Why Did The UCLA Students Stand By?

[Jcrowley]

Stanley Milgram answered the call to this problem by performing a series of studies on the Obedience to Authority. Milgram's work began at Harvard where he was working towards his Ph.D. The experiments on which his initial research was based were done at Yale from 1961-1962.

<snip>

The generator has 30 switches in 15 volt increments, each is labeled with a voltage ranging from 15 up to 450 volts. Each switch also has a rating, ranging from "slight shock" to "danger: severe shock". The final two switches are labeled "XXX". The "teacher" automatically is supposed to increase the shock each time the "learner" misses a word in the list. Although the "teacher" thought that he/she was administering shocks to the "learner", the "learner" is actually a student or an actor who is never actually harmed. (The drawing of lots was rigged, so that the actor would always end up as the "learner.")

At times, the worried "teachers" questioned the experimenter, asking who was responsible for any harmful effects resulting from shocking the learner at such a high level. Upon receiving the answer that the experimenter assumed full responsibility, teachers seemed to accept the response and continue shocking, even though some were obviously extremely uncomfortable in doing so.

The theory that only the most severe monsters on the sadistic fringe of society would submit to such cruelty is disclaimed. Findings show that, "two-thirds of this studies participants fall into the category of ‘obedient' subjects, and that they represent ordinary people drawn from the working, managerial, and professional classes (Obedience to Authority)." Ultimately 65% of all of the "teachers" punished the "learners" to the maximum 450 volts. No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts!

http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm

The Milgram experiment was a series of famous scientific studies of social psychology, intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant's personal conscience.

The experiment was first described in 1963 by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University,<1> and later discussed in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.<2>
The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

I think this is the more important question.

[951-Riverside]

1. Jcrowley next time you see a cop doing wrong, walk up and fight him

After they are done with you then maybe you can answer that question.

[Suich]

5. High 5!!!!

:rofl:

[Jcrowley]

8. I've been at the brutal

end of a cops stick. And whenever I see anyone brutalizing and bullying someone I will attempt to stop it. I hope you will too. Passively watching someone in the situation we witnessed at UCLA is not an option.

It's no wonder this nation is compliant in the face of the numerous atrocities it's government commits around the globe. It's all connected. And what we see are onlookers who refuse to get involved.

[951-Riverside]

10. I'd like to actually see you DO it

Talking is one thing.

[U4ikLefty]

27. Are you actually encouraging someone do harm to a police officer???

Or just talking shit like a fool???

[Jcrowley]

35. You missed the point

entirely.

Are you encouraging people just stand by while a police officer/soldier tortures an innocent person? I think we have a large portion of our society that has also been conditioned to docilely accept brutality.

First they came for who?

[derby378]

48. I sympathize completely with your frustration

There were five or six cops, from my count. And there were probably 100 students in the immediate area. Overpowering the cops was a doable possibility.

You subdue the cops en masse, take their guns and tasers, handcuff them, and then haul them to the UCLA campus police office so they can explain what they've done.

[survivor999]

43. Talking big after drinking a few too many, probably.

[Jcrowley]

49. Completely false

and in fact you must not have read the post or thought much about the questions. Read some of the other posts in the thread particularly Karenina's and then reflect upon the social conditioning that we are looking at here.

You missed the entire point of why Milgram's experiment was posted. This has nothing to do with "talking big" and in fact is meant to look beyond what happened at UCLA but use that as a microcosm to see why we are such a docile obedient people who really don't know how to respond in the face of blatant abuse and authoritarian brutality. It's not blaming anyone or talking big. That's nonsense.

I suggest you read the entirety of Milgram's experiment and reflect upon it's relevance to today as we sit idly by while our tax dollars go towards large scale violence around the world.

[survivor999]

58. MIlgram's experiment

is well-known. And the limitations of its conclusions are also well known.

[Casablanca]

99. If JCrowley does do it, where will you be cowering?

Or maybe you'll be too busy talking people out of it instead of making it easier for the crowd to do the right thing.

If I'm there, I'll have his/her back. Count on it, coward.

[Cobalt-60]

32. Yeah, they never run out of cops

No matter how much fun that individual punch up is at the beginning, when you get 4-5 piling on things can get pretty hairy.
The Tazerers could be taken down by a mob, but it's more effective in the long run to get the vid posted in the open.

[conscious evolution]

33. As that comedian who

is on the Blue Collar Comedy tour says:'I don't know how many of them it was gonna take to kick my ass but I knew how many of them they were gonna use.'

[survivor999]

42. Yeah, right,

And I was one of the kids in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square. I do that al the time. :)

[Jcrowley]

98. It seems

you do not know your history or even pretend to understand it's relevance to today. There were no "kids."

A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989

The Unknown Rebel
With a single act of defiance, a lone Chinese hero revived the world's image of courage
By PICO IYER

Almost nobody knew his name. Nobody outside his immediate neighborhood had read his words or heard him speak. Nobody knows what happened to him even one hour after his moment in the world's living rooms. But the man who stood before a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square — June 5, 1989 — may have impressed his image on the global memory more vividly, more intimately than even Sun Yat-sen did. Almost certainly he was seen in his moment of self-transcendence by more people than ever laid eyes on Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and James Joyce combined.

The meaning of his moment — it was no more than that — was instantly decipherable in any tongue, to any age: even the billions who cannot read and those who have never heard of Mao Zedong could follow what the "tank man" did. A small, unexceptional figure in slacks and white shirt, carrying what looks to be his shopping, posts himself before an approaching tank, with a line of 17 more tanks behind it. The tank swerves right; he, to block it, moves left. The tank swerves left; he moves right. Then this anonymous bystander clambers up onto the vehicle of war and says something to its driver, which comes down to us as: "Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you." One lone Everyman standing up to machinery, to force, to all the massed weight of the People's Republic — the largest nation in the world, comprising more than 1 billion people — while its all powerful leaders remain, as ever, in hiding somewhere within the bowels of the Great Hall of the People.

