To the Occupy movement - wake up and smell the constitution

I like the concept of the Occupy movement. It started in NYC as Occupy Wall St., the purpose to send a message to the rich and politicians that enough is enough. No more bailouts for "too big to fail" banks and insurance companies with tax money, end corporate welfare, bring back Glass-Steagall, maybe even try to get the ball rolling on a REAL recovery, not a "jobless" recovery where people are still not working while the rich get fatter and fatter.

I think both the original Occupy Wall street movement in NYC and Occupy Boston have done a good job illustrating this. Despite a persistent lack of coverage from the mainstream media the independent media got the word out, thanks to the www and the blogosphere. Instead of just blowing over, which the mainstream media and their corporate masters had hoped, the movement gained popularity and grew. Now many cities have occupy movements within them.

But, something happened on the way to the forum. Some, not all, but some of the Occupy movement groups have gotten downright nasty to the very people who are spreading their message across the country and world.
Some of the Occupy movement groups that have shown hostility to the media(independent and/or mainstream) are:
Occupy DC x 2
Occupy Miami
Occupy Oakland - a mention of yet ANOTHER Occupy Miami incident also here. Annnnd again.
Occupy Portland
Occupy San Diego
Occupy Eureka
Occupy LA Scroll down to bottom.

Robert Lyles in the news report about Occupy Oakland did a great job pointing out the hypocrisy of the assholes from Occupy Oakland, one of whom even allowed his dog to assault a reporter.
Sara Mizner, who asked reporters point cameras toward city hall and not toward the tents was asked this: "Are you picking and choosing which constitutional rights to uphold?"
This was her answer:"Right now in this moment it was the safest decision that we felt that we could make."
I'd really like to know how reporters are threatening their safety. Not that it matters, as the constitution doesn't suddenly lose effect because the Occupy Oakland douche bags feel "unsafe".
Update - more BS from the pretentious fucks at Occupy Oakland.
Update2 - Ahahahahahahaha! Karma at work here, suck it down BITCHES!

None of these people, and justifiable so, like the cops trying to interfere with their constitutional rights. So why do they turn into instant assholes as soon as they see a camera? They are in a public place, where they have NO expectation of privacy and the constitution is VERY clear about the freedom of the press.

Seriously, if you want to conduct secret meetings, rent a hall someplace. Then you can control who gets in and what kind of behavior is allowed. Otherwise STFU and stop treading on other peoples constitutional rights while insisting everyone respects yours.

Note: Since I wrote this article in October the number of unpleasant and sometimes violent incidences at some of the Occupy locations, ESPECIALLY Occupy Oakland have been increasing. Carlos Miller, owner of the blog Photography is Not a Crime has done an excellent job of documenting this, most of my links are from him. While most of the people in the Occupy movement ARE peaceful, a MAJOR beef I have is the FAILURE of the majority of peaceful people there to push the assholes out of the movement. This CAN be done Sara Robinson explains how

The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it’s like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.

This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual “we” statements that reflect the observations of the group. “We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave.”

When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic assholes is they’re usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up — always with “I” messages. “I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We’re all worried about the cops here, and we think you’re putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave.” Every statement needs to end with that demand — “We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back.” No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.

Replace "smoking weed" with "Throwing paint at cops, smashing windows, and threatening media people" and you get the idea of who really needs to be pushed out of the occupy movement.

I don't buy the "31%" willing to commit violence figure, but this rap sheet shows that the movement has a LOT of work to do cleaning the shitheads out of it.

The medical profession and tech.

One thing I have noticed is that while the medical profession is quick to adopt the latest medical gadget they tend to remain in the stone age when it comes to computers and digital devices. Just think about the now common digital camera. It cost NOTHING to take a picture with one yet doctors are NOT using them to take pictures of patients injuries.

You would think in some circumstances this would be an invaluable tool, as the picture could be added to the patients medical record. With a ruler next to it in the picture it would also be easy to see if the injury has gotten bigger or not. Changes, like whether the injury has gotten more red, purple, whatever could also be observed over time in a succession of pictures.

I can understand in the days of film cameras this not being done as development is both time consuming and costly but both of those factors are eliminated with digicams.

