I've listened to the stories of my parents, who marched against the Vietnam War. I've heard them explain – always with agitated tones and a quickened pace – how they were met with brutal police force while marching peacefully. Of the billy clubs and tear gas and beatings.
I know about Kent State. The 1968 DNC Convention in Chicago. Tompkins Square Park.
But until last night, until I witnessed with my own eyes what happened in Oakland, I did not truly understand them.
Yes, I knew, intellectually, that this country could systematically – on a grand scale – eschew the principles of liberty to protect the existing power structures. I knew, intellectually, that politicians and police forces could turn away from the Constitution in order to restore the perceived order of things. To protect those in power.
However, after seeing this image, I know understand these facts emotionally, at my core:
Scott Olsen, an Iraq veteran now in serious condition with a fractured skull after being hit by a police projectile in last night's peaceful Occupy Oakland march.
For the first image that surfaced in my mind, seeing Scott on the ground as others hovered over him, was this:
Kent State students gather over a man shot by the Ohio National Guard.
And I also thought immediately of this:
John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller after he was shot by the Ohio National Guard.
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Obviously, when I say that Occupy Wall Street is becoming my generation's Vietnam War (I'm in my mid-30s), I'm not referring to the war itself.
I'm referring to the anti-war protests of that era and the extreme police brutality that such protests were met with on a constant basis.
I'm referring to the fact that we have not seen in this country, since the anti-war protests of the late 60s and early 70s, such a large scale movement threatening the existing powers.
And I'm referring to the unsettling reverberations. Of the police beatings, tear gas, rubber bullets and mass arrests. Of the brutal – and unconstitutional – ways in which peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters are being treated. Of the liberties being stripped. Of the lives potentially now being taken by the police in Oakland.
No, live fire has not been used. But should that really be the rubric for determining whether or not things have gotten – or are getting – as bad as they did in the anti-war protests of my parents' generation?
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My parents were fighting against a foreign policy agenda, against a war in which their friends were being sent to fight a foreign entity for shady reasons.
We are fighting against a domestic policy agenda, against a war in which our country's richest elite – in conjunction with the politicians they've bought – are waging an economic war against Americans.
Occupy Wall Street across this nation has been incredibly peaceful. It has been wildly inspiring. And it has struck fear in the hearts of our leaders at the city, state and even federal levels.
And that fear is now producing scenes that look like this:
And this:
And this:
It's been happening across our country. New York. Atlanta. Chicago. Seattle. Boston. Citizens being denied their right to peacefully assemble to air their grievances, sometimes paying the price of arrest or beatings.
But Oakland has created a shift. With tear gas in the air, concussion grenades falling and rubber bullets flying, the responses to Occupy Wall Street are approaching the panicked, inhumane responses my parents saw when they marched.
This is my generation's Vietnam War. And if the protests of my parents' generation tells me anything, it is this: Occupy Wall Street will not be ending anytime soon.
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