The Marvel Of Coincidence

Days after the shocking crackdown of Occupy Oakland members, a police action that resulted in serious head trauma to Marine Vet Scott Olsen, Google revealed US law enforcement requests, January through June 2011, to ban videos showing police brutality and/or allegedly defaming law enforcement officials.  These requests were subsequently rejected by Google.  From the Google’s released Transparency Report:

Observations on Content Removal Requests

• We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.

Had we not had access to the recent You Tube videos from Oakland, we would have been left in a ‘he said/she said’ predicament with no way of knowing how extreme the Oakland police were on the night of October 25 [unless, of course, you were an eye witness] or left to the mercy of the sadly slanted reports in the mainstream media. Traditional press outlets first ignored, and then quickly wrote off the OWS protests as lame complaints, coming from of a bunch of spoiled brats.  There is little acknowledgement of the Movement’s growing support or the very real anger and disgust of the American public. The discontent is not difficult to categorize–corruption, malfeasance, and collusion of Government and Wall St. at the expense of ordinary people.

Add another ‘strange’ coincidence, this one noted at Cannonfire, header reading: “Ain’t That A Coinky-Dink.”

Joe Cannon tapped a brief blog piece indicating the weird, spectacular confluence of events: that ABC and CBS, both stations providing live feed to the October 25^th night’s proceedings, just happened to require helicopter refueling at the precise moment the police prepared their attack on the protesters. And so, the major stations had no film footage of the actual melee.

Astounding, yes?  Btw, this story was picked up and circulated around the Web, but I fail to recall the astonishing coincidence being reported by the MSM. I mean we get stories about the face of Jesus revealed on tacos, pistachios and ancient shrouds.  But this?  Nada.  Inquiring minds might ask—Why?

Fortunately, we did have those videos taken by on-the-ground witnesses.  We even have first hand accounts, the vast majority of which are like this one. Unflattering, to say the least.

But the magic of coincidence seems to come in bundles and bunches. In this case it’s the magic number 3 [although there certainly may be more lurking out there].

On Wednesday, October 26^th the Protect IP [intellectual property] Bill S. 968 was released from the House without any appreciable changes that had been noted in the initial Senate version—vague language, broad application, all in the name of protecting copyright infringement.  In addition, a companion piece of legislation Stop On-Line Privacy Act [SOPA] also coming out of the House would require internet providers to ‘disappear’ certain websites, effectively blacklisting domains, all under the aegis of IP protection.  Even better, service providers would be required to ‘monitor’ and police their users’ activity.

From Open Congress the following Summary appears:

Open Congress Summary

“This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be “dedicated to infringing activities.” The DOJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have “only limited purpose or use other than infringement,” and the DOJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison. This bill combines two separate Senate bills – S. 958 and S.978, the Commercial Felony Streaming Act — into one big House bill.”

What could go wrong?

And what an amazing coincidence that Congress, a body that has been paralyzed, unable to pass any legislation for the benefit of the American public, has suddenly, so expeditiously gotten its act together to push through Blacklisting legislation that curtails and restricts Internet use.  Not only that, but this legislation coincides with the precise moment that Americans around the country have gathered in our streets, courtyards, and before a variety of City Halls to give voice to public grievances, and ‘coincidentally’ effects the source from which we [the general public] primarily learn about these protests and view subsequent video.

Coincidence upon tumbling coincidence.  I am gobsmacked, I tell you. Color me worried. And just a tad suspicious, too.  What about you?