Topic: Occupy Wall Street (Read 37712 times)

Mongrel · « **Reply #420 on:** January 12, 2012, 08:48:16 PM »

You know, for most of the 70's there was a long period when leftism had overreached and was doing a great deal of damage with really awful over-bureaucratic policies (England probably had it worst - to this day their industrial base has never recovered, and in fact continues to decline).

I don't know that our predicament is an exact analogue (and right-wingers have already had a good many years to fuck things up in the 00's), but I think we're at kind of a similar borderline. The crucial missing part is a truly brand-new idea for the left to put forth and rally around, in much the same way that Reagan, Thatcher (and Mulroney) captured the minds of the early 80's. The occupy movement is not that idea.

Thad · « **Reply #421 on:** January 12, 2012, 09:11:18 PM »

Only headline I've seen recently about Occupy is Alan Moore going to meet protesters. And that was on comics news sites. And not in America.

That said, as we've noted in the 2012 thread this primary season has suddenly turned into all the other Republican candidates piling on Mitt Romney for being an evil corporatist robber-baron, which is pretty fucking surreal. (Also: if Rick Perry came up with "vulture capitalist" all by himself, it is the cleverest thing he will ever say.) While OWS itself hasn't gotten much recent news coverage, its actual message is pretty much dominating the current news cycle.

I don't think we've seen the last of them, but the news media are a fickle beast. We'll see.

Brentai · « **Reply #422 on:** January 12, 2012, 09:25:30 PM »

Actually I think just today they all remembered who they are and started patting Romney on the back as hard as they could for being the best representative of corporate douchebaggery he could be.

Thad · « **Reply #423 on:** January 30, 2012, 08:55:45 AM »

Welp, Occupy's back in the news.

Oakland:

Quote

That all changed Saturday with clashes punctuated by rock and bottle throwing by protesters and volleys of tear gas from police, and a City Hall break-in that left glass cases smashed, graffiti spray-painted on walls and an American flag burned.

AP photos showing the flag burning -- including images of masked protesters touching off the blaze, a woman urging protesters not to burn it, and another of an officer stomping out the fire -- drew attention on social networking sites.

Not a good way to win friends and influence people, chuckleheads. You can be sure that these few random idiots are going to dominate the news coverage, while those "volleys of tear gas" are going to be treated as a footnote.

Meantime, in Washington, the Post still seems to really like the phrase "Patience with the protests seems to be wearing thin", but at least this time it's not leading with an Officer Pets Kitten photo. Expect some nastiness to come as they're about to start kicking people out. (I'm still not sold on the whole "camp out overnight" thing anyway -- seems like there are much better things to go to the mat over.)

Brentai · « **Reply #424 on:** January 30, 2012, 10:13:06 AM »

The fact that the media at last briefly considered throwing Romney to the sharks for his completely legal abuse of tax loopholes means OWS has done its job. It kind of needs to quit while it's ahead.

Thad · « **Reply #425 on:** January 30, 2012, 10:42:36 AM »

Well, no; it's great that we're TALKING about economic inequality, but there's still the "actually doing something about it" step to consider.

And I'm sure there are plenty of people within Occupy who have good plans on just how to push things in that direction, but while the grownups are working on that, oh hey look some idiots with spraypaint and lighters just gave the plutocrats something to point at and pretend is a representative example of the entire movement.

Mongrel · « **Reply #426 on:** January 30, 2012, 11:54:39 AM »

As much as we know a leader isn't the answer, I think we can continue to expect that sort of thing as long as the movement remains headless.

Thad · « **Reply #427 on:** January 30, 2012, 02:25:51 PM »

Quote from: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/30/BAPQ1N0G9K.DTL

"I plan to call some of the national leadership of Occupy this week to say that the Oakland group is not nonviolent and has not agreed to be nonviolent," Quan said in an interview on KCBS. "The national Occupy movement has said they are nonviolent."

She then claims that the backlash against her terrible response isn't because of police brutality (because look over there, the police in San Fran are terrible too!) but because people are a bunch of racist misogynists.

Also interesting:

Quote

Among those facing the most serious allegations include Robert Ovetz, 45, of Woodacre and Ahimsa Windthunder, 34, who were each arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery on an officer and felony assault.

Huh -- I'd have figured late teens/early twenties for the most violent and impulsive offenders.

Brentai · « **Reply #428 on:** January 30, 2012, 02:53:57 PM »

If you're of family-heading age and still showing up to hese events then you're either VERY serious about it, have VERY deep grievances with what economic disparity has done to you, or are VERY socially maladjusted. Or any combination of the above.

