AMERICAblog: Is it ever okay for the cops to shoot violent protesters?
Steve_in_CNJ
· 11 months ago
MLK Jr got way more accomplished through peaceful boycotts, marches and oratory. But yeah, civil disobedience (if that's what this is) requires personal sacrifice. Get ready, because the law is going to come down on you. Otherwise cities would be governed by mobs.
Professor_Farnsworth
· 11 months ago
I definitely get torn when civil disobedience starts extending into threatening the physical safety of people who are not involved. If you want to become violent and threaten the harm of others...then I think you should be shot.
You want to make a point, violence is never the answer. as Steve_in_CNJ said, you can accomplish more thru peace. You become violent, your whole point is lost and you become an animal threatening everyone else. I don't care what your political point is, when you are threatening me and my families' well being.
nikto
· 11 months ago
I don't know about what's going on in Greece, but in regards to those Anti-Globalization protests in Seattle, I had a strong gut-feeling the primary source of violence were INFILTRATORS, trying to discredit the Movement from within.
The strongest Anti-Globalization people I've met were very committed and passionate, but ENTIRELY PEACEFUL PEOPLE who realized how an image of violence could HURT their efforts.
sukabi1
· 11 months ago
yes, there were a group of "anarchists" that were identified prior to the protests... and everything was calm until some masked folks started breaking windows... I think Starbucks and Nike were the first targets of vandalism... everything went to shit after that.
vkobaya
· 11 months ago
INFILTRATORS, trying to discredit the Movement from within.
Yes, that is what they were. The movement people had tried hard to advocate non-violence, but there was a group present at their planning meetings who advocated violence and destruction. They are the ones who did the damage and turned out to be agent provacateurs from the police.
In Los Angeles, now, the cops are simply identifying any who are educated in the Black community and gunning them down, trying to intimidate the Blacks not to try to better themselves. Two of the men gunned down in the last two weeks weren't even a part of the community anymore, were simply visiting their families but were college educated and well employed. In a third case, an elderly woman stepped out of her house to see the aggitation a block away, then turned around and went back into her home. Cops burst into her home, smashing down the door, roughed her up and dragged her off to the police station where they released her without charges. It is simply racist bullying and intimidation, the sort of thing you expect in the old South, but not in Los Angeles the same as the May Day police riots of a year ago. And, of course, the life of a Black or Hispanic is worth less than the life of a family pet.
vkobaya
· 11 months ago
There was also the stories of rioting in New York, I think during the Republican convention in that city. The media exaggerated the problems. The planners of the protests were aware that the cops would plant agent provacateurs and had plans to quickly and effectively isolate and remove them. The few incidents where there was violence like the burning of the Chinese dragon were incidents where the demonstrators own internal security were too slow to stop the damn cops.
The photo of the damn cop, carrying an assault rifle while better armored than our troops in Iraq told the entire story. They were just itching for an excuse to open up with their guns on full automatic at the crowds as they had done in New Orleans. The cops had planted snipers but the demonstration planners found them and removed them to prevent justification for the murderous violence the cops had planned.
Indigo
· 11 months ago
Maybe the Greeks are fed up in private ways and the time has come for the Greek police to account for past misdeeds. You travel there regularly, is this riot a surprise or not?
sukabi1
· 11 months ago
John, as someone who worked in Seattle at the time of the WTO riots, I can say that the police response was responsible for much of the violence that took place. There were a number of officers that were reprimanded for indiscriminately pepper spraying and beating individuals who weren't doing anything. They didn't give folks a chance or an avenue to disperse.
As a result of the police response the police chief had to resign.
And the damage that was reported was not nearly as bad as the news made out... you'd have thought that the whole downtown was on fire and being looted... it wasn't. there were some broken windows, and a couple of cars that got torched.
Bb
· 11 months ago
There is a huge difference between destruction and endanderment that needs to be recognized. You seem to be grouping the two and not realizing violence is an act against living beings, not inanimate objects. Seattle didn't threaten life (other than those of protesters by authorites), Greece sounds far different and should be viewed accordingly.
Metoo
· 11 months ago
Well, violent protests are certainly justifiable, as violence typically moves from the state downward, not up, but innocent life should not be threatened. I certainly don't see anything wrong with fighting back against the cops.
SCLiberal
· 11 months ago
"Are violent protests ever justified?"
Only if a society wishes to drop the claim to being civilized. This is why we create laws and law enforcement: to settle disputes and redress grievances. If violence is ever the answer then we are asking the wrong questions.
Older_Wiser
· 11 months ago
This is a slippery slope. I always practiced non-violent resistance during my protests of the Vietnam war, but I did see people getting their heads knocked (and worse) due to tactics of the cops. There is always anger out there when people feel the govt is against them--and young people are more prone to not only have rawer emotions, but also can become infiltrated by agents provocateur who instigate violent behavior. The FBI is famous for that.
The question I have is...why was this 15 yr old killed? Did he threaten those 2 cops with a weapon by firing at them? Exactly what were the circumstances?
No, I don't condone the destruction by those hellbent on destroying property to vent their anger. But sometimes, as we have seen in our own country, previous acts of brutality by the police lead people to respond, and often with tragic results. Unfortunately, as the regime of Bush winds down, we are seeing more individualized crime rising as the frustration of people limits itself to personal solutions, not organized mass statements.
Nick Kafkas
· 11 months ago
Very well said John
Vincent
· 11 months ago
One way to look at this is that if the police have the right to bring down one person who's threatening the personal safety and lives of others, then it's absurd to say that they can't do so when that one person is instead a violent mob.
On the other hand, I see many potential downsides to this. Sometimes, the violence of protesters is provoked by the very officers trying to stop the mob with well, violence.
Anthony
· 11 months ago
Well, if you were arrested for being there, would you expect to have your case dealt with individually, or would you be okay with having the everyone prosecuted together as a single entity?
samdinista
· 11 months ago
Um... trashing Seattle? I live here, and trust me, the media coverage of the WTO "riots" was not only overblown, but dishonest as well. (not surprising) The real story was that what we experienced here in Seattle was a police riot - People were indiscriminately beaten and pepper sprayed by militarized police. In one famous instance, an african-american Seattle City Councilman on his way to an event at The Westin Hotel was pepper sprayed in his car, at a check point, after presenting the police who stopped him with ID. The WTO protests were, i feel, one of the few bright spots for working people in America (and the world) in the last 20 to 30 years. We shut it down. As the economy slides into depression in the next year, we will be forced to take to the streets in increasing numbers for a variety of reasons. (indeed, this is already beginning - witness the workers occupying the factory in Chicago.) We will face a militarized police force with tactics that have not been used here before, as well as being targeted by unconstitutional surveillance and illegal search and seizure. It is always disheartening to read reactionary statements like this from progressives such as yourself. You yourself will be in the streets soon - you may not want to admit it to yourself right now, but you will be there.
Jason
· 11 months ago
One thing that the WTO protests showed beyond all doubt is whose side the police are one. There was an incident where there were protesters were blocking off the hotel where the meetings were taking place, and a delegate who was trying to get in DREW A GUN on protesters. Police saw this and beat down the surrounding protesters with pepper spray and billy clubs, while "protecting" the man who drew a gun and threatened non-violent people. The images on TV of the event showed chaos in the streets, but that was because the police caused it. They covered a large swath of downtown seattle in teargas and turned the city into a war zone. Many, many innocent people were tear gassed, arrested without charges, treated like "the enemy" by those who were supposed to be protecting the people. Police chased down protesters wearing gas masks, ripped the masks off their faces, and pepper sprayed them. They chased down independent media and beat them. Nobody "trashed" the city except police. The city was not being "generally set on fire". Cars were not being overturned. A few store windows were broken. Starbucks, McDonald's, maybe one or two others. By planted agitators, not by protesters. Everyone who was involved in the protests knew this. Anyone who lived in the central city from lower Capital Hill in couldn't get into their homes, and were assaulted by rioting police if they tried. Hundreds of people were arrested on bogus charges just to get them off the streets, and released the next day because they hadn't done anything wrong and the city had nothing to charge them with. The police shot rubber bullets indiscriminately into the crowd, shot tear gas cannisters into people's chests at point-blank range, and committed many other crimes that weekend. John needs to get his facts straight. The WTO protests were the beginning of the movement that led to the anti-war organization, and the same progressive grass-roots movements that led to the election success of 2006 and the election of Barack Obama this year. How was it that there were hundreds of thousands of people protesting in the streets before the Iraq War even started? The organization was already there from the WTO protests. Seattle was the birth of the progressive movement of this decade, and John wishes the police were more violent? I'm sorry, I love Americablog, but this post was offensive and just dumb, frankly.
CT Hankster
· 11 months ago
This post is right on. I wasn't at Seattle but I covered so-called anti-globalization mobilizations--more accurately, global justice or anti-corporate globalization mobilizations--in Washington DC in spring of 2000 and in Quebec, Canada in the spring of 2001 for an alternative weekly. In each case, the mainstream media fanned fears of the demonstrators in order to justify an oppressively militaristic police response. This was also seen in Philadelphia in 2000 at demos against the Republican National Convention, in Miami at the FTAA protests in 2003 and in NYC at the RNC protests of 2004. And again, big time, at this year's RNC in Minneapolis/St. Paul. In some of these cases there were cells of anarchists engaged in property destruction--on a small scale--but not in most. There have also been reliable reports at several of these events of the use of agents provocateur.
I can't speak to the Greek situation. But in the U.S. case, including Seattle, the violence and mayhem was overwhelmingly caused by the police.
The post by John was deeply misinformed and highly irresponsible, and frankly, is much in need of an update and a factual correction.
vkobaya
· 11 months ago
We are, of course, hoping that Obama will signal a change in the attitude of the police to the use of non-violent protest. The fear is that he is part of the old estabishment and we will continue to be oppressed. This is why it is so discouraging to see him appointing the old hacks from previous administrations to positions in his coming administration. These are the people who stood by or even supported the oppression of the legal, Constitutionally protected protests. Change is when we see that our government again belongs to us and we can disagree with us without being beaten by cops, gunned down or sent off to prison on trumped up charges.
Look at the arrest of Amy Goodman at the Denver Convention. Very clear that she wasn't a terrorist, yet that is the charges that they used to justify her arrests. If she hadn't been a renowned journalist, she and her collegues would probably be sitting in cells in Guantanamo, Abu Gehrib or renditioned to some foreign nation for torture. Big brave cops roughing up a 5 foot woman who is crippled from previous official abuse and violence.
LanceThruster
· 11 months ago
The American Revolution was a "violent protest." I'm not excusing what the jerks and thugs do in your example but if enough people let the powers that be know that a stolen election and subsequent Supreme Court judicial fiat was unaaceptable, a lot more innocent people might be alive today.
SCLiberal
· 11 months ago
About the "Salt March": On March 12, 1930, Gandhi and around 78 male satyagraha set out, on foot, fort the coastal village of Dandi some 380 kms from their starting point in sabarmati, a journey which was to last 23 day. Virtually every resident of each city along this journey watched the great procession, which was at least two miles in length. On April 6th, he picked up a lump of mud and salt. Gandhi termed the march as the first implored his thousands of followers to begin to make salt wherever, along the seashore, “war” on the salt tax was to be continued during the National Week, that is, up to April 13.
The British government incarcerated over sixty thousand Indians by the end of March.
On the night of May 4, Gandhi was sleeping on a cot under a mango tree, at a village near Dandi. A little after midnight, the district magistrate of Surat drove up with two Indian Officers and thirty heavily –armed constables. He woke Gandhi by shinning a torch in his face, and arrested him.
The effect of the salt march was felt across India. Thousands of people made salt, or bought illegal salt. This period is considered the apex of Gandhi’s political appeal, as the march mobilized many new followers from all of Indian society and the march grabbed the world’s attention. Most historians see Dandi as a key turning point in India’s struggle for freedom.
No violence required.
paulbe
· 11 months ago
Police and security services worldwide have a long history of planting provocateurs inside political demonstrations with the intent of fomenting violence and thus excusing the resulting police behavior. The aim is always the same: to discredit the demonstrators as fringe loonies prone to violence, and thus not representative, and to send a message to all of us that they can do this without sanction if the Powers That Be wish. The anti-globalization demos are their favorite targets these days. The Canadians and the British caught them red handed at different events a year or two back.
Griffon
· 11 months ago
In order to ensure "domestic tranquility."
Protest has always been the last avenue of the disenfranchised, of which there is a geometrically growing contingent. Watching executive war criminals, many of whom participated in some of the most egregious criminal acts of Constitutional violation and murder, walk around free; making jokes and flaunting a smugness borne of twisting the system of justice into their own personal crony-fed network does indeed stir an urge to blood-boiling civil disobedient protest.
Watching apologist paper-tiger legislators make deals to "put the past behind us," i.e. excuse the unconscionable murder of close to 1 million people, detentions, rapes, without so much as an attempt at serious investigation also is motivation to civil disobedience. Notice, also lately how much funding has been devoted to 'non-lethal' methods of crowd-control (crowd 'dispersal' as the Pentagon terms it.) and discouragement such as auditory and electromagnetic heat sensation.
Of course, as stated, discrediting the protesters is the first line of defense, however correct their cause (which is not, I hasten to point out, an excuse for murderous protest behavior). The media is thoroughly complicit in the government's effort to report and/or withhold details that may damage the 'official position.' The administration never was interested in the truth, just maintaining control and getting the public to swallow the latest outrage.
Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Iraq, etc. And Rove is writing books. And bush is sitting for his portrait rather than his mugshot.
We, apparently, are too 'civilized' to violently protest these horrific monsters; grinding down our right and passion for justice for the sake of appearances. We're behaving ourselves into oblivion.
Derrick
· 11 months ago
just as it is NEVER okay to torture, it is NEVER okay for police to use lethal force on protesters. They do stuff like that in communist china (read Tienanmen Square). There are plenty of non lethal options for police to disperse the crowd.
I was also at WTO and can say that the police caused the violence by beating people who weren't doing anything and firing tear gas into peaceful crowds. The only ones who I saw doing anything violent were the police. Granted, there were a few anarchists (who are notoriously infiltrated by the FBI so it may have been planted agents) who smashed a couple of windows at Niketown and Starbucks... the press made it out like a bunch of hooligans were tearing up Seattle (typical corporate media, don't express any anti globalization or anti corporate agenda or we'll make you look like thugs).
I'm not sure where you get these views that cops should be shooting protesters. Should the prob 8 protesters be shot because they are not willing to accept what the voters of California decided? I honestly don't understand anyone who feels that unarmed protesters should be shot just because they are protesting the police (or WTO or gay rights, or racial equality, etc). Using force to quell free speech is a slippery slope that leads to fascism. John I don't' understand how you can hold the expressed opinion, it was genuinely shocking for me to read those words on one of my favorite news blogs...
SociologistTina
· 11 months ago
Seems to me that there are ways to stop the violent behavior without bestowing permanent harm. Is that what those hoses are for?
Gitai
· 11 months ago
You obviously weren't in Seattle during the "riots." There was some graffiti and some dumpsters got set on fire. That was the worst of it until the cops decided to turn to some pretty extreme violence. In their frustration, they marched up Pine Street into Capitol Hill, more than a mile from where the protests were, and began firing tear gas and rubber bullets into restaurants and businesses, where people had been relaxing after work, unaware that a mob of cops, not protesters was descending on them. I had friends get arrested for asking if they could cross the street. A 15 year old girl who worked out at my dojo was pepper sprayed as she turned a corner into this chaos, just trying to get to class. She was handcuffed and taken to a police station only to be released without charges or an apology. There were legal observers in a car that were videotaping what was definitely a police riot. A cop asked them to roll down their windows, and when they did, said, "Tape, this bitch," before pepper spraying them. Those arrested were denied their basic human rights, as cops photocopied arrest reports and just changed the names, and as sick people were denied medicine, everything from insulin to HIV meds.
It would have been simple to get rid of the handful of troublemakers who smashed windows. After all, some very large Teamsters were picking them up and offering them to the cops, who refused to arrest them, preferring creating chaos to containing it.
This was not LA after Rodney King. This was Kent State, and the number of convictions against protesters vs. successful lawsuits against the city are fine evidence of that.
ivyfree
· 11 months ago
I'm so glad you wrote this. The police riots in Seattle were a terrible thing. It wasn't the anti WTO protestors damaging the community. It was the police.
Jason
· 11 months ago
Hear, hear. I was also at the WTO Protests, and I was tear gassed, friends of mine were pepper sprayed, I saw people who were just trying to get into their downtown apartments coming home from work being chased down and beaten by police. I also saw some pretty outrageous police violence in San Francisco during some of the first anti-Iraq war protests. John's post is WAY off base here. Police violence is NEVER the answer. And if he really knew anything about the way things actually happened in Seattle, he wouldn't write such a stupid and offensive post.
dula
· 11 months ago
The police have become more and more thuggish during these past 8 years...with Fascists running this country, it is to be expected. Obama needs to appoint somebody "firm" to reeducate our police force...many of them(maybe even most of them) are no better than a street gang.
Urox
· 11 months ago
Have to bump up this comment as well. Anyone who WAS in Seattle knows that it was outside anarchists with nothing to do with the anti-WTO crowd who were causing problems. The protesters even tried to contain the handful anarchists and the police didn't even bother to pick them up. Then.. the aboslutely abysmal mayor at the time decided he needed to assert his authority and the police turned violent on a non-violent crowd. ANY peaceful demonstration even outside the newly induced curfew zone was met with pepper spray and rubber bullets and billy clubs. And then the curfew zone would be "expanded". People were kept on buses without food or water long beyond the time they should have been legally released.
Lots of civil rights were violated against innocents.
Older_Wiser
· 11 months ago
Maybe the question should have been: Is is okay for the cops to shoot a child, or Is it okay for the cops to shoot unarmed people, or (insert your own question here).
LanceThruster
· 11 months ago
One other thing I'd like to add, time and again it has been shown that the violent agitators within protest groups are often police operatives looking to discredit the peaceful organizations as well as have and excuse to crack some heads, further linking justified protests with "radical fringe" elements and jerks that need little excuse to engage in lawlessness.
I was in LA for the Rodney King riots and know of accounts where otherwise upscale and educated people used the chaos to "help themselves" to looted merchandise. Some people openly sold looted electronics around my place of employment.
The most moving TV news item I remember seeing was a black teen girl who was very emotional, expressing both rage and shame crying, "people need to stop doing this because they're only burning down their own neighborhoods and making everyone else think we're *animals*!"
vkobaya
· 11 months ago
seeing was a black teen girl
Cops regard all common people as N-----. News in Los Angeles showed a cop pulling a pretty white girl off a fence and then beating her unmercifully for the crime of trying to climb the fence and escape the police violence. During the testimony at the Rampart Scandal, was wheelchair bound white man who was beaten by the police who claimed he had pulled a gun on them.
existenz
· 11 months ago
Shoot and kill protestors? Really, John?
Careful there. That's the kind of thinking that justified China's decision to kill dozens of protestors in Tiananmen Square. Or the murder of four college students at Kent State in the 1970s. You'd love to think that the cops are only going to shoot and kill some really violent, bad, murderous people -- but in fact they'd end up shooting journalists, angry but nonviolent protestors, bystanders, etc.
In other words -- really bad idea. USA is not a totalitarian state where we shoot unarmed protestors. Professional SWAT teams have procedures to shut down such riots and put those people in prison without killing anybody.
Nick K,
· 11 months ago
unarmed protestors.??????????? what is a molotof?
Badger3k
· 11 months ago
Molotov Cocktail - usually a bottle filled with gasoline or other flammable liquid, with a rag or wick. Set fire to wick, throw at whatever, then watch as the gas spreads and burns someone to death. Rather useful for partisans and thugs, and someone throwing them at human beings deserves to be burned to death by their own cocktail. These are a favorite tool of cowards and insurgents. Anyone who wants to use them needs to see a friend burned severely to appreciate just what they can do (or they can try it on themselves first). There are no pretty ways to die, but there are ugly ones.
satori
· 11 months ago
I'm not aware of any instances of molotov cocktails used in the US in decades?
satori
· 11 months ago
I should specify that as far as I'm aware molotov cocktails have not been used by in protests in the US.
existenz
· 11 months ago
A molotov cocktail is not a gun. Give me a break. If somebody is trying to set human beings on fire, and you have no other choice, then shoot the bastards. But if they are idiot angry protesters setting fire to a store or a building, arrest them and put out the fire.
That's called rule of law. I was caught up in a protest outside the 2000 Democratic convention when some anarchists burned a flag and the LAPD started shooting tear gas into the crowd. Good thing the cops didn't use live ammunition (as John Aravosis would recommend) because then I might have been caught in some crossfire and killed. All of these riot/protest situations usually involve a small percentage of troublemakers and a bunch of bystanders/observers/journalists.
Adding lethal force to the situation is a very, very BAD idea.
Dok
· 11 months ago
John is an interesting fellow. Sometimes he can be very thoughtful in his postings. Other times, he is a reactionary. Re-read his postings and you'll see that he as a tendency for hysteria. Conflating the anti-globalization protests in Seattle with the anarchy in Greece shows either intellectual dishonesty or intellectual laziness. Sorry, but it's true: the annual globalization meetings have a long history of government(s) instigated chaos and violence.
As for what's going on in Greece, setting fire to apartment buildings is obviously, WRONG (if not deranged or evil)! The people who did so should be jailed.
I really hate ordering the police to restore order then blaming them when they go "too far."
On the other hand, there are all sorts of weapons that can be used in place of deadly force: from fire hoses to rubber bullets to tazers.
I'd have to see what weapons are available for the cops there before I passed judgement.
(In general, tho, I'd say anybody who's attempting to set fire to an occupied apartment block is attempting to commit murder and should be subject to deadly force.)
daeros
· 11 months ago
the point of violence in a real protest isn't to get your message across and attract people to your cause, it's to topple the state completely so it can be replaced with one that isn't corrupt.
What all of the protest you mentioned had it common was nobody was willing to take it that far, and by your calculations I tend to think they should aim for using the least necessiary to quell the rebellion but if it comes damned necessiary to shoot, then do so.
polizeros
· 11 months ago
Sure it could be angry students. with hardcore lefties moving in too. But mobs don't have brains. And riots tend to burn themselves out after three days. Opening fire on them would probably provoke things to entire new levels of violence.
I lived in LA during the Rodney King riots. It was scary. But the city survived,
Asterix
· 11 months ago
Answering the headline question: Sure, particularly if some homicidal maniac is trying to incinerate you with a flaming bottle of petrol. I think it's safe to say that shooting is justified as self-defense in that case.
Has Greece declared that a state of martial law exists? If so, there is usually less justification needed.
Butch1
· 11 months ago
Their country is a real democracy and the police are held accountable for their actions against the citizens when they cross the line. The death of a 15 year old boy evidently, crossed the line. The rioting protests are as a result of this death. Their police by law, are not allowed to enter schools or colleges where the long-tolerated self-styled anarchist movement folks run to for sanctuary. There have been charges brought against the police in this case. When do you ever see this happen in the US unless it is blatantly evident of the police's culpability.? Even then, when they are investigated, they are considered doing this in "the line of duty," as if that is a good enough answer killing someone. We are used to seeing the police in this country bully people into submission and beat people up without much cause. We're numb to it and just accept it as the way police are supposed to act. The Greek citizenry evidently see their police as not the huge authority figures not to be questioned as we see the police here.
vkobaya
· 11 months ago
doing this in "the line of duty," as if that is a good enough answer killing someone.
Not just good enough, but the justification says that it the job for which the cops were hired to perform. Indiscriminately gun down civilians to keep them terrorized and afraid to speak up for the Constitution, Bill of Rights and laws of this nation. Even worse, they are now targeting not only community leaders but simply those who have had the initiative to go to college and get an eduction. This is why we elected Obama, to change the direction of our authorities, but more and more, Obama is showing signs that he intends to give us more of the same.
Butch1
· 11 months ago
The police techniques that are now employed are like a slow version of the invasion of Poland by the Nazis. We round up and intimidate anyone that goes against the flow of fascism by protesting, whether they have broken the law or not, and silence them in effect, cutting off the intelligent from protesting and the sheep from following or being educated to the reality of the government's agenda rising up to voice their protest when needed. As long as the corporate decision makers are paying for the favors of Congress and the Executive Branches of this government, the common man will always be considered the enemy of the government especially if they become educated and begin questioning the status quo.
In Poland the intelligent, the teachers, the politicians and many other "dissidents" who could cause the Nazis trouble, were rounded up and many killed. In this present police action using heavy handed force against anyone who protests or questions the authority, we witness a variation of it in that they haven't started overtly killing people, yet but, the potential threat is always implied. The more one can convince the citizenry that it is appropriate to kill protesters that the police decide are "dangerous" only to them actually, it makes it easier to eliminate "bothersome" people. Certainly, if McCain had won, the police actions would, in my opinion, have gone farther in making sure everyone "towed the line" in the name of maintaining "peaceful assembly in the specially designated areas away from where an effective peaceful protest should be. Obama hasn't begun his tenure yet, so I have a problem labeling him for something he hasn't done as a president. There will be plenty of time for that during the 4 or 8 years of his tenure to see where his vision of change leads us. I know, what the consequences surely would have been if McCain had won the election and we do not need to see the FEMA concentration camps put in action to know that they are there and waiting for us, in the event we question authority too strongly. To question the authority that now has its foot on our necks is something the police do not want see..
Burford Holly
· 11 months ago
Well, if you see someone breaking the window of a Starbucks then you should swarm him and stomp the crap out of him since the odds are 50/50 it's a provocateur anyway. After you pound him into a grease spot, check his wallet.
mofi
· 11 months ago
The primary function of government is to keep the cities from burning. To what extent was Seattle like Watts, say, and violence the preferable way to fulfill that function?
frank
· 11 months ago
Another spare the air day here in SF. I'm ready to riot. The bitches go after everybody but their own. 2 rug-rats max
shanobama
· 11 months ago
The Republican Convention was also an example of 'infiltration' by a group of thugs in masks. Who were they and why did THEY not get arrested while Amy Goodman and other peaceful protesters DID?
We still do not know who the people were who trashed the streets at this convention and disturbed an otherwise peaceful protest.. Why not? Why did they not get arrested? Very fishy. The authorities called them 'anarchists'.
There are problems when you have large numbers of the youth in any country who have no jobs, no hope and no realistic ambition for a future. The same thing happened in France, and the same root cause breeds terrorism. Having a positive path for the youth of all nations is going to be one the big challenges in the 21st century.
mike
· 11 months ago
Nobody likes violence, but there has never been any advances in civil or human rights, or social progress, without it. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't studied much history, or learned their history in a government controlled school. It's nice to pretend otherwise, but pacifism amounts mostly to standing by and watching what you love destroyed. Looks good on paper though, I gotta admit that.
driver1076
· 11 months ago
As a former law enforcement officer I can tell You first hand that 99 times out of 100 the crowd turns violent because the police F**k up,case in point I was working a music festival and We got a call because a band was playing past midnite and they were suppose to stop at 11 I took the call and went down there I spoke to the lead singer of the band who i knew and told him to wind it down he and the crowd were cool with that,then all of a sudden one of the militant cops who was also on duty walked up and pulled the plug on the bands amp system and all hell broke lose there was Me and 3 other officers trying to control 3 to 400 people needless to say it was tough, after a call out on the radio a bunch more cops showed up and one who wasnt even a full time officer pulls up and jumps out of his truck with a AR-15 and the idiot was wearing army fatigues when I saw him I grabbed his shirt and made him go back to his truck,within minutes the crowd was moving out yet 75 more cops from around the area showed up and started causing more problems than was needed,there was an investigation done but nobody got fired for there actions though I believe the guy who pulled the plug should have.After that I figured I didnot want to become the total Dick you have to be to become a cop nowadays and I wasnt going to becomea militant ,black boot a**hole so I quit rather than stay involved with that crap
Tired of Idiots
· 11 months ago
Give us break with that load of crap. You're not a cop anymore (if you ever were to begin with) because no one was disciplined for the incident you described. Get off your self-righteous horse. You didn't want to become a "total DICK?" Puhleeeze, you're too late.
driver1076
· 11 months ago
Well its nice to know that You know Me and were there when this happened Im glad you were there to help,You must be one of the PRICK COPs who think that since they got there ASS kicked in high school that its ok to act like a militant DICK when You get a badge and a gun.You know people like You prove to Me that getting out was a good idea and secondly You just cant fix stupid.
Tired of Idiots
· 11 months ago
It is one thing for a person to quit a job over one bad experience, but to quit a career in which you had to qualify for, then test for, and then train for an extended period of time at a police academy!?! Sorry, I don't buy it. And just the way you rant "You must be one of the PRICK COPs who think that since they got there ASS kicked in high school that its ok to act like a militant DICK when You get a badge and a gun" clearly shows, at least to me, that you were never on the job. No former police officer would speak in such a juvenile manner...ever.
beware of the leopard
· 11 months ago
That took alot of courage to quit. You should be commended for your actions. But, really, you were just being a good citizen. Funny how true integrity often goes unrecognised and unrewarded. Oh, BTW John, if you have not already received the message, you're a fucking tool sometimes.
Heraclitus
· 11 months ago
That was to the point! Yes, John, I like your work mostly, but encouraging killing people over property damage is pretty deranged.
Fifi
· 11 months ago
Nope, very bad idea. You never ever t take the risk killing someone over mere property.
itsallpossible
· 11 months ago
John, I like what you do on a regular basis. However, please do not perpetuate the perception that has invaded the mass media of what the WTO was. Doing so disregards what was done, who was affected and what it still means to the city I call home. Police brutality is still very present in Seattle, just a little while ago a thirteen year old unarmed boy was shot and killed by police with no repercussions. Words like "thugs" and "hoodlums" undermines people who are upset at sanctioned police state oppression. Not all protesters that are part of high destruction events fall into these simplistic terms, just as all police do not follow the law or what is "justified". Sometimes it is a matter of life or death, especially when rubber bullets are hitting people in the face and real bullets are involved. Given a choice between me or a cop? Pass me the molotov.
gwyneth
· 11 months ago
John, I like you believe more can be accomplished for a cause through non violent means. I am very "ghandi" in that regard. However; this is a very interesting point that you raise because there is a thresh hold of an oppressed people where violence could be justified. In other words, are riots ever justified? I'd say that the LA Riots of Rodney King were justified in that the anger over the issue is "justifiable" but crimes towards the innocent civilian populations are not justified. Hmmm, I guess I would go as far to say that violent protests are not justified. But, civil wars can be justifiable. People over throwing an abusive government, that can be justifiable... And, governments that use violent means to quash peaceful protesting is an incredible abuse of government in which I think the protestors are justified in being violent back towards their attackers.
shell
· 11 months ago
You mentioned Rodney King and the LA Riots. Good point.
Remember how the cops did nothing -- as long as the protestors were destroying East LA? But when they started to move to Beverly Hills, or some other rich area, THEN they stopped it. The cops didn't care one bit about businesses or cars or trash cans until they moved.
I can't understand why this isn't obvious to more.
Badger3k
· 11 months ago
The "protests" aren't about seeing justice done, or about getting the government to fix things. This is a mob mentality ruled by violence. That's it. They feel that something is wrong, and want to take it out on somebody - anybody. About the only thing you can do if you get caught in a mob like that is to join in. If you stand out, you run the risk of being attacked (at least, I have to admit, this is what I have heard. I've never been involved in a riot, luckily). Do any reading on mob psychology to show that there aren't reasons behind this. That said, should more force be used? I don't know. I know that if people were trying to destroy my house, car, or business, I'd be up for homicide charges, assuming I managed to survive - you have to reload sometime. Of course, I am not a cop, and my reaction is not in the same ballpark as someone who is responsible to enforce the law, not kill people. The line is a thin one.
OneManCommotion
· 11 months ago
Maybe they feel like thay are being run by a power structure that needs to be taken down. Sounds like history repeating itself.
We are all going to see alot more of it in the near future as the world economy goes off the rails.
CitizenX
· 11 months ago
Sometimes violence is necessary. Don't be deluded by thinking that "free speech zones" and letters to the editor will ever change things. They will not.
If you want proof, look to the Civil Rights Act.
timr
· 11 months ago
This is a great blog, but that is a very dumb post, John. Killing protesters, even "violent" ones, is not acceptable. The cops have plenty of non-lethal ways of dealing with crowds effectively.
vkobaya
· 11 months ago
The cops have plenty of non-lethal ways of dealing with crowds effectively.
Yep! Right. Like tasering them dozens of times until their hearts fail. Shooting them between the eyes or in the temple with rubber bullets or tear gas canisters. Tearing apart a 9 year old girl with the stream from a fire hose. Yep! Those non-lethal methods are very effective. If you watch the tapes of the police killing that 9 year old girl, it was very obvious that they knew they were using killing force on her. Her crime was being Black. But as I posted above, if we aren't part of the billionaire establishment, we are all N-----s to the cops.
Seattle Centrist
· 11 months ago
Now, before I start into this, I understand the point of the post is not about WTO protests at all, but I have a small bone to pick. First off, there were protests, no riots. Yes, there were the Eugene Anarchists but there were twelve of them and chances are they were bought and paid for to provoke a riot. THey set fire to a dumpster and painted grafitti on the Nordstroms. No one else went for it, as a whole the protest was fairly peaceful.. Seattle was not trashed by the protesters. It was trashed by the Seattle PD. Total damages from tear gas being shot into the open air Pike Place Market, into a QFC (local grocery store), into clothing stores and everywhere else 32 Million. Protrestors "trashing Seattle" 2 million. It is one of the biggest misconceptions that somehow Seattle descended into anarchy and rioting during WTO because of hte protestors. It happened because a mess of heavy handed hacks came up from Tennessee to advise, add in a badly trained out numbered police force getting orders from every alphabet soup agency under the sun including the vaunted CIA (who are not supposed to operate within U.S> borders) and that's what you get. So, please, stop pushing the whole riot history, because it didn't happen.
Thank you
J
· 11 months ago
I can see shooting someone (and hopefully just to wound, so that they stop what they are doing) if they are lighting a house on fire with people inside, but shooting someone for turning over an empty car or lighting it on fire? I'm strongly against killing people for property damage.
shell
· 11 months ago
Little people have to have these "violent" protests. If not, issues such as the cops killing people are never publicized.
And you mention "turning over cars, looting stores, and more generally setting the city on fire." Are you kidding me? You would be FOR harming humans because they turned over a car? Looted a store? Set "the city" on fire? Yes, I realize that by mentioning the people (the children!) above the building, you are trying to tug at heartstrings, but come on. You are really worried about the above-mentioned things?
And if it is between a human, and someone's car or business? Guess which one I pick? (And yes, even if most Americans think the human is "scum" -- I see him/her as a life. And it isn't even a fetus!)
The cars, the businesses -- insurance will replace them. A human life? No.
This police behavior is shameful -- no matter what country it is in. I usually agree with you, but in this case, I see the AGE difference coming out. It seems that those who remember the 60s think differently. I agree with your mom.
falloch
· 11 months ago
Greece has got a long-ish history of seemingly violent protest - i.e. against property, not human life. I was in Athens in 1975 after the overthrow of the CIA-backed military gov't ( the 'colonels' as depicted in the amazing film 'Z', and there were many 'violent' protests - American Express windows smashed, police cars trashed - but no dead bodies: the police and military had done far too much of that. Same again in the early '90s. And again in WTO protests a few years later. Damage against property to make a statement - not against the human body. This kind of protest seems to be accepted in the mainstream in Athens, and elsewhere - while such activities in the US would be answered by bullets.
shell
· 11 months ago
Good point. America is assy-backwards -- and you see it all over, not just in protests.
THINGS = worth anything, even a human life
Human lives -- if not rich = no biggie
Just look at the "criminal justice system" -- Dick Cheney? Mass murderer. No arrest. A marijuana user? 10 years in prison. George Bush? Mass murderer. No arrest. Someone who steals a car? 10 years.
America is all F-ed up. Has it always been this way?
Butch1
· 11 months ago
Since the police come into a protest situation more than "heavily-armed" and that the majority of the protesters are unarmed, It isn't necessary to be killing protesters al la Kent State. It only becomes a chance for the officers to use the situation as "target-practice" to test out their new weapons. Yes, I think one has to have a touch of sadism in their makeup to become an "officer of the law." There are no "Officer Friendlies" if they ever were.
scottinsf
· 11 months ago
I proudly keep a small handful rubber bullets picked up off the street while being pushed/chased/fired upon/gassed by the Seattle police. I wasn't even a protester at the time. The first day I was just trying to get home from work. Just over to Queen Ann from near Westlake Center was all. No busses. No taxis. No monorail. Fine, I'll walk. Uh oh. Why are the police coming from the north? Oh shit. I better head over towards 6th and then up. Fuck. They're coming that way too and they're firing gas and percussion grenades. Damn, I have to head back towards downtown. Oh this is fucked up.
That's basically how it went down for me. I intentionally joined the peaceful protesters the next day. Something I never would've imagined doing before. I've had a very strong distrust of authority and our government ever since. I woke up.
And I was just trying to get home from work.
cowboyneok
· 11 months ago
Prime example of police state tactics getting out of hand.
shell
· 11 months ago
Everything else aside -- it seems there is a double standard in these "riots."
The cops: Each cop by himself seems reasonable. But in a group, they play off each other and get violent. (Read: Guns, killing, or at least tear gas, or TAZing someone, maybe to death)
The protestors: Same thing, in that they are boldened by being in a group. BUT they don't have the lethal weapons the cops do.
HUGE difference.
News Nag
· 11 months ago
Good question. However, Seattle and Athens are truly apples and oranges. It sounds like the Athens situation calls for more than tear gas. Saving innocent lives is very different than saving property - always.
Seattle was an actual police riot, where 99.9% of the demonstrators were peaceful and were assaulted by police on foot and horseback. The tiny amount of property damage wasn't even begun until well AFTER the trampling and beating of the peaceful demonstrators.
And to be even more clear about Seattle, my son witnessed (and videotaped) police standing idly very nearby, totally apart from the main demonstration, while a handful of black-clad masked men broke a Gap window and slightly damaged a few other corporate franchise buildings. These people in black were obviously police provocateurs trying to give the demonstrators a bad name, as has been shown to be the case at every national political convention since Seattle.
The Seattle-Athens distinction is a very important one to realize, and it's also vital to realize that the police state is working night and day to upturn a citizen's constitutional right to protest and even petition the government.
cowboyneok
· 11 months ago
Non violent protests are the only way to effect change in a positive way. If people get violent then violence begets violence. The Ghandi - Martin Luther King ways have to be followed if you want an effective protest. If people start hurting other people, or getting so violent they put others at risk then they can't complain when police tries to meet them with violence... Cops need to also be held accountable when they get violent on protesters who have not acted violently, though. Its a two way street...
shak el
· 11 months ago
No shooting just to protect property or out of fear. I thought Greece had pretty effective Riot police like most Euro countries?
WTF
· 11 months ago
Well, one, you're not seeing somehow that the people in Seattle NINE YEARS AGO and in the people GREECE about TEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY FROM SEATTLE are all COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. John, don't be an ass. Nobody flipped any cars over or burned anything in Seattle. What are you talking about? Are you on drugs?!
Dick Tracy
· 11 months ago
In the early 70's I attended a college that had a prestigious law enforcement bachelor and masters degree program. I played ice hockey and football with a lot of them and lived in an animal house with some of them. I would always ask them why they wanted to be cops. Around six out of ten would say so they could beat the shit out of people or control people. Many of these future cops would do all kinds of illegal things while at this college with no qualms about breaking the law.
Fast forward to the present. I play hockey still in a city beer league and a couple of cops play in the league. At the bar over beers after the game, I related to them the experiences I had in college with the future law enforcement candidates at college. I asked them if it was still as high as 60% of the cops liked beating the shit out of people. At first, they said the people getting into law enforcement in the 70's were ex-Viet Nam vets who had mental and post traumatic stress syndrome. After further questioning, they said the percentage today was around 40% in their opinion. In my opinion it is still 60% or higher.
