Occupy Broadwayworld- Page 12

[tazber]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 10:09am

Did anyone see Frank Miller's blog about the movement?

Daaaaamn! I had no idea how over the top he could be. I mean, he's always been a douche but this is just flat out nasty. And this from the guy who turned a vigilante into a paragon of truth, justice, and the American way.*

I wonder if he thinks The Joker is an OWS proponent?


*I know, that's Superman's tag line, but it applies to his Batman stories as well.

Anarchy

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 10:19am

Yeah, it was surprising. He is entitled to his views, but it read like he had a Vulcan mind meld with Dennis Miller!

From my vantage point, if the OWS is scaring/pissing off people this much, it must be doing something right.

[tazber]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 10:25am

Well, I felt that his barrage of insults undermined his point. He's latched onto the same reductive idea of the movement that a lot of the media seem to be embracing more and more as we near the 60 day mark.

His generalizations and unsubstantiated assessment of who OWS actually is made up of remove any credibility he may have.

I know it's a blog, but still if you're going to present an opinion at least back it up with more than vitriol.

And he's a writer. He should know better.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 10:39am

Taz, I agree completely. I was being a bit tongue in cheek.

I just sounded like talking points regurgitated from some right wing shows/publications.

I guess his future protagonists should just be fighting for Corporations, Profits, and the 1%.

[Plum]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 7:54pm

I think Frank Miller can be summed up pretty easily.
Frank Miller

[siny]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 8:52pm

On the front page of today's NY Post, there is photo/story of an OWS protester being thrown out of Bob Turner's swearing in ceremony. The guy who is dragging him out by the collar is an ex-cop retired on disability. And they call OWS protesters freeloaders ! But very telling that the latest Tea Party hero is a scamming ex-cop collecting a 3/4 tax-free disability pension while being fit enough to take down a grown man.
The NY Post story

[Plum]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 11:31pm

Yes, because all disabilities that would prevent you from being a police officer would prevent you from doing one takedown. Totally.

[Kad]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 11:58pm

Actually- there's a higher percentage of people in the OWS who are employed than in the Tea Party. I need to find the exact statistic.

[theatreguy]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 1:14am

No story yet, but the New York Times is reporting that police begun clearing protesters out of Zucotti Park. I'll post a link once there's more info.

ETA - Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/nyregion/police-begin-clearing-zuccotti-park-of-protesters.html?hp Updated On: 11/15/11 at 01:14 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 8:19am

Well, it's always sad when a show closes, but that was a pretty incredible run. And the touring companies did pretty good too!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 9:27am

Has Les Miz ever really gone away after a closing? Nope. It just keeps popping back up. Like tents in a park, One day more.

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 9:51am

I saw this on tv this morning haha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eys8SKCizS4 Updated On: 11/15/11 at 09:51 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 10:05am

See what I mean? Everybody should be wary when somebody like Bloomberg says he wants to protect people's rights, "but ..."


Court order allows Occupy Wall St. protesters back
Email this Story

Nov 15, 9:22 AM (ET)

By COLLEEN LONG and VERENA DOBNIK

(AP) An Occupy Wall Street protester yells out at police after being ordered to leave Zuccotti Park,...
Full Image
NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of police officers in riot gear raided Zuccotti Park early Tuesday, evicting dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters from what has become the epicenter of the worldwide movement protesting corporate greed and economic inequality.

Hours later, the National Lawyers Guild obtained a court order allowing Occupy Wall Street protesters to return with tents to the park. The guild said the injunction prevents the city from enforcing park rules on Occupy Wall Street protesters.
At a morning news conference at City Hall, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city knew about the court order but had not seen it and would go to court to fight it. He said the city wants to protect people's rights, but if a choice must be made, it will protect public safety.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 10:19am

Here's an excellent ongoing live blog at the NY Daily News site:
Showdown at Zuccotti Park: The NYPD's raid on Occupy Wall Street NYC LIVE

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 10:21am

I guess the law only applies to the 99%, since Bloomberg is defying a court order. I would love the judge to find him in contempt of court.

Time to donate to the NY Folks.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 12:07pm

Contempt of court! Bloom EEG allegedly says "no right is absolute"! Even the truths that are held self-evident?

[trentsketch]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 12:33pm

Oh for goodness sake. It's a private park. The protesters were going to be removed as soon as the owner decided it was in his best interests to boot them. The court order is tricky since their property was removed because they refused to comply with police orders and is available to be picked up at the sanitation department anytime they wish to go pick it up. Meaning, the protesters have to pick it up because the officers cannot claim property that isn't their own. It will take more court orders to get all the tents and properties returned unless forcing people to break the law is only a problem when the protesters are the ones breaking the law.

And the law not applying to the 99% is absurd when the underpaid, overworked, and routinely mistreated NYPD officers are part of the 99%. Bloomberg is not, obviously, but he couldn't boot the protesters off private property without the permission of the owners.

