Getting Their Attention
Irradiated by LabRat
This is mostly inspired by Robb Allen’s post on the subject, partly in that I agree with almost everything he said and partly in that it will take a similar format of nonconclusive points and rambling. Most of all I do not intend to choose a side or argue for the “right” position, because I don’t think there is one. Robb’s post is worth reading particularly because I DO strongly agree with so much of it, though I may reiterate points he made to make this one a bit more coherent.
The Occupy movement has turned from a transitory curiosity and sort of leftyish mirror of the Tea Party movement* to a major test case for what happens when protests aren’t flash-in-the-pan affairs but rather long-term camping events, and what happens when the police are called upon to deal with them in multiple places across the country rather than being a single event. In many ways it’s country-wide laboratory experiment in the test of case of an enumerated right- assembly- coming up against the limits of practical reality, as well as in the different approaches (and excesses) police departments can potentially take.
What I really want to talk about is force, because I see it as the crux of the most serious problems here.
In the first point, Robb is right: blockades of businesses and schools and municipal buildings may look peaceful and nonviolent, but they aren’t. The entire point of passive resistance is to maneuver your opponent into a choice of two options: give in, either temporarily or permanently, or employ force to remove you. Note that this has absolutely no bearing on whether or not the protestors or the businesses or the government or the police are in the right or not- it only describes the reality of the tactic. The lunch-counter sit-ins and marches of the Civil Rights movement had right on their side, but the tactic they were using against their racist opponents was exactly that: either force them to give in and tolerate the other race within their spaces they’d deemed off-limits, or to rally authoritarian force against them and crush the resistance. That is in many cases exactly what happened, and marked ultimate success for the movement- the public at large found the violence against the protestors merely for being darkly complected and in public spaces unacceptable, and political change followed. It was a good deal more complicated than that, but in the realm of nonviolent, passive resistance employed as a tool of political change, it was just that simple. Gandhi’s movement worked about the same way, right up until his opponents ceased to be an empire-weary British populace and became sectarian movements within India itself. The history of passive resistance movements in regimes that have no difficulty murdering passive resistors is much shorter and less noted.
In the second point, no matter how much we manage to delude ourselves that “non-lethal force” is a completely separate entity from lethal force, once you come to the point of having to use force to shift or subdue someone, you have to make the choice to take the chance that you will really hurt them or even potentially kill them- and they might STILL do the same to you. A grown adult is strong, fast, unpredictable, and may have medical problems no one has any way of being aware of. More than that, short of lethal force, the subject may shrug it off and charge anyway- even someone who has been shot several times is still capable of continuing to apply major force and aggression until his circulatory system runs out of go juice and shuts him down. You can stop someone’s heart with a Taser. Pepper spray on someone with asthma may close down their airway. A choke hold may damage someone’s trachea, and again can be fatal. You can cause fatal internal injuries and fractures with a rubber bullet, especially if you hit someone in the head. Whap someone with a stick and you still may cause a fatal bleed somewhere. If you do any of the above the victim may still not be impeded to the point where he or she won’t make a serious effort to do damage to the person responsible, or others.
If you’re using enough force to actually stop or seriously impede someone who really means to resist being moved, or attack, you’re using enough force to really hurt or even kill them. Some methods have better ratios than others, but none of them are safe. Contrariwise, if you intend to keep doing what you’re doing to the point where only force can move you, the force it will take to do so is NEVER guaranteed to be safe. Whether you actually force the people trying to shift you to that option or they jump the gun, it’s never “just” going to be a wrestling match, electric nappy-time, or a quick dose of lively seasoning.
Making that all more difficult to deal with is the idea of peaceable assembly and exactly where the real-world limits to that are. We can (probably) agree that an assembly that actively cuts off other people’s freedom of movement and associations isn’t actually all that peaceable and will eventually require some sort of intervention, but the limits of peaceably occupying a public space (like, I don’t know, a public park) are a lot blurrier. I think we can also all agree that decreeing that only the only permissible protests are those that inconvenience no one (particularly the target of the protest) effectively neuters the concept of protesting itself- if I were to make a comparison, it would seem to be roughly akin to gun laws that don’t allow you to have a gun on your person or in your home in any condition to be used with less than ten minutes of uninterrupted activity.
