NYPD Dismantling Occupy Wall Street Encampment 933
First time accepted submitter Red_Chaos1 was the first to write with news that, as of around 06:30 UTC, the NYPD appears to have begun removing the encampment of Occupy Wall Street. At 06:34 UTC the Mayor's office issued a tweet declaring: "Occupants of Zuccotti should temporarily leave and remove tents and tarps. Protesters can return after the park is cleared." Around 07:15 UTC the first of several large dumpsters were deposited and the police began throwing tents and other debris into it. Reports also indicate that a Long Range Acoustic Device is on the premises. The police are using helicopters and physical barriers to prevent news coverage, but the Occupiers are streaming the events (alternative stream; #occupywallstreet on irc.indymedia.org is also rather active for those who don't fancy flash or twitter.) As of 09:15 or so, the situation according to those near NYC is that the park has more or less been cleared.
4th amendment issue? (Score:4, Interesting)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Throwing tents into dumpsters, without issuing a 'vacate or your property is forfeit' order seems like a clear violation to a non-lawyer.
Lawyers? Or have I simply missed something requiring the demonstrators to disperse?
Originally, there were some good points made. (Score:5, Interesting)
The protesters made some good points:
Chrony Capitalism coupled with inflation really has created a system where money comes out of the void, shoots to the top and by the very existence of that new money being created causes the money other people hold to decline in value.
Wall Street without a doubt orchestrated the creation of this system.
HOWEVER Wall Street people are the wrong ones to protest. Companies exist to make money by whatever means legal, and in some cases not legal. The bottom line is companies exist to make money. You invest in whatever company is most capable of doing that.
The problem lies in chronyism. A company that participates in chronyism isn't doing anything wrong, it's a means to an end in the companies goal of accumulating money. The corrupt government playing ball with chronies on the other hand IS doing something wrong.
Our government representatives are supposed to represent the people. When they begin to self-serve instead of serve the people they are doing something wrong.
By protesting Wall Street they're sending the message they don't want anyone to make money. If they were to "occupy the mall" instead and focus all of their energies and talent into figuring out the mechanics of every bribe, kick-back, vote trade, intimidation tactic, threat and dishonest move of every politician in Washington and create something akin to Wikipedia devoted specifically to those ends with as much evidence as possible we would be putting the real problem back in check. Unfortunately our three branch balance of power is out of balance, I blame the executive and legislative branches for pushing it out of balance and I blame the judicial branch for actively endorsing the shift in balance.
I don't get an actual feeling the OWSers are motived to fix things. I get a sense of "I'm fucking with you because I can" and I get the feeling they're pushing for a fascist communist/socialist shift. As with every large movement it's obviously not an across the board thing, but I do feel that it's the general consensus, and I'm also starting to suspect outside driving forces, in much the same way the Egyptian government had paid pro-government protesters to clash with the grass-roots protesters some time back. With the OWS crowd they wouldn't need more than a couple of key charismatic people placed in each camp.
In short theres a real problem that needs fixing, but I feel the motive of the protesters is to insert an agenda instead of actually fixing the problem.
Re:This seems to show the government doesn't care (Score:5, Interesting)
I've noticed that NYC has had the subtle guise of supporting them but selectively enforcing the law. Taking away the generators when it was *really* cold outside because they were a "fire hazard" was one of the standout things that comes to mind. I don't think anyone in the NYC government thought it would last as long as it already has and that these simple actions would break them.
Now that they're dismantling the camps, we'll have to wait and see whether or not the city will actually "let them back in" as they've said they will. Personally I doubt it, but the people who are organizing this thing seem to have their heads on straight.
Or if they do, I bet you the NYPD will make changes to the area to make it more inhospitable, and then "let them back in" to a much more highly controlled environment. I'm cynical as you can tell, because the government hasn't shown any kind of response that promotes trust.
Honestly, we haven't seen protests on this scale or for this duration since the Vietnam War. The difference is that we're in the age of social media - a time when any citizen can capture National Guard soldiers shooting at unarmed protestors, or police pepper spraying peaceful (but civilly disobedient) people. The city knows that it's walking a very fine line and if they take a misstep they're going to make things far, far worse for them.
I knew this would happen eventually at NYC - this didn't surprise me at all. What *did* surprise me was closing the airspace to news helicopters and shutting down all but 1 subway line as well as a major bridge. *That* honestly frightens me very much.
Yes, the bridges and subways are "choke points". They shut the bridges down after 9/11 similarly.
The amazing thing - and one of the reasons I'm so very appreciative to be in my mid-20s during the digital age - is that despite all traditional news media being cut out there's citizen journalists on the ground now recording video and streaming it live to the Internet.
I feel a paradoxically equal amount of pride and revulsion at being an American tonight.
There's been an increasing amount of attempt at regulating the internet, there are major internet "choke points" at telecom switching networks, and at ISPs, so I share your concern. I'm hoping the work going on into distributed DNS systems outside of governmental control get completed and grow to be robust and popular, which should help some -- but there isn't a good solution for "last mile" connectivity yet, and that will be the next major concern to try to figure out.
Re:good (Score:4, Interesting)
The Tea Party was smart and taken over the republican party.
Tea Party didn't just suddenly appear out of the blue - radicalization of Republican party has happened steadily over the last two decades (accelerating over the last one), so what you see today is just a new label slapped on top of the end result of this process.
Denying media to report what's happening - fail (Score:4, Interesting)
NYPD has some valid reasons to clean that park (as it is private and not everything happens by the book), but they totally drop the ball with trying to control it as much as possible - it is already crying out loud "dictatorship".
As for OWS - those people should understood that only protesting nothing will change - they have to get into politics at this moment. Two party system have failed US, because currently elites of both parties are drawn in lobby money and are constantly encycled by rich people. Even if someone like Obama wants really to do something (I'm not saying that he did or does), usually such initiatives are leveled with low level complaining. If it doesn't work, "unamerican", "socialist", etc. arguments comes up. You know how it works.
Re:repeating a tweet: if just, why 1am (Score:4, Interesting)
The USSR had a written constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech
As, in its way, does the US.
Technically the two are different. The US's version is negative: it doesn't guarantee freedom of speech at all but merely restricts the government's ability to restrict speech - in practice the definition of "speech" is arbitrarily restricted and the locations on which free speech can be practiced severely limited. The USSR's version is positive: it describes vaguely how freedom of speech is "guaranteed", i.e. through certain media and locations - procedures and rules to access these resources could be and were used to restrict speech and you didn't get to say what you wanted everywhere else.
In neither country can you say what you think where you want.
...but everyone knew...
Because the constitution had other Articles which limited the possible interpretations of those Articles describing freedoms. And there were laws between the constitution and the people which countered the more general interpretations of certain Articles in the constitution and everyone knew about them. But people in the US are not aware of the limits on their freedom. There's the difference.
The Party's power depended on legal ambiguity and the absence of accountability.
It's true that the system of voting in the USSR wasn't, "Choose n hundred equally impotent representatives who then ignore you and follow the will of the lobbyists already being imposed through unelected civil servants." But there were elections of government bodies at various levels throughout its existence.
terrible things would probably happen to you and those you loved
Stalin's been dead a while.
Re:Something not quite right (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems a bit excessive and somewhat dubious.
I don't want to Godwin this thread - however, it seems that the NYPD has seized the 5000+ book donated library, and thrown all those books in a dumpster.
Excessive is an understatement
No it wasn't (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither was nazi germany all that bad, as long as you weren't on the list. That is why such regimes can continue to exist, because the majority isn't on the list and it is very unhuman (but very human) to risk getting on a list for someone else who is on a list.
That is why real heroes, like the people of Urk (fairly strict christians who had no real love or hate for jews but disliked people telling them what to do with a passion) are so fucking rare. It takes balls of steels to risk your safety for someone else. The fast majority did not. Ich habe es nicht gewust really means, I spend all my time looking the other way so it wouldn't happen to me.
And the US has been caught out many many times recently and in the past in making people disappear. Check all the foreign detainment camps operated by the CIA. It is not even a secret anymore, except by those like you who choose to look the other way.
Re:repeating a tweet: if just, why 1am (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an action that is (i) probably going to be extremely effective at preventing quite a lot of people from assembling anywhere again for more than eight hours, and (ii) should make every Libertarian brain go splodey.They're going to be hard pressed to reconcile "Taser the Hippies" and "Personal Property is SACRED" if ever this little detail gets widespread attention.
Re:Something not quite right (Score:5, Interesting)
The main difference between China and the US is that the Chinese economy is growing.
The main difference between the Soviet Union and the US was that the SU had social security.
Re:only two choices - almost (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, my last big theory is that we have exactly one shot at a grand slam Dark Horse candidate, totally out of nowhere, to pummel Washington into smithereens. But only once. Then the outcasts will be livid and we'll see the final sweep into oppression.
But the last tool the Big Two use is they're all in 1 town, and they play the entire country on a Prisoner's Dilemma. And it worked for 50-100 years. But with the advent of the newest social media, if the entire country suddenly decides it has had enough, one last vote could sweep out absolutely everybody leaving the entire Washington machine speechless.
We'd need both the Pres and a Filibuster-Proof Congress. Then we'd have to work FAST. We'd only get a year (you better bet the Justice Dept would cheat and not let us have all four years!), but maybe we can fix 30 years of abuse.
Fix copyrights.
Fix patents.
Fix net neutrality
Fix police arrogance
Your choice of 20 more things.
Let there be loopholes!
Being funny for a moment, let's apply our Rapid Software Development to Law! Heh wanna get the Geek's revenge for all the version explaining we have to do?
Corp: "Haha we found a loophole so we're going to do This Evil Thing."
Fast Track Administration: "Oh. Nice 0day. Okay. Tomorrow is Patch Tuesday. It's 3PM. Better hope your execs are around to get it done because it won't be there tomorrow at 9am. K. Thx. Bye."
Use the "put the testing on the people" mentality we wail about into lawmaking. Think about it, an Administration that moves with blinding speed, getting more done in a year than the last century.
"Hi. We're Comcast. We're going to throttle torrents."
"Internet Law 2.01. Sudo No you're not. Go away. Next!"
"Hi. We're MPAA. We're going to throw those pirates in jail for copyright theft."
"Copyright Extension Act is repealed. Oh look, how many works are now in public domain! Disney, yes we know about the Mouse, here's a coupon."
But it only works ONCE.
Re:Something not quite right (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, clearly if they're not the very most abused people on earth, they have no right to complain about anything at all. So what''s your excuse?
Re:Something not quite right (Score:2, Interesting)
I notice that the analogous movement, the Tea Party hasn't had a problem playing within the rules.
The police didn't treat the teabaggers like a hostile force. Incidentally, how many dozens or hundreds of laws have the police broken since the protests started?
Re:Originally, there were some good points made. (Score:4, Interesting)
Once again, I don't watch TV, including Fox news. Okay, fine I watch South Park every week on the web, but, sure.
Yes, I do know and the first thing to recognize is that none of the definitions are universally recognized, especially fascism.
Here are my definitions of the words:
Fascism - compulsory submission to a philosophy - a very simple definition but it doesn't agree with the one on the Webster website.
Communism - the government is the only employer - this works at various scales
Socialism - the redistribution of resources within a group.
Fascism is bad. Communism and socialism can be good without fascism, unfortunately most movements towards the other two philosophies involve fascism under the pretense that everyone must participate for it to work, but at least it works for all.
An example of good communism: The historic Iroquois tribe. The tribe lived in their shared long houses, everyone hunted, cooked and fished for everyone, you did not for yourself that wasn't done for the tribe. You were free to get pissed off and leave, go loner or possibly join another tribe therefore participation was voluntary.
An example of good socialism: The Amish today. If your neighbors barn burns down you help to rebuild it. If you have nails but he doesn't you bring your nails, your other neighbor brings wood, and another brings horses to help pull the frame up. You don't have to help, but the others would do it for you and not helping sort of makes you look like an asshole.
An example of Bad socialism: Most US social programs that by the time the money gets through the IRS, the Treasury, the agency in question, the contractor, and the sub contractor my $100 in tax money pays $15 towards a grant to research the breeding habits of the woodchuck. [areddy.net]
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Something not quite right (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets try rephrasing that.
