What Digby said
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What Digby said
The United States has never had fully militarised police before, armed with the kind of high-tech surveillance and weaponry that would never be allowed if the National Guard were called up in an emergency. And neither have we ever had such a malleable definition of what constitutes an emergency. At a time of increasing citizen unrest, it's a volatile combination. Certainly the government seems to have been preparing for such confrontations for some time now. Whether the people will accept high-tech "pain compliance" to "modify" dissent remains to be seen. If the attitude towards Tasers is any guide, many won't have a problem with it and "enhanced interrogation" of terrorist suspects has become, at best, a moral grey area for many in the US. We have essentially normalised torture and created a high-tech police apparatus with more capability than any military in history. Human nature suggests that if you build it, they will use it.
Comments (67)
Will, you dipsh##. The OWS crowd is losing steam. And that includes the steam coming off the dumps that they lay down on the streets, but overall if these people, unable to hold it in until they reach a toilet are tased or hosed I'd bet that they fold just like the big dumps that they drop along side the curbs.— RufusG- While we can't know what it was like during the collapse of Rome, we have plenty of information on the social unrest and political upheaval that was beginning to inflame France circa 1760 or so. And really, as every revolution from ours to the so-called "arab spring" ultimately devolves into violence before resolution. It's coming.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatus
- There's a difference between protesting and deciding to live outside city hall. Any moron can see that.— bobbyd24
- I agree with Will on this one - and this is EXACTLY why we need an arm3ed citizenry. It is the only thing keeping the government in line.— Mirror
- I can see it now. The OWSers throughout the country rounding up all of the 1%ers and leading them up the steps to the guillotine to have their heads chopped off. I hope that when it happens that Jon Corzine and Nancy Pelosi will be the first to have their heads handed to them.— RufusG
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
- In a video posted on YouTube after protesters were evicted from Zuccotti Park, a demonstrator in the crowd says “On the 17th, we’re going to burn New York City to the ground.”
Later in the video, he then goes on to say “No more talking. They’ve got guns, we’ve got bottles. They’ve got bricks, we’ve got rocks…in a few days you’re going to see what a Molotov cocktail can do to Macy’s.”
Source-CBS Radio, NY website. And , they are racists.— georgel - Lets just go old fashioned then and beat them with our bare hands. I would be up for that, more of a lesson.— TKL008
- TKL008 - I've actually thought of that. All the normal people should go down there and physically remove the bongo players.— bobbyd24
- Will, if someone from the tea party was caught on camera pooping on the street you'd be all over it.— RufusG
- (Observing the comments of the “Conservatives” on this post) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the people who want to get government out of our lives and talk up the US Constitution until they make me sick with their hypocrisy. The militarization of our police forces is a threat to all Americans. Wake up.— Hamlet
- Yet you wish to give the government more power over our lives. The same government that created the Militarized police force of which you are now complaining. Tell me, what makes you think a government with even more power wouldn't tighten the screws even more if threatened?
And you accuse conservatives of hypocrisy? - OWS is their motto but pooping on the streets is their legacy.— RufusG
- And these police forces are in cities run by....democrats!I know I feel better knowing they are controlled by warm fuzzy liberals. BTW, wasn't Woodrow Wilison Goode a deomcrat. First mayor to ever bomb his own citizens.
— georgel
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