South African police kill striking miners
By louisehartmann
South Africa is reeling after police opened fire on striking miners Thursday, killing 34 people and wounding 78. The massacre caps off a week-long strike with workers demanding a monthly-salary increase from $625 to over $1,500 – and calls to nationalize South Africa’s mines.
Police defended their actions, saying non-lethal force like water cannons and tear gas was used first, but after miners wielding machetes rushed a police line, they had no other choice but to open fire. An official investigation has been launched.
The struggle working people are facing isn’t just exclusive to South Africa or the United States – it’s a global struggle up against the forces of globalism and transnational corporate power.
Comments
#2
I doubt that we are. The UN should take action, and South Africa should be condemned. I doubt that would do much good but we should at least push them front and center.
#3
In this country, the republicans, in their wisdom; have allowed us peons to retain our weapons. So we won't be using machetes. But the time is coming.
#4
A South African Battle of Matewan or Battle of Blair Mountain.
#5
The Dept. of Homeland Security purchased 300 million rounds of hollow point ammunition. Who was it bought to use against, a foreign invasion of our borders? The only two countries that are actually attached to us physically are Canada and Mexico, and any vessels trying to land on our shores would be handled by our navy. When asked by a reporter what the massive amount of ammunition was purchased for, the reply was that it was for target practice for our agents. Any who knows anything about weapons, knows you do not use hollow points for practice, they are too expensive for that type of use. The only logical answer would seem to be the purchase of such a large amount of ammunition was for use against us, the American public, in the event we take to the streets in massive protests. I truly believe the people in high places such as politics, finances and just plain super wealthy fear the American people may turn on them in a physical manner that threatens their well-being and status. Perhaps I have been wrong in the past and it is time we as a nation arm ourselves in the event the government begins to take actions against us, in the name of national security. I use to believe that many people were paranoid for thinking the government has plans to take away our civil rights and call for martial law in our towns and cities. At this point in time, where national, state and local governments are planning to use drones to watch us and comb through our e-mails and other forms of communications we use, makes me wonder about what the seperate governments are up too. Now they want to use facial recognition to go through our online accounts to look for bad guys is just too much to tolerate. It is time we united on a common front and take on these powers that are intent on taking away our privacy and civil rights. Long live freedom, long live the American right not to be spied on. It is starting to smell like Nazi Germany sixty years ago in the U.S.. It is Time to be united as a nation and a people, not just separated political sides fighting each other!
#6
Yes, very scary! And it could just be propaganda to use as a scare story to make some people believe that the government, ie: TSA, will be so overwhelmingly powerful that we might as well just give up and let the bully boys have their way with us. Or, maybe we are about to be invaded from space and the government realizes that since they talked many people out of their weapons, and can't help in defending the World, that they needed to compensate by stocking up on ammo. ;-} What do you get when you hit an alien with a hollow point? Lots of gooey strawberry ice cream! ;-}
But this country did not separate itself from England, which was at the time very much more powerful than the colonists, without fighting for freedom with whatever weapons and tactics they could muster. The well armed and well trained British were met by the same kind of "hit and run" tactics that the Russians, and now the US, experienced with the Afghans...and even in Vietnam.
One could argue that the Afghans had a little help from the US but it was really the perseverance and resolve of a people that would not let a superpower rule them. Playing the same game, under the same rules or tactics, with an opponent much stronger is just plain stupid and foolish.
I don't know if Americans have that same perseverance or resolve anymore...especially when so many of them are so wiling to give up their weapons. They really are just begging to be subjugated and oppressed by the small ruling elite that controls the police and the military. It wasn't very long ago that the government had ordered an unusually large quantity of body bags as well. Sure looks like they are planning something unprecedented.
But one thing is certain...don't trust ANYONE...especially those who seemingly approach you and sound like they agree with you..they could easily be an infiltrator. THEY do this all the time...they'll sucker you in and then set you up as a patsy to take the fall for something THEY created .. then take the credit for some lie they used to make THEMSELVES look good.
So if one is not dumb or crazy enough or megalomaniacal enough to act alone thinking he/she is going to be the hero, or the martyr, (and possibly cause a lot of very unnecessary "collateral damage") then he/she has to form or join some kind of very large organization that will work in secrecy and unison in achieving one's goals.
There are a number of militia but some of those groups are bat-sh1t crazy that have all kinds of delusional beliefs. I think it is just too late to even entertain the idea of doing what our forefathers have done because too many people have been so willing to give up their weapons that those few that believe they might try something would most likely perish and be thought of by the propagandized majority to be lunatics. But if the populace started buying lots of guns it could send a very strong signal to the ruling elite that they will not have a very easy time of it. It could sway them to ease up on the war that they have been waging against us for so long.
I have been reading about the battles of Matewan and Blair Mountain in the 1920s and I ran across an article that commented on how that area in West Virginia and Kentucky was so run down and riddled with drugs.
It was really terrible when all those miners had to suffer an ever decreasing wage paid in company script spendable only at the company stores..and even the housing was company owned. No medical to cover all the black lung diseases they suffered from. These people were really so pushed into a corner of survival that they really had no other choice but to fight...and when they did...a lot of the bully boys got sent to their graves. Yes, even more miners were killed but at least the "ruling elite" of their day, and their bully boy hired guns..the Baldwin-Felts Agency felt the sting and retribution of what they created.
The miners, in the eyes of most of the US, were heroes who fought bravely against the tyranny of the mine owners and their hired guns (who used machine guns). Unionization won the day. And it led, eventually to the reforms that many of us have enjoyed for most of our lives...but now being taken away again.
