India-US Relations : News and Discussion

[UlanBatori]

If you read what Kakkaji read slowly, you will realize that he never said Decimation came from British, just that "the British army used decimation also"

please cite an instance where they used decimation. That is to say they lined up people and killed every tenth person. thanks in advance.

Hmm! Come to think of that, such practices would barely rate a mention in the history books, clogged as they are with higher-scoring achievements of the Brish1ts:

Like this

Then again, why "decimate" as in killing ONLY one in ten, when your policy is to kill many more?

Like in WW 1

I always thought "decimate" was to kill all EXCEPT about 10 that sort-of escaped. Hmm!

Like this

Or this

[kmkraoind]

Obama Seen as Not Doing Enough to Ease Racial Tensions in Ferguson

I request India's PM, NaMo to send a fact finding mission to Ferguson, US and to raise this issue in all international forums. Its time to show US a big mirror. I even prod, NaMo to actively fund African-American and Asian-American NGO groups, which are dedicated to racial harmony and rights of minorities aka non-whites in US.

[JE Menon]

Although it says US pacific command sponsors it, this is apparently a socom instrument

http://khabarsouthasia.com/en_GB/pages/about

[Philip]

Michael Brown shooting: One nation, still divided by race – why Ferguson was a flashpoint that could have happened anywhere across America

It is still a deeply unequal society 50 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed - as the unrest seen in Ferguson, Missouri, this week shows
David Usborne
US Editor
Thursday 14 August 2014

State and national leaders scrambled today to show they are sensitive to the grievances of African-Americans in urban communities like Ferguson near St Louis, which has seen successive nights of tumult and confrontation in the wake of a shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer last weekend.

Footage of the chaos on the streets of Ferguson has dominated newscasts, yet attempts to ease tensions have faltered as local police commanders have chosen to deploy overwhelming force to repel protesters and have declined to release the identity of the officer who opened fire on 18-year-old Michael Brown, days before he was to start college.

“Many Americans have been deeply disturbed by the images we have seen,” President Barack Obama said, reiterating that he had ordered the FBI and the Justice Department to independently investigate the shooting of Mr Brown. The President broke from his holiday on Martha’s Vineyard to address the ongoing violence.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, told a meeting of residents that “you will all see a different tone” in the police response, after announcing unspecified “operational shifts” in law enforcement tactics.

In pictures: Michael Brown shooting nationwide protests
Ferguson, Missouri

While the exact circumstances of the shooting remain in dispute and may not be officially determined for weeks, his death has become the latest symbol of the simmering racial frustration that still infects American society, 50 years after the Civil Rights Act and six years after Mr Obama became the first black president.

Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, told a meeting in Ferguson that she was seeking a “demilitarisation” of the police response to the protests. Armoured vehicles and non-lethal ammunition such as stun grenades have been deployed, turning an American suburb into what has looked like a war zone.
Video: Ferguson protests caught on camera

Brian Schellman, a spokesman for the St Louis County police department, defended the use of tear gas and smoke bombs to disperse crowds on Wednesday night, which also saw the brief detention of two reporters for videotaping the events. They were released without charge.

“In talking to these guys, it is scary,” Mr Schellman said of officers on the front lines of the protest. “They hear gunshots going off, and they don’t know where they’re coming from.”

Mr Obama said there was no excuse for vandalism or unwarranted attacks against the police, but added pointedly that there was “also no excuse for police to use excessive force against citizens” engaged in legitimate protests. He also took direct aim at whoever arrested the two reporters, working for the Washington Post and the website Huffington Post. Police “should not be bullying or arresting journalists who are trying to do their jobs,” he declared.

Police armed with non-lethal ammunition are followed by an armoured vehicle in Ferguson Police armed with non-lethal ammunition are followed by an armoured vehicle in Ferguson (Reuters
While Ferguson is the latest flashpoint in America’s struggle to overcome a legacy of racial tension going back to slavery, it could just as easily have been somewhere else; Los Angeles, where 24-year-old Ezell Ford, also black, was shot and killed by a police officer on Monday, or perhaps New York, where the death of Eric Garner while in custody, after an officer held him in an illegal chokehold last month, is still fuelling anger.

The grievances still felt by many African-Americans are rooted in the life experiences of many of them, particularly young men, which are also reflected in the sometimes shocking statistics. Statistics just from Ferguson are startling but by no means unique to the town, which, on the edge of downtown St Louis, became majority black after whites fled decades ago to escape rising violence and sinking schools.

Until last weekend, few beyond Ferguson will have known that only three of its 53 police officers are black, even if the community is overwhelmingly more black than white. Or that 483 blacks were arrested in town last year but only 36 whites. Or that blacks, who make up less than two thirds of the driving-age population, account for 86 per cent of all traffic stops by police.

Nationally, similar instances of unequal lives abound. Median income levels for African-Americans remain about two thirds of what they are for whites, and black unemployment is twice as high. These are disparities that are not always ignored, of course. Hence a current campaign to change sentencing rules for narcotics crimes and enable early release for drug offenders, to try to reduce madly elevated rates of incarceration for black males.

