OCCUPY WALL STREET

[greeneyedgrrl]

Originally Posted by BstlMyhart

I do know there is are those in law enforcement that believe that brute force is always the answer...and they thrive on it. However, I do not have that mentality, nor do many of my co-workers nor the vast majority of the people in law enforcement in my area. There will always be those who go overboard, or want to, when it comes to using force. It is up to the rest of us to stop the culprit when it is out of order and not justified. Luckily, we have those in my facility who aren't afraid to step in and stop those actions when warranted. Ultimately, it falls on the shoulders of supervisors, higher ranking officers, to maintain the humanity of law enforcement. That is the training needed at this point for the Occupy protests...find a better way to handle the situation at hand to do your job and do it effectively.
I have promoted through the ranks and am now a Lieutenant. I did not earn this because I can "kick ass" if need be. I earned it because I use the most important muscle in my aresonal first...my brain.
The tide is changing...it still needs encouragement to continue to do so.
And yes there is fear on our part...as I said, WE want to go home at the end of our shift safe. I have been trained how to maintain my selfcontrol when in fear for my life without severly hurting or killing anyone...I believe anyone can.

it sounds like you know more officers that think like you than not... and that is fantastic. i really hope that change is happening here as well; i have not seen it in my state, and i realize that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't taking place, it is just outside of my experience... i have had experiences with both pd and co in my state which has been mostly, not all, negative.

[SoNotHer]

BstlMyHart wrote - "I have promoted through the ranks and am now a Lieutenant. I did not earn this because I can "kick ass" if need be. I earned it because I use the most important muscle in my aresonal first...my brain. The tide is changing...it still needs encouragement to continue to do so. And yes there is fear on our part...as I said, WE want to go home at the end of our shift safe. I have been trained how to maintain my selfcontrol when in fear for my life without severly hurting or killing anyone...I believe anyone can."

This is the kind of wisdom and thinking that needs to accompany any position of power and force. Thank you for your post.

[BstlMyhart]

greeneyedgrrl writes--it sounds like you know more officers that think like you than not... and that is fantastic. i really hope that change is happening here as well; i have not seen it in my state, and i realize that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't taking place, it is just outside of my experience... i have had experiences with both pd and co in my state which has been mostly, not all, negative.

SoNotHer writes-This is the kind of wisdom and thinking that needs to accompany any position of power and force. Thank you for your post.



It boils down to respect. I get the behavior I expect by showing respect...and am respected back. Makes defusing a potentially bad situation in the facility much easier.

[Bard]

Originally Posted by BstlMyhart

thank you for speaking to this. while some of the officers may hold your view, i have talked to several officers in my state who have a different viewpoint... that seems to be that the ows are wasting everyone's time, money and energy and should go home and if they don't they deserve and should expect a violent smack down from the pd. i would love to believe that it is just a lack of training, but having known at least one of these officers (she is my cousin, unfortunately) i have to say that this is how she thought prior to becoming part of the police department. i believe that it goes much deeper than training, it is who the pd recruits, allows to wear a badge, it is the qualities and behaviors in the officers that are nurtured and encouraged. in cali (at least) it seems that officers that show a penchant for violence and power are promoted and rewarded. imho my cousin has NO business whatsoever wearing a badge and carrying a gun. her language is violent, angry and racist, she boasts about the power of her position, and quite frankly i am very glad that she lives some 400 miles away from me, but i know that there are many more out there like her. i know more officers like her. i also see from posts like yours that there are people in law enforcement who are not, and it gives me hope.

