<p>“n re. comment #116: or a group of young black males…walking in the ‘wrong’ neighborhood…getting pulled over by the police and cracked upside their heads while minding their own business. same outrage? makes you wonder.”</p>
<p>No way would there be that kind of outrage. And that is a sad statement. It probably wouldn’t even make the news.</p>
<p>I would never condone anyone of any political persuasion, getting pepper sprayed during a non violent protest. But to be honest, when I see the Tpers walk around with guns on their hips, I take that as much more of a threat than college kids sitting Indian style and locking arms. </p>
<p>I am glad I do not blindly support the police. Such linear, black and white thinking is the sign of a decrepit mind.</p>
<p>Is it really so threatening to see people who have concealed weapons walk around with legal guns? A small number of them? The vast majority of them would use them to protect you personally, if they saw you being threatened.</p>
<p>I do not blindly support the police. But I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. They are sworn to protect us, and most of them do. Who do you call when you feel threatened? College students? OWS protesters?</p>
<p>My brother in law was shot in the face by a man determined to attain death-by-cop (he got his wish). He was blinded, and pulled shotgun pellets out of his face and chest for years. These guys have a dangerous, often thankless job, and they do deserve the benefit of the doubt, or at least the benefit of a fair investigation.</p>
<p>Yes, it really is threatening to me to see people walking around with guns. It scares me. I do not know them, perhaps they would help me, perhaps not. I feel very uncomfortable with someone allowed to carry a gun in public that isn’t a las enforcement officer. </p>
<p>I think it is intimidating and morally wrong.</p>
<p>I appreciate the police and have benefitted from their presence in the past. But I won’t automatically support them in everything they do. Especially when they act violently toward non violent protestors.</p>
<p>The nonchalant, almost calm way that police officer pepper sprayed those kids was just so shocking to me. It was so cold and dispassionate, like “I’m not sure this is even worth it, but here.”</p>
<p>I think the guy has a serious case of burnout and had better take a long vacation. Those are people’s kids sitting there, and when you lose sight of that, and I’m sure you will agree with this busdriver, you can no longer be an effective police officer.</p>
<p>(as an aside, I think being a police officer is an increasingly dangerous and thankless job, and a position we hold to standards most of us would not be able to maintain. everything they do is on video. What a life.)</p>
<p>That said, what do the occupiers want? I mean, in global fashion, I know they want something to do with less income inequality, college debt foregiveness, higher taxes on people who earn more than they do. But, how will they know when they are done demonstrating? How will their demands, since there are none, ever even be met?</p>
<p>or will we just be having Occupy Wallstreet encampments in all of our cities for the rest of our lives? </p>
<p>I can’t figure out what they would consider enough of a victory, personally, which leaves me a little confused.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, the progression in communications technology and the internet has made expression of messages political and corporate leaders don’t like much easier to ignore. A reason why, in practice, people who are experienced in dealing with them have always emphasized that the internet/blogosphere is a limited tool of political expression and is only effective when combined with real live protests…including civil disobedience. </p>
<p>In fact, relying solely or even mostly on communications and internet technologies is the latest variant on the age old theme of trying to muffle political dissent by insisting protesters follow procedures that have not only proven ineffective…but are also moving goalposts* by the established elites and those who think conventionally. </p>
<ul>
<li>If protesters actually try to accommodate such suggestions, the tendency is for the established elite and conventional thinkers to insist those accommodations are never enough until the protest is effectively silenced and thus, ineffective.</li>
</ul>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re forgetting one thing…the police and military are entrusted with the power of using injurious and even deadly force. One reason why they are held to higher standards is precisely because any mistakes or worse, abuse of that power could result in serious injuries or even death to the victims concerned. </p>
<p>It isn’t too far removed from standards we hold other fields in which its professionals have powers of life or death…such as medical doctors. </p>
<p>Considering recent events*…it seems professionals in police/military and medicine aren’t being held to high enough standards. </p>
<ul>
<li>Various incidents of police brutality including this case, recent conviction of an Army Sergeant for murdering Afghan civilians and cutting fingers off for “trophies”, and the recent conviction of Dr. Conrad Murray for facilitating access and administering a highly controlled anesthetic which resulted in Michael Jackson’s death.</li>
</ul>
<p>
</p>
<p>Lundberg v. County of Humboldt. Humboldt County officers sprayed pepper spray directly into the eyes of nonviolent protestors, and applied pepper spray to their eyes with Q-tips. They were eventually found liable for using excessive force in Federal Court.</p>
<p>“Yes, it really is threatening to me to see people walking around with guns. It scares me. I do not know them, perhaps they would help me, perhaps not. I feel very uncomfortable with someone allowed to carry a gun in public that isn’t a las enforcement officer.
