Two weeks into Occupy Wall Street protests, movement is at a crossroads

Evictions seem to be catching on.
Following the NYPD example yesterday, police in my city (Melbourne, Oz) moved in on a tiny contingent of occupiers camped in the Treasury Gardens this morning.
Prior to that, a much bigger group was evicted (quite violently!) from the City Square a few weeks ago, presumably because our lord mayor & the state government thought their presence would be an eyesore during the Queen of England's visit here.
Following today's eviction, the occupiers have declared they will regroup & continue with their non-violent action...






Police move on Occupy Melbourne camp:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-move-on-occupy-melbourne-camp-20111116-1nhu4.html


I can't help but wonder why the situation in NYC & in my city was so different, compared to happened in London a couple of weeks ago ....

The Anglican Church and the Corporation of London had threatened eviction & legal action against the occupiers camped outside St Paul's Cathedral ....
But then, in response to public opinion, Anglican Church leaders did a complete turn-around & sided with the occupiers & even started a construction dialogue with em!

Check out the statements of the Bishop of London & the Archbishop of Canterbury. You will be amazed.

"The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams,today backed a new tax on banking and outlined a set of political and financial measures to take forward the "moral agenda" of the Occupy London campaigners", etc....

The occupiers & the Anglican Church are on the same side!

What different worlds we live in.
What different responses to very similar events, depending on where you live & who's in charge.
Bravo, Anglican Church!
How very civilized!



Occupy London: St Paul's protests – Wednesday 2 November 2011:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/nov/02/occupy-london-live-coverage-of-st-paul-s-protests

Good Lord but this Occupy movement is sad and pathetic.

What is even more pathetic is the desperate attempt of Leftists to insist it is relevant.

Mark my words, when all is said and done, Occupy will be perceived by the American public as some sleazy kook-fest, or a depressing and infuriating collection of insanity and violence.

Nothing...nothing good is coming from this idiotic carnival of beggars.

It could have been a contender...

I disagree with you, Finn.
But I haven't the time to respond properly now.
Gotta go.
Back later on.

We'll see, won't we?

The attempt to evict the Occupy Toronto group failed today. The protestors were successful in gaining at least a temporary court injunction today. Something to do with creativity. Will have to read up on it (just heard a snippet on the radio while transitting home).

I know, right? What were the Founding Fathers thinking, giving beggars the freedom of assembly like that?

OK, I said I disagreed with you & I do.

Here’s why. BTW these are merely my perceptions, at this point in time, the same as those are merely your perceptions, OK?

First of all, I wouldn’t categorize the occupy movement purely “leftist”.

I think a lot of the impetus for such a strong, spontaneous movement, right across the world, is serious disenchantment & disengagement with “old politics” & “the old order” from younger generations (plus quite a few oldies!). There really are no distinctly defined left & right parties or politicians anymore, the traditional distinctions have broken down & they have all moved to the right, to various degrees.
No matter which party you vote for, your country still becomes involved in unjustifiable & immoral wars, no matter how many ordinary citizens protest on the streets ...... no matter which political party you voted for, you still have the same organizations controlling your economy for their own financial benefit at the expense of the majority of people ..... no matter which mainstream newspaper you read, you will still get the establishment interpretations of events .... etc, etc,

So how are younger people, especially, to respond to such a state of affairs?
If they followed the Wikileaks disclosures, they’d know we’ve been lied to by our governments & played for suckers by corporations & banks. What sense of confidence do you think they would have in becoming involved in the established political system & “changing the system from within”?
How much difference would it make to how thing are if they joined the Labor Party in Australia, the Democrats in the US, The Labour Party in the UK ...? I think, quite understandably, that these young “occupiers” have come to the conclusion that they can make minimal difference by joining mainstream politics. I think they have chosen their own way to make their voices heard.

They may not have all the solutions, they may not have an organized “platform” or “agenda” & they may not have “leaders” ..... and I see nothing wrong with that at all. How could they possibly have all the solutions to the situation the whole western capitalist world is in, in 2011?
We expect them to behave like hardened professional politicians?
But they have managed to make their voices heard all over the world. And good for them, I say!