Occasionally, unexpectedly, history consents to disguise itself as allegory, and China, which traffics in grand impersonals, has often led the world in mass-producing symbols in block capitals. The man who defied the tank was standing, as it happens, on the Avenue of Eternal Peace, just a minute away from the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which leads into the Forbidden City. Nearby Tiananmen Square — the very heart of the Middle Kingdom, where students had demonstrated in 1919; where Mao had proclaimed a "People's Republic" in 1949 on behalf of the Chinese people who had "stood up"; and where leaders customarily inspect their People's Liberation Army troops — is a virtual monument to People Power in the abstract. Its western edge is taken up by the Great Hall of the People. Its eastern side is dominated by the Museum of Chinese Revolution. The Mao Zedong mausoleum swallows up its southern face.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/rebel2.html

[question everything]

59. The days of "cop's stick" are over

these days they can stand several feet away from you and just zap you.

And... some students did try to intervene and the cops threatened them with their zapping guns.

The sense of self preservation is probably the strongest one that all animals have.

[driver8]

30. After you get done picking your teeth up you can answer that question.

It's admirable that you want to help, but there is "helping" and then there is "stupidity."

If you go up to a cop or cops, and try to stop them from arresting someone or from using physical force, you are asking to end up in the hospital or the morgue. There are enough crazies on the street trying to kill cops -- they don't need to worry about "joe citizen, the hero."

Use some common sense and "live to fight another day."

[Occulus]

66. That's not what they're talking about

What's being asked is, with the police so vastly outnumbered and the students present so very obviously on the side of the guy getting tasered for no reason, why didn't the students as a group end the situation by disabling the police?

This is not to say the students would be a "mob"; it would be a semi-coordinated action on the part of the group. All it would have taken was one person to step up and take the position of 'leader' because nobody else was willing.

This amounts to a microscopic insurrection, but in this case it was clearly warranted. So the question becomes- why didn't they stop it? The answer is, they were all too afraid to lead. Think about that, because like it or not, this generation growing up to think that any Authority must be fully and immediately obeyed will eventually be running this country.

My fear is, with this attitude, they'll end up being the ones being run.

[Casablanca]

100. ... but there is "helping" and then there is "stupidity." ...

A thought experiment for you: If an unarmed person dies in front of you at the hands of three or four thug cops (note the distinction) "doing their duty", where does the possibility of "helping" come into it? You just watched a person die who needed your help because you weren't "stupid".

Then how is it admirable that you _want to help_, but are preventing yourself from doing anything about all that compassionate _wanting to help_ for fear of being shown up as "stupid". What value (to anyone) is your admiration for _wanting to help_ if any group of thugs with tasers can keep you from doing anything about it at the time except to watch how it all goes down?

This wasn't Iraq or an anarchic situation - these thugs were clearly overstepping their authority and they were vastly outnumbered. Everyone saw that the student was trying to leave peacefully. The only way damage could have been minimized was for peaceloving citizens to disable the thugs and try to calm the student down. Standing by passively would only add to the feeding frenzy of the thugs.

But thank goodness the people there weren't "stupid", and just let the brown-skinned kid take the blows.

[driver8]

101. It is admirable to help -- I'm not debating that. I'm talking about getting

physical with police officers. If the cops are beating the shit out someone, and you jump in, you are going to get the shit beat out of you. What good does that do?

You might think you're tough, but you're not that tough.

Like I said before, there are enough crazy people on the streets trying to hurt or kill cops. They don't know what your intention is. You don't think these cops would have tasered more kids? That would have been a big fucking help, huh?

[Casablanca]

105. You're making a distinction without a difference.

My interest in not letting an innocent person get the crap kicked out of them isn't in whether I'm going to be admired or not. It's in the fact that if it's ok that one innocent person gets abused, than it's ok for _any_ and _all_ innocent people to get abused. Letting it happen once is when you cross that line, not just when you or someone you care about is the target.

"You don't think these cops would have tasered more kids?"

Not when their tasers are taken away from them. But if you're ok with standing by while one innocent person geta tasered, why are you feigning concern about "more kids" being tasered? Is social justice just a numbers game to you?

I'm well aware of the fact that cops are targets of bad people - that's part of the job. But when they attack someone _who is complying with their requests_ in peacefully leaving, and they taser him anyway, I know without a doubt what _their_ intention is. The honest cops I know would consider them betrayers of the Code of Blue, and someone who is making their job that much more difficult.

The sad reality is that there are people like me in society that would be willing help you if you were the victim of an abuse of authority (whether you choose to believe that or not), but you're not inclined to do that for others for fear of being attacked yourself. Maybe someone would be foolish to help you in that situation, but you'd be a bigger fool to argue against it.

Finally, you have no idea about how tough I am or what I'm willing to do. But one thing is certain - _I_ can at least speak up for the idea taking on a risk in helping innocent people, which makes me more likely to be tough enough at the moment of truth than you are.

[driver8]

108. Hey tough guy -- lose the chip on your shoulder, huh?

I have just re-read my posts and I don't know if you have me confused with someone else or what, but where is this hostility coming from?

I don't think I ever said anything about "helping people to be admired", or that it's ok "for any and all innocent people to be abused." Please show me in my posts where I wrote that or even implied that.

Why am I "feigning" concern about kids being tasered? Oh, you know me so well that you know that I don't give a shit about innocent students being tasered? Tell me, Einstein...how did you come to that conclusion? I didn't see anything in my posts that suggested that, either. "Is social justice just a numbers game" to me? I don't know what the fuck you are talking about, but if you say it's so...it must be so.

