I wonder what the “pro-life” response will be to a woman having miscarried due to the violent way in which the police treated her.  The anti-abortion crowd believes fetuses are people, right?  So will they be willing to say the cop committed murder?  Or will they just blame the woman for being pregnant and happening to be where police were out of control?

Of course, this assumes that the “pro-life” crowd can actually connect the dots between saying fetuses are cute cuddly babies and the consequences of that belief in terms of what they must define as murder if they define abortion as murder.

My favorite so far: Tebow in full Tebowing mode, being sprayed by Pike.

I mean, he’s just peacefully exercising a first amendment right, but he’s annoying and should be attacked, right? Right? http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/11/tim_tebow_pepper_spraying_cop.php

When that supervisor sprayed those young women when OWS started, I watched his face and realized his thought balloon would read:

1.  Dirty hippies won’t go away when I tell them to.
2.  How DARE they not obey my authority?!?!
3.  (looks around, sees easy target)
4.  (sprays helpless, penned young women)
5.  (walks away, satisfied that he taught those DFHs a lesson on the punishment that comes from not obeying authority)

Pike’s thought balloon must have been similar.  Nothing bring out the bully in an authoritarian like passive resistance and a target that’s just asking for it.

For more fun? The pepper spray he used is available on Amazon, and people have been offering up ratings based on its power to “delink human arms” or warnings that it “multiplies protestors”.

Ms Kate, they have uploaded images from the meme as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Technology-56895-Stream-Pepper/dp/B0058EOAUE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

DAS, we already know how that’s gone - of course it’s the second one. “It’s her own fault for going to a protest while pregnant, the dumb bitch. Getting savaged by police is entirely her own fault.”

I don’t know if it’s worth pointing this out, but the miscarriage may or may not be a consequence of the abuse from the police. Lots of miscarriages in the first trimester, and from what I hear miscarriages external forces don’t often happen at that stage. Which isn’t to say that I don’t think it happened, but I do think our focus should stay on the violence on the protesters per se. Loss of a wanted child, though, is definitely a horrific outcome.

@1 - I suspect the pro-life movement would want to charge the woman who had the miscarriage with murder, for endangering the fetus by going to a protest and trying to assert her rights. As I understand, she was homeless, which makes me assume she was unmarried as well, and you know how the pro-life crowd hates people fitting into that mold. How dare some slutty bag lady try to assert her first amendment rights! Or maybe some on the pro-life side will be shocked and appalled at the police brutality that causedd it, but I won’t hold my breath.

I hope somebody does God and Adam.

Oops, already done.

I liked the replacement of the statue of liberty.

Comment #6: grolby - The account I read said she was also kicked in the stomach by a cop, so that plus severe reactions from the pepper spray most likely lead to the miscarriage.

These memes are awesome, by the way, for all the reasons you say. They really hammer home just how over the top ridiculous Pike and others have been to spray peaceful protesters.

Or will they just blame the woman for being pregnant and happening to be where police were out of control?

I’ve read this basically verbatim, so, yeah.  Except with an extra helping of blame for “valuing free speech more than her unborn child.”

Re: the miscarriage, the report I saw seemed to indicate the doctor believed there was evidence of a kick to the lower abdomen. If that is the case, between the injury and the stress brought on by being sprayed I think there’s a DAMN good case for the pregnancy loss to have been caused by the actions of the asshole.. er, cop.

Or will they just blame the woman

Bird gotta fly, fish gotta swim.

My favorite so far.

A friend of mine made a good joke:

“knock-knock!”
“who’s there?”
“pepper spray cop.”
“Pepper sp-”
“PPSSSHHHHHHHHH!”

Except with an extra helping of blame for “valuing free speech more than her unborn child.”

Just more proof they care more about having a child than trying to make things better for the child ><

Did the pregnant woman who was pepper-sprayed actually miscarry?  I read that she was hospitalized, but nothing further.

