Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 29, 2007 8:57:51 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Fwd: An Epidemic of Police Brutality
Where there's authoritarianism at the top of the pyramid, it
"trickles down" as bullying and brutality on every level where
there's one person who has some authority and others who must
"respect authority." In Nazi Germany, all the thugs in uniform
(ANY uniform), the lowlifes spying on and ratting out their
nextdoor neighbors, and the dictatorial petty bureaucrats
exploiting every opportunity offered by their official position for
a bribe or piece of ass were following their leaders' examples as
much as carrying out their "orders"
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 29, 2007 8:03:42 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Fwd:
-----Original Message-----
From: D Burke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: chris grunstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 7:07 am
America's Police Brutality
Now Pandemic
By Paul Craig Roberts
9-28-7
Bush's "war on terror" quickly became Bush's war on Iraqi
civilians. So far over one million Iraqi civilians have lost their
lives because of Bush's invasion, and four million have been
displaced. Iraq's infrastructure is in ruins. Disease is rampant.
Normal life has disappeared.
Self-righteous Americans justify these monstrous crimes as
necessary to ensure their own safety from terrorist attack. Yet,
Americans are in far greater danger from their own police forces
than they are from foreign terrorists. Ironically, Bush's "war on
terror" has made Americans less safe at home by diminishing US
civil liberties and turning an epidemic of US police brutality into
a pandemic.
The only terrorist most Americans will ever encounter is a
policeman with a badge, nightstick, mace and Taser. A Google search
for "police brutality video" turns up 2,210,000 entries. Some
entries are foreign and some are probably duplications, but the
number is so large that a person could do nothing but watch police
brutality videos for the rest of his life. A search on "You Tube"
alone turned up 2,280 police brutality videos. PrisonPlanet has a
selection of the most outrageous recent cases.
Police brutality has crossed the line from using excessive force
against a resisting Rodney King to unprovoked gratuitous violence
against persons offering no resistance, such as the elderly, women,
students, and elected officials. Americans are not safe anywhere
from police. Police attack Americans in university libraries, in
public meetings, and in their own homes
Last week we had the case of the University of Florida student who
was repeatedlt Tasered without cause for asking Senator Kerry some
good questions in the question and answer period following Kerry's
speech. Two days after the Florida student was gratuitously
brutalized, Senate Republicans defeated Vermont Democrat Patrick
Leahy's bill to restore habeas corpus protection.
A UCLA student was Tasered by police without cause for studying in
the university library without having his student ID on his person.
Following police orders to leave, the student was walking toward
the door when police grabbed him and repeatedly Tasered him.
On September 19, 2007 a young woman was repeatedly Tasered without
cause by a large brutal cop in a parking lot outside a nightclub in
Warren, Ohio.
On September 14, 2007, Roseland, Indiana, city council member David
Snyder was ejected from a council meeting by dictatorial council
chairman Charlie Shields. Snyder had protested being limited to one
minute to speak. Police goon Jack Tiller escorted Snyder out, and
as Snyder exited the building, Tiller, following behind, pushed
Snyder to the ground and without cause began beating Snyder in the
head with a nightstick. Snyder was hospitalized.
Local TV news stations throughout the US offer an endless stream of
police brutality videos, which are then posted on the stations' web
sites, often with an opportunity for citizens to express their
opinion of the incidents.
There are many disturbing aspects to police brutality cases.
One disturbing aspect is that the police always arrest the people
that they have gratuitously brutalized. There was no justification
whatsoever to arrest Councilman Snyder, or the UCLA student, or the
University of Florida student. The cops committed assault against
innocent citizens. The cops should have been arrested for their
criminal acts. Instead, the cops cover up their own crimes by
arresting their victims on false charges that are invented to
justify the unprovoked police violence against citizens.
Another disturbing aspect is that no one tells the police to stop
the brutality. "Free" Americans are so intimidated by police that
on February 19 of this year male customers in a Chicago bar stood
aside while a drunk cop weighing 251 pounds beat a 115-pound
barmaid, knocking her to the floor with his fists and repeatedly
kicking her, for obeying the bar rules and not serving him more
drinks.
