Reconsidering the Past, Rethinking the Present, Reimagining the Future
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
How Is This Justified in America?
I would really like to know why this is acceptable in America? It is outrageous. It should be condemned as police brutality bordering on fascism. Those officers should be fired, and prosecuted for assault. Period. What is this country coming too????
This is disturbing for so many reasons. I found numerous videos of this on youtube and in some you can see the audience reaction. Why are people sitting and laughing as this man is carried away or as the police are pushing him to the ground? Two women stand up to defend him, but no one else - not even Kerry steps in. What is going on in the country?
What is happening is that we've come to allow our personal feelings to take the place of firmly held principles. Clearly, the people in the audience were annoyed by this guy -- I probably would have been too. But to put my personal annoyance ahead of a belief in a person's right to protest, to question, without being attacked by the police -- well, that's scary. That's how we end up with the media focused on the haircuts and the personal charm of our candidates instead of their values.; That's how Al Gore gets hammered in the press during the 2000 election while Bush is presented like a charming rogue. This is how people allow fascists to take over as long as they attack people who aren't part of your group, or better yet are part of people you don't like. Democracy lives and dies on firmly held principles of what is and is not acceptable, and we are fast losing them.
3 comments:
This is disturbing for so many reasons. I found numerous videos of this on youtube and in some you can see the audience reaction. Why are people sitting and laughing as this man is carried away or as the police are pushing him to the ground? Two women stand up to defend him, but no one else - not even Kerry steps in. What is going on in the country?
Oops. In the last sentence of my previous comment. I meant to write - what is going on in this country?
What is happening is that we've come to allow our personal feelings to take the place of firmly held principles. Clearly, the people in the audience were annoyed by this guy -- I probably would have been too. But to put my personal annoyance ahead of a belief in a person's right to protest, to question, without being attacked by the police -- well, that's scary. That's how we end up with the media focused on the haircuts and the personal charm of our candidates instead of their values.; That's how Al Gore gets hammered in the press during the 2000 election while Bush is presented like a charming rogue. This is how people allow fascists to take over as long as they attack people who aren't part of your group, or better yet are part of people you don't like. Democracy lives and dies on firmly held principles of what is and is not acceptable, and we are fast losing them.
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