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BART Disables Cell Service To Disrupt Protests
1729 writes "Yesterday, in an effort to disrupt rumored protests at Bay Area Rapid Transit stations, BART officials disabled cell phone and internet access within most of the BART system by shutting down the antennas that enable reception in the underground stations."
Enjoy your stay.
How long will it be before they just gas a place with knock-out gas in order to "keep the peace"?
BART= Backasswards Response to Threats
Arab Spring
English Summer
American Autumn
If someone needs to dial for help and they can't because BART has disabled cell phone service?
When Poland's workers organized to protest the Communist government, one of the government's countermeasures was to disable the phone system.
My mother remarked at the time how unimaginable it was to live in a place where the phones could stop working because the government wanted them to.
This will *also* disable any early / current news access. The London bus bombings a few years ago were widely reported on by people carrying cellphones w/ photo or video capability. News will still come out, eventually, but if it trickles out *as it happens* both citizens and law enforcement might also get an early heads-up.
The subway sections of BART contain special cell antennas to allow service underground -- these were recently added in the past few years.
Given this, it seems like on the one hand that the service is a privileged. It certainly didn't exist more than 5 years ago, and people got along fine without underground cell service.
On the other hand, disrupting cell service seems like a violation of free speech. It may not be necessary for free speech, but it's still a method people use to communicate.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Isn't it called the "Underground" in London?
In other news, delays blamed on "failed router"
Testing?
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/08/09/bart-says-faulty-network-router-caused-massive-monday-night-delays/
-- Terry
Blocking calls to 911 and other emergency calls people might have to make seems like it could cause some problems.
Maybe would-be protesters should go write their Amateur Radio licence (it's super-dumbed down in the US) so they can broadcast on a whole heap of frequencies, instead of relying on industry run infrastructure and website services.
Actually no wait, the government will just jam that with spread spectrum blockers. Oh well.. I tried. Looks like we're fucked.
Mike
It wouldn't bother me so much if they could switch it over to "emergency only" mode. What happens if somebody has a heart attack on the train? Can you say "lawsuit"?
Civil rights issues aside, BART screams like a banshee. It's much worse than the DC Metro. I can't imagine doing anything other than texting in there. Far and away it's the worst form of PT in the BA. I'd actually rather ride a bus.
moe's tavern is safe from prank calls and all it took was cutting the phone lines.
I take the BART every day to work (Fremont to SF). While many stations are underground, when the trains leave the stations they are above-ground and can use normal (non-BART controlled) reception. Most of the time, the BART travels above-ground, not underground. (Also, even with the underground antennas on, the reception is still terrible, so you wouldn't want to make a call anyway.) Also, the wifi sucks, i just use tethering.
If an unfriendly group (let's call it a "terrorist cell") wanted to disrupt phone & internet service for an attack, they just have to let BART know in advance that they're planning a protest? Hmm - not sure if they thought this one through...
The rest of this story is business as usual. The disruption of emergency service makes this a serious boner on their part.
From the BART website:
Comments and Complaints - 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday-Friday, 24/7 voice mail 510 464-7134
Better yet, here is the contact information for BART's Government & Community Relations folks -- drop them a note and CC your local representative:
ALAMEDA COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE
Walter Gonzales, wgonzal@bart.gov, (510) 464-6428
Representing the following BART stations: North Berkeley, Downtown Berkeley, Ashby, Rockridge, MacArthur, 19th Street, Oakland City Center/12th Street, West Oakland, Lake Merritt, Fruitvale, Coliseum/Oakland Airport, San Leandro, Bay Fair, Castro Valley, Dublin/Pleasanton, Hayward, South Hayward, Union City and Fremont.
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE
June Garrett, jgarret@bart.gov 510-464-6257
Representing the following BART stations: Orinda, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill, Concord, North Concord/Martinez, Pittsburg/Bay Point, El Cerrito Plaza, El Cerrito Del Norte and Richmond.
SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE
Molly Burke, mburke@bart.gov 510-464-6172
Representing the following BART stations: Embarcadero, Montgomery St, Powell St, Civic Center, 16th Street, 24th Street, Glen Park, Balboa Park, Daly City, Colma, South San Francisco, San Bruno, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Millbrae.
LEGISLATION
Paul Fadelli, Legislative Officer, pfadell@bart.gov 510-464-6159
DEPARTMENT MANAGERS
Kerry Hamill, Department Manager of Government and Community Relations, khamill@bart.gov 510-464-6153
Roddrick Lee, Division Manager of Local Government and Community Relations, rlee@bart.gov 510-464-6235
ADMINISTRATION
Lisa Moland, Goverment and Community Relations Specialist, lmoland@bart.gov 510-464-7227
Mailing Address:
Bay Area Rapid Transit District
Government and Community Relations Department
300 Lakeside Drive, 18th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
Fax Number: 510-464-6146
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the ass clowns"
Many people trying to get home meanwhile the ass clowns...being ass clowns...
Since crime must be prevented, everything should be shut down to prevent all sorts of crime. Never mind about protests. What about real crimes like bank robbery and murder? Phone shouldn't work, guns shouldn't fire, TVs should turn off, and cell phones, FaceBook, Twitter, should all be silenced. Then there's that whole internet thing... Everyone please just stay home and be safe! Think of the children.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
To cut communications without a court order and disrupting the general public strikes me as being illegal. Also with medical issues and large numbers of people cutting off communications could easily kill someone. This seems to me to be actionable and someone needs a lawyer to get the ball rolling.
and in vancover they riot over losing a NHL game
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
And then what happens when their is a medical, or otherwise, emergency that is not able to be 'dealt with' (in whatever way it needs dealing: Police, medical, etc).
Who shoulders the responsibilities when the phones go down on purpose?
Our society, as an entire world, is screwed.
Religion is important to a lot of people.
How long will it be before they just gas a place with knock-out gas in order to "keep the peace"?
About 9 years ago.
... After a two-and-a-half day siege, Russian Spetsnaz forces pumped an unknown chemical agent into the building's ventilation system and raided it. 39 of the attackers were killed by Russian forces, along with at least 129 of the hostages (including nine foreigners). All but a few of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by the toxic substance pumped into the theater to subdue the militants. The use of the gas was widely condemned as heavy handed, but Moscow insisted it had little room for manoeuvre — faced with the prospect of 50 heavily armed rebels prepared to kill themselves and their hostages."
"[Armed Chechens] took 850 hostages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis
Wish I had mod points today - that was great!
#DeleteChrome
are they? Nope they are going to wake up and go to their jobs and deal with it.
THis is just the beginning but by the time it really hits it will be too late. Keep on keeping on sheeples
Got it
I haven't been to that part of the country at all myself; do they have emergency callboxes available? Most other mass transit systems I am familiar with have call boxes available so people without cell phones can still make emergency calls.
Of course, for some reason we know consider facebook updates to be "emergency" matters. I wouldn't want taxpayer money going to help someone post an up-to-the-minute "ZOMG! UR HAIR IS DA BOMB" on facebook from the subway.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
BAH! In Chicago they riot when the team wins!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Hang on, since they did this by shutting down the antennas, didn't this also include 911 service?
So, when does the class action lawsuit begin?
IANAL, just a citizen who has had occasion to use 911 when another citizen was in immediate peril. I'd think the first move would be to get an injunction to prevent this from happening again. And then sue the living crap out of the BART transit authority for emperiling the public.
Defense: "Your honor, we shut down the cellular system in response to a report that there was going to be civil unrest."
Prosecution: "Really? That's your defense?"
Defense: "Yes."
