Does anyone believe the US would have reacted any differently than Iran to the marches? The way we

suppressed protests at Republican National Convention in St. Paul, at Bush speeches, even going back to WTO in Seattle - all these protests were much smaller than in Iran, yet they were very much suppressed.

:popcorn:

like we did...

Remember Kent State?

The regressives in this country have shown no compunction to suppressing dissent, even with violence and lethal force when they deem it necessary. 'We' are not those who do it. That is 'them'.

'We' are now the government - not the regressives. I can't see Obama ordering out the military to murder our citizens (though some here seem to think he would).

relationship with the public until that. Part of the problem was Seattle was getting "advice" from "experts".

In a lot of protests, it seems much wide-spread repression is done after claims of "out of control anarchists" coming to town. In St. Paul, people were simply peacefully marching.

Time and time again, we see hundreds to thousands arrested & detained for many hours, then months later, the charges are dropped.

Obama doesn't have to call for the repression. People in law enforcement at the federal government all the way down to the local governments are the ones who are making these calls. A concerted effort to change the culture, with leadership at the federal level, may help change things.

Genoa, July 2001.

Not that those types would have any moral qualms about busting up marches, beating heads in, gassing/shooting people, hell, some of those sadist fucks would eat that shit up big time - but the establishment powers wouldn't be able to easily spin video footage of crowds of average Americans being beaten and shot. That's really the only obstacle for them: perception management/damage control. They'd use plants to create fights/violence so the chaos could be safely placed at the feet of innocent protesters engaged in civil disobedience...but again, on such a large scale (as if it would ever happen in this brainwashed, in denial, silly assed country) hard to say how it would pan out.

seeing how easy it was for the Bush admin to spin the American public, I have less hope.

Re the latter, even a little bit goes a long way in setting an example, and inducing a chilling effect. The former is much stronger as it's so deeply rooted within the public mind and its predominant perceptions. That's exactly WHY the US populace so passively and routinely accepts being lied to and fucked over. If that type of indoctrination weren't in place, people would react and respond to being lied to and fucked over ...they do here, but in very non-threatening ways to the establishment. That's a big part of the phony war on terror legislation, too - making "terrorists" out of dissidents, anti-types, etc

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are gunning us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are cutting us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.

against killing protesters or protesting stolen elections is zero. We can't condemn Iran because our hard-line rightest leaders did the same things to our citizens. And now those same promoters of firing on students and fomenting the brooks brothers counter-protest are screaming at the President to do something ... ever and always hypocrites. Dana ; )

against killing protesters and stolen elections is 0. It's the same type of hard-line rightest leaders screaming for the president to do something, who ordered the killing of student protesters and brooks brothers counter-protests of stolen elections. Forever and always hypocrites. Dana ; )

sorry about the double-post, I got a bug report on the first one. D ; )

Using "militerized" police force? Absolutely.

This is just for the relatively small protest we have in the US. If we were to actually have a very large diruptive protest. I could see things turning lethal.

.
.
.

'nuff said

But really, not much difference at all.

The response would be just as total if millions of people started gathering "without permits".

But different. Yes, the tiniest bit. Just enough to provide Plausible Deniability for the Ruling Class.

And our Media-Propaganda infrastructure is MUCH more advanced than the Iranians'.