Gangsters in Blue

Via Rad Geek I found some great footage that demonstrates just how difficult it can be to be silent in the face of aggressive police tactics:

When this guy tried to remain silent, the cop threatened arrest for “impeding an investigation”. It’s important to know that cops can lie. Legally, they are under no obligation to be honest with you in any way, shape, or form. So how are you possibly going to be able to negotiate with these people?

Remember, you live in occupied territory. Your country has been conquered by a foreign power from the city-state of Washington, D.C. These cops are the troops. The sooner you stop depending on the government, the police, or any institution outside yourself for your safety and the protection of your “rights”, the better prepared you will be for these kinds of encounters.

A freedom based on myths of rights and liberties upheld by strangers is no freedom at all. If you want to be free, build your freedom in the real world: on your ability to choose your attitude, to control yourself, to select your values, to opt-out of the system to the extent possible, and to pick your battles. Don’t blow it trying to showdown with the occupation authority, especially when they have the upper hand.

One more thing: it may seem like a contradiction for me to say that, while you should operate as if none of your rights will be upheld, you should exercise your right to remain silent. I don’t think you should remain silent because you have the right. Stay silent because:

1. They are unlikely to compel you to talk. If they torture you, obviously nobody would blame you for talking. And yes, that probably won’t happen - but this is what I’m talking about: retooling our expectations to reflect our actual experience, not our theoretical rights.
2. Stalling the cops is the safest and simplest way to interrupt their occupation activities. Why should you not “impede their investigation”? By holding the cops up at the scene, you’re doing the community a small favor - the amount of time you delay them keeps them off the streets causing possibly worse trouble.

It’s in that same spirit of passive resistance that I’m considering following a rule of refusing to sign any future traffic tickets. Of course, signing a traffic ticket is not an admission of guilt; it just means you’re pledging to show up for your court date. The alternative to signing is going before a magistrate, which means arrest. If you can possibly afford the inconvenience, it is one way to drain the occupation force’s resources.

What other ways can we passively resist and gum up the administration of the American occupation? I’d be interested in your thoughts.

This is great legal advice (and surprisingly hard to follow when you’re on the spot). It’s also a key strategy for passively and non-violently resisting the occupation army in your neck of the woods. They require on-the-ground, tacit information of the community to operate. Don’t volunteer to participate in the system.

The more I read about police and judicial misconduct, the more I’m convinced that the best strategy when dealing with the government is to operate as if you have no legal rights. The problem with the supposed “rights” we have as citizens is that we depend upon others to enforce them. This dependency is so deceptive because the same people who are supposed to uphold our rights are the ones who have an incentive to throw us in jail. So don’t take anything for granted: hold your tongue and wait to talk to a lawyer. Comply only with force, or threats thereof.

Any interactions with law enforcement should be on your terms, at a time and place of your choosing, and for your purposes and not theirs. The government always tries to pressure, scare, or cow us into surrendering to and complying with their interests - interests that are necessarily counter to ours. Resist the urge to reason with an institution that has no conscience and can legally lie without consequence. Stay calm and silent.

If you have the time, also check out the cop who follows the speaker in the video. Very, very frank look into the mind of an officer and, by extension, the system.

[Police brutality] isn’t irrelevant. It is the boiled-down essence of what is relevant in politics.

Martial law just gets us into a whole constitutional debate that none of us want to have. Far easier to simply give your law enforcement personnel military vehicles, military outfits, military weapons, and a military mandate. After all, if they scare, rough up, or hurt the population a bit, it’s a small price to pay for officer safety. You can have the benefits of an occupation force with none of the pesky insurgent resistance.</p

The only price is our way of life. Oh, I know that’s what we’ve spent the last century and a half fighting wars and sacrificing countless lives to protect. But, really, wouldn’t you rather your own government occupy you militarily than some other government? I think the choice is clear.

The photo is from the raid on the Texas polygamist sect. Hat tip to Radley Balko.

A very well presented summary of the ways in which the U.S. government is taking the steps other totalitarian governments have throughout history.

What is happening right now is a corporate state conspiracy, pure and simple. Whatever that means to you, be prepared to respond to it when it crosses whatever threshold of human dignity you’ve decided upon.