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Police have ALWAYS been a militarized organization.

You've been able to see that on the basis of them traditionally having "ranks" and "uniforms", along with a "basic standard of training and fitness".

So do fire fighters. Have they ALWAYS been militarized?
You're argument is pedantic, but don't let that stop you.

In the 17 years since, literally millions of pieces of equipment designed for use on a foreign battlefield have been handed over for use on U.S. streets, against U.S. citizens. Another law passed in 1997 further streamlined the process. As National Journal reported in 2000, in the first three years after the 1994 law alone, the Pentagon distributed 3,800 M-16s, 2,185 M-14s, 73 grenade launchers, and 112 armored personnel carriers to civilian police agencies across America. Domestic police agencies also got bayonets, tanks, helicopters and even airplanes.

All of that equipment then facilitated a dramatic rise in the number and use of paramilitary police units, more commonly known as SWAT teams. Peter Kraska, a criminologist at the University of Eastern Kentucky, has been studying this trend since the early 1980s. Kraska found that by 1997, 90 percent of cities with populations of 50,000 or more had at least one SWAT team, twice as many as in the mid-1980s. The number of towns with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 with a SWAT team increased 157 percent between 1985 and 1996.

I'm sure that the bayonets, tanks, and automatic weapons were ALWAYS a part of policing. Oh wait...

Jihadin wrote:The message is lost when protest with intent became the norm. Do you believe the message is any stronger today then say..like two weeks ago? Its an individual question on how you view the message now. To me they had a somewhat message at first but then they lost their credibility when protest with intent wnt norm.

You seem to be saying that your belief in a cause is challenged by the behaviour of some of the believers rather than your conviction in the merits of the cause in itself.

murdog wrote:
Police HAVE become more militarized.

Eh, I don't know. Definitely more professional, maybe not more militarized.

I do, however, acknowledge that its a difficult argument. Is the cop with the 9mm more militarized with respect to the soldier with the M4 than the cop with the truncheon with respect to the soldier with the Brown Bess?

If you compare British police now with the police of the Miners' Strike era 30 years ago, they are greatly more militarised and organised for hard core riot action. There are also more armed units for situations involving guns.

Police at crowd control operations can deploy Tazers, armoured vans, shields, helmets, body armour, armoured horses and use it all with tactical training

Your average bobby on the beat still wears the traditional blue tit, but he has an anti-stab vest and an extending alloy truncheon.

SOmeone already compared.

There are many irritating things about the Occupy movement, but probably the most irritating is its tendency to black up. Not literally, with boot polish, but politically, in the way its supporters continually crib images and slogans from the black civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. Fantastically fancying themselves as the heirs to Martin Luther King and his million-strong march on Washington, the occupiers sing the songs and quote from the books of the civil rights era. When they were turfed out of Zuccoti Park last week, New York's sad-eyed middle-class occupiers sang "We Shall Overcome". When asked by the cops to give their names, occupiers have been known to reply: "Martin Luther King." One supportive article is headlined: “Occupy Wall Street protesters follow Martin Luther King’s arc of justice.”

The sight of well-off white kids rummaging around in black history for a few choice phrases that might make their public temper tantrums appear "with it" and historic is deeply embarrassing. It strikes me that there at least five key differences between the glorified Scouts camping trip that is the Occupy movement and the properly inspiring US civil-rights uprising.

1) Blacks in the American South faced serious repression. Denied full voting rights, educational rights, the freedoms of movement and speech and decent jobs, they were on the receiving end of an extreme form of what is these days called “social exclusion”. The same cannot be said for the well-educated youngsters cramming into Wall Street and the area outside St Paul’s Cathedral, who, schooled from birth in the importance of protecting and polishing their own self-esteem, are the most over-flattered generation in living memory.

2) Civil rights activists had to bear the full brunt of state violence. When they marched to demand equality, they were frequently water-cannoned and truncheoned off the streets or attacked with police dogs. In contrast, the occupiers have been treated with kid gloves by the cops (not to mention by politicians, the church and the media). They’ve been allowed to lounge around in public spaces for weeks on end, experiencing only the “tyranny” of polite legal notices asking them to think about vacating.

