Stopping police militarization: Once again, the solution requires confronting corporate politicians.

[woo me with science]

Last edited Fri Aug 22, 2014, 11:01 AM - Edit history (3)

Militarization of our police departments is a *bipartisan* effort of corporatists in both parties, right along with mass surveillance, the assaults on journalism, and the persecution of whistleblowers. The programs and legislation that are turning our police departments into paramilitary forces come through Homeland Security and the Pentagon, and are being used to suppress and intimidate dissent, exploit communities, and fill lucrative private prisons with slave labor as the nation is corporatized and Americans are made into a nation of low-paid wage slaves.

Both parties are complicit in this outrage. See the links below. Real change requires pushback against corporate politicians who are enabling this militarization, and that includes both corporate Democrats and Republicans.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

The entire Democratic leadership opposed Grayson amendment to stop arming cops with DOD weapons
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025390424

WOW... Went Looking For Connections Between Ferguson And ALEC... Found This Piece Of The Puzzle...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025413841

The exploitation of Ferguson I: In 2013 the town issued over 24,000 arrest warrants..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025404667

The exploitation of Ferguson II: The Seamy Underbelly Of Ferguson Starts To Appear
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025416747

The exploitation of Ferguson III: Ferguson Feeds Off the Poor: Three Warrants a Year Per Household
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025428157

Police Militarization (including the Obama administration's role)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/aclu-police-militarization-swat_n_2813334.html

It's almost certain that if the police agencies cooperate, the ACLU will find that the militarization trend has accelerated since Kraska's studies more than a decade ago. All of the policies, incentives and funding mechanisms that were driving the trend then are still in effect now. And most of them have grown in size and scope.

The George W. Bush administration actually began scaling down the Byrne and COPS programs in the early 2000s, part of a general strategy of leaving law enforcement to states and localities. But the Obama administration has since resurrected both programs. The Byrne program got a $2 billion surge in funding as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, by far the largest budget in the program's 25-year history. Obama also gave the COPS program $1.55 billion that same year, a 250 percent increase over its 2008 budget, and again the largest budget in the program's history. Vice President Joe Biden had championed both programs during his time in the Senate.

The Pentagon's 1033 program has also exploded under Obama. In the program's monthly newsletter (Motto: "From Warfighter to Crimefighter&quot , its director announced in October 2011 that his office had given away a record $500 million in military gear in fiscal year 2011, which he noted, "passes the previous mark by several hundred million dollars." He added, "I believe we can exceed that in FY 12.”

Then there are the Department of Homeland Security's anti-terrorism grants. The Center for Investigative Reporting found in a 2011 investigation that since 2001, DHS has given out more than $34 billion in grants to police departments across the country, many of which have been used to purchase military-grade guns, tanks, armor, and armored personnel carriers. The grants have gone to such unlikely terrorism targets as Fargo, N.D.; Canyon County, Idaho; and Tuscaloosa, Ala.

The final ACLU report on militarization of police in America
https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/war-comes-home-excessive-militarization-american-police-report

"Operation Urban Shield"...Training our Police, Fire, First Responders..in Military Tactics
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025412909

[woo me with science]

1. Link to the ACLU report on militarization of police in America

Link to the ACLU report on militarization of police in America
https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/war-comes-home-excessive-militarization-american-police-report

[Laelth]

2. Hear, hear! k&r n/t

-Laelth

[bettyellen]

3. kick

[Enthusiast]

4. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Thank you, woo me with science.

[Rex]

5. Yeah this will be ignored, it would require admitting something is wrong with the USA.

And you know by now how authoritarians cannot STAND and never will admit to a single wrongness in their lives.

[TheKentuckian]

6. Stop the occupation of America before it is too late

[woo me with science]

14. +1

[leftstreet]

7. DURec

[KoKo]

8. Recommend....Thanks for pulling this together...

And, we also need to focus on the training of our Police in Military Tactics both here and overseas.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025412909

[woo me with science]

12. That's disturbing as hell.

I had missed it before, so thank you for the link. I am also looking again for some references I saw but then lost, that document both *requirements* and *incentives* that police actually USE the military equipment that is sent to them as part of the federal militarization programs. Two separate articles, and I know I have them here somewhere. If you come across anything else that you think should be included here, please let me know.

Thanks again for this.

[KoKo]

15. Here's an interesting NYT article ...

Well worth the read if you missed it. Mentions a bit about how the military equipment has changed how Police would now react to incidents like Columbine since they have the new equipment which kind of fits into the scenario that they are Militarized as we saw in


Interesting and chilling and written before Ferguson:

War Gear Flows to Police Departments

By MATT APUZZO---JUNE 8, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html?_r=0

[sabrina 1]

17. Very interesting Koko, thanks for the link.

[woo me with science]

19. Thank you.

This paragraph caught my eye:

The ubiquity of SWAT teams has changed not only the way officers look, but also the way departments view themselves. Recruiting videos feature clips of officers storming into homes with smoke grenades and firing automatic weapons. In Springdale, Ark., a police recruiting video is dominated by SWAT clips, including officers throwing a flash grenade into a house and creeping through a field in camouflage.

Pretty horrifying that *recruitment* videos would be dominated by this stuff. Is that what is assumed or desired to be the main interest and motivation for new recruits? Might as well recruit using "Grand Theft Auto."

[KoKo]

20. yep...some of those examples were chilling...

but appealing to the young, jobless, idealists...sadly. We don't have jobs that can sustain our youth who aren't the college bound (loaded with debt) or living off Daddy/Mommies Trust Fund Inheritance. The manufacturing jobs that paid good money are mostly offshored and the Service Industry is suffering from Middle Class cutting back on savings because they still haven't paid off their Home Equity Loans while their jobs were downsized and offshored once again and the Economy Crashed and burned.

But, I hear that Wall Street is doing GREAT! And House Prices in the Hamptons on Long Island are now back to where they were before the crash and "heating up." The parties are back and DC and VA/Maryland are doing Fantastic because of the Expansion of the US Government with Outsourced Contracting Work. And, Silicon Valley has Workers Naming their Price for Coding so they can afford the California Come Back in House Prices and life the Good Life.

The rest are left with "Military Job Fairs" and trying to look good in their own Community by showing their Power....or signing up for the Continuing Wars in the ME. We are going to need some fresh recruits soon...the way things are going...

[woo me with science]

23. +100000 Cities feeding on their own people, govenrment feeding on its own citizens.

And bipartisan corporate politicians sending in armies to crush any protest.

An economy increasingly built on war and death and destruction, and the exploitation of people at home. Entire industries growing around the exploitation of the poor and the sucking of money from the middle classes to the top. Private prisons, debt collections, privatization, warrants.

It's sick, it's perverse, and the power structure is supporting all of it. America is a dying dog with a monstrous oligarchic tick sucking the lifeblood out of it.

[historylovr]

9. K & R

[bbgrunt]

10. k and r

[Divernan]

11. Woo, I admire your perspicacity and doggedness in fighting the good fight for true democracy.

Last edited Wed Aug 20, 2014, 02:46 PM - Edit history (1)

Witness this OP and the time it took you to put it together. So thank you, yet again.

Today's world is damned discouraging and sometimes I feel like giving up and retreating into the self-involved world I see so many inhabit. It's not like either you or I are getting paid to blindly support any policies or politicians, nor are we fanatical, rabid, true believer cheerleaders. It's the damned principle of the thing and the potential for a fair and equitable country and world which keeps us progressives going, even in the face of overwhelming ($$$ wise) opposition - not any expectation of personal aggrandizement, promotion, wealth or power.

I have come to distrust politicians who rant on about "hope", but I still take heart from this poem by Emily Dickinson:

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

[woo me with science]

13. Thank you, Divernan, and back at you x10000.

We're all in this together, and I appreciate every single person who keeps drawing the lines explicitly back to the corporate corruption that's at the root of what's being done to America. None of it stops, including the militarization, if corporate rule continues.

Thank you for the poem. I really, really appreciate it.

[sabrina 1]

16. Beautiful poem.

Good post diverman. It's always been the way that those who try to tell the truth will be attacked by those who have so much to hide.

[Divernan]

18. Always been one of my favorites.

You are another one, like Woo, whose posts keep me going. Plus your handle always brings a smile to my face because it makes me think of Audrey Hepburn, who was as beautiful inside as out and a great humanitarian working with impoverished and malnourished 3d world children for UNICEF.




http://www.unicef.org/specialsession/photoessays/audrey/photo10.htm

We get attacked not only by those who have so much to hide, but sadder still, by those who are so terrified of facing ugly realities and feel so helpless and incapable of effecting any change, that they have locked themselves into total denial.

[woo me with science]

22. +1 I agree with everything you just wrote.

I'd add that, besides honest denial based in fear and ignorance, we marinate in deliberate, purchased propaganda.

[woo me with science]

21. kick

[Orsino]

24. And we're looking to the same technocrats to solve the problem they created?

Not going to turn out well.