occupy

Tonight Athens burned. As I watched horrified by the images I saw I found it difficult to determine cause and effect, action and reaction, and the whole milieu of twitter and livestreams has turned into one digesting mess of violence.

I can't give you a better idea of what is happening than what #f12gr on Twitter can, so I'll leave writing that story to the Greeks. Instead I'll talk about where we are today here in the states and how this relates to our situation.

We spend a lot of time talking about what it means to be American, if someone is part of the "real" America, whether someone believes in American exceptionalism, etc. One thing we don't spend enough time talking about is the nature of America ("E pluribus unum").

Last night while watching OakFoSho's stream of the latest in Occupy Oakland's FTP (Fuck The Police) marches I saw people coming out from their houses to cheer and thank the protesters for chanting (among other things) "From Oakland to Greece; Fuck The Police".

As much as we try to, we can't eliminate the problems we face by making them less visible. The earth warms as we drive to work, the homeless find shelter away from the public when dropped off at the county line, the children of those less able to afford good housing still get substandard educations and those who become ill still tax our emergency rooms even if we prevent their entry into hospitals.

(Mass arrested at a YMCA in Oakland)

Yesterday Oakland police followed and harassed a protest march by Occupy Oakland, including pushing marchers with batons and knocking over a young woman on a bicycle and arresting her for damaging the pavement with her arms, eventually sparking a few protesters to respond by throwing bottles at officers telling them to disperse. Police responded with flashbang granades, rubber bullets, beanbag rounds and tear gas.

Here is some stunning footage from pfailblog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGju4u7yVRA

My response:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb7esHCjkxM

If you're not already following this streamer from the bay area on twitter you should:

https://twitter.com/#!/PFailBlog

This isn't what democracy looks like. Seriously folks.

Yesterday aproximately 100 protesters rallied at 23rd and Union in Seattle's central district against police brutality and then marched to the East Precinct.

(protesters lighting torches symbolizing those killed by police)

The full rally and march can be seen here and here.

There was some good talk at the Occupy Seattle GA tonight about consensus vs. voting.

All in all a great night, people really started hashing out why we're all working together and what it will take to keep things moving forward. I had some great discussions with people of incredibly varying views and we kept finding things that we all agree on.

Tonight I have to ask why.

Why were over 20 Seattle police officers required to arrest 3 homeless people squatting in a house that had been unoccupied for years? The police found no drugs, no weapons, just some people trying to stay warm in the winter.

Why was a firetruck and at least 5 firemen called in to board up one door with particle board?

Why did the police reply to questions about why they were there with answers like "because the owner called us in to kick out the people here, ugh! you can't refute that!".

What do you owe your fellow citizens? What do they owe you? Why should you care about suffering and misery? Why should those in misery think they deserve help? Why are so many so rich and so many so poor?

The answers to these questions largely don't need to be answered to determine what is in our self interest. Even if you have "fuck you money" most folks don't. Even those in the upper middle class benefit when more people have a chance to do great things rather than suffer in poverty.