[Police State] "it is becoming clear that police in Ferguson are targeting journalists"

Yup....the cops over there are ass-wipes. But the neighborhood seems like it's full of thugs so it may even out.

Seriously, the militarization of our local police forces is a really big deal. Combine that with the constant ongoing attempts to weaken/destroy the 2nd
amendment and we are in deep doo-doo.

This whole mess smells really fishy on both sides.
While the media seem to be painting the cops out to be the bad guys, I find fault in the medias lack of coverage on the other side of the equation.
For instance: there was a report touting just how fast the movement against the police spread via
social media. It went on to say that because the citizens weren't able to afford broadband,
the people promoting the demonstrations resort to cellphones to access the big social media sites. This resulted in viral spread of the cause.
Tell me this: if there are so many cellphones, how come there are no photos or cellphone vids of what actually happened that day? It seems that whenever something big happens, there's someone that's got a vid off their cellphone to post up.
I honestly don't know what to think other than the cops are just a military militia and that the only vid I've seen is Brown acting like a thug and a thief, not the sweet teen that he was purported to be in the initial testimony by neighbors.

Mo. Senator Clair McCaskill is promising to start hearings next month on police militarization. Even military people are beginning to say the police have abused this stuff now.

Gov. Nixon (a flaming asshole, IMHO) is drawing down the Nat'l Guard now.

One thing that bothers me is that if this cop isn't indicted, there will likely be more outbreaks. Ironic that a mass of mostly black people may start up a lynch mob. . . There are efforts to get the St. Louis County prosecutor (another flamer, IMHO) to recuse himself and get a Special PA appointed.

I'm just interested in what exactly happened. I believe the cops are lying through their teeth. On the same token, I don't believe a single word of testimony from the black community.
WTF is wrong with us white folk? We should do what happened there every time a black person shoots an unarmed white person. That'll put an end to the shit.......NOT.

The cops have become power drunk and the self proclaimed downtrodden blacks want to keep living in the problem, not the solution. Stalemate!
Nothing changes if nothing changes.

Yeah, really.

Those black people have been oppressing us whites for over 300 years now.

I do have to say that Ferguson isn't full of thugs. It's just that thugs get air-time, while the local folks are just too boring for the National News.

Right now, I don't believe anything I hear from anybody about anything having to do with this. Everyone has an axe to grind, and in typical recent American fashion, it's turning into a peeing contest between opposing social media factions...

Facts don't care whether one believes them. I believe some of the things I've seen on video, like the reporter who was in a nearby town who was rudely accosted by some doughnut commando, and people in the military who say the police are incorrectly using the toys they've been given, even the simple ones like assault rifles. Videos can be faked and staged, but the one I refer to probably wasn't.

Fact-disguised-as-opinion: Gov. Jay Nixon is a steaming slimey pile of lying shit, regardless of what happens before and after Ferguson. He's so scared of the right-wing in this state that he's worse than they are. What a pussy.

Anyhow, it's true people have their agendas, and as wiskas indicates, sometimes people get used to playing the victims.

I hear lots of folks "reporting facts" that are just hearsay reports from unreliable and prejudiced sources. A lot of these "facts" are points of view, disguised as concrete truth. This is happening both on the right and on the left. Videos don't need to be faked or staged, just so long as they are edited to slant to whichever viewpoint is being espoused. I just no longer trust anything I hear initially, and I don't trust most of what I hear long after.

The Police have definitely handled the whole aftermath of this incident about as badly as it is possible to be handled. Unlike New York, they don't have a lot of experience in handling situations like this, and so they're flailing about, and doing stupid things that didn't need to be done as a result. This includes their total lack of communication and coordination with community leaders, as well as their overbearing presence which largely goaded things on, rather than cooling them off. It doesn't help that macho yahoos like this are a tad too common in law enforcement, too.

All politicians are lying pieces of excrement. It's a requirement for getting elected, since truth-tellers get punished severely by voters who don't want to hear the truth that they are responsible for everything they don't like about Government. I wish I was being humorous here, but this is a fundamental truth of Politics all the way back to the days of Madison and Jackson, when the United States of America looked like an experiment doomed to fail.

At the very least, this thing in Mo is going to put the spotlight on more crap that's happening all the time.
Here's a few more recent cop killings of blacks:
http://news.msn.com/us/activists-carry-coffin-of-woman-killed-by-phoenix-police
http://online.wsj.com/articles/l-a-police-shooting-draws-peaceful-protest-1408672251
Maybe there is a campaign, whether conscious or unconscious, against the black people but.....
White folk ain't got it so great either. IMHO: It's not so much a white against black thing as it is an up against down thing.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...lls-unarmed-white-youth-media-and-feds-silent

As with school shootings, I think the media is out to suck the topic for all it's worth and not give a damn for the consequences.
The social consequences just make for more news to report/exploit. It sells ad time.