greeneyedgrrl



I do know there are those in law enforcement that believe that brute force is always the answer...and they thrive on it. However, I do not have that mentality, nor do many of my co-workers nor the vast majority of the people in law enforcement in my area. There will always be those who go overboard, or want to, when it comes to using force. It is up to the rest of us to stop the culprit when it is out of order and not justified. Luckily, we have those in my facility who aren't afraid to step in and stop those actions when warranted. Ultimately, it falls on the shoulders of supervisors, higher ranking officers, to maintain the humanity of law enforcement. That is the training needed at this point for the Occupy protests...find a better way to handle the situation at hand to do your job and do it effectively.
I have promoted through the ranks and am now a Lieutenant. I did not earn this because I can "kick ass" if need be. I earned it because I use the most important muscle in my aresonal first...my brain.
The tide is changing...it still needs encouragement to continue to do so.
And yes there is fear on our part...as I said, WE want to go home at the end of our shift safe. I have been trained how to maintain my selfcontrol when in fear for my life without severly hurting or killing anyone...I believe anyone can.

well put and better the I could have expressed it most in my department feel that way and honestly I have always known that I can get further with communication first and as a Corporal I try to lead with that in mind

[Ciaran]

Originally Posted by Diavolo

The church has no right after what they did to us in California. None. They have no right in America after they allowed the protests at the funerals of fallen soldiers. They lose the right to absolution from desecration in this country by their behavior.

Neither you nor anyone else in this "Occupy" movement has the right to judge, same as religious zealots do not have that right. Two sides of the same coin in my book and the coin looks rather tainted.

Originally Posted by Diavolo

When it's all said and done, St. Peter is going to look at these clowns and ask them why in the world they think they should be allowed past the pearly gates because they have not followed God's word.

How the **** do you know what St. Peter thinks?

[persiphone]

where i live the churches support the Occupy movement and have even offered to allow the protesters to camp in their parking lot. they even have erected signs in support of the uprising on the church lawns. we never hear anything along the lines of protesters = degenerate/protesters/mentally ill/homeless/etc/etc/etc/desecraters/blahblah.

i love when churchy people are actually acting like christians. just sayin.

[Ciaran]

Originally Posted by persiphone

where i live the churches support the Occupy movement and have even offered to allow the protesters to camp in their parking lot. they even have erected signs in support of the uprising on the church lawns. we never hear anything along the lines of protesters = degenerate/protesters/mentally ill/homeless/etc/etc/etc/desecraters/blahblah.

i love when churchy people are actually acting like christians. just sayin.

Your interpretation of "acting like christians" is different from mine. just sayin.

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by Ciaran

Your interpretation of "acting like christians" is different from mine. just sayin.

that's quite obvious

[Ebon]

This is an article about the Guy Fawkes masks that some of the people wear at the protest. The article is an interview with Alan Moore. The gentleman that wrote V for Vendetta which is where the mask is from.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...?newsfeed=true

The comic-book writer Alan Moore is not usually surprised when his creations find a life for themselves away from the printed page. Strips he penned in the 1980s and 90s have been fed through the Hollywood patty-maker, never to his great satisfaction, resulting in both critical hits and terrible flops; fads for T-shirts, badges and shouted slogans have emerged from characters and conceits he has dreamed up for titles such as Watchmen and From Hell. "I suppose I've gotten used to the fact," says the 58-year-old, "that some of my fictions percolate out into the material world."

But Moore has been caught off-guard in recent years, and particularly in 2011, by the inescapable presence of a certain mask being worn at protests around the world. A sallow, smirking likeness of Guy Fawkes – created by Moore and the artist David Lloyd for their 1982 series V for Vendetta. It has a confused lineage, this mask: the plastic replica that thousands of demonstrators have been wearing is actually a bit of tie-in merchandise from the film version of V for Vendetta, a Joel Silver production made (quite badly) in 2006. Nevertheless, at the disparate Occupy sit-ins this year – in New York, Moscow, Rio, Rome and elsewhere – as well as the repeated anti-government actions in Athens and the gatherings outside G20 and G8 conferences in London and L'Aquila in 2009, the V for Vendetta mask has been a fixture. Julian Assange recently stepped out wearing one, and last week there was a sort of official embalmment of the mask as a symbol of popular feeling when Shepard Fairey altered his famous "Hope" image of Barack Obama to portray a protester wearing one.

