land of the free
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFYoyv2Gm1I]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjqv2_CqoqA]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlD9QKZdPhE]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etv8YEqaWgA]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj7hye9d5PQ]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tNk6h2_khA]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia0wVU3RHkI]
*that is not iran that is pittsburgh
:::police pose with beaten student:::
:::police assemble in plaza:::
:::military abducts protester:::
:::gas those students:::
:::police seize university:::
:::more clips:::
0 Responses to land of the free
Pigs. There is no other applicable word.
What!!?? Are we in flippin’ China now???
Apparently. No one is dead yet. [A far as I know.] But there are some real Kent State overtones.
Also, if you need info on someone arrested, call 412-350-2015.
BTW, if you are on Twitter, the guy who is getting most of this stuff out is @Digeratii — he got gassed a few times in the process too give him a follow.
Berlin 1929?
protesting is one thing… jackass anarchists looking for trouble is another. frankly i was rooting for the gas in the last video.
I put up a whole bunch of clips of peaceful students being attacked by police and one clip of “anarchists” and what do you focus on? The “anarchists.” [eyeroll]
[I think I am going to have to take that clip down by the way because that keeps happening, people focusing right in on that one, ignoring all the others and going on about anarchists and how they deserve it. Sigh. The students on the university quad and in the university dorms didn’t.]
nah max i agree it is ridiculous, i just think it’s ridiculous on both sides….i mean, i just wouldn’t compare it to kent state or china or 1929 berlin but i get what youre saying….. and what anarchist nowadays isn’t bracketed by quotation marks? wooses.
Nobody was firing live rounds. But police were shooting students in the face with plastic bullets, lobbing tear gas cannisters onto campus dorm balconies, trapping people in alleys and hallways and gassing them, and taking trophy photos with beaten, handcuffed students. And hauled off/arrested, from what I am hearing, about 150 people, few of whom were even protesters. They were also arresting members of the press, breaking their cameras and confiscating their photos.
Remember Victoria Snelgrove an innocent bystander killed by a rubber bullet to the face in Boston. Remember David Woodman killed in Boston by police.
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Some context.
I lost my innocent belief in a Free America after Chicago, 1968.
i hope some really good civil liberties lawyers and anti-police brutality organizers go to Pitt and a.) sue the hell outta the pittsburgh police (the way we have in DC, Miami, Seattle and lots of other places) b.) organize the students to fight back against the Pittsburgh PD using any means necessary (i.e. Copwatch, filing reports, protest, direct action, etc.)
I just heard what a ‘lovely’ place Pittsburgh is supposed to be! glad I haven’t moved there – this has brought tears to my eyes – the land of the ‘free’is heartbreaking – has America not got enough to be ashamed of in its repressions – SHAME – may the students and their families hold this up to the world- what about when a cop finds himself in front of his own son gagging on teargas? Speechless
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When you have tens of thousands of people descend on a city with about 3000 cops to try to keep order and they repeatedly tell people to disperse, and then you still just stand there, then you get what you deserve!!!
As far as innocent local students go, Protesting is not a spectator sport!!! the Cops can not tell the difference between asshole anarchists who came to our city to cause trouble and damage, and some idiot college student who decides, Hey lets go watch douchebaggery!!!
How about you follow the rules and nothing bad will happen to you. They gave everyone plenty of warnings its your own fault that you got in trouble with the Police.
This is why I left the city and headed for the hills. It’s too, too late America. Witness the face of the NWO and Obama as it’s “diversity” leader.
Oh yeah…ye olde “anarchists” defense. Ever hear of the term “agent provocateur”? Remember WTO Seattle? Duh.
Ok people of America, do you like how gov business is being run? yes or no, that is the only question. When are the people going to pick priorities and stick with them, when are people going to organize for practical purposes and carry out their own list of priorities. Just let them monopolize everything and watch what happens. Prioritize or get more of the same.Start with just a short list, I think you could find a few problems to solve, this kind of action is just another nasty way of keeping the none violent people all shackled and in jail,la la la
@Steve: The people would not have “descended” by the tens of thousands if the corrupt, venal politicians gathered for the summit did not routinely wreck hundreds of millions of lives with their murky economic wranglings. (Your sense of outrage at those scoundrels is noticeably lacking.) As for the orders to disperse, they were made *after* the police had blocked all the exits, meaning the people were *trapped and could not leave*. This happens all the time during high-profile political events: the authorities corral people (actual protesters and hapless bystanders alike — they all look the same in the carefully-edited press clips) into arranged culs-de-sac, order them to disperse (knowing full well they can’t), and then crack down when the crowd “refuses to comply”. It’s a deliberate tactic. The cops get to run amok while claiming they made every effort to resolve the matter peacefully, the right-wing law-&-order wanks in the electorate (yourself among them, I’d wager) are mollified by the show of strength, and the kids are terrorized into towing the line.
