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Oakland CA, from youtube video
The forces of repression seem hard at work attempting to suppress the occupy movement.
In Oakland, California the latest incident had police lob tear gas canisters at "Occupy Oakland" protesters resulting in arrests and some minor skirmishes between the demonstrators and the cops.
As we've seen in New York, Denver, Atlanta, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, now yesterday in Oakland, the authorities are stepping up their campaigns to physically harass, remove, arrest and detain protesters expressing their Constitutional right to "peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Except for conspiracy theorists that may believe there is an overarching concerted effort by all governmental "authorities" to undermine and shut down this movement, the more likely reality is the mayors and governors of all these cities and states apparently haven't read the Constitution, have no concept and understanding of civil liberty and civil disobedience and see people peaceably assembled together as mobs rather than citizens exercising their Constitutional rights.
Further, they do not recognize this movement is not going away. Their repressive tactics will only harden the resolve of the protesters to continue to demonstrate as well as gain more sympathizers appalled at the tactics of police attacking innocent people.
Repression didn't stop the suffragettes, the civil rights movement, the Viet Nam war protests and now the occupy movement.
When fundamental wrongs exist, where basic unfairness and injustice reigns, where overwhelming numbers of people can easily recognize and identify with what the demonstrators are saying in protest against those wrongs, injustices and the basic unfairness of it all, a movement can result that challenges the existing order. Add in the brilliance of a movement intending to stay until "change" occurs and then have it spread in solidarity all over the country and the world, it becomes an inexorable force, a revolutionary rebellion where the old order is forced to take notice, accede to the demands of the protesters or eventually be overtaken.
In the U.S. the occupy movement must remain peaceful and committed to non-violence. Ours is a representative government under a Constitution that has been usurped and corrupted by big moneyed and special interests creating a plutocracy of oligarchs (the 1%) against the interests of the people (the 99%).
Therefore, whether it is clearly stated or not by the protesters, the underlying goal of the occupy movement is the re-establishment of our government that is of, by and for the people.
This can only happen when the people rise up and demand it; something we are currently witnessing across the country.