Cops shouldn’t physically abuse protesting citizens that are neither breaking a law nor offering resistance. Protestors shouldn’t (or shouldn’t be able to) claim complete innocence when forcing the authorities into choices that effectively boil down to total capitulation (to what demands, exactly?) or forcible removal. We shouldn’t pretend that the police have some sort of magic option for dealing with “just kids” or “just protestors” or “just” anyone that involves force greater than a stern talking-to but doesn’t involve the possibility of really hurting the just-whoever. Protests that aren’t actively doing or condoning damage or impeding anyone from normal business are completely legal and a sacred right… but at some indefinable point the sheer logistical problems they create, create problems that aren’t within their rights to cause or perpetuate.
So much simpler to just take a quick look at who’s protesting and figure out whether they’re wearing a red jersey or a blue one. Then you can figure out whether the cops giving them a pepper shampoo would be brutality or just desserts with a minimum of mental effort. Which is, of course, why it’s the commonest option by far.
*From what I can tell of the honest arguments from both camps- I don’t buy in to the idea that any given movement is defined by its most lunatic and incoherent of supporters- both are upset that government and big business are deeply complicit with each other, but one side largely blames business and the other largely blames government for the same essential problem. I say that if you have a group of people that stands to gain huge benefit from securing pieces of the system for themselves, whether their association is corporate or legislative will have no particular bearing on how corrupt they will become- and they will.
November 28th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Well put (and the subject line made me giggle).
It seems to me that part of the problem is the term “non-lethal force”. Ain’t no such thing: there’s less-lethal force — a joint lock is less lethal than a Taser is less lethal than a baton round is less lethal than a hollow-point — but there’s no guarantee that any of those can’t cause death. Calling them “non-lethal” makes it too easy to ignore or minimize the consequences of using them. Note that this point applies to both sides of the #Occupy protests: “that woman wasn’t shoved down the stairs, she was accidentally bumped” is just as much an example of unintended escalation from “non-lethal” as a capsaicin shower suffocating someone with asthma.
That said, it seems to me that there’s a lot of emphasis on less-lethal tools and techniques designed to be used against violent people who nevertheless don’t pose a lethal-force threat, and not too many at all that’re appropriate for (relatively) nonaggressive protesters who simply refuse to move. Maybe they exist, and are just not sexy enough for internet nerds like me to have heard of them?
November 29th, 2011 at 12:28 am
I still have no sympathy for them.
They went from peaceable assembly to squatting … hostile occupation of public land.
If I tried to build a home in a public park, I would not be surprised if I was forcibly removed, and my structures torn down afterwards.
They were asked to move, and they refused. They had minimal force used on them to remove them … compliance holds are a lot more dangerous for the subject than getting sprayed.
November 29th, 2011 at 4:57 am
You know, having worked at a large state University, watching drunken orgies (in full view of campus security, in public), people using the bushes as toilets, having my ability to use the campus impeded in a wide variety of ways…and seeing the same behavior visited on the citizens of towns in a five-ten mile radius around that campus, I find myself wondering. In the midst of this UCDavis issue, should there be any consideration as to the students’ motive, their chosen form of protests and proportionally, what they ‘deserved’ compared to other forms of group activity in their community? And I don’t have a clear answer for that because I agree with Ms. LabRat’s insights on the violent, or obstructional nature behind non-violent protest.
And, Kristopher, I have read reports (which may not be accurate)of nerve damage and students waiting to see if they’ll regain mobility in their hands after the plastic cuffs were used inappropriately at UCDavis. I don’t challenge your statement that worse methods could have been employed. I’ve friends in law enforcement, respect for police officers and the sheer volume of crap they’re frequently expected to run toward-as the general populace runs away.
But using pepper spray that close to the faces of the students, especially someone hired to be responsible for their saftey using it, and some of the accounts that have come out of this fiasco strike me as an act of incompetence. I’m not in law enforcement, so I can’t comment on the scale. Still, from the background of why the University police were ordered in to that particular situation to the comments overheard by the officer in the famous photo, Mr. Pike to the end of this sorry affair, (even with hindsight being 20/20), I believe the police were out of line at UCDavis.
-and I realize you might not appreciate my background, as you don’t know me, but after the indulgent over the top, disgustingly biased crap I have seen Undergrads get away with, at my own expense and the community’s, it takes a lot for me to depart from a ‘they deserved it’ stance. This story was it…
November 29th, 2011 at 4:59 am
AARGH! Sorry for the load of text. Best of health to the Site authors and the adorable dogs and puppies, great and small.
November 29th, 2011 at 6:22 am
Kristopher: the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances doesn’t seem to mention a time limit. I’m not sure your concerns about “squatting” work out.
They were asked to move, and they refused.
This statement presumes that the people asking had the authority to ask such a thing. How would you feel if someone said “You’ve exercised your second amendment rights enough this month, no more CCW or range trips until January.”? Would you comply simply because you were asked?
November 29th, 2011 at 6:48 am
Don’t know what to add.
Except that the difference between protesting because it feels cool and protesting because of perceived wrong is kind of hard to tell. Especially from a distance, either culturally or geographically.
The most important part of your comments is that protests are designed to make the protested feel uncomfortable.
Compare the Occupy crowd to the Phelps bunch. Both manage to make their targets feel uncomfortable. One is a small, well-connected group that puts a higher priority on visibility than on duration of protest. The other is a large, poorly-organized group that may have misjudged the nuisance-factor involved in the duration of their protest.
Also note that protests against social practices or businesses are targeted differently than protests for/against political groups.
Politicians are scared when they see hundreds or thousands of voters marching together.
Businesses are scared when their public image is hurt, but more scared when their sales go down. Thus, protests against a business are annoying, but become troublesome when the protest keeps the business from actually doing business.
Protests against social consensus become annoying when The Powers That Be in society feels that the protests are dissolving social consensus.
Not all protests fit neatly into such categories…
One related point: protests can also be hard to tell from mobs. Depends on the problem being protested, the people who show up, and the general social attitudes…
November 29th, 2011 at 7:03 am
Perlhaqr, Purposeful occupation of an area and denying others the use of that area is not inherently peaceful. It may be done in an intentionally non-violent manner as in the Ghandi and MLK tactics.
In the case of publicly administered areas there is generally someone given the authority to make decisions about conflicting uses. A decision to have the police move the occupiers out is a less hazardous approach to the problem than allowing the people who are being inconvenienced to take matters into their own hands.
An order to vacate an area after a period of time is more similar to restrictions on time and place for exercising second amendment rights, ie. courthouses, etc. One can argue the details of such policies and where the line between peaceful assembly and forcible occupation should be drawn, but there needs to be such a distinction.
November 29th, 2011 at 7:06 am
The differences between OWS and the Tea Party Movement become less distinct when one considers the nature of our government is more like a corporate-sponsored oligarchy than a representative democracy.
I challenge any individual to honesty tell me that he/she feels the government, in its current incarnation, is really representing their best interests. Next, perform the same thought experiment but consider the role government plays in furthering corporate interests.
~Joe
November 29th, 2011 at 9:09 am
perlhaqr,
“How would you feel if someone said “You’ve exercised your second amendment rights enough this month, no more CCW or range trips until January.”? Would you comply simply because you were asked?”
I guaran-fricking-tee that if I were exercising my Second Amendment rights by barring people’s paths in the middle of a public sidewalk with my firearm, I’d lose my CCW and range trips for a lot longer than a month.
November 29th, 2011 at 9:11 am
JoeV,
“When buying and selling is controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.” -P.J. O’Rourke
November 29th, 2011 at 10:09 am
Perl: Tam answered for me.
Both First and Second Amendment rights are trumped by property rights.
If I get trespassed for bad speech or bad gunhandling, I have to leave. Period.
If I want to be free to say or shoot what I please, I can rent someone’s back 40 and shoot up dead cars or set up loud speakers or a conspiracy-loon printing press / internet co-location.