Prosecution: "Your honor, we would like to change the charge to 'Shutting down 911 service during a time when the defense expected there to be civil unrest.'"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
My apologies. As others have pointed out, I was mistaken. What I was referencing was an incident in oakland years ago. Not sure why I thought people would be rioting now about it, but the circumstances were different. The man was not restrained.
Protestors fought back using semaphore flags to maintain communications. They later performed Wuthering Heights in semaphore as part of the protest.
That's not rioting - that's over-exuberance.
In fact, I was exhausted that night from a 500 mile drive and made a wrong turn heading through town on I-90 just after the game finished. I ended up down-town on Michigan Ave., instead of safely in the 'burbs. If I was tired, before that, I was energized by the thousands of people dancing around the cars, holding up traffic, and scared piss-less that they'd do something to us.
Fortunately, nothing happened to us, but it took almost four hours or longer to get back on the highway and drive the 40 miles home.
brilliant, absolutely brilliant. give people another reason to be pissed off, that'll calm them down.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Yes
But fuck you - the american$ I gave much of my life to server and defend. These events are why I try to beat sense into everyone around me: The devices you carry, what you do, EVERYTHING, your transactions - it's all there. And you America - you give it up for an iPud and a handjob from Google. Enjoy your fucking toys...
Enlightenment is a pipe dream. So where's the pipe?
they can provide us bad service on top of that. Because they can shut down our speech, they get rid of any bad publicity. How ingenious.
more protests should be organized to fight this flagrant violation of the first amendment!!!.
I for one think the governme$W$F$ w)(^##$#@+_-=$%^gv
is a shining example of Democracy, a beacon of freedom which every american enjoys. Go USA.
Good people go to bed earlier.
yea, that's gonna work because effectively telling people to shut up is the best way to stop a riot (sarcasm mode off). man, gatekeepers p155 m3 0ff.
We create a great country that many cherish, and a few are surprised that it is able to protect itself. We build armies, too, and people are shocked when they go to war. People produce children and much later have difficulty understanding that they have grown up. How strange! Then again, I have trouble understanding these people who have trouble understanding. LOL!
Doesn't the provider have an obligation to provide the service they have been awarded the rights to provide?
Frequency allocation here (Norway) is handled by auction where the winner gains not only the rights to use the spectrum but the protection of this use by the government. In return, they are required to operate the service according to established regulations for the common good. This usually includes things like an expected level of coverage, defined acceptable rate of missed calls and an obligation to keep the service running.
Switching a service off would net the provider with some hefty fines here. Doing so for political reasons to boot would make them profoundly unpopular. Don't you have some sort of oversight to handle this type of thing or is the frequency usage allocated without such requirements?
(Captcha: "Corrupts"... the irony is overwhelming)
There was going to be a riot win or lose. Most know that. It was planned in advance and organized to use the hockey game as a cover.
Lucky! Neither DC nor NYC have connectivity, at least underground...
I seem to remember back before the days of Digital PCS when it really was actual Cellular Phones, a company (I can't remember their name) developed a cellular blocking device that was marketed to movie theaters, supermarkets, and general public areas. The various cellular companies got together and petitioned the FCC for the banning of these devices because they blocked people from making Emergency 911 calls which was considered Illegal. So when did it become ok for BART to disrupt peoples ability to make Emergency 911 Calls?
I roughly agree with your sentiment, but I wonder just how much "get[ting] up in the way of regular people" should be allowed. That's a long spectrum with many shades from, say, carrying signs to detonating fertilizer bombs next to government buildings.
The point of protest/demonstration doesn't seem to me to be to cause pain or even inconvenience. It's to make visible your opinion. A 10,000-person march per se, if could do it without creating traffic problems or scaring people, would achieve the goal.
Causing difficulty for others isn't a civic duty. Making known broadly-held opinion is.
BART Officials and SF Police Goon Squads running around with Shit in Pants.
We win.
==++//
What you seeing here is the inevitable end result of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact block falling apart as they were the only thing holding back the Western authoritarians and autocrats from enacting their visions of "Law and Order" (with rich and connected people on top).
