Good article on police surveillance of OWS-NY

Over at AlterNet, Nick Turse has a great article about the dissonance of focusing high-tech police surveillance equipment on non-violent, non-weaponized OWS protesters in New York.

It's a perceptive piece and isn't too long a read. Here's the link. Go, Nick.

Ed Brayton today

In an article on police violence, Ed Brayton says:

We are forever being told by the law-and-order types that punishment is the key to deterrence; that should apply to police officers as well. It should apply double to them because they are the ones to whom we give the exclusive authority to commit violence and to enforce the laws. When they violate those laws, they should be the first ones to test their theories about deterrence.

And I'd like to add: How come OWS people face violence from the police while the Tea Party, often armed with guns and bragging about it, were considered peaceful demonstrators? No SWAT teams attacked them. Why the difference in treatment? I know the answer: because the police in America today are jackbooted monsters who see "the people" as dirty hippies intent on destroying the country. That's why.

New idiotic term enters our world

There was a disturbing headline at CBS one day ago that said:

Pentagon scare suspect found with terror phrases

Indeed. Something tells me CBS didn't make up this term. Could it be that our government has released a new meme to its obedient media? "Terror phrases," eh? And what were these scary terror phrases? They found a notebook in the man's car in which the following appeared:

"al Qaeda," "Taliban rules" and "Mujahid defeated croatian forces."

Frightening, eh? So a fellow who did absolutely nothing wrong chose to write these words in his personal notebook -- and it turned into a headline about "terror phrases"? This is a new, insane category of anti-Muslim fervor and undoubtedly our growing police state is paying close attention to this development. I'm sure they're ferreting through people's possessions right now, looking for horrific "terror phrases".

So now you can't write certain words or they'll cart you off to a prison cell. I'm not saying I hear the jackboots all around us but I think I smell boot polish. This is how things happen in our country -- haphazardly, and always aided by the media.

It's going to be a really swell 4th of July this year. Let freedom ring!