I support the protesters and the ideals of the movements, but I also support not seeing misinformation spread throughout the web. The best I've read are the high capacity audio weapons that were used by the NYPD. You mean the speakers that are inside every single police car in the city? Because I saw the photos of the allged weapon and that's what it was. NYPD speakers used for large crowd control, not a weapon.

I eagerly await the revival. I heard they started rehearsals by the Holland Tunnel at 9AM today. Did anyone get an invite?

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 12:55pm

Actually, Zuccotti Park is not a traditional Private Park, but "Privately Owned Public Space". In return for greater height bonus on adjacent buildings, the developers built the park.

So, by design, it is to be made available to the public.
Privately Owned Public Space

[Plum]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 6:45pm

Which makes it a public forum for First Amendment purposes, right, YWIW?

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 7:30pm

I honestly don't know Plum.

[Plum]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 8:42pm

Then again, even if it is a public forum, the city can have time/place/manner restrictions on protests there, so I guess the point is moot.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 8:59am

It's a fascinating crossroads of the Occupiers' right to public assembly, the Occupiers' right to free speech, and the rights to public assembly and free speech that they City must keep open for other citizens.

But trentsketch: You must understand this particular park is NOT private space. If it were private property, none of this would have happened in the first place.

The concept of "privately owned public space" is dubious to begin with: A commercial developer is given a zoning variance to allow him to build his building a certain number of stories above the code, thereby giving him more space to rent or lease. In exchange, he agrees to maintain a plaza area with seating and sometimes a snack bar that will be clearly marked as open to the public.

There must be clear signage that it is public space because it BELONGS to the public. It does not belong to the building.

These vest-pocket parks provide pleasant-enough lunch spaces for workers in crowded midtown and downtown areas. Sometimes they even have waterfalls, which I quite like, actually. But the zoning variances have made many areas of Manhattan feel overbuilt and claustrophobic.

This is probably the first time the legality of these privately-owned-public-spaces has been tested and found to be a contradiction-in-terms. What does "privately owned public" actually mean? Do the Occupiers have the right to use it as they see fit? Or can the city decide that the Occupiers are monopolizing the public space and limit the Occupiers' use of a public space?

There is no clear precedent, so the courts will find for both sides on different aspects. There can be no clear outcome.

And behind it all are the issues: an attention to economic inequality that has never been paid before, fueled to a large degree by the bad economy.

It's very exciting. It's history happening in front of us.

[winston89]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 6:36pm

I am sorry but they should have done what they did a long time ago. I am very much well aware of freedom of speech and assembly. However, those aren't blanket terms. There may be freedom of speech and assembly. But, as we all know that doesn't mean that you're able to say whatever it is you want whenever it is you want. Two common examples of this are you're not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theatre or scream at the top of your lungs that you would love to kill your least favorite political figure.

They were talking about how all these protests were/are peaceful. However, them being peaceful ended when sexual assaults, noise and public health violations started to happen. The people at Occupy Wall Street need to understand that there are limits to everything and that they can't stupidly hide behind the blanketed phrase " first amendment rights" without knowing the scope of what it means. Yes, you can assemble in a park and you can refuse to leave until there is financial change. However, if you're going to bang drums then your right to a calm protest ends when I (and I am using the word I in a figurative sense not literal) am forced to hear the noise. You're allowed to to sit there all you want but if you're causing such a mess that it is an issue of public health to those in the park and to those around you who are not even part of what is going on then there is an issue.

There needs to be accountability of wrongdoing on the part of the members of occupy wall street. To say that they did nothing wrong prior to the police kicking them out so they can clean up the park is just laughable.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 2:14am

Winston, I'm interested in what you have to say and would love to hear you expand on some of your points. Because I've had some really intense and enlightening conversations with wildly different types of people at my local Occupy encampment, I found it really helps me empathize with them more when I know where they're coming from, how they came to think the way they do and how they know what they "know." This helps me when I attempt to fearlessly look at how I know what *I* think I ‘know”.

I am interested in your understanding of the first amendment, particularly at this moment in the American cultural context with a Supreme Court that says corporations have the same right to free speech that people are guaranteed in the Constitution. That no matter how they impede on the American political process, no matter how much their funding goes to spreading disproved lies like those in Karl Rove's superpac commercials, it is protected free speech and corporations have a right to spend however much money they want in their effort to have a profound impact on mainstream US politics.

You bring up the famous example of a person not being allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Can you give me an example of a moment or moments that was or were the equivalent of doing that with Occupy Wall Street?

