Silencing Oneself

Trey Smith

The intent and effect of such abuse is that it renders those guaranteed freedoms meaningless. If a population becomes bullied or intimidated out of exercising rights offered on paper, those rights effectively cease to exist. Every time the citizenry watches peaceful protesters getting pepper-sprayed — or hears that an Occupy protester suffered brain damage and almost died after being shot in the skull with a rubber bullet — many become increasingly fearful of participating in this citizen movement, and also become fearful in general of exercising their rights in a way that is bothersome or threatening to those in power. That’s a natural response, and it’s exactly what the climate of fear imposed by all abusive police state actions is intended to achieve: to coerce citizens to “decide” on their own to be passive and compliant — to refrain from exercising their rights — out of fear of what will happen if they don’t.
~ from The Roots of the UC-Davis Pepper-Spraying by Glenn Greenwald ~

One question I have heard expressed around my little town is: Why are the police around the country being so abusive to peaceful protesters? You can't seem to pickup newspaper, watch the local news or visit sites like YouTube and not see these images of the police spraying people like bugs or roughing them up.

In response to this question, I have tried to explain to my friends and neighbors what Greenwald has written here -- the police state is trying to convince people to silence themselves. That's what police aggression towards peaceful protesters has always been about whether you reference China, Russia, Egypt...or the good 'ol US of A.

Highhanded tactics are about scaring the citizenry. Scared citizens tend to be docile ones. Scare them enough -- think Nazi Germany -- and you can get them to go along with almost anything, no matter how barbaric it is.

While it MAY seem this strategy isn't working as intended this time around, no one can be sure. While people continue to come out to protest via the Occupy movement, it is difficult to know how many others have decided to stay home and away from state-sanctioned police abuse.