No, I don’t think so, Finn.
I think when the historians write about this period we're living through, sometime down the track, they will definitely have more than a footnote.
I see the “occupy” movements as an integral part of the (widespread) expression of the breakdown of trust & confidence in western industrialized countries. Just like Wikileaks has been part of the process.
Whether Wikileaks, or the occupy movement, survive in their current form, or vanish altogether is immaterial.
As I see things, they have played a vital role in influencing our thinking about how things are & how we would prefer the world to be.
And if they do vanish, they will simply be replaced by other forms of similarly motivated loose organizations.
But it is the ideas they’ve pushed into mainstream thinking, not the organizations, that matter.
And we were never going to hear such ideas from the mainstream.

OK, so I know you’ll disagree completely . Of course I would expect you to. We both have very different political perspectives, after all.

But tell me, what is it that you so vehemently object to about the occupy movement?
Apart from seeing it as a “kook fest” & “or a depressing and infuriating collection of insanity and violence”.
I think you’d agree that there has been remarkably little violence from occupiers around the world. Sure, there have been a few instances, but it is hardly what the movement has advocated. It has been an overwhelmingly non-violent movement.
So what exactly is it that you’re objecting to, then?

Well stated, and I agree with your assessment. The wealth of companies all over the world has been transferred to the CEO's and officers while the workers who produced the wealth didn't even keep up within inflation for the past 30-years. We also have the conservatives in our country that wants wars and a strong military, but doesn't want to pay for them by giving even more tax breaks to the already rich.

There's no cure for stupid, when the majority of Americans are struggling trying to find jobs
after college and many are underwater on their mortgage.

Does the freedom of assembly trump property rights?

Are you saying that I dont have the right to remove, by force if needed, someone squatting on my property for political purposes?

How do your property rights enter into the issue? The first amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting . . . ," and then lists the areas in which Congress is prohibited from making laws. One of them is the right of the people to peaceably assemble. What has that to do with your property rights?

Wry, but irrelevant, unless you can find a post where I've argued that they never should have been allowed to assemble in the first place. They've had their time, and did virtually nothing with it.

Not categorically. But Finn's point I responded to wasn't about the legalities of the protest, it was about the content. So I tried to point out that even if OWS was a bunch of beggars, there is nothing ridiculous about them demonstrating. Beggars have the right to demonstrate just as anybody else has. Perhaps I didn't communicate this point clearly enough.

Nothing for you, certainly. But then again, you're happy with America's shifting income distribution and they are not, so that was to be expected.

This is a good point. Many conservatives whine about the redistribution of wealth, by which they mean taxation. Apparently, they're OK with the redistribution of wealth from the pockets of consumers to the pockets of capitalists. They don't seem to see that as being equivalent. I disagree.

You've made a false assumption.

I would like to see the income disparity reduced, and the middle class return to it former vital status. I just don't think beating drums, throwing paper airplanes, raping women, and picking lice form one another's head is going to help effect that change.

I would say not... Political purposes are what society is about... Most of the actions of Business are anti-political... They must some how sell their goods, if goods are what they are selling... If evils are what they are pushing then people do have the right to defend society in any fashion necessary... They should remember that in denying to the people the right of peaceful protest they are making violence certain... It is too easy to dismiss these people from the parks and evict them from the shelters... They will be back and in a form unrecognizable... They will come back as individuals, and in many cases prepared to take the law into their own hands, as they should...

Because, -if the constitution protects property it must do so disregarding the rights of people without property to equal protection under the law... There may have been a time when such protection was needed, when the economic strength of this country was as an infant... It is the economic power that has become the enemy of this people and the destroyer of our society... It must be destroyed and with all those who support it... Wealth has the power to influence the course of government, but those with money are relatively fewer, and fewer as the number of poor grows...We are seeing Feudalism grow before our eyes where a few propertied lords govern great masses of peasant for whom they have no regard what ever...

They got Veni and Vidi down... Viki is going to take a while, and it is when people look for sudden change that things get violent... Do you want volitility???Would you not prefer accomodation??? People should express themselves and look for peaceful solutions... You can see where the violence is coming from... The reaction is always violent and that is what turns revolutions long over due into blood baths... If you need a bath, I recommend soap and water... There is plenty of time for things to get truly ugly..

mm sees these issues as an infringement of his rights, because he's still not aware of the Constitution.

Your observations are totally screwed up; when did the raping of women become any part of these demonstrations?

Alright, I'll bite: How would you reverse the current trend in the income distribution?