Pepper-Spray by a Cruel and Cowardly NYC Cop

[Intense]

Intense, but was the intent in the march to do stuff to get intentionally arrested like these folks were on Wall Street? They advertised that by the way.... if you went for a peaceful march you likely did just that..and your march likely had all permits needed and police protection to boot..they didn't do that..and they went to cause trouble, they found it.

Protesting, I've not been arrested. Blockading, that was the intention. Strong Emphasis on Non-Violent Civil Disobedience. I have Witnessed Non-Protesters being targeted and arrested, as a strategy to disrupt the Protest. I had 2 members of my group, lassoed by Ranchers and dragged.

 

[Xchel]

Civil disobedience isn't really legal...most folks realize that..and realize they can be arrested and charged for that. Blockades violate other folks rights...I have problems with doing that...we shouldn't interfere with other people's rights to exert our own.

 

[Intense]

Civil disobedience isn't really legal...most folks realize that..and realize they can be arrested and charged for that. Blockades violate other folks rights...I have problems with doing that...we shouldn't interfere with other people's rights to exert our own.

From Locke, Madison, Jefferson, Thoreau, Gandhi, MLK, that was the point. When conviction dictates, violating minor Law, you take the chance, do the time, to serve your purpose, non-violently. With us, the intentional Arrests involved Diablo Canyon Nuke Plant, so it did not obstruct anything outside of the Plant, and it was either Blockading or Trespassing. Vandenberg AFB, Same, Same.

 

[Xchel]

but blockading and tresspassing can get you peppersprayed, arrested and if you resist arrest also get you charged with resisting as well as whatever other charge..as long as you recognize those are crimes and not freedoms we are ok....you can do the crime, if you are willing to do the time and have criminal convictions that is up to you.

 

[Intense]

but blockading and tresspassing can get you peppersprayed, arrested and if you resist arrest also get you charged with resisting as well as whatever other charge..as long as you recognize those are crimes and not freedoms we are ok....you can do the crime, if you are willing to do the time and have criminal convictions that is up to you.

We didn't resist arrest. Pepper Spray was not used then. It is not common to use it now. One time I had a hell of allot of guns pointed at me. One of those "Oh Shit, now You've done it moments." The whole concept of Non Violent Civil Disobedience, is rooted in knowing you are breaking the Law. We get it.

 

[Xchel]

yeah looking at guns never feels very good...It took me forever to get used to seeing fully automatic weapons in the hands of security guards here...I have gotten used to it and understand why they have them...but sometimes on occasion it still freaks me out.

 

[Oldstyle]

First of all I don't think you understand the necessity of the stock market and what it's function is. Without Wall Street corporations wouldn't have capital to invest and grow.

An exaggeration, but I grant the function of one tiny segment of Wall Street. However, over the past thirty years it has run out of control until most of what it does is exactly what I described: a shell game designed to part suckers from their money. The stock exchange is only a tiny fraction of what Wall Street does today.

As for the protesters? After looking at these people on video clip after video clip I'd be willing to wager a nice sum of money that most of them are not working at a normal job making wealth of any kind. They are part of a new "growth industry" here in America...the professional activist.

You're mistaken, but you can be forgiven for not understanding this, since most of its development has been invisible to anyone who doesn't frequent left-wing blog sites or discussion forums. What I'm seeing is the eruption into the analog world of something that's been building on the Internet and social media for years. These are mostly young people, and the number of people who are participating off the streets vastly dwarfs the number who are on the streets at any one time. But the movement has matured to the point that we are now seeing this sort of thing. We will see more of it. This is only the beginning.

In fact, this is a left-wing populist movement that is the mirror image of the Tea Party, only much bigger, and much younger, and much better organized. Something like 60 percent of the Millennial generation is at least sympathetic, and the number who are involved at least in organization and planning is enormous. In 2008 this movement helped put Obama in the White House. It's become discouraged with the Democrats, seeing them as corporate sellouts, and so is now turning to on-the-streets activism rather than relying just on electoral politics, and yet this is only toe-in-the-water stuff. It's the barest shadow of what's coming.

With all due respect, Dragon...it's hard to call a protest that can only come up with 150 people in a city of millions like New York a "populist movement".

It's my contention that the Millennium generation is completely discouraged because after being told by their liberally biased teachers and a liberally biased main stream media for eight years of the Bush Administration how evil conservatives were and how much better liberals would do if given the chance...they turned out in record numbers to elect the first black President of the United States...a poster child if you like, of everything they were led to believe this country needed. After three years of Barack Obama however the majority of those young people find their futures burdened by a now staggering Federal deficit with more on the way and jobs prospects that are frankly dismal because of the policies of the people they helped to elect. They are slowly coming to the conclusion that perhaps their Poly Sci professor didn't know what the heck he/she was talking about and that the main stream media's anti conservative slant led them to assume things that weren't true.

I'm curious as to what your so called "on the streets activism" is supposed to accomplish? You see I remember protesting as a young man in the early 70's against the "system". We were all convinced that things needed to change because they were in some way unfair but we never got around to coming up with what would work as a replacement for the system we wanted torn down. You see it's easy to say that what you have is bad but it's much more difficult to come up with viable alternatives. I don't think those kids protesting down near Wall Street have viable alternatives just as we didn't back in the 70's. I don't think they've thought past getting rid of what they see as "bad" to what they will replace the "bad" with.

 

[Dragon]

With all due respect, Dragon...it's hard to call a protest that can only come up with 150 people in a city of millions like New York a "populist movement".

As I said, most of it's invisible to you because its organization and connections are all on line. This is something that's been building, completely invisible to you, for years. It is only just now starting to emerge into visibility. What you see is only the barest thin end of the wedge. Watch what happens over the next six months to a year and I predict you'll have a much different opinion.

After three years of Barack Obama however the majority of those young people find their futures burdened by a now staggering Federal deficit with more on the way and jobs prospects that are frankly dismal because of the policies of the people they helped to elect.

They don't see it that way. This generation is overwhelmingly liberal. They are discouraged and upset with Obama, yes, but because he has been, in their view, too conservative. They want a single-payer system, he gave us reform that gives far too much to the health-insurance industry. They wanted a stimulus program big enough to jump-start the economy, he gave us a limp-wristed underpowered joke. They wanted a leveling of incomes and a restoration of the American dream, he's seen as being in the pocket of Wall Street almost as much as the Republicans.

I'm curious as to what your so called "on the streets activism" is supposed to accomplish?

What this is supposed to accomplish is to rock the boat enough to put genuine progressive solutions on the table. If we leave it up to the politicians in the two parties, we will be given a choice between a big-business-dominated and socially conservative party on the one hand, and a big-business-dominated and socially liberal party on the other. The American people in general, and the Millennial generation much more so, is to the left of the Democrats on economic issues (not all Democrats, but most of them) -- let alone the GOP. With choices like that, our democracy has become a sham.

This has happened before, for example during the Depression, when FDR, for all his rose-colored-glasses image among liberals today, was in reality no better than Obama, until popular movements -- thunder on the left -- pushed him to favor organized labor and to implement Social Security, two things he had been unwilling to do originally.

We are going to need more than what you're seeing at present to accomplish that today, but we'll have more.

 

[Xchel]

had it been so huge then there would have been more than 150 people show up for the protest..and they would not have been just online. The organization Adsense is in CANADA.

 

[Dragon]

had it been so huge then there would have been more than 150 people show up for the protest..and they would not have been just online. The organization Adsense is in CANADA.

There have been a lot more than 150 people show up for Occupy Wall Street.

If you aren't a follower of left-wing on-line activity, you can't see where the organization and impetus for this protest is coming from. It is NOT from a Canadian organization nor from any one single organization. Adsense may play a part, but it would be happening without Adsense. It's something that has come together from multiple sources, all of them under the mainstream media radar.

There is this huge online networking thing, a virtual movement you might say, that has literally millions of participants. What you see is only the tiny, tiny part of it that has begun to push itself into a space where the MSM has to take some notice. The protests in Wisconsin arose from the same network. There will be more.

 

[Oldstyle]

With all due respect, Dragon...it's hard to call a protest that can only come up with 150 people in a city of millions like New York a "populist movement".

As I said, most of it's invisible to you because its organization and connections are all on line. This is something that's been building, completely invisible to you, for years. It is only just now starting to emerge into visibility. What you see is only the barest thin end of the wedge. Watch what happens over the next six months to a year and I predict you'll have a much different opinion.

After three years of Barack Obama however the majority of those young people find their futures burdened by a now staggering Federal deficit with more on the way and jobs prospects that are frankly dismal because of the policies of the people they helped to elect.

They don't see it that way. This generation is overwhelmingly liberal. They are discouraged and upset with Obama, yes, but because he has been, in their view, too conservative. They want a single-payer system, he gave us reform that gives far too much to the health-insurance industry. They wanted a stimulus program big enough to jump-start the economy, he gave us a limp-wristed underpowered joke. They wanted a leveling of incomes and a restoration of the American dream, he's seen as being in the pocket of Wall Street almost as much as the Republicans.

I'm curious as to what your so called "on the streets activism" is supposed to accomplish?

What this is supposed to accomplish is to rock the boat enough to put genuine progressive solutions on the table. If we leave it up to the politicians in the two parties, we will be given a choice between a big-business-dominated and socially conservative party on the one hand, and a big-business-dominated and socially liberal party on the other. The American people in general, and the Millennial generation much more so, is to the left of the Democrats on economic issues (not all Democrats, but most of them) -- let alone the GOP. With choices like that, our democracy has become a sham.

This has happened before, for example during the Depression, when FDR, for all his rose-colored-glasses image among liberals today, was in reality no better than Obama, until popular movements -- thunder on the left -- pushed him to favor organized labor and to implement Social Security, two things he had been unwilling to do originally.

We are going to need more than what you're seeing at present to accomplish that today, but we'll have more.

So it's an "invisible" movement, Dragon? You'll have to excuse me...I found that whole concept so amusing that I spilled coffee all over my desk.

The reason Generation Millennium was so overwhelmingly liberal is that if they are in their early twenties then they've been fed a steady diet of "liberal good/conservative bad" by their teachers, professors and the main stream media for most of their lives. Of COURSE they are going to have liberal views! How could they not?

So 2008 rolls around and these young fervent believers in progressive thought, turn out in record numbers to vote in the Democrats and Barack Obama. This is it, they say to themselves as they bask in the afterglow of a Democratic landslide, now OUR SIDE will take charge and make things right just like my teachers and the folks at CNN and the NY Times always said it should be.

But here's the rub... Barack Obama and the progressives turn out to be less than competent once things are no longer just in theory. Their policies that sounded so good when they were espoused in the class room and on the editorial page simply aren't working. All their talk about wealth distribution and fairness has led business leaders to not invest capital in growing businesses. Their stimulus plan turns out to be a monumental bust as billions are wasted on "green jobs" that are nothing more than a progressive mirage in a vast desert of unemployment. Their ignoring of the private sector while they took care of their public sector supporters wastes billions more without creating any long term jobs. A trillion dollars is added to the Federal deficit. The Democrats refuse to cut spending even though revenues are down and the rating agencies are warning us that we HAVE to lower the deficit or we'll have our credit downgraded. Needing to cut 4 trillion to satisfy those agencies we cut 1.5 trillion in undetermined cuts that will be figured out at a later time. Surprise!!! S&P downgrades us adding billions more to the Federal deficit in the interest we'll be paying on the money we borrow.

So here are all those poor Millennium kids...standing there still holding their "Change You Can Believe In" placards from the last election, in total shock because nothing has happened that they were led to believe would happen. They can't get real jobs...they've got mountains of debt from their student loans...they're living back with Mom & Dad and you know what, Dragon? They're examining the beliefs that they THOUGHT were valid and beginning to question everything they've been spoon fed for much of their lives. You seem to feel that this is the beginning of an underground movement. I happen to agree with you on that point but where we disagree is the direction that movement will be taking. I think you're about to see a large number of young people begin to see the light that a progressive agenda ISN'T in their best interests and that the private sector isn't the enemy as they had been led to believe but is in reality the solution to their problems and the only "hope" they have for gaining a better future.

