Our militarized police forces - Democratic Underground

PETRUS

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Tue Nov-08-11 07:05 PM
Original message

Our militarized police forces

The wars on drugs and terror have given police departments a lot of deadly toys and dangerous attitudes

*snip*

Turning police departments into quasi-National Guard regiments isn’t just a huge waste of resources, it’s also dangerous and demoralizing. A militarized police force makes the citizenry — especially minorities — feel like they’re living under a military occupation. (As with most police abuses, it’s generally easier to ignore for members of the classes not routinely stopped, frisked and thrown in jail for minor drug offenses.) It’s unsettling and undemocratic. And the cops start to feel like occupiers.

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/08/our_militarized_police_forces/singleton

More at the link.

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FiveGoodMen

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Tue Nov-08-11 07:13 PM
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1. One of many unbelievably disgusting/frightening developments of the past two admins

Why are Americans so complacent about this?

We say we're the land of the free, not the constantly scared shitless.

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arcane1

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Tue Nov-08-11 07:17 PM
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3. It goes back further than the last admin

There was an excellent documentary a few years ago about the gov't response to Waco that will chill the blood :scared:

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Lindsay

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Tue Nov-08-11 07:16 PM
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2. This is excellent

on a topic that's concerned me more and more lately as we've seen things play out with OWS.

This sentence summed up what I've been seeing:

Cops are increasingly seeing the citizens they’re hired to protect as “the enemy.”

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RKP5637

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Tue Nov-08-11 07:52 PM
Response to Reply #2

5. I feel that way anymore, that most of us are considered enemies of the state. n/t

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teddy51

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Tue Nov-08-11 07:17 PM
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4. I don't think it's just those that are involved with minor drugs that need to be concerned,

Edited on Tue Nov-08-11 07:18 PM by teddy51

the entire middle class and poor should also be worried.

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applegrove

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Tue Nov-08-11 11:21 PM
Response to Original message

6. We didn't have a huge right wing movement in Canada. But when Mike Harris, the neocon, won the

provincial election in Ontario...all of a sudden the police took a real paranoid stance against demonstrators. I'd been to a few demonstrations before that and police just kept order, there was no aggression on either side. All of a sudden, at a demonstration against Mike Harris, the police showed up with cameras and video recorders and the like. All of a sudden they were assuming crime.

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