Occupy Wall Street vs. "Boston Massacre"

[aborgman]

Two situations -

1)

Protestors occupy public space

Legally delegated authorities ask them to move,

Legally designated authorities suffer verbal abuse, harassment, and thrown objects.

Legally delegated authorities use force



2)

Protestors occupy public space

Legally delegated authorities ask them to move

Legally designated authorities suffer verbal abuse, and harassment.

Legally delegated authorities use force


Situation #1 - The great majority of Americans support the protesters.

Situation #2 - The great majority of Americans say the protesters deserved what they had coming.

Compare and contrast...

[Kwesi]

Compare and contrast? I'd say roundabouts 241 years.

Interesting thread though. Looking forward to other responses.

[Against Will]

The authorities haven't used live ammo in the latter...



yet.

[kanonfodr]

The difference? Nobody ships tea by boat any more.

Peace,
Greg

[kserg]

Boston Massacre - clear concern and clear idea on what to-do about it. More important, One goal.
Occupy wall street - no clear concern nor does anyone have any structural clue on what to-do about it. 90% of crowd are clueless.

Boston Massacre - protest against foreign influence
Occupy wall street - protest against domestic influence.

Boston Massacre - protest support by local rich, upper class (supported by power)
Occupy wall street - protest against local rich upper class. (protests against power)

Boston Massacre - Government taking money from people and they see absolutely nothing back. Everything went to England, nothing returned back.
Occupy wall street - some of that money still gets back to us.

Boston Massacre - BRITISH authority were shooting AMERICANS.
Occupy wall street - AMERICAN authority are spraying AMERICANS. It's easier to get mad at someone else then at yourself.

Boston Massacre - People killed and there was a threat that more people will get hurt.
Occupy Wall Street - no one died to my knowledge.


Not the same at all.

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by aborgman

Situation #1 - The great majority of Americans support the protesters.

By that time, the great majority of Americans had gotten their heads around concepts like freedom and liberty, and the evils of tyranny and oppression from a remote foreign monarchy.

Situation #2 - The great majority of Americans say the protesters deserved what they had coming.

Most of us Americans don't know what the hell the Occupy crowd are protesting, they're just babbling incoherently like a bad 60s Flower Power revival, and there are a lot of malcontents and instigators with no agenda other than chaos among them and breaking established laws, drawing attention to themselves, and creating mayhem seems to be the only real purpose.

I see a huge difference between the two groups.

[P. Aaron]

Boston Massacre protestors: against the tyranny of the monarchy

#OWS: Somebody else should payoff my student loans

[Kwesi]

You know, I thought this was gonna be a cool thread. I should've known better. Don't worry aborgman, it's not your fault.

[Southpaw5]

Originally Posted by kserg

Boston Massacre - People killed and there was a threat that more people will get hurt.
Occupy Wall Street - no one died to my knowledge.


Not the same at all.

Not the fault of authorities,but there was that guy at Occupy Burlngton(VT) that blew his brains out.

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by kserg

Boston Massacre - protest against foreign influence
Occupy wall street - protest against domestic influence.

The folks protesting against the British soldiers were British citizens.

Originally Posted by kserg

Boston Massacre - BRITISH authority were shooting AMERICANS.
Occupy wall street - AMERICAN authority are spraying AMERICANS. It's easier to get mad at someone else then at yourself.

British authorities shot British subjects, vs. American authorities spray American citizens...

Originally Posted by kserg

Boston Massacre - clear concern and clear idea on what todo about it
Occupy wall street - no clear concern nor does anyone have any structural clue on what todo about it. 90% of crowd are clueless.

Not really... the Boston Massacre basically involved an uneducated mob rabble-rousing. It wasn't a planned protest, and didn't involve any of the well known founding fathers.

...in fact, the only founder involved really was John Adams as the defense lawyer for the soldiers and they were found innocent.

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by P. Aaron

Boston Massacre protestors: against the tyranny of the monarchy

Ummm... not really.

The Founding Fathers and early revolutionary supporters - against the tyranny of the monarchy (although even that is making a very grey situation too bl;ack and white - Sam Adams was worried about losing his smuggling business more than "freeedom").

The protesters at the Boston Massacre? Violent street rabble mostly just starting trouble.

[5StringBlues]

Political thread is political.

[aborgman]

It isn't really about politics - it's about the cognitive dissonance required by the average American to hold these two contradictory views.

