>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^bcglorf:
The intervention in Libya stopped a genocide. If you can't point out something far worse that it is causing, then you'd better not make bold claims about how much better things would be if the genocide had been allowed to play out. You sure as anything better not cry for having done nothing by invoking the lives of the Libyan people that would surely be dead already if that had been done.

Just saying that means nothing, sorry but we really don't know enough to claim it stopped a genocide. Just like we found out later that intervention in the Kosovo didn't prevent anything. Since almost all of the crimes Milošević was accused of occurred after the bombing you could argue it exacerbated an already bad situation, blowing it up into something much worse than it could've been.

Here's what we can say, please point out anything objectionable in these points:
-Gaddafi was a dictator who ruled through absolutely brutal repression.
-Gaddafi's soldiers began killing peaceful protesters, escalating even to the use of heavy weapons and airpower against them.
-Gaddafi then threatened to cleanse the nation of the protesters, house by house.
-Gaddafi also warned the protesters that just as Tiananmen square, nobody would rescue them.
-Gaddafi then deployed the full force of his army against the protesters.
-Gaddafi had reclaimed all but the last city held by the opposition when intervention began.
If that can't be called the beginning of a campaign of genocide what can?
What more evidence must the world possibly have before it should act to enforce international law and prevent genocide?


The evidence that the US has never acted in a humanitarian manner when bombing someone.

Look I'm not going to contest any points you make, I'm simply going to advise caution. This story hasn't come out enough yet...there might be more.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^bcglorf:
The intervention in Libya stopped a genocide. If you can't point out something far worse that it is causing, then you'd better not make bold claims about how much better things would be if the genocide had been allowed to play out. You sure as anything better not cry for having done nothing by invoking the lives of the Libyan people that would surely be dead already if that had been done.

Just saying that means nothing, sorry but we really don't know enough to claim it stopped a genocide. Just like we found out later that intervention in the Kosovo didn't prevent anything. Since almost all of the crimes Milošević was accused of occurred after the bombing you could argue it exacerbated an already bad situation, blowing it up into something much worse than it could've been.


Here's what we can say, please point out anything objectionable in these points:

-Gaddafi was a dictator who ruled through absolutely brutal repression.
-Gaddafi's soldiers began killing peaceful protesters, escalating even to the use of heavy weapons and airpower against them.
-Gaddafi then threatened to cleanse the nation of the protesters, house by house.
-Gaddafi also warned the protesters that just as Tiananmen square, nobody would rescue them.
-Gaddafi then deployed the full force of his army against the protesters.
-Gaddafi had reclaimed all but the last city held by the opposition when intervention began.

If that can't be called the beginning of a campaign of genocide what can?

What more evidence must the world possibly have before it should act to enforce international law and prevent genocide?

Lol whats stupid with this is if you remove the ability for people to peacefully protest all thats left is them to violently protest.

the ritch are only kicking them selfs in the face , if you dont have a passive submissive populous to buy and put up with your shit then its not going to be a nice world to live in Evan for the rich.

I freely admit to having thought Obama was the real deal, and that it's obvious he wasn't. I think my disappointments with him aside, he was still the right person to support, given that it was only ever going to be him, Hillary, or McCain who became President. I think you're vastly overstating it when you say that Obama is "leading the charge" in Libya, but that's just how you are.

I don't really see it as "chickens coming home to roost". Obama has failed to rise to the occasion on several issues, but he hasn't gone and done anything all his own that creates new problems to be undone. Maybe this no-fly zone in Libya will become that, but this doesn't strike me as some sort of imperialist impulse from Obama, so much as him going along with the world community.

If you told me that in 2008, after Bush put together an Iraq withdrawal plan, I would've said that I pretty much expect him to follow the Bush withdrawal plan to the letter...which he has, with no sign of extending our stay there. On Afghanistan, I would've said that Obama openly campaigned on escalating the conflict in Afhganistan, and I didn't like it much, but that that did seem to be the one place in the world we had any reason to be involved in. On Libya I would've said "why Libya?" If you said "to defend pro-democratic rebels who wanted to overthrow Gaddafi", I would've said "hmm, if the UN supports that action, and the mission remains limited in scope, I would oppose it, but I would understand it".

As for Gitmo and PATRIOT, if you told me that he'd be stopped from doing either by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, I would've found that completely believable. That he's passively let the topic fade from the public stage is probably my biggest disappointment with him.

On taxes, which taxes went up? Income tax rates below $250K (and above!) are the same as they've been, and payroll taxes just got cut a bit. My federal taxes definitely went down, while my state & local have increased slightly, but Obama has nothing to do with those. The only tax increases I know of are on cigarettes, and maybe the expiration of tax cuts that began with the stimulus.