Mongrel · « **Reply #429 on:** January 30, 2012, 03:00:50 PM »

Also, one of those names sounds like he might be native and there's decades of bad history between non-native cops and natives in many places across north america. I'm not blaming one side or other there though (I have zero facts to work with besides "one guy has a name that sounds like he might be native", so any further speculation would either border on racism, or just be straight-up racism).

Brentai · « **Reply #430 on:** January 30, 2012, 03:15:42 PM »

As far as I can tell the transliteral naming convention isn't common to indigenous peoples from that part of the country, but I'm probably not the one to ask.

EDIT: "Trasliteral" apparently means the opposite of what it seems to mean. "Literally translated" then.

Zaratustra · « **Reply #431 on:** January 30, 2012, 03:40:56 PM »

Fun fact: Oakland police is about to be taken over by the federal government because of unhandled problems from... ten years ago.

Mongrel · « **Reply #432 on:** January 30, 2012, 07:19:10 PM »

Quote from: Brentai on January 30, 2012, 03:15:42 PM

As far as I can tell the transliteral naming convention isn't common to indigenous peoples from that part of the country, but I'm probably not the one to ask.

EDIT: "Trasliteral" apparently means the opposite of what it seems to mean. "Literally translated" then.

Fair enough - it is CA.

It varies a lot up here. Some tribes have that kind of tradition, others just use straight European names, and still others have non-translated native-language last names. But I expect it's the same in the US.

Thad · « **Reply #433 on:** February 07, 2012, 08:05:06 AM »

Ars: Journalist recovers video of his arrest after police deleted it

Quote

The police weren't arresting the other journalists around him, so Miller said he assumed he would be allowed to cross this second line of officers to return to his car. But when he approached one of the officers, he was stopped and placed under arrest. Upon his release the following morning, he found that several videos he had taken, including the one documenting his arrest, had disappeared.

The nice thing about protests of this nature is that -- until you get the FBI involved -- the protesters and journalists probably know more about technology than the law enforcement and local government officials trying to suppress them.

Things like how a delete operation actually works.

Quote

Miller's recovery of his video is a reminder of an important fact about modern digital systems: files that get "deleted" aren't necessarily gone forever. Often the raw data is still on the device and can be recovered. And that means that police officers who delete videos not only expose their departments to liability, they may not even succeed in suppressing the embarrassing video.

Miller's efforts to recover the video were only partially successful, and he plans to take his camera to a forensic specialist in hopes of recovering the remaining segments. He also hopes to determine the exact time the video was deleted, which could substantiate his charge that it was deleted while under police control.

Hm -- not so sure if stuff like deletion time actually gets logged at an FS level, but if the data's corrupted then that's probably because it's been partially overwritten by a newer file which might still have a "last modified" stamp on it that coincides with the time he was in custody.

Timestamps are, of course, trivial to fake, but if I were a lawyer I would not use "Your Honor, this man deliberately deleted the video documentation of his arrest and then partially overwrote it with a file with a phony timestamp and then spent hundreds of dollars on professional data recovery just to frame the police who he already had video evidence against in the first damn place" as a defense.

Shinra · « **Reply #434 on:** February 07, 2012, 09:25:27 AM »

the police will be suspended with pay for a month and the police chief will publically bristle about the judicial system taking away their ability to enforce the law.

Hey guys minipoll: If you were suspended with pay, would you spend your suspension in the continental US, or would you go to Hawaii or abroad for a while?

Büge · « **Reply #435 on:** February 09, 2012, 10:07:37 AM »

Occupy Oakland is "still on fire". I hope Guild's ok.

Smiler · « **Reply #436 on:** February 09, 2012, 11:39:00 AM »

I am pretty sure he is in California, so he should be.

Thad · « **Reply #437 on:** February 09, 2012, 11:52:53 AM »

...Oakland is in California.

But last I heard he was in SoCal.

Smiler · « **Reply #438 on:** February 09, 2012, 11:55:30 AM »

I WAS RIGHT, BUT NOT IN THE WAY I MEANT TO BEEEEEE!

Thad · « **Reply #439 on:** February 09, 2012, 12:21:33 PM »

Not SoCal, but not Oakland either: Sacramento.

...maybe I should split that shit out of Jail. It was a pain to find.

News:

Author Topic: Occupy Wall Street (Read 37712 times)