[Relic]

The "Boston Massacre" was really played out for propaganda purposes, and served that purpose quite well though the initial purpose was anything but well-organized and conceived.
The Occupy movement..? It just seems to me to have little to no direction. There are a laundry list of complaints but I don't yet seeing it have any such impact as did the Boston massacre.

[kserg]

Originally Posted by aborgman

The folks protesting against the British soldiers were British citizens.

They were "British subjects" with out representation. People born in Americas were consider colonist (technically British subjects, but not really.) So, it was foreign to them since they had no representation.

Originally Posted by aborgman

British authorities shot British subjects, vs. American authorities spray American citizens...

Again, most folks living in Americas at that time have distanced themselves from the crown. They no longer thought of them as British because they did not have any representation from the crown. So technically on paper, you are right. Realistically, only minority of people in Americas through of themselves as British loyalists.

Originally Posted by aborgman

Not really... the Boston Massacre basically involved an uneducated mob rabble-rousing. It wasn't a planned protest, and didn't involve any of the well known founding fathers.

...in fact, the only founder involved really was John Adams as the defense lawyer for the soldiers and they were found innocent.

The upper class supported the idea. More important, upper class were heavily involved in the outcry.

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by aborgman

The folks protesting against the British soldiers were British citizens.

"Colonists." They were growing increasingly impatient with and intolerant of their King and Parliament.

British authorities shot British subjects, vs. American authorities spray American citizens..

Again, "colonists," British subjects in name only who preferred to be Americans.

And, if I were a protester, I'd rather be sprayed than shot. Having British troops quartered in such close proximity to citizens was a major concern for the Colonists.

Not really... the Boston Massacre basically involved an uneducated mob rabble-rousing. It wasn't a planned protest, and didn't involve any of the well known founding fathers.

Highly debatable and questionable assertion. The unpopular Townshend Acts and groups like The Sons of Liberty and other pamphlet pushers had done a pretty good job educating the general public about British tyranny and unfairness. The unrest and unruliness was the result of the awareness, but they were hardly "uneducated."

Anyone participating in this thread would be doing themselves a favor to at least read this first:

Boston Massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[stratovani]

This is the "Boston Massacre" everybody around here remembers (taken from Wikipedia):

In 1978, the Red Sox, led by Jim Rice, Carl Yastrzemski, Fred Lynn and catcher Carlton Fisk, and managed by future Yankee coach Don Zimmer,[81][82] seemed as if they were destined for a trip to the Fall Classic for the second time in the decade. They led the Yankees in the standings by 14 1⁄2 games by mid-July, with less than three months to go in the regular season.[83] However, the Yankees turned their season around just as the Red Sox seemed to collapse.[84] By September 7, the Yankees had whittled down the 14 1⁄2-game deficit to only four games, just in time for a four-game series at Fenway Park in Boston.[85] The Yankees won all four games in the series by a combined score of 42–9.[86] This series became known as the "Boston Massacre."[85] On September 16, the Yankees held a 3 1⁄2-game lead over the Red Sox, but the Sox won 12 of their next 14 games (and their last eight in a row) to overcome that deficit and finish in a first-place tie with the Yankees.[87] A one-game playoff was scheduled in Boston to determine who would win the AL East pennant for 1978.[10]


Yankees

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by kserg

They were "British subjects" with out representation. People born in Americas were consider colonist (technically British subjects, but not really.) So, it was foreign to them since they had no representation.

Sort of...

The great majority of colonists at the time of the Revolution WERE British citizens.

...and they actually sort of had representation, they just couldn't vote for the representative.

Originally Posted by kserg

Again, most folks living in Americas at that time have distanced themselves from the crown. They no longer thought of them as British because they did not have any representation from the crown. So technically on paper, you are right. Realistically, only minority of people in Americas through of themselves as British loyalists.

One need only look at the REPEATED attempts by the Congressional congress to come to terms with the British crown, and the fact that a great majority of representatives in the Congressional Congress only agreed to independence after a failure to get concessions as British Citizens, to see that most though of themselves as loyalists.

Heck - at the time of the Declaration of Independence sentiment in the colonies was about 1/3 loyalist, 1/3 revolutionary, and 1/3 indifferent.

The revolution never enjoyed support among a majority of colonists until almost the end of the war, and even then it was a slim majority.

[Bloodhammer]

[Eric Perry]

Originally Posted by Kwesi

You know, I thought this was gonna be a cool thread. I should've known better. Don't worry aborgman, it's not your fault.

My thoughts exactly.