The 45 Most Powerful Photos of 2011

[Rutabaga]

I saw this at Buzzfeed today and just wanted to share. Please do take a couple of minutes to look at these photos...some will make you laugh, some will make you think, and a lot will make you cry. What a year it's been.

<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-most-powerful-photos-of-2011">The 45 Most Powerful Photos of 2001</a>

[Dasquian Belargic]

Thanks for sharing that. I've seen plenty of those before but some were new to me, and really made me smile (#6 especially.)

[Droo]

Aw, number twenty. :(

[Lilaena De'Ville]

#30 :cry :cry

In fact, a lot of those made me cry. But I'm super hormonal.

[Park Kraken]

#20 was the saddest one I saw on there, #18 was the most bone chilling yet awe inspiring one for me.

[Peter McCoy]

Bloody hell. The police in America would be lost without pepper spray, wouldn't they?!

[Lilaena De'Ville]

It's better than bean bag rounds, rubber bullets, or actual bullets. Or even batons.

[Dasquian Belargic]

What's better is subjective, really. What's more important is whether or not it is an appropriate response to the threat that the police are facing.

In both of the images on that article, it doesn't look like pepper spray is an appropriate response to what's going on, especially for those protesters who are just... sitting on the ground.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The sitting on the ground one is totally inappropriate. The girl getting it in the face was in Portland - I actually watched that one live while I was in the hospital. While it is a little over kill, the pepper spray was only sprayed three times at the crowd (which was getting unruly and refusing to stop blocking traffic whatever blahblah) and she was pushed back onto the sidewalk (not to the ground, just out of the street) and then came back at the police, followed by getting sprayed.

The spray was very effective at getting people to do what the police were asking, and she was helped by the police afterwards, getting washed out and all that. So yeah, it sucked, but she really was asking for it. Or else she was severely unaware of what was going on around her.