Look at What Happens to Peaceful Protesters in the States

And... the reaction of the University...

http://news.yahoo.com/campus-police-chief-leave-pepper-spraying-202222886.html

 

That's what the picture looked like to me. Since in real life I've seen a homeless woman being badly sick on the sidewalk, I think I'm in a better position to say than you are.

Yes, I probably jumped the gun on that post. Catbuilder got under my skin with his ridiculous anti-American slogans, and these pictures reminded me of politically motivated photoshops that I've seen before. I thought it was highly unlikely that a police officer would walk down a line of sitting people pepper-spraying them in front of dozens of cameras. Frankly, I'm still a little baffled by that decision-making process, unless it was their intention to give the protesters a good media story. But if I had it to do over again, I would not have posted that. Still, this doesn't mean that I was mocking an old woman in pain.

No, that's exactly what I was doing, questioning Catbuilder's honesty, or the honesty of whoever he got the photos from. He has never shown good judgment in this thread.

 

So where is your apology to America for the slanders you wrote, Catbuilder?

 

can't we all just get along

 

Well, first, it's crude and dishonest to accuse someone of being "against" the First Amendment just because they see a particular application of it differently from the way that you do.

Second, you are confusing "anti-American" with "un-American". A lot of people do. "Un-American" is a vague term used to refer to someone that doesn't meet your ideal of what a TRUE AMERICAN ought to be. For example, "It's un-American not to believe in the First Amendment!" or "It's un-American to criticize the president during an economic crisis!" This is just political posturing, trying to use patriotism to create reflexive, irrational prejudice against someone.

"Anti-American" is different. It means "against America" or something similar, just like anti-smoking would mean "opposed to smoking". You can be strongly pro-American and still want to change the Constitution (otherwise every change to the Constitution would be by definition anti-American). Therefore, there is nothing anti-American about being opposed to the First Amendment.

What you meant to say is that since I see these protests differently from the way that you do, I'm un-American because I don't live up to your ideal of what a True American should be. If I cared about your ideal of what a True American should be, this might be relevant. As it is, not so much.

On the other hand, I wasn't accusing you of being un-American because it never occurred to me that you or anyone else would be interested in how well you meet my ideal of what a True American should be. I said that your post was anti-American, meaning that you are against America. You despise America. You want to tear it down, make it less than it is, destroy people's confidence in it. Furthermore, if you really believe the things that you say about America, then you ought to be against America. If I believed those things, I would be against America. But I don't believe them and neither would you if you weren't predisposed in that direction.

The second sentence shows that you do have a political agenda.

I don't think there is any point to refuting this ridiculous sentiment, but I'll point out that believing that there is something inherently inferior about Americans is an anti-American sentiment.

Nor does the belligerent, arrogant trouble-making of the Occupy protesters further any helpful solution or improvement. Nor does your contemptuous disregard of your fellow citizens.

Another ridiculous, anti-American slander. We disagree on how to achieve those goals, but it is ridiculous to say that we don't agree on the goals.

Really? That surprises me because your rhetoric sounds an awful lot like the rhetoric of people who want the government to solve all of our problems. What does government do now that you think it should stop doing? Meddling with social norms? Building roads and bridges? Education? Health care? Meddling with the business climate?

Another anti-American fantasy.

 

It's a right to speak out. But I don't agree for example with 'occupy protesters' shutting down a port. What does stopping goods from being delivered or truck drivers from doing their job accomplish except costing honest businesses? To me that is the 1% who apparently can afford to camp out for weeks on someone's dime hurting the 70% of us who actually have to work every day for a living. That's not cool. Rally for everyone's right to have the opportunity to work to earn an honest living. Don't block that right for the rest of us.
Same if they get to the point of stopping other students from being able to get to classes they've paid for (no excuse for a few bad officers who showed bad judgement if there was no reason for them to use pepper spray there.)

 

They are not " one percent" . The occupy activists speak for millions of Americans.

Universities are the seed stock for new ideas and innovation. Protest is part of this cycle.

The police officers involved in the pepper spraying didnt understand this and as a result were sent back for further education.

 

They claim to speak for me, but I reject their claim that they speak for me as part of the 99% when they cause damage that I have to pay for as a taxpayer. Or when they infringe on my right to earn a living by an honest day's work. That 1% of their movement does the rest of us a disservice.

It sounds like the campus occupation was not stopping students from learning what they paid to learn, so it does seem poor policing. Hopefully the officers will be reassigned or retrained.

 

I agree 100%. That port occupation was wrong and should have definitely been broken up. It was a lousy idea for them to begin with. The port is your enemy? What were they thinking?

Plus, I think your right to protest ends on someone's private property. Just like Hoyt said about having a right to swing your fist, until it touches his nose. If a mob of protesters enters the private property of, say, that port in Oakland they shut down, they should rightfully be dispersed and if they resist, arrested and/or pepper sprayed for non-compliance.

"It sounds like the campus occupation was not stopping students from learning what they paid to learn, so it does seem poor policing. Hopefully the officers will be reassigned or retrained." - or prosecuted for assault. Police shouldn't have a free ticket to assault people, kill people, etc.., just because they are police. There should be accountability.

