[With the US Government it's "do as we say, not as we do." And this has been the case for decades—chris]
by: Dave Lindorff
ARTICLE HERE:
Ukraine’s new rulers, in one of their first acts, have disbanded that country’s riot police. Now without getting into the complex politics of the ongoing struggles in that country, or into the question of the covert role of the US in backing the protests that brought down the old government in Kiev, this elimination of a brutal paramilitary police organization got me to thinking: If Ukraine, which has just gone through a spasm of deadly violence, and which is still in a very dangerous and politically unsettled situation, can get along without riot police, why can’t the United States?
Lately, with political struggles occurring in the streets of Venezuela, Thailand, Ukraine and a number of other places, the US government has been declaring over and over that the governments being challenged should not resort to violence against their own people.
Here’s US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Venezuela:
“We support human rights and fundamental freedoms – including freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly – in Venezuela as we do in countries around the world.”
And here is President Obama, speaking about the police violence in Ukraine:
"We hold the Ukrainian government primarily responsible for making sure that it is dealing with peaceful protesters in an appropriate way, that the Ukrainian people are able to assemble and speak freely about their interests without fear of repression."
Even in Thailand where, unlike in Venezuela or Ukraine, the US is backing the government against protesters seeking new elections, with State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf still insisted that the US supports:
“...a democratic process to resolve the ongoing political tensions in Thailand...We also continue to urge all sides to refrain from violence, exercise restraint and respect the rule of law...and we do, I would note, applaud the restraint shown thus far by government authorities in this regard."
Now let’s compare those fine, high-minded scoldings and warnings -- and remember, we’re talking about three countries where the protesters have been seeking the overthrow of their existing governments, not just for reforms in the system, and protesters, particularly in Ukraine and Venezuela, who have themselves resorted to violence and especially to property damage -- to how our own government these days responds to peaceful public protest.
We need only look back just a little over two years to the brief and numerically rather small Occupy Movement that, beginning in September of 2011, swept the country from Wall Street in lower Manhattan to Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle and from Chicago to Miami. Within weeks of the inception of that protest against the power of the financial industry, against the destruction of ordinary working class and middle class people, and against the rank corruption of the US government, police in almost every jurisdiction where there was some occupation protest began using deliberate, amped-up violence, often quite brutal, to drive protesters from the public spaces they were occupying. We witnessed the random spraying of mace into faces, the firing of tear gas and potentially lethal concussion grenades, the firing of rubber bullets and bean-bag projectiles, often at close range, the widespread use of truncheons, and there were mass arrests.
It turned out, based upon communications obtained through various Freedom of Information requests, that this violent police crackdown in city after city was no coincidence. Rather, it was orchestrated by federal authorities at the FBI, the US “Justice” Department and the Department of Homeland Security, which were passing instructions, guidance, and tactical lessons from one city to others -- for example the idea applied first in Oakland Calif. to raid occupiers at night, using maximum force, while excluding the media -- an approach which was later adopted in most other cities. REST OF ARTICLE HERE:
by: Dave Lindorff
ARTICLE HERE:
Ukraine’s new rulers, in one of their first acts, have disbanded that country’s riot police. Now without getting into the complex politics of the ongoing struggles in that country, or into the question of the covert role of the US in backing the protests that brought down the old government in Kiev, this elimination of a brutal paramilitary police organization got me to thinking: If Ukraine, which has just gone through a spasm of deadly violence, and which is still in a very dangerous and politically unsettled situation, can get along without riot police, why can’t the United States?
Lately, with political struggles occurring in the streets of Venezuela, Thailand, Ukraine and a number of other places, the US government has been declaring over and over that the governments being challenged should not resort to violence against their own people.
Here’s US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Venezuela:
“We support human rights and fundamental freedoms – including freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly – in Venezuela as we do in countries around the world.”
And here is President Obama, speaking about the police violence in Ukraine:
"We hold the Ukrainian government primarily responsible for making sure that it is dealing with peaceful protesters in an appropriate way, that the Ukrainian people are able to assemble and speak freely about their interests without fear of repression."
Even in Thailand where, unlike in Venezuela or Ukraine, the US is backing the government against protesters seeking new elections, with State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf still insisted that the US supports:
“...a democratic process to resolve the ongoing political tensions in Thailand...We also continue to urge all sides to refrain from violence, exercise restraint and respect the rule of law...and we do, I would note, applaud the restraint shown thus far by government authorities in this regard."
Now let’s compare those fine, high-minded scoldings and warnings -- and remember, we’re talking about three countries where the protesters have been seeking the overthrow of their existing governments, not just for reforms in the system, and protesters, particularly in Ukraine and Venezuela, who have themselves resorted to violence and especially to property damage -- to how our own government these days responds to peaceful public protest.
We need only look back just a little over two years to the brief and numerically rather small Occupy Movement that, beginning in September of 2011, swept the country from Wall Street in lower Manhattan to Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle and from Chicago to Miami. Within weeks of the inception of that protest against the power of the financial industry, against the destruction of ordinary working class and middle class people, and against the rank corruption of the US government, police in almost every jurisdiction where there was some occupation protest began using deliberate, amped-up violence, often quite brutal, to drive protesters from the public spaces they were occupying. We witnessed the random spraying of mace into faces, the firing of tear gas and potentially lethal concussion grenades, the firing of rubber bullets and bean-bag projectiles, often at close range, the widespread use of truncheons, and there were mass arrests.
It turned out, based upon communications obtained through various Freedom of Information requests, that this violent police crackdown in city after city was no coincidence. Rather, it was orchestrated by federal authorities at the FBI, the US “Justice” Department and the Department of Homeland Security, which were passing instructions, guidance, and tactical lessons from one city to others -- for example the idea applied first in Oakland Calif. to raid occupiers at night, using maximum force, while excluding the media -- an approach which was later adopted in most other cities. REST OF ARTICLE HERE:
