Forum Post: NYPD Detains Journalists - "“Zuccotti Park is not Tiananmen Square.”
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 15, 2011, 5:28 p.m. EST by Publius1981
(22)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
“American foreign correspondents routinely put themselves in harm’s way to do their jobs, in some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. And their NYC colleagues deserve the freedom to make the same choice,” Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said. “Zuccotti Park is not Tiananmen Square.”
Think about this. It's been a long time since we've had mass protests. Have our freedoms been taken away while we the people have been silent? Where is our moral authority to condemn capitalist oligarchies (communism has been a formality for a long time in China) when they suppress protests in the name of peace, order, and good government? OWS is getting a lot of press in Xinhua - the Chinese news agency, and you have to bet they'll use today's action as a justification the next time they put the brakes on "a threat to public order" - aka a human rights demonstration.
Gee, welcome to fascist America. The police might as well be goose stepping. They shouldn't have thrown out the tents, belongings of the occupiers, and dump OWS library books in the dumpster.
The sad thing is that there are Americans that have brought into all the propaganda and hateful lies that the Corporate owned media has spread about OWS protestors. They can't see that we are entering a police state they are just blind and filled with animosity towards the protesters. It really is quite sad.
It would be hyperbolic to compare our current system - what OWS is protesting - to the kind of repression that takes place in China without a lot of caveats.
But we still have to wonder what's happening in this country when demonstrations are repressed by armed force. Sure, there are peace, order, and good government considerations that every society has to balance against civil liberties. That's fine. But arresting journalists who try to report on police action? That's a little scary.
Even if you think OWS is a hippy (showing your age?) whine-fest and they should all just get a non-existent job (so go out and hire a young person if you think that way and teach him the value of hard work), don't you worry that if one group's freedom of assembly/speech rights are suppressed (there are always reasons attached), yours will be next to go?
I don't blame the rank and file of the NYPD for what happened - like our soldiers serving overseas, they're good people who have to provide for their families and do a job we all depend on who are following orders. I blame the source of those orders.
[Removed]
[Removed]
When I was in Tiananmen Square I had some time with my tour guide. She told me that she knew of the picture of the guy standing in front of the tank, but had never seen it because the media was controlled in China. She also told me that the reason the army reacted so harshly was because the protesters had hung two solders over a bridge, poured gas on them and lit them on fire. Our media would never show the pictures of those burned solders.
Of course, what else would a State guide say? Whose surprised that she would bark the party line?
Actually she spoke some pretty harsh criticisms of the government as well. She grew up during the cultural revolution and was very candid about the shortcomings of the government.
Yea, today she's probably shoveling manure in some Collective farm.
Nope... the communists gave up on collective farms. They learned that all that crap in Mao's little red book doesn't work. Now they are turning more and more to capitalism. I think when they got back Hong Kong, they all sat down behind closed doors, and had that "Holy Shit' talk. Today if your a dissident you just disappear into their prison system.
Ok, so she's blowing the warden or guards in some gulag. What's the difference?