Occupy isn't dedicated to nonviolence. Some of them are. Some of them aren't.

Does anyone remember when you used to be able to tell the difference between the police and the military?

America is a police state. Game over. All those jokes about where are your papers, all those jokes about not being able to say things without the government making some kind of profile of you and locking you up over christmas because you participated in a protest? We are THAT kind of a country now. You are not safe from the government, you cannot be safe from anything.

That which we claimed to have fought so hard has planted it's seed deep into the mindset of our corrupt politicians. In this police state you have the right to be assaulted, you have the right to take it, and the next time you get the bright idea to have an opinion and try to back it up with an action we'll send you in a jail cell where you belong.

I'd frankly feel safer in China right now. That's only cause I'd be super rich there, but there are a lot of my friends taking it to heart and trying to find employment there. While totally oppressive to their own people, as a rich foreigner you can pretty much get away with mass murder.

P.S. We're all fucked.

Goldy, please. I agree with you more oftem than not, but there have been instances of Occupiers attacking police officers. Better safe than sorry. Making issues of stuff like this just discredits your opinion. You need to think through a situation from both sides more often.

Often, it's a new spelling.

"Riot gear" implies defensive gear to me (armour, shields, helmets, etc.). Just be glad, you fuckin' puss-puss, that they did not show up in SWAT gear with armaments to match.

OHH, SCARY COSTUME!

What 4 said better to be safe than sorry

His point is that the police response is overkill, and exacerbates the situation. Looking into the instances of when Occupiers attack the police, and if they're related to police tactics, would be very interesting...

You can't blame the cops for wanting to wear their new outfits. Although I must say, the amount of penis deficiency compensation that goes on in the police and military is unseemly. No wonder their divorce and domestic violence rates are so high.

You know, if the occupiers got real about civil disobedience, they wouldn't be shocked or provoked or anything by this.

Goldy, how much time have you spent studying civil disobedience? What do you know about it? Serious, non-rhetorical questions here.

The video clips sponsored by the 1% will not be as convincing in their portrayal of the occupyers as brutal, vicious, commie-fascist thugs if the Forces of Truth and Justice are not dressed for war.

Oh come on. They dressed defensively, and that's provocation? So now the cop wearing a helmet is asking to get a bottle thrown at his head. Just like the girl in the short skirt is asking to get raped. Come on now. They did their job without violence, without pepper spray or batons or anything else according to the article you posted, so you complain about the fucking clothes they were wearing?

173 cops have been killed this year. I don't blame them even a little bit for wearing riot gear when dealing with a potentially dangerous situation. Sounds to me like they dressed for the occasion, and handled the situation like professionals.

I dont think the protesters fully understand what a police state looks like. A police state would have arrested all 40 people there, beaten them with clubs, detained them for days and removed any audio, video or text reference to what happened.

To continue to cling onto tent cities, is one hilarious joke on the occupy movement. It does nothing but breed drama, because the protesters are incapable of policing their own, which often forces the mayors of these cities to evict them. Were talking liberal mayors across the west coast, all of them reaching out to these protesters and getting nothing but an absolute refusal to compromise. Fuck the occupy movement, worse than the tea party idiots. Both of them honestly think their shit doesn't stink.

To say that I am wrong and you are right, you come off as some scientology looney. Clearly I need to be re-educated, right comrade?

Just couldn't resist reiterating this point: "It's an intentional provocation. By showing up dressed for a violent confrontation, the police are asking for one."

The fucking hypocrisy around here is absurd. Accuse a sexual assault victim of dressing provocatively, and you're (rightly) verbally flayed. But a cop dressing in protective clothing is, somehow, forcing otherwise sensible and nonviolent people into acting like assholes? You think it takes a cop wearing body armor to send some nutjob off the deep end?

Please. You want to point out the many, many times cops do abuse their positions and power, fine. You want to talk about the distressing rise in using pepper spray in unwarranted situations, fine. That's all true and needs to be addressed. But if you're going to do that you should at least have the goddamn intellectual honesty to acknowledge when they do their job well and without incident. They did the job that was in front of them and, by what the article says, did it well. That should be exactly what you want them to do. They didn't hurt anybody, didn't harass anyone, and only arrested the people who refused to obey a lawful order. What's going to be the next complaint, that they showed up at all?

Well, yes, now that I think about it, I expect it is. And this is why I hate the Occupy bullshit, no matter how righteous some of their goals. Because it's all or nothing. As an organization they've got the clarity of purpose and complete lack of understanding of modern society shared by communists and libertarians.

Beware the revolution. It's only going to come around again; that's why it's called a revolution.

you all bought that gear when bush had the credit card. don't you want it used instead of moldering away? should they just sell it to syria or something?