The main difference between the Soviet Union and the US was that the US (at the time) was an improving country, whereas the SU was content to stand still or even decline.
The main difference between the US and China today is that the China is an improving country, whereas the US is content to stand still or even decline.
The Soviet Union eventually became so rotten and decayed that it collapsed from within.
Re:Waste of Time (Score:4, Interesting)
Americans are completely and utterly blind to the mis-deeds of their politicians as well as the abuse of their rights by said politiciams
Not at all. Americans as individuals are mostly POWERLESS to do anything about the misdeeds.
About the only power they have is where they spend their money. And with modern cell phones - the citizens could be empowered.
1) The Armed forces over in Afghanistan are taking pictures of people and using facial recognition to ID people. You can't choose to deal/not deal with someone due to race/religion/sex but if they happen to to work for Gold-Man Sacks....
2) The cameras on portable devices can read UPC codes and hold SQL databases. Compare the UPC code to a database of policies of the firm that makes them - that way if your thing is "is there an active boycott" because you support unions - you can make a different choice or even select that product over others.
3) Note how the rich and powerful are wanting people to do "code enforcement" - the Texas citizen makes reports of illegal car parking as an example. Take the list of the donors to the political parties and encourage citizens to take the cell phones to the political donors properties and compare the condition of the home to the 800+ page 'building code violation' ordinances. (This one is more about showing how the politically connected get special treatment, finding fraud and abuse in the political donation system and pushing for campaign reform.)
#occupy impressions (Score:5, Interesting)
I had the opportunity of visiting occupy wall st. a couple of weeks ago for a couple of hours. I don't claim that this makes me some sort of deep expert, but I did get to see it and formed a few impressions.
First impressions were of Manhattan, which I had never visited before. Frankly, my impressions were that the place is a police state. I visited areas of Manhattan far away from #occupy, and there's pretty much a copy on ever street corner. There are also signs everywhere about how you are under video surveillance by the police. When I took the Staten Island Ferry into Battery Park, it was escorted by a literal gun boat. Now, I'm a Southern Boy, and I found myself thinking ... "okay, if I were in Beijing or even London, I wouldn't be surprised. But this is America! What the hell is going on in this place?" It seems to me that New Yorkers have traded there "eternal liberties" for "termporary safety", and they need to take them back.
So, I more or less wandered into #occupy without even knowing that that was where I was heading. Everyone could certainly tell that this old, fat, tired, bald guy with bad clothes was from out of town, but everybody was very courteous to me and eager to tell me about their particular issue(s). Emphasis on their particular and the (s), because there was not one, unified issue driving the place unless it was the feeling that "those in power aren't listening to us." I was approached by people whose primary concern was corporate power, tax reform, fracking, and gay rights in the hour or so I was there.
If I thought the police presence in Manhattan was over the top, around Zuchotti park it was completely over the top. I'm talking cops every ten feet, a portable observation tower with people-tracking radar ... you name it. But, here's the thing. So, near the kitchen, there's a sign that says, "X00 people have been arrested since #occupy began. There will be a meeting to discuss legal strategy at 8:00PM." And, 10 feet from the sign, and 20 feet from a cop, there's a couple of guys smoking pot right in front of God and everybody. Good old southern country boy that I am, all I can think is, "we at least closed the barn door when we did that!" I also wondered, were those umpteen-hundred protesters arrested being persecuted for "sticking it to the man", or were they arrested for smoking pot in front of a cop? Probably impossible to sort out.
So, I hung around for a while, sang a few Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie songs, grabbed a half-dozen copies of the "Occupy Wall Street Times", and left." All in all, an interesting experience, and the Occupy Wall Street Times might be worth something someday if this turns out to be the start of an "Arab Spring" kind of movement in the US (although I doubt it.)
Re:only two choices - almost (Score:4, Interesting)
It only works ONCE, because what you've just described is revolution, and revolution inevitably becomes tedious and annoying to pretty much everyone - including the revolutionaries themselves. Businesses larger than a sidewalk vendor can't cope with laws that change on a daily (or even a weekly) basis. It's terrible to say, but to a certain extent bad laws that are stable and can be worked around are generally preferable to volatile laws that constantly change in unpredictable ways.
