I may stand out from pretty much everyone else here but I constantly hope to hear a point that will change my mind, the same way I love to find out that some fact/formula/subject I thought I knew is wrong so that I can explore the subject in a new manner.
A rational person should aim to be happy to find out they're wrong, since it gives them the ability to be less wrong.
I'm pretty happy to be wrong, usually, for that exact reason. I don't know enough about what happened at the Bachmann thing to have a strong opinion at this point. I'm a fan of the first amendment, and a fan of generally being polite, but not quite sure what to make of interrupting a candidate who generally aims to be divisive.
There are initial reports of destruction of tents, personal belongings, the use of sound cannons, bulldozers and teargas as well as one person yelling on a live feed "They're bringing out the hoses" It's hard to tell what the story is when things started going down in the middle of the night and the live feed went down about twenty to thirty minutes ago. I haven't managed to get it back since. Might be a whole different world when we wake up tomorrow.
Sounds like an attempt to force them out as things get colder, or when people stay anyway to point at them as a bunch of homeless. OWS had a lot of infrastructure set up, including a makeshift library and kitchen area to organize feeding all the protestors. Hopefully a lot of it was taken and saved but anything that was left was trashed, they scraped the place clean all right
It didn't sound like the protestors had any time to get anything out; though notices went out at around 10pm, notices to the protesters went out about an hour before it happened, and they preventing anyone from leaving during that time.
The article that was posted by SquadronROE has since been updated with news that a judge ordered (or may order) a temporary restraining order, allowing the protesters to return with tents and equipment.
Also, the Occupy people weren't actually preventing the public from using the park, as anyone could come join the occupation. The police, however, were preventing people from using the park.
It is technically illegal to pitch tents in these parks as far as I can see. The question is whether or not pitching a tent constitutes "speech."
Isn't it a private park, where the protestors have permission from the park owner? I don't see what the problem would be if I had people camping in my back yard, and how this is different.
(I don't know how park ownership works in New York, so take what I said lightly.)
This park is different in that it is a mixture of public and private. From what I understand the park was created in order to get a building permit nearby. It is privately owned and cared for but open to the public.
Also, the Occupy people weren't actually preventing the public from using the park, as anyone could come join the occupation. The police, however, were preventing people from using the park.
The protesters were preventing people from using the park. It was basically impossible to walk in, so crowded was this tiny little park. It was full of debris, tents, and various obstacles, and could not be traversed in any reasonable way.
Also, actions have been covered as speech in may cases, but this particular case will likely result in further judicial review. Otherwise, I could pitch a tent or park an RV in Central Park and live there under the guise of protesting some or other thing.
Isn't it a private park, where the protestors have permission from the park owner? I don't see what the problem would be if I had people camping in my back yard, and how this is different.
(I don't know how park ownership works in New York, so take what I said lightly.)
This has been explained a million times, several of which were in this thread. ;^) It is a privately-owned park. However, the owner agreed with the City to open it to the public in return for certain tax incentives. For all intents and purposes, it is a public park.
This has been explained a million times, several of which were in this thread. ;^)
I've read this entire thread this afternoon, and I didn't read an explanation to the public/private nature of the park. Still, the owner apparently had enough say to throw them out, wouldn't that work the other way too?
The legality aside there is a definite class statement being made to forbid any tents etc. Bloomberg is saying protestors need to go home every night to somewhere, hotels I guess or commute back and forth. Forcing extra expenditures on a movement whose whole point is they have been economically exploited or left in the dust.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -Anatole France
...I pretty much believe that being evicted from Zuccotti Park is about the best thing that could happen to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Let’s face it, they had not succeeded in the last couple of weeks in retaining the media’s attention. The movement was beginning to seem stagnant to a larger public. Eviction gives them new life, regains the media’s attention, and the, to use a Marxist term, heightens the contradictions.
...
The clear strategy in response for OWS is to keep reestablishing the tent towns, forcing the cities to continue responding, burning money and political capital to do so, potentially creating situations of police brutality. But this also begs another question–is this movement becoming more about occupying space than a progressive upheaval? I think the lack of concrete goals really plagues the movement here–because they aren’t asking for any specific, at what point do they leave? Because there has to be some kind of end point to this. No city is going to allow this to continue for 2 or 3 years. Nor should they.
There is going to need to be some sort of distillation of goals and methods. The eviction hopefully can be a catalyst towards this and not a red herring.
I don't understand what the issue has been in enforcing the law from the beginning of this protest. It's pretty clear in the Constitutional jurisprudence that you can impose time, place, and manner restrictions on speech as long as those restrictions are content-neutral. If the park has rules, then everyone should have to follow them, regardless of their message. This park has had No Sleeping and No Camping rules from the outset of the protest. They should have enforced it from the beginning, and then this would be less of an outcry issue now.
These people are not being told they can't protest. They're just being told they have to do it in compliance with the laws EVERYONE ELSE HAS TO FOLLOW. If they want to protest by civil disobedience, that is fine. But they should expect to get evicted, arrested, or fined. Free speech protections do not give you carte blanche. If I yell that communism is awesome and then punch a guy in the face, I'm probably gonna be arrested for assault. It has nothing to do with my pro-communist message. I just happened to be breaking the law concurrently with my speech.
