Should I go to this Occupy Boston event?

I like how they list public urination alongside rape and TB. Because, you know, rape and TB, I was all “well, life always has some risks”. But then public urination? What will these monsters do to our country next??!?

To MoveOn’s credit, their email does match up with what I’ve heard from other sources, like NPR, The Guardian, and NY Times.

Sorry, a little off topic but suddenly outraged… Are you aware the Mayor of Oakland said this latest round of crackdowns over the last few days was co-ordinated across all of the Mayors on national conference calls?

I am embarrassed to say that I have not been to any Occupy Boston event or participated in any way, despite supporting the occupy movement overall. I apparently have become Mr. Suburbia, complete with a wife and 3 kids. I’ll save the “I’m so busy” excuses. I marched in Boston on the eve of the Iraq invasion – carrying my daughter. Hell, I met my wife on a bus headed to a march on Washington. I’m not sure what to make of myself right now. But I think you should definitely go and catch “the tuberculosis”.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought How much rage I have at Mayor Quan right now does not even come close to comparing how much rage I have at Mayor Bloomberg and other NYC officials for the media blackout, the use of sound cannons and the trashing of the OWS library.

@ETpro Stay home and starve the “movement”. I’m delighted to say that I have attended none and have cheered repeatedly when one after the other dirty stinking parks have been cleaned out.

@plethora why no love for the right to assemble? Do you think the constitution was a faulty document?

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought I’m all for the right to assemble. Assuming it’s for a just cause.

@plethora ah, therein is my concern. It would seem you, and many others, only wish to allow people to exercise their constitutional rights when you agree with what they are doing. Which, makes me get in long drawn out arguments with my conservative friends in real life.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethough I hadn;t heard that, but I assumed it to be the case since it happened all across the country on a single night. So if mayors don’t work for the people who elected them, whom do they work for?

I also noted the strange coincidence that when OWS got “connected” with murders, they happened on the same night but on opposite coasts, and the police are mysteriously unable to figure out who did it. We’re supposed to assume that the OWS protesters are so lawless they are killing one another, but it is equally (perhaps more) likely this was coordinated and carried out by forces wishing to discredit and intimidate them.

@tom_g Thanks and best to wife and kids. I’ve stayed away till now because of work pressures. But enough is enough, as Mario Savio so eloquently stated at the Berkeley free speech protest of 1964.

@Aethelflaed If the right to assemble and the right to petition your government for redress of wrongs isn’t important to these so-called “law enforcement” officials, shy should freedom of the press be any different?

@plethora That puts you solidly in favor of further enriching the 1% at the expense of the 99%; and I am with the 99% on this. Advice considered and rejected. You may be part of the 1%, but destroying the 99% will cripple you too. It’s a short-sighted idea that was debunked in the children’s story, The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought I believe @plethora has been hoisted with his own petard.

TB? Hahahaha. If TB was highly contagious everyone on the NY subway would have it. Not that TB is not a concern in the US it is, I know too many people positive for exposure (most were addicts, mentally ill patients, or hospital workers) but that statement is just ridiculous.

I would go along to air my grievances and would ignore the professional propaganda spin.

I support anyone going to any OWS event, because it really is important.

As a slight off-topic, since you cite those who would slander the OWS movement to make people avoid it and continue in ignorance of the issues that they address, here’s a story about one city (that just so happens to be my OWS city) where things are happening pretty much as it should be:

http://buffalo.ynn.com/content/top_stories/563775/- occupy—protesters-demonstrate-appreciation-for-police/

Sorry to make you copy and paste (make sure to delete the space just before “occupy”), but the way the URL is written, it causes “occupy” to get struck through and messes up the link. Is there any way to avoid that so I can create a proper link?

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought @ETpro Parks get dirty and need to be cleaned and a month of exercising the right to assemble is enough for anybody.

@JLeslie It is funny, if you can discount the harm it does by riling up the rabid right who seem to hinge on every rabble rousing new blast from the Vast Right-Wing Noise Machine. It’s not that different from how the loony left behaved back in the 60s when a sizeable minority of the population was of that persuasion.

@Boogabooga1 I’m going to be there. We’re marching from Daley Plaze near South Station to Washington Bridge, a major crossing to Charlestown that’s on the list of bridges in serious need of repair. Road and bridge maintenance and construction used to be something Republicans and Democrats alike supported and saw as a federal responsibility—Until the drive to get Obama out of office became job #1 to Republicans, and Republican leadership decided that killing anything that might lead to US jobs was the best way to accomplish it.

@amujinx Thanks for the link. It’s comforting to know there are still places in the US where the police know their job is to protect and serve all the people, not just corporate overlords.

@plethora They had chemical toilets in the park and routinely serviced them. Besides, if sanitation were the real issue, the mayor could have easily have worked out an arrangement with protesters to clear one area at a time, or temporarily relocate somewhere else. Bloomberg’s heavy-handed action was not called for, and not directed at fulfilling his duties to the people of his city. The nationwide coordinated strike and violence used by the police was ordered from one central location, and had NOTHING to do with protecting the 99%.

