hollypauly:

This is some scary shit! Are we preparing for the next Holocaust

elledark:

The Militarized Policing of America

Even the most indifferent ostrich, wearing ear-plugs and with its head buried firmly in the sand, must by now be worried about the militarization of Americas police.

Open a newspaper, turn on the TV, and there they are .. bulked up with kevlar body armor, carrying enough fire-power to take out half a town, with black sunglasses staring menacingly at you. Swat-teams, stun grenades and pepper-spray ready for routine policing jobs.

There are probably many reasons for this alarming trend and this article examines some of them. Its become a fundamental issue of our time. We employ politicians, state-officials and police. They are all paid to serve us. So policing is not something that should ever be enforced on us from above. It should always reflect our values and what we want. Do we really want an army of hair-trigger, lethal robo-cops tazering grannies or pepper-spraying students or reacting with vastly, grossly disproportionate force in normal, everyday policing situations ? I doubt it.

It would be very easy to be cynical about all of this and to believe that the militarization of Americas police has simply mirrored its drift towards being an authoritarian regime. Lets say you want the army on the streets ready to crack down on any dissent but there is such traditional hostility to military law in the USA you know that might be the last straw that pushes the people into revolt. So what do you do ? Simple .. you just turn the police into the military. You have an army on the streets but you call it the police. Job done.

If that’s true then things are working out pretty much to plan, aren’t they ?