This is going to sound like one of those Barry non-sequitur cafe raps, and to
some extent it is. I finally have enough spare time in my schedule to start a
book and have hopes of being able to finish reading, so I've belatedly started
reading Bruce Cockburn's autobiography, "Rumours Of Glory." And it's been
great, filling in the blanks in many songs I know by heart, and supplying the
background stories that led to the writing of many of them. Many of those
stories involve travel, and so far I've read a number of Bruce's memories of
traveling to war zones. THAT is the part of this rambling rap that isn't a
non-sequitur. Your description of the Menezes incident reminded me of what it's
like to be in a war zone, or a place that a certain number of people have come
to believe is a war zone.
I've been in a few war zones myself. Not as a willing combatant, just a
bystander, but I had enough experiences of such places to realize how easily I
could have become a dead bystander, collateral damage in a conflict I barely
knew was going on. Anyway, I *remember* what it's like when the fear of
terrorism takes hold, and you have to live in an environment in which your
chances of terrorism become larger than nil. I saw it in Morocco and in Algeria
and to a lesser degree in Paris during the OAS post-Algerian conflict years.
Bruce wrote in his book about being in Paris the same time I was, and feeling
the OAS-inspired paranoia and seeing the reaction on the part of the police.
His description made me remember how icky that was.
Americans have less risk of being killed by a terrorist than they do being
poisoned by a tainted bag of Doritos they bought at the corner market, but they
sometimes act as if they were living in Casablanca or Algiers or Oran or Paris
and had actually *seen* terrorism happen. I have, and it's pretty icky. You
start picking your cafes so that you're not sitting in one on a major street
that a truck could drive by on and thus do a drive-by.
The closest most Americans have ever gotten to a terrorist attack is to watch
one on their TVs -- either on the news or in the terrorporn TV series like "24"
that networks started churning out to pander to their fear. But they're still
afraid, and so afraid that they literally don't care if the collateral damage
from police is ten times higher than the collateral damage from terrorism.
One of the reasons I'm not tempted to go back to the U.S. any more than I
absolutely have to is that it feels icky walking around cities there. It's that
same unmistakable "living in a war zone" ickiness that I felt in Casablanca
and Algiers and Oran. I feel exposed and constantly in danger while walking
around in U.S. cities. But interestingly it's not the criminals I'm afraid of.
It's the cops.
From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
It is rather rare thank god. They are usually called out to deal with armed
criminals on their way to a job or people committing suicide by attacking the
police with what looks like a gun (surprisingly true). But basically it's quite
peaceful.
The only shocker I remember was the Brazilian guy, Jean Charles de Menezes, who
was shot in error by anti-terrorist police on a tube train. They had been
watching the house of a suspected Islamic terrorist but the officer on duty got
out of the car to take a leak, and when he got back saw that a man was walking
away. He didn't see what door Menezes had come out of and assumed he was the
suspect.
He was followed to a nearby tube station where it was decided to shoot first
and ask questions afterwards. Nasty business, especially as they lied that he
had run when challenged and jumped over the ticket barrier - he hadn't - he was
just sitting on a train minding his own business and he got 8 bullets in the
head. He wasn't even wearing a coat that would cover a suicide bomb. I think
they've changed the way they decide who to shoot so it's very unlikely to
happen again, so you can come over for a holiday without too many worries.
Don't sit on the top deck of the bus though, it's much more dangerous:
Bus roof torn off after hitting tree
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| Bus roof torn off after hitting tree The roof of a bus is ripped off
after it hits overhanging trees in central London. |
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| View on www.bbc.co.uk | Preview by Yahoo |
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---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
I saw this article drift past on some forum not long ago, and at first assumed
it was fiction. Since then I have learned that PRI.org is a non-profit news
organization, but not one known for fiction, so there is a possibility that the
2013 statistic cited in the article is true. A Wikipedia page on the subject
(which excludes stats from Northern Ireland) lists only 23 people killed by
police firearms since 1980, none in 2013.
This is how many times British cops fired guns all of last year: 3
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| This is how many times British cops fired guns all of la...As the debate over
gun control — and, now, the use of force by police — rages in the US and
elsewhere, Britain offers a stark contrast. Police there rarely carry gu... |
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From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 1:18 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Why European tourists you meet in America are so
polite
Is the NRA a terrorist organisation? I'm trying to imagine what would happen
if a couple of Floridians moved to my street and tried to set up a shooting
range in their front garden. I'd give it ten minutes before there were armed
police units surrounding the entire area and everyone concerned was dragged off
to jail and their kids put into foster care.
The whole thing would be filmed by helicopter by every news channel we have and
I'm sure a few American ones would turn up to laugh at the fuss we make about
nothing. We seem to take child safety a bit more seriously here for some
reason. Probably because the school shootings we've had actually motivated
people to do something rather than leading to calls for everyone of the age of
two to be armed at all times.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
They've read articles like this, and assume that everyone they meet is both
insane and armed.
The Front Yard "Gun Range" Just Feet From My Neighbor's Kids' Bedroom Window
UPDATE
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| The Front Yard "Gun Range" Just Feet From My Neighbor'...My son is 9. His
best friend is 10 and that little boy has a 7 year old little sister. My son
loves playing at their house. These are no computer game kids. They ha... |
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