Illinois House of Reps Argues About Occupy Movement

The Illinois House of Representatives voted down a resolution supporting the Occupy movement 37-58 on Tuesday. While that isn't surprising, some of the lawmakers' statements were.

State Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Oak Park/Austin) introduced House Resolution 610 to express "support of the continued peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights by Occupy protestors."

"Do you recognize the violence, the crime at these protests?" said Rep. Ed Sullivan (R-Mundelein), according to the Illinois Review. "This protest movement is un-American. If you don't believe in capitalism, then vote for this. I will not stand for it."

Oh, but he didn't stop there. Sullivan also said he has seen reports of "raping and pillaging and beating people up and murdering," at the Occupy protests.

You can see a full list of the 37 who voted for, the 58 who voted against, and the 15 House members who abstained in this PDF.

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By Samantha Abernethy in News on November 30, 2011 5:30 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

BlueFairlane

To be fair, there were reports of raping, beating people up, and murdering at Occupy protests outside Chicago. No pillaging that I heard, though there were rumors of a small village sacked and burned near Occupy Cleveland.

Navin_Johnson

Most of the violent incidents that have occurred have little to do with actual people protesting and more to do with the street folks you have in any downtown. And then there are the moles and infiltrators. There's a concerted effort to try to smear and make these things seem endemic to the movement though. These isolated events are of course nothing compared to the violence that the U.S. elite has inflicted upon U.S. citizens and our democracy.