Concert of my Life
Many posts are big blog post style, so a "Read More" link is used to shorten posts for feeds.
Some of my posts will be emotional or controversial. Always refer to the "Read More" sentence. Thanks.
I write a lot about social/political/world issues and you may or may not agree with my opinions. I am not and do not claim to be an expert on any of the topics, and am only presenting my thoughts formed from knowledge gained through research or school. Feel free to let me know what you think, I am always open to new ideas and perspectives.
Any Questions, Comments, or Concerns? Praises or Objections? Put it in the Ask!
New Page to collect all Posts related to Society/World Issues: Thoughts on Society
An amazing article at The Society Page’s Sociology Lens. It talks about Occupy’s “Mic Check” in regards to whether or not it is “suppressing free speech”, as some would have you believe. It talks about how “free speech” is not truly free, and in this age, as before, is still tied to other factors and statuses such as socioeconomic standing. Which ties in very well to my article on Politics and Classism in pointing out the inequalities in participating in the democratic process.
This picture has been floating around for a while, and I’d like to take a shot at answering it.
1) Well, considering a majority of opinion poll respondents support increased taxes on the extremely wealthy after OWS began, it seems that this message is getting across well.
2) For some of those who do believe that 150,000,000 Americans are lazy rather than 400 Americans being greedy, I’ll be writing a post down the road about how people associate *visible* wealth and success with high moral character, as a possible factor.
THIS. ONE THOUSAND TIMES THIS.
honestly, what is the point of getting arrested! why disobey the police?! protest martyrdom?? that accomplishes nothing. what the HELL are you gonna do while you’re arrested? sure as hell can’t protest anything…
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My friend posted this and I want to address some points.
1) In response to my friend’s comments, I want to direct you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther_king_jr , hit Ctrl+F, and type in “arrest”. Arrest is a part of protesting, and protesters need to realize that, and observers need to realize that. The circumstances of those arrests is what is problematic at the UCD incident. The person in this video is right. Look at history. Look at how many people changed the world through their civil disobedience, protests, and subsequent arrests. Protest. Works. It is not the whole solution, but it is an absolutely critical component to the many actions that must be taken to remedy institutional problems.
2) The person in this video makes a great point that is very important to this whole discussion. This issue of Police Brutality (Or Not) is diverting everyone’s attention away from the actual things we (students and OWS) want to talk about. In an ironic twist, the media pays attention to protests only when people are arrested/brutalized. This gives the movement more attention, but to only a small subsection of what their overall message is. Why was there a protest at UCD? To “Defend Public Education” and “Stand in Solidarity with UCB Students who were Police Baton-ed”. Why was there a protest at UCB? To “Defend Public Education”. It is not the students’ fault that the Police Brutality discussion and debate has to even happen. If Officer Bologna didn’t pepper spray helpless women in New York. If Seattle Police officers didn’t pepper spray an elderly woman. If UCB Police officers didn’t break the ribs of students and nationally renowned poets, we could actually focus on educating people about what systematic problems have lead to the many problems facing UC Students and the American public. I am fairly certain that we (UC Student activists) WANT to have the discussion about Defending Public Education, but we can’t when every time we try to protest to raise awareness, it gets Shut Down or outright Baton-ed in the Ribs.
A FULL video of the UC Davis pepper spray incident. Shows the stuff that the liberal media would never show.
This doesn’t really resemble police brutality… the cops seem very peaceful the whole time other than taking down the student that was resisting arrest. The students were the ones yelling profanities at the police, claiming rights while violating the law, setting up a blockade, resisting arrest and giving the cops ultimatums. Is this really what “peaceful” means?
Goes to show the media can conveniently “leave out” anything as they please that might make their side look unpopular… and that goes in any direction.
A friend of mine posted this, and I’d like to address some points.
1) There’s a lot of debate about whether the media is “liberal” or “conservative” biased. And I think it’s a lot of both? Yes, the media is pretty good on pushing surface level “liberal” values, particularly LGBTQ rights in recent years. At the same time, when you look at the level of viewership a very much “conservative” media Fox News gets, you can see that a lot of the country is continuously inundated in “conservative” messages. Add to that the prominence of “conservative” media figures like Glenn Beck (who has his on channel now?) and Rush Limbaugh (with his popular radio show). Also, the “liberal” media is very tame, and as noted in a recent Link on Wall Street Breaking the Law, even the “liberal” media doesn’t do a good job prioritizing actually important news.
