Shocked in Death, Shocked in Life: More Than a Taser Story
The world saw a video last week of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers using a Taser against a Polish man in the Vancouver International Airport in October. The man, Robert Dziekanski, died soon after the attack. In recent days, more details have come out about him. It turns out that the 40-year-old didn’t just die after being shocked — his life was marked by shock as well.
Dziekanski was a young adult in 1989, when Poland began a grand experiment called “shock therapy” for the nation. The promise was that if the communist country accepted a series of brutal economic measures, the reward would be a “normal European country” like France or Germany. The pain would be short, the reward great.
So Poland’s government eliminated price controls overnight, slashed subsidies, privatized industries. But for young workers such as Dziekanski, “normal” never arrived. Today, roughly 40% of young Polish workers are unemployed. Dziekanski was among them. He had worked as a typesetter and a miner, but for the last few years, he had been unemployed and had had run-ins with the law.
Like so many Poles of his generation, Dziekanski went looking for work in one of those “normal” countries that Poland was supposed to become but never did. Two million Poles have joined this mass exodus during the last three years alone. Dziekanski’s cohorts have gone to work as bartenders in London, doormen in Dublin, plumbers in France. Last month, he chose to follow his mother to British Columbia, Canada, which is in a pre-Olympics construction boom.
“After seven years of waiting, [Dziekanski] arrived to his utopia, Vancouver,” said the Polish consul general, Maciej Krych. “Ten hours later, he was dead.”
Much of the outrage sparked by the video, which was made by another passenger at the airport, has focused on the controversial use of Tasers, already implicated in 17 deaths in Canada and many more in the United States.
But what happened in Vancouver was about more than a weapon. It was also about an increasingly brutal side of the global economy — about the reality that many victims of various forms of economic “shock therapy” face at our borders.
Rapid economic transformations like Poland’s have created enormous wealth — in new investment opportunities; currency trading; in leaner, meaner companies able to comb the globe for the cheapest location to manufacture. But from Mexico to China to Poland, they also have created tens of millions of discarded people, the people who lose their jobs when factories close or lose their land when export zones open.
Understandably, many of these people often choose to move: from countryside to city, from country to country. As Dziekanski appeared to be doing, they go in search of that elusive “normal.”
But there isn’t enough normal to go around, or so we are told. And so, as migrants move, they are often met with other shocks. A treacherous razor fence protecting Spain’s North Africa enclaves, or a Taser gun on the U.S.-Mexican border. Canada, which used to be known around the world for its openness to refugees, is militarizing its borders, with lines between immigrant and terrorist blurring fast.
Dziekanski’s inhuman treatment at the hands of the Canadian police must be seen in this context. The police were called when Dziekanski, lost and disoriented, began shouting in Polish, at one point throwing a chair. Faced with a foreigner like Dziekanski, who spoke no English, why talk when you can shock? It strikes me that the same brutal, short-cut logic guided Poland’s economic transition to capitalism: Why take the gradual route, which required debate and consent, when “shock therapy” promised an instant, if painful, cure?
I realize that I am talking about very different kinds of shocks here, but they do interconnect in a cycle I call “the shock doctrine.” First comes the shock of a national crisis, making countries desperate for any cure and willing to sacrifice democracy in the process. In Poland in 1989, that first shock was the sudden end of communism and the economic meltdown. Then comes the economic shock therapy, the undemocratic process pushed through in the window of crisis that jolts an economy into growth but blasts so many people out of the picture.
Then, in far too many cases, there is the third shock, the one that disciplines and deals with the discarded people: the desperate, the migrants, those driven mad by the system.
Each shock has the potential to kill, some more suddenly than others.
Naomi Klein is the author of many books, including her most recent, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which will be published in September. Visit Naomi’s website at www.naomiklein.org, or to learn more about her new book, visit www.shockdoctrine.com .
© 2007 The Los Angeles Times
“But there isn’t enough normal to go around, or so we are told”
got that right! Thanks Naomi for a thought provoking, well written piece…
Bigger shocks to come.
You know, I dont really see a connection between police tasers and shock doctrine.
They werent using tasers to try and make economic exploitation–they were just abusing their authority, and technology.
Some cops are sadists.
i’ve figured out the shock doctrine. I’ll start this thread with - BOOO! Or, BOOM, like Galen used to say when he was posting.
until he scared himself or got frutstrated or wherever you are Galen.
remaining posts, please respond accordingly. You will anyway even if you skim this over or think it’s nonsense.
Let’s try and adapt to their barking mean dogs. It’s almost adapt or die time, that’ll shock you.
one of the point’s being. Let’s turn the tables on fear. What have we got to lose.
As Ms. Klein brilliantly explains in “The Shock Doctrine,” Friedman-style fascism, such as that forced on Poland, empowers the powerful predators by preventing the weak and vulnerable and those working for the commons from joining together to create, or significantly influence, governments to protect them or the commons. Though Friedman’s economic theories do not explicitly advocate this, what happens in practice in Friedman-style economies is that the powerful predators join together to more fully dominate and exploit the weak and vulnerable, and rob from the commons, and there is no limit to the cruelty or depravity or the greed.
I can recall the enthusiasm so many progressive people had for the Polish Solidarity movement, led by the shipyard union of Gdansk, that was instrumental in bringing down the socialist government. Those shipyards were among the first casualties of Poland’s version of shock therapy. Many thanks for another brilliant article, Ms. Klein.
Look at what economic shock therapy did for Russian democracy. The operation was a success but the patient died.
IMF/WTO/World Bank = Sugar, Rum, & Slaves. No Middle Class anywhere to be seen. It was the same 3 centuries ago. It is the same now.
Oligarchies always create plantation slave societies. Corporations are always backed by military force. Back then it was the Hudson’s Bay Co. & the British East India Co. backed by the British Navy & the Royal Cumbrians. Now its the Multinationals, the 7th Fleet, & the Screaming Eagles.
It’s the Oligarchy/Plutocracy/Aristocracy - neighbor. They always create plantation slave societies. We can cut around the edges or we can cut out the diseased core.
The Roosevelt Legacy of taxation, corporate regulation, a meaningful minimum wage, support for unions, and a real social safety net - put the Oligarchy on a LEASH. They were not FREE to rape pillage and burn our country to the ground. As evidence these words are TRUE:
After 30 years these policies produced by the mid-60’s the greatest distribution of wealth ever seen in the history of our species, and 35% unionization of the private sector.
The end of poverty in this country was in sight. Lifetime stable employment was on the horizon. A house was not a ‘get rich scheme’, it was a place to live and raise your family. And yeah, the richfilth class was nearly moribund. Period . Caput. On their way to the trash heap of history along with the Hapsburgs, the Romanoffs, & the Hohenzollerns.
We had a choice then. We have the same choice now. We can make a place for everyone at the table and reject war and conquest as a way of life - or we get more of what we’ve got right now: Sugar, Rum, & Slaves. Breeds monsters.
Peace.
That’s what I’m talking about Luckylefty!
The wealthy need poverty or they’d have nothing whatsoever to compare themselves favorably with. They struggle enough with that concept already as it is.
You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. As usual, Canada’s ruling class thinks it sees both the opportunity for preserving and expanding its “special relationship” with the U.S. and the need for concessions of what little Canadian sovereignty remains in order to do so. And, also as usual, they’re wrong.
The movements toward a so-called “North American Union” will only extend the U.S. “security border” to surround the entire continent. It will do nothing to ensure U.S. conformity to any consensus on standards of behavior in any other respect. The U.S. non-response to trade rulings under NAFTA and other such arrangements should have made that abundantly clear long ago. But Canucks will never learn. They are eternal patsies for imperial manipulation.
What a load of gloomy crap.
Poland is not an oligarchy, but a reasonably functioning democracy, with a voter turnout, which shuld make many other democracies, especially the US, envious. Nor is it a laissez-faire extravaganza, but a society with a costly and extensive “safety net” allowing security for its more vulnerable sections of society to an extent unimaginable in Naomi’s homeland. It is also a much gentler society than the alleged “promised land” on the other side of the Atlantic; no taser-toting stormtroopers in aiport waiting rooms, or gun-toting cops in Elementary School playgrounds.
What undermines this article’s credibility by 100% is the claim that these kind of situations (Poles seeking refuge from the horror of life in Poland) arrise from 40% unemployment in Poland. Unemployment in Poland is just over 10% at the latest count; pay, life expectancy, and standards of living are rising rapidly, and approaching EU norms. Stereotypes, rooted in some weird mind sets, are what so often define Poland in people’s minds. Presented by somebody as admirable as Ms Klein they have extra sting.
