Wednesday, September 28, 2011

US Militarization and Callousness From Abu Ghraib to Drone Wars to The Execution of Troy Davis to "Kill TV Nights" NYPDs Brutal Crackdown On Wall Street Protesters


UPDATE: 4:02 PM, Sept. 28, 2011.

NYPD brutal and unnecessary violent response to the protesters on Wall Street appears to have become the norm in the US.

...The protests were a lament for a nation in which, despite the 2008 meltdown, the financial system remains largely unregulated, where 46 million Americans live below the official poverty line, and where inequality is greater now than at any time since 1929. That's hardly the stuff of revolutions... And in the land of the first amendment you'd think it was OK to shout it out in the street, even if that street is Wall Street.


Not according to the two white-shirted senior NYPD officers captured on video. The film shows a small group of women protesters, who are doing nothing menacing at all, having been kettled by police. As they stand there fenced in and defenceless, the two white shirts walk up to them, hold out a pepper-spray canister and zap them straight in the face...

from the article Wall Street Protests Reveal Slice of America's Barely Tamed Brutality " by Ed Pilkington The Guardian via Commondreams.org, Sept. 27, 2011

While the Wall Street occupation is growing, it needs an all-out commitment from everyone who cheered the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, said "We are all Wisconsin," and stood in solidarity with the Greeks and the Spaniards. This is a movement for anyone who lacks a job, housing or health care, or thinks they have no future.


Our system is broken at every level. More than 25 million Americans are unemployed. More than 50 million live without health insurance. Perhaps 100 million Americans are mired in poverty, using realistic measures. Yet the fat cats continue to get tax breaks and reap billions while politicians compete to turn the austerity screws on all of us.

From : " The Revolution Begins at Home: A Clarion Call to Join the Wall Street Protests We all need to go down and join the occupation -- and not just by "liking" it on Facebook, signing a petition or retweeting protest photos." by Arun Gupta at Alternet.org, Sept. 27, 2011

and we aslo see this callous cavalier attitude towards the destruction of the environment as in Mountain Top Removal Minning .
The destruction of some 500 mountains in the Appalachians is justified on the basis of profits and greed while ignoring environmental damage and damage to the health and culture of a whole people :

"...Surface mining has demolished our quality of life and life expectancy in our native homes. Our communities are now war zones with constant blasting, pollution and all area surface mining has stolen our ability to recreate in the mountains and do what we culturally always have. We are being shut out of areas that we have always enjoyed. Even our historic cemeteries are left in accessible to the public."


Above quote from : Appalachian Coalfield Leaders Turn Tables at Congressional Hearing on Mountaintop Removal by Jeff Biggers at Alternet.org, Sept. 26, 2011

 So the people in Appalachia who are against the coal companies destruction of their land they too should head off to the protest on Wall Street.

And anyone disgusted by police violence should also head off to Wall Street.

And anyone concerned over the billions being wasted on the so called Global War on Terror which has just led to larger groups of non-westerners being terrorized by foreign troops occupying their lands they too should head off to Wall Street.

Those concerned about the state's right to use the death penalty should also head off to Wall Street.
----------------
Excellent piece by Lawrence O'donnell at MSNBC- what Americans don't want to see and refuse to give a damn about.

  MSNBC on NYPD Police Brutality during Occupy Wall Street Lawrence O'donnell with "The Last Word"
 Uploaded by bYarlboro on Sep 26, 2011

 



 The NYPDs use of brute force and the lack of concern over police brutality by the mainstream Media and those in power is just further proof of the rot at the core of America's soul .

The Uberconservatives and the equally callous Neo-cons, Libertarians, Ayn Randians, Neo-liberals are always on the side of the police and of the penal system . A large portion of the elite, those in authority . the Mainstream Media and much of the public have come to believe that those stopped by the police deserve whatever violent treatment they get.

They have come to believe that if the police are beating up and tear-gassing protesters it must be for a good reason and therefore that in their view that's the end of the argument.

They have come to believe that those incarcerated in military run prisons or government run prisons & privately owned prisons have no rights whether civil rights or human rights. President Obama has shown which side he is on with his refusal to take action against those who committed war crimes or crimes against humanity during the Bush/Cheney era .
Obama dug in his heels defending the ill-treatment of whistle-blower Bradley Manning by means of extended period of isolation and other torture tactics such sleep-deprivation, drugs , threats and intimidation all of which various human rights organizations have condemned.

President Obama appears to be not on the side of the people which he claimed but on the side of Wall Street , the elite and the status quo even though his own election was the result of a rejection of the status quo. 
 Note: hashtag #occupywallstreet has been changed to #TakeWallStreet



Occupy Wall Street' Becomes Nationwide Movement by C. Cryn Johannsen at WWW.loop21.com , Sept. 27, 2011

Young protesters drowning in student loan debt want to ignite America’s autumn revolt

Remember the Arab Spring, and how protesters demanding democratic rights took to social media to begin a massive, widespread protest throughout the Middle East? It didn’t happen overnight but most of those civilian led demonstrations resulted in the fall of Egypt’s regime, which had been ruled by Muhammad Mubarak after decades of dictatorship, the overthrow of the government in Tunisia, as well as widespread uprising in countless others Middle Eastern countries. The same thing appears to be happening in the U.S. Dubbed “America’s Autumn Movement” by many social media users, the official protest began on September 17th in lower Manhattan’s financial district. The hashtag on Twitter was initially #OccupyWallStreet, named after the group that was funded by AdBusters (although they insist that this is a “people owned movement”). It soon became #TakeWallStreet, however.

...These images of arrests and police brutality have spread like wildfire across social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook. In response to these images, one woman said mournfully, “Our children are being brutalized for telling the truth . . . their future is fu*ked and they know it. Welcome to police state, USA.”

In a poignant Facebook note by Erin Leidy, 32, who traveled from Ithaca, NY to the protest in lower Manhattan, she wrote about the harrowing experience of those who were arrested:

"Many people were badly hurt. One young man was kept in the back of a police van handcuffed to the wall with a head injury. Bleeding and nodding in and out of consciousness as they drove around for about an hour and a half. Somebody handcuffed across [sic] from him was able to get his phone from his back pocket and text the medic team from behind his back."

Perhaps the outrage from seeing what NYPD police officers did to protesters this past weekend has sparked the spreading of the movement across the nation. It is hard to speculate, but the occupy movement is popping up in cities across the nation. There is also a page called OccupyTogether.org, and it contains countless cities across the U.S. where people are organizing similar protests.

Renowned intellectual and activist, Dr. Noam Chomsky, has come out in full support of the movement. He decried the “gangsterism on Wall Street,” adding, “The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.” Roseanne Barr was at the protest when it was initially launched, and rapper Lupe Fiasco has come out in full support on Twitter and at recent concerts.

Why are these people getting involved? As Slaughter explained, “This is really the only recourse we have left.

Our government has been usurped by wasteful, corrupt and short-sighted powerful interests who in no way have the best interests of the working class and poor.”
You can watch the protest live on #OccupyWallStreet Livestream.



Journalist Ed Pilkington argues that the brutality of the NYPD displayed over the last week in their draconian crack down on the protesters on Wall Street is just part of a piece in which Americans are becoming more jaded and accepting of violence whether on Wall Street or in the unjust execution of Troy Davis in Georgia. He also compares these actions to the attitudes of the GOP cheering the fact that Rick Perry has presided over the executions of 234 men while Ron Paul is cheered for his lack of sympathy and even gloating over the untimely death of someone because they couldn't afford or chose not to purchase private health insurance.

Unlike Pilkington others have been noticing for a while now especially since 9/11 this cold hearted attitude on the part of many Americans who adhere to a vicious cruel form of Social Darwinism and who demonize America's critics and enemies alike . The conservatives including the GOP and Tea party mindset is that of winners and losers and that no one should show sympathy let alone help those who are beaten down that is those who are seen as life's losers.