 

[Oldstyle]

Of course there will always be the ones that don't "get it". They'll be camping out this winter down on Wall Street, taking advantage of donated food and basking in the warmth of their shared conviction that they are fighting for a better America even though they don't seem to really know what that better America should look like other than a collective belief that rich people should give them money. Hey, I guess it beats living in mom & dad's basement playing video games.

 

[Dragon]

So it's an "invisible" movement, Dragon? You'll have to excuse me...I found that whole concept so amusing that I spilled coffee all over my desk.

It's invisible TO YOU. And only because you're not looking where it operates. This is the age of the Internet, and it's on line that movements begin. That wasn't the case with the Tea Party because the TP is overstuffed with old farts.

It's quite visible to me, and to anyone who is involved in the on-line aspect of the movement. It could be visible to you, as well, if you looked in the right places.

This might help that: http://www.usmessageboard.com/stock-market/185675-protesters-to-remain-on-wall-st-until-monday-6.html See post no. 79.

So 2008 rolls around and these young fervent believers in progressive thought, turn out in record numbers to vote in the Democrats and Barack Obama. This is it, they say to themselves as they bask in the afterglow of a Democratic landslide, now OUR SIDE will take charge and make things right just like my teachers and the folks at CNN and the NY Times always said it should be.

But here's the rub... Barack Obama and the progressives turn out to be less than competent once things are no longer just in theory. Their policies that sounded so good when they were espoused in the class room and on the editorial page simply aren't working.

No, that's not what it is. Those policies that sounded so good on the campaign trail aren't being tried. Obama has governed far to the right of where he campaigned. It's not that he has tried those policies and they have failed, it's that he hasn't kept his campaign promises. He campaigned as a genuine progressive, something the Democrats hadn't run since 1972, and he won big on that basis. But then he turned around and governed like Bill Clinton Term 3. Or in some respects, even like W. Bush Term 3.

If what you say were correct, we would find Millennials turning conservative. We don't. We find them turning against the Democrats, but even FURTHER against the Republicans, and demanding genuinely progressive solutions.

 

[Oldstyle]

So it's an "invisible" movement, Dragon? You'll have to excuse me...I found that whole concept so amusing that I spilled coffee all over my desk.

It's invisible TO YOU. And only because you're not looking where it operates. This is the age of the Internet, and it's on line that movements begin. That wasn't the case with the Tea Party because the TP is overstuffed with old farts.

It's quite visible to me, and to anyone who is involved in the on-line aspect of the movement. It could be visible to you, as well, if you looked in the right places.

This might help that: http://www.usmessageboard.com/stock-market/185675-protesters-to-remain-on-wall-st-until-monday-6.html See post no. 79.

So 2008 rolls around and these young fervent believers in progressive thought, turn out in record numbers to vote in the Democrats and Barack Obama. This is it, they say to themselves as they bask in the afterglow of a Democratic landslide, now OUR SIDE will take charge and make things right just like my teachers and the folks at CNN and the NY Times always said it should be.

But here's the rub... Barack Obama and the progressives turn out to be less than competent once things are no longer just in theory. Their policies that sounded so good when they were espoused in the class room and on the editorial page simply aren't working.

No, that's not what it is. Those policies that sounded so good on the campaign trail aren't being tried. Obama has governed far to the right of where he campaigned. It's not that he has tried those policies and they have failed, it's that he hasn't kept his campaign promises. He campaigned as a genuine progressive, something the Democrats hadn't run since 1972, and he won big on that basis. But then he turned around and governed like Bill Clinton Term 3. Or in some respects, even like W. Bush Term 3.

If what you say were correct, we would find Millennials turning conservative. We don't. We find them turning against the Democrats, but even FURTHER against the Republicans, and demanding genuinely progressive solutions.

