Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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L.A. Police Chief Sides With Marchers
« on: 2007-05-07 12:54:04 » |
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[Blunderov] I've heard it said that sometimes things have to be destroyed in order to save them. I think it may have been on a Country and Western record but I don't think the lyric was referring to civilization as we know it.
truthdig.com
L.A. Police Chief Sides With Marchers
news.yahoo.com
Chief takes May Day officers off street Mon May 7, 2:27 AM ET
LOS ANGELES - Police Chief William Bratton said Sunday that up to 60 members of an elite squad that swarmed into a park and fired rubber bullets during a May Day immigration rally are no longer on the street.
Bratton said he spent the weekend viewing video of the MacArthur Park incident and he said LAPD failures were widespread with officers from the top on down culpable.
"I'm not going to defend the indefensible," Bratton told journalists groups during a meeting at a television studio in Hollywood. "Things were done that shouldn't have been done."
Journalists were among those roughed up as Metropolitan Division's B Platoon moved through MacArthur and fired 148 rubber bullets to break up what had been a peaceful and lawful immigration rally.
Police said they moved in after rocks and bottles were thrown at them by 30 to 40 agitators, he said.
The Metropolitan Division is the city's premier police squad, made up of experienced officers who have extensive training in crowd control.
Bratton said up to 60 members of the Metro's B Platoon are no longer in the field. Additionally, he said, some officers will "in all likelihood" not return to the Metropolitan Division.
"Some of this will be career-impacting," Bratton said, adding that imposition of permanent discipline will await completion of the Police Department investigation.
Journalist organizations asked why officers ignored LAPD policies toward the news media worked out after reporters were assaulted during the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
A 2002 agreement called for designation of a safe spot for reporters covering news events. LAPD spokeswoman Mary Grady acknowledged reporters were not given "a designated safe spot" at MacArthur Park.
"There appears to have been here a failure to communicate," Press Photographers Association local president John McCoy said.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7284
Now is a nasty repeat of the past
by Ed Kociela | May 6 2007 - 9:20am | permalink
article tools: email | print | read more Ed Kociela
It's all familiar ground, bloodsoaked and stained.
Protesters are being beaten in the streets. A sitting president lies through his teeth while his vice president fills his pockets. Our children are dying on a far-off battlefield.
But, who's to care?
Not the chicken hawks like the president and his president of vice, who dodged the war 40 years ago. Not the Congress, which has betrayed the people they swore to serve.
This is all so 1968-ish all we need is a political convention in Chicago where they beat the opposition to death, then claimed their votes from the graveyard.
The film footage from last weekend's marches -- particularly in L.A. where the cops in heavy armor severely beat a crowd of Hispanics who were only asking for a fair shake -- was akin to the police abuses that led to Kent State in Ohio, where National Guard soldiers opened fire on a crowd of students in 1970, killing four. Only this time, the cops were swinging batons and firing rubber bullets into crowds that included women and children. Little children.
It was ugly then, it's ugly now. Last November, the people of this country got together behind a Democratic Party that promised an end to the Bush War.
Instead, the gutless wonders made a symbolic vote, retreated and are now negotiating with a president whose signature could have saved God knows how many lives over there in the desert sand. But, he didn't.
Instead, he wants to add to the cadre of 50,000 hired killers from the American mercenary organization called Blackwater.
The mercs answer to nobody and have stripped the United States of more than $300 million since they were awarded a no-bid contract in 2003 as a private security force. Gun-toting mercs from this same company also patrolled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. We could have done a lot more with that $300 million than putting killers on the road in Iraq and Afghanistan. Especially if you see how much has not been accomplished during this mission.
It's all in shambles. The moral compass of this country was thrown out the window the minute this guy was sworn into office and, we expect a gaggle of pandering invertebrates elected to Congress to change the course.
The media is doing no better, pretty much deciding that the only viable candidates are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the left and Rudy Giuliani and John McCain on the right.
It was no different in 1968 when Hubert Humphrey ran against Richard Nixon.
We were all doomed in that election no matter the outcome.
And, here we sit, in that same place today.
Demand more from these suits who sit in power. Being passive is exactly how we got here. Expect more from them. We've acquiesced to mediocrity for too long.
And keep the pressure ratcheted high with telephone calls and e-mails. Don't go down without a fight.
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