3) The civil rights movement was a mass movement. In 1963 it got a million people to march on Washington. The Occupy movement is an infinitesimally tiny clique in comparison. There are possibly 50 or so regular campers outside St Paul’s, and according to some reports journalists frequently outnumber activists at Occupy Wall Street. The masses’ distinct lack of interest in the Occupy movement isn’t surprising, considering the official Occupy website has published articles sneeringly claiming the masses have been “brainwashed by the mainstream media”. That’s another difference between old civil rights activists and modern-day occupiers: the former had faith in the goodness of the common people; the latter looks upon the common people as dumbasses whose brain cells have been fried by Fox News.

4) Civil rights activists were thirsty for freedom. If Occupy London’s “Safe Space Policy” is anything to go by, today’s occupiers wouldn’t know freedom if it accosted them in an alleyway. Aping New Labour-style “safe community zones”, the St Paul’s policy outlaws all forms of offensive speech, forbids the consumption of alcohol, proposes zero tolerance of “putting people down” and “competing with people”, and insists that everyone must get “explicit verbal consent before touching someone”. Whether one has to get explicit verbal consent before linking arms with another to sing “We Shall Overcome” is not made clear.

5) Probably the most important difference is that where black civil-rights activists were driven by a deep desire to be full, free, productive members of society, the occupiers have a deep disdain for the mainstream, or the “rat race” as they call it, for those hordes who cluelessly trudge to pointless jobs every day. Their posters and placards chastise Joe Public for being robotic, while graciously informing us that capitalism has turned us all into “chumps or tarts”. Where civil-rights protesters wanted in, the occupiers want out – they want to opt out of a society which in their minority middle-class view is too competitive and vulgar and stuff-obsessed. Consider the different clothing worn by the self-respecting civil-rights activist and the self-regarding occupier. The black marchers on Washington wore their Sunday best, suits and ties, to signal their respectability and desire to be part of society; the modern occupiers wear psychedelic leggings or fancy dress, to signal their scoffing disregard for the straights and squares who make up the vile mainstream world.

edit

You seem to be saying that your belief in a cause is challenged by the behaviour of some of the believers rather than your conviction in the merits of the cause in itself.

Yep. By the behavior of the OWS movement is taking the cause has been hijacked. No one in a ladership role in OWS has step forward to calm his/her believers. So now when a protest/occupy starts up its looking for a conflict...now that I mention it. MLK was the leadership for the Civili Rights movement....OWS has...who?

edit 2

In the 17 years since, literally millions of pieces of equipment designed for use on a foreign battlefield have been handed over for use on U.S. streets, against U.S. citizens. Another law passed in 1997 further streamlined the process. As National Journal reported in 2000, in the first three years after the 1994 law alone, the Pentagon distributed 3,800 M-16s, 2,185 M-14s, 73 grenade launchers, and 112 armored personnel carriers to civilian police agencies across America. Domestic police agencies also got bayonets, tanks, helicopters and even airplanes.

Research this a bit more before throwing it out. I handle quite a few of the movements to local and state law enforcement

Kilkrazy wrote:
Police at crowd control operations can deploy Tazers, armoured vans, shields, helmets, body armour, armoured horses and use it all with tactical training

You can't define militarism by the tools they use. The actually MILITARY didn't use those things hundreds of years ago. Did they not count as military until they got tanks?

You define militarism by how they operate and function. The core operating structure of police has mostly not changed in 300 years. Just because they got more powerful weapons doesn't mean they weren't militarized before unless you consider the ACTUAL MILITARY to not have been militarized before.


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OWS is nothing like the civil rights movement because the civil rights movement spent a lot of time breaking the VERY LAWS they were protesting.

OWS is breaking laws utterly unrelated to wall street. If you want to protest your inability to camp out in a park, fine, but don't pretend that has anything to do with wall street.

It's just like I was saying before, when you spend your time complaining about your tents, your protest becomes about tents.


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dogma wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:
Speech is not a get out of all other laws card.

So I would be free to ban the moving of lips?

On private property, yes. On public property, no.

Rented Tritium wrote:
On private property, yes. On public property, no.

