EDGEWATER -- You know that old adage about history repeating itself? Well, I feel like it is “déjà vu all over again” as Yogi Bera would say, with the Occupy Wall Street protests.
The video to the left shows recent protesters of the movment Occupy Wall Street. The middle video recalls the May 4, 1970, slayings of four students on the Ohio campus of Kent State University. The video to the right has the song "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young with lyrics below it by Neil Young who wrote it. The song peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard charts.
Many of you remember the young people of this country protesting the war in Viet Nam. They tried to do so peacefully with signs, marches, songs and letting themselves be dragged off to jail without resistance ala Martin Luther King’s teachings.
They gathered in small and large groups to make their feelings known. However, their anti-violence stance was violated by government trying to quash them as was the case with the four student protestors killed on the campus of Kent State University in 1970. I see the same thing happening again all over this country with the anti-Wall Street (99%) movement sit-ins.
The protestors little city that had sprung up in New York city looked very much like Woodstock minus the stage with bands playing.
They were organized into a tent city with areas for dining, sleeping, a reading in a space filled with donated books and even a compost area. The biggest difference with this movement is that it is comprised of not just young people but people of all ages and walks of life.
It saddens me that we have come to a place where again our government is not listening to us and we have to take to the streets to get our point across.
It saddens me that we have come to a place where again our government is not listening to us and we have to take to the streets to get our point across.
Recently, I watched police trying to remove the protestors saying the area was unsanitary and there was violence on both sides. The protestors cleaned up the space and negated that argument but no doubt more reasons to displace them are to come and more violence will ensue. I just pray no one dies this time.
As I watch the coverage on television news programs and see how the movement is spreading from coast to coast, I can see history on its way to repeating itself and it scares me even more so since an Iraq veteran was hospitalized with a skull fracture and a picture of an 84-year-old woman sprayed in the face with pepper spray has been circulating on the internet due to police trying to “clear the area.”
The soldier did nothing to deserve the beating he took and I highly doubt the 84-year-old attacked a police officer and provoked him into pepper spraying her entire face. If this country is anyone’s, it is the soldier’s and those of the other military who laid their lives on the line to make sure we stay free and able to peacefully protest.
When the elderly start taking to the streets in protest, which is against everything they were brought up to believe, it is a sure sign that there is something very wrong with our government and they are not listening to their constituents. The escalating violence is coming from the politico’s and their henchmen, the police, not the protesters.
The mainstream media naturally make it look as though protestors started the whole thing but they were minding their own business when police were ordered to clear them from the areas and they did not do it calmly and non violently.
The mainstream media naturally make it look as though protestors started the whole thing but they were minding their own business when police were ordered to clear them from the areas and they did not do it calmly and non violently.
I guess they figured just their presence would make the protestors fold their tents and go away because they are the “authority” and what they say is law.
That is not always true and the protestors know it.
The violence is coming from those who deal with violence daily and assume everyone is a felon. Here it goes again, just like in the past.
Many pundits say these people don’t have a sense of purpose and can’t tell you what they want just that they are angry. I disagree. They want what all Americans do; jobs and a decent life and more of a balance in the economics of their country.
I can’t help but agree that huge corporations should not have millions in profits while they raise rates for their services. As one man said, we bailed them out with our tax dollars, when is it our turn to be bailed out?
I am not going to argue the point here. I just wanted to voice my opinion about what is happening and my fear for the outcome in the long run. If I live another 20 years, I don’t want to be watching the footage of a human tragedy like we now watched as those kids died on their campus grounds.
Please let history not repeat itself with unnecessary violence this time.
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