HOWTO defend yourself against tear-gas

A flier circulating within the Occupy movement gives detailed instructions for defending yourself against tear-gas attacks, noting that it is "only for defense purposes" and warning "never incite violence."

Flier to OWS Protesters: "Defending Against Tear Gas" (via Beth Pratt)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Kwolfbrooks

Awesome, Cory! Thanks for the info.
lbigbadbob

I read “antacid” and for some reason thought “laxative.” I’m glad I was wrong.

Also, I don’t know about anyone else, but BoingBoing is crashing Chrome pretty regularly for me.
- EH
  
  Also, I don’t know about anyone else, but BoingBoing is crashing Chrome pretty regularly for me.
  
  I think it’s Flash’s fault.
- nomad411
  
  Maybe Chrome is crashing itself :(
ZikZak

IMPORTANT: Tear gas canisters get extremely hot when they’re discharging. Like thousands of degrees. You can get serious burns if you touch them with your bare hands. They will burn through thin gloves, possibly even the soles of your shoes if you step on one. Touch a tear gas canister as though you were touching a lump of red-hot metal.

While well intentioned, this guide is woefully incomplete. While some information is better than none, be aware that this guide is probably missing critical information and should not be relied upon.
http://www.fagerland.org tofagerl

I have to say… As a guy from a country (Norway) whose entire government system was originally based on yours; it’s amazing that we have so different views on how to protest government. You guys fight them, we get rid of them by voting.
Of course, you guys have the two-party system, the “money is speech” bullshit, the corruption, and not to mention the religious loons.
We just have a debate every second year on whether to enter the EU, and about twice a year some nitwit fourth-bencher has been naughy on the taxes. Oh, and Anders Breivik of course, but he failed.
- Chevan
  
  “You guys fight them, we get rid of them by voting. ”
  
  Sadly, we don’t have anyone to vote for that isn’t more of the same. Or rather, there’s nobody that has enough presence on a national scale that isn’t more of the same. The political status quo is so firmly entrenched that it’s basically impossible to build the momentum to effect real change.
  
  The Occupy movement is probably the only thing in the USA right now that stands a chance of creating real political change.
  - http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius
    
    Sadly, we don’t have anyone to vote for that isn’t more of the same.
    
    You know there is nothing stopping you from running for government. The idea that you have to wait for someone to run in order to vote for them is what gets you these crappy politicians in the first place.
    - http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke
      
      By the time you’ve raised enough money to be a serious candidate, you’ve already been co-opted. Unless you have Bruce Wayne money to start with…then you’re part of the problem already.
      - John Ross
        
        BatMan is the 1%
    - Finnagain
      
      Assuming of course you have your millions lined up for the campaign. You do, right?
      
      Sure. Anyone can run for office.
      - http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius
        
        This kind of attitude is the problem. You don’t need millions to run. You need to start at the local level, build up a constituency and run a solid campaign. Not every person who runs for government spends their own money on their campaign.
      - travtastic
        
        That’s really solid reasoning. I’d be more than willing to support your election in 2032, assuming none of the 1,000 hatchet jobs against you were successful.
        
        Also, if you just work hard and go to college, you can be a millionaire!
    - Ambiguity
      
      The idea that you have to wait for someone to run in order to vote for them is what gets you these crappy politicians in the first place.
      
      I disagree. IMO what gets people the crappy choices is an unwillingness to vote they hearts and conscience. Instead of voting for candidate that match them, they vote for the “one who’s not as crappy as the other one,” or “the least crappy one who has a chance of getting elected.”
      
      When you vote for the lesser of evils, you get an evil.
      
      If people were actually willing to take the long view and vote their conscience, their candidate may not win. But if people were willing to do that, over time the discourse and landscape would change. But they are apparently unwilling to take that long view.
      
      Instead they just keep voting for the lesser evil and get an evil.
    - http://about.me/roxanne.weber Roxanne
      
      Aloisius thats a great thought, but honestly who in their right mind, other than power mongers and snake oil salesmen, would want to go through the nightmare that is the American political process?
      
      Did you know that Judge Judy makes over $45 million dollars a year, while Clarence Thomas makes just over $200 thousand? In this country we have our priorities completely messed up. Who else would both to go through the BS to run for office?
- shamocracy79
  
  “Of course, you guys have the two-party system, the “money is speech” bullshit, the corruption.”
  
  You’ve hit the nail on the head as why it’s so different, your country has a actual democracy based on a voting public’s informed opinions. We have a blatantly manipulated and controlled 2 party shamocracy and a main stream media paid to puppet each controlled side’s talking points. Meanwhile the actual decisions made by those voted into office all go in favor of corporate interests and against the people’s best interests.
- pablohoney
  
  Are your politicians bought lock-stock-and-barrel by the corporations and the very 1% that that OWS is protesting?
  If our democracy wasn’t on life-support you’d have a point about that vote-them-out protestation, but the reality is that since in the US, the Supreme Court says the free speech rights of corporations are paramount, it’s pretty hard to get the message out without being crushed by corporations. Democracy is much more than simply voting. If you corrupt the entire political process, the votes themselves are meaningless.
- http://web.me.com/czedwards/CZEdwards/Blog/Blog.html C.Z. Edwards
  
  Norway has some advantages… At about 150k sq miles, it’s about the size of Colorado, and has approximately the same population (both around 5 million). Sheer area really does make a difference. Colorado does a reasonably good job of organizing itself (with occasional bouts of collective madness), but where we rub up against other states (water rights) or the federal government (highway & education funding), things get rapidly complex and messy. If I understand your legal system correctly, Norway also has fewer conflicting jurisdictions and electoral districts.
  
  For a country only 235 years old, our accretive systems are disproportionately complex, mostly thanks to our geographical size and our home rule / local control ethics. Which can be useful, but don’t make it easy.
  
  Also, if I recall correctly, Norway has more frequent elections with fewer issues on your ballots at any given instance. That does help — our ballots can be dauntingly massive in presidential election years.
http://twitter.com/keithccurtis Keith Curtis

I don’t remember anyone needing to use tear-gas on the tea party. Also the tea party had no mass-arrests, no rapes, no sh*tting on police cars, etc.

What the Tea Party and OWS have in common: Both are protesting Obama’s disastrous economic policies (the OWS unwittingly, like most of what they do).
- lbigbadbob
  
  I don’t remember anyone needing to use tear-gas on Occupy Oakland, either. That didn’t stop the police from doing it.
- http://twitter.com/spockosbrain Spocko
  
  So you want to talk about Tea Party members and violence? Tea Party member don’t violent at one of their rallies, they do it at OUR rallies. The reason that this didn’t happen to Tea Party members is that typically when they get violent they go to liberal hang outs like OCC churches where they have the only weapons. They shoot and kill us. They don’t like to do their violence in a group of other people where they might be outgunned. It’s smart really.
  