 

OK cat...

Where were we


Point number one:

My point: I don't find the 'right of assembly' being violated in these cases

Your rebuttal: IMO, the right of assembly is violated when someone is prevented from peaceable protest.


This is what I have observed on this specific case-

There are two bylines which could be in the press for this story:

The first - Peaceful Student Protestors at UC Davis Assaulted by Police.

The second- Occupy Protestors at Davis Confront Police, Arrests Were Made.

Given the first byline I believe at face value one could believe the the right of student to assemble (presumably in a peaceful sit in) were violated by the police.
The photo provided in the press seems to support this conclusion as well ( a picture tells a .....)


From everything I have been able to gather this first description is inaccurate in that it provides only one small part of a several day long event which came to a conclusion in that pepper spray incident.


The second byline is the truth.
The student were not simply exercising their right to free speech/assembly, they were confronting the police.

What I gather as the events-

1) Students set up tent camp on campus
2) School administrator Linda Katehi makes the decision that the students can not be permitted to camp on the school grounds- assemble yes, camp no.
3) Several days of clear requests to students to break camp are met with refusal
4) Police are requested to come in and remove tents.

And this is where it gets interesting:

The police come onto campus, when they start to break down the tent camp they are confronted by students. Arrests are made.

At this point there are 35 police and 50 students.
The crowd rapidly swells to some two hundred students who surround the police and begin taunting them. The also close their circle and begin demanding that the police free the arrested students.

At this point the students are acting as a mob.
Carefully review the videos- the police look visibly uneasy- they crowd together and draw batons.
At some point in this a number of students form a blockade to prevent the police from moving forward down the path and out of there.
This is the sitting students. (The audio of them chanting "Fu0k the police" is not shown in the reporting....)
The police finally act to break up that blockade by pepper spraying the members and bodily removing them.

The police then exit down that path.

I provided this earlier as background on the use of police action in these kind of occurrences:

"When it becomes necessary to control the actions of a crowd that constitutes an unlawful assembly, the commitment and responsibility of law enforcement is to control lawfully, efficiently, and with minimal impact upon the community. A variety of techniques and tactics may be necessary to resolve a civil disobedience incident. Only that force which is objectively reasonable may be used to arrest violators and restore order."
http://lib.post.ca.gov/Publications/CrowdMgtGuidelines.pdf

I suggested that one force level was used over simple arrest.
I listened to a police expert who says the police skipped over "applying pain producing techniques"
Did the police first try to move the students by pinching them?
I don't know- it will come out in the hearings.

I think there is nothing to see here.
It's not a test case for police interference of 'right to assemble'
It's not a case of police brutality.

If anything it is a unfortunate (and predictable) case of putting police in a volatile crowd control situation.

If you believe the students are faultless- one is saying that no control over their actions is permitted on the campus grounds.
Either by the school administrators or the police who were needed to effect the school policy decisions.

So anarchy- but for the press lets just call it "free speech"..

Just how I see it- lets call this installment #1

 

Yeah, 3 million. U.S population is 312,648,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

Universities are the seed stock of chaos and subversion.

Protest is one thing. Civil disturbance is another.

Protest means to voice disagreement. It may progress to civil disobedience but it is not the same.

 

as usual Hoyt, yur numbers are miles off.

where in the world did you get the idea that only 1% of americans agree with the efforts of the Occupy movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street#Public_opinion

thats a lot of polls none of which mention anything about 1% other than to shame the ultra wealthy for there basic greed in destroying the middle class. ( Ok I added that last bit about other than )

we want an end to corporate involvement or influence in all aspects of the political process.

just as there is a separation of church and state we want a separation of corporation and state

Obviously the corporate economy isn't working out to well for the middle class. Obviously the tax burden of both small business and the individual worker is ludicrously out of balance with that of the multinationals and the financial elite. Obviously if the corporations are allowed to continue in the manor they have, there won't be much left but a peasant and an elite class.

Our present political situation which at one time might have been best described as a corporate oligarchy has deteriorated into what was best described by a rather unsavory chap went by the name of Benito Mussolini

 

a random quote

to wit:

The philosopher and lover of man have much harm to say of trade; but the historian will see that trade was the principle of Liberty; that trade planted America and destroyed Feudalism; that it makes peace and keeps peace, and it will abolish slavery. We complain of its oppression of the poor, and of its building up a new aristocracy on the ruins of the aristocracy it destroyed. But the aristocracy of trade has no permanence, is not entailed, was the result of toil and talent, the result of merit of some kind, and is continually falling, like the waves of the sea, before new claims of the same sort.

Ralph W. Emerson

Does mankind ever come up with any new reasons to hate another? The history of man just seems to be repetitive cycles of the old arguments repackaged in the latest fashions.

 

It's the 70th year since the publication of my favourite US novel: "The Grapes of Wrath", and the issues are not far different today

And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression.

 

Beautiful motives, with some ugly ramifications of late.

I like that Mussolini quote, fits the situation well.