Some NYC protesters plan for civil disobedience

[cory777]

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- Occupy Wall Street protesters say they will wait and see if they are allowed back into the park that has served as their headquarters for nearly a month before they put up resistance.

But others predicted there will be resistance when a scheduled cleanup of Zuccotti Park begins Friday morning. Protesters believe park owner Brookfield Properties is trying to evict them from Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, where they are encamped and have waged their protest against corporate greed.

Some among the group Thursday night said if the owner does not allow them back into the park after the scheduled cleaning, they will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. Some 100 protesters have volunteered to get arrested.

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"To us it's clear the whole guise of cleanup is just a smokescreen for the mayor's goal of shutting down the protest," Forand said. "They are very clearly set on using this as a means of silencing the voices of dissent that the mayor does not want to hear."

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WALL_STREET_PROTEST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-14-00-09-15

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Breaking Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com/

[Arctic Dave]

1. Doesn't it strike anyone else as wierd that the park isn't public?

I've never heard of a privately owned park.

[NICO9000]

3. Thank you!

I was thinking the exact same thing today. Usually county-or-city-owned.

[dkf]

4. The park, formerly called Liberty Plaza Park, was created in 1968 by United States Steel in return

for a height bonus for its adjacent headquarters at the time of its construction. That building is now known as One Liberty Plaza.<3><4>


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuccotti_Park

In 2006 Brookfield Properties spent $8. Million renovating the park.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/brookfield-properties-re-opens-lower-manhattan-park-following-8-million-renovation-tsx-bpo-597554.htm

[PSPS]

5. Lots of cities have private parks.

They're owned and maintained by individuals or businesses. I know Portland and Seattle have several.

[No Elephants]

8. Sometimes, developers offer things to cities and towns in order to make the

process of getting permission to build, say, a big office building or apartment building, go smoother. Especially if they are looking for any variance of some kind from zoning laws.

And, it's aboveboard, too, in that it's in the papers and part of the public hearings.

Not saying that is what happened here, just that I know it happens.

Sometimes, folks leave a city or town land in trust, to be used public park (or library, or whatever), but it will revert back to the trust if the city stops using it as the deceased specifies. So, technically, a private entity owns it.

[MADem]

11. No. The owners of the park made a deal with the city.

They wanted real estate concessions--variances or what have you, and they struck a deal with the city to make the private land into a park and allow public use of it while retaining the rights to the property.

It was one of those quid pro quo things. In some places they're called concessions. Sometimes they have time limits.

[Lint Head]

2. I just heard tonight on their live stream that they will leave 1/3rd

of the park and move into the other 2/3rds until each third is finished. They will move back to that third when it is cleaned. If they are not allowed to move back into that third, they just left, they will resist and be arrested! They are saying they will not leave the park. These people are patriots that say what they mean and mean what they say and their statement of what they want is easily found.

[SpartanDem]

6. They're patriots for not leaving when the owners ask them to?

What's patriotic about about that? If this was bunch of teabaggers you wouldn't being saying it.

[No Elephants]

7. LOL!

[Lint Head]

9. It is a patriotic act to be doing what they are doing. Patriotism is not saluting a flag

or reciting a pledge. There is no comparison to the Tea Baggers. The Tea Baggers "really" have no clue as what they want. They were created by a billionaire propaganda machine. Joining the military is considered a patriotic act. Protesting the system that keeps a soldier poor is a patriotic act. Holding up signs that ask, "Where is this birth certificate?" is just a dumb question. No comparison at all.

[tama]

15. This land is your land, this land is my land... nt

[MADem]

19. That land, though, is Brookfield Office Properties' land!

Anyway, they've postponed the cleaning for now, so tis all moot in the short term.

[tama]

22. Only if

you believe in capitalistic ownership of land and in the legal system that defines and protects it.

The legal owner does not use or need it for anything, so by natural law it belongs to the people who have made it their common home and are taking care of it and share it with all people who want to come there respecting needs of others as their own.

[MADem]

24. It's not a question of "belief." It is what it is.

This isn't China--and even they have land ownership now.

You're tilting at windmills if you "believe" that land ownership in this society isn't a real thing. In ten thousand years, we might re-prioritize, but that's not going to happen on your watch, or mine.

The legal owner DOES use it--it's a "green space" that aesthetically offsets his properties in the area. Just because he's not using it in the way that YOU see fit, doesn't mean it doesn't have a use that complements his building design. He made a bargain with the city to permit limited public access to the space in exchange for a variance on his building. If the building comes down, the deal is off.

The legal owner is not the enemy, though. He's been quite accomodating.

[tama]

25. Legal ownership is a general problem

Banks evict people and keep the buildings empty while there are many without homes, in Brazil and elsewhere big land-owners don't use the land while most people don't have any land to live and farm -> landless movement. Etc. etc.

[MADem]

26. This is a cycle. We saw the same shit back in the late sixties/early seventies.

Only with Acid Rain, to boot.

[No Elephants]

10. If your goal is occupation indefinitely, I imagine you steeled for possible civil disobedience

before you began the occupation.

If not, foresight may not be your strong suit.

