I have friends that are cops, who are great people, so I try to differentiate between people and their role. Being a cop can be a tough job, and I sure wouldn't want to do it (I doubt that I could hit non-violent protestors, especially when I support their cause). After all, we will still likely need police for some time even after the revolution.
Some of the most radical leftists I have met, I met while serving in the military, and likewise, some of the most passionate anti-war activists I've protested alongside, were veterans.
Hopefully calmer heads will prevail, and important dialogue and messages are not drowned out by sound bytes and video footage designed primarily to polarize people.
I can't help but believe that Abbie Hoffman is smiling somewhere:
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You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
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A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station, not the factory. It concentrates its energy on infiltrating and changing the image system.
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Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit. When all today's isms have become yesterday's ancient philosophy, there will still be reactionaries and there will still be revolutionaries.
No amount of rationalization can avoid the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on the planet. I still believe in the fundamental injustice of the profit system and do not accept the proposition there will be rich and poor for all eternity.
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Love and Peace,
ADG