As fellow law professor sent me this video of Oakland police shooting a photographer. The video raises serious questions of the unjustified use of force.
In the video, the police appear to be standing without challenge when, around the 33 second mark, an officer suddenly shoot a photographer who is a good distance from the police line.
I cannot imagine the claim of justification in this case when the use of rubber bullets present significant potential harm to citizens, as shown below.
Kudos: Professor Alberto Bernabe (John Marshall Law School)
Source: Lowering Bar
Jill, You raised a red flag when you spoke favorably of Eric Erickson in 2010.
Blouise,
My cat stepped on the computer. My first sentence should read, Are you intellectually honest enough…Long before you came to this blog, just about from its beginning, I have been here speaking out against the injustice and cruelty of the Bush administration. I have never backed off calling it lawless and immoral. You can find this out for yourself by checking the records, asking JT or, if rafflaw will be an honest person, he can publicly state what I’m saying is true.
Blouise,
I you intellectually honest enough to ask JT a question and publicly post the answer to it? Will you ask him if I took on the Bush administration with the same amount of vigor as I take on the Obama administration? Write him an e-mail. He has my IP address and will know what I have said in the past on this blog. I know you are certain I am a tea bagger, but you can check the veracity of this claim if you are intellectually honest enough to do so. I only ask that you publish the response on this blog. It would be nice if you also admitted you were wrong, but I leave that to your conscience.
I have no idea why you and others think I excuse violence of any kind. You should be able to show where I excuse it in fact, before you state such a thing.
Do you have the courage to test your statements about me?
Blouise I did not really have a personal encounter with an angry tea party member until that healthcare rally. I won’t go into the details again. My husband reported that they were gathered by the northwest highway with anti-immigrant signs. I was told on this blog a year ago that I needed to join hands with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpcxfsjIIbM
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpcxfsjIIbM&w=560&h=315%5D
“One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” – Joseph Stalin
I guess a crime against a person is a tragedy, but a crime against millions of people is simply a statistic to some people.
Remember the footage of teabaggers mocking a crippled man because he supported the health care law … that was long ago … old news … well, maybe not so much
Here’s newer news from just last August:
‘The Chair of the Sumter South Carolina Tea Party posted — and then quickly pulled — a post on her Facebook page earlier this month that joked about throwing the Obamas out of a helicopter.
Shery Lanford Smith posted the the joke on her Facebook page on August 11th. The page is now private.
In the joke, the Obamas are on a helicopter talking about how they could make people happy if they threw money out the window. The pilot says: “I could throw both of them out of the window and make 256 million people very happy!” Smith added: “If you’re one of 256 million, PASS IT ON.”
“It’s just a joke,” she told the Item. “I had no idea it would be an issue.”’
I love it when Koch’s teabaggers lecture others about kindness and decency … “I had no idea …”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/tea_party_chair_in_sc_posts_joke_about_killing_obama.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwEvysDpNm0&NR=1
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwEvysDpNm0&w=420&h=315%5D
S’all right boys, even Barney got it wrong sometimes… 😉
“they dont take it, they make it.” (Bron) … or just inherit it
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/20/naacp_report_ties_tea_party_to NAACP report ties tea party to militia and racist groups.
Bron, I am one of the 99% and I have several employees in our small company. We are fortunate in that the worse the economy gets, the greater the demand for our services. Most are not that well positioned. We have also moved our banking to a small locally owned–and well managed–bank.
It is kind of nice to be able to get a walk-in appointment with the President and CEO of the bank if I want to talk to him. He is certainly well off, but probably considers himself one of the 99% as well. He would have very little in common with the fat cats on Wall Street. For one thing, he is fiscally conservative and does not milk the bank for every last cent so he can have a multimillion dollar paycheck at the end of the year.
Elaine:
they dont take it, they make it.
Who do they take it from?
Wealth isnt static, it is created by individuals out of nothing using only imagination and hard work.
If the 99% are upset they arent wealthy, let them invent the next big thing and bring it to market or start a business or learn how to invest in stocks or real estate.
They seem to think it is easy to become wealthy, they are free to do the same as the 1% has. Most of whom did not inherit their money but made it.
