From Atlanta:
Watching all of this, I think of those lines from Woody Guthrie's 1944 version of "This Land Is Your Land" that nobody likes to remember:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me,
Sign was painted said, "Private Property"
But on the back side it didn't say nothing,
This land was made for you and me.
and he added these lines:
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?
And so I ask the old socialist question, whose economy is it?
And I could further ask, if it's not mine, or if I have no share in it, then why should I care?
ADDENDUM:
The young man injured in the top video is Scott Olsen, 24, an Iraq War veteran. A tear gas canister hit him square in the head and he is now hospitalized in critical condition with a fractured skull.
FURTHER ADDENDUM:
Unedited tape by a teargassed protester in Oakland. Warning, unedited.
The whole attack on the protesters, always for "safty" or "health" concers is bogus and we all know it. Just like the police claiming self defense when attacking them! This makes me sick! And when those in power say they want to negotiate with the protesters and get them to be less disrubtive, and not cause a scene etc. UM, that is what a PROTEST is supposed to DO!
ReplyDeleteI just wish others would stand up for the protesters and that the tent cities would pop up again and again! And NOT let them win by arresting people and terring down the camps!
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me,
ReplyDeleteSign was painted said, "Private Property"
But on the back side it didn't say nothing,
This land was made for you and me.
I've heard a slight variation (don't know if it's alternate Woody or some other folk/protest singer)
...I saw a sign said, "No Trespassing"
But the other side didn't say nuthin:
THAT SIDE was made for you and me!
;-)
Oakland being so close to me (and my brother was born there), I'm filled w/ shame and HORROR at the police-instigated (apparently) violence there. Prayers for Corporal Olson in his recovery from brain trauma! (He had to return from Iraq for that???)
It does indeed appear to me that all of this violence is police instigated. It seems to me that far less drastic measures could have resolved these impasses. Perhaps the folks who own and run these towns want to teach these upstarts "a lesson."
ReplyDelete