@ETpro I’m really getting tired of hearing about the “99%”. I’m in the so-called 99%, and I most assuredly do not feel any sense of mutual identity. I thought the cops went pretty easy on all of the “protestors:. They should have done it on the second day.

@plethora – This is a serious question (or series of questions), so please don’t interpret it as some kind of jab….

What is it exactly that bothers you about the Occupy movement? Is it the positions that many of them take on certain issues? Is it the way they are getting themselves heard?

Regardless of what you think of their positions, etc., are you generally in favor of the police/state teargassing citizens when they peacefully gather? And does this support of the state and status quo apply to strictly the United States in this particular movement? Can it be applied to other times and places?

^^ Minor correction: I should have said “pepper spraying” instead of “teargassing” (although, really I think they both have been used, as well as rubber bullets).

@tom_g Ann Coulter pretty well reflects my views on OWS. OWS doesn’t even know who the targets are.

The second question, tom, doesn’t deserve an answer if you are actually trying to use the term “police state” about law enforcement in the US. You need to take a look on YouTube at Chris Rock’s clip “How to Keep Your Ass Out of Trouble With the Police”. OWS would benefit from a view of that too. Personally, yes, whatever it takes to eliminate trespassing on private property or misuse of public property is fine with me. Anything over a week and its time to move em out, IMHO. And if the individual does not know enough to move when law enforcement says move, pepper spray is useful to get their attention.

@plethora – Thanks. That helped.

@plethora I went to the event today, as did at least 1,000 here. Having been warned to expect public nudity, hippies galore, stinking dirty people and urination in the streets I wa most dissapointed to find no flaxen-waxen haired hippie girsl stripping down and exposing themselves to urinate. The most malodorous thing about the portest was the smell of those like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hannity puking in my ear with their manure mouths.

Instead of what they characterize the crowd as, I met a retired police lieutenant, a member of the New York Fire Department, secretaries, office workers, a plumber, construction workers, a group from the SEIU—mostly hotel maids. None were malodorous. None were rowdy or disrespectful of others. They knew why they were there. They want to see the 3 decade long shift of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich stop. They want things back like they were before trickle down, when both poor, middle class and rich moved up together, not ever further apart.

They are not against the rich. In fact, many of the rich are with them. They just don’t want them to get all the breaks and the 99% to bear all the burdens of providing the breaks. I don’t think Americans are going to any longer cooperate with the Koch Brothers; agenda to convert the nation into a banana republic with them the ruling oligarchs. They have enough money to buy a banana republic and id you are in the 99%b but hanker to live under oligarch overloads there are any number of banana republics you can move to. Don’t despair if America’s middle class chooses not to go silently into the night as Republicans want it to do.to go silently into oblivion. Even if a number of millionaires don;t want what the Republicans are selling.

Even two right-wing OWS condemners have felt first hand that they might be wrong. If you prefer, you can see the story on the Daily Caller’s own site too. The protesters are the scum and the “bad guys” though.

@plethora & @amujinx Here’s a link to an article and video where two reporters tell in exact percentages who they found in the OWS movement in New York, and what issues brought them out to protests. They did hours of actual research and crowd interviews to write their story. They didn’t just sit down at a keyboard and make it up. Their solid facts are in stark contrast to the smell of the stuff Ann Coulter and her likes are pulling out of their butts.

@amujinx Thanks for the links.

@ETpro Well, I’m glad you had a fine time. I checked your video link and am puzzled. It was not terribly complimentary of the OWS. Here is the link that came up when I clicked your reference. I tend to agree with what I saw, and my opinion is that the OWS has a pretty iffy future.

@plethora I think it’s just getting started, and breaking news that will hit tomorrow will prove how afraid certain elements that are pushing for ever more economic inequality are about it. THey have hired a powerful political action group to try to bring down the OWS movement, and that $hit’s going to hit the fan tomorrow. People don’t spend that sort of money to destroy a movement taht’s dying on its own.

@plethora As promised above, here is video of breaking news on DC lobbying firms swinging into action to crush the OWS movement before it can establish any roots. BTW, the plan is a true blueprint of how those who would be our new Oligarch masters use their massive money to hire shills to push their causes and punish all who resist. This is EXACTLY what OWS is in the streets to protest, the corrupting influence of big corporate and Wall Street money on politics.

@ETpro This is EXACTLY what OWS is in the streets to protest, the corrupting influence of big corporate and Wall Street money on politics.

A worthy cause and one which I support

@plethora Thanks. I hope they can keep their focus there. Granted, in any big movement, you will have all sorts of differing opinions expressed by a few. But this in one area where I think there is broad consensus. In fact, it’s one of the first things that the Tea Party formed to protest, as well.