You don't know anything about me, so don't think you know what I would or would not do based on a post I wrote on a discussion board. I have been talking about using common sense in these situations and you have interpreted that to mean that I wouldn't jump in and help someone. Wow -- your ability to read into shit that isn't there is amazing! I didn't see those words written anyplace in any of my posts, either.

It must be great to be you; to be so much tougher and above everyone else in so many ways. Not only that, you can read people's minds and tell them what they meant to write! Unbefuckinglievable!!

"Maybe someone would be foolish to help you in that situation..." Well shit, I guess I'm not worthy of your assistance...I'll try to sleep knowing that.

[survivor999]

41. Yup. ESPECIALLY if you have no clue

why they are holding the first person. As far as I know the cops were following clear instructions for that situation. But we'll see.

[Alexander]

2. Do you know what the consequences are for kicking cop ass?

Fighting a cop is the WRONG way to give exposure to police brutality.

One DUer suggested a citizen review board in every police precinct, with powers to fire police officers - I think that's a wonderful idea.

[madmusic]

3. That's still a great experiment K&R for that

[0rganism]

4. Some of them tried to intervene but were threatened with similar torture

Next time you see a cop tasering someone, are you going to do more than the UCLA students?

edit: interesting articles about the experiments, but I'm sure they're not the answer to your initial question.

[EFerrari]

6. I didn't watch or listen to that video very carefully but I heard at least

4 different people in the crowd ask for badge numbers.

From what I could see, it also wasn't a big clear, open room where a group could gather in one spot. There were doorways and dividers and other obstructions to sightline(s).

[Nay]

7. The campus cops probably have guns. They certainly had Tasers,

mace and steel batons. So any intervention would have resulted in certain injury. This is not to say that they should not have intervened, but since the Tased student did not seem to be dying, the crowd was prob more circumspect than they would have been if he was obviously being murdered in front of their faces. Some students did verbally intervene on the tape I saw.

[951-Riverside]

9. They most certainly are armed and....

If you take down one cop you have to deal with hundreds of his friends who will be arriving in a matter of Mins.

[nolabels]

31. And if cops start taking down citizens while a hundred or more cops ...........

stand around and watch then not report any of it. Then as a consequence you will get to watch a corrupt court system acquit it all and watch as the L.A. riots take off.

Moral of the story, don't pick a fight unless your morality is in a position to win.

[samdogmom]

11. I saw a video on Keith O. last night and the cell phone video I saw...

showed that students did try to intervene and some were shrieking in disbelief. Many tried to stop what was going on but they were threathen and warned to stay back or they would be shot with the tasser too. So what's your point again?

[Jcrowley]

12. I've watched the video

three times. The point was that the cops were involved in sadistic actions. The students were very feebly looking on, yes a few shout outs, "but, but officer please stop", but absolutely nothing in the way of seriously attempting to intervene. This was a display of the many degrees of complicity as well as brutality that we have come to think of as the norm in our society.

There were no serious attempts to get in the way of what was quite simply torture, none at all.

The point is what does this say about a collective that stands by. How have they been engineered to avoid direct action when one of their own is in agony? What are the levers of power that are held to their heads?

[rman]

34. some (maybe just one) were asking for batch numbers

You must have noticed that if you watched the video 3 times.

But seriously, what do you think the consequences would be if a bunch of student would physically overwhelm a couple of cops - aside from stopping the abuse, that is.
I can see multi SWAT teams descending on that library. I can understand the students hesitation to do what you think they should have done.

[Jcrowley]

38. Interesting question

regarding consequences which takes us right to Milgram's experiment.

I too can understand their hesitation just as I could've understood their horror and the deer looking into the headlights syndrome. So then what if the cops would've just kept going with the tasers? How far do you let that go? I think we can draw a fair conclusion based on Milgram's experiment that the students would've let it go all the way and what does that say about our society.

The perils of obedience.

My OP was not in any way blaming the students as some who have misinterpreted the OP believe but in asking the deeper questions and then considering how this relates to other issues. Why haven't we been actively attempting to stop the war in any meaningful way on a sustained basis e.g. when we all know mass murders are being committed in our name in an illegal and immoral war.

[Karenina]

45. Your point is well-taken.

On MANY levels. I would attribute the reactions to startled surprise, abject fear and self-preservation in that order. Kind of the "Stop, Look and Listen" of today.

[Jcrowley]

39. My point

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But ... the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read downthread and you will see what the point was and why Milgram's experiment was posted.

[treestar]

47. Gandhi would have done it.

Just have more cases against the cops, and make them look worse.

The mere threat to be tasered is something one might challenge. It hurts but does no damage, right? In fact that person's case would be really good. I think I would do it. A rare chance for a female to fight for liberty.

[spoony]

104. Don't know about "does no damage"

At the very least you'll have medics pulling barbs out of you, hopefully that's the worst of it.

CBS article about Tasers
http://tinyurl.com/v7bym

But, I know that wasn't the main point of your post, and if anything the small potential danger increases the nobility of the act you propose.

[RoyGBiv]

13. Because they were in shock ...

Here's a rule. Don't bring fists to a gun fight. Most people understand this rule. The problem in this situation is that no one there had any idea there was even going to be a fight and so had no time to plan whether to bring tools to defend themselves. As it was, they were left in a situation where anyone who wanted to rush in and stop what was taking place would have had to rely on the unknowable prospect of some sort of mass telepathy that moved everyone else to move in at once and rush the cops. Being in a state of shock, they would have been stupid to rely on that.

What I did notice was some of the students doing exactly what they should have been doing, demanding that they stop, demanding badge numbers, getting in the face of the cops as much as they could and not end up on the end of the torture themselves and demanding answers. And people recorded it.

