Mayors and police around the country have pretended public health is the reason for shutting down Occupy protests, but their actions belie their words. . .  Michael Ratner [president of the Center for Constitutional Rights] noted that the idea of protesters being unclean has a long history in this country, that various generations of immigrants were described as dirty, as outsiders, as not really American. “What it does is it paints the protesters as a dangerous infection in america that has to be cut out, it’s like saying they’re a cancer or radioactive, that’s saying they’re not part of our country, not part of our tradition of protest.”  . . . Instead, it seems that the real contagion is community, as Fagin said, but more than that, the very idea of fighting back. Whether it’s a mayor shutting down an occupation in his or her city or a businessman complaining that his workers want to collectively bargain, the idea that people might work together appears to be, itself, a hazard.

Read more . . .