Archive for the 'video' Category
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Over and over again, law enforcement demonstrates that they are not only interested in forcing their alien vision of “law and order” on the people they’re supposed to “protect and serve”, but that they are actively hostile and sadistic towards the protestors. We’ve seen this before, like in Miami’s ‘06 FTAA protests:
The resentment has come out full force, now. On Democracy Now!, the arrested journalists told how the police would tighten restraints when detainees complained about how tight they were. The psychology of the human beings in law enforcement is becoming a serious menace and is being actively promoted in their training:
The police brutality that we’ve seen in Denver and St. Paul this week is the result of ongoing indoctrination of the police against protesters, especially any protesters of the left-wing stripe. Local police departments have been militarized to deal with protesters, with much of this militarization happening during the Clinton administration. After 9/11, local police were further turned into anti-terrorist organizations, with the effect that they see their work as fighting terrorists. Local police are also bringing home the terror tactics that the U.S. has been using in dozens of countries around the world for the past century.
The war on terror has escalated into an increased war on the “rabble” of America, most significantly protesters and anarchists. This doesn’t surprise us, because the U.S. government has always been at war with dissidents of many kinds.
We do not have any hope that the police will change their attitudes or their ways. The purpose of the police is to act as the violent arm of capital and the state. The only way for the people to stop the police is to stand up to them, abolish the police and build a different society which needs no police.
Indeed, this jives with my own research: police are being trained to see civil society as their zoo full of mere animals to keep in line, and many are adopting an abusive relationship with their “wards”. Witness their open sadism in St. Paul:
The sad part about all this is that these attitudes towards the public are going to make the jobs of officers who genuinely want to get along with the public much more difficult. While many officers may look forward to the police state as their chance to beat up hippies (see the end of Daniel Clowes’ Like an Velvet Glove Cast in Iron for a perfect portrayal of this attitude), I’d advise them to take a good look at Iraq. The officers there are targeted by insurgents and are never safe, on or off duty. It’s easy to be a bully when you can still go home to your family in relative safety - a police state turns street protestors from prey into predators. Moreover, it was arguably the attitudes of American soldiers (including cops in reserve units) that turned the people against them and their police. Not only are these attitudes quite similar to those displayed by cops in the twin cities, the attitudes may even be brought back by soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan to new careers in domestic law enforcement.
If cops want to militarize their jobs, they need to consider the down side for themselves, their families, and their communities. There’s a lot more civilians than soldiers and officers, and continuing abuse - including the branding of activists as terrorists - just threatens to push Americans over the edge the same way Iraqis were pushed. If civil society is lost, cops may look back fondly on the days when the public merely committed minor property damage.
Posted in Activism, Blogospherics, Current Events, LL.org, Law Enforcement, Police State, Security, Society, revolution, video | Comments Off
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Although the Monty Python skit resemblance is more than a function of the accents (the timing is amazing), this is an honest-to-God a believable portrayal of a typical politician here. Are these the people we need to worry about? Part of me feels like the way you deal with a police state is by ignoring the politicians, who after all never lift a finger to do anything, and attacking the apparatus: the police. Whether politically, legally, or extra-legally, it seems to me that if we’ve genuinely passed the point of no return, it’s not the politicians we need to bring in line but the people who execute their will.
UPDATE: This is not a real interview. Hat tip to Roderick Long for the smooth catch. Serves me right for just parroting what a friend wrote in an email forward!
Posted in Humor, LL.org, Police State, Politics, Society, revolution, video | Comments Off
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
From the Edmonton Sun:
Police appeal $60,000 court award to Victoria teen tied to jail cell door
VICTORIA — Victoria police are appealing a court decision awarding $60,000 to a Victoria teen who spent four hours tied up in a padded cell and tethered to the cell door.
My previous post on the topic, with video: Victoria, BC [...]
Posted in Canada, Education, Gangsters in Blue, Police, prison, victimless crime, video | Comments Off
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
Epidemic, anyone?
From some random TV station:
KALAMAZOO, MI — A Kalamazoo police officer is suspended without pay for ten days and reassigned, for allegedly roughing up a teenage suspect during an arrest. On May 22, a 16-year-old was arrested for violating rules outside the Kalamazoo Transportation Center.
The incident report stated Officer Derek Nugent applied a level [...]
Posted in Gangsters in Blue, Michigan, Police, force, video | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
Short answer: not gonna happen. Police pardon selves; move along, nothing to see here.
From The Globe and Mail:
No charges called for in report on taser death
17 June 2008
Vancouver — Police have finished their investigation into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski and forwarded a report to the Crown that does not call for any [...]
Posted in Canada, Dziekański, Gangsters in Blue, Immigration, Murder, Police, Torture, justice, taser, truth, video | Comments Off
Monday, June 9th, 2008
There’s an interesting story here in that Taser International’s wall of mendacious claims about the safety of its cute little electrocution weapons is beginning to crumble.
Even so, holding the company responsible for the actions of its customers who use its products to kill is as ridiculous as holding knife manufacturers responsible for stab wounds. One [...]
Posted in California, Death, Gangsters in Blue, God, Murder, Police, family, force, methamphetamine, taser, video | Comments Off
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
If there is a real investigation of this, what do you think will be the outcome for these fine uniformed thugs?
Prison?
Mall security?
Or nothing at all?
From WABC-TV, New York:
Mistaken identity police brutality?
[...]
Minter’s video captures police in plain clothes milling around and a helicopter above. They’d apparently been chasing a suspect who crashed his car into the [...]
Posted in Gangsters in Blue, New York, Police, Security, police brutality, prison, uniform, video | Comments Off
Monday, May 19th, 2008
It’s mall security time for 4 of these monkeys, at least.
From Reuters:
Four Philadelphia police fired over filmed beating
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Four Philadelphia police officers were fired and four others demoted or suspended after a video showed them beating three suspects after a drug-related shooting, the city’s police chief said on Monday.
The eight officers were among [...]
Posted in Gangsters in Blue, Police, police brutality, video | Comments Off
Thursday, May 8th, 2008
Once upon a time, the drill was “Put your hands where we can see them. Open the door slowly. Step out of the car. Turn around and place your hands on the car.” Don’t worry though, of course it’s not police brutality. I mean, if these guys weren’t guilty, they wouldn’t have been suspects, right? [...]
Posted in Gangsters in Blue, Police, police brutality, video | Comments Off
Monday, April 14th, 2008
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.
Posted in Capitalism, Conspiracy, Corporatism, Current Events, LL.org, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Police State, Politics, Security, Society, War on Terruh, revolution, video | Comments Off