Occupy Wall Street Protests Turn Violent as Cops Mace Protesters

[Trigger warning for police brutality; violence against women. Please note: Included video content may be upsetting.]

When was the last time you heard about a Tea Party protester getting maced by police? Or an anti-choice protester? Or a Westboro Baptist dipshit? Or anyone who was part of any of the rightwing political actions funded by corporate interests?

Apparently, freedom of speech and assembly is only for conservatives, as police in NYC have started arresting the Occupy Wall Street protesters, and, over the weekend, video was posted on YouTube of police corralling female protesters and then shooting mace at them:


In another video, a police officer is seen to grab a young man who is just talking to him, and roughly throws him to the ground to arrest him:


Not only have we not seen this sort of hostility, or even this sort of police presence, for rightwing protesters (nor should we; I'm certainly not arguing that rightwing protesters be treated like this, but rather the Occupy Wall Street protesters be afforded the same respect for their rights to free speech and assembly), but the media coverage of this protest, now in Day 10, has been virtually nonexistent compared to the Tea Party protests. As Susie notes: "If the protests on Wall Street were organized by the 'Tea Party', not only would there be abundant, and largely positive, media coverage, but the police would be there to protect the protestors' free speech rights."

Digby has a great piece on the difference in quality of the media coverage.

Also recommended: David Graeber's piece here, about what this protest really means:

We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.

Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?

...It's becoming increasingly obvious that the real priority of those running the world for the last few decades has not been creating a viable form of capitalism, but rather, convincing us all that the current form of capitalism is the only conceivable economic system, so its flaws are irrelevant.

Flaws like the ability of 1% of the population to hold 40% of the wealth. That sorta thing.

Anyway, if you'd like to watch today's goings-on, the live stream is below. The more the world watches, the safer those protesters will be.

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com