  I’ll give them this, the violent Tea Party members understand the asynchronous nature of the force. They could take their gun to a rally where there are cops there and start shooting, but thirty cops would shoot back with bigger guns.
  - John Ross
    
    Re: the violence of the Tea Parties.
    
    We did WHAT now? As I recall. We showed up, talked a lot, read the constitution, sung “god bless america” and went home. Was there an after-party to which I wasn’t invited? Why are the OWS protests getting so much more coverage? It’s because we Tea Partiers are BORING.
- http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch
  
  How do you know when you’re at a rally against the establishment, that you’re at a rally against the establishment? It’s easy. If the establishment is fighting you. If it isn’t, you’re at a different kind of rally.
- William Bagilliam
  
  You don’t have to use tear gas on the tea party because they’re inadvertently protesting against their own benefit. They break out the tear gas and rubber bullets for people who actually want to see the inequalities reduced, not those who dragged their la-z-boy out of their RV to protest social services. That, and they were mostly too obese or elderly to move more than three yards without their hover-round they bought with medicaid and social security money.
  
  They never faced violence from the authorities because they’re authoritarians who are essentially asking for more of the same from the government. They’d just prefer that it’s all run by an old white guy with the same delusions.
  
  And they left the same filthy mess behind that any large group does, except theirs consisted of discarded American flags, celestial seasonings boxes, tri-cornered caps, and misspelled, thinly veiled, racist signs.
  - Nylund
    
    “You don’t have to use tear gas on the tea party because they’re inadvertently protesting against their own benefit.” Exactly.
    They want the rich to get tax breaks and to pay for those tax breaks by gutting the safety net, cutting funding for schools, teachers, police, etc., less money spent making sure food and drugs are safe, less money spent on making sure companies aren’t polluting our air and water, etc. So what do the rich people (and companies) do? Give them money to support the cause, give it mass media attention, and, in general, support it. Now when people go out and say, “hey, we actually like having jobs, having clean and safe food, drugs, water, and air, etc. and we think that given your historically high profits, bonuses, and incomes, and in this environment of huge levels on inequality, you should be the ones to pony up” then the canisters of tear gas, the rubber bullets, and the flash grenades come out.
    
    Or, as an earlier comment put it, if the establishment isn’t fighting back, you’re not protesting the establishment.
- quarter_man
  
  You bring up an excellent point there. One of the reasons the Tea Party is successful is that they are civil AND united with an easily stated goal (small government). While covering the OWS movement here in NY for a local paper it was painful to see just how many different groups are actually out there, all with their own cause to champion.
  - Modusoperandi
    
    “One of the reasons the Tea Party is successful is that they are civil…”Because marching with a gun and a sign saying “It’s not loaded…this time” qualifies as “civil”?
    
    “…AND united with an easily stated goal (small government).”Patriot Act? Silence. Iraq? Silence. No Child Left Behind? Virtual silence. Medicare Part D? Silence. TARP? Mumble. Year after year of unchecked deficit spending? Silence.Democrat in the White House? “Rise up and take our country back!”Statistically, the Tea Party is the GOP’s Social Conservative/Christian Right wing with a good publicist.
    
    “While covering the OWS movement here in NY for a local paper it was painful to see just how many different groups are actually out there, all with their own cause to champion.”Balderpucky! Keith Curtis just linked to an article stating that they’re indoctrinated and “follow in lock step” with “groupthink”!
    - Modusoperandi
      
      Crap, that didn’t format rightly (and I can’t edit it, for some reason).
      
      Statistically, the Tea Party is the GOP’s Social Conservative/Christian Right wing with a good publicist.
      
      “While covering the OWS movement here in NY for a local paper it was painful to see just how many different groups are actually out there, all with their own cause to champion.”
      
      Balderpucky! Keith Curtis just linked to an article stating that they “follow in lock step” with “groupthink”!
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    One of the reasons the Tea Party is successful is that they are civil AND united with an easily stated goal (small government).
    
    The goal is so easily stated that it has no meaning or practical application, and their only successes have consisted of non-government by hissy fit.
    
    Unicorns for everybody or we lie on the floor and scream all day long!!!
  - Cowicide
    
    One of the reasons the Tea Party is successful is that they are civil AND united with an easily stated goal (small government).
    
    Uh, huh…
  - silkox
    
    Is someone trying a little revisionism here? The Tea Party was responsible for the August without town hall meetings, and for scaled back town meetings ever since, because they showed up and behaved in very uncivil and threatening ways. They scared Congressmen, and not just because the Congressmen had been naughty. The Tea Party had slogans about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots. The Tea Party flaunted their guns and reveled in their own ignorance. The Tea Party rallied around Sara Palin and with her maps of literally targeted Democratic politicians, one of whom happens to have gotten shot by a nut case. The Tea Party was anything but civil. And, thank goodness, the Tea Party has gotten awfully quiet lately.
    - Cowicide
      
      Is someone trying a little revisionism here?
      
      They’d be nowhere without it. Revisionism is one of the core principles of the Tea Party.
http://twitter.com/spockosbrain Spocko

I like the part about “Do not Trust the media” part of this is because the media trust the cops. They aren’t always skeptical of what the police are telling them. Case in point. During the Occupy Oakland protests the police were throwing flash bang grenades. Yet they told the media that they were not. They said that those were from protesters throwing M-80s. Now Channel 2 in San Francisco had video proof that this was a lie. Did they say to the police spokesperson. “That is verifiability not true. We have video of a police officer throwing a flash bang grenade into a crowd of people helping a wounded Marine.” They did not.

It took and independent blogger Matt Kresling, to take that Channel 2 footage and show people the police throwing the grenades.

We not only can’t trust the media to do the work they are supposed to be doing, we need to do it for them. Later they showed that footage over and and over after people like Xeni at Boing Boing showcased the work.

I also would like for people to keep looking at videos especially to identify police acts of violence AND acts of violence that is coming from people who look like OWS protesters. It helps for people to find out that the protester who is throwing things is an undercover cop, agent provocateur or anarchist. I point to the Air and Space Museum protest where an editor for the American Spectator was infiltrating to discredit the movement.
(I wonder he was fired like part-time radio producers whose work runs on NPR? I’m sure the American Spectator has journalistic standards…)

If I was at the press conference I would have also asked if they caught any of the alleged bottle throwers, I’m not worried that they will find some peaceful protester who snapped. What we will find are people with a long history of violence looking for an excuse or undercover operatives. The police should have some burden of proof for their claims, especially since they are using these stories as an excuse to use force.
- http://twitter.com/Greading Guy Reading
  
  mate, i’d advise you to take off the tinfoil hat. Look, agent provocateurs exist. But please stop using them as a fucking excuse.
  
  “I’m not worried that they will find some peaceful protester who snapped” Funnily enough, that’s generally what happens. yeah, some people go out to case trouble, but most people get caught up. Look at it this way- if you’ve had a couple of beers (empty bottles), and the police come along at 5 in the morning and fire tear gas, flashbangs, etc at you, I think most people would probably fight back, not to mention that you get caught up in things-especially if others were joining in. This might also be a good lesson in not saying you know the truth if you weren’t there.
  
  Look, case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_zozlNfGl4 . Sitting at home, on your computer, you might bang out: “the black bloc are all agent provocateurs”. “all anarchists are in the pay of the police”, or some other sub-SWP line like that. Now, i was actually at that demonstration. And a friend of mine (and me) got a bit caught up in it all and threw a water bottle (yeah, i know, real Dave Spart territory) at police, and generally got a bit pissed off. Because protests (and violent ones) can be pretty exciting things (i know these are platitudes, but it bears repeating)- and often you tend to get caught up in it- and do things that you would never had done. And I’d imagine that, at five in the morning, facing off against lines of riot cops, with tear gas popping everywhere, and constant explosions, that effect would be magnified even more- which is why I maintain a bit of caution whenever people like to moralise about throwing bottles. Cos if I saw cops beating up people, I’d react pretty angrily, and probably do something I regret. And you see this behaviour at lots of level of protest- from people talking about why they smashed shop windows during a violent demonstration against Israel’s invasion of gaza a few years ago here, to the more recent riots in august. It’s quite difficult to place yourself in that situation- and then predict what you’d do.
  
  If you’re able to do that, to sit at the keyboard judging people, then fine- i guess you’ve got a stronger conviction in your pacifist ideals than me (well, actually i don’t believe in pacifism, but that’s another argument).
  
  Oh, and just as another point:
  
  “I point to the Air and Space Museum protest where an editor for the American Spectator was infiltrating to discredit the movement.”
  
  One right wing **** does not a strategy of tension make. Actually, on that subject, if you’re going to spout the infowars bullshit- please do call it the correct name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension
  “What we will find are people with a long history of violence looking for an excuse” Just as an aside, and yes, i know this is particularly ironic coming from someone who’s just left a quite patronising (and probably badly written too) comment, but your tone in general is quite irritating. I don’t know you personally, so I don’t know if you are a keyboard warrior, or if you have more experience, but I would say that that whole comment strikes me as distinctly ill-informed. My other problem is the overall pacifist tone of the comment (and I don’t know if I want to get drawn into this)- but I just want to say this. Given that the attack was early in the morning, and accompanied by flash bangs, rubber bullets and tear gas- not to mention that they almost killed someone- I’ve got to say that i, y’know, might cut some slack to people who threw bottles at a murderous police department attacking a peaceful protest.
  And I’m sorry if i come off quiet combative and irritating- I’ve just got a bit sick of those salon.com posts talking about how we’ve got to purge those nasty, violent anarcho-facsist provocateurs.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QHS2JUGZGALAPD2FDGC6K27LZU Mister

Dont forget helmets! I think its important that we stay non violent but know that we are willing to stand a fight! Especially after dude in oakland almost got his head blown off by the pigs
http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

Occupiers should maintain a video diary of their surroundings on a routine basis to show how they’ve been keeping things orderly, clean, and record bogus raids by the police.
http://www.facebook.com/people/BigVic-Proton/1112763277 BigVic Proton

Combining Maalox with water is now against the law. Have a nice day!
westbywest

In the various protests leading up to Iraq war (remember those?), I saw folks use 5gal plastic buckets to contain the discharge from a hot canister. I.e. place the bucket upside down on the canister, once it is stationary. Likewise, flakes from pepper spray can be rinsed out of one’s eyes/face with small water bottles filled with water / mineral oil mix (which were brought to a demo pre-mixed).
- ZikZak
  
  Likewise, flakes from pepper spray can be rinsed out of one’s eyes/face with small water bottles filled with water / mineral oil mix (which were brought to a demo pre-mixed).
  
  Do not do that. Using mineral oil to treat chemical weapons is complicated and can end up doing more harm than good. In general, flushing with plain old water is the best treatment for any chem weapons symptoms. And as a bonus it’s pretty hard to accidentally hurt someone worse with water.
  - Ben West
    
    My apologies for being inaccurate. Actually looked up the protester preparedness stuff I had from years ago, and yes indeed, the water / mineral oil mix was only intended for lifting the pepper-spray flakes off of the skin. For eyes it is simply to flush with lots and lots of water.
patpro

I can’t tell about other countries, but I find it very strange, embarrassing, and frightening that absolutely no French media talks about the “Occupy” protests.
Cowicide

Thank you for posting this Cory.
silkox

Presumably this formula has actually proven effective, and IANVGC (I am not a very good chemist), but there’s no obvious reason antacids would work against CS gas. I can see how they might work against pepper spray / capsiacin. Look at the structures on Wikipedia.

There is a product called Diphoterine on the market (look for it in industrial supply stores) that does work, according to, for example, this paper:

J Emerg Med. 2005 Jul;29(1):5-8.
Prevention of CS “tear gas” eye and skin effects and active decontamination with
Diphoterine: preliminary studies in 5 French Gendarmes.

AbstractOrtho-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile (CS) “tear gas” is a lacrimating riot control agent causing eye irritation, excessive lacrimation, and blepharospasm. Diphoterine has been efficacious for decontamination of a wide variety of eye and skin chemical splashes and was tested in CS exposure. Five French Gendarmes either entered a standard training CS exposure chamber, developed eye or skin signs and symptoms, and were post-exposure decontaminated with Diphoterine or used Diphoterine as pre-CS exposure prophylaxis in the eyes and on the face before entering the chamber. Gendarmes who entered the CS chamber without prior application of Diphoterine developed expected effects of excessive lacrimation, eye irritation, and blepharospasm. After post-exposure Diphoterine decontamination, in four Gendarmes these effects rapidly resolved and they were fully operational. When Diphoterine was applied to the eyes and face before entering the CS chamber, the expected effects did not occur and the single Gendarme remained fully operational on exiting the chamber. These results suggest that Diphoterine can prevent or rapidly ameliorate the ocular and dermal effects of CS and allow law enforcement personnel to remain fully operational or rapidly regain operational status after decontamination.
- ZikZak
  
  You’re right, silkox. There’s no evidence that antacids are effective against tear gas, either from scientists or street medics.
  However, antacids are very effective and proven at treating pepper spray, and many people conflate pepper spray and tear gas. So that may be where the confusion is coming from.
  There are a lot of “folk remedies” for crowd control weapons which get passed around through exactly these kind of informal channels. It’s good to have people like yourself holding out for verified facts rather than just repeating something they “heard somewhere” :)
  - asuffield
    
    There’s no evidence that antacids are effective against tear gas, either from scientists or street medics. However, antacids are very effective and proven at treating pepper spray, and many people conflate pepper spray and tear gas. So that may be where the confusion is coming from.
    
