Pud

You say words like "unprovoked" and "clearly".

I watched the nine minutes and 3 seconds and saw nothing that could be labeled as 'clearly'.

There seems to be a group of people refusing to unoccupied a public area. There seems to be a group of police using crown control measure to separate and move a crowd. Then things get hectic and in a normal crowd control situation one takes out the motivators so that the larger crowd stays more docile. Its crowd control 101, its been taught that way since the 60's. I find it hard to believe that rank and file cops in NYC have not had at least basic crowd control training and drills. You make it sound as if there is some nefarious agenda and that the beat cop is a mere pawn of this agenda.

As you asked and I did watch closely. I don't see the jack booted Juggernaut commandant charging forth to do ill while rank and file stare dumb founded and unable to do anything except hold the line.

I see actions and reactions. I don't know their SOP for riot agents and the use of them. I can think of several reasons why a scene commander would do an action and move away immediately after.... but since neither you nor I were on scene we'll have to rely on our past experiences and predisposed assumptions to 'help' us understand the situation.

Like EVERY confrontation between law enforcement and the public there is a chance for wrong doing. Are you saying that the throngs of people were lawfully occupying the area? And are you suggesting that a multitude of unemployed and disenfranchised folks converging on the financial center of NYC is somehow an innocent thing that the outcome of a massive gathering should go unchallenged by law enforcement? Further .. are you saying that the cops should just ruck up and let the 'peaceful' youth have their thing and that somehow the cops are to blame simply because they showed up?


Come on .. really? I'll not accept yours and MSNBC's contention that America is under siege and that were are one 'fabricated mob' scene away from martial law.

Yes, I'm saying that I believe they were lawfully occupying the area. I'm basing my assumption on the existence of the orange fencing. Unlawful assemblies don't have orange fencing. And, oh, by the way -- what do you mean by "lawful"? Constitutional? Or some statute/ordinance written in the billions of pages of statutes and ordinances in language that only the lawyers who wrote them understand?

And yes, I'm asserting that multitudes of unemployed people do have the right in this country to assemble and demand redress to structural (i.e.: caused by the rules/regulations in place) causes of their suffering. Well, they're supposed to anyway. And yes, insisting on justice is an innocent act.

Unchallenged by law enforcement is a nebulous phrase. I'd like to understand what you mean by that. Are you implying, for example, that law enforcement has the right to do as it pleases in the name of law & order? If not, what DO you mean?

I don't hold the position that cops shouldn't protect themselves with reasonable force. I'm assuming that you don't believe it was a peaceful protest, so I suspect that's the crux of our difference of opinion comes in. If you believe -- for whatever reason -- that the demonstration was planned and executed as overtly violent, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

I agree that we're not one 'fab mob' scene away from martial law. Have you read the Patriot Act? We're already there.

My core point has less to do with crowd control and more to do with propaganda. This should be a major ongoing news story with an agressive loop on the all-news cable channels. It's not. The post is my theory on the "why" of that fact. If demonstrators were able to successfully shut down Wall Street for any period of time, they'd have leverage. What do they want leverage for? Well, since they're targeting Wall Street, it stands to reason they have some issues with the bailouts and the behavior there that caused the crisis that led to the need for bailouts.

And nothing has changed on Wall Street. So, we can expect more of the same.

This is solution that the protestors have settled on. What's yours?

You're right, we have a difference of opinion. So whatever happened at that dog and pony show in NYC means little to me. And if as you say 'we're already under martial law' then why did the action of the LEO surprise you?

Anyway, My Solution?


Mine is to do nothing more for humanity, mine is to sequester myself in as much comfort and QUIET shadows as possible. If my plan works I'll die in about 45 years
of old age.

Thousands of years of human 'progress' tells me that it all means nothing. One turn pushes the next. Doing NOTHING is not much different than doing something when viewed through the lens of the common man's history book. Poor people have always been poor. Down trodden have always been so. The proletariat has always been harried by the bourgeoisie.