But progress can be offset by reverse steps. A campaign inside the white half of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, known as St George, to secede from the rest of the city has widely been condemned, for instance, as a barely disguised return to segregation, where whites will get the best schools and blacks will be left out. A Supreme Court ruling last year gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act has also been deplored as a betrayal of the civil rights movement.

[Surya]

aha dear philip

this will get interesting if the store owner strong armed is a desi

[Rony]

How Money Warps U.S. Foreign Policy

When it comes to foreign policy, in fact, the key divide is no longer between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between the elites of both parties and their rank and file. When asked about arming Syria’s rebels, an Iran deal that allows some uranium enrichment, and whether America should do more or less in the world, both Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly take the more dovish view. On each question, the partisan divide is five percentage points or less.

The real gap emerges when you compare ordinary Americans to elites. According to Pew, for instance, rank-and-file Republicans are 34 percentage points more likely to want America to do less overseas. Rank-and-file Democrats are 31 points more likely to want America to do less. Members of the prestigious, bipartisan Council on Foreign Relations, by contrast, are 20 points more likely to say America should do more.

t’s worth analyzing the current moment in historical perspective. For a century, Americans have responded to disillusioning wars by demanding a less interventionist foreign policy. It happened after World War 1, after Korea, after Vietnam, and it’s happening again in the wake of Afghanistan and Iraq. The difference between this moment and past ones is the role of money in politics. As on so many issues, politicians’ need to raise vast sums from the super-rich makes them ultra-responsive to one, distinct sliver of the population and less responsive to everyone else. The way campaign finance warps the political debate over financial regulation is well known. What we’re witnessing this year is a case study in the way it warps the foreign-policy debate as well.

[UlanBatori]

aha dear philip

this will get interesting if the store owner strong armed is a desi

Does look that way. Shirt style, footwear, way of walking, and lack of fear. Swift karma, hain? But I think the *&*^(s looted his store after that. He should record and sue the whole friggin bunch, starting with the most vocal of the Protestors.

Correction: The MoFos burned the store.

One small point: the statistics looks pretty damning: 90% of stops and arrests and busts in Ferguson are of black ppl. However, so is the population of Ferguson, since the crime rate drove out everyone who could move out.

[member_22733]

^^^ Ever heard of white flight?

[Shreeman]

aha dear philip

this will get interesting if the store owner strong armed is a desi

Does look that way. Shirt style, footwear, way of walking, and lack of fear. Swift karma, hain? But I think the *&*^(s looted his store after that. He should record and sue the whole friggin bunch, starting with the most vocal of the Protestors.

Correction: The MoFos burned the store.

One small point: the statistics looks pretty damning: 90% of stops and arrests and busts in Ferguson are of black ppl. However, so is the population of Ferguson, since the crime rate drove out everyone who could move out.

Lets keep the matter in perspective. The shopkeeper and the shop incident were NOT the reason for the shooting. The storekeeper would have gotten no better treatment from the SUV rider. In fact, few bother to complain about small incidents, and resolutions of theft (as well as home invasions) is rare.

All shades of black, are black. Karma apart, there is nothing to gloat over in this incident. You dont shoot and keep shooting -- in brooklyn or ferguson, without an assurance of impunity. This is an extremely slippery slope, you can wait until you actually need the law on your side in the US and see how it deals with you.

[member_22733]

Let me make an "==" here. There are countless protests in India about some politicians Goondagiri or some collectors high handedness. Why the whole of India, there are countless ones just in Kerala, I see one every time I go there.

I used to see 10 - 15 everyday when I visited Thiruananthapuram. One of them was a real grievance about some peaceful minister raping a minor. It got real violent near the secretariat area. I talked to one of the protestors and he said that the reason for such violent reaction was that there was no hope of getting justice. There was nowhere to go, no one who would listen. It was an act of desperation.

Rioting and vandalizing is just the way a helpless oppressed people would show their anger. The news that comes out is bad and people will paint it as a moral fault of the blacks, but had they not done that, they would not even make the third page of the news paper by a week of the incident.

I say the above with full awareness that someday I might get violated/vandalized and it maybe a black person doing it. I would attribute it to that PERSON instead of "those people".

[member_22733]

All shades of black, are black. Karma apart, there is nothing to gloat over in this incident. You dont shoot and keep shooting -- in brooklyn or ferguson, without an assurance of impunity. This is an extremely slippery slope, you can wait until you actually need the law on your side in the US and see how it deals with you.

+100. Most Indians who come here do not realize that the judicial process and law enforcement is completely biased and compromised and it is rigged against them.

To any youngsters coming to the US I always tell them to never end up on the wrong side of the law, even unintentionally. Never ever make a chance to get arrested or pulled over since these can be fatal interactions. And always keep the number handy of an immigration lawyer and a criminal defense attorney. If you do get pulled over, never talk back, argue, make snarky comments or worse show any form of aggression towards the cop and most importantly show your hands at all times. Remember, you are one racist cop away from losing everything you have built up.

[rgosain]

Are the good folks at Berkeley-Haas on holiday. Someone should tell them that the events at Ferguson offers a unique opportunity to hone their skills at reporting riots and they don't have far to travel with a MacDonalds close by. How can they miss such an event.

[UlanBatori]

The shopkeeper and the shop incident were NOT the reason for the shooting.

Thanks for the lecture, but a small point: given the above, why was the store looted and burned? Just "Boyz will be boyz"? Nowhere did I excuse the policeman "shooting and keeping on shooting" but I do point to the forgotten victim(s) who have neither the white police nor the black protestors nor the White House and FBI to stand up for their rights, and those are the ONLY innocents in this whole mess.

Why do you think we of all people should NOT speak out on their behalf? What did the storekeeper do to deserve what happened to him? Where are HIS rights?

I think someone who robs a store, assaults the storekeeper who simply remonstrated with the robber, then walks out and gets into another fight with an SUV driver, walks in the middle of the road, then assaults a police officer...

SHOULD expect to be punished severely. Sure, after arrest and trial, unless he really did threaten the safety of a police officer, which, eventually, is what is going to come out of this after all the noise subsides.

Why is that being swept under the carpet in this tsunami of political appeasement? Instead all we hear is how the dead (alleged as seen on video) robber was a model student, completely peaceful, etc etc etc. Let's find out the truth on that too, shall we?

Have you looked at the truth about the savagery of completely unprovoked attacks against Korean and Indian shopkeepers, who have struggled bravely all their lives to build up small businesses, by the Looting Communities? I don't give a damn what their skin color or religion or tightness of musharrafs is, they are savages. Reducing the number of those by any means, in incidents where violence is initiated by the looters, is a plus for humanity. I would of course say the same whether the attackers were white, black, brown, yellow or pink or any other color. Same in Malloostan or Godhra or Mumbai or Brixton or Fiji or Jakarta.

The failure of law enforcement in Ferguson is glaring: all those looters, not a single one machinegunned.

[UlanBatori]

Are the good folks at Berkeley-Haas on holiday. Someone should tell them that the events at Ferguson offers a unique opportunity to hone their skills at reporting riots and they don't have far to travel with a MacDonalds close by. How can they miss such an event.

How to publicize that good thought? Where are the Trained Graduate Students From The Local Communities With VideoCameras? Maybe a few letters should go out to the Dean of the Haas School requesting that they send the esteemed Drs. Shashi Buluswar and Angana C to Ferguson, armed with videocameras, to dig up all the mass graves? Do they not CARE about Minority Hyooman Rites in the US of A, hain?

[member_22539]

Let me make an "==" here. There are countless protests in India about some politicians Goondagiri or some collectors high handedness. Why the whole of India, there are countless ones just in Kerala, I see one every time I go there.

I used to see 10 - 15 everyday when I visited Thiruananthapuram. One of them was a real grievance about some peaceful minister raping a minor. It got real violent near the secretariat area. I talked to one of the protestors and he said that the reason for such violent reaction was that there was no hope of getting justice. There was nowhere to go, no one who would listen. It was an act of desperation.

Rioting and vandalizing is just the way a helpless oppressed people would show their anger. The news that comes out is bad and people will paint it as a moral fault of the blacks, but had they not done that, they would not even make the third page of the news paper by a week of the incident.

I say the above with full awareness that someday I might get violated/vandalized and it maybe a black person doing it. I would attribute it to that PERSON instead of "those people".

How many protests in Kerala or for that matter India ends up in looting. How many riots end up in looting in India? Why do race protests in America end up in looting (this is most certainly not a isolated incident, there seems to be a pattern). If it is just desperation, it should be the same everywhere right? Also, how many of these looted stores belong to African-Americans?

[CRamS]

Leaving aside the intricacies of who did what in Ferguson, MO, what happened there is a national shame of colossal proportions. It exposes how how hollow and superficial US protestations on human rights around the world is. But for institutional military style law enforcement, and Gobblesian PR on US media, the contempt and hatred for blacks (and other people of color) among many many sections of the white populace is just a heartbeat away from surfacing as Ferguson, MO shows. Of course, does all this mean other countries can accuse US of huan rights violations just as US pompously does? Of course, not. My point is that US needs to look itself in the mirror, thats all.

Those Haas school monkeys will be confined to some dustbin if they turn their gaze on Fergon, MO or plight of blacks instead of us Hindu SDREs.

[Shreeman]

The shopkeeper and the shop incident were NOT the reason for the shooting.

Thanks for the lecture, but a small point: given the above, why was the store looted and burned? Just "Boyz will be boyz"? Nowhere did I excuse the policeman "shooting and keeping on shooting" but I do point to the forgotten victim(s) who have neither the white police nor the black protestors nor the White House and FBI to stand up for their rights, and those are the ONLY innocents in this whole mess.

Why do you think we of all people should NOT speak out on their behalf? What did the storekeeper do to deserve what happened to him? Where are HIS rights?

I think someone who robs a store, assaults the storekeeper who simply remonstrated with the robber, then walks out and gets into another fight with an SUV driver, walks in the middle of the road, then assaults a police officer...

SHOULD expect to be punished severely. Sure, after arrest and trial, unless he really did threaten the safety of a police officer, which, eventually, is what is going to come out of this after all the noise subsides.

Why is that being swept under the carpet in this tsunami of political appeasement? Instead all we hear is how the dead (alleged as seen on video) robber was a model student, completely peaceful, etc etc etc. Let's find out the truth on that too, shall we?

Have you looked at the truth about the savagery of completely unprovoked attacks against Korean and Indian shopkeepers, who have struggled bravely all their lives to build up small businesses, by the Looting Communities? I don't give a damn what their skin color or religion or tightness of musharrafs is, they are savages. Reducing the number of those by any means, in incidents where violence is initiated by the looters, is a plus for humanity. I would of course say the same whether the attackers were white, black, brown, yellow or pink or any other color. Same in Malloostan or Godhra or Mumbai or Brixton or Fiji or Jakarta.

The failure of law enforcement in Ferguson is glaring: all those looters, not a single one machinegunned.

A reporter from the station tweeted that police cars were seen driving past some of the stores being looted and did not respond....

As for the shops being looted, there were many. And this is not the first violence after a law enforcement related death. The looters, as you say, are not dead. So these remain two separate issues.:

- failure of law enforcement re. the death, and high handed response re. journalists instead of responding to looting
- the situation for ANY small business owner. they are putting metal grills where I am now, and quite a bit of new york, new jersey is already like this,

you can either conclude misguided priorities for law enforcement in buying tanks, or you can promote more tanks for them. Our brown (therefore black) voices do not matter. All we can do is watch. if the citizenry is gone taliban, then no amount of tanks are going to help.

[Shreeman]

Leaving aside the intricacies of who did what in Ferguson, MO, what happened there is a national shame of colossal proportions. It exposes how how hollow and superficial US protestations on human rights around the world is. But for institutional military style law enforcement, and Gobblesian PR on US media, the contempt and hatred for blacks (and other people of color) among many many sections of the white populace is just a heartbeat away from surfacing as Ferguson, MO shows. Of course, does all this mean other countries can accuse US of huan rights violations just as US pompously does? Of course, not. My point is that US needs to look itself in the mirror, thats all.

Those Haas school monkeys will be confined to some dustbin if they turn their gaze on Fergon, MO or plight of blacks instead of us Hindu SDREs.

The US keeps up this charade simply to avoid having to looking in the mirror. If you dont fall for the propaganda then the Haas/Berkeley efforts are wasted. Their utility is in pulling the wool over others' eyes.

I admit to realizing this too late, after katrina. And then, Ray Nagin appears to have been the guy who went to jail eventually. Dont recall much anyone else being punished.

Do note that this was a large natural calamity, so there was no need for exposure of racial prejudice there. In the end, the insttitutions meant for domestic or international use reflect the citizenry. So it is in India, and so it is in the USA. Unplanned events show brief flashes of truth. Rest is propaganda.

[Philip]

America is totally corrupt,especially the mental attitude of its political elite who are mere agents of the Mil-Industrial complex that Gen./Pres. Eisenhower spoke of way back in the aftermath of WW2. Year after year the miserable truth is given to us that the bulk of world's wealth is held in the hands of a microscopic % of the population,mostly Western individuals.They orchestrate events worldwide,with a view to creating an atmosphere of strife and tension globally,frightening nations to buy huge qtys. of arms which their poor populations scarcely can afford,with the" cycle of war upon war ",the war against terror .destroying nations and ancient civilisations,and p*ssing in the backyards of other nations where the US has no bl**dy right to do so like in the Ukraine.

What's happening in Ferguson is sypmtomatic of the disease that is eating away the heart of the great vision of the US's founding fathers.

[Hari Seldon]

^^Bah, what corrupt-vorrupt yaar.

unkil remains the pre-eminent power on earth and provides us SDREs an opportunity to live life first-world-like. Who wouldn't take it, eh?

Personally,m the country I like best is Canada but Amrika bhi chalega. I say this after having seen how warm oirope is towards us SDREs. only.

[RamaY]

^^Bah, what corrupt-vorrupt yaar.

unkil remains the pre-eminent power on earth and provides us SDREs an opportunity to live life first-world-like. Who wouldn't take it, eh?

Personally,m the country I like best is Canada but Amrika bhi chalega. I say this after having seen how warm oirope is towards us SDREs. only.

http://bharata-bhuti.blogspot.com/2014/ ... hamic.html

[UlanBatori]

As far as I can tell, the brutal Police, Army etc have not (yet) gone charging into homes of innocent civilians minding their own business, and dragged them off to concentration camps, or disemboweled pregnant women etc. All they have done is try to bring order in the streets.

Meanwhile the Peaceful, Repressed Community
1) started the violence by robbing a convenience store and beating up the (even more minority community) store clerk
2) getting into a bissing contest with someone in an SUV
3) tried to beat up a police officer
and generally got one of them sent to houristan.

Following which the entire One Community seems to have come out on the streets in support of the violent robber, lying that he was some sort of angel boy innocently going about his studies.

The government's failure is in not protecting the rights of innocent citizens - i.e., the shopkeepers and store clerks. And owners of any vehicles they burned (that is a usual part of the One Community's displays of petulance).

Machineguns I say. Loaded with real bullets, not rubber ones. Obviously the US is a decadent, dying power. In Mongolia the rioters would have been loaded into cattle cars and shipped to the Gobi Road-Construction Collective and be breaking rocks by now, the first honest labor that they have ever done. Pastors and all. Generally, when the death toll (including Los Disappearados) exceeds 300 Peace returns. Shown many times in Uighuristan, for instance.

Look at the example of Philadelphia, 1980s. Same as Ferguson MO today. Violence all the time. Then one day the police sent helicopters and armored cars, sealed off one street of continuous row-houses, and the helicopters dropped firebombs on the headquarters of the MOVE movement. MOVED them all to Houristain, permanent-like. That's it. Peace and quiet. Today Philadelphia is a peaceful, modern city. Produces very good bomb-carrying helicopters.

[sanjaykumar]

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/bikin ... 67391.html


Hope the US knows what dangers lurk in those bikinis.

[Sagar G]

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/bikin ... 67391.html


Hope the US knows what dangers lurk in those bikinis.

How come this is related with this thread ??? The title of the article completely twists the words of the MLA who has been quoted in the article

Speaking to reporters here Saturday, Mamledar said: "Everybody says India will be a superpower only on the basis of its culture and not otherwise, because India has high culture....And if we want India to be superpower, then our culture should be maintained".

DDM powered by BRFites.

[Shreeman]

As far as I can tell, the brutal Police, Army etc have not (yet) gone charging into homes ...

While this may possibly still hold (as the media has not reported it yet, possibly having been beaten into submission by the flashbangs), whatt happens when the police arrive, is usually not deterministic.

Meanwhile the Peaceful, Repressed Community ... <communal rant shortened>

I suspect the sense of community remaining in these colored folks, good or bad, coupled with the physical attributes and anatomy begets this instant fear. Civil rights were not easily won, nor that long ago. And most of the winnings have been lost in the last fifteen years under GWOT. The fact that there is a sense of community and outrage is a positive -- there is no reaction of any sort from DK sort of incidents. Take you pick, outrage (with opportunistic crime) or nothing.

The government's failure is in not protecting the rights of innocent citizen....

This comes from the lack of dhara 144 type law, and the lack of control over the national guard at the local level. Until the Boston incident, a curfew was not even in the vocabulary of the ordinary citizen. I suspect running battles of the sort you envision with tanks, APCs and loaded weapons are not happening until law provides more local control of the spear-arm of the LEOs to the local judges permitting treatment currently reserved for the malsic folks. I suspect part-donations of an armoured truck here and a mine resistant vehicle there will not get highway patrol or SWAT up to code. You really need national guard.

You really need legal reform to get where you want to go quickly. Perhaps a referendum question? Too late for this november, but what about the next?

[Surya]

shreeman

the only point I am making is we do not know and so far no video of the scuffle or shooting

but the store incident puts paid to the gentle giant and timid character being put out initially

and all the execution statement is based on the friend who was in the store and in all his hysterical TV interviews never mentioned the store incident as if that was just normal

that does not mean the cops riot control procedures abd going in with military tactical gear is to be condoned - thats an issue which will get pursued interestingly enough by both the right and the left

[Shreeman]

shreeman

the only point I am making is we do not know and so far no video of the scuffle or shooting

but the store incident puts paid to the gentle giant and timid character being put out initially

and all the execution statement is based on the friend who was in the store and in all his hysterical TV interviews never mentioned the store incident as if that was just normal

that does not mean the cops riot control procedures abd going in with military tactical gear is to be condoned - thats an issue which will get pursued interestingly enough by both the right and the left

Surya,

Of course, we don't know the facts.

But cruisers have cameras and recording equipment (see more of COPS, if you haven't seen). If store video can be found, so can the cruiser video. The store video was released over the objection of the department of justice, while even the number of times this individual was shot has not been released. Yet, the store video is available for all to see.

Clearly the Al-jazeera crew were not looting. And why is there such equipment (at least two armoured vehicles pictured) accessible to the lowest level law enforcement? Contrast with the outrage routinely expressed over "police action" in kashmir where poor mahindra jeeps and tata trucks routinely take a beating.

In a brooklyn incident, a cabbie was raped with a plunger in a police station during "interrogation". And the only thing he won was a civil "settlement". I am not absolving any side of wrongdoing, nor supporting the store incident. But a dozen other stores were looted much worse while the response against the protestors was going on, and the local police chief himself admitted that the store incident DID NOT cause the shooting incident.

You can't form a narrative here, because there are no facts. There is no real coverage, and there is selective leaking of information. My comments are still only satire, whether obvious or not.

[Philip]

"White flight".Luvverly phrase.Paul Theroux once wrote a novel ,"the O-Zone", set 50 yrs. into the future where the US had been overtaken by apocalyptic conflict,national crime and the "good folks" lived in heavily defended segregated zones .Many years from now,he may turn out to be another Orwell or HG Wells!

Beware, all who enter here... into the America of the 21st century, this forbidden land of nuclear waste, mutants, and aliens. Even now, so many years after the disaster, O-Zone remains under quarantine, off-limits... to all but the wealthiest Owners. To these eight Owners, it is amusement, a New Year's Eve picnic. The land's wild beauty awes them -- but the aliens are a shock: the two the Owners kill look disturbingly human.....

Katrina was the eyeopener for those who fell asleep ,where the victims of the hurricane were treated like "untermenschen" by their would-be rescuers,neo-Nazi style.The searing fact is that there are two Americas,with different rules in practice for both.The "Haves and the have nots" and the "have nots" are almost exclusively black.

[Shreeman]

Three Molotov cocktails pummeled the roof of a Domino's Pizza, burning a hole, before firefighters put the flames out.

I never thought KFC a la kracchi was even imaginable here.

[UlanBatori]

that does not mean the cops riot control procedures abd going in with military tactical gear is to be condoned - thats an issue which will get pursued interestingly enough by both the right and the left

Sorry but both left and right are wrong on that. Media impressions are not as important as the safety of the police personnel involved - they too bleed, they have spouses and parents and children and friends too.

India is particularly backward in this respect, so let's not make comparisons and claim superiority. Remember the Golden Temple incident as a particularly glaring example: the buggers sent in the soldiers BAREFOOT with no covering fire, into a machine-gun/grenade/bazooka hell. How many died? 100? 300? Totally wasteful, criminally wasteful.

The Russians dealt with the Moscow Theater siege by the Chechen suicide wimmens by sending gas into the whole place (yes, killed many innocents too, but I don't see what choice they had). I would have cleared a safe field for the soldiers to go in (buildings can be rebuilt, media noise will died down, it was pretty old anyway, soldiers cannot be brought back to life, nor their limbs replaced). Who the *** was impressed that the soldiers went BAREFOOT? The terrorists were impressed?

Same with the "Go get those bast*rds by the scruff of the neck" orders given to the first platoons sent to clear the Kargil heights, with no proper intel, no recon. Same arrogant idiocy. Same with paradropping soldiers into Jaffna with no glimpse of intelligence and without clearing landing areas : 600 killed as they came down!!!!

Same (no lesson learned), sending those boats down the lake in Chattisgarh(?) where the Maoists massacred the soldiers using anti-tank weapons and machineguns.

Same with Indian police operations in most areas: send a bunch of ill-prepared, poor, terrified fellows with only lathis or .303s at best, to face terrorist armed with AK-47s, grenades, etc.

These were/are VIOLENT RIOTERS. There is only one effective response: the promise of OVERWHELMING power, SURE promise of destruction, with no opening provided to hurt the law enforcers. That means flak jackets, kevlar body armor, face protection, arm protection, leg protection, lethal weapons, whatever it takes to suppress the armed opposition immediately and most definitely.

Yes, they terrify. They should. They expect and force immediate surrender, and they tend to make the surrendered rioters lie face down, tie their hands and ankles with plastic ties, and drag them off to jail. That way they can't do any more damage to others or to themselves. Then the Judge/jury and lawyers can decide what to do with them. Message: you don't want to be in that position, GET THE **** OFF THE STREETS!

They are also a welcome sight to people whose livelihoods are being looted and raped and burned down by *&^%$ sh1ts. More power to the police and army.

That is one aspect I have come to understand very well about American response to violence. Value life - of the law-abiding. DON'T give the advantage to the outlaws.

Military tactical gear was precisely the right thing. At least it's better than sending Drones

[Prem]

Are the good folks at Berkeley-Haas on holiday. Someone should tell them that the events at Ferguson offers a unique opportunity to hone their skills at reporting riots and they don't have far to travel with a MacDonalds close by. How can they miss such an event.
How to publicize that good thought? Where are the Trained Graduate Students From The Local Communities With VideoCameras? Maybe a few letters should go out to the Dean of the Haas School requesting that they send the esteemed Drs. Shashi Buluswar and Angana C to Ferguson, armed with videocameras, to dig up all the mass graves? Do they not CARE about Minority Hyooman Rites in the US of A, hain?

IMHO, Haas Is too Khaas for their Boss to be sent on Ferguson Grave Searching Mission. The best is to offer them free transportation to KhalifaLand of ISIS where they can have forst hand experience the sharp "peace" of islam . Like BD , there is no genocide their by ISISlam. Yedizis are at peace (after Death)

[Shreeman]

that does not mean the cops riot control procedures abd going in with military tactical gear is to be condoned - thats an issue which will get pursued interestingly enough by both the right and the left

Sorry but both left and right are wrong on that. Media impressions are not as important as the safety of the police personnel involved - they too bleed, they have spouses and parents and children and friends too.

India is particularly backward in this respect, so let's not make comparisons and claim superiority. Remember the Golden Temple incident as a particularly glaring example: the buggers sent in the soldiers BAREFOOT with no covering fire, into a machine-gun/grenade/bazooka hell. How many died? 100? 300? Totally wasteful, criminally wasteful.

The Russians dealt with the Moscow Theater siege by the Chechen suicide wimmens by sending gas into the whole place (yes, killed many innocents too, but I don't see what choice they had). I would have cleared a safe field for the soldiers to go in (buildings can be rebuilt, media noise will died down, it was pretty old anyway, soldiers cannot be brought back to life, nor their limbs replaced). Who the *** was impressed that the soldiers went BAREFOOT? The terrorists were impressed?

Same with the "Go get those bast*rds by the scruff of the neck" orders given to the first platoons sent to clear the Kargil heights, with no proper intel, no recon. Same arrogant idiocy. Same with paradropping soldiers into Jaffna with no glimpse of intelligence and without clearing landing areas : 600 killed as they came down!!!!

Same (no lesson learned), sending those boats down the lake in Chattisgarh(?) where the Maoists massacred the soldiers using anti-tank weapons and machineguns.

Same with Indian police operations in most areas: send a bunch of ill-prepared, poor, terrified fellows with only lathis or .303s at best, to face terrorist armed with AK-47s, grenades, etc.

These were/are VIOLENT RIOTERS. There is only one effective response: the promise of OVERWHELMING power, SURE promise of destruction, with no opening provided to hurt the law enforcers. That means flak jackets, kevlar body armor, face protection, arm protection, leg protection, lethal weapons, whatever it takes to suppress the armed opposition immediately and most definitely.

Yes, they terrify. They should. They expect and force immediate surrender, and they tend to make the surrendered rioters lie face down, tie their hands and ankles with plastic ties, and drag them off to jail. That way they can't do any more damage to others or to themselves. Then the Judge/jury and lawyers can decide what to do with them. Message: you don't want to be in that position, GET THE **** OFF THE STREETS!

They are also a welcome sight to people whose livelihoods are being looted and raped and burned down by *&^%$ sh1ts. More power to the police and army.

That is one aspect I have come to understand very well about American response to violence. Value life - of the law-abiding. DON'T give the advantage to the outlaws.

Military tactical gear was precisely the right thing. At least it's better than sending Drones

<out of satire mode:>There is a bit of the last-word approach showing here, lot of famous but completely unrelated incidents thrown up. so its time for me to move on. If any facts ever emerge re. ferguson, we can discuss them. In the meantime lets enjoy the dhara 144 invocation. </end of non-satire/back to regular programming>

[member_22539]

^It is not unrelated. It just demonstrated how pathetic woolly-headed measures have resulted in disaster for the security forces and left the problem unresolved (only to resolved more violently later). When these ghetto dwellers (black or white, as show in London) come out in numbers, they mostly end up looting stores in the name of protests, in the process victimizing some of the only members of their community who have learned to support themselves and contribute to the the local community. These "peaceful" demonstrators should be shown the bottoms of the jackboots of well-equipped and mandated security forces. A criminal is a criminal, even if his skin is black and even if his ancestors were victimized, and a criminal community must be treated as such, not with words of tender understanding and sympathy that should be reserved for REAL victims like the store owners.

At first I just fell sorry for that store clerk who was robbed by that big ape (ya, I called him ape, thats what you call a person who snatches stuff like monkeys preying on children). Then I felt annoyed. What the hell was he doing without a gun. The moment that monster came in he should have had his hand on a shotgun, ready to blow his head off the moment he misbehaved.

[Hari Seldon]

I know an SDRE chap who recently became a yooyess citizen. All puffed up about it and all. Understandable, who wouldn't be? But then his FB bosts took a moralistic talk-down dimension.,.. about how yindia is so hopelessly outdated and wrong and all. Rehashing NYT calumny on how India's become a rape society what no. I quietly downgraded him from friend to acquaintance and moved on. Am sure, he'll have similarly moralistic posturing on Ferguson MO and what not...

[member_22539]

There is something seriously wrong with US of A and even some other western societies. We also have the poor, downtrodden and the ghetto/slum dwellers, but they do not behave like this. They do not even have the welfare cakes that these westerners shamelessly consume while cursing the society they live in. Our poor and downtrodden, even when they live worse than animals, behave like civilized people. Have you ever heard of the slum dwellers of Mumbai coming out and looting stores ?(I know that peacefuls are an exception, but I don't include them).

