Forum Post: After Oakland, Where Is Occupy's Code of Conduct?
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 3, 2011, 6:28 p.m. EST by puff6962
(4052)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals. Martin Luther King, Jr.
You have wounded yourself.
Unions will avoid you.
Politicians will not support you.
Mainstream America will not see your movement as theirs.
Establish a code of conduct, based upon aggressive nonviolence, before another incident occurs.
lol,. some people think the actions of some represent all,. that provocateurs represent a movement,. that posting mindless drivel will slow the inevitable..,
If you are to be identified as "anti-capitalists" then your movement will easily be defeated. This branding, as much as any violence on your part, will destroy any reverberations of your message with average Americans.
Code of Conduct? OWS does not have the right to tell people to protest or not to protest. Or how to protest. Everyone decides for himself how to protest and is responsible for his own actions. Therefore, if undercover police pretend to be protestors and commit criminal acts, the majority peaceful protestors will not be affected and OWS will still keep going.
What OWS should do and the only thing it has to do is to remind protestors to stay calm and to not be easily provoked by others.
From the very beginning there was a philosophy undergirding the Montgomery boycott, the philosophy of nonviolent resistance. There was always the problem of getting this method over because it didn’t make sense to most of the people in the beginning. We had to use our mass meetings to explain nonviolence to a community of people who had never heard of the philosophy and in many instances were not sympathetic with it. We had meetings twice a week on Mondays and on Thursdays, and we had an institute on nonviolence and social change. We had to make it clear that nonviolent resistance is not a method of cowardice. It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. The nonviolent resister is just as opposed to the evil that he is standing against as the violent resister but he resists without violence. This method is nonaggressive physically but strongly aggressive spiritually.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
You're a fucking moron.
i agree with this line of action and am surprised that this issue has not been brought to the front as one that deserves our utmost attention to. those that believe in non-violent protest (who i feel are the vast majority) need to separate themselves from those inclined to violence and distraction of property. if not the movement has already failed.
also, the OWS crew would do well to man up and do everything they can to prevent this from happening more in the future, even to the point of making citizens arrests and handing these guys over to the police.
Too late, the cat's out of the bag that the majority of those within Occupy have no interest in nonviolence. They'll plead their benignity and days later, a battle will erupt. Their credibility has been permanently tarnished, and justly so. This movement never had central goals that could be achieved through peaceful, nonviolent methods. The very nature of their grievances has inevitably driven them to this point. OWS is going to fluke out in the future. Maybe not immediately, but certainly in the long run.
They've done a great job of sinking their own ship.
I hope not. Oakland seems to be a rather dangerous place to be a demonstrator.
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/11/03/occupy-burn-down-wall-street/
“Arrest records obtained by the Daily Caller reveal that the median value of the homes (beyond Zuccotti Park) of the 984 OWS protesters arrested in New York City between September 18 and October 15 is $305,000. At least 95 of the protesters’ residences are worth approximately $500,000 or more. The average age of protesters taken into custody, moreover, is 27 years. You can do the math yourself, but if the answer you come up with does not include spoiled rich kid as the unit of measurement, you probably need to recheck your work.”
They've been posing all along. But who is paying them to do it?
Well judging by the brown-nosing that Obama and Pelosi have been giving them, if I believed they were paid actors, I would say the fringe left in power.
I just think these are spoiled rich kids that are just parroting the words of their sociology professors really...trust me...I took two sociology courses the past few semesters...this rhetoric about income inequality and the top 1% that I hear at OWS is nothing new to my ears.
Because of the violence.."Unions will avoid you"? Bullshit. They are participants...100%
The most important issue at this time is sexual assaults on site. Any risk of that has to be dealt with completely as it will cast a very dark shadow over your participants.
Bullshit. They are afraid that you guys will discolor THEIR cause.
C'mon. Union thugs enjoy the intimidation role.And dems want them to do it.
Unions will likely see a resurgence due to the illegal immigration debate. You are likely to see some strange bedfellows in the next decade. If unions are seen as a force in protecting jobs from going to undocumented workers, many Democrats will harden their opinions on the subject of illegals. Furthermore, the Right has overstepped in it's antilabor legislation initiatives in various states. Nothing will lead to a union resurgence faster than telling people that they do not have the right to, collectively, deal with a corporation. Finally, Unions have been cut down at the knees by right to work states. These were usually poorer, redneck, states whose standard of living has benefited and, now, these guys want a raise too. Unions will eventually return....but only if the Right continues its attacks.
Union members....those who are left....are too old to intimidate anybody anymore. Their main role is driving all of the nursing home people, who were once union members, to the polls on election day.
