If they were allowed to hold their protest there in the first place, why were there no (or not enough) porta-potties provided so that they wouldn't have to crap in the grass?
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patricknd said:
There are parks in this area that are known only to be used by republicans..
Scott SoCal said:
Yup. In more civilized parts (over here,) where people actually pay local taxes too, municipal authorities would set up portacabins for official demonstrations or when large crowds are expected. Just like road kill isn't left to rot at the side of the road because there actually is someone responsible for dealing with it. There are benefits to the public at large when local taxes (rates) allow local authorities to perform services that benefit all.
All you can do is complain about the poor molested US tax payer!? You people really have no friggin' idea what being a tax payer means, especially in state and municipally bankrupt California.
Unfortunately it's not just a case of a founder's day weekend celebration. It's a long term event, and the costs add up quickly. As cash strapped as many cities are, how long should it go?Amsterhammer said:
redtreviso said:
that's funny
Scott SoCal said:
my first thought on reading your comment was agreement. but, then i read hamsterhammer's comment and thought about it a little further and i have to agree with him.
even though the US is a republic it aspires to be a democracy. civilized protest is a part of democracy. however, if the facilities (literal and euphemistic) are not provided by the taxpayers to enable civilized protest then democracy is only open to the highest bidder. in other words, civilized protest is only open to those who can pay for its upkeep. the taxpayers have to foot the bill for democracy. which means sometimes things i may not agree with are supported by the government.
there are a few things i don't understand about the OWS protests. for example, why can't they hold their rally and go home like the tea party protests did? they can always come back the next day, can't they? on the other hand, i don't understand the need for police violence against the protesters, either. if the kinds of crackdowns that are being perpetrated against the OWS hippies were happening in iran, or wherever, the state department and the media would be all over it saying what a terrible totalitarian country it was.
democracy means sometimes having to hear things you do not like.
patricknd said:
democracy is not something you pay for only when times or good or when it is convenient. in order to ensure robust free speech government needs to make rules and provide facilities when necessary in order to foster and protect free speech all of the time. the first amendment to the constitution is not conditional on how much it costs the taxpayers.
that said, i wish the OWS protesters would think of a more productive use of their time and public space.
gregod said:i don't think you know red very well
Don't let red fool you. He talks a old game here but he's a dittohead or whatever they call 'em
patricknd said:Don't let red fool you. He talks a old game here but he's a dittohead or whatever they call 'em
redtreviso - republican agent provocateur. i like it
gregod said:
The first amendment protects from interference with the right of free expression, but does it provide for public funding for the protest means chosen? Should we also pay for literature, maybe t.v advertising time? Certainly we should fed and clothe them, right?
I applaud the spirit of those serious protestors, but where is the line in what should be provided?
Unfortunately, I think they've reached a point of diminishing returns, and at some point a movement has to become self-sustaining to a large degree or give up the ghost and try a different tack.
And by the way it sucks trying to do this on a phone
patricknd said:
To answer your questions in the European democracies, yes, that is the case.
Alpe d'Huez said:
I don't mean to be gratuitously polemical, but from the tone and content of what you've said, and Scott (but this in no way surprises - bring your own port-a-potty and all
), Seattle doesn't seem to be that "liberal" haven, a kind of San Fransisco of the 90's and the home of grunge and American rage a là Nirvana, etc., as it has been stereotypically portrayed in the Euro media; but a rather conservative and bourgeois city concealed behind the alternative facade. I would have expected as much from a city like Memphis, but Seattle really? Say it isn't so! I mean, I realize few cities, if no other, are as open minded and progressive as Amsterdam, but neither did we think we were dealing with The Deep South where a self-righteous and narrow-minded mindset is typically expected.Evidently the work of No Global has settled in among the corporate establishment nationally, and a local community that's too comfortable and doesn't want to be the center of American attention in this regard any longer.
The story of Seattle has become a battleground, one in which advocates fight the lies and disinformation to stoke public fears and justify repression of grassroots movements across the US. In your analysis, but also in the mainstream US media, if we take into consideration a so called liberal daily such as the NY Times, the protesters are viewed as violent extremists or irrelevent whom columnist Thomas Friedman has branded as "flat-earth advocates...yuppies looking for their 1960's fix".
I also realize how sacrosanct public parks are, and nature in general, to the people of Seattle, but is this evidently no longer the case when it comes to democratic disent and civil protest? So I can only place in the form of a question what Amsterhammer has already rightly pointed out: why on earth didn't the municipal authorities set up portacabins for such a demonstration when large crowds were expected?
Does such a horrendous omission indicate that, in reality, the authorities simply didn't want the protest, perhaps to cast the protesters in a grotesque light and vilify them in the mainstream perception so adequately expressed by you? What does this say about the right to voice disent and to public manifestation in America today?
