As I watch news reports and hear from people on the ground in the "occupy" movement, it's sometimes hard to believe that this is happening right now our country. Especially with recent developments such as in Oakland, California, where police attacked protesters with flash grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas. The video from that situation looked like something we were watching just months ago in Egypt as Mubarak's thugs violently attacked protesters. It is an uncomfortable time.
And so, I offer this to you to lend some perspective. Many in my generation and younger have never really seen this kind of protesting in the U.S., but our country has a long history of American People standing up for themselves and doing this very thing. Enjoy this as one of the many examples.
Agree with the "Occupiers" or not, we should all be defending their right to protest. One day, this could be you or your kids protesting something you believe in.
When the Bonus Army Occupied Washington
Let me get this straight...
ReplyDeleteThis kind of protesting, marked largely by radicalism, disrespect, and hatred for the country... you see to be defensible...
Yet, Tea Party protests... I guess they're largely... indefensible... perhaps even racist...
Funny, I don't recall mentioning the Tea Party at all in the article. However, I will say they're protests are a great example of Americans collectively voicing their beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI think dismissing them because of a few misguided stragglers is a mistake. Putting people in a box is a rather simple (and intellectually lazy) way of dealing with them.
Besides, what I see to be defensible is their right to assemble and their right to protest. I make no mention of the content.
ReplyDeleteYour not mentioning the Tea Party is the point Mike... why didn't you? Why not post a link to a historical protest when the Tea Party was protesting? Why not publish a post about the beauty and importance of protesting when the Tea Party was doing it? Why wait until a the Occupy crowds are occupying our news streams?
ReplyDeleteAnd why ignore the fact that the Tea Party has conducted themselves honorably, without violence, without the need for others to clean up after themselves, without having the authorities be involved in policing their protests, without the rapes and sexual harassment being reported at the Occupy protests, without the arrests, without the threats of violence?
It's a curious thing... so very curious...
I actually know people in the OWS protests that are good people, not thugs, not marxists, not rapists, not radicals, not crazy, that love their country and are opposite everything some folks, like yourself have described the movement as. Frankly, I felt a desire to lend perspective.
ReplyDeleteI hope tha satisfies your curiosity.
God bless those you know in the movement who are good people... thank God for good people in any movment... but this movement is led, organized and largely being executed by people who are less than good, who have motives that need to be questioned, who are leading the well intentioned but gullible down a primrose path...
ReplyDeletePerhaps your friends would be interested in this, put together by someone who initially doubted what he was reading, but who's changed his mind about it...
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=31453
And by the way... I know many who are in the Tea Party... cream of the crop people... who are being painted by many to be racists...
ReplyDeleteDamned travesty.