@gretchen, the facts are just not yet in on this story:

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/11/21/pregant-woman-blasted-with-pepper-spray-by-spd-reportedly-miscarries

A few I haven’t seen yet but would like to are: Neil Armstrong on the moon; Juan Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympics; sailor kissing nurse on V-E Day; Tiananmen Tank Man.

Hornet, I have seen at least a couple of those already—keep searching “pepper spray” images and you will find all of them, I’m sure.

I especially like the Iwo Jima: “I caught that lousy Indian trying to steal that flag!”

There’s reason to be skeptical of the woman’s claims of miscarriage:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/11/23/an_occupy_protester_has_accused_the_police_of_inducing_a_miscarriage_.html

It’s a real shame if she did lie. It puts everyone in jeopardy, but especially puts her in jeopardy.

Comment #18: dopus dei - Kinda shitty how that reporter is hounding her for medical records.

OWS is now coming to the same realization that protestors in Egypt have been forced to accept.

‘The troops’ and/or ‘police’ are not part of the 99% - or at least they are the part of the 99% that keeps the 1% in power.

Both groups of what are essentially ‘reformist’ (rather than ‘revolutionary’) middle class protesters wanted to believe they could coax the thugs into taking their side. But they pushed too far, and got to see the cops true colors. They are just thugs - ‘legitimate’ thugs sure, but basically just muscle.

I think the matter-of-fact way he did it speaks volumes. This is not Bull Connor where they actually have to expend some effort and passion to ‘subdue’ you - he’s just pressing a button.

I wonder what the “pro-life” response will be to a woman having miscarried due to the violent way in which the police treated her. 

“She deserved it”.

This has been another edition of etc etc

If she lied about the miscarriage and is using that lie for political purposes, which appears to be likely, it’s not out of line for a reporter to try to get to the bottom of her story. The moral here is, “Don’t lie.”

My favorite is the Guernica take off, because John Pike, the pepper spraying cop, is artfully inserted and it really brings it home.  Munch’s The Scream is good, too.

It’s funny with Officer Wiggums, but I think it’s also important to keep John Pike’s name out there.  Just wish I knew the name of the unhelmeted cop who was smiling the whole time.

As lovely as the Lt. Pike Pepper spraying meme is (and those are some lovely, lovely pics), I’m now laughing at a new one based upon Monday’s Bill O’Reilly, featuring Megyn Kelly:

O’REILLY: “Pepper spray—that just burns your eyes, right?”

KELLY: “Right. I mean, it’s like a derivative of actual pepper; it’s a food product, essentially.”

And the meme is born of “______.  It’s a ______, essentially.”

http://www.quickmeme.com/Megyn-Kelly/?upcoming
http://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstreet/comments/mkzhm/fox_news_pundit_on_uc_davis_pepper_spray_incident/
http://gawker.com/5861688/its-a-food-product-essentially-fox-news-starts-spinning-pepper-spray-cops

John Pike, that cop who was photographed calmly—-chillingly—-pepper spraying…

Pun-ilicious.

‘The troops’ and/or ‘police’ are not part of the 99% - or at least they are the part of the 99% that keeps the 1% in power.

Yes, and for their service to the 1% they are going to get their just reward:

As the tent city on the University of California, Davis, tripled in size, Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi insisted Tuesday that the school’s police department defied her orders when it used force against students in last week’s pepper-spray fiasco.

Well, now I know what to bring to Megyn Kelly’s house for Thanksgiving.

Katehi cannot go home after this - she was a young student when her fellow students died in a student uprising that toppled the military dictatorship in 1973.  Student uprising is somewhat hallowed there, even if it means riots. She will face ridicule and worse if she sets foot in Greece.  She has to make some excuses and do some quick coverup.

This is really funny.

Ms Kate, did you see this from The eXiled?