Yet another disturbing aspect is that a minority of citizens will
justify each act of police brutality no matter how brutal and how
unprovoked. For example, WNDU.com's poll of its viewers found that
64.2 percent agreed that Snyder was a victim of police brutality,
but 27.8 percent thought that Snyder got what was coming to him.
"Law and order conservatives" and other authoritarian personalities
invariably defend acts of police brutality. Perhaps the police
brutality pandemic will bring the day when we will be able to say
that a civil libertarian is a law and order conservative who has
been brutalized by police.
The most disturbing aspect is that the police usually get away with
it.
I remember decades ago when civil libertarians in New York City
tried to stop police brutality by establishing civilian review
boards to introduce some accountability into the police's
interaction with civilians. Law and order conservatives at William
F. Buckley's National Review went berserk. Accountability was
"second-guessing" the police. The result would be a crime wave. And
so on.
Police forces have always attracted bullies with authoritative
personalities who desire to beat senseless anyone who does not
quake in their presence. In the past, police could get away with
brutalizing blacks but not whites. Today white citizens are as
likely as racial minorities to be victims of police brutality.
The police are supreme. The militarization of the police, armed now
with military weapons and trained to view the general public as the
enemy, against whom "pain compliance" must be used, has placed
every American at risk of personal injury and false arrest from our
"public protectors."
In "free and democratic America," citizens are in such great danger
from police that there are websites devoted to police brutality
with online forms to report the brutality.
Nine years ago Human Rights Watch published a report entitled,
"Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the
United States." The report stated:
"Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human
rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force
by police officers, including unjustified shootings, severe
beatings, fatal chokings, and rough treatment, persists because
overwhelming barriers to accountability make it possible for
officers who commit human rights violations to escape due
punishment and often to repeat their offenses. Police or public
officials greet each new report of brutality with denials or
explain that the act was an aberration, while the administrative
and criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding
officers accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity.
"This report examines common obstacles to accountability for police
abuse in fourteen large cities representing most regions of the
nation. The cities examined are: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit,
Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York,
Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington,
D.C. Research for this report was conducted over two and a half
years, from late 1995 through early 1998.
"The brutality cases examined, which are set out in detail in
chapters on each city, are similar to cases that continue to emerge
in headlines and in survivors' complaints. It is important to note,
however, that because it is difficult to obtain case information
except where there is public scandal and/or prosecution, this
report relies heavily on cases that have reached public attention;
disciplinary action and criminal prosecution are even less common
than the cases set out below would suggest."
There is no way to hold police accountable when the president and
vice president of the United States, the attorney general, and the
Republican Party maintain that the civil liberties and the
separation of powers mandated by the US Constitution must be
abandoned in order that the executive branch can keep Americans
safe from terrorists.
Even before the "war on terror," federal police murdered 100 people
in the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, and no one was held
accountable.
Who is a terrorist? If the police and the US government have the
mentality of airport security, they cannot tell a terrorist from an
86-year old Marine general on his way to give a speech at West
Point. Retired Marine Corps General Joseph J. Foss was delayed and
nearly had his Medal of Honor confiscated. Airport security
regarded the pin on the medal as a weapon that the 86-year old
Marine general and former governor of South Dakota could use to
hijack an airliner and commit a terrorist deed.
In America today, every citizen is a potential terrorist in the
eyes of the authorities. Airport security makes this clear every
minute of every day, as do the FBI and NSA with warrantless spying
on our emails, postal mail, telephone calls, and every possible
invasion of our privacy. We are all recipients of abuse of our
constitutional rights whether or not we suffer beatings, Taserings,
and false arrests.
The law makes it impossible for Americans to defend themselves from
police brutality. Law and order conservatives have made it a felony
with a long prison sentence to "assault a police officer."
Assaulting a police officer means that if a police thug intends to
beat your brains out with his nightstick and you disarm your
assailant, you have "assaulted a police officer." If you are not
shot on the spot by his backup, you will be convicted by a "law and
order" jury and sent to prison.
No matter how gratuitous and violent the police brutality, a "free"
American citizen can defend himself only at the expense, if not of
his life, of a long stay in prison. Osama bin Laden must wish that
he had such power over Americans.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan Administration.
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