It all comes back to Moore – a private man with knotty greying hair and a magnificent beard, who prefers to live without an internet connection and who has not had a working telly for months "on an obscure point of principle" about the digital signal in his hometown of Northampton. He has never yet properly commented on the Vendetta mask phenomenon, and speaking on the phone from his home, Moore seems variously baffled, tickled, roused and quite pleased that his creation has become such a prominent emblem of modern activism.

"I suppose when I was writing V for Vendetta I would in my secret heart of hearts have thought: wouldn't it be great if these ideas actually made an impact? So when you start to see that idle fantasy intrude on the regular world… It's peculiar. It feels like a character I created 30 years ago has somehow escaped the realm of fiction."

V for Vendetta tells of a future Britain (actually 1997, nearly two decades into the future when Moore wrote it) under the heel of a dictatorship. The population are depressed and doing little to help themselves. Enter Evey, an orphan, and V, a costumed vigilante who takes an interest in her. Over 38 chapters, each titled with a word beginning with "V", we follow the brutal, loquacious antihero and his apprentice as they torment the ruling powers with acts of violent resistance. Throughout, V wears a mask that he never removes: bleached skin and rosy cheeks, pencil beard, eyes half shut above an inscrutable grin. You've probably come to know it well.

"That smile is so haunting," says Moore. "I tried to use the cryptic nature of it to dramatic effect. We could show a picture of the character just standing there, silently, with an expression that could have been pleasant, breezy or more sinister." As well as the mask, Occupy protesters have taken up as a marrying slogan "We are the 99%"; a reference, originally, to American dissatisfaction with the richest 1% of the US population having such vast control over the country. "And when you've got a sea of V masks, I suppose it makes the protesters appear to be almost a single organism – this "99%" we hear so much about. That in itself is formidable. I can see why the protesters have taken to it."

Above is only part of the article. Check out the link if you want to read the whole thing.

[Ebon]

Originally Posted by persiphone

where i live the churches support the Occupy movement and have even offered to allow the protesters to camp in their parking lot. they even have erected signs in support of the uprising on the church lawns. we never hear anything along the lines of protesters = degenerate/protesters/mentally ill/homeless/etc/etc/etc/desecraters/blahblah.

i love when churchy people are actually acting like christians. just sayin.

It seems that quite often people forget about the Christ part of their Christianity. This is really cool to hear.

[Ebon]

US Senate To Vote On Bill That Will Allow The Military To Arrest Americans On American Soil And Hold Them Indefinitely

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11...-indefinitely/

Since Occupy Wall Street began, American police officers have arrested thousands of people for exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest. On Monday or Tuesday, the US Senate will vote on a bill that would give the President the ability to order the military to arrest and imprison American citizens anywhere in the world for an indefinite period of time.

A provision of S. 1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act bill, written by Senators John McCain and Carl Levin, declares American soil a battlefield and allows the President and all future Chief Executives to order the military to arrest and detain American citizens, innocent or not, without charge or trial. In other words, if this bill passes and the President signs it, OWS protesters or any American could end up arrested and indefinitely locked up by the military without the guaranteed right to due process or a speedy trial.

[SoNotHer]

Are you kidding me? WTF

Originally Posted by Ebon

US Senate To Vote On Bill That Will Allow The Military To Arrest Americans On American Soil And Hold Them Indefinitely

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11...-indefinitely/

[greeneyedgrrl]

if this is true...this seems to me to be the first phase of a civil war, with only one side is armed to the hilt with weapons while the other is not, this concerns me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ackdown-occupy

http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/ent...ccupy_attacks/

[Ebon]

Originally Posted by greeneyedgrrl

if this is true...this seems to me to be the first phase of a civil war, with only one side is armed to the hilt with weapons while the other is not, this concerns me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ackdown-occupy

http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/ent...ccupy_attacks/

Come to Texas. You can buy any arms you need and support local business all at the same time.