[habal]

they are showing classic symptoms of being disenfranchised. They do not have any stake in society, and society does not bother to involve them as well. These people are in a trap, and they know it and whenever they get a chance to breakout, this looting is what happens. This is the classic eventuality of anglo-american capitalism and its accompanying social model, it functions on inherent belief of exceptionalism of the elite and their acolytes. Acceptance into anglo-american society is conditional to accepting this inclusivity meme of neo-elite exceptionalism and how only they can be fair in dispensing wealth and justice. The blacks and minorities have to fulfill some aspect of meeting needs of neo-elite and agreeing with their exceptionalism else they are disregarded and put out to pasture at the periphery of society.

This is never discussed because anglo-americans and their acolytes are too busy criticising others.

[Philip]

The Blacks in the US are behaving like Hamas and co. in Gaza.Looting is their version of "asymmetric warfare" in dealing with a more powerful entity.The Blacks and other "untermenschen" live in ghetto-like pockets across the US,marginalised,with infinitely lesser opportunities for social climbing,looked upon as a criminal race and incarcerated in American prisons as a result.From time to time the illusion of the great "American Dream",is shattered with race riots,looting,etc.,leaving it resemble more of a "Nightmare" than a dream.

[Tanaji]

For those saying that at least the police are not raiding homes and dragging off people, they have no clue. Policing does not exist in a vacuum, it is a reflection of society. The society confers extraordinary rights on the police who are expected to use the same with extraordinary care. Killing babies in cribs with flash bangs, s*domizing people with plungers, forced anal exams without warrants is not a sign off that BTW if these things are not an indicator of an institutionalized pattern of abuse in the American police forces, I am not sure what else will meet the criteria for you. The less said about PDs such as Maricopa county or the one that is under federal investigation for excessive deaths in police shootings, the better. The incidents are not limited to a particular jurisdiction but are spread all over, which isx a sign of something seriously wrong.

No other western police force equips its on the beat cops with military gear. No other police forces routinely uses Swat to serve warrants, Nowhere does a nexus exist between the state that agrees to contractually binding quotas for prison occupancy, the privately run state prison companies and police with powers to retain seized property in drug busts. All this points to a corrupt select few writing laws that are beneficial to them at the cost of the bottom most people in the society. Let's not even go near the totally disproportionately sided legal system in the US that almost forces you to accept guilty pleas regardless of guilt. The riots are a symptom of this, not the cause.

Oh BTW, ask your pals at SPLC about the proportion in which the blacks get incarcerate....

[ArmenT]

There is something seriously wrong with US of A and even some other western societies. We also have the poor, downtrodden and the ghetto/slum dwellers, but they do not behave like this. They do not even have the welfare cakes that these westerners shamelessly consume while cursing the society they live in. Our poor and downtrodden, even when they live worse than animals, behave like civilized people. Have you ever heard of the slum dwellers of Mumbai coming out and looting stores ?(I know that peacefuls are an exception, but I don't include them).

Erm, there are plenty of instances of slum dwellers in the South looting stores. E.g. after MGR's death, Indira Gandhi's death, Cauvery water sharing agreement, Anti-Hindi agitations etc.

[UlanBatori]

Hello... I said that in Ferguson there aren't yet reports of police invading homes, all the violence was about looters and rioters ignoring orders to go home/ stay peaceful. The reason I said that is that in other places all those do/did happen. All these historical injustices are no excuse to go assault poor Indians or Chinese shopkeepers and store clerks struggling to make it, working late hours for minimum wage. I bet the violent robber peaceful angelic "teen" who got shot after trying to attack a policeman (also working late hours on a dangerous street for a pittance wage to make ends make) was a HECK of a lot more privileged and lived a far better life than either his victim or his attempted-victim. So let's give this "reaction to denial of rights" cr!p a rest, shall we?

The SPLC is proof that there have been, and continue to be, gross violations of civil rights. How many cases has SPLC taken up on behalf of poor Indians or Mexicans or Chinese or Puerto Ricans or Pakis or Araba whose rights have been trampled on? My 6th coujin 3 times removed, used to be a Special Council Member or something of the SPLC because of a few hard-earned pennies donated to them in the days when they were an outfit with one (Jewish, white) lawyer and a few clerks, constantly under threat of firebombing. Stopped when he found years later that they had become a $100M + endowment with awesome legal power - and a 1-track agenda.

I can understand, if the Ferguson ppl were so angry with police, their KFC-ing a few police cars etc. But burning down desi , chinese, korean owned stores? That is because they are racist savages who deserve absolutely no sympathy.

Yes, there is institionalized bias, racism in police and other departments. The worst ones are often of "One Community" or "Another Community", not necessarily of the "Majority Community". I don't see why poor desis should be targeted as the appropriate means of protest against this.

As for riot control, it is now very clear that more than a week after the start of the riots, American police are not interested in protecting minority communities such as Indians, Chinese and Hispanics from the savage rioters. We should all send letters to the Dean of the Haas School asking about Civilians' Rights During Riots In America.