“A businessman tries to pass Occupy Wall Street protesters blocking access to the New York Stock Exchange area Thursday.” (via CNN)
How noble, preventing that man from getting to work. He’s clearly the devil. Can’t you tell by his suit?
I wonder if Charlie Rangel had any difficulty getting to work today.
Imagine, pictured above: Abortion protestors prevent a doctor from entering the Planned Parenthood office where he works. I get that they aren’t throwing bombs. But is it still nonviolent in our minds?
Physically using your body to contain or restrict the movement of someone is violence, if you ask me. When a husband stands in front of a door and refuses to let his wife leave, that’s violence. When a crowd uses its collective, brute force to block a man’s path, that’s violence too. Unless you’re Bart Simpson, and you think it’s okay to say: “I’m going to be swinging my arms like this, and if any part of you should happen to get in the way, that’s YOUR problem!”
Lol so it’s violence when a businessman is blocked from entering his area of business, that being money over people. Which leads to deeper problems for everyone else including shitty education, policing, environments. BUT. It’s notable violence when a crowd blocks one of the members that consists of that institute that allows people to get screwed. Yeah sure, express your civil disobedience when you feel things aren’t working. But block a wallstreet man from working and all of the sudden the people are committing acts of violence? We’re going to make NO changes if we’re to be standing down and just taking up space doing nothing. Practice that civil disobedience, block paths, block roads, they won’t listen to you even when you gather in mass to let them know how badly they’ve fucked things up? You make them listen.
You have no idea what that man’s job is on Wall Street. Maybe he doesn’t even work there. Mabye he just wants to walk down Wall Street in a suit. I’m not saying it violence, I’m saying I’d pretty fucking pissed if people wouldn’t let me walk down a certain street because of what they thought I did for a living.
This is a man in a suit, not a major corporation. You can’t say that not letting a man go to work will magically improve education, policing, and the environment. This man might be going in for a job interview, the first he’s had since losing his job months ago. This man might have kids to feed and a family to support. You don’t know this man - don’t conflate him with “the man.” This might not be “violent,” but it’s definitely presumptuous and detrimental to the causes of the Occupy movement.