We can push this characterization of conservative Americans to include a majority of Americans who no longer object to the use of torture by reducing this important legal and ethical issue down to a matter of semantics and that it has nothing to do with morality . They argue as does Dick Cheney that the enemy are evil and therefore should be shown no mercy but who are the enemy . Well it seems that the majority of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and so on are seen as the enemy so blowing up whole villages killing men women and children is justified supposedly in the face of a demonic cruel, brutal, uncivilized, anti-Western, anti-Christian barbarians .
But then there is the enemy at home who include those who are critical of America's basic tenets of unfettered unregulated capitalism and winner take all mindset.

The brutality and ordinariness of Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Gitmo and the bombing of cities and towns and villages and the targeting of wedding parties , funerals and other community gatherings is all part of this mindset in which human life is devalued . US and British soldiers are taught to feel nothing except anger and rage for those they kill or torture.

We see this on display with the recent revelations about British troops in Afghanistan being shown military snuff films in which Afghan citizens are shot and killed by soldiers in an Apache gun ship a mile or two away as if they were playing a video game.

So as they say the chickens have come home to roost as we see more and more examples of police brutality in the US and these acts are defended or downplayed by those in authority and the Mainstream Media. The attitude of many is that if the police are roughing up a suspect then the suspect must have done something wrong and that justice should be served up even before the suspect is actually charged or has their day in court.

So the brutal attitudes of the guards at Abu Ghraib are now on display on Wall Street as peaceful protesters are treated as if they were in fact terrorists .
What does it say about America when its president in all these cases is MIA from Abu Ghraib to Gitmo to the cruel and unusual punishment of the whistle-blower Bradley Manning and the not so veiled threats aimed at Wikileaks spokesperson Julianne Assange.

We also see this in Obama's abandoning of the Palestinian people who are under the oppressive Israeli Apartheid regime Instead the people suffering in Gaza or the occupied territories are once again tossed aside because Obama might lose a few votes or lose the backing of the pro-Israel lobby even though this means alienating the rest of the world. This is politics as usual cynicism at its apex. Obama has now sided with the most extreme racist anti-Arab anti-Muslim groups in Israel and America .

The attitude as we hear day in and day out is the erroneous claim that the courts in the US (or even here in Canada or Britain) are doing a poor job of ensuring criminals and agitators are imprisoned. Instead the right wing pundits and politicians playing to their base claim the courts and the judicial system is failing because bleeding heart liberals have hijacked the justice system in America. The right wing extremists such as Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest of the usual suspects promulgate these attitudes and justify taking whatever action necessary to take down criminals along with those infected with some form of wimpy unAmerican liberal ideology .



Wall Street Protests Reveal Slice of America's Barely Tamed Brutality by Ed Pilkington The Guardian via Commondreams.org, Sept. 27, 2011

...The protests were a lament for a nation in which, despite the 2008 meltdown, the financial system remains largely unregulated, where 46 million Americans live below the official poverty line, and where inequality is greater now than at any time since 1929. That's hardly the stuff of revolutions... And in the land of the first amendment you'd think it was OK to shout it out in the street, even if that street is Wall Street.

Not according to the two white-shirted senior NYPD officers captured on video. The film shows a small group of women protesters, who are doing nothing menacing at all, having been kettled by police. As they stand there fenced in and defenceless, the two white shirts walk up to them, hold out a pepper-spray canister and zap them straight in the face.

It's the officers' insouciance that is most shocking. They engage the pepper spray as calmly as if they were handing out parking tickets, then turn and just as calmly walk away.

The video reminded me of another recent event at which I was present: last week's execution in Georgia of Troy Davis. The case drew international attention because there was no forensic evidence and seven out of nine key witnesses had recanted their testimony.

