Recovering from surgery wasn’t my way I wanted to spend my supposed vacation, but, as my grandmother used to say about getting older, “it beats the alternative.” Anyway, I’m not really in shape to go to rallies, but I still can blog about them. Let’s start with Ed at Gin and Tacos for some context:

Pick any strike, movement, or protest against the entrenched power structure and you’ll see the police (or National Guard) are not intermediaries or keepers-of-peace, but aggressive defenders of the status quo. It’s their job. Literally.

This is why “Occupy Wall Street” protesters, as non-threatening and disjointed a bunch of disaffected people as you’re likely to find, are subjected to the same “pincering” tactics the NYPD (Our heroes! 9-11! Flags!) made so popular during the 2004 Republican Convention. You know, permit the protesters to enter an area, close off the entrance/exit, and then arrest all of them. That’s what happened during all those Tea Party circle jerks, the ones we were told had hundreds of thousands in attendance, right? No, the guy waving the “WE CAME UNARMED…THIS TIME!” sign has nothing to fear from the police. It’s the person with the “Why does 1% have all the wealth?” sign that ends up cuffed, in a van, and squinting through pepper spray.

In this instance, it isn’t an oversimplification to point out that this says all you need to know about our country.

Fortunately, WE HAZ INTERNETZ! and can get some messages out. Here’s John Samuelsen of TWU local 100:

And, by way of Digby, here’s how you hit back at Fox (seriously, this guy floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee):

Admittedly, these guys are from the Northeast, and are, therefore, not ‘real’ Americans, but I like this.