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G20 Protesters Blasted By "Sound Cannon"
aaandre sends word of the use of a "sound cannon" on G20 protesters in Pittsburgh. Only a few hundred protesters took to the streets. The NY Times notes: "City officials said they believed it was the first time the sound cannon had been used publicly." The device projects a narrow beam of extremely annoying sound, at levels that can reach 151 decibels, over a distance of a mile or more. The Guardian notes, "It is feared the sounds emitted are loud enough to damage eardrums and even cause fatal aneurysms." Officials of the company that manufactures the sound cannon say that ear damage is only possible if someone manages to stand directly in front of the device for an extended period.
That is fucking horrible! Why do they even need to disperse a crowd of only a few hundred people!? I know that if I were there, it would just piss me off, and make me want to attack the vehicles! I'm normally a peaceful guy, but when people unfairly fuck with me, I just makes me pissed off.
Plus, seems like some $0.50 earplugs would be a good defense against this, if someone had the forethought to bring them... Or maybe that would be "resisting... something" and you'd get arrested? Ugh, this is really fucked up.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Umm. This article is pretty much about just one of the ways that lots of people are stopping you.
You ever actually look into what it takes to immigrate to another country? It's not near that simple.
Of course they get away with it. Who is there to oppose them? If you recall the police are supposed to be there to protect people and maintain order. Given that scenario there's no need for a group of organised civilians to keep people safe. Given that the reality is that the police are in the pay of the wealthy, what are we to do to protect ourselves from them?
There's lots of talk about the technological singularity which appears likely to manifest in the future. Similarly, I'm increasingly of the opinion that we are approaching a worldwide social singularity where ordinary people band together against their oppressive governments.
Aren't we all tired of the hypocrisy yet? the idea that our elected representatives .. represent us, *equally* ?
The reality is that these people have no more power than we give them. When we acknowledge that they are not morally superior we understand that they have no right to rule and so we resist being ruled.
Requiem for the American Dream
According to this guy, they aren't particularly organized and have nothing much in common other than they are unhappy with the world, and the G20 meeting seems like a good time to protest it. When the police showed up there were more people trying to film the police than there were actually protesting. The police looked annoyed and one of the most active participants was John Oliver from The Daily Show. I know some people just like protesting. It's kind of fun.
Although it really doesn't do much. Unless you are trying to bring awareness to some cause that no one has ever heard of but probably would care about if they did, protests aren't going to accomplish anything. Really, when was the last time you saw a protest on the death penalty, gay marriage, the Iraq war, abortion, or really anything that made you change your mind about it? It's hard to make a sensible, reasonable argument by yelling, blocking traffic, and trying to provoke police violence. Especially these days when any event at all is going to have some kind of protest.
Qxe4
As has been explained elsewhere in this thread, given that the slightest amount of violence becomes the focus for all media attention, overriding all legitimate concerns expressed by peaceful people, it's quite clear that the most direct way to suppress any dissenting voices it to create violence and blame it on dissenters.
The balance would come at the point where certain individuals no longer have the power to act (or coerce others to act) in any way they see fit under the guise of acting in the public interest.
This pattern if offensive in its simplicity and the extent to which it occurs; "Hey people we have a common enemy - allow us take control and we will keep you safe."
Requiem for the American Dream
They talk about the 'training' you get in the military, but at the end of the day, you're still expected to pack a rifle and engage in live fire 'if needed'. My daughter was supposed to be a mechanic in Iraq, but spent her 18 month tour guarding the motor pool while civilian contractors did the actual wrenching. My nephew was a medic in Iraq, assigned to hang out with the Special Forces troops in Feluga(sp) 4 years ago and only bandaged up captured 'guerillas' rounded up for questioning, after needing to put bullets in them to begin with.
Back during my time (late Vietnam War era), a lot of combat troops came home and went to school on the GI Bill. Big Unc paid for up to 4 years of college, no payroll deductions during your active duty time, and if you were a draftee & out in 2 years, no biggie, you still got the full 4 year ride. The troops coming out today don't have that option, they have the Montgomery GI Bill which requires veterans to put aside money for college during their active duty and Big Unc coughs up 8x what the vet puts away for up to 36 months. It's only in the last year or so that they finally voted in something close to the GI Bill I knew when I got out.
Now, considering that Big Unc wants trained killers around and really doesn't do a lot to help them readjust to civilian life if they don't get stop-lossed back into uniform, and considering the almost double digit unemployment in the US today, is there any wonder combat troops sign up as cops as the only viable job they're halfways trained for?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
If you want to understand why the are protesting then I suggest you read "The Mystery of Banking" by Murray Rothbard, "America's Great Depression" by Murray Rothbard. There are dozens of other great books and articles available at mises.org.
Fundamentally what G-20 is doing is coordinating their monetary inflation policies so that they can monetize their debts on pace with each other. If they did not then countries would be at risk of financial collapse. They have no intention of doing anything to actually solve the problem with global economy.
Rather than allowing the required process of price decline, wage decline, and general financial depression they are pumping inflation into the game to artificially keep prices high so no one notices the prices are changing. This is price control. But salaries effective buying power is plummeting. Need proof? Check the price of hard commodities like Gold, Silver, and even Mac & Cheese (up 14% in 2 months).
The G-20 is trying to coordinate all of this so that everyone's effective buying power falls in unison to help stabilize prices and trade.
Left to our own devices, the US would become a export nation because of falling wages. But first we need the industrial infrastructure to do this -- which we have largely lost over the last 50 years. Which means we probably won't really recover during most of our lifetimes.
Given some of the footage I've seen [mediaite.com]... that would seem to fit it...
For anyone who didn't watch thevideo he posted it shows the police already having described it as unlawful assembly and have already began firing in tear gas and using the "sound cannon". A large amount of the crowd are journalists. The garbage dumpsters thing was a few people rolling it towards the police, it was pretty pathetic and in no way made it a riot. Even so considering the police were already using force to try and disperse them it is well known that this can cause people to riot (see G20 protests in London and the kettling) and so it can be the police that causes the violence in the first place.
Really? Your Google-foo must be weak... mine though is strong, because a quick search for g 20 pittsburgh damage [google.com] turns up 290k hits... repeating a number of ~50k in damage (20k of which sounds to be due to one man).
Haha yes your google-foo is so strong that you think that the number of results from an unquoted query on google proves anything. Did you even look at the first link google responds with?
Well here it is. The first paragraph:
"PITTSBURGH - A vociferous but peaceful group of several thousand people marched for miles through downtown Pittsburgh on Friday, united by opposition to the Group of 20 summit but expressing a diversity of mostly liberal causes as an army of stone-faced riot police watched their every move"
So in summary if you are trying to correct someone for spouting bullshit don't bullshit yourself.