What police brutality?

Chicago 1968

Occupy Portland is making it embarrassing to call myself a progressive. Their current cries of police brutality, besides being predictable, are baseless as near as I can determine. On the contrary, the Portland police, which has not won my past favor by its trigger-happy encounters with unarmed citizens, showed more patience and non-violent behavior by a police force confronting a large crowd than any I've ever seen. If the protesters want an example of police brutality, let them watch tape of the 1968 Democratic convention!

There is a claim that the police beat a man unconscious. The video I've seen so far, from both police and protester cameras, shows no such thing.

Citizens sometimes get "radicalized" during confrontations like this. But they also can get "conservativized" and this is what I think will happen. Once again, in the long run, Occupy Portland is hurting the opportunity for income redistribution and other progressive change by exaggerating what happened and what can be documented to have happened. They are changing the dialogue to law and order issues, here with no basis except conventional masturbatory radical rhetoric. Even if police hit a man with their batons, which is sometimes justified in my view, you cannot rationally question the extraordinary and frankly surprising reserve and patience of the police in handling protesters. I was shocked they behaved so well!

Occupy Portland is deteriorating off message at the speed of rhetorical cliches. Shame on them. There is a huge genuine need for major change that they could have participated in. Instead they are changing the subject matter and giving many citizens reasons to forget who the real enemy is. Shame on Occupy Portland.