Gotta agree here. Although personally I could care less about blocking traffic, it just never seems to play out well in the media. It's not tactically astute.
― sleeve sandbox, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:42 (twelve years ago) link
You have to offer something constructive, other than anger and wilding around in the streets or most of america will tune you out.
― Aimless, Wednesday, December 7, 2011 2:23 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink
agree completely--that's why i'm part of the outreach committee that's working with established dc activist & community service groups to build their capacity with our personpower, and why i've volunteered hours of my time in our kitchen feeding the homeless from franklin square, and why i work to organize teach-ins on people's rights.
the strength of direct action is that the activity is metaphor for the message, and that reporting the activity itself makes the message inescapable: occupy k street, home of the lobbying pipeline that transfers money from wall street into the coffers of our legislators. it shouldn't be all we do, and it isn't, but it ~is~ what gets cameras on us despite my best efforts to get them into our other initiatives.
― HOOS aka driver of steen, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:42 (twelve years ago) link
xpyeah, i'm old. check back with me in about 20 years iatee and tell me what you accomplished with ows and how you feel baout it then. as soon as ows starts to look like boys pursuing fun and games through lawbreaking, you've lost and you may as well pull up stakes and go live at home with your parents.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:44 (twelve years ago) link
keep up the great job you're doing, hoos. thx. i appreciate how you insert your good sense into your actions.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:47 (twelve years ago) link
xxp- hoos just admit once and for all that this is nothing but a matter of yr personal vendetta against the 16Y
― screwy lobsters and mice blights (govern yourself accordingly), Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:48 (twelve years ago) link
One of my uncles was a Brown Beret when he was my age, and my mom (visiting this week) told me that he's been calling her excitedly all the time "living vicariously through your posts on Facebook." Said Uncle has always been one of my heroes, and it basically made my heart blow up to hear this.
― HOOS aka driver of steen, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:48 (twelve years ago) link
getting - and keeping - media attention is difficult and old ppl progressives on the internet (including basically everyone on ilx except morbs) were pretty cynical about early OWS methods and the people involved. I'm not gonna defend every single way people go about this and I don't think I need to (tho blocking traffic is an inherent good regardless).
― iatee, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:50 (twelve years ago) link
posts very much in character
― OH NOES, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:51 (twelve years ago) link
I like this new crankier iatee.
― OH GNUS (Pyth), Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:52 (twelve years ago) link
iatee, clue me in when you have some kids that you have to pick up and I'll stop by and tie your shoelaces in a knot.
― rusty flathead screwdriver, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
thanks guys I'm taking notes for the GA: "make sure the revolution inconveniences nobody, ever"
― iatee, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:00 (twelve years ago) link
I must assume you were distracted and not paying attention. Luckily, we wrote it all down for you.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:01 (twelve years ago) link
thanks I will help you open up ms word later
― iatee, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:02 (twelve years ago) link
blocking traffic is an inherent good?
really?
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:02 (twelve years ago) link
remember who you're talking to
― OH NOES, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:02 (twelve years ago) link
I just usually think of things like "people not getting killed" or "people getting fed" or "people having a job" as being inherent goods, was not aware of the dastardly evil that is moving from one place to another on a public thoroughfare.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:04 (twelve years ago) link
again, remember who you're talking to
― OH NOES, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:07 (twelve years ago) link
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rudy4.jpg
― Adrien Brony (step hen faps), Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:08 (twelve years ago) link
wtf iatee, get outta your bubble. Inconveniencing struggling single parents who happen to depend on cars will not help your media image.
― sleeve sandbox, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 20:58 (twelve years ago) link
you heard em hoos, let the struggling single parents through
― iatee, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
take the Metro, have fewer kids.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:03 (twelve years ago) link
sarcasm won't help your image either xp
― sleeve sandbox, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:10 (twelve years ago) link
sarcasm is an inherent good regardless
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
^ posts very much in character
― HOOS aka driver of steen, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
I tend to think of it more as a service
― OH NOES, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
Morbs I agree with u but telling that to someone who already lives in the wrong (car-dependent) place with two kids and an underwater mortgage is not exactly a selling point.
― sleeve sandbox, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:13 (twelve years ago) link
sell the extra kid to Newt Gingrich, he'll find a job for him
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:14 (twelve years ago) link
not if he's brown-skinned.
― Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:16 (twelve years ago) link
ha
― HOOS aka driver of steen, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:17 (twelve years ago) link
do you honestly think this is a good description of the average person in a car on k-street
― iatee, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:18 (twelve years ago) link
no, bur it is a good description of the several irl people I have seen alienated from protest movements b/c of poorly-conceived tactics like randomly blocking public traffic.
