The problem with this perspective is that many laws have be crafted such that the only forms of legal protests are those that are completely ineffective. To be effective protests pretty much have to be disruptive, otherwise they are just ignored. However, just about any kind of activity that is disruptive is now illegal. The end result is that while people still have the technical right to protest any kind of effective protest has been made illegal. The letter of the first amendment may remain intact, but the spirit of it has been crushed.

he people are using their First Amendment rights of speech and assembly.

I'm not sure what their status is outside the US, but by and large they're within their rights to hold the protests on public property.

With a permit. Which they ain't got.

They did that here. They made it illegal to protest in public areas, and built designated "Freedom Parks" which are now the only places people can legally protest. They are all "out of the way", close to military bases, and designed to keep protests as out-of-sight as possible. Link.

Still, I guess it's better than their previous tactic of hurling hand grenades into peaceful protests.

Yep, that was the Cambodian government's defense - they said they were just copying the US. Difference is, in the US, the government don't get the military to come and use guns and electric batons on people who protest where they chose, like this infamous example from last year. Incidentally, Voice of America who posted that video got sued for defamation by the government for it. : /

Edit: Sorry, that wasn't a very good link. Here's a slightly more graphic English language version] of the same event.

So we can agree that the 99%ers are saying they represent everyone who's not in the 1%, even though it's obvious that a huge number of us in the so-called 99% do not want them claiming to be our voice? Because that's what our two posts show: a bunch of people within that category (the not-1%) with opposing viewpoints on the matter. To wit, from the second article: Can we note also that, if successful, these port protests affect the working-class people far beyond the smell of salt air? The products are handled by any number of people along the line before they end up in someone's home, not just the port drivers and the longshoremen. For instance, if that container they block holds the machine that I'm scheduled to install at a customer's location and the machine doesn't show up on time, a fair number of people are affected, Here's my quick count:

- the long-haul truck driver (possibly with a big loan payment if he's O/O). If he's with a company, they might be able to find some other load in short order; if he's independent, good chance he gets boned.
- the riggers hired to pick and place the machine in the facility, normally 2-4 people in a crew
- the operator(s) I would be training to operate the machine, typically from 1-4 people
- the operators of subsequent machinery, since my machine is almost always the first step in the production process. 1-3 people is typical.
- the assemblers who put together the parts that went through the machines before the parts got to them. Just a couple, unless the parts go through a finishing line, in which case add another 2-6 people.
- the forklift driver who feeds my machine, and who also moves parts around the plant as they get processed.
- depending on what they're making, the company may also install the finished product. A crew for this is typically 2-6 people, depending on the size of the job.
- the customer, waiting on the product. Could be one person, could be a dozen or more.
- and me, obviously

I count nine people at a minimum, and 20+ for other types of finished product. That doesn't count the monetary cost of production delays, contract penalties for being late, and rescheduling. When I'm out doing a machine like this, that's a two-week chunk of time. Not easy to rejigger that big of a block on the schedule on short notice to make that work, so I may end up losing that job.

Obviously, not every container holds a machine for immediate installation, but there is something inside. Instead, it might hold the raw materials that are fed into the machine, so eliminate myself and the riggers from the accounting.

Whatever it is. those containers are filled with stuff, driven somewhere by someone, then unloaded by someone, then used on a machine by someone, to be given to someone else for assembly, who then boxes it up or palletizes it for the forklift driver, who takes the finished product to another truck driven by someone, where it's either installed, stored in a warehouse, or placed on a retail shelf by someone. Another 99%er comes along and buys whatever it is, handing the money to yet another someone. Even if that container is full of finished retail product from overseas, there are still several working stiffs that deal with it before the retail transaction is completed.

So yeah, it's fair to say that the OWS port protests, if they accomplish their goal for even one day, are "unilaterally fucking over poor working stiffs." Move the protest toward the other coast, to Washington DC. That's where the problems begin, and it's where they can end.

