Occupy Discussion

[yovargas]

I also liked a chant heard a lot today (because of the many, many people, possibly thousands, who've gone downtown to stand with them): "Too big to jail! Too big to jail!"

Okay, that's pretty funny.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Maybe you should say, "ascended from".

That bears out my point so well!

[Aravar]

Without veering too far from the topic (I hope), I think, Aravar, that there is a major dissonance between our positions. I, truthfully, do not think it is 'silly' to claim that an hour of a street cleaner's life has any less value, intrinsically, than an hour of a brain surgeon's life (to take extremes). I would go so far as to claim that, to the street cleaner, and hour of the street cleaner's life is more important than the hour of the brain surgeon's. Personal subjectivity trumps impersonal objectivity...

Why, when we're talking about how they should be valued externally?

But I will concede that there is, probably, some room to play with pay differentials. For example, nurses could have some moral claim for greater remuneration than lawyers, for example...

Don't know about nurses, and some of them earn a surprising large amount, but GPs certainly earn more than most lawyers.

However, I would say that nobody deserves to earn more than ten times for an hour of their life than any other person.

You can say it, but you haven't really said why.

It requires a change of mindset, admittedly, but that is no bad thing. the "Greed is Good", Gordon Gecko mindset quite obviously (I would say) needs changing...

But this is it: youv'e created a false dichotomy between accepting your view and going the whole Gordon Gecko.

It depends how you define greed. It can turn into one of those irregular verbs: I want to improve my life, you are over-ambitious, he is greedy.

[vison]

"Too big to jail!"

I really like that.

[Primula Baggins]

The chancellor of UC Davis walks to her car.

http://youtu.be/8775ZmNGFY8

[Ellienor]

Prim, I watched that video. That is really powerful. I've heard it called the "Walk of shame" and there really was that vibe.

I went to UC Davis. I remember marching in that same space for the end of apartheid in South Africa and listening to Bishop Desmond Tutu. As far as I'm concerned, the students have every right to be there, peacefully demonstrating. I watched the pepper spray video and I was really, really bothered that something like that could occur at UC Davis, of all places. UC Davis is no Berkeley. It's a quiet, Aggie school in a town which is quite progressive in some ways, but still, in the conservative Central Valley of California. So that these people who were hardly a danger to anyone and were peacefully 'occupying' the campus, were callously pepper sprayed at point blank range when all they were donig was refusing to get up and leave so as to make the official's weekends nice and quiet, just really offended me.

Yudof, a law professor and the "President of the UC system" (I'm not sure exactly what that position is) made a statement today that made me feel better. In it he said that free speech and nonviolent protest was in the Unviersity of California's "DNA" and that he was committed to it. The California UC system is very, very special. Each campus has a different personality, but overall, it is an incredible institution with a storied history.

[Primula Baggins]

I'm proud of those students for using a peaceful tactic so effectively. I don't know to what extent this story will ever reach the mainstream media, but even if its main influence is on other Occupy groups, that's a good thing. Violent tactics distract from the discussion they're trying to have. The success of this act of nonviolent protest may help keep the professional anarchists and bottle-throwers marginalized, as they should be.

[Teremia]

That's an astonishing video. I'm very proud of the restraint and dignity shown by those students.

The U. C. Berkeley faculty governing body will be discussing university police response at a special meeting in a week. I plan to attend. The police have been very poorly led, it seems to me. What good can come from injecting armed police in full riot gear into a large, energized, but nonviolent student protest? It just seems like someone should have realized that that might lead to bad results.

Certainly the university should not be beating or pepper-spraying non-violent student protesters. When things like this happen, it's a sign that the system has failed. University police should be *protecting* students. They (like all the rest of us who are more or less in loco parentis) should model calm, mature behavior.

I hope some positive reforms can come out of these shameful events.

[River]

I'm proud of those students for using a peaceful tactic so effectively.

The Walk of Shame is getting all the press for the effective tactics the Davis students are using, but they struck another blow just minutes after the pepper spray event. Those who did not get sprayed got angry, but they did it in a very non-violent and peaceful way. They closed ranks and chanted. The cops reloaded with pepper spray and then decided that maybe they'd rather retreat. So they did. First they clumped up backed up, (on video, this is borderline hilarious because, though they're out-numbered by angry students, the angry students aren't actually being threatening) but then, when they realized that the students were just standing and talking, they turned their backs and walked away. No one moved to follow.

[Inanna]

I saw the UC Davis pepper spraying video on the Path Station TV today and could not believe my eyes. It was so... I mean, the kids were just sitting there and this cop just sprayed pepper.... one round, then hey - lets do another!

