Forum Post: So far I've seen footage of peaceful protesters being pepper sprayed, maced, tear gassed, beat with sticks, punched, hit by cars, shot in the head… and now this!
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 7, 2011, 8:59 a.m. EST by unarmed
(213)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8
According to the media, it's the PROTESTERS that are supposedly violent?
We have our right to peaceably assemble. But that does mean peaceful. When we insist on doing something that breaks another persons rights, its not peaceful assembly anymore. Like for example, if we block a road and it keeps other people from using it. Then we are violating their rights and the police can take back their rights for them. They also can take back that right for themselves. Blocking them in their car, that is us attacking first. If we take a park and keep the kids from playing in it on the swings, then we are violating their rights and the police can take back their rights that we took. when we blockade a port and close it and keep people from earning their paycheck, we are stealing their rights and the state can come in and take back their rights for them that we took. Im all for doing this, Im in a local camp, but don't whine about police or public reaction to our breaking laws. They are taking back rights for other people that we took with our occupation. Just to be clear. peaceful assembly does not equal forceful occupation. We are forcefully occupying. so far the cities are being really good about working with us so we can get the message out by occupying. But its real fine line we are walking, and when one too many citizens gets pissed they can't use their park that we took, or they can't drive down a road to visit their mom in the hospital, we're going to have to understand that we started this and take what comes. Lets be clear, we are breaking the law. Not that we should stop, but we should stop whining about people wont let us break the law. And just do it, just occupy, knowing that we are. Don't rationalize the occupation as lawful. Its not.
Effective and persuasive Protest and Demonstrations need not be unlawful. Being unlawful only invites others to shut us down. Lets be seen, lets be heard, let us not give excuses for arrest.
Let us all work together for a better future.
Create sign and send petitions. The more inputs we have the better. http://occupywallst.org/forum/create-sign-and-send-petitions/
A site to submit issues have them collected, collated and submitted. www.lobbydemocracy.com
OUR BANNER/OUR CAUSE
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. July 4, 1776
Forum Post: Occupy Oakland police shoots a guy for recording video. I am totally speechless. How on Earth is this OK in America?
Posted Nov. 6, 2011, 6:50 p.m. EST (2 minutes ago) by precipice This content is user submitted and not an official statement
This is pretty incredible footage.
http://www.occupyr.com/General/thread.php?id=713
A guy is filming a police line in Oakland. It's fairly boring at first, there is no action going on. At about the 30 second mark, a cop raises a gun and shoots the guy with a rubber bullet. This is absolutely unwarranted. Guns are generally used when there is a direct and immediate threat that cannot otherwise be prevented, as a last resort. How on earth a man who is simply filming even represents a threat is incredulous.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/occupy-oakland-police-shoots-a-guy-for-recording-v/
Richmond Virginia
Occupy Richmond Virginia rally
Posted Nov. 4, 2011, 6:34 p.m. EST (0 seconds ago) by MattLHolck | edit | delete This content is user submitted and not an official statement
"Posted by afp on Nov 4, 2011 in Local/State | 0 comments
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia will provide legal assistance to a photographer who was arrested for trespassing while taking pictures of the police during the recent sweep of Occupy demonstrators encamped at Kanawha Plaza in Downtown Richmond.
Ian Graham, a photographer for RVA Magazine in Richmond, was attempting to document the removal of Occupy demonstrators when he was told by police that he must confine his picture-taking to an area designated for press. Graham went to the press area but left when he determined that it restricted his view of the unfolding events. When he questioned the police’s authority to require him to remain there, he was arrested for trespassing."
http://augustafreepress.com/2011/11/04/aclu-to-represent-magazine-photographer-arrested-at-occupy-richmond-rally/
http://occupywallst.org/forum/magazine-photographer-arrested-at-occupy-richmond-/
Police Conflict
http://occupywallst.org/forum/forum-topics/#comment-299334
@emma DON'T YOU REALIZE those WHO APPEAR to be anti-occupy are defending EVERYONE from those who CLAIM to be assembling peacefully when THEY INDEED ARE BREAKING THE LAW?
The police are there to QUELL RIOTS not start them. Sorry sweetie!
Anyone the subject of action by the police has violated some rule/ordinance/law etc. Being "peaceful" but still breaking the law gets you those kinds of things. If the police showed up to clear a bridge where 100s were sitting to block traffic and you left PEACEFULLY when they asked you too those things wouldn't happen. Instead you resist, they then have to subdue you to do their job which is to protect 100% of us.
Correct. The right to peaceably assemble != the abilty to do whatever you want whenever you want. When you start to tread upon the rights of others is where your rights end.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
"A revolution is not a dinner party"- that darling of the '68 generation- the greatest mass murder of all time chairman Mao observed.
He was right- now this guy can run back to his friends and show off his boo-boo.
He went looking for trouble and he got it. Now he can show it off for the world to see.
Agitprop.
Funny, The Tea Party never had any problems, with police. Stupid hippies..just can't figure it out yet. I guess that's why they are out of work, sleeping in tents and shitting in buckets
It's interesting to note that the crass and mean-spirited comments are always anti-Occupy. Don't they know that the people they are defending don't give one of those bucket shits about them ?
Here's an idea... try NOT to get arrested, tears gassed, or clubbed. Is this a problem?