Government debt

Just go here. I don't need to add anything.
Link is now dead but this pic sums it up...

You don't own anything

Imagine going to a school with two bullies. Two BIG, merciless bullies. They have no scruples. If they like your lunch, they take it. If they like your jewelry, they take it. If they want the shirt off your back, they will yank it off you. You can try going to school authorities, but the bullies retaliate by delivering punishing beatings and taking even more of your stuff while the glacially slow school justice system drags on. Talking to the principle doesn't work, nor does suspension. They merely catch you on the way home and beat you up then. Sound like a shitty situation to be in? Well guess what, you ARE in it.

The two bullies are big corporations and the government. And if you have what they want they are going to take it away from you. Of the two, the bigger, badder bully is the government. It already takes your lunch money every paycheck in the form of taxes.

Some people love taxes. But no one on the receiving end loves asset forfeiture. This is cute government legal tactic where the property is declared as being acquired by illegal means(usually drug sales) and the government takes it. The government is NOT required to prosecute the property owner, and the owner is put in the position where he/she has to take the government to court to get his property back.

Once the government establishes probable cause that the property is subject to forfeiture, the owner must prove on a "preponderance of the evidence" that it is not. The owner need not be judged guilty of any crime.

Needless to say, asset forfeiture has become a VERY popular tool of government bully.

A tool used by both government and corporate bullies to separate you from your property is eminent domain. This used to be only for use by government, and limited to what was deemed "the greater public good", which usually meant government could only take your property for public works projects such as hydroelectric power dams and roads. Corporate bully didn't like being left out of this, LOUDLY shouted "ME TOO!!" and thanks to the Kelo decision by the supreme court he got his wish! So now Walmart or any other big corporation can use eminent domain to take your house. All they have to do is prove they can generate more tax revenue than you do, which of course, they can.

"I've got a web site! And golly gee, I own a domain with my VERY own name"!

No you don't. Just like a rug, that too can get yanked out from under you by either government or corporate bully. In this case, even when government bully takes it, it's at the instigation of corporate bully.

It works like this. Corporate bully goes to government bully, hands wringing, head hung low, tears beginning to well up in his sad, wide round eyes. "Government bully, I need your help, those bad old pirates are giving away my copyrighted material on their web site!" Now copyright infringement is a CIVIL matter, so in this case government bully should have told corporate bully to man up and deal with it himself, but government bully LOVES corporate bully, so instead had ICE seize over 80 internet domains.

Corporate bully grows a pair when he wants your web domain for himself. "How does this happen"; you ask? Well lets say Joe Sixpack gets his very own web site, and buys the domain name joesixpack.com. It's his family web site and he's had it for 15 years. Then along comes corporate bully, in the form of a multimillion dollar beer company named, not surprisingly, Joe Sixpack™. They want a web site but OOOOOPS!, it's taken already. They make Joe Sixpack the person a crappy offer, which he refuses.

"Oh ho", says corporate bully Joe Sixpack™, and accuses Joe Sixpack of cybersquatting, using that as an excuse to drag Joe Sixpack into court and have the judge force him to hand the domain over to Joe Sixpack™. Even with no real legal basis corporate bully has a LOT of money and can jerk Joe Sixpack through the court system, costing him a LOT of money. Money, most likely, he doesn't have. An example of this kind of bad behavior by corporate bully can be found here. Although in this case apparently Mr. Uzi Nissan had enough money to deal with the court system, so for once corporate bully Nissan™ had to eat shit. Most people however DO NOT have the money it takes to battle it out all the way to the supreme court and will wind up losing their domain name, which they paid for in good faith.

So there you have it, between government bully and corporate bully you don't own a thing, not even the shirt on your back. If government bully claims it was purchased with drug money or you owe taxes, he'll take that too.

Update! Just found out in some states you don't even own the RAIN that falls off your roof. So who does? Our old friend, government bully. Next they'll claim the sweat off your back belongs to the government too.

Update - 2023
Surprised it took me so long to add this. One more thing you don't own is your house. You rent that from government bully. Don't believe me? Government bully calls his rent "property tax" and if you don't pay the rent, you lose your home. When you have to pay someone money in order to live somewhere or you are forced to leave, that is not ownership. You are renting that property.