self-defence is often pre-emptive here now. i was afraid the non-violent protesters might turn violent so i had to out violent them first and if they hadn't been protesting then i wouldn't have had to do that.

Call them and rant.

I doubt it.

There is never any shortage of thugs willing to sell their services to the powers that be in exchange for a few years of basking in their reflected glory.

But, as someone who has relatives who were alive to see (and participate in) what happened to the Vichy after the liberation of France I can assure you that even though it may take a while, the thugs eventually reap what they sow.

the cops can't grasp the political aspects because they're caught in the more immediate aspects of the psychological. telling a cop you will not move, or you will not stop moving, or anything that sounds like no! shorts out their brains. it's primal. you could just be yelling "i scream for ice cream!" and if you didn't stop after a cop told you to shut up, he would shut you up just for not following orders.

public service employees doing grinding and thankless jobs like police and fire protection as well as mindless bureaucratic paper pushing.

Wouldn't it be GREAT if "Officers, many wearing white shorts indicating supervisor rank" were reality? All that exposed flesh would make them think twice before spraying. Plus, the fashion statement it would make? Yowzah!

But, then again, it IS after Labor Day....

It's obviously incorrect. In point of fact supervisors wear shorts with little hearts on them.

Our media at work: http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/04/andrew_r...

Nah!!!! It CAN'T be...
http://ocelott.tumblr.com/post/11089859961/oc... http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/06/0...

Yes, sooner or later, I think the police will crack down. It'll be at night, when the protesters' cameras won't do a good job of capturing the action. Once the police start it, it'll be game on, and the cops will claim they were just reacting to crowd violence. Our police state is not yet at the stage where the tanks can roll in like it was Tianenmen Square, so it'll be nightsticks, not assault rifles. But if it doesn't end because of the New York winter, The Man can only be pushed so far.

The only hope, I think, is for the protesters to co-opt the police: They're part of the 99% too, and their jobs and pensions are at risk from the greedy plutocrats who want to gut the public sector.

We have seen jutification for the early false reports of thousands marching because now there really are.
This is just like the Tea Party movement. A call to action by a voice to two in the social media, a few hundred hardy but dedicated volunteers, and finally, thanks to thoughtless over reaction by a cop or two, voila, the movement grows.

We should be thanking the cops. Our side does not have the media and "astro-turf" fronts like the 1%. We cannot build our movement like the Tea Party. It takes a little pepper spray and kettling to
generate the coverage we cannot buy.

I am heading down to Occupy Austin. I only wish I had not started with derision and instead had been one of the first to buy the brave pioneers a slice.

What is it we are asking for again? I have the poster board but haven't filled out my sign.

Great. Just Great.! Some protesters are going to insist on going wherever the police say they shouldn't.

I see, in your comment below, you understand large crowds and inertia. Perhaps the barricades need to be moved to allow more space for these tax-payers.

Second, of course I don't live in that city.

Third, I implied nothing critical or direspectful of any public servant.

Fourth, I know of no "documented issues" Bologna has or does not have.

and believing that the common good -- or even simple, common sense -- would, at some point, override the greed of corporations and the politicians whom they own

i blame myself for always trying to be an upright citizen when the rules, quite obviously, did not apply to the wealthy and powerful

i blame myself for respecting opposing viewpoints that i knew to be false and dangerous ... i spoke up, yes, but i tolerated too much for the sake of "dialogue"

i blame myself for not hitting the streets with a "truth" sign every day since ronald reagan was elected, even if i was the only person protesting

there is little virtue in allowing others to walk all over you, even in the name of peace and respect

the remains of?

If a cop or two gets shot trying to deal with some right wing gun nut they'll be back to being heroes again. The meme of the day kind of ignores the fact that police are actual humans, some are nice and some not so much.

are running that asylum!

..The NYPD may have gotten this correct...pepper spray the real culprits!

Given a crowd, if someone falls or is pushed into a barricade, it does not constitute a crime.

Further, committing a crime does not mean you are resisting arrest.

Moreover, by resisting arrest, it does not necessitate that pepper spray is the appropriate force necessary to subdue.

Finally, how does mass pepper spraying an area because people stepped over a white line get justified as an appropriate amount of force?

Clearly press were affected - if not targeted. What laws were they breaking? This slippery slope is just as bad as in Iraq! Minimally there needs to be a review of training and procedures and all police involved should be taken off street duty until an investigation verifies that no excessive force or abuse was used. Isn't that standard procedure? Oh wait, Rodney Kinging folks is? I am so glad that there has been such an improvement in our police force. THE NYPD is doing dirt on all responsible police officers everywhere. I can only hope that is what the unprecedented grant the received will be used for to correct.

and limiting it requires a compelling state interest like the safety of the president, but the president wasn't in new york last night ... and the protesters were not engaged in violence or the incitement thereof

this was a large crowd, and by its very nature, inconvenient and unwieldy and, yes, a little frightening ... and as often happens with a large crowd, folks in back, not seeing the barrier up front, began to surge forward ... those in front either tried to hold their ground or push past the barrier to safety, but no one at the front of that crowd could have prevented themselves from crossing the barrier ... the police knew this, having had crowd training, but they indiscriminately attacked the crowd, as evidenced by their assault of this news team

if you watched protesters in egypt being beaten at a barricade, i suspect that you would have condemned the egyptian government for its brutality, even though that government was actually pursuing compelling state interest, protecting itself from overthrow

are americans any less entitled to peacefully congregate and speak their minds? are police judges, juries, and executioners free to administer corporal punishment for any infraction of any rule?

barricades 5 miles away and put the protesters in a pen ala the free speech zones. That would work, right?

And if anyone dared step out of the pen the police would have the right to pepper spray and beat them.

No, it doesn't work for me. These barricades were put up in order to put a halt to a peaceful protest. F*ck the cops.

unlawfully crossing the barricade?

this was a large, unwieldy crowd ... a policing challenge, to be sure ... but a peaceful crowd ... and as often happens with crowds, the folks in back surged forward, not seeing the barrier, pushing those in front past the police line

the police indiscriminately responded with violence, punishing protesters, media, and tourists alike for their mere presence in the crowd ... this was a criminal assault on the individuals involved and an unconstitutional assault upon the rights of all of us to freely assemble for the purpose of political speech

you are blaming the victims here

to point out to those who love to jump my case when I criticize the all too frequent inaccuracies in postings here why I am fond of doing so despite their colorful use of English epithets to respond to me.

People in the blogosphere read about one event, Sometimes, when they retell it, the event becomes plural events of a different nature. Pretty soon it is repeated over and over and distorted until it becomes a false meme. When the right does it, people here object. When the same inaccurate practice is employed here many who were screaming about the right accuse the person pointing out the inaccuracy here of being a right winger.

Based on your link Bologna has one civil suit filed against him by one person involving an allegation that the person filing the suit was illegally arrested on Bologna's order three years earlier. That hardly constitutes "documented issues within the department." Especially when the lawsuit itself is four years old and has not been litigated to the point of proving anything.

Nothing here should be taken as even a hint of suggestion that you have done anything more than a first phase escalation of a news article from singular to plural with a slight twist of fact. You haven't accused Bologna of causing more unreported deaths with his baton than are killed in car wrecks. In fact, you did not distort the circumstances of Bologna's 2004 incident nearly as bad as this blog did when they first linked to that Guardian article. Nor have you cast a single aspersion about me or my motives. You are a fine American.

What's the prize?