Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

[Bold emphasis by me; underline emphasis is what I perceived in original.]

"This weekend, a few troublemakers turned a peaceful protest against Wall Street greed into a violent burst of chaos. The troublemakers carried pepper spray, and guns, and were wearing badges. [video clip from protest] 'We're not doing anything.' You heard the woman say that as the police were grabbing people for absolutely no reason, crushing them on the pavement, and arresting them. 'We're not doing anyhing.' We will post all of the video that we have on this protest on our blog, and you won't find anyone doing anything that is legal grounds for arrest.

[other video clips and discussion of abuses shown therein, including unwarranted use of pepper spray] [...]

"Everything those cops did this weekend to those protestors, they've done to someone else when there were no video cameras rolling. They've done it, and they've gotten away with it; they know just how much assault and battery their department will let them commit, they know just how many false arrests their department will let them do, they know just how much lattitude their department gives them on abusing citizens. They do it because they know they can; they do it because they know, they know they will get away with it. None of the officers who crossed the line this weekend will be disciplined in any way. None of them will be charged with the assaults and batteries that they committed. None of them will be charged with the false arrests None of them will lose a day's pay. The police department doesn't need an investigation to figure out what happened this weekend -- the department has already said the officers acted appropriately, case closed, that's it. If the department does by some miracle, by some chance, discipline anyone -- anyone -- for what happened this weekend, I will immediately rewrite what would then be my mistaken presumption tonight that American police have once again gotten away with another crime against the American people they are sworn to serve and protect."

-- Lawrence O'Donnell, on the MSNBC television program The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, 2011-09-26 (video) [longer versions of video clips shown during this segment are posted on the show's discussion page for the segment Note that I've pretty much quoted the very beginning and end of the segment, leaving out some important points made in between. The whole thing is about ten minutes long.]

context

A thought that came to me when someone was complaining about Republican sabotage of the US Post Office:

Republicans claim to revere the United States Constitution, but moved to sabotage the Post Office, which is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution; they claim to be "pro-life", yet cheer the death penalty and wars, and oppose the reforms that could save poor people from dying from lack of health care; they claim to be the party of Christian values, but ignore some key teachings of Jesus; they claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility, and to be anti-spending, but run up the national debt more than Democrats do; they claim to be pro-business, but don't do the stock market or anybody's income as much good as Democrats do; they complain about "class warfare" when Democrats try to get the wealthy to pitch in, but silently encourage redistribution of wealth upward when they're in power^[1]; they claim their policies support "job creators", but those companies wind up employing fewer people the richer they get. I think, if I squint a little, I might be able to see the faint outline of a pattern.

There's one point of consistency I see: Republicans like to tell us government doesn't work ... and then make sure that it doesn't.

[1] "They only call it 'class warfare' when workers fight back."