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> US police is notorious for its brutality, but are these killings ordered by top officials in chain of command? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of

by obrero 11y ago

> US police is notorious for its brutality, but are these killings ordered by top officials in chain of command? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Fred_Hampton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Fred_Hampton > If factory workers go on a strike in the US, are police troops sent in to "shoot to kill" them? They did in Poland 30 years ago, eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Wujek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Wujek Oh god yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_cannery_strike_of_1937 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_cannery_strike_of_193... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_sanitation_strike_of_1968#Riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_sanitation_stri... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Lite_strike#The_.22Battle_of_Toledo.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Lite_strike#The_.22Battle... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Steel_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Steel_strike

V-2 11y ago
Well, it's hard not to notice that most of these examples happen to be from before the war... closer to the Victorian era than modern times. So that's getting kind of ahistorical. Secret service functionaries in communist Poland assassinated nearly 100 people in 1980s alone; mainly oppositionists, priests (the most famous father Popiełuszko wasn't the only one), who were unarmed and not affiliated with organized crime. Furthermore, you wouldn't go to jail for as little as mentioning Fred Hampton (or Wacko siege) in public - let alone trying to write about it... and an anti-government organization such as Black Panther Party, armed and openly denouncing the state, now that's something utterly unthinkable in any "people's republic", they would all get killed. Solidarity was a trade union which formally called for improving socialism. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the US was or is a paradise on Earth, you are obviously right to point out that Eastern bloc did not have a monopoly on political killings or unlawful surveillance. But to insist that this was ever on par with Soviet-controlled countries in terms of freedom and lawfulness would be a doomed task... you'd quickly start scraping the bottom of the barrel in search of counterexamples; that's sort of like "project Steve" ;)

by obrero 11y ago

V-2 11y ago

Well, it's hard not to notice that most of these examples happen to be from before the war... closer to the Victorian era than modern times. So that's getting kind of ahistorical. Secret service functionaries in communist Poland assassinated nearly 100 people in 1980s alone; mainly oppositionists, priests (the most famous father Popiełuszko wasn't the only one), who were unarmed and not affiliated with organized crime. Furthermore, you wouldn't go to jail for as little as mentioning Fred Hampton (or Wacko siege) in public - let alone trying to write about it... and an anti-government organization such as Black Panther Party, armed and openly denouncing the state, now that's something utterly unthinkable in any "people's republic", they would all get killed. Solidarity was a trade union which formally called for improving socialism. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the US was or is a paradise on Earth, you are obviously right to point out that Eastern bloc did not have a monopoly on political killings or unlawful surveillance. But to insist that this was ever on par with Soviet-controlled countries in terms of freedom and lawfulness would be a doomed task... you'd quickly start scraping the bottom of the barrel in search of counterexamples; that's sort of like "project Steve" ;)