courtesy of post-gazette.com
Much has been talked about lately concerning the Occupy movement and its participants’ relationship with the police. Across the country – from New York to Chicago to Oakland and places in between – occupiers have been arrested for their activities. Many of these charges relate to illegal camping in urban areas and blocking traffic; legal nuances and intricacies of which every American is surely aware. What citizen isn’t aware of what constitutes a legal campground? These tensions recently came to national attention in Oakland, California when the police shot a veteran in the face with a rubber bullet.
The disturbing video shows Scott Olsen, a twenty-four year old Marine veteran, getting shot by riot police with no clear provocation as he was filming the police. As of late October, he is in critical condition with a fractured skull. Some news observers, however, have criticized the Occupy movement, accusing them of vandalism and inciting unrest. While destroying property is a ground for legitimate police intervention, shooting potentially deadly projectiles at protestors is not the appropriate remedy. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild seem to agree, as they have both called for an investigation into police brutality. While sporadic unrest in the form of a thrown rock or vandalized sidewalk may occur at Occupations, they are not representative of the movement’s activism as a whole. Debate what you will about the Occupier’s ideology – as there is plenty to debate – the movement is peaceful and non-coercive. Unfortunately, that cannot be said of the government to which the Occupiers address their grievances. Violence and coercion, in fact, play a significant role in the movement’s motivations. People are angry that the government has taken hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to bailout private banking industry giants. This money alone is a form of government vandalism of its citizens’ hard-earned income. People are also angry that the government has jeopardized the economy by spending trillions on military misadventures and dictatorships in the name of promoting “freedom” in foreign lands. Those who would criticize the Occupy movement as “violent” fail to realize the pandemic violence the government has unleashed upon Iraq and Afghanistan. An exact number of civilian deceased is unknown, but estimates range from sixty thousand to 1.2 million in Iraq alone; a figure of death that should make any individual ashamed of his or her government. In this light, the hypocrisy of the government cracking down on supposed “violence” is nauseating. No movement is ever perfect as the people in them are inherently flawed and susceptible to rash behavior, due to the often-contentious nature of protest. However, to call the Occupy movement “violent” or a “threat to democracy” is unfair. Over the past ten years of bailouts, corporatism and war, dissatisfaction with the political system has reached a new level that has manifested itself with both the Tea Party and Occupy movements. In the kind of political environment of the past ten years, the government cannot claim surprise when people react en masse to its grave misdeeds.