― sleeve sandbox, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:22 (twelve years ago) link
not that I agree w/ those people writing off a whole movement based on isolated tactics or whatever, but based on my experience blocking traffic (in specific) seems to be very alienating to friends of mine who don't share my radical views.
breaking windows, that's a bit more of a tossup. people go either way.
― sleeve sandbox, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:26 (twelve years ago) link
that's interesting.
― HOOS aka driver of steen, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:28 (twelve years ago) link
break my window and I'll run you over with my V8 engine SUV.
― Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:29 (twelve years ago) link
ON MY WAY TO PICK UP MY KIDS ABLOO ABLOO ABLOO
― nuhnuhnuh, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:31 (twelve years ago) link
a broad cross-section ofc people utilize the k st. corridor on the daily. i mean, there are bad people who work there doing awful things to america, but it's not the lexis parade of sneering powerlords that you're imagining iateedawg.
― rusty flathead screwdriver, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:35 (twelve years ago) link
Though for the record I spent a Friday afternoon rush hour noting cars & there was a preposterously high number of Jaguars & Beamers.
― HOOS aka driver of steen, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:38 (twelve years ago) link
Every time I see this thread, I think of my cats
― M. White, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:40 (twelve years ago) link
unless all of the Bimmers you saw were 5 Series, I'd guess a good number of them were an income bracket below all of the Jags you saw
― OH NOES, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:41 (twelve years ago) link
Lots of people who ride into DC work for non-profits and government agencies and even like, construction jobs and shit. Some people start work at 6 in the morning and get off at 2. Disrupting traffic is really lame.
― rusty flathead screwdriver, Wednesday, December 7, 2011 12:40 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink
you're concern-trolling for people you don't even know based on no evidence. either way, americans feeling righteously entitled to smoothly flowing car traffic as a basic right* is going to face some serious challenges in the future from all kinds of fronts and is basically untenable.
(and of course this ALWAYS depends on what is the cause of the not-smoothly-flowing traffic. police checkpoint: legitimate. protesting: not legitimate.)
xp oh do tell us more, k-street expert and capn-save-a-single-parent.
― nuhnuhnuh, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:42 (twelve years ago) link
americans feeling righteously entitled to smoothly flowing car traffic as a basic right*
this is just such a bizarre and wrongheaded statement
― milo z, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:45 (twelve years ago) link
I'm concern-trolling for myself and the people I ride the bus with, dickwad.
― rusty flathead screwdriver, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:45 (twelve years ago) link
OMG WORKING PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO GET HASSLED BY THEIR BOSSES FOR BEING LATE? THE NERVE! etc
^^^
I hate cars. I don't drive to work. I take the bus - which uses city streets. Streets have long existed as the central organizing principle of urban space since well before cars were invented. people living/working in cities should absolutely feel entitled to using streets to get from one place to another, regardless of what vehicles are being used. I am a hardcore fan of public space, they are there for everybody to use, and they are funded by everybody for a reason.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 21:54 (twelve years ago) link
poor working people get screwed no matter what. protesting in visible public places is too important a tactic to give up because it "causes" traffic. minimizing problems for the powerless along the way is important, but reaching out with real goals/vision-for-the-future-type-stuff for us and the less-fortunate-than-we-are is more important than worrying about inconveniencing and omigod alienating some people. they were either asking to be alienated in the first place or you aren't doing a good enough job reaching out in other ways.
xp not talking about "streets as public thoroughfare," talking about "i was 15 minutes late and my boss was an asshole about it."
― nuhnuhnuh, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 22:02 (twelve years ago) link
how dare OWS make me late to the job i hate so i can live paycheck to paycheck
― nuhnuhnuh, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 22:04 (twelve years ago) link
they were either asking to be alienated in the first place
might wanna think about how successful this kind of rhetoric is in attempting to build a broad-based movement
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 22:05 (twelve years ago) link
and I'm not arguing against protesting in public spaces - that is also what they are for! - I was irritated by iatee saying that blocking traffic IN AND OF ITSELF is a good thing. it's not.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 22:06 (twelve years ago) link
I think it's pretty obvious that Occupy is past the point where overly combative/rhetoric tactics are going to win them any support
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 22:07 (twelve years ago) link
ugh i'm getting into an armchair argument i have no business being in and afaict HOOS does an awesome job of it day in and day out. what can i say, i'm in a people-suck Dr-Morbius type of mood, or a people suck Dr Morbius type of mood, whatever.
xpost oh yeah i don't think blocking traffic is inherently good at all.
― nuhnuhnuh, Wednesday, 7 December 2011 22:11 (twelve years ago) link