700 Arrests on Brooklyn Bridge? That's how you do it.

[MineralMan]

Huzzah! to the protesters. Civil disobedience requires arrests to be effective. The more arrests, the better. These arrests have led to more reporting by the media. They will also tie up the NYC court system and give 700 people a chance to have a word or two with the court.

If you are not arrested, nobody knows you participated in civil disobedience. We should be celebrating this, not criticizing any part of it. This is how it works. It is the only way it really works.

[liberal N proud]

1. Do the police have that many zip ties?

[tsuki]

2. I guess every laptop comes with a zip tie. nt

[Tesha]

6. Zip ties are cheap. (NT)

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. Lawyers and judges are not. n/t

[Tesha]

25. Happily for the NYPD, they don't pay for those budget items. (NT)

[Warren Stupidity]

3. "We should be celebrating this, not criticizing any part of it."?

You didn't really mean that, right? I'm criticizing the part where the police deliberately corralled and arrested 700 people exercising their first amendment right to peaceably assemble and protest. This was a complete violation of civil rights and needs to be denounced in the strongest terms.

[MineralMan]

4. Sure. You can criticize the police if you want, but they

played right into the protester's hands. For civil disobedience to be truly effective, it must be noticed. Large numbers of arrests make the news. It's a fundamental of the process. Denouncing the arrests is part of it, too. You can't do that until you are arrested.

Gandhi knew this, and was arrested many times. That helped the message go out. It's one of the basic concepts of civil disobedience. If there are no arrests, the action is ineffective.

[RevStPatrick]

7. Yes, that's exactly what he's saying...

This is the part that should be celebrated.
The New York Times has finally covered this, because of the arrests.
And, they are doing it in a way that makes them (the Times) look very bad.
That's exactly the right thing to have happen!

[MineralMan]

13. Thanks. The police are unwittingly helping this protest to

get publicity and gain momentum. It's a mistake authorities make over and over again. Effective protest movements have always used over-reaction of the authorities to gain the publicity they need to spread the word. I remember the day in the 1960s when newspapers and the TV news showed dogs being sicced on civil rights protesters by the police. That was one of the turning points. I was in Selma in 1965 when the Edmund Pettus Bridge was the center of attention of the entire nation. I walked across that bridge to hear Dr. King speak in Birmingham. Many others did the same. I didn't walk across in the first wave that successfully crossed the bridge. Only a small number made that historic walk. I crossed later, but in time for the speech.

Unless there are arrests, civil disobedience doesn't work, and when the police do things like entice people into a situation where there will be arrests, they are unwittingly working on the side of the protesters. They always seem to make this mistake, to our advantage.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. So hypothetically we should hope for a Selma Alabama level incident

and of course we should not criticize the police for that either, after all, think of the great publicity an out and out blood letting would garner!

Perhaps, as they did to the peaceful protesters at Jallianwala Bagh in India in 1913, we could get the police to open fire with machine guns on a group of corralled protesters. Wouldn't that be great?

[MineralMan]

19. No, that is necessary at all.

You're deliberately misreading my post. Please don't do that. Writing about history is not a recommendation for today.

As for criticism of the police, I have not heard of any untoward actions they took in these arrests on the Bridge. Apparently people were given citations only. If you have heard of something else, let me know.

In the meantime, please don't try to make this about me. That's inappropriate.

[Warren Stupidity]

24. "We should be celebrating this, not criticizing any part of it."

Sorry, but I am not 'making this about you', I am making this about your statement that we should not criticize any part of it. Arresting people for exercising their constitutional right to peaceably assemble is something that should be criticized. The police, from many reports, deliberately routed the march into an area where a) they could easily be corralled, and b) would justify an arrest for blocking traffic. That is police misconduct, again, by the NYPD, which has a long and sorry history of misconduct against leftwing demonstrators. That is the part that needs to be criticized.

[leveymg]

5. Did the protestors intend to block traffic on the bridge, or were they led there by NYPD?

That's question 1. The second question is tactical: might not blocking traffic leading into Wall Street on Monday morning not accomplish more practical "throwing our bodies into the gears" of finance than delaying weekend traffic between the burroughs?

[ixion]

8. there is video evidence they were led there by police

which pretty much negates the second question.

[Celebration]

10. the whole thing is a bit amusing isn't it?

The official police propaganda is put out and they are caught in lie after lie after lie. You would think they would realize that there is such a thing as cell phone cameras, that there is such a think as You Tube.

[Celebration]

9. the photos I saw

seemed to support the idea that the police were leading people onto the roadway. I read that a NY Times reporter (free lance) was arrested. Maybe we'll get to hear that story! I don't think her intention was to do something that would get her arrested.

[leveymg]

11. Here's the link to the (instructive) NYT rewrite of the lead to that story. Very instructive

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2040805&mesg_id=2040855

[Celebration]

14. LOL

No such things as screenshots either. :eyes: All the pro-revolution 'net stuff in the Mideast may just come home to roost, if TPTB keep acting like this. Oh, my. I hope everyone sees that. THANKS!

[Modern_Matthew]

12. I'd love to see them block every major entrance into Wall St. on a Monday morning... nt

[steve2470]

15. k&r nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

16. Is it disobedient if you don't get arrested?

+1 to the protesters.

[MineralMan]

20. Sure. But it's unrecorded and usually unnoticed.

If an action goes unnoticed, it is ineffective. No problem with being noticed now.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. I don't agree. Absent arrests, it's just a busy sidewalk.

I agree with your original subject. Now we're getting somewhere.

[MineralMan]

23. Well, the behavior can be disobedience, but the effect is

nil unless there is an official reaction, generally expressed as arrests. Other actions, like macing peaceful protesters, also counts. Without arrests or other actions, civil disobedience generally accomplishes little. It is only when action is taken by those being protested that it begins to become effective. Then, the story begins to be told officially, and every arrest or citation becomes a record of what happened, and an opportunity to put the reasons for the disobedience in the official record as well.

The media, too, only begins taking notice when there is some official reaction to a protest. Otherwise, as you say, it's a bunch of people on a sidewalk.

[boston bean]

18. So glad to finally have your approval. You might want to think a couple steps ahead sometimes.

If you had, you might have been right all along, as you are right with this post.

[loyalsister]

26. There really isn't much objective info on this

What instructions did the protestors receive from police?
I really think there is an important distinction. This is not civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is breaking an unjust law. Practical laws designed to filter traffic efficiently do not qualify as unjust.

This whole story is suspect. Police obviously have their story and occupiers have their story. There are not enough facts. The video of them being corraled does not qualify because we do not know if there were instructions on how to proceed.

What were they told?
1. stay on the sidewalk only
2. everybody crowd around front and center
3. no instructions

Did the cops communicated and the protestors were too irresponsible to pass the message on?
Did they send a message that increased chaos?
Or, is it just too chaotic to organize effectively?

Seems to me more like a cluster f*** mess that can not necessarily be fully blamed on one or the other.

Taking advantage of chaos that is actually dangerous to get arrested and accuse cops of being unfair is just silly and amateurish.

Getting arrested unfairly for utilizing the right to assemble freely is one thing.
Getting arrested for breaking laws that serve a purpose for public safety is something else entirely- and really not defensible. And it will NOT garner the public support this movement needs.