Rather than white-folk/black-folk, I think it's an inherent skewed power relationship between the police and those they are policing. The Police are given a large amount of power over the rest, which breeds resentment, when someone goes over the line abusing their authority, and the resentment makes the Police (who are just human beings after all) feel isolated in an "us vs. them" relationship with the public, and causes them to circle the wagons against all outsiders. This naturally leads to more confrontation and abuse of power... it's a vicious circle.

The whole world seems to be going through a paroxysm of this kind of "separate and fight" insanity, and I think that the global recession we negligently started is a root cause of all of it, including Ferguson MO, the Ukraine, and the Middle East. Another root cause is the echo-chamber of Social (HAH!) Media, which is basically forming an online version of mobs, working themselves up into a frenzy over real and perceived slights. We are having a good look at the wreckage left by Social Media inspired revolts known as "the Arab Spring." Occupy Wall Street was pretty much a total ineffective waste of time, and the Tea Party is actively destroying our Government in the name of "ideology" which is just an echo-chamber induced social media frenzy, egged on by Rupert Murdock, because conflict makes money for Fox. Scotland has a bug in their brain to secede from the UK, and that is not going to go well for them or the UK, no matter what they think.

The world runs in cycles, and right now we're in the deep excrement portion of the cycle, which brought us such fun things as World War I, the Great Depression, followed by World War II (which itself had deep root causes in both the previous events).

Ugh. It's been a while since I ranted over things I know nothing about...

You are definitely right about the "divide and conquer" aspect of modern serfdom. There is something/someone running the show other than politicians as many believe.
That power is rejoicing in all this worldwide division. It makes for much easier manipulations.
We're about to be thrown a "token bone":
The prez is saying that public safety officer possession of military gear is going under review. I call bullshit.
Does anyone actually think the present efforts to weaken the 2nd amendment has no connection to the program initiated to funnel military gear to local police forces?
People are openly pissed and distrustful of the media and the guv. That fact is not going to get better until after a huge blow-up. It'll just fester as the hard feelings in
Ferguson has. Only exponentially worse and bigger. Throwing the public "token bones" has almost worked up to a point. The day will come when (and the government really fears that day)
there won't be a token bone big enough to keep people dependent and docile.

I have been involved in several pretty heated discussions with a guy I've been friends with since 7th grade. He is of the mindset that I am adding to the militarization problem, by serving in the military. His claim is that I am a brainwashed zombie, and that I would attack my own community just as quick as I would attack someone overseas. My experience has shown that a majority of the military actually supports their own local communities vice supporting the "government agenda." It's really pretty refreshing. I guarantee you that if true martial law came to be, a majority of servicemembers would immediately leave and go back home to defend their families and friends against the government. The police, on the other hand, have turned into a bunch of thugs. I see it every day where I live. They act as if they are above the law, and act like whiny babies when the citizens call them out. I chased down a cop that was speeding in excess of 20mph over the speed limit in my neighborhood to go get donuts at the local 7-11. I chewed him out inside the store, to the point that he didn't buy anything and instead ran outside and sped off. He was angry that I called him out, and refused to admit he was wrong. It's ridiculous.

We need the governing bodies to realize that they are SUPPOSED TO work for us vice being in charge of guiding us. It's amazing how far the pendulum has shifted over the last few years. It's as if we all work for the good of the industries that have the most money, instead of working for the better good of society.

~Will Courtier~

It's only going to get worse. It's taken on a life of itself and so long as it gets fed, it'll grow.
Hint: it takes a tax levy to keep them fed.

ITYS what ITYS

That's part of the problem right there. The "us" part. You and your friend are a good example of just how not "us" we are. It's impossible for anyone to be elected who isn't working against a significant portion of his/her "us" constituency, no matter what he/she does. Until we voters can come to terms with all the other voters, and agree to some path or other that includes all our diverging opinions, we'll get exactly the sort of governing bodies we have now.

Mind you, the US has pretty much always worked for those with money from it's very beginning. Our Revolution was largely fueled by the landed class, such as Jefferson and Washington, and the connections have pretty much stayed with us all this time.

Thus: serfdom

Indeed. We've never had any kind of meritocracy and a "level playing field" is a myth. It's not as if a giant whistle blew one day (e.g. 7/4/1776), and feudalism stopped in its tracks and was replaced the next day by egalitarian capitalism.

I agree, it just changes labels.

"It's not paranoia, when they really are out to get you."
Meet mr. honda
http://honda.house.gov/

but he wants equal pay!!! ....for everyone but himself and other politicians.

I believe he and all politicians should pay the voters for the ass sex they dish get. There are should be no free lunches.

Newly released footage indicates the police lied about Officer Wilson's "injuries."
IMHO, there's nary a scratch on him.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/ferguson-v...on-fatally-shooting-michael/story?id=26936378

IMHO: Both sides are lying through their teeth.