Why are they arresting so many Occupy folks while the corporate thieves are

[malaise]

walking free.

This is madness
13 Occupy protesters arrested in Iowa
63 Occupy protesters arrested in New York
293 arrested in Los Angeles
What the fugg happened to the right to protest?

add; sp.

[spanone]

1. riddle me this...why has jon corzine not been indicted? charged? jailed? 2 BILLION 'missing'

[WingDinger]

3. Because most of that is following the rules that have been lobbied into place.

It seems that the preferences shown, in winners and losers, to cover shortfalls, is complicated. And will take time. They are still doing hte forensics.

[malaise]

9. Amazing isn't it!

Happy New Year Brother Spanone!!

[banned from Kos]

21. Corzine started work at MF in March 2010. They have found four violations 2007-2009.

I know it will break many hearts here but Corzine will never be indicted. The auditors hid past shenanigans.

Price Waterhouse is more at fault.

[WingDinger]

2. Affect commerce in any way, go to jail. Soon, affect commerce in any way, you are a terrorist.

[randome]

4. The police aren't in charge of corporations.

They are an instrument of whatever city they are in.

If we want the 'corporate police' to do their jobs better, we need to take our protests directly to them.

Congress is the 'corporate police'. They are holding the doors open and telling the corporations, 'Take what you want.' That isn't stealing but it's still wrong.

[LiberalEsto]

5. Because the corporate thieves control government, which controls law enforcement

We have to remove these thugs from running the government in order to redirect law enforcement to white collar crime.

[coalition_unwilling]

6. Might want to add this metric to your OP: 293 arrested in Los Angeles. Police enforce

existing property relations and the property rights of the bourgeoisie and the plutocracy over the interests of the proletariat.

[randome]

7. Not apologizing for the police...

...but if a hundred people showed up on your property, I'm sure the police would clear them away, too.

It isn't always about class versus class.

[coalition_unwilling]

14. It is ALWAYS about class versus class, even when

the police (who, generally speaking, are members of the proletariat) have been seduced into siding with the ruling class.

The police attacked members of their own class who were occupying public, not private, property. Up until now, police have concluded that their interests lie with the oppressors and not with the masses. Whether that changes in 2012 or points beyond is the big question. Because once police stop acting as 'enforcers' for the ruling class, it will be game, set and match.

[randome]

19. The police did their JOBS.

Yes, some of them behaved horribly.

And I doubt the police, as a group, 'conclude' anything. They just do their JOBS, same as the rest of us.

One group of people cannot take over public property for their own use, any more than religious groups can prevent access to abortion centers.

It's really that simple and it's why OWS has been kicked out successfully out of nearly every park they have tried to take.

Class has NOTHING to do with it. It's about local municipalities clearing their public spaces.

[coalition_unwilling]

22. On October 5, 2011, the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution welcoming

Occupiers.

This was accompanied by City Councilperson Eric Garcetti telling Occupiers to "stay as long as they liked". Other councilpeople offered similar statements of support.

There was no subsequent City Council resolution revoking its earlier resolution of October 5, So I'm not sure exactly which "law" you think the LAPD was 'enforcing' on November 30, 2011 when the camp was busted up other than the whim of Mayor Villaraigosa.

[randome]

24. I don't know, either.

What were the charges? Is the Mayor required to follow the proclamations of the City Council? My first guess would be no, that the City Council wasn't taking the whole picture into account.

I'm not saying that Mayor Villaraigosa was in the right here. I'm saying there are larger issues concerning the use of public space than welcoming occupiers.

A statement of support by a group that does not make or enforce laws isn't really much.

On edit:
Congress makes statements of support all the time and everyone pretty much ignores them.

[coalition_unwilling]

27. Many of the trials are currently in progress on charges of "failure to

disperse' from an 'unlawful assembly.'

While the Mayor may not be constrained by City Council proclamations and the declarations of individual Councilpeople like Eric Garcetti, some of those on trial are using the Council's proclamation and Garcetti's declaration to allege 'entrapment,' meaning city officials enticed them to break the law.

Furthermore, many of the cases are being dismissed with prejudice, meaning city cannot refile charges at a later date.

[msongs]

25. sorry but it is NOT "their" public spaces, it is OUR public spaces. OUR OUR OUR not THEIR nt

[randome]

28. Like I said, it belongs to everyone, not just OWS.

Last edited Tue Jan 3, 2012, 02:25 PM - Edit history (1)

Why is that difficult to understand? You can no more take over a public park for your use than you can a day care center or an abortion clinic.

By equating 'protesting' with setting up tents in a public park, OWS created inevitable conflicts with public authorities that did nothing to advance the stated cause of eliminating economic inequality.

[malaise]

10. Done

Happy New Year!!

