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Message 628045 - Posted: 27 Aug 2007, 23:09:03 UTC
Last modified: 27 Aug 2007, 23:16:24 UTC

Miami Police Shot Protester, then laugh about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G63FEamhpA0


Chicago police murder innocent unarmed man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNQnqwxy9Vc


Miami Police Shoot Non-Threatening Protesters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGeaGgk-m18
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
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Message 628057 - Posted: 27 Aug 2007, 23:19:03 UTC
Last modified: 27 Aug 2007, 23:27:50 UTC

Miami police taser protesters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LCQgREv5b8


police brutality - go skateboarding day: cop vs skaters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFUpa0OwlyU
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
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Message 628070 - Posted: 27 Aug 2007, 23:32:51 UTC

Alex Jones Martial Law 911 Rise of the Police State:

Alex Jones Productions
3 hr 0 min 6 sec - May 1, 2005
www.infowars.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4382151310886411718&q=


"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
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Message 628073 - Posted: 27 Aug 2007, 23:38:45 UTC
Last modified: 27 Aug 2007, 23:40:29 UTC

You ought to come to Britain.

For the last twenty years the few checks and balances that exist in our (un-codified) Constitution have been eroded further and further.

We have 1% of the world's population, yet we have 20% of its Surveillance cameras.

The Police are allowed to take your DNA and store it INDEFINITELY, whether or not you have been Charged with any crime, let alone Tried, or found Guilty in a Court - I know, I know; what a 'quaint' notion that is, eh?

Under the new 'anti-Terror' legislation, the Police can, of course, stop, search and sample ANYONE THEY WISH TO.

Once the Mandelblairian National Identity Database is up and running, we will be living in a Surveillance State that would give hardened Stasi operatives nightmares.

Oh, and we have a Government that was elected with a thumping great Parliamentary majority - despite having secured less than 25% of the electorate's vote.

Throw in the use of 'Statutory Instruments', 'Orders in Council', and the wholly-APPOINTED House of Lords, and you have an incipient totalitarian dystopia.

Yay!

But I'm 'not' bitter about it....

;-)
Veni, Vidi, Bibi.
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Message 628186 - Posted: 28 Aug 2007, 3:43:57 UTC

Wow, I had no idea about that,

Don't expect too many Americans to chime in on this one. Too afraid of getting their doors kicked in.
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
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Message 628214 - Posted: 28 Aug 2007, 4:39:22 UTC - in response to Message 628186.  

Wow, I had no idea about that,

Don't expect too many Americans to chime in on this one. Too afraid of getting their doors kicked in.

But they always knock first...then the hinges come off.
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Message 628339 - Posted: 28 Aug 2007, 13:39:07 UTC - in response to Message 628214.  

Wow, I had no idea about that,

Don't expect too many Americans to chime in on this one. Too afraid of getting their doors kicked in.

But they always knock first...then the hinges come off.


That's way I always keep a few cold ones in the fridge in case the police stop by for a visit.
Hopefully the cosmos is not trying to reverse the charges.
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Message 628390 - Posted: 28 Aug 2007, 15:37:48 UTC - in response to Message 628339.  

Wow, I had no idea about that,

Don't expect too many Americans to chime in on this one. Too afraid of getting their doors kicked in.

But they always knock first...then the hinges come off.


That's way I always keep a few cold ones in the fridge in case the police stop by for a visit.


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Message 628445 - Posted: 28 Aug 2007, 16:31:51 UTC - in response to Message 628390.  

Wow, I had no idea about that,

Don't expect too many Americans to chime in on this one. Too afraid of getting their doors kicked in.

But they always knock first...then the hinges come off.


That's way I always keep a few cold ones in the fridge in case the police stop by for a visit.



I wondered where all my papers went. Now I know. It also explains why my cat is always hungry.
Hopefully the cosmos is not trying to reverse the charges.
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Message 637205 - Posted: 9 Sep 2007, 15:12:23 UTC

Hm, distrbing news from Britain, SoxED.
Anyways - problem is always that people need to be responsible for their wrongdoings. And the more power they have the more it is needed. That way a clerk thinks twice about willingly wasting the taxpayers money and the policeman and politician won't abuse his powers.

State employees and poliicians being able to "bend" the law and to commit wrongdoings without consequences is the first step to dictatorship. Just take a look at Russia today.
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Message 637392 - Posted: 9 Sep 2007, 19:19:06 UTC - in response to Message 637205.  

Hm, distrbing news from Britain, SoxED.
Anyways - problem is always that people need to be responsible for their wrongdoings. And the more power they have the more it is needed. That way a clerk thinks twice about willingly wasting the taxpayers money and the policeman and politician won't abuse his powers.

State employees and poliicians being able to "bend" the law and to commit wrongdoings without consequences is the first step to dictatorship. Just take a look at Russia today.


Very good MAC!!

Well done!
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
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Message 648967 - Posted: 26 Sep 2007, 12:25:05 UTC

America’s Police Brutality Pandemic
by Paul Craig Roberts

Bush’s "war on terror" quickly became Bush’s war on Iraqi civilians. So far over one million Iraqi civilians have lost their lives because of Bush’s invasion, and four million have been displaced. Iraq’s infrastructure is in ruins. Disease is rampart. Normal life has disappeared.

Self-righteous Americans justify these monstrous crimes as necessary to ensure their own safety from terrorist attack. Yet, Americans are in far greater danger from their own police forces than they are from foreign terrorists. Ironically, Bush’s "war on terror" has made Americans less safe at home by diminishing US civil liberty and turning an epidemic of US police brutality into a pandemic.

The only terrorist most Americans will ever encounter is a policeman with a badge, nightstick, mace and Taser. A Google search for "police brutality videos" turns up 2,210,000 entries. Some entries are foreign and some are duplications, but the number is so large that a person could do nothing but watch police brutality videos for the rest of his life. A search on "You Tube" alone turned up 2,280 police brutality videos. PrisonPlanet has a selection of the most outrageous recent cases.

Police brutality has crossed the line from using excessive force against a resisting Rodney King to unprovoked gratuitous violence against persons offering no resistance, such as the elderly, women, students, and elected officials. Americans are not safe anywhere from police. Police attack Americans in university libraries, in public meetings, and in their own homes.

Last week we had the case of the University of Florida student who was repeatedly Tasered without cause for asking Senator Kerry some good questions in the question and answer period following Kerry’s speech. Two days after the Florida student was gratuitously brutalized, Senate Republicans defeated Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy’s bill to restore habeas corpus protection.

A UCLA student was Tasered by police without cause for studying in the university library without having his student ID on his person. Following police orders to leave, the student was walking toward the door when police grabbed him and repeatedly Tasered him.

On September 19, 2007 a young woman was repeatedly Tasered without cause by a large brutal cop in a parking lot outside a night club in Warren Ohio.

On September 14, 2007, Roseland, Indiana, city council member David Snyder was ejected from a council meeting by dictatorial council chairman Charlie Shields. Snyder had protested being limited to one minute to speak. Police goon Jack Tiller escorted Snyder out, and as Snyder exited the building, Tiller, following behind, pushed Snyder to the ground and without cause began beating Snyder in the head with a nightstick. Snyder was hospitalized.

Local TV news stations throughout the US offer an endless stream of police brutality videos, which are then posted on the stations’ web sites, often with an opportunity for citizens to express their opinion of the incidents.

There are many disturbing aspects to police brutality cases.

One disturbing aspect is that the police always arrest the people that they have gratuitously brutalized. There was no justification whatsoever to arrest councilman Snyder, or the UCLA student, or the University of Florida student. The cops committed assault against innocent citizens. The cops should have been arrested for their criminal acts. Instead, the cops cover up their own crimes by arresting their victims on false charges that are invented to justify the unprovoked police violence against citizens.

Another disturbing aspect is that no one tells the police to stop the brutality. "Free" Americans are so intimidated by police that on February 19 of this year male customers in a Chicago bar stood aside while a drunk cop weighing 251 pounds beat a 115 pound barmaid, knocking her to the floor with his fists and repeatedly kicking her, for obeying the bar rules and not serving him more drinks.

