Read this link here.
Every journalist is political. And the mainstream media journalists are bound, not by their personal political convictions, but by the policies set in the boardrooms of their corporate employers. We all know that, or at least *should*. Violent beatings by police on protesters greatly outnumber violence committed by protesters; I have attended hundreds of protests in the last 6 years since the Bush regime started, and I have never once seen a bona fide protester deliberately engaging in violence against police officers *without provocation*. Those are the key phrases: "bona fide" and "without provocation". I have witnessed numerous attacks on protesters by police, and if someone defends himself, as opposed to the recommended "going limp", he will be charged with assaulting a police officer. A count of all the hospitalizations and wrecked cameras wrecked by "overzealous policing" (read mindless thuggery protected by the blue uniform), especially since the Bush regime's onset, would be spectacular.
Violence committed by stooges, however, is commonplace. An prime example of this was in the 1999 when the mainstream media were led by the nose to the downtown area, where masked thugs in the guise of "black block anarchists" were deployed by parties unfamiliar to the organizers of the demonstration, for whom a peaceful action was of an obvious and paramount priority. These individuals, with the mainstream media TV cameras ready on site with cameras rolling, threw rocks and bricks at the windows of many downtown Seattle businesses, including McDonald's and other high profile institutions. The scenes of mayhem and destruction, faithfully recorded to videotape, were duly broadcast on prime time television, and repeated over several days, effectively branding the entire demonstration as a violent affair run by rowdy and criminal elements. The mission was to trash the "anti-WTO" image in the minds of the general public that the "globalists" were "the good guys" and the demonstrators were all a bunch of out-of-control hooligans. Mission accomplished, with the aid of the Seattle Police Dept?
It is plain that urban police departments have deliberately engaged in unconstitutional activity, in alignment with the causes that attract popular demonstrations. The anti-FTAA protests in Miami 2003 was a prime example such of police tactics characteristic of tinhorn dictatorships. From the Save Our Civil Liberties website, comes the following sinister revelation:
"For almost 2 years, the Miami Police Department has desperately been trying to ensure that the 2003 FTAA police operations plan remains a secret, even from the city's own Civilian Investigative Panel which is charged with investigating the large scale police brutality that took place on November 20-21, 2003. MPD has finally revealed it's reasoning for the secrecy: releasing the plan could "jeopardize future operations nationwide" because "authorities THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY have adopted the plan". This is a stunning, yet frightening admission, as it confirms the deep suspicions of political activists who have personally witnessed the same repressive tactics travel from city to city, protest to protest. This also lends further support to the ominous statements made earlier by Miami Police Chief John Timoney, that the FTAA was "the first big event for Homeland Security...the first real realistic run-through to see how it would work."
In this case, Miami Police Chief John Timoney authorized state sponsored terrorism on US citizens peacefully going about their constitutional right to freedom of assembly and expression.
Question: How often have you, the reader, watched on mainstream television news, unprovoked police violence upon protesters? Here's your answer: Probably never, because of the unwritten rule. But the reality is sadly very different. Even if Wolf's actions could be construed as "biased", the balance of bias in mainstream media reportage towards "the status quo" and conservative or corporate causes, remains stunningly lopsided, for a so-called "democracy".
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