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by Ebon

It seems that quite often people forget about the Christ part of their Christianity. This is really cool to hear.

if i believed in such things i'd agree with you. i think the idea of a jesus is as bizarre as adam and eve, virgin moms, resurrections, talking snakes, and parting an ocean with a stick. however, the "message" of christianity is to love thy brother. and i'm pretty sure "jesus" was quoted in the bible speaking out against wealth. if i really gave a shit i could look it up. nope...too lazy. neener.

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by SoNotHer

Are you kidding me? WTF

c'mon.....this isn't really a surprise, is it? told ya...the infrastructure is in place. i mean, they don't make any bones about it and it's obvious (at least to me) what the temperature is on this issue in the white house. this comes on the heels of that other horrid bill about limiting internet access.

[greeneyedgrrl]

Originally Posted by Ebon

Come to Texas. You can buy any arms you need and support local business all at the same time.

uuum... thanks, but no. i'm not a fan of guns... they make it too easy for people to kill people instead of problem solving. if i had my way guns would be made into something useful... like planters.

[SoNotHer]

And of course we are talking about rectal temperature taking...

Thank you for bringing up the internet bill. Folks should be focusing on it -

http://americancensorship.org/

Originally Posted by persiphone

c'mon.....this isn't really a surprise, is it? told ya...the infrastructure is in place. i mean, they don't make any bones about it and it's obvious (at least to me) what the temperature is on this isuue in the white house. this comes on the heels of that other horrid bill about limiting internet access.

[Toughy]

One of the things I am most thankful for has to do with my nephew. He is a NM State Policeman and has been for about 10 years. He is no longer a patrol officer.....thank all powers to be.....he is a detective which means he investigates crimes. He is no longer stopping cars on deserted highways with crappy training.

What I know about cops is this: every single cop is inadequately trained in every area.....but particularly in de-escalation techniques.....it's way to easy to do pepper spray and taser rather than talk......it's way to easy to be a cop/prison guard.

by the way.....tazer kills people every year.....it is not a non-lethal deterrent method and cops should never be told nor trained as if it is non-lethal.....

in my day we talked to the cops and told them when we would be doing arrest worthy acts....the sit-in's at UCDavis are classic examples.....you cuff them and take them away......you NEVER EVER NEVER use military grade (which is what has been used in all cases) pepper spray on non-violent protestors risking arrest.....this is not the 60's....

[persiphone]

China is ripe for its own Occupy protests
Occupy Wall Street protests have not spread to China, but Beijing's crackdown on media coverage and Internet activity related to OWS isn't surprising. What's less predictable are ways that Occupy protests could shake up China’s internal politics, especially among neo-Maoists.

By Daniel K. Gardner / November 8, 2011


Occupy Wall Street protests have not spread to the People’s Republic of China. But word of the protests has, and the Chinese authorities are trying to figure out how to respond.


Their reactions have run the gamut: from gloating denunciations of American capitalism, to a crackdown on all media coverage of Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Of course, there is no real surprise in this sequence of responses. More interesting, and less predictable, are the ways in which the Occupy Wall Street protests could substantively shape China’s internal politics.

In the early days of the OWS movement, when protests were confined to US cities, a China Daily OpEd (Sept. 30) harshly attacked the American media for journalistic hypocrisy, for not giving coverage to protests in their own country even as they had relished covering protests in the Arab world just a few months earlier. A couple weeks later, state-run Xinhua News was harsher still, arguing that the protests in New York's Zuccotti Park “laid bare malpractices of the US government and ailments of its political and economic systems.”


But as the Occupy movement spread globally, the Chinese response shifted. Assault on the silence of the American press gave way to anxiety about the possible effects Chinese media coverage might have on their Chinese audience.

On Oct. 17, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, after remarking that the issues raised by OWS may be “worth pondering,” cautioned the Chinese media, saying that their “reflections should be conducive to maintaining the sound and steady development of the world economy.” On the same day, editors of the Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times called for people to “calmly observe the protest movement and the global situation, and not be confused by extreme points of view.”

A few days later, on Oct. 19 and 20, Beijing authorities – setting aside any ambivalence they might have had about the Occupy movement – issued an order to the Chinese media to cease all reporting and commenting on the OWS movement.

What happened? Perhaps Beijing had examined the numbers in the intervening three days, and been reminded that as high as the income gap in the United States is, China’s income and wealth inequality is right up there as well, even higher according to some estimates. Or perhaps recognition had set in that China’s elite 1 percent just might – like America’s 1 percent elite – be open to charges of greed and corruption.

Given, too, that 36 percent of the Chinese people (that’s 481 million people) live on $2 a day or less, the Beijing leadership might have become worried that the Chinese would not remain as “calm” in the face of news about the US protests as the Global Times might wish.

Cyberspace censorship quickly followed after the media gag order. Searches for “Occupy Wall Street” and, more pointedly, for “Occupy Beijing,” “Occupy Shanghai,” “Occupy Guangzhou,” “Occupy Zhongnanhai,” and “Occupy Lhasa,” among a growing list of banned terms, now yield blank screens on microblogging sites like Sina Weibo (China’s version of Twitter).


Such a crackdown was predictable. Since the Arab Spring uprisings, the Chinese leadership, vigilant about any signs of civil unrest at home, has been aggressive in promoting the “harmonious society” that is the Community Party’s mantra.

But tensions in the ruling Chinese Communist Party have surfaced in recent years. New Leftists, sometime called New Maoists, have become more voluble about the widening gulf between rich and poor; corporate and official collusion; the state’s inattentiveness to the needs of the elderly, the infirm, and the impoverished; and the rise in “mass incidents” of protest against official corruption. It is time, the New Leftists suggest, to put the brakes on the liberal reform experiment launched in the post-Mao era by Deng Xiaoping. It is time to resurrect the revolutionary, egalitarian spirit of Chairman Mao.


Will the message or spirit of the Occupy Wall Street protests resonate with China’s 99-percenters and give momentum to China’s New Maoist agenda? OWS has already produced small demonstrations in nearby Hong Kong and Taiwan. If OWS endures and expands its reach to mainland China, savvy politician Bo Xilai, party chief of Chongqing municipality in China’s southwest, would likely have much to gain. The leading figure and public face of the New Maoists, Bo is angling – some would say campaigning – to win a position on the all-powerful nine-member Standing Committee of the Politburo in 2012.

Described as “handsome,” “outgoing,” and “Kennedy-esque,” Mr. Bo has made a name for himself as an activist party chief – even as he has ruffled feathers along the way. He launched a popular campaign targeting organized crime and official corruption in 2009. He also sponsored low-income housing projects and welfare programs for the working class and the poor in Chongqing. This summer, he inaugurated the Red Culture Movement, calling for a renaissance of the revolutionary spirit embodied by Chairman Mao.


Residents of Chongqing are encouraged to come together in parks and stadiums to sing “red songs” – songs extolling the achievements of Mao and the Chinese Communist Party – and to watch the revolutionary dramas that have replaced the soap operas on Chongqing TV. With such efforts, charismatic Bo has struck a strong populist chord in Chongqing and beyond.

But winning acclaim from the people and winning a place on the Standing Committee of the Politburo are two different matters. Bo’s flamboyant style is at odds with the staid style of present members of the Standing Committee (which in a process lacking any transparency will select the replacements for those retiring from the Standing Committee next year).

His support for a more tightly state-controlled economy is at odds with the more liberal state capitalism now in vogue. And his Maoist rhetoric is at odds with the liberal reform rhetoric embraced by the Chinese leadership for the past decade, and especially by current Premier Wen Jiabao. Bo’s words and actions have conjured up, at least for some, the specter of a return to Cultural Revolution days.



Still, in the words of the press, Bo is a “political rock star.” Excluding him from the Standing Committee may be difficult. But should China’s 99-percenters awaken to the call of Occupy Wall Street and coalesce around the movement, excluding Bo from the Standing Committee mix would be more than difficult – it would simply be too risky, even for China’s authoritarian ruling party.