Occupy: And Then They Fight You

Remember the saying: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

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A Timeline of Force Used Against the Occupy Movement

September

1: First day of OWS
4: First arrests using 1845 law banning masks at demonstrations
24: 80 arrests; police use tasers and mace on peaceful crowd; police officer caught on video macing a young woman (he lost 10 vacation days as punishment)

October

1, 2: Police arrest demonstrators on Brooklyn Bridge
8: Police pepper spray protestors in Washington, D.C.
10: Boston police arrest 140 protestors
15: Police across the nation arrest peaceful protestors
25: Oakland, CA, police attack peaceful protestors en masse with teargas, beanbag grenades, rubber bullets; Marine veteran of Iraq War shot in head with rubber bullet, hospitalized in critical condition
29: Denver, CO, police attack Occupy demonstration, fire pellets filled with pepper spray
30: Portland,OR, police arrest two dozen peaceful demonstrators

November

3: Riot police attack peaceful Occupy Oakland protest with teargas, flash-bang grenades; more than 100 arrested, another Iraq War veteran seriously injured by police
14: Police clear out Occupy Oakland protest site, arrest 20 peaceful protestors
15: Beginning at 1 a.m., NYPD officers carry out surprise raid, cordon off OWS site, keep residents of area inside, prevent journalists from observing, arrest more than 70 people. Journalists barred from area even hours later, including CBS helicopter prevented from entering airspace above protest site; NY’s billionaire mayor ignored court order to let OWS protestors back on site; NYPD continued to arrest protestors, journalists; NY mayor says if he has to choose between people’s rights and safety, safety wins. Another judge sides with city to remove protestors. Oakland mayor says attacks on Occupy Movement in 18 cities coordinated. Seattle police use pepper spray on peaceful protestors, including a pregnant woman and a blind woman, make arrests.

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The 1% didn’t ignore or laugh at the Occupy Movement for long. They began early to fight the movement because first its message and now its longevity are dangerous to their privileged way of life.

We do not have a democracy; we have an oligarchy. The oligarchy is being threatened, and it is sending force against its enemies – despite the police being part of the 99%, despite their being our friends, our relatives, the people we sit next to at the movies and in the pews.

What we see here – and I do not believe I am exaggerating – is the makings of a police state. It began when G.W. Bush’s handlers insisted upon so-called protest zones, far from where their fragile puppet was speaking. Now, teargas, beanbag projectiles, rubber bullets, pepper spray, chemical mace, and batons are being used in an effort to deny the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition their government for a redress of grievances. In some places, the police are covering the numbers on their badges so that even if they are caught on video assaulting someone they cannot be easily identified. Men who survived combat in Iraq are being hospitalized with grievous wounds inflicted on them by those who have pledged their lives to protect and to serve.

The fight is just beginning. There will be more casualties. But the Occupy Movement is one step from victory. Support it any way you can. Do whatever you can to help bring down the oligarchy and restore power to the people as the patriot soldiers and philosophers of 1776 and 1789 meant for us to have.

“Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third … may profit by their example.”
– Patrick Henry

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
– John F. Kennedy

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