What your mouth-foaming rant fails to mention is that in Soviet Russia, and every other government through the entire history of humanity, the "rich and connected" are ALWAYS on top. That is not a vision of any system; That is a REALITY of any system.
Any system that chooses to pretend this will not happen is doomed before it begins. The BEST you can hope for in any system is some way to plan around that aspect and take advantage of it the best you can.
Fascism redux is pretty much unavoidable
I just laugh and laugh when spoiled assholes like yourself claim you are under anything even close to "fascism". It's a long road from where we are today in any modern Western state to the real fascists. The very fact you do not have a bullet in the pan right now just goes to show how laughable your assertion really is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What your mouth-foaming rant fails to mention is that in Soviet Russia, and every other government through the entire history of humanity, the "rich and connected" are ALWAYS on top. That is not a vision of any system; That is a REALITY of any system.
Always? Are you sure that happens in Amish societies?
OMFG for months we've been hearing western nations cry bloody murder over Middle eastern government oppresive measures against their own telecom infustructures...
This colminated with the fucking UN declaring Internet access to be a human right.
Now we have ourselves some relatively minor incidents of civil unrest and the very same (mostly european) countries are doing the very same shit they were previously so adamantly against.
I hope BART gets sued to hell.
Saw BART and thought about the cell phones saying "eat my shorts"
If you're going to rebel, bring your own communications. If you want a handbook for this you could do worse than this.
And remember: the ultimate responsibility of a rebel is to provide a better system than he supplants, else history will judge him harshly.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
You must be too young to remember. Phone system was disabled only during introducing martial law on 13th December of 1981. Martial law (abolished 22th July 1983) introduced legal possibility of censoring phone calls too.
It's just a label so that when the United States government does the same it's not communism and therefore all right. The left/right, comminist/fascist labels are irrelevant.
The question is authoritarian or free.
Deleted
So just close your eyes, keep your mouth shut, and pretend not to see all abuses of authority because it's not a REAL fascist state.
How bad does it need to become, in your view, before people are allowed to object?
Actually, we were rioting in celebration of making the finals (we would have rioted regardless of the outcome of that particular game). We had been planning the riot since the last one in '94.
** We in the sense of me being a vancouver resident, this post is in no way confessing to any criminal activities.
Everybody should read this.
Most cell phones these days have wifi, too, and are capable of running their own ad-hoc networks. That's all you need for point to point text.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
For us to have free speech, we must allow it ALWAYS, for better or for worse.
If we forbid "bad" speech, well that's nice but...
- When good speech is wrongfully labeled "bad" we're doomed - it's the beginning of tyranny.
- Censoring "bad" speech makes "bad" opinions and ideas go unchallenged. Bad speech will always happen, stopping it completely is impossible. What matters is not stopping it, but making sure we are immune to it when we hear it.
Ask yourself: are you capable of resisting arguments in favor of racism. Have you heard arguments against racism besides "it's wrong"? Talk to a racist if you know any and ask them to try to attempt to convince you that racism is right. See if you can counter all of their arguments, chances are you won't have sufficient knowledge to counter all of their arguments; but if you heard debates about racism more often, you'd know of strong arguments against racism. Rather than censoring what we don't like, we should debate it. It will make society more resilient to it. Whether it's racism, the legitimacy of rioting or the right to murder people we don't like, better debate than censor. We have nothing to fear if we are the ones who are correct, because truth can't be proven wrong.
As a rule, use no more deadly a weapon than your opponent. For an unarmed opponent, a baton is acceptable in self-defense, but not a knife, as an unarmed opponent is unlikely to kill, as is a knife.
BS
An unarmed opponent is less likely to kill you accidentally than a knife wielder. If they want to kill you, though, you're just as dead. Any time you legitimately fear serious bodily injury, you may wind up dead. Either run or fight for your life using any tool at your disposal. Let the lawyers sort it out later.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Actually, no. The unique feature of the Soviet system was that while the top connected individuals were indeed surrounded by privilege, they were never technically rich. Most top Soviet officials and their families lived in apartment buildings which were tiny compared to a typical house of an even minor Western industrialist or a politician.