    The fact that it’s 50% water will make it pretty effective against tear gas – which is an umbrella term for four or five different chemicals, and mostly just needs to be washed off. There are faster and more effective ways to clean it off, but a water spray works. Adding the antacid isn’t going to make it less effective, and means you have a universal treatment for pepper sprays too. (And since some of the tear gas variants are acidic, it might help)
    - Chris Yiangou
      
      dude have you ever been hit by a tear gas before?
      when you do i challenge you to rinse it only with water and then you can come back and re-examine why they don’t use just water!
      you cant just rinse it off with water, it only makes it worse and when i say worse i mean much much worse!
  - aaronmhill
    
    I agree
    
    It was my understanding that Tear Gas was caustic / basic in nature, and so using an antacid (also basic) could actually be WORSE (since the pH would be increased, there are less H3O ions to snag the tear gas particles). I have read on a few diff sources (NOT AUTHORITATIVE! it’s the internet, after all) that using a bandanna soaked in lemon juice / black tea / vinegar and breathing through it can *help* reduce the effects of tear gas. Wearing goggles is probably the best defense against the assault on your eyes, but if you must wash, just use water –it’s self-ionizing and can go either way.
    
    Tear Gas and flashbangs are effective because they incite panic and chaos. If the protesters can develop a rudimentary strategy and keep their cool, it will pretty much render the crowd control techniques ineffective. For example: people could resolve to take turns going after tear-gas cannisters with tongs and dropping them into buckets (like someone suggested above) — this would at least contain the gas and keep it from filling the ambient air. Better yet, just bring a bunch of bowls (or similar covers…blankets are probably ill advised, since the cans will be really hot) and cover the cans as they are spotted. Have a couple people spotting incoming cannisters / flashbangs to help coordinate.
    
    I have also read that an antacid eyewash can help pepperspray though.
- the_steve
  
  Actually, there is a VERY obvious reason that antacids work against tear gas.
  
  CS gas is a halogenated organic compound- that halide (chloride) makes CS gas a lachrymator (a compound that makes your eyes water) because when it comes in contact with the water in your eyes, it forms HCl (it tastes like burning.) Incidentally, this is similar to why chopping onions makes you cry- sulfuric acid is formed in the water in your eye.
  
  At any rate, I’d imagine that the liquid antacid is in the concoction to neutralize the HCl that is formed in your eyes and hence stop the burning immediately. I would also wager that dumping a bunch of baking soda in your squirt bottle would probably have the same effect to neutralize the acid and would assuredly much cheaper and readily available.
  
  For the record, IAAVGC (I am a very good chemist) but have never been in contact with CS gas. YMMV
  - silkox
    
    What kind of chemist, Mr. I am a very good chemist? It’s pretty obvious that CS will not form HCl in water, and a tiny bit of Googling confirms onions don’t make sulfuric acid form in one’s eyes. Did you do even a little research before you posted? Do you realize how irresponsible you’re being?
    
    The important thing is this: there is a product called Diphoterine on the market (look for it in industrial supply stores) that does work. Google it. It will almost certainly work against pepper spray, too. Don’t rely on folk medicine.
Cowicide

So this prick (Peter Schiff) shows up to OWS with a sign that says “I AM THE 1% – LET’S TALK”

If you want to see just how amazingly obtuse and condescending the 1% can be, Peter Schiff is your “man”. Granted the (apparently) random lady he’s mostly debating with can’t debate her way out of a wet paper bag, but in some ways that only helps to get him to be even more of a prick.

Wow… just wow…. KNOW YOUR ENEMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y28yFxLydzU
- bcsizemo
  
  See this is my problem with OWS. I watched the video, and I don’t see him being a “prick”.
  
  He wants an answer and it takes 3 people to answer it.
  
  He asks questions, no solid answers.
  This woman (along with a lot of what I hear from OWS) is we want that 1% to more or less give everything they have to the “less fortunate” which is sometimes them. He asks her straight out if she could be part of that 1% would she do it? Answer – we side stepped that. And of course she would. People don’t play the lottery because they like giving money to their state. They play it to get that jackpot and become part of that top 10%. I think Hollywood has made several movies involving dilemmas and money, it’s a very natural extension of the society we have built. A lot of people will look at greed in a negative horrible way when they are at the bottom, but for a lot of people that view changes when they are sitting above everyone.
  
  Now I’m not saying that the CEO of Duke Power who made 8.8 million last year and wants to raise local rates by 18% is in the right. I think that shows some level of greed to be making that much and employing people who are making less than 30k a year. I don’t have a solution because most of the things I see that could be done would end up hurting everyone (by pushing companies and people with money out of the US). I’m glad that OWS is trying to change things, but they really need to come up with answers to these types of questions.
  - Cowicide
    
    See this is my problem with OWS. I watched the video, and I don’t see him being a “prick”.
    
    He’s not a prick when he says that taxes are “stealing” from him when it’s well known that the 1% uses all kind of loopholes to steal from the 99%?
    
    He’s not a prick when he condescendingly asks that lady “if i offered to put you in the 1%, would you turn it down?” as if to say everyone is simply jealous?
    
    He’s not a prick when he (repeatedly) LIES and says he’d be “working for free” if his taxes were raised?
    
    He’s not a prick when he condescendingly said, “I’m doing my share, why aren’t you doing yours?” when, IN FACT, the 1% makes a lot of money off ripping off (and KILLING) Americans through lies and deceit? (seriously WATCH the video in it’s entirely and educate yourself.)
    
    Oh well, I guess you live in a very different world from me and most people I know who readily think that guy is a major prick. Go shine his shoes and kiss his ass, I’m sure he’ll just love you as well.
    - bcsizemo
      
      I listen to it again, and then again.
      
      Is there a time mark I missed when he says taxes are stealing?
      -Depending on how much he makes he very well may be paying less in percentages than an average middle income earner. This I will agree with is not right. A flat or progressive tax which included capital gains would certainly help.
      
      No he’s not being any more of a prick than the lady bitching about him being in the 1%. I didn’t take it as him saying you are all jealous of me. I took it as a fair point that there are lots of people in the 99% that want to be in that higher range. I would wager to say the vast majority of Americans would take a million dollars if there were no strings attached (other than taxes) – now what you do with it after you have it is another issue. As the woman points out she would give it all away to the welfare people who don’t have cars.
      
