Monday, September 24, 2007

Police state, tasers and iPhones

The recent videos of police tasering a questioner in Florida raise a couple of questions.
Number one is, how should the bystanders have reacted? They were watching someone be brutalized by police for the crime of exercising his right to free speech. I have heard people say that he was rude, so he deserved to be tasered. Those people clearly do not believe in the Bill of Rights, and will be quite happy in the new police state.
But, what can we do if we object to police brutality? No one wants to get involved if they are going to be tasered or arrested. But what if the entire audience had gotten up and peacefully blocked the doorway, so that the police couldn't have dragged him off to jail?
We need to think about this, because there will be more and more oppression as the economy collapses and people protest.
The other thing is, what about the video phones that were used to document this repression?
My son recently bought a iPhone. It has numerous bells and whistles. It is very technologically advanced- but it doesn't have a video camera on it. Why not? My co-workers have chocolate phones. They are spiffy. No video cameras on them either. Why do the new phones not have what the old phones have? Could it be that the ruling class is cracking down on citizens being able to document and report on events? When we are not totally dependent on the corporate media for our news, it's potentially damaging to the powers that be.

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