theJoKell

November 16th, 2011 at 12:47PM

kathrynbegins:

thedailywhat:

Instantly Iconic Photo of the Day: 84-year-old former school teacher Dorli Rainey is helped away from the scene of an Occupy Seattle protest at Westlake Park after being doused with pepper spray.
Rainey was among dozens of protesters hit with the “less-than-lethal agent” after refusing to move from the intersection of 5th Avenue and Pine Street following a march of solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.
Rainey, a longtime presence in local politics, wrote The Stranger an email afterward, saying she stopped by the protest on her way to a public meeting on a transportation issue.
“Knowing that the problems of New York would certainly precipitate action by Occupy Seattle, I thought I better check it out,” she wrote, “especially since only yesterday the City Government made a grandiose gesture to protect free speech.”
Her email continues:

Well free speech does have its limits as I found out as the cops shoved their bicycles into the crowd and simultaneously pepper sprayed the so captured protesters.

She credits an Iraq vet with saving her from being trampled. “In the women’s movement,” she concludes, “there were signs which said: ‘Screw us and we multiply.”
Video of the incident below:

[seattlepi / slog.]

Yep. All a buncha hippies with no idea what they’re protesting. Uh huh.

I don’t agree that the crowd is “hippies” at all - dunno where Shane got that from (I think he was just trying to be funny?). And I didn’t say they don’t know WHAT they’re protesting, just that they don’t seem to have a consistent message. A lot of the protesters make some great points about corporatism and the amount of power lobbyists have in congress, and I agree wholeheartedly. And then there are the protesters who say college should be free and that all college debt should be forgiven, and I wonder if they have ever set foot in the real world. It makes it hard to get behind the entire movement when a portion of the group’s message is shockingly ignorant (even if it’s only a small portion).
I think it’s appalling what happened to the woman above for simply exercising her right to free speech. But the question I have is, who pepper sprayed the crowd and initiated violence: the 1% or the government?

thedailywhat:

Instantly Iconic Photo of the Day: 84-year-old former school teacher Dorli Rainey is helped away from the scene of an Occupy Seattle protest at Westlake Park after being doused with pepper spray.

Rainey was among dozens of protesters hit with the “less-than-lethal agent” after refusing to move from the intersection of 5th Avenue and Pine Street following a march of solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.

Rainey, a longtime presence in local politics, wrote The Stranger an email afterward, saying she stopped by the protest on her way to a public meeting on a transportation issue.

“Knowing that the problems of New York would certainly precipitate action by Occupy Seattle, I thought I better check it out,” she wrote, “especially since only yesterday the City Government made a grandiose gesture to protect free speech.”

Her email continues:

Well free speech does have its limits as I found out as the cops shoved their bicycles into the crowd and simultaneously pepper sprayed the so captured protesters.

She credits an Iraq vet with saving her from being trampled. “In the women’s movement,” she concludes, “there were signs which said: ‘Screw us and we multiply.”

Video of the incident below:

[seattlepi / slog.]

Yep. All a buncha hippies with no idea what they’re protesting. Uh huh.

I don’t agree that the crowd is “hippies” at all - dunno where Shane got that from (I think he was just trying to be funny?). And I didn’t say they don’t know WHAT they’re protesting, just that they don’t seem to have a consistent message. A lot of the protesters make some great points about corporatism and the amount of power lobbyists have in congress, and I agree wholeheartedly. And then there are the protesters who say college should be free and that all college debt should be forgiven, and I wonder if they have ever set foot in the real world. It makes it hard to get behind the entire movement when a portion of the group’s message is shockingly ignorant (even if it’s only a small portion).

I think it’s appalling what happened to the woman above for simply exercising her right to free speech. But the question I have is, who pepper sprayed the crowd and initiated violence: the 1% or the government?