Yet another disturbing aspect is that a minority of citizens will justify each act of police brutality no matter how brutal and how unprovoked. For example, WNDU.com’s poll of its viewers found that 64.2% agreed that Snyder was a victim of police brutality, but 27.8% thought that Snyder got what was coming to him. "Law and order conservatives" and other authoritarian personalities invariably defend acts of police brutality. Perhaps the police brutality pandemic will bring the day when we will be able to say that a civil libertarian is a law and order conservative who has been brutalized by police.

The most disturbing aspect is that the police usually get away with it.

I remember decades ago when civil libertarians in New York City tried to stop police brutality by establishing civilian review boards to introduce some accountability into the police’s interaction with civilians. Law and order conservatives at William F. Buckley’s National Review went berserk. Accountability was "second-guessing" the police. The result would be a crime wave. And so on.

Police forces have always attracted bullies with authoritative personalities who desire to beat senseless anyone who does not quake in their presence. In the past police could get away with brutalizing blacks but not whites. Today white citizens are as likely as racial minorities to be victims of police brutality.

The police are supreme. The militarization of the police, armed now with military weapons and trained to view the general public as the enemy, against whom "pain compliance" must be used, has placed every American at risk of personal injury and false arrest from our "public protectors."

In "free and democratic America," citizens are in such great danger from police that there are websites devoted to police brutality with online forms to report the brutality.

Nine years ago Human Rights Watch published a report entitled, "Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States." The report stated:

"Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers, including unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and rough treatment, persists because overwhelming barriers to accountability make it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses. Police or public officials greet each new report of brutality with denials or explain that the act was an aberration, while the administrative and criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding officers accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity.

"This report examines common obstacles to accountability for police abuse in fourteen large cities representing most regions of the nation. The cities examined are: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Research for this report was conducted over two and a half years, from late 1995 through early 1998.

"The brutality cases examined, which are set out in detail in chapters on each city, are similar to cases that continue to emerge in headlines and in survivors' complaints. It is important to note, however, that because it is difficult to obtain case information except where there is public scandal and/or prosecution, this report relies heavily on cases that have reached public attention; disciplinary action and criminal prosecution are even less common than the cases set out below would suggest.

There is no way to hold police accountable when the president and vice president of the United States, the attorney general, and the Republican Party maintain that the civil liberties and the separation of powers mandated by the US Constitution must be abandoned in order that the executive branch can keep Americans safe from terrorists.

Even before the "war on terror," federal police murdered 100 people in the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, and no one was held accountable.

Who is a terrorist? If the police and the US government have the mentality of airport security, they cannot tell a terrorist from an 86-year old Marine general on his way to give a speech at West Point. Retired Marine Corps General Joseph J. Foss was delayed and nearly had his Medal of Honor confiscated. Airport security regarded the pin on the medal as a weapon that the 86-year old Marine general and former governor of South Dakota could use to hijack an airliner and commit a terrorist deed.

In America today, every citizen is a potential terrorist in the eyes of the authorities. Airport security makes this clear every minute of every day, as do the FBI and NSA with warrantless spying on our emails, postal mail, telephone calls, and every possible invasion of our privacy. We are all recipients of abuse of our constitutional rights whether or not we suffer beatings, Taserings, and false arrests.

The law makes it impossible for Americans to defend themselves from police brutality. Law and order conservatives have made it a felony with a long prison sentence to "assault a police officer." Assaulting a police officer means that if a police thug intends to beat your brains out with his nightstick and you disarm your assailant, you have "assaulted a police officer." If you are not shot on the spot by his backup, you will be convicted by a "law and order" jury and sent to prison.

No matter how gratuitous and violent the police brutality, a "free" American citizen can defend himself only at the expense, if not of his life, of a long stay in prison. Osama bin Laden must wish that he had such power over Americans.

Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He is also coauthor with Karen Araujo of Chile: Dos Visiones – La Era Allende-Pinochet (Santiago: Universidad Andres Bello, 2000).

Copyright © 2007 Creators Syndicate



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Message 648970 - Posted: 26 Sep 2007, 12:30:12 UTC

Perhaps you'd be better suited constantly critiquing your own GERMAN government?



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Message 649091 - Posted: 26 Sep 2007, 16:44:59 UTC - in response to Message 648967.  

America’s Police Brutality Pandemic
by Paul Craig Roberts

Bush’s "war on terror" quickly became Bush’s war on Iraqi civilians. So far over one million Iraqi civilians have lost their lives because of Bush’s invasion, and four million have been displaced. Iraq’s infrastructure is in ruins. Disease is rampart. Normal life has disappeared.

Self-righteous Americans justify these monstrous crimes as necessary to ensure their own safety from terrorist attack. Yet, Americans are in far greater danger from their own police forces than they are from foreign terrorists. Ironically, Bush’s "war on terror" has made Americans less safe at home by diminishing US civil liberty and turning an epidemic of US police brutality into a pandemic.

The only terrorist most Americans will ever encounter is a policeman with a badge, nightstick, mace and Taser. A Google search for "police brutality videos" turns up 2,210,000 entries. Some entries are foreign and some are duplications, but the number is so large that a person could do nothing but watch police brutality videos for the rest of his life. A search on "You Tube" alone turned up 2,280 police brutality videos. PrisonPlanet has a selection of the most outrageous recent cases.

Police brutality has crossed the line from using excessive force against a resisting Rodney King to unprovoked gratuitous violence against persons offering no resistance, such as the elderly, women, students, and elected officials. Americans are not safe anywhere from police. Police attack Americans in university libraries, in public meetings, and in their own homes.

Last week we had the case of the University of Florida student who was repeatedly Tasered without cause for asking Senator Kerry some good questions in the question and answer period following Kerry’s speech. Two days after the Florida student was gratuitously brutalized, Senate Republicans defeated Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy’s bill to restore habeas corpus protection.

A UCLA student was Tasered by police without cause for studying in the university library without having his student ID on his person. Following police orders to leave, the student was walking toward the door when police grabbed him and repeatedly Tasered him.

On September 19, 2007 a young woman was repeatedly Tasered without cause by a large brutal cop in a parking lot outside a night club in Warren Ohio.

On September 14, 2007, Roseland, Indiana, city council member David Snyder was ejected from a council meeting by dictatorial council chairman Charlie Shields. Snyder had protested being limited to one minute to speak. Police goon Jack Tiller escorted Snyder out, and as Snyder exited the building, Tiller, following behind, pushed Snyder to the ground and without cause began beating Snyder in the head with a nightstick. Snyder was hospitalized.

Local TV news stations throughout the US offer an endless stream of police brutality videos, which are then posted on the stations’ web sites, often with an opportunity for citizens to express their opinion of the incidents.

There are many disturbing aspects to police brutality cases.

One disturbing aspect is that the police always arrest the people that they have gratuitously brutalized. There was no justification whatsoever to arrest councilman Snyder, or the UCLA student, or the University of Florida student. The cops committed assault against innocent citizens. The cops should have been arrested for their criminal acts. Instead, the cops cover up their own crimes by arresting their victims on false charges that are invented to justify the unprovoked police violence against citizens.

Another disturbing aspect is that no one tells the police to stop the brutality. "Free" Americans are so intimidated by police that on February 19 of this year male customers in a Chicago bar stood aside while a drunk cop weighing 251 pounds beat a 115 pound barmaid, knocking her to the floor with his fists and repeatedly kicking her, for obeying the bar rules and not serving him more drinks.

Yet another disturbing aspect is that a minority of citizens will justify each act of police brutality no matter how brutal and how unprovoked. For example, WNDU.com’s poll of its viewers found that 64.2% agreed that Snyder was a victim of police brutality, but 27.8% thought that Snyder got what was coming to him. "Law and order conservatives" and other authoritarian personalities invariably defend acts of police brutality. Perhaps the police brutality pandemic will bring the day when we will be able to say that a civil libertarian is a law and order conservative who has been brutalized by police.

The most disturbing aspect is that the police usually get away with it.

I remember decades ago when civil libertarians in New York City tried to stop police brutality by establishing civilian review boards to introduce some accountability into the police’s interaction with civilians. Law and order conservatives at William F. Buckley’s National Review went berserk. Accountability was "second-guessing" the police. The result would be a crime wave. And so on.

Police forces have always attracted bullies with authoritative personalities who desire to beat senseless anyone who does not quake in their presence. In the past police could get away with brutalizing blacks but not whites. Today white citizens are as likely as racial minorities to be victims of police brutality.

The police are supreme. The militarization of the police, armed now with military weapons and trained to view the general public as the enemy, against whom "pain compliance" must be used, has placed every American at risk of personal injury and false arrest from our "public protectors."

In "free and democratic America," citizens are in such great danger from police that there are websites devoted to police brutality with online forms to report the brutality.

Nine years ago Human Rights Watch published a report entitled, "Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States." The report stated:

"Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers, including unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and rough treatment, persists because overwhelming barriers to accountability make it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses. Police or public officials greet each new report of brutality with denials or explain that the act was an aberration, while the administrative and criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding officers accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity.

"This report examines common obstacles to accountability for police abuse in fourteen large cities representing most regions of the nation. The cities examined are: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Research for this report was conducted over two and a half years, from late 1995 through early 1998.

"The brutality cases examined, which are set out in detail in chapters on each city, are similar to cases that continue to emerge in headlines and in survivors' complaints. It is important to note, however, that because it is difficult to obtain case information except where there is public scandal and/or prosecution, this report relies heavily on cases that have reached public attention; disciplinary action and criminal prosecution are even less common than the cases set out below would suggest.

There is no way to hold police accountable when the president and vice president of the United States, the attorney general, and the Republican Party maintain that the civil liberties and the separation of powers mandated by the US Constitution must be abandoned in order that the executive branch can keep Americans safe from terrorists.

Even before the "war on terror," federal police murdered 100 people in the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, and no one was held accountable.

Who is a terrorist? If the police and the US government have the mentality of airport security, they cannot tell a terrorist from an 86-year old Marine general on his way to give a speech at West Point. Retired Marine Corps General Joseph J. Foss was delayed and nearly had his Medal of Honor confiscated. Airport security regarded the pin on the medal as a weapon that the 86-year old Marine general and former governor of South Dakota could use to hijack an airliner and commit a terrorist deed.

In America today, every citizen is a potential terrorist in the eyes of the authorities. Airport security makes this clear every minute of every day, as do the FBI and NSA with warrantless spying on our emails, postal mail, telephone calls, and every possible invasion of our privacy. We are all recipients of abuse of our constitutional rights whether or not we suffer beatings, Taserings, and false arrests.

The law makes it impossible for Americans to defend themselves from police brutality. Law and order conservatives have made it a felony with a long prison sentence to "assault a police officer." Assaulting a police officer means that if a police thug intends to beat your brains out with his nightstick and you disarm your assailant, you have "assaulted a police officer." If you are not shot on the spot by his backup, you will be convicted by a "law and order" jury and sent to prison.

No matter how gratuitous and violent the police brutality, a "free" American citizen can defend himself only at the expense, if not of his life, of a long stay in prison. Osama bin Laden must wish that he had such power over Americans.

Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He is also coauthor with Karen Araujo of Chile: Dos Visiones – La Era Allende-Pinochet (Santiago: Universidad Andres Bello, 2000).

Copyright © 2007 Creators Syndicate



Excellent article...I think you can see many of the points raised here in action in the Andrew Meyer thread. People justifying police brutality..and people not being allowed to defend themselves against it with out being arrested for resisting arrest.
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Message 649094 - Posted: 26 Sep 2007, 16:48:14 UTC

I somehow doubt many of you are actually genuinely concerned.....as Rush has pointed out you truly love that force the government applies on others' lives.
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Message 649180 - Posted: 26 Sep 2007, 18:24:11 UTC - in response to Message 649094.  
Last modified: 26 Sep 2007, 18:25:03 UTC

I somehow doubt many of you are actually genuinely concerned.....as Rush has pointed out you truly love that force the government applies on others' lives.

Actually I think that the USA already have become a police state, as well as Germany and some others have become police states also.
For example: here in Germany, demonstrations have to be applied for permit at the authorities 6 to 8 weeks minimum in advance, announcing the subject, and the estimated number of participants to the authorities. When the goal of the demonstration seems to be a "critical" one, several divisions of cops get all free weekends or any holiday canceled before the day of the demonstration, they are sent to training camps on the other side of the country to build up even more frustration and temper in them, even hate (like, "if it were not for those demonstrators you could have stayed in your usual police offices or enjoy your free weekend/your vacation instead of robbing through the wilderness here") - before they are commanded to "guard" these demonstrations. Of course then they welcome each single excuse of a reason to let their dammed up aggressions go against the demonstrators. The best example of this you could see at Rostock-Heiligendamm.
And a old retired ex-cop told me that they used to follow this "hate the people" - strategy since the late 60's/ early 70's.

Also the US cops seem to have a certain paranoia in them, seeing a potential criminal in each person they are speaking to whilst being in office. I saw that they even grabbed to their weapons when they asked drivers for their driving license.
It seems to me that the knowledge of having the "power over freedom and life" makes them paranoid and anxious, makes them "shoot first ask later".
__________________________

I saw that cops acted like bullies to the people they normally are supposed "to protect and to serve" - and got away with it, because each action agaist that bullying would have been "resistance against police".
I saw that they could arrest people with made up "evidences" and got away with it.
I saw that they could beat up unarmed persons in numbers of 5, 6 cops against 1 person, causing this person go to hospital for several weeks without them having a single bruise themselves - and got away with it.
I saw that cops even could kill unarmed, handcuffed people and got away with it.
And I'm speaking of Real Life and court reports, not movies. And I'm also speaking about West Germany and UK and France and USA, not only East Germany (though such things also happened there).

Police states? Of course!

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Message 649195 - Posted: 26 Sep 2007, 18:46:56 UTC - in response to Message 649180.  

I somehow doubt many of you are actually genuinely concerned.....as Rush has pointed out you truly love that force the government applies on others' lives.

Actually I think that the USA already have become a police state, as well as Germany and some others have become police states also.
For example: here in Germany, demonstrations have to be applied for permit at the authorities 6 to 8 weeks minimum in advance, announcing the subject, and the estimated number of participants to the authorities. When the goal of the demonstration seems to be a "critical" one, several divisions of cops get all free weekends or any holiday canceled before the day of the demonstration, they are sent to training camps on the other side of the country to build up even more frustration and temper in them, even hate (like, "if it were not for those demonstrators you could have stayed in your usual police offices or enjoy your free weekend/your vacation instead of robbing through the wilderness here") - before they are commanded to "guard" these demonstrations. Of course then they welcome each single excuse of a reason to let their dammed up aggressions go against the demonstrators. The best example of this you could see at Rostock-Heiligendamm.
And a old retired ex-cop told me that they used to follow this "hate the people" - strategy since the late 60's/ early 70's.

Also the US cops seem to have a certain paranoia in them, seeing a potential criminal in each person they are speaking to whilst being in office. I saw that they even grabbed to their weapons when they asked drivers for their driving license.
It seems to me that the knowledge of having the "power over freedom and life" makes them paranoid and anxious, makes them "shoot first ask later".
__________________________

I saw that cops acted like bullies to the people they normally are supposed "to protect and to serve" - and got away with it, because each action agaist that bullying would have been "resistance against police".
I saw that they could arrest people with made up "evidences" and got away with it.
I saw that they could beat up unarmed persons in numbers of 5, 6 cops against 1 person, causing this person go to hospital for several weeks without them having a single bruise themselves - and got away with it.
I saw that cops even could kill unarmed, handcuffed people and got away with it.
And I'm speaking of Real Life and court reports, not movies. And I'm also speaking about West Germany and UK and France and USA, not only East Germany (though such things also happened there).

Police states? Of course!


