NYC Police Disgrace Themselves in Brutal Treatment of Wall Street Protesters

I've lived in New York City all of my life, and have never been a big fan of our police.  As a teenager, I was roughed up by cops in their search for fire crackers. I saw them point blank attack protesters in the Vietnam War era.  I've heard first hand, from friends I believe,  about police double-standard treatment of African-Americans.   And their shooting to death of Amadou Diallo who was unarmed, and their sodomizing of Abner Louima (two separate incidents), were beyond horrendous.

But they've reached a new low in mass, continuing violation of human beings and human rights in their response to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.  These are not isolated cases of cops gone crazy.   The tear-gassing of people behind barricades, the throwing to the ground of protesters who have no weapons and pose no threat, is a systematic, widespread attack on human decency, the First Amendment and its guarantee of peaceful assembly, as well as on the bodies and spirits of protesters expressing their non-violent opinion.  (See videos here.)

Police Commissioner Kelly justifiably takes great pride in how well the NYPD have defended New Yorkers from terrorist attacks.   He should also take pride in, or at very least insist upon, the NYPD defending and protecting the rights of New Yorkers and any one who visits our city to express their opinions.

Based on what has happened so far, Kelly obviously does not.  Mayor Bloomberg should replace him with someone who can grasp the difference between a criminal and a peaceful protester, between throwing a protester violently to the ground versus firmly escorting the protester off unlawfully occupied premises.

Social media - or, what I call new new media - are empowering people not only in the Middle East, but all over the world, including here in America.  We have a right to express our critique of Wall Street and the sad pass in the economy - the financial disaster - Wall Street moguls have brought us to.

Mayors would be wise to respect this and restrain out-of-control police, lest the voters boot them out of office in the next election.  And the Federal government would be wise to do something constructive, and bring any police officer who violates the rights of protesters up on charges.

And mainstream news media - I'm talking to you, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC - what is taking you so long to catch up with the sustained coverage Keith Olbermann has been giving this spectacle of police misconduct on his Countdown show on Current TV?



Occupy Wall Street Chronicles, Part 1

In Defense of Flashmobs and Blackberrys

I just heard Martin Fletcher on MSNBC say that, over in the United Kingdom, some people are calling for "crack downs" on Blackberrys, since messaging on them has been implicated in the assembling of the rioting mobs over the there.   Meanwhile, I was interviewed the other day in The Daily about talk in Philadelphia and elsewhere in America to limit flashmobs, responsible for violence in Philadelphia and other American cities.   My response to The Daily - “The Cairo flash mob had a very good result."

Think about it.   There no doubt were all kinds of criminal activities planned on telephones in the 20th century - should that have led to their banning or any across-the-board restrictions?   Aside from being an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, such limitations would have been entirely unnecessary: we already have restrictions on criminal activities.

Banning or even general limitations on flashmobs not would not only violate the freedom of speech provision of our First Amendment, but its freedom to peaceably assemble, as well.  And they are similarly unneeded.  We already have ample laws on the books against looting and other criminal activities of crowds.   England does, too.

The Arab Spring, while not successful everywhere, has already peacefully spread to democracies in Israel and Spain.   The larger message of these assemblages of people, brought together through online invitations, and publicized through Twitter and other new new media (my name for media which transform consumers into producers) is that we may be witnessing a profound shift, even in democracies, from representative to direct forms of governance.  When elected representatives don't do their jobs, the people press to take more power.   This was always the case - and why we in the United States changed from selected to directly elected U.S. Senators a century ago.   But now the voice and wishes of the people can be heard as never before, through the smart phones in an increasing number of hands.

Governments would be wise to take this revolution seriously, and not disable it by even a well-meaning but unnecessary limit on smart phones and flashmobs in response to a summer of hooligans.