As for the democratic process, all it proved is that it takes more work than voting for President once every 4 years. I was too carried away in 2008 about how much one election would do, but it did seem like a sea change at the time.

Part of what's wrong is that people here are too complacent. Tunisia, Egypt, etc. all just managed to topple dictatorships with peaceful protests. I think if we did the same here, we could topple our oligarchy. But first we need to stop letting fear of loss make us keep our heads down...

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Oh, you're such a victim, aren't you? *raises hand* "Oh, teacher, blankfist is picking on me!"

Stop deflecting. You and DFT claimed Obama was the real deal; that he'd enact some real change. He hasn't. He received a Nobel Peace prize, yet has extended the war effort. It makes no sense to people like me, and now that he's leading the charge in Libya, your chickens have come home to roost, and you don't like it.

I know you don't regret a second campaigning or voting for a warmonger and a liar. It's all too common for people to defend their vote, and the dissonance is alarming. My father used to defend his vote for Bush saying he's better than Clinton or something irrelevant like that.

If I could go back to 2008 and make wild claims that Obama would not end the war in Iraq, he would instead extend the war into Afghanistan, and before 2012 he'd go into Libya, I wonder what you'd say. Or that he'd never close Guantanamo or repeal the Patriot Act, I wonder what you'd say. You'd probably disagree and beat the "Democrats. Party of peace." drum.

I bet you still have an Obama/Biden 2008 bumper sticker on the back of your Prius, don't you? How typical if you do.

And by the way, I made less this year because of the economy, yet my taxes went up (as did the cost of living). I thought those of us who made less than $250,000 would not have our taxes raised. Looks like that too was a lie. I'm glad we still have idiots out there who think we can change the system with the democratic process, because singlehandedly Obama has proven that to be false in his first four years.

Seeing you, I think I now understand why the entire nation of Germany gave into Nazism and thought it was a good thing.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
So what you're saying is...what? That harassing me is somehow going to reverse a UN resolution against Libya?

I do think that if you don't like something, you should get involved and change it. In this case, part of that would be trying to get like minded people to join you in some sort of petition or protest. You don't seem to have any interest in doing that.

Do you have a bumper sticker with "Don't blame me, I voted for <insert losing candidate here>!" on your car? I mean if you don't, you really should get one. It might be too on the nose though, because it's not just some humorous witticism to you; instead it's a statement of your entire political philosophy, such as it is.

Oh, and by the way, I don't regret for a second having voted for and campaigned for Obama.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Wait, I thought you said if you didn't like something, then you should get involved and change it. Wasn't voting for Obama that change? How's that working out for you?

And I'm a liberal. The original liberal.

You understand why the cops were there right?

It wasn't to protect you or "silence" your thoughts.
>> ^notarobot:

"Why would this event be any different?"

Because YOU weren't there witnsess the event. Because YOU didn't have your shoulder dislocated by an officer in full riot armour. Because YOU did not have your prosthetic ripped from your leg. Because you were not arrested without any warrant or concern for your civil liberties.

There are a lot of good cops in this world, Pprt. I have a strong belief that the real good cop bad cop ratio is something to the tune of 99:1 but that "one" left over can sometimes give the other 99 an undeserved reputation and THAT is exactly what this ISN't about.
The truth is that when an officer is ordered to do something that makes him feel like he needs to take his name tag off to execute that order (and keep his job) then something is wrong. If there are plain clothes officers able to leap out of the crowd to protect, what? Why were there plain clothes officers among the crowd NOT preventing vandalism of private property and their own police vehicles?
Why?
We know that police are sometimes ordered to commit the very acts forbidden by law. We know that police have broken the law so to twist public perception of otherwise peaceful protests because THEY HAVE PUBLICLY ADMITTED doing so. It is also very likely that an inquiry could reveal similar tactics used during the G20.
What is wrong with this? A group of well trained, capable individuals, sworn to uphold the law and protect the people used against the very people they are trusted to protect. Orders passed down through subterfuge, obfuscated behind veils of lies.
And 99 of them know it's wrong.

...
http://videosift.com/video/Police-admit-they-went-undercover
-at-Montebello-protest
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19928
>> ^Pprt:
Next time you see cops blocking a crime scene or an accident.. go ahead and give them a hard time. Tell them how it's your right to walk right up to a dead body or a smashed car.
No? Why not?
Because you understand that sometimes the police are there for a reason and you respect that. Why would this event be any different?>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Pprt:
Bunch of unemployed losers determined to get into confrontations with cops and then get what they ask for... Outrageous!