The aphrodisiac of the Soviet system was raw unchallenged power over others, not wealth.
It is only after the system collapsed when the "oligarchs" "buying" entire national industries for pennies on a dollar during Yeltsin's drunken binges appeared.
Which precautions have clearly failed in the West. Hence my point. Democracy and its "checks and balances" are now completely circumvented for good. Results are sure to follow.
I think that particular fallacy is called "It Can't Happen Here!". Lots of "Good Germans" swore by a similar idea. Note to the history-challenged: pre-Nazi germany was a Western (by definition) Constitutional Democracy (called the Weimar Republic).
Most people did not have a "bulled in the pan" in Germany in 1930 either.
But when my memories of crossing the Soviet border (something you clearly never did) circa early 1980s compare favourably with those of the USA border of 2010, something is clearly wrong with this picture, don't you think?
Absent an armed revolution, Fascism is not an all-or-nothing, black-or-white deal when one day you live in a freedom-loving, personal-liberties-cherishing place and the next morning a Fascist Dictatorship. Instead, Fascism (or systems like it) are introduced via a creeping progression, always.
And the West has been creeping towards it for two good decades, at first slowly, now rapidly accelerating. Just use your head: in the 1950s USA the "porn scanners" and "full body gropes" (of children, no less) would have been unthinkable and would have been - quite correctly - seen as an idea straight form a Soviet or a Nazi playbook. Fast forward to 2011....
Also when one talks about Fascism, or Fascism-like progressions, it is given that there will not be an exact repetition of the events of the mid 20th century. History never repeats itself exactly, it merely plays on the same theme. The new rendition of the oppression will be quite different in technical details, but very much the same as far as its victims are concerned (for example its most likely it will be Moslems in the camps - which will be euphemistically called something entirely different, instead of Jews).
Everyone thinks this is terrible but wait until you have an actual riot.
In UK we've had riots and looting the past week and most of the population have been asking for Blackberry's BBM to be shut down as that as a major factor in orchestrating it.
So now the whole phone network can be shutdown for comercial interest against workers protest?
I suppose that this "only emergencies mode" will not work.
What a nice society we are building.
-Woof woof woof!
Why it will be like the wasteland it was 24/7 before they managed to provide cell service in BART trains a few years ago, good god!
Riding BART is already enough of a pain in the ass. If they have to shut it down to keep someone's "important political statement" from tying up my commute for an hour +, I am all fucking for it. Honestly people, I promise you: I do not want to hear how outraged you are at social injustices while I'm on the train. I probably just listened to ~8 hours of blowhard assholes all day, or am on my way to do so.
I am functioning on a level of coffee and egg sandwiches. It's not really prime ground for inspiring change.
...to claim that we're getting "off topic" when you clearly have no idea what this protest is even about?
Hint: it has nothing to do with "labor" or "unions" or "workers." They're protesting the murder of a drunk man by Bart police.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I think you guys are mostly just disagreeing about terminology. The thing is that using guns in self defense is shaped by both of these facts: (a) shooting somebody is always deadly force, (b) you have a right to defend yourself from deadly force with deadly force, but you don't have a right to prevent the attacker from surviving; taking an extra shot just to make sure the attacker dies is murder.
Saying that guns are deadly force means that there is no "safe" way to shoot somebody, like the "shoot him in the leg" meme would have you believe. If you shoot somebody, that person may die, period. If you shoot somebody in the leg and they die, no court will take it seriously any defense where you say that you only meant to wound them and used only wounding force and the death was a freak accident so please give me involuntary manslaughter only please. No; once more, shooting is deadly force, and you should expect the target to die.