Today, thanks in part to UC Davis chancellor “Chemical” Linda Katehi, Greek university campuses are no longer protected from state security forces. She helped undo her native country’s “university asylum” laws just in time for the latest austerity measures to kick in. Incredibly, Katehi attacked university campus freedom despite the fact that she was once a student at the very center of Greece’s anti-junta, pro-democracy rebellion–although what she was doing there, if anything at all, no one really knows.

My experiences with cops long ago led me to regard the vast majority of them as bullies with badges. Since there are so few good apples, I can’t help but regard all of them as assholes until proven otherwise.

I do not believe that Katehi needs to resign. She had nothing to do with the decision to use violence against the obstreperous but peaceful protesters. The cops acted on their own with the violence that is the only way they know, as they are wont to do when faced with anyone who defies their authority. The cops who committed the acts should be fired and the chief of police should be publicly reprimanded and placed on leave without pay.

@ Dark Avenger:

I retract my statement at #33. Thanks for the info.

Thanks for this, Amanda.  I was kind of horrified by the “funnies” (while snickering, too - hey, I’m human)....but you’re right:  authoritarians HATE to be laughed at, and it is an excellent weapon against their shit. 

I have been wondering where the decent cops are…probably scared of getting laid off, which I can understand.  But really, are there no cops willing to stand up and say, “this is bullshit - these people aren’t doing anything, and I won’t be a part of this.” 

And, hey, as I read in “Hard Times” by Studs Terkel ...

“I made investments in this country, too - where’s MY dividend?”   

My experiences with cops long ago led me to regard the vast majority of them as bullies with badges. Since there are so few good apples, I can’t help but regard all of them as assholes until proven otherwise.

My experience has lead to a great deal of cynicism, enough that I basically avoid any interaction unless absolutely necessary.  I noted a couple incidents to a friend recently, and will repeat them here:

May 3, 1990: Accident on I-287 in New Jersey with minor injury.  Three police cars pass without stopping before a local taxi driver stops to offer assistance.

January, 2000:  Computer system vandalized at work.  We attempted to report it to the police, but they refused to take a report unless the damage was $5000 or greater.  We lost a day’s productivity and ended up replacing some equipment, but only the replaced equipment counted:  $4460.  Effectively, the police response was that no crime was committed.

Meanwhile, the laws are written such that the average person commits something like three misdemeanors per day and a felony each week—so there is any enforcement you want.  Traffic laws are such that any driver can be stopped at any time and cited for something—and in a recession many governments raised fines and told their police to issue many more tickets to raise money.

If she lied about the miscarriage and is using that lie for political purposes, which appears to be likely, it’s not out of line for a reporter to try to get to the bottom of her story. The moral here is, “Don’t lie.”

If she is lying, I think you’re giving her far too much credit by positing that it may be for political purposes.  Regardless of her truthfulness, she’s obviously a very troubled young woman who was drawn to Occupy Seattle for shelter and not for politics.  She also allegedly claimed to be three months pregnant (and experiencing abdominal pain) two months ago when facing arrest for squatting on private property.  Her pregnancy and miscarriage claims seem to be correlated with her desire to attract attention and sympathy.

I’m not going to claim that she couldn’t have suffered a miscarriage, whether due to police actions or not.  It’s definitely possible for her to be telling the truth about some aspects of her story, while obviously lying about others, but, at this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out that she suffered a miscarriage weeks ago or that she was never even pregnant.

She wasn’t at Occupy for shelter, she was there to protest along with everyone else.  She said as much.

I’m not sure if she’s “claiming” pregnancy/miscarriage for attention and sympathy.  Likely she’s “claiming” it in order to escape police brutality.  I’ll bet such a tactic occasionally works for homeless women, and I don’t blame them for trying.

I want someone to make a care bears tea party being pepper sprayed.

Obviously, kesh, and I did say the saddest part of this is she’s not going to get the help she needs, regardless of what it is.

