Anonymous asked:
What do you think of violent protesting?
It’s immoral, counter-productive, and stupid.
It is immoral because violence hurts people. A lot. Usually the people hurt aren’t the people being protested against. I understand that every great revolutionary movement has had some less-than-peaceful elements. But how confident do you have to be that your cause is just that you’re going to go out and wreck people’s lives to get your message across? And you’re so confident that you’re right that you’re going to hurt other people until they give in to your demands?
It is counter-productive—because it just destroys things. Violence isn’t a solution. It’s just a way to try to make somebody else’s costs so high that maybe give up and do what you demand that they do. What did you do on May 1st? Did you feed somebody hungry? Help somebody who needed it? Build a tighter community or a stronger coalition? No? You threw a garbage can through a window? I hope you’re proud of yourself, asshole.
Finally, it’s stupid. If you’re going to change something, you need a compelling narrative. If your movement thinks it can win that narrative through violence, it’s dumb. You’ll alienate allies. You’ll get shut down. Hard. I want to change things too. I’ll back your peaceful protest. But I also want to sleep at night. Safely. I want to go about my life with minimal disruption. And if your protest makes me feel unsafe? Maybe I’ll turn a blind eye toward a bit of police brutality.
You’re not going to win some beautiful new world through violence. The people holding the chains of oppression understand violence. They’re better at it than you are. Choose some tactic with a chance of working.
Well said! I need this on my blog.
I was actually supportive of the OWS movement in it’s infancy. But as soon as I got word of the problems they were having with violence, sexual assault and their dismissive attitude towards the struggles of POC, I dropped out. Effective movements need to be as inclusive as possible… OWS is not.
Occupy DC crashed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s holiday party tonight. In honor, protesters rolled out a human red carpet, shouting “You walk on our rights, now walk on us!” as guests entered. No one actually walked on them, though.
I don’t know how I feel about this. I mean, I get the message, (very turn-the-other-cheeky) but I would not be okay with this unless the red carpet had broken class sprinkled on it and they had to walk over me without shoes on.
(via abaldwin360)
I can’t watch videos at work, but by the looks of the comments that follow, I’m assuming that Adam Corrolla is spewing some serious bullshit. I never liked this guy in the first place, but PLEASE! AWESOME FOLLOWERS OF MINE (I’m looking at you political bloggers) - DISCUSS!
Upon very close inspection, we think the author of the second image has much better photo editing skills.
HILARIOUS!
(via liberalsarecool)
By Diane Sweet| occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com
A photographer on the scene of Occupy LA during the LAPD raid on the encampment, identified by L.A. Now as Tyson Heder, 35, was taking pictures of the eviction, when a police officer shoved him away. The video shows Heder then standing up, yelling at the officer, and then being forced to the ground by several policemen.
Via:
His sister, Christy Collins, said Heder was in custody Wednesday morning.
Collins, who lives in Albany, N.Y., said she got an emotional phone message from him some time after his arrest. He posted on Facebook, “They beat me and stole my camera.” Collin said her brother had not been an Occupy participant previously and apparently went to the encampment Tuesday night just to take pictures.
“I do think it was horrible and excessive,” Collins said after watching a video of the encounter. “But I have to say, I was relieved it wasn’t worse once I saw it.”
A blogger who is a member of Occupy LA writes of other police violence during the eviction:
“Approximately 300 of us walked down 1st towards Los Angeles, leaving 300 left standing by the cops. The police moved in after us, and kettled the 300 left behind. Seeing this, we ran, as a group, a couple of blocks to get away from them, losing people all along the way. Then suddenly a group of police emerged. We were blocked (kettled) in on Alameda between second and first. The police started running towards us - the group was now about 100 people by this point - and everyone ran into a parking lot to escape. The police ran after them and started beating protestors with batons repeatedly as they were running away trying to escape. I saw about ten police hit protestors. I did not get video footage nor photographs as I was running.”
While most can agree that the police violence in LA wasn’t nearly as bad as Occupy Oakland, or Occupy Wall Street, it hardly seems cause for the high praise given the LAPD in the mainstream media. They successfully shut down a peaceful group exercising their First Amendment rights without beating them up “too badly.” Woo-hoo?
Yeaaah, I wasn’t sure what had happened during the LA and Philidelphia evictions. I hadn’t heard any stories of crazy violence, but that doesn’t make stories like the above acceptable. What, just because the media has blown up the horrific instances of police brutality in Oakland and New York I’m supposed to be desensitized to stuff like this? Please. No violence is necessary. At all.
However, I just want to take a minute and remind everyone that unfortunately it is totally common for police to behave like this. We don’t see it reported on that often, but if you stick around past last call hours in an area downtown you’ll inevitably see something like this. At an art show I participated in not too long ago, I was outside talking with some friends when I heard a loud THUD! behind me. It turned out to be a couple of police officers dealing with a “drunk” homeless man. WTF.
So, basically what I’m saying is, something needs to change in ALL PD’s. Because it’s clear that this kind of violent, bullying behavior is normal for them. Fucking unacceptable.
Excerpt:
If you aren’t in the .1%, you have no access to the derivatives markets, you have no access to the special deals that hedge funds and other wealthy investors get, and you have no access to the resources, information, strategic services, tax exemptions, and capital that the top .1% is getting.