@18 - "I dont think the protesters fully understand what a police state looks like. A police state would have arrested all 40 people there, beaten them with clubs, detained them for days and removed any audio, video or text reference to what happened." You mean like in Oakland, Davis, LA, New York, and Berkeley, or in Minneapolis in '08? Of course tent cities breeds drama. The point of protest is drama. I get your point though; Bellingham is no Pinochet's Argentina. But should that be the benchmark?

@ 21, that's rather dickish of you. The occupiers may be more whiny and entitled than is good for them or the movement, but Christ, man...

That said, I don't think they've "raised awareness" of those issues so much as they've crystalized it. That's huge, but OWS needs to seriously think about next steps if that's going to do this country any concrete good. I'm thinking Civil Rights playbook (marches, voter registration, political activism, become influential in the Democratic Party), not antiwar movement playbook (occupations, rioting, police clashes).

@ 23, it wasn't @ 18 who made the police state comparison, so that "benchmark" comment shouldn't be directed at him.

@ 18 is right. This isn't anywhere near being a police state, and it's an insult the the memory of millions of real police state victims to call it that. American police cross the constitutional line all the time and should be called out for that, but hyperbole and exaggeration don't serve the cause at all. The whole truth can do that well enough.

The video was pretty well done. It was interesting that they used the people's mic technique to group-shout at the police. My favorite of their shouts was "you're not being patient enough!"

That video is fucking disgusting. Militarized cops pushing around peaceful (and largely middle-aged) protestors in a public park. What a disgusting display. Kudos to the Bellingham Herald for being there to document it.

@23 "Of course tent cities breeds drama. The point of protest is drama. "

Are you sure? At first it was about tax inequality, corperate personhood and a few other things almost everyone objects to. Then it became about tent cities and as people at home watched the drama unfold on TV, the main message was lost, only for the protesters to claim that was the plan all along.

Security theater at its finest. Clear out the park so that other citizens can use it (they were never barred from using it in the first place) and then fence off the entire area so that NOBODY can use it. And in the end, the only ones who look bad are Mayor Pike and his thugs.

Oy vey Goldy.

Police should never wear full riot gear after Labor Day.

I agree completely, Goldy.

I'd love to see the Occupiers roll out to meet the cops, all dressed in colorful, festive clown costumes. Not ICP so much as balloon animal-making clowns, water-spraying lapel flower clowns...sort of the anti-matter, alternaverse answer to the police and their Violent Clowns performances.

First off, the city parks were not intended, or equipped to be campgrounds. There is no right to do so. Next, the police don't know who is in the crowd, and they can't predict what they are going to do. Protesters threw rocks, and metal objects at police officers during the attempted port shutdown. Also, looking intimidating is an essential and standard element of crowd control psychology.

In the video, the removal of the camp looked peaceful on both sides. There's even laughing, and happy chatter among the protesters in the background. If what the officers wore is your central complaint, then you've lost the average Joe's sympathies.

I'm long done giving a fuck about this stupid movement. Out with them.

What NateMan @ 19 said. Goldy, how can you say your post is any different from somebody saying a woman is "asking for trouble" by dressing "sexy"? Will anyone at The Stranger call you out on this?

Well, Goldy was just asking for trouble baiting us by dressing his argument so scantily.

Luke 6:31
Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Personally, I've always been a fan of the Golden Rule. Perhaps that makes me more Christian than the rest of you.

Dear Goldy,
... That has got to be the most retarded logic I've ever heard for anything ever. Not to mention has absolutely nothing to do with this particular situation.

In fact, it makes me have to ask... What did the cops DO to anyone in this story, other than their job?

Goldy @ 46: Tortured logic, meet thy creator.

@ 46, what @ 50 said. Nobody is "doing" anything here except arguing. So much for being more of a golden rule person than me.

If you meant the cops should do unto the protesters as the protesters do unto them, that would be a scene for the theater of the absurd.

I notice that you can't answer my questions @ 15. That's typical of people who don't know what they're talking about.

@19, 43, 46:
Assuming that a phalanx of armed men and women in full battle dress advancing on unprotected protestors peacefully exercising their civil rights is in fact threatening is analogous to assuming a revealingly dressed woman is asking to be raped? Speak of tortured logic.

@53: no, the idea that the way they were dressed somehow invited violence is the same as saying a provocatively dressed woman somehow invites rape was the point. Since when is dress code incitement to riot? And since when are cops supposed to dress in shorts and rainbow emblazoned t-shirts? Riot gear is for in case there's a riot. It doesn't start one any more than wearing pink makes boys gay or short skirts cause us otherwise sane men to become frothing rapists, and you and Goldy both know it. You just happen to be like every other ''Yeah, right!'-er out there who needs the enemy to be evil rather than just doing their job or of a differing opinion.

The cops did what they were paid to do without hurting anyone. If you want to be outraged, find a better excuse than their damned attire.