#85: Whether or not the mayors of each of the cities with an Occupy encampment are "liberal", has often had little or nothing to do with whether the encampments have been raided or not, and how the protesters have been treated. The mayors of Oakland and Portland are generally considered liberal, after a fashion, but those are two cities where the beatdown of protesters has been among the worst. And I don't know how to characterize Republican NYC mayor Bloomberg, though some people may call him a liberal Republican (sometimes)--either way, he doesn't fit your picture of things either, because NYC's Occupy protesters have been treated pretty roughly too, and he has spoken out against them regularly. Can you actually name any particular city which has a "liberal" mayor, who has treated its Occupy encampment well, shepherding them with a "careful eye"? There may be one or more, but I haven't been following that aspect, so I don't know. I don't really know what you expect to gain by making an argument on this particular point, when the facts are so obviously counter to what you're saying about it.

As for civil disobedience "requiring" there to be actual opposition from the governing authority: valid civil disobedience can be practiced against ANY authority, whether it's federal, state, local, a business, a law, etc.--it's never been defined as being legitimate only if it's against a particular authority, and with particular risks involved. In this case, the general authorities being opposed are those responsible for income inequality, both in business and in government; and the specific authorities being directly encountered, who are responsible for the beatdown, are the mayors, city councils, police departments, etc. of many of the cities where an Occupy camp is located. It doesn't matter if the specific authorities actually doing the enforcement are different from the ones who are more generally being opposed, when there are still beatings and chemical attacks involved. Both the economic problems the US is facing, and the on-the-street attacks, which are attacks against one valid form of freedom of speech, are actual risk, and these are being opposed.