From Occupy movement to American Spring
By Chen Weihua (China Daily) Updated: 2014-05-10 09:34Those moments have forever changed my impression of NYPD and those images have been lingering in my mind for the past few years.
The nightmarish police brutality in those days also included the pepper-spraying of peaceful OWS protesters by NYPD officers as well as officers at University of California Davis. I was certainly not alone. At an OWS photo show at the South Street Seaport Museum in Manhattan in late January 2012, several photographers talked about police brutality and proved it with their exhibits.
The OWS movement was protesting against social inequality with top 1 percent of the population owning an increasing proportion of the US' wealth. That outcry, which was largely ignored by many mainstream US news media at that time, has increasingly become a concern in the US today.
During a testimony on Wednesday by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, Senator Bernie Sanders talked about the top 1 percent in the US today own about 38 percent of the financial wealth of America, while the bottom 60 percent own 2.3 percent.
He then asked Yellen: In your judgment, given the enormous power held by the billionaire class and their political representatives, are we still a capitalist democracy or have we gone over to an oligarchic form of society in which incredible enormous and political power now rests with the billionaire class?
Yellen also expressed concern over the growing inequality, saying it deserves more attention from policymakers. While the OWS movement did not succeed in a way as expected, some Americans have clearly learned from its experience and the experience of "Arab Spring".
A group called Operation American Spring, led by retired Col. Harry Riley, is planning to gather millions of people to demonstrate in the National Mall in Washington DC on May 16. Their goal is to voice their disappointment at the leadership and to oust politicians they deem corrupt, everyone from President Barack Obama to House Speaker John Boehner.
So whatever the final sentencing of McMillan is on May 19, history will show her real justice, and the OWS movement should also be rectified.
The author, based in Washington DC, is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