It doesn't contravene a Constitutional right.

Of course you can define militarism by tools and tactics.

One only needs to compare the old style "rugby scrum" police with the modern force to see the clear change.

It arise from the desire to use the police as a para-military force.

dogma wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:
On private property, yes. On public property, no.

It doesn't contravene a Constitutional right.

So I can just come into your house and talk right? Constitutional rights and all.

para military = a group of civilians organized in a military fashion (especially to operate in place of or to assist regular army troops)

not to be confused with


Fedayeen


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Will Rent...if you come in unannounce on me...I won't be so friendly at first....better pay me prior for my time to listen...Lrg Duncan Donut coffee with cream and sugar.

Kilkrazy wrote:Of course you can define militarism by tools and tactics.

One only needs to compare the old style "rugby scrum" police with the modern force to see the clear change.

It arise from the desire to use the police as a para-military force.

No. You are redefining words. You don't get to redefine "paramilitary" to mean "having big guns and tanks". Police have literally always been a paramilitary force since day one.

What you are talking about with the changes in operation between oldschool police work and modern police work has nothing to do with being paramilitary or not. The ranks are the same, the chain of command is the same.

What has happened is that the tactics got BETTER. The old tactics were bad and got cops killed. Every time a few cops died on a traffic stop, the tactics and equipment got a little better to compensate. It's not some dark desire to turn the police into military, it's a desire for cops not to die.

Here, let me show you a little bit of the progression. Read these in order, focus especially on the "aftermath" sections that talk about the changes made after.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newhall_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norco_shootout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

This is by no means comprehensive, but it's a taste of how police work has changed.

So yes, there is absolutely an increase in the firepower of police, but no, it's not because of some conspiratorial desire to oppress your rights. It's because a bunch of cops died because of bad tactics and bad equipment over the course of many years.

Military weapons pased over to State and local law enforcement are already paid for so hence State an Local do not have to pay for them. Same with military vehicle and aircrafts.

Norm Stamper was the Police Chief during the Battle of Seattle in '99. Here's his views on the subject:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Norm Stamper, in your article you mention that you think that there are institutional problems, structural problems in policing, that no matter who the political leaders are or what the top brass are, that these problems continue to crop up and appear to be getting worse.

NORM STAMPER: I certainly do believe that. I think the drug war, which has put police officers against young people and poor people and people of color, the war on terrorism, the domestic dimensions of that war, have all served to increase the militarization of America’s police forces. And this is particularly tragic because, prior to these developments, we were on a path to create what I would call authentic partnerships with the community. That means no more unilateral decision making. It means, for example, today, police officers and Occupy movement leaders understanding the diffusion of that leadership, getting together and carving out rules of engagement, if you will, that will help protect public safety, public health, and also assure civil liberties, human rights and some degree of social justice...

I do believe that since 1999 and the Battle in Seattle there have been many changes. My concern is, many of those changes have been for the worse. The officers, for example, in Oakland were dressed as my police officers were in Seattle, which is, in effect, for full—in full battle gear. We were using military tactics. I authorized the use of chemical agents on nonviolent offenders. I thought I had good justification at that time. I did not. The police officer in me was thinking about emergency vehicles, fire trucks, aid cars being able to get through a key intersection. The police chief in me should have said, "This is wrong," and vetoed that decision. I will regret that decision for the rest of my life. We took a military response to a situation that was fundamentally nonviolent, in which Americans were expressing their views and their values, and used tear gas on them. And that was just plain wrong... There is no question about what anarchists, by definition, or for that matter, even recreational rioters, who are simply sitting in a bar and see the action and get attracted to the downtown area—we had some of that—can help distract attention away from the cause itself and create major public safety issues for the police. Here’s my point: if the police and the community in a democratic society are really working hard—and it is hard work—to forge authentic partnerships rather than this unilateral, paramilitary response to these demonstrations, that the relationship itself serves as a shock absorber. Picture police officers helping to protect the demonstrators. Picture demonstrators saying, "We see people on the fringes, for example, who are essentially undemocratic in their tactics. And so, we need to work together to resolve that issue." These resolutions are clearly not easy. One of the things that complicates the picture enormously is when a woman like Ms. Rainey is pepper-sprayed. When innocent people who are there to protest what I consider to be very legitimate grievances against corporate America, against a government that has, in many respects, been bought off by corporations, the police have a responsibility to be neutral. It should be apparent that I’m not neutral, but I’m no longer a cop. And police officers on the streets really do need to be neutral referees, and they need the help of their civilian, if I may use that term, partners...