Yet shooting somebody doesn't guarantee that they will die; a sizeable portion of gunshot victims survive. The law places a huge value on life, even the life of the attacker. If you defend yourself with deadly force, you're not allowed to prevent your attacker from surviving.
So what do you do, concretely? (a) You aim at the center of mass, because that's basically the only reliable way to hit in a high-stress situation; (b) you shoot until you can see that they are no longer a threat; (c) you're done; call 911. If the attacker lives, they live; if they die, they die.
Are you adequate?
I was on BART yesterday and nothing happened. I can't speak about San Francisco, but I was at the North Berkeley station which is underground and my cell worked down there. Then again I wasn't really expecting to use it, everyone knows as soon as the BART trains go underground, your cell conversation goes underground with it.
I advise you to submit complaints to the FCC and the Department of Justice. To intentionally disrupt authorized communications by use of jamming equipment or other means (cutting power) is clearly a violation of both federal statutory and criminal law. There is no difference between this and a local government cutting power to a tv or radio station that leases space in a govt agency owned building, solely on the fear it might be used to broadcast some message to coordinate protests,
I am sad that this post gets Score:1 same as mine before a mod. Someday I will deserve a Score:2 for every post. Someday.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of your olympic hockey players said that losing to Canada wasn't something he was proud of ... but it was the best team to lose against because Hockey is Canada's major religion.
but in Montreal they did make a real riot after the 1993 win http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Stanley_Cup_Finals#Riot
Live Electronic Music
Over the course of the 20th century in the United States of America various city police department varyingly became defacto gangs and or the defacto personnel security force of the Mayor. The cities of Chicago and New York stand as examples of both types of urban psychology paralisis.
The Mayor of San Francisco has recently stood up and now becomes another example.
The "catch phrase" is "Control".
The Mayor of San Francisco sees himself as the pervayor of Justice and is the Law, from conversations with a spirit appratchion which he claims was God speaking to him. Such claim in the past have proven to be from symptions of Paranoid Schizophrenia Psychosis.
In truth across the USA, many city police department's personnel suffer the same delusionary psychosis.
Also, across the USA the city police departments function as the the centeral clearinghouse for illicit activity.
Mobile media devices frighten the Mayor and Police Department of San Francisco.
In order for the Mayor of San Francisco to maintain the psychology of absolute power over the lives of the citizens and the Police Department ot maintain absolute power over determining who of the citizens must be killed, all internet enabled media devices will by necessity be made functionless at the discression of the Mayor and the Police Department of San Francisco.
Rendering useless the internet enabled media devices of citizens enables the Police to rob, violate, and kill citizens of San Francisco. What a beautiful system the Mayor has devised and established. Booty from the Police Department will enrich the bank account of the Mayor! And the dead citizen who the Police indiscriminately kill will serve notice to the rest of the citizens that, you fuck with the Mayor or the Police, you will be fucked!
What a wonderfull world the citizens of San Francisco find themselves in.
--//++
Maybe if we can argue that the cell signal is a branch of the Cell Company...
And then we all know Companies are People...
So then by killing signals aren't they not only impedeading the trade of legal goods (you may want to order a pizza while protesting), but harming thounds of little partical people, who at the moment are in the form of waves?
I still do not understand why cell phone usage is allowed in trains.
This perpetual ringing, chatter and small talk is an absolute nuisance;
imposing one's private life upon the neighbors is utterly discourteous.
And I cannot concentrate on my crosswords or sudokus, even with earplugs, amid these coalitions of shouting blabbering fucking morons.
An in the US they riot over winning...
In an emergency you can use www.democri-c.com
for the iphone, Ipod and IPAD and
http://hackerdemia.com/auto-BAHN/android/current/autobahn.apk
For any Android device.
They are emergency mobile phone services apps that cannot be shut down by anybody.
Pass this on...
This BART thing is so twisted. The fact that BART, and the cops, nor media never really apologized isn't doing the establishment any favor.