The Second Amendment and the First Amendment restrict the government itself, not property owners.
UC Davis IS a government entity … so you CAN support legislation to force the board to never remove protesters and squatters, ever. They might have problems getting education done, but that ain’t my problem.
November 29th, 2011 at 10:12 am
Just in passing I’d like to note that I’m talking about *all* of the confrontations between Occupy and various authorities, from UC Davis to Oakland to Boston to New York. They’re not all the same situation, some of them were a lot more clear-cut than others in the right or lack thereof of the Occupy people to occupy or the police to remove them, but they all make test cases along the same spectrum.
Laura- your comment was appreciated especially BECAUSE of its perspective. Never apologize for going long in making something clear.
November 29th, 2011 at 10:16 am
Laura: Protesters are being trained by ACORN hired “organizers” to always claim neurological damage from cuffing.
They are also being trained to pretend to have been cuffed for news cameras, whether they have been cuffed or not. They have also been trained to act like a soccer player fishing for a foul if they are even touched by cops … which leaves the cops with little else besides OC and Tasers.
That and using their own kids to hide behind has totally turned me against these clowns.
They were fishing for this confrontation. They got what they were after.
The civil rights marchers did the same … but they were fighting for something absolutely necessary. These assholes are fighting for free stuff from my wallet. Fuck them and the horse the rode in on.
November 29th, 2011 at 10:58 am
I’m fairly certain claiming that all protestors are faking injury by police, or that enough of them are to dismiss the rest, demands a citation.
November 29th, 2011 at 11:14 am
Hey Ms. LabRat, thanks!
Kristopher, you have outlined your point of view thoroughly, which has helped to understand how you feel.
November 29th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
perl: Also, blocking a path at UCD is… not petitioning the government for a redress of grievances.
(Others have already pointed out that it’s not actually “peaceful”, so I won’t poke it again.)
Rat: Another important difference between the Civil Rights Movement sit-ins and every “sit-in” that’s followed is that what the CRM protestors were protesting was the fact of NOT being allowed to sit there.
Which makes me twitchy about Occupiers claiming to be following in their footsteps, rather than doing cargo-cult protesting* based on tactics handed down (literally, now) for generations. The non-logic appears to be “sit-ins worked for the CRM, so sit-ins just work”.
Problem is, I’m not sure sit-ins ever once worked after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the repeal of all the Jim Crow laws.
*As far as I know I invented the term, but I’d be shocked if it wasn’t a case of independent invention and someone else did it as well; the idea probably needs some expansion, but I’m way too lazy.
It sure is a fertile concept, looking at the modern Protest Culture on the left. [Such protests as there are on the Right seem to avoid the cargo-cult aspect; I’m not sure why.]
November 29th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
JoeV- The politicos may not have what is People’s best interest in mind, but they have been giving the People what they want.
I maintain that we are now at the ‘getting it good and hard’ stage of government. Most of the people wanted lots of free goodies from the government- subsidized housing, student loans, et al, and were more than happy to vote in them what promised to deal out more and more largess from the federal coffers. That big business could and did take advantage of this was only natural: if the suckers want to take out a stupid loan to buy a house they could not afford, and the government was willing to help, why not take advantage of the situation? If a university could get Federal money for offering courses in Transgendered Basket Weaving, they would by Gaia teach it if there were enough suckers willing to take it.
When it comes down to it, it’s the fault of the People.
November 29th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
At risk of going completely off-topic:
Joe in PNG: I don’t think you’re giving ignorance and apathy enough credit. Most voters don’t know shit about politics, government, or economics… they just use their vote to show in-group solidarity or general (dis)satisfaction with the status quo. Oh, yeah, they want goodies from the government, but those goodies don’t come from campaigning politicians: they come from incumbents who want to bribe the voters into supporting them. Nobody voted for Bush in 2000 because he said he was going to introduce Medicare Part D benefits in 2003, but I bet a lot of people voted for Bush in 2004 because Medicare Part D made them feel better about the state of the nation, which in turn made them feel better about the incumbent (“whoever he is… that Bush guy, right?”).
Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter is a pretty good look at how voter ignorance shapes policy.
Getting back to the same ballpark as the original topic: It seems to me that the Tea Party and #OWS are inspired by the same thing — people discovering that their vote really doesn’t matter as much as they thought it did. How the two sides handled it differs rather drastically, and probably has a lot to do with the cargo-cult protesting Sigivald mentioned upthread, and the myth of “natural” leftist rectitude stemming from the Civil Rights Movement. But maybe #OWS is a natural evolution of the Tea Party strategy, from “Our politicians aren’t acting in our best interests; we need better politicians!” to “Our politicians aren’t acting in our best interests; screw politics, we need protests!” Essentially they’re escalating up the populist use-of-force continuum.
November 29th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Kristopher, I’ve deleted several additional responses to your Acorn comment; suffice to say, I disagree.
Joe, have you ever been dependent on a large state university for your Graduate or Undergrad degree? Been further dependent on the in state rates at a main or significant campus that also happens to be the only one the majority of students in your state can reach easily? Ever been told you aren’t getting your degree because nobody will fund it, or even put you on work study in order to hang on to the Hockey Team’s shiny new bus? Or that your school is gutting programs in the humanities (which include, besides the inventive courses you postulated,) History, Philosphy, Languages (you know, one of those job skills?), Theater, Music and Education? Ever known an Education major trying valiantly to supplement the hog and brain wash that goes into their degrees-which they cannot work or teach witthout-with aditional undergrad or grad level courses in the subject they are certifying for? (Which, at least in New England, means if they can’t do this they have maybe a year of training, in terms of course credit in the subject they will be teaching throughout their career.)
Have you ever been at a press conference the day before eight different departments loose the ability to maintain a Doctoral or Master’s level grad program at a “flagship” campus?I would never try to argue that all student protest or OWS protest is 100% justified, that all organizations suffering budget woes are being held back from offering 100% worthwhile programming. I’m sure I sound somewhat obstreperous here, but the questions are meant respectfully.
November 29th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Bluntobject: right on.
Laura… you’re not going to like me for this, but ponder for a moment the Housing bubble of just a few short years ago. What happened? Compare that to Higher Education- I see many of the exact same factors at work in both.
November 29th, 2011 at 7:36 pm
I agree, Joe, and honestly wonder why I wouldn’t like you for saying so. -although I would add that maybe if as a society we understood that providing an engaging and good quality background in reading, critical thought and text analysis, people would have read mortgage documents and loan agreements with greater discernment…Historiography is one of life’s more important skills; the public school system seems to view it as the Radioactive Inscrutable Thing from Planet X…
November 29th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
I now think that education is wasted on the young. Too many view school as ‘that boring thing I have to do every day that gets in the way of my video game playing” or “that place I go to party, and sometimes got to memorize stuff so I can get a degree and a job later”. What is history after all than learning from other people’s mistakes?
There are so many problems with our educational system that it’s hard to even begin summing up. But far too many people want the benefits of a degree with out doing the hard work of developing their own critical thinking skill has got to be a big part of it.
November 30th, 2011 at 4:19 am
Joe, I think that often but then I talk to one particular friend or her kids, and her kids amaze me freshly. That in turn makes me remember what I would have done for a decent education pre-college and then I run into the youth group I advise-HighSchool age-and I can’t quite say it’s a waste. I think K-College needs a massive overhaul but there are a lot of people out there who would be worth the trouble of doing it.-Like (I can only suspect) the kids who were trying to use the obstructional-not-necessarily-nonviolent-but-very-disciplined form of protest at UC Davis.
November 30th, 2011 at 10:22 am
Laura: I agree completely that the whole thing needs a massive overhaul, but I have to disagree entirely about your specific example of potential beneficiaries. The kids at UC Davis who can actually use such reform are the ones cussing under their breath (or not so under if occupiers are blocking the math building) and trying to get to class around, through, or past the brigade crying about how the tuition they signed up voluntarily to pay is too high. At the moment, the most useful reform for those students would be a discount on axe handles at the hardware store.
November 30th, 2011 at 10:32 am
LabRat, I don’t see that Kristopher asserted that all, or a majority, of protesters are faking injuries, just that enough of them did to tar the rest in his mind.
