Police violence sparks civil unrest in Anaheim
By louisehartmann
Civil unrest in America spread to Anaheim last night – where, for the fourth straight day, citizens took to the streets to protest police brutality and the killing the of an unarmed man by police over the weekend. As journalist Tim Pool reported, cops fired hundreds of less lethal rounds of rubber bullets and pepper balls into the crowds – wounding several demonstrators.
Just like Oakland last year, the streets of Anaheim resembled a war zone - with a constant barrage of less lethal projectiles coming from police lines, fires in the streets, and smashed out storefront windows. Reports put the number of people in the streets last night at more than 600 – and 24 were arrested.
Police officials acknowledge there have been eight shootings by police officers in the city so far this year. We’ve now seen civil unrest touch several major cities across America – from New York to Oakland to now Anaheim – all signs that our system of vulture capitalism, free-trade Reaganomics, and Republican Austerity are pushing our nation to the brink. Dangerous times may be ahead.
Comments
#2
I'd bet more than a few policemen would sh!t their britches if the citizens were all armed themselves.
#3
" all signs that our system of vulture capitalism, free-trade Reaganomics, and Republican Austerity are pushing our nation to the brink. Dangerous times may be ahead."
I certainly agree with that statement!!! It would just be very nice if instead of the violence being located in areas where you probably wouldn't find the people that are responsible for our perilous times, the people need to move it all to the door steps of the ruling elite...wherever they are...wherever they live. Take it to Washington DC...right on the steps of the Capital.
The ruling elite send out their useful idiot puppets to quell dissent in the streets and they only, perhaps, read about it or watch it on the news. They don't have to worry. I suppose they may even think to themselves..."Better they kill them over there (in the streets) than on my front door step...or in my home!"
#4
There are some Miami Metro neighborhoods where the threat of an inevitable riot is the way the residents protect themselves from being shot while just walking home from the Qwik Stop looking too black. When the police shoot a "suspect" in the back or unarmed, the community has no qualms about rising up, getting religious leaders on the pulpit, politicians bewailing their cause, and creating a media frenzy.
The Tourist Authority and Chamber of Commerce do not want these views of Miami to get around, and past riots in Liberty City have shown that if an unjustified shooting takes place, it's not going to be let go and soon forgotten.
#5
The self described Risk-Takers certainly have achieved one thing on their own....they've made society more violent and much more risky for everyone but themselves.
The real Risk-Takers are those who take out a school loan, mortgage, car loan, and decide to start a family.There is always the risk that some piggish jackass will come along........ loot their workplace.......set up an illegal 100 million dollar 401K for himself...... and leave all of the real Risk-Takers jobless.
#6
Could it be a case of racial profiling by the police and they see this group of people more likely to be violent because they are Hispanic? We have seen this type of action against minorities in the past. What would have been the response of the police if the demonstraters were less confrontational? I know I have seen this type of violent response by the police even when the demonstrators were non violent, as with the students being pepper sprayed in a N. Calif. university and with the Wall St. protesters. It appears the police perceive any form of demonstration by the citizen population as a threat. I am not sure if it has anything to do with the political or financial problems we are having and perhaps more to do with the tactics the police of our nation employ in any situation where their authority is seen as being challenged. We seem to be living in a police state mentallity by the authorities in charge. I have been pulled over and had my papers checked(license, insurance, registration) because I was driving an older vehicle in an upper middle class neighborhood. I asked, was I pulled over because I am driving an older car and I fit your profile to be checked and her answer was YES....and I am a white, middle aged man. So I guess they profile everyone that doesn't fit their idea of who should be their neighborhood....and race is only one of the ways we are profiled by the authorities in charge....Damn crazy way to run a nation and it seems fear is the only logical reason why the police do what they do.....