There is a reason why Obama is governing to the right of where he campaigned, Dragon and that is because he's becoming more and more desperate to fix the economy and has reluctantly come to the conclusion that the progressive policies we got from him, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for the first two years of his administration didn't work. It's why he backed off on Cap & Trade...it's why he backed off on Card Check...it's why he backed off on the Bush tax cuts...and it's why he backed off on the public option. All of those things would have made the economy and unemployment worse. It would have been political suicide for Obama.

You say the Millenniums are turning FURTHER against the Republicans? I'm sorry but I don't see any evidence of that at all. I see many of them withdrawing from politics completely while they reassess what it is that they've been led to believe their entire lives. The youth vote turnout in the 2012 election is going to be WAY off from what it was when Obama won in 2008.

 

[Intense]

So it's an "invisible" movement, Dragon? You'll have to excuse me...I found that whole concept so amusing that I spilled coffee all over my desk.

It's invisible TO YOU. And only because you're not looking where it operates. This is the age of the Internet, and it's on line that movements begin. That wasn't the case with the Tea Party because the TP is overstuffed with old farts.

It's quite visible to me, and to anyone who is involved in the on-line aspect of the movement. It could be visible to you, as well, if you looked in the right places.

This might help that: http://www.usmessageboard.com/stock-market/185675-protesters-to-remain-on-wall-st-until-monday-6.html See post no. 79.

So 2008 rolls around and these young fervent believers in progressive thought, turn out in record numbers to vote in the Democrats and Barack Obama. This is it, they say to themselves as they bask in the afterglow of a Democratic landslide, now OUR SIDE will take charge and make things right just like my teachers and the folks at CNN and the NY Times always said it should be.

But here's the rub... Barack Obama and the progressives turn out to be less than competent once things are no longer just in theory. Their policies that sounded so good when they were espoused in the class room and on the editorial page simply aren't working.

No, that's not what it is. Those policies that sounded so good on the campaign trail aren't being tried. Obama has governed far to the right of where he campaigned. It's not that he has tried those policies and they have failed, it's that he hasn't kept his campaign promises. He campaigned as a genuine progressive, something the Democrats hadn't run since 1972, and he won big on that basis. But then he turned around and governed like Bill Clinton Term 3. Or in some respects, even like W. Bush Term 3.

If what you say were correct, we would find Millennials turning conservative. We don't. We find them turning against the Democrats, but even FURTHER against the Republicans, and demanding genuinely progressive solutions.

The Internet? What's that?

Damn Gerber Babies.

 

[Dragon]

There is a reason why Obama is governing to the right of where he campaigned, Dragon and that is because he's becoming more and more desperate to fix the economy and has reluctantly come to the conclusion that the progressive policies we got from him, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for the first two years of his administration didn't work.

That would make even remotely plausible sense only if we had actually gotten those progressive policies in the first two years of his administration, and we did not.

You're just not understanding something here. What you are calling progressive policies AREN'T progressive policies; they are moderate, watered-down, and really quite conservative policies. The Affordable Care Act is NOT a progressive reform; a single-payer system would be a progressive reform, or at least a public option. The stimulus bill we got was NOT a progressive reform; something about five times that size that incorporated serious changes to the way we spread the tax burden around, complete reversal of government policy on labor-law enforcement, and public-works programs like those from the 1930s would have been.

Obama's progressive policies have not failed, because Obama has not implemented any progressive policies. And THAT is what has lost him the support of so many of his supporters, not his "failure." Given that he has not attempted in any serious way the kinds of policies that he promised and that might have worked, failure was a foregone conclusion, and we all know that.

You say the Millenniums are turning FURTHER against the Republicans? I'm sorry but I don't see any evidence of that at all. I see many of them withdrawing from politics completely while they reassess what it is that they've been led to believe their entire lives. The youth vote turnout in the 2012 election is going to be WAY off from what it was when Obama won in 2008.