The idea that some of them are doing it is entirely believable, however.
November 30th, 2011 at 10:57 am
Sure it is. But it’s still a pretty damn big deal, in the world of civil liberties being a thing we all theoretically value, to dismiss potential police brutality because maybe an unknown quantity of “some” are faking it. At least enough of one to want more details than “I suspect”.
November 30th, 2011 at 11:19 am
LabRat, I agree with your preference of an insert of ‘I suspect.’ Without it, the stament takes on a sweeping, prejudiced quality that makes me wish I could set Kristopher up with an old boyfriend of my mother’s…they’d have so much fun!
Stingray, I appreciate your calling me on my point. I should have been more clear that I want to see an overhaul for the people trying to keep their heads down and graduate magna cum laude. Yes I still think there’s a possibility that kids in the protest group could deserve or benefit from an overhaul as well, but should have been more explicit.-California must have some wondrous places indeed if there anything so practical as a college town that still HAS a hardware store…
November 30th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Back on the weapon topic. It’s November. Just wet them down. Not with a fire hose, just enough to keep them good and damp. All day and night.
December 1st, 2011 at 1:59 pm
On the weapon topic, I agree with staghounds, with the exception that it should be ice water.
On the larger topic, all of the grievances of the OWS crowd seem to be based on property rights, of the nature, I can make a claim on your property based on my need. It saddens me that we have raised a generation that in believes this thought has merit.
For me I see a parallel between the protesters blocking access and union strikers. If the strikers don’t allow replacement workers to cross the line peacefully it becomes the job of the police to make access possible. The same should be the case for the protesters. The fact that these are mostly children of privilege should not effect how the police create that access.
December 1st, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Staghounds, someone suggested that to Jerry Pournelle: just set up a garden hose some ways above them and leave it running. Doesn’t even have to be aimed at them per se-just let gravity do it’s work.
LabRat, yes, I agree, but at the same time it’s hard to avoid a little frisson of shchadenfreude at the protesters.
December 1st, 2011 at 3:17 pm
LabRat’s summary of the distinction between the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement is, in my opinion, correct. I will say, though, that in the attempt to be evenhanded, it’s also incomplete.
The Tea Party does not, in its relative de-emphasis of wrongdoing by private entities, propose that said private malefactors be affirmatively _given_ even more of what they want than they already have. We can reasonably argue that we’re not talking about misbehavior by business because business behavior (good or bad) is entirely irrelevant to our mission. Can the Occupy movement (whether you ask the “mainstream” of it or the fringe) say the same about their attitude toward government?
It exposes a profound ignorance of history to engage in Gandhi/King-style passive resistance and then _whine_ about provoking a forceful response. The forceful response (and the bad-PR counter-response) is the whole _point_ of passive resistance. If tazers, pepper spray, choke holds etc weren’t what they intended to have happen, then why on Earth have they been doing all this in the first place?
December 1st, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Panamared:
All of ‘em? I’ll grant that many of their grievances are based on a two-year-old’s version of property rights (“I want that! It’s mine! Gimme!”), but #Occupy’s complaint that the political process has largely been captured by a relatively small group of well-financed and well-connected insiders merits careful consideration. Too bad that doesn’t get nearly as much press as demands for “free” college education or the usual “eat the rich” crap.
That’s an excellent example.
For me, this boils down to a force-continuum issue. Commenter Whitebread over at Robb’s place put it very well. To my mind, the problem isn’t that the police are using force to disperse the protesters, it’s that (sometimes) the force they’re using isn’t appropriate to the force the protesters are using.
December 1st, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Bear in mind I’m also going on the premise that it’s inaccurate and unfair to judge movements based on their least reasonable members. That includes concrete demands for silly entitlements, which is not the whole or even the central point of the Occupy protests, much as “slash taxes to the bone but don’t touch the military” isn’t actually the point of the tea party.
December 1st, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Hunger strikes are the form of protest which inconveniens noone - stay at home or at a medical facility of your choice and with the Internet means it’s absolutely possible to be in the society view with your protest 24/7.