I might also add they employed many people while doing so and expanded the size of the economic pie for all.
So let the 99% make their own if they are willing to work very hard, willing to make the sacrifices and are smart enough to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.
Otherwise the 99% should stay out of the way of the 1% and let them do what they do best: create wealth.
I never got a job from the 99%.
Of course if the 1% break laws they should go to jail but then so should the 99%.
Also remember that most of the 1% used to be part of the 99%. Probably some of your highschool and college friends or maybe a relative? I wonder if their relatives and friends think they are evil?
Class warfare is an ebbing tide which sinks all boats. Maybe that is what most people want? If they cannot be wealthy they dont want anyone else to be? Like crabs in a basket, they pull the other crabs back in whey they want to escape?
I just talked to a woman who was selling cookies at a farmers market 3-4 months ago, she just opened a full service bakery and is probably on her way to becoming one of the 1%. She and her daughter run the business and they make great cookies, I mean outstanding cookies.
Jill, I will stop making fun of the tea partiests when they disavow Koch money and influence. They may have started out sincere enough, but were completely co-opted by the Koch crime family and Koch supporters.
I am not making fun of the individuals–some of them are my neighbors–but I will make fun of the movement as a whole because it is bought and paid for by the very Wall Street tycoons who got us into this mess.
Elaine,
Thanks for posting that! I’ve been looking for that transcript!
To others, I’ll try one last time. Really then, I will give up on your ability to understand that you are falling for propaganda by your govt. I AM NOT saying you should support the tea party movement. I AM saying you need to stop the following:
1. demonizing another whole group of people
2. stop believing that the tea party movement is the cause of everything going wrong in the nation and the world. If that were true, you would have to believe the tea party movement controls the govts. of every nation in the EU as well as the US govt. The same economic fuck over that is happening in the US is happening in Europe. If you truly believe that is the work of the tea party, please provide some proof. You are stuck in the partisan loop. Get out of it. Look at the much larger picture. The elites are moving against the people. These elites have tea party members. These elites have Democratic members. These elites have socialists and fascists members. How can you not see that?
3. things are falling apart. You can’t put them back together by hating your neighbor. If your neighbor is different from you, reach out. Even when you disagree you can still be a kind, decent helpful person to your neighbor.
Most of you are Christians. What I am saying should not really sound strange to you.
If Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan can reach out to each other, so can you and your neighbor. Your unthinking hatred will help the govt. divide and conquer. Please stop falling for this.
Bron, I am hardly just figuring that out. The video just offered proof of what we all knew. Creepy.
Otteray Scribe:
you just figuring that out? This happens all the time with serious issues. They are picked up from say the New York Times and transmitted all over the MSM without question, without comment.
In my opinion it is because journalists are lazy and have biases. They are not reporters in the mold of an Edward R. Murrow. Who probably had biases, as we all do, but apparently he kept his opinions to himself and reported the news as it was actually happening.
Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.
By Joseph E. Stiglitz
Vanity Fair
May 2011
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105
Excerpt:
It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.
Economists long ago tried to justify the vast inequalities that seemed so troubling in the mid-19th century—inequalities that are but a pale shadow of what we are seeing in America today. The justification they came up with was called “marginal-productivity theory.” In a nutshell, this theory associated higher incomes with higher productivity and a greater contribution to society. It is a theory that has always been cherished by the rich. Evidence for its validity, however, remains thin. The corporate executives who helped bring on the recession of the past three years—whose contribution to our society, and to their own companies, has been massively negative—went on to receive large bonuses. In some cases, companies were so embarrassed about calling such rewards “performance bonuses” that they felt compelled to change the name to “retention bonuses” (even if the only thing being retained was bad performance). Those who have contributed great positive innovations to our society, from the pioneers of genetic understanding to the pioneers of the Information Age, have received a pittance compared with those responsible for the financial innovations that brought our global economy to the brink of ruin.
Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to do well over the long haul. There are several reasons for this.
