen and have specific rights to be able to voice my grievance. I am limited in how I can express those grievances, in manner, time, and place.
These are important details.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 10:20 pm (UTC)Are you suggesting if the tax payers of the city had foot the bill for port a pots close to the protest that the protestors would have vacated the property without argument so it could be cleaned? But in the absence of proximal port a pots they were unwilling and so police were necessary to move them along? That seems bizarre.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:48 pm (UTC)I feel this way about people who work market hours.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 05:59 pm (UTC)they are getting whatever 'message' they have out about the 'cause' and also managing to silence the parade of suffering victims in the encampments.
it's actually quite similar to penn state, really.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:34 pm (UTC)there are plenty of reports in local news sources about victims being told not to report crimes to the police and to settle it in-house, where the assailant was then protected.
i specified national media for a reason. the national media is being favorable and not reporting the body lice and disease-resistant tuberculosis at some of the ows satellites, to name some additional egregious stuff. that sort of actual news reporting is being left to local media outlets, youtube and various bloggers. these latter categories are the real, uh, 99% of media and what they report is pretty different than the glossy, positive coverage from the 1% national media.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 07:14 pm (UTC)Look, I absolutely do not support silencing victims. But I also do not support police raids on peaceful protesters. Yes, there are undoubtedly some bad people in there, doing horrible things, and encouraging silence is sickening. Criminals should be arrested. But I can think that and still not like Mayor Bloomberg using the NYPD to steal people's blankets and tents and expose them to the elements. Not everyone in there is a criminal, and some people are there to get therir message out. It doesn't matter to me if I agree with their message or not. I support their exercise of their constitutional rights to speak, to assemble, and to seek redress from the government. I do not support violence on their part, or by NYPD.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-16 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-20 05:37 pm (UTC)