I was reading Digby this morning, and was reminded of this photo of a soldier in Iraq squidding for Protest Warrior, the pro-patria, anti-progressive, and now apparently Christian Dominionist group.
She had a post regarding law enforcement's love affair with the Taser™. There was another incident the other day, where a troubled man was tased while on a cliff on the Palos Verde Penninsula. Apparently, after being hit, he jumped and killed himself.
Now, whether this was an acceptable tasing incident or not, I can not say because I don't know the specifics of how this all went down. But being a student of how police are using Tasers™ these days, I do not feel particularly comfortable with that outcome.
This all goes back to the sage words of Dr. Strych9 who once said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that he was concerned about what was going to happen when a certain segment of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan come back to the U.S. and decide to be cops.
When I say a "certain segment," I'm talking about the guys who signed up for the military in the first place because they wanted to kill them some Hajjis; people for whom the oath of service they took has a slightly different meaning than for the rest of us who rose our right hands...
Later on in Digby's article was a link to the Photography is not a Crime site, documenting the increasing restiveness of police to being photographed by the citizenry whose rights they're supposed to be protecting.
Here is a bit of my favorite story on that page:
Last year, Nee made national headlines when he videotaped a Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputy who had detained him for taking pictures inside the city’s subway system.
The deputy accused him of taking photos of the subway system in order to sell them to Al Qaeda. The deputy never noticed the Vievu camera hanging in full view around Nee’s neck.
Nee posted the video on his site Discarted and CNN’s Rick Sanchez picked up to the story, only to side with the deputy.
Now Nee has posted another video of an incident involving a Los Angeles police officer who did not want to be photographed making a traffic stop on a public road in broad daylight.
The cop tells Nee that he did not have the right to photograph him because he is a “citizen of this country.”
He also informed Nee that he was in the Marine Corps for a few years “getting shot at for you.”
So in other words, he’s willing to take a bullet for Nee but not willing to allow Nee to express his First Amendment rights.
The more the cop talks, the more he appears to be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because he keeps repeating that he is a citizen of this country and makes references to living in the desert.
“I spent my goddamn ass two years in the desert and I have to hear from your fruitcake ass,” the cop tells him.
The confluence of these seemingly disparate bits of data comes when you understand that many police are not using Tasers™ as nominally intended. If you read the marketing material, you will read that Tasers™ are supposed to be an alternative to deadly force. In other words, if you are in a situation where you might be legally bound to take a life, the Taser™ gives you a less-than-lethal way to resolve the situation without toad cranking a suspect.
However, police have found that Tasers™ are also an alternative to simply talking to people to get them to comply with police orders, or even just to enforce a certain amount of respect they may think a citizen is lacking.
Oh, I hear the hue and cry now: "Mojo, why do you hate the troops? Why do you hate the police? Don't you want a safe community? Why do you hate America, Mojo?"
Understand, this is not about "the troops" or cops in general. But it is about a disturbingly large and growing segment of police who have two things in common: 1. recent combat experience overseas and 2. a serious distaste for those who take civil liberties seriously.
For them, "civil liberties" is code for "anti-American." And how dare anyone question the manner in which they provide the very blanket of freedom under which we rest our dear heads each night...
The problem is not so much that these people exist now, but it's what they can become (and have become in other times and places) that worries me.
You see, S9 and I were having this conversation just the other day, relative to homegrown fascist movements in the United States. My concern was that a full blown movement of that sort would render the United States into a place that resembles Norther Ireland c.1975. An ineffective and partisan police force who actively side with the blackshirts in oppressing a particular group.
A bit panicky and alarmist, you say? Maybe... I hope so... Just remember, that's a real gun the guy in that photo is holding...
mojo sends
