You do NOT want to watch this video [stuiec]

It was filmed in Daraa, Syria, in May of 2011. When the people of Syria took to the streets to demand their rights, they were asking for the basic right to speak freely, to assemble peaceably, to choose their own leaders through free and fair elections, and to shape their own destinies. Their very existence together on the streets of Syria's cities was an act of defiance to the Assad regime, and this video shows how that regime reacts to acts of defiance. It gives an unblinking look at the dead and the dying.

Some people draw parallels to the Arab Spring, Tahrir Square in Cairo and the streets of Daraa and Homs, to the Occupy movement. I frankly don't see the parallels at all: the people of the Arab dictatorships are doing the only thing they can to struggle out from under dictatorships that have maintained power through murder and torture, whereas there are many purposeful and effective actions available to citizens of Western democracies beyond forming encampments that give rudimentary form to inchoate rage.

Remember this when you see expressions of outrage at the "horrific police brutality" perpetrated by the cops at UC Davis who pepper-sprayed the Occupiers.

posted by Open Blogger at 02:00 PM

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