While the cops and officials in most cities have held back on doing anything to the Occupy Wall Street protesters encamped in their parks, other cities have begun forcing the issue by having their police forces arrest some and trash their camps. One decorated marine (Scott Olsen, who served two tours in Iraq supposedly protecting our freedom of assembly) was just standing still between the Oakland cops and protesters...until he shot point blank by a canister of tear gas and seriously wounded. Then when people went to help him, another Oakland cop tossed a flash grenade at them, forcing them away from him. It's not propaganda from the left; it was caught on tape...and it shows a nation on the bring of fascism.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before the Power Elite started demanding these protesters be attacked, and cops usually identify with the Power Elite...even when the people they are attacking are supporting things the cops ought to care about. In Wisconsin, people protesting the legislature ending collective bargaining rights were treated roughly by the cops there, even though their own rights were being threatened (and don't tell me the police were exempted by the GOP from that bill; once the teachers got done being screwed, the cops would be next). In NYC, they're protesting the pillaging of our country and how billionaires are paying zero taxes, thus cutting funding to all departments, including the police; but people doing nothing more than chanting were deliberately pepper-sprayed by NYPD supervisors in white shirts and others were lured into being arrested for fake reasons.
There's nothing new about this, not even in the US. In the 60s, demonstrators for civil rights and against the Vietnam War were brutalized by the cops and soldiers, right up to the point where 4 kids were shot dead by out-of-control National Guardsmen (whose conduct was then whitewashed). In Derry, 13 peaceful protesters marching against internment were shot dead by rampaging British Paratroopers (whose conduct was then whitewashed). In Hungary and Czechoslovakia, peaceful attempts to bring democracy to those countries were crushed by Russian tanks, and in Poland they had a military coup to keep it from happening. In Iran, student protests grew to the extent that even killing people wasn't enough to save the Shah, but then his brutal regime was replaced by one just as brutal and even more vicious and they have no problems killing and "vanishing" protesters, even today. And consider South America in the 70s and 80s, with all the desaparcidos (people who just vanished thanks to the brutal regimes in power in so many of those countries).
So why should the US be any different? We like to think of ourselves as exceptional and a beacon of Democracy, but that's only for the Democracy we like. If someone dares disagree or criticize our government, we can become just as vicious as any other country where the elite are trying to maintain their power. And now it's starting, again.
I'm rambling, half because I'm tired and half because I just can't believe this crap. The actions of the cops in Oakland are more in line with the actions by Mubarak's cops against those protesting for democracy than anything else. It's more like Tianamen Square, where the Chinese crushed a push for Democracy by students and the death toll still is not known, for certain. We are no longer "the shining city on a hill" or whatever that fucked-up phrase was. We have descended into the gutter and that so many people support the attacks on the protesters only proves how debased we've become.
No rewrite or polish; I may decide not to post this because it make no consistent sense.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before the Power Elite started demanding these protesters be attacked, and cops usually identify with the Power Elite...even when the people they are attacking are supporting things the cops ought to care about. In Wisconsin, people protesting the legislature ending collective bargaining rights were treated roughly by the cops there, even though their own rights were being threatened (and don't tell me the police were exempted by the GOP from that bill; once the teachers got done being screwed, the cops would be next). In NYC, they're protesting the pillaging of our country and how billionaires are paying zero taxes, thus cutting funding to all departments, including the police; but people doing nothing more than chanting were deliberately pepper-sprayed by NYPD supervisors in white shirts and others were lured into being arrested for fake reasons.
There's nothing new about this, not even in the US. In the 60s, demonstrators for civil rights and against the Vietnam War were brutalized by the cops and soldiers, right up to the point where 4 kids were shot dead by out-of-control National Guardsmen (whose conduct was then whitewashed). In Derry, 13 peaceful protesters marching against internment were shot dead by rampaging British Paratroopers (whose conduct was then whitewashed). In Hungary and Czechoslovakia, peaceful attempts to bring democracy to those countries were crushed by Russian tanks, and in Poland they had a military coup to keep it from happening. In Iran, student protests grew to the extent that even killing people wasn't enough to save the Shah, but then his brutal regime was replaced by one just as brutal and even more vicious and they have no problems killing and "vanishing" protesters, even today. And consider South America in the 70s and 80s, with all the desaparcidos (people who just vanished thanks to the brutal regimes in power in so many of those countries).
So why should the US be any different? We like to think of ourselves as exceptional and a beacon of Democracy, but that's only for the Democracy we like. If someone dares disagree or criticize our government, we can become just as vicious as any other country where the elite are trying to maintain their power. And now it's starting, again.
I'm rambling, half because I'm tired and half because I just can't believe this crap. The actions of the cops in Oakland are more in line with the actions by Mubarak's cops against those protesting for democracy than anything else. It's more like Tianamen Square, where the Chinese crushed a push for Democracy by students and the death toll still is not known, for certain. We are no longer "the shining city on a hill" or whatever that fucked-up phrase was. We have descended into the gutter and that so many people support the attacks on the protesters only proves how debased we've become.
No rewrite or polish; I may decide not to post this because it make no consistent sense.
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