Just wanted to talk about something that has me saying 'WTF?"

[county worker]

It concerns the protests on Wall Street and else where and some of the responses I've seen here.

I'm 65 and during the 60's almost everyone that I knew back then was in solidarity with the idea that the status quo needed to be changed and that authority needed to be challenged. Now, not everything that happened was "good" but being "good" back then didn't matter as much as pushing a movement forward and making sure it grew.

There were conservative kids that did not participate in the movement but they were a minority.

What has me baffled today is the response to today's movement that questions its legitimacy based on whether what is going on is legal or good. Also the denial of some that police brutality exists at the protests. And the questioning of the motivation of those of us that did protest in the 60's.

The folks with those types of responses back in the 60's did not contribute to the movement then and that kind of response today will not put a dent in the corportization of America.

I question what is important to some people. Is it important that we have a 60's type response to todays class war or is it important to not break the law?

[Avalux]

1. It's important to change the status quo through civil disobedience.

Those who are denigrating Occupy Wall St. and the people protesting obviously have issues with it for personal reasons. Another thread here calls it a circus with a bunch of clowns. Might be because the status quo works for them.

[emcguffie]

2. I'm not sure I get your point.

But if I do get it, then I would suggest you not pay too much attention to the naysayers. They are here to say no to everything, to put everything down, to criticize and to do whatever they can to create division. While we are being divided, we cannot be unified, and unity is just what the 99 percent need.

They're everywhere. Even if we can't point to them precisely, we know that there are paid professionals everywhere on the internet doing what they can to interfere with any movement to stop the corporatists. So don't let them get you down. Don't do what they want you to do.

[movonne]

14. You are so right..there are paid professionals here and everywhere

Just go to the papers and almost every web site and read the comments..they are usually the first ones..

[alsame]

3. We have become much more authoritarian since the 60s. I was

too young to participate in protests then, but I watched and was very much shaped by the 'question all authority' mindset of that era. Things are different now.

[Bandit]

9. I know you believe that but it just ain't so

One of the things that started the sit-ins and marches was Berkeley College wanted to wear whatever clothes they wished and wear their hair however they liked.. It was not permitted in that day. Women protested for liberation by burning bras and marching because it was not permitted for women to be on the same plain as men. Blacks still rode at the back of the bus and drank from separate water fountains. The sixties was about far more than the Vietnam War. It was about ending Authoritative Governance in America...I remember seeing the very first film with a bare tit and hearing the word damn in a movie.. those things were very big deals.....America has advanced immeasurably in the last five decades but our tilt toward fascism has definitely gotten worse...

[alsame]

13. I think you're agreeing with me, lol. When I said things are

different now and we are more authoritarian, I meant that we have moved from questioning and protesting authority to just accepting the status quo of increasing fascism.

Look how many people support the Patriot Act, the gropings from the TSA, etc. We as a nation don't even get bothered by things like this any more. We just do as we're told.

[dtexdem]

4. But look on the bright side: the occupation finally hit the Sunday NY Times.

OK, on page 18, in an article titled and emphasizing the arrests.

But note that the movements of the late 60s were the legacy of the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s, and most of the CR movement did emphasize civil disobedience -- which was nonviolent but that explicitly depended on breaking the laws where necessary. And one of the things it had done was to create a major moral consciousness in millions of Americans that it was morally necessary to break laws when those laws were oppressive.

[loyalsister]

5. I am used to focused civil disobedience

And I have seen it succeed. Without a stated goal, I see no purpose in which to invest myself in support. From that perspective it just doesn't make sense to me.

[lunatica]

6. Some have me wondering what they think works if not civil disobedience

Some of the arguments on DU about how stupid or ineffectual the Wall Street protesters are have been very weird.

I think the protesters are incredibly brave people who are fed up what the banks and corporations have done.
I don't know what people expect. They criticize them for getting arrested when that's part of the whole idea behind civil disobedience.

Those protesters have my complete support and they also have my gratitude.

[jwirr]

15. That is what bothers me - that we have judged them a failure when

the protests are only several weeks old. I was around at the beginning of the civil rights/anti-war movement which was first making its appearance in the very late 50s. The whole country did not suddenly break out in protest.

The civil rights movement of course grew up the day Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of they bus. Other incidents followed.

The student led rebellions against unfair authority began when the Beatles showed us long hair and we decided to follow.

From what I have been told the anti-war movement started with one mother in Iowa who found out that the military had lied about how her son was killed - he was killed by friendly fire.

These small actions led to more actions all across the country and it went on for years.

Along with totally agreeing with the OP I am confused about the opposition on DU to these gutsy young people who are following in our footsteps.