@Eric: ROFLMFAO! You know what, you’re absolutely right. Do everything your masters tell you to do, and you’ll be fine. Until one of them decides he just doesn’t like the shape of your nose and makes it his hobby to screw with you. Since clearly you believe authority is sacrosanct, no matter how heinous its (mis)behavior, you’d be obliged to not only take the abuse but also convince yourself that you deserve it, since you wouldn’t be getting bent over if you hadn’t done something wrong.
You supporters would have made “good Germans” during the rise of Nazism.
Steve & Eric,
Are you kidding? Did you forget about this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_assembly
People fought and died for us to have that. This isn’t freaking China asshats!
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Anarchists?!! … The only anarchists there were the police!…being minions for the elite who keep you in an open prison cell…you haven’t figured out how the world still works…that’s why you are sheep…and very much asleep
The anarchists…. are fighting for their rights!… Not sitting around watching T fuckin V for 6-8 hours everyday… like the rest of the general population…
They want their Rights back… Which the countrys been stripped and raped off, while the rest of you sit around, watch and comment and judge… keep in mind they are also fighting for your freedom… but the people at the top are to powerful, that we only pray there will be more of them (anarchist) protesters and people spreading the word of their control and corruption, and brutality towards humanity.
They’ve turned brother against brother, sisters against sisters, And we all watch in fear, being a coward, letting them decide our future our fate, what are you guys? trained circus animals?…
Look at all the innocent people being hurt and injured…
G20 meeting, you letting the masters master you (dont you have control of your own LIFE, Grow up)… HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO LET THIS HAPPEN!!! STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS! (<< even Bob Marley, not all songs have meaning but some do!)
WAKE UP!!!
Look around and stop following the SHEEP infront of you!
"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. "
"Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind."
Yes, Steve and Eric, let us all do exactly as we are told to by the man. I promise never to think for myself again. I shall do everything I am told by anyone in a uniform immediately and with not a single sign of dissent. I know my place. I used to be a citizen but I am now a slave.
Whoa. A LOT of responses. Okay I have to sort through these and am releasing some but not all. Posts advocating targeting/attacking police and/or their families are definitely not going up. So that’s the line for now. My site, my rules. And we will see as we go.
Yeah, well. When people start getting shot in the head, and wind up in hard labor camps, you will know the police state/new world order is here!
Congrats welfarcrats we can finally look like Cuba, China, and old Russia. The places were people flee.
The third video is a made to order b.s. piece. No male in his right mind would allow his girlfriend to get anywhere near a marching gang of cops. They stood there to pretend to be surprised. Then the girl started to argue with a cop. This was a setup designed to get some “neat” footage of the cops heavy handed tactics but it’s painfully easy to see it’s a setup.
Well that is just silly. Nobody needed to “stage” police assaulting innocent bystanders at Pitt G20.
@Randomfella: That knife cuts both ways. The couple could just as easily have been agents provocateurs planted by the cops to give the impression that the protesters were behaving badly, provoked the police, etc., and thus deserved to be manhandled. But whatever. Total, instantaneous obedience to the authorities is not a condition of citizenship.* The jackboots can demand cooperation, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get it, or even that they should get it.
* Regardless, even those who did their best to comply with the cops got gassed, beaten, maced, and shot with rubber bullets, so even submission doesn’t guarantee safety. The students at Pitt were being made example of, plain and simple. They could have showered the police with flowers and kisses and the officers would have responded with exactly the same show of force.
I think the key phrase there is “made examples of.” Shops were not being protected. Shops lost their windows. The campus was the focus. That sends a very clear message to the young and educated: Stay inside and stay the hell quiet.
*HottestDeals, it was a decent post but I cannot post something coming from someone going by “hottestdeals.” That smacks of spam.
i guess what bothers(sic) me most is the outrage on the faces of the mewling college students.
“how dare they come onto MY campus”
“how dare they come into MY dorm”
“who do those police/protesters think they are?”
it’s the sense of self entitlement, the notion that they are some how above that mess. that college students are some how exempt. sad truth is that around the world, it is the college students who are often the ones who start things rolling in the first place.
they are the ones who DIE for what they believe in so passionately.
but oh no, not here at Pitt. every one of them clutching their Iphones, begging the police to just let them thru. did those police really give a F***?
you are walking meat
shut up
do what you are told
go back to sleep
DO NOT question my authority
We are entitled. We are Americans. We have a Constitution that entitles us to rights. “How dare they come onto my campus” and “how dare they come into my dorm” are valid outrage. Saying oppressed country’s citizens deal with worse is ridiculous. We are not other countries. We are America. What, we should feel lucky we are not getting shot down in the street like a Chinese student in Tainanmen Square? OUR country’s founders fought and died to give us rights layed out in the Constitution and expecting and demanding to have them is not “mewling.”
LMAO!! This “resistance” movement desperately needs new leadership! Can someone provide me with a link to the websites of some of the acknowledged leaders of the “resistance” movement, please? I’d like to get some background info on them to see exactly who’s who and what’s what. Perhaps I’ll send them some video footage of South Korean students in action…’cause they obviously don’t know what they’re doing! XD
Um. That isn’t a resistance movement “Dick.” It is a bunch of college students on their campus who didn’t know what the hell was going down when they got jumped by police. But thank you for playing. “Dick.”
America is dead.
Okay another line nobody is crossing around here: Advocating attacking/killing Jews. Cripes. Lines I did not even imagine needed to be defined or said out loud. Maybe I should just broaden this: Any post that advocates attacking/targeting/killing anyone will not go up here ever the end period. Okay. As you were.
Ive often thought about the time when I will have to fight for freedom. Maybe I’m too late, maybe we all are. The Country’s opening its eyes to the black coating surrounding it , a secret the rest of the world knew but didn’t wish to share. The oppressors are slowly pushing down the resisters, slowly seeping the blackness into the core of freedom, it is not too late. Now we can protest, resist, and spread the truth.
Please Remember, Non Violent Protest is the only way to go at this time. All you do when you act violenty is Give the Cops and Government Reason to gas, incapacitate, incarcerate, and eventually kill you(Tho I know that most don’t need a reason and will anyways)and you put the non violence protesters and bystanders at the same risk as you. Again I know that some or maybe most police officers will assault protesters whether it be a window smasher, picket line, or a shirtless guy mediating on the sidewalk but if we give them a reason they and others can justify the actions of the police.
With numbers we shall prevail!
http://www.bailoutpeople.org/releaseg20arrestees.shtml
-This is a online petition for the release of the 150 detainees.(Please this is not Spam)
“And in the end the love you make is equal to the love you take.” The Beatles
“Any post that advocates attacking/targeting/killing anyone will not go up here ever the end period.”
But you block mine for advocating Non-Violent Protest… or was it for putting a link to a petition?
I don’t spam and besides their are better places to do it than in a comment section on a Modulated site.
gangs……the police is one big gang….that needs to be taken apart
We of like mind need to organize into local groups. We need to find peaceful ways to start combating and dismantleing the pyramidal power structures all around us. No person on this planet is an authority over any other person, period. Take Jesus for example, His only authority is the Father. He was willing to die for the Father’s purpose. I for one have lost all fear of death. I am ready to die for every one of you to be free. Ask yourself what price you are willing to pay. Get organized. Peace be to all of you.
We need to stop just complaining about all of these incidents and start to stand together in an organized way. If we see an abuse of power we need to have the #’s so we can start doing citizen arrests. We do not have to stand there and witness police brutality. As soon as we call it what it is and start making a stand against it maybe we can start to address these issues. If we have thousands or even a hundred people making the same claim of police brutality we can make a difference.
I’ve seen this before back in the eighties when we were protesting George Bush senior and his NWO. Two people in the crowd started throwing stuff at the cops, and that was it. Later I saw those two who started it talking to the cops like they were best friends. I’ll bet if somebody had stuck around you would have probably seen that couple talking to the cops later, like they were friends. Either way, when it comes to the NWO, cops protect these people against free speech, because they don’t want anybody to know what it is they are talking about at these summits.