But it was the incidental details outside the prison that caught my eye. An impassioned but entirely peaceful crowd of protesters had gathered to make the pretty reasonable argument that states should not go around killing innocent people. Georgia's response was to line up a Swat team in black riot gear... and fly police helicopters with spotlights overhead...

...But the most gruesome element of the proceedings had nothing to do with Georgia. Rather it came from the highest court in the land, the bastion of American justice, the US supreme court in Washington. It was the supreme court that kept Davis waiting for four full hours, not knowing whether he was about to live or die, and then announced the execution could go ahead. Calmly, insouciantly, just like those New York cops.

The combination of pepper spray, Swat teams and judicial torture – for that is what it was – underlined for me a strain of American life that is forever present but rarely makes itself so boldly visible as it has this week. You find it nostalgically glamorised in westerns and Coen brothers films – rough justice, primordial morality, the cold hard logic of the gun. It's a barely tamed brutality that sits oddly with America's claim to be the standard-bearer of civilisation in the world.

And it has been on ample display too at the pinnacle of American politics over the past few days, in the Republican presidential nomination debates...

...The executioner-in-chief ( Texas Governor Rick Perry) was introduced at a recent TV debate as having presided over 234 executions. The Republican audience cheered. When asked how he felt about such blood-lust, he said: "I think Americans understand justice."

In another debate, Ron Paul (the libertarian) was asked whether a man with a life-threatening illness but no health insurance should be allowed to die. "Yeah!" shouted the audience. Life is sacred, it seems, but only for the unborn.

Such harshness – barbarity, you might even say – is not an aberration or a joke to be shrugged off over a Budweiser in front of our TV screens. It is an integral part of the American public mind, as evident in Manhattan and Washington as it is in the Deep South. And the Republican party is embracing it with a vigour that should focus all our minds in the presidential election ahead.

And as seen in this next article the rules of engagement for police departments are either lax or non-existent as the police refuse to own up to fellow officers who overreact and who are all too " trigger happy " or see nothing wrong with beating the crap out of a suspect who may not be guilty of any crime and who might be physically or mentally challenged . None of this matters to most police departments or to most citizens in the US or here in Canada or even Great Britain as we see this callous regard for other human beings.

The Uberconservatives and the equally callous Neo-cons, Libertarians, Ayn Randians, Neo-liberals are always on the side of the police and of the penal system . A large portion of the elite, those in authority . theMainstream Media and much of the public have come to believe that those stopped by the police deserve whatever violent treatment they get.
They have come to believe that if the police are beating up and tear-gassing protesters it must be for a good reason and therefore that in their view that's the end of the argument.

President Obama appears to be not on the side of the people which he claimed but on the side of Wall Street , the elite and the status quo even though his own election was the result of a rejection of the status quo.

" More Than Half of ‘Armed’ Suspects Shot by LA Sheriff Were Not Armed " by Jorge Rivas from Colorlines via Alternet.org , Sept. 26, 2011

A new study has found that in most shootings in which Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies fired at suspects who appeared to be reaching for a weapon, the suspect turned out to be unarmed. And in the last six years, all but two of those people shot were black and Latino, according to the study by the Police Assessment Resource Center for LA County Supervisors.

Over the past six years, approximately 61 percent of all suspects shot because an officer believed they were armed were confirmed to be unarmed at the time of the shooting. A little more than half of those suspects were holding an object such as a cell phone or sunglasses that was believed by deputies to be a possible firearm.

The analysis also found that 61 percent of those shot at by deputies were Latino, 29 percent black and 10 percent white. The LA Times provides some more context:

“Waistband shootings” are particularly controversial because the justification for the shootings can conceivably be fabricated after the fact, according to the county monitor’s report. The monitor was careful to point out that the report wasn’t making the case deputies were being dishonest, simply that the spike in those shootings left the department vulnerable to criticism.

Merrick Bobb, special counsel to the county Board of Supervisors, also found a rise in shootings in which deputies didn’t see an actual gun before firing. In those cases, the person may have had a weapon on them, but never brandished it.

