Occupy Wall Street

[rozn]

I have just had an hour long debate about these protests and I wanted to know what you guys think about it. There are videos of the police beating protesters and macing them. Some people argue that this is not right and they are peaceful and that the government is trying to block media from showing these videos. Other's say they are not being peaceful and the police are only keeping order. In this debate I am mostly trying to stay skeptical, that is why I am asking. So what do you guys think?

[Flame]

http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_world_vs_wall_st/?fp

Here you can read better. I basically approve the people, first because is a right, second because stay shut up isn't a way to change things, and until they not use weapons, is a right way to talk.

Always remember that the big economic world crysis wasn't our fault, is fault of who had the money in theyr hands. The big, like always.

[jdesarno]

honestly i think its a whole load of bullsht arrestin ppl 4 no reason and that 1 guy who got his foot run over by a officer then he had to kick it off he got arrested wtf?

[MagicManICT]

I approve of the protests myself. That's what the USA was founded on. I also approve of (mostly) our police forces. They (usually) don't use force against protests unless things are getting out of hand because it's just entirely too easy to sue the shit out of the city/county/state if excessive force is used.

I'll take some of the Vietnam War protests as an example. Most of them started out as peaceful demonstrations. Too often they devolved into a borderline riot because too many drunk/stoned/high people were participating. The police showed up, someone got unruly, and then it turned into a brawl. Other times, things remained peaceful and the police still came in all gang-busters and started the riot (the '68 Democratic National Convention is one of the ones I'm thinking of here, at least according to the news footage I've seen).

Since that time, we've had some other major protests going on. They went very smoothly because people stayed organized and civilized. We've also had many a major national (if not world) news-making incidents of police brutality and the police getting out of hand and multi-million dollar lawsuits over it.

[rozn]

Ill just throw out a few videos and articles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQh2NJR4onk

http://occupywallst.org/

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-1 ... -hunt.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG_TKAJyV6k ( Only thing I hate is they interview a 9 year old who is not open minded and listens to his parents most likely so ya.. )

Ill post more if people want. These are just a few I have read.

[akresen]

i stand for the people, it is our constitutional right to assemble in any public place (any) yet they are restricting the peaceful protesters to certain areas. long ago the patriot act was was enacted by the U.S. Congress on October 26, 2001, at the request of President George Bush in response to the terrorist acts of September 11. It gives new powers to the Justice Department in terms of domestic and international surveillance of American citizens and others within its jurisdiction. The Patriot Act breaches the First Amendment, which declares our rights to freedom expression, speech and information, One of the first reasons why the Patriot Act violates the First Amendment rights is because, as it states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." for those who do not under stand what redress of grievances, look it up. The Patriot Act violates the Fourth Amendment in every point, which should be the concern of every person, because “it violated the Constitution by giving federal authorities unchecked power to obtain the private information” (Swartz, 2004). The Patriot Act allows the federal government to take away the property of a supposed terrorist without notice or the agreement of the judge, even though the person can be innocent. The FBI can search private records within financial institutions, which are our personal documents and should be protected and not searched by law. They can also look into personal records such as medical, phone, internet, student or library records. my point is, even if it doesn't make sense... is that some of our constitutional rights were taken away, so they use police Brutality on what they say is to protect "order", now do you think it is right that the police are using force against citizens of America, when they are being peaceful?

[akresen]

redress of grievances
http://www.givemeliberty.org/RTPLawsuit ... -05-27.htm

"to Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances” means the People, with evidence that the government is abusing its constitutionally limited power, have the Right to submit a Petition for a Redress (remedy) of the constitutional wrongdoing, that government has an obligation to honestly respond to the People’s Petition and, should the government ignore the People, the People have the Right to enforce the Right of Petition by retaining their money until their grievances are Redressed.

Basically it means that if the federal government is exceeding the authority granted to it under the constitution (which it does regularly by the way) the people have a right to formally complain and the government must respond.

[MagicManICT]

There's some interesting facts about the Patriot Act floating around, namely that only a very small percentage of arrests and searches done under the PA are related to terrorism. (I want to say something like 90% of them are drug related.) Just give it a few more years. The cases are just starting to come up to the Supreme Court, assuming congress doesn't repeal it first.

[rozn]

Just one more article that is interesting:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2 ... ing-women/

[Kaios]

People whining because the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Not that I don't think they shouldn't be protesting, they'll just get bored of making zero progress and fuck off is all.