      How would you like to spin “I’m doing my share, why aren’t you doing yours?” In one way he is paying more on a per individual basis than the vast majority of Americans, as a percentage that might be less than some. So in some ways people making far less than him might be paying more than his share in relation to how much they make. This is really one of those things that can be skewed and shown so many ways to make people upset.
      
      I don’t want to move off topic into the fact that greed has over taken things like morality and doing good in the business world. I certainly agree those are issues that have to be fixed if we want any kind of long term change.
      
      Now this guy very may well be a grade A asshole for all I know, but to me this video doesn’t show all that. What I see is someone in that 1% pointing out things that the OWS and 99% should be answering. How would you like him to be taxed? Why should he stay here if he can make more money in Europe for example? At what tax rate and income level does moving up become counter productive with these new rules in place? How do we get a country built on capitalism to not desire greed and profit before humanity?
      - John Ross
        
        //How do we get a country built on capitalism to not desire greed and profit before humanity?//
        
        We pay attention. When the populace pays attention and acts its collective conscience, service to humanity IS profitable. But it’s not just capitalism, this is true of every system, economic and political. All political and economic power derives from the consent of the people. All of it. Always. If we allow that consent to be passive and trusting we will be worked to death, starved to death, or crushed for stepping out of line. And it will not matter if the boot at our neck belongs to “The Company” or “The Party”.
      - Cowicide
        
        Is there a time mark I missed when he says taxes are stealing?
        
        About 9 seconds in.
        
        Depending on how much he makes he very well may be paying less in percentages than an average middle income earner. This I will agree with is not right.
        
        Well, good… you’re not a prick like this guy is.
        
        I took it as a fair point that there are lots of people in the 99% that want to be in that higher range. I would wager to say the vast majority of Americans would take a million dollars if there were no strings attached (other than taxes) – now what you do with it after you have it is another issue.
        
        Explain to me what was the actual point of saying that aside from trying to belittle and antagonize people? You know, like a prick would do?
        
        How would you like to spin “I’m doing my share, why aren’t you doing yours?”
        
        No spin needed, that stands on its own as a prick thing to say.
        
        How would you like him to be taxed?
        
        It’s complex. I don’t know exactly what he makes, but he claims to be in the 1% so I’d like to see it around 60-70% and keep it at those levels until other systemic changes are put into effect where income inequality isn’t on such a ridiculous and disastrous level it is today. We need systemic change that goes far beyond taxing the rich, but it’s a healthy start.
        
        http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
        
        If the prick wants to shut down his business because he’s too greedy. Then fine and good riddance. We’d all be better off without him. And, with single payer health care, affordable or free education, and more availablity of small business loans, etc. then many of his 150 workers would have far more opportunities to start their own businesses instead of being serfs to this aristocratic prick who hoards his money to have a pissing match with his rich buddies to see who has the most wealth.
        
        You may be fine with the top 1% owning 42% of financial wealth in the USA, but the rest of us are sick of it because it’s proven to create great harm to society at large.
        
        http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/financial-wealth-united-states.png
        
        Why should he stay here if he can make more money in Europe for example?
        
        Why should he stay in Europe if he can make more money in China?
        
        Should Americans continue to set the bar as low as possible for the 99% to keep the 1% happy who hoard their wealth like complete pricks?
        
        At what tax rate and income level does moving up become counter productive with these new rules in place?
        
        Do we really need more megalomaniacal corporatists in this world? Here we are at the brink of destruction with never before seen income disparity and you’re scared we might end up with less billionaires or something?
        
        We need more local, small businesses. Most people that aren’t megalomaniacs are instead happy making a comfortable living being productive members of their community. Those also happen to be the people that create the vast majority of jobs in the USA.
        
        If this world never sees another billionaire, it’ll be a victory for the people of the world. I’d love to never see another Bill Gates ever exist in what he became. His unethical, anti-competitive monopoly thwarted growth because he’s a megalomaniac. Don’t you find it odd we only have basically 2 mainstream Operating Systems to use on our computers and it’s fucking almost 2012?
        
        Seriously… fuck megalomaniacs. They are sick people and I’ll never understand why all these people want to be their serfs instead of desiring more self-determiniation.
        
        How do we get a country built on capitalism to not desire greed and profit before humanity?
        
        This country wasn’t built on capitalism in the same way it runs today. Corporations are entirely different now. I don’t have time here to get into it, but watch the documentary film called The Corporation if you want to understand how they changed.
        
        And, how do you put humanity before greed and profit? Join the OWS movement and you’ll see it for yourself.
      - John Ross
        
        Referencing Cowicides post up 4 from here: Have a look at the chart posted about who has how much financial wealth. That word “financial” is important. A lot of people tend to think of wealth as opulence. They think of material wealth, which is understandable. The problem is that financial wealth is what you get if you don’t take material wealth. Being “financially” wealthy means you have a lot of stock; Which means your money is making a business somewhere go, paying salaries. Or it means you have a lot of government bonds; which means your money is making a government somewhere go, paying for services. Or it means you have a lot of CDs; which means your money is being loaned out to someone through a bank, paying for homes.
        
        Suppose you and I make the same income. You live on 90% of it, leaving 10% unspent. I live on 110% borrowing the excess from you. I’m going to grow in material wealth. You are going to grow in financial wealth. Expand that across everyone in the economy understanding there are a lot more people borrowing than lending, and you begin to get the idea how the 1% got to be that way.The 1% don’t keep billions in their pockets. The billions they own are in our pockets. If we rise up and take it, we’ll only be taking it from ourselves, and breaking the system that is generating the material wealth while we do it.
      - Cowicide
        
        Have a look at the chart posted about who has how much financial wealth. That word “financial” is important. A lot of people tend to think of wealth as opulence. They think of material wealth, which is understandable.
        
        In reality, most people realize wealth is power. Wouldn’t you agree?
        
        The problem is that financial wealth is what you get if you don’t take material wealth.
        
        The current aristocracy handily gets both forms of wealth… and the power that comes with it.
        
        Being “financially” wealthy means you have a lot of stock; Which means your money is making a business somewhere go, paying salaries. Or it means you have a lot of government bonds; which means your money is making a government somewhere go, paying for services. Or it means you have a lot of CDs; which means your money is being loaned out to someone through a bank, paying for homes.
        
        And, once again… who has the power? Who has the control of this wealth? The very FEW.
        
        if we rise up and take it, we’ll only be taking it from ourselves, and breaking the system that is generating the material wealth while we do it.
        
        Rise up and “take it”? … oh, you mean get back what the aristocrats have stolen from the American public through lies, fraud and bribery of the government?
        
