Occupy Wall Street and Oppressive Pasttimes

I was talking with the Feather Magazine editors the other night about the Occupy Wall Street protests because so many people from our generation are involved. I remember saying they'd never gas them. It would be too cruel; too archaic; too reminiscent of the oppressive days of the movements in the 1960s when police would gas people and spray them with fire hoses.

I heard Patricia Stephens Due, an civil rights activist who staged the first jail-in 1960, speak last year. She always wears sunglasses, even inside. A cop threw a tear gas canister at her face in 1960, causing her eyes to be sensitive to light. I remember thinking how glad I was that was behind us.

Well, I was wrong.