First, growing inequality is the flip side of something else: shrinking opportunity. Whenever we diminish equality of opportunity, it means that we are not using some of our most valuable assets—our people—in the most productive way possible. Second, many of the distortions that lead to inequality—such as those associated with monopoly power and preferential tax treatment for special interests—undermine the efficiency of the economy. This new inequality goes on to create new distortions, undermining efficiency even further. To give just one example, far too many of our most talented young people, seeing the astronomical rewards, have gone into finance rather than into fields that would lead to a more productive and healthy economy.
Third, and perhaps most important, a modern economy requires “collective action”—it needs government to invest in infrastructure, education, and technology. The United States and the world have benefited greatly from government-sponsored research that led to the Internet, to advances in public health, and so on. But America has long suffered from an under-investment in infrastructure (look at the condition of our highways and bridges, our railroads and airports), in basic research, and in education at all levels. Further cutbacks in these areas lie ahead.
None of this should come as a surprise—it is simply what happens when a society’s wealth distribution becomes lopsided. The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend money on common needs. The rich don’t need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal security—they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had. They also worry about strong government—one that could use its powers to adjust the balance, take some of their wealth, and invest it for the common good. The top 1 percent may complain about the kind of government we have in America, but in truth they like it just fine: too gridlocked to re-distribute, too divided to do anything but lower taxes.
Economists are not sure how to fully explain the growing inequality in America. The ordinary dynamics of supply and demand have certainly played a role: laborsaving technologies have reduced the demand for many “good” middle-class, blue-collar jobs. Globalization has created a worldwide marketplace, pitting expensive unskilled workers in America against cheap unskilled workers overseas. Social changes have also played a role—for instance, the decline of unions, which once represented a third of American workers and now represent about 12 percent.
But one big part of the reason we have so much inequality is that the top 1 percent want it that way. The most obvious example involves tax policy. Lowering tax rates on capital gains, which is how the rich receive a large portion of their income, has given the wealthiest Americans close to a free ride. Monopolies and near monopolies have always been a source of economic power—from John D. Rockefeller at the beginning of the last century to Bill Gates at the end. Lax enforcement of anti-trust laws, especially during Republican administrations, has been a godsend to the top 1 percent. Much of today’s inequality is due to manipulation of the financial system, enabled by changes in the rules that have been bought and paid for by the financial industry itself—one of its best investments ever. The government lent money to financial institutions at close to 0 percent interest and provided generous bailouts on favorable terms when all else failed. Regulators turned a blind eye to a lack of transparency and to conflicts of interest.
How Wall Street Occupied America
by Bill Moyers
This article is adapted from a speech Bill Moyers gave in October at Public Citizen’s fortieth-anniversary gala.
The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/article/164349/how-wall-street-occupied-america
Excerpt:
During the prairie revolt that swept the Great Plains in 1890, populist orator Mary Elizabeth Lease exclaimed, “Wall Street owns the country…. Money rules…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.”
She should see us now. John Boehner calls on the bankers, holds out his cup and offers them total obeisance from the House majority if only they fill it. Barack Obama criticizes bankers as “fat cats,” then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 a person.
That’s now the norm, and they get away with it. The president has raised more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and private equity managers than any Republican candidate, including Mitt Romney. Inch by inch he has conceded ground to them while espousing populist rhetoric that his very actions betray.
Let’s name this for what it is: hypocrisy made worse, the further perversion of democracy. Our politicians are little more than money launderers in the trafficking of power and policy—fewer than six degrees of separation from the spirit and tactics of Tony Soprano.
Why New York’s Zuccotti Park is filled with people is no mystery. Reporters keep scratching their heads and asking, “Why are you here?” But it’s clear they are occupying Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied the country. And that’s why in public places across the nation workaday Americans are standing up in solidarity. Did you see the sign a woman was carrying at a fraternal march in Iowa the other day? It read, I Can’t Afford to Buy a Politician So I Bought This Sign. Americans have learned the hard way that when rich organizations and wealthy individuals shower Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they get what they want.
In his Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Radicalism of the American Revolution, historian Gordon Wood says that our nation discovered its greatness “by creating a prosperous free society belonging to obscure people with their workaday concerns and pecuniary pursuits of happiness.” This democracy, he said, changed the lives of “hitherto neglected and despised masses of common laboring people.”
If anyone suspects the media are coordinating what they put on the air, then this should creep you out.