Forum Post: charm offensive. the police are part of the 99% too. win them over.
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 19, 2011, 3:05 p.m. EST by clearmountain44
(48)
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what can be done to make the police more sympathetic to the movement. as strong and as growing as the movement is it is still very vulnerable to being squashed. without a place of assembly and being in the public, wall street's, and the media's faces the movement can be effectively ignored.
how can the movement assure that they maintain the right of assembly in the parks. how to make the politicians REALLY take the movement seriously? no one makes real change unless it is in their self interest. true concessions to the 99% will only be made if the real fear is put into the 1%. i am not at all advocating violence. that would be totally counterproductive. the movement is still a speck of dust compared to the power of the system. how can we make it grow and ensure it's continuance? one small part should be a coherent strategy to make the police more sympathetic to the movement and thus minimizing the chance of either side losing control and giving the system a stronger excuse to take more forceful action and squash the movement
I agree...they have a job to do, and they're just earning a check. Don't engage a wage slave...most of them want nothing more than to get home safely.
What do you think about OWS? Shout it loud!
http://www.youshouts.com/viewforum.php?f=3
the government has pitted us against them.
exactly, it is divide and conquer. the only way a movement ever wins is if that strategy can be neutralized. the only power the occupy movement has the power of numbers and inclusion
We must neutralize the polarity in this country if we will be effective at all.
indi007, interesting but so what. this isn't about legal right and wrong, this is about playing it smart to keep the movement going strong. once you're arrested whether it was a bad arrested or not, you're gone, you'r no longer protesting. you've ceded the field to the police. months can go by before a hearing court/ plus you are now in THEIR system where the media can ignore it. they can't ignore non-violent protesters every day in the streets.
isn't the occupy movement about holding people accountable? You think cops that are "just following orders" should get a free pass??? If you want the rule of law to prevail it is all of us, on an individual level, which must claim it. The police will only stop their criminal assault when their personal fortunes are at risk. The police dept. is chock full of criminals. We need good cops in there. If you want to know the extant of the criminality look here.
The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/ Those that do not defend their rights have none.
None violent protests will not stop the assaults. Only judgment liens will.
how in the world did you arrive at the conclusion that i think cops should be given a free pass? if you want to make it an us vs. them situation with them as the cops, well, you are missing the forest for the trees. there is nothing more established interests would like than for the cops to have an excuse to squash the movement like a bug.
I'd like to back up another poster police have have limited immunity. EVERY ARREST IS PRESUMED UNLAWFUL IT IS UP TO THE COP TO JUSTIFY IT. Mistake of fact will suport a "good faith arrest" A Mistake of law will NOT.
There is a solution to this action by police. It’s called suing there ass into oblivion. Not in an official capacity though and you do it in small claims court. so they have no lawyer. False arrest aggravated battery etc… I say not an official capacity because unconstitutional acts are rogue acts. They are acting outside of their office.
You might want to familairize yourself with this.
From A treatise on the law of malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, and the Abuse of Legal Process
http://books.google.com/books?id=fHQ9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA481&dq=false+imprisonment+presumed+torts&hl=en&ei=BkfFTvylJMXh0QHx_envDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=false%20imprisonment%20presumed%20torts&f=false
ideological change: until the 1960's the south was solidly democratic. what happened? a well organized and thought out policy to divide the south along class and race lines. i wish i could remember the tv documentary i saw recently that shows video of pat buchanaan clearly articulating nixon's strategey to divide the country and win the south for "religion and race". the gall of that guy now to constantly bemoan the lack of cultural cohesivness in america, considering he was on the most influential architects of this divisive politcal ideology.
the other attribute is the power of the term 99%. the police are part of the 99% too. they need to feel that strongly. they need to know that they cannot not only be a force for control but also a force for change too.
hey, changing ideologies is what political change is all about.