The Police are being indoctrinated. Look at the differences in their approach from over a century ago to now. Most police today are not aware they are expendable to the “Globalists” and their government, corporate, religious stooges. The world’s cultures are being worked like a massive CULT. The police it appears were very emotionally worked up and anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time would have been dealt a harsh blow.
Another note, are Americans willing slaves or do we still have rights, such as the Right to Free Speech and the Right to Assemble, btw, that right does not dissipate whether a coup happens in the US or not, time will return our rights to us.
Remember, you are free and your willful intent is very important. You create and have an important effect on life around you. Do not strike with violence, it will return to boomarang-like, only block to prevent harm to yourself and others. Do not give into fear! Wake up!
I am sorry for my 2nd comment my reply disappeared and I thought you blocked me.
It was in the moderation que.
I see no discussion about all of the damage, broken windows, etc, that the students created. They even target small mom and pop businesses.
Mike you are either frighteningly ill informed or outright lying. That wasn’t campus students. That was out of town “anarchists.” The “anarchists” movement has been around over a decade. I find it unfathomable anyone in this country isn’t aware of it.
Max wrote: “That isn’t a resistance movement “Dick.” It is a bunch of college students…”
You took the words right out of my mouth!! :D
Heck, even the “Anarchists” were very mellow in their response to this rapidly metastasizing Police State…they only had the sand to roll an empty dumpster toward their adversaries. If this were South Korea that thing would have been full of gasoline and burning tires!
Seeing that empty dumpster lazily wobbling toward those NWO Shock-troopers tickled my funny-bone…my Patriot-bone, on the other hand, instantly went limp! :(
I can’t figure this out. Over a million republican racist terrorists got together in DC and not one arrest or incident. Not even any trash left behind. Then they get together in Pittsburgh and all hell breaks loose. What the heck is going on!
Dick Armey can afford lawyers. College kids can’t.
Great preview of NWO crushing Constitution. Resistance is futal. Thus sayeth the great and powerful Obama
@max: Woah, hold up there a sec. In the final analysis, the Constitution really is just a piece of paper. It enumerates certain rights, but it can’t actually secure them for anyone. Only people can do that, and if the people aren’t willing to act to secure their own rights, then they effectively have none. The students are outraged because they’ve had certain illusions stripped away: namely, that they are free citizens of a constitutional republic who should have nothing to fear from the authorities so long as they obey the law and conform to social norms. They did these things and still got squashed by the cops. The outrage comes not from the fact that their “rights” have been violated (they effectively have none, due to their passivity), but from the fact that they now realize how vulnerable they are to rampaging agents of the state, who are totally unrestrained by the rule of law or any other check on their power.
That is well stated I will agree with that.
I find it amasing that it takes this for the average american to realise that the rest of the world have been watching what is happening or going to happen. America has total belief in their President and government but the rest of the world just vote out any politian they think is wrong. Its about time that you wake up and notice that the american government has been doing this to you for decades. Don’t think america is the only country in the world, but look at other governments and see how we control the government not the government controls us.By having a president and both houses of parliment, you have one person (president) and his views the only choise. In a westminster style government, the leader or Prime Minister is part of the House of representatives (congress) but if the Senate doesn’t like the bill from the lower house, they don’t pass it. Thus not one person can control what happens. All I can say is good luck america, I hope it is not too late.
There was hope bringing in a Democrat president, finally pushing the Bush regime out of power, would pull us back somewhat from the brink. I think too there was an unvoiced [and racially biased, sorry but it is] expectation a man of color would be more on the side of the people, coming from a group that has historically been discriminated against. Unfortunately, Democrat new guy has exiled liberal advisers and is carrying on in the vein of Bush so nothing has changed. And things are getting worse. Democrats have a lot riding emotionally on this not being the case though, and a majority of my party — from what I am seeing — clings to an unsupported faith Obama is the hero they thought he would be when they put him in the White House. Me saying he isn’t is a very unpopular opinion.
Max, my hopes for Obama were that america would finally reinstate civil liberties and decrease racism. But it appears from outside america, that you just have a new captain but the ship is still heading in the same direction. This to me was disappointing as it looked so hopeful for you. I still get upset to think that the police and national guard are being used for political reasons and not defending america against foriegn foes. I hope people power is enough to regain your civil liberties. All the best.
Thanks, Truth. A lot of people were hoping that. Sigh.
“There was hope bringing in a Democrat president, finally pushing the Bush regime out of power, would pull us back somewhat from the brink.”
Lol
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
Won’t get fooled again.
—Pete Townshend
@Truth Researcher: Much is made of the system of checks and balances that restrains the three organs of the U.S. federal government; however, that system has been methodically dismantled over a period of 200+ years and is today effectively meaningless. The executive branch is supreme, and has been since the Second World War. (It’s rise to primacy actually began during the American Civil War, when the Lincoln administration arrogated numerous emergency powers on the pretext of suppressing rebellion and preserving the Union.) This situation has been arrived at through a long evolutionary process, however. There was a time when the Congress was the dominant organ and the Supreme Court was far less politicized. A parliamentary system on the Westminster model is actually more vulnerable to corruption, IMO, because of its unitary nature. There is no system of checks and balances to dismantle (the judiciary is a cabinet ministry and therefore subordinate to the PM, who is in turn beholden to Parliament, so the legislature is the only independent organ), and therefore not even a temporary break on what a unified government composed of inveterate scoundrels can accomplish. I would point you to the following page, which contains a laundry list of excesses and abuses imposed by the UK government upon its citizenry, as supporting evidence:
http://gizmonaut.net/bits/police_state.html
@max: Thankfully, that hope is being crushed. I say thankfully because I believe it is sometimes necessary to be violently disabused of one’s illusions before one can begin to construct a more accurate picture of reality. The truth is that the state is doing precisely what it is supposed to be doing: securing power and privilege for the ruling elites. That is all states have ever done, and all they will ever do. It is their reason for existence. The superficial characteristics of government may change, the legitimizing mythology may evolve*, but the underlying logic remains the same: concentrate wealth, foster dependence, compel obedience, punish dissent, suppress alternatives.
* For instance, people once believed in the divine right of kings. Later, the idea of a social contract took hold. Now the social contract has been visibly demolished and nothing has yet arisen to take its place, which is why governments (including the U.S. government) must increasingly resort to naked force to keep people under control.
I was recently lectured about how this was all a brilliant plan of Obama’s to let the right play out its hand and then step in and complete a brilliant counter maneuver to pull off everything he said he would do on the campaign trail. I would love to believe that. I could, too, if he hadn’t extended the Patriot Act, closed Guantanamo to the press and gone silent on its close date, made a behind closed doors deal with big pharma, removed public option from the table, inserted mandates, never even broached single payer, annexed progressive advisers, turned an economic summit into a let’s kick Iran’s ass summit and, through silence, assented to turning military loose on the citizens of Pittsburgh. To me, there is no brilliant counter move for all that. Most people will concoct very convoluted scenarios to change the context of what they are seeing to make it fit what they want to see though. And a whole lot of Democrats right now are comforting themselves with the belief Obama is going to come through for them real soon here this is just his way of fooling the right.
I once explained to a friend my personal conception of evil. Evil, as I see it, is a perverse logic that informs whole systems, such that their human participants must behave inhumanly in order to survive and prosper. Personal morality is irrelevant to this definition; all human beings who are not outright sociopaths believe they are essentially good and will find ingenious ways to rationalize what they do as morally correct. Ordinary people routinely perform despicable acts that cause untold suffering to hundreds, thousands, millions because the logic of the systems in which they operate requires it. In this light, it is impossible to eliminate corruption from the government by removing corrupt politicians from office. The very existence of the office promotes corruption and attracts narcissists and megalomaniacs who will unashamedly abuse its powers for personal gain. Obama cannot deviate substantially from the policies of the Bush administration because the underlying logic of the state will not allow it, and he is regardless not inclined to deviate because he is of the same venal stuff as every other politician.
“all human beings who are not outright sociopaths believe they are essentially good and will find ingenious ways to rationalize what they do as morally correct”
This pathological need people have to believe they are “good” no matter what they do is bizarre to me.
