[persiphone]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

I think maybe Nazi/Gestapo references don't translate well. I've been tossing this around in my head trying to put my finger on it. Nazi Germany is synonymous with genocide. I don't see genocide as an issue for the U.S. At least not in that a particular group would be targeted, other than dissenters. If the elimination of dissenting voices can be called a kind of genocide then perhaps we could worry about it.

I think what we are heading toward are police forces more like the Tonton Macoutes, the Haitian paramilitary force created by François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, rather than the Gestapo. That we are looking at evolving paramilitary police forces around the country cannot be denied. That they seek to silence us and make protesting extremely costly is also without doubt. As things worsen and as more people feel the need to point that out, we may see our newly evolving police state turn deadly. The more clearly those who control the paramilitary police understand how easily it is to to shut us down, the more they get away with, the more violence goes unanswered by our elected officials or by anyone at all really, the closer we come to living in fear of our very own Tonton Macoutes.

i was talking about the reactions of police to a corrections officer i know (and hopefully hy'll post about it *hint hint nudge nudge*) and basically our police force is not trained on how to deal with protests of this magnitude and are only trained in how to deal with rioting. hence, the riot response to a peaceful protest. my question is....now that they've used riot response tactics on peaceful protesters....will they step back and start practicing tactful responses to a peaceful protest rather than the overkill we've seen up to this point? i think that's what will define which road this is going to go down. i'm afraid that the police reactions are just going to escalate the violence and i'm afraid that this is actually the point, so that they have an excuse to continue along these lines of force and brutality.