Politics, Society etc.

[Jerry_Curls]

Here are some good topics to jump off of...

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Eduardo Galeano
Global Research
Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:36 UTC
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14767



Is justice right side up?

Has world justice been frozen in an upside-down position?

The shoe-thrower of Iraq, the man who hurled his shoes at Bush, was condemned to three years in prison. Doesn't he deserve, instead, a medal?

Who is the terrorist? The hurler of shoes or their recipient? Is not the real terrorist the serial killer who, lying, fabricated the Iraq war, massacred a multitude, and legalized and ordered torture?

Who are the guilty ones--the people of Atenco, in Mexico, the indigenous Mapuches of Chile, the Kekchies of Guatemala, the landless peasants of Brazil - all being accused of the crime of terrorism for defending their right to their own land? If the earth is sacred, even if the law does not say so, aren't its defenders sacred too?

According to Foreign Policy Magazine, Somalia is the most dangerous place in the world. But who are the pirates? The starving people who attack ships or the speculators of Wall Street who spent years attacking the world and who are now rewarded with many millions of dollars for their pains?

Why does the world reward its ransackers?

Why is justice a one-eyed blind woman? Wal-Mart, the most powerful corporation on earth, bans trade unions. McDonald's, too. Why do these corporations violate, with criminal impunity, international law? Is it because in this contemporary world of ours, work is valued as lower than trash and workers' rights are valued even less?

Who are the righteous and who are the villains? If international justice really exists, why are the powerful never judged? The masterminds of the worst butcheries are never sent to prison. Is it because it is these butchers themselves who hold the prison keys?

What makes the five nations with veto power in the United Nations inviolable? Is it of a divine origin, that veto power of theirs? Can you trust those who profit from war to guard the peace?

Is it fair that world peace is in the hands of the very five nations who are also the world's main producers of weapons? Without implying any disrespect to the drug runners, couldn't we refer to this arrangement as yet another example of organized crime?

Those who clamor, everywhere, for the death penalty are strangely silent about the owners of the world. Even worse, these clamorers forever complain about knife-wielding murderers, yet say nothing about missile-wielding arch-murderers.

And one asks oneself: Given that these self-righteous world owners are so enamored of killing, why pray don't they try to aim their murderous proclivities at social injustice? Is it a just a world when, every minute, three million dollars are wasted on the military, while at the same time fifteen children perish from hunger or curable disease? Against whom is the so-called international community armed to the teeth? Against poverty or against the poor?

Why don't the champions of capital punishment direct their ire at the values of the consumer society, values which pose a daily threat to public safety? Or doesn't, perhaps, the constant bombardment of advertising constitute an invitation to crime? Doesn't that bombardment numb millions and millions of unemployed or poorly paid youth, endlessly teaching them the lie that "to be = to have," that life derives its meaning from ownership of such things as cars or brand name shoes? Own, own, they keep saying, implying that he who has nothing is, himself, nothing.

Why isn't the death penalty applied to death itself? The world is organized in the service of death. Isn't it true that the military industrial complex manufactures death and devours the greater part of our resources as well as a good part of our energies? Yet the owners of the world only condemn violence when it is exercised by others. To extraterrestrials, if they existed, such monopoly of violence would appear inexplicable. It likewise appears insupportable to earth dwellers who, against all the available evidence, hope for survival: we humans are the only animals who specialize in mutual extermination, and who have developed a technology of destruction that is annihilating, coincidentally, our planet and all its inhabitants.

This technology sustains itself on fear. It is the fear of enemies that justifies the squandering of resources by the military and police. And speaking about implementing the death penalty, why don't we pass a death sentence on fear itself? Would it not behoove us to end this universal dictatorship of the professional scaremongers? The sowers of panic condemn us to loneliness, keeping solidarity outside our reach: falsely teaching us that we live in a dog-eat-dog world, that he who can must crush his fellows, that danger is lurking behind every neighbor. Watch out, they keep saying, be careful, this neighbor will steal from you, that other one will rape you, that baby carriage hides a Muslim bomb, and that woman who is watching you--that innocent-looking neighbor of yours - will surely infect you with swine flu.

In this upside-down world, they are making us afraid of even the most elementary acts of justice and common sense. When President Evo Morales started to re-build Bolivia, so that his country with its indigenous majority will no longer feel shame facing a mirror, his actions provoked panic. Morales' challenge was indeed catastrophic from the traditional standpoint of the racist order, whose beneficiaries felt that theirs was the only possible option for Bolivia. It was Evo, they felt, who ushered in chaos and violence, and this alleged crime justified efforts to blow up national unity and break Bolivia into pieces. And when President Correa of Ecuador refused to pay the illegitimate debts of his country, the news caused terror in the financial world and Ecuador was threatened with dire punishment, for daring to set such a bad example. If the military dictatorships and roguish politicians have always been pampered by international banks, have we not already conditioned ourselves to accept it as our inevitable fate that the people must pay for the club that hits them and for the greed that plunders them?

But, have common sense and justice always been divorced from each other?

Were not common sense and justice meant to walk hand in hand, intimately linked?

Aren't common sense, and also justice, in accord with the feminist slogan which states that if we, men, had to go through pregnancy, abortion would have been free. Why not legalize the right to have an abortion? Is it because abortion will then cease being the sole privilege of the women who can afford it and of the physicians who can charge for it?

The same thing is observed with another scandalous case of denial of justice and common sense: why aren't drugs legal? Is this not, like abortion, a public health issue? And the very same country that counts in its population more drug addicts than any other country in the world, what moral authority does it have to condemn its drug suppliers? And why don't the mass media, in their dedication to the war against the scourge of drugs, ever divulge that it is Afghanistan which single-handedly satisfies just about all the heroin consumed in the world? Who rules Afghanistan? Is it not militarily occupied by a messianic country which conferred upon itself the mission of saving us all?

Why aren't drugs legalized once and for all? Is it because they provide the best pretext for military invasions, in addition to providing the juiciest profits to the large banks who, in the darkness of night, serve as money-laundering centers?

Nowadays the world is sad because fewer vehicles are sold. One of the consequences of the global crisis is a decline of the otherwise prosperous car industry. Had we some shred of common sense, a mere fragment of a sense of justice, would we not celebrate this good news?

Could anyone deny that a decline in the number of automobiles is good for nature, seeing that she will end up with a bit less poison in her veins? Could anyone deny the value of this decline in car numbers to pedestrians, seeing that fewer of them will die?

Here's how Lewis Carroll's queen explained to Alice how justice is dispensed in a looking-glass world:
"There's the King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't begin until next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all."
In El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero found that justice, like a snake, only bites barefoot people. He died of gunshot wounds, for proclaiming that in his country the dispossessed were condemned from the very start, on the day of their birth.

Couldn't the outcome of the recent elections in El Salvador be viewed, in some ways, as a homage to Archbishop Romero and to the thousands who, like him, died fighting for right-side-up justice in this reign of injustice?

At times the narratives of History end badly, but she, History itself, never ends. When she says goodbye, she only says: I'll be back.

[Jerry_Curls]

Why is there military presence at the G20 summit? What the hell? I didn't know that protesters had weapons and were going to attack! Bullshit!

[Nailec]

I didn't know that protesters had weapons and were going to attack!

uhm protesters are americans and americans have the right to bear arms. since some protesters probablly come from the antiimperialistic and extremist far left, there is a high possibility, they would use their weapons.



those idiots basically throw with everything, they can get here in germany. even molotov cocktails.

i dont know if you have these extremists over there and i dont think they legitimize the military. the police should be able to handle them as the military probablly isnt trained for protesters.

[Jerry_Curls]

[youtube=425,350]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XYpkqTubIwo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XYpkqTubIwo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/youtube]

Luke [the speaker] is so awesome!

[Variable]

Why is there military presence at the G20 summit? What the hell? I didn't know that protesters had weapons and were going to attack! Bullshit!

Im confused by the first pic because those guys are defiantly not US military.  I don't recognize the uniform at all actually.  Maybe they are foreign military security advisors or something?  Maybe private citizen security contractors that just wear really motivated clothing?  Im not really sure.

But the second pic is much easier.  It's a bit harder to make out but its pretty obvious thats U.S. Army.  Probably the National Guard.  Which is a bit disturbing because youre not supposed to be able to use the U.S. military as a law enforcement agency on U.S. Soil.  Maybe they found some loop hole because of the location of the G20 Summit?

Anyways.  Thanks for posting that video.  Its a good reminder as to what is going on.   I feel bad for those cops though.  Most of them probably totally agree with what Luke was saying.  But the protestors were asking the police to give up their means of supporting their families for a moment that would be great then fade away and accomplish nothing.  We are only going to win this fight in the hall of congress and with political elections and legislations.  Not by harassing each other in the street.  Don't get me wrong.  I think its great the protestors showed up. But I can just see myself being asked to "keep the peace"  and totally hate my life when I have to conflict with good people like that.  Then taking a moral stand will only get you so far.  Far enough to lose your job and we lose yet another rational thinker in out countries security force.  I would gladly carry out a simple order like that to be around to protest and say no when they asked me to start rounding up americans and putting them in camps or shooting them or whatever.  Thats the day when we are all really going to need to come together as brothers

[Jerry_Curls]

I was hoping you would be able to id the guys [whether or not they were military].

I totally agree with what you said in the 3rd paragraph, but there is still something that doesn't feel right about letting things like this go by without any opposition. Most people don't even know or care about what they talk about in these summits. How can they shut down all of downtown Pittsburgh and get away with the meeting of powerful countries and talking about new policies, etc. without the opinions of the public! How could they allow people to carry firearms at  townhall meetings about heatlhcare reform yet they use strong force against people who have no weapons and just want to stand up.

[wither-I]

[youtube=425,350]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XYpkqTubIwo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XYpkqTubIwo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/youtube]

Luke [the speaker] is so awesome!

UNBELIEVABLE!

[Jerry_Curls]

Horrible, just horrible...cops take their time to take a photo-op with a nice, human trophy

http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/thugs-cops-take-a-trophy

[Jerry_Curls]

Some more footage:
[youtube=425,350]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CFYoyv2Gm1I&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CFYoyv2Gm1I&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]

[Necrocetaceanbeastiality]

Fuck. That dude in a wheelchair that got maced...

...wow...

[wither-I]

yeah man i just feel really sad after watching those. it really hurts "hope".

what is wrong with people in this world. we need to stand up now, together. how can we let this happen to us and the world

[tarkil]

Wow... Pretty crazy...

[Nailec]

why didnt allow they the protests? did they come too close to anything or anybody important?

who where the protesters? im sure there were heterogen groups.

while i am personally familiar with tear gas (it doesnt only affect people in the first row of the demo), this noise machine and the tear gas grenades shocked me too. i mean. when u use them you hit everybody that is near, not only some violent individuals. even the media wouldnt be safe from that.

[Variable]

I'm really glad I haven't ever been at something like that.  I know I would lose my temper and end up getting my ass beat and arrested when I tried to take on the force.

[Jerry_Curls]

Here are some undercover, provocateurs at G20 protests caught on camera....

[youtube=425,350]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jrJ7aU-n1L8&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jrJ7aU-n1L8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/youtube]

^ Have you ever protested? It feels great to be able to scream for what you believe in, talking to others, causing ripples in the city, backing up traffic :-) Do it sometime.

[Jerry_Curls]

I love how topics like the death of a celebrity gets so many, yet the death of our constitution gets no media coverage [and if it does, the MSM spins things around] and a lot of people don't seem to care [facebook, myspace bulletins...not that many people respond]. We have to keep spreading truthful information, fuck this left-right bullshit that always happens...they're both one in the same. We have to stick together!  Anyways, I'm just ranting, but here is another useful article:


Police Use Painful New Weapon on G20 Protesters

This technology has been deployed in Iraq as an "anti-insurgent weapon" -- it could easily be used as a torture tool.

By Allison Kilkenny, True/Slant
Posted on September 28, 2009, Printed on September 28, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142921/

Pittsburgh police demonstrated the latest in crowd control techniques on protesters when they used "sound cannons" to blast the ears of citizens near the G-20 meeting of world economic leaders. City officials said this was the first time such sound blasters, also known as "sound weapons," were used publicly.

Lavonnie Bickerstaff of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police uses benign language like "sound amplifiers," and "long-range acoustic device" to explain the new weapons in an attempt to sanitize what is essentially a painful weapon that leaves no visible marks on its victims. The mob utilized a similar tactic on snitches when they would beat everywhere except the face. If victims have no outward bruises to show, the world is less likely to believe their stories of assault and harassment.

Unlike aerosol hand-grenades, pepper spray, and rubber bullets (all traditional methods of protest suppression also used at the G-20 protests,) the damage from sound cannons is entirely internal, and can only be preserved on video, but even then, the deafening noise cannot be fully appreciated unless one hears it in person.