[uppityperson]

14. Exactly. I bet some will act differently next time. All who see video also.

They were in shock that this was happening and did not know how to act. Betcha next time many of theses students, or many who see the video, encounter a similar situation they will act somewhat the same (demanding they stop, get badge numbers, etc) but more forcefully. Some will act much more forcefully indeed.

[RoyGBiv]

16. Agreed ...

I keep seeing comparisons of this event to similar events in the 60's and then criticism leveled at the other students in the library for not doing anything. First, it's untrue that they did nothing. They made the cops very, very nervous (which is part of it because nervous cops are dangerous) by crowding in and following and yelling. Demanding a badge number from a cop is often interpreted as a hostile act. But more to the point of the comparison that has been made, these kids were simply not prepared. The protests and the force used against authority in the 60's took nearly a decade to build to the level it did. Some of the most famous events were planned events where the participants were expecting violence and had a plan to deal with it, sometimes a bad plan, but a plan nonetheless.

Sit-ins, for example, didn't just happen spontaneously. They were planned, and eventually they were taking place in an almost spontaneous fashion, but only after all the previous planned events had been made known.

What you say is, I believe, true. Were something like this to happen again, especially on that campus, we'd see a much more severe reaction by the students...and probably a lot of hurt students, perhaps dead ones. And if it keeps happening, you'll see planned actions meant to invoke a reaction from the authorities themselves.

[uppityperson]

17. Kent State.

[WillyT]

22. Yup...

:cry:

[uppityperson]

24. bunch of not well enough trained and scared people all the way around, with

a few trying to instigate things=chaos, death, pain.

[Karenina]

74. 4 Dead in Ohio...

There are probably a number of people posting on this thread who are having their first exposure to that tragedy...

[Generic Brad]

26. Another in agreement

Intervening on the spot would have led to additional tasering and arrests. Tasers are known to cause sporadic deaths.

[Jcrowley]

37. Good point

So now a question is how far do you let the cops go before you physically intervene risking harm to yourself. If Tasers cause sporadic deaths, and they do, how many times do you allow the cops to zap someone before you realize this person could get killed? Is it then incumbent upon one to throw their body against this?

Difficult questions. That's why I posted the Milgram's experiment.

[Karenina]

40. The kids did what THEY, in these times, understand-

they FILMED it. They grew up with "Film at 11," not "Fight the Power." ;-)

In the 60's, one would have been hard-pressed to find an urban college student who had NO EXPOSURE to self-preservation tactics in the face of hostile police. The conditioning and socialization of today's students cannot be compared as times have indeed changed DRASTICALLY! That said, this incident will likely radicalize a percentage of the student body. They certainly realize now, IT CAN HAPPEN HERE.

If Mostafa instinctively went limp before being tasered it's because he KNEW to do so. I TRAINED my boys how to behave if they were ever approached by police LONG BEFORE they entered their teens. It's a matter of SURVIVAL if your skin is not white in Amurikkka.

[Cleita]

65. They did do something. They shot the video and contacted

the media to make sure that everyone saw what had happened. Unless there were some beefy athletes in that crowd, it would not have been a good idea to attack the campus cops who probably were all carrying tasers. No doubt all those students will all be called as witnesses for an investigation.

I'm sure that heads are rolling in Administration and there will be thorough investigations and housecleaning of the campus police afterwards. I've seen it happen before when a department in the university goes rogue and an incident forces Administration to act.

[Karenina]

67. One point that has not been examined

is how the no one amongst the UCPD seemed to consider the action "cutting butter with a chainsaw." This is a prestigious university's campus library and their job is to PROTECT students, NOT BRUTALIZE THEM. I dare conjecture the policies of taser use WILL come under close scrutiny. Totally agree with you, Cleita, HEADS ARE ROLLING even as we type.

[Cleita]

I used to work at UCLA and when a department goes rogue and

Administration gets wind of it, they are very thorough in cleaning out all the bad apples. It's such a huge campus that there are a lot of problems, particularly perverts who attempt to blend in with the students until they see their chance to rape or otherwise victimize the innocent there so that's why they need campus police for security and taking care of minor problems like parking illegally and other such things, as the city police are stretched too thin to handle the whole campus as well.

[flying_monkeys]

15. Do you really think you would have behaved differently?

Imagine you are at your school's library, and you are reading some study needed for a test next week. You hear shouts, commotion, maybe swear words - - you look up, and see a student arguing with the Campus Cops. He gets tasered, goes down, you stand up and peer over your partition to see what is happening. Screams fill the air, the Campus cops are shouting STAND UP repeatedly and the student is writhing. He doesn't get up. The cops get angrier - - and you move closer - - and you witness the student receive another jolt of electricity and your brain stumbles - - because *this* is not anything you ever expected to see in your school's Library, a student screaming and writhing - - and you press closer, trying to understand WTF is happening, and the cops are yelling and the student is screaming and you don't know why he is there or what they are doing but he is in pain - - and the cops jolt him again - - and now you say, "Hey!" and now you wonder what is in front of you but the cops are making threats and your paper is still un-read and maybe they (the cops) know what they are doing but that screaming is getting to you - - and you are 19 years old.....


I won't condemn the kids for not intervening.


It was a non-sensical event taking place in real time in front of them, and they couldn't process the entire picture. In reality, if any had gone to confront, there is no question in my mind that student would also have been tasered and arrested - - and taking on the Police has had 30 years to lay fallow so it wouldn't be in their heads, kwim?


I think they did good for getting video and asking for badge numbers.... Maybe this event will electrify the students across America like Kent State did in the 70s....

[lcordero2]

18. they didn't stand by

they took videos with the camera phones and asked for badge numbers.

My mode of reasoning is that this kind of action was approved by the administration there SINCE IT DID HAPPEN!!!

No apology is going to suffice and no other kind of remedial action is going to suffice.

the follow up to this has to be with a vicious and unrelenting attack on the wallet.

1. transfer to another school after the semester is over.

2. lobby the legislature to divert funds away from UCLA.

3. lobby Alumni to withhold donations.

4. lobby corporations that have R & D there to allocate their funds to another institution.

5. stage rallies at the most inappropriate places and at the most inconvenient times for the university, for example, from my understanding UCLA is a Division 1 NCAA school, so stage the rally next to whatever stadium and hope that it'll turn off enough people so that it'll hurt the school's wallet.

6. another thing is word of mouth. If a kid asks about the school, suggest that he go someplace else for learning.


The lessons learned from "The Art of War" and "The 48 Laws of Power" need to be applied.

One good lesson is not to engage an enemy with superior firepower headon.

[uppityperson]

19. Sister got offered a full scholarship from Kent State in 1976. Didn't go there

because "they shoot people there". People do boycott schools based on things like this.

[lcordero2]

21. bless her heart:)

:toast:

[lcordero2]

23. Any students or alumni from UCLA here on DU? n/t

[mcctatas]

20. Well in the clips I saw, the students were not "standing by"...

they were asking for the police's (sp?) badge #'s and ID, yelling for them to stop, and basically reacting in outrage...had they physically intervened the officers threatend to taze them too, and I believe the situation would have escalated out of control, shifting the focus from the disgusting behavior of the police to the students...

*any spelling or grammer errors courtesy of Guinness :toast:

[nofurylike]

25. why have we?

we are financing a war of aggression - a million innocent people mass-murdered in that one occupation, alone.
torture.
renderings.
shredding of the constitution to allow more of the same, and more, with impunity....

are you out there putting your life on the line to stop it?
or are you saying you'd do it for a ucla student, but not to stop the above?

why have you just stood by? why have we? why do we, still?

i understand some things i think you mean to say.
yes, such things we must consider, but none of us can do that by pointing fingers at others. we are not doing enough, ourselves. EACH of us.


peace

[Jcrowley]

36. I agree

and that was the point of posting Milgram's experiment that seems to be lost on most of the folks who posted on this thread.

If one were to actually have read my post without simply being reactionary as it seems you did one would see the point I am making is not about blaming the students but rather all of us taking a look at how we hve become such an obedient society that we simply don't know how to react in the face of authority beyond minimal dissent even when faced directly with the suffering being placed upon others by this authority.

This relates to many issues such as homelessness, militarism, police brutality, rape and so on.

I am not saying anything about my personal situation or what I have or haven't done I am posing the question as a reflection on our culture at large.

Personally I have put my body in the way during several anti-war protests, though I wouldn't say my life was in danger, and I have been beaten and arrested. I am in total agreement that we EACH must do more.

[nofurylike]

87. thank you for your reply. i wonder if you don't hear people saying

that the problem is in your pointing at the students, asking "why," when you can answer that, about yourself, as easily as those students can about themselves - or, rather, can NOT answer that any more than they can.

it is only in asking ourselves that, that we can begin to decide what must change in ourselves - possibly including not pointing out others' failures rather than analyzing our own.

we have to discuss this personally, emotionally, and that is painful. easier to reflect our own conflicts in others'.

i agonize over what to do. i feel we are at a major impasse, where what is happening simply CAN NOT be allowed to continue, but confronts us with intensely troubling levels of... IS it powerlessness? i presume you feel similarly, and didn't say that. maybe you might re-post a discussion of your more personal feelings about such impasses?

is it an impasse?
eg., dying for principle, but dying in discredit ("violent left!"), might ease our individual consciences, but not only NOT help change things, but perhaps actually further empower those we must stop?


peace!

[Jcrowley]

90. I see part of that

The reason the OP is directed at the students is quite simply because it was topical, caught on tape for all to see and a perfect illustration of viloence and docility and the dilemmas we all face up close and personal.

There they were with an enormous choice with the very direct consequence facing them of personal injury if they attempted to stop the unjust harm being done right in their faces. It was quite visceral.

Now just look at the title of the OP. Then look at what was posted within the OP. If I had wanted to blame the students I would not have used Milgram's experiment for a major part of what he was saying is that you cannot blame individuals you must look at larger and more complex forces that are in play. Anyone who thinks I was saying "What's wrong with the students they should have mauled the cops risking their lives", and maybe they should have but I'm not saying that, simply wasn't paying attention or just jumped in with projections of their own.

I suspect the students agonized as well and afterwards wished they had done more at the same time probably felt helpless to do more.

The whole point of this discussion as I started it was to examine our entire cultural passivity in light of the blatant violence done in our names around the world and the incident at UCLA simply put the reality in sharp focus as is often the case when we are able to examine such an individualized situation in detail.

Of course it's all very complicated and too bad we're not able to have that discussion you propose on this thread. But, as Simone Weil suggested, "Today it is not nearly enough merely to be a saint; but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment."

"If I give food to the hungry, they call me a saint," Brazilian Bishop Dom Helder Camera once famously quipped. "But if I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist."

But there was another question in my mind. Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place? Where were the saints to try to change the social structures, not just to minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery?

[nofurylike]

91. i want to read that. i've only skimmed it, and quick, now, must say

that it is reasonable that people do not get your central point, when the thread title MUST be addressed before people even read that point. *every* reply demonstrates that.

and it is an important experiment in itself, seeing that effect.

now, i go read...
thank you!


peace and solidarity!

