![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabidsamfanhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjnR7xET7Uo&feature=player_embedded
You may have seen the clip of the cop at UC using pepper spray on kids who are just sitting there with linked arms, but this video goes on to show how the crowd reacted to that incident. It's a little over eight minutes long. (And it pretty much shows that the kids who were sitting and protesting weren't blocking much of anything other than a concrete path across the quad, since there are people all around the protest -- and I do mean on every possible side.) I can't imagine anything more idiotic. A little patience and sooner or later the protesters would have dispersed in the direction of food, bathrooms, and classes. But pepper spray? That could have set off a real riot! Watch and see how close it came. Clearly, though, when someone on that police force realized that they'd crossed a line and that there were six dozen cameras proving it, they backed off in the face of the crowd response. Thank goodness.
I have to give credit to the police in Boston the other night. They were with us, they blocked the bridge, yeah, but they didn't take any aggressive actions at the protest, and what they did do was mostly traffic direction, keeping us on the route and the cars from the side streets out of it.
I cannot see the logic of being violent toward non-violent protesters. It's asking for trouble.
You may have seen the clip of the cop at UC using pepper spray on kids who are just sitting there with linked arms, but this video goes on to show how the crowd reacted to that incident. It's a little over eight minutes long. (And it pretty much shows that the kids who were sitting and protesting weren't blocking much of anything other than a concrete path across the quad, since there are people all around the protest -- and I do mean on every possible side.) I can't imagine anything more idiotic. A little patience and sooner or later the protesters would have dispersed in the direction of food, bathrooms, and classes. But pepper spray? That could have set off a real riot! Watch and see how close it came. Clearly, though, when someone on that police force realized that they'd crossed a line and that there were six dozen cameras proving it, they backed off in the face of the crowd response. Thank goodness.
I have to give credit to the police in Boston the other night. They were with us, they blocked the bridge, yeah, but they didn't take any aggressive actions at the protest, and what they did do was mostly traffic direction, keeping us on the route and the cars from the side streets out of it.
I cannot see the logic of being violent toward non-violent protesters. It's asking for trouble.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 09:41 am (UTC)It used to work, because police can then blame the protestors for kicking off.
Doesn't work so well with the arrival of YouTube, does it chaps?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 01:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 02:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 03:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 03:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 03:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 04:24 pm (UTC)I also read the Orwellian essay referenced. I'd never seen it before, but it is certainly a frank and chilling insight into the psychology of someone put into the position of maintaining an authority that is not entirely justified.
I've heard a few law-enforcement types claiming that "linked arms" is not "peaceful". *scratches head over that one*
But all such overreactions are going to do is to increase the sympathy for the protestors. Especially when victims include war veterans and elderly women...
YouTube is an awesome weapon...
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 07:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 07:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 07:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 07:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 07:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 07:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-22 07:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-23 04:52 am (UTC)This asshole behavior was so uncalled-for. the Founding Fathers invited peaceful demonstration to allow things to remain _peaceful_. When you get assholes responding with brutality, you'll get violence back. So hideous.
Thanks for the link. I signed a petition and submitted a rant. I'm on a list now for sure (pretty certain I was on it before, but certainly now). Yes, invoked the Founding Fathers there, too. People think they can enact their petty laws to contradict the basic rights we as Americans know we have. It won't work. It's deep in our psyche-- we have the right to peaceful assembly. Someone saying "private property" is not going to trump this.
I only hope people keep energized in fighting Da Man. They really are out to turn us into serfs, the undeserving poopyheads.