Beat up, shoot and try to murder America’s heroic war veterans – one tactic used again the Occupy movement. What’s next? Maybe outlawing snow suits.

Sitting here in New York City, it's pretty easy to lose sight of the fact that the Occupy movement is happening all over America, not just on Wall Street. The 99 percent is mad as hell at Republicans and bankers from sea to shining sea.

What initially brought this to my attention was an e-mail from Brian Sonnenstein at Firedog Lake about what's been going on in Erie, PA. He wrote:

"The police are trying to drive occupiers out of the park by seizing their blankets and sleeping bags, so they've asked Occupy Supply for arctic lined coveralls to keep them warm at night..."

So I went web surfing and found the Occupy Erie website, where I learned that the Erie protesters are examining instances of police brutality against occupiers from Erie to California. Said the Erie occupiers:

"Excsssive use of force toward those in the Occupy movement has led to arbitrary arrests, a fractured skull for one veteran and a reputured spleen for another...[and all these actions] have been deployed against peaceful U.S. Citizens."

So great. You go to war for your country. You get shipped halfway around the world on one, two, maybe even three or four tours of duty, dodging bullets, IEDs and car and truck bombs. And when you get back, some cop feels duty bound to beat the crap out of you or try to shoot you to death. Is this the greatest country in the world or what?

Here's one example:

Then there was the vet in Erie who got shot in the face with a teargas cannister, resulting in a fractured skull.

Of course, if all else fails, the town fathers of Erie can get rid of the demonstrators by outlawing their arctic coverall snowsuits that the occupiers are starting wear when they sleep outdoors since the cops confiscated their sleeping bags.

And I suppose the cops will claim that they're not really blocking free speech for arresting people for wearing snow suits, because the Occupy protestors will still be free to stay out in the freezing winter of upstate News York and demonstrate, so long as they're naked.