Enforcing Laws When It Is Convenient
As many
of you know, I have been following and actively supporting via my various
social networking feeds the #OccupyWallStreet / #TakeWallStreet movement in New
York City. It turns out that you can’t wear masks in New York City. Yes, you
heard me.
You can’t
wear masks in New York City.
Now, do
they enforce this year round, do you think? Do they enforce this on Halloween?
I wonder if they arrest children. No, they enforce this law only when it is
convenient, which is unfortunate. They use it to suppress the voice of the
people when it is raised up in protest. I understand the police’s position on
masks as being used by those “up to no good,” however, when they are not
communicating effectively what they want to the people in question and not
reading them their rights, the police in question are behaving in a terrorizing
manner. They are encouraged to be thugs for the establishment instead of
peace-keepers.
The
protesters in New York are exercising their right to free assembly. They are
exercising their right to civil disobedience. They are behaving peacefully in a
demonstration against corporate greed, doing their best to bring attention to
the problems plaguing the financial and political systems in this country.
I am
not super fucking rich (though, like many, I’d like to be.). I am one of the
99%. I don’t have things bad right now, but I am not too far away from it. So
many people are closer than I am. There are others that are further away, but
the bad times get closer to us all as this financial disparity continues.
As the jobs in this country dry up,
those that are employed are willing to take more and more abuse to keep what
shitty jobs that are available. No one wants to be unemployed. Those that are
unemployed cannot find jobs anywhere, no matter the degrees that they have.
These people are not lazy people. They bust their asses trying to find work
that just isn’t there.
These are the people that are
protesting in the street in New York because, yes, they are able to. Those that
have work cannot endanger their jobs to do it. These are the people getting
arrested for wearing Anonymous masks due to an obscure law that they weren’t
aware of.
The police were told to make
examples and they did. They also made examples of a young woman with sidewalk
chalk. Was what she was doing graffiti? Technically, yes it was. However, it
was sidewalk chalk.
The police were told to make
examples and they did. Their corporate masters barked orders at the bosses of
the men and women on the street. The boss yelled orders down at the grunts and
the grunts were turned into thugs. Please, NYPD, don’t become the thugs of the
establishment. Remember that you’re peacekeepers and be there to protect both
the protesters and the bankers. You are there to keep a fine line between them,
not enforce the whims of the bastards with the money. When you do that, you’re
no better than Gestapo.
9-21-11
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