SHAME ON THE OAKLAND POLICE

I’m one of those people who usually respects the police for their service and sacrifice. But I’m just sickened and angered by what Oakland police did today. I’m sick and tired of people who abuse the authority given to them by the people, by using that authority as a weapon against the people from whom it derives.

There is simply no excuse for attacking protestors. Political dissent is the very foundation of our democracy, one of the American rights and virtues for which so many have fought and died. This kind of abusive overreaction is a defilement, if not a repudiation, of the gifts of liberty our veterans have given us. When our men and women come home from Iraq, not one of the officers who was at the Port of Oakland today should dare to look them in the eye.