>US police is notorious for its brutality, but are these killings ordered by top officials in chain of command?
Directly no. They are just nurtured by top officials in chain of command, who could have stopped this shitty behavior in a day if they wanted to, but instead either ignore it or even encourage it.
From people arming police departments with military grade equipment and allowing SWAT teams etc to be used for BS offenses, to right-wing politicians speaking of blacks, latinos etc as lazy, criminals, gloryfying the use of police force, etc.
Not that I'm a fan of those "eastern bloc" states, but I want to put things in some perspective. Saying "they just earned 20 bucks a month" is not enough -- one also has to know how things were for the majority of people in these countries before socialism, in order to compare.
> Saying "they just earned 20 bucks a month" is not enough -- one also has to know how things were for the majority of people in these countries before socialism, in order to compare.
Well, before the war literacy rate was low and noone had a TV set, the socialist state has come and these things took a fortunate turn ;)
Or if we truly want to put things into perspective, prewar Poland, while obviously poorer than Germany or the UK, was better off than Spain or Portugal (not to mention eg. [South] Korea). A few decades later did young Spaniards dream of picking strawberries in Poland, or was it the other way round?
Directly no. They are just nurtured by top officials in chain of command, who could have stopped this shitty behavior in a day if they wanted to, but instead either ignore it or even encourage it.
From people arming police departments with military grade equipment and allowing SWAT teams etc to be used for BS offenses, to right-wing politicians speaking of blacks, latinos etc as lazy, criminals, gloryfying the use of police force, etc.
>If factory workers go on a strike in the US, are police troops sent in to "shoot to kill" them? They did in Poland 30 years ago, eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Wujek*
Back in the day, yes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
And if unions got that organised again to be a threat, then I have no dount they would. Heck, they even killed students:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Not that I'm a fan of those "eastern bloc" states, but I want to put things in some perspective. Saying "they just earned 20 bucks a month" is not enough -- one also has to know how things were for the majority of people in these countries before socialism, in order to compare.