That's sort of the point, yeah, people pretend that somehow protesting used to be possible without inconveniencing anyone. This is quite simply not true, often they even inconvenienced those they were intended to help. If the port truckers get their union and benefits back and can no longer be blacklisted for any kind of complaints it will likely be overall quite good for them. Sure, some of them think it'll never happen and they're just losing 350 bucks for the day (that's gross, btw, they don't get to keep nearly that, a lot complain their take home amounts to less than fast food wages) for no reason.

I can't say what the result of the protests will be, I have a pretty good guess where a complete lack of any action will lead, though.

I don't know what people expect people like the OWS folks to do. Seriously, we bitch that they can vote, well they've voted, that doesn't seem to work. They bitch that they could talk to their representatives in government. Well they've done that, doesn't seem to work. They bitch they could get jobs and shut up, well, apparently that's only working out for around 35% of our population (the percentage left that's doing pretty well for themselves based on all that hard work, which is supposed to mean automatic success but doesn't always). They bitch that they shouldn't inconvenience someone while petitioning government for a redress of their grievances. Well, I'm sorry, I just don't think that'll work and neither do they.

It just sounds like, to me at least, many of those who haven't had any extreme amount of misfortune simply have little sympathy for those that do. I mean, I'm good at what I do and worked hard for it, but that doesn't mean I didn't simply luck out in any way as well. Hell I even lucked out genetically.

I mean, no one has any problem believing someone can be genetically lucky with extreme natural sports talent, but the moment you suggest someone might have more genetic predisposition to tenacity in the face of all adversity, well that's just bullshit, and I mean, anyone could if they just tried hard enough, right? Right?

Honestly, no one really wants riots here, they bitched, when they saw what happened in the UK, that those folks just were being selfish and petty and hadn't even tried. Well, OWS is what trying looks like. You cannot tell me that we have some grave thing against inconveniencing people when we celebrate the everliving hell out of the Boston Tea Party. Don't you think business what dramatically affected in that harbor? Don't you think merchants were affected? Fisherman maybe? Were people unable to purchase goods because that tea (and whatever else in the cargo) was destroyed? Why do we celebrate that and piss and moan about a protest shutting down (terribly ironically, now that I think about it) a shipping port, of all things?

Since you brought it up, here's what I would expect them to do:

1. Find a message. Make it coherent. Make it simple. Make it factual.
2. Target that message at those who have the power to do something about the problems / conditions being protested.

So far as I can tell, those basic things are not yet happening, at least not in any scale large enough to get through the rest of the white noise surrounding the matter. It's been, what, six months now? At some point, is this going to evolve into an actual message, or will it continue to falter as something many folks are labeling a "temper tantrum"? The movement is running the risk of becoming a Page 6 ho-hum story, and I don't feel that actions of this nature are helping to move along a message that leads to legislative action.

While it would be better for it to have a clear plan, I support it on the basis that it express the level on dissatisfaction many citizens have with the institutions that regulate our lives (both financial and political) and it provides a meeting ground for such individuals to meet and form connections which will facilitate things later should they formulate a clear plan to present.

Precisely. I understand why they want people to get permits, but that's typically more for marches where they're having to close streets and make sure there are more emergency personnel there and they're typically just rubber stamped.

I've been to the local camp and it's not that big and I can't personally see any justification for requiring a permit.

When all is said and done, I don't see anything in the constitution that requires a permit of any sort for assembly. One could make an argument that marches aren't assembling, but this is about as literally assembly as you could get.
There's always going to be tools and those too stupid to recognize their own best interests. I'm sure that if you look hard enough you can even find Jewish Nazi sympathizers as well.

The point is that they are pushing for changes and reforms that benefit the bottom 99%. If the bottom 99% didn't contain a lot of tools and people that were deliberately voting agains their own best interests we wouldn't be in the sort of sad shape that we're presently in.

I don't support it since many of the members call for unrealistic measures that ironically support big business while undermining competition and many of the members completely ignore government actions that have cause much trouble.

