Even using non-violent tactics against the establishment does not mean that thoughtful, liberal politicians will not respond with violence. Mayor Quan of Oakland admitted in an interview with the BBC that she had participated in "a conference call with 18 other cities" on how to end the Occupy encampments.
If you think these local city mayors are not taking orders from higher up the political machine chain, you just don't follow American politics closely enough. But here's the point - all these attacks do is give fuel to those small number in the protests who want to be violent. Throw one of us to the lions and three more step forward and one of those is not a non-violence player.
This is going to get more and more ugly. More arrests, more injuries and eventually there will be deaths. The police will resort to murder in defense of America's parks. But, of course, this has nothing to do with tents or parks or any physical aspect of Occupy. "They" are afraid we might succeed and their rape of the American and World economies will be stopped. It is all about money, power and greed. Those with all the stolen riches are scared and they are sending their minions to stop us.
They will not.
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2 comments:
You can't seriously claim to be "a non-violence player" if one of your objectives is taking more money from rich people and redistributing it to people who have less. That will only happen by violent force. Taxation requires the use, or at least the threat of the use, of violent force. So if one of the things you seek is higher taxes on the rich (and that does indeed seem to be one of the most widely endorsed aims of the occupiers), then you are not genuinely advocating nonviolence. You are merely asking that the government's violence, or threat thereof, be used against the people you don't like, rather than against the people that you like. Which seems to me not to be a particularly principled stance.
The idea that taxation is governmental violence is an interesting one. But since taxes are universal, it would appear that the government must be expressing violence towards all its citizens. So how anyone can win with this argument is currently beyond my comprehension. If non-taxation is your goal then I will respectfully decline to live in the same lawless jurisdiction you do.
However, redistribution of wealth is not a core value of Occupy. Additional taxation on the wealthy would go towards paying down the national debt and supporting other programs which by the way have benefited those same wealthy individuals more than other segments of society.
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