Beyond appalling.
Please post useful links, pics, videos. I will update this post with more.
Video of demonstration, police firing teargas and rubber bullets.
Ferguson Is 60 Percent Black. Virtually All Its Cops Are White.
Google News Realtime coverage of Ferguson
Am reading unconfirmed reports in my twitter feed of one protester shot in the neck, and paramedics not being allowed in.
Another one shot and wounded in the leg earlier, was being taken to hospital in a private vehicle.
This is scary. It really does look like a war zone. WTF?
https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/82B1DB6B321111523529654222848_2f7dfb03d8d.2.1.13878851739985581345.mp4?versionId=fOqpUGfbcWcT.hvHNihT7IZJBcTZDb8d
The release of that video just alludes to the complete Barney Fife incompetence of the local police. If there going to do that kind of stuff then someone needs to go back and look up their arrest and misconduct records and release all that information to the public.
Oh no,that’s right! Even now the local PD are vigorously shredding any evidence of misconduct ,brutality and incompetence by that department. I’m absolutely certain of that. Just as I’m certain that they’ve been violating those peoples rights for decades and it finally just reached a head.
And a great big Eat shit! to every one of the mentally inert assholes who were so easily derailed by that video. It’s amazing to me how once the authorities introduce some irrelevant
negative info about the victims of various shootings, all compassion just flies out the window. What? Were these people only pretending to be concerned about the violation of Black peoples right to live? We’re handing out death sentences for shoplifting , being a bully or just walking around in the street now?
And I guess that’s why that video was released, if they are competent at nothing else on Earth, they do know how their White public will react. They’re like magpies-distracted by…..SQUIRREL!
Oh and kudos to those people who have made the connection between the same attitudes some people have about blaming rape victims and aligning that squarely with the attitude on display right now all over the internet-that Mike Brown was asking for it.
It’s the exact same narrative. A woman gets raped-what did she do? Nothing.
Rewrite the script to make it about something SHE did wrong.
A Black man is shot-what did he do? Nothing.
Rewrite the scenario to make it about his criminal past. It’s completely irrelevant whether or not his shooter knew about that.
They must have done something to deserve whatever happened to them.
I’m so glad people have pointed out this confluence of victim blaming and put both of these schemes together.
Maybe it’s just because I grew up in more than one country where actual everyone knows it’s happening government propaganda was a thing, but the way they’re trying to spin this seems so obvious. Not just the victim blaming of Brown, which images are being allowed to get out via official media channels and the way those are being curated to depict the protesters as scary and violent. They’re aiming to create the impression in the minds of the public that Ferguson was such a dangerous place to be a cop that, well, don’t you feel sorry for the poor white guy who shot that kid?
I just hope most people aren’t falling for it. There seems to be more pushback against this than against similar attempts at spin in the past.
I’ve been on-and-off following the #ferguson twitter thing since yesterday, and watching news reports that analyze the spin. Rachel Maddow did a thing the other night where she talked about how the deaths at Kent State resulted from a change in police action a few years before. Protestors did not become violent until AFTER the police did.
In the meantime, what I’m listening to in my car is Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath. I just did a grocery run, and I listened to his recounting of actions by the British army in Northern Ireland in 1969. The similarities are striking and bone-chilling.
It’s obvious, and has been demonstrated time and again, that increasing the police’s show of force backfires and only increases the ire of demonstrators.
It’s almost 50 years later, and most policing doesn’t seem to have changed from obviously, hideously, tragically failed methods. Why are the people who are repeatedly WRONG the ones who are listened to?