(Footage of the sound cannons in action can be seen/heard below. It's clear from these videos that the extremely loud, high-pitched noise causes pain.)

The "long range acoustic device (LRAD)" is designed for long-range communication and acts as an "unmistakable warning," according to the American Technology Corporation (ATC,) which develops the instruments. "The LRAD basically is the ability to communicate clearly from 300 meters to 3 kilometers" (nearly 2 miles), said Robert Putnam of American Technology's media and investor relations during an interview with MSNBC. "It's a focused output. What distinguishes it from other communications tools out there is its ability to be heard clearly and intelligibly at a distance, unlike bullhorns."

Except, police aren't trying to send a distress call to allies 2 miles away. They're literally blasting this extreme decibel of noise directly into the ears of protesters (or any unwitting citizens) standing mere feet from the cannons. Depending on the mode of LRAD, it can blast a maximum sound of 145 to 151 decibels — equal to a gunshot — within a 3-foot (one meter) range, according to ATC. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that permanent hearing loss can result from sounds at about 110 to 120 decibels in short bursts or even just 75 decibels if exposure lasts for long periods.

But there is a volume knob, Putnam notes, so its output can be less than max, purportedly to give us comfort in the knowledge that deafening citizens is left to the discretion of power-hungry police. On the decibel scale, an increase of 10 (say, from 70 to 80) means that a sound is 10 times more intense. Normal traffic noise can reach 85 decibels, reports MSNBC, but these sound cannons cannot be compared to standing beside a busy New York City road.

The BBC reported in 2005 that the "shrill sound of an LRAD at its loudest sounds something like a domestic smoke alarm, ATC says, but at 150 decibels, it is the aural equivalent to standing 30m away from a roaring jet engine and can cause major hearing damage if misused."

This technology has been deployed in Iraq as an "anti-insurgent weapon," and the sonic weaponry is also being used on protesters in Honduras. Seattle Weekly reports that this weapon could easily be used as a torture tool if one doesn't already think this is its only use.

Sonic weaponry is now being deployed domestically to put a chill on free speech. We're told this is the "humane" way to deal with protesters, but it's really just a convenient way to suppress citizens without the messy aftereffects of having to explain bullet holes to reporters. A bunch of protesters complaining about ruptured ear drums doesn't make for dramatic news.

Footage of the sound cannons in action:





VISIT PAGE FOR VIDEOS, THANKS







© 2009 True/Slant All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/142921/

[Variable]

Here are some undercover, provocateurs at G20 protests caught on camera....

[youtube=425,350]<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jrJ7aU-n1L8&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jrJ7aU-n1L8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>[/youtube]

^ Have you ever protested? It feels great to be able to scream for what you believe in, talking to others, causing ripples in the city, backing up traffic :-) Do it sometime.

I protested the anti war protest when Iraq first popped off.  My buddies and I showed up to the peace protest with hard hats and signs on baseball bats and hockey sticks that said shit like " dont be wack, bomb Iraq" and "smoke saddam not a bong".............We were some of the only people not to get shot with wooden balls by the cops.  Yeah, my political views have changed a bit.  Although most of the protestors were idiots and had no idea what they were talking about.  I do believe in their end game today. 

But you know I was thinking about it.  I didn't even treat a prisioner I took in afghanistan that bad.  He tried to kill me by blowing up an IED right underneath me ( thank god only the debt cord blew ) and I stopped an Afghan soldier from kicking his ass.  If I would have treated any taliban prisioners that bad I would be court martialed and locked up.  But its cool for American police to do it to American citizens in a peaceful protest....interesting.

Does anyone know if there has ever been any kind of legal action taken against cities whos police acted like this?  Seems like the ACLU might be trying to take this to the courts?

[Jerry_Curls]

The thing that trips me out about the G20 summits protests is that they were on the defense hardcore. Like as if the protesters were terrorists screaming for blood. All the protection was unnecessary.

[Variable]

They have to be a little worried that someone in the crowd has a gun

[wither-I]

I'm really glad I haven't ever been at something like that.  I know I would lose my temper and end up getting my ass beat and arrested when I tried to take on the force.

yea. i dont know if i could handle it emotionally (in person) -as i can barely watching it take place on an embedded video, i would become enraged... the thought scares me