
According to the Press Freedom Index 2011/2012 released by Reporters without Borders, 46 countries have police who treat the press better than the USA. [Source]
I wonder if we in the USA are like the fish in the fish bowl who are unable to see the water that we swim in. Have we become so accustomed to this abuse that we don’t notice it any more? Perhaps. I think these thoughts when I read reports such as the one mentioned above–the USA, a democracy, ranks 47th in its treatment of reporters who are on the scene trying to report the truth of what is happening. That is very sobering indeed. Have we become a police state (actually and for real) and we can’t see it? Is this what happened to the people in Germany? Are we the proverbial frog who is being boiled alive and we don’t notice it?
What do Finland, Norway, Estonia, Netherlands, Austria, Iceland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Cape Verde, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Ireland, Cyprus, Jamaica, Germany, Costa Rica, Belgium, Nambia, Japan, Surinam, Poland, Mali, OECS, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Niger, Australia, Lithuania, Uruguay, Portugal, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Slovenia, El Salvador, France, Spain Hungry, Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, South Korea, Comoros, Taiwan have that the USA does not? Friendlier police to the citizens.
The citizens of the USA should take note that the USA police were called out by mayors and governors of states to defend the status quo of the closed two-party system of government and silence criticism of Wall Street CEOs with the vehemence of a totalitarian repressive regime. We even have police, paid for by taxpayers, moonlighting for Wall Street financial institutions like Bank of America who brutalize and injure OWS peaceful protesters. It is pathetic that a county like El Salvador, whose police are noted for arrests for unlawful killing of citizens treats the press better than the police in the USA. Pathetic!
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ILWQ Comments: SHAME ON THEM ALL! They ALL must go. Until the American people realize that it is the elected officials in Congress who have the power and vote accordingly, nothing will change. With our diversity as a nation, we should have a multi-party system–not a two party closed system for the rich.
How much more, and even more awful human abuse, happens behind the wizards’ curtain? We get glimpses of the brutality of our government/military leaders when photo are leaked from time to time showing the most egregious, inhuman treatment of prisoners–domestic and foreign. And just this morning I read an article about the importation of slave labor into the USA.
It’s not enough that our “legislators” allow corporations like WalMart to hire part-time workers at minimum (not a living wage even at full-time); they allow other corporations through “guest worker” programs to bring in workers from other countries to work for even less than minimum wage.
Guest workers are recruited each year for labor in the U.S. from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean under the H1-B, H2-A and H2-B programs. Recruiters promise high wages and charge thousands of dollars for visas, fees and transportation.Before they even arrive in the USA, the guest workers owe thousands of dollars. [Sounds familiar doesn't it? This is not that different from the way that US corporations treat US workers. People often have to pay for their company uniforms and other tools they must use on the job. Then to make ends meet, between the non-living wages they are paid and what would be a living wage, many Americans fall for the credit card scheme.]
The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report in 2007 titled Close to Slavery: Guest Worker Programs in the USA. This report found Government enforcement of their rights is almost non-existent. Private attorneys typically won’t take up their cause. Bound to a single employer and without access to legal resources, guestworkers are:
• routinely cheated out of wages;
• forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs;
• held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents;
• forced to live in squalid conditions; and,
• denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries.
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As long as we support the fake two-party system by voting for a Democrat or a Republican candidate and as long as we have the same crooks in both houses of Congress; it does NOT matter who is President or who sits on the bench.
It does not matter.
The most patriot thing that an American can do in 2012 is to vote for an Independent or a third party candidate. If you want change possibly for the better, then that is what you will do. If you want status vote, then vote for a Democrat or a Republican and you’ll get just what you voted for.
Don’t think so? then try to defend this:
A Democratic majority in BOTH houses voted almost unanimously to defund ACORN, an organization whose only “crime” was to empower poor people by registering them to vote. A Democrat majority in both houses made this decision based solely on a poorly edited video made by a known right-wing operative, Jame O’Keefe. This same Democrat majority along with their “enemy” Republican colleagues turn over billions of US taxpayer dollars in contract awards to corporations like Lockheed Martin who have been caught numerous times trying to bilk the US taxpayers out of billions of dollars. Go to the POGO database if you want to see the real criminals that the Democrats and Republicans support.