Can’t speak about New Jersey, as that stuff is state by state.  In NYC, $1000 of damage is a felony.  In California, police are responsible for any disabled vehicles or people on the side of the road, so they don’t even pass you up even if you’re just there without gas or a flat tire.

I can’t emphasize enough, just throwing up your hands and saying ‘that’s police’ or ‘that’s government’ as if bad service is normal is what right-wingers want, and you’re letting them win when you do.

The thing about cops is, if you tape them and know a lawyer, you can usually at least get a new house out of it.

authoritarians HATE to be laughed at, and it is an excellent weapon against their shit.

When you hate them, or when you fear them, you acknowledge their authority.  When you point and laugh .... not so much.

Thoughts after a late-night discussion:

I saw the Seurat image first and found it brilliant: I knew about the incident but had not seen the original photographs. The satire foregrounds the nonchalance of the violence, the repetition of it marks the brutality as a stain on all culture, and the humor is defiant. All this has been said: nothing new here.

But the Tebow image (and many others) are different. However annoying the “Jesus scored my touchdown” thing, when I laughed at it I was laughing with Pike, not at him.  The meme has devolved into meaning “it’s funny to show our enemies treated brutally.” If you can imagine someone responding “oh relax, no one really wants to pepper-spray Tebow, it’s harmless fun” you can recognize how these later images make us less sensitive to the violence rather than foregrounding it. I too celebrate the original meme, but I find depressing how fleeting was the message.

Uh, I made a pepper-spray-cop-casually-pepper-spraying-napalm-girl-running-naked-and-crying. I am equal parts ashamed and proud of it.

avoidswork @ 27:

As lovely as the Lt. Pike Pepper spraying meme is (and those are some lovely, lovely pics), I’m now laughing at a new one based upon Monday’s Bill O’Reilly, featuring Megyn Kelly

That’s not a new one. Way back in 1997, Canada’s PM responds to the pepper-spraying of protesters at an APEC Conference in Vancouver:

Later, an unapologetic Prime Minister Chrétien brushes away the pepper spray incident, saying “For me, pepper, I put it on my plate.”

It’s at about the 2 minute mark on the video.
Hyuk hyuk, what a funny guy, that Chretien.

Some years ago in Northern California, there was an incident where some DFHs were protesting some logging company’s desire to clear cut an old-growth forest or something.

The cops (sheriff’s deputies,as I recall) in this case actually took the liquid pepper fluid and used cloths to physically rub the foul substance into the protestor’s eyes directly.  here’s a URL I found after a 1-second Google search…

Not sure which is worse, being sprayed or having it rubbed into your eyes, but as I remember this was pre-9/11, so it shows how we were becoming inured to police-state violence long before that particular strain of insanity hit us…

@argus: no, they’re different because they’re showing how it would look if Teabaggers got hit with this shit.  The point of the cop spraying Tim Tebow Tebowing is that it would never possibly happen, because that’s what Tebowing is. 

It’s to challenge the fact that only lefties have this happen.  As MikeEss points out, cops torturing lefties is practically the regional sport in the Pacific Northwest.  It’s what these people do, and the big difference is that another generation has passed, and the new generation doesn’t understand why the old generation keeps the gloves on with the privileged kids.  As far as the cops are concerned, this is just what cops do now.  That’s the point of the meme, the nonchalance.  Nobody is safe from that guy.

Can’t speak about New Jersey, as that stuff is state by state.  In NYC, $1000 of damage is a felony.  In California, police are responsible for any disabled vehicles or people on the side of the road, so they don’t even pass you up even if you’re just there without gas or a flat tire.

It doesn’t matter what it says in the statues of the state, if the police refuse to accept the crime report (and this was in Santa Clara County, California.  The San Jose police refused to take the case, telling me to report it to the FBI, who told me it had to be referred from a local police department…) then there’s no justice.

$5k is a nice threshhold, too.  Perfectly set so that a business that loses two or more servers gets a crime report, but an individual usually didn’t own that much equipment…  Just a case of the police catering to business.