Police attack Boston protesters

THE AMERICAN authorities have started to violently attack the anti-neoliberal protests sweeping the country.

The development comes as the US beats the diversionary drum of war with spurious allegations of an Iranian plot to use Mexicans to kill the Saudi ambassador in the USA.

The police attack came in Boston, where 141 people were arrested.  Occupy Boston reports: "The early morning arrests (1:30 am) were for trespassing and unlawful assembly.

"After almost 15 hours in custody, all of the peaceful demonstrators detained by the Boston Police Department had finally been released as of 6 pm on October 11. Occupy Boston has many eye-witness accounts and videos of police misconduct during the arrests.

"Perhaps the most disturbing, and characteristic, clip is of a member of Veterans for Peace being thrown to the ground multiple times without provocation.

"Street medics and clearly marked legal observers who were also detained despite explanation that they were neutral observers, and in sharp contrast to how non-violent arrests ordinarily take place."

The police attack has come as a surprise to some campaigners, who naively believed the propaganda line that the state only uses violence against those who are themselves violent.

In fact, of course, the state can only exist through the constant use of force and violence to impose its power.

By showing their hand in this way, the US authorities risk radicalising the 'occupy' protesters across the country.

As that famous American president John F Kennedy once said: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."