[nofurylike]

95. very well put. important. more later! must run for now...ty! eom

[nofurylike]

102. it is true. tyranny only takes hold once such factors

have been put into motion. one of those factors is born of the knowledge that keeping us overwhelmed with urgent conditions blocks us from taking more thorough action.
we are at this stage not because the circumstances lined up opportune for tyranny, but because tyrants lined them up, and we are at their next stage.

it is said that occupation is where it takes an army to herd a few, and tyranny is where it takes a few to herd a mob. it takes the mob knowing that the broader population will not run to their (our) aid, but rather to the tyrant's, should it come to blows. and that takes knowing that those of good-will are all stretched out working for immediate relief of emergency conditions, while also fighting to end the root causes...

yes, we must discuss powerlessness, options, empowerment...

and fear

to be continued, soon.
thank you for this vital discussion.


peace and solidarity!

[otherlander]

50. So what do you suggest that I SHOULD do?

If I refuse to pay taxes, I'd wind up paying more in fines than I would have originally given to the government. The end result would be that they would be able to use my money for MORE bullets, MORE guns. So what do you suggest that I do?

[nofurylike]

89. dear otherlander, i do not get through an hour without tearing my

hair out about that urgent question.

i really just ask that the OP re-phrase the question that so many of us are asking of ourselves: what do we do now, knowing this CAN NOT go on, but that it is pointless to simply explode against the kind of violent tyranny we see growing around us?

i think we must talk of this with the understandable emotions of such moral, ethical, personal collisions - versus by depersonalizing it by focusing on it in others.

maybe what you pose is matter for a new, further discussion? but another impasse is how to discuss such matters on a public forum? even speculating why violence is not an option tells those oppressors too much. while suggesting anything resembling crime - tax revolt - or violence gives them too much more power, as you well point out.

believe me, i am with you on: "So what do you suggest that I SHOULD do?"

anyone?


peace and solidarity!

[Ignacio Upton]

28. Honestly, if I were there, I would have done the same thing

My gut tells me "fuck that cop, kick his ass for what he's doing to that student" but those campus cops were threatening to TASER spectators if for doing stuff like asking for their badge numbers an heckling them to stop tasering the student. Also, if the student went after the cops in a mob, the public reaction would probably be more favorable to the cops (why do you think the hippies and student demonstrators of the '60s saw such a backlash?) In this case, the cops look like the bullies that they are.

[Hekate]

29. The others were NOT silent and the cops DID threaten them; those are real cops w/ real weapons, btw

Quite a few years ago I temped for 7 months as an admin assistent at the police station on my local UC campus. They had their own chief, and they were trained uniformed personnel of the city police department, not a bunch of security guards.

My impression of that particular crew was that they were professionals who understood the student population they were dealing with. All of them had at least some college; I'm sure there were more than a few bachelor's degrees among them, so college life was not some alien world. They were not hard-asses out to bust heads for no reason, but they took themselves and their duties seriously. They wore a lot of gear, and when they walked down the halls of the "cop shop", their gear creaked and clicked.

I have to say it creeped me out when I saw several of them on the main campus taking crowd photos of the participants in a demonstration, but I also have to say I had a lot of admiration for the way they conducted themselves over the time I was there. Student populations away from home sometimes forget there are any rules -- Halloween in particular was a zoo, and the pre-planning the cops did was impressive. Kids get drunk, sometimes pass out in the street, get raped, maybe assault someone; someone has to be concerned with the safety issues, and sometimes people need to be arrested.

Having said all that, I am as shocked and appalled as the rest of the DU community (or most of us) at the behavior of the UCLA cops. What the hell were they thinking? I wonder how my old friends are reacting. The chief I knew has retired, and I think one of his lieutenants has the job now. Even with all the paranoia fostered by George W. (Be Very Afraid) Bush, I find it hard to believe the people I knew would taser a student in the library for failing to show his papers. At least I hope not.

Hekate

[survivor999]

44. Taking this video was the BEST thing anyone could have done.

For a while, if you notice, it seems like this guy was hiding the videocamera behind object and such while filming. Obviously, he was worried about being seen by the cops. IN the end, when everything was a mess I think he relaxed. But...

[Jcrowley]

51. So how far do you let it go?

Do you "just continue filming" as the cops taser the student the 6th time? The 11th time? The 43rd time? Do you ever intervene or do you still just stand there?

What if the student was your brother?

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But ... the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” Martin Luther King, Jr.

[survivor999]

57. Had you been there, there result would have been

TWO tasered individuals, not just one.

[Karenina]

68. Just for the sake of speculation...

Let's imagine 4 kids jumped in to protect the victim with their bodies. I'm with you that the other cops would have gone on a tasing spree. So now we have 5 students tased. WHY??? Errraaa... because one student didn't move fast enough when asked to leave the library? Things that make ya go HMMMMM......

I'm not second-guessing any of the students and am pleased they had their wits about them to DOCUMENT the incident and raise a ruckus. Referring back to the Milgram experiment, I wonder (not really) why NONE OF THE COPS questioned the appropriateness of the assault their colleagues were obviously commiting.

[survivor999]

83. Four students attacking the cops?

Some bullets might have come into play with that scenario. I bet the University rules justified this kind of behavior. The rules may need to be changed. I just don't assume these cops violated any of the rules they had to follow as a result of their job. But we'll see, if there is an investigation.

[Karenina]

Please pay attention.

4 students shielding the victim with their own bodies is what I meant. Sorry if that was unclear. Rule #1 as I learned it back in the 60's: NEVER touch the cops if you can avoid it.

Yes, the policies concerning taser use DO support the assault. I'm CERTAIN those policies will be reviewed as there WILL be an investigation. The students are now demanding an INDEPENDENT investigation rather than an internal review.

[Casablanca]

107. But you didn't answer the question.

At what point do you draw the line and act against the abuse of authority? When it's safe? When you have permission?

There are no easy answers to this question, but let's take it further anyway - what if there was no one there with a cameraphone to film or record the incident? Would you be more or less willing to defend a target you knew to be innocent?

