First thing, is that I was asked the following in a private message from a friend (we will call her Alice)
Alice asked,
"Hey nikki can i ask y u always portray protests as being innocent, peaceful protesters? im very upset with this occupy business. it seems that this organization doesn't realize they could make our economic situation more worse than what it is already.... and seeing how these innocent protesters violently rampaged through new york and vandalized it makes me more disgusted with the matter. what is ur take on it?"
Now this deserves a little explanation before I tell you my response to this. I have a facebook account, like many do. I post and share things there concerning the Occupy Movement rather frequently there. Anyone who knows me, knows I am very passionate about the movement, and how important it is to me to point out where our country has gone wrong, as well as some possible solutions to fix current issues without spending large quantities of money the country doesn't have (Thank you Wall St and the Big Bankers). I post how the Majority of Occupiers are peaceful, and DO NOT instigate a majority of the attacks that police do to them.
Here's an article for you all to read in your free time.
So to get back to the point, here's my response to her question:
"The vandalizing and the rapes, etc....do not portray the actual movement since it's founding is on Non-Violence which is constantly re-emphasized. However, with every movement there is a military based force (Ex: Martin Luther king- Non-violent and Malcom X/Black Panthers- Violent and military like) It happens all the time. The other thing is that when there are encampments, police forces where moving the criminals towards the encampments because they were trying to get rid of the encampments. Occupy has made the economic situation in our country more apparent, and has more people who want to change the economic policies than there ever was. The organization isn't making the economy worse, it's fighting to make it better by getting rid of the bought and paid for government officials. They want to remove money from politics and take away the power to sell assessets we don't have to countries to make money (wall street) which is part of the reason our economy has tanked in the first place. To add to this the banks got bail outs and the people who really needed them, didn't. In a capitalistic society which is what our economic system is based on, the banks should not have been bailed out. These "too big to fail" companies should have been allowed to fail under pure capitalism, which isn't the case now because it's been obvious that's not what we practice here. The banks made faulty/junk loans to people they knew couldn't pay them, just to trade them off to make more money on them, which has led to the huge housing crisis we are now under and a constantly rising homeless problem.
The other thing the group is trying to show to people is that if we all work together for the betterment of all, which can be done, is that we don't need tons of money to fix the problems we are having in this country. The Protesters do not get violent unless provoked by the police showing up in riot gear, which is un-necessary. They are using rubber bullets, tazers, and flash grenades, pepper spray, and tear gas. These are unarmed protesters trying to make their voices heard. Mind you not all protesters turn violent, they are only pushed to that when innocent bystanders are brought into the mix, ex: A lady who was not part of the occupy group was pulled off her bike, beaten and then arrested by 5 police officers, just because she "rode past the officers". She didn't say anything or do anything, to provoke the police but yet they turned violent on her. NYPD has a reputation of being the most violent of all police groups for that state. Also, The protesters did not rampage through NY either, they marched peacefully through the streets. when there is 50,000 people all going in the same direction, it's hard to stay on the side walks. The state was notified and that's why they shut streets down. Do not listen to the news concerning Occupy because all they show are the few bad apples.
You keep telling me not to make the police look bad, but when they are bad they need to be called on it. That's what I'm doing. I do it to the occupiers who have moved away from the groups non-violent actions as well, such as the 5 guys who were arrested by the FBI because they were planning to blow up a bridge. That is not condoned and they deserve what they get. Police across the nation have already caused miscarriages and severe injuries to unarmed protesters who have not done anything to provoke the violence other than not leave a specific premise. Violence begets violence, and it's not productive to the cause, on either side of the spectrum. You may not support Occupy, but I do, and I stand with the 80,000+ people world wide who are tired of governments screwing their people, taking away their rights, and leaving them poor and working dead end jobs. I'm going for a Bachelors degree in Elementary Education and to the looks of it, I won't have a union to protect me, and I will be lucky to find a job. I have friends who have PHD's and Master Degrees who were promised jobs in their fields but are doing odd jobs, freelance jobs, and dead end min wage jobs because they can't find work with their degrees, and are in debt up to their eye balls.