NAOMI is a fabulous writer because she does her homework/research and yet brings a vision to her work that connects the dots few know how to connect. Indeed there is a connection between the cruel sadism of shocking a nation’s economy to heel like an unruly dog, and then going on to shock individual citizens who step out of line. These behaviors hardly constitute any sociological non sequitur! But nothing in nature long lines up. Nature abhors a straight line… all things circle, come full circle, and where possible undulate in new mating patterns to bring forth the next design. Make love to support spiritual evolution! The world may be depending on you (*LOL)
I read that Robert Dziekanski’s mother worked two ‘nickle and dime’ jobs for years to save enough to bring her son to her.
This story would make a prize winning novel for those with enough anti-depressant to read it.
Yeah, circles! you know it already though. How to get the message over the etherwaves without causing an unruly ruckus?
What that rukus would entail, I have very little idea because I can’t see out there I only read.
Maybe next week, shock shock. Right through your screens. Into your hearts.
kelmer, what Naomi Klein says is that the first two shocks create a scarcity of normal and more people seeking “normal” than can find it. When something is deemed scarce, then one’s control over this scarce resource becomes more violent. Naomi Klein could be using people fighting over a bottle of water (because of man-made droughts) rather than the scarce resource of being a Canadian citizen.
The purpose of all three shocks are to dehumanize humans in the name of profit.
Naomi Klein says: (SHOCK ONE)First comes the shock of a national crisis, making countries desperate for any cure and willing to sacrifice democracy in the process. In Poland in 1989, that first shock was the sudden end of communism and the economic meltdown.
(SHOCK TWO) Then comes the economic shock therapy, the undemocratic process pushed through in the window of crisis that jolts an economy into growth but blasts so many people out of the picture.
(SHOCK THREE) Then, in far too many cases, there is the third shock, the one that disciplines and deals with the discarded people: the desperate, the migrants, those driven mad by the system.
The first two shocks create discarded people, and the third one deals harshly with the phenomenon that the first two create. There is nothing really that I can add to what Naomi Klein says.
The shock doctrine is about stripping away the average person’s control over their own lives.
ryski, what is “reasonably functional” about high unemployment?
What happens when either people stop being sickened or there is no longer a need to listen to the people because government no longer matters?
BTW - The National is going to have a special on Tasers next week. If you have a question to summit?
Robert Dziekanski
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/crimejustice/a_deadly_landing.html
ryski 1:34 pm post: I guess the group wants to get on the bandwagon of “pigs are the enemy of the people”. If you are correct then Naomi Klein has been looking at the wrong data.
This guy was in an airport throwing chairs-what the hell are the police supposed to do, let him injure some innocent bystander? The police like all the rest of us don’t want to have chair brought down on their head so they tassered the guy. Maybe there were other facts we don’t know, maybe they were tipped off by interpose that a potential criminal was headed their way, remember-he had had run-ins with the law and We don’t know how serious these run-ins were.
Barn Burner
I in no way support the police action in this incident. It was an attrocious incident, made worse by the way it appears symptomatic of of current-day solutions to political and social issues.
I was objecting to the simplistic and uninformed stereotypes Naomi Klein was using about Poland.
geoff29
I did not say that there was anything reasonably functional about high unemployment. I did say that Poland was a reasonably functioning democracy |(the way that the US, for example, is not).
ryski,
Here in Pittsburgh, we have experienced a considerable wave of Russian and eastern european immigrants - the biggest since the 1920’s, many of them working in the low-wage jobs. What is bringing them here?
PJD,
Citizens of the new EU accession states (exept for Romania and Bulgaria) have easy access to the work market in most other EU states. I know of no statistics concerning Polish immigrants in Pittsburg, but I do hear that the US as a whole is not as attractive a destination for immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe as for example the UK, Eire, Sweden, or even Spain is, what with the weak $, distance, social climate, and generally the bad image that the US has these days. Pehaps Canada is more attractive.
Besides, the tide has turned these days. These were never immigrants in the true sense. Mosttly these were young, thrill seeking kids, the first generation in a long time, who were given the freedom to travel anywhere. They were lured by the glamorous image of foreign lands, but often discovered that these places did not live up to their expectations.
What you refer to as Russian and East European immigrants exist in a somewhat different category, and come from different economic and social conditions.
The Polish have been in Canada for quite a while - though their numbers are not as big as the Ukranians (how many other groups warrant two pavilions for Folklorama?):
Click on “Warsaw-Poland Pavilion” (at bottom):
http://www.folklorama.ca/folklorama_pavillions_week.php?Week=2
Click on “Krakow-Poland Pavilion”:
http://www.folklorama.ca/folklorama_pavillions_week.php?Week=1
That said, I have heard those of Polish or Ukranian ancestry who have been in Canada for generations complain about the new arrivals from Poland and the Ukraine. Xenophobia (which the Harper government is presently trying to exploit for votes) is present even among those deemed to share similar origins.
Ryski says: I was objecting to the simplistic and uninformed stereotypes Naomi Klein was using about Poland.
Naomi Klein says: Faced with a foreigner like Dziekanski, who spoke no English, why talk when you can shock?
I think, if anything, Naomi Klein is satirizing the Xenophobic mindset. The RCMP were told that the guy could speak no english prior to contact, but they did not care. They gave the guy a direct order in english which he did not understand and then used it as an excuse to taser him.
Traditionally, the NDP, a party which both Naomi Klein’s father-in-law and grandfather-in-law were leaders of, is against discrimination and racism of any sort.
No one is completely free of ethnic or racial bias or misconceptions, but they all try their best to be so. Contrast that with the Conservatives who try to exploit racism while purporting not to be racist.
Barn burner,
Recall taht he was trapped in the customs area for 10 hours after his mother was prevented from entering where he was an was forces to go back home.
This apparently left Dziekansk in a bizarre twilight-zone scenario where he spoke no English and had no money or phone number or other contact for assistance. So he apparently wasn’t able to, or was unaware that he could have called the Polish consulate or something. Meanwhile, in spite of being an an “international” ariport, he could find nobody willing to even attempt to communicate with him, or help in any way. Apparently, for 10 houes straight, he was being snubbed by everyone he attmpted to get help from, even customs or airline people, and no one even attempted to find out what language he spoke so help could be found. The video even showed this - where everyone ignorantly thought he was speaking Russian (”all those slavs look and sound the same”)
Please, put yourself in this guy’s shoes! Think of how trapped YOU would have felt after 10 hours, and a very real fear of being permanantly trapped in this bizarre situation. With apparently no money or ticket home, fantsies of starving right ther in the airport were probably going through his head. I would have probably flipped out and freaked out and started throwing things too…
I can certainly imagine such a situation happening in a midwesterm airport here in the US, but I thought Canadians were better than this.
ryski (1:34 pm) - I think it’s likely that Naomi Klein is far more accurate & believable than you are, in describing conditions in Poland. You call her “admirable,” yet denounce her article as “a load of gloomy crap” and say it’s credibility is “undermined by 100%.” At 2:44 pm, you accuse her of using “simplistic and uninformed stereotypes” about Poland.
You misquote her (she didn’t really say unemployment in Poland is 40%; she said unemployment among “YOUNG Polish workers” is roughly 40%). In her book, on p 192, she says latest World Bank figures for Poland show 20% unemployment, overall.
I don’t claim to be an expert on Poland, but I’ve read Klein’s book. Part of the Friedmanite economic shock therapy imposed on Poland 18 years ago was certainly a drastic downsizing of the public safety net. (According to Klein’s account, the “reforms” proved so devastating & unpopular, that the population eventually demanded a halt to the shock therapy measures.)
Until last month’s elections, the Polish government was controlled by two twin brothers, the Kaczynskis, who were unpopular & corrupt, according to accounts I’ve read. Having two brothers as president & prime minister doesn’t sound too kosher to me, in terms of “functioning democracy.” (Their unpopularity led to their defeat last month.) The Buzek government that was in power from 1997-2001 cut national pension insurance, dismantled the health system, & enforced comprehensive privatizations. These things don’t necessarily disprove your claim that Poland is a “gentle” society with an extensive safety net — but they sure don’t support it, either.
Dear ryski, Your above response to PJD is very interesting. Could you please briefly describe the system of health care and old age pensions, etc, in today’s Poland, if you have a moment? Is is said that many in the former East Germany have a certain regret for certain things (and not all) that have been lost since the fall of socialism and I wonder if there is any such sentiment in Poland?
Excellent article! I have read Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” and know exactly where she’s coming from in relating her article to the book. I highly recommend “The Shock Doctrine” to anyone who is trying to better understand what has been taking place in the world over the past five decades or so. Most people will read about the gentleman being tasered and think, “What a pity that the man acting crazy was tasered and killed,” then move on to the next story and give it little thought. However, what took place in Canada is happening right here in the U.S. far too much, and there is a disturbing mindset behind many of these incidents.
This was ridiculous as these policemen could have easily subdued this man without using a taser. They are too often taking the easy way out without trying to impose their physical superiority. These toys should be taken away from them as they apparently aren’t capable of good judgement or they are simply too lazy.
barnburner,
I work in a hospital as a nurse aide. My floor is medical/oncology/diabetes. Since we have such a grab bag in terms of patient population, we often get extremely disoriented, combative patients. Many suffer from dementia. Some can become extremely aggressive.
We’re all trained in a program used nation-wide by health care facilities, prisons, law enforcement, security, etc called “Management Of Aggressive Behavior,” or MOAB for short.
I’ve had patients who’ve hurled call bells, telephones, cans of cola, and picked up chairs when escalated. We’ve never needed a taser gun to manage those situations.
What I’m saying is there are effective, humane methods available for situations like the one descibed in this story. Taser guns are brutal, and most all, unnecessary.
riski,
I agree that there are a lot of reasons they may be coming here. Pittsburgh is attractive among US cities because of its reputation as being largely populated by people of Slavic descent (we still have a neighborhood that is nearly all Polish) and Russians, Ukranians and Serbians are attracted to it’s Orthodox Churches.
Everything about this article is a lie, and Naomi Klein’s only purpose is to produce a cheap tie-in with her book about “The Shock Doctrine.”
Look at the video! It’s on YouTube at http://youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4
If you pay careful attention toward the end, it will be apparent that Dziekanski is clubbed into submission and probably killed by a policeman after tasering fails to subdue him.
Obviously I’m not defending the police. I think they killed this man, and there’s screaming video evidence of it. But it’s obvious that he wasn’t “shocked” to death by a taser, but killed instead by a much more old-fashioned instrument.
Naomi Klein’s uses cheap word-play with “shock” and distorts what happened with no other purpose than to exploit the death of this unfortunate man to sell her book.
This is really disgraceful, and it compromises the value of her useful book.
Canada used to be a “gentle” society with an extensive safety net - things change.
I don’t know why the other passagers thought the man was Russian rather than Polish or Ukranian. Maybe the accent reminded them of something they heard during a hockey interview. At least they were in the ball park. At least they were trying to figure out what Robert Dziekanski needed most - someone who can listen.
What were they talking about?
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, PC): As Canadians, we know that civil rights are the pillar of this democracy that we live in and believe in. We all know there are many bleak moments in Canadian history.
Let me review a few of them: the internment of Japanese Canadians during the second world war and the internment of Ukrainian Canadians during the first world war. Between 1914 and 1920 over 5,000 Ukrainians were interned in 24 work camps across the country. There was also the Chinese Exclusion Act from 1923 to 1947. Hopefully, we can learn from history.
Thursday, November 7, 2002
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): Just as changes to our view of citizenship have acted as markers of our social progress, citizenship has also provided the focus for several of the most shameful incidents throughout our history, occasions wherein we as a nation have failed to rise above our bigotries of the moment, some racial and some gender.
In that context we ought to acknowledge the work that has been done inside and outside the House to seek recognition for Ukrainian Canadians who were interned and who were considered enemy aliens. I want to acknowledge the work of the member for Dauphin - Swan River who has a bill before the House to seek official recognition and restitution. It is important for us in this regard to acknowledge the work of those who are struggling to achieve recognition and restitution among the Chinese community and to deal appropriately in this place with the Chinese immigration head tax and the Chinese exclusion act. These two incidents in our past still haunt us. They must be addressed and deserve to be considered in the context of this debate about citizenship.
As we consider changes to the Citizenship Act, they remind us that we must be vigilant to keep our vision and ideals at the highest level and to resist the ever present pressures to backslide or settle to lesser, divisive and exclusionary alternatives. At the time, assigning the restricting of citizenship rights to certain citizens or to deny citizenship altogether to certain identifiable groups may have been acceptable to the majority. Women had to engage in an incredible struggle to attain the right to vote. First nations only won the right to vote in 1960.
These and many other affronts to our current norms were promoted as reasonable by contemporary authorities. Race based immigration policies have only been formally dropped in recent years. Some Canadians contend that lingering vestiges of that bias may still be systemically embedded in our current policy. These issues are not ancient history.
http://thomhartmann.org/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/4061097651/m/3901028782?r=3901028782#3901028782
I went to Hansard and pulled up all reference to Maher Arar between Monday, October 21, 2002 and Friday, November 7, 2003. Seems that one cannot talk about Maher Arar during Question Period without bringing up similar things from the past. I wonder what is being brought up from the past when ever Robert Dziekanski’s name is brought up during Question Period.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I have been calling for a full review of the use of tasers since 2004, shortly after their implication in the deaths of two people who lived in my riding of Vancouver East.
We learned yesterday that after only 30 seconds on the scene at the Vancouver airport, the RCMP tasered Mr. Dziekanski at least twice, with charges of 50,000 volts. Moments later, he was dead.
In too many instances, tasers are being used on the homeless, people with mental health problems or drug use problems and essentially the most marginalized people in our communities.
There are no clear national standards for the use of tasers and little understanding of their impact. Two more men died in Quebec after being tasered earlier this year. We cannot wait for one more victim before action is taken.
Until strict standards are in place, until we can know that tasers are safe and until we can be sure that tasers are being used properly, they should not be in use. We call for a full and comprehensive review of the use of tasers.
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=2&DocId=3108375
BTW - Has anyone heard of the Police Officer suing after being Tasered during a demonstration?
RichM, you wrote:
she says latest World Bank figures for Poland show 20% unemployment, overall.
That was true, once. A few years ago they peaked at that %. Currently they are still just over 10%, but falling fast. Still bad stats, but they also reflect the method of counting, which include long-term unemployed, immigrants still registered and claiming benefits, and many self-employed off-the-books types, whom the authorities don’t seem to have any means to rein-in.
“(According to Klein’s account, the “reforms” proved so devastating & unpopular, that the population eventually demanded a halt to the shock therapy measures.)”
A new government with different policies was voted in. Democracy its called. No big deal.
The Kaczynskis were unpopular, but no one has accused them of being corrupt as you suggest. However, they were elected to their seperate posts in two seperate elections, and no one has ever suggested that there was anything un-kosher about the process.
When I spoke of Poland as a gentle society, I did not have in mind its politicians and their machinations. I meant the society as a whole, compared to the US for example, though you might argue that that applies to many societies.
The National Health System was never dismantled, it did go through a crisis for a while, and still needs work (but logevity, infant mortality, and health of people show major improvement). Retirement pension systems were not cut, only restructured, and are cosidered a success. Privatization was inevitable, since Poland was a Communist “command economy”, many argue that it still has not gone far enough, and lags in this behind most other European “mixed economies”. Poland spends a very high % of its GNP on its “safety net”, higher than any other country in Europe, I think.
All this goes to show that you shouldn’t belive everything you hear or read (which does, of course include what I just wrote. But I am, writing this without any weird agenda; I just get kinda pissed at this monotonous drone of tired old stereotypes).
OK, thanks ryski. I appreciate your expanding on those points!
In Jacksonville FL we just had someone tasered to death within a day of the Canadian incident–the guy wasn’t suffering from any chronic disease, he wasn’t in the process of comitting some capital crime, he just got a little mouthy and rowdy and so they tasered him after subduing him and putting him in the squad car. By the time they got to the police station he was dead. These are getting to be more and more common incidents and it stinks to high heaven.
There is a saying from the Indiginous people of this continent that goes something like this: “Don’t judge another until you have walked a mile in his/her moccasins.” This man’s behavior in the airport was the result of hours and years of frustration, it seems. I don’t know the facts and cannot read his mind, but from all accounts there had been a buildup of mental and emotional tension prior to his acting out his apparent frustration, fear and anger. Trained professional, as drift points out, “should” be able to assess and respond to such situations with humanity and compassion. There are too many people who choose not to open their hearts to others and recognize our common humanity. Wars are the result of this failure to recognize that our family members are everywhere. Robert Dziekanski was a brother and his death is a tragedy we all share. We may learn from it or continue the insanity of violence and rage as a response to our differences. As this applies to individuals, it also applies to groups, countries and governments. Instead of looking for the solutions out there, let’s look within our own hearts and minds for solutions. The outer issues will be healed from within, not without.
peace,
st john
According to the man who shot the video,
Dziekanski had stopped throwing things and lifted his hands to show he was through protesting, and THEN the cops tasered him. He obviously had no other weapon, so they could just have subdued him. Will every disturbed passenger be killed from now on, with impunity? This is monstrous.
By the way, Naomi, the TV report I saw (and who knows where they get their facts) showed a much larger death toll in Canada than 17 - something like 47 (and 248 in the U.S.). Not that numbers mean anything, it’s the fact of using tasers on unarmed people that’s the issue. And your book rocks, lady!
Mr. Freeze,
Whether he was clubbed to death or tasered to death is a moot point. He was brutally handled, and died as a result. This is Ms. Klien’s point. I think it’s a big reach to accuse her of manipulating this story for personal gain.
It was the descriptions of the torture tactic of shock she found in declassified CIA manuals that gave her the idea to draw the obvious parallels to Chicago School economics, and thus give her a title for her thesis and book.
Check out the promotional short movie for the book, and you’ll see for youself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfzPUIc
The way the mounties behaved is an absolute disgrace. They are not Gods. They need to be dragged into court and convicted for their crimes. Who died and appointed them God Almighty? No one is above the law; and that does include law enforcement, as well. Slap em’ in handcuffs, drag em’ into court, prosecute em’ to the full extent of the law, and sentence em’. They’ve earned it. They murdered a man; they deserve the full penalty available under the law.
And now for a comment from canuckchuck…………….
Neither Ms. Klein nor any of the commenters on this thread cares enough about the unfortunate Mr. Dziekanski to treat him as an individual instead of a device for pimping a book or whining about tasers.
Mr. Dziekanski was killed with a club after tasering failed to subdue him. This is exactly the sort of incident that tasers are designed to avoid.
What options do the police have for subduing a large man who is violently resisting arrest? The most usual all over the world are clubs and tear gas, and tear gas really isn’t an option in an enclosed space like an airport.
The police followed reasonable procedure right up until the moment when an out-of-control officer killed Mr. Dziekanski with a club, as you can clearly see near the end of the video at http://youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4
But why bother about the truth, when it’s so much easier to rehash silly cliche’s about tasers, or pimp a book?
Mr Freeze, you are getting two separate taser incidents that happened in BC mixed up with each other.
You may be referring to “RCMP use Taser on Chilliwack man during arrest”
There was also another man who was Tasered by the RCMP in BC after Robert Dziekanski was who is now fighting for his life in hospital. The one that was pepper sprayed, tasered and batton is in bad shape in hospital. We keep get updated as to his condition, but his name has not been released.
catherine, you are referring to “Most people hit with RCMP Tasers unarmed: reports”
There were 606 reported incidents where the taser was taken out, but in 43 of these cases it was not used. Of the 563 cases where the taser was used, in 79% of these cases, the person it was used on was unarmed.
(See last three posts in “Video of Taser Death in Canada Sparks Probe” for link to this and other recent articles on taser incidents)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/16/5283/
Taser manufacturer wants role in review process
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071121/taser_review_071121/20071121/
Freeze,
Seems like your trying to pick a fight with people who have no argument with you whatsoever about the brutal, inhumane way Mr. Dziekanski was treated, and killed.
I’ve seen the video. I have no argument with you on this point, nor would I daresay, do most people here posting. What I am trying to point out in a calm, non-threatening manner, is that I think you’re WRONG about Naomi Klein.
Ah, how we progressives so enjoy eating our own…
Jacob Freeze, right under the youtube video you linked us to is the caption:
This is a video response to Man Tasered, Sprayed & Beaten by Chilliwack RCMP
Click on it. You keep referring to the Chilliwack incident.
If my above link doesn’t take you directly to the video on youtube, type in “shock doctrine” in the search area, and it’ll be the first one that pops up.
Tasering is a disturbingly perfect symbol of ever diminishing “normal” society’s (now amounting to ca 10 % of global population) clean and soft killings. Noiseless and invisible to “normalcy”.
(Those 30.000 dying of malnutrition every day - why don’t they stop doing that? I’m sure that gang is doing it over and over again every day mostly to annoy us normal people. They have no taste, dying on our screens like that, now that Christmas is coming on and everything and all we real people wish for is something nice and pretty…)
Adapting to the capitalism’s growth-blinded ruthlessnesses paving over people and our natural needs for stability rather than growth, is like a jew in a Hitler-gasschamber crying out: “I give in - I’ll be good now and cooperate, I promise!”
Klein is pimping her new book and that’s why she’s seizing upon this particular incident to correlate it to her ’shock doctrine’. It and she are beyond sleazy. Have to agree with JacobFreeze about this point.
For those enamoured of Klein’s latest book, take a peek at this review of it. Ask yourself, as this reviewer does, why Klein treats 9/11 so differently from all the other ‘instigating’ events which she discusses. Curious isn’t it.
http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=429#comment-7815
====================
The cops who tasered and jumped that man, causing his death, should all be charged with manslaughter or murder, and part of their rehabilitation should be that they themselves get tasered.
It’s no exaggeration that some pigs become cops. That’s why some (many?) cops are pigs. Some others are decent human beings who become decent police officers. Who, in their right mind, could argue with those facts?
The video linked in my comment is titled “Vancouver Airport Taser Killing of Dziekanski by Police.” Here it is again: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4
It’s a response to the Chilliwack incident, which also didn’t have everybody looking for someone who spoke Russian. It isn’t a very useful language in Chilliwack.
As for Naomi Klein…
Why would anyone think she’s just pimping her book when she makes a connection based on nothing but word-play between her macro-economic thesis and a tasering incident in Vancouver? If you can see any other connection besides a burning desire to put some variant of “shock” in a headline in the LA Times, please explain it to me.
I happen to agree with Ms. Klein’s book, as well as I can understand it, but I also think she’s a real jerk!
Poland is a great country with proud people who have suffered for centuries from the curse of having no real natural borders to help protect her from predators. The Germans, Russians and then the Soviets have carved up the country many times. The fall of communism and, more importantly, the end of Soviet occupation is not something the average Polish citizen looks at with sadness as Ms Klein seems inclined to- ah it’s tough for some to get over the romance of the glorious worker’s paradise. That is as long as they didn’t have to live there!
Regrettably our Idiot in Chief has decimated the image of our country abroad-still the Polish people have the highest favorable view of the US of any country in Europe (61%- Pew Research). They do not as a whole seem to agree with Ms Klein about her Shock Catastrophe.
While I have traveled there twice I don’t know it as well as the other poor Shocked country that she mentions: China. I work and travel there often and can tell you in no uncertain terms that if Shock Therapy is what she calls what has happened there in the last decade- Baby they will tell you just keep shocking them.
I admit that I have read only parts of her book, and I only Minored in Economics but I have to say that while it does make some good points on bad and sometimes catastrophic policies, the economic/geostrategic part seems beyond strained. It is true that the US and other OECD countries along with the IMF and WB have mauled struggling nations by trying to implement theoretical models before the necessary foundation is laid. Like Democracy itself, regulated free markets will only work in conjunction with the rule of law and protections constitutionally guaranteed.
A good friend of mine did major in Economics and went on to get her PHD at Stanford University in International Economics. She teaches at an Elite East Coast University and has always been liberal with a capital L. I asked her what she thought of the book as an economic study and she gave me a one work answer- GIBBERISH.
drift, saw that film already a few times.
One of Ewen Cameron’s victims was the wife of a local MLA before he was a local MP. This is one of the reasons I keep bringing up the family that Naomi Klein married into in relation to this book - David Lewis and Ed Broadbent were leaders of the NDP when David Orlikow was an NDP MP (before that he was an NDP MLA which is the Provincial version of an MP). It is because of the NDP that we know as much as we do about Ewen Cameron and the role of the CIA.
MP=Congressperson
Did you see Naomi Klein on The Hour yet?
http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1667
Jacob Freeze, I know that. I am just saying click on the other video. I watched them both.
annemarie j, you are looking at it as an isolated incident rather than a brick in a bigger picture of events. It is not just about punishing these cops but about preventing future results. And, for Naomi, it is not just about the safety tasers or police brutality but the brutality of Corporatism.
What were the names of those people who broke machines during the industrial revolution because they felt the machines were destroying their livelihoods during the Industrial Revolution in England? I assure you that there became stronger laws to protect machines than humans during that time period.
It is the same pattern happening here - or starting to happen.
NAOMI - thank you.
I now see so many multilayered shocks impinging on all of us, and especially see what goes for an individual’s torture (or the denial of “it”) is prototypical of cultural (and multi-national) shock doctrine.
For ~ 20 years, many of the local police (& sheriffs) have been re-training as “shock troops”, in how they confront, intimidate, and maintain an upper hand for any encounter with the public, as if we are all assumed to be armed terrorists, or drug dealers - or in my case years ago - a “cult member” (as my buddy and I were both long haired and bearded).
The time for interactions with dignity, decency, understanding, tolerance, appreciation of differences, … has (too me) blizzarly vanished. OK, I grant that many public servants (out in the public) do have reasonable fears (for their lives), when there is so much violence everywhere.
Tasers aside, we all deserve to be treated humanely, even if some red flag gets raised. It’s like assuming all those “slow/dumb” drivers out there are really one’s own mother, grey hair and always trying to do their best.
There’s a bit of math that goes along with this, we now seem to force (shock, as we’re not equal, by a long shot) the recipients to carry >90% of the communications burden, whereas civil societies (of equals) have each side generously putting forth 60-70% — so that there’s lots of overlap and understanding (to stand under) kind of like a shock absorber — to ensure human connection is made, and communication can progress.
Stun me, I’m an idealist, but could we at least get back to a 51/51 deal?
Namaste
vaudree,
Thanks for the link, I just watched it. I LOVE this woman. If we weren’t both already married…. But I’m dreaming now.
Sorry, didn’t catch that stuff about Ewen C. I guess you’re Canadian? I admit my share of American ignorance about how your system works and who the players are. It’s all I have time for keeping up with the f-ing neocons down here. Do you have an article about this you can link for me?
Freeze,
Look, I’m going to rest on this now, but I just don’t see how Naomi is a jerk. I also find it peculiar that you think she is, yet agree with most of what she writes.
Anyway, here’s my obligatory plug: Don’t like Disaster Capitalism? …so called Free Trade? …want out of NAFTA, the WTO, and Iraq? Want real universal health care? Want Cheney impeached?
Go to http://www.dennis4president.com
Give generously.
Dear Vaudree, Thanks for the video clip above, Ms. Klein is quite able to defend her thesis publicly and for that all progressives should be happy. Others, could you give us a break with depressing, moronic crap like, “pimping her book”?
Yeah, I’m Canadian so don’t ask me to spell Dennis Kucinich correctly. If Kucinich was Canadian, he would probably be voting for the NDP. The Manitoba Hansard has a better write up about David Orlikow than the Ottawa Hansard:
http://www.gov.mb.ca/legislature/hansard/4th-36th/vol_071b/h071b_9.html
If you ever see the made for TV movie “The Sleep Room” produced by Anne Wheeler, there is also a clip of David Orlikow in Parliament in it.
Drift, maybe you should meet Naomi’s husband - Avi Lewis (if you like him, you won’t feel so much like cutting his grass :evil ). Note that the person who interviewed Naomi Klein (George Stroumboulopoulos) used to work with Avi Lewis at Much Music before they both got shows on the CBC and has also interviewed Naomi’s father-in-law - Stephen Lewis. Avi Lewis in action:
http://www.cbc.ca/onthemap/fullpage.php?id=119
Tony, of course she’s pimping her book - all authors do - it is whether she is pimping it for the money or pimping it because she feels that it has something important to say - which is the point. That whole criticism is not worth losing sleep over.
Take care all of you! And note that anyone who has ever been tasered, I think, wants to be part of this inquiry.
“Why would anyone think she’s just pimping her book when she makes a connection based on nothing but word-play between her macro-economic thesis and a tasering incident in Vancouver?”
Mr. Freeze,
And you’re not pimping yourself by picking a fight while displaying your own link to your business/avocation?
C’mon, Man, we’re here as friends.
As for Naomi Klein’s point, it’s valid. Her point is that there is a reason this poor man was in Canada in the first place. His life was turned upside down by privatization and his subsequent immigration and death were a result. Happens many times over in the U.S.
Rock on, Naomi!
There are more and more displaced people everyday. Desperate people have nothing to lose so it really doesn’t matter. Only unsafe if you cannot afford a gated community.
Drift, found another Naomi Klein interview on CTV’s Canada AM:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070903/Naomi_Klein_070903/20070904/
During a Minority Government, the Party in Power still has more seats than any other party. HOWEVER, the combined Opposition parties have more seats than do the Government. If the three Opposition parties decide to cooperate, they can actually pass legislation that the Party in Power does not want passed.
Foreign Affairs committee to study Canadian investment in Sudan
OTTAWA – Despite opposition from Conservatives, the Foreign Affairs committee adopted the NDP motion to undertake a study of Canadian funds invested in Sudan and explore legislative initiatives to regulate such investments in light of the worsening crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.
http://www.ndp.ca/page/5913
That is the big difference between your system and our system.
“Pimping” doesn’t have any meaning? What are words worth? Why not give Ms. Klein at least the respect that is due to anyone who has the intelligence and education to be able to develop a rational and thorough thesis, even if you don’t want to agree with it?
It’s one thing for Ms. Klein’s byline to mention that she wrote a book called The Shock Doctrine, and something else again for her to distort the whole story just to bring her book into the headline.
Mr. Dziekanski was not killed by a “shock.” He was killed with a club, as anyone who bothers to watch the video at http://youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4 can plainly see, about seven minutes into the 8 minute video.
I didn’t call it “pimping” because the story includes a link to her book. I call it “pimping” because she was willing to distort the truth to promote her book into a headline.
Several commenters expressed surprise that I would criticize Ms. Klein even though I admire her book, and this is the most ridiculous aspect of this whole simple-minded thread of discussion. Am I supposed to give the jerk Naomi Klein a free pass to insult the memory a very unfortunate person by twisting the facts of his death into whatever shape will propel her book into yet another headline?
No way!
And I’ll keep responding just as long as other commenters keep making excuses for Klein’s wretched exploitation of the death of that sad and confused person.
After reading several posts on this thread, I began to notice a pattern as some people jumped all over each other in what, for the most part, turned out to be simple misunderstanding,for which they later apologized.
I was struck by the similarities to the story of the RMC’s reflexive shoot first ask questions later approach Assumptions were made and actions taken without talking first (seek translator)to try to understand his strange (threatening?) behavior.
Mirrors, folks—talk about creating our own reality. All we have to do is start discussing misunderstanding and its resulting violence, and it immediately manifests on the thread.
This is not a judgement—just a heads up. We really need to stop looking outside ourselves for the solutions, and we sure as hell need to look deeply within to see our own contribuition to the problems at hand.
This thread was incredibly instructive on so many levels, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.
- what Naomi does have right is that this is very related to capitalism and the ‘new world order’. A very interesting book online about what this is all about is They’re Building a Box - and You’re In It - http://www.rudemacedon.ca/dlp/box/box-intro.html .
That the poor disoriented man was tasered and killed is horrible and I have read so much about it. Yet nobody has mentioned that the taser metes out excruciating pain. 7% of the population have sadistic tendencies. Any person authorised to use one had better be NORMAL. A sadist would WANT to use the equipment…..are taser operators vetted for this abnormality???
Mr. Freeze thank you for pointing it out . Yes, my countryman was clubbed to death. At first I thought it was a recharge procedure. I have not read the book so I have no other comments. Mr. Risky thank you as well for standing the polish ground.
But tomorrow is a Thanksgiving day, and I ask myself how am I going to say “God bless you”. I tell you, I am not going to say it because I feel that its meaning was stolen. To tell you the truth, lately I avoid saying “How are you” because I feel that its meaning was stolen as well. I think that this is what people mean when they say that America has lost its high moral ground and brutality has moved instead.
STAROFTHESEA
Great idea to focus on what is connecting us, instead of separating us - maybe even attempting to *_dream_* together on *_common_* things?
The fact of the matter is the RCMP are hiring just about anybody that applys these days.If you have the requisite education you could find yourself in and out of the academy in 6 months.And then you are often forced to patrol alone.We have had several officers from the RCMP killed in the past few years.When i was growing up it was rare to ever hear of a police involved shooting let alone the death of an officer.The call probaly went out to the officers that the man was throwing things around in the airport.And acting irrational.His neighbours in Poland report that he gave away the last few packs of cigarettes before leaving.Planning on started his new life in Canada a non-smoker he was trying to quit cold turkey.Ive quit drinking that way and it wasnt pleasant.Ive been told the withdrawl from tobacco is far worse.Not an excuse for his actions but perhaps an explanation for them.Also im not sure if the ages of the officers involved have been released or not or their time with the force but officer inexperience must also be looked at.And when the tasers were introduced they were to be ONLY in instances when an officer would be forced to shoot otherwise.Now it looks like its being used as an easy way for some people to get out of a situation whereas they may face a physical confrontation.We as a society must let it be known NOW that we dont want to see these things used on those who may wish to protest in more vocal fashion.We already have undercover provincial police in Quebec dressing up as violent rock throwing demonstraters as to intice their breathern into attacking the peaceful protesters.We need to express our views en masse now.Or the scenes we saw from the streets of Burma will be making an apperance near you soon.
Why are we surprised about the tasering incident? Most security officers watched our “shock and awe” attack which killed unknown numbers of innocents. Then we were treated to the cruel handling of people, guilty or not, at Abu Graib and Gitmo, where many escaped prosecution for their crimes. Now we are witnessing thousands of people that formerly were in favor of abiding by international rules on treatment of prisoners trying to convince themselves that torture is right and necessary because a few deluded “leaders” say so. Life is great now if you are rich and powerful, not so good if you are poor or homeless or caught acting “suspicious”.
Since no one here has mentioned it yet: Shouldn’t we outlaw Tasers simply on the basis that hundreds of thousands of people have undetected heart arrhythmias that could kick in and kill them if they’re electrically shocked? There MUST be a better way.
Mr. Freeze,
I watched the video and it does look like he is being clubbed at the 7ish minute mark, but if you look closely the officer is actually collapsing his baton(its a telescoping one). It even mentions this directly to the right of the video on the “About this Video” section. I had to watch it a couple times to be sure.
Medical experts on Canadian radio (CBC) have said it’s probable that the cop kneeling on his neck killed the poor guy. However, most people seem to agree that the tasering didn’t help, doesn’t help and should probably be stopped, cops being a little too trigger happy with it. (sound familiar?) Freeze, I think you’re alienating those who might agree with you by frothing too hard at the mouth and getting all pissed about something that doesn’t matter that much. Naomi’s doing what she can to make a difference. Maybe you should just try self-publishing…
I’m pleasantly surprised that they even published Klein’s essay in the LA Times, a paper which has loaded up with neo-cons and right-wing pundits of late.
One reader takes issue with Naomi Klein’s depiction of economic conditions in Poland. The commentator says:
“What undermines this article’s credibility by 100% is the claim that these kind of situations (Poles seeking refuge from the horror of life in Poland) arise from 40% unemployment in Poland. Unemployment in Poland is just over 10% at the latest count.”
First, the commentator, who seems offended by her comments on Poland’s economy, fails to notice that when Klein cites 40% unemployment she writes:
“Today, roughly 40% of young Polish workers are unemployed.”
So Klein is addressing a specific segment of the Polish labor force.
It should also be remembered that when large numbers of people give up looking for work, they are no longer counted as “unemployed.”
This is a technique used in the U.S. to keep unemployment numbers artificially low as well. Also, they typically ignore underemployed people who cannot find full employment.
http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?IndicatorID=88&Country=PL
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=353&objectid=10463646
.com
Tasers in North America have become a weapon of social control.
Tasers are normally less lethal than guns and are loved by police forces because they can disable a victim from a distance without any risk to themselves. Intended to largely replace guns, a tool of last resort, they have now migrated to a tool of first resort. This is because Tasers are so easy to use and in most cases leave no lasting effect but they can cause lasting back problems due to muscle spasms and they are associated with death in individuals who are suffering heart problems or what is called, non-medically, “excited delirium”. Death is then blamed on this condition, even though it is not recognized by the American Medical Association because to prove otherwise is currently impossible. Proof is lacking but correlation between Tasers and hundreds of dead is however available in spades.
Tasers are not non-lethal, they are just less lethal and they are now used routinely as punishment both in jails and on the street. Tasers have really become the equivalent of the electronic whip, a whip that can be fatal.
It is obvious that Jacob Freeze is just trying to “pick a fight” or he is simply cranky with Naomi Klein for some reason.
Naomi obviously sees some connection between what she has written and an incident that occurred in a Canadian airport.
I have read her book as most likely have many of the readers of Common Dreams.
Is she plugging her book? Maybe. But why shouldn’t she? Good on her! I definitely plug her book every chance I get. If more people read it maybe more people would be aware of what is really happening around the world right under their noses.
Other than that, I am not going to respond to your pathetic attempt at “trolling” this comment board.
Ms. Klein’s hypothesis is ridiculous, as a previous poster has noted.
1) “First comes the shock of a national crisis, making countries desperate for any cure and willing to sacrifice democracy in the process. In Poland in 1989, that first shock was the sudden end of communism and the economic meltdown…”
2) “Then comes the economic shock therapy, the undemocratic process pushed through in the window of crisis that jolts an economy into growth but blasts so many people out of the picture.”
3) “…there is the third shock, the one that disciplines and deals with the discarded people…”
Such a childish assessment is indicative of a diversionist strategy employed by the corporate governments to hide the true nature of the change behind a propagandistic story that will seem plausible to those people who do not know enough about the situation in order for them to make a valued appraisal. There was only one thing that happened in the former socialist countries and that is that they were sabotaged by the U.S. and the “West” during their “cold war” and the privatizing was nothing more than the sharing of the spoils. When Ms. Klein presents the whole wretched transition as some sort of natural evolution of societies she is either displaying an incredible stupidity or she is working an imperialistic agenda.
The tasers used by the corporate government’s police forces are supposed to have exactly the effect that they are having, which is to spread terror and fear among the general population. The corporate governments will always be trying to keep the general populations in a state of stress, because that is how they control them, and they usually have several projects operating at once. It can be pepper spray, which was their best fear inducer before the tasers, or it can be the war on harmless drugs like marijuana, or it can be terrifying the parent population with “child pornography” and all of it’s linkages. If the government was truly interested in creating a relatively safe society then that could be easily done within a few short years by initiating the proper programs, but their solution is always to put more police on the street, because that increases their standing army, and to never deal realistically with the solveable problems.
Bitching about the police is just another brilliant way for the Left to lose elections.
If you check the polls, you may notice that 4 times more Americans trust the police than trust Congress. More Americans trust the police than trust religion.
So instead of concentrating on the few psycho officers who actually kill people like Mr. Dziekanski, we get ridiculous blanket condemnations of the police in general. What a brilliant way to alienate the majority of voters in every election!
And it’s especially brilliant to attack police in Canada, of all places, and especially for tasers, which kill about 4 people per year in Canada, according to Amnesty International. A grand total of 15 people from 2003 to 2007! As a cause of death it’s right up there with lightening strikes and insect bites!
So let’s alienate the vast majority of voters who trust the police by bitching about a few freakish psycho episodes, and allow the Right to use this ridiculous anti-police rhetoric to discredit social programs that would save tens of thousands of lives every year!
After all, most people agree with the progressive social agenda, and we have to be really creative to lose elections when almost all the issues favor the Left!
“This is not a judgement—just a heads up. We really need to stop looking outside ourselves for the solutions, and we sure as hell need to look deeply within to see our own contribuition to the problems at hand.”
You rock too, starofthesea!
Happy Harvest Day, everyone.
“Mr. Dziekanski was not killed by a “shock.” He was killed with a club, as anyone who bothers to watch the video at http://youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4 can plainly see, about seven minutes into the 8 minute video.”
That’s interesting, because I also heard that one of the officers had his knee on the man’s neck, which may have strangled him or cut off blood flow to his brain. Or, he may have died of a heart attack.
Point is, no one knows what exactly killed the man other than too much force.
Be that as it may, Naomi Klein has a perfectly valid point and I applaud her for doing the background research. How many “news” stories uncovered any background into Mr. Dziekanski’s life?
Without stories such as this one, we will never begin to connect the dots.
macneil,
“Such a childish assessment is indicative of a diversionist strategy employed by the corporate governments to hide the true nature of the change behind a propagandistic story that will seem plausible to those people who do not know enough about the situation in order for them to make a valued appraisal.”
Huh? What does this mean? We’ve got some serious issues here with cogent thinking…
Freeze,
Have you considered that Americans have been fed a steady diet of fear for quite some time now, particularly in the last 6 years? When it’s done effectively it’s a powerful method of social control. Those who are in the grip of fear are, of course, going to turn to those figures who they think will protect them. Like the police. Or the federal government.
Now, this doesn’t mean I’m advocating disrespecting all police officers. But I think it’s the duty of progressives to puncture and discredit this obvious form of social control. Fearful people are willing to sacrifice their liberties, and this overly empowers those they cede their power to, like the police or federal government. And as we all know, power corrupts. How many stories about police brutality do we here about, year after year?
A clear thinking, non-fearful citizenry will provide the necessary checks and balances to keep those who are charged to protect and serve them from becoming oppressive. This is an agenda I think most Americans would agree with. But we have to reframe the debate.
And that’s what I think Naomi has done BRILLIANTLY in her new book.
Jacob Freeze, could there not have been more than one taser incident in BC - considering that BC RCMP are the top users of tasers in the country?
B.C. Mounties top users of Taser among RCMP members in Canada: report
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/11/20/bc-tasers.html
CTV British Columbia: St. John Alexander on how Tasers are viewed south of the border 2:11 (title of video on your right)
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071121/taser_kennedy_071121/20071121?hub=Canada
MP=Congress Persons - all Ministers are MPs
Jacob Freeze says: And I’ll keep responding just as long as other commenters keep making excuses for Klein’s wretched exploitation of the death of that sad and confused person.
Concede that Robert Dziekanski is used as a prototype, but must stress that there are many Robert Dziekanskis and that Naomi Klein’s goal is to wake up people to the pattern to insure that there are fewer of them in the future.
Note that you don’t get every single Naomi Klein article - that they come out first in Canada and only if the contents are deemed relevant to an American audience do you get to read them. Of course Naomi Klein is going to comment on topical things - she has to put out an article every week - and especially on topics that she feels prudent to keep in the news. You don’t have an article by Linda McQuaig this week because she is writing about the Mulroney-Schreiber affair - which might implicate both the Conservatives and Liberals - but probably not that many high profile Americans.
Also note, as you look at the interactive map, that Libby Davies mentions two people in her riding that were tasered. I am not from BC so I don’t know if she is talking about the two taser deaths in BC or just two incidents in a year where there were two deaths.
Riding=Voting District (please adopt the term since it makes typing easier).
Robert Dziekanski’s death, whether by kneeling, taser, quitting smoking cold turkey or all of the above, has captured peoples imagination in Canada moreso than any of the other taser deaths because Canada was embarrassed internationally over the incident. Robert Dziekanski’s mother wants to get at the bottom over what has happened to her son, which means that it serves her interest to have it kept into the spot light for as long as possible - which means making Robert the poster boy. It is if this story fades from the spot-light that you are most apt to get a cover-up and that being the end of it. That is how things work in Canada. If you don’t believe me, you haven’t spent over 20 years hearing about the bombing of Air India.
Jacob Freeze says: Several commenters expressed surprise that I would criticize Ms. Klein even though I admire her book, and this is the most ridiculous aspect of this whole simple-minded thread of discussion.
I am just surprised at what you are criticizing (maybe it is just cultural differences but that is how things are done here). It is like criticizing the Leaders of the Opposition parties for asking questions during Question Period! And I do figure that you are getting Robert Dziekanski mixed up with the guy from Chilliwack. CTV says of the guy from Chilliwack: “CTV British Columbia has learned from sources that the man’s organs are failing and that he has been put on kidney dialysis.” At least this is not the United States where his family would have been forced to pick up the tab for his stay in Hospital! And there is no evidence that this guy spoke any language other than English - though I can’t say for sure.
Re: siamdave link
You are missing the point, siamdave - Canada doesn’t have to be the greatest country in the world - we just have to be better than the United States to feel good about ourselves! :slightly evil All the shock I have been reading about what is going on in Canada from Americans has the same underlying message - “I thought Canada was better than that but they are just as wretched as we are” - to which I have only one response - I did not vote for Harper - I voted NDP - therefore, I can still hold my head high.
Honest John says: That the poor disoriented man was tasered and killed is horrible and I have read so much about it.
Which of the many taser deaths in the US have you read the most about? Check the above link - Taser is selling their products to Americans for domestic use - Americans are holding Taser parties. If there are no witnesses, whose to say that those good ol’ boys in Texas actually had a taser party involving a rubby or a Mexican or whether the poor soul just had a heart attack and died alone? You get a bunch of Texas boys still living at home because the jobs pay so little - they got lots and lots of frustration to vent - and they are just looking for an innocent bistander to vent it on.
Honest John says: A sadist would WANT to use the equipment…..are taser operators vetted for this abnormality???
I think that one is before one gets one’s badge, but this “abnormality” can develop over time with job stress.
In the US they are thinking of selling Tasers to average folk who do not need to be screened for this abnormality before purchasing one. And during a domestic dispute, when tempers are flaring, one tends to underestimate the harm one is causing the other person any way.
Do you know that increases in farm fortclosures and increases in unemployment are both positively correlated with domestic violence? The Shock Doctrine version of the ancient Boss kicks worker, worker kicks wife, wife kicks son, son kicks dog.
You should read Ms. Klein’s book. She’s taking a thesis she talks about in great length in a 300-400 page book and shortening it down to a short article.
Sorry if you don’t get it or in extreme denial, but torture and economic shocks go hand in hand. That’s the point at which Ms. Klein opens here book …. the CIA torture experiments at McGill Univ. She traces those techniques around the world and everytime they show up hand-in-hand with economic shock.
The economic shocks like the one she describes in Poland do not happen with the democratic consent of the people. She starts her book in Argentina and Chile, where democratic governments were overturned by military coups. It took the killing of democracy to begin these economic policies. And the electric shocks are always a part of this. The majority of the people, who are being screwed by the economic policies that only make a few rich, have to be kept in line. Thus, we always, and I repeat ALWAYS, see police officers wielding their favorite electric shock toys to make sure that the people don’t object to the fact that they are being screwed and ripped off to make other people rich.
Ms. Klein is dead on point. In this case, this poor man thought he was going towards freedom, only to discover to his horror that places like Canada and the US empower the same sort of police sadists. And it happens for the same reasons here, only the wielding of the power to protect the thieving rich is a bit more subtle here.
Hmmm…who would have thought that a simple op-ed article on the socio-economic tragedies of today’s Poland could spawn so much vitriol and divergent discussion. We might sort these issues, then proceed.
Naomi, though you are many years my junior I look to your work as a beacon in journalistic and political darkness. Thank you. Perhaps you might do an article on what seems to be an increase in police ‘brutality’ in Canada. Here in the great white north we are lightyears behind the US in our ability to turn a blind eye to justice, but under this current right-of-center Harper administration we are doing our best to descend the slippery slope. Frightening.
To quote an insightful American, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King
ryski
you have to admit that one of the main reasons your unemployment has come down is people fleeing your country for jobs
Naomi, please lay off the self promotion, which is what this comes across as and it cheapens the terrific book you’ve written. Yes I’ve read it and I’m rereading it. I’m finding through making notes and comparisons with world events in the last 60 years in particular it definitely fills in many missing or deliberately concealed events. Events that have steered the course of our recent history worldwide and provides a context for current and future events that is at the very least, unsettling.
In the matter of what was done to Robert Dziekanski, this is a travesty that needs direct attention in and of itself and making Mr. Dziekanski disappear into the institution of this ’shock doctrine’ is every bit as criminal as all of the others that have ‘disappeared’.
THIS MAN’s life and THIS MAN’s hopes and THIS MAN’s family and the loss of everything THIS MAN was to the world should not be allowed to disappear into ‘a series of events’ or ‘the system’ or a ‘doctrine’. Robert Dziekanski should be on posters the size of office towers the world over as a rallying point against the new global economic order that elevates only the top 0.1% while systematically crushing the lives of everyone else.
Governments the world over need to be reminded whom they serve, by any means necessary.
thanks for the illuminating discussion on the book. I have a clearer idea of it all the time.
as I refuse to purchase much of anything at the moment I may read it when it’s free if it stays current.
A brilliant friend of mine who relates to the book wrote this in 2005, so I hope he doesn’t mind my quoting it:
“The sole danger then for those who are the most comfortable today, is the possibility that a majority of individuals might become less than enamored with this status quo arrangement and seek to take the action (positive) necessary to change it. Since in-action (negative) on the part of a majority is now synonymous with the existence of status quo social order, the cost of its efficient implementation within society achieves certain economic value. A cost “those who possess the economic clout” can well afford and are happy to pay in a desperate attempt for self-preservation.”
Blaine Whittle
Copyright 9/7/05
The moles will be decorating their posts with emoticons and red ink next. Tip for moles: it’s not the amount of words used that make an impression, but the idea which the words elucidate.
stinger, that is the way things get done in Canada. People ask, during conversations of Maher Arar, how many in the US this has happened to and we don’t know it. The only reason we know what happened is because Maher Arar allowed himself to be used as a poster boy for this.
The only way we will ever deal with this Taser issue (as far as Police and RCMP go) and stop Taser from selling its product to civilians in Canada is for Robert Dziekanski’s name to get worked into articles of people with millions of interested readers. The only way we will ever get to the bottom of this is if, with every new Taser death (like the one today in Nova Scotia), Robert Dziekanski’s name gets mentioned.
On a related topic, the Crown is giving its closing statement in the Robert Pickton case today. It is no accident that Pickton chose as his victims the most marginalized people of our society. Many police officers were reluctant to search for missing sex-trade workers because these people are considered to be expendible. Lets be glad that Tasers were not for public consumption in Canada at the time when Pickton was doing his dirty work. If they were, missionary would have been as dangerous as doggie style!
Crown=District Attorney
How easy is it for the average American to walk into a store and purchase a Taser?
Pauline VanKoll knew a few of Pickton’s victims. She used to be a sex trade worker before becoming a reporter.
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2007/02/022507_1.html
What other groups of people are looked at as expendable besides sex trade workers? The immigrant who can’t speak english? The homeless person? Protesters?
Vaudree, I will attempt an answer for you.
Robert Dziekanski’s flight was international and thus the agreed meeting place, the luggage carousel, was unfortunately inside the restricted Custom’s area.
I think what makes Dziekanski’s death so poignant to the majority of Canadians is that had the meeting place been outside of customs the world would never have heard of Robert Dziekanski or his mother. They would have met and been on their way to a new life. Canadians view Canada as a calm, peaceful, hospitable country that has historically always welcomed immigrants; police are (or were) viewed as protectors, not thugs to be feared. Thus the long sequence of scandal, corruption and abuse from and within the RCMP has now come to a head with Robert Dziekanski as the icon of that frustration and anger.
You ask “What other groups of people are looked at as expendable besides sex trade workers? The immigrant who can’t speak English? The homeless person? Protesters?”
I think as Canada slides to the Right Wing that something I call Binary Impairment Syndrome comes into play. Extremes of Right filter everything through a good-evil, black-white lens. The more Right it gets the less nuance is allowed and thus you have the silly binary affectations like “Canada’s New Government” and moronic expressions like “if you are not for us, you are against us”.
It is also common with the Right Wing to blame the victim, so if the RCMP is obviously good then Dziekanski must obviously be bad and got just what he deserved. A classic example of blame the victim can be seen from Harper’s immediate response to Major Hess-von Kruedener, a Canadian UN observer in a shell resistant fortified bunker standing alone on a hilltop that was hit by an accurate to 1 meter laser guided bunker buster from an Israeli warplane. The “accident” was blamed on an old Israel military map even though the 4 storey building emblazoned with UN markings had stood there alone for decades.
“What was he doing there?” was Harper’s immediate response to the news. His job, you empathy lacking Right Wing moron.
So to answer your question Vaudree, as Canada slides Right who becomes expendable? Well, clearly, eventually anyone who is not one of us, the Right. Unfortunately, although not all Right-Wingers are ignorant, most ignorant people in Canada vote Right and that represents a large voting pool. Unless Canada can rid itself of this latest government it is only going to get worse. Sorry.
vaudree November 21st, 2007 6:00 pm
annemarie j, you are looking at it as an isolated incident rather than a brick in a bigger picture of events. It is not just about punishing these cops but about preventing future results. And, for Naomi, it is not just about the safety tasers or police brutality but the brutality of Corporatism.
What were the names of those people who broke machines during the industrial revolution because they felt the machines were destroying their livelihoods during the Industrial Revolution in England? I assure you that there became stronger laws to protect machines than humans during that time period.
It is the same pattern happening here - or starting to happen.
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No, I was not looking at that incident in isolation. That’s not something I typically do btw. I wholeheartedly believe in prevention, and in this case specifically as preventing future incidents of police brutality. Which is why I said that those cops should be charged with manslaughter or murder. Surely that sort of precedent could put all police/law enforcement officers on notice, and go a long way towards prevention? That’s how I see it. However, I’m not holding my breath given how much police brutality is routine and how even when police are caught red-handed abusing citizens they are rarely-to-never held accountable for their actions/crimes. Above the law is what it’s called.
I also get Klein’s take on the brutality of corporatism. Nevertheless, the fact remains that I’m skeptical of Klein, specifically her complete motivations, in other words, her integrity. That is why I also provided this link above
http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=429#comment-7815
It’s a review in which the writer loudly wonders why Klein skims over 9/11 in stark contrast to how she treats other shocking, catalyzing events. Here’s an excerpt:
—
I have been bewildered by a singular stochastic perspective of Naomi Klein in her brilliant, exhaustive, superbly-documented book The Shock Doctrine. In it Klein builds an intricate and convincing case for the use of various techniques of trauma applied to societies and individuals during the twentieth century and continuing into the current moment for the purpose of perpetrating what has become one of her hallmark phrases, “disaster capitalism” Yet two pages in the book left me aghast. The first is Pages 11-12 which refer to September 11, 2001 and state:
The Bush team seized the moment of collective vertigo with chilling speed-not, as some have claimed, because the administration deviously plotted the crisis but because the key figures of the administration, veterans of earlier disaster capitalism experiments in Latin America and Eastern Europe, were part of a movement that prays for crisis the way drought-struck farmers pray for rain, and the way Christian-Zionist end-timers pray for the Rapture.
After hearing endless interviews of Klein and reading numerous articles about the book when it first hit the stores in September, and being very familiar with the disaster capitalism thesis, the above quote from the book’s first pages were astonishing in their inconsistency with nearly every other page of the book.
—
For the record, I’m not advocating dismissing Klein or her work entirely. That’s not my point or position as I’m not in the habit of tossing the baby with the bath water. What I’m expressing is this: that by virture of her connections, familial and otherwise, that by virtue of her popularity and success, that by virtue of her position and career, that Klein is a de facto part of the “elite”, the mainstream. She’s a professional journalist and author and is getting fat on her work. Yes? No problem there. However, by virtue of the fact that Klein regards 9/11 as ‘they didn’t do it, rather they allowed it to happen and then exploited it’ makes me doubt her integrity, her trustworthiness.
These words of Klein’s are jaw-dropping unbelievable to me: “The Bush team seized the moment of collective vertigo with chilling speed-not, as some have claimed, because the administration deviously plotted the crisis but because the key figures of the administration, veterans of earlier disaster capitalism experiments in Latin America and Eastern Europe, were part of a movement that prays for crisis the way drought-struck farmers pray for rain, and the way Christian-Zionist end-timers pray for the Rapture.”
And then this from the review:
—
With respect to 9/11, Klein’s incisive grasp of disaster capitalism’s brilliantly devised, superbly-engineered machinations alongside her stochastic insistence that the administration did not deviously plot the catastrophe defies all logic. By Page 400, the reader has digested an encyclopedia of conspiracies carried out by a series of U.S. administrations of both political parties, but on Page 426 is nevertheless asked to believe that 9/11 “just happened”.
On that page comes the most breathtaking statement of all-that quote to which I promised to return. Arguing that the U.S. government did not have a hand in the attacks, Klein states:
The truth is at once less sinister and more dangerous. An economic system that requires constant growth, while bucking almost all serious attempts at environmental regulation, generates a steady stream of disasters all on its own, whether military, ecological or financial.
I could not agree with Klein more in terms of economies based on growth generating a steady stream of disasters, but 9/11 is a bit more than a few molecules in a “steady stream.” It was and is the defining moment in the history of disaster capitalism.
The truth of 9/11, says Klein is “less sinister, and more dangerous”? What could be more dangerous than the U.S. government orchestrating the attacks in order to achieve all of the motivations that Klein has so incisively and painstakingly explained? After 425 pages of unrelenting recitations of bona fide conspiracy, I am asked to swallow the stochastic non-analysis of a steady stream in which 9/11 just happened to rear its ugly head?
—
So now I’d like to ask can any other fans/readers of The Shock Doctrine explain how Klein dropped the ball regarding 9/11? Surely it can’t be an *oversight*?!?
Honestly, I cannot give the time of day to well connected, well established, otherwise intelligent and otherwise truth-telling writers, journalists, authors, et al… who only tiptoe towards the full truth of what really happened on that fateful day, or who won’t dare risk reputation, career or even discomfort to publicly acknowledge that 9/11 was another in a long series of false flag events.
So to me, Klein seems to be just another useful “steam vent”, diversion, or distraction, even while she offers some truths to the rest of us, the hoi polloi. As a result, I simply cannot regard her as a radical truth teller/seeker.
Almost forgot, I stand by my earlier “depressing and moronic” comment heheheh about how Naomi Klein’s just pimping her book.
Finally, I believe those people whom vaudree was asking about were/are called Luddites. And the elite have always regarded the rest of us as mere cattle, serfs, slaves, or cannon fodder whether or not we embrace or reject technology, etc… This is not a new phenomenon.
I guess it is Thanksgiving here in the USA, and this sad little piece lingers at the top of CD’s list, what with all good folks celebrating the generocity of native Americans (I by the way live by and work on a Res and notice that even they, for some reason best known to themselves celebrate this tragic event, much the same way the British almost celebrate the 4th of July).
I had a chance to look at some of the posts which occured since yesterday, when I last wrote on this wothy forum. I was both congratulated for rising bravely in defence of Poland and derided for inaccuracy and cofusion in my statements.
In response to both, let me say this (& I am not a collector of statistics, this is just vaguely recollected stuff): A (certain, large enough) percentage of British people belive that Mt. Everest is locaceted in Britain. An even larger percentage belive that it is located somewhwere in Europe (BBC a few days ago).
The kind of information people have about Poland is mired in prejudice, falsely created images, lazy research by authoritative writers, and biased propargandists. Poland is not a tragic, stricken land. I am not Polish myself, but I have travelled there, speak the language (somewhat), and have some appreeciatin of its history and culture. |I also have a habit of rooting for unappreciated cultures and issues. Lets not spread more misinformation. The Czechoslovak Brothers and Borat should belong to our distant past.
(BTW there is not 40% unemployment among Polish youth, Dziekanowski was middle aged, and emigration has a minimal effect on a coutry’s unemployment rate)
Well, the back bacon & Molsons would have killed him eventually anyways…the cops just sped up the process.
kelmer wrote: “You know, I dont r