New York Times media reporter David Carr has written some interest pieces on Occupy Wall Street. His piece today tries to work out where things go from here, but one comment in the piece about how Occupy Wall Street compares with protests of the past caught my attention:
There were citizens screaming invective about the rich while being confronted by the police in riot gear, the kind of spontaneous uprising we have not seen in almost half a century.
Huh. This is used to explain why the mainstream media found OWS so newsworthy.
But I remember things like this happening, way back in 1999-2000.
Peter, I believe historical amnesia (of the willful variety) is a occupational prerequisite for a corpress journalist.
Or at the very least, an extremely beneficial career enhancer.
“… the kind of spontaneous uprising we have not reported on in almost half a century.”
Fixed that for them.
I recently found a similar gaffe in U.K.’s Guardian. In Ayesh Kazmi’s “Occupy and the Militarisation of Policing Protest”, an otherwise good analysis of escalating police militarization in the US was marred in the first sentence by the ‘memory hole’ effect of claiming USA police have been historically benevolent to protestors until just recently.
Yeah, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Is change an illusion or a delusion?
Our government’s response to protest inevitability becomes a police riot. The first amendment is constantly under attack by entrenched interests. Fear is the currency that bureaucrats deal in to promote violence against citizens who wish to seek a redress of grievances.
Jerry I have not seen any Police riots at Tea party dems.The Beck get together covered every inch as far as one could see.I saw police.Smiling and enjoying a beautiful day.
This, unfortunatly, does not suprise me. I have had the opportunity to check out OWS sites and witnessed police brutality and violations of our 1st Amendment. It is shamefull that we live in a country that prides itself of freedom of speech yet abuses its police power to hurt the very citizens they are meant to protect. Thanks for writing such an eye opening peice!