Welcome to the Police States of America

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

President Barack Obama addresses the protests:

My administration has been closely monitoring the situation… and I know that we will be learning more tomorrow when day breaks.

As the situation continues to unfold, our first concern is preventing injury or loss of life. So I want to be very clear in calling upon the… authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters.

The people… have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny.

These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.

The only problem with those words is that they are a very clever edit by a poster at Antemedius of the speech President Obama gave on January 11, 2011 in support of the people’s uprising in Egypt. In that speech, he called upon Egyptian authorities to “refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters.” Apparently the ideals he espoused in that speech did not apply to the Occupy movement that has spread across this country protesting the economic disparity of 99% of this country’s citizens. His silence on incidents like the ones in these videos speaks volumes as to whom Barack Obama really supports.

Warning: the contents of these videos are graphic and disturbing.

Occupy Oakland: second Iraq war veteran injured after police clashes

Kayvan Sabehgi in intensive care with a lacerated spleen after protests in Oakland, a week after Scott Olsen was hurt. He says police beat him with batons

Kayvan Sabehgi, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in intensive care with a lacerated spleen. He says he was beaten by police close to the Occupy Oakland camp, but despite suffering agonising pain, did not reach hospital until 18 hours later. [..]

Sabehgi, a small business owner in the Oakland area, was alone and trying to leave the area when he was confronted by a phalanx of the police in riot gear wielding batons. From the video he was hardly a threat, yet he he was beaten unmercifully, left in excruciating pain that was ignored by a nurse, who should lode his/her license. He under went surgery the next day to repair the tear using a surgical patch that stopped the bleeding and spared Sabehgi the lose of his spleen. When we think of Batons, this is the image that some people think of. But with this being said, if you do some research, you’ll find that there are non-lethal self-defense versions of batons. They’ve come a long way since the beginning. It is quite interesting to check out its history, as not many of us know much about it. When it comes to the police, hopefully we’ll start seeing positive changes very soon.

Then yesterday during peaceful demonstrations protesting tuition increases and on the campus of University of California – Davis, campus police saying they “feared for their lives” pepper sprayed a group of students who were sitting with their arms locked together. There are now calls for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi thinks this is the appropriate response to a peaceful sit-in.

Do these campus thugs look like they were in fear of their lives? h/t John Aravosis at AMERICAblog

Also, there is the destruction of the occupation of the #OWS encampment in NYC, the beatings and arrests of not just protesters but journalists, a city council person and a NY State Court judge who was there as a neutral observer. Tents and personal property were gleefully destroyed and trashed by out of control NYC police officers at the the direction of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who took sole responsibility for the decision to raid the park at 1 AM, and under the watchful eye of an approving Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly. Under their orders over 5,000 books were destroyed while the mayor and his girlfriend, a board member of Brookfield, partied at a NYC Public Library event. In a very disturbing essay, our friend and fellow blogger, nyceve, documented this travesty and posted the following sequence of videos as evidence:

Why hasn’t the president condemned the brutality and abuse of municiple police departments and the private campus police that are beating, brutalizing and abusing peaceful demonstrators as, as he condemned it in Egypt? Why hasn’t he condemned the suppression of the press and the media? Why hasn’t the Justice Department prosecuted the oligarchs who committed the frauds? Why has he supported a commission and a congressional committee that want to reward the wealthy and further burden those who can least afford it? Why? Because Obama isn’t one of the 99% who elected him.