I didn't say it would be easy or that it wouldn't require a tremendous amount of control and patience on the part of the protesters. however there a few big attributes of the current situation that are in the protesters favor now. communications technolgoy from the web to smart phones that empowers everyone to spread their message and show evidence that cannot be dispute.
but regarding the police strike of 1919, what changes were put into effect to ensure the police would be on the side of the 1%. that is interesting to focus on and see if it still applies or if can be changed. let me know. that would be really interesting information.
i agree with you about the sheriff/s dept. still most protest are in urban environments right now where the police are involved. that is the problem at hand and a priority should be on how to handle them.
The cops may be part of the 99% but they are ideologically predisposed to protect and serve the 1%. Perhaps even more important, their jobs, their livlihood, their capacity to feed, cloth and house themselves and their families depends on their continuing to obey orders from their superiors.
People who doubt this should take a look at the Boston Police Strike of 1919, the strike that made Calvin Coolidge's political career. After that all kinds of checks were put in place to make sure that legally the police would be on the side of the 1% and that any effort on the part of the police to thwart that arrangement would be met with the severest of penalties.
Perhaps the one police agency to look at for real change would be sheriff's departments which are universally elective offices. In a few instances (but not most) police chiefs and directors of public safty are elected. But in virtually all cases sheriffs are elected. If there is one political office that I think OWSers should seriously go after it would be that of sheriff. Then we could get a police force that would actively defend our movement rather than attack it.
our force, at this time, is only the power of our words, the terms to set the debate, and the visible evidence of unrelenting determination to be in their face.
a louis, no one said anything about flattery or cowtowing to the police. the police are a powerful force, yes. but the question is how to get that force to work with us, not against us.
you are right on the facts, but only the most egregious acts and verifiable acts ever get attention and/or prosecuted.
the question, is how do we prevent the police from using their wide latitude of discretion to toe the legal line. having their fundamental sympathies and treating them as brothers will do much more than reading the law to them. it will also serve an extremely strong message to the powers that control the police that, well, maybe they don't control the police as much as they thought!
So, I think one thing that has to be absolutely clear. Police can not be hired to break the Constitution. (see: Pierson v. Ray, 386 US 547 - Supreme Court 1967)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4871005922110746242&q=%2Bpolice+%2Bimmunity&hl=en&as_sdt=2003 "The common law has never granted police officers an absolute and unqualified immunity, and the officers in this case do not claim that they are entitled to one. Their claim is rather that they should not be liable if they acted in good faith and with probable cause in making an arrest under a statute that they believed to be valid. Under the prevailing view in this country a peace officer who arrests someone with probable cause is not liable for false arrest simply because the innocence of the suspect is later proved. Restatement, Second, Torts § 121 (1965); 1 Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 3.18, at 277-278 (1956); Ward v. Fidelity & Deposit Co. of Maryland, 179 F. 2d 327 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1950). A policeman's lot is not so unhappy that he must choose between being charged with dereliction of duty if he does not arrest when he has probable cause, and being mulcted in damages if he does. Although the matter is not entirely free from doubt,[10] the same consideration would seem to require excusing him from liability for acting under a statute that he reasonably believed to be valid but that was later held unconstitutional, on its face or as applied."
In many cases, they could very much lose their paycheck if they are put into situations where they take things too far...
-Jimi
that is the power of the term 99%! finally after 20 years of republicans setting the terms of the debate progressive are now doing so. 99% vs. 1% everyone can relate to that. more and more people are realizing on both sides of the political spectrum that tea partiers and Occupiers have more in common with each other than with the monied interests in this country which dominate BOTH political parties.
the occupy movement is so important as a catalytic turning point to show the overwhelming frustration of the lower, middle class, almost everyone.
people that criticize the movement for not having a plan are being of compltely disingeuous. they system itself is corrupt and rigged. how can change come through the current system channels when it has only gotten worse over 30 years.
leaders to the movement will come and true reformist measures will happen. but right now it is imperative that we support that Occupy movement that creates a visual evidence of the extremen dissatisfaction with the system that the media CANNOT ignore!
They will do what they do until a stronger counterforce exists. That's when maybe large numbers of police will defect. Not sooner and not by flattery.