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DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

muckrock.com

31–40 of 216 posts

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#31
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the crowd is large enough to show up at the polls and get more votes for the candidate of their choice than anybody else. This is a democracy.

> When the crowd is large enough to show up at the polls and get more votes for the candidate of their choice than anybody else. This is a democracy. This is a strong indictment of political science education in this country. First of all, you need to understand that the policy preferences of the voting constituency in any given national election are not strongly correlated to policy results. This is shown convincing…

I really agree with this. Specifically, American politics, although technically democratic, is not representational. The US elections are first past the post, where as Australia's is order of preference with instant runoff (you literally cannot throw your vote away) and New Zealand's is MMP (where 50% of Parliament gets equal representation based on party preference and the other 50% get the majority vote).

Also, American preferences don't reflect policy. I did a video on a paper/publication that goes over this:

http://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-differen...

Maine recently voted for ranked voting, and there are groups like Represent.us that are working to enact anti-corruption legislation at the local and state levels; knowing that anything at the Federal level simply won't pass today. We need new officials elected at the lower echelons under anti-corruption rules and for those rules to then propagate up. It's a very uphill battle considering the amount of power and money to prevent it from happening.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#32
post #17

High power directed ultrasound can potentially cause brain damage from induced mechanical strain in brain tissue. I feel like parametric ultrasonic speakers should be more stringently regulated before every single police department starts using them as if they were regular loudspeakers. I support requiring something akin to an amateur radio license to operate high powered parametric ultrasonic speakers.

I support them not being allowed ever. But just like the totally ineffective body scanners at airports, too much money has been sunk in for officers not to use them. No one actually cares about the sunk cost fallacy.

Quite right. Israel's El Al simply profiles everyone that flies and by doing so they obviate the need to use stupid, expensive equipment that does nothing other than bottleneck airports and cause frustration. The Israelis are the best in the world at what they do regarding air security. The West has considered using the same techniques and they likely should. I'm not opposed to profiling if the person fits the profile. Better profiling than dead innocents. People do not have the right to not be offended. I get the heavy hand for some reason every time I fly and I'm literally the grey man, but I understand and go along with it. I'm also squeeky clean from a legal standpoint.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#33
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the crowd is large enough to show up at the polls and get more votes for the candidate of their choice than anybody else. This is a democracy.

With the way districts are Gerrymandered, the electoral college and the amount of money required to even come to the fight: This is an oligarchy. More people DID vote for Hillary. Fat lot of good it's doing us.

Even if she won, she was still the Secretary of State that gave us more predator drones, more bombing and served under a president that spent every day at work (the first president in history).

I feel like people don't realize the corruption is pretty equal between both candidates/parties, they just toss a few pandering policies here and there to get people angry, or spin things differently.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support them not being allowed ever. But just like the totally ineffective body scanners at airports, too much money has been sunk in for officers not to use them. No one actually cares about the sunk cost fallacy.

Quite right. Israel's El Al simply profiles everyone that flies and by doing so they obviate the need to use stupid, expensive equipment that does nothing other than bottleneck airports and cause frustration. The Israelis are the best in the world at what they do regarding air security. The West has considered using the same techniques and they likely should. I'm not opposed to profiling if the person fits the profil…

I agree broadly that the Israeli model seems the one to follow. My understanding differs, however, in that it's not strictly profiling in the sense that carries heavy negative connotations in the US. I haven't traveled to Israel so can't comment, but I understand that in "profiling" the focus is on more objective metrics than an American might think when they hear the word -- e.g., physiological responses (sweating, increased heartrate, nervousness), consistency under questioning, etc.

If that's not the case, would you mind providing some details about your own experience, since you mentioned being pulled aside repeatedly?

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#35
post #18

America's becoming the scary police state we all despise. And with good tech.

becoming? It's been this way for a very long time. Very few major media outlets cover the Democrat/Republican National Conventions, but you can watch videos online of the protests from past years going back quite a bit. Rage Against the Machine use to do protests at both the DNC and RNC which I thought was hilarious.

It's very common for protesters to be smoke bombed, herded, arrested and detained. There are several cases of organizers houses being raided as well.

The big mistake people are making is thinking Orwell's 1984 type world started with Trump or even W. Bush. Unlike the world of Orwell, we're not under totalitarianism. We're closer to Huxsley's Brave New World, but many aspects of 1984 do exist in our society. Our media has been very untrustworthy, long before Trump coined the term "fake news" (before him, we just called it "news").

Yet whenever people call out Anderson Cooper caught in front of a green screen, or when videos emerge of the CNN Kosovo videos from the mid 90s being filmed in front of a blue screen with reporters making fun of their audience between takes, the networks just hand-wave it away. They have the influence to bury it and make people forget, or not care.

We've been living in parts of the 1984 world long before Kennedy, long before I was born and long before my parents were born.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support them not being allowed ever. But just like the totally ineffective body scanners at airports, too much money has been sunk in for officers not to use them. No one actually cares about the sunk cost fallacy.

Quite right. Israel's El Al simply profiles everyone that flies and by doing so they obviate the need to use stupid, expensive equipment that does nothing other than bottleneck airports and cause frustration. The Israelis are the best in the world at what they do regarding air security. The West has considered using the same techniques and they likely should. I'm not opposed to profiling if the person fits the profil…

Being singled out for invasive searching and questioning whenever you fly for no reason other than your ethnicity goes a little beyond "not being offended."

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#37
post #17

High power directed ultrasound can potentially cause brain damage from induced mechanical strain in brain tissue. I feel like parametric ultrasonic speakers should be more stringently regulated before every single police department starts using them as if they were regular loudspeakers. I support requiring something akin to an amateur radio license to operate high powered parametric ultrasonic speakers.

I support them not being allowed ever. But just like the totally ineffective body scanners at airports, too much money has been sunk in for officers not to use them. No one actually cares about the sunk cost fallacy.

Sunk cost fallacy isn't even what's driving that sort of thing. It isn't even that they spent the money and want to keep justifying it. There are parties with a vested financial interested in the continued use of such things.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#38
post #17

High power directed ultrasound can potentially cause brain damage from induced mechanical strain in brain tissue. I feel like parametric ultrasonic speakers should be more stringently regulated before every single police department starts using them as if they were regular loudspeakers. I support requiring something akin to an amateur radio license to operate high powered parametric ultrasonic speakers.

Good thing these women already had brain damage.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite right. Israel's El Al simply profiles everyone that flies and by doing so they obviate the need to use stupid, expensive equipment that does nothing other than bottleneck airports and cause frustration. The Israelis are the best in the world at what they do regarding air security. The West has considered using the same techniques and they likely should. I'm not opposed to profiling if the person fits the profil…

Being singled out for invasive searching and questioning whenever you fly for no reason other than your ethnicity goes a little beyond "not being offended."

It's not simply (ed: only) based on ethnicity.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#40
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the crowd is large enough to show up at the polls and get more votes for the candidate of their choice than anybody else. This is a democracy.

With the way districts are Gerrymandered, the electoral college and the amount of money required to even come to the fight: This is an oligarchy. More people DID vote for Hillary. Fat lot of good it's doing us.

And if people were asked about immigration policy instead of told, we both wouldn’t have had a candidate as vulgar as Trump getting the GOP nomination, and we wouldn’t have had the demographic shift that probably resulted in more Democratic votes than Hillary won the popular vote by.

Oligarchic forces aren’t just tipping the scales in one direction.

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