A Modest Proposal: Occupy the Occupiers
I was watching video of the protests (!!) against Black Friday (?!!) and I could not but help observing how fundamentally non-serious and poorly-coordinated the protestors were. There were several instances where I was surprised that the mobs of shoppers didn't just walk right over the very small groups of Occupiers who were blocking the entrances to stores. In some cases as few as three to five people were blocking enterances -- if any large man or group of men had decided to call the bluff, there was no way that the Occupiers could have prevented them from entering the store. And from that, I speculated this ...
How difficult would it be for a number of corporations, acting in concert, to pay for a group of big burly men to form a line, link arms and march right across one of the Occupier camps, shoving aside and trampling people and property alike. They could be closely supported by squads of men with truncheons or other weapons, to provide backup in case the Occupiers escalated to the use of force. Finally, a cleanup squad could pick up and throw out every object left behind, to prevent the easy re-establishment of the camps.
And every time the Occupiers tried to set up again, repeat, rince, recycle. Eventually the only ones left would be the extremely violent ones, and those could either be arrested or disposed of in self-defense by the Counter-Occupiers.
End of problem. Well, one problem. I see a much bigger potential follow-on problem, but we really have that right now, courtesy of the inaction of the municipal authorites.
All it would take would be the tacit compliance of municipal authorities: a promise that the police would not intervene then and would "lose" or "mishandle" any evidence against the Counter-Occupiers in any subsequent criminal or civil prosecutions. City government make corrupt bargains all the time to the detriment of their cities: how hard would it be for them to make such bargains to their benefits?
Think of it as anarcho-capitalism in action :D
How difficult would it be for a number of corporations, acting in concert, to pay for a group of big burly men to form a line, link arms and march right across one of the Occupier camps, shoving aside and trampling people and property alike. They could be closely supported by squads of men with truncheons or other weapons, to provide backup in case the Occupiers escalated to the use of force. Finally, a cleanup squad could pick up and throw out every object left behind, to prevent the easy re-establishment of the camps.
And every time the Occupiers tried to set up again, repeat, rince, recycle. Eventually the only ones left would be the extremely violent ones, and those could either be arrested or disposed of in self-defense by the Counter-Occupiers.
End of problem. Well, one problem. I see a much bigger potential follow-on problem, but we really have that right now, courtesy of the inaction of the municipal authorites.
All it would take would be the tacit compliance of municipal authorities: a promise that the police would not intervene then and would "lose" or "mishandle" any evidence against the Counter-Occupiers in any subsequent criminal or civil prosecutions. City government make corrupt bargains all the time to the detriment of their cities: how hard would it be for them to make such bargains to their benefits?
Think of it as anarcho-capitalism in action :D