So Max, while destruction is occurring the police should filter out the students from the anarchists? I live in Pittsburgh and I watched this for hours the other night. There were peaceful demonstrations and those that had permits were allowed to march. Those that did not have permits were told to disperse. I guess if a policemen tells me to leave repeatedly I get the point. I believe that their were a lot of rowdy people, a mob mentality looking for trouble and they found it and now they are complaining.
Oh how in the world do you know who broke those windows, ATMs, etc. ?
What I watched was that the police were not going to allow the crowd, the one night, march on Schenley Park where Obama was having dinner. I believe it was their duty to protect the President.
One, I didn’t see destruction being perpetrated by the majority of students attacked in those clips. Two, yes, without fail and with due diligence police should attempt to distinguish between criminal and non-criminal activity and in fact have a legal responsibility to do so. Three, I am real familiar with how this stuff works I was a resident of Downtown Seattle during WTO. Four, if you think that was about protecting the president you are tragically confused.
Thank you for putting these videos up. I also enjoyed the comments very much. They made my brain happy.
@max: It’s called cognitive dissonance, and people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid the psychic discomfort it causes. Some rare individuals do this by changing their attitudes and beliefs to better conform with the truth of their experience; most simply fortify themselves behind an impenetrable wall of rationalizations.
Rob, your brilliant comment about evil is now in my facebook quotations box :-)
I see a lot of good reasons for teflon bullets these days.
Don’t be silly Steve. Teflon penetrates vests, not body armor. Clearly you are not paying attention to fashion. Also you are really pushing that line I drew about not targeting cops please be more polite in future.
Good Lord, Rob, what do you do? You know way too much about mental bizarreness.
Kate thanks for visiting if you marry Rob I expect at minimum a paragraph and a half of embarrassingly over the top praise in the reception speech.
Max, i dunno about marrying – but i’d sure enjoy a long evening with him… :-)
He has that whole smart guy and can punctuate thing going for him. Give it ninety days though. He came in with an odd crowd.
Shouldn’t people leave when told to? If they wanted to protest go through the proper channels like the Tibetan group, the Thomas merton group, etc.
Also, the reports here in Pittsburgh are that since the city did such a good job the G20 is coming back.
Max, if memory serves, there was a lot less trouble in Pittsburgh than when the G20 was in Seattle; is that correct?
Personally I hope they come back…LOL I got two days paid off of work since my building was in the Secret Service Secure zone.
I am sorry Mike, you just keep saying the same thing. I do not feel like repeating myself.
Okay, another line that isn’t getting crossed around here. Don’t show up on my blog and get rude with me and expect your post to go up. As if. [eyeroll]
It does’t matter which political system we each have as there are always those people that want to rule the world. We can only try to have a voice. A peaceful demonstration is in my view the best way for the general public to understand our desires for OUR country. The media is controlled by people who tell you what they want to say. Peaceful demonstration is our only available option. Lets not become violent like the power are displaying. We are better than that.
sometimes though, THEY need a little something to get their attention. did King George hear the objections of the Colonists before the Minutemen started breaking things and killing people? or Before the Boston Tea Party?
Peaceful protests are so amazingly easy to ignore
they simply cannot ignore us anymore
@max: I work with profoundly autistic adults. Before that, abused and neglected children. Before that, homeless persons. Before that, juvenile delinquents. So yeah, I know a lot about mental dysfunction.
@Kate: Heh. I’m flattered, but I doubt my girlfriend would approve.
@Mike: I find the notion that people must secure permits to protest completely ludicrous. The idea is to show contempt* for the authorities by demonstrating against them. One cannot do this by first petitioning the authorities for permission to dissent. The very act of petitioning legitimates the unequal relationship between the state and the people. Americans have allowed themselves to be neutered by a pharisaical respect for the law, confusing what is legal with what is moral. The concepts are not identical, however. When the law is unjust, the behavior of the elites inexcusable, then the police, insofar as they stand as impediments to the redress of grievances, are agents of repression and deserve neither cooperation nor respect.
* Which is the proper response to contemptible behavior, as I see it.
@Truth Researcher: I agree that peaceful protest is preferable, but I am not a pacifist and do not believe one should quietly endure endless abuse in the hope of “melting the heart” of one’s enemy. Gandhi tried that and failed to accomplish any real change for decades; it was only after the British exhausted themselves in two World Wars that the Raj was finally brought to an end. (And one is left with the hypothetical of what would have happened if satyagraha had been attempted against a victorious Nazi Germany. I expect the answer would have been an Indian subcontinent full of corpses.) Non-violent non-cooperation only works when one’s adversary is both sane and possessed of an essentially compatible morality, and I believe our leadership is increasingly neither.
