Occupy the Agenda - By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[tabatha]

Published: November 19, 2011

The Occupy protests might have died in infancy if a senior police official had not pepper-sprayed young women on video. Harsh police measures in other cities, including a clash in Oakland that put a veteran in intensive care and the pepper-spraying of an 84-year-old woman in Seattle, built popular support.

Just in the last few days, Bloomberg — who in other respects has been an excellent mayor — rescued the movement from one of its biggest conundrums. It was stuck in a squalid encampment in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park: antagonizing local residents, scaring off would-be supporters, and facing months of debilitating snow and rain. Then the mayor helped save the demonstrators by clearing them out, thus solving their real estate problem and re-establishing their narrative of billionaires bullying the disenfranchised. Thanks to the mayor, the protests grew bigger than ever.

I watched in downtown Manhattan last week as the police moved in to drag off protesters — and several credentialed journalists — and the action seemed wildly over the top. Sure, the mayor had legitimate concerns about sanitation and safety, but have you looked around New York City? Many locations aren’t so clean and safe, but there usually aren’t hundreds of officers in riot gear showing up in the middle of the night to address the problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/kristof-occupy-the-agenda.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB#

[tabatha]

1. another para

The Occupy movement is also right that one of the drivers of inequality (among many) is the money game in politics. Michael Spence, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who shares a concern about rising inequality, told me that we’ve seen “an evolution from one propertied man, one vote; to one man, one vote; to one person, one vote; trending to one dollar, one vote.”

[JDPriestly]

10. That meme about on propertied man must be viewed in light of the

fact that it was much easier to become a property owner in the early years of the U.S.

Some people homesteaded in places like Indiana in the early 19th century before that state was really opened for settlement or a state.

There were lots of indentured servants, but they could work their indenture off and then become landowners.

The slaves were the only people without any hope of owning land, and some of them managed to become free through various means.

So, when people say only landowners could vote, I don't think that was quite the big deal that it is today.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. K&R

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. Where does he get that the Occupy protests were dying in infancy?

They've been going on since 9/17. Hardly infancy. Second, they've been getting stronger and spreading. How is that dying?

Uh...

I've been noticing that the more cops are sent out to do, the more it strengthens the movement. It doesn't die. It spreads.

[Major Nikon]

5. I think he was referring to this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moD2JnGTToA

And he didn't say they were dying, he just said they might have.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. Oh yes, and they also maced those kids at LA. I think watching things like that is hard for guys

But guys have to realize that women are part of the battle too, and they fight the battle with a great deal of pride. And you know, this should energize the movement, not deter it. Really. If I'd been one of those women, I'd be crushed, destroyed, if what happened to me stopped the movement in its tracks, rather than promoted it. They believe in it very strongly, or they wouldn't be out there.

[roguevalley]

4. he's delusional. they weren't rescued because they weren't

in danger. these dickheads don't get it and they never will.

[Major Nikon]

6. He was being satirical

[roguevalley]

9. ah. I guess this makes me so sick I can't see humor yet. :)

[babylonsister]

7. Rec'd, love Kristof, and love this...

"...have you looked around New York City? Many locations aren’t so clean and safe, but there usually aren’t hundreds of officers in riot gear showing up in the middle of the night to address the problem."