"The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy"

[infrogmation]

The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy by Naomi Wolf in The Guardian

"The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality"

Again, why do I have to read media from another country to find out some of the major facts about things going on in my own country?

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

If you follow the chain of links from Naomi Wolf's article, you'll find that the ultimate sources concerning federal involvement, PERF and the mayors' conference calls are American newspapers, such as the NYT and the Minneapolis Examiner; it's not as if this stuff gets no domestic exposure whatsoever.

Also, the key claim that the federal government organized the crackdown specifically because of OWS's demand to close the Congressional insider-trading loophole is pure speculation on Naomi Wolf's part. The chain of causation seems weak to me; Congress doesn't run DHS. I rather suspect federal agencies got involved in the hippie-kicking because hippie-kicking is what cops do, more or less by habit.

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

The chain of causation seems weak to me; Congress doesn't run DHS. I rather suspect federal agencies got involved in the hippie-kicking because hippie-kicking is what cops do, more or less by habit

Agreed. Also, we've been steadily "militarizing" the police force since the 60s, but this process really took off after 9/11. Bureaucratic momentum, in and of itself, dictates that this stuff get used, especially when you demonize large segments of your own population as dirty, public-fornicating, street pooping hippies.

People forget that after Kent State, public opinion largely sided with the cops. The prevailing sentiment at the time was that the students had it coming to them. Times haven't really changed that much, as a perusal of the 60-early-70s editorials in Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" makes clear. Many could easily have been written in the last couple of years.

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that, as usual, police brutality only becomes news when it's victims are white, educated, and middle class.

I guess it's kind of a man-bites-dog thing. Cops beating the shit out of people of color isn't news.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Two things make it more likely to become news:

first, if it's on video. This was true as far back as Rodney King. It gives the TV news channels something they can put on the air to frighten and anger people without having to do a whole lot of research.

second, if one of the victims turns out to have friends in high places. This is more likely for white people, but remember when a black Harvard professor was arrested for breaking into his own home a few years ago? That guy, and the arresting offer, got to meet the President. That wouldn't have happened if he were a postal worker.