Shutting down websites, tasering nonviolent people to death, stealing your cellphone (and its data), arresting nonviolent activists, it's getting pretty crazy out there.
Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher faces 10 years in federal prison for auction abuse. (photo: Courtney Sargent/Deseret News/Rapport)
The American Police State Is the 'New Normal'
26 June 11
�
ccording to The New York Times, the FBI just raided a data center in Virginia and seized many of its servers, causing websites owned by "tens of clients" to go offline - including those belonging to people who hadn't broken a law, and were not suspected of any crime.
It may seem silly to get upset about the police taking down websites you don't use. A certain quote may come to mind, though, as we look at other ways that the police in America abuse their power.
Tasering nonviolent people to death
A 72-year-old woman named Kathryn Winkfein got tasered not too long ago after she lost her temper at the cop who pulled her over. Her offense? Shouting at him.
Luckily, she "learned her lesson" about talking back to America's authority figures. She was also awarded $40,000 in damages, which her County Constable, Richard McCain, complained was a reward for "bad behavior." Apparently putting 50,000 volts through the heart of someone's great-grandma is not bad behavior, as long as you wear a police uniform.
Winkfein was lucky. In what Digby calls the "Taser Atrocity Of The Day," a man who took groceries without having paid for them was tasered continuously for 37 seconds, after he became "aggressive and was communicating loudly." He died in the hospital.
The police officer who killed him was suspended for five days.
Stealing your cellphone (and its data)
Recordings of government workers performing their duty are, by law, in the public domain. So if you think a police officer is going to do something untoward, try filming him so you have evidence. Right?
Not so fast. Prepare to have your cellphone taken from you and stomped on. The Miami Beach, Fla., police in particular have a history of doing this, and they aren't alone. But the people who have their phones stolen and vandalized by the police are lucky; a man named Michael Allison faces up to 75 years in prison for trying to record a judge, and was arrested without any warning.
Meanwhile, the Michigan State Police are taking people's cellphones when they pull them over for traffic violations, and using "extraction" devices on the phones. The ACLU is trying to find out why they're doing that, but the police department placed a price tag of over $500,000 on their Freedom of Information request. How much justice can you afford?
Arresting nonviolent activists
Want to feed homeless people free meals in the park? Prepare to be arrested. Or how about dancing in front of the Jefferson Memorial? Prepare to get tied up and beat up.
Our country's police has a long history of suppressing nonviolent activists, and it hasn't stopped with the Civil Rights Era. Environmental activists like Tim DeChristopher are served 10-year prison sentences for civil disobedience, that harms no one but impedes oil companies' profits. Meanwhile, the FBI labels nonviolent activists as "domestic terrorists."
They were recently granted more power to go through your trash and your data, so expect things to only get worse. Actually, expect things to get worse in general. The police state is the new normal.
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
and jtatu thumbs down for agreeing??
Good point-take a look at most any candid photo of Rand disciple Alan Greenspan and you'll see the very similar expressions of a miserable human.
In this piece he is lightening up, but he is also stimulating an actual conversation between writer and reader. Call it a Fan Club, or better yet a "community", it is all part of constructing a public intellectual persona. And that edifice is a really important one (if a bit awry and gaudy in the HST tradition) in the progressive intellectual cityscape.
Can I get honourable mention for this post?
Sorry I found out about this too late to participate.
How could this NOT be on the list?
Yeh, the earth is falling apart...but now and then we need to get off the beaten path and see the World as it really is...and not as it appears to be...or we wish it to be.
for most appalling fashion sense and hair style...iconic indeed! God help us all!
Ayn Rand? Her ghost haunts American politics and she continues to move the big money that supports the Tea Party.
Big irony: Rand was the most popular and influential atheist in American history.... When atheism appears on the political left, it's "Godless Communism," according to Fox News.... When atheism develops on the political right, it's "Objectivity." Huh?
David Brooks? His book "Bobos in Paradise" describes the aging yuppies who have made Brooks "the most popular conservative among liberals." Brooks has built his career with bobo money and support. Bit of irony: Brooks has very little support among the conservatives who voted for Romney. Without the bobos, Brooks would vanish from your television screen.
I remember that as true when I went to college (early 1960's.)
Everyone had read her, in good faith, and everyone branded her as dangerous a charlatan as Aleister Crowley - except for the Philosophy departments, which simply asked the valid question, "why in God's name would anyone take a "hack"(-English /Lit. Dept's assessment) science fiction writer for a philosopher, even a bad one?"
Ah, RHytonen--ya made ma day!
Philosophy departments in Europe laughed at Hitler and his associates during the 1920s. After 1932, they no longer laughed.... With Ayn Rand, the question is not, "Is she acceptable in academic circles? Is she an original thinker?" Instead, the question that matters is, "Is her work influential in American culture and politics?"
Ayn Rand is still a powerful force in a lot of places. Too many places.
And calling Oprah(tm) pretentious is a redundancy.
I can't help but be reminded of the punch line of an old joke: "pretentious... .moi?"
But he's still the most pretentious asshole I've seen in a while, no matter which word you hear.
Anonymous donors exist.
I fondly remember Ernie Kovacs, Studio One and Omnibus from my teen years; Twilight Zone, the Young People's Concerts and Bullwinkle in my 20s; later the Watergate hearings, The Prisoner, the Smothers Brothers, I Claudius, Deep Space Nine, and a few others worth watching. Since then I've sampled a few programs now and then, like Downton Abbey which I quickly shut off. Surely it's one of the Top 10 pretentious soap operas of all time. I really am skeptical of old age nostalgia, and am sure there never was a "golden age" of TV. Maybe I was an idiot ever to watch it at all, but it seemed to me there used to be creative stuff on the Box (not interviews, not infotainment, not "reality" shows) which made some of it worthwhile.