First, they are not reassessing what they've been led to believe their whole lives; what they are reassessing is their trust in the Democratic Party to put those beliefs into action. Second, while you may (but may not) be right about voter turnout in 2012, if that happens it won't signify a turn away from politics but rather a shift from electoral politics into direct action such as we are just beginning to see now. What is demanded is something that neither party is offering because both parties are in the pockets of big business.

In any case, there is just about zero chance that anyone who voted for Obama in 2008 is going to vote Republican.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

If they left the sidewalk AT ANY POINT and we know they did...they broke the law..beyond that if anyone in the protest violated the sidewalk rule then the entire protest became illegal...why? Well they were required to have a permit...that is what was illegal and we know they HAD NO PERMIT

What a load of bullocks.

You are seriously defending this pig of a cop? He attacked a women without provocation.

Shame on you.

Not defending the cop one way or another except to say that those protests became VIOLENT and saying that the protest was not protected under the constitution, 1 because there was no permit for where they were located at, because they already had been designated a different area to protest...2 because screaming offenses at the cops is considered disorderly conduct, you shout obsenities you aren't protected from being sprayed in the face with pepper spray. and 3 when they were told to disperse that is exactly what they should have done.

The protest never became violent. Some of the protestors did actively resist being corralled, which is grounds for arrest, but they did not attack the police or any bystanders.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"That photographer that had his head banged off of a parked car was not using any force at all, and was clearly standing to the side and not participating, yet some jerk with a badge decided to step put of department policy and attack him."

"Just to get on the record here, again, I think the protestors are idiots and that they are protesting something that is mostly a conspiracy theory, and that they are blaming the wrong people. Nonetheless, they have a right to protest if they want, and they certainly have a right not to be used as punching bags and practice targets by a couple of overzealous fascists hiding behind a badge."

I believe those are your quotes?

The photographer did have his head bounced off a parked car, even you admitted that. You justified it, but you admitted it.

As for the second, we already established that you think the police do have the power to use people as punching bags, so why repost it? Did you need to say it again because you thought I missed the point? I will, however, point out that the criminal justice system in this country comes down on my side, protestors do have a right not to be punching bags.

I am still waiting for you to point out where I said police beat the crap beat out of them.

It wasn't me who said the police used people as "punching bags"...that was your comment. You accused the police of something they didn't do just as you accused them of deliberately bouncing someone's head off a parked car...something that also didn't happen. You've tried to make this into a case of police "brutality" all along because you've bought into the narrative that the activists wanted...ie that they were "attacked" by the police. Every time that you've done so...I've pointed out that the police didn't "attack" anyone and that every arrest that you see on the various clips was an arrest that was deliberately provoked by the activists with the sole purpose of garnering media coverage for a march that had such a small turnout it wouldn't have gotten ANY coverage without their confronting the police.

I did not say anyone was used as a punching bag, I said they have the right not to be used as one. Just like the cameraman in this video has the right not to have his head rammed into the car 2 minutes into this video.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5zmzV5IxpQ]Lawrence O'Donnell on Police Brutality at Occupy Wall Street - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I'm fine, Quantum...after all you're the one doing semantic back flips, not I...are you dizzy?

I just find it amusing that you think that society, which is actually an abstract concept, has rights because it is made up of individuals, yet those same individuals do not have rights. It gets a little confusing if I try to approach it logically, so I heep it with scorn instead.

Society is an abstract concept? What ARE you babbling about? When did I ever say individuals don't have rights? What I've said is that your rights as an individual don't allow you to trample on the rights of your fellow citizens...ie society.

Yet, for some reason, "societies rights" allow them to trample on the rights of individuals.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Intense, but was the intent in the march to do stuff to get intentionally arrested like these folks were on Wall Street? They advertised that by the way.... if you went for a peaceful march you likely did just that..and your march likely had all permits needed and police protection to boot..they didn't do that..and they went to cause trouble, they found it.

If it was, it still does not justify the use of force on people who are not actively resisting anything. The pepper spray was not aimed at people who were physically resisting, it was aimed at protestors who were already inder control. that makes it wrong, period.