I think it is intimidating and morally wrong”</p>
<p>There are a number of guys that I fly with who are armed, legally of course. And often keep their concealed weapons with them when they aren’t working. I very much appreciate that the reason they do it is to protect themselves and others from the bad guys. I respect them very much, and feel guilty that I don’t do it (but I’d probably shoot myself in the foot or leave it somewhere). I’m far more worried about the guys in baggy pants (hiding the gun) that seem to be casing people as they leave the mall. What you don’t see can be far scarier than what you do.</p>
<p>“I think the guy has a serious case of burnout and had better take a long vacation. Those are people’s kids sitting there, and when you lose sight of that, and I’m sure you will agree with this busdriver, you can no longer be an effective police officer.”</p>
<p>Believe me, I see it from both sides. There are things that have frustrated and angered me. But with police car cameras and people videoing situations on their cell phones all the time, an abuse of power gets much harder. I just don’t jump to the conclusion that the police officer is the bad guy in every situation automatically. If there’s one group of people that you should consider everything in the situation going on, it should be that group. I don’t attribute the poor actions of one officer to the entire profession.</p>
<p>poetgrl wrote:
</p>
<p>The interesting thing to me is how they have changed the discussion in such a short time. I think that is true, not just my perspective. And it took quite a while for the mainstream news to even acknowledge them - again, imo. </p>
<p>Yes, what will it take for them to all go home?</p>
<hr>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/at-occupy-berkeley-beat-poets-has-new-meaning.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/at-occupy-berkeley-beat-poets-has-new-meaning.html</a></p>
<p>^^another California school</p>
<hr>
<p>I apologize for bringing up the age card. Very un-PC and reeks of ageism. My bad. I just personally have a different response to potentially controversial ideas advanced by someone close to my own age and someone my childrens’ age. Frequently in my house “discussions” end with me saying, “okay - when I was your age that’s pretty much how I felt, too. Now I see the gray. Let’s revisit this in a few years.” I get that that is condescending -again my bad. I try, though not always successfully, never to call anyone an idiot but want to be particularly careful how I respond to someone 20-something or younger. Probably on the whole a mistake on my part. sorry sorry sorry</p>
<p>I do want to add I really don’t see civil rights as a “gray area”</p>
<p>edit: My own children probably frequently find me infuriating though they are sweet enough not to show it to my face. I imagine there is a fair amount of eye rolling behind my back.</p>
<p>alh, actually I think it is ok to raise the “age” issue, because this is the Parents Forum, after all. And it is true that people do gain a different perspective with age and experience, in a way that I think cannot be replicated by even the most perceptive high school or college student. I have to admit, I once disagreed with younghoss, and suggested that when he became oldhoss, he would be more likely to agree with me–turned out we are of the same general vintage.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I hope you know that I do not, either.</p>
<p>Since I was born in a commune and attended the vietnam protests in my diapers, I can say that I find these protests, be they the tea party or the OWS movement, very unglamorous. I would never protest anything, personally, in a group of people carrying signs and shouting. This has more to do with my childhood “no nukes” experience with mom and dad than with any feeling one way or the other against protesting.</p>
<p>I happen to think, personally, that the tea partiers and the OWS people are protesting the exact same thing, that corrpution between the government and big business and big unioins, crony capitalism, has gotten so incredibly out of hand, that it is making those on both the right AND the left feel taken advantage of and used and unheard.</p>
<p>So, I think the dailogue is incredibly important. But, it hasn’t done too much to influence real law. Just made everyone dig in their heels over taxes. Taxes, whichever way, aren’t going to solve what is making both sides so upset, even if they think so.</p>
<p>
I am fascinated by the question of who were the bigger “idiots” in this particular situation. In most cases, I have no sympathy for people who disobey police orders and suffer the consequences–for example, I thought the “don’t tase me, bro” guy was was idiot, because he was struggling with the police. I would have had no particular sympathy for these protesters, either, if they had all been dragged away, handcuffed, and arrested. If they had struggled with the police, then I’d no sympathy if they were pepper-sprayed or tased. But that’s not what happened. Instead, an “idiot” on the police force decided to give a giant gift-wrapped PR bonanza to the Occupy movement by pepper-spraying a bunch of immobile kids in the face. The end result will be helpful, not harmful, to the Occupy people. So who are the idiots? Maybe everybody.</p>
<p>poetgrl: when you post about how the baby boomers have failed the younger generation (with which I agree) it seems to me like you are saying the same thing as lots of the posts on the OWS website. Though I do get you have a concrete plan to fix things :)</p>
<p>garland’s post #99 had a pretty interesting chart comparing OWS and tea partiers</p>
<p>Thanks Quantmech. I’ve been wondering whether coming of age in post 9/11 America, vs. the 60s, makes a difference in perception of the importance of the right to protest.</p>
<p>“I happen to think, personally, that the tea partiers and the OWS people are protesting the exact same thing, that corrpution between the government and big business and big unioins, crony capitalism, has gotten so incredibly out of hand, that it is making those on both the right AND the left feel taken advantage of and used and unheard.”</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with this statement. Read the link in #99 that differentiates in detail the two groups - very easy to read tables and graphs for those having trouble getting “the message”.</p>
<p>In particular, the T’s are paid and recruited by those OWS is protesting.</p>
<p>
I would agree that they should be protesting the same thing, but I’m not sure they are.</p>
<p>I think we have a tendency, in the US, because of the false, man-made two party system, to set up our arguments as if they are binary, and either/or. </p>
<p>People have bought into the idea that there are only two points of view. It’s very limiting. The parties have more in common with each other in their desire to keep us believing in these two sided arguments, than they do with either protest movement.</p>
<p>The protestors might desire a “different” set of solutions from one another, but they are both, at base, protesting the loss of power of the average middle class American, the fact that big business is in bed with the government and dictates policy, and corporate socialism at the expense of the middle class.</p>
<p>They are both middle class movements, though both are being coopted by either big business or big uniions (flips sides of the same coin.)</p>
<p>If you choose to believe that they are protesting different things, that’s fine. But, they aren’t. Even if they want it solved in a different way, they are “out there” for the same reason.</p>