Police State

If Holder convinced people to stop rioting and looting in Ferguson, that's a good thing.

It's hard for paramilitary police with armored vehicles to cover up their activities.

"Since the August 9 shooting death of the unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson, the country – and the world – has been captivated by the ensuing local outrage. Also during the past 11 days media, activists, and bystanders have suffered the brunt of an unprofessional, yet exceedingly-armed local police force, then a similar highway patrol, then the dang National Guard. For several days there was even a curfew, a condescending and authoritarian method of dealing with civil unrest if ever there was one. All this, armed cops yelling "I’ll fucking kill you" at protesters and filmers, news helicopters banned, repeated use of teargas (and lying about it) and rubber bullets, and some people are still baffled as to why these folks don’t just "go home." "

The media is already on the side of the protesters. The domestic military cops aren't doing themselves any favors.

Cop explains the rapists' mentality they exhibit.

"“If you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?” – Sunil Dutta, an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department for 17 years"

To them, we are the enemy because we have the power to stop funding them.

"Life in the American police state is an endless series of don’ts delivered at the end of a loaded gun: don’t talk back to police officers, don’t even think about defending yourself against a SWAT team raid (of which there are 80,000 every year), don’t run when a cop is nearby lest you be mistaken for a fleeing criminal, don’t carry a cane lest it be mistaken for a gun, don’t expect privacy in public, don’t let your kids walk to the playground alone, don’t engage in nonviolent protest near where a government official might pass, don’t try to grow vegetables in your front yard, don’t play music for tips in a metro station, don’t feed whales, and on and on.
For those who resist, who dare to act independently, think for themselves, march to the beat of a different drummer, the consequences are invariably a one-way trip to the local jail or death."

That's right.

"We live in a state of undeclared martial law. We have become the enemy."

Not to mention the same surveillance techniques used against us as used in war zones.

"In a war zone, you have no rights. When you are staring down the end of a police rifle, there can be no free speech. When you’re being held at bay by a militarized, weaponized mine-resistant tank, there can be no freedom of assembly. When you’re being surveilled with thermal imaging devices, facial recognition software and full-body scanners and the like, there can be no privacy. When you’re charged with disorderly conduct simply for daring to question or photograph or document the injustices you see, with the blessing of the courts no less, there can be no freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

There's the surveillance.

"You see, what Americans have failed to comprehend, living as they do in a TV-induced, drug-like haze of fabricated realities, narcissistic denial, and partisan politics, is that we’ve not only brought the military equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan home to be used against the American people. We’ve also brought the very spirit of the war home.
This is what it feels like to be a conquered people. This is what it feels like to be an occupied nation. This is what it feels like to live in fear of armed men crashing through your door in the middle of the night, or to be accused of doing something you never even knew was a crime, or to be watched all the time, your movements tracked, your motives questioned."

Another great essay about bringing empire home.

People unhappy about LAPD's new drone.