#7
Having a Black president was a great opportunity for us to bury the hatchet with the black race once and for all and prove that all of the races can live together peacefully. But it has backfired in rather dramatic style. Republicans have embarrassed the rest of us by absolutley refusing to work with Obama, black people are still being shot on the streets for being guilty of walking while black and now we hear that Mitt Romeny believes that being a white anglo saxon will make it easier for him to work with foreign countries like England.
This is all just very embarrassing and humiliating; we are not the believers in equality that we think we are and that some of us want us to be.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if riots bring down the entire town of Anaheim and how can you blame people for protesting the shooting of a suspect?
The proper procedure, in case anyone needs to be reminded is to put handcuffs on suspects, cart them off to jail where they will be tried in a court of law. Shooting people who are running away is totally unacceptable. The only time an officer is allowed to shoot a person is when his life is in danger. Clearly the crowd of mothers and infants did not pose that kind of risk and neither did the man running away.
The police are taking their job WAY too seriously. "To protect and to serve" has become "harasss and abuse". If you can't get a pair of handcuffs on a suspect then you do not belong in the police department.
#8
If more citizens were armed as you have stated, then the police would shit their britches. Yes, and then the military units would move into place, like they do in any major riot or uprising. I live in S. Calif. and I have lived near the violence when the police cannot handle the violent uprising of the people and then they call in the National Guard. The guard arrives in full combat gear, tanks and all. Example, the Watts riots of 1965 and the so called Rodney King riots. They don't screw around, they shoot to kill and the whole damn mess turns into a war zone, not much different from Syria today. Have you ever been a war zone like Vietnam or even the local riots of the 60's? I doubt it because it isn't the troops or police that are "shitting their britches", it is the citizens being fired on. So be really careful what you wish for or fantasize about because death is the final and end solution in that game. Massive peaceful marches are the only way the citizens can get the point across to the politicians, boycotting of stores and goods produced by the corporations are the only sane way to win this battle. It worked for civil rights movement and it worked for the ending of the Vietnam War. Any nation that takes to the streets with armed renegades destroys itself in the rubble it creates. As far as the police go, show the world what they are doing and they will be dealt with by the powers that are in charge, especially if those politicians have to answer to the people during their next election, and they know that. That is why the Anaheim mayor is asking for a full investigation of what started the mini riots or uprisings in his city. He wants to be reelected, not removed and the police chief is in the same position. Creating jobs of all types for the masses of people is how you handle crime. Locking more and more people up only worsens the problems of civil uprisings, it has been proven that people would rather work then riot. But if we allow the police or the people in the position of running our local, state and federal governments to continue ignoring the social problems that created the uprisings, then and only then should violence be considered as a means to accomplish the changes needed and expected from their elected officials. We have seen the Middle East self-destroy (with our help) when violence is the only force used for change. And, because the powers that rule think they can maintain their status by ignoring the needs of the people and invoking violence against their own people too keep them inline, their destruction along with the end of their nation is the end result. The Middle East will be a place of death and war as long as the needs and wants of the people are only gained through violent uprisings..
#9
When people are backed into a corner by someone who wants to kill them, they have no other choice but to defend themselves in any way they can.
Yes, war is hell! But, we didn't start this war...they did. And the result of the war, that they started, will be the eventual deaths of many people. It is a life or death struggle for survival...and we don't have much time left. Some already lost their time and are dead already because of the lack of health care. Many people will starve or die of the stresses from lack of food and shelter. Some will just commit suicide.
What is happening in other countries will happen here, eventually. When this nation's financial system and rule of law (political and legal systems) become so badly corrupted that there is only a choice of a ruing elite tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum for a President and/or Congress, there is no hope left for "fixing" the system using the existing corrupt system of democracy.
And when violent outbreaks by police against the citizens occur, people will either cower down in that corner and suffer indignity and humiliation and/or let the police shoot them in the back of the head without a struggle.
