ANS -- Occupy’s Asshole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie

This is someone else quoting a Sara Robinson article.  It's about how the Occupy Movement should deal with Assholes.  What do you think?
Find it here:  http://www.spockosbrain.com/2011/11/04/occupys-asshole-problem-flashbacks-from-an-old-hippie/  
--Kim

Occupy's Asshole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie

By spocko, on November 4th, 2011

I've been writing lately about how to deal with the vandals at the #occupy movement in my piece yesterday at Firedoglake, Time to Identify the Occupy Vandals. Today my friend Sara Robinson wrote an excellent piece on dealing with people with over-the-top behavior. I think this will be useful context for thinking about dealing with outliers.

By, Sara Robinson, Senior Fellow, Campaign for America's Future

November 4, 2011

I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they're not. In fact, they're problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.

As a veteran of those days ­ with the scars to prove it ­ watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, racists, and anarchists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn't think we were allowed to say "no" to. It's heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call "the asshole problem." In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks ­ things that it's high time somebody said right out loud.

1. Let's be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms. #Occupy may be a DIY movement ­ but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we're obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they're able to meet that standard.