“Little Brother is not an instruction manual”.
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Probably afraid of being disappeared into black sites or charged with espionage.
The next time a government does institute a policy of concentration camps, it will have been facilitated by people calling “Godwin’s Law” when valid comparisons are made. Remember that the Nazi party was elected. Hopefully it’s possible to notice totalitarianism before the body count hits a million.
Well, presumably a lot of people have been held there. The police department owns or is paying rent on the building. They are paying for electricity and heat. They are paying for water. All of this is on an accountant’s books, all of this needs to be justified. If they only held a half dozen people there over the life of the facility then there would be pressure to close it to fill it up to justify the expense.
I hope that a trickle of stories will lead to the dam bursting. But how many stories does it take to get credence in America? As long as every story is coming from a black person, a poor person or a troublesome protester, there could be a thousand of them and the mainstream media would still portray it as “he said / she said.”
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From the articles, it is a local undercover facility for multiple local agencies. Kind of stupid, as that makes it a chokepoint for those agencies. Which means a well placed video camera would get pictures of agents in and out of disguise.
There are countless ways, one would think, of hiding charges in projects.
I must admit, I am a little curious, because I have worked at jobs in Chicago, and worked at a downtown facility and at a suburban facility. The female interviewed is a dead ringer, in fact, for one of my friends… though I do not recognize the last name, nor the first name.
They do have a large family.
A lot of relatives in and around Chicago. Lotsa cousins.
Yes, they did this with “the messenger”. This, despite the fact, that the story of the US CIA working with Nicaraguans drug barons was not an unknown. And, since then, it has been even more well documented.
Yet, mainstream reporters came out since the movie. How many people kill themselves with two bullets to the head? Seems kind of hard to pull the trigger after the first bullet, wouldn’t you think?
It would probably be interesting to see a study on how mainstream American media handled the Snowden story. I suppose I would not know, because I tend to rely on non-mainstream news sources and international sources these days. Did they go forward with it when they could? Did they attack it or not report components of it fairly? Did they see the road was clear and they had to report it? No wonder Snowden looked to a foreign news source for trustworthy contact and reporting.
This story has been around, so why didn’t anyone in Chicago report it or hear about it first? Will they do follow up? What pressures might be on them to not report it?
There is the “he said”/“she said” component, though there is not anything outlandish reported. The stories are divergent enough to be believable. When there is embelishment, typically story tellers of fiction make up too much. Say too little and they might not be believed, or might be scared of not getting enough attention. Say little, as they have, and well, that tends to indicate they are concerned about being accurate and have no concern about such embellishment because they are telling the truth.
Have they been harassed? Unfortunately, this may be the case, but often such harassment can be the sort that one is not sure if it really happened and to tell it, they understand people may not believe it.
One issue probably effecting mainstream American news sources is that they are equating ‘being good citizens’ with accepting their law enforcement and intel being on a moral high ground. Seems shameful to call themselves “journalists” and avoid actually going for the tougher, more important stories.
I do not think this story is ultimately up to mainstream American media, however, nor is it necessary to get “thousands” of voices. The numbers already found are very likely symptomatic of many more behind them, people who either have not heard the news stories, did not take note of where they were, or do not wish to try and contact anyone because they do not want even more police hassle. Probably some of them have become undercover informants.
I am curious about more of these stories coming out, if this has been symptomatic in other cities, for instance.
In general, law enforcement won’t have much advantage to bring in suspects they are working, and especially not to bring them to facilities where they actually manage undercover operations. The later point means there will be agents going in there, in disguise, and out of disguise. And probably driving home from work right from that building.
Anyway, at this juncture, Chicago local news is all over this, because of the resulting rallies, and hopefully the infrastructure there will keep the stories alive. One person, alone, might be cautious to share their story, but if they see they are safe in a crowd of numbers doing so, then they will join in.
I agree, but how many people are still out there defend Bill Cosby with the number of accusers he has? That’s what I mean be “he said / she said”, that people treat every story as if it has two sides, no matter how overwhelming the evidence in favour of one side is. That’s how the climate change debate or the evolution debate still rages in America. The word of a cop saying that nothing wrong is being done at the site and that if anything wrong is being done it is being done to people who deserve it anyway will be seen to balance precisely with the word of any number of wronged citizens, plus any amount of physical evidence.
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That is a problem I am well acquainted with… I have been especially struggling with this recently. One of my coworkers pointed out to me that my job is like an investigative reporter once, and that another coworker’s job I worked with was like a television news person who read the news to the public.
One time, when I was dealing with a story which was particularly difficult to understand, they came up with this mind bending line for me, to help me break through: ‘there is no truth, because people believe what they want to believe based on their preferences’.
I think you could unleash Godzilla on the populace, and they wouldn’t see it, if it was not according to their preferences.
But, when Godzilla starts crashing their homes and places of businesses, well, then they have to start making sense of what it is they are looking at.
It becomes in their best interests.Otherwise, they will just drive in to work, just to get foot slammed into the ground by Godzilla.
Getting policing agencies and government to be persuaded, however, is much more fun and easier to do. They can get their attention riveted by all sorts of methods. Journalists with video cameras probably have similar weaknesses. Though they tend to need a level of evidence cops and government do not need.
Cops and government just need a verifiable threat. After all, people believe them. That is part of the whole flaw in the system, perhaps. Whereas journalists will just be seen as kooky, and even video tape these days can be suspect.
I am here talking about agencies actually tasked and empowered to investigate these sorts of matters. Serpico is a threat to these sorts, or clandestine organizations which are not their friend and have more power then they have. In fact, being power mongers who worship it, well, that is along their line of preferences.
Could there be anything like that working inside government to take these sorts of situations “to task”? I would think there very well might be.
No. Please go back and read what Mike actually said about Usenet. He did not imply that comparisons to the Nazis were necessarily invalid, just that if a thread went on long enough something would be compared to them.
Black sites where people are detained and tortured are a characteristic of many evil regimes, including the Soviet Union, Saddam’s Iraq, Iran and, as we now know, the United States. My point was that people should not simply assume that abuse of police powers is OK because they are white middle class Protestant and it can’t happen to them.
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I’m quite familiar with what was said regarding Usenet.
I was not suggesting that the comparison was invalid, I was questioning whether the comparison was direct enough to the Nazi’s to count. (In retrospect, yes)
By all means, be outraged at Homan Square. Don’t put words in my mouth, though.
That’s your assumption. The original poem does not, in fact, directly address Nazi Germany but the failure of good people to act in the face of evil. In fact, when I wrote my post I wasn’t thinking about the Nazis at all. I was replying to BingBong and his observation that people must be brainwashed or brain dead to allow abuses of power. The short answer is that this is not necessary, just that people are not willing to fight in defense of liberty.
I’m not quite sure what point you are trying to make or what you are trying to attribute to me, but your assumption in parentheses is simply wrong.
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I am not trying to attribute anything to you. I had no argumentative point.
I was being pedantic, and questioning whether it was a reference to the Nazi’s, and thus the thread had reached the point of Godwin’s law (where Nazi’s or Hitler are invoked, for any reason). There was no reason to react with outrage.
Godwin’s Law says something will be compared to the Nazis, not that they will just be invoked. In the context I thought you were driving trollies by suggesting I was comparing either the US as a whole, or the Chicago administration, to Nazi Germany. I wasn’t. One small but obvious point of difference is that a visit to Chicago wouldn’t entail any risk to me of ending up in a concentration camp. And I still fail to grasp your motivation.
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Mild snark. Perhaps too mild, considering your reaction.
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