I am interested in your definition of peaceful, which to my way of thinking means in the foremost non-violent. I see that you are using a definition that includes making noise. I am wondering what you have seen or heard with your own ears or eyes that hasn't been peaceful? Have you heard about the drumming, or have you heard the drumming? Also, there are allegations that the NYPD brought noise cannons to clear out the park at 2 in the morning, where noise is supposedly one of the problems. I say allegations because it's what I heard from sources I trust, but I don't know it for a fact. What sources do you trust that you are using for the information you bring up in your post? At my local occupy encampment, you have to BE in the park to hear the drums after sunset. Music serves the same function at Occupy that it does in theater, in church, everywhere humans want to create a sense of community. It’s art as connective tissue. I do know when the issue at Zucotti was first brought up, it was said that the drummers would do the same thing that my local encampment has done. I don’t know if it’s come to pass and so am curious about how you know that it hasn’t? I do believe that the Occupy Movement has a commitment to non-violence and it is the violent actions of the police, caught on video for the world to see, that spurred the rapid growth of the movement, which is not even three months old.

Are you specifically referring to things in New York, or are you thinking of the various Occupies around the country and world? I know that when some people behaved violently the day of the Oakland general strike, the violence and destruction were not only denounced by Occupy Oakland, but efforts were made to pay for and/or fix and replace the damaged property. That’s pretty much all I can ask of a movement that is trying, in all its amorphous glory, to maintain its commitment to non-violence.

Of course, we live in a world where a policeperson in (iirc) Portland, Oregon told an interviewer that protesters linking arms and sitting on the ground was “an act of violence.” Again, I’d just like a working definition of that term.

I haven't personally seen Occupy Wall Street presenting itself as an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, but rather as a gathering of people, citizens, who want to be heard in the midst of huge economic and social crises fueled by unethical financial malfeasance. In the biggest city in the country. Which comes with all the attendant good and bad that always comes from a lot of people in tight quarters all over Manhattan. Occupy is more of a microcosm than it is a club, you refer to Occupy "members" but there really isn't any such official designation. It’s a tightly packed group of people with all the issues and conflicts that humans everywhere experience.

I find myself mostly fixated on your line, “There needs to be accountability of wrongdoing on the part of the members of Occupy Wall Street.” Given that they have such an open process, that nothing is done “in secret,” I am wondering what specifically has been the wrongdoing you’re aware of?

Like you, I have concerns about reports of sexual assaults anywhere, against anybody. This week I happened to meet one of the women from New York who was a victim (though she would probably hate that word) at Occupy Wall Street. I can't imagine what it is like to survive such a thing, nor can I imagine what would be left of New York if every building, every business, every street and every park where a woman has been sexually assaulted were summarily shut down. The Occupy Movement is not celebrating a world where people are truly free, where everybody has access to the health and mental health care they need, where anybody dealing with the effects of the many societal ills associated with our current cultural crises gets their needs met, and where everybody is free from say, the sexism and misogyny and general effed upness of this patriarchal culture. Which is to say, if the world were only allowed to function if everybody who deserves safety were truly safe, no one could ever to do anything; jogging, walking, bike riding, taking political action, you name it.

At my local Occupy, volunteers from the local rape crisis center hotline have been conducting trainings on sexual assault for everybody. I see this as a response to something nobody would have wanted to happen, but which is a necessity in the real world. I see this as a good thing. I see that as a group striving to do its best.

I also don’t think people who assault others are anything but shunned by the Occupy community, as they are in the rest of the thinking world. Violence against anybody is repeatedly denounced.

As for the cleanliness and public health issues you mention, I’m wondering what your source is on that? In his press conference about the eviction of the protesters, Bloomberg said that there were allegations of defecation in alleyways. He also said he could cite no evidence of it and that his administration found no evidence of this when they went looking for it. I’m not exactly sure what to make of this kind of thinking, why did he bring it up in the first place, other than to put the notion out there, no matter how fallacious, so that people will think it must be true. And what is the repeated truism about smelliness? Roxy floated the notion that people just shat in the park, untrue, but we know what his source is. My local Occupy camp smells perfectly fine, but it doesn’t stop people who have never been there from jumping on the “it’s stinky!” bandwagon. I just can’t help thinking about poverty and homelessness, and how if homeless shelters had to pass a pleasant smell test they would all be shut down and then there would be an even bigger problem on the streets.

Finally, (because I can’t believe how much I’ve written already), what do you make of Bloomberg and Ray Kelly banning members of the working press from observing their official actions? And arresting many of them? And bloodying a city council member? I mean, if we’re calling for an accounting of wrongdoing, can we include these things as well? And as for cleaning up the park, occupiers did powerwash it before the last thread of eviction for (in my opinion) non-existent cleanliness issues AND Russell Simmons agreed to pay for all cleaning and repairs in the park.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say. I ask these questions in the spirit of real dialogue.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 6:36am

And there you have it, folks. We don't have to go to Huffington Post or the New York Daily News to get the best writing on the Occupy movement.

We can get it right here at Occupy BroadwayWorld from FindingNamo.

At my local occupy encampment, you have to BE in the park to hear the drums after sunset.

And there's the title of your book: Drums After Sunset