People in Nazi Germany were manipulated to the point that if they eventually realized that Hitler and his regime were monsters, they eventually became to afraid to rebel or even to speak out. No one then, thought it would be a good idea to use their voting system to make things better. By that time, of course, their system of democracy didn't exist anymore. They were afraid of being shot in the streets or carted of to the gas chambers, themselves.
Remember Hitler got many of his best ideas of eugenics from the US. He was also helped to tabulate his population using IBM Card Tabulators (precursors to modern day computers). --read Edwin Black's books or watch YouTube lectures by Edwin Black.
I wonder if some of those cops involved in shooting that unarmed man in the back of the head in Anaheim had done a tour of duty in the Middle East. Many of our trained murderer-assassins that murder people in the streets (or in their beds) of Baghdad or Kabul often get jobs as policemen in the US when they return. Not only are we getting mentally deranged psycho killers from the 911 wars patrolling our streets, but we are now getting armed drones flying in our skies just itching to splat some unarmed Americans in our streets or in our homes.
Don't make the mistake of thinking we're different or we are just too modern and civilized for this to happen to us like it did in Nazi Germany...or we are too exceptional...or The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or other nonsensical Supreme Being is protecting us because we are special.
Things got really violent a number of times in our history and many people got killed but had they not rebelled, we would never have had a middle class or safety nets designed to keep people from starving...we would all have been, for at least the whole 20th century, peons and paupers dying and starving in the streets while the ruling elite p!$$ed on us whenever they felt like it.
That is beginning to happen again and unless we fight back there will never again be a relatively cozy and safe country for the majority of the people. Our system is too corrupted to be able to use it to make changes for our good anymore. Democracy is dead in the US...voting is futile. Folly, Folly, Folly! The only way is to look at what was needed in the past in the US, and in other countries, to effect change on a corrupt system that has rigged the smoke-and-mirrors, bait-and-switch voting system and political structure.
It is going to take a lot more than just a Presidential candidate or Congressmen/women to worry about being elected or reelected...because they already know who it is that determines their fate...the one's with all the money. Even if our voting system was not rigged by hacked electronic voting machines, or weeding out those most likely to vote for a particular candidate through various methods, the politician knows that it is the money that gets him/her elected/reelected.
#10
The police are just creating more violence. They don't discourage it, they help make it worst. There are good cops too, but the bad ones exert the forces and things get out of hand.
#11
This is so true. Police have too much adrenaline running and they don't think of peaceful approach. They shoot to kill then ask questions later (even to their own fellow officier in plain clothes). So all Americans are criminals before victims (or innocence). What a world!
#12
Thom's point is so on. I don't know about Anaheim, but this is one of those hot summers like back in the '60s when urban people's tempers flared with all the stress that was on them. We will see a spike in crime. Just the mayhem in the theater in Aurora has people buying guns like crazy. That's a ratcheting-up of paranoia.
So do we blame Republicans? Yes, in so many ways, and I was a Republican. But I think of Reagan as the P.R. man for anti-government libertarianism. The actual movers and shakers of the Ayn Rand psycho-worship were Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers, who even guided Clinton's economic faux-pax with free trade, deregulation of Wall Street, NAFTA and all that. That was all libertarian thinking. Wall Street was playing with derivatives in what Greenspan thought of as "financial innovation." This free-wheeling, all-things-are-legal invention of swaps seemed like it was magic. Money coming out of thin air. And that's what it really was. Now, the middle class is 40% poorer than it was when Bush2 began.
But a lot of Americans -- and particularly Republicans under Foxnosis -- do not really understand what happened. Thom does. Thom saw Citizens United coming ten years ago. He was smelling that bad boy before it came to fruition. Americans have been swindled but don't understand how, despite clear-as-day movies like "Inside Job" and books galore about the Wall Street wealth transfer machine.
Now the 1% are buying Washington. And if Republicans with their robo-signer Rmoney take over in January, we are in for a helluva ride. These pseudo-tea party non-representatives are running hell-bent for economic Armageddon thinking they are "patriots." And 26 billionaires are buying the politcal auction, funding 80% of it in the massive pay-to-play legalized bribery machine. Once the rug has been pulled out from under the middle class, desperate people will do desperate things.
