Occupy Wall Street Evicted from Zuccotti Park, But Human Community Deepens

Make a good Onion article, Norman.  Next time I get an appeal from the Met Opera for donations, I'm going to tell them to get it from the 1% who rules their city.   And I'll not visit their storm trooper city to dump any money on dinner and a show, either.  I'll still contribute to America which I consider to be an outpost behind enemy lines.

Occupy Wall Street is not above the law.   Protesting is a free speech right.  But "Occupying"  public or private land however is not a right and OWS tactics have not been  non-violent as has been demonstrated by OWS's numerous forceful disruptions of traffic impacting the lgeneral public and OWS's numerous clashes with the police and arrests in the hundreds.   If anything Mayor Bloomberg  has been too patient in tolerating the numerous illegal actions intentionally caused as an attention getting tactic by the OWS movement.  These disruptions to the general public had to stop.  The OWS movement has become a public menance in New York and many other cities. 

And OWS in Nerw York is planning further mass disruptions impacting the general public.  OWS is mobilizing to disrupt public transporation, by blocking access to the subways thereby preventing very ordinary people from getting to work, school and therir doctor's appointments and back to their home.  Subway riders are definately not the top 1% of income earners.  So why disrupt the lives of ordinary people who have no role in the class warfare power struggle that OWS is promoting?   This planned disruption is just another attention getting tactic by OWS without meaning or purpose.  OWS disruptions tactics on the public need to be stopped.  If need be send in the National Guard to restore public order.  OWS elitist are not above the law.

In more and more cities, the Occupy movement seems to be being taken over by radical elements. Their disrespect for others in their cities is turning them into the problem instead of a force for developing solutions.  They are hurting small businesses in many places, not millionaires. When they cleared the campers out of the park in Oakland, they hauled away more than 27 TONS of trash and had to launch a rat eradication program.  All of this is costing cities millions of dollars in police, medical, and sanitation overtime.  Is this the best use of public monies in cities dealing with serious problems? In DC, protestors have even used their own children as shields.  They claim to represent the 99%, but at this point they seem to be representing primarily a 1% fringe movement  of a mishmash of groups and no longer  can claim that they represent mainstream Americans any more than the Wall Street billionaires represent mainstream America. Even those who initially had some sympathy for their frustration are finding themselves turned off by what has happened.

 Joe Ferullo at ncronline gives a pretty good summary  - and nobody can accuse ncronline of being anything but ''progressive'.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/whats-next-occupy-movement

How much violence is due to radical elements and how much to agent provocateurs?  The  wall street criminals have evaporated trillions and crashed the world economy.  Any violence allegedly performed by a minority of protesters pales to insignificance compared to the acts of this unregulated, arrogant and corrupt power.  In the meantime, the majority of violence at the demonstrations has been conducted by our amazingly militarized police.

I'll be at Trenton next week protesting fracking.  Time to get involved.  The rest are sheep and can get sheared.

It's amusing to read the drumbeat of denunciation of the OWS Movement from those who know it the least-the drive-by commentators and those who watch it from their office window.  Their  focus has been on the drumming and perpetual worry about "when will the camping end?" It's not like their initial reaction on IAT was positive and then cooled considerably.

The OWS et al. is doing much more. Visit the website(s); visit a local gathering. I happen to think the NYC cops did them a favor because it IS true: it was time to bring more attention to the community projects they've begun than the tents.

"So why disrupt the lives of ordinary people who have no role in the class warfare power struggle that OWS is promoting?"

It is a good question as to who has a role. Does each person have to get layed off before they have a reason to get involved. This is a crisis which has been in the making for years. A financial culture which once championed humane management along with the profit motive has devolved to a culture which seeks profit without regard to its human affliction. About twenty years ago Arthur Ryan, the then Chairman of Chase Bank responded to his mutual fund manager's request that he raise the company's stock value, not by creative strategies but by simply laying off people and compelling employees to do double work. He then went on to Prudential and did the same. That culture has come to roost. It is a fatal mistake to see the OWS people as sloppy and violent. Better to take a closer look. These are young people who were thrust into a job market which greatly diminished their opportunities. These are not criminal. These are morally motivated people who seek justice. Naturally there are going to be some aberations. 

The move is to keep American working. Not to call in the National Guard to harass its own citizens. 

The move is to keep American working. 

Bill, specifically, how  is this movement creating more American jobs?

As 73% of those surveyed in the OWS movement in New York oppose the current president and his administration, do any here think they might organize a 3rd party movement with, say, someone like Kucinich, Nader, or Van Jones?

At Occupy Philly, they've actually gotten to the point of smearing feces on the walls.  I'm sure most of the people are well-meaning legitimate protestors, but we have laws about setting up tent cities in the middle of the sidewalk, or in a privately-owned park.  With the groups within the crowds who are fighting with police, damaging property, etc., something has to be done about it.

If they want to stand up for the 99%, they should first make sure that they're not providing cover for criminals and hooligans, and then they should consider doing something that doesn't make life even more difficult for average working Americans, small business owners, etc.

These demonstrations and the attendant excesses of some (or more probably agent provacateurs) would not be necessary if:

1.  Politicians were not owned by special interests
2.  The media was not wholly controlled by special interests (the only liberal media is Free Speech TV and Link TV supported by donations)
3.  Campaign reform removed big money from the electoral process
4. Scientific truths such as human-caused global warming and negative environmental effects of unregulated exploitation of resources were not suppressed.

As things are, this is the only avenue left for producing change.

Now, if someone rubbed feces on my house, I'd be really upset. But we have to put these things in perspective  Putting benzene in my drinking water is much, much worse.  I can wash the feces off my house wall and it will nourish my shrubs.  Benzene will not make anything healthy.  Benzene is a component of fracking chemicals pumped into the earth at a pressure of 1000 atmospheres.  Even if this is the pressure at a depth of 7500 feet, you still need 700 atmospheres of overpressure at the surface to provide this.