Lost Boy Tootles

At what point did any of the protesters overstep? I’m afraid you can’t just claim they did and leave it at that. You didn’t give a single example, indicating that you’ve heard they ‘over-stepped’, or perhaps read it in the Herald Sun, and have decided to agree with a publication that prints Andrew Bolt every week. As it happens, there was no physical retaliation that can be proven, I witnessed none, and despite hundreds of cameras no publication that is against the protesters has been able to back up this claim with any footage or photograph. Contrast this to the footage of police violence.
There are reports that two policemen were injured. One of those was from capsicum spray, so that’s a 1 to 50+ tally.  

‘Ordered by law’. This implies that either our occupation was illegal (it wasn’t), or that you believe the police should have the right to remove anyone from any place at their whim. I like to to think of that as fascism, personally.

Aha. Tell me, where were you when all this happened? Have you even looked at the footage? Those riot police are trained by the military. They don’t give you time to ‘put up your hands’. Believe it or not Cassie, the idea of capsicum spray is not to leave the back of your hand smelly, it’s to incapacitate you. 

We never said we would co-operate with riot police, and we had a verbal pact with the police that they would give us ‘reasonable time’ to pack up.
They rocked up in 4 to 1 numbers. They were mounted, armed etc. If I have to tell you what the police are capable of, I’m afraid it’s because of your ignorance. They know that we make group decisions via a General Assembly, a process which takes a fair amount of time. When they woke up up with a loud-hailer at 7 telling us we had 2 hours to pack up and leave or get arrested, of course there was a certain amount of panic.

As far as ‘smarts’ are concerned, I do not find you intellectually intimidating or impressive. You want to have a face to face conversation about this? You’ve got my number. However, if you’re going to stand up for the police state, I’ll call you out for the fascist you’re talking like. 

Also, if you agree with the way the police removed the camp, it would be my guess that you didn’t visit it. There was a kitchen that made food from 7am till 12am for anyone. There were acoustic guitars and drums. There was serious but civil discussion on art, philosophy, currency, economics, politics, psychology, whatever you liked. You could walk into anyone’s tent and have a conversation about anything. There was an area set up with toys, colouring books etc for children to play in. There was a people’s library. There was a legal aid facility and a first aid facility. We were a functioning, open community, and nothing was more pleasing than seeing new faces around the camp. We had no demands, except to be allowed to exist as an ongoing demonstration, which I might add has been going on in something like 900 cities across the world. The Victoria Police are the oppressors, and the premier and mayor little more than arrogant children who can’t handle the fact that they never grew up to be men, and feel they have to assert themselves somehow. Globally, this is the exception. We did not want any of what happened on Friday to eventuate, mostly because it plays into the hands of the right-wing press and the established ‘violent revolutionary’ parties that existed before the occupation and are doing their best to radicalise it as much as possible. We just wanted to Occupy, and in time we will again.