As Obama whispered to the Russian diplomat, in January he will be a lame-duck, free to make his own decisions. And the GOP knows it. They know they could lose their majority on the Supreme Court. They have a now-or-never ends-justify-the-means desperation to them. They will do anything short of assassination to see that they gain control of Washington NOW. Obama MUST be defeated in the GOP playbook of cheater's tricks to rig this election.
I see Obama's unfettered opportunity to shape-shift from Lincoln into some composite of the two Roosevelts. He must take on Wall Street like Teddy and stimulate the middle class like Franklin. He must be the Occupy President. Tall order. We do not have the mass movement we need as yet. And outside of that, people will get crazy.
#13
What the hell are you Palin? A left over from the Weathermen? The SDS? The SLA?
Get this through your head, you, me or any group/s united or not will NEVER I repeat NEVER pyshically overthrow any government that may come out of Washington. I don't care how many guns you feel secure with...Ya ain't gonna out gun them. Get that through your head.
Half the GNP of this country goes to the military, that oh by the way is now a mercenary force, but you think that hanging on to that deer deer gun is going to keep the nasty government troops from your door. Yeah, good luck with that.
You rail that one is just as good as another. Really? Do you believe that?????? So you're prepared to say that things wouldn't be fundimentally different if McCarthy had been elected, or if Nixon had been seen for his true colors before he came into power. You're willing to say the eighty's would have been just as grey if Carter had been reelected or if G. Hart or Dukakis had prevailed in that period of time? You're willing to once again split a liberal ticket like the Gore/Bush stupidity? Do you really believe things would be as bad as things are now if the Bushshit/Chimmey sweeper inc, hadn't moved in? Do you?
If you do, you're even a bigger fool then you've shown youself to be on this form with your silly gun rights rants.
#14
Getting a little nervous there, a(rs)e alien? By the way, keep voting for fake "liberals"....and stay inside where it is nice and cozy and warm. "They" have got you right where "they" want you. And major shifts in policy has never occurred in our history without making the "wolves" or "pigs" nervous about the masses of irate citizens willing to go beyond playing their stupid, rigged games at the voting booths. cluck, cluck, cluck...understand, Kemosabe?
Funny how some people think they are being patriotic by falling for waving the flag, parades, wasting their time at the rigged electronic voting machines (perhaps voting for a fake liberal for President who will feed you false hope and then sell you out anyway), and praising the fortitude of our founding fathers who fought tyranny and taxation without representation (real representation) yet they now are willing to bend over for the current day ruling elite....saying "Oh, 'they' are just too powerful"..."we wouldn't stand a chance".
Maybe, more than a few people, who have been suckered into "serving their country" for oil companies, banksters, and the MIC...or even more important...those who might yet be suckered into risking their lives, or a horrible life no more worth living as a suffering, dying, invalid contemplating suicide....will draw the line at murdering their own people....to serve the interests of the ruling elite.
One thing the military...and even the VA seems to be very sensitive to is the very negative stigma of soldiers or veterans committing suicide. It sure doesn't help with recruiting and is a thorn in the side of politicians. They don't seem to mind if you are suffering from excruciating pain as long as they can convince you to endure it till you die. And I believe that they are hoping that you do die soon before it dawns on someone.. that in order to get the necessary tests...like CT scans, or MRI scans, or even just an Xray...to reveal the early signs of cancer...you have to say you are thinking about committing suicide.
With cancer, the earlier you detect it and treat it the better the chance you have of living a little while longer...or even cured in some cases. But the VA doctors seem to try to keep some people from getting those necessary tests. They use all kinds of diversionary and delaying actions...like pills that don't really stop the pain, or stupid "pain management" programs, or a physical therapist....anything but scanning for cancer. In order for the veteran to get these scans in a VA hospital...you have to say that you are depressed, stopped eating, and are suicidal. Oh, and very important...take the vet to the hospital emergency room...even though your doctor couldn't be contacted..and even though he may yell at you the next day for having done so....then do it again...and again until they run the scans.