[treestar]

46. The attitude that fighting them is a mistake though gives the

cops too much privilege. Just because they are cops, they get to kick somebody's ass, and all you can do it film it. True, you have to save your own ass first, and if you are weaker than the cops, attacking them physically might not help, but you could yell at them to quit, film them, or, as the cops well know and fear, a large group can overwhelm or get them into serious trouble.

The cops are no longer an authority to be respected if you see them abusing that authority right in front of your eyes.

There is a time when one must stand and fight, regardless of the risk, that is what the freepers attempt to paint Iraq as, but they mistake the matter. It is this - the government has to be reminded from time to time it is a servant of the people, not a ruler over them.

[Pavulon]

52. Sworn Law Enforcement

officers are acting as agents of the state. If you interfere with violence you are going to be arrested.

Putting a police officer in a group fight is dangerous. They can resort to deadly force. You think getting shot will improve the situation.

By your logic you could just shoot them. Be smart, video tape and be a good witness.

[treestar]

54. In theory you could

You have a legal right of self defense even against a cop. You don't have to stand by and let him kill you and leave the fighting to your heirs.

Remember it is a nation of laws, not of men. Of the people, not somebody's kingdom. If you had no right whatsoever to fight it, your life would belong to it, not to you.

[Pavulon]

56. No you cant interfere with lawful conduct

the police were not using lethal force. They may have used excessive force.

This does not give you the right to interfere. If you jump in you will get arrested, at minimum. A mob action would result in people being shot.

[Swede]

53. It's called the Kitty Genovese Syndrome.

It is when crowds of people are less likely to act,then an individual.


http://itotd.com/articles/503/kitty-genovese-syndrome/

[Jcrowley]

55. Interesting

From article:

The Victim and the Bystander
I’ve experienced it myself—both as a victim and as a bystander. In the late 1990s on my first trip to Costa Rica, I was walking alone in downtown San Jose. It was still light out, and I was in an area with plenty of pedestrian traffic. As I turned a corner, I noticed a group of young men gathered around an older man who was lying on the sidewalk. My first impression is that the old man was ill or injured and they were trying to help him. As I got closer, I saw that they were actually going through his pockets. My instincts said I should try to help the man, not run, so I kept walking toward them. But the next thing I knew, the young men jumped me. One squeezed his arm around my throat, making it impossible to breathe or call for help. The rest of them took my watch, wallet, passport, and anything else of value they could find. I felt pretty sure at the time that I was going to die. But then they threw me down in the gutter and ran away. When I finally staggered to my feet, dazed and bruised, I looked around and saw lots of people walking down the street—maybe glancing curiously at me, but otherwise seemingly indifferent. The muggers clearly had known they could count on the public not to get involved.

And the point here is not to blame the students as I've pointed out but to consider the larger phenomenon and get at why we are so passive in light of the atrocities be they everyday in our communities or everyday in our foreign policy.

What if it were your/my brother/sister?

[dogday]

60. Maybe because the other policemen had tasers as well.

They were vocal though.. They were all closing around the police yelling, but I think they felt a charge and a tase would be in order if they interfered.... They are witnesses though....

[dailykoff]

62. Yes.

nt

[dailykoff]

61. The Milgram experiment has nothing to do with this.

For one thing, most of Milgram's "torturers" knew on some level that the game was rigged (it was an experiment, remember?) and for another, the UCLA students were facing an armed police squad in a library and had no way of knowing exactly WHY the cops were tasering this poor kid.

[Beelzebud]

63. Blind obediance. Cowardice.

[genie_weenie]

64. Fighting individual Police Officers is the right move.

You might as well admit you are a caged animal fighting another at the whim of the ringmasters. Individual Joe Cop is doing a job for a slave wages and catching all the built up anger people have over their frustration at the World. Meanwhile, the Lords merely pit group a against group b...

[Election]

69. Maybe because they didn't want to have a criminal record and be unable to find a job postgraduation

Which is the sane response! :)

[Crim_n al]

71. S you are an advocate of the: "me first, and to hell with anyone

in need of help" position?

That certainly puts you safely with the majority on this issue.

[Crim_n al]

70. Filming was good, the students doing that did America a favour.

Fighting the police, in my opinion, would cause the incident to escalate, get people killed
and would muddy the waters so the public would not have ever found out how the "riot" started.

What I believe I'd have done, had I been there, (and this is based on confrontations in which
I've put my life on the line in the past,) would have been to cover the student's body with
my own and tell the police they could taser me if they had to taser someone.
This is not threatening the police in any way, and might inspire others to add to the pile.
Then the world would see that not all American human pyramids were constructed out of hate,
and further tasering would make the police look even worse, and give more people cause to sue
the university.

To protest in a peaceful way, without harming anyone is important because it can affect and
change the attitudes of people witnessing it. Fighting the police makes it even more of a
"you against us" situation. Back in the hippie days we used to give the police flowers and
tell them we loved them, even if they were attacking us. It was worth the self control for
the sake of the few hearts we managed to change that way.

[H2O Man]

72. Interesting questions

and responses.

First, one might question what, if anything, those students might have done? Next, would this have helped the student being injured by the police? Made it worse for him? Endangered themselves? Created a more calm atmosphere on campus, or created a more explosive situation?

It may be that they did the right thing. Filming the incident, and asking for ID/badge numbers without creating an increase in the physical confrontation may have been the best option they had.

[Giant Robot]

73. I disagree with your use of Milgram's experiment here

Milgram's experiment had nothing to do with the perceived threat of self-harm on the part of the subjects. This might be appropriate if the police had just told people to sit down and shut up, but they did not. They threatened them. And on some level, we all know that interfering with the police will bring about some type of sanction, be it an arrest, or more drastically, more police officers coming in with full riot gear on. I would assume the police were armed other than tasers as well. This was, to me, a clear case of weighing what could be done to aid this young man. Milgram's experiment was a scary truth that really takes a lot to digest, and I appreciate your effort to bring it into the context here, but I think it does a disservice to what the students did do.