2)
a)I was going to make this post elsewhere, but I personally believe that the students, and other protesters, should not resist arrest once the cuffs are on and the rights are recited. Regardless of how I feel about the law and their legitimacy, the Police have to follow it, and if they follow it correctly, if I were protesting and broke one of those laws, I should be arrested calmly and with some semblance of dignity.
b) Yes, there are profanities hurled at the Police. Going back to “conservative” media, it’s OK for adults to hurl profanities at other people, but students can’t? Do we honestly think that the adult Police officers were emotionally hurt by the profanities? Personally, I hate profanities. I never use them unless I am very emotional about what I’m trying to express. So Yes, I don’t like that the students use profanities, but No, I don’t think that the use of profanities was very relevant to the response by the Police.
c) Yes, there is evidence of mob mentality, and I don’t like mob mentality either. But regardless of the angry state of the students, they still didn’t show any visual show of violence or physical threat to the Police. That’s my assessment based on this video. By student choice or not, at any given time there is a fairly large distance between the students and the central core group of Police officers, and I didn’t see anything thrown.
d) I’ve made this point earlier, but escalation is a very important factor. This is my un-researched opinion, but when Police bring their Riot Gear, high powered BB Guns, Batons, and Pepper Spray, it raises tensions for everyone. Everyone has more fear and raw nerves, making it easier for a mob mentality to develop, clouding people’s judgement. So who really incited the mob mentality? The students? Or the actions, show of force of the Police officers? If someone brings a gun to a fine dinner, it’s going to change the environment and how people act. I think that is something important to consider.
e) The critical seconds of the whole UCD incident is still the same. The premise of the act of Pepper Spray was “Students refused to be arrested and posed a threat to Police Officers by preventing their Exit”. But Threat of Force and Application of Force are two very different things. You can see that by shaking and showing his Pepper Spray, John Pike caused a reaction in the students. They stopped moving, they looked down, were unaware of their surroundings, did not actively oppose his action of stepping over the line. This, from my assessment of the video, allowed Pike to, with ease, step through a crack between the Protesters, allowing his Exit. It looks to me, the Threat of Force caused a reaction that nulls the “The Police could not Exit” argument. At this point, the Application of Force (the use of Pepper Spray) should have become null as well. The Threat of Force worked; the Protester’s “implied threat” turned out to be empty; and could have been repeated until all Police Officers got out.
Addendum: In reference to 2e, I am basing my claim off an interview with the Police Chief who oversaw the UCD incident, directly after the incident. In the interview, the Police Chief explicitly said that the decision to use Pepper Spray was because, and I quote Interviewer: “Was that use of force really necessary?” Chief Spicuzza: “Uh, to get out there? Yes. If you look at the video, you’re going to see that there was over 200 people in that quad and that they had already, uh, encircled those officers.” So while I agree that Arrest was warranted under the direction of the Chief or Katehi, I think that the Application of Force, using Pepper Spray, was no longer warranted. Because the “use of force” was for the purpose of “to get out of there”.
An Opinion piece at CNN, talking more broadly about how both the Government (the SEC) and the mass media has a pretty terrible history of letting Wall Street firms that break the law go off with not much more than a warning and a small fine. Occupy Wall Street calls for a lot of things, but this is one of the biggest things that its supporters are concerned about, how Wall Street firms seem to get away with the law with a slap on the wrist, especially in light of how protesters are outright arrested wholesale.
This is a piece by Coffee Party USA co-founder Eric Byler. It talks about the escalation of Occupy Protests and Police Response by BOTH Police AND Politics. It’s an insightful look at how a concocted mutual distrust between Protesters and Police has arisen, and that it obscures and represses solutions that actually worked. I admit myself to how triggered I’ve become every time I see a police officer. I believe I am fairly justified in being scared, seeing the videos of UCB and UCD. But at the same time, those images don’t tell the whole story of Police responses to Occupy Protests.
I also like a very crucial and valid argument Byler makes. He says, and I agree, that we can’t demonize the entire Police force based on the acts of Police Brutality that occurred. That we should recognize and call out the problem, and seek to work with Police to remedy and reduce Police Brutality. In the same vein, we can’t demonize the entire Federal Government (as the Tea Party has done), based on the acts and failures of Government that have occurred. That we should recognize and call out the problems (such as dirty money in politics), and seek to raise civic participation to work with Government to remedy and reduce Bad Policies.