There's a whole thread I made for you that is a socialist/marxist magazine. Please use it. There's tons of intellectuals that are contributors there for you to didactically argue against. Should be a true gem.

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Message 649306 - Posted: 26 Sep 2007, 21:21:58 UTC - in response to Message 648967.  

If the police and the US government have the mentality of airport security

Never underestimate stupid people in large numbers... ;)
It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .
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Message 653061 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 0:00:45 UTC
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Arrested for reading the Constitution?
WTF? Aren't police officers supposed to have taken an oath on the Constitution?

Part 2.
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Message 653095 - Posted: 3 Oct 2007, 1:07:10 UTC - in response to Message 653061.  
Last modified: 3 Oct 2007, 1:28:48 UTC

Arrested for reading the Constitution?
WTF? Aren't police officers supposed to have taken an oath on the Constitution?

Part 2.


Hmm.. after watching the videos, and checking up on a couple of things, that it isn't as bad as you are making it out to be.

It appears that a pro-war group was holding a rally and an anti-war group (or groups) tried to disrupt it. It seems likely that the pro-war group had a permit, especially given their speaker list (including Senator Lieberman and Senator McCain, according to that one guy). It also seems likely that the 'Code Pink' group (and maybe others) crashed the party, so to speak, and tried to disrupt it.

It appears that the police, doing their job, tried to separate the two factions by moving the code pink people to another area away from the pro-war speakers podium, and that the code pink people that refused to move got arrested.

This is not a violation of 'free speech rights'. The Government has a compelling interest in separating opposing groups like this. Human beings, being the hotheads that we frequently are, have a tendency to resort to violence in emotionally charged circumstances such as this.

Separation of opposing groups like this became standard procedure back at the height of the civil rights movement. Frequently, minority groups holding civil rights rallies found their rallies disrupted when the KKK would show up and begin intimidating them, and frequently violence would break out between the civil rights people and the sheetheads.

Nobody stopped the Code Pink people from having their say. They just had to do it 'over there', so as not to disrupt the pro-war group. And if it had been an anti-war rally, and pro-war people had shown up, it would have resulted in an identical response. The pro-war people would have been separated and moved, and arrested if they refused to do so. This response actually HELPS guarantee the right of 'free speech' for all concerned. It lets each group have their say, without a direct confrontation with the associated risk of violence.

If the Code Pink people want to have a rally, let them go for it! All they need to do is decide on a venue and go get a permit.

And 'permits' are not a violation of free speech rights either, when it comes to protests and rallies. The permit process helps guarantee the free-speech rights of the group, by ensuring that there are no scheduling conflicts between your group and other groups protesting/rallying about other issues, and it puts the police department on notice so they can assign some officers to provide security services at your protest/rally (for things like traffic control and elimination of disruptions).

CodePink protestor: "Congress shall make no law..."
Police: "Excuse me, but you need to go over there"
CodePink protestor: "Congress shall make no law..."
Police Officer: "Please go over there, or I will have to arrest you..."
CodePink protestor: "Congress shall make no law..."
Police Officer: "Ok, I tried... You are under arrest. <gets out the cuffs> You have the right to remain silent..."

This is no different than "Taser-boy's" circumstances. Failure to comply with a Police Officer's lawful instructions leads to arrest. Resist arrest, and get a smackdown when they have to forcibly put the handcuffs on you. At least, from what I saw, the CodePink lady had the good sense to not resist arrest.

It wasn't WHAT that lady was reciting, it was that she was disrupting somebody else's lawful demonstration and her failure to obey the police officer that tried to get her to move a couple of hundred feet that got her arrested.

You have a right to hold a demonstration without interference by your opponents. Your opponents have a right to hold a demonstration without interference by you. Neither you nor your opponents have a right to disrupt each other's demonstration.

Nothing to see here... Move along.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons why the point could be made that the USA (and a number of other nations) are moving towards being police states. Reasons like increasing surveillance of citizens, abrogation of rights protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures, and search warrants issued by a magistrate being increasingly not required, as examples. The issue raised by Thorin's post that I quoted ISN'T one of them.
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