Shut the fuck up you piece of shit. You don't say the same about people throwing Tea into the Boston Harbor do you?

"Why would this event be any different?"



This event is different because YOU weren't there witnsess it. Because YOU didn't have your shoulder dislocated by an officer in full riot armour. Because YOU did not have your prosthetic ripped from your leg. Because you were not arrested without any warrant or concern for your civil liberties.



There are a lot of good cops in this world, Pprt. I have a strong belief that the real good cop bad cop ratio is something to the tune of 99:1 but that "one" left over can sometimes give the other 99 an undeserved reputation and THAT is exactly what this ISN't about.

The truth is that when an officer is ordered to do something that makes him feel like he needs to take his name tag off to execute that order (and keep his job) then something is wrong. If there are plain clothes officers able to leap out of the crowd to protect, what? Why were there plain clothes officers among the crowd NOT preventing vandalism of private property and their own police vehicles?

Why?

We know that police are sometimes ordered to commit the very acts forbidden by law. We know that police have broken the law so to twist public perception of otherwise peaceful protests because THEY HAVE PUBLICLY ADMITTED doing so. It is also very likely that an inquiry could reveal similar tactics used during the G20.

What is wrong with this? A group of well trained, capable individuals, sworn to uphold the law and protect the people used against the very people they are trusted to protect is a breach of that trust. Orders were passed down through subterfuge, obfuscated behind veils of lies.

And 99 of them know it's wrong.



...
http://videosift.com/video/Police-admit-they-went-undercover-at-Montebello-protest

http://videosift.com/video/Provocateurs-stopped-at-SPP

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19928
>> ^Pprt:

Next time you see cops blocking a crime scene or an accident.. go ahead and give them a hard time. Tell them how it's your right to walk right up to a dead body or a smashed car.
No? Why not?
Because you understand that sometimes the police are there for a reason and you respect that. Why would this event be any different?>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Pprt:
Bunch of unemployed losers determined to get into confrontations with cops and then get what they ask for... Outrageous!

Shut the fuck up you piece of shit. You don't say the same about people throwing Tea into the Boston Harbor do you?

But these Critical Mass pricks certainly are a self-righteous bunch.
In large part, fair, I suppose.

This is not a protest; this is assholes coming together to inconvenience everyone else.
Not so. Protests are not designed to be convenient. They're designed to get attention. Some disrupt people's lives a lot. CM only does a little. Also, you could as easily describe all car drivers as "assholes coming together to inconvenience everyone else" every day during rush hour, but I'm guessing you're a car driver, so you empathise with them, but not with cyclists.

...bikes have to obey traffic laws, just like cars and buses. Critical Mass does not obey traffic laws; that's the whole point of the event...
Well, no. Breaking laws "at every opportunity" is not the point of CM. You acknowledge it's a protest, of sorts, so you shouldn't be surprised that we go through stop signs. Big deal. As for property damage, that's not part of CM. Not sure what you've been reading. Beyond traffic laws, we generally don't do anything wrong, and IMO, people who do should be arrested.

so they don't have to do the proper paperwork for an event
Some cities do file the paperwork every month. Don't know which ones. Not mine. I don't like that idea because it requires declaring an official leader and an official "parade route", both of which miss the point of not needing to ask permission to use our own roads, and the point of it being a protest, not a parade.

they should all be ticketed and the few who take it even further, smashing car windows and such, should be arrested too. There's no reason they should be above the law, no matter how much they believe they are.
Fair. Any cyclists who break laws beyond traffic laws are stepping outside the protest, and are fair to arrest. And we sometimes are arrested, but usually just for riding our bikes, you know, like peaceful protesters often get arrested. But mostly, the police respect us as harmless protesters and let us go on our way, sometimes even helping to block intersections for us.

Make CM a cyclists' parade... it'll do wonders for your PR.
So, the exact same protest, but with some city bureaucrat's stamp on a piece of paper, and suddenly now it's OK with you? I mean, is it OK, or isn't it? If it's OK, then why do you care if we have a permit? If it's not OK with you, again, what difference would it make if we had a permit?>> ^xxovercastxx:

<the neat-o stuff quoted above>

>> ^Darkhand:

Show me where there was room to "go around" and I'll agree with you that the guy that did this was a horrible person. My whole post was based on the fact that they were taking up the >ENTIRE ROAD<.
>> ^pho3n1x:

Yeah, no...
Critical Mass is an organized peaceful protest that occurs in over 300 cities worldwide. You can fucking go around. Disagreeing with a peaceful protest, or being annoyed with the protesters, does NOT give anyone the right to run down fellow human beings with a 2 ton vehicle, wholesale, without regard to anyone's life at all.
I don't know of any cities in the WORLD that could produce that many bikers and only have 1 major thoroughfare.