This takes me into another thing the movement is trying to address is the student loans and tution hikes. Did you know people in China go to college up to a 4yr degree for free? There is NO tuition and their books are paid for. They then go into the work force afterwards and work that job for the rest of their lives. Healthcare is also another issue in this country and is an issue Occupy is addressing. Before they evicted Occupy Wall St from Zuccoti park they had a tent speccifically for rape victims and several medical tents and medical trained staff to tend to minor injuries and even a few doctors to tend to more severe injuries, at NO cost to the injured. I don't see how this is making the economy worse. It's making more people aware so they are more informed when they vote and more aware of how they are being anally raped by the government they are being blinded by."
Now to put this out there, on May 1st in New York alone there was an estimated 50,000-135,000 people present for the General Strike.
Her response back.
" its not that i dont support this group, its a simple factory examination that it could make the situation worse(theres always that 50-50 statistic) and I dont agree with police brutality, but these bad apples, and how many protesters before your Occupy organization its caused law enforcement to fear the worse and take precautions to protect themselves. they have families to go home too as well. All i'm saying is point out the obvious. the occupy organization is allowing (what I call is children), but not condoning, is these people to be influenced and to destructive. I would be more impressed that if a bunch of protesters was together, u saw this one guys throw a stick into a window-- before the police came withe the club-- yall already be ontop of him, clubbing the shit out of him-- or more organization and screening of these individuals before organizing pickets. Allot of these individuals are using your organization(which makes your organization look EXTREMELY BAD) to be destructive and violent-- many are just taking their anger out on the police alone. Its why police are brutal. They got families and I know there life is hard. So, I just wnted to bring this to light. Those protesters that have gone and acted like that, I now call them occupy terrorists. thats what they are. they are indirectly terrorizing your group, as well as their own country. its like your guys black plague... u need to nip it in the bud before things get a hell of a lot worse. This country is so fragile right now, it just might turn communism...."
I would like to point out first, the blatant misuse of the word Communism. Pure Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism are not practiced anywhere in the world for starters, and there is nothing wrong with any of these forms of government in and of themselves, but people in general are easily corruptible. These forms of government are being mixed with variances of their pure form. An example is when the banks were bailed out. In Pure Capitalism Banks would not be bailed out, they would have been left to fail. By what we know, they were bailed out with tax payer dollars, and by what capitalism states, we do not practice actual capitalism.
So MY response back:
"What you don't hear and see is that occupiers will call the police and even police their own. They are not terrorists anymore than the tea party or the constitutioinalists are. You know, communism in it's pure form isn't a bad thing, everyone is equal, everyone has the same things, and has the same amount of money, there is nothing wrong with pure communism, however, like capitalism and socialism no pure forms are practiced."
I have a tendency to get rather defensive of the Occupy Movement when people who watch Fox News think they know all there is to know about it and attack it without really knowing anything at all. Everything I said in my responses though, I believe and said from my heart. Just as I sit and type this blog for you to read, I am speaking from heart and from sound knowledge of what I have researched and witnessed for myself. There is something very wrong with this country right now, and with many other countries around the world. If there wasn't do you honestly believe that Spain's economy is about to collapse? Or that Greece's economy has already collapsed? Or how about 135,000 pissed off people were marching in lower Manhattan, New York, in protest of Wall St selling out the USA and a Government who doesn't listen to it's people who are struggling? I can only hope that as time progresses, things don't get worse, and more people wake up to the true reality of the world around them.
IN OTHER NEWS!
Occupy Minnesota: Drugs & the DRE Program at Peavey Plaza:
Maryland Bans Arsenic in Chicken Feed
Leaked Documents: US Army Plan for Re-Education of Political Activists
Judge Threatens Sanctions
Human genes engineered into experimental GMO rice being grown in Kansas
Right-Wing Refuses To Believe Cleveland Bombers Are NOT Part Of Occupy Movement
