Who gets to decide which “messages shouldn’t be part of the protest”? You? No thanks. If you’ve read anything posted here, you’d know that the idea of the “99%” is problematic, but there are a lot of “splinter” issues subsumed the rhetoric of the “99%” and Wall Street. People keep asking why there’s not more people of color at OLosA, why it’s mostly middle class people from West LA, and the fact is that most people from Boyle Heights or South Central don’t feel safe in that space, they don’t feel included, and upon entering the space most have had serious concerns about the open and obvious collaboration between key organizer and the police, a relationship that far exceeds that of any other Occupy city. The committee was calling for more accountability from the people bargaining with the police, to know what the conversations were that were happening–you know, basic transparency and accountability–and suggesting that supporting other struggles against police brutality would make others in LA, the people who make up the lower ranks of the 99%, feel comfortable participating. In the face of police brutality at OWS and raids in other cities, the committee also questioned why there were no contingency plans, why key organizers disrupted attempts to organize legal trainings and other basic workshops to inform participants of their legal rights and how to protect themselves against tear gas. These have been daily workshops at OWS and elsewhere, but it took 3 weeks for a legal training to happen at OLosA. This is unacceptable. The committee also raised the point that the role of police in society is to protect those same banks and financial institutions, and encouraged holistic analysis on what exactly is happening economically.

On your other point, fuck you for supporting repression against participants in this movement. I’d expect nothing less from liberals, but it’s not OK to distribute names and photos of people you disagree with in an open forum, where police are likely to receive a copy. It’s nothing short of a blacklist, a list of people the police can arrest without any complaint by the official organizers, a list of people the other participants shouldn’t defend. And it sets the tone at OLosA that if you disagree with the key leadership, that you will also be ostracized and subjected to police repression.

Sorry, but I’m on the side of the members who distributed the leaflets. This is a movement for economic reform and financial responsibility, it’s not a “fuck the pigs” kind of protest. If you’re serious about changing the way banks and financial institutions operate in the U.S., you should save the anti-cops sentiment for a different protest. This is why umbrella protests with no clear goal end up setting back movements instead of accomplishing goals. Using the Occupy members to inflate the numbers for your own personal movement is bullshit, the people gathering have a right to decide not to be exploited as tools for a small minority’s anti-police agenda.

Stop letting splinter groups within the Occupy movement distract outsiders with messages that shouldn’t be part of the protest. Your voices are being hijacked by the conservative and liberal press outside the movement, and it’s easy for them to do when the movement is being hijacked from within by small groups who see it fit to use the Occupy movement to protest things outside its intended scope.

Just one short point. Obviously it’s completely unacceptable for somebody to pass around that leaflet with the “names and photos of 25 individuals”.

But… you do realise that the state already had that information, right? Because it came from Facebook.

It’s been said before, but it obviously needs to be said again: organising on Facebook is like holding your meetings in MacDonalds and inviting the local cops to come and film them.

If you want to be secure, don’t organise on Facebook.

If you want to support non-corporate alternatives, don’t organise on Facebook.

It might be worth *announcing* events there, using false details etc, but giving them your real details, or discussing anything of importance there, is just stupid.

That minor point aside, good work for challenging those unacknowledged privileges and informal hierarchies.

We should bring up criticisms but they should not be brought up with the assumption that people should have known better. None of us walk in each others shoes. We should work to not assume that a person knows our reality, because more than likely they don’t. We should not automatically label them either, unless we know they have had a privilege background we cannot label them as such. Privilege can be defined in so many ways depending on who you are with. If you are walking with a person and you have a green card and they do not, to them you are privileged. The people that gather at the OLA, are people who have the best of intentions to making this a better world, it does not mean they know how to do that or that they understand what people of color feel. Issues should be brought up in a constructive manner, that will build unity and understanding. If we want to build a better society we need to be constantly aware of what our contribution to that effort is and if it is not in the direction of uniting with all our sisters and brothers, then we need to step back, be honest and redirect our efforts. Capitalist’s number one tool is finding ways that divide us, through race, ethnicity, gender, jealousy, envy, fear etc., my guess is also this term “White Privilege” is included. (You may not agree but think about it non the less, is it unifying or does it divide us?) The only way we as the 99% will win, is to avoid all those pitfalls, find grounds of commonality and slowly begin to educate ourselves about each other. Lastly, with regards to the police, no one is negating the police brutality that has and continues to exist especially among people of color, the favorable comments that have been made about the police is in reference to their behavior with regards to the OLA, only. There have been several people of color, and backgrounds etc, who have been beaten by the cops and who have spoken at the GA and refer to their behavior with the OLA, as a welcomed relief. For some reason those who get upset about this, refuse to separate the two, and it has resulted in unnecessary divisions. Again, no one is negating the police brutality that has been waged against people of color or anyone else, in the past present or future, their only reference is to their conduct with OLA.

PS – Of course if they can split you guys up all the Occupation amounts to is entertainment they can watch and laugh at.

Awwwww . . . . Thanks… True stuff. There’s so much information to being ANYONE up to speed in that post on who the real enemy is it’s not even funny. Wondering how I wandered by and saw this comment. . . 😉