the daily what:

[…] Cell phone service was temporarily suspended in several Bay Area Rapid Transit stations to prevent protesters from communicating with each other, according to BART police Lt. Andy Alkire.

Word that members of “No Justice No BART” would be protesting the shooting death of Charles Hill by a BART police officer reached BART’s media relations department, which asked wireless providers to shut off service at four downtown San Francisco stations to prevent “disruptive activities.” A similar protest on July 11th delayed trains for hours during the evening commute.

“Paid areas of BART stations are reserved for ticketed passengers who are boarding, exiting or waiting for BART cars and trains, or for authorized BART personnel,” BART said in a statement explaining their actions. “No person shall conduct or participate in assemblies or demonstrations or engage in other expressive activities in the paid areas of BART stations, including BART cars and trains and BART station platforms.”

Alkire called the service disruption “a great tool to utilize for this specific purpose.”

Charles Hill, a heavily intoxicated 45-year-old transient, was shot and killed by a BART police officer who claimed Hill was threatening him with knives. According to witness testimony, Hill was not running or lunging as the two officers who intercepted him reported.

CCTV footage released by BART does not appear to verify either version of the story. [ktvu / bart / image: baycitizen.]

You hear in other countries - countries that you think of less democratic than the Westernized World - how during protest and demonstrations and riots, the oppressive governments react by killing internet connections and cell phone service - nothing comes in, nothing goes out. Movements die. Nothing changes. Then you read a story like this… and realize… we’re the same, at least in all the ways that really matter when people need to fight back. 

via tanya 77:

8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back -

How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

via kateoplis:

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt — and the fear it creates — is a pacifying force. […] Public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many countries throughout the world. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives earlier this year to eliminate Mubarak, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War all had in common the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt. 

Read on. 

#3 fucking kills me. It’s so dead-on, no shit.

#7 is missing “Reality TV” which has helped create one of the worst generations as far as work ethic and heightened many Americans’ assumption that being on TV is the pinnacle of human existence.

It’s all so sad. 

Just this morning, I listened to a fantastic interview with this author on the Majority Report. Reading this article, alongside breaking news out of San Francisco - regarding the police making a quick phone, and ta-da!, the telecoms happily shut off large areas of cellphone service, as to keep people from being able to… you know, fight back against police gunning down the homeless in crowded metro stations - is making me sick to my stomach. It almost feels inevitable now… we’ve been squeezed and squeezed and watered-down to the point where all it takes is someone being shot in the back by the law to set people off who have felt neglected their entire lives. 

Source: kateoplis

madeupmemories:

“In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything: “Yes,” said the young man. “You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?” “Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you.” Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.”

— via Penny Red re: the London riots

Everything that’s wrong with our media in one exchange. via anthonyking

Violence and consistency are the norm-attractors of major media attention; size is irrelevant, or, if not irrelevant it is at least a poor indicator of would-be media attention.

Example: the Iraq protest went completely unnoticed, despite being the largest protest on record; there were other pressures at work in not covering that the Iraq War protest of course, it was treason back then to be against the invasion and occupation and bombing of the Middle East; the highest form of patriotism was a nuke the sandbox bumper sticker. In any case, if the protest had turned violent, it would have been a lot sexier for news outlets to highlight - and if had the kind of momentum to last days, weeks, even months straight, it would have the financial efficiency to justify theme music and intro-sequences that help snag and maintain an audience. 

Source: anthonyking

How long until riots in the US?

spytap:

evangotlib:

My guess is that we are not too far away from large-scale rioting here in the US.  The economic destruction that has hit the global youth population is starting to boil over into physical rage all over the globe.  It’s not just an “Arab Spring.”  It’s a global explosion of anger, hopelessness and rage.

It’s just a matter of time before it erupts here.  We’re just running out the clock.

I hope not and hope so in equal parts. On the one hand, I’d prefer demonstrations that don’t involve riots and violence. On the other hand, I remember how well that stopped the war in Iraq when the largest anti-war protests in history went completely and utterly ignored. Either way, something’s got to give, and it’s gonna be many things but “pretty” ain’t one of them.

In the last year of seeing protest and riots all over the world and their effectiveness in everything from protecting Union rights to overthrowing corrupt governments, I think I’ve learned one thing: it’s not the number of the people in the streets, it’s the number of days those people refuse to leave.

Holding the largest organized protest in the history of protest is impressive, but it’s no more difficult to ignore than anything else in a watered-down 24 hr news cycle; had that protest been half, even a quarter the size, and went on for days, weeks even… then what would have happened? If people set up tents in the streets and baby-sitting centers for protesters, if we watched police pick sides either with the people or against the people, if we had seen a prolonged refusal to carelessly and permanently find ourselves in an illegal occupation, would the last 10 years have played out differently? 

Source: evangotlib

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