Plenty of Occupy protestors around the US have been abused[1][2]. During the civil rights movement in the 1950s the US used water cannons to disperse crowds of non-violent protestors. In the US you have 'free speech zones' far away from events that people would protest against, stopping them from protesting on public property[3]. The US will even stop people entering the country that are critical, or even make jokes about the country[4].

In the UK, 53 people were arrested[5] the day before the royal wedding last year in order to avoid dissent. The police in the UK practice a method known as kettling to force protesters into cramped spaces and deny them access to water or sanitation facilities, even using this against the young[7]. At the London G20 protests in 2009 a man with no connection to the protests was struck by a police officer[8] and later died.

My point to all of this is that to say that 'they' are savages is disingenuous. We aren't so enlightened as we lead ourselves to believe and we shouldn't expect others to meet high standards we continually breach. This isn't a political statement for me. It's an acceptance of the world we live in. If people didn't dissent, this wouldn't happen, but if people didn't dissent, then civil rights wouldn't have happened either.

[1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-btt1GsVx0

[2] - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/...

[3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

[4] - http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-...

[5] - http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/84088/royal-wedding-53-prote...

[6] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babar_Ahmad#Police_abuse_case

[7] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling#Student_protests.2C_20...

[8] - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2009/apr/08/g20-pol...