The difference between disrupting travel, communications, commerce, food, health, funds is irrelevant, it's a disruption, it's dangerous, terrorizing, and anger stirring to who ever the target happens to be, and make no mistake there is a target. So it's really saying BART, and the cops, and the media is still in offense mode, have no remorse, respect, and worst of all no compassion.
So then the people get madder and then there's riots, and the media, cops and BART scratch their heads and ask, "why?"
Then along come Anonymous, and hack into BART and ... ... expose their customers information?
Meanwhile, BART, Cops, and media go back into full screw the US Constitution mode, with it's unlimited supply of brownshirt DHS, TSA, and fusion centers.
Officials, media and cops is always caught off guard when more anger and riots hit. Yes the looting is bad, but when you have a riot, the worst thing is people get hurt because of "on a whim violence of opportunity" . Instead of trying to stop riots at the street level, BART, Cops and media ought stop the riot by not allowing the conditions to fester into a riot. Because once you have disruption, the game is over.
If we can't go to work, eat, communicate, pay bills, or travel the system has lost our support. This has big consequences.
The fake officials that spew their crap in the media don't have empathy, it doesn't matter if it's 9 dead, or 9 million, they don't believe in karma (punishment for their own mistakes) and don't have empathy, fear, or remorse, it's a basic operating level which now infests government, with it's deceit, lies and invented classifications to hide corruption internally. Along with being above the law, they have no fear to the point of arrogance.
The Sheriff needs to pay such officials an official visit at the local level.
Now more than ever is time to toss out electoral college (made up of elected officials are you kidding me!), and remove the electricity from the voting machine, and focus on local community, oppose all these candidates who have foreign and corporate interests and agenda.
It is agenda 21, where did you think all these new globalism ideas led to?
This crap that is happening was planned.
All the cops on the planet are not going to stop another riot.
But all the cops on the planet sure the fuck better wake up and arrest the banksters before much longer!
The unique feature of the Soviet system was that while the top connected individuals were indeed surrounded by privilege, they were never technically rich
This.
As in, This is the Stupidest Fucking Thing Ever Said On the Internet.
You have power, fine food, many residences, people who are technically slaves, and as much material good as you can sell in a lifetime.
But you are not technically "rich', oh no. Just because you are not counting the billions of rubles that IN THEORY you do not have.
That is so deluded it is astounding that someone would bother to type it much less believe it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wrong again. Only one residence (and an occasional cabin in the woods they called a "datcha") all tiny by Western standards. None of the Soviet officials could sell much "material goods" for personal profit either (and they did not). Also many were actual believers in the system.
When the Soviet system collapsed, most of its upper level officials were downright broke along with the rest of the populace. That is why virtually all of the "oligarchs" did not come from the ranks of the upper echelons of the former Soviet system but were outsiders who operated on the black market using Western connections and who were catapulted to prominence when their former enemies became powerless.
In the Soviet Union a small-time black-market con man had usually more money then a director of a shipyard or a member of the Politburo.
By this definition, Obama and some few people in congress are the richest men in the world, no? I mean they do get to control the US budget and that is more money than any individual living has...
And then there is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve! Another multi-trillionaire, no?
You know, discussions with people who are so rabidly ideological as you are rarely productive since when you are shown to be ignorant of everything 10 feet beyond your nose or just completely wrong in general, you simply change definitions of words to suit your wold-view, in which words mean whatever you need them to mean for you to feel smugly smarter and more righteous then everyone else.
An in this case it is the word "rich". In the real world outside your fantasies, in order to be rich a person has to have his own private property, a concept completely at odds with the Soviet system which was not only not set up for such a scenario but actively hostile to it.
Since I am apparently dealing with someone who believes that a CEO of a corporation automatically owns all of the investor's money or that a politician owns all the nation's funds as soon as he gets into office, there is little we have to "discuss".
Given this, you also probably should go back on your meds before accusing others of "delusions".