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I am indeed biased in my perception of this issue. As if you arent?You're so biased in your "perception" Mike that you've chosen to view a heavily edited version of events instead of uncut versions that give a complete story of what happened that day.[...]
I don't know if you are a cop, a former cop, a loving relative of a cop or just a right-wing shill, but you are focused on defending the police even though you have obliquely admitted in several of your messages that the use of pepper spray in at least one instance was gratuitous, therefore an example of unnecessary force. And in my opinion, as well as Lawrence O'Donnell's opinion, and in the opinion of everyone else who is on the People's side of this issue, all of the force used against those protesters was excessive. So the real question here is, what side are you on?
This protest is not about a sports event, the closing of a bar or some other relatively nonsensical reason. It's about an issue of national importance, the ruin of our Nation's economy through hacking of its financial system by a select group of Wall Street insiders who have bribed our Congress to facilitate their various schemes and have purchased our current President lock, stock and barrel, thereby impeding any investigation of their clearly criminal maneuvers and activities. So the question is not whether some pissed off citizen happened to step off a curb thereby justifying some uniformed goon trying to ram his head into a car. The question is, what side are you on?
We are not talking about some relatively insignificant local issue here. We're talking about the NYCPD vs an awakening American public. In purely objective terms the police are defending what has become a neo-aristocracy which is actively seeking to undermine the bedrock of contemporary American society, the middle class.
All of the video clips we've seen so far deal with a relatively minor aspect of this issue, that of some stupidly petty clashes between angry citizens and police who are defending the object of their anger. The following video clip captures this object in a moment of naked clarity.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PiXDTK_CBY"]Wall Street Mocks Protesters By Drinking Champagne 2011 - YouTube[/ame]
When I saw this clip a book by Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of The French Revolution, came to mind. In this book Schama refers to historic descriptions of amused French aristocrats drinking wine on the balconies of le palace de Versailles as angry mobs of peasants cursed them from outside the gates.
OldStyle, which side are you on?
I don't care, but it is a separate discussion. For the record though, if a crowd is being disruptive the police do not have the power to use force indiscriminately.
If you actually read my posts you will see I am focusing on a couple of incidents involving two individual police officers. I am pointing out how Bologna and another officer whose name I do not know violated NYPD policy. I am not attacking NYPD, I am attacking two bad cops.
I think most of the police there acted responsibly and professionally. It is possible there are other incidents that need to be examined, but I am unaware of them. You respond by defending them without a thought, and justifying there actions by pointing out other protestors were wrong. That means you are doing what you are accusing me of doing, saying everyone is guilty because someone else did something wrong.
How did the police use force "indiscriminately"? Everything that I saw in all these clips...and there are dozens of them, it's obvious that was the whole idea, to provoke a violent response from the police...were the police reacting in a completely professional fashion. As for your claim that there might be other incidents that need to be examined? This was about the most video logged event in the history of mankind and that one second blast of pepper spray is the best that the protesters could goad the NYPD into doing. I personally think the officer doing the spraying was wrong...not because he wasn't within his rights to use pepper spray on people refusing to leave an area they've been told by police to vacate but because it was what the organizers WANTED to have happen. He should have simply had them arrested just like all the other idiots that kept pushing things until THEY got arrested.
You really do not get it, do you. There is a brand new concept that was developed about 18 quadrillion years ago called proportionate response that police departments in free countries follow. What it basically means is that you only respond with force when force is used against you. That photographer that had his head banged off of a parked car was not using any force at all, and was clearly standing to the side and not participating, yet some jerk with a badge decided to step put of department policy and attack him.
As for the women, even if they were calling the police fascist pigs and demanding they let everyone go, they were not using physical force resiting or attacking the police, so Bologna had no reason to respond to them with force, or with pepper spray.
I lived in one of Boston's rougher neighborhoods for years .
Where?
It's pretty silly to suggest they were trying to goad the cop from down the street into pepper spraying them.
But even if they were, all the more reason why the cop shouldn't have obliged.
You'd have to be one of the more naive people on the planet not to recognize the pattern of these "protests". They are less protests then they are staged media events. The Rand Paul thing? Staged to get an embarrassing photo. The Paul Ryan Rotary Club thing? Staged to make it look like Ryan's constituents were up in arms over his plan. This latest march? Staged to provoke a police response because the turnout for the march was so abysmal. The organizers were talking about 20,000 showing up for this thing. They got less than a couple hundred. What's laughable if you watch the video clips is that there are more cops, bystanders and media people there then there are actual protesters.
Let me see if I can explain this to you in small words. It does not fucking matter if this was a protest or a staged media event, the police are still legally required to follow the same rules.
