Occupy

I saw a bunch of people get pepper sprayed on the news.  They were sitting on a green lawn, arms linked, heads bowed like monks in prayer.  I think they knew it was coming, but they didn't flinch.  A police officer in riot gear wielding a red canister casually walked up to the line of protesters and discharged his pepper spray at point blank range into the faces of a dozen of them over and over again until the can was empty.  The protesters just sat there.  They didn't run, didn't squirm, didn't retaliate.  They sat with their heads down breathing in the foul stuff, and they did not give an inch.

I've been having a lot of conversations about the occupy movement recently.  One friend tells me that he thinks the protesters can't all be normal people.  "There are rebellious students out there that just want to protest for the sake of protesting."  Another friend went down to the Occupy Salt Lake headquarters in Pioneer Park.  She brought her husband and daughter with her, but they left after only a few minutes because whoever had the megaphone was using too much profanity, and she didn't want her daughter exposed to that sort of language.  I, myself, haven't been down to the protests.  I heard that a man was found dead last week in SLC from a combination of drugs and asphyxiation.  Apparently, he passed out without turning off the gas heater in his tent. 

I have reasons for writing off the protest.  We all do.  These people seem like fringe members of society.  They're dirty, unshaven, dressed in worn out clothes, sleeping in tents.  I don't care what anyone says, they're not ordinary people.  Also, I have a seven month old son, and the one thing I haven't seen on the news is babies at the protests.  I don't think he'd be safe there.  I'm in solidarity with the movement's ideals, and I think to myself that I don't have to go down there and take up space to support them.  I can do that from my living room or from my desk at work, or here on this blog.

All of my reasons left me when I saw that footage of protesters silently holding on to each other while being viciously assaulted by uniformed police officers.  I felt like crying.  The image brought up so many emotions for me: despair, anger, pride.  I am outraged at the police officers that did this, outraged at the politicians or bureaucrats who gave the order that these people were to be removed from that lawn by force.  I am outraged at what we've been cowed into accepting as normal, that one small group of people with money and influence and power can simply push the rest of us off their land if we inconvenience them, that, for the most part, we take it.  I'm outraged that we let this happen to ourselves, that we let it get to this point. 

That image of protesters refusing to be moved as the police officers spray toxic chemicals directly into their faces sits with me in a way that other images from this movement do not.  It highlights the disparity between those in power and those who have none.  The police officer in the video is dressed in tactical gear, armour.  He is wearing a helmet with a face shield and carrying a weapon.  He moves casually and confidently because he's been trained for just this situation.  And then he sprays them, and I wonder how one person can do that to another, how he can spray those chemicals on them and cause so much pain without batting an eye.

That's what they've done to us, the banks, the corporations, the politicians, those people who've seized power in America.  They've used their money and influence to hurt us, to kill us, to impoverish our lives, and they've done it without a second thought, in the name of profits or power, or because they've deluded themselves into believing that it's for our own good.  We've been at their mercy for so long, and we're helpless in a lot of ways.  They have the weapons and the money and the power.  They have the courts and political system.  They have our jobs and our homes and our land.  They can ruin us, or lock us up if they want, but we cannot touch them.  In so many ways, we are not free. 

Except that those protesters refused to move.  They refused to give in, to go quietly.  They sat and they occupied that lawn.  In the face of violence, they refused to rise.  In the face of power, they did not acquiesce.  In the face of overwhelming odds, they did not give in.

I am forced to conclude that we are powerful, too.  If we can hold on to each other.  If we can hold on.  If we can hold out...  Our government, which is supposed to stick up for us, to protect us, has failed. It is up to us to hold our ground, to occupy, and to keep it up until something changes.  When it is my turn to stand up, I will be there.

I believe things can change. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4