For example, in the United States there are already thousands upon thousands of pages of regulations on business which basically require business leaders to hire law researchers and lawyers to help them follow (or avoid) them thereby giving larger business leaders an advantage. Despite these thousands of pages of regulation, many of these Occupiers continue to claim that business is too unregulated and demand even more regulations regardless of the regulations we already have and the criminal justice laws that do exist.

They also seem to forget that the whole "1%" label is based off of income levels and not of accumulated wealth. Among the so called "1%" includes small business owners who have to reinvest most profit back into their companies just to stay competitive. Also, among the Occupy supporters include members of the top 1% like politicians and Hollywood entertainers.

It also doesn't help that many of these Occupiers have blocked traffic like in New York City, made huge messes that they expect other to clean up, and have tried to disrupt lawful commerce like in Oakland.

I'll admit there are Occupiers who do make good points and who do understand how government policies have harmed people economically. Examples include the ones who protest over how government officials have claimed that there's no inflation even though food prices have been rising and the ones who complained about the bailouts but if they wanted to complain about government favoritism, crony policies, and fiscal irresponsibility, they should have joined the Tea Party Movement instead.

Simplification of regulation is not the same thing as deregulation. Deregulation is what got us into this current mess and in no case that I'm aware of has deregulation led to anything other than consolidation.

If you're making enough to be in the 1% then chances are good that you're not a small business owner. Money which is reinvested in the business is typically not taxed by the IRS and not considered income. I'm not sure why they would even be paying it to themselves if they're needing to subsequently use it to fund operations. Sounds to me like somebody needs to get a better accountant.

Also, on that point, if you're a small business owner who is making enough to be in the top 1% you've very little reason to be complaining. You're doing better than 99% of the population and chances are good that you're set in a way that most Americans aren't. Normally it wouldn't be much of an issue, but keep in mind that people don't just randomly find themselves making more than 99% of the population and they aren't so incredibly hard working that they get paid that much more, people get into that category through luck and exploitation. I know janitors that work harder than your average 1 percenter that make a pittance.

You do have a point about blocking traffic, that's not just dumb, but a safety hazard as well. It's not so bad when you can just avoid the trouble spot, but it does add time to emergency response and if you're blocking a bridge it can be tough to get around.

There were plenty of regulations and laws even after alleged "deregulation." The actions that got the United States into this mess was the government sponsorship of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two enterprises that took up an excessive amount of subprime loans. This is something that many people keep ignoring and they just simply point their fingers at deregulation.

It's true that corporations get tax breaks for actual profit reinvestment before the year is up but reinvestment doesn't always end there. Small business owners may reinvest in the beginning of next year if they learn their businesses need more money for capital or labor. Also, when people talk about small business owners, they are talking about the owners of proprietorships and not corporations which means different tax laws which is also part of the problem.

There are people who are considered part of the "99%" who work harder than some people in the "1%" region but that is no excuse to just judge people based solely off of income instead of individual merit.

Not really, that's not a defensible position to take. Deregulation doesn't require all of the regulations to be removed, just for there to be fewer regulations in place. In practice we don't usually referred to it as deregulation unless it's substantial and allows for companies to conduct affairs how they want to without regulators telling them not to engage in unwise practices.

That's largely a solid point, but I rarely if ever hear about government actually taking action on that. Most of the time they're dealing with large corporations and using small businesses as an excuse for cutting regulations and taxes.

IT is worth noting that a surprising number of "small businesses" are in fact incorporated the way that the big boys are, they just don't have the extensive lobbying and legal departments that a large corporation does. In many cases it just isn't wise to take on that much liability.

They've benefited from a corrupt of kleptocracy. That's not stereotyping and it's not judgment it's an objective statement of fact. The system is very much loaded in their favor and there's few representatives of that demographic that are willing to own up to it. Yes, they do typically work harder, bu they don't typically work that much harder and the funds come from somewhere.