In the minds of people like Scott the idea of public life and taxes is so underdeveloped and brutish, like a Neanderthal's brain in the cranium of a homo sapiens, that it doesn't even bear thinking about, though is this how American's generally feel? Mine is a rhetorical question, given that I'm aware of just how far to the right the country has shifted and hence this is precisely why its way of thinking, like Scott's mind, is so underdeveloped in this regard. But has all of America become so hypocritical and priggish and, above all, scared to death of democracy?
If this is indeed the case, as all the evidence suggests, then the US form of democracy has become decidedly regressive.
Amsterhammer said:
hold a protest fine. Take a ****! on the generous folks what a crock of crap. I am so happy you want the city / state to pay the bill.
We have a serious separation of opinon on this. You are wrong and I am correct no doubt.
rhubroma said:I don't mean to be gratuitously polemical, but from the tone and content of what you've said, and Scott (but this in no way surprises - bring your own port-a-potty and all
Evidently the work of No Global has settled in among the corporate establishment nationally, and a local community that's too comfortable and doesn't want to be the center of American attention in this regard any longer.
The story of Seattle has become a battleground, one in which advocates fight the lies and disinformation to stoke public fears and justify repression of grassroots movements across the US. In your analysis, but also in the mainstream US media, if we take into consideration a so called liberal daily such as the NY Times, the protesters are viewed as violent extremists or irrelevent whom columnist Thomas Friedman has branded as "flat-earth advocates...yuppies looking for their 1960's fix".
I also realize how sacrosanct public parks are, and nature in general, to the people of Seattle, but is this evidently no longer the case when it comes to democratic disent and civil protest? So I can only place in the form of a question what Amsterhammer has already rightly pointed out: why on earth didn't the municipal authorities set up portacabins for such a demonstration when large crowds were expected?
Does such a horrendous omission indicate that, in reality, the authorities simply didn't want the protest, perhaps to cast the protesters in a grotesque light and vilify them in the mainstream perception so adequately expressed by you? What does this say about the right to voice disent and to public manifestation in America today?
In the minds of people like Scott the idea of public life and taxes is so underdeveloped and brutish, like a Neanderthal's brain in the cranium of a homo sapiens, that it doesn't even bear thinking about, though is this how American's generally feel? Mine is a rhetorical question, given that I'm aware of just how far to the right the country has shifted and hence this is precisely why its way of thinking, like Scott's mind, is so underdeveloped in this regard. But has all of America become so hypocritical and priggish and, above all, scared to death of democracy?
If this is indeed the case, as all the evidence suggests, then the US form of democracy has become decidedly regressive.
why you keep talking about Seattle? How about Portland?
By the way "Nutty Professor" you sure do have a lot of words with no action. How about puttying some of that into action? I think you will just cower into some nice place to read a book?
redtreviso said:
Nice you just talk about being Democratic but in the end I come from a place more controlled and voting demo than you will ever dream of. Have fun with your FoxNews jack nothing all.
Glenn_Wilson said:hold a protest fine. Take a ****! on the generous folks what a crock of crap. I am so happy you want the city / state to pay the bill.
i don't think anyone is saying "take a ****! on the generous folks". however, it is important for government to support free speech by providing adequate facilities. whether it is for the OWS or tea party. i have no evidence of this, but when there were thousands of tea party protesters gathering on the mall in DC, i would be willing to bet the park service provided extra bathrooms. and if they didn't they should have.
free speech sometimes costs money. do not conflate "liber" with "gratis". but if free speech in fact comes with a cost, it is incumbent on the government to support it. otherwise democracy devolves into oligarchy.
You guys are a bunch of **** stirrers, but freedom of speech is difficult when you make it pay for it's self. You develop a freedom of speech lobby.
Amsterhammer said:
I'll give you some room here, but local taxes are paid in (if not all) nearly every municipality in the US.
I am curious if you would have said the same if the Tea Party had set up shop the way OWS has? I suspect not.
I disagree. In fact I think you people truly have no clue as to the role of govt in the US. BTW, do a little research regarding the systemic problems in California. Let me know what you find.
Scott SoCal said:
i can't answer for hamsterhammer
Scott SoCal said:
You see Scott, and I believe I can speak for Amster in this case, I have no poblem with providing the necessary heigenic facilities for your nut jobs in the Tea Party movement at public expense, and believe, in principle, that not only does every voice have a right to be heard, but that it is the state's civic duty to accomodate such gatherings in the most civil and humane way possible. This is what living in an advanced democracy means to me. But you still seem to be living in a primordial and embrionic one, at least in your own noggin. Perhaps the greatest demonstration of a country's civility, is in how humanely it deals with the voices of potest and disent.
By contrast in not providing these basic amenities at the Portland protest, sorry I had quite naturally assumed Seattle, but was mistaken, and when the state's response is merely barbaric and uncouth; I don't believe one has the same right to preach from the civility pulpit if someone sh!ts on the lawn. It's merely tinged with the same vulgarity as what's being denounced and so hypocritcal in the utmost, as only the benpensanti can produce.