Oh, should I give you specific pause points in the video to show the many MANY intersections which were available to detour through?

Show me where there was room to "go around" and I'll agree with you that the guy that did this was a horrible person. My whole post was based on the fact that they were taking up the >ENTIRE ROAD<.
>> ^pho3n1x:


Yeah, no...
Critical Mass is an organized peaceful protest that occurs in over 300 cities worldwide. You can fucking go around. Disagreeing with a peaceful protest, or being annoyed with the protesters, does NOT give anyone the right to run down fellow human beings with a 2 ton vehicle, wholesale, without regard to anyone's life at all.
I don't know of any cities in the WORLD that could produce that many bikers and only have 1 major thoroughfare.

>> ^Darkhand:

It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
Some of these rally's are peaceful but I can tell you as a motorist I'd be really REALLY pissed off if I got stuck behind a bunch of cyclists blocking the road. All of these people could take up one lane, but no, they choose to take up the entire street. Who cares about people that have to get to work? The buses carrying the masses maybe to the THEIR jobs, or home to their families? No, lets prove a point by completely stopping a major form of transportation.
I'm sorry but these people deserve what they got and I hope it happens at more of these gatherings where they block whole intersections and lanes of traffic.
I support everyones freedom to transport themselves anyway they want. I believe wherever possible we should have lanes that support cyclists. But this is NOT the way to do it.


Yeah, no...

Critical Mass is an organized peaceful protest that occurs in over 300 cities worldwide. You can fucking go around. Disagreeing with a peaceful protest, or being annoyed with the protesters, does NOT give anyone the right to run down fellow human beings with a 2 ton vehicle, wholesale, without regard to anyone's life at all.

I don't know of any cities in the WORLD that could produce that many bikers and only have 1 major thoroughfare.

Man, I still remember it. Sept 11th happened and two weeks later I was on a plane from the East Coast to move to San Francisco. It was a frightful plane ride but once I got here I exhaled deeply. Little did I know that the next seven or eight years would be like the dark ages for America (not in San Francisco though -heh, heh, heh).

The media were the Bush Administration's little lap dogs for nearly the entire time. I remember all the huge protests that happened around the world in the build up to the War in Iraq and how the media treated them. They either did not report on them or made them all seem like a bunch of window smashing anarchists like the ones seen during the WTO protests in Seattle. I remember the day we dropped bombs in Iraq on March 21st 2002. I remember being let out of classes at college to help shut San Francisco down. Some group called ANSWER had organized an event a long time and coming that if we went to war in Iraq, San Francisco would not be "Business as Usual".

I was arrested with several hundred people, thousands had been illegally "detained" - we filed a Class Action Lawsuit with the International Lawyer's Guild against the SFPD and won our case to have charges of "inciting a riot" withdrawn. We won in the court aftermath but the cops still won; they took people out of it one by one and successfully defused the situation - we were peaceful protesters, no one had any sort of revolt on their mind, except for the anarchist kids and they definitely were there, they were a massive thorn for the entire situation.

We shut it down for five days with the help of thousands upon thousands of people and thousands of riot cops. Major media did not report on it. Maybe, it was cliche of San Francisco residents to force the city out of commission for several days but it was newsworthy.

This is a good interview. I appreciate how Rumsfeld is able to steer blame and corruption even in front of Stewart. He's truly a wicked and greedy man.

It's interesting that you hate government, yet love your political party, while I like government and hate my political party.

A misconception my friend, no doubt fueled by my own words at times. Limited government that protects rights (and private property, which is the cornerstone of liberty) is vital and necessary. I love guv when it works and stays in its playpen. We don't have to have daily gladiatorial combat for food and gasoline.

It's all the rest of guv that annoys me. To me the State will always be, "the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." The bigger the government the smaller the citizen.

Re this sift: there is a level of practicality involved in these events. It could just as easily been Ron Paul speaking, so it's not necessarily Hillary Clinton's fault. However, she saw the whole thing and said nothing, whereas Paul might have protested the treatment. Even Obama may have acted in a more practical manner than just ignoring it. It was just Hillary's "bad luck" she was talking about the right to peacefully protest as this poor fellow was roughly carted off for that very act.