… I’m a first-year analyst on wall street, and based on what I see day in and day out, I support the OWS movement 100%.
But you should really read the whole thing.
I actually took a course on options trading and we learned a bit about hedging and tax breaks/loop holes for traders and so on so I have (verrrrry limited) knowledge on all this stuff, but I can tell you after just those few weeks of classes, it was very clear that he’s right. If you don’t first have the money/capital, and resources going in, you’re going to get chewed up and spit out by the market. It’s a very exclusive club, and we’re not invited, folks.
(via shorterexcerpts)
Who are the 99%? All of us who were told that if we worked hard and saved money we could retire with few financial worries. They forgot to tell us about the tech bubble, followed by the housing bubble, followed by recession and anthropocentric global climate change.
They told us technology and medicine would save us. They forgot to mention the CO2 issue and environmental degradation; the cost of healthcare and the deadly side effects of pharmaceuticals.
They talked us into believing that our homes would appreciate enough to buy retirement and that putting money in the stock market was better than a savings account. They forgot to mention that only insiders, brokers, players, and the already wealthy get rich from the stock market. For the rest of us it is more like carnie midway games—there’s no way to win.
Our 401Ks, pension funds, IRAs, and Roths are built on a house of cards, but it is too late: we’re trapped in the game. We hope the market will go up even though we despise the thought of corporate rule. We are at the mercy of the 55 wall $treeters who peer over the balconies and laugh at our angst. The corporations and the banks are sitting on piles of our money. They withhold jobs, pad their pockets, and offer us pink slips and .03% interest.
And what are we told to do about this financial crisis? Go shopping!! Spend money! What money? We don’t have jobs! We can barely afford groceries. Capitalism has failed democracy. Let’s prove we can rebuild this nation with a new ethic, an economic prosperity based on creativity and progress not greed and development. Let’s create an inclusive vision of the future where education and social justice are better choices than war and wall $treet.
“We’re citizens not consumers.” I read that on the Global Revolution live feed chat. It’s my new motto. I am the 99%.Best. One. Ever.
Wow. Agreed.
(via abaldwin360)
A fan-fucking-tastic response to this guy, excerpt:
I understand your pride in what you’ve accomplished, but I want to ask you something.
Do you really want the bar set this high? Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week? Is that your idea of the American Dream?
Do you really want to spend the rest of your life working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week? Do you think you can? Because, let me tell you, kid, that’s not going to be as easy when you’re 50 as it was when you were 20.
And what happens if you get sick? You say you don’t have health insurance, but since you’re a veteran I assume you have some government-provided health care through the VA system. I know my father, a Vietnam-era veteran of the Air Force, still gets most of his medical needs met through the VA, but I don’t know what your situation is. But even if you have access to health care, it doesn’t mean disease or injury might not interfere with your ability to put in those 60- to 70-hour work weeks.
Do you plan to get married, have kids? Do you think your wife is going to be happy with you working those long hours year after year without a vacation? Is it going to be fair to her? Is it going to be fair to your kids? Is it going to be fair to you?
Reblogging because it really is a fantastic response to this guy. Read the whole thing.
(Source: mindbabies)
Kemp Yarborough was attacked with pepper spray because he started to have an asthma attack and reached for his inhaler on March 8, 2011 and in August the attack was ruled to have been a homicide.
Wonder why that police brutality never made the news?
Kemp Yarborough was black.
I can’t………..This is why………….man, I’mma just not even discuss this.
holy fucking shit, i missed that detail, charlie. ….holy shit.
Dude. Fuck the police. Ugh.
Welp. Let the shit-storm begin.
(via bluntlyblue)
![abaldwin360:
thepoliticalfreakshow:
dropfox:
Fox News offers a suggestion for what to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
Please tell me this is a joke!
UPDATE: It’s not!
Well isn’t it obvious who Fox supports and belongs to?
Any more, it’s like they try to see how fucking outrageous they can be and still get away with it.
[EDIT] and reading the comments on that story, FUCK! Fox news viewers live in a complete false reality.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv4pl2IqXk1qg43xko1_500.png)
Fox News offers a suggestion for what to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
Please tell me this is a joke!
UPDATE: It’s not!
Well isn’t it obvious who Fox supports and belongs to?
Any more, it’s like they try to see how fucking outrageous they can be and still get away with it.
[EDIT] and reading the comments on that story, FUCK! Fox news viewers live in a complete false reality.
Yerena is not just an artist. With his screen prints that often times represent characters living within a human struggle, Yerena, a longtime Los Angelenos, is also an activist doing art for the people. He recently moved to Arizona because he said he was inspired by the political climate that escalated in 2010 from SB1070, deportations following raids by the Maricopa County Sheriffs Department and the ban of ethnic studies in Tucson schools.
For his latest, and perhaps most recognizable piece, one dedicated to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, Yerena and other artists thought deep into the issues and felt that there was not yet a place within the protests for his type of art, and that bothered him. Yerena created a poster that represented the Native Americans that lived on the land where Wall Street now stands. “Decolonize Wall Street” became the theme for his piece.
Strolling cop is gettin’ pretty popular.
