Media Threatened At Gun Point

This is simply unbelieveable. That no good fascist dictator in the White House is determined to turn the country into a police state eventually. Yesterday it was orders not to take photographs of the dead. Now it has reached the point where some in the media are even being threatened at gun point. Via MSNBC An interesting dynamic is taking shape in this city, not altogether positive: after days of rampant lawlessness (making for what I think most would agree was an impossible job for the New Orleans Police Department during those first few crucial days of rising water, pitch-black nights and looting of stores) the city has now reached a near-saturation level of military and law enforcement. In the areas we visited, the red berets of the 82nd Airborne are visible on just about every block. National Guard soldiers are ubiquitous. At one fire scene, I counted law enforcement personnel (who I presume were on hand to guarantee the safety of the firefighters) from four separate jurisdictions, as far away as Connecticut and Illinois. And tempers are getting hot. While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States. At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history. This is the new Amerika - Heil Bush! - that no good fascist bastard will not stop until the entire country is under the rule of the military, and all rights are suspended. I fear this is only the beginning. A practice run if you will. And what the hell is the matter with the media? Why are they now all of a sudden backing down to that tyrant in the White House? As Media Matters asks Assuming Williams's experience isn't unique among journalists -- and his description suggests it is not -- where is the media outrage? Where is the media's sense of responsibility to the public, at least to let them know what they are and are not being told? And why hasn't Williams mentioned the incidents in his on-air reporting from New Orleans? I am moving this post up because of its' importance in showing just how the fascist regime in power once again appears to be controlling the media. And what's worse, is that the media is letting them get away with it!!!