If you think things in America are that different from China, just remember to take a sanity pill every once-in-awhile and to realize that things here are still BAD — very very BAD. Arguably freedom is worse off in America than it has been since McCartyhism. When Tibetans can’t even protest to Free Tibet in front of the fucking UN building with a Tibet flag on it, without officers beating, clubbing, and threatning to kill them — realize that the freedoms we have here are barely left. With the powers that be making big bucks off of trade agreements with China, dissent against China is synonymous with dissent against Big American Business. And Big American Business can most certainly influence how the police treat peaceful protesters. Observe for yourself:
Mood: a bit frustrated
Music: Ministry – WKYJ
Claire's blog 
March 26, 2008 at 10:22 AM
What a depressing display of unnecessary violence.
I had a hard time finding articles about the protest. Here’s one:
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-7385612,00.html
The only “cops side of the story” statement I’ve found is from Sgt. Carlos Nieves who claims “They were trying to gain access into the United Nations.”
It seems to me that the cops there were influenced more by their poor highly-emotional reactions to the situation (anger, fear, douchebaggery, powerlust, etc) than by their lust for the success of big business in China. But who can know for sure without seeing their investment portfolios. :)
March 26, 2008 at 10:34 AM
You’re mis-interpreting my comment. Cops are thugs, not businessmen.
But the reason they are there in the first place?
And the orders they may have received behind closed doors (i.e. “make sure to make some arrests no matter what happens” vs “we just need to make sure nobody gets hurt”) — those types of orders, orders on how severe to act prior to deployment — often come from upper-rank brass, who often work directly with political figures, mayors, etc. Everyone is tied together. Cops are not acting on their own, for their own best interests. They are a cog, a part of the machine of our government — and the machine acts as one. And it’s motivations are primarily capitalism-related.
The only way around this would be to have all police chiefs be 100% pure at heart! :)
March 26, 2008 at 11:54 AM
The other solution is to clone a cop army entirely from this guy:
March 27, 2008 at 11:40 AM
Hehe, I gotta wonder if that guy was putting on a pretty face for the camera, or if he was simply the figurehead “good cop” to make nice to the camera while 5 other cops go beating people. But yea, if that is sincere, it would be nice.
Anyway, just came here to add a link related to this:
GCHQ Confirms Violent Riots Staged By Chinese
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2008/032708_violent_riots.htm
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-3-27/68095.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2008/032408_staging_riots.htm
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-3-24/67972.html
March 27, 2008 at 12:05 PM
“I gotta wonder if that guy was putting on a pretty face for the camera, or if he was simply the figurehead ‘good cop’ to make nice to the camera while 5 other cops go beating people.”
Couldn’t you make the same observation about videos of bad cops? That maybe they aren’t really being bad?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_cop/bad_cop
March 27, 2008 at 12:09 PM
You could, and it might be a valid observation, but it wouldn’t matter.
A cop can be good for 10,000 hours — and change it all by destroying an innocent’s life, by pulling a trigger — in a fraction of a second.
As I’ve said before, evil is more powerful than good, because the natural state of things is entropy/death/destruction. Easier to kill a 50-year-old (takes milliseconds) than to create a 50-year-old (takes 51 years!). Eaiser to blow up a building, than to build it.
So, it really doesn’t matter. The ratio of “good cop airtime” to “bad cop airtime” could be 100,000 to 1, and we would still have a societal-level problem of abuse that directly threatens (and takes) lives each and every day.
March 27, 2008 at 2:06 PM
@dave:
I could buy that argument in cases where a cop is simply being an asshole but does not threaten violence.
However most of the videos that seem to surface, seem to do so specifically because violence has been threatened or actually occurred(especially with tasers). Which would be crossing the line even for a bad cop/good cop scenario.
While in some cases the use of force may indeed be justified, in the majority of cases, it doesn’t seem like it is.
March 27, 2008 at 2:45 PM
@Clint
So, if you think evil is more powerful than good, then you must think that there is more evil in the world than good. Am I interpreting correctly?
March 27, 2008 at 2:49 PM
If you measure in terms of power, yes.
I think the nuclear bombs and chemical weapon arsenals alone take care of that — The full force of destruction that mankind could unleash in an instant is far greater than what every person on the planet could create in equal time (or even over the rest of the lives of everyone currently alive).