I am indeed biased in my perception of this issue. As if you arent?You're so biased in your "perception" Mike that you've chosen to view a heavily edited version of events instead of uncut versions that give a complete story of what happened that day.[...]
I don't know if you are a cop, a former cop, a loving relative of a cop or just a right-wing shill, but you are focused on defending the police even though you have obliquely admitted in several of your messages that the use of pepper spray in at least one instance was gratuitous, therefore an example of unnecessary force. And in my opinion, as well as Lawrence O'Donnell's opinion, and in the opinion of everyone else who is on the People's side of this issue, all of the force used against those protesters was excessive. So the real question here is, what side are you on?
This protest is not about a sports event, the closing of a bar or some other relatively nonsensical reason. It's about an issue of national importance, the ruin of our Nation's economy through hacking of its financial system by a select group of Wall Street insiders who have bribed our Congress to facilitate their various schemes and have purchased our current President lock, stock and barrel, thereby impeding any investigation of their clearly criminal maneuvers and activities. So the question is not whether some pissed off citizen happened to step off a curb thereby justifying some uniformed goon trying to ram his head into a car. The question is, what side are you on?
We are not talking about some relatively insignificant local issue here. We're talking about the NYCPD vs an awakening American public. In purely objective terms the police are defending what has become a neo-aristocracy which is actively seeking to undermine the bedrock of contemporary American society, the middle class.
All of the video clips we've seen so far deal with a relatively minor aspect of this issue, that of some stupidly petty clashes between angry citizens and police who are defending the object of their anger. The following video clip captures this object in a moment of naked clarity.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PiXDTK_CBY"]Wall Street Mocks Protesters By Drinking Champagne 2011 - YouTube[/ame]
When I saw this clip a book by Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of The French Revolution, came to mind. In this book Schama refers to historic descriptions of amused French aristocrats drinking wine on the balconies of le palace de Versailles as angry mobs of peasants cursed them from outside the gates.
OldStyle, which side are you on?
Just to get on the record here, again, I think the protestors are idiots and that they are protesting something that is mostly a conspiracy theory, and that they are blaming the wrong people. Nonetheless, they have a right to protest if they want, and they certainly have a right not to be used as punching bags and practice targets by a couple of overzealous fascists hiding behind a badge.
What's the big 'shock' here? They were probably told about a dozen times to move over so that barricade could be put in place. They didn't move and so were made to move through non-lethal means. Did these airheads imagine that they would 'occupy' part of the city (as pathetic as the attempt turned out to be) and receive hot chocolate and back rubs from the law enforcement officers there to protect ALL the people and maintain some degree of order? Just think, if that kid had stayed home she would have missed out on her dramatic crying in the streets moment. She'll be living off that story for years.
I'm completely against these protests. They were ill-advised and foolish. I'm sure there were protestors their who were arrested and deserved to be.
That is not what the OP is about. It is about a video clip of several women standing on the sidewalk (not the street) encircled by mesh fencing held by police offers. They were not screaming. They were not gesturing. They were standing calmly, watching what was going on out in the intersection. The police supervisor in white walked up to these women, made a half-circle spray in their faces, then turned around and walked away.
What was done in THAT clip was unprovoked and unnecessary. I'd hope that the officer involved would be called upon to explain his outrageous behavior, because it looked to me as if a sadistic man used the chaos of the protest to inflict pain on several trapped women simply because he could.
I'm completely against these protests. They were ill-advised and foolish. I'm sure there were protestors their who were arrested and deserved to be.
That is not what the OP is about. It is about a video clip of several women standing on the sidewalk (not the street) encircled by mesh fencing held by police offers. They were not screaming. They were not gesturing. They were standing calmly, watching what was going on out in the intersection. The police supervisor in white walked up to these women, made a half-circle spray in their faces, then turned around and walked away.
What was done in THAT clip was unprovoked and unnecessary. I'd hope that the officer involved would be called upon to explain his outrageous behavior, because it looked to me as if a sadistic man used the chaos of the protest to inflict pain on several trapped women simply because he could.
I'm completely against these protests. They were ill-advised and foolish. I'm sure there were protestors their who were arrested and deserved to be.
That is not what the OP is about. It is about a video clip of several women standing on the sidewalk (not the street) encircled by mesh fencing held by police offers. They were not screaming. They were not gesturing. They were standing calmly, watching what was going on out in the intersection. The police supervisor in white walked up to these women, made a half-circle spray in their faces, then turned around and walked away.
What was done in THAT clip was unprovoked and unnecessary. I'd hope that the officer involved would be called upon to explain his outrageous behavior, because it looked to me as if a sadistic man used the chaos of the protest to inflict pain on several trapped women simply because he could.
protesting is good for the people. It's good for a Constitutional Republic. I support anyone who is dishearten with the government and wants to voice their opinion.
Really? Then who do you believe are the right people to blame?Just to get on the record here, again, I think the protestors are idiots and that they are protesting something that is mostly a conspiracy theory, and that they are blaming the wrong people. Nonetheless, they have a right to protest if they want, and they certainly have a right not to be used as punching bags and practice targets by a couple of overzealous fascists hiding behind a badge.
How did the police use force "indiscriminately"? Everything that I saw in all these clips...and there are dozens of them, it's obvious that was the whole idea, to provoke a violent response from the police...were the police reacting in a completely professional fashion. As for your claim that there might be other incidents that need to be examined? This was about the most video logged event in the history of mankind and that one second blast of pepper spray is the best that the protesters could goad the NYPD into doing. I personally think the officer doing the spraying was wrong...not because he wasn't within his rights to use pepper spray on people refusing to leave an area they've been told by police to vacate but because it was what the organizers WANTED to have happen. He should have simply had them arrested just like all the other idiots that kept pushing things until THEY got arrested.
You really do not get it, do you. There is a brand new concept that was developed about 18 quadrillion years ago called proportionate response that police departments in free countries follow. What it basically means is that you only respond with force when force is used against you. That photographer that had his head banged off of a parked car was not using any force at all, and was clearly standing to the side and not participating, yet some jerk with a badge decided to step put of department policy and attack him.
As for the women, even if they were calling the police fascist pigs and demanding they let everyone go, they were not using physical force resiting or attacking the police, so Bologna had no reason to respond to them with force, or with pepper spray.
There you go again trying to paint the guy in the green shirt as something he's not. If he were a "Press photographer" he'd have press credentials around his neck. He didn't have that which means he's just one more protester trying to capture an example of "police brutality" on his video camera. If you go back and watch the video (again) you'll see that he was told to get back on the sidewalk earlier and chose to disregard that and get right out next to where the arrest of another man was taking place. What you call his "standing off to the side and not participating" sure looks like he was bending over right on top of the arresting officers trying to get a closeup of what was happening. As with everyone else who had been warned not to come into the street, he was arrested as well. THAT was department policy and if you watch the video (again) you'll see that they stuck to that policy.
As for the women? At 4:58 of the nine minute video the police draw a barricade across the sidewalk and instruct those protesters that are on it that they need to leave. At 5:10 the older blonde woman politely asks where the police want them to go. At 5:30 the police arrest the loud mouthed fat chick and at 5:56 they pepper spray her three friends. The blonde lady is gone by then. She actually listens to the police commands. The three girls chose to stay and chose to scream at the police for arresting the fat girl. The supervisor gave them a quick blast of pepper spray for their troubles. As I said before, his mistake was in giving them a photo op...he should have just had them arrested.
You'd have to be one of the more naive people on the planet not to recognize the pattern of these "protests". They are less protests then they are staged media events. The Rand Paul thing? Staged to get an embarrassing photo. The Paul Ryan Rotary Club thing? Staged to make it look like Ryan's constituents were up in arms over his plan. This latest march? Staged to provoke a police response because the turnout for the march was so abysmal. The organizers were talking about 20,000 showing up for this thing. They got less than a couple hundred. What's laughable if you watch the video clips is that there are more cops, bystanders and media people there then there are actual protesters.
Let me see if I can explain this to you in small words. It does not fucking matter if this was a protest or a staged media event, the police are still legally required to follow the same rules.
The police "did" follow the rules. It was the protesters who marched without a permit...broke through barriers and refused to leave when the police asked them to. As to whether it "matters" whether this was a protest or a staged media event? Of course it "matters". This wasn't a case of the NYC police brutalizing protesters. It was obviously a case of activists provoking confrontations with the police with the sole intent of getting media coverage for an event that would have been so insignificant without the confrontations, it wouldn't have garnered mention anywhere.
I am indeed biased in my perception of this issue. As if you arent?
I don't know if you are a cop, a former cop, a loving relative of a cop or just a right-wing shill, but you are focused on defending the police even though you have obliquely admitted in several of your messages that the use of pepper spray in at least one instance was gratuitous, therefore an example of unnecessary force. And in my opinion, as well as Lawrence O'Donnell's opinion, and in the opinion of everyone else who is on the People's side of this issue, all of the force used against those protesters was excessive. So the real question here is, what side are you on?
This protest is not about a sports event, the closing of a bar or some other relatively nonsensical reason. It's about an issue of national importance, the ruin of our Nation's economy through hacking of its financial system by a select group of Wall Street insiders who have bribed our Congress to facilitate their various schemes and have purchased our current President lock, stock and barrel, thereby impeding any investigation of their clearly criminal maneuvers and activities. So the question is not whether some pissed off citizen happened to step off a curb thereby justifying some uniformed goon trying to ram his head into a car. The question is, what side are you on?
We are not talking about some relatively insignificant local issue here. We're talking about the NYCPD vs an awakening American public. In purely objective terms the police are defending what has become a neo-aristocracy which is actively seeking to undermine the bedrock of contemporary American society, the middle class.
All of the video clips we've seen so far deal with a relatively minor aspect of this issue, that of some stupidly petty clashes between angry citizens and police who are defending the object of their anger. The following video clip captures this object in a moment of naked clarity.
Wall Street Mocks Protesters By Drinking Champagne 2011 - YouTube
When I saw this clip a book by Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of The French Revolution, came to mind. In this book Schama refers to historic descriptions of amused French aristocrats drinking wine on the balconies of le palace de Versailles as angry mobs of peasants cursed them from outside the gates.
OldStyle, which side are you on?
Just to get on the record here, again, I think the protestors are idiots and that they are protesting something that is mostly a conspiracy theory, and that they are blaming the wrong people. Nonetheless, they have a right to protest if they want, and they certainly have a right not to be used as punching bags and practice targets by a couple of overzealous fascists hiding behind a badge.
I challenge you to find a single example of a NYPD officer using any demonstrator as a "punching bag". I can't remember a single punch being thrown in any of the video clips. Once again you're trying to blow what happened into something that it wasn't. Go back and look at the 9 min clip. The police pictured in that bordered on bored most of the time. Even the ones that were preventing the protesters from crossing that street and arrested those who persisted, did so with admirable restraint. Yet you refer to them as "fascists"? It's ridiculous.
Big, protesting is only constitutionally protected if that protesting does not interupt other people's freedom and is done PEACEFULLY if it is not then it is not protected...read the constitution..it says assemble peacably not right to protest anywhere and however you want.
Really? Then who do you believe are the right people to blame?Just to get on the record here, again, I think the protestors are idiots and that they are protesting something that is mostly a conspiracy theory, and that they are blaming the wrong people. Nonetheless, they have a right to protest if they want, and they certainly have a right not to be used as punching bags and practice targets by a couple of overzealous fascists hiding behind a badge.
If you think those protesters are barking up the wrong tree I urge you to obtain and watch a video called, Inside Job. In fact, watch it three or four times so you won't miss a trick. I guarantee it will raise your eyebrows an inch.
Just Google, INSIDE JOB
You should definitely see that documentary, though. And to add insult to injury, the arrogance of these pricks is on full display, in the interviews, and is infuriating.Really? Then who do you believe are the right people to blame?Just to get on the record here, again, I think the protestors are idiots and that they are protesting something that is mostly a conspiracy theory, and that they are blaming the wrong people. Nonetheless, they have a right to protest if they want, and they certainly have a right not to be used as punching bags and practice targets by a couple of overzealous fascists hiding behind a badge.
If you think those protesters are barking up the wrong tree I urge you to obtain and watch a video called, Inside Job. In fact, watch it three or four times so you won't miss a trick. I guarantee it will raise your eyebrows an inch.
Just Google, INSIDE JOB
Who is to blame is a different subject. Lets stick to what we agree on in this thread.
You should definitely see that documentary, though. And to add insult to injury, the arrogance of these pricks is on full display, in the interviews, and is infuriating.Really? Then who do you believe are the right people to blame?
If you think those protesters are barking up the wrong tree I urge you to obtain and watch a video called, Inside Job. In fact, watch it three or four times so you won't miss a trick. I guarantee it will raise your eyebrows an inch.
Just Google, INSIDE JOB
Who is to blame is a different subject. Lets stick to what we agree on in this thread.
I'm completely against these protests. They were ill-advised and foolish. I'm sure there were protestors their who were arrested and deserved to be.
That is not what the OP is about. It is about a video clip of several women standing on the sidewalk (not the street) encircled by mesh fencing held by police offers. They were not screaming. They were not gesturing. They were standing calmly, watching what was going on out in the intersection. The police supervisor in white walked up to these women, made a half-circle spray in their faces, then turned around and walked away.
What was done in THAT clip was unprovoked and unnecessary. I'd hope that the officer involved would be called upon to explain his outrageous behavior, because it looked to me as if a sadistic man used the chaos of the protest to inflict pain on several trapped women simply because he could.
protesting is good for the people. It's good for a Constitutional Republic. I support anyone who is dishearten with the government and wants to voice their opinion.
I have no problem with protesting either. What I do have a problem with is this new ploy by activists to manipulate the Main Stream Media into presenting either their political opponents or the authorities as goons who are picking on poor innocent citizens by setting them up for video camera ambushes. That isn't protest...that's political Kabuki theater.
