I'm wondering if anyone has any insight on what the potential problems would be with getting hired, or even doing student clinicals in a hospital, if you've been arrested during a non-violent protest. I am considering joining in the attempt to shut down the NY Stock Exchange on Thursday, to honor the 2-month anniversary of the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and it is at least somewhat likely that many people will be arrested during this action.
Likely charges for this kind of arrest would be something like "disorderly conduct" (impeding of traffic, failure to disperse after being given an order to do so, creating annoyance or alarm in public, loitering, etc). I don't think most people arrested during an Occupy protest have spent even one night in jail, but charges are being pressed so people are ending up with criminal records on misdemeanor charges.
I'm not even a nursing student yet - I'm hoping to enter an Accelerated BSN/MSN program in the spring. But I am wondering if anyone knows what kind of issues there might be for me as a student and as a future nurse if I'm arrested during a protest, just so I go into this with my eyes open.
Tyvin - regardless of where you think people really ought to be protesting (and I would point out that it isn't just in NYC - it's all over the country), calling what is happening in Zuccotti Park "chaos" is simply incorrect - have you actually been down there?. There is evidence that some crimes have been committed, yes - but for the most part, it's exceedingly orderly.
FYI, the occupation of that park is legal, at least for the moment.
there are just so many ignorant aspects of this response that i can't let it go. if you are actually interested in finding out what ows is about then you should look into it more deeply
why don't you just tell us what ows is all about????
cuz i am in the middle of writing my term paper for school and i am doing enough research already smokin:
"...it's about the much larger issue of the collapse of our financial system, widening income and social inequality in the US and elsewhere, and why there has been almost no legal comeuppance for the large banks and other institutions who allowed this collapse to occur, and no political change to ensure that it does not occur again..."
actually you might be wrong on this one, FYI. the Occupy movement was started, and originally promoted by Adbusters. most people are at least somewhat aware of them, and have at least seen one of their Anti-corporate ads, or heard of the annual Buy Nothing Day.
i've read Kalle Lasn's manifesto, entitled Culture Jam, if you haven't i suggest you do so. the roots of the movement emerged from the Situationists, which originated in France in the late 1960's. to pigeonhole a movement such as this is vastly short-sighted. you are daftly mis-led if you think any Situationist movement has ideals of anything less than violent revolution.
"...it's about the much larger issue of the collapse of our financial system, widening income and social inequality in the US and elsewhere, and why there has been almost no legal comeuppance for the large banks and other institutions who allowed this collapse to occur, and no political change to ensure that it does not occur again..."
actually you might be wrong on this one, FYI. the Occupy movement was started, and originally promoted by Adbusters. most people are at least somewhat aware of them, and have at least seen one of their Anti-corporate ads, or heard of the annual Buy Nothing Day.
i've read Kalle Lasn's manifesto, entitled Culture Jam, if you haven't i suggest you do so. the roots of the movement emerged from the Situationists, which originated in France in the late 1960's. to pigeonhole a movement such as this is vastly short-sighted. you are daftly mis-led if you think any Situationist movement has ideals of anything less than violent revolution.
Oh yes, I'm aware of this.
There is the question of how the original occupation began of course, but there's also the larger question of what the whole thing is "about" now. Far be it from me to pigeonhole this movement, which, as far as I am concerned is the expression of so many discontents: frustration with the fact that so many people, particularly so many young people, are out of work and increasingly in debt for attempting to go to college; an expression of rage that so many large banks were complicit in the financial collapse of 2008, that those banks have only become larger and more consolidated since then, and that none of the executives involved have been prosecuted; despair over the pathetic state of our social safety systems, including public education, social security, medicaid/medicare/the cost and quality of health care in general. While this can make it seem as though the movement is a fractured one, the common thread is actually summed up nicely by "We are the 99%" - the notion that what all of these ills have in common is the fact that we have set up a financial and political system that is essentially for the benefit of very few individuals, instead of for the majority of regular people.
It doesn't seem to me that people want violent revolution - but it does seem to me that the majority of people involved want deep, systemic change.
come on man...seriously? will "deep systemic change" ever happen in America? let's be honest, you are talking about Class Warfare, and abolishment of the current Capitalist system!
seriously though... i'm glad people are protesting "something." teenage angst might actually become useful again. =-)
"We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out" - John Lennon
LookingAhead - you mentioned the possibility of probation, suspension of a sentence and the sealing of a criminal record. FYI - when you apply for your nursing license, every state board asks specifically about this type of scenario. They ask whether you have ever had a suspended sentence/sealed record. They actually have access to "sealed" records (and closed/sealed juvenile records) because the state board of nursing is a government agency. They have FAR more access than any type of background check available to non-government entities.
"surely people must have faced this after the widespread anti-war protests in 2002/03?"
...and don't forget us old folks who spent our late adolescence getting beat up and tear-gassed for peace en masse in 1968-74. one of my favorite memories of those years was being beneath a balcony at the justice (?) department in dc and seeing nixon's atty general john mitchell get a good snootful of tear gas when the wind changed. he went from just about cackling in pleasure at seeing us getting gassed to disappearing inside in the blink of an eye. you never saw a fat man move so fast.
(i just never told them i got arrested in dc. worst that happened was i got corneal burns from the pepper spray and couldn't read them old glass thermometers for a week or so until my vision cleared. oh, and lack of basic sanitation and increase in stress made my yeast infection bloom, but that went away when i got home to my nystatin stash:d. memories, memories.)
come on man...seriously? will "deep systemic change" ever happen in America? let's be honest, you are talking about Class Warfare, and abolishment of the current Capitalist system!
seriously though... i'm glad people are protesting "something." teenage angst might actually become useful again. =-)
"We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out" - John Lennon
Yes, Jeffreydean77, seriously! Any time you want to come to New York City and join in, just to see if we can make something happen, you are welcome to sleep on my couch! Protest doesn't have to be about destruction. (And I'm in my 20s, so I can only hope to channel my teenage angst in the metaphorical sense...)
AJPV - thank you so much for that information.
I need to step away from this thread now, but a huge thank you to you all for contributing your thoughts and insights. Obviously I'm a total newbie in the nursing world, so I often don't even know how much I don't know. You've given me lots to think about - I'll let you know what I decide to do and how it goes if I end up down on Wall Street!
Love your protest story, GrnTea...maybe others will pipe in with their tales of dodging rubber bullets...:)
Wear sunglasses to conceal your face, wear a trench coat, a hat, just anything to keep you from being identified. If you spot trouble, get out of dodge. Don't give out your real name, give out a pseudonym. If you want to donate to your local Occupy group, use a money order, with a fake name of course. Do your best to not tie yourself to the Occupy movement, for Lord knows the feds are spying on you.
LookingAhead
227 Posts
Tyvin - regardless of where you think people really ought to be protesting (and I would point out that it isn't just in NYC - it's all over the country), calling what is happening in Zuccotti Park "chaos" is simply incorrect - have you actually been down there?. There is evidence that some crimes have been committed, yes - but for the most part, it's exceedingly orderly.
FYI, the occupation of that park is legal, at least for the moment.