Deplorable

 "I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere." -- Barack Obama, Jan. 28, 2011.

Q: On another domestic matter, does the president have any reaction to the way the Occupy Wall Street protesters were removed, how that was handled? 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: He’s aware of it, obviously, from the reports. And our position and the president’s position is that obviously every municipality has to make its own decisions about how to handle these issues, and we would hope and want, as these decisions are made, that it balances between a long tradition of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in this country and obviously of demonstrating and protesting, and also the very important need to maintain law and order and health and safety standards, which was obviously a concern in this case. -- Pool report from Aboard Air Force One, President's Australia trip, Nov. 16, 2011.

From Bloomberg's mouth to Carney's lips... or from Homeland Security/Justice Dept. to America's mayors  to Carney's lips to conventional wisdom as practiced by the stenographers of the corporate media.

Whatever happened to the American practice of sanctimoniously "condemning" or "deploring" violent government crackdowns on peaceful citizens? I Googled "Hillary Clinton deplores" and got a quarter-million hits. A sampling of the headlines:

Clinton Deplores Syrian Crackdown, Urges Govt Reforms.... Sec. Clinton Says U.S. Deplores Violence in Equador.... Clinton Deplores Iran's Actions....  Clinton Deplores Bahrain Violence, Wants Reform.

And when it comes to the United States going whole hog and actually condemning another country's undemocratic actions, I hit the jackpot: more than 9 million Google hits.  We've condemned the alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador, Sudan's attacks on refugee camps and the violent crackdowns in Bahrain, to name just a few. We have even condemned UNESCO's pro-Palestine vote.

But so far, not one federal official has deplored, condemned, expressed chagrin, outrage, regret or shock over the epidemic outbreak of police brutality against Occupy protesters this week. If nothing else, the apparently orchestrated attacks have shown how much cop couture has changed in recent years. Blue shirts and badges have been replaced by the Darth Vader collection. The police have morphed from protectors and public servants to a paramilitary force replete with high tech weaponry left over from the forever wars.


 The coldly sadistic pepper-spraying by a campus cop against students in California on Friday is only the latest example. These were the school police, for crying out loud, whose job description used to be making sure the dorms were locked up at night and students didn't jaywalk or park illegally. Regarding this latest incident, the most common phrases popping up via Google are "UC-Davis Calls for Investigation" and "Chancellor Refuses to Resign". The verb of choice is "probe", and the noun du jour is "task force." The best description of the attack the school's chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi, could come up with was a cold one -- "chilling." No disgust, no outrage --or, heaven forbid, condemnation. The chancellor is giving herself 90 days to come up with a whitewash, and the cop and his complicit pals still have their jobs.

James Fallows of The Atlantic has a good rundown and more photos here.

Photo by Wayne Tilcock, The Davis Enterprise

It has now gotten so bad that a former poet laureate of the United States has been beaten up by police for merely showing up at a Berkeley Occupy rally. Read his account in The New York Times. These uniformed thugs have obviously received more training than your run-of-the-mill police academy could ever have provided.