Police response to the Occupy Movement is absurd and excessive.
All across the country, cops are cracking down on protesters with force. Even critics of Occupy Wall Street will concede that the police are public servants, and public servants have no business treating the public this way.
By and large, Occupy has been a peaceful affair. Certainly pepper-spraying protesters while they sit calmly in a row is a gross abuse of power. It should have our collective blood boiling, whether or not we even agree with the protesters themselves. What was meant to be a protest against economic equality quickly morphs into a protest against the police state.
And make no mistake, the powers of the police in this country have grown out of hand. Articles have been written at length on the militarization of the police, of SWAT team abuses, and the way that the war on terror and the war on drugs have both contributed to what is really just a war on individual liberty. Occupy Wall Street may need to grow up and evolve, but a far greater and more pressing issue facing this country is what to do about the security state we’ve erected about us at the local, state, and federal level.
Between the Patriot Act and the War on Drugs, it’s hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
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PS - The image of the police, in the United States, has been tarnished to such an extent that it will take years to clean it up. A starting point would be citizen review of every single use of force by the police. And, criminal penalties for abuse of police power.
With power comes responsibility, and those who abuse power must be punished severely.
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