A compilation of articles and videos regarding income inequality in the United States

argatoga said:
Are you talking about the Boston Massacre or the university incident?
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The university incident but you should be aware that most modern research on the "Boston Massacre" does give sympathy to the British soldiers involved. The situation was much more complicated than Revolutionary propaganda depicted. That engraving is a fairly famous piece of propaganda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre

I would suggest viewing HBO's "John Adams" miniseries for an interesting take on the incident.
 
Boston Massacre? I thought he was talking about the military and police in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria shooting into groups of protesters.

Too bad that some accounts now say that the encampment was already dismantled when the UC Davis students sat down. This also doesn't explain why cops lied about the situation and claimed that they feared for their lies and were "cut off from support" - both of which are easily disproved by watching the numerous videos of the attack.

So, if the cops were doing what was right, why were they placed on leave only after the video went viral?

The option "least likely"? You aren't very imaginative, and clearly the cops weren't either. I direct you to an open letter from a UC Davis professor regarding the attack.

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:
1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today
2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality
3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday?a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O?Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way?linking arms and holding their ground?police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, ?it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.? You write, ?while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.?

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to ?a safe and inviting space for all our students? or ?a safe, welcoming environment? at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating ?a safe and inviting space?? Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to ?a safe, welcoming environment??

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience?including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our ?Principles of Community? and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.
I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis
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Other professors have also written letters showing a number of possibilities, including turning the protest into a teaching opportunity - some professors said they were willing to join the protesters and hold class on the quad. The University could have embraced the protest to ensure the health and safety of the protesters while affirming their First Amendment rights.

Violence is the last option for the incompetent. - Issac Asimov

There are hundreds of options beyond hosing down peaceful, non-violent protesters with chemical spray. Students go to college to learn how to think critically, independently and scientifically. There is a reason that colleges require students to take classes beyond their fields of study; engineers and physicists must take philosophy and language, liberal arts students must take math and sciences. As a society, we teach these kids how to think independently, and when they do think independently we hose them with pepper spray, beat them, and shoot them with rubber bullets.

I suppose you would also have supported the illegal sit-ins that promoted equal rights, and the protests that promoted women's suffrage? These are peaceful movements that are being met with violence and they are in the highest tradition of progress both in the US and around the world. You are advocating the use of weapons-grade chemical agents, beatings with clubs, and projectile weapons against unarmed, non-violent groups with the stated goal of equality; equality in opportunity, equal protection under the law, and equal access to representation.

You are on the wrong side of this argument and you are starting to sound like a broken record. I have cited videos, first hand accounts, internal police documents, and now that the police involved are being investigated for malfeasance and so far the only thing you can come up with is that violating university policy on sleeping outside is grounds for use of chemical agents and torture at the hands of police officers; that civil disobedience, one of the founding ideals of this nation, is grounds for beatings and projectile weapons. That protesting a government that serves corporations and not the people of the nation should result in brain damage and ruptured organs.

You. Are. Wrong.
 
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There are hundreds of options beyond hosing down peaceful, non-violent protesters with chemical spray.
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First and foremost recognize that the protestors being nonviolent makes little difference. If some man decided to park himself in the entrance of, lets say, a police station. He is sitting there in a nonviolent fashion and is really only impeding traffic. He had been asked several times by the police to move but has not complied. What to do next? One could use physical force but physical force has a record of inflict injuries on both parties. In this situation pepper spray is a legitimate tool that could be used to force the man to move.

The situation I have given above is not a protest situation, I know. But realize that in my mind and in the mind of the law being nonviolent makes little difference in both situations. In addition the subject of the protest does not matter. They be camped there in favor of free puppies for all or for the legalization of heroin. Does not matter.

You bring up rubber bullets and batons. Were they used at UC Davis or is this some other protest? You also bring up brain damage and ruptured organs. Did this occur at UC Davis or was it at some other protest? Before coming to some meaningful conclusion each situation would have to be examined in detail to determine if the police officers involved acted reasonably.
 
All the attacks on Occupy protesters have been coordinated though DHS, FBI and PERF. All the crackdowns started at the same time around the country regardless of local conditions. This has been a coordinated effort to shut down this protest using violence and weaponry. Hell, in Tampa, FL they police rolled out a fucking APC to deal with a few dozen unarmed people staging a sit-in - so yes, it is all connected.

And the method of protest certainly matters. Look at the NYPD training manual I posted, it specifically states that pepper spray is not to be used against non-violent protesters AND states that "passive resistance" such as going limp or sitting down is not grounds for being hosed with chemical spray.

In your example, that one man does not deserve to be pepper sprayed, gassed, beaten, or shot with projectiles. Sorry.

Now, I have provided ample evidence to support my claims of excessive force, including laws, training manuals and videos that show the police lied in their press releases and falsified their reports. I have posted videos of cops planning together to beat protesters regardless of their actions. I have shown that the police actions at UC Davis are being investigated and the police involved have been suspended. I have even posted a court case that specifically deals with the use of pepper spray and non-violent protesters.

Now, support your claims that this action is justified. Find me a court case, a law, a police report, a training manual, anything that you can to support your position. Until then all you have in your firmly entrenched opinion in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

In my profession, we have a word for that: Delusion.
 
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So breaking the law is okay if it's for the purposes of non-violent protest now?

That's news to me.
 
That has been covered ad nauseum in this thread and in political random thoughts. Civil disobedience is essential for the functioning of our legal and legislative systems.
 
GRtak said:
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Goldman drone said:
Germany has no problem, Germany has full employment.
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Ignoring his views and opinions, his facts already are wrong. Hence I doubt the conclusions he draws are very accurate.

Sure, our unemployment figures have been dropping in the statistics, but 6.5% is by no definition full employment.
 
NYPD being sued by two people who were dragged into a Citibank and then arrested for being there:

http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LV0PTL6JTSE801-28HKARMFEMOG4RGI0LSO22LAPR

A bartender and his fianc?e involved in an Occupy Wall Street protest sued the New York City Police Department for alleged civil-rights violations stemming from a protest at a Citibank branch last month. In a complaint filed today in Manhattan federal court, Julio Jose Jimenez-Artunduaga and Heather Carpenter claimed the police violated protesters' constitutional rights against unlawful detention and arrest and used excessive force after the Oct. 15 demonstration.

Carpenter, 23, a Citibank account holder from Port Jefferson on New York's Long Island, decided to close her account after being notified that the bank was imposing a $17 monthly fee unless she maintained a balance of $6,000, according to the complaint.
She said in that she and other protesters, including Jimenez-Artunduaga, joined a demonstration inside the branch at 555 LaGuardia Place in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

According to the complaint, Carpenter left the branch after closing her account and began filming demonstrators as they interacted with police. An unidentified officer arrested Carpenter, saying, ?You were inside with everybody else. You have to come with me,? according to the complaint.

Handcuffed

Carpenter said that when she questioned officers and showed them the receipt for her closed account, Jimenez-Artunduaga approached police. Officers dragged the two of them into the bank vestibule, where Jimenez-Artunduaga was kicked in the back of the knee, knocked to the ground and handcuffed, the couple alleged. They were both arrested after the incident, according to the complaint.

The couple seeks unspecified damages and lawyers' fees. Their attorney, Ron Kuby, and the Manhattan District Attorney's office said the charges were dropped.

Paul Browne, Deputy Commissioner for Public Information for the New York Police Department, disputed the account of the incident described by the plaintiffs in their lawsuit.

?Disrupting Business'

?Both individuals were observed early on disrupting business inside the bank, and then slipping outside as arrests were under way, claiming falsely they were not engaged in the disruption,? he said in an e-mailed statement. ?While still inside the bank, they were told to leave by bank personnel and did not. In fact, the males can be seen on a separate YouTube video videotaping, and at one point going behind the bank's customer service desk to do so,? he said.
Kate O'Brien Ahlers, a spokeswoman for the New York City Law Department said, ?We will review the plaintiffs' papers after the city is served with the complaint.?

The case is Carpenter v. New York City Police Department, 11-cv-8414, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
(Manhattan).
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Here is video of how things started. As you can see at the start of the video, they are outside the bank and no one has been arrested in or out of the bank.


The bank locked the doors and had their private security detain those trying to close their accounts until police arrived to arrest them. As I recall from reading some first hand accounts, every person in the bank was an account holder there to close out their accounts as part of a coordinated effort earlier this month.
 
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/an-open-letter-to-the-winter-patriot.html


An Open Letter to the Winter Patriot


By Mitch Green, a Ph.D. student at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

The following letter reflects my view on the subject of civil disobedience?I offer my opinion as an Army veteran, student of the economy, and critic of an ongoing effort to wage economic war on the vast majority the population. If these words move you, I urge you to consider honestly the consequences if you decide to act.

As the Occupy movement continues to grow in defiance of the heavy-handed police action determined to squelch it, a natural question emerges: What point will the military be summoned to contain the cascade of popular dissent? And if our nation?s finest are brought into this struggle to stand between the vested authority of the state and the ranks of those who petition them for a redress of grievance, what may we expect the outcome to be?

If history is our guide then we know that story all too well. Behind a thin veil of red, white and blue stands a nation that has used its military might to respond forcefully to any public contempt for the very institutions which bind us in exclusion from the liberty those colors evoke. Just as a training collar keeps a dog in check, a highly militarized police force responds mercilessly, sharply, and without hesitation with an array of chemical warfare and thuggish brutality. And where they fail, divisions of soldiers stand ready to deliver a serious and painful lesson to all who demonstrate their unwillingness to wait for democracy.

This has been the history of democracy in America. The ink on the pages that chronicle the use of state violence towards an unruly citizenry is dry. We cannot rewrite them. We read them in lament. But for each new day history waits; at the dawn of each morning we are presented with the gift of creation. The prevailing thought woven into the fabric of our society today, threaded through both patterns of conservative and liberal ideology, remains the recognition that something is very wrong with the world. Naturally, we form the question: Can we do things differently? Once we animate that thought and present it to society as a question demanding an answer, we begin to sketch out our draft of the world in the pages of history.

I call upon my brothers and sisters in the armed forces to ink their pens and help us write these next few, and most important pages in the history of our social life. Soon, it is quite likely that you will be mobilized to aid the police in their effort to contain or disperse what their bosses see as an imminent threat to the sanctity of their authority. As that day draws near, I remind you of these familiar words:


I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Those that take this oath seriously are faced with a terrible conflict. You must battle internally between the affirmation that you will place your body between the social contract embedded in the Constitution and those that seek its destruction, while maintaining your loyalty to the government you serve and the orders issued by its officers. Sadly, society has placed a twin tax upon you by asking that you sacrifice both your body and your morality. This tax has been levied solely upon you overseas, and soon they?ll come to collect domestically. Your government in its expression of corporate interests relies upon your tenacity to endure, and your relentless willingness to sacrifice. And so you do.

Now, more than ever we need your sacrifice. But, I?m asking you to soldier in a different way. If called upon to deny the people of their first amendment right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for a redress of grievance, disregard the order. Abstain from service. Or if you are so bold, join us. Make no mistake: The consequences for such decisions are severe. You will be prosecuted under the full extent of the law. But sacrifice is your watch word.

Thomas Paine wrote in 1776:


These are the times that try men?s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
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.

Today we are faced with a new revolution. This time we are fighting to preserve our democracy, rather than to establish a new one. And just as a grateful nation relied upon the Winter Soldier to deliver us from the colonial yoke of oppression, we ask that you aid us in our struggle to be free from the bonds of debt peonage and false representation. In return we will stand in your defense as the elite, who have gained so much from your service, attempt to strip you of your hard won honor.
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That soldier is the last of a special few who are officers, gentlemen, scholars and athletes.

Regarding his words, this very dichotomy is the reason my brother, a man who once swore to be a career officer, is cutting his time short at the rank of Captain. He has told me that he can no longer serve our government, one that treats citizens unequally and favors corporations over the lives of people at home and abroad. He saw the ugly side of war profiteering in Iraq and how far the military has fallen, and he won't continue to be a part of it.

In his own words:
I did not join the Army to fight terrorism while my government ignores our Constitution and our rights.
My father did not join the Army so our people can be intimidated by our law enforcement and elected officials.
My grandfather stormed the beaches of Normandy to fight Facsim and tyranny, not to allow our leaders to become tyrants themselves.
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I know more than a few soldiers and sailors that feel the same way and have left the military or will very soon for the same reasons.
 
I will just leave this here. I think you will find his free speech statement, ...... interesting.


EDIT:

Oh, almost forgot about the good cop.

 
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GRtak said:
I will just leave this here. I think you will find his free speech statement, ...... interesting.
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If the point of the first amendment is "shut up and let me speak", then the point of the second amendment is "hands off your gun while I shoot you", the point of the fourth is "take your hands off my stuff while I seize your property", and so on.
 
http://www.examiner.com/conservativ...art-stores-leave-75-carts-full-of-merchandise

Occupy San Diego invade Wal Mart stores, leave 75 carts full of merchandise


Occupy San Diego had a busy day Friday, invading Wal Mart stores and continuing what Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit called "its outreach program of thuggery, harassment and intimidation."

Poster "Juneboarder" wrote at Democratic Underground:


Approximately 75 people met up this morning at a transit center with the knowledge of flash mob that will happen and nothing else. I was a little apprehensive being that I didn't know how we could incoroprate dancing into the 99% movement, nor having much ability to dance. Their idea on the flash mob was that we'd all enter Walmart inconspicuously and shop for 30 minutes, filling up our carts as much as possible. Then we'd meet at the front to check out and the first person to get up to a checker calls asks the cashier to page their child (Michael Check) to the checkstand cause they're ready to leave, and then right after the page:

MIC CHECK!
Citizens of Walmart!!
Greetings and welcome back from the food coma!!
In the spirit of holiday giving, we believe a discussion is in order about the meaning of value and low cost.
For every low-priced product purchased at Walmart, your communities pay the difference.
Every price drop represents mistreated workers who STILL cannot feed their families, STILL cannot afford their homes, and STILL cannot payoff their tuitions.
Every sweet deal can be attributed to our jobs being outsourced from American communities.
Each item on sale helps bankrupt small businesses.
YOU, YOUR COMMUNITIES, AND YOUR WORKERS ARE BEING ABUSED!!
Walmart intentionally underemploys, forgoing REAL benefits for social services, costing California taxpayers $86 million annually.
Walmart employees are overworked, underpaid, and left under-insured in poor and unsafe conditions.
Walmart could fire its employees for the mere mention of forming a workers union; which is the best tool American workers have to protect their rights.
Corporate beasts such as this one bleed our communities dry by putting the local business owners, who actually have personal stake in your communities, at a disadvantage against these gluttonous juggernauts. Yet they have the nerve to tell you it's for your benefit.
WE DO NOT HAVE TO BUY THE SCAM!!
WE DO NOT HAVE TO BUY DOLLAR-COLLARS FOR OUR FAMILIES!!
WE DO NOT HAVE TO BUY ANY OF THIS!!
SELF-MADE GIFTS HAVE MORE POWER ANYWAY!!
So this holiday season, give yourselves, your families, and your communities the gift of empowerment!!
ACT LOCALLY!!
SHOP SMALL BUSINESS!!
BUY AMERICAN!!
Thank you, Exit Safely, and remember to smile...
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Continue reading on Examiner.com Occupy San Diego invade Wal Mart stores, leave 75 carts full of merchandise - Spokane Conservative | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/conservativ...ve-75-carts-full-of-merchandise#ixzz1erMLVCXi
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Really? And you support this kind of childish behavior GRtak? The only reason there are so many Walmarts is because people shop at them. Apparently the public prefers low prices to that "hometown" small business" experience.
 
jetsetter said:
The only reason there are so many Walmarts is because people shop at them. Apparently the public prefers low prices to that "hometown" small business" experience.
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Another reason may be lack of knowledge / ignorance of the story behind companies such as Walmart :dunno: this "childish behaviour" simply points this out to the public as free education.
 
jetsetter


Really? And you support this kind of childish behavior GRtak? The only reason there are so many Walmarts is because people shop at them. Apparently the public prefers low prices to that "hometown" small business" experience.
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Maybe you should look into the history of the company a bit more. Maybe you won't like the company much, if you do. That childish behavior is far better than the way Walmart operates.
 
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