Why You Shouldn't Trust Right-Wingers' Sudden Concern About the Police

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-you-shouldnt-trust-right-wingers-sudden-concern-about-police

One of the most misunderstood elements of American politics has to be the fact that legislative coalitions are very different from voting coalitions. The most obvious case in point is the erroneous assumption that the coalition that often forms around civil liberties, featuring elements of the most ideologically committed members of the left and the right, means that these groups are in agreement as to the goals they wish to obtain. It’s not essential that everyone who signs on to a bill is doing so for the same reason, but it’s vitally important that people not misinterpret the joint action as a sign that we are entering a moment of bipartisan kumbaya that will heal the nation’s wounds and bring us together once and for all.

In the wake of Michael Brown’s death and all that’s followed, we are seeing this play out in what Jim Newell accurately described as a potential coalition of right and left on the demilitarization of the police. In this case it’s the hardcore wingnuts at the Gun Owners of America joining in with the ACLU to demand an end to the Pentagon program that encourages police departments to buy surplus military equipment at bargain basement prices both of whom have endorsed a bill by Democratic congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia to do just that. But it’s important that we distinguish that the liberty concerns which drive this particular joint endorsement are coming from the same place or seek the same end.

Gun Owners of America president Larry Pratt is not concerned about the police harassing and shooting young African American men or using military tactics and equipment against peaceful protesters exercising their rights under the constitution. He has never before expressed any concern for these issues in the past. What he is worried about is something else entirely. Just a few weeks ago he appeared on Alex Jones’ conspiracy show and articulated exactly what it is he fears the most. Right Wing Watch captured the moment:

Jones asked Pratt about a Washington Times report about a 2010 Pentagon directive — an update to a series of similar directives crafted under previous administrations — outlining how and when the military can use force to quell domestic unrest “in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible.”

Jones, of course, read this to mean that it is “official and has been confirmed” that the military is “training with tanks, armored vehicles, drones” to “take on the American people, mainly the Tea Party.”

[quaker bill]

1. Here is the thing

The police are not going to be "out-gunned". So the bigger and better weapons the T Party obtains through gun shows, the more local law enforcement will obtain to counter.

I am all for a demilitarization of law enforcement, but it will not happen in a serious way without demilitarization of the people.

[GiveEmEnoughRope]

2. Interesting how a a bunch of untrained colonists using old, for the time, firearms against the

largest best trained and equipped military in the world kicked their ass and ended an empire.

Fast forward 230 years and the decedents of the colonists now think they need the latest and greatest firearms to protect them selves.

The TeaHadists have no sense of history.

However I do enjoy their paranoia how the GOV is out to get em

.

[TBF]

3. I had wondered how Scott Walker actually got to the place

where he signed a police oversight bill and this article explains it. I'm not partisan enough to argue that we should always be against what the other side does (mostly because I don't fit in the neat D or R category - I'm more of a socialist). I think we should take the victories where we can - even if the right is not doing them for the same reason we are.

Here's the Truthout article on Wisconsin for anyone who hasn't read about their new law (from a few months ago):

Wisconsin Passes First State Law Requiring Independent Investigations of Police-Custody Deaths
Saturday, 03 May 2014 09:10 By Candice Bernd, Truthout

After relentless pressure from the families of shooting victims, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill, the first of its kind in the nation, requiring deaths in police custody to be investigated by outside organizations. Is there potential for similar bills to be passed elsewhere?

When police kill, should they be the ones responsible for investigating and judging themselves? This is the question Michael Bell has been asking officials in Wisconsin ever since his 21-year-old son, who was named after him, was fatally shot by Kenosha police in front of the son's mother and sister in 2004.

And it was largely Bell's activism - a publicity campaign involving billboards, newspapers ads and his website - that led to the recent passage of a historic law that will overhaul police review policies. It is the first law of its kind in the nation.

The legislation, which Gov. Scott Walker recently signed into law, requires that deaths in police custody be investigated by an outside agency, using independently gathered evidence. Bell and about two dozen other family members of police victims attended the private signing ceremony ...

More here: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/23463-wisconsin-passes-first-state-law-requiring-independent-investigations-of-police-custody-deaths