As for political parties, I'm aligned with the one closest to my beliefs that also has a measurable impact. As much as I admire libertarianism, the Libertarian Party (LP) remains a barely-known, misunderstood micro-entity. There's a reason the Pauls are Republicans and not card-carrying LPers, and I salute them for it. Change in the major parties comes from within.

Up until FDR, both major parties understood the meaning and intent of the Constitution. You could argue that 25% unemployment was a national emergency in the 1930s and justify some of FDR's actions. But most of what he started is still with us today.

After FDR, only one party even "pretended" to follow the Constitution, the other abandoned it for rule by men (or popularity) instead of by law.

From my perch, you hate the 'Crats (??) because they're not left-wing enough. Am I correct?

I'm fairly certain that would only make us feel much more frustrated about this whole deal.

It's not like the Quantumushfaces and Winston Picklefarmers of the world are gonna:
[even bother to] Read those documents..
Be astonished by all the lies and distortions..
Round up a bunch of fellow ex-"fox news loyalists"
Start a - "Take Back Our News" Political Action Committee

It would be business as usual for that ENORMOUS demographic.
They would lie and pretend and excuse it all away.
Wait for it to blow over and sweep the rest under the rug.

~~~
Can you even think of an independent, moderate group of people [with the wealth & time & power] that could exert enough political or economic pressure to back up Assange's threat?

CNN would jabber some about it for a segment then cut to the latest viral video.

Rachel Maddow and Ratigan and Cenk would ramble about it.

Tho they aren't organizing peaceful protests that stop traffic in an entire city..
or co-ordinating stadium sized TEDx talks about natural economics and politics and our we're developing as a species..

Or whatever it is we rational non-extremist human apes need to do to absolve ourselves of these assbackwards realities.

~~~
.. Maybe we could start a Videosift PAC.. ?


>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Assange needs to pick up the pace.

Sorry I am just now respondinng---I saw your reply buried in my "thousand emails" and I reply to all logical, respectful responders.

Well said btw. I see your points. I think corrupt actions has less to do with acountability than both sides upping the ante. The protestors want to be heard, so they yell louder. Some push the buttons--and law enforcement must respond. Law enforcement must be one echleon above the protestors, or else they lose all power (It is a seesaw effect.)

And so protestors respond in kind. Even the peaceful protests are affected by the bad apples. Then you have the "smart asses" who demean real authority...

Not only that, but when threatened with "stop protestors" or "lose job and family starve" I think most would chose the political route... So, the liabilty falls more on the city, county, state, nation leaders than cops.

sadly, both sides, to me, have lost the high ground. And that includes the side of the law... Sorry for spelling poorly, I am drunk. And thank you again.

>> ^Deano:
>> ^Lawdeedaw:
>> ^Deano:
You gotta love the cops. Do they have some sort of worldwide conference each year where they all get together and discuss how to be complete arseholes?

If most were, I would say yes. But since most do not act like assholes, then no. However, the douche cops, rare as they may be, those who plan on ruining it for the good guys, certainly do watch each other and learn.

That's very fair and balanced of you but in my experience as someone who's been on a couple of (very anodyne) protests and based on what we've seen in the last few years, there is clearly a collective mentality of thuggery embedded in the Met Police in the UK that rises to the surface on these occasions.
I bet in this case those coppers would ordinarily consider themselves great guys. But put them in this situation and they're quick to bare their teeth. It literally becomes an "us or them" situation and they stop policing. They start making stupid decisions. They'd rather kettle people (which is undoubtedly dangerous and now subject to legal challenges) or just whack people like Ian Tomlinson. And why not? There's no one to stop them. And again there were examples of the cops not wearing their numbers - AGAIN - and after the Police Commissioner had said post-G20 that this was NOT acceptable.
There have been so many examples of Police brutality documented over the last few years, not even counting the demonstrations, that I have to conclude there's a systemic problem and not just a case of a few bad eggs turning up each time. And the main reason for this is that the lack of accountability makes it easy, and tempting, to step out of line. You're unlikely to face charges so why not? And you can always claim it was in the heat of battle and thus you shouldn't have to face any comeback at all.
Oh and the latest development is that they want to use water cannon on protestors. Which will of course also include members of the public swept up in these confrontations. I think that when you need to use water cannons you can conclude that your society is a bit fucked up.

lol, no man, this is good. I like how he tries to get the audience involved as well. This kid is a poet and has leadership skills, pay attention to how he gets them involved. It's not a broadcast, but a conversation.

>> ^Jinx:

I want peacefully protest that kid. in the face. with my fists.
Like, it started out ok and I love the sentiment and all, but it just went ON and then the post rock whale singing or whatever was really too much and I vomited all over my keyboard.