Russian Arrests v. American Arrests – America is Not the Home of the Free and the Brave

Russian Arrests v. American Arrests – America is Not the Home of the Free and the Brave

By

David Gottfried

This video is far from ideal as most videos of the era fail to capture just what was contested. The demonstrators not only protested the war but also the complete fraud that is our presidential election process:  Although the candidates opposed to the war (Bobby Kennedy and Gene Mc Carthy) got 85 percent of the vote in the Democratic primaries, about 60 percent of the delegates at the convention supported the pro war candidate, Hubert Humphrey.  Many states did not have primaries and often the primary vote did not govern the delegate selection process. For example, Gene Mc Carthy, who was an anti war candidate, got well over 50 percent of the vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.  However, 90 percent of the State’s delegates supported Humphrey, the pro war candidate who was the vice president and first-class stooge of Herr Lyndon Johnson.  The Moral of the Story:  Since your vote might not count, consider picking up a…

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A New York Times headline just screamed that at least 411 people have been detained in Russia in antiwar demonstrations.

Shall we compare and contrast this with US arrests.

In 2004, at the Republican Convention in New York City, 2500 people were arrested for protesting the war in Iraq.

In 2004, felony charges were brought against people, in New York City, who had hung a banner, from their hotel room, which protested the US war in Iraq.

In 2004, people who were half a mile away from a Bush campaign rally, who were peacefully protesting the Iraq war, were arrested simply for carrying signs.

In 1992, an ACT UP protester in New York City, who was not carrying weapons and stood 5 foot 6 inches tall, was beaten by a dozen police officers who shattered his bones and inflicted brain damage.  (I knew him through ACT UP)   

In 2008, or thereabouts, American police used tasers and other violent means to chastise demonstrators who protested income inequality.

In 1968, hundreds of students in Columbia University were arrested for protesting the Vietnam War.

In 1968, at the Democratic convention in Chicago, the police clubbed, beat, broke the bones and lacerated the skin of peaceful antiwar protesters, and the police attacked delegates to the convention who opposed the war and journalists whose coverage was thought too critical

In the Summer of 1967, over 20,000 civilians were arrested in the course of ghetto battles almost all of which broke out because of police brutality

Vietnam was 10,000 miles away from the US.  Iraq is about 7,000 miles away from us.  Ukraine is on Russia’s border.