Before and after pics of Oakland police raid on OWS protest

The photos are jarring.  One one hand you have what barely even looks like a protest: a small group of people sitting in the sun, talking; a man reading a book; a small child visiting the children's tent.  Then what comes next: utter devastation.  What was a clean orderly protest is now a disaster zone.  I hesitate to compare the Oakland police to Russian and Chinese thugs.  But looking at the photos, and the videos - and what the police have done in NYC and elsewhere - and it's difficult to tell yourself that we're supposedly the good guys.

Where were the police when anti-Obama Tea Partiers were bringing weapons to Obama rallies?  That's okay - implicitly threatening the life of a presidential candidate (in part, one suspects, based on his race).  But holding a peaceful protest?  Then the cops let loose.  The sympathy the police are generating for these protesters, and the bad-will and bad PR they're generating for their own towns and their profession, is inestimable at this point.