2015-01-18 BERLIN: Discussing "soft" vs "hard" totalitarian regimes - US, Israel, DDR
===========================================
Talking with people who are relatively informed and interested in human rights, I am repeatedly surprised to see how uninformed they are regarding conditions in the US and Israel/Palestine. The main issue is whether it is legitimate to compare conditions in the US or Israel today with various totalitarian regimes, e.g. former communist East Germany.
So here, just as one way of attempting to understand condtions today, I look at the right to demonstrate:
* In the US - the pictures below are from recent demonstrations in Los Angeles and Florida.
* In Germany - I am hard pressed to find similar pictures from Germany in recent years. Demonstration are typically peaceful, and if there is any violence, it is typically not by police.
* In Israel - many of the demonstrations in Palestine end up with dead Palestinians, shot by IDF.
===========================================
Talking with people who are relatively informed and interested in human rights, I am repeatedly surprised to see how uninformed they are regarding conditions in the US and Israel/Palestine. The main issue is whether it is legitimate to compare conditions in the US or Israel today with various totalitarian regimes, e.g. former communist East Germany.
So here, just as one way of attempting to understand condtions today, I look at the right to demonstrate:
* In the US - the pictures below are from recent demonstrations in Los Angeles and Florida.
* In Germany - I am hard pressed to find similar pictures from Germany in recent years. Demonstration are typically peaceful, and if there is any violence, it is typically not by police.
* In Israel - many of the demonstrations in Palestine end up with dead Palestinians, shot by IDF.
No comments:
Post a Comment