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Controlling the Populace
Apr. 16th, 2003 03:04 pmHere's how police forces and government are controlling the populace:
In Iraq ...
Looting, violence, and arson continue while U.S. troops stand by and watch. The following report from Robert Fisk is particularly heartbreaking:
The full story is at the Independent.
Defense Secretary Rumsfield's comments on the destruction of a country history? Freedom's untidy, Rumsfield says, And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes.
Unless of course, you've living ...
In the US of A ...
Here, police are taking a much more active role in controlling the populace, even when there isn't violence.
In Oakland last week police fired upon peaceful protestors with wooden dowels and rubber bullets. The protestors were blocking docks owned by a company who has won a contract to rebuild Iraq, and though no ships were destinied for them that day, the Oakland police thought that violence was the answer.
What's most upsetting about their response is that they used deadly force against the protestors. Thd dowels and bullets were fired at protestors' heads, necks, faces, and chests--despite the fact that the training manual for these weapons said "areas such as the head, neck, spine and groin [shouldn't be targetted] unless it is the intent to deliver deadly force."
To reiterate that: the Oakland police tried to kill protestors who were blocking an unused dock.
Meanwhile politicians are trying to increase their ability to control the free speech of protestors. Tony Hall, a reactionary supervisor in San Francisco, is trying to do everything he can to terrify protestors; he's trying to hit them with massive fines and even bring them up under racketeering (RICO) charges--laws which were created to stop the mob. You have to hop over to the SF Bay Guardian to find any mention of this story.
And finally, businesses are getting into the mix, trying to control the thoughts of their employees. Last week it was reported that the San Francisco Chronicle had put a reporter on indefinite leave of absence for attending a peace protest. At the time I gave the SFC the benefit of the doubt because there was some question about the reporter marking the protest as "sick time".
Since, however, the SFC has decreed that their newsroom staff may not participate in anti-war demonstrations. They claim it's a conflict of interest, though they haven't forbidden their staff from engaging in any other political activity. Fortunately there are strong unions at the SFC, and they're protesting this new rule as a violation of their labor contracts.
There's of course not a single word of this story at the SFC-controlled SFGate site. Here's the article at the SF Bay Guardian.
The Two Sides
So, we allow anarchy to destroy a country's history in Iraq, but are racheting down on the least civil disobedience in the US (and even on "unpatriotic" free speech). It sounds a lot like hypocricy.
Are we truly trying to "raise" Iraq up to our democratic ideal. Or, are we instead becoming the fascist controlling regime that we deposed there?
In Iraq ...
Looting, violence, and arson continue while U.S. troops stand by and watch. The following report from Robert Fisk is particularly heartbreaking:
The National Library and Archives--a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents including the royal archives of Iraq--were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the library of Korans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze.
... Amid the ashes of Iraqi history, I found a file blowing in the wind outside: pages of handwritten letters between the court of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who started the Arab revolt against the Turks for Lawrence of Arabia, and the Ottoman rulers of Baghdad.
... When I caught sight of the Koranic library burning flames 100 feet high were bursting from the windows I raced to the offices of the occupying power, the US Marines' Civil Affairs Bureau. An officer shouted to a colleague that "this guy says some biblical [sic] library is on fire". I gave the map location, the precise name in Arabic and English. I said the smoke could be seen from three miles away and it would take only five minutes to drive there. Half an hour later, there wasn't an American at the scene and the flames were shooting 200 feet into the air.
The full story is at the Independent.
Defense Secretary Rumsfield's comments on the destruction of a country history? Freedom's untidy, Rumsfield says, And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes.
Unless of course, you've living ...
In the US of A ...
Here, police are taking a much more active role in controlling the populace, even when there isn't violence.
In Oakland last week police fired upon peaceful protestors with wooden dowels and rubber bullets. The protestors were blocking docks owned by a company who has won a contract to rebuild Iraq, and though no ships were destinied for them that day, the Oakland police thought that violence was the answer.
What's most upsetting about their response is that they used deadly force against the protestors. Thd dowels and bullets were fired at protestors' heads, necks, faces, and chests--despite the fact that the training manual for these weapons said "areas such as the head, neck, spine and groin [shouldn't be targetted] unless it is the intent to deliver deadly force."
To reiterate that: the Oakland police tried to kill protestors who were blocking an unused dock.
Meanwhile politicians are trying to increase their ability to control the free speech of protestors. Tony Hall, a reactionary supervisor in San Francisco, is trying to do everything he can to terrify protestors; he's trying to hit them with massive fines and even bring them up under racketeering (RICO) charges--laws which were created to stop the mob. You have to hop over to the SF Bay Guardian to find any mention of this story.
And finally, businesses are getting into the mix, trying to control the thoughts of their employees. Last week it was reported that the San Francisco Chronicle had put a reporter on indefinite leave of absence for attending a peace protest. At the time I gave the SFC the benefit of the doubt because there was some question about the reporter marking the protest as "sick time".
Since, however, the SFC has decreed that their newsroom staff may not participate in anti-war demonstrations. They claim it's a conflict of interest, though they haven't forbidden their staff from engaging in any other political activity. Fortunately there are strong unions at the SFC, and they're protesting this new rule as a violation of their labor contracts.
There's of course not a single word of this story at the SFC-controlled SFGate site. Here's the article at the SF Bay Guardian.
The Two Sides
So, we allow anarchy to destroy a country's history in Iraq, but are racheting down on the least civil disobedience in the US (and even on "unpatriotic" free speech). It sounds a lot like hypocricy.
Are we truly trying to "raise" Iraq up to our democratic ideal. Or, are we instead becoming the fascist controlling regime that we deposed there?
