Peaceful Portland protester beaten into critical condition by cops while lying on the ground.

[kpete]

ALERT! A man named Justin James Bridges, musician & ASL translator for Occupy Portland General Assembly, was assaulted by @PortlandPolice today during camp clean out.

He was beaten repeatedly in the back and has now lost use of his right arm. Though Justin was lying on the ground in compliance, Portland Police continuously beat him in the back with clubs until his eyes rolled back in his head. Fellow protesters thought he was dead. He is now in critical care.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION, ESPECIALLY PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE, DO NOT HESITATE TO COME FORWARD.
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http://www.twitlonger.com/show/e63e9b

[JanMichael]

1. Good god. That's sick.

I think it's starting to be time to have a rational discussion on self defense for OWS people. There are ways to use similar tactics in a defensive mode when attacked.

[NightWatcher]

2. how long before the "non violent" part of the protest wears off?

If there are 1000 protesters and 20 cops, why do they let the cops wail on the people like that?

Stand up for yourselves, people

[RufusTFirefly]

3. Are you serious?

Yeah, Martin Luther King should've beaten the shit out of those cracker cops. That would've gone over really well.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. Because then you're playing by their rules and they win.

Peaceful protest, along with the unfortunately sick and twisted incidents like this, serves to highlight the brutality of the authorities. This is one of the reasons why the protests in India were eventually successful. British citizens recoiled at the exposure that their so-called civilized society was anything but. When the British Empire was revealed as the Brutish Empire, the cause of Indian independence made tremendous strides.

[KurtNYC]

10. you don't get it

non violence works

[Doctor_J]

5. You had to know this was coming

and it will increase. If Occupy had no plans to deal with violent opposition, they were doomed to fail from the outset.

[mmonk]

6. Gandhi had a plan.

[JanMichael]

7. That was a conflict of nationalism & colonization; not much of a revolution...

...but an attempt to remove the UK from occupying India. The rich generally remained rich and the poor generally remained poor.

I do not see OWS as akin a fight against the UK in the 20th century or a fight to remove a foreign occupier.

[Doctor_J]

8. No, but it makes for good sound bites and bromides

My view is that at some point we will have to fight back.

[mmonk]

11. MLK used non violence as well.

How far would he have gotten using violence?

[JanMichael]

12. We were talking about MKG not MLK.

Different issues and different battles for different reasons.

MLK was a mild lefty (which most "leftists" are in this country) but the reality is that he just wanted those who were intentionally disenfranchised to have the opportunity to grab bigger slices of the economic pie and to not get beat the hell up by cops and dogs.

Voting on its own as a panacea (cure all) is a joke - Hellen Keller had some comments on that during the Suffragist Movement in the teens.

[Lizzie Poppet]

9. Contrast that w/ the actions of the protesters:

When some jackhole chucked a bottle and badly injured one of the cops, the protesters shoved the guy out of the crowd and towards the cops so that he could be arrested. They made it clear that they found violence completely unacceptable.

http://www.kgw.com/news/local/1-officer-hurt--1-arrest-in-Occupy-Portland-eviction-133769313.html

Still, I find myself in agreement with several posters in the thread: if the police are going to be unreasonably violent, then protesters have to consider employing reasonable means of self-defense.