The #Boston #bombing produces familiar and revealing reactions - #MSM As usual, the limits of selective empathy, the rush to blame Muslims, and the exploitation of fear all instantly emerge There’s not much to say about Monday’s Boston Marathon attack because there is virtually no known evidence regarding who did it or why. There are, however, several points to be made about some of the widespread reactions to this incident. Much of that reaction is all-too-familiar and quite revealing in important ways: (1) The widespread compassion for yesterday’s victims and the intense anger over the attacks was obviously authentic and thus good to witness. But it was really hard not to find oneself wishing that just a fraction of that compassion and anger be devoted to attacks that the US perpetrates rather than suffers. These are exactly the kinds of horrific, civilian-slaughtering attacks that the US has been bringing to countries in the Muslim world over and over and over again for the last decade, with very little attention paid. My Guardian colleague Gary Younge put this best on Twitter this morning: Juan Cole this morning makes a similar point about violence elsewhere. Indeed, just yesterday in Iraq, at least 42 people were killed and more than 250 injured by a series of car bombs, the enduring result of the US invasion and destruction of that country. Somehow the deep compassion and anger felt in the US when it is attacked never translates to understanding the effects of our own aggression against others. One particularly illustrative example I happened to see yesterday was a re-tweet from Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso, proclaiming: Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?” I don’t disagree with that sentiment. But I’d bet a good amount of money that the person saying it - and the vast majority of other Americans - have no clue that targeting rescuers with “double-tap” attacks is precisely what the US now does with its drone program and other forms of militarism. If most Americans knew their government and military were doing this, would they react the same way as they did to yesterday’s Boston attack: “Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?” That’s highly doubtful, and that’s the point. There’s nothing wrong per se with paying more attention to tragedy and violence that happens relatively nearby and in familiar places. Whether wrong or not, it’s probably human nature, or at least human instinct, to do that, and that happens all over the world. I’m not criticizing that. But one wishes that the empathy for victims and outrage over the ending of innocent human life that instantly arises when the US is targeted by this sort of violence would at least translate into similar concern when the US is perpetrating it, as it so often does (far, far more often than it is targeted by such violence). Regardless of your views of justification and intent: whatever rage you’re feeling toward the perpetrator of this Boston attack, that’s the rage in sustained form that people across the world feel toward the US for killing innocent people in their countries. Whatever sadness you feel for yesterday’s victims, the same level of sadness is warranted for the innocent people whose lives are ended by American bombs. However profound a loss you recognize the parents and family members of these victims to have suffered, that’s the same loss experienced by victims of US violence. It’s natural that it won’t be felt as intensely when the victims are far away and mostly invisible, but applying these reactions to those acts of US aggression would go a long way toward better understanding what they are and the outcomes they generate. (2) The rush, one might say the eagerness, to conclude that the attackers were Muslim was palpable and unseemly, even without any real evidence. The New York Post quickly claimed that the prime suspect was a Saudi national (while also inaccurately reporting that 12 people had been confirmed dead). The Post’s insinuation of responsibility was also suggested on CNN by Former Bush Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend (“We know that there is one Saudi national who was wounded in the leg who is being spoken to”). Former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman went on CNN to grossly speculate that Muslim groups were behind the attack. Anti-Muslim bigots like Pam Geller predictably announced that this was “Jihad in America”. Expressions of hatred for Muslims, and a desire to do violence, were then spewing forth all over Twitter (some particularly unscrupulous partisan Democrat types were identically suggesting with zero evidence that the attackers were right-wing extremists). Obviously, it’s possible that the perpetrator(s) will turn out to be Muslim, just like it’s possible they will turn out to be extremist right-wing activists, or left-wing agitators, or Muslim-fearing Anders-Breivik types, or lone individuals driven by apolitical mental illness. But the rush to proclaim the guilty party to be Muslim is seen in particular over and over with such events. Recall that on the day of the 2011 Oslo massacre by a right-wing, Muslim-hating extremist, the New York Times spent virtually the entire day strongly suggesting in its headlines that an Islamic extremist group was responsible, a claim other major news outlets (including the BBC and Washington Post) then repeated as fact. The same thing happened with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when most major US media outlets strongly suggested that the perpetrators were Muslims. As FAIR documented back then: “In the wake of the explosion that destroyed the Murrah Federal Office Building, the media rushed — almost en masse — to the assumption that the bombing was the work of Muslim extremists. ‘The betting here is on Middle East terrorists,’ declared CBS News’ Jim Stewart just hours after the blast (4/19/95). ‘The fact that it was such a powerful bomb in Oklahoma City immediately drew investigators to consider deadly parallels that all have roots in the Middle East,’ ABC’s John McWethy proclaimed the same day. “‘It has every single earmark of the Islamic car-bombers of the Middle East,’ wrote syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer (Chicago Tribune, 4/21/95). ‘Whatever we are doing to destroy Mideast terrorism, the chief terrorist threat against Americans, has not been working,’ declared the New York Times’ A.M. Rosenthal (4/21/95). The Geyer and Rosenthal columns were filed after the FBI released sketches of two suspects who looked more like Midwestern frat boys than mujahideen.” This lesson is never learned because, it seems, many people don’t want to learn it. Even when it turns out not to have been Muslims who perpetrated the attack but rather right-wing, white Christians, the damage from this relentless and reflexive blame-pinning endures. (3) One continually encountered yesterday expressions of dread and fear from Arabs and Muslims around the world that the attacker would be either or both. That’s because they know that all members of their religious or ethnic group will be blamed, or worse, if that turns out to be the case. That’s true even though leading Muslim-American groups such as CAIR harshly condemned the attack (as they always do) and urged support for the victims, including blood donations. One tweeter, referencing the earthquake that hit Iran this morning, satirized this collective mindset by writing: “Please don’t be a Muslim plate tectonic activity.” As understandable as it is, that’s just sad to witness. No other group reacts with that level of fear to these kinds of incidents, because no other group has similar cause to fear that they will all be hated or targeted for the acts of isolated, unrepresentative individuals. A similar dynamic has long prevailed in the domestic crime context: when the perpetrators of notorious crimes turned out to be African-American, the entire community usually paid a collective price. But the unique and well-grounded dread that hundreds of millions of law-abiding, peaceful Muslims and Arabs around the world have about the prospect that this attack in Boston was perpetrated by a Muslim highlights the climate of fear that has been created for and imposed on them over the last decade. (4) The reaction to the Boston attack underscored, yet again, the utter meaninglessness of the word “terrorism”. News outlets were seemingly scandalized that President Obama, in his initial remarks, did not use the words “terrorist attack” to describe the bombing. In response, the White House ran to the media to assure them that they considered it “terrorism”. Fox News’ Ed Henry quoted a “senior administration official” as saying this: “When multiple (explosive) devices go off that’s an act of terrorism.” Is that what “terrorism” is? “When multiple (explosive) devices go off”? If so, that encompasses a great many things, including what the US does in the world on a very regular basis. Of course, the quest to know whether this was “terrorism” is really code for: “was this done by Muslims”? That’s because, in US political discourse, “terrorism” has no real meaning other than: violence perpetrated by Muslims against the west. The reason there was such confusion and uncertainty about whether this was “terrorism” is because there is no clear and consistently applied definition of the term. At this point, it’s little more than a term of emotionally manipulative propaganda. That’s been proven over and over, and it was against yesterday. (5) The history of these types of attacks over the last decade has been clear and consistent: they are exploited to obtain new government powers, increase state surveillance, and take away individual liberties. On NBC with Brian Williams last night, Tom Brokaw decreed that this will happen again and instructed us that we must meekly submit it to it: “Everyone has to understand tonight that, beginning tomorrow morning early, there are going to be much tougher security considerations all across the country, and however exhausted we may be by that, we’re going to have to learn to live with them, and get along and go forward, and not let them bring us to our knees. You’ll remember last summer, how unhappy we were with the security at the Democratic and Republic conventions. Now I don’t think we can raise those complaints after what happened in Boston.” Last night on Chris Hayes’ MSNBC show, an FBI agent discussed the fact that the US government has the right to arrest terrorism suspects and not provide them with Miranda warnings before questioning them. After seeing numerous people express surprise at this claim on Twitter, I pointed out that this happened when the Obama administration exploited the attempted underwear bombing over Detroit to radically reduce Miranda rights over what they had been for decades. That’s what the US government (aided by the sham “terrorism expert” industry) does in every single one of these cases: exploits the resulting fear to increase its own power and decrease everyone else’s rights, including privacy. At the Atlantic, security expert Bruce Schneier has a short but compelling article on how urgent it is that we not react to this Boston attack irrationally or with exaggerated fear, and that we particularly remain vigilant against government attempts to exploit fear to impose all new rights-reducing measures. He notes in particular how the more unusual an event is (such as this sort of attack on US soil), the more our brains naturally exaggerate its significance and frequency (John Cole makes a similar point). In sum, even if the perpetrators of Monday’s attack in Boston turn out to be politically motivated and subscribers to an anti-US ideology, it will still be a very rare event, one that poses far less danger to Americans than literally countless other threats. The most important lesson of the excesses arising from the 9/11 attacks should be this one: that the dangers of overreacting and succumbing to irrational fear are far, far greater than any other dangers posed by these type of events.
View Separately

