Video: 84 y.o. activist Dorli Rainey on being pepper-sprayed by Seattle cops

Yesterday we told you about a 84-year-old woman who had been pepper-sprayed by Seattle police at Occupy Seattle. Click through to see the image; it's pretty bad. (It's also copyrighted, so we can't show it directly. If the reporter who shot it thinks it's photojournalistic gold, he's right.)

Here is Keith Olbermann's interview with the woman. She's Dorli Rainey, bright, clear, an activist and German survivor of the Nazi era. It's a fascinating interview. My few comments after.



Three notes:

First, she starts with the importance of education. Exactly right. Every generation needs to educate itself about what's going on, Howard Zinn fashion. The 60s activists started with teach-ins, for a reason. People aren't born knowing that the propaganda that surrounds them is BS. They have to be shown.

Think about the people on that bus she mentions. How many of them thought that cops were "rough" only when faced with "the wrong people"?

Second. she goes right to the coming Internet restrictions. She's referring to PIPA, the ProtectIP Act, making another appearance. (Senator Klobuchar, this is your doing.)

Elites (man do I want a more evocative term) always need to control the messaging in order to remain the elite. This means controlling the medium. Note her references to German WWII messaging. They were always winning the war with Eastasia — until the Eastasians showed up. (And Bloomberg was always a friend of freedom from noise, until he showed up with his ear-destroying battlefield bullhorns.)

Third, this is for you, the well-meaning Mr. Day. Only the criminals of the last generation failed you. The criminals of their generation failed them. Your children will lay the failures of you and your brothers at your own feet.

Why's that? Because a small, determined, organized gang of the very very rich, who own the services of the very very powerful (their retainers), can almost always defeat the unorganized many.

Dr. Spock (the baby doctor, not the other guy) joined the Movement in the 60s, as did may like him. Dorli Raines is part of Occupy, as are many like her.

It takes the right time (this is one of them) and a determined, organized cadre to capture those occasional wins. Perhaps instead of complaining about the loss of Penn State–innocence, just join the cross-generational fight. It's always a cross-generational fight. It's mostly a losing one (think Peasants' War, which Martin Luther opposed).

This is one of the few times in history when the fight can actually be won. Let's not throw it away.

GP