About the non-lethal tools at the disposal of local law enforcement, many of those were developed in the wake of a controversial shooting. We understand that cops got a dangerous job. It’s delicate. It’s demanding. There are situations that call for life-and-death decision making, oftentimes with no real time to contemplate options and possibilities. Let’s find non-lethal alternatives to that firearm. So, the motive is good. The question is, to what extent are those non-lethal weapons being abused today? We have seen far too many examples of tasers, for example, used in situations where no force was necessary. It’s just simply a way to get somebody to move faster or to get out of a car when they’re passively resistant.

So, it’s important, I think, to understand the complexities of everything that we’re talking about. For example, there are many compassionate, decent, competent police officers who do a terrific job day in and day out. There are others who are, quote, "bad apples." What both of them have in common is that they occupy, as it were, a system, a structure that itself is rotten. And I am talking about the paramilitary bureaucracy.

Link to full discussion: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/17/paramilitary_policing_of_occupy_wall_street

You can talk about tactics and equipment, and whether or not that meets the definition of paramilitary or military, but the bottom line is that these tactics and equipment are not what they should be using in these situations.

murdog wrote:but the bottom line is that these tactics and equipment are not what they should be using in these situations.

Democracy Now wrote:AMY GOODMAN, DEMOCRACY NOW!: To talk more about what happened at UC Davis, we go to Sacramento, California, to talk to Elli Pearson, one of the students pepper-sprayed Friday. She’s a sophomore at UC Davis studying sustainable agriculture and food systems.

We’re also joined from Berkeley by Nathan Brown, assistant professor of English at UC Davis. He wrote an open letter calling for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi following the pepper-spraying incident Friday.

Before we turn to our guests, let me just play a short clip, which shows Elli Pearson being pepper-sprayed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROTESTERS: Don’t shoot students! Don’t shoot students! Don’t shoot students! Don’t shoot students!

The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!

Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Elli Pearson. Elli, describe exactly what happened on Friday.

ELLI PEARSON: Well, we were protesting together, and the riot cops came at us, and we linked arms and sat down peacefully to protest their presence on our campus. And at one point, they were—we had encircled them, and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us. But we were on the ground, you know, heads down. And all I could see was people telling me to cover my head, protect myself, and put my head down. And the next thing I know, I was pepper-sprayed.

AMY GOODMAN: You were in the white jacket?

ELLI PEARSON: Yes, I was.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did the pepper-spraying feel like?

ELLI PEARSON: Well, I couldn’t see anything. And so, if I—you know, I felt like pepper spray go over my body, and then I started choking on the fumes. And I lifted my head at one point, and one of the protesters had come to kind of protect our huddle of people, and he just told me to keep my head down. And then, from that point on, all I could hear was screaming around me and people being jostled.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/21/uc_davis_student_describes_pepper_spray

The key quote in here is "we had encircled them, and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us"

But of course, the cops should have just sat there and waited.


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It's funny though that I can post 1000 police chiefs agreeing with me and you guys call it an appeal to authority or tradition, but once you find one that agrees with you, it's totally fine.

Jihadin wrote:

The sight of well-off white kids rummaging around in black history for a few choice phrases that might make their public temper tantrums appear "with it" and historic is deeply embarrassing. It strikes me that there at least five key differences between the glorified Scouts camping trip that is the Occupy movement and the properly inspiring US civil-rights uprising.

Well-off white kids is a gross misrepresentation of the people involved. It cuts across all of American society. Calling it a 'glorified Scouts camping trip' is just more insults and dismissal, basically meaningless as it bears no relation to the reality of this.

