Vote for Ron Paul and the rat poison will be in the rivers and ground water and not just the kool-aid.

That's a nice angle...I'll read up on it while I browse this photo gallery from Oakland this morning
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/ar ... g&win=open

I wonder, if the Occupy people are powerless from keeping the violent anarchists out of their protests, why weren't they also running over the Tea Party rallies?

Huh, that's a head scratcher. My Mom told me something once about the company you keep.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Looks like Mayor Bloomberg is losing patience with the people in Zucotti park disrupting residences and businesses and may be planning "action" against them.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/blo ... e-1.971097

For the record, Michael Bloomberg is not a GOP fascist.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Oakland is a terrible barometer for all the other OWS protests. Oakland is a violent, dangerous place on a daily basis, and you are doing a disservice to any other city you compare it to, and a disservice to OWC to suggest that Occupy Oakland is somehow representative of all the other Occupy's. With or without OWS, this kind of shit happens there all the time. It's not even safe to go to Raiders' games.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

No, actually, it doesn't.
I've got several friends that live there and I lived about 20 miles away for 5 years.
When's the last time you visited?

to sum up:
"Look, some of these people are violent and it's not all the cops fault"
"no, those police are brutal and started everything"
"There are bad things going on at OWS, like crime, drug use, vandalism and public defecation"
"Those are just fringe people and not part of the real movement"
"Look, just last night they trashed Oakland, set shit on fire, broke windows, painted buildings and assaulted cops"
"That's just Oakland, those people are animals"

Stop with the fucking excuses.
Please.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Oakland is the #6 most dangerous city in the US. You stand corrected.

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dan ... d-calif-20

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

No, I don't.
By your impeccable logic, we see riots in Memphis(#3) and New Haven (#4) all the time. Oh we don't?

I'll ask you again...have you ever even been there?
Because you're statement above is some serious shit talking about a city.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

and you call yourself an english graduate?




(back to serious conversation)

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PSA: I am an overly sarcastic person. If you take me at my word, then i will most likely anger and offend you.

I want your badge. Can you deputize me?

At the risk of summarizing our exchange in a way you will undoubtedly find some silly little fault with, here is how I saw it.

you: OWS is outta control. Look at Oakland as an example.
me: You can’t use Oakland as a representative city, because it is a violent and dangerous place.
you: No it isn’t.
me: Here’s proof that shows only 5 cities in the whole country are more dangerous.
you: I will ignore your proof, because I don’t think you’ve ever been there.

I have never been to Oakland. Have you ever been to Mogadishu? Me neither, but we both still know that is a dangerous place to be avoided at all costs.

Don’t put too much effort into your reply, because I won’t reply. I have made my point. Twice.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

red-faced embarrassed right now...I never do that.


No, I never said OWS was "out of control", I'm simply contradicting the asserted notion that all of these protests are completely non-violent regular people looking for a little justice.

No it's not and you're still a dick for asserting that.

How is that proof? What are the criteria? We have a history of riots in LA too but LA isn't higher on the list.
The correlation is arbitrary and your argument is silly.

I didn't ignore it, I challenged it as proof.

No, you're ignorant on the subject...and did you just compare a city on the SanFrancisco bay to a city in Somalia?

Ahahahahaha.....ok then.
Walking away doesn't mean you win, it means you quit.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

I'd also like to add....you know those people who've never been to Buffalo but shit on it for the stereotypical reasons?

You're being that guy.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

The OWS folks are beginning to find out the strengths and weaknesses of a grassroots, bottom-up, decentralized, quasi-anarchist movement.

Yes, it represents a groundswell of popular discontent and allows you to put together an impressive showing of people, because you have multiple groups and many individuals who each have their own idea about what the movement is about. The more vague you keep the agenda, the more people fill in the blanks with their own list of grievances, which allows the movement to be different things to different people.

Bottom line, the current OWS strategy brings out large numbers of people.

However, the downside of such a leaderless, all encompassing movement is that you cannot control the message, nor the large crowds you have brought out for the television cameras and the YouTube journalists. Make no mistake, the main point of this kind of protest is to generate media attention.

Now ideally, that media attention is for a purpose. Once you have the cameras pointed your way you have to have a message, a goal, an agenda of some sort or all the media attention is wasted. Also, the camera wants a narrative, especially one involving conflict. By eschewing traditional organization and leadership you also give up control of your movement and message, which is what has happened in Oakland. Media will always choose bottle throwing, car burning anarchists over peaceful sit-ins and chanting neo-hippies.

The OWS movement is in danger of losing their message and focus to the violent fringe of the Occupy Oakland folks.

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th' only knower of th' cosmic mysteries alive at this time

Spot on.

And FWIW, my friend who was tear-gassed at the first scuffle in Oakland went to this last little shindig too.
It was basically all day and into the evening of peaceful protests (although I doubt the strong "destroy capitalism" message on display in those peaceful protests would play well with the average American), then when it turned dark the bad apples went to work and kept it up all night long.

The main group of OWS folks didn't want what happend to happen, but a bunch of people sitting in a drum circle isn't exactly news is it?

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Hold my beer and watch this...

How come it's taken you 16 pages to admit this and to stop portraying OWS as vandals and cop-beating thugs?

To take this one step further, if you know the media is distorting them, then why are you beating the media's drum and pretty much doing whatever you can to portray them as violent?

To me, his argument hasn't been that they're violent, but that they're immature, uneducated, and disorganized.

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Every single time before this that someone has said they're peaceful, he's found a link (from the corporate media) about some crime "they" committed.

So drop the "peaceful" angle, and pick a different one. If they were peaceful, they'd be ousting the individuals that are violent, aiding the police officers in making the necessary arrest. Guilt by association or action by inaction, whichever way you want to look at it, they're condoning the violence.

Talk about the organized rallies they're holding, put a face on this movement, give me a clear list of their goals or gripes.

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No I'm not distorting anything and I don't think the media is either.
If it bleeds it leads.

Violence happens...it gets reported, I point it out as an illegitimate means to an end.
I have never once said everyone in OWS is a violent thug or anything close.
I will continue to criticize the fact they, after 3 months still haven't cleared their ranks of such thugs.

Contrast me to BagBoy, who will deny to his last breath that any violence is related to OWS in any way.

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Hold my beer and watch this...