Update: E.D Kain Tweeted me to let us know that he has written a follow-up post in Forbes Magazine entitled "Police Should Condemn, Not Defend, Excessive Use of Force at UC Davis."
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Forbes contributor E.D. Kain – a sympathetic critic of OWS who recently penned a piece entitled "Has OWS Outworn Its Welcome?" – just published a scathing post targeting our brutal police state after viewing the now-infamous video of a UC Davis police officer pepper spraying seated, non-violent students.
Here are some of his choice words, which come after he embedded the video mentioned above (emphasis mine):
Events like the one in the above video have been far too common in the police response to Occupy protests across the country. I do believe that Occupy Wall Street is at a tipping point, and that it must grow beyond and evolve away from the tent city occupations, but this police response is absurd and excessive.
Arrests exceeding 250 people followed protests in New York City yesterday. All across the country, cops are cracking down on protesters with force. I may be a critic of Occupy Wall Street, but 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 like this 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.
Kain, who has both critiqued Occupy Wall Street and supported its message of income inequality, has written extensively in the past on the militarization of police in our country, specifically with regard to the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror."
That a contributor to Forbes – a magazine which, let's be patently clear, is written specifically for the one percent – is decrying police violence and brutality against Occupy Wall Street, despite having reservations about the movement itself, indicates a huge shift.
Those students who suffered at UC Davis, and those who have suffered at the hands of police brutality everywhere, should at least take heart knowing this: images of their being brutalized are furthering Occupy Wall Street's cause, and expansion, more than perhaps they know.
The game is changing. When Forbes critiques the police state protecting the interests of its readership, the tipping point is not far off, if it has not already been crossed.
My feeling is it has. It has, indeed.
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Author's Note: Below I am embedding two videos. The first, of the UC Davis pepper spray incident mentioned above.
And the second, a brilliant and tragic video montage of police brutality during the Zuccotti Park raid and eviction set to Sinatra's "New York, New York." This video was created by Casey Niestat, about whom I'm starting to learn more. You should too.
Video 1:
Video 2: