John Spritzler, activist, author, Axis of Logic correspondent and friend from Boston sent this to us with the following words:

There have been a lot of positive developments in the Occupy movement in the last few days. Much of it is reported at www.occupywallst.org (which announces in its header: “The revolution continues worldwide.”

One amazing video is at OWS Whom Do You Serve --amazing because of how it ends.

It starts out showing the cops attacking students at U.C. Davis, pepper-spraying students, who were sitting down on the ground with their heads bent down, repeatedly (nothing new there) and a large crowd of students chanting “Shame on you!” to the cops (good, but not terribly new either), but then something unexpected happens:

The students take the offensive, not violently, but in every other way, and they start marching into the cops, forcing the cops the walk backwards. The students actually drove the cops off the campus, chanting “cops clear out!” and such.  This was not a tactic from the nonviolence book; the students didn’t passively let themselves get arrested or go limp. No! They told the cops to leave, and marched into the ranks of cops to make them leave. Three cheers for the U.C. Davis students!! Of course the cops were armed and the students were not.

The cops could have used whatever violence necessary to remain on the campus, even shooting the students on the spot if they dared. But they didn’t dare to use their superior violence in this incident. I wonder why not?  Two things come to mind.

1. The “white shirt” commanding officers of the cops or the politicians above them may have been afraid that if they used violence it would have strengthened the Occupy movement and diminished whatever legitimacy the ruling class has left.
   
   
2. Or the “white shirts” and politicians may have been uncertain that the blue shirt cops would have obeyed orders to use lethal violence (their limited pepper spray couldn’t stop the large crowd of students) and afraid to risk having to deal with a mutiny by the cops. The cops seem to have been almost eager to retreat. Or maybe there’s another explanation. 

In any event, it is encouraging to see the Occupy movement force the cops to retreat. I hope this is a preview of how the movement can grow so large as to prevail against the ruling class completely, by overpowering them and causing them to be unable to trust that their hired cops and soldiers and sailors will obey orders to attack the movement.

Revolution is possible!