Well, this’ll teach those lazy kids. Thankfully, the good men and women of law enforcement are here to help keep these dangerous mobs from getting out of hand!.
Get a job, hippie! Am I right, Fox “News”?!
UPDATE 11/17/11: Wow. Olbermann’s interview below with the woman seen above, the remarkable 84-year old Dorli Rainey — who grew up in Nazi Germany(!) — is an absolutely MUST SEE. Current TV describes the interview this way (though it doesn’t adequately detail the full contents of her remarks)…
Eighty-four-year-old activist Dorli Rainey tells Keith about her experience getting pepper-sprayed by the police during an Occupy Seattle demonstration and the need to take action and spread the word of the Occupy movement. She cites the advice of the late Catholic nun and activist Jackie Hudson to “take one more step out of your comfort zone” as an inspiration, saying, “It would be so easy to say, ‘Well I’m going to retire, I’m going to sit around, watch television or eat bonbons,’ but somebody’s got to keep ’em awake and let ’em know what is really going on in this world.”
I’ve seen that woman in back alleys before, and she unnerves me…not.
All of the police departments around the country reacted like this. There is no question that it was orchestrated, presumably by the agencies under Obama’s authority.
What these tactics have done is intentionally smear the image of Occupiers, in general. By using over-the-top excessive force, corporate media gets to report that the “mobs of protesters” needed to be pepper-sprayed, etc. The tactic has worked, from what I’ve read: Most people now have a more favorable impression of the teabaggers than the Occupiers.
And teabaggers are nothing but Koch psychopath shills! It’s just amazing what money will buy.
Never underestimate the power of propaganda and the willful stupidity of Americans.
Actually, Elliott, the more we report on this, the more it backfires for the power elites.
The American public is experiencing a sense of revulsion similar to that which occurred after Bull Conner used police dogs and water hoses to assault peaceful demonstrators during the 60s.
In the end, it was segregation and not the movement which crumbled.
Maybe she likes it hot and the poor cops only used pepper spray cuz they didn’t have any good pepperoni.
I am embarrassed for my city and the mayor who had not so long ago seemed to hold out an olive branch and feigned sympathies to the movement.
Shame.
These police should be watching the news from around the world. Everywhere the government has met peaceful protest with brute force recently has experienced a change of government. Eventually, the police will become disgusted with beating and gassing peaceful protesters, including decorated American veterans and little old ladies, and refuse. Once the police in one place show that kind of courage, it will spread. Mr. Obama, are you paying attention? Either America is a democracy or it isn’t, and we are going to find out.
SEATTLE (AP) – An 84-year-old woman in Seattle has quickly become a face of the national Occupy Wall Street movement after she was hit with pepper spray during a march.
A Tuesday night photo of Dorli Rainey with the chemical irritant and liquid used to treat it dripping from her chin went viral soon afterward, becoming one of the most striking images from the protests that have taken place in cities across the globe.
“It’s a gruesome picture, I’m really not that bad looking,” Rainey said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press.
The photograph shows Rainey, wearing a scarf and jacket, being helped by two people. One man is cradling her head in his arms as they walk away from the area.
Rainey said she was on a downtown bus when she heard helicopters and thought, “Oh boy, I’d better go show solidarity with New York.” Occupy Seattle protesters had gathered Tuesday evening following police actions in New York City that cleared a Manhattan park of people there.
The Seattle activists were blocking downtown streets. Rainey said police told the group they had to move.
“They picked up their bicycles and started shoving them at us and confining us in a very small place and they started to pepper spray,” she said.
Seattle police on Wednesday referred reporters to a statement they released late Tuesday. Officers gave multiple verbal warnings and only used pepper spray against people who were “refusing a lawful order to disperse or engaging in assaultive behavior toward officers.”
Six people were arrested. Rainey said she was not among them.
Rainey is a former school teacher who is well known in local political circles. A self-described “old lady in combat boots,” she briefly entered the 2009 Seattle mayoral race. She quit that contest, saying she was too old.
She said Wednesday she’ll still be taking part in the local Occupy Seattle movement.
“I’m pretty tough, I guess.”
“Elderly woman hit by spray at protest: ‘I’m pretty tough'”
http://www.komonews.com/news/lo...133982793.html
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Dorli is one of our local stand-out activists for peace and justice…and a speaker/phrase maker of note…I heard her once, talking to a like-minded but less-experienced soul…”If you haven’t been arrested you’re not yet a true friend of mine…”
For sheer delight, and to get a glimpse of Dorli, just visualize a not uncommon sight: she’s small, face to face with a citizen twice her height and three times her weight and schooling him on the errors of his ways
The Council and the Mayor bought in – BIG!
Seattle City Council OKs unanimously a measure in support of Occupy movement
http://www.komonews.com/news/lo...133846698.html
Much detail is available on various websites and via Google. For the full text see the City’s website:
http://clerk.seattle.gov/~scrip...8;r=1&f=G
Resolution Number: 31337
A RESOLUTION recognizing and supporting the peaceful and lawful exercise of the First Amendment as a cherished and fundamental right in the effort to seek solutions for economically distressed Americans at the federal and local levels.
Status: Adopted as amended
Date adopted by Full Council: November 14, 2011
Vote: 9-0
Section 1. By adoption of this Resolution, the City of Seattle recognizes the peaceful and lawful exercise of First Amendment Rights by “Occupy Seattle” and others. The City does not condone actions that infringe upon the lawful rights of others, obstruct or interfere with the efforts of law enforcement officers to protect such rights, or cause personal injury or property destruction.
Section 2. The structural causes of the economic crisis facing our society require decisive and sustained action at the national and state levels. Cities are harmed by the crisis and must play an important role in the development of public policy to address it. By adoption of this resolution, the City Council commits to the following steps to minimize economic insecurity and destructive disparities:
Eight specific topics
Section 3. The City of Seattle requests our Congressional leaders to generate solutions for economically distressed Americans, specifically to…
Four specific topics
Section 4. The Council and the Mayor recognize and support the important responsibility the Seattle Police Department exercises in protecting for everyone our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly while, at the same time, appropriately enforcing City laws and regulations.
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A sample… number of home foreclosures in Seattle and the circumstances and causes of the foreclosures, the financial institutions involved in the foreclosures and the methods, tactics and apparent inequities that many people face in Seattle when lender foreclosure proceedings occur and will explore solutions intended to be more humane, civil and consistent with a spirit of assistance to the borrower.
Brad, Keith Olberman had an outstanding interview with Dorli Rainey on his 11/16/11 show.
Not really an interview, he let her have the floor.
Find it here. http://current.com/shows/countd...ce-of-activism
She is an example of an anti-toxin which we all need to become.
Dorli Rainey is my hero now too. So many brave people representing this OWS movement. I feel honored to support them and help them with all I can.
Images of little old ladies and peaceful demonstrators getting peppered sprayed by combat uniformed police shows how degraded our democracy has gotten and why we need to be concerned and involved.
Power to the peaceful!!