Changing the status quo

I encourage you to watch at least the first part of this video before reading the rest of this entry, just to get an idea of where I'm coming from.

Am I the only one who somehow feels that things are going to get ugly surrounding the OWS protests, and soon?

I think that the actions of police are deplorable in any event, but more and more so excessive force is being used against otherwise nonviolent protesters without provocation. In the video above, that was pepper spray on students on the ground. In Oakland, it was rubber bullets and teargas canisters. In NYC, the police forcibly removed the protesters and prevented entry into the park. Police have pepper sprayed an 80-something year old woman - clearly she was a threat to the police. In none of these situations had the protesters become violent. If a protester attacks police, throws things, etc, then arrest them. For a ring of students with linked arms on the ground - that hardly justifies a police response, never mind macing those students in the face.

Now, I'm not saying that the protesters don't have their own things to answer for. Some of them have definitely gotten out of hand. Unrelated to OWS, the riots at Penn State surrounding Joe Paterno's firing is an excellent example of 'getting out of hand', and the protesters themselves taking it too far.

That said, I see a lot of the wrongdoing on the part of police here. All over the nation, Police have begun using excessive force - even outright violence - to quell protests. In every video I've seen, and the above is a perfect example, I have yet to see anything that presented the need for such responses.

When the NYC protesters were evicted from the park, there was enough evidence to say that Mayor Bloomberg evicted them solely to save face politically - and that he had delayed to that point for the same reason. The reason for the eviction of 'fire hazards' to me seemed shaky at best, and when the protesters were barred from returning (and later told that they could return, though not stay overnight), the whole move reeked of political BS. Perhaps there was a fire hazard - but it was at best a thinly veiled response to justify evicting the protesters in the hope that they'd go home and the OWS movement would die out.

It's things like this that make the OWS movement's point - that there are a few very rich, very powerful individuals in this country, and they will go to the ends of the earth to hold on to that power.

I personally feel that the public sentiment is quickly growing towards distrust of authority and of the government. The rapid dissemination of events surrounding OWS protests, and the events occurring at those protests, is only making it obvious to the public at large that there's something bigger than the picture on the screen here. The police are becoming needlessly violent towards protesters who otherwise are not. The actions of police are doing nothing to quell public unrest. If anything, they act to make the waves bigger and bigger, until they eventually will spill over.

I do honestly wonder how long it will be - and what form the catalyst will take - that the nonviolent protests to erupt into something far less pleasant. Hopefully it does not reach that point - but with the government and large corporations unwilling to back down, and the protesters ranks only growing - it certainly will not be getting any quieter.

Onwards and Upwards!

So, thanks to a random spurt of link clicking, I discovered that Blogspot is actually tied into Google. While I pride myself on being technically literate (sometimes too much so), I somehow missed this one. As much as using yet another google product makes me more their slave, I for one welcome our new overlord.

I've tried using Tumblr for my blogging endeavors in the past, but it is definitely more suited to very short posts, and seems to have a target audience that I definitely do not fall into. After reading the blog of the same person that led me here, Blogspot/Blogger definitely seems to be a bit more well suited, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

At the moment, I'm figuring I'll use this to share my thoughts on topics (but what blogger doesn't?), as well as to chronicle my (mis)adventures in applying to grad school. The grad school stuff, as it stands, will have to be its own post though, and that will have to wait until after I'm done procrastinating studying for this test.

So, I suppose I should start studying so I get get back to procrastinating sooner. Until then!