Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I seriously don't understand why you think it's valuable to keep pointing out that some protester, somewhere, might have done something violent, or justifying the use of violence by the police. As an intellectual matter, that's true.* But: So what? Why is that a good question to be dwelling on right now? I haven't follow the New York situation closely, and frankly am more offended there by the PD's casual disregard for property rights -- the pictures of smashed laptops, the books that were thrown away -- than by the recent violence -- how quickly we forgot Lt. Bologna. But from Oakland, Berkeley and Davis, I have watched videotape of police resorting to unacceptable violence to suppress non-violent political protest. In Oakland, people were marching. In Berkeley, they were standing with their arms locked, when the campus policy started hitting them with batons (and pulling people down by the hair). In Davis, well you saw it.
In the face of all of those facts, why do you keep harping on the abstract possibility that someone, somewhere, might have deserved it?
* You could even say that the inchoate organization of the Occupy movements sets this problem up -- because no one is clear what the movement is or who runs it, it's all the harder for them to say that someone who acts in a violent way does not represent the movement. That would be a fair point.
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I watched the video. There is no dispute the cop's actions were unwarranted. The proper response would have been to amass enough officers to remove the people. Instead, the police took the cheap route and decided to use a chemical agent to do the job.
And the stupidity of the cop with the spray is breathtaking. Have these people never heard of Youtube? My God. Ya think, you granite-skulled oaf, that maybe - just maybe - video of you pepper spraying cowering college kids kids might go viral? They should fire that dumb fuck yesterday.