So let me get this straight. Its evidently no problem to spend taxes on paying for the excesses of financial capitalism and to save the Wall Street banks, but entirely ridiculous and uncivil to provide a few porta-potties for those who protest against them in the name of freedom of speach and social justice? At the same time the government sends in the cops, who are on the public payrole, to crack heads and make arrests. But there is nothing hypocitical or regime like in the authoritarian sense with this?
All I can say is you people have a very strange distorted and way of seeing things. I guess its true what they say, every people gets the democracy they voted for. Having lived in Italy during the Berlusconi era I can surely attest to this.
""Hysteria colored much of Washington's official view of the Bonus Army. In defense of both men, MacArthur and Hoover seem to have genuinely believed that Communists controlled the organization, with Walter Waters merely serving as the Bonus Army's titular head. Hoover believed that veterans made up no more than 50 percent of Bonus Army members, while MacArthur set an even lower number — 10 percent. Waters said that was a 'damned lie.' While Communist operatives certainly tried to infiltrate the ranks of the Bonus Army and instigate trouble, evidence indicates they had little real influence. The president and Army chief of staff's estimates were badly overstated. A postevent study conducted by the Veterans Administration revealed that 94 percent of the marchers had Army or Navy service records. Nevertheless, the Communist Party was happy to take credit for what was billed as an uprising.""
http://www.historynet.com/the-bonus-army-war-in-washington.htm
http://www.historynet.com/the-bonus-army-war-in-washington.htm
Glenn_Wilson said:
Being called the Nutty Pof from you is a real compliment I'm sure.
I've probably been to more protests and paticipated in more activist initiatives than you've even heard of.
I live in Portland, not Seattle. We are a large and diverse city, but the closer to the core you get, we're like Leningrad compared to Seattle. George Bush Sr. called Portland "Little Beirut" when people here protested the first Gulf war. We have an openly gay mayor who is a total patsy. The woman who is most likely to succeed him is an owner of a health food store chain. I'm telling you, we're left of San Francisco. That city has much more money, and the bourgeois class Rhum speaks of hardly exists here. People like Scott probably think of me as being center-left, most of you might. But in this city, I'm like Rush Limbaugh compared to most people.
As to the port-a-poties. First, the park did have public restroom, that was quickly overused and overflowed. The city fixed it, and then did put port-a-poties in. And they got overfilled. The city paid to have them cycled. The city also paid for extra police OT as there were fights and drugs and people ODing in the park. It ran up a huge bill - not including the now massive clean-up. Guess who's paying for it? And in case you weren't certain, just like many other cities in the US, Portland is flat broke, and by law cannot go into debt. The money is going to have to come from somewhere else.
I should also note that we're not Oakland. The police here didn't use tear gas, nothing like that. There were a handful of arrests, and two protesters and one police officer received minor injuries. That's it.
Look, I'm definitely part of the 99%, and I have no problem with protesting. But the occupy movement in my town went way beyond reason. It wasn't protesting anymore, it was obstinate and intransigent for a lost point. The people occupying were not representing the 99% and had not for weeks. Compounding that, they at this point were damaging their cause, any cause, and pushing themselves to their own 1%, and pushing the people in the general "left" away from them. It was doing more good for conservative causes than not.
If these people were wise, they'd follow similar paths to the Tea Party and repeatedly protest, march and find new ways to draw attention to their cause, without piissing everyone off who doesn't share their extreme mindset. Because that's exactly what was happening, even in this very liberal city.
As to the port-a-poties. First, the park did have public restroom, that was quickly overused and overflowed. The city fixed it, and then did put port-a-poties in. And they got overfilled. The city paid to have them cycled. The city also paid for extra police OT as there were fights and drugs and people ODing in the park. It ran up a huge bill - not including the now massive clean-up. Guess who's paying for it? And in case you weren't certain, just like many other cities in the US, Portland is flat broke, and by law cannot go into debt. The money is going to have to come from somewhere else.
I should also note that we're not Oakland. The police here didn't use tear gas, nothing like that. There were a handful of arrests, and two protesters and one police officer received minor injuries. That's it.
Look, I'm definitely part of the 99%, and I have no problem with protesting. But the occupy movement in my town went way beyond reason. It wasn't protesting anymore, it was obstinate and intransigent for a lost point. The people occupying were not representing the 99% and had not for weeks. Compounding that, they at this point were damaging their cause, any cause, and pushing themselves to their own 1%, and pushing the people in the general "left" away from them. It was doing more good for conservative causes than not.
If these people were wise, they'd follow similar paths to the Tea Party and repeatedly protest, march and find new ways to draw attention to their cause, without piissing everyone off who doesn't share their extreme mindset. Because that's exactly what was happening, even in this very liberal city.
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