Wall Street Protests

[JOKA_]

richardhutnik said:
Darn shame the police don't bother to video record anything they do or the incident or whatever.

Anyhow, if anyone is reading this here, who isn't really taking sides, let me know if you can seen ANY place there would be a chance to reach any common ground here? I am not seeing any of it. I swear, if something like Kent state happened with regards to Occupy, people would say the shooting was justified by the police.

I also suggest people look at that video, and count how far away they are from the barricade. Go look at it. Seriously, look at it. I look at it several times and the crowd was feet away from it. Be interesting if anyone there could actually jump the fence.

Hate to say this, but I don't see any way any conversation can take place here. If people can't even look at a video, showing an entire incident and even agree to what the basics of reality are, and can try to justify a grenade being thrown in a crowd of people who were surrounded someone downed, then how can any discussion even take place? If anyone has any idea, let me know. I just don't see it. And the grenade was thrown after the people surrounded, not while they were rushing. Seriously?

I will say, if there isn't a chance to reach any common ground, things ARE lost here. This trend continues, the use of lethal force and corpses in the street will be seen as justified. Just keep on thinking the other side is more and more evil. It will happen. And in that, people will grow content with a police state that fatally enforces rules. And people protesting will be seen as wrong, because you know, the violence against them by the state only shows that they are in the wrong.

And that is the game. Apparently zero interest in reaching any sort of common ground. Oh well, carry on.

I've posted a few times in here, but I haven't posted anything significant because I really don't know much about this stuff.  However if pressed I would have to say that I am on the side of Kasz/Happysquirrel/badgenome. 

Any, to what you have in bold, I can't possibly see how you can consider that an entire incident.  The video starts with the dude on the ground.  We have no idea what happened before that.  It could have been a) The protestors were being calm and following rules and the police attacked them brutally and without warrant, or b) the protestors were getting out of hand and the police did what they thought was appropriate.  I have no idea what happened, no one does except for those who are there, but for some reason you are automatically assuming its a, when it just as likely could have been b.

If I went up to a stranger and started beating them in the face, and then turned on a camera right before they retaliated against me, it would just look like some enraged dude is attacking an innocent man with a camera. 

To sum it up, I try to get both sides of the story before I can really put together a well informed opinion, but with all of these videos we are only getting the OWS side of the story.  If it turns out that the police are being complete out of line assholes, then so be it and they should get fired/arrested, but until the full story comes out, everyone is just making assumptions.

 

EDIT: And what do you know, as Kasz pointed out below, the protestors were throwing rocks and firecrackers at the police before the video starts, so it looks like it was option b.