I saw a lot of different people. A lot of people are going there because of peer pressure. Then again, it's turning a lot of clueless people into clued-in people.
They have economics lectures there, for crying out loud.
I got very angry at the presence of hippies and anarcho-punks. I felt they did not represent the values of the popular movement in any way.

An organizer online told me that he understood my frustration, but that I couldn't expect everybody to read economics blogs every other day (which I do, because I'm a nerd). Most people have no real grasp of what's happening, it's overwhelming to them, they just have a gut feeling that something is wrong. I find the educational aspect of it to be yet another dimension of what OWS is bringing to the field.

I don't think its a lack of economics knowledge that makes the OWS protesters look bad. Its just an all around lack of decorum. They need to stop defying the police, breaking laws, yelling like retards. They really need to organize better, get a clear message, and maybe take a few lessons from the Tea Party. You never see any craziness like this from the Tea Party. Is it because the "man" likes the Tea Party? No, Its cause the Tea Party knows how to behave.

Cena is right. Damn law breakers, they are breaking laws that could kill people. Want to know who else should have kept to the laws to enact change in society? Those fucking niggers in the 1960's.

Five for this paragon of society.

The Civil Rights protests were well organized, orderly when they weren't being assaulted by rednecks, and it was or a clear cause. If I were alive back then I'd have been marching with them.

cena_mark: if you want to characterize the OWS movement like that, then I'm certainly free to characterize the entire Tea Party movement as a racist endeavor that supports fascism. Also, the Tea Party is more violent than the OWS movement... can you provide any evidence of any OWS'ers bringing guns, or beating people that speak out in opposition? Didn't think so, but the Tea Party has several incidents of both... who knows how to conduct themselves? The geriatrics in your beloved Tea Party, the ones that don't want Obama to do anything with their tax-payer provided MedicAid? Yeah, old people are totally going to be the driving force for lasting social change.

The original Tea Party was a protest against corporate power, I'm not surprised that the neo-fascists in your clique have flipped that concept on its head to attack the people that carry that torch today.

http://www.boingboing.net/filesroot/Screen%20shot%202010-10-26%20a t%201.54.38%20PM.jpg

Cena, you're one of the most articulate and scholarly posters here on PoeTV. Can you tell us exactly why the "lack of economics knowledge" is making the OWS protestors look bad? Can you site specific examples of their lack of economics knowledge?


And why haven't you shipped out yet to defend America from unauthorized shrimp trawling in US territorial waters? You still trying to qualify your storekeeper qualification?

Hahahaha "If I were alive I would have been marching with them." No you wouldn't, you dumb redneck. You would be to the right of them and you would have been sitting with your stupid family calling them hippies and niggers on the sidelines.

People that couch their criticism in OWS with some patronizingly approving nod to the civil rights movement inevitably have some abstract rosy concept of what that movement was. Like all social movements, the civil rights movement was not a monolith. It contained a variety of groups with different approaches and ideologies, who disagreed often.

The right demonized the movement as a Communist plot, and white moderates urged blacks to maintain decorum and knock off the marches and sit-ins. If you are going to draw parallels with the civil rights movement, you should at least be vaguely aware of the social context and criticisms it faced. You could start with maybe the most famous document of the movement - Letter From a Birmingham Jail - to get a notion of what contemporary criticisms the civil rights movement faced, and how one movement leader responded to that:

"You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored."

And let's sign off with a reminder again, that the movement wasn't a monolith. MLKJr. wasn't the only major figure, and his nonviolent approach was criticized by, e.g. Black Panther leaders.

So, conclusion: No, Cena_Mark, as much as I love you, you absolutely would not have been one of the filthy Jew liberals that supported the civil rights movement. You would inevitably have either been a William F. Buckley type making "reasonable" explanations for why civil rights were unnecessary, or in the best of cases, you would have been a white moderate urging blacks to quiet down. This is transparently obvious.

Right... because he delivered on his other promises so well.

He has fulfilled the promises he made to the Republicans, giving them everything they have asked for.

I know, right? If only the protesters were comprised of the Saudi military they'd have protest jets.

Yup. That's why he'll probably never be one. =(