Peaceful protesters pepper sprayed and beaten at the Republican Convention

[dilute micro]

call me absurd, but pepper spraying someone as they walk away is a cunts trick, regardless of the politics here.

Attempts to defend it make you sound like a right cunt 'telling it like it is' lol.

I'm sure she impressed her friends.

 

[exosculate]

Right wing apologist?

Don't pepper spray the messenger.

 

[dilute micro]

Don't pepper spray the messenger.

And don't make up conspiracy stories about who's really behind the local police.

Strive to be real.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm sure she impressed her friends.

mm. Bet the hero copper impressed his mates no end.

 

[exosculate]

And don't make up conspiracy stories about who's really behind the local police.

Strive to be real.

I'm keeping it very real, I'm living through the film The Empire Strikes Back at the moment and you are Darth Vadar.

 

[dilute micro]

Go in peace exosculate.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

You won't find me defending them in those cases. It just takes a rather naive person to not see through this girl's drama play.

It's hard to say if you're any more correct than the professional cop haters, because....................the clip is only thirty seconds long.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Yes dear. And who tells them where to go and what to do?

Er, the Watch Commander?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Er, the Watch Commander?

The Hippiefinder General.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

They have in the past. That part of the cops is not a political one. They are just the cops.


Note the British ignorance of alternate spellings.

Did he mention the Democratic National Convention? The mother of all political riots in the US is the 68 DNC.

Even Hugh Hefner took a nightstick across the back of the legs at that one.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

call me absurd, but pepper spraying someone as they walk away is a cunts trick, regardless of the politics here.

Maybe ten seconds before, she threw a rock at someone. We'll never know, .............because the clip is only thirty seconds long.

 

[dilute micro]

It's hard to say if you're any more correct than the professional cop haters, because....................the clip is only thirty seconds long.

It's the girl. It's the 20 year old kid mentality. They're so easy to read. The flower for the cops thing is nothing new.

 

[scifisam]

Maybe ten seconds before, she threw a rock at someone. We'll never know, .............because the clip is only thirty seconds long.

You know, if she'd done that, a pepper spray would have been justified. However, if she'd done that, it would be extremely unlikely they she'd be allowed to walk up up to cops for even as long as 30 seconds. The fact that she's still upright and active is pretty good proof that she hadn't just attacked people physically.

I wonder, if she'd just walked up empty-handed, would she have been due a spraying?

 

[scifisam]

It's the girl. It's the 20 year old kid mentality. They're so easy to read. The flower for the cops thing is nothing new.

Yeah. It's nothing new, teenage protesters being a little naive. Really, every teenager should have the experience and cycnism of a 40-year-old - they should never be idealistic. The response to such harmless idealism is, naturally, to attack it violently. If this girl had held up a sign saying 'make love, not war,' death would be too good for her.


BTW, Johnny: me, as an automatic cop hater?

And yes, cops outside the conventions of other political parties have used such tactics before. I think that's bad too. Using violence against peaceful demonstrators = bad.

It's below you to try to suggest that I'd be OK with such violence if it were outside a Democractic Party convention. That's possibly one of the worst debating tactics ever, and there's probably a Greek rhetorical term for it.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

It's the girl. It's the 20 year old kid mentality. They're so easy to read. The flower for the cops thing is nothing new.

We don't know though, do we?


The flower in the gun thing started at the 68 convention, I think.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

You know, if she'd done that, a pepper spray would have been justified. However, if she'd done that, it would be extremely unlikely they she'd be allowed to walk up up to cops for even as long as 30 seconds. The fact that she's still upright and active is pretty good proof that she hadn't just attacked people physically.

I wonder, if she'd just walked up empty-handed, would she have been due a spraying?

I know people love to talk about this kind of thing, but in reality, it's just blowing hot air. We see thirty seconds of the exchange, we know nothing about what happened, beyond the fact of the spraying.

 

[nino_savatte]

They have in the past. That part of the cops is not a political one. They are just the cops.


Note the British ignorance of alternate spellings.

I spelled the word correctly, you're just backsliding. If you think that the cops are isolated from ideology, think again. They form part of the repressive apparatus of the state, Indeed, many governors have used the police to break strikes (and skulls). Perhaps you weren't old enough to remember the 1968 presidential election and the way in which Richard Daley used the police as his private army.

Note the deepseated tendency to obfuscate.

 

[nino_savatte]

The police also claimed that they "found weapons". What I find interesting, is the way in which some people will automatically accept all of these claims without question - much in the same way they bought the whole lie about Chavez supporters "firing" on poor innocent so-called 'democrats'.

 

[dilute micro]

Yeah. It's nothing new, teenage protesters being a little naive. Really, every teenager should have the experience and cycnism of a 40-year-old - they should never be idealistic. The response to such harmless idealism is, naturally, to attack it violently. If this girl had held up a sign saying 'make love, not war,' death would be too good for her.


BTW, Johnny: me, as an automatic cop hater?