The real key to reforming US politics is to reduce the power of parties to enforce discipline on their members, and reduce them to brand names that let voters know they're likely to be getting a certain bundle of beliefs, without the teeth to force them to support specific positions that go against the best interests of the specific people who elected them.
If you want to know when Congress really started to go down the shithole in recent years, look no further than the "one-vote win" policy that the Republican leadership in Congress began to aggressively follow sometime around the turn of the century -- the policy of suppressing debate, and crafting laws that compromised *just* enough to win by exactly one single vote, and nothing more.
I personally know at least one individual involved in the policy, and in retrospect even they've admitted (privately, years later) that it was misguided. It's something that might be tolerable in a crisis, but in the long run it actually works against the party in power because the disenfranchised 49% ends up being slightly different after every vote, and eventually you end up with a situation where the percentage of voters who regard themselves as "disenfranchised" starts to approach 60-70% (because people forget about the votes that were in favor of things they don't particularly care about, and vividly remember the votes of things they care about passionately). That's exactly what's happening today.
A good place to start the reform might be to look at how the internal power structure of the Senate differs from that of the House of Representatives. The Senate isn't perfect, but it does seem to be a tiny bit more resistant to blind partisan politics (statistically, a Senate Democrat and Republican from the same state are more likely to vote the same way than they are to vote with their party leadership). A good place to start might be allocating committee memberships and leadership via secret Condorcet balloting instead of having representatives elect one leader (almost inevitably and without exception, on party lines) who then proceeds to allocate memberships and leadership positions on equally rigid party lines (with occasional exceptions for "well-behaved" members of the other party). Maybe even throw a complete monkey wrench into the power process by picking a dozen representatives at random and giving them first choice at committee memberships, before anybody else is allowed to bid on them. You don't necessarily want to throw the process into complete upheaval, but rather ensure that at least one key position ends up statistically in the hands of someone would can use it to screw up the neat, orderly plans of the power establishment -- if only to enforce greater debate and compromise. I've come to believe that real debate in congress in a good, healthy thing, and attempts to suppress it by *either* party are bad.
Re:Something not quite right (Score:2, Interesting)
Compare the number of shootings at OWS and the Tea Party and get back to us.
As the lady on The Daily Show yesterday said (Score:3, Interesting)
You Americans need to go Occupy Capitol Hill. Use your freaking guns, the second amendment is there for a reason they won't listen to you sitting in a park, all over the place, in every city I've heard of you'll get moved out and arrested for your peaceful protesting. Don't move, chain yourself down, make a barrier, provoke an attack and counter.
You guys are pussies really when it comes down to protesting. The PD's will use their less-than-lethal weapons on you and you let it happen. As clearly demonstrated, there is no political willpower to change anything, there is no interest from the commercial space to improve your situation. All they care about is when you will move out and in the mean time they'll just vote into law who goes into the Baseball Hall of Fame or whether God should appear on the dollar bill (literally, that's what Republicans are voting on).
Re:Waste of Time (Score:5, Interesting)
"Americans are completely and utterly blind to the mis-deeds of their politicians as well as the abuse of their rights by said politiciams."(sic)
Yes that is why the new coverage is filled about protesters on both sides Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. And whenever a politician is caught breaking the law it is posted everywhere.
Ever sense the Nixon Administration the Americans have became obsesses with the mis-deeds of their politicians. Just check out a liberal news source and a conservative new source and you get a good portion of the misdeeds that are done.
The problem isn't as much that we are blind, we are just overexposed and have a hard time really knowing the difference between a president having an extra marital affair or authorizing an illegal wiretap.
The problem is about 50% of the population has below average intelligence, and they are getting more and more information crammed into their heads and a lot of people cannot or don't want to stop the see the big picture and hop onto a small number of sources as the absolute truth while the rest if gives a conflicting message is seen as an utter lie. Debating a middle ground will often get you places as being one of those nazi right winger conservative bible thumping republicans, or those communist left wingers liberal hippy democrats. Just because they will not open their minds to understand both view points and really step back and see their good points and their bad ones.
Re:Something not quite right (Score:2, Interesting)