Post Comments like this, to this thread:
1. Your Name
2. A Title
3. A short personal commentary what you learned from it or what made you curious about it given the week's class content. However, it doesn't have to be about the week's content, only something related to the history of sociology and/or power.
4. Then put a long line ('-------------------)'.
5. Then cut/paste the article or topic you found.
6. Then a small line '---'.
7. Then, finally, paste the URL (link) of the post.
Post for this week on this thread. I'll set up a new main post each week, and then we will do the same.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Monday, September 3, 2007
test article: State police acting criminal, mass crowd winning out against police
Here's an interesting reversal hardly seen nowadays in an age of high-technological crowd control technologies. Something like what is described below--the justice of the crowd as the last word--was widely prevalent several hundred years ago however. Of course you could additionally get the injustice of the crowd as well as in vigilante hangings in the U.S. South (in which the state looked the other way, or were actively the same networks supporting it actually).
In British colonial America, some similar forms of 'the power of crowds' against authority figures would entail dismantling their private house piece by piece leaving nothing while 'actual authority' figures were unable to do anything about it. What does this say about the locus of power? Very fluid, eh? The power of organization versus the power of another organization: keeping people divided can be a form of power to maintain a form of hegemony just as the cultural motifs that join them can be a form of power. Note the non-legitimate community power of the Critical Mass bike riders (that won in one small area) and the state-legitimate powers of the police (that won in other areas).
--------------------
LOCAL News :: Government & Elections : Police & Prisons : Protest / Direct Action : RNC 2008
Police attack Critical Mass and arrest around 20 cyclists.
Author
Anonymous
Date Created
31 Aug 2007
More details...
Police attacked a Critical Mass in downtown Minneapolis during the pReNC today and arrested at least twenty people using mace, pepper spray, tasers and brutal force on crowd of cyclists with no provocation.
A strong critical mass of around 400 or more cyclists were attacked by the police at the corners of LaSalle and Grant as the tail end of the Mass went under the bridge.
"They just drove into the crowd and nearly hit me, it was totally unprovoked" proclaimed a cyclist who was in the last 5 bikes.
After arresting one biker for allegedly "driving straight towards cars," Massers turned back and swarmed the cops, chanting "let him go." Unsurprisingly, since they were outnumbered 2 to 500ish, the cops let him go.
Half an hour later, another few bikers are arrested by cops (now following the Mass at the back). After bikers turn back to get legal information and collect badge numbers, suddenly a dozen or so squad cars show up. Unprovoked, the police start attacking the crowd, first with excessively violent arrests, then mace, pepper spray, brandishing batons and using tasers on bikers. They arrested at least one utterly uninvolved bystander just for taking pictures as well as several minors. The cops created a riot style line of police that arrested a cyclist who made the mistake of falling behind the others. According to an eyewitness as she attempted to move from behind the police line to join her friends she was told "Get of your bike and get on the ground."
At this point around 20 people are believed to be arrested as the police force of Minneapolis flexes its brutality in the midsts of the PreNC anarchist and anti-authoritarian planning happening during this weekend.
---
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/09/364510.shtml
In British colonial America, some similar forms of 'the power of crowds' against authority figures would entail dismantling their private house piece by piece leaving nothing while 'actual authority' figures were unable to do anything about it. What does this say about the locus of power? Very fluid, eh? The power of organization versus the power of another organization: keeping people divided can be a form of power to maintain a form of hegemony just as the cultural motifs that join them can be a form of power. Note the non-legitimate community power of the Critical Mass bike riders (that won in one small area) and the state-legitimate powers of the police (that won in other areas).
--------------------
LOCAL News :: Government & Elections : Police & Prisons : Protest / Direct Action : RNC 2008
Police attack Critical Mass and arrest around 20 cyclists.
Author
Anonymous
Date Created
31 Aug 2007
More details...
Police attacked a Critical Mass in downtown Minneapolis during the pReNC today and arrested at least twenty people using mace, pepper spray, tasers and brutal force on crowd of cyclists with no provocation.
A strong critical mass of around 400 or more cyclists were attacked by the police at the corners of LaSalle and Grant as the tail end of the Mass went under the bridge.
"They just drove into the crowd and nearly hit me, it was totally unprovoked" proclaimed a cyclist who was in the last 5 bikes.
After arresting one biker for allegedly "driving straight towards cars," Massers turned back and swarmed the cops, chanting "let him go." Unsurprisingly, since they were outnumbered 2 to 500ish, the cops let him go.
Half an hour later, another few bikers are arrested by cops (now following the Mass at the back). After bikers turn back to get legal information and collect badge numbers, suddenly a dozen or so squad cars show up. Unprovoked, the police start attacking the crowd, first with excessively violent arrests, then mace, pepper spray, brandishing batons and using tasers on bikers. They arrested at least one utterly uninvolved bystander just for taking pictures as well as several minors. The cops created a riot style line of police that arrested a cyclist who made the mistake of falling behind the others. According to an eyewitness as she attempted to move from behind the police line to join her friends she was told "Get of your bike and get on the ground."
At this point around 20 people are believed to be arrested as the police force of Minneapolis flexes its brutality in the midsts of the PreNC anarchist and anti-authoritarian planning happening during this weekend.
---
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/09/364510.shtml
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