Today I Facebook Shared this photo shared by UCSA with the caption “UCLA this morning. Shame.”
I personally added the caption “If you didn’t know, the UC Regents meeting today is being held via teleconference to “avoid harm to students”, at multiple UC’s and other locations. This is the scene at UCLA. Them police sure look ready to take on the non-violent peaceful student protesters!”
A few people began having a heated discussion/debate over the implications of my caption and UCSA’s caption, as well as the content of the image.
Hit Read More for a transcript of what I wrote. I realize just my comments don’t provide enough context, but I want to respect the privacy of the other people who commented, and also it’d just be too long. If you friended me on Facebook, just check the ~32 comments on the picture/link on my Wall.
Hopefully you can get past the Facebook Wall and access this article. Anyways, an insightful opinion piece over at the Washington Post about why African Americans are so underrepresented at Occupy [Everything]. This is one of the most frustrating things for me, the lack of minority representation and participation in Occupy. Yes, I know there are serious problems with the term “Occupy”. Yes, I know this was started by ostensibly White people who “aren’t getting their fair share of the pie”. Yes, Occupy is very “White” right now. BUT! This is as much an issue for Blacks and other minorities as it is for Whites. I think it is totally callous to not support Occupy just to “teach the White capitalists a lesson”. This isn’t and shouldn’t be a fight to get more Whites rich again, this should be a fight to educate and elevate understanding of serious socioeconomic problems that must be solved with something other than “business as usual”. We can all benefit from a public, national dialogue about issues that affect us all, and that is how I believe we can move forward as Americans(Yes, I know that is very nationalist of me. Perhaps “People” would be a more inclusive term).
A fun read over at The Guardian, by Naomi Wolf. It reads like an opinion piece, but it’s pretty accurate in reflecting how I feel about Occupy and what it’s trying to accomplish. The article has somewhat of a conspiracy theory view, but it’s fairly reasonable considering what we’ve been seeing.
Link: Racialicious: Decolonization and Occupy Wall Street
Read the Post AND Read the first 5-10 Comments. The Post and the Comments are very long. The Post offers one perspective and the Comments offer differing opinions, opinions that I agree with more.
Hit Read More for my commentary
I’ve noticed some personally disturbing trends among my friends, in regards to people who are anti-Occupy or Occupy-apathetic (there are also people who are anti-“Occupy” and pro-“Decolonize”, but that’s a whole different story).
Hit Read More
I’ve seen this phrase floated around on news sites. “Anti-Wall Street”. Which is pretty inaccurate and gives the wrong impression about Occupy Wall Street. Yes, the Occupy Together movement is protesting Wall Street as part of a wider agenda. But I don’t think anyone is saying we are AGAINST or MUST REMOVE Wall Street and Corporations. I think what we and the Occupy movement are trying to do is bring accountability to Wall Street and Corporations. The facts are, Wall Street and Corporations are not playing by the rules, and even when they are, they hold inordinate influence to change the rules in their favor. We just want them to play by fair rules. We all value competition, but unfair competition, inequality, should not be tolerated.
[WARNING: There is a scene with blood.]
If you care about what is going on in this country, I Highly Recommend you watch this video RIGHT NOW. It compares the similarities between the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, particularly in the passion of the protesters and the hypocrisy of those in power.
(Video of Mic Check in action) How can my mind not be in full support of a protest that DOESN’T USE ELECTRONIC AMPLIFICATION. Like is this the real life? Can a protest be any more reliant on the basic honesty, respectfulness, and passion of the human heart? This is beyond amazing.
This is comical. The media and the authorities and the wealthy don’t know what to do when thousands of Americans rise up together to protest the injustices being perpetrated by the plutocrats. So they keep doing the only thing thing they know how to do. Try to demonize and de-legitimize the protests. The Police Chief (or something) complains that the Occupy Wall Street people didn’t file a permit. If they filed for a permit they would never get authorized for a protest the size and scope of what is happening. The Police Chief also complains that Occupy Wall Street is leaderless. And for good reason. It stands for everything freedom and democracy stands for, a collective will and collective, open discussion for the improvement of life for all. Occupy Wall Street and the broader Occupy Together movement is so inspiring in its embracing of everyone who wants to join, and even though the people may still be prejudiced, they are bound by their stated morals to hear out the suggestions of all participants.