And yes, cops outside the conventions of other political parties have used such tactics before. I think that's bad too. Using violence against peaceful demonstrators = bad.

It's below you to try to suggest that I'd be OK with such violence if it were outside a Democractic Party convention. That's possibly one of the worst debating tactics ever, and there's probably a Greek rhetorical term for it.

Why think that's bad? If the situation arises that violence erupts from a peaceful protest the city has every right to protect its property from being smashed and what not. When that violence happens the protest is over for everybody. That's pretty much the way it works.

 

[dilute micro]

I spelled the word correctly, you're just backsliding. If you think that the cops are isolated from ideology, think again. They form part of the repressive apparatus of the state, Indeed, many governors have used the police to break strikes (and skulls). Perhaps you weren't old enough to remember the 1968 presidential election and the way in which Richard Daley used the police as his private army.

Note the deepseated tendency to obfuscate.

You spelled it the British way. Oh wait maybe the French way.

 

[nino_savatte]

You spelled it the British way. Oh wait maybe the French way.

The word is originally French and the way I spelled it is correct. In spite of my mixed US-British heritage, I would rather spell things correctly than in some half-assed fashion. For instance, the US is the only country to refer to aluminium as "aluminum".

If all you own is a Webster's English (that word should be used advisedly since American English is full of made up words like "normalcy"*) dictionary, then it's no wonder you can't understand when a word is being spelled correctly.


* We have Warren G Harding to thank for this word

 

[nino_savatte]

It isn't just protesters who've been harassed by the Polizei, journalists have also been arrested. Free speech and freedom of the press, my arse!

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention meets in St. Paul, Minn., this week, police are systematically targeting journalists. I was arrested with my two colleagues, "Democracy Now!" producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, while reporting on the first day of the RNC. I have been wrongly charged with a misdemeanor. My co-workers, who were simply reporting, may be charged with felony riot.

The Democratic and Republican national conventions have become very expensive and protracted acts of political theater, essentially four-day-long advertisements for the major presidential candidates. Outside the fences, they have become major gatherings for grass-roots movements - for people to come, amidst the banners, bunting, flags and confetti, to express the rights enumerated in the Constitution's First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/04

 

[DotCommunist]

'oh those career journos, just out to impress their friends, they'll be voting republican in 6 years'

 

[scifisam]

I know people love to talk about this kind of thing, but in reality, it's just blowing hot air. We see thirty seconds of the exchange, we know nothing about what happened, beyond the fact of the spraying.

Then why do you insist on judging the police's actions according to what might have happened when the camera wasn't on? And why, when guessing at what happened before this shot, do you immediately go for the protester acting violently, rather than the police?

Why think that's bad? If the situation arises that violence erupts from a peaceful protest the city has every right to protect its property from being smashed and what not. When that violence happens the protest is over for everybody. That's pretty much the way it works.

So, someone else in another part of the city tips over a rubbish bin (the only violent destruction that I've seen reported so far), and that means the police have the right to attack protesters in other parts of the city who aren't attacking such valuable property. That's a really messed-up way of thinking.

 

[scifisam]

It isn't just protesters who've been harassed by the Polizei, journalists have also been arrested. Free speech and freedom of the press, my arse!

There's a video of her on the page I linked to, and video of another journalist who'd been pepper-sprayed. There's also a video of a bloke in a wheelchair being pushed away having been sprayed, and there are long shots of the crowds, showing how non-violent they were being. But I guess that, somewhere else in the city, someone calling themselves a protester had knocked over a dustbin, so that gives the police licence to do what they want.

 

[dilute micro]

So, someone else in another part of the city tips over a rubbish bin (the only violent destruction that I've seen reported so far), and that means the police have the right to attack protesters in other parts of the city who aren't attacking such valuable property. That's a really messed-up way of thinking.

Hmmm. Sounds like it light be unrelated to the republican convention altogether being that it was one person on the other side of the city. There was more than just a trash can turned over. And once that starts the protesting is over for everybody because the city ain't having it.

 

[dilute micro]

Looking at it more closely it looks like a typical encounter of a delinquent with the fashion police anyway.

 

[DotCommunist]

Hmmm. Sounds like it light be unrelated to the republican convention altogether being that it was one person on the other side of the city. There was more than just a trash can turned over. And once that starts the protesting is over for everybody because the city ain't having it.

At the slightest provocation the police stomp hard. Well done American society!

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I love this idea that we can't possibly comment on what might have been going on a second before the video Because, you know, she might have just chucked a brick! Cos that's what coppers do when people chuck bricks at them, wander forward in a line fairly casually with no overt concerns for their own safety, moving people around, and let the person who threw a brick get close before getting bored with their lack of respect and giving them a capsicum facial.

 

[dilute micro]

Nobody is saying that she did anything violent. All she would have to do in such an instance would be to defy their orders to move. If the cops tell you to get off the street and you don't you're in violation of the law. Ever watch Cops? You'll see it in nearly every show.