Edit: Prim, just saw your link. Oh my God. What a video. So effective.

[Primula Baggins]

Atrios (a liberal blogger of few words, though many interesting links) put it well here:

If it's ok for police to torture people with pepper spray given the circumstances at UC Davis, it's basically always ok for police to torture people with pepper spray.

And if it's ok for university administrators to order such things in those circumstances, it's always ok for university administrators to order such things.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's an interesting comment, because it suggests that there are people who actually think that the officers were justified in doing what they did. Is there actually anyone who thinks that? It also suggests that the administrators actually ordered the officers to go in and pepper spray the students while they were just sitting there. Is there any evidence that that is true?

[Primula Baggins]

That's an interesting comment, because it suggests that there are people who actually think that the officers were justified in doing what they did. Is there actually anyone who thinks that?

Oh, my, yes. There are people who believe that protesters are always, by definition, wrong, and police are always, by definition, right. There are people who believe that the benefit of the doubt should always go to the police. And there are some who believe that the students are a danger to our society because of what they were protesting, and society was acting to protect itself by suppressing the protest by any means necessary.

There's an awful lot of this sort of writing and talking-heads discussion out there—more every day. See any conservative news commentary.

It also suggests that the administrators actually ordered the officers to go in and pepper spray the students while they were just sitting there. Is there any evidence that that is true?

I doubt that there is. Atrios has a dry sense of humor. He was not suggesting that these were the facts. He was suggesting that people who would make this argument, that it is OK to do these things in circumstances like those at Davis, are in fact making a much larger and more frightening argument.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There's an awful lot of this sort of writing and talking-heads discussion out there—more every day. See any conservative news commentary.

I'd be interested in seeing it, specifically about this incident, if anyone can point me to any legitimate examples of this (as opposed to "comments" which I ignore on either side of the political spectrum). I went to Fox News, and I only saw condemnation of the police action there. That's really the only place I know to look for conservative news commentary.

[Primula Baggins]

I'll go look for it, and if I can't find examples that are acceptable to you I'll apologize. Not right now; though; dinnertime and I want to keep my appetite.

[SirDennis]

Interesting perspective from retired police captain who was arrested during N17 the other day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdkd2adj ... re=related

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No need to apologize (or to lose your appetite), Prim. I'm interested in learning, not in scoring points (or whatever it might be called).

[Primula Baggins]

Oh, I know that. My son's arriving home for Thanksgiving in a few minutes, so it may be a while before I go looking.

[CosmicBob]

There's an awful lot of this sort of writing and talking-heads discussion out there—more every day. See any conservative news commentary.

I'd be interested in seeing it, specifically about this incident, if anyone can point me to any legitimate examples of this (as opposed to "comments" which I ignore on either side of the political spectrum). I went to Fox News, and I only saw condemnation of the police action there. That's really the only place I know to look for conservative news commentary.

Here's one:

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/pa ... 33248.html

Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.

"When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."

After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of "active resistance" from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques.

"What I'm looking at is fairly standard police procedure," Kelly said.

This Kelly guy is saying what he saw was "standard police procedure", which to me seems unreasonable and I don't find his points valid.

There's another report:

http://www.startribune.com/nation/134231618.html

This one calls Kelly "Key" and give the same quote from him. It also has some actual court decision info:

The federal courts have ruled on such cases. At the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers courts in nine western states, the cases have centered on whether or not the protesters were involved in what is called "active resistance."

The court used the term in considering a case about another highly circulated video of a group of passive demonstrators being swabbed with pepper spray in 1997. The protesters had linked arms on the floor of a California congressman's office to protest the logging of old-growth redwood trees on California's North Coast.

Because demonstrators were using a metal sleeve to prevent the county sheriff's office from separating them, attorneys argued the protestors' "active resistance" left officers no other way to disperse them than dabbing their eyelids with Q-tips soaked in pepper spray, said Jim Wheaton, an attorney who assisted in the prosecution of the civil case.

The 9th Circuit ruled that the protesters weren't in "active resistance," and because they were sitting peacefully, the use of pepper spray was excessive.

"Pepper spray is designed to protect people from a violent attack, to stop somebody from doing something," said Wheaton, senior counsel for the Oakland-based First Amendment Project.

UC Davis police used "it as a torture device to force someone to do something, and that's exactly what the 9th Circuit said was unreasonable and excessive."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I see those articles, and particularly the second, as exactly the opposite of what you seem to be saying they are. Far from being examples of commentary that claim that the benefit of the doubt should always go to the police the bulk of both articles condemn the officers action, and while both include quotes from a so-called expert claiming that it was normal procedure, the second one in particular goes on to completely debunk that claim.