Those folks on Wall street .. the money lenders and the money borrowers are all the same.

What changed after that event?

I say nothing did.

If your solution is to stand in front of a tank with a white handkerchief waiting for the tank driver to have an uncontrollable fit of conscience then more power to ya. An M1a2 weighs approximately 70 tons.

Good luck !


**

I'll amend my comments a bit, ONE thing will make a real change. A 75% reduction in the human population. Give me that and I'll say humanity has a chance to be human again. As it is we're just jostling for position at the feeding chute.

I appreciate that you bothered to watch the video and give a well-reasoned counterargument to mine. It provided me a rare opportunity to see an issue through another set of eyes.

I'm behind you 100% in your do-nothingness. I not only see the logic behind it, but the humility necessary to arrive there, and the benefits to you and yours of avoiding the combat zone.

To my eye, something has changed. Since I believe it's important to retain a full and accurate view of the battlefield so as not to get overrun by a retreating stampede, it becomes personally important when I see that the old propaganda tricks are losing effectiveness. And they are.

We're witnessing the game change at a very elemental and basic level. The people who now wield all the power in our world are soon to be fighting the last war. Their playbook will begin yielding increasingly and exponentially diminishing returns. They will soon begin looking as ridiculous as the Redcoats as they mass in predictable formations and follow ossified battle techniques, all the while becoming increasingly confused as they get picked off from their flanks, one by one.

Yes, I believe they will at some point break ranks. And then it will be a free-for-all.

Like you, I intend to stay as much out of the way as possible, but it may not be possible. Once pandemonium becomes the rule, our social and cultural norms will fall prey to a dynamic akin to the fog of war.

Such anarchy does not -- can not -- stand for long in any group of homo sapiens. You made that point when you observed that there have always been poor and rich, etc.

At such time there will be a massive adjustment in the planet's population. When you had a wiki feature, I posted a theory on how it might happen, along with a proposed time scale, based on the most recent similar global event: The Great Depression.

Whether I make it to old age or not is irrelevant. What's more important to me is living well for every minute that I draw oxygen. And living well requires not being subject to the false choices and manufactured anxieties that result from thinking one thing (as a result of propaganda) and living a different reality.

After all, happiness is nothing more than aligning one's expectations to one's reality (within limits -- for example: being tortured allows no space for happiness regardless of your expectations at the time). If I become convinced that I can only be happy living on Mars, then that will become my truth, even if it's impossible to live on Mars.

Once a plurality of the population comes to understand that reality will never meet with their idea of the "American Dream" the game will have permanently changed. My theory, is that we are fast approaching, if not at, that moment in time.

It seems as if the 'news' has not been cancelled. Fox, you know the fair and balanced guys**, have a few minutes of video on the gathering of minds found in the Wall street crowd.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/119322143...ylist_id=87485

Sure sure ... take it with a pinch of salt and much skepticism, just like one should take the MSNBC video and commentary.





** Joke, they are as F&B as MSNBC is.

I tried -- and failed -- to make a clear distinction between the delivery organ (MSNBS, Fox, CNBS, Cee No News, etc.) and the actual story. I had hoped my commentary and analysis would have made it obvious that I didn't and don't "buy" the narrow conclusions drawn by the talking head.

The raw video speaks for itself.

And my point still stands. For many weeks, this story was suppressed in almost every American "news" outlet. That it took an event like a white shirt pepper spray incident on video going viral is the evidence that I offer in support.

Once something goes viral, the major outlets have to figure out how to spin it in order to hide the egg on their faces. The MSNBS video does exactly this. The Fox coverage also does it, with the only exception that the slant is geared toward changing the conversation in a way that suits their narrow view of the world.

They all need to do two things:

1. Proffer a plausible reason why it wasn't covered until now.
2. Change the conversation to protect the interests of their owners.

Watch both accounts through this lens and it's likely you'll begin to see that the OWSers' existence is in NOBODY's best interest. And, by nobody, I mean the 1% of the population that owns and runs pretty much everything.