        You conveniently focused on just one chart and attempted to skew it into “please leave those poor rich people alone”… and if we take money from the rich, then we’ll take the money from the poor serfs.
        
        You conveniently missed the link with many more charts that was in my same post up there…
        
        Here it is again:
        http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
        
        Also… please, take a look at this chart below and tell me again… who is really taking from whom?
        Reality is knocking.
        
        http://assets.motherjones.com/politics/2011/inequality-p25_averagehouseholdincom.png
        
        The only system we’ll be “breaking” by taxing the rich is a barbaric, wasteful and corrupt aristocratic system with far too much stolen power in the hands of the few.
        
        You may be quite comfortable in your broken serfdom system, but the rest of us want much more self-determination than that. Sigh, the same thing happened during the fall of the U.S.S.R. where the hardliner communist peasants flipped the fuck out because they feared self-determination and freedom. They just couldn’t wrap their heads around living life without elitist communists to take care of them.
        
        The people of the United States need to invest in one another as citizens through a single payer system for health care, affordable or free education, small business loans and reject the broken serfdom system you espouse. We need to reject corporate communism.
      - penguinchris
        
        In addition to Cowicide’s rebuttal, I’d like to question why you think these people would go to Europe to make more money if the US raised their taxes. You do know that most European countries are fairly socialist, and have quite high taxes? And you can bet your ass they won’t be moving to Africa or China or someplace like that.
        
        Which is not to say that European countries don’t have similar problems right now – of course they do – but adopting a European-style tax scheme and enacting European-style social services in the US would be a huge positive step toward relieving the situation OWS is rallying against.
        
        And wouldn’t it make the lives of the 1% (who will still exist) better? They might have a few less millions in their bank account… boo hoo… but their lifestyle will be just as extravagant (or discreet) as it is now because they have more money than they can reasonably use. They will thus be encouraged to actually invest it in the economy, which means they will get even more money, ultimately, while helping everyone else out as well (in other words… can’t believe I’m saying this… they’ll be job creators)
        
        Of course this won’t happen… because looking out for your fellow man is gasp socialism, a curse word worse than “fuck” as far as US politicians are concerned.
      - aaronmhill
        
        I have no desire to be a millionaire, nor be in the 1%. I’d like to not be in debt, for starters. I actually have a decent job (just over mid five-figures) and own a small house. My spouse and I both have college debt from our undergrad degrees. We don’t exorbitantly overspend or overextend ourselves but we’re otherwise stationary. Student debt, especially, is a killer because there’s pretty much no way out of it (and my spouse cannot get her money away from SallieMae and they are straight A-HOLES). I would happily take a one-time windfall of $40k to clear out the student debt my spouse and I both have, sell off my house, and be content with my current salary.
        
        I saw the Peter Schiff thing while sitting in an airport terminal and he’s a smug d-bag. It’s not so much the questions he asks or the fact that he is confronting them (both which I think are good things) — but that he does so with a decidedly derisive / self-exalted paunch (or at least, the media has edited the conversation and subsequent talking-head portion afterwards to appear that way). This, like most of the other common-man interviews, are straw men set up to make the protesters look uninformed, just like they did with the tea party coverage last year. Put him up against someone who is more charismatic, well-spoken, and better informed and THAT would be a far more interesting and fair dialogue.
        
        The problem with these “man on the street” interviews is pretty much like any stupid “debate” that arises in these arenas — victory in a single unmatched debate APPEARS to extend as victory in the larger context — when in actuality it is not. (ie. the ill-prepared strawman debator unwittingly becomes proxy for the crowd as a whole, a fallacy that gets pushed to the limit by the media covering it).
        
        As far as what he and other millionaires should be taxed? Progressive taxes have historically produced the most productive and satisfied middle class. The notions that regressive / flat (which are essentially regressive in nature, due to the decreasing marginal utility of a dollar) taxes somehow either “create jobs” or “incentivize success” are faulty. Jobs are created as they are demanded by the means of production — a small business who has plenty of room for expansion will benefit far more (and is more likely to ACTUALLY create jobs) than a larger business. Even during the 40s, when the top-tax-bracket was 90+%, there were still people that were pushing to make as much as they could; but we also developed a growing and thriving middle class. Bring capital gains taxes back to reasonable levels (ie. push them up from the 15% where they currently sit) and push the top tax-bracket higher. People that want to be executives or movie stars or professional musicians or pro athletes are going to do it regardless of whether they make a million or 10 million.
- aaronmhill
  
  OMG I SAW THIS AND IT PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH.
  
  What an effing douchebag.
GirlLibrarian

I cannot publicly say who I work for, but part of my job is testing gas masks (technically, air purifying respirators of all kinds) against both CS and CN tear gas. I start with pure solid tear gas, heat it up, and push this horribly uncomfortable air through the cartridge being testing. Needless to say, I from time to time get tear gas on me and in my eyes (and bring it home on my clothes for my wife to enjoy), and though it is uncomfortable, it’s not life threatening. CS and CN tear gas are organic compounds. They do not dissolve in water, and water actually makes it worse because it just spreads around the chemical. When I get it in my eyes, it is actually better to flush them out with soap than just pure water. If it is a small amount in your eyes, your tears will slowly flush it out. Tear gas is, in fact, a gas when it is first released from the canister. However, as it cools, it quickly becomes a solid particulate. So that means that for many people farther from the canister, you can probably get away with a just high quality (NIOSH approved) dust mask and tight fitting goggles. However, if you are next to the canister, a painters mask is inadequate. The government actually approves several air respirators for protection agains CS/CN, though these are marketed for the military and police forces, and are probably hard to come by. I don’t buy them, I just test them. But I know from experience that if a respirator is not NIOSH (the governing body) approved, it is not worth your money. Even if you’re eyes and lungs are protected, the tear gas will still irritate your skin and can cause redness and mild burning. Keep in mind there will be a residue left on your clothes and skin, and anywhere you touch may then become irritated, so make sure you wash up before you get in a car, eat, touch your face, or go to the bathroom. Lots of soap is the key. Good luck, and hopefully you won’t need this advice.

(PS this is posted under my wife’s username because I don’t have a boing boing log-in)
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  (PS this is posted under my wife’s username because I don’t have a boing boing log-in)
  
  I was having a bit of cognitive dissonance between the librarian thing and the gas mask testing thing.
  - Modusoperandi
    
    Sometimes a disapproving glare and a “Shhh!” isn’t enough.
http://www.spockosbrain.com spocko

First I’m your mate then I’m using agent provocateurs as a “fucking excuse?” If this is the way you talk to your mates I wonder how you talk to people who aren’t. Yes. you did come off combative, irritating and patronizing. Thanks for providing your own insults in advance in your own “probably badly written’ words. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not wearing a tin foil hat, studies have shown they only offer minor protection from cranky insulting commenters.