There are laws in New York about what can or can not be done in public parks, and I believe they generically refer to the "rules" set forth by the bodies which individually administer them.
Bryant Park doesn't allow fires, electrically amplified sound, tents/sleeping bags, access when it is closed overnight, or lying down on benches, alcoholic beverages, etc... Sleeping, lying down anywhere other than on benches, and so forth are fine. Some parks allow controlled fires for cooking, some don't.
All New York parks by law ban smoking.
All of the above rules, if violated, subject one to a fine by the city, presented by the police.
If the occupy people showed up, made noise, got along with the government and went home, would they really be protesting anything? Would change come of such an event? In my mind such an event would merely be spectacle. It gets real when people are out of their comfort zones.
There are certainly plenty of punters, but plenty of protesters quite willing to get arrested if the info graphic a few posts back indicates, and the some odd 200 arrests last night.
I don't know why some people are trying to act like they weren't breaking rules or laws. They obviously were. They should be saying they are breaking laws on purpose. Civil disobedience, it's kind of the point.
The problem is that with civil disobedience, the one law you don't break is resisting arrest. You're supposed to be a martyr, just let them take you in.
The reason there is outrage is because the police seem to think it is necessary to use non-lethal, but still violent, methods to deal with the problem. They should just walk up to people one at a time and nicely put them under arrest, taking care to avoid wrongful arrests. Also, they shouldn't do things like keeping the media and press away from the area.
If I were mayor/commissioner I would be doing everything I could to make the police look like the goodest goodies.
I agree, the idea is to make people uncomfortable and disrupt their lives so they change an undesirable behavior. If you show up with signs, act nice and go home you really didn't do anything.
Right, that's what civil disobedience is all about. But if you are going to do that, then it is really stupid to be outraged when the police tell you you are violating the law.
The people who were chanting things like "This is our home" are the problem. They have no right to live in the park. Occupying it was supposed to be an act of CD that made a point. Yet they are acting as though they are somehow entitled to live in tents in a park as a matter of course.
Comments
There are initial reports of destruction of tents, personal belongings, the use of sound cannons, bulldozers and teargas as well as one person yelling on a live feed "They're bringing out the hoses" It's hard to tell what the story is when things started going down in the middle of the night and the live feed went down about twenty to thirty minutes ago. I haven't managed to get it back since. Might be a whole different world when we wake up tomorrow.
Sounds like an attempt to force them out as things get colder, or when people stay anyway to point at them as a bunch of homeless. OWS had a lot of infrastructure set up, including a makeshift library and kitchen area to organize feeding all the protestors. Hopefully a lot of it was taken and saved but anything that was left was trashed, they scraped the place clean all right
THEY THREW AWAY ALL THE BOOKS.
5,000 BOOKS!
Also, the Occupy people weren't actually preventing the public from using the park, as anyone could come join the occupation. The police, however, were preventing people from using the park.
(I don't know how park ownership works in New York, so take what I said lightly.)
Also, actions have been covered as speech in may cases, but this particular case will likely result in further judicial review. Otherwise, I could pitch a tent or park an RV in Central Park and live there under the guise of protesting some or other thing. This has been explained a million times, several of which were in this thread. ;^) It is a privately-owned park. However, the owner agreed with the City to open it to the public in return for certain tax incentives. For all intents and purposes, it is a public park.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -Anatole France
These people are not being told they can't protest. They're just being told they have to do it in compliance with the laws EVERYONE ELSE HAS TO FOLLOW. If they want to protest by civil disobedience, that is fine. But they should expect to get evicted, arrested, or fined. Free speech protections do not give you carte blanche. If I yell that communism is awesome and then punch a guy in the face, I'm probably gonna be arrested for assault. It has nothing to do with my pro-communist message. I just happened to be breaking the law concurrently with my speech.
Bryant Park doesn't allow fires, electrically amplified sound, tents/sleeping bags, access when it is closed overnight, or lying down on benches, alcoholic beverages, etc... Sleeping, lying down anywhere other than on benches, and so forth are fine. Some parks allow controlled fires for cooking, some don't.
All New York parks by law ban smoking.
All of the above rules, if violated, subject one to a fine by the city, presented by the police.
The problem is that with civil disobedience, the one law you don't break is resisting arrest. You're supposed to be a martyr, just let them take you in.
The reason there is outrage is because the police seem to think it is necessary to use non-lethal, but still violent, methods to deal with the problem. They should just walk up to people one at a time and nicely put them under arrest, taking care to avoid wrongful arrests. Also, they shouldn't do things like keeping the media and press away from the area.
If I were mayor/commissioner I would be doing everything I could to make the police look like the goodest goodies.
The people who were chanting things like "This is our home" are the problem. They have no right to live in the park. Occupying it was supposed to be an act of CD that made a point. Yet they are acting as though they are somehow entitled to live in tents in a park as a matter of course.