From the very beginning there was a philosophy undergirding the Montgomery boycott, the philosophy of nonviolent resistance. There was always the problem of getting this method over because it didn’t make sense to most of the people in the beginning. We had to use our mass meetings to explain nonviolence to a community of people who had never heard of the philosophy and in many instances were not sympathetic with it. We had meetings twice a week on Mondays and on Thursdays, and we had an institute on nonviolence and social change. We had to make it clear that nonviolent resistance is not a method of cowardice. It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. The nonviolent resister is just as opposed to the evil that he is standing against as the violent resister but he resists without violence. This method is nonaggressive physically but strongly aggressive spiritually.
NOT TO HUMILIATE BUT TO WIN OVER
Another thing that we had to get over was the fact that the nonviolent resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding. This was always a cry that we had to set before people that our aim is not to defeat the white community, not to humiliate the white community, but to win the friendship of all of the persons who had perpetrated this system in the past. The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community. A boycott is never an end within itself. It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor but the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption.
Then we had to make it clear also that the nonviolent resister seeks to attack the evil system rather than individuals who happen to be caught up in the system. And this is why I say from time to time that the struggle in the South is not so much the tension between white people and Negro people. The struggle is rather between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will not be a victory merely for fifty thousand Negroes. But it will be a victory for justice, a victory for good will, a victory for democracy.
Another basic thing we had to get over is that nonviolent resistance is also an internal matter. It not only avoids external violence or external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. And so at the center of our movement stood the philosophy of love. The attitude that the only way to ultimately change humanity and make for the society that we all long for is to keep love at the center of our lives. Now people used to ask me from the beginning what do you mean by love and how is it that you can tell us to love those persons who seek to defeat us and those persons who stand against us; how can you love such persons? And I had to make it clear all along that love in its highest sense is not a sentimental sort of thing, not even an affectionate sort of thing.
AGAPE LOVE
The Greek language uses three words for love. It talks about eros. Eros is a sort of aesthetic love. It has come to us to be a sort of romantic love and it stands with all of its beauty. But when we speak of loving those who oppose us we’re not talking about eros. The Greek language talks about philia and this is a sort of reciprocal love between personal friends. This is a vital, valuable love. But when we talk of loving those who oppose you and those who seek to defeat you we are not talking about eros or philia. The Greek language comes out with another word and it is agape. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all men. Biblical theologians would say it is the love of God working in the minds of men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. And when you come to love on this level you begin to love men not because they are likeable, not because they do things that attract us, but because God loves them and here we love the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. It is the type of love that stands at the center of the movement that we are trying to carry on in the Southland—agape.
SOME POWER IN THE UNIVERSE THAT WORKS FOR JUSTICE
I am quite aware of the fact that there are persons who believe firmly in nonviolence who do not believe in a personal God, but I think every person who believes in nonviolent resistance believes somehow that the universe in some form is on the side of justice. That there is something unfolding in the universe whether one speaks of it as a unconscious process, or whether one speaks of it as some unmoved mover, or whether someone speaks of it as a personal God. There is something in the universe that unfolds for justice and so in Montgomery we felt somehow that as we struggled we had cosmic companionship. And this was one of the things that kept the people together, the belief that the universe is on the side of justice.
God grant that as men and women all over the world struggle against evil systems they will struggle with love in their hearts, with understanding good will. Agape says you must go on with wise restraint and calm reasonableness but you must keep moving. We have a great opportunity in America to build here a great nation, a nation where all men live together as brothers and respect the dignity and worth of all human personality. We must keep moving toward that goal. I know that some people are saying we must slow up. They are writing letters to the North and they are appealing to white people of good will and to the Negroes saying slow up, you’re pushing too fast. They are saying we must adopt a policy of moderation. Now if moderation means moving on with wise restraint and calm reasonableness, then moderation is a great virtue that all men of good will must seek to achieve in this tense period of transition. But if moderation means slowing up in the move for justice and capitulating to the whims and caprices of the guardians of the deadening status quo, then moderation is a tragic vice which all men of good will must condemn. We must continue to move on. Our self—respect is at stake; the prestige of our nation is at stake. Civil rights is an eternal moral issue which may well determine the destiny of our civilization in the ideological struggle with communism. We must keep moving with wise restraint and love and with proper discipline and dignity.
THE NEED TO BE "MALADJUSTED"
Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word. It is the word "maladjusted." Now we all should seek to live a well—adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things. I call upon you to be as maladjusted to such things. I call upon you to be as maladjusted as Amos who in the midst of the injustices of his day cried out in words that echo across the generation, "Let judgment run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half slave and half free. As maladjusted as Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery could cry out, "All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." As maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth who dreamed a dream of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization. And then we will be able to move from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.