Not sure if it has been shared yet, but I thought this was an awesome commentary http://youtu.be/RU_Z7kD5i7g
Here we go again. What the fuck? I’m going to throw a TW on this link because there’s a vine of an 8 year old who’s been pepper sprayed and it’s unpleasant viewing.
http://gawker.com/chaos-erupts-in-ferguson-as-police-launch-abrupt-offens-1623108362/all
Apparently the police are only letting white press members through now? http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/08/police-in-ferguson-tear-gas-children-and-media
I am so angry that I am living in a country where this kind of thing just keeps happening. You know, just a day or two before I heard about Michael Brown my grandpa was telling me about how he’d gotten into a minor altercation with another old white man and do you know who he was scared of? The boyfriend of the old man’s daughter, who happened to be black. Even though that man wasn’t even the one he was fighting with and did nothing to involve himself in confrontation until he was told to get my grandpa’s license plate number. I love my grandpa more than I have the words to express but that kind of attitude is just so problematic.
I haven’t been a part of a mass protest since 2011, but I am only six hours from Ferguson and damn it, I want to help. Maybe if I get my white pasty face in front of a camera someone will pay attention, since pale skin is all the other side seems willing to listen to. But more than anything, I just want to be able to talk to the people on the front lines and hear the story from them. People who put their safety on the line for justice, REAL justice, are true heroes and the kind of company I would like to keep.
Here we go again. What the fuck? I’m going to throw a TW on this link because there’s a vine of an 8 year old who’s been pepper sprayed and it’s unpleasant viewing.
Welcome to your shiny new police state.
Except our shiny new police state is pretty much older than me. I’ve known for a while that crime rates have been dropping for years, but I never knew that the police forces nation wide were becoming increasingly aggressive. That’s so backwards it’s appalling.
Don’t these police forces know anything about proportional force? Actually, forget that. I’m sorry I asked.
Tear gassed an eight year old? What is going on in my country? We should be better than this. Have we lost the ability to see others as people? Do we really feel threatened by young children (especially those not even in double digits yet)? I just don’t understand.
Poor kid. It’s all so horrifying. For some reason the curfews are one of the things that bother me the most, maybe because that’s just such a typical symbol of a police state exercising petty control over their citizens.
What I want to know is … how come all that shiny, powerful equipment doesn’t include a dozen or a gazillion, or even one, single, solitary loudhailer of astounding levels of power?
They couldn’t yell at people for a while, before warning them, before attacking them?
The Missouri Govenor is now bringing in the National Guard.
To restrain the regular police, right?
…Right?
mildlymagnificent – they have apparently be using a long range acoustic device – LRAD – which is supposed to be a powerful loud-hailer – but it seems they’re more interested in using it as a weapon.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/08/14/lrad_long_range_acoustic_device_sound_cannons_were_used_for_crowd_control.html
First, it angered me to hear the National Guard was being brought in, on top of everything else. Now I’m trying to decide if maybe, just maybe the National Guard will be more reasonable. I have a hard time hoping because, from my experience, police get more aggressive the further removed they are from the targeted community.
Then again, the local police were about as awful as it gets from the start. At least they set the bar low? Why can’t I feel optimistic?
Hey Ally S, can you tell me where you’re getting these updates so quickly? There is usually an awesome grass roots supported website for protests of this magnitude, but my way of finding them usually involves talking to people who are on the front lines. (I lack activist friends and frequently live in the Depressed Cave. It makes these things harder to stay on top of than they should be.)
I have no idea why that extra dash ended up there. :/
Links:
https://twitter.com/AP/status/501262559526526976
https://governor.mo.gov/news/archive/following-coordinated-attacks-civilians-and-law-enforcement-governor-nixon-signs
@Pabu
All of my updates are coming through Tumblr. .
Pabu,
The #Ferguson tag on Twitter is really up to date too. A lot of photos and first hand accounts come in.
I just want to say that I also really appreciate all of the effort all of you are taking to keep everyone here posted with these links. I’ve been reading through as many of them as I can before I have to take some long moments for thorough brain bleaching. It really sucks to feel powerless in the face of so much…awful.
Ally S and WWTH, I think it’s time to get on Tumblr and get a Twitter account. Facebook just isn’t cutting it. Thanks for the advice!