Once you get the tests and it shows massive cancer (that should have been detected by the VA doctors a long time ago) then once you get admitted, the VA seems to work fairly well in giving you attention and drugs that do work...narcotics...to alleviate the pain. And they have places for the terminally ill. But, we'll see how it goes...I hope they don't try to skimp on the meds...and keep him from any more pain..till he eventually dies. But, I'm sure others in a similar situation have their own scare stories.
I can't tell you how rough it has been, as a relative, watching a someone suffer so...being told by the VA doctor that he has sciatica and that he has to learn to deal and cope with the pain....instinctively knowing that that diagnosis just cannot be right...he has something more severe...and then feeling guilty that I didn't raise all kinds of hell with these people much earlier (not that it would have done much good) to get him the hospitalization and tests and medicine he needs.
I have read other stories about veterans with practically the exact same thing we have experienced...the primary care VA doctors misdiagnosing and/or avoiding prescribing the necessary early detection tests with the various scans...CT..MRI..etc. Some are suing the VA for millions of dollars...but, unless you have specialized lawyers with lots of experience in suing the US Government..good luck with that!
If any of you are thinking about joining the military, or have relatives thinking about joining or already in...you had better think real hard about the consequences. You are fed a bunch of patriotic bull-sh!t and lies to make some few people rich and powerful. The real enemy is the one trying to recruit you to fight their stupid illegal and immoral wars. You'll likely murder many civilians, have ptsd and a guilty conscience, or get maimed or killed....or, perhaps, as is happening a lot...commit suicide.
If you aren't killed or maimed right away, you may be exposed to cancer-causing chemicals (eg: Agent Orange) or radiation (eg: depleted Uranium) that will take years to develop symptoms of cancer (that the VA doctors will ignore until it is too late to do anything about it). And then they may eventually expect you to turn on your own people...you fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters demonstrating in the streets against the tyranny that has beguiled us all with their rigged system of "democracy".
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Straight up folks? as i posted elsewhere earlier. there is a school that shall be nameless that by petition will now be turned over to the parents to become a charter school. the article about the school also mentioned the unbeliveably low test scores in said school. once again it is the blame game as a group of parents, who in my opinion are equally responsible for the teaching of thier children, are looking for a scape goat. Teaching begins in the home!!! ignorance breeds stupidity, murder mayhem and incivility the job of the teacher is to help develope the mind of young people but when you have ethnic groups of "all" colors who certain sub groups therin have scarce little knowledge or education on community responsibility, respect and seemingly an underlying contempt for the law, three things rarely taught in school anymore, then you will inevitably have an angry mob, ill informed and stuck in an ignorant culture of thinking. I've listened to at least 3 talk show hosts this week blathering about this issue all of them being so safe as to not truly address the issue as boiling down to ignorance. Me? personally? I'm actually sick of my tax dollars being wasted on jailing gangster, gang bangers and thugs only let them back out on the street just to continue bad mouthing the citizen as well as the law and thinkig they can get away with it. if in fact those parents in sub cultures within each ethnic group that have such low scoring students and drop outs did the job of parenting and proper guidance in conjunction to the school teacher then maybe instead of it getting worse it might get better. but to put it on the cops? sure these days cops are a bit over reactive but hey if the dude didn't have anything to hide or run for? dude should not be running. We have become an ill society where more and more the touble makers are getting away with more and more at the expense of the tax payers. so what is the solution? starve 'em prison and let them know what punishment really is? Maybe cops are just fed up. I know i am. 3 busted out windows in cars on my way to work the other day. some punk walking the night thinking how cool it might be to destroy someone elses property....Get it?