objective observer - I’ve thought about your “advice” to me for a couple of days now…allow me to respond:

1) Perhaps you assume (wrongly) that I know nothing about firearms…this is often the assumption of many people who think that only “real Americans” who live out in the country or are “the salt of the earth” know about guns. I grew up around guns and know how to shoot….SO WHAT? When one of those para-military goons comes to my home fully armored and with the high-tech gear (paid for by my tax dollars), my 2nd Amendment “right” won’t mean shit.
2) Oathkeepers? Forgive me for being so cynical, but that whole idea is a bunch of baloney. When the “masters” tell the police to shoot, they will do as commanded.

I realize that many Americans live in a Clint Eastwood, Chuck Norris, John Wayne fantasy that they’ll all grab their guns, hop into the hummer and go meet “the enemy” once the revolution starts…....That fantasy is a bunch of hogwash…....I don’t know about you, but the police scare me these days and the more firepower they have the less “free” I feel.

Only a coward takes this job.

One can knpw a hundred languages and not know how to reason well in any.

as I said, the park isn’t stolen property and thus the adage isn’t applicable.

By horatio, November 17 at 5:32 pm

heterochromatic: stealing stolen property is fine by me. Ladrón que roba a ladrón, cien años de perdón.

xoxox

==================================================
I, who know five languages, can relate to, enjoy and agree with the Spanish proverb you posted. However, to expect a shallow person, like heterochromatic, whose native English language is very poor and incoherent, is really to expect too much!

Admittedly, heterochromatic is there to trap people who take what they write seriously. You might say he is a troll! And my best advice is to ignore him, unless he gets ugly and nasty, then you have to give it back to him and not turn the other cheek!

@Mr. B—
Will you allow me a 4th agenda item?
It would be to eliminate payroll taxes in favor of a consumption tax model.

Look here, 2nd graph:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm

This is % of Federal Tax Revenues by source.
See that % from Income Taxes has remained fairly steady at 40%

Corporate taxes make for a shrinking % of the take since 1950.

And payroll taxes as a % of the total have risen from about 12% in 1950 to 36% in 2008.

No wonder we have high unemployment.

Notice, too, excise taxes (a consumption tax). 
In 1950, we were getting nearly the same amount of Federal Tax Revenues from excise taxes as from payroll taxes. 
You can see what happened thereafter.
Where would we be today had these futures been switched?

Many police departments have become militarized. As time goes on we will see them transformed from “protect & serve” public servants to paramilitary enforcers for whatever despots and tyrants happen to be running city/or other governments.

We have no defense against such forces. And these are the “public employee” (union members) who are always insulated against attacks by the anti-government folk??? Perhaps citizens should quit funding these thugs.

I guess I don’t have the glowing picture of the NYPD that others do. I lived there for several years, and the NYPD struck me as the usual bullies/cowards in uniform. They would harass someone letting their dog play in the park (but would leave a guy in leather and studs with his dog off-leash alone) while on the other side of the park a woman was being raped. In all my contact with people who work for institutions, including social workers, I have been amazed at how scared they are of anyone who looks formidable or whom they perceive as potentially violent. Perhaps this explains why the NYPD is so fond of beating and pepper-spraying women.

horatio, the park aint stolen property.

@Big B
Not convinced that getting “enough liberals elected” would be the method to achieve the 3 agenda items from my earlier post.

Anti-trust action against the Too-Big-To-Fails is a ripe tactic for any young hotshot law firm looking to make a name for itself. 
I’d be willing to wager there are some newly-minted lawyers talking about right now.
There’s still time enough to make reinstating Glass-Steagall a wedge issue for the the 2012 election.  The electorate is wising up to what it is and why we need it back.

Same with campaign finance reform, but that will be tougher because we’ve gone so far down the corporate contribution road. 
A Constitutional amendment might be the way to go here, and there’s one petition for an amendment already out there. 
Unfortunately it concerns itself only with corporate personhood. 
But it’s a start.

Big B, I’m in favor something good coming out of OWS.  The potential is there, but the movement has grown to a mile wide and an inch deep.
Now that the Occupants have the nation’s attention, they’re going to have to move forward with common-sense alternatives that appeal to most of the 99% they claim as constituents.
Would be a shame to waste this moment, but that’s what I fear will happen. 
OWS needs a leader to emerge—someone who realizes the movement is not an end in itself, but a vehicle to effect constructive change.

BTW, glad you have work.

the Occupy movement in Spain might have spread to include unusual sources of
support

http://youtu.be/3MPY2jSkQWY

oddsox

sorry, just got home from work.

What do you suppose the odds are that “we the people” would be able to get enough liberals elected in this “corporatocracy” that we live to pass any of the legislation you suggest. All good ideas I agree, but impossible to achieve in the current system.

The only REAL change that will work involves the succession from the union of a block of our most liberal states so that they could set up a true socialist democracy that works (and it would work)

While I admire current mainstream progressives like Tom Hartmann and Bernie Sanders, they are kidding themselves if they think the oligarchs in charge will ever permit the system to changed from within ever again.

anyone who thinks that the NYPD were out there to do anything but get a small
job done with a minimum of fuss and blood, hasn’t a clue about what serious
violence entails.

objective observer——-how many divisions do you and your second
amendmentsit army have?

E.Z.—-

heart sweet as a berry

soul on hash

http://youtu.be/hbAeTywPiP4

Emile,

till you get there yourself you never really know

http://youtu.be/gcTDoi9JQiY

my soul’s been through the lost and found fair often.

EmileZ:

Here’s the correct link for the Ronette’s You Baby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0wFm9DPs8U
Remember the Ronettes, of course (Be My Baby, Best Part of Breakin’ Up, etc)
But don’t remember this song, was it a B-side?

The Residents are an acquired taste, I guess… but the lead singer has a great voice.  I smell a solo career, who is she?

Sorry for the “gym music,”  EmileZ
Bet you won’t hear this one during your workout:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPzt3A4Se_U
Bette Midler did a great cover of this one back in the ‘90s.

@ oddsox

RE: True Colors

I am trying to save Heterochromatic’s soul (or make him chuckle… whichever he prefers, hopefully both).

RE: Your question… Sorry but I couldn’t make it very far into either song, it was just too painful. What I did hear reminded me of the stuff they play at the gym. I tried though.

The Ronettes - You Baby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Grpql9GXLQ&feature=related

The Residents - Hellno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQN-5aPzWPc

@EmileZ:
don’t see the “True Colors” connection, but enjoyed the musical interlude, as always.

Riddle me this:
Why is this such a big hit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r61LFkzKzQQ

while this one’s forgotten?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7qFb7_S2x4

@ heterochromatic

Interesting that you should bring up “stealing property”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Grpql9GXLQ&feature=related

Only an asshole draws such crap.

the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States does not include the right to steal property for
the personal living space of the well-intentioned self-
appointed morally superior.

Big B—

There’s no reason to be dirty when it’s so easy to avoid, come on. 
Others didn’t have it so good:  Earlier this month I was watching Ken Burns’ Civil War series. 
Now THESE guys were dirty. 
2wice as many soldiers died from disease and infection than on the battle field, did you know that?

As for “america in 2011 just needs a few tweeks?”
Well, yes.
1) Repeal corporate personhood.
2) Campaign reform—prohibition of moneys in the political process except as donated by breathing US citizens:  no corporations, no unions, no PACs.
3) Break up the too-big-to-fails using anti-trust legislation.  Reinstate Glass-Stegall.
http://open.salon.com/blog/oddsox/2011/10/10/too_big_to_fail_too_big_to_begin_with

There’s other stuff, but give me those 3 and I’ll take my chances from there—how ‘bout you?

The caption to this wonderful piece would have been more powerful if it read:

Only a coward arms himself against defenseless, armless fellow citizens, who believe that silence against evil is complicity!

Oddsox,

Try not to marginalize people who make look a little “dirty”, they have been living in tents for over a month you know (to bring up the old “dirty hippie” stereotype is a low blow, especially considering that many old hippies are doing our taxes and checking our prostates)

As for revolution, do you seriously think that america in 2011 just needs a few tweeks? More and more everyday our once great nation more resembles Ghandi’s India in the 1930’s than it does the great experiment in democracy our founding fathers envisioned.

Remember, it took Ghandi almost 40 years and a financially and morally bankrupt British empire to acheive social change. This is just the begining of a long road. But without a “revolution”, the USA may just resemble the Solent Green world John Poole mentioned.

good ol’ provocative Mr. Fish, at it again, stirring the bucket.

@Big B:
We’re a long way from Revolution.  A lot of “baby” would be thrown out with that “bathwater.”
Reform will suffice.

As you hinted, I’m sure a lot of the cops are sympathetic to OWS. 
They’re just doing their jobs—continued non-violence is a good way to avoid the lose-lose confrontation scenarios.

If you’re in the Occupy movement, remember, you can use a wider variety of tactics than the cops can.
A huge advantage.
But the best tactic not to see the cops as enemies.
Yield, regroup & return.  Be like water, flow with the force, over, under & around it instead of resisting it. 

And speaking of water, stay clean.  Drug abuse, squalor & unsanitary conditions are unhealthy, unsafe and just marginalize your movement & message.

Revolutions only seem to succeed when the military and law enforcement side with dissident population instead of protecting the establishment.

I wonder how this officer and all cops like him will feel when they chop the knees out from under his union and his pay and his benefits.