That article just sort of painted the picture of how the US became industrialized, then became a rust bucket as the modern day tyrants sent our jobs overseas.
Even the 6 hour made-for-the-History-Channel movie on the Hatfields and the Macoys was not filmed in the US, let alone West Virginia or Kentucky, they filmed it in Romania where the producers could cut costs and circumvent safety laws that they would have had in the US. Six actors were actually injured due to the lack of costly safety procedures they would have had to follow in the US. Jena Malone said that it was a very black experience and was so happy to get out of that country even though she thought it was quite beautiful. Kevin Costner wasn't happy about filming in Romania, instead of West Virgina, either. It was taking away jobs from Americans and especially Americans in that part of the country that really could have used the influx of money and jobs.
#7
Elioflight, I echo your sentiment.....indeed we are coming, and history shows that our numbers will overcome their damn money!
The 112 victims......"maybe more"........of the massacre, are all our brothers, fathers, and sons....the whole thing saddens me and at the same time reminds me that this is a global struggle all working people are finding themselves in...... we need to unify!
#8
Who Does The Government Intend To Shoot?
Published: 9:40 AM 08/17/2012
By Major General Jerry Curry, USA (Ret.)
quotes:
The Social Security Administration (SSA) confirms that it is purchasing 174 thousand rounds of hollow point bullets to be delivered to 41 locations in major cities across the U.S. No one has yet said what the purpose of these purchases is, though we are led to believe that they will be used only in an emergency to counteract and control civil unrest. Those against whom the hollow point bullets are to be used — those causing the civil unrest — must be American citizens; since the SSA has never been used overseas to help foreign countries maintain control of their citizens.
In the war in Iraq, our military forces expended approximately 70 million rounds per year. In March DHS ordered 750 million rounds of hollow point ammunition. It then turned around and ordered an additional 750 million rounds of miscellaneous bullets including some that are capable of penetrating walls. This is enough ammunition to empty five rounds into the body of every living American citizen. Is this something we and the Congress should be concerned about? What’s the plan that requires so many dead Americans, even during times of civil unrest? Has Congress and the Administration vetted the plan in public.
I fear that Congress won’t take these ammunition purchases seriously until they are all led from Capitol Hill in handcuffs. Why buy all this ammunition unless you plan to use it. Unknown to Congress, Does DHS plan to declare war on some country? Shouldn’t Congress hold hearings on why the Administration is stockpiling this ammunition all across the nation? How will it be used; what are the Administration’s plans?
http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/17/who-does-the-government-intend-to-shoot/
#9
All political parties in America are changing. Not just the Republican Party. This Internet, in the new millennium featuring open communication is the venue for this change. For me, the definition by Bertrand Arthur William Russell, mathematician has a quote in wiki, one that I like, but as of now cannot find it, likely it was changed. I say with a greatest of chuckling. And this was in the last few minutes. For am I crazy or a lunatic, no, but I aspire to be someone who is great in history? YES, and exampling the age we are in. Why not?
For havens sakes, politicians and the electromagnetic journalist pound the idea Americans can aspire to do anything they want. Saying that with the animation of, Rachael Maddow, or Steven Colbert. Well, here goes… look out …because a severe storm can sweep an area with devastation, yet after looking at the collateral damage after the storm one can affirm the magnificent feel of a rainbow, which in some ways help one perceive hope that one can still cross that rainbow bridge to rebuild. As we all are “chained to nature”. In the one of my writings, I fell short in expressing what can be called a reset economy in a letter to MSNBC. I, as an amateur in math and science gives me a tendency to reflect on the plurality of things were that thinking sometimes gets me positioned to counterpoint to challenge as Descartes once said “When in doubt, doubt everything”. Not always a good thing to do.
With the African issue, yes, horrible. Likely people, who strive to have the right to speak freely, assemble; put forth the grievances towards the government, which issues the right to practice business, that is most forgotten part in the debate. You who sound familiar, I would like to call them First Amendment people, perhaps they don’t even know it, or We The People just realize that the one percenters are in control of the first amendment, not the 99 percenters. All that reveals what has been going on in an educational system that has been unfair for centuries. In this time, the Kent State incidents years ago sends up a flag that is the results of Severe Conservatism, proliferating across they system now even highlighted by perversion at Penn State. Of course, of course if someone shoots at you, you put your head down and shut up. This is the battle ground entrenched with a long legacy of secret trust fund babies. They may not wish to share anything. Then what? We start to play poker politics. We are in it right now.
The game is Bush Cheney high stakes. On CNBC just the other day America is challenged, it is the political system and our complicit media that is so corrupt beyond much of what we know. The telecast showed large skids of plastic wrapped money being shipped to Iraq and offered to the government. These skids looked like the size of an office cubical. Shoulder high stacked with green backs unloaded at some place in Iraq. Beautifully wrapped in clear plastic wrap. Offered perhaps and likely to secret trust fund visitors with wild ambitions to open minded shams, schemers, and aristocrats of the American European Parisian empires, a gift of billions if not trillions in green backs. All lost somehow. Of course all delivered by the good old boys of and likely the Green Beret, Special Forces, Air Force National Guard, good pay off to scrub Bush records. Myself being a veteran of the Vietnam War, Knowing now that there are lunatics out there running our country. Here is what you need to know in or out of the military there are people who love to hate. Especially happy haters like Romney who like to fire people.
As I said before America will never have a “Golden Age” as long as Bush and Cheney are not held responsible for being the job creators of hell America is in right now. Bush and Cheney must be condemned from politics forever.
#10
Ontological Onanism won't give you herpes but it might make you go blind.
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