Not to worry, the Turks will just get their DNA.

I'm really enjoying Ansel's upaid blog blasts. I'm an old fart who's desensitized to this kind of hypocrisy and I don't even notice it half the time. Nice to be reminded that a bad thing--crushing peaceful citizen protests--is bad, even if it's standard practice.

Didn't Occupy come pre-crushed?

@3

Not quite, it took a couple months to dismantle itself using its own ideas.

And unlike the leaders of Turkish cities, mayors in the US for the most part had the sense to wait until the Occupy encampments had lost the bulk of their initial public support, before ordering the police to take down the tents.

The occupy ground didn't have permits to live in those park indefinitely. We do have rights in this country, but we also have limitations.

Man every time I read unpaid intern's posts I get the same picture in my head. White kid from an affluent family who like to "fight the man" because its cool, and gets a hard on from bashing the US.

#5 Yes and no. Presumably, the State Department is speaking for the US through the Obama administration. So presumably Obama supports and ok'd the State Department's condemnation of the crack-down. If so then, where was Obama during the crack-down of the Occupy Wall Street protests? I don't recall any words of support from him regarding the Occupy movement, nor do I recall him saying anything about the crackdowns. I expect if he said anything about them at all, it was a 'Good job, what took you so long?' to local authorities.

@10

Unpaid Intern just hates our freedoms, and our way of life!

@5: That crushing was coordinated by the United States Government. One of the reports I read indicated that they were even making efforts to avoid showing their involvement. Look into PCJF's and CMD's reports for more.

Oh, but that was altogether different! We're us, they're them, not the same thing, man!

@3 Look, we can't help it if our society has been brainwashed to believe that the only possible way to structure social interactions is a hierarchical bureaucracy, and it takes a while to unlearn. From the looks of things, there's going to be another wave of democratic unrest soon that you can come up with new and exciting excuses not to participate in. Just sit tight... and keep sitting.

@4

Our society might be a little less brainwashed than you think-- perhaps the people (the ones you seem to think so little of) watched you try to live in prefigurative, borderless, horizontal societies for a couple of months, and then shook their heads and said, "OK, that is just not going to work at all."

But by all means, go right back to the sexy "revolution" part again, and don't bother with any of that dull "build support for your way of living in the larger society around you" stuff that successful revolutions always seem to waste so much time on before they finally get around to the fun part.

Er, @15, I meant. Doy.

I'm sorry, unpaid intern, but have you actually looked at any of the news coverage out of Turkey? Because you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to make this comparison. Seriously. Get the fuck out of journalism now, you are hurting it very badly.