They also said the future looks bleak since a lot of the Iraq veterans will come back from that hell hole and apply to be in law enforcement. They say police violence will only get worse when the Iraq vets get on the force and apply their interpretation of enforcing laws on the populace.
By the way, the only time you can get into a fight with a cop and not get arrested is playing in recreational hockey. You will get thrown out of the game and also the next game but at least the playing field is level. Most of them are assholes and deserve a good whoopin'. And I am a peaceful hippie, albeit an old one! (a lot of current and ex-hippies play ice hockey!)
Tired of Idiots
· 11 months ago
Thanks for your "enlightened comments." Now how about commenting on the original topic instead ranting about your college daze and your dislike of cops. We'd love to hear your view and more importantly, your solution to the problem of violent protests and how to respond to them.
shell
· 11 months ago
Oh, shut up. YOU don't have the right to say "WE." ( "We'd love to hear ...") You are speaking for YOU.
Tired of Idiots
· 11 months ago
Very mature shell, but okay, point taken. I"ll try it again for you...I'D like to Dick Tracy's comments and subsquent solutions to the topic at hand.
shell
· 11 months ago
And who are you? John? Joe? Chris?
If none of the above, don't demand comments. Start your own popular blog. Until you do, you have no right.
End of story. And, by the way, grow up!
Tired of Idiots
· 11 months ago
Shell, I don't understand your hostility. I'm not "demanding" anything. I'm curious to hear DT's view on the topic. Aren't you?? Isn't that how things get resolved, through dialogue?? I believe that's the grown up way to do it. But I'll agree to end it as well.
offspring
· 11 months ago
there is a big difference between a group of people gathering to protest for a action they deem just, it is another for a group to loose control and start with cars, fires, rocks, and rioting, humans are extremely prone out of fear and excitment to loss all logic and join a mob mentality in these moments, it isnt an issue of property it is logic they will just keep going untill someone dies or is injured. the police have no choice when faced with a bunch of idiots who decide to start destroying peoples life's work, business or means to survive, and then they start throwing rocks at the police and bottles then gas bottles, it is a few that destroy the message of the whole, but those few can spark a fire that cannot be stopped except by stopping the violent actors
JayR
· 11 months ago
On occasion, when the powers that be totally ignore and abuse you, all you've got left is a riot. I'm not saying it did or did not go that far in Greece. I have no idea. But in the US there have been riots that I understand (though sometimes I would have preferred that the rioters climb in cars and tear down the neighborhoods of their oppressors rather than their own - but that would get them all killed immediately and it's more an emotional response not a planned response anyway) and wouldn't call them all "thugs" or "hoodlums" as many of the folks in US riots were simply normal folks who had enough.
Amaliada
· 11 months ago
Being an American citizen living in Greece, I can tell you that the cops are in a completely no win situation. Earlier this year, demonstrators burned down one of the little guard shacks that the evzones (the Greek soldiers dressed in ancient uniforms) stand beside outside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in central Athens. The police were castigated by every segment of society -- but except for a violent confrontation there was nothing the police could have done.
I don't know who is in the right in the current situation. But I was appalled to hear people calling in to the television stations (both private and state-run) saying that they were witnesses and giving their statements. There is NO attempt to check to see if these folks are on the up and up. But to allow them to inflame the populace is nothing short of criminal in my mind.
The main difference between Greece and most of the West, including the United States, is the rule of the Junta from 1967 through 1974. When the Colonels ordered the police to break up student demonstrations, many students were killed at the Polytechnic University in downtown Athens. Months later, the Junta was overthrown. One of the remnants of that time, is the rule that universities, all universities are off limits to the police unless the students and faculty approve their presence. What this has meant in reality is that violent demonstrators and self-styled (and named) anarchists set fires, destroy property and cars, and attack banks, political offices, and police stations and then run to the universities. The police are powerless to stop them (except by using violence, and getting a violent reaction in return) or even to arrest the ring leaders. Often times, the universities themselves are targets as are the faculty and the administration.
In my small town on the Peloponnese, the students took off from school, marched through town and worked themselves into a lather, lighting fireworks and flares, before heading to the police station. At that point, I decided I would return home.
Peace
· 11 months ago
There is a growing pent up rage building in many people when injustice and illegal acts are committed against the populace and the governmental perpetrators are never brought to justice. The perpetrators constantly claim the "rule of law" but then ignore it when it applies to them.
The whole Bush crime family's fraud, lies and too numerous to count illegal acts during the past eight years are another example.
At some point the people have had enough and the only thing left for them to do is riot, which is like a pressure valve releasing the pent up rage inside themselves. Especially now in these hard economic times when the have mores are getting more and the have nots are getting nothing. Things look bleak for domestic tranquility in the future. People are pissed off and some of them aren't going to take it anymore. Duck and cover...
Joe M
· 11 months ago
The more children they shoot, the worse the rioting wuld get. You think it's bad now? Let the cops use deadly force on a few more teens and Athens will be burning for months! It's a lose/lose situation...
SeaRod
· 11 months ago
One word John: Stonewall
nomad77
· 11 months ago
Normal people generally do not riot, they protest, and even most of them do not seem very normal. Normal people work for a living. Activism is not normal. The people who fought to create a separate entity from England were not normal. My sister in law lives in Paris and had to watch parts of the city burn while she worried about her unborn child. I too had the desire to see the french police use more force but not killing. Rioters should expect violence to be returned. I've had plenty of interaction with cops both positve and negative. People in groups highly emotionally charged will do stupid things and the police are no different. The police here and in Greece can't win in public opinion. They are damned whatever they do in a riot situation. I recall yelling at the TV watching the LA riots where a cop stood by as people destroyed someone's business. Riots have to met with force, hopefully non-lethal as riots indicate a serious underlying issue, which no government program is going to fix.
johnsonFamily
· 11 months ago
Or to put it another way, the second amendment guarantees the people the right to bear arms, and while my understanding of the intent of this Right was that the people were allowed to have guns to protect themselves, even from the unlawful acts of their own governent, the People have to wait until the Supreme Court decides whether the Government's actions were unlawful or not.
Now setting fire to someone's home is most definitely an unlawful act, and the police have the right and duty to prevent bloodshed (even in an extreme fashion: shooting to kill) such as would be caused by such actions. So what's the question again? Oh year, how do you get the Government, and it's Supreme Court to listen to your grievances when they clearly show no intention of doing so? If that's not your question, John, then maybe, let me try, was the Civil War justified? The burning of Atlanta by the Union forces?
All Comments
You want to make a point, violence is never the answer. as Steve_in_CNJ said, you can accomplish more thru peace. You become violent, your whole point is lost and you become an animal threatening everyone else. I don't care what your political point is, when you are threatening me and my families' well being.
protests in Seattle, I had a strong gut-feeling the primary source of violence were
INFILTRATORS, trying to discredit the Movement from within.
The strongest Anti-Globalization people I've met were very committed and passionate,
but ENTIRELY PEACEFUL PEOPLE who realized how an image of violence could HURT
their efforts.
Yes, that is what they were. The movement people had tried hard to advocate non-violence, but there was a group present at their planning meetings who advocated violence and destruction. They are the ones who did the damage and turned out to be agent provacateurs from the police.
In Los Angeles, now, the cops are simply identifying any who are educated in the Black community and gunning them down, trying to intimidate the Blacks not to try to better themselves. Two of the men gunned down in the last two weeks weren't even a part of the community anymore, were simply visiting their families but were college educated and well employed. In a third case, an elderly woman stepped out of her house to see the aggitation a block away, then turned around and went back into her home. Cops burst into her home, smashing down the door, roughed her up and dragged her off to the police station where they released her without charges. It is simply racist bullying and intimidation, the sort of thing you expect in the old South, but not in Los Angeles the same as the May Day police riots of a year ago. And, of course, the life of a Black or Hispanic is worth less than the life of a family pet.
The photo of the damn cop, carrying an assault rifle while better armored than our troops in Iraq told the entire story. They were just itching for an excuse to open up with their guns on full automatic at the crowds as they had done in New Orleans. The cops had planted snipers but the demonstration planners found them and removed them to prevent justification for the murderous violence the cops had planned.