 

The #Boston #bombing produces familiar and revealing reactions - #MSM

As usual, the limits of selective empathy, the rush to blame Muslims, and the exploitation of fear all instantly emerge

There’s not much to say about Monday’s Boston Marathon attack because there is virtually no known evidence regarding who did it or why. There are, however, several points to be made about some of the widespread reactions to this incident. Much of that reaction is all-too-familiar and quite revealing in important ways:

(1) The widespread compassion for yesterday’s victims and the intense anger over the attacks was obviously authentic and thus good to witness. But it was really hard not to find oneself wishing that just a fraction of that compassion and anger be devoted to attacks that the US perpetrates rather than suffers. These are exactly the kinds of horrific, civilian-slaughtering attacks that the US has been bringing to countries in the Muslim world over and over and over again for the last decade, with very little attention paid. My Guardian colleague Gary Younge put this best on Twitter this morning:

Juan Cole this morning makes a similar point about violence elsewhere. Indeed, just yesterday in Iraq, at least 42 people were killed and more than 250 injured by a series of car bombs, the enduring result of the US invasion and destruction of that country. Somehow the deep compassion and anger felt in the US when it is attacked never translates to understanding the effects of our own aggression against others.

One particularly illustrative example I happened to see yesterday was a re-tweet from Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso, proclaiming:

Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?”


I don’t disagree with that sentiment. But I’d bet a good amount of money that the person saying it - and the vast majority of other Americans - have no clue that targeting rescuers with “double-tap” attacks is precisely what the US now does with its drone program and other forms of militarism. If most Americans knew their government and military were doing this, would they react the same way as they did to yesterday’s Boston attack: “Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?” That’s highly doubtful, and that’s the point.

There’s nothing wrong per se with paying more attention to tragedy and violence that happens relatively nearby and in familiar places. Whether wrong or not, it’s probably human nature, or at least human instinct, to do that, and that happens all over the world. I’m not criticizing that. But one wishes that the empathy for victims and outrage over the ending of innocent human life that instantly arises when the US is targeted by this sort of violence would at least translate into similar concern when the US is perpetrating it, as it so often does (far, far more often than it is targeted by such violence).

Regardless of your views of justification and intent: whatever rage you’re feeling toward the perpetrator of this Boston attack, that’s the rage in sustained form that people across the world feel toward the US for killing innocent people in their countries. Whatever sadness you feel for yesterday’s victims, the same level of sadness is warranted for the innocent people whose lives are ended by American bombs. However profound a loss you recognize the parents and family members of these victims to have suffered, that’s the same loss experienced by victims of US violence. It’s natural that it won’t be felt as intensely when the victims are far away and mostly invisible, but applying these reactions to those acts of US aggression would go a long way toward better understanding what they are and the outcomes they generate.

(2) The rush, one might say the eagerness, to conclude that the attackers were Muslim was palpable and unseemly, even without any real evidence. The New York Post quickly claimed that the prime suspect was a Saudi national (while also inaccurately reporting that 12 people had been confirmed dead). The Post’s insinuation of responsibility was also suggested on CNN by Former Bush Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend (“We know that there is one Saudi national who was wounded in the leg who is being spoken to”). Former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman went on CNN to grossly speculate that Muslim groups were behind the attack. Anti-Muslim bigots like Pam Geller predictably announced that this was “Jihad in America”. Expressions of hatred for Muslims, and a desire to do violence, were then spewing forth all over Twitter (some particularly unscrupulous partisan Democrat types were identically suggesting with zero evidence that the attackers were right-wing extremists).

Obviously, it’s possible that the perpetrator(s) will turn out to be Muslim, just like it’s possible they will turn out to be extremist right-wing activists, or left-wing agitators, or Muslim-fearing Anders-Breivik types, or lone individuals driven by apolitical mental illness. But the rush to proclaim the guilty party to be Muslim is seen in particular over and over with such events. Recall that on the day of the 2011 Oslo massacre by a right-wing, Muslim-hating extremist, the New York Times spent virtually the entire day strongly suggesting in its headlines that an Islamic extremist group was responsible, a claim other major news outlets (including the BBC and Washington Post) then repeated as fact. The same thing happened with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when most major US media outlets strongly suggested that the perpetrators were Muslims. As FAIR documented back then:


“In the wake of the explosion that destroyed the Murrah Federal Office Building, the media rushed — almost en masse — to the assumption that the bombing was the work of Muslim extremists. ‘The betting here is on Middle East terrorists,’ declared CBS News’ Jim Stewart just hours after the blast (4/19/95). ‘The fact that it was such a powerful bomb in Oklahoma City immediately drew investigators to consider deadly parallels that all have roots in the Middle East,’ ABC’s John McWethy proclaimed the same day.

“‘It has every single earmark of the Islamic car-bombers of the Middle East,’ wrote syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer (Chicago Tribune, 4/21/95). ‘Whatever we are doing to destroy Mideast terrorism, the chief terrorist threat against Americans, has not been working,’ declared the New York Times’ A.M. Rosenthal (4/21/95). The Geyer and Rosenthal columns were filed after the FBI released sketches of two suspects who looked more like Midwestern frat boys than mujahideen.”

This lesson is never learned because, it seems, many people don’t want to learn it. Even when it turns out not to have been Muslims who perpetrated the attack but rather right-wing, white Christians, the damage from this relentless and reflexive blame-pinning endures.

(3) One continually encountered yesterday expressions of dread and fear from Arabs and Muslims around the world that the attacker would be either or both. That’s because they know that all members of their religious or ethnic group will be blamed, or worse, if that turns out to be the case. That’s true even though leading Muslim-American groups such as CAIR harshly condemned the attack (as they always do) and urged support for the victims, including blood donations. One tweeter, referencing the earthquake that hit Iran this morning, satirized this collective mindset by writing: “Please don’t be a Muslim plate tectonic activity.”

As understandable as it is, that’s just sad to witness. No other group reacts with that level of fear to these kinds of incidents, because no other group has similar cause to fear that they will all be hated or targeted for the acts of isolated, unrepresentative individuals. A similar dynamic has long prevailed in the domestic crime context: when the perpetrators of notorious crimes turned out to be African-American, the entire community usually paid a collective price. But the unique and well-grounded dread that hundreds of millions of law-abiding, peaceful Muslims and Arabs around the world have about the prospect that this attack in Boston was perpetrated by a Muslim highlights the climate of fear that has been created for and imposed on them over the last decade.

(4) The reaction to the Boston attack underscored, yet again, the utter meaninglessness of the word “terrorism”. News outlets were seemingly scandalized that President Obama, in his initial remarks, did not use the words “terrorist attack” to describe the bombing. In response, the White House ran to the media to assure them that they considered it “terrorism”. Fox News’ Ed Henry quoted a “senior administration official” as saying this: “When multiple (explosive) devices go off that’s an act of terrorism.”

Is that what “terrorism” is? “When multiple (explosive) devices go off”? If so, that encompasses a great many things, including what the US does in the world on a very regular basis. Of course, the quest to know whether this was “terrorism” is really code for: “was this done by Muslims”? That’s because, in US political discourse, “terrorism” has no real meaning other than: violence perpetrated by Muslims against the west. The reason there was such confusion and uncertainty about whether this was “terrorism” is because there is no clear and consistently applied definition of the term. At this point, it’s little more than a term of emotionally manipulative propaganda. That’s been proven over and over, and it was against yesterday.

(5) The history of these types of attacks over the last decade has been clear and consistent: they are exploited to obtain new government powers, increase state surveillance, and take away individual liberties. On NBC with Brian Williams last night, Tom Brokaw decreed that this will happen again and instructed us that we must meekly submit it to it:


“Everyone has to understand tonight that, beginning tomorrow morning early, there are going to be much tougher security considerations all across the country, and however exhausted we may be by that, we’re going to have to learn to live with them, and get along and go forward, and not let them bring us to our knees. You’ll remember last summer, how unhappy we were with the security at the Democratic and Republic conventions. Now I don’t think we can raise those complaints after what happened in Boston.”

Last night on Chris Hayes’ MSNBC show, an FBI agent discussed the fact that the US government has the right to arrest terrorism suspects and not provide them with Miranda warnings before questioning them. After seeing numerous people express surprise at this claim on Twitter, I pointed out that this happened when the Obama administration exploited the attempted underwear bombing over Detroit to radically reduce Miranda rights over what they had been for decades. That’s what the US government (aided by the sham “terrorism expert” industry) does in every single one of these cases: exploits the resulting fear to increase its own power and decrease everyone else’s rights, including privacy.

At the Atlantic, security expert Bruce Schneier has a short but compelling article on how urgent it is that we not react to this Boston attack irrationally or with exaggerated fear, and that we particularly remain vigilant against government attempts to exploit fear to impose all new rights-reducing measures. He notes in particular how the more unusual an event is (such as this sort of attack on US soil), the more our brains naturally exaggerate its significance and frequency (John Cole makes a similar point).

In sum, even if the perpetrators of Monday’s attack in Boston turn out to be politically motivated and subscribers to an anti-US ideology, it will still be a very rare event, one that poses far less danger to Americans than literally countless other threats. The most important lesson of the excesses arising from the 9/11 attacks should be this one: that the dangers of overreacting and succumbing to irrational fear are far, far greater than any other dangers posed by these type of events.

(via antidelusions)

Source: descentintotyranny

#MSM - Homeland Security Preps For Zombie Apocalypse ( by #DERP )

Source: youtube.com

The United Nations War on Your Gun Rights Continues

The United Nations War on Your Gun Rights Continues
The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty is in its final days of negotiations. This treaty will affect every single gun owner in the country and will almost certainly include:
http://gunowners.org/petition-to-us-sentate.htm

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve, rather, to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. - Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson’s “Commonplace Book,” 1774-1776

PRO GUN CONTROL AD - brought to you by The Patriotic Resistance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ox_-I1QRUM

Suzanna Gratia Hupp explains meaning of 2nd Amendment!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1u0Byq5Qis&feature=related

Surveillance Vid Shows 71-Year-Old Concealed Carry Holder Opening Fire on Would-be Robbers
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/surveillance-vid-shows-71-year-old-concealed-carry-holder-opening-fire-on-would-be-robbers/

Two Aurora Shootings: One Widely Known; the Other Ignored
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/12175-two-aurora-shootings-one-widely-known-the-other-ignored

The Swiss and Guns: Why Switzerland Has the Lowest Crime Rate in the World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B31SUm0nrwc&feature=autofb

Why Switzerland Has The Lowest Crime Rate In The World Video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooBGSbCfZ1E&feature=related

Raging Against Self Defense: A psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality, By Sarah Thompson, M.D.
http://jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/ragingagainstselfdefense.htm

Gun control: A fatal mistake
http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/gun-control-a-fatal-mistake/

Troops Ordered To Kill All Americans Who Do Not Turn In Guns – Patriot Update
http://patriotupdate.com/26189/troops-ordered-to-kill-all-americans-who-do-not-turn-in-guns#.UAcNxHBl_ss.facebook

Dark Knight Massacre To Pass UN Gun Ban?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxevkqQJxPk

United Nations and the Global Gun Ban
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDRfghbnjV4&feature=player_embedded#!

The History of Gun Control - FULL LENGTH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pKasF6l3y0

Obama looking to bypass Congress on gun control — RT
http://rt.com/usa/news/usa-obama-congress-gun-control/

Gun control Facts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP59nRBnA84&feature=related

Bilderberg Wants Americans Disarmed And Dependent On Government
http://www.prisonplanet.com/bilderberg-wants-americans-disarmed-and-dependent-on-government.html

No Guns for Negroes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaX3EM-fsc8

================================================================================

GUN CONTROL HISTORY
After reading the following historical facts, read the part about Switzerland twice.

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control.. From 1929 to 1953,
about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded
up and exterminated.

———————————————
In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million
Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.

———————————————
Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total
of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were
rounded up and exterminated.

———————————————
China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million
political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated

———————————————
Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000
Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.

———————————————
Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000
Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated

———————————————
Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million
educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.

——————————————-
Defenceless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century
because of gun control: 56 million.

———————————————

It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by
new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own Government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500
million dollars. The first year results are now in:

List of 7 items:

Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent.

Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent.

Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!
In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300
percent. Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the
criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns!

While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in
armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the
past 12 months, since criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is
unarmed.

There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the
ELDERLY. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public
safety has decreased, after such monumental effort, and expense was
expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns. The
Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it.

You won’t see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians
disseminating this information.

Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes,
gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens

Take note my fellow Americans, before it’s too late!

The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind them
of this history lesson.

With guns, we are ‘citizens.’
Without them, we are ‘subjects’.

During WWII the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew
most Americans were ARMED!

SWITZERLAND ISSUES EVERY HOUSEHOLD A GUN!
SWITZERLAND’S GOVERNMENT TRAINS AND ISSUES EVERY ADULT A RIFLE.
SWITZERLAND HAS THE LOWEST GUN RELATED CRIME RATE OF ANY CIVILIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

US Army Prepares For Riot Control - Photos!

The following photos are from March and February of this year and were taken at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. The photos are similar to a collection from May 2010 that depict several National Guard units from different parts of the U.S. quelling protesters in mock communities holding signs that say “Food Now”. A description of one of the events was posted to Facebook by the U.S. Army’s 5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment:

The Soldiers in a closed formation bang their batons in cadence against their shields as an angry mob approaches.

“When I initially picked up my shield, the thought of the movie 300 was the first thing that came to mind,” said Spc. Kyle Wilhelmi.

Teams of Soldiers assigned to 3rd Squadron, 38th Cavalry Regiment, 201st Battlefield Surveillance Brigade conducted civil disturbance training here March 13. The Soldiers, though not quite Spartans, are effectively training to hold their line and successfully control crowds if called upon for a civil disturbance.

Read more @ publicintelligence.net/u-s-army-domestic-quick-reaction-force-riot-control-training-photos/

Pentagon Gifts Local Cops with “Cast Off” Military Hardware - #NWO #SystemsOfControl

See Also: (BayouBuzz) – Louisiana to get $559,000 for ‘FEMA playgrounds’ – Read More Here

Also: (DailyTech) – DHS Looks to Spy on Video Game Consoles in Search of Pedophiles, Terrorists – Read More Here

(KurtNimmo) – An article posted on The Modesto Bee website earlier this week provides a snapshot of the militarization of police, thanks to the Pentagon.

A “California Watch” article details how Stanislaus County police have received $4.2 million in surplus war equipment from the Department of Defense. In 2011 alone, according to the article, “Stanislaus County agencies collected more than 2,400 pieces, their highest total ever.”

photoA Stanislaus Sheriff officer displays an “inert” rocket launcher provided by the Pentagon.

Stanislaus County is not alone. “Public agencies around the state have grabbed cast-off military goods that become available on a weekly basis” and used to “arm and equip its officers.”

Modesto Police Chief Mike Harden told The Modesto Bee that much of the surplus military equipment is not “applicable to municipal use,” including an “inert rocket launcher” and other “nonoperational weaponry the Stanislaus County sheriff’s bomb squad displays to educate children about dangerous explosives,” according to Sheriff Adam Christianson.

Other, more useful equipment the police received from U.S. taxpayers include flashlights, bed sheets, a cargo parachute and an OH-58 helicopter. The department also acquired a “guided-missile trailer” that was repurposed to haul heavy equipment.

“The Department of Defense’s equipment bazaar is another sign of how some police departments increasingly resemble small armies. Civilian law enforcement agencies have equipped themselves with assault-style weapons and even tanks, first as part of the war on drugs and later in the name of fighting terrorism,” write G.W. Schulz and Andrew Becker.

Modesto cops insist they are “not trying to mimic military units” and claim “there is a definite need to equip officers with weapons that meet the level of the criminals they might encounter.”

“Law enforcement is a paramilitary organization, and we often utilize the same type of equipment that the military might use,” Christianson said.

The police in Modesto may actually believe they will need military equipment for a fantasy show-down with Los Zetas or RPG toting drug dealers. Short of actually going up against al-Qaeda, however, police around the country have used SWAT teams and “cast-off” combat equipment doled out by the Pentagon over the last few months to confront non-violent protesters.

“The militarization of America’s metropolitan police forces was on full display in recent months as police from Los Angeles to New York cracked down on Occupy protests, decked out in full SWAT gear and occasionally using strange pieces of military hardware,” Salon reported in December.

Metropolitan cops don’t expect Occupy terrorists to engage in running gun battles. On the contrary, heavily militarized cops are sent to demonstrations in order to acclimate people to the fact they live in a militarized police state and should expect paramilitary soldiers with automatic weapons when they exercise the First Amendment.

According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, cops now routinely conduct police work with military hardware. “Many police, including beat cops, now routinely carry assault rifles. Combined with body armor and other apparel, many officers look more and more like combat troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The list of equipment bought with… federal grants reads like a defense contractor catalog. High-tech gear fills the garages, locker rooms and patrol cars in departments across the country,” they write.

FBI statistics cited by the Center for Investigative Reporting reveal that violent crime – and officers killed by gunfire – has decreased over the last two decades while over the same period police departments have armed themselves at an unprecedented level.

The question is, then, why is the Pentagon and the federal government showering local police departments with tons of weapons and military gear?

The answer should be obvious – they want us to understand that domestic police are now an extension of the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security .

Officer Friendly is an anachronism.

#Realness - Stop Fearful Theories Now #Bashar | #NWO - #Share - #Spread

http://www.peakzen.com/

This is from Bashar’s “Riding the 2012 Wave “, for this and more visit: http://www.bashar.org/

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Source: youtube.com

#OWS #SpreadThis #Viral #OWS #OpESR #a99 -> US Congress passes authoritarian #HR347 anti-protest law

A bill passed Monday in the US House of Representatives and Thursday in the Senate would make it a felony—a serious criminal offense punishable by a lengthy prison term—to participate in many forms of protest associated with the Occupy Wall Street protests of last year. Several commentators have dubbed it the “anti-Occupy” law, but its implications are far broader.

The bill—H.R. 347, or the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011”—was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, while only Ron Paul and two other Republicans voted against the bill in the House of Representatives (the bill passed 388-3). Not a single Democratic politician voted against the bill.

The virtually unanimous passage of H.R. 347 starkly exposes the fact that, despite all the posturing, the Democrats and the Republicans stand shoulder to shoulder with the corporate and financial oligarchy, which regarded last year’s popular protests against social inequality with a mixture of fear and hostility.

Among the central provisions of H.R. 347 is a section that would make it a criminal offense to “enter or remain in” an area designated as “restricted.”

The bill defines the areas that qualify as “restricted” in extremely vague and broad terms. Restricted areas can include “a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting” and “a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance.”

The Secret Service provides bodyguards not just to the US president, but to a broad layer of top figures in the political establishment, including presidential candidates and foreign dignitaries.

Even more sinister is the provision regarding events of “national significance.” What circumstances constitute events of “national significance” is left to the unbridled discretion of the Department of Homeland Security. The occasion for virtually any large protest could be designated by the Department of Homeland Security as an event of “national significance,” making any demonstrations in the vicinity illegal.

For certain, included among such events would be the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which have been classified as National Special Security Events (NSSE), a category created under the Clinton administration. These conventions have been the occasion for protests that have been subjected to ever increasing police restrictions and repression. Under H.R. 347, future protests at such events could be criminalized.

The standard punishment under the new law is a fine and up to one year in prison. If a weapon or serious physical injury is involved, the penalty may be increased to up to ten years.

Also criminalized by the bill is conduct “that impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions” and “obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds.” These provisions, even more so than the provisions creating “restricted areas,” threaten to criminalize a broad range of protest activities that were previously perfectly legal.

In order to appreciate the unprecedented sweep of H.R. 347, it is necessary to consider a few examples:

  • A wide area around the next G-20 meeting or other global summit could be designated “restricted” by the Secret Service, such that any person who “enters” that area can be subject to a fine and a year in jail under Section 1752(a)(1) (making it a felony to enter any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so).
  • Senator Rick Santorum, the ultra-right Republican presidential candidate, enjoys the protection of the Secret Service. Accordingly, a person who shouts “boo!” during a speech by Santorum could be subject to arrest and a year of imprisonment under Section 1752(a)(2) (making it a felony to “engag[e] in disorderly or disruptive conduct in” a restricted area).
  • Striking government workers who form a picket line near any event of “national significance” can be locked up under Section 1752(a)(3) (making it a crime to imped[e] ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds).

Under the ancien regime in France, steps were taken to ensure that the “unwashed masses” were kept out of sight whenever a carriage containing an important aristocrat or church official was passing through. Similarly, H.R. 347 creates for the US president and other top officials a protest-free bubble or “no-free-speech zone” that follows them wherever they go, making sure the discontented multitude is kept out of the picture.

The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act is plainly in violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which was passed in 1791 in the aftermath of the American Revolution. The First Amendment provides: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (The arrogance of the Democratic and Republican politicians is staggering—what part of “Congress shall make no law” do they not understand?)

H.R. 347 comes on the heels of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was signed by President Obama into law on December 31, 2011. The NDAA gives the president the power to order the incarceration of any person—including a US citizen—anywhere in the world without charge or trial.

The passage of H.R. 347 has been the subject of a virtual blackout in the media. In light of the unprecedented nature of the bill, which constitutes a significant attack on the First Amendment, this blackout cannot be innocent. The media silence therefore represents a conscious effort to keep the American population in the dark as to the government’s efforts to eviscerate the Bill of Rights.

The bill would vastly expand a previous law making it a felony to trespass on the grounds of the White House. An earlier version of the bill would have made it a felony just to “conspire” to engage in any of the conduct described above. The bill now awaits President Obama’s signature before it becomes the law of the land. For one thing, it replaces language prohibiting “willfully and knowingly” entering a “restricted area” with language prohibiting merely “willfully” entering a “restricted area.” This seemingly minor change dramatically increases the reach of the law.

What lies behind the unprecedented attack on the US Constitution and Bill of Rights is a growing understanding in the ruling class that the protests that took place around the world against social inequality in 2011 will inevitably re-emerge in more powerful forms in 2012 and beyond, as austerity measures and the crashing economy make the conditions of life more and more impossible for the working class. The virtually unanimous support in Congress for H.R. 347, among Democrats as well as Republicans, reflects overriding sentiment within the ruling establishment for scrapping all existing democratic rights in favor of dictatorial methods of rule.

This sentiment was most directly expressed this week by Wyoming Republican legislator David Miller, who recently introduced a bill into the state legislature that would give the state the power, in an “emergency,” to create its own standing army through conscription, print its own currency, acquire military aircraft, suspend the legislature, and establish martial law. “Things happen quickly sometimes—look at Libya, look at Egypt, look at those situations,” Miller told the Star-Tribune in Casper, Wyoming. Repeating arguments employed by every military dictatorship over the past century, Miller declared, “We wouldn’t have time to meet as a Legislature or even in special session to do anything to respond.” Miller’s so-called “doomsday law” was defeated in the Wyoming legislature Tuesday by the narrow margin of 30-27.

The Pentagon’s 1033 program: giving free military equipment to police departments around the U.S. - #NWO

The police in the United States have been steadily militarized over the past decade to the point of absurdity, as recently exemplified by police rolling out an armored personnel carrier (APC) to the Occupy Tampa protests. Benjamin Carlson of The Daily covered one of the more unsettling recent developments in this militarization of police, the Department of Defense’s obscure “1033 program” which has given away almost $500 million in leftover military equipment to law enforcement in the fiscal year of 2011. This year’s total is more than double the amount of equipment handed out in 2010, which was $212 million worth of military gear, setting a new record for the program. Included in this distribution of military equipment are: armored vehicles, like the one seen at Occupy Tampa and in towns and cities across the nation, along with M-16 assault rifles, grenade launchers, helicopters and even military robots. Yet the 1033 program looks like it is getting even worse, with orders for the fiscal year 2012 being up 400% over the same period in 2011 according to data provided by the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency to The Daily. If it keeps at this pace, that would mean $2 billion in equipment for American police departments in the fiscal year 2012. The 1033 program was passed by Congress in 1997, which I found quite interesting as most of these programs have been pushed in the wake of September 11th, 2001, under the pretext of fighting the so-called “war on terror.” However, even then, their justification was that it would be used to fight drugs and terrorism and since it began, over 17,000 law enforcement agencies have accepted $2.6 billion in military equipment, only having to pay for the cost of delivering the gear. While the gear is practically free, the costs of maintaining the equipment and insuring it fall on the respective law enforcement agencies, meaning it falls directly on the taxpayer. These costs can be considerable, given that in 2010 city officials in Tupelo, Mississippi considered returning the police helicopter after spending almost $274,000 in maintenance costs in only five years. Considering that the helicopter was used only 10 missions per year on average, the cost of nearly 54,800 per year, or almost $5,480 per mission (not including personnel, fuel, etc.) hardly seems justified. The Daily cites unnamed “experts” who say that the recent surge in acquisitions is just the continuation of a decades-long trend of increasing usage of military tactics and gear by domestic police departments. We have seen these tactics and equipment most recently in the many crackdowns on the legal and peaceful Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the nation, which were a coordinated effort as revealed by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. The director of the Cato Institute’s project on criminal justice, Tim Lynch, addressed my surprised reaction to seeing that this program was enacted long before September 11th, 2001, in a statement to The Daily. “The trend toward militarization was well under way before 9/11, but it’s the federal policy of making surplus military equipment available almost for free that has poured fuel on this fire,” Lynch said. The Daily cites some examples of this insane militarization effort in mentioning that in Cobb County, Georgia, incidentally one of the most educated and wealthy counties in all of the United States, now have an amphibious tank. Similarly, the sheriff of South Carolina’s Richland County is now in possession of what he fondly calls “The Peacemaker,” an armored personnel carrier (APC) outfitted with a machine gun. The most absurd aspect of the 1033 program is that it is in addition to the Department of Homeland Security grants which allow police departments to purchase vehicles like the “BearCats” I covered briefly many months ago. Various models of the BearCat weigh in around 16,000 pounds, are bulletproof and outfitted with gun ports, battering rams, tear gas dispensers and radiation detectors, among many other bells and whistles which police never use and never actually needed in the first place. The Orlando Sentinel reported that more than 500 of these vehicles – which inarguably bear a remarkable resemblance to military tanks – have been sold by their Massachusetts-based manufacturer, Lenco. This is even more ridiculous when one considers the justification utilized by police departments for acquiring such unnecessary equipment: safety of police and violent crime. Why is this an incredibly ludicrous justification? Well, as the New York Times and others reported in May of this year, violent crime is at a 40-year low nationwide. In populations under 10,000, the number of homicides dropped by over 25% last year alone, which totally nullifies the justification given by small town police departments who gladly accept this equipment. Yet Bill Hutton, sheriff of Washington County, Minnesota, which has a population of 238,136 according to the 2010 census, purchased a $237,000 BearCat a month ago with a federal grant. He has also obtained grants to purchase a 3-foot-tall $70,000 robot and a $75,000 riverboat and claims that the BearCat has already been used in a kidnapping situation. He claims that the BearCat allowed the SWAT team to recover the victim safely while “Previously, we would have pulled up in a van, which would not have protected anybody or anything.” Another official, Bill Partridge, Chief of Police of the 50-person police department in Oxford, Alabama, cited cost savings as justification for his pursuit of the 1033 program. Partridge says that his department has acquired equipment worth $2-3 million over the past several years, regardless of the fact that his jurisdiction includes only 14,592 people according to the 2000 census. He says that they have received M-16 assault rifles, infrared goggles mounted to helmets, four inspection robots operated by remote-control, not to mention a $270,000 mobile command unit and a “Puma” armored tactical vehicle. Partridge says that his department is on the website trying to get the gear on a “weekly or daily” basis, regardless of the fact that it is outright laughable for such a small police department to have an arsenal more suited to a military unit than a small town police department. This is just a microcosmic example of the larger trend towards turning our domestic police force, which is supposed to protect and serve, into a domestic military force to be used against the American people. As I have previously pointed out, this is a move toward de facto martial law, which means that martial law would never have to be formally declared since the police could act as military forces instead of actually having to roll out the military. Of course, S.1867 would erase that need as it would indeed spell the end of the Posse Comitatus Act by allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial. Furthermore, under 1301 it would allow any American citizen to be transferred to any foreign country or foreign entity, allowing for torture or extrajudicial execution. Lynch of the Cato Institute, seems to agree with my assessment in telling The Daily, “[Acquiring military hardware has] kind of had a corrupting influence on the culture of policing in America. The dynamic is that you have some officer go to the chief and say, people in [the] next county have [military equipment], if we don’t take it some other city will. Then they acquire the equipment, they create a paramilitary unit, and everything seems fine.” “But then one or two years pass. They say, look we’ve got this equipment, this training and we haven’t been using it. That’s where it starts to creep into routine policing,” Lynch added. Lynch and others point to the many incidents of SWAT teams, which have become outright paramilitary forces, have injured or even slaughtered totally innocent people. Take, for instance, earlier this year when a grandfather of 12, who was not even suspected of any wrongdoing, was “accidentally” murdered by a SWAT team member in Framingham, Massachusetts. He was described by neighbors as the “nicest guy in the world,” and the search warrant was not even the targeted at the man, named Eurie Stamps, Sr. Another example that comes to mind is Jose Guerena, father and ex-U.S. Marine, who was literally liquefied by a SWAT team that was carrying out a wholly unconstitutional search warrant on his home that was not directed at any particular person, made no mention of his home, and instead was targeted at anyone who happened to be inside the residence. The Cato Institute has compiled a fantastic interactive map showing the disturbing amount of botched paramilitary police and SWAT team raids across the United States which you can find here. From the few thousand raids per year in the 1980s, the number of raids conducted by SWAT teams has made a staggering rise to 50,000 per year in the 2000s, and with each raid there is the real possibility of innocent people being slaughtered for no reason at all. Yet there are some – in reality far too little – in the law enforcement community speaking out against this trend. Joseph McNamara, the former Chief of Police in Kansas City, Missouri and San Jose, California, said, “It’s totally contrary to what we think is good policing, which is community policing. The profile of these military police units invading a neighborhood like the occupation army is contrary to what you want to do as a police department. You want the public to feel comfortable calling you to report crime and supporting you in working against crime and coming forward as witnesses.” “The idea that some police have that by being really super tough and military and carrying military weapons is a way to prevent crime — this is false,” McNamara added. “We have a lot of evidence on how to prevent crime and the major component is to win support for police, that we’re not this aloof occupation army.” I find his choice of words to be disturbingly accurate. What we are seeing is indeed an “aloof occupation army” that is treating us like enemy combatants in a war zone and if S.1867 is put into action it will become an explicit reality. Arthur Rizer, a lawyer in Virginia who has served as both a military and civilian police officer, also made a fantastic point in asking the following question, “If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers?” “If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not,” he added. Of course this is exactly what we are seeing, police thinking that they are somehow above the law or a military force that is there to intimidate, control and oppress, instead of protect and serve. The greater trend towards militarizing domestic police forces shows that our illegitimate government is increasingly treating all Americans as the enemy, effectively turning the bloody military “counterterrorism” apparatus around and redirecting the resources to the United States. Seeing how the so-called “war on terror” has affected foreign nations, I don’t think that any sane American who actually keeps up on the news would be comfortable with having that machine turned back towards us. More at EndtheLie.com - http://EndtheLie.com/2011/12/05/the-pentagon%e2%80%99s-1033-program-giving-free-military-equipment-to-police-departments-around-the-u-s/#ixzz1k911zA6l

Police Departments’ New Tool: Drones

Drones are no longer just part of the military’s arsenal of tools. Police departments across the U.S. are getting them too.

