Having coffee yesterday morning with her Hayastantsi friend, Marash Girl was interrupted by a telephone call from New York City. It was Marash Girl's son, calling her attention to the alarming treatment of the Occupy Boston protestors by the Boston Police. [Occupy Boston has been camped out at Dewey Square, the beginning of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, opposite South Station for several weeks in support of Occupy Wall Street.] Marash Girl's son read the newspaper report aloud and begged Marash Girl to go in to Boston to report on the situation, but Marash Girl was working yesterday and could not go into Boston. She could, however, read the newspapers and listen to WBUR.
And this is what she learned. 100 Occupy Boston protestors, both young and old, were roughed up by the Boston police as they were being arrested yesterday. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino's response? Menino "agrees" with the protestors on the issues but says they can’t be allowed to “tie up the city.” Marash Girl's son asks, "How is camping in Dewey Square or on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in any way tying up or disrupting the city? If the protesters were blocking the entrance to South Station or the subway entrance or lying in the middle of Atlantic Avenue, I can understand the need to stop such behavior. But sitting in Dewey Square and the Rose Kennedy Greenway in no way ties up the city of Boston. Really, Mr. Mayor . . ."
"The city is protecting grass, not free speech," commented one Occupy Boston protestor.
Marash Girl wonders what Rose Kennedy would have said had she known of the arrests of Occupy Boston protestors as they were exercising their right of free speech, protesting injustice on her Greenway, their tents, clothing, and cameras, thrown into dumpsters.
I hope the local and national media can pay particular attention to this mass arrest. If the protesters were indeed not disrupting the city, then this police action could set a very bad precedence for other 'Occupy' sites around the United States.
ReplyDeleteshe would have said nothing, like she always said.
ReplyDeleteif they legalized grass, they would not have to protect it!
ReplyDeleteoccupy wall street protesters should be marching against the growing fascism of political/economic life in America. if they just did a little reading, it would allow them to focus their protest and be much more effective.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe the authorities would forcibly remove the predominantly peaceful protesters from the square! Horrible. I guess that's what happens in an autocratic, third-world country. Oh, wait -- this happened in Boston.
ReplyDeletein ancient times when gold was the coin of the realm, autocrats debased the coinage by either shaving them (reducing their weight below the stated nominal weight), finally issuing coins that were lead with a gold coating. this allowed them to borrow from their lenders and payback less than what they had borrowed. in other words, they defrauded their creditors and as the coins entered the realm of commerce inflated the cost of goods, because the value of the currency had been degraded. this degradation of the coin of the realm, this pollution of the lifeblood of commerce emboldened the rulers to ever greater fraud, ever greater theft, resulting in the ever lower standard of living of the citizenry, monarchy or empire and the loss of faith in their rulers and their civilization. this crisis of faith always ends badly. this debasement of coinage also occurs in a civilization with a paper currency that is not backed by silver or gold because the temptation is too great for rulers, or governors,to resist the power that is handed to them that a fiat currency provides. if one could speak into existence, say the magic words, utter the right incantation and voila any amount of currency could be created, who could withstand such a great temptation, which is why the prayer goes, ...'lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' what happens over time slowly and not so slowly to a coinage, a currency, can also happen to any thing deemed of value. in our country, the Constitution, the rights proffered thereof,the abiding by which was designed to protect us from each other, from the rich and powerful and the ever greater reach of the ever greater rich and powerful, the greatest entity of which is the faceless government, the bureaucracy,the police hidden behind their protective gear, or the bureaucrat hidden behind his regulations and mounds of paper, worthless paper,iterated strings meant to tie down the creative and those who challenge the status quo of the rich and powerful, suffered the same fate as the coinage of the realm of earlier kingdoms. But, wait, if we look at the coinage of this realm, the US dollar, and the oligarchs,the ruling elite, ensconced in their towers walled in by opaque glass, who glory in their lack of transparency, in their unfettered powers. that sounds fitting, and an awfully familiar description of something close to home. why, of course, it is the Federal Reserve, created in 1913. since that time the us dollar has declined in value by @99%. interestingly, so has the value of our constitution, which under the guise of an 'evolving' and 'live' constitution, has had its protective powers slowly worn away, mites and men hard at work to bring down the pillars of what once was,like currency shaved, until it is no more than the same as lead wrapped in a gold coating. thus, the police, in all their glory, not ours, battling peaceful demonstrators who dare challenge the debasement of their currency and in so doing (wall street and the banks, the bailouts, the massive creation of money to accomplish this, the economy trapping us like the tar pits did the dinosaurs), experience also the debasement of the currency of our constitution.
ReplyDeleteMarko Pasha says....
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anomymous that Rose Kennedy would not have said anything. The Boston historical figure who really would have weighed in was James Michael Curley, the nemesis of Rose Kennedy's father, John Francis (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald.