Re: Genoa

["Robert J. Hansen" <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

>         This is a rather grotesque and obvious troll, but I feel
> compelled to respond to it (silly me).  Before making such condemnatory

Well, your own response isn't much better.  In the interests of
fairness, I'll make a couple of (small) comments.

> look at the facts first.  If you are at all interested in the facts,
> check out www.commondreams.org, www.indymedia.org, www.webactive.com, and
> www.zmag.org, and see the reports on Genoa.  You might be interested to

The only one I'm familiar with is Indymedia, whom I have little respect
for after catching some of their news coverage in glaring
contradictions.  Not that I'm a big fan of mass media, either--but every
journalistic outlet is in somebody's pocket.  Every last one of them.
Indymedia and others, no less so than CNN.

> know that the police van drove over the protester's body twice, and that
> the officer who killed the protester is now charged with murder.  Also

The fact that the protester was run over twice is, (a), disputed--the
reports I've seen say it was once, and (b), possibly irrelevant.  When
the operation takes a sharp detour into Seriously Fuckedville, very
weird things happen.  The protester being run over is one of--a morbid
reminder of the chaos and confusion of what's euphemistically called
"low intensity conflict", the action of a carabineri who, fearing for
his life, used every weapon at his disposal to ensure his survival, up
to and including grinding the offender underneath the wheels, or the
vengeful and bloodthirsty act of an out-of-control cop.

Before you go about saying the protester was dead before he hit ground,
please give consideration to whether or not the carabineri knew it.  The
fog of war that associates trips to Seriously Fuckedville can keep you
from seeing your hand in front of your face.

The carabineri in question has been detained and an investigation is
underway to ascertain whether or not his use of force was correct.  The
fact that this investigation is underway in no way suggests the
carabineri's action was wrong.  It's standard procedure for police
forces in a democracy--the people demand thorough investigations into
police uses of force.

His arrest is almost certainly a token gesture meant to try and appease
some of the protesters: given how recently this happened, I'd be
surprised if the Genoan prosecutor even had forensic reports on the
bullet back yet.

=====

Now that I've done my best to inject some reason into the discourse, I'm
going to step very far out of this discussion.  It's not germane to the
Millennium's End list, near as I can tell, and I really don't want to
see another firestorm envelop the list.