FlaglerLive reports:

With financial help from the federal government, police departments across the country are marshaling a new generation of remote-controlled airborne surveillance devices to be their eyes in the sky.

The Miami-Dade Police Department now has drones ready to use. NBC Miami reports:

The Miami-Dade Police Department finally stands ready to launch their two micro air vehicles, or MAVs, the next time a shooting standoff or hostage situation could use a bird’s eye boost, more than two years after getting the drones.

“It has no weapons,” said Sergeant Andrew Cohen, one of the county’s 12 pilot officers. “It’s just a camera, basically a flying camera.”

The potential far-reaching surveillance has the ACLU sounding the need for caution:

“Our privacy laws are not strong enough to ensure that the new technology will be used responsibly and consistently with democratic values,” warns the ACLU report, Protecting Privacy From Aerial Surveillance. “We need a system of rules to ensure that we can enjoy the benefits of this technology without bringing us a large step closer to a ‘surveillance society’ in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded and scrutinized by the authorities.”

RT notes:

“There can be a very lucrative market in the United States for drones in police departments who are already militarized – from tanks to assault vehicles to assault rifles, flap jackets, the helmets,” John Whitehead [a constitutional attorney from the Rutherford Institute] said. “The modern police look like the military so now they are going to be using military equipment.”

(via amodernmanifesto)

Source: socialuprooting

FBI's Anonymous challenge: Cast a wide net vs. distributed hacking group - #feds #msm #propaganda #fearmongering #lulz

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents conducted a series of raids Tuesday in an ongoing investigation into Anonymous, the hacking group. But the challenges with taking out a distributed gang are enormous.

CBS News has learned that FBI agents conducted raids on the New York homes Tuesday. PCs and gear were taken under search warrants. Two homes were on Long Island with another two in Brooklyn and the Bronx. CBS News also confirmed that additional raids were conducted in California and 14 arrests have been made so far.

Related: FBI makes 14 arrests in Anonymous raids

Overall, there are more than a dozen raids being conducted across the U.S. in a “major law enforcement operation,” according to CBS News. For now, these raids are related to searches.

The aim of the raids was to track down hackers that allegedly carried out attacks on corporations and government sites.

A Fox News report highlighted the raids earlier. As CNET News’ Don Reisinger noted, the FBI had some success targeting Anonymous members and has more than 40 search warrants aimed at the group.

The big challenge is that law enforcement agencies are playing a game of Whac-A-Mole. As new members are targeted others appear. Hacking groups like Anonymous—and spin offs such as LulzSec—are decentralized by design. You cut off the head—or what you think is the head—and something else regenerates.

Scotland Yard last month arrested Ryan Cleary, a 19 year old in London, in connection with a series of attacks on Britain’s Serious Organized Crime Agency. The problem: LulzSec blared on its Twitter account that the arrest was misplaced. However, LulzSec later went silent—until it hacked a Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper site for giggles.

Michael Chertoff, former Department of Homeland Security chief, said last month that the big challenge with combating hacking groups is attribution. In a decentralized group there are various flavors of bad guys. The FBI has to take out many bad actors—and associated servers—in hopes of getting a big score.

Chertoff said:

“Do we respond if we don’t know who had bad intent, but can locate the server that is a weapon against us? Do we take out the server in real life or cyberspace? There’s not going to be a clear line and we may take that server out in physical and cyber domains.”

The conundrum is akin to battling a terrorist network where you have to cast a wide net to get any traction against Anonymous.

In that respect, the FBI’s raid Tuesday is just the latest installment in what is likely to be a series of ongoing attempts to derail Anonymous and similar groups.

[EDIT: Don’t Believe The Hype!..]

Houston Police Chief: Videotaping or Criticizing Police May be Sign You’re a Cop-Killer #WTF

Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland is worried, very worried. People are using “anti-police” rhetoric and are actually daring to criticize the criminal actions of cops. People are recording their actions with video cameras and attempting to hold them accountable. Clearly, this is a sign they’re preparing to mass murder police.

Thank god we have our wonderful Chief of Police Charles McClelland on the job, he’s ferreted out the real meaning behind this “anti-police sentiment,” and he’s here to let everyone know he’s not going to stand for it.

From the Houston Chronicle’s ‘Residents videotaping officers worries HPD’s chief‘:

Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland went on the defensive Thursday during a meeting with local journalists, saying officers have made recent traffic stops in which residents leave their vehicles to take pictures or shoot video � encounters he says could endanger officers and that have increased following the release of the Chad Holley beating footage.

“Officers are telling me that they’re being provoked,” the chief said. “Even when they try to write a simple traffic ticket, people are jumping out with cell phone cameras scanning their badge numbers and their nametags. And I’ve asked them to remain calm and treat people with respect and dignity.”

McClelland said he is concerned that an intensifying anti-police sentiment in the community could increase negative interactions between Houston Police Department officers and residents.

“This rhetoric can give someone a free pass to try to assault a police officer or kill a police officer, and I’m not going to allow that,” he said. “My officers should be able to go out here and work in the neighborhoods and keep this city safe without fear and without hesitation.”

And, the chief implored the community – naming himself, activists and journalists – to “lower the rhetoric.”

In other words, criticizing the police for violently assaulting and killing strangers is clearly a sign you may be secretly plotting to kill cops! So put down your camera citizen, return to your normal position as hapless subject under our dominion!

Clearly, these buffoons don’t like the scrutiny they’re getting as a result of your average Joe being able to videotape their abuses and put them on YouTube. I guess, like any thug, their only reaction is to resort to intimidation.

Source: Information Liberation

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