Tony Baloney rides again:
White shirts on a NYPD officer means that he's a supervisor-level political appointee. The blue shirts are the street cops, who get their jobs via civil service exam. Apparently somebody yelled something at this white shirt that he didn't like, so he jumped the police line and started whaling at people with his nightstick, followed by a couple of his other white shirts (this remind you of the stereotype of four Streets Department supervisors watching one man Streets Department worker digging a ditch? Is NYPD padded by a huge layer of political appointees above the street cop level? Is water wet?). Apparently his hope was that they'd hit back and he'd get to issue the order to clear the street. They didn't, they just YouTubed him, and eventually the blue shirts basically jumped the police line to rescue him from his own stupidity.
The white shirts are all owned by Mayor Bloomberg, so it's not coincidence that they, not the blue-shirted civil service street cops, are the ones who are being caught on camera doing this shit. Bloomers wants a riot so he can paint the protesters as violent evil people, and is trying to provoke the crowds into giving him one. Thus far the white shirts are not succeeding, they're just pissing off the folks who see these videos and causing the crowds on Wall Street to grow bigger. People see that the Wall Street bankers who crashed our economy via fraud and outright theft are up there on the balconies drinking champagne and laughing while the people the Wall Street bankers made homeless are down on the street getting whaled on and arrested, and the justice -- or lack thereof -- of the situation is so blindingly obvious that anybody who's not a Fox News viewer can "get it".
On the plus side, Bloomers is doing *wonders* for the NYC tourism industry :).
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
I would suspect that unlike my Berkeley street wars of the 60's these people are somewhat organised.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine what it takes to go out knowing that the cops are going to crack heads and you are Not allowed to fight back.
I know Ghandi did it but I don't have those kind of stones.
Here's to the Heros of Now.
w3ski
Couldn't those victims report an assault to a New York State Trooper, and get some justice?
ReplyDeleteYeah, yeah... I know. That only works in Non-Crazy World, not this shit dimension we're stuck in.
I have been very impressed with the protesters in NYC. They really are inspiring people. I wonder how much of a role technology is playing in that. If a cop comes to beat you up, in the past it was your word against theirs and folks have long had a bias towards the police. But now, one can video tape the incident and can distribute it to large numbers of people. They say that the pen in mightier than the sward and now it seems that Youtube videos are mightier than a police baton.
ReplyDeleteTony B and his fellow thugs have shown their true colors, they're like the brown shirts of times past. The real cops should arrest these knuckle draggers.
ReplyDeleteIn a time like this, it seems having EVERYONE conspiciously filming the police at all times would just be common sense.
ReplyDeleteSome identifiable pro-bono lawyers wandering around and aggressively explaining people's rights might also be useful.
Good lord, that Whiteshirt doesn't even know how to use a baton properly - you don't lay about you two-handed like that. Are these appointees not even trained?
ReplyDeleteOf course, we are all committed to knowing the truth, right?
ReplyDeleteSo, the truth is, on this occasion it was __the protesters__ who counted down: 4 .. 3 .. 2 .. 1 and CHARGED the police line. Any truth seekers desire to see the FULL video that supports this assertion? Any one committed to knowing (or seeing) the truth?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWXvRGYFaBY
What happened before this scene is irrelevant. The police line is the line of bicycle racks. The white shirt is on the PROTESTER side of the bicycle racks, laying into people who quite clearly are no longer any threat of any kind if they ever were, in complete violation of NYPD policy and New York state law which only allows application of force in circumstances where necessary to arrest a criminal or stop a crime in progress (yes, I know a former New York upstate cop, he is appalled because this is the kind of behavior that led to him having to spend so much time documenting that his department *didn't* do this kind of shit). And what cops are doing keeping the public off of their own property, a street their taxes paid for, is another issue, but we'll leave that one for another day.
ReplyDeleteYour notion, "Jim", is apparently that because some people crowded some cops a few minutes earlier, the cops are thus entitled to punish as many people as they can lay their billy club on. Thing is, that's not what our Constitution (and New York state law) says. Our Constitution says that the *COURTS* are what's supposed to punish people -- all the cops are supposed to do is arrest them and bring them before the courts, not lay in with batons to push them. But your kind wants to live in a police state where cops are judge, jury, and executioner, so I suppose I'm probably confusing you. After all, the Constitution is just a piece of paper, and the concept of rule of law is just a ruse to convince the sheeple to chew their cuds quietly until the day they get fleeced... oh wait. Uhm, do you understand why pissing on rule of law is BAD FOR BUSINESS now? Or am I making too many connections for inbred lizard people to understand?
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
@Badtux You sure have a way with making a point. LOVE IT!
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of police officers. I have found that some police officers get into the field because they want to have power over people. And others get into the field because they want to serve other people. I've been really impressed with my little town because they've done a very good job of hiring the latter sort rather than the former. Police officers who come into the job with the attitude that they are there to protect people including protesters aren't the same sort who will lay down a beating at the drop of a hat.