Those shootings spiked by 50% last year, according to the report. Last year also had the highest proportion of people shot by deputies who turned out to be unarmed altogether.
Also check out;

NYPD Violence at Occupy Wall Street: Would Tea Partiers or Clinic Protesters Receive Such Treatment? BY Jill Filipovic from Feministe via Alternet.org, Sept. 27, 2011

" The Revolution Begins at Home: A Clarion Call to Join the Wall Street Protests We all need to go down and join the occupation -- and not just by "liking" it on Facebook, signing a petition or retweeting protest photos." by Arun Gupta at Alternet.org, Sept. 27, 2011

US soldiers proudly took body parts as souvenirs New Zealand Herald, Sept. 24, 2011

Alabama Town Offers Criminal Offenders the Choice of Church or Jail
Bay Minette, Alabama clearly missed the memo about separation of church and state.by Tara Lohan via Alternet & CNN, Sept. 26, 2011


Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Other Right Wingers Want to Turn Back the Clock to 1900 -- What Was Life Like Back Then? Thank goodness for the progressive era, the New Deal and the Great Society, and heaven (or the founders) help us if we allow the demolition of their gains by J. A. Myerson at Alternet.org, Sept. 22, 2011

and we aslo see this callous cavalier attitude towards the destruction of the environment as in Mountain Top Removal Minning .
The destruction of some 500 mountains in the Appalachians is justified on the basis of profits and greed while ignoring environmental damage and damage to the health and culture of a whole people :

"...Surface mining has demolished our quality of life and life expectancy in our native homes. Our communities are now war zones with constant blasting, pollution and all area surface mining has stolen our ability to recreate in the mountains and do what we culturally always have. We are being shut out of areas that we have always enjoyed. Even our historic cemeteries are left in accessible to the public."


Appalachian Coalfield Leaders Turn Tables at Congressional Hearing on Mountaintop Removal by Jeff Biggers at Alternet.org, Sept. 26, 2011

In gut-wrenching testimonies on the devastating economic costs and mounting humanitarian crisis related to reckless mountaintop removal operations, two courageous Appalachian coalfield leaders turned the tables on an EPA-bashing Republican-led Natural Resources House Committee hearing in Charleston, West Virginia today.

“The coal industry obviously wants to bury and pollute all of our water and all of who we are, for temporary jobs,” 2009 North American Goldman Prize Winner Maria Gunnoe testified. “Jobs in surface mining are dependent on blowing up the next mountain and burying the next stream. When are we going to say enough is enough?

...Forty years ago, the venerable West Virginia Congressman Ken Hechler foretold the economic ruin of strip-mining and mountaintop removal, which had already “left a trail of utter despair for many honest and hard-working people,” in a similar congressional hearing:

“What about the jobs that will be lost if the strippers continue to ruin the tourist industry, wash away priceless topsoil, fill people’s yards with the black muck, which runs off from a strip mine, rip open the bellies of the hills and spill their guts in spoil-banks? This brutal and hideous contempt for valuable land is a far more serious threat to the economy than a few thousand jobs which are easily transferable into the construction industry, or to fill the sharp demand for workers in underground mines.”

At the age of 97, Hechler is still trying to get the President and Congress to recognize the 40-year rap sheet of mountaintop removal operations. In truth, thanks to the heavily mechanization of strip-mining and shift to Powder River Basin operations in the West, Appalachian coalfield states like West Virginia and Kentucky have lost more than 65 percent of their jobs since Hechler spoke out nearly a half century ago.
and see on how the British and American are trying to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people by increasing use of deadly force against Taleban , insurgents or average citizens:

British soldiers in Afghanistan shown 'war snuff movies'Camp Bastion's 'Kill TV nights' are intended to update troops on mission's progress, says MoD " By Kunal Dutta, The Independent UK, September 25, 2011

and so it goes,
GORD.

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