On Nov. 15, I awoke to reports that New York City police staged a 1 a.m. raid of the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park, arresting 90 or so and destroying the food distribution system, library, all the donated clothing and supplies and any personal property that wasn’t promptly removed. Likewise, Oakland and Portland encampments were raided, on charges of “poor sanitation and unsafe conditions.” In Oakland, it was alleged that half the residents were homeless people.
This represents a systematic effort to break the back of a nationwide people’s protest of systemic injustice, effectively heaping injustice upon injustice. If the authorities had exercised anything like this level of diligence in policing the actions of the banksters and corporate criminals that perpetrated the plunder of the middle class and working poor over the past 30 years, the Occupy Movement might have never been necessary.
I think these actions may actually stimulate greater participation in the movement. As the long-term unemployed, those whose jobs have been outsourced or downsized and those whose benefits have been cut and whose pensions were decimated by the bankster-caused economic crisis of 2008 begin to understand that they are the ones the protestors are speaking for, I believe the movement will grow larger, louder and more insistent on systemic change in America’s economic and political systems.
Regrettably, I fear it may tax the movement’s commitment to nonviolence. In some locations, the peaceful protestors have been beaten with batons and pepper-sprayed by battle-armored riot police intent on teaching lessons of obedience and compliance. Some have referred to this sort of action as a “police riot.”
I salute Snohomish County officials for their support of the Occupy Everett encampment, and I urge my fellow citizens to get involved. Economic class warfare has been under way for decades, and the rich have effectively won! It is time to stand up.
Move to Amend!
Jackie Minchew
Everett
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