There is not much I can do to convince someone who really doesn’t want to believe in what might be really happening. When provided with proof to the contrary do they change their story, apologize and say. ‘Wow. sorry about that. You were correct.” and proceed to shaking your hand? Or do they still wish to cling to their previous beliefs and insult the proven evidence some more?

One thing I was talking about in my post was not trusting the media and the police spokesperson. I was telling people that we have the tools today to not just say, “I think I saw a cop throw a flash bang” but to prove it. I am telling people to not assume everyone there is who they say they are, prove it. ”

I gave a very clear specific example why I wanted people to be skeptical. The police gave information that was incorrect. That might have been because of bad communications, incompetence or intentional misinformation. The media, based on time and well rehearsed narrative, ran with the story they are given by the authority. When they can, they “balance” that view with other information, eye witnesses, video footage or experts. I see you had an exciting time at your protest. Good for you. Your single data point in the UK obviously gives you vast knowledge, but you assume it is clearly is less than mine- a person you admittedly don’t know, so if I tell you about my experience would it get you to say, “Wow sorry about that. You are an expert!” I doubt it, because I suspect you are not really interested in my experience or expertise. You simply wanted to attack someone who you thought was naive, ill -informed (based on how you see the world ) to prove to some third party you know better than some hippie at a keyboard who you think is a pacifist (which you obviously have a problem with). It looks like you want others to join you in condemning my practical suggestions and observations and embracing your view. Fine. Let them embrace your combative,
irritating and patronizing words. Or they could listen to me with my track record of dealing with discussions of violent rhetroic in the media. Here’s the New York Times story about my efforts to defund violent rhetoric on KSFO. January 15, 2007 by Noam Cohen
Bloggers Take on Talk Radio Hosts Or maybe you want to read a story about me in the Guardian in the UK. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2007/jan/16/bloggersforceadboycottonsNow I could provide you with outside experts view on this topic of the media, the police, violence, protest crowds, agent provocateurs and the role this plays in the United States, but I don’t see that as making a difference to you either, but for people who like more data that your gut feeling here is a National Lawyer’s Guild report: The Policing of Political Speech – Constraints on Mass Dissent in the U.S. http://www.nlg.org/wp-content/files_flutter/1286308219bodyfinal.pdf I’m off to dinner now. I’m cooking some thing in aluminum foil.
John Ross

Better defense… Don’t be there. Tear gas is the weapon of organized police and military forces. They move as a group. They act as a group. Their unity is their weakness. Tear gas is a weapon most effective against groups. Your individuality is your strength. When they arrive to disburse you…. Disburse! Quickly and quietly, and before they actually arrive if you can manage it. Then re-coalesce in their wake. Let them pass through you like a blade through fog. Let them exhaust themselves in your lack of resistance. If they want to close a park, or close a district or declare martial law out of fear that you will step forward, peaceably out of the crowd and speak your mind, let them. A thousand annoyances will teach your fellow citizens that it is easier to listen to you (which would be nice) or ignore you (which is their right) than it is to have the government try to shut you up. –(Posted by someone who strongly opposes the goals of the OWS crowd, but loves free speech.)
Cowicide

OWS update:

Teenager Who was Refused Cancer Treatment Joins Occupy San Francisco

http://digg.com/news/world_news/teenager_who_was_refused_cancer_treatment_joins_occupy_san_francisco

Miran Istina, 18, joined protests after four years of being denied life-saving bone marrow transplant for leukemia. She was inspired to take part in the protest by the refusal of her insurance company to pay for treatment for her chronic myelogenous leukemia.She said: “They denied me on the terms of a pre-existing condition. Seeing as I had only had that insurance for a few months, and I was in early stage two which meant I had to have had it for at least a year, they determined it was a pre-existing condition and denied me healthcare.”

Oh man, this is horrible. Some Conservatives and Libertarians are saying ROTTEN things about her (and her family) on Digg right now! She’s on Digg defending herself from these horrible people. It makes me sick to my stomach. One guy basically made it sound like he was comparing her to a parasite. Oh man, how can people be so rotten…?
- awjt
  
  If I had treatable cancer and was refused by my insurance company, you can bet I’d sell the farm, ship the kids to grandma’s and move to Canada.
  - futnuh
    
    In at least one province (Alberta), you’d have to wait six months for public healthcare coverage to kick in. During that wait period, you’d have to purchase private insurance. This is true even for Canadian citizens returning from stints overseas.
miasm

at this point I’d guess that anywhere up to about a half of the population has been replaced with autonomous bio-roids. Eventually there will only be a handful of real humans left, surrounded by syntheses of what the central Olympus AI thinks are a necessary measure to help keep us keeping on.
deliciouspineapples

I got tear gassed once. I did not enjoy it at all. It stings and you can’t see. Would not recommend it to my friends.

But I also fail to see the need for all the tear gas theatrics. We know you’re being oppressed. We can see the police doing it. All you’re suggesting to me is that nothing unpleasent has ever happened to you before, which kind of marginalises your cause.
Gainclone

Squirt gun army? Super Soaker Defense Unit Alpha? Mask-wearing, high-pressure-portable-spray-gun-weilding badasses who crowd around and spray any offending gas canisters? Any takers?
Mark Cresswell

I’m rather enjoying this. Since the 1950s the USA has decided to be the self-appointed moral high ground of the ‘free world’. We are told in every Hollywood action movie (and average american citizen) that the US (and specifically the Prez) is the ‘leader of the free world’ and hypes this whole ’land of the free…home of the brave’ etc….pass me the sick bag please. When the hell did all people in the (free) world vote the US and it’s president as our ‘representative on Earth’? Now this jingoism has collapsed to reveal a divided nation clinging on to superpower status by virtue of the huge army and nuclear arsenal it has. If there is a ‘most powerful man in the world’ he is sitting in Beijing and not Washington. If the US is going to learn anything from this it should learn some humility.
autark

in Seattle, at least since N30 (WTO), wearing or possessing any kind of gas mask or protection during a protest is illegal.
hantz

fires in the western world

lately we died a lot
screaming out wishes
getting hit
for thoughts of liberty
independence from systems
independence from control
getting back our lives
slowly realizing that we got a voice
ballots used for poetry

general phrases
unwillingly true
we are not immortal
squat
camp
love
hit each other
a small minority of 99
a number of thoughts
silently supported

soon candles burn in windows
a quite sign for resistance
not understood
by the wheels of fortune
we decide

reclaiming minds
the winter can come
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

The words at the poster bottom, “Do Not Trust the Media” should be carved in stone!

All media.
http://nawel.tumblr.com Nawel

Does anyone knows if this works on any kind of tear gas? I live in Chile and with the ongoing students movement calling for demonstrations almost every week, this is interesting information. Govt. has said that the tear gas our cops use is from Israel.
- silkox
  
  There is a product called Diphoterine on the market (look for it in industrial supply stores) that does work. Google it. It will almost certainly work against pepper spray, too.
MrAdamWatkins

Thank god for this infographic. Now I can riot worry-free knowing that my eyes will be spared from certain pain. Thanks!
- Cowicide
  
  Thank god for this infographic. Now I can riot worry-free knowing that my eyes will be spared from certain pain. Thanks!
  
  Hi there. I’m here to inform and educate you.
  
  In fact, it’s the police on numerous occasions who attacked peaceful protestors who weren’t rioting at all. You and the cops can try to deny this but very unfortunately for both of you… there are cameras all over the place.
  
  So, please submit the video that shows OWS protestors starting a riot? You can’t, can you? Hmmm… with all those cameras out there? Strange.
  
  Hope you learned something.
Tess

I have a colleague studying the Tea Party and recently had an interesting discussion about it. Scholarly work on the subject is, obviously, ongoing… but some of what’s already been found is pretty interesting. For example, it really is made up of people who are predominantly white, male, somewhat older, and middle-class. Three-quarters of them are either registered Republicans or “lean” Republican – people registered as independents or unregistered still vote like party faithful most of the time. (I’ve been registered I or G most of my life and have usually voted D; it’s pretty common.) News reports that it’s a diverse or party-independent movement are based on asking people if they support the Tea Party or the Tea Party’s aims, and handily conflating “yes” responses with actually doing so. This is really a measure of how well the frame constructed by leadership and media allies resonates; it doesn’t tell us anything about behavior. A pretty common methodological error, so it may not be intentionally misleading.

My understanding: the Tea Party isn’t a unified movement; it’s really at least two movements. One is made up of the elite and media allies who tell the story and push the various messages; the other is actually grassroots. The goals of the two halves (bottom-up and top-down) are different; the elite-and-media story is unified, but the on-the-ground one is not. Having elite allies who own and/or run a TV station is a very good way to have a unified message, even if that message has nothing whatsoever to do with what the people on the ground are saying. This is not rocket science!

It is, however, science! Williamson, V., T. Skocpol, and J. Coggin. 2011. “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.” Perspectives on Politics 9(01):25–43 is a good place to start. Scholars of social movements will recognize at least one of those names. :) My understanding is informed mainly by that paper and a separate quantitative analysis of Tea Partiers that, sadly, is not yet published, although there’s little doubt, given the authors, that it will be. I haven’t read extensively on the subject, but there are several papers that look interesting. Be empirical! :D

The Tea Party is also not nonviolent, unless you are willing to say that carrying a gun and a sign threatening to use it is a nonviolent act. I think that’s a stretch, personally. If you’re unsure, go threaten to shoot a cop and see what happens. I mean, don’t actually do that, but… think about it a little.

Finally, the infiltration of nonviolent movements by ringers who stir up trouble is a tried and true repression tactic. It was especially popular in the US back in the days of the IWW. It’s not at all irrational to assume similar things are likely to be tried now; why would agents of the state NOT use a low-cost, tested-by-time tactic that lends them moral legitimacy when they’ve been told to clear out a protest? I mean, they’re not going to go in without riot gear, right? And we’re not expecting them to stop using whatever nonlethal weapons they have around. I can’t buy any argument that is “they wouldn’t do that because it’s not morally okay.” Police – and police departments – and city governments – do things that aren’t all that morally okay with fair frequency, sometimes because individual people make mistakes or are jerks, sometimes because it’s politically expedient. This is a cheap tactic that works; therefore, at least some of the time, it is used.

This isn’t to say that nonviolent protests never turn violent or that all acts of destruction, vandalism, and threat are performed by plants. People are human; they get carried away, and there are plenty of assholes and idiots in the world. To get a large group of even quite wonderful people NOT to resist when they’re fired upon, tear gassed, etc. takes a lot of training and social support. “Passive resistance” isn’t at all passive, and it’s very, very hard to do. People doing it need to be willing to be assaulted and even killed in order to maintain the moral high ground – and that’s rare.
Cowicide

The Tea Party is also not nonviolent

Understatement of the decade…

After watching the video below, be sure and read the beautiful tea bagger comments on the YouTube page, such as this one from mike1956will:

” … I would not call that a STOMP! It was more like a love tap… I would have kicked her ass all the way back to the left coast! She deserved EXACTLY what she got!!!!! …. ”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuM5571nf1I
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness

Sorry to come to this so late, but I work weekends and also went to an Occupy event this Saturday. I fear pepper spray more than tear gas. Some friends of mine and I did some experiments. One day we sprayed a little tear gas in a trash can and took a huff. Unpleasant and disorienting, but survivable. Tried it again the next day with pepper spray, we all regretted it. Felt like our throats were closing up and we were dying. Makes you want to run away.

I suffer from a persistent eyelid infection and have to use eyelid scrubbing pads to clean the insides of my eyelids every few days. Liv Tyler has the same condition BTW. These pads have mild detergents and surfactants that might be very good at cleaning tear gas and pepper spray out of the eyes. Ought to work very well on pepper spray as capsaicin has a phenol tail that should line up well with a detergent to make a micelle that can be easily rinsed away. Not so sure about tear gas, but I am pretty sure detergents and surfactants would be a better choice than mineral oil. I’ve used occular antibiotic ointments in a mineral oil base. They blur your vision for about thirty minutes.

Fats in milk can act as a surfactant for capsaicin. Maybe chugging some half and half would clean the mouth and throat. I am not a chemist, but the guy up above who claimed to be a chemist is full of crap. Onions don’t make sulfuric acid and tear gas does not make HCl. If rinsing eyes with Mylanta works, its probably due to some kind of surfactant effect. I think using eyelid scrub pads would be safer.

Putting buckets over tear gas canisters seems like the best option. I don’t think this will be necessary here as the city council is pretty cool with us hanging out in Tranquility Park, but if the shit was going down I’d be there. I’ve experienced tear gas and am used to pain in my eyes. I’d like to be the bucket guy.
Modusoperandi

Is the “thinker” part of “americanthinker” meant to be ironic? (Money quote [note, one of many]: “…we have a President who will stop at nothing to keep the masses in an enraged, hypnotic trance”. The president in Americanthinkerland, apparently, is Bizarrobama)
What does your hearty regard for such an article, from a site devoted to the promotion and enshrinement of assholery (see: Hey, poor people shouldn’t be allowed to vote!) say about you?