Blind, Deaf, and Dumb

As strange as it may seem to anyone who's kept up on current events, there are still those people who appear to think the Occupy movement is just a phase, one that will wear itself out sometime soon, before any of the problems the Occupy movement has brought to light are resolved.

Those people are either feigning ignorance and stupidity, or they really are as dumb as they seem.

Even the Pope now agrees with the Occupy movement that the levels of social and economic inequality faced by people around the world - and especially in its richest nations, like America - can no longer continue. A committee from the Vatican released an official endorsement yesterday of series of economic reforms, aimed at the G-20 leaders summit, beginning a week from today in France.

One of the key reforms the Pontifical Council says that G-20 nations need to make is a financial speculation tax - in short, a tax specifically aimed at the kind of Wall Street thugs responsible for betting, losing, and trashing nearly every economy in the world over the last few years.

As at least some of our staff is Catholic, this gives us a fairly definitive answer to a question some on the American right have been posing about the Occupy movement: If Jesus were here, what would he think about the Occupy movement, and their attacks on Wall Street?

If the Pope really is a direct connection to God, as Catholics believe, it's fairly obvious to us that God isn't on the side of those on Wall Street who've created such an unequal system.

We're also willing to bet that same God wouldn't be looking too favorably on those who think that inequality should be made permanent - through violence, if necessary.

In case you missed it, members of the Oakland, Califonia police department unnecessarily attacked and teargassed Occupiers there Tuesday night - which landed one Occupy activist, an Iraq war veteran, in the hospital in critical but stable condition with a massive head injury.

As journalist Joshua Holland reported, the protesters may have annoyed Oakland officials with their chanting, yelling, and protests, but the Occupiers in Oakland were like those across the country - peaceful if not a little rowdy.

The decision to use unnecessary force and provoke the protesters by delaying lawful actions was made at a level far above the officers on the streets carrying out the orders. The nightmare that followed has already been duplicated in too many cities, from Denver to New York, and from Atlanta to Seattle to - now Oakland.

The politicians in these cities - and the extremely wealthy campaign donors that support them - seem to have a strange delusion that threatening violence against the Occupy protesters is a tactic that will drive the frustrated masses back into quiet submission.

As we already mentioned, we hope these folks aren't as dumb as they seem. Or they could be in a state of delusional slumber.

If it's the latter, when they wake up, we hope the wealthiest 1% are forced to accept living in a reality that the majority of Americans already know is a nightmare.