So rage against duly-elected government is ‘patriotic’ and ‘quintessentially American,’ where(as) rage against multinational, shareholder-accountable corporations is ‘anti-American.’ Gotcha.

I don’t get it: Here’s a group of Americans disenchanted, railing against big government bailouts; angry ‘cause they played by the rules, worked hard — now they’re in debt from student loans and they’re unemployed. I mean, look — if this thing turns into throwing trash cans at Starbucks windows, nobody’s gonna be down with that. …But these protestors — how are they not like the Tea Party? … Aren’t these folks real citizens with real problems?

As we circle Union Square, about twenty NYPD officers haul out orange plastic nets (the kind used to fence off construction sites) and close off the road, diverting the crowd. But the detour, too, was closed, leaving us only one other option: straight down Broadway. The lighthearted carnival air begins to get very heavy as it becomes clear that we are being corralled. The main group, about 150 protesters, keeps on down the street, but the police are running behind with the orange nets, siphoning off groups of fifteen to twenty people at a time, classic crowd control.

A new group of police officers arrives in white shirts, as opposed to dark blue. These guys are completely undiscerning in their aggression. If someone gets in their way, they shove them headfirst into the nearest parked car, at which point the officers are immediately surrounded by camera phones and shouts of “Shame! Shame!”

Up until this point, Frank and I have managed to stay ahead of the nets, but as we hit what I think is 12th Street, they’ve caught up. The blue-shirts aren’t being too forceful, so we manage to run free, but stay behind to see what happens. Then things go nuts.

The white-shirted cops are shouting at us to get off the street as they corral us onto the sidewalk. One African American man gets on the curb but refuses to be pushed up against the wall of the building; they throw him into the street, and five cops tackle him. As he’s being cuffed, a white kid with a video camera asks him “What’s your name?! What’s your name?!” One of the blue-shirted cops thinks he’s too close and gives him a little shove. A white-shirt sees this, grabs the kid and without hesitation billy-clubs him in the stomach.

At this point, the crowd of twenty or so caught in the orange fence is shouting “Shame! Shame! Who are you protecting?! YOU are the 99 percent! You’re fighting your own people!” A white-shirt, now known to be NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, comes from the left, walks straight up to the three young girls at the front of the crowd, and pepper-sprays them in the face for a few seconds, continuing as they scream “No! Why are you doing that?!” The rest of us in the crowd turn away to avoid the spray, but it’s unavoidable. My left eye burns and goes blind and tears start streaming down my face. Frank grabs my arm and shoves us through the small gap between the orange fence and the brick wall while everyone stares in shock and horror at the two girls on the ground and two more doubled over screaming as their eyes ooze. In the street I shout for water to rinse my eyes or give to the girls on the ground. But no one responds. One of the blue-shirts, tall and bald, stares in disbelief and says, “I can’t believe he just fuckin’ maced her.” And it becomes clear that the white-shirts are a different species. We need to get out of there.

Turkey on Friday slapped an arms embargo against Syria for its brutal crackdown on the country’s uprising, the prime minister said.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has stopped a Syrian-flagged ship in the Sea of Marmara in the past, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. He did not say when the ship was stopped or whether any weapons were found aboard it. “If there are planes carrying weapons, or such shipments by land, then we would stop and confiscate them as in the past,” the Anatolia quoted Erdogan as saying.

Turkey intercepted an arms shipment from Iran to Syria in August. In March, Turkish authorities also seized the cargo of an Iranian plane bound for Syria because the shipment violated U.N. sanctions. Turkish media said the aircraft was carrying light weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket launchers and mortars.

Erdogan said this week that Turkey was coordinating its efforts with the U.S. Washington has called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to resign…