Slog
News & ArtsWednesday, October 26, 2011
Media Tear Gas, Take Me Away!
Posted by Dan Savage on Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 10:52 AM
Watching cable news. Cable news hair just said this:
"Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are making headlines. In Oakland police fired tear gas to calm down the crowd."
Apparently they're using chamomile tear gas in Oakland.
Not Fox. MSNBC!
1
Which is kind of like saying the ROTC guys who fired into the crowd at Kent State were trying to relax them.
4
Have insomnia? Has nothing else worked? TRY tear gas! Nothing calms more than the sweet vapors of tear gas.
-- the infomercial really writes itself.
-- the infomercial really writes itself.
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Suicide is painless.
It brings on many changes.
Ah, memories of pointless wars bankrupting America ...
It brings on many changes.
Ah, memories of pointless wars bankrupting America ...
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TO RELAX THEM?
Orwell's ghost must be pretty hard up for spectre bucks if he's having to work as a segment producer for MSNBC.
Orwell's ghost must be pretty hard up for spectre bucks if he's having to work as a segment producer for MSNBC.
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Oh jeez. In last night's Paul thread someone was terrified by basic-cable news not having reported on it yet and was urging people to phone it in to MSNBC. A better headline might be "fired tear gas as a way of urging the crowd to please quit chucking stuff at them thx." From Mother Jones last night:
The Chronicle had some good quotes, which we all hope no Occupy Seattle supporter ever has to say:
On his way to a local hospital to confirm injury reports, James ran into a knot of exhausted Oakland cops heading back to the station. They were covered in blue and orange paint, and that's not all, claimed one sergeant who wouldn't give his name. They'd also been pelted with glass and vinegar, and one officer tasted urine in the mix. "Occupy Oakland is no longer playing a part in this protest," said the sergeant, suggesting that rogue actors took control of the movement tonight.http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/poli…
The Chronicle had some good quotes, which we all hope no Occupy Seattle supporter ever has to say:
Some protesters who avoided conflict and wanted to show their support for the Occupy Wall Street movement were displeased by the violent turns. "They didn't have to force police into that situation," said Helen Walker, 46, a nurse from Albany. "It was totally provoked, and if I could have, I would have stopped those idiots from throwing paint."http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg…
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Nothing soothes like tear gas.
*i like to put a little in the baby's bottle when he's collicky*
SHHHHH.
*i like to put a little in the baby's bottle when he's collicky*
SHHHHH.
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Little known fact: the chamomile molecule when combined with that of patchouli = soooothing happy riot funtime.
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@7 gus, that's very interesting --> "Occupy Oakland is no longer playing a part in this protest," said the sergeant, suggesting that rogue actors took control of the movement tonight.<-- provacateurs in the crowd precisely to elicit this and try to discredit OWS? Wouldn't surprise me -- lots of evidence that different interests are trying to coopt or discredit OWS. What a mess. Interestingly, though, the sentiment I've seen seems to be largely against the PD and the municipal gov't of Oakland. There's no shortage of footage showing clearly non-provacative ows being fired on by the police. The worst of the lot is a group trying to assist an unconscious person getting flashbanged directly into the midst of that group.
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@12, to me that cop seemed to be not wanting to let Occupy Oakland be tarred by the violent actions of some crowd members. It calls to mind Dom's posts about Occupy Seattle's own struggles to respect but keep a lid on its own supporters whose attitude was tending toward "wall street schmall street, now it's all about just fucking with the pigs". The Mother Jones twitter stuff last night said it seemed as though every time one of the clusters of cops and protestors mutually calmed back down there'd be just one person who just *had* to chuck paint or a bottle or something just to get the cops to act again, drawing it all out. Pretty fucked up.
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Back in my dissertation writing days, I had footage from a 1997 CBS Evening News broadcast--not Fox--that said that the (white) police in Birmingham Alabama in 1963 had no choice but to use fire hoses to, and this is a direct quote, "tame rioting blacks."
They failed to mention that the police commissioner leading the assault was Bull Connor (a notorious white supremacist), that the police also used police dogs, that the people targeted were peaceful protesters and among them were throngs of children and teenagers. And ya gotta love the verb choice of "tame"--nothing like implying that black people aren't fully human.
So, this kind of self-indicting linguistic slippage from a corporate news outlet doesn't surprise me one bit.
Consider how differently "disperse" reads than "calm."
They failed to mention that the police commissioner leading the assault was Bull Connor (a notorious white supremacist), that the police also used police dogs, that the people targeted were peaceful protesters and among them were throngs of children and teenagers. And ya gotta love the verb choice of "tame"--nothing like implying that black people aren't fully human.
So, this kind of self-indicting linguistic slippage from a corporate news outlet doesn't surprise me one bit.
Consider how differently "disperse" reads than "calm."
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This is why I dropped my cable TV. And still Shitcast wants me to upgrade my internet only service to experience the "wide range of programings available on cable television". *ugh*
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Mad Magazine once did a parody of westerns with The Rifleman. He claimed to love peace--and nothing was more peaceful than a dead man.
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@7- This part interests me the most: "and one officer tasted urine in the mix."
Are the cops trained to detect urine by taste?
Are the cops trained to detect urine by taste?
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@19, man, the pigs are always thinking we're hurling our piss at them when it's just a little kombucha.
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I am reminded of my high school history class when we learned that Napoleon first tasted fame with his "whiff of grapeshot" strategy. Absent from any discussion was the sheer brutality of the technology: a cloud of metal slugs eviscerating all in their path.
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@MC. "Relaxed" was the term used by the Spanish Inquisition for the worst kind of execution--strangulation by garroting for those who repented or being burned alive at the stake for those who didn't, so you are not far off here. Orwellian absurdities have always been with us.
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