Right or wrong aside, burning a flag is a TERRIBLE way to protest.

[justiceischeap]

4. Which would make burning the flag a powerful tool to use AGAINST OWS

I don't know that the guys who did this were "moles" to discredit OWS but there is a good likelihood that is so. I find it amazing that no one really seems to be talking about the fact that even though they allegedly stole this flag out of City Hall, that though they were surrounded by police, there was time for photo ops. The police did nothing to stop this 'theft' of property--which leads my cynical mind to this this was a set-up. I know there's a thread that says it wasn't a set-up but unless we know the guys that did this personally, we have no way of knowing the motivation behind the flag burning. Kinda like the Repubs rubes that created the disturbance in DC with OWS... one lesson that can be learned from that whole ordeal is that if you dress like you "belong" at OWS and then cover your face, no one can identify if you are a Repub or not.

Although I AM cynical, I also like to think that the majority of people interested in OWS or following the news on OWS, know that this was a one-off incidence, otherwise, we'd hear about this common occurrence in the news on a daily basis.