Fetid "living" conditions, nearby business owners furious that their bathrooms are being occupied and trashed (because I'm sure the protesters made sure they were paying customers instead of walking in, taking a shit, and walking right back out </sarcasm>), many rumors (more than one city too) of protest leadership discouraging women from reporting sexual assaults and rapes, long-term homeless people "joining" the movements, drug dealers frequenting the encampments (this one is by far the most likely to actually be occurring given the demographic of the protesters).
I'm all for the crackdowns. That park needed to get cleaned.
These are the same bunch of morons who tried to set up generators before the fire department and police took them away from them. It's not even a matter of, "boo hoo, elitist entitled hipsters wanna charge their macbooks and ipods." It's a matter of Carbon Monoxide is denser than air. It spreads along the ground, which the protesters happen to be sleeping on. I'd be surprised if any of the protesters even knew the inherent dangers of operating a generator, much less how to actually run one. That's how people die.
Tactically, the way the police removed them was a stroke of genius. They avoided a lot more personal harm and damage that could have occurred had they done it any differently.
Why was it done at 1am? Because protesters are sleeping, groggy, or incredibly drowsy from staying up all night. That's safer for the police, and a lot safer for the protesters.
Why was the media barred from entering or flying over? Again, safety. Safety for members of the media, likely to get caught up in things should they turn violent. The side effect of media coverage is that anarchists not connected with the movement are more likely to show up and start a riot, partly for the attention (especially with media coverage).
The whole movement is starting to have public opinion turn against them. A large part of this is their ridiculous demands (85% of which equates to "free money, free entitlements for all!"). The other is that they are doing all of this wrong.
What they should be doing: Wake up. Walk to gathering site, start protesting. Eat lunch at a local business. Resume protesting. Go home when it gets dark. Take a shower. Eat a nutritious dinner. Sleep in a warm bed. Repeat.
What they are doing: Having a free for all, denying other citizens the use of a public space, camping illegally (camping in a municipal park is illegal pretty much everywhere in the US), and then whining when they are about to get arrested, or temporarily (a fact that was conveyed to them multiple times for more than a month) removed for their own health and safety.
Getting arrested for a silly reason is the primary goal of a sit in. That's the part that gets you sympathy and attention. Acting civilly and getting arrested for it is how you get things to change. Whining, crying and (often violently) resisting arrest and removal doesn't help anyone. The police are just doing their job.
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Originally Posted by Animeniax