[annabanana]

8. because they can

the powerless are always more vulnerable

[baldguy]

11. Because the corporate thieves are running the show for their own benefit.

[malaise]

12. That's an amazing graphic

Thanks

[Uncle Joe]

31. That's a good toon, baldguy, a modern version of Plato's Cave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_cave

(snip)

In Plato's fictional dialogue, Socrates begins by describing a scenario in which what people take to be real would in fact be an illusion. He asks Glaucon to imagine a cave inhabited by prisoners who have been chained and held immobile since childhood: not only are their arms and legs held in place, but their heads are also fixed, compelled to gaze at a wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which people walk carrying things on their heads "including figures of men and animals made of wood, stone and other materials". The prisoners watch the shadows cast by the men, not knowing they are shadows. There are also echoes off the wall from the noise produced from the walkway.

Socrates suggests the prisoners would take the shadows to be real things and the echoes to be real sounds, not just reflections of reality, since they are all they had ever seen or heard. They would praise as clever whoever could best guess which shadow would come next, as someone who understood the nature of the world, and the whole of their society would depend on the shadows on the wall.

(snip)

After some time on the surface, however, the freed prisoner would acclimate. He would see more and more things around him, until he could look upon the Sun. He would understand that the Sun is the "source of the seasons and the years, and is the steward of all things in the visible place, and is in a certain way the cause of all those things he and his companions had been seeing" (516b–c). (See also Plato's metaphor of the Sun, which occurs near the end of The Republic, Book VI)[2]

(snip)

Return to the cave

Socrates next asks Glaucon to consider the condition of this man. "Wouldn't he remember his first home, what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners, and consider himself happy and them pitiable? And wouldn't he disdain whatever honors, praises, and prizes were awarded there to the ones who guessed best which shadows followed which? Moreover, were he to return there, wouldn't he be rather bad at their game, no longer being accustomed to the darkness? Wouldn't it be said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted, and that it's not even worth trying to go up? And if they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead them up, wouldn't they kill him?" (517a)

[Warren Stupidity]

13. the right of the people to peaceably assemble

has long been ignored. "Congress shall make no law", and after the civil war and the 14th amendment, neither shall the states. But they do, and they regulate and restrict and forbid as they see fit.

And the courts, the courts that recently decided that "congress shall make no law", and by extension from the 14th, neither shall the states, that regulate the free speech of 'corporate persons', see no problem at all in the suppression of peaceable assemblies by actual flesh and blood persons.

Nothing really new here, other than the tactics of corralling all assemblies, of declaring 'free speech zones', of using storm trooper garbed militarized police units to intimidate assemblies.

They know that if we ever wake the fuck up their game is over.

[hack89]

16. All Constitutional rights have legal limits

look no further than the 2A and the thousands of gun control laws.

That's why we have a Supreme Court - it is their function to define the limits of the Constitution as it applies to specific laws.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. the limit on assemblies is clearly specified in the 1st.

"peaceably". Permits, time limits, security deposits, corrals, free speech zones, intimidation, - the whole mess of assembly suppression being used - none of that is actually constitutional by any honest appraisal.

And as I pointed out, the SC effectively removed all limits on corporate-person political free speech, taking quite literally that pesky phrase "congress shall make no law".

The 2A is a mess. We all know that, but please don't go there in this discussion. The 1st is clear as a bell.

The SC is a rightwing turdpile making shit up as they go about their serious business of justifying a kleptocracy.

[malaise]

20. Indeed

Well said.

[FreakinDJ]

15. Sickening isn't it

[fascisthunter]

18. Because Occupiers can't Bribe those in Power with money

hence, they do not represent the true elitists.. the top 1%.

[treestar]

23. Corporate thieves arrests would be harder

for the media to follow. Individualized. And the cases have no "sex appeal." All about bank fraud and white collar stuff. So I don't think there is proof that "corporate thieves" are never arrested.

It takes time to make a case against them, too. Cases have to be proven against them. I hope people agree with that statement.

This would involving proving mortgage brokers falsified applications; false credit rating used, etc. Face it, the media will cover murders and robberies and people challenging the local ordinances/police. All more dramatic. How can reporters get breathless and excited over banks making false statements to sell securitized loan packages to other banks?

[Solly Mack]

26. Not just corporate thugs walking free

Crime is OK if you're in government or contribute big dollars to those in government...or are seen as important to government in some way.

Every now and then someone draws the short straw and is used as an example so the other thugs can point to them and say 'See? Justice works for everyone.' Or someone gets so greedy that they somehow manage to piss off the other thugs, and that person goes to jail too.

Many people can name those who have gone to jail for 'white-collar' crime....because so few have, it is easier to name them. And it's not because crime or criminal behavior is somehow less in corporate circles either.

Just try naming everyone in America who went to prison for robbery last year. Now, name the corporate thugs who went to prison last year.

[dougolat]

29. Yes! That's why I carry a sign at our local OWS "Madoff was an amateur.....

... the pros are bailed out and still at it!"

Stolen pensions, stolen homes, and massive high-finance fraud
and the D.O.J. is not pursuing it, and the F.B.I. is largely diverted to Homeland Security,
with about one fifth as many agents on financial investigations as they had on
the S&L meltdown, and this one is 70 times as big.

[Solly Mack]

30. Corruption is a business

and business is good.

Thank you for what you do!!!