Context here is more important in my mind, than in Milgram's experiment, and it is vital to remember that. It is important to remember that the students who intervened in this manner did what they safely, and legally, could. I am concerned with the spectators as well here, as they went through a trauma as well. If you remember, the participants in Milgram's experiments suffered greatly after they learned what the experiment really was about and what the conclusions were showing. One man's wife left him, as I recall, saying she could not be married to an Eichmann, or words to that effect. I suggest you remember that piece in your discussion as well, because these are human beings who experienced something horrible as well. And before I get flamed, please let me be clear that it certainly was no where on the level of what the victim went through.

In some trainings for women, mainly, on self defense, it is often framed that women have the choice, if they are assaulted, to fight back at the time of the assault, by resisting, trying to get away, fighting, etc., or by waiting and reporting this to the police and fighting back in court. Either way they are fighting back in some way. What these students did is the latter. They took pictures, tried to get badge numbers, and were vocal about their discontent. That is fighting back as well, and probably more relevant to this generation of video on demand.

[Jcrowley]

76. The use of milgram's experiment

is not meant to be a parallel analogy one could've used other set-ups and hypotheticals to illustrate the point.

Unfortunately many of the posts (most) isolated on the individualized rather than examining the entirety of our culture and it's conditioned behavior which was my point.

As I asked up thread to another, and was ignored, how far do you let it go? How many times does the person get tazed before you intervene? What if it goes on and on? What if it's your sister?

These questions aren't even meant to draw specific answers but to deepen the discussion. No need to answer. And what is left ignored is how do we respond to the infinite everyday violences in our society and why is there such passivity.

Now let's say the students do go after the police and the situation gets very ugly but the result is one in which further Police violence is eliminated, setting up of student task forces, watchdog groups etc. yet when nothing is done a slap on the wrist occurs, cause the violence perpetrated by the cops "wasn't that bad" and the arrangements and power relations remain the same.

A look at the long view.

[Karenina]

78. How does Milgram's experiment

inform us the police mentality? How IS IT that 3 members of the UCPD looked on as 2 of their colleagues subjected a student to REPEATED ASSAULTS for... refusing to show ID??? Being on his way OUT THE DOOR???

[uppityperson]

79. Why did the other police stand by and watch their colleagues taser repeatedly?

why did they watch their colleagues repeatedly assault/taser a student for not being able to stand?

[Karenina]

82. The $64,000 question.

Film at 11. :silly:

[uppityperson]

84. you already responded here, but thought I'd post the link anyway

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2760714#2760759

[Jcrowley]

93. Power relations

as well as extraordinary training and code. Who were the two officers who were using the tasers and what were their standings in relationship to the others who watched? My guess would be they held power over the other officers and the perceived consequences if they intervened was greater for the officers than if they stood by.

The climate right now in this country is one where the police feel very much that they have tremendous leeway in the amount of force they can use. Perhaps it has always leaned this way but is at present a bit more heightened with the phony war on terror.

It really was quite a sight wasn't it? Very difficult to watch. Let's face it everyone pretty much stood around while this kid is crying out in agony while being repeatedly electrically shocked.

[Karenina]

97. I'm a wimp. I clicked off at the first scream.

BAMBI was too stressful for me... :hide:

[Rex]

75. Because they are well trained American citizens.

Docile and predictable. Non-violent and non-confrontational. Smart sheep. Good consumers. Probably have a good credit rating.

Then again, no one jumps on police. Not sane people.

[uppityperson]

77. The next question is "at what point do you stand up and risk harm?"

This has been an interesting discussio, thank you everyone for the thoughts. Seems the question goes from "why did they act as they did" to "what will they do next time" or "at what point to you stand up and risk harm to help another?"

Even back in the 60's/70's VietNam protest days, the protesters started out by being people who didn't want to interfere or get involved. I wonder at what point I would get invovled? Having exposure (either directly or through media/friends/etc) will help prepare each of us for what to expect in situations, and influence perhaps what we would do.

[Casablanca]

106. "I wonder at what point I would get invovled?"

Glad you're asking that question. Sadly, some people on this forum won't seriously ask themselves the question for fear of the risks.

[bobbie]

80. Good comparison Jcrowley!

Same thing; same result.

Is anyone (trustworthy) collecting money for the taser victim's lawsuit?

[Karenina]

85. I believe all those bases

are quite well covered. ;-)

[bobbie]

86. Huh?

...

[Karenina]

92. The kid is already lawyered-up

with a BIG GUN. At this point, I speculate he's a born and bred Angelino and part of the Persian-American community on the west side. Money is NOT an object.

[Karenina]

96. Upon further reading I discover

Mostafa was born in Sacramento. Native Californian. Senior, majoring in philosophy and eastern studies.

[bobbie]

103. Oh, I see. Good good. Thank you for the info.

I hope he totally kicks their asses. Hey, I'm a witness to the video; I'll testify.

[bridgit]

81. it wasn't the students fault by standing there...

[Jcrowley]

94. Noone was blaming

Please read my other posts in the thread.

Looking at the culture at large and how our obedient behaviors lead to? allow? the violence to perpetutate is the point.

But, as Simone Weil suggested, "Today it is not nearly enough merely to be a saint; but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment."

[hedgehog]

88. If the students had interfered as you suggested, they might have gotten someone killed.

The application of the Milgram results here is to the cop with the taser, not the students. They took the right approach by objecting loudly, documenting the incident and following up instead of letting it die.

If you think the cops in your area are bad, take the time to get a citizen oversight committee going.