Last week, I wrote about the violence that overtook the city of Oakland, violence that left a two-tour Iraq War Veteran with a brain injury and so far unable to speak.  A couple days ago, I wrote about the shining example set by the Albany Police Department that refused to evict the occupants camped in Albany, an action which forced the city to communicate with the occupants and has begun to build a working agreement between the Occupy Albany group and the city officials.  Then, late last night, I tuned into the appropriate media channels, none of which are on the television – by the way, to check up on the Occupy camps around the world.  What I found was yet another attack being carried out against the Occupy Oakland group, which had organized a general strike that shut down the Port of Oakland for several hours.  Before this night of violence ended, a civilian was killed.  Even after all this, I woke up this morning to an article in the New York Post about the way in which businesses around Zuccotti Park are suffering as a result of the Occupy Wall Street movement’s encampment there (foot traffic supporting these businesses was made impossible because of recently removed police barricades around the area).  The article discussed the continued pressure from those seated snuggly in their political offices demanding actions be taken to clear out the Occupy Wall Street movement.  What kind of “action” do they have in mind, exactly?

There are, after all, only two real options in the situation.  Thus far, with the exception of Albany (whose hand was forced by the wisdom of Police Chief Steve Korkoff and his support staff) and Philadelphia (whose days of peace are numbered as a construction deadline for the plaza they occupy is quickly approaching), few if any cities have made the correct choice so far.  With so many examples of what-not-to-do in a one-of-two selection set, it seems – I’m sorry to say – plainly moronic that the great city of New York is still debating and not already underway in their course of just and cooperative action.  Personally, I’m marveling at the apparent ineptitude of the political officials presiding over lower Manhattan and their complete inability to understand the situation.  If this chain of command cannot understand what the one and only appropriate course of action in this situation is then they are, in fact, a chain of fools.  But let’s play fair, put the kid gloves on, and walk them through their options, shall we?

Option One: Work with them.  I know many politicians both local and more removed from the situation do not want to exercise this option because the movement has called them out on the corruption that has put and kept these people in office.  It has also voiced focused scorn toward the corporations whom these politicians are now indebted to for their professional successes and thus essentially sworn to serve.  However, considering the alternative (see Option Two) and the perhaps realized but not yet accepted fact that these groups and this movement aren’t going away, one would think that the city officials would chose to employ this option.  Meet with them.  Ask them to develop a working group to communicate and cooperate with the city in securing the space and items required to exist without filth, violence, and disruption to local businesses and residents.  What’s more is that if the city took measures to protect these camps, helping them manage the threats of outside criminals, and stopped the nightly evictions and attacks, people would feel safer approaching these areas and patronizing the areas businesses despite the tents in the park across the street.  Clearly, however, the city, state, and eerily silent federal governments have chosen not to follow the course of peace, liberty, and sanity.  So let’s see what’s behind door number two.

Option Two: Fight them.  So far, the use of aggressive policing, harsh enforcement of city ordinances, manipulation of local and state laws, application on non-lethal weapons, agitation of the camps, mass arrests, attempts to blind the public by manipulating media outlets, and bullying have been the mode of operandi for city officials.  This has left many police and “protesters” (I despise the word) injured, rendered a veteran literally speechless, indirectly caused the death of one citizen, cost what is now probably totaling in the millions of dollars collectively, and violated the constitutional rights of thousands upon thousands of American citizens.  Still, despite all of the blood, sweat, tears, and money thrown down on both sides of the line, this option has left us, as a nation, no closer to solutions for the problems the Occupy movement stands against and no closer to a conclusion of the events themselves.  Instead, the occupancies grow larger and more organized, the message of the attacks spurs outsiders to extend greater support, the perpetrators of the actions find themselves the victims of technological counterattacks, and the feeling of necessity to complete their mission becomes stronger inside the movement as the corrupt and their ringers out themselves with their increased volume and harder lines against it.

Even after such a short period of time, fewer than three months since the first tent was erected, it would seem that our government, both local by their actions and larger by their failure to defend the people, has taken the same stance on our grievances and assemblies as the governments in Libya and Egypt did not so long ago.  Our government has failed to heed its own words, to follow its own advice, and to protect the constitutional liberties entitled to us from birth.  This will force us onto a long and difficult path.  However harsh this course may be, however, we must understand that in their actions, thus far, the government has established its loyalty to a system without justice, without ethic, without respect for the people to whom this nation truly belongs, and hence without peace.  Their failure to cooperate and communicate with us, to hear our grievances, to aid us in our aim to mend our Republic and eliminate political corruption and corporate maleficence, and to protect us from the brutality that has been carried out against our camps, is their signature of approval on an agenda for continued abuse of our nation, our freedoms, our economy, our planet, and our people.  If our politicians will not hear us now that we are living and screaming in their streets, now that we are calling for reform, now that we are tolerating and reconvening after nightly physical assaults, now that we are expressing keen awareness of the political and societal atrocities being committed by corporate bedmates, now the American citizens have been injured and killed in this fight for freedom, when will they hear us?  Perhaps it is time to take their orders to disperse us, and the deafening silence of those in our nation’s capital who could defend us, as all the proof we need to know – truly know – that our government has nothing of the democracy from which it was birthed nor the republican practices for which it was groomed left in it.  With every moment of silence on the hill, with every tear gas canister fired, and with every night of violence carried out against people attempting to exercise their first and most basic human and American rights, they sound their call to war.

I believe, with every piece of my being, that our ability to stay peaceful – even when staring into the drooling jowls of the dogs of war – will be the key to our success.  For every occupant struggling to maintain his composure in the face of unadulterated violence, there are countless others on the outside watching.  As long as we remain peaceful, we can continue to prove to the growing audience that we are not the animals that politicians and their media paint us to be, and that we are not here to destroy the nation as they say we are.  We are here to restore democracy.  We are here to save our nation and our planet.  We are here to be the peace and justice we want to see in the world.  We must be committed to this path of peace if we are to succeed in our mission.  Let the chain of fools run themselves into the ground, burning up their resources and exhausting their men.  With poise and patience, we will out wait them and out will them.  And when the tear gas clears, when they have nothing left with which to try to tear us down, we will still be there – ready to do what we came to do.

“Do your worst,” Churchill said, “and we will do our best.”