Wow we have so been hanging with the same crowd, I have been neglected, abused, homeless, juvenile, a child and delinquent. I am surprised we have not met up at the Christmas party. [wink]
I kind of love the concept of asking permission to dissent. That is gold for satire.
think Spelman college, Atlanta GA 1964
the students there (all black)went out into the street and PUT THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE to find the freedom that was rightly theirs.
i think in part the organizers had hoped that the students in Pittsburgh would be sympathetic to the grievances of the “anarchists”
instead what we saw was largely an immediate backlash of aggressive apathy.
the students who were arrested are guilty of being slow moving livestock more than anything else
they failed to notice that the police were closing in around them
they assumed that their “elite” status would save them
the black students from Spelman (64) KNEW that they were not “Elite”
they knew that they would get their heads busted
they also knew that they could take it no longer
that they were the generation that would bring to an end the wrongs that had been the norm for so long in the deep south
how long do we have to wait for our current generation to realize that they hold the keys of change in their hands?
No offense Farm but I would really prefer to kick someone’s ass for a cause as opposed to getting my ass kicked for it. The whole concept of dying for a cause exhausts me. That is martyr worship and we as a society really need to stop worshiping [and being] martyrs. It never works out well for the martyrs and doesn’t say much good about us that someone has to die to earn a little respect.
Re: the ship having a new captain but still headed in the same direction, Obama’s biggest strength and biggest weakness is that he is black, or at least half black. Strength in that the oppressed identify with him, and weakness in that he is completely incapacitated from doing anything not just because he is a politician which incapacitates every politician for fear of arousing the ire of any block, but since he is the only black president ever he can not do anything different for fear of having everyone say to themselves, “well that’s because he is black – I’m not going to make that mistake again”.
People voted for him because he promised to be different. To say he can’t come through on that promise because people won’t vote for him again if he does is circuitous logic that makes no sense.
I am suggesting that he is more concerned about people voting for another black, in the future. The reality of not having any support in the congress is far different from the reality of getting elected. No one in congress is able to be honest about what needs to be fixed – which is why the congress has such a low approval rating.
I see. So Obama purposefully breaking campaign promises after being elected will prove to people who voted for him and trusted him to try to fulfill those promises that they should trust and vote for future black candidates?
All that says to me is black men and white men are definitely equal when it comes to lying on the campaign trail.
I think he is finding the reality of being President different than the desire to be President. However, breaking campaign promises, no matter how unrealistic, is another matter. I think that he needs to keep all of them and make up some new promises for the next election, and throw out the previous ones. If we like the new ones we can re-elect him, if we don’t like the new ones c’est la vie, and adios amigo. In particular I thought the idea of defining the middle class as up to $250,000/yr as ludicrous, but as to closing Guantanamo, I would move them all into the White House if I hadn’t found any other place for them by the time I had promised to close it came along. Or anywhere. A promise is a promise, and it needs to be kept. The only way to break it is through a referendum, and do whatever the referendum says.
Chris, he IS breaking campaign promises — one after the other. Are you simply not paying attention?
Five Health Care Promises Obama Won’t Be Keeping
Other Broken Promises
I’ll tell you I was in stitches watching SNL last Saturday. http://mashable.com/2009/10/06/snl-obama-accomplishments/
I do not watch SNL. If you are attempting however to say satire does not count, I would say that the last vestiges of moral decency are being defended by comics. And almost no one else. Or are you just throwing an SNL skit into the mix to try to avoid saying you are/were/wrong?
What I am looking for is a score card, such as the one provided by SNL. It is one thing to say that someone has broken their campaign promises and quite another to enumerate them.
They are enumerated in the two links I posted above. If you simply ignore everything said and are merely argumentative for the sake of being argumentative it is a waste of my time talking to you. [shrug]
Thanks, I read them, and I am not interested in a list of promises that Obama will not be keeping, but instead in a list of promises that he has not kept, and a list of promises that he has kept, just to keep things fair. By the way, I agree with you that the only realistic health bill is HR 676.
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