Here’s my response to some Facebook posts and other panicky things I have heard re folks following the situation that is currently ongoing in Boston.
“Turn off your TV and Smartphone. Take back control of your own life. We don’t own a TV and I’m not checking online (happened to be on Facebook). One 19-year-old on the loose and government shuts down a city. What craziness. Media rules the people, and who/what rules the media? (I could discourse on that.) Imagine what would happen if someone destroyed our capitol building in Washington. Oops, that’s already happened, in Berlin in 1933, when a democratic government was lost to the people by government declaring emergency powers and the people, made fearful by the media, mostly stood by and let it happen. Don’t think it couldn’t happen here.”
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” Herman Goering 4/18/46 http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp
We get inundated with (and accepting of) pictures of military personal and heavily-armed SWAT teams acting like they are enforcing some form of martial law. Hundreds of thousands of residents must cower in their homes. It’s a lot safer there than some of the places Fran has gone for her work with the Burmese refugee community.
http://www.albanytribune.com/19042013-what-is-the-threshold-for-martial-law-oped
Comment by admin — April 20, 2013 @ 3:41 pm
For all the excitement, investigative police work contributed nothing to the outcome. The end came when the brothers hijacked a car and the owner escaped and gave police a vehicle description. Even then, the police allowed one of the brothers to drive the vehicle through the police line and make his escape. Because the vehicle was easily recognizable, he ditched the car and went on foot to a hiding place. A resident noticed blood stains on his boat, saw the young man under the tarp, and called police. Where was police “intelligence” in all this?
Comment by admin — April 20, 2013 @ 3:43 pm