[crunch60]

12. anyone arrested can demand a trial, so we need more

people to get arrested, tie up the courts, read what the Yes Men say about Civil Disobedience ... lots of information here.

http://www.progressive.org/dinovella0611.html

[crunch60]

13. the Yes Men say .. this might be effective

The need for civil disobedience can’t be overstressed. Millions of people in the streets couldn’t prevent the Iraq War. If a tenth of that many people committed civil disobedience and had actually gotten arrested, what would have happened? Maybe it would have stopped the war. If it was a real threat to the system, maybe the war wouldn’t have happened. It’s definitely something to try. You make it impossible for the system to continue, and it stops.

[customerserviceguy]

17. How many people got arrested during Vietnam war protests?

That didn't make any difference, either. The war dragged on until the scandal of Watergate got enough progressives elected to the House to cut off war funding.

[MADem]

20. The arrests didn't make a difference, but the numbers did. The fact that

people showed up (and this was BC, before computers) in overwhelming numbers, again and again and again, with a single message (no FREE MUMIA in the lot) was indeed effective. Johnson was demoralized greatly by the antiwar movement. It factored into his decision to not seek a 2nd term.

The whole "camping out" aspect may, on the one hand, demonstrate determination, but on the other hand, it may suggest--falsely or not--a case of "No Permanent Abode." If the protesters are perceived to be a bunch of people who decided to forego their apartments out of economy or necessity to live in a "protest zone" their efforts may lose their punch. It's just not really hard to show up if you're already there.

I'll probably get a load of guff for even saying that, but it's simply a possible perception that shouldn't be discounted. It's a caveat, not an endorsement.

[customerserviceguy]

23. Yes, Johnson was demoralized

And the President who signed the civil rights acts of the mid-1960's had enough of a conscience to decline to run on the ticket. But where did that leave us? Ripe for Richard Nixon, who claimed to have a "secret plan" to end the war. Hell, even Cain is willing to spell out his 9-9-9 tax plan.

[MADem]

27. Nixon was most certainly "the one," wasn't he?

He actually let his surrogates say he had that secret plan--he was very good at not getting any on himself, even before Watergate. LBJ didn't want to be perceived as the first US President to lose a war--it really bothered him. Even though his closest approach to combat was a phony sightseeing tour to the war zone in an a/c (for which he managed to get a medal, inexplicably), he identified with the Greatest Generation (before they were called that) and shared their sentiments about American force projection.

He should have just had someone go meet secretly with Ho, tell the bastard to put on a suit and tie and call himself a Socialist Democrat or Democratic Socialist, promise him a shitload of aid, and the war would have been over in a heartbeat and we'd have a base infrastructure in SE Asia ready to go for continued cold war adventures. Ho liked the US, from back in the days when he was a busboy in Boston and a dishwasher in NYC.

It was a missed opportunity, made all the clearer in eagle-eyed hindsight, of course.

[customerserviceguy]

28. While much of what Nixon did was completely ham-handed

and I hope we're far away enough from him to laugh about it now, the story is still a cautionary tale about what happens when the mushy middle gets scared. Right now, the OWS protests are enjoying a relative amount of support, but look for Rethugs to seize on any possible misbehavior on the part of anybody at these events to inspire fear.

Even though the OWS folks are just as distrustful of the Obama administration as they are of any GOP one, look for the Repigs to do everything they can to tie the President to the worst things they can drum up or exaggerate about the OWS movement.

[MADem]

29. The basstids in Rome didn't help, setting Fiats afire...nt

[JDPriestly]

14. It is a smokescreen.

There will be more arrests than expected because Bloomberg is trying to create a huge scene. This is a big publicity stunt, a macho play by Bloomberg. It is quite unnecessary. Time and cold weather would eventually mean a change of tactics by those now occupying Wall Street. I would expect the movement to become more acceptable to the MSM in time. Without Bloomberg's interference this movement could begin a really authentic national dialogue about our values and the role of investments, job creation, government and the private sector.

Bloomberg is trying to make sure that dialogue never occurs. I don't think he will succeed. The kids on Wall Street -- of all races and ethnic backgrounds -- are clean-cut, focused and well meaning. They make a great impression.

These are not the unruly hippies of the 1960s. Bloomberg has miscalculated.

I hope that everyone stays cool and that all remain nonviolent. The demonstrators will win far more support through nonviolence than through losing their tempers or responding to Bloomberg's thugs.

The headline should read: Bloomberg threatens violent removal of protestors. At least that is what I strongly suspect it should say.

[PuffedMica]

16. If Bloomberg is intent on creating a scene then it is time to take it up a notch

At the first indication of a forced clearing of the park, it should fill shoulder to shoulder with angry (but passive) people who refuse cooperation with law enforcement. When the situation goes beyond what the mayor's office can force on the people, the next move will be for Bloomberg to escalate - if he dares.

[MADem]

18. I wonder if these guys have a Plan B?

What if the park is blocked off for the time being, despite "nonviolent civil disobedience?"

I suggest they circle Congress and hold them accountable.

[Kingofalldems]

21. Kick and Rec all pro OWS threads