Rolling Over Occupy

While I take a break from the live feed of the NYPD breaking down the encampment in Liberty Park, I wanted to share this feature with you from the CBS News site this evening. It’s an interactive graphic that, as you can read from the title, offers: “Some of the latest headlines from the Occupy Wall Street movement protests.” When you roll-over each box, you get text which summarizes “the latest” from each locale.

From California, it’s murder.

From Oregon, the only way to keep the animals out is with barbed wire while officials “tidy up” a bit.

Occupy Vermont makes you want to kill yourself.

Norfolk: Apparently, not taking taking “no” for an answer.

Now, I know that Occupy had a tough week in Oakland, but it’s no coincidence that a nationwide crackdown is underway with big media only too happy to focus on police action as if Occupy brought it upon itself, or to characterize the movement itself as either trouble or inherently violent (with the exception of the hippy-looking guy making a sign). Fact of the matter, however, is that the Vermont event was largely incidental, and the allusion to violence in the Oregon and Virginia panels have as much to do with state aggression and forced removal as anything else.