William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), comments in his usual lucid and outspoken manner about the problems faced by America with its bloated police and military.
POLICE & REPRESSION
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In Focus: Understanding what the police is, whence it came, and what can be done about it
42 minutes readP. GREANVILLE—The existence of police and the act of “policing” encompass many functions that have organically evolved over the centuries. In most cases, police forces were not created and do not serve, even today, chiefly to protect the populace against violence and criminality from their peers, but to serve as protectors—taxpayer-supported shields— for big property and the privileges of persons of high standing in society—nobles, big landowners (almost always nobles in pre-modern societies) and finally big industrial magnates and their high retainers in our time.
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The Most Revealing Footage On Police Brutality Is These Cops Applauding Its Perpetrators
21 minutes readCAITLIN JOHNSTONE—This isn’t working. Police culture cannot be saved, and has no interest in being saved. In the eyes of the armed goon patrol, it’s the people complaining about police brutality who are the problem. That’s why the response to them has been consistent and copious amounts of police brutality.
This is not a matter of passing a few more pieces of legislation. This is not a matter of giving police more workshops and seminars. This is not a matter of needing more police to take a knee during protests or march with them in solidarity. This is a matter of an entire police force, from sea to shining sea, which insists on the gratuitous use of violence and will defend any cop who uses it.
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As part of the more cultured layer of the bourgeoisie’s official “conservative section” (as opposed to “liberal”, even though they are all conservative and reactionary, superficial differences depending on the issues and the misdirection necessary according to their pre-assigned roles)—Fox News host Tucker Carlson is now, consistent with his media platform’s reactionary political posture, sputtering a great deal of vitriol at the (to him) apparently outrageous notion of “defunding the police”. Alternatively defining the protesters as a somewhat enigmatic “mob” and “rioters” (also a loaded word), in terms of their fuzzy goals, he’s nonetheless on firmer ground when he argues the protesters are also evidently being used by the Democrats and their legion of shills to attack Trump.
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MoA—Early this morning Minnesota State Police had come back to the scene. It arrested a dark skinned CNN reporter in front of the running camera (vid). The reporter had asked the police where they wanted his crew to setup. He did not get a response. No reason for his arrest was given. Another CNN reporter, this one of white color, was also approached by police but was permitted to stay: