Colorado Springs Raid, and a Statement of Principle

Well, the city government dragged its collective feet about extending the Occupy permit in Colorado Springs for another 30 days, but they sure didn't waste any time calling the cops to tear down the encampment at 1 a.m. on the morning of Nov. 21, once they decided not to extend the permit. This is the pattern that has been followed around the country, thankfully without arrests and violence in Colorado Springs, but always with intimidation and subterfuge. What we can be sure of, as I wrote in my last post, is that the hand of the federal government in the form of Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security is obvious. What we should mourn is that city, county, and state officials are ready at all times to use government-sanctioned violence - and that multiethnic liberal Democrats are just as ready to use that violence as conservative white-male Republicans.

Will the model for the United States be Egypt, where violence escalates on all sides, or Greece, where the government tries to pretend the shuffling of parties for an "acceptable" government for the EU actually matters, even as the street explodes and Greece becomes ungovernable? In either event, the bickering between Republicans and Democrats matters as little as the ruminations of the "supercommittee" on the deficit. Maybe if Repubs and Dems could both be on a Supercommittee, members of Occupy and Tea Party could both be on a SuperLynchMob, with pitchforks and torches at the ready. Because it sure looks like there is little worth saving in government as we know it.

Let's make a simple statement here: Now that Forbes magazine itself (the Voice of Capitalism in its most conservative form) has come out against the use of heavy-handed tactics nationwide, I think it's safe to say that if you believe in the methods used for Occupy takedown, you are simply wrong. It's nice to live in a country of freedoms where you have the right to be wrong, but never doubt that you are flat-assed wrong. And speaking of never doubting....

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead