OWS is the Hope of the Future.
We MUST protect that Hope.
We MUST protect OWS. And OWS must also protect itself by remaining non-violent and learning to curb those who are agent provocateurs or extremists in its ranks from provoking violence.
Several Police Departments (as servants of the 1%, no doubt,) are trying to CRUSH dissent through torture and inhumane treatment, without regard to the First Amendment Rights of our citizens.
We MUST fight back to protect the First Amendment Rights of all of us. And we MUST be SEEN to be fighting back.
I ask OWS how can we set up a fund to support our lawyers and organizations to fight back against this inhumanity that is happening to our protestors?
Even though there is no central hierarchy in OWS, that does not mean that we cannot form a central fund which can be ready, like the Minute Men of old, to support legal representation to show up in court as soon as protestors are denied their rights?
I ask the lawyers and others on this site, is this viable? Would this help? How can it be done?
I feel an enormous amount of rage and frustration when I read at how our brothers and sisters who are protesting on our behalf have been brutalized. And how this is intended to intimidate others from expressing their First Amendment Rights.
The Plutocrats and Religious Reich, who together are trying to takeover this country and its people, reducing them to feudal serfs and members of a fundamentalist Borg where all rights are held by the fanatic zealots and the 1% (often the same people,) know that OWS is one of their greatest enemies to their coup of this country. To wit, OWS dramatically changed the priorities of this election year from tax cuts and reducing the deficit to jobs and the criminality of Wall Street, among other things.
And it comes as no surprise that the 1% are trying to shut down OWS Protests with every means at their disposal. That includes using their Police Departments in intimidation, violence, detention, brutality and utter contempt of a citizen of the United States exercising their First Amendment rights to protest.
We must not let them crush OWS as the various Police Departments (e.g. Oakland, New York, etc.) and Mayors (here's looking at you Quan and Bloomberg,) are trying with their use of their stormtroopers. All of this is directly aimed at intimidating others not to join the next protest. All is aimed at crushing OWS and future dissent in this country.
We have to fight back hard and we must be seen fighting back. If we give them an inch they will take a mile. (Not that they haven't already.)
Would it help if we set up a structure that is nationally known so that we can get as much financial contributions and backing as possible to support our fight for freedom in the courts, and if need be, in Congress itself? Without a centralized website, it is difficult to know where to contribute to the protection of the movement.
We can donate to the ACLU and the National Lawyer's Guild. Is that enough? Do we need to coordinate our fundraising efforts in some kind of clearing house, so that we can effectively fight back? Please tell me what you think. After the latest Oakland outrage, I want to contribute to a legal fund, but don't know how to go about it, and I can assume that others would not know how to go about it either. But I also want to contribute to a fund that will protect protestors not only from yesterday's outrages, but also from tomorrows.
Lawyers on this site and those in OWS, please inform us. Those on this site who are adept at this type of organizing, please help.
HOWEVER we do it, we must protect OWS and our right to Protest.