As a result of the police response the police chief had to resign.
And the damage that was reported was not nearly as bad as the news made out... you'd have thought that the whole downtown was on fire and being looted... it wasn't. there were some broken windows, and a couple of cars that got torched.
Only if a society wishes to drop the claim to being civilized. This is why we create laws and law enforcement: to settle disputes and redress grievances. If violence is ever the answer then we are asking the wrong questions.
The question I have is...why was this 15 yr old killed? Did he threaten those 2 cops with a weapon by firing at them? Exactly what were the circumstances?
No, I don't condone the destruction by those hellbent on destroying property to vent their anger. But sometimes, as we have seen in our own country, previous acts of brutality by the police lead people to respond, and often with tragic results. Unfortunately, as the regime of Bush winds down, we are seeing more individualized crime rising as the frustration of people limits itself to personal solutions, not organized mass statements.
On the other hand, I see many potential downsides to this. Sometimes, the violence of protesters is provoked by the very officers trying to stop the mob with well, violence.
I can't speak to the Greek situation. But in the U.S. case, including Seattle, the violence and mayhem was overwhelmingly caused by the police.
The post by John was deeply misinformed and highly irresponsible, and frankly, is much in need of an update and a factual correction.
Look at the arrest of Amy Goodman at the Denver Convention. Very clear that she wasn't a terrorist, yet that is the charges that they used to justify her arrests. If she hadn't been a renowned journalist, she and her collegues would probably be sitting in cells in Guantanamo, Abu Gehrib or renditioned to some foreign nation for torture. Big brave cops roughing up a 5 foot woman who is crippled from previous official abuse and violence.
On March 12, 1930, Gandhi and around 78 male satyagraha set out, on foot, fort the coastal village of Dandi some 380 kms from their starting point in sabarmati, a journey which was to last 23 day. Virtually every resident of each city along this journey watched the great procession, which was at least two miles in length. On April 6th, he picked up a lump of mud and salt. Gandhi termed the march as the first implored his thousands of followers to begin to make salt wherever, along the seashore, “war” on the salt tax was to be continued during the National Week, that is, up to April 13.
The British government incarcerated over sixty thousand Indians by the end of March.
On the night of May 4, Gandhi was sleeping on a cot under a mango tree, at a village near Dandi. A little after midnight, the district magistrate of Surat drove up with two Indian Officers and thirty heavily –armed constables. He woke Gandhi by shinning a torch in his face, and arrested him.
The effect of the salt march was felt across India. Thousands of people made salt, or bought illegal salt. This period is considered the apex of Gandhi’s political appeal, as the march mobilized many new followers from all of Indian society and the march grabbed the world’s attention. Most historians see Dandi as a key turning point in India’s struggle for freedom.
No violence required.
Protest has always been the last avenue of the disenfranchised, of which there is a geometrically growing contingent. Watching executive war criminals, many of whom participated in some of the most egregious criminal acts of Constitutional violation and murder, walk around free; making jokes and flaunting a smugness borne of twisting the system of justice into their own personal crony-fed network does indeed stir an urge to blood-boiling civil disobedient protest.
Watching apologist paper-tiger legislators make deals to "put the past behind us," i.e. excuse the unconscionable murder of close to 1 million people, detentions, rapes, without so much as an attempt at serious investigation also is motivation to civil disobedience. Notice, also lately how much funding has been devoted to 'non-lethal' methods of crowd-control (crowd 'dispersal' as the Pentagon terms it.) and discouragement such as auditory and electromagnetic heat sensation.
Of course, as stated, discrediting the protesters is the first line of defense, however correct their cause (which is not, I hasten to point out, an excuse for murderous protest behavior). The media is thoroughly complicit in the government's effort to report and/or withhold details that may damage the 'official position.' The administration never was interested in the truth, just maintaining control and getting the public to swallow the latest outrage.
Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Iraq, etc. And Rove is writing books. And bush is sitting for his portrait rather than his mugshot.
We, apparently, are too 'civilized' to violently protest these horrific monsters; grinding down our right and passion for justice for the sake of appearances. We're behaving ourselves into oblivion.
I was also at WTO and can say that the police caused the violence by beating people who weren't doing anything and firing tear gas into peaceful crowds. The only ones who I saw doing anything violent were the police. Granted, there were a few anarchists (who are notoriously infiltrated by the FBI so it may have been planted agents) who smashed a couple of windows at Niketown and Starbucks... the press made it out like a bunch of hooligans were tearing up Seattle (typical corporate media, don't express any anti globalization or anti corporate agenda or we'll make you look like thugs).
I'm not sure where you get these views that cops should be shooting protesters. Should the prob 8 protesters be shot because they are not willing to accept what the voters of California decided? I honestly don't understand anyone who feels that unarmed protesters should be shot just because they are protesting the police (or WTO or gay rights, or racial equality, etc). Using force to quell free speech is a slippery slope that leads to fascism. John I don't' understand how you can hold the expressed opinion, it was genuinely shocking for me to read those words on one of my favorite news blogs...
It would have been simple to get rid of the handful of troublemakers who smashed windows. After all, some very large Teamsters were picking them up and offering them to the cops, who refused to arrest them, preferring creating chaos to containing it.
This was not LA after Rodney King. This was Kent State, and the number of convictions against protesters vs. successful lawsuits against the city are fine evidence of that.
Then.. the aboslutely abysmal mayor at the time decided he needed to assert his authority and the police turned violent on a non-violent crowd. ANY peaceful demonstration even outside the newly induced curfew zone was met with pepper spray and rubber bullets and billy clubs. And then the curfew zone would be "expanded". People were kept on buses without food or water long beyond the time they should have been legally released.
Lots of civil rights were violated against innocents.
I was in LA for the Rodney King riots and know of accounts where otherwise upscale and educated people used the chaos to "help themselves" to looted merchandise. Some people openly sold looted electronics around my place of employment.
The most moving TV news item I remember seeing was a black teen girl who was very emotional, expressing both rage and shame crying, "people need to stop doing this because they're only burning down their own neighborhoods and making everyone else think we're *animals*!"
Cops regard all common people as N-----. News in Los Angeles showed a cop pulling a pretty white girl off a fence and then beating her unmercifully for the crime of trying to climb the fence and escape the police violence. During the testimony at the Rampart Scandal, was wheelchair bound white man who was beaten by the police who claimed he had pulled a gun on them.
Careful there. That's the kind of thinking that justified China's decision to kill dozens of protestors in Tiananmen Square. Or the murder of four college students at Kent State in the 1970s. You'd love to think that the cops are only going to shoot and kill some really violent, bad, murderous people -- but in fact they'd end up shooting journalists, angry but nonviolent protestors, bystanders, etc.
In other words -- really bad idea. USA is not a totalitarian state where we shoot unarmed protestors. Professional SWAT teams have procedures to shut down such riots and put those people in prison without killing anybody.
That's called rule of law. I was caught up in a protest outside the 2000 Democratic convention when some anarchists burned a flag and the LAPD started shooting tear gas into the crowd. Good thing the cops didn't use live ammunition (as John Aravosis would recommend) because then I might have been caught in some crossfire and killed. All of these riot/protest situations usually involve a small percentage of troublemakers and a bunch of bystanders/observers/journalists.
Adding lethal force to the situation is a very, very BAD idea.
As for what's going on in Greece, setting fire to apartment buildings is obviously, WRONG (if not deranged or evil)! The people who did so should be jailed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow (provocateurs)
http://nadiacavalera.blogspot.com/2008/10/inter... ( former Italian president admits how to use provocateurs )
Brief translation here:
http://www.911blogger.com/node/18328
On the other hand, there are all sorts of weapons that can be used in place of deadly force: from fire hoses to rubber bullets to tazers.
I'd have to see what weapons are available for the cops there before I passed judgement.
(In general, tho, I'd say anybody who's attempting to set fire to an occupied apartment block is attempting to commit murder and should be subject to deadly force.)
What all of the protest you mentioned had it common was nobody was willing to take it that far, and by your calculations I tend to think they should aim for using the least necessiary to quell the rebellion but if it comes damned necessiary to shoot, then do so.