[markpkessinger]

24. Exactly. Those who say the Wall Street protests have failed or are doomed to failure ....

... seem to have missed a very important lesson from the history of the Civil Rights demonstrations and marches. Taken in isolation from one another, any one of those early civil rights demonstrations could have been deemed a failure, in so far as they did not usually result in immediate change and were often brutally put down by the police. But it is the aggregate effect of multiple protest actions, which collectively become a movement which can exert tremendous social pressure for change. That's why criticisms of the Wall Street protesters' lack of focus or organization are off the mark. These protesters are not hoping to fix a system in need of repair. They are hoping to generate a complete rethinking of our financial system(s) because they have realized the current one is broken beyond repair and corrupt beyond redemption.

[Motown_Johnny]

7. In today's society, lawbreaking gives the movement a sense of being illegitimate

Most of us believe it is more effective to not be painted with the same brush as the protesters who travel to WTO meetings and riot.


Exercising our rights and breaking the law are two very different things

[county worker]

17. You'll be ignored and will have accomplished nothing.

[jwirr]

26. These young protesters are nothing like the rioters are the WTO

except in that the police at both places instigate the violence. What would be wrong with the police just leaving the protesters assemble? If they had done that they would actually have kept the it out of the MSM longer. I am thinking that there were a few hot-headed police who are rethugs and they do not want freedom of speech at all just like the police in the civil rights movement were often the former enforcers of jim crow laws.

[gratuitous]

8. There is nothing good, no not one

If the protests are not perfect (a descriptor with a very slippery meaning), then the protests are deficient, meaningless, wrong-headed, destructive, and fit only for ridicule.

It's helpful to notice that no matter how chowder-headed someone in the GOP sounds when floating some idiotic trial balloon, you will almost never hear another Republican criticize the proposal. They may distance themselves from some of the stupider aspects of it, but we've seen over and over again that yesterday's hare-brained lunacy becomes today's orthodoxy for the GOP.

Which is why my default setting is suspicious when it comes to criticism of liberal ideas allegedly from the liberal side of the aisle.

[WinkyDink]

10. The 60's are supposed to be only about Pan Am and Playboy, not protests!

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KurtNYC]

12. In my experience the people most likely to respond to a post,

or an idea, are those who disagree with it.

"Should have done this" , "Shouldn't have done that" "Shouldn't have done it that WAY" = everyone's a critic.

[patrick t. cakes]

16. Can't kick high enough

[steve2470]

18. +1 nt

[Capitalocracy]

19. Our actions should be "good".

If what we do isn't good, then it makes our movement bad, whatever good and bad mean to you. We do have to hold ourselves to a higher moral standard, I think that's an important part of movement building. We have to build a movement that is good so people feel good being a part of it.

And what we do should be legal unless the system manipulates the law to the point where it is impossible to act within that legal framework. Each individual has their own views about where that line is, but for example, if they set up a legal framework that makes it impossible to legally protest, you must protest regardless of that framework (and protest that framework).

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

20. To answer your rhetorical question;

Response! :bounce: The thinking used to be that enough people showing up and getting arrested would clog and then break the system. The judge can't put EVERYBODY in jail. Civil disobedience is about the only real tool the common person has. The whole point of the 'occupation' of Wall Street or the sit-ins of any other protest is to disrupt business as usual. To make people stop and THINK about what is going on.

[marions ghost]

21. It is important to have A response...

--do you have a better way that nobody's thought of? Because the status quo is not acceptable...is it?

Doesn't look to me that too many laws are being broken so far (except by the cops).

[TheKentuckian]

22. The squares are now Democrats and the Republicans are all at least Birchers

I don't know the root of the pro-establishment, authoritarian lovefest, it is like somebody spread magic dust and all were assimilated.

God help us. Resistance went from futile to worthy of mockery and disdain.

[in_cog_ni_to]

23. Just know this: DU has been infiltrated by Rethug operatives and

you know who they are by reading their posts. It's pretty easy to figure out who is on our side and who isn't. Keep that in mind when you read the types of posts you are referring to. Pay attention to what they support, who they support, who they like, who they dislike and how they react to things such as the Occupy Wall Street Protests, Wikileaks, the Nuclear Industry and Anonymous (are just a few examples). They all shine bright. They can't help themselves.

[BobbyBoring]

25. Aging is a funny thing isn't it?

I do a lot of thinking about what's happening in America now and have come to one conclusion. For many, THIS is the America they know and therefore, all is well so why rock the boat.

They didn't live in the days when there were thousands of family owned businesses across the country and people actually cared about each other. They didn't live in the days where most families were like the Cleavers.

As far as breaking laws go, we are no longer a nation of laws. We used to be, but that changed BIG TIME when The SCOTUS installed Jr. Bush. If we were still a nation of laws, hundreds of people working on Wall St. would be in jail and there would be no reason for a protest.