AFP reports:
Thousands of heavily armed police went door-to-door through a Massachusetts town on Friday in an unprecedented massive hunt for the remaining Boston marathon bombing fugitive.
Authorities halted all public bus and train services in the Boston region and told hundreds of thousands of people in several towns around Watertown to stay home in a bid to isolate the suspect.
Fleets of buses were sent to Watertown to ferry out nervous inhabitants. Those who stay were ordered to remain in their homes and only answer the door if they were sure it was a police officer.
More than 9,000 police, many armed with shotguns and automatic rifles, were sent to the town to find Suspect Two, one of two young men suspected of having carried out the bomb attack on Monday in which three people died and 180 were injured.
The hunt was concentrated on about 1.5 square miles (3.8 square kilometers) of Watertown, a quiet suburb of 35,000 people.
One police officer was killed and another wounded in shootouts in which the other suspect was fatally wounded in the early hours of Friday. The fugitives led police on a chaotic chase to Watertown.
Explosions and gunfire could be heard throughout the night as police chased the suspects.
How can a supposedly free country justify sending a swarm of thousands of federally funded officers into a town demanding to search houses, with no specific indication that any particular house is harboring a suspect? One way the American people are being conditioned to accept this casual trespass of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is by referring to the deaths of three marathon runners and the injury of hundreds more as a second “Boston Massacre”. At present, mere days after the event, there are already nearly five thousand hits on Google News for the phrase.
One example of this blatant manipulation can be found here: The New Boston Massacre
They died in an act as heinous as any you can think of. The Newtown shootings, Sept. 11, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 — they’re all terrorism, whether committed by a mentally deranged young man, an antigovernment radical or al Qaeda.
And whichever type of person or persons committed this act, this new Boston Massacre, they must be found and suffer the full weight of justice. If the perpetrator is an American citizen, that means a federal trial. If he is a foreign enemy engaged in this war between civilization and the followers of Osama bin Laden, it must mean swift and certain death at the hands of our military and intelligence services. No other retribution will suffice.
At present the Boston Massacre label is being used to invoke a sort of uniting of the nation behind the increasingly unpopular federal government as against the more private form of violent criminals who seek to deprive Americans of life, liberty, and property. The Boston Massacre is a keyword that most Americans will recognize from their Revolutionary period history classes and therefore identify with in a symbolic way.
However, the current promotion of the marathon bombing as some sort of a ‘Boston Massacre II’ is so removed from the context of the original as to strain credulity. Wikipedia states:
The Boston Massacre, known as the Incident on King Street by the British, was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others. British troops had been stationed in Boston, capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, since 1768 in order to protect and support crown-appointed colonial officials attempting to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. Amid ongoing tense relations between the population and the soldiers, a mob formed around a British sentry, who was subjected to verbal abuse and harassment. He was eventually supported by eight additional soldiers, who were subjected to verbal threats and thrown objects. They fired into the crowd, without orders, instantly killing three people and wounding others. Two more people died later of wounds sustained in the incident.
The crowd eventually dispersed after Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson promised an inquiry, but reformed the next day, prompting the withdrawal of the troops to Castle Island. Eight soldiers, one officer, and four civilians were arrested and charged with murder. Defended by the lawyer and future American President, John Adams, six of the soldiers were acquitted, while the other two were convicted of manslaughter and given reduced sentences. The sentence that the men guilty of manslaughter received was a branding on their hand.
Depictions, reports, and propaganda about the event, notably the colored engraving produced by Paul Revere (shown at right), further heightened tensions throughout the Thirteen Colonies. The event is widely viewed as foreshadowing the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War five years later.
Hardly an event which rallied the people behind the government, the real Boston Massacre, in which three people were murdered by British police, bolstered sentiment behind the eventual toppling and rout of that government from American shores.
Given the lack of historical awareness of Americans who have been educated in government schools, this exploitation is understandable, but no less cynical.
In those times, the Boston Massacre was used to bolster perception of these guys as the enemy:
Today, the ‘Boston Massacre II’ manipulation is used to bolster perception of these guys as the friendlies:
Americans should never be swindled into giving up their freedom for illusory security by such a cynical and transparent manipulation.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
– Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 1791
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
– Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies, 1776