I lived in LA during the Rodney King riots. It was scary. But the city survived,
Has Greece declared that a state of martial law exists? If so, there is usually less justification needed.
Not just good enough, but the justification says that it the job for which the cops were hired to perform. Indiscriminately gun down civilians to keep them terrorized and afraid to speak up for the Constitution, Bill of Rights and laws of this nation. Even worse, they are now targeting not only community leaders but simply those who have had the initiative to go to college and get an eduction. This is why we elected Obama, to change the direction of our authorities, but more and more, Obama is showing signs that he intends to give us more of the same.
In Poland the intelligent, the teachers, the politicians and many other "dissidents" who could cause the Nazis trouble, were rounded up and many killed. In this present police action using heavy handed force against anyone who protests or questions the authority, we witness a variation of it in that they haven't started overtly killing people, yet but, the potential threat is always implied. The more one can convince the citizenry that it is appropriate to kill protesters that the police decide are "dangerous" only to them actually, it makes it easier to eliminate "bothersome" people. Certainly, if McCain had won, the police actions would, in my opinion, have gone farther in making sure everyone "towed the line" in the name of maintaining "peaceful assembly in the specially designated areas away from where an effective peaceful protest should be. Obama hasn't begun his tenure yet, so I have a problem labeling him for something he hasn't done as a president. There will be plenty of time for that during the 4 or 8 years of his tenure to see where his vision of change leads us. I know, what the consequences surely would have been if McCain had won the election and we do not need to see the FEMA concentration camps put in action to know that they are there and waiting for us, in the event we question authority too strongly. To question the authority that now has its foot on our necks is something the police do not want see..
We still do not know who the people were who trashed the streets at this convention and disturbed an otherwise peaceful protest.. Why not? Why did they not get arrested? Very fishy. The authorities called them 'anarchists'.
There are problems when you have large numbers of the youth in any country who have no jobs, no hope and no realistic ambition for a future. The same thing happened in France, and the same root cause breeds terrorism. Having a positive path for the youth of all nations is going to be one the big challenges in the 21st century.
Remember how the cops did nothing -- as long as the protestors were destroying East LA? But when they started to move to Beverly Hills, or some other rich area, THEN they stopped it. The cops didn't care one bit about businesses or cars or trash cans until they moved.
I can't understand why this isn't obvious to more.
We are all going to see alot more of it in the near future as the world economy goes off the rails.
If you want proof, look to the Civil Rights Act.
Yep! Right. Like tasering them dozens of times until their hearts fail. Shooting them between the eyes or in the temple with rubber bullets or tear gas canisters. Tearing apart a 9 year old girl with the stream from a fire hose. Yep! Those non-lethal methods are very effective. If you watch the tapes of the police killing that 9 year old girl, it was very obvious that they knew they were using killing force on her. Her crime was being Black. But as I posted above, if we aren't part of the billionaire establishment, we are all N-----s to the cops.
Thank you
And you mention "turning over cars, looting stores, and more generally setting the city on fire." Are you kidding me? You would be FOR harming humans because they turned over a car? Looted a store? Set "the city" on fire? Yes, I realize that by mentioning the people (the children!) above the building, you are trying to tug at heartstrings, but come on. You are really worried about the above-mentioned things?
And if it is between a human, and someone's car or business? Guess which one I pick? (And yes, even if most Americans think the human is "scum" -- I see him/her as a life. And it isn't even a fetus!)
The cars, the businesses -- insurance will replace them. A human life? No.
This police behavior is shameful -- no matter what country it is in. I usually agree with you, but in this case, I see the AGE difference coming out. It seems that those who remember the 60s think differently. I agree with your mom.
THINGS = worth anything, even a human life
Human lives -- if not rich = no biggie
Just look at the "criminal justice system" -- Dick Cheney? Mass murderer. No arrest. A marijuana user? 10 years in prison. George Bush? Mass murderer. No arrest. Someone who steals a car? 10 years.
America is all F-ed up. Has it always been this way?
That's basically how it went down for me. I intentionally joined the peaceful protesters the next day. Something I never would've imagined doing before. I've had a very strong distrust of authority and our government ever since. I woke up.
And I was just trying to get home from work.
The cops: Each cop by himself seems reasonable. But in a group, they play off each other and get violent. (Read: Guns, killing, or at least tear gas, or TAZing someone, maybe to death)
The protestors: Same thing, in that they are boldened by being in a group. BUT they don't have the lethal weapons the cops do.
HUGE difference.
Seattle was an actual police riot, where 99.9% of the demonstrators were peaceful and were assaulted by police on foot and horseback. The tiny amount of property damage wasn't even begun until well AFTER the trampling and beating of the peaceful demonstrators.
And to be even more clear about Seattle, my son witnessed (and videotaped) police standing idly very nearby, totally apart from the main demonstration, while a handful of black-clad masked men broke a Gap window and slightly damaged a few other corporate franchise buildings. These people in black were obviously police provocateurs trying to give the demonstrators a bad name, as has been shown to be the case at every national political convention since Seattle.
The Seattle-Athens distinction is a very important one to realize, and it's also vital to realize that the police state is working night and day to upturn a citizen's constitutional right to protest and even petition the government.
Fast forward to the present. I play hockey still in a city beer league and a couple of cops play in the league. At the bar over beers after the game, I related to them the experiences I had in college with the future law enforcement candidates at college. I asked them if it was still as high as 60% of the cops liked beating the shit out of people. At first, they said the people getting into law enforcement in the 70's were ex-Viet Nam vets who had mental and post traumatic stress syndrome. After further questioning, they said the percentage today was around 40% in their opinion. In my opinion it is still 60% or higher.
They also said the future looks bleak since a lot of the Iraq veterans will come back from that hell hole and apply to be in law enforcement. They say police violence will only get worse when the Iraq vets get on the force and apply their interpretation of enforcing laws on the populace.
By the way, the only time you can get into a fight with a cop and not get arrested is playing in recreational hockey. You will get thrown out of the game and also the next game but at least the playing field is level. Most of them are assholes and deserve a good whoopin'. And I am a peaceful hippie, albeit an old one! (a lot of current and ex-hippies play ice hockey!)
If none of the above, don't demand comments. Start your own popular blog. Until you do, you have no right.
End of story. And, by the way, grow up!
I don't know who is in the right in the current situation. But I was appalled to hear people calling in to the television stations (both private and state-run) saying that they were witnesses and giving their statements. There is NO attempt to check to see if these folks are on the up and up. But to allow them to inflame the populace is nothing short of criminal in my mind.
The main difference between Greece and most of the West, including the United States, is the rule of the Junta from 1967 through 1974. When the Colonels ordered the police to break up student demonstrations, many students were killed at the Polytechnic University in downtown Athens. Months later, the Junta was overthrown. One of the remnants of that time, is the rule that universities, all universities are off limits to the police unless the students and faculty approve their presence. What this has meant in reality is that violent demonstrators and self-styled (and named) anarchists set fires, destroy property and cars, and attack banks, political offices, and police stations and then run to the universities. The police are powerless to stop them (except by using violence, and getting a violent reaction in return) or even to arrest the ring leaders. Often times, the universities themselves are targets as are the faculty and the administration.
In my small town on the Peloponnese, the students took off from school, marched through town and worked themselves into a lather, lighting fireworks and flares, before heading to the police station. At that point, I decided I would return home.
Just today the LA Times had an article relating to this:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asecti...
The whole Bush crime family's fraud, lies and too numerous to count illegal acts during the past eight years are another example.
At some point the people have had enough and the only thing left for them to do is riot, which is like a pressure valve releasing the pent up rage inside themselves. Especially now in these hard economic times when the have mores are getting more and the have nots are getting nothing. Things look bleak for domestic tranquility in the future. People are pissed off and some of them aren't going to take it anymore. Duck and cover...
Now setting fire to someone's home is most definitely an unlawful act, and the police have the right and duty to prevent bloodshed (even in an extreme fashion: shooting to kill) such as would be caused by such actions. So what's the question again? Oh year, how do you get the Government, and it's Supreme Court to listen to your grievances when they clearly show no intention of doing so? If that's not your question, John, then maybe, let me try, was the Civil War justified? The burning of Atlanta by the Union forces?