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Comment by 1457389 | Hacker News Reader

This is misguided. The Occupy protests were often focused on providing privileges like housing, shelter, and amenities to those who didn't have access to it.

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Well, in this case they helped someone out directly with all of the above :)

This is the irony that made me comment!

How is that relevant?

My point is that the police turning a blind eye to the occupy protests using public space in an illegal way, and effectively claiming that land for themselves, is evidence of the privilege of these protestors. If the poster had pitched his tent in other circumstances, the police would have made him take it down.

They didn't turn a blind eye, that is disingenuous in the extreme. The police in the US and the UK detained and incarcerated thousands of people over the course of the Occupy movement, often with disproportionately violent methods. In addition, thousands of dollars worth of communal property were confiscated or destroyed in the course of their raids against camps.

You are the one being disingenuous. An ordinary person would be kicked out of the park before a single night had elapsed. The fact that the police eventually to some action doesn't mean they didn't also turn a blind eye for a long time.

They literally did the opposite of turning a blind eye. They placed Occupy activists under surveillance in multiple cities. They sent undercover cops. They used every tool at their disposal to get information on and contain the movement. If you followed the entire affair with any semblance of good faith you would have seen the numerous articles that detailed this police activity. A squatter is not the same thing as a protest, that little equivocation is probably at the root of your disingenuous approach to this issue,

Your are exhibiting precisely the privileged attitude I referred to earlier. You believe that merely being a protestor entitles you to more rights than a mere squatter. In fact, both have equal rights under the law. Both a squatter and a protestor have a right to carry a sign or chant slogans. Neither have a right to camp in a park.

As someone who was actually at some of these protests, I don't think putting my freedom on the line for said squatters is a sign of "privileged" thinking. Both have good reason to squat in the park, though your simplistic legalistic reasoning would deny that. It just turns out that protesters en masse have more power to resist outright police action, and so they can remain longer in contravention of the laws set down by the elite. Call it the privilege of the mob if you will. At the end of the day though, both groups were forcibly evicted with great violence.

Also, I don't think you comprehend how privilege even factors into this discussion. You can't just use the word "privilege" as some sort of trump card that defeats any argument.

To be honest, I don't think they were focused on anything at all: people inside the movement will tell you that.

"We're the 99%" fantastic, we knew that already.

"We want equality" what specifically do you think you're entitled to?

I think it is fairly obvious that they all wanted a fairer more just system. That there are so many so many elements of the current system that they complained about is not a reason to ignore them.

They didn't do a good job of explaining why the difference in wealth is a matter that should be addressed.

Yes, some people have more than others. That doesn't mean people are entitled to more things.

That's the perception that was heavily pushed by the media, yes. From personal experience with three separate Occupy encampments in different parts of the country, I saw dedicated efforts in all of them to set up things like food distribution to the homeless, shelters, free legal advice and other amenities. Of course no one ever hears about that because it's easier and more enjoyable to trash subcultures instead.

This is not to mention the larger scale efforts to provide debt relief and outreach.

They were also focussed on trashing a church. What lovely protestors they were.

They achieved nothing, apart from being a nuisance.

They wanted the public space in front of the Goldman's building (the basis of which the development of the square was approved). Regardless of whether you support them or not (I don't) they certainly weren't "focused on trashing a church".

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