They [police] represent those who have ruled this country since 9/11 in the name of our safety and security, while they made themselves, and no one else, safe and secure. It is an order that has based itself on kidnapping, torture, secret prisons, illegal surveillance, assassination, permanent war, militarized solutions to every problem under the sun, its own set of failed occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the closest of relations with a series of crony capitalist corporations intent on making money off anyone’s suffering as long as the going is good.
via tomdispatch.com
Wow, Rebecca Solnit's (correction) Tom Engelhardt's words leading into Rebecca Solnit's piece are haunting and powerful, but more than anything scary and sad. As someone who has attended/organized/participated in many dozens of protests and demonstrations, I'm aghast at the overwhelming use of force to silence people. Yes, I know that Occupy Wall Street folks were breaking park rules by camping, but I cannot believe that in civil society we cannot find a better tool than pepper spray and billy clubs to resolve conflict.
The rest of Rebecca's post in TomDispatch is worth reading.