The hideous atrocities perpetrated by police across the nation against the OWS demonstrators are a brightly illuminated example of the sickness of our country. We saw it forty years ago in the late 60’s and 70’s but those cops had an emotional interest in their work. They actually, if wrongly, believed that the kids they were beating up and arresting were traitors to their country and were just trying to get out of the draft. Yes they were stupid and sadistic but at least they were invested.
The current rounds of brutality being carried out by cops across the country are in direct opposition to their own interests. That what’s so absolutely amazing about what is going on. These kids are actually demonstrating for the cops and all government workers who are the targets of the bankers, brokers and right wing budget cutters. Every time they hit one of these kids or spray them with mace, they are taking a shot at their own job security. Can they possibly be too stupid to see this?
But it’s not the sixties and there aren’t just a couple of brave photographers out there recording the atrocities. It’s 2011 and everyone and his brother is a walking recording device. So what do we get; images of cops spraying helpless girls, old women, and rows of students sitting on the ground, images of cops beating a vet just back from Afghanistan until he is in intensive care, images of cops arresting 700 demonstrators on the Brooklyn bridge. Who makes the decisions that allow these things to happen and why are they collecting a salary from us taxpayers?
Bloomberg, as has been pointed out by several more astute writers than myself, is fast becoming the poster boy for OWS backers. His brain dead decisions on how to handle the crowds, have shown that while he is undoubtedly a brilliant banker he has no real affiliation with the people who elected him. His actions have also rallied thousands of new supporters for a cause that looked like it might have been fading into oblivion.
Don’t these stupid clowns realize that every time they spray some little girl or old woman in the face with mace they are creating a thousand more backers for the cause these women are celebrating. It’s the same damn concept some of us have been trying to make our government understand about foreign policy. If you’re shooting someone, his mother is not going to be your friend. If you blow up his house his family aren’t going to be your friends and if you’re occupying his country the citizens won’t be your friends. You mace my kid in the face I’m not going to be your friend, in fact I’m gong to be looking for an occasion to pop you.
I find it interesting that none of this police brutality goes on at right wing gatherings. The Tea Party protests were never the cause of police brutality and yet there is no more violence and a hell of a lot less bigotry at Zuccotti Park than there was at the average Tea Party picnic. Do you think it’s because all those right wing turkeys were carrying guns? Maybe the NRA has it right. Maybe we do all need carry permits to protect ourselves from the bad guys. Only in this case the bad guys are the police. Do you think the cops would have waded into Zuccotti Pak if the place had been rimmed with a couple of dozen good old boys carrying AR-15’s or other supposedly necessary for self-protection weaponry?
And after all of that, yes, a lot of cops are taking a bad rap, but like any group that is under fire, it is their responsibility to step forward and straighten out those members of their group that are causing the negative flack. I can still remember my father, reaming me out when he found out that I and a couple of my friends allowed a bunch of bullies to harass the one openly gay kid in town. We didn’t, as we should have, beat the crap out of them, but at least we stood between them and the kid the next time it started. That’s what the police that still have some brains and some integrity have to do with those that do not.
Of course we are dealing here, with two kinds of police. There are regular cops, who are, at least, trained and should know better and then there are campus cops who couldn’t get into the police force but still need to have, for whatever psychological flaws they possess, the power they are missing in the other parts of their life. During the course of a long life I have been on the campuses of about 60 colleges across the country and for the most part I have never run across a campus cop who should be allowed to carry any kind of weapon. The goons in their para-military dress, who carried out the mass spraying on the UC Davis campus should never have been allowed to carry anything more lethal than a toothbrush and both the university and its president should be liable to both lawsuits and felony charges for allowing it.
The law of the land states that we are free to carryout peaceful demonstration. Those kids at UC Davis were sitting on the ground of a campus which they attend and at which their parents spend about forty grand a year for them to be able to sit pretty much where the hell they want and say pretty much what the hell they like. If those campus cops aren’t arrested and charged then the Davis DA’s office should be charged with collusion.
So what’s the answer? The answer is for those in power to get smart. It’s already too late to stop OWS and the rest. It could have happened if Blumberg and Kelly had just left the demonstrators to sit in the cold and the rain until they got tired and went home but that’s not going to happen anymore. So now it’s really important that they don’t do anything else stupid to fan the flames. It’s really important that they give the kids their say because they aren’t just speaking for themselves but for all the disenfranchised people who haven’t got whatever it takes to haul ass down to Zuccotti Park or any of the other Zuccotti Parks around the country, stand up on their hind legs and shout for what they have coming. A small segment of rich and greedy people are destroying our country and pushing the America dream into the swamp. We have to stop them. Any alternative is unthinkable.