Jihadin wrote:1) Blacks in the American South faced serious repression. Denied full voting rights, educational rights, the freedoms of movement and speech and decent jobs, they were on the receiving end of an extreme form of what is these days called “social exclusion”. The same cannot be said for the well-educated youngsters cramming into Wall Street and the area outside St Paul’s Cathedral, who, schooled from birth in the importance of protecting and polishing their own self-esteem, are the most over-flattered generation in living memory.

More insults and dismissal. Though 'well-educated youngsters' are part of the movement, they are by no means the whole movement.

Jihadin wrote:2) Civil rights activists had to bear the full brunt of state violence. When they marched to demand equality, they were frequently water-cannoned and truncheoned off the streets or attacked with police dogs. In contrast, the occupiers have been treated with kid gloves by the cops (not to mention by politicians, the church and the media). They’ve been allowed to lounge around in public spaces for weeks on end, experiencing only the “tyranny” of polite legal notices asking them to think about vacating.

Arrests, batons, chemical agents, seizure of property... 'polite'?

Jihadin wrote:3) The civil rights movement was a mass movement. In 1963 it got a million people to march on Washington. The Occupy movement is an infinitesimally tiny clique in comparison. There are possibly 50 or so regular campers outside St Paul’s, and according to some reports journalists frequently outnumber activists at Occupy Wall Street. The masses’ distinct lack of interest in the Occupy movement isn’t surprising, considering the official Occupy website has published articles sneeringly claiming the masses have been “brainwashed by the mainstream media”. That’s another difference between old civil rights activists and modern-day occupiers: the former had faith in the goodness of the common people; the latter looks upon the common people as dumbasses whose brain cells have been fried by Fox News.

'Infinitesimally tiny'? 1500+ Occupations across the continent! 'Distinct lack of interest'? They changed the national narrative! No faith in the common people? This is all about returning control of your democracy to the common people! Brainwashed by the media? Of course people have been - it sounds like you have been too!

Jihadin wrote:4) Civil rights activists were thirsty for freedom. If Occupy London’s “Safe Space Policy” is anything to go by, today’s occupiers wouldn’t know freedom if it accosted them in an alleyway. Aping New Labour-style “safe community zones”, the St Paul’s policy outlaws all forms of offensive speech, forbids the consumption of alcohol, proposes zero tolerance of “putting people down” and “competing with people”, and insists that everyone must get “explicit verbal consent before touching someone”. Whether one has to get explicit verbal consent before linking arms with another to sing “We Shall Overcome” is not made clear.

So a desire for safety automatically equals a disdain for freedom?

Jihadin wrote:5) Probably the most important difference is that where black civil-rights activists were driven by a deep desire to be full, free, productive members of society, the occupiers have a deep disdain for the mainstream, or the “rat race” as they call it, for those hordes who cluelessly trudge to pointless jobs every day. Their posters and placards chastise Joe Public for being robotic, while graciously informing us that capitalism has turned us all into “chumps or tarts”. Where civil-rights protesters wanted in, the occupiers want out – they want to opt out of a society which in their minority middle-class view is too competitive and vulgar and stuff-obsessed. Consider the different clothing worn by the self-respecting civil-rights activist and the self-regarding occupier. The black marchers on Washington wore their Sunday best, suits and ties, to signal their respectability and desire to be part of society; the modern occupiers wear psychedelic leggings or fancy dress, to signal their scoffing disregard for the straights and squares who make up the vile mainstream world.

They don't want 'out', they want change. They don't have a deep disdain for the mainstream, they want the mainstream in control. They don't all wear 'psychedelic leggings or fancy dress', but in any case what does it matter? They are citizens who want social and economic justice for all.

Jihadin wrote:
OWS is nothing like the civil rights movement because the civil rights movement spent a lot of time breaking the VERY LAWS they were protesting.

OWS is breaking laws utterly unrelated to wall street. If you want to protest your inability to camp out in a park, fine, but don't pretend that has anything to do with wall street.

It's just like I was saying before, when you spend your time complaining about your tents, your protest becomes about tents.

The tents have gone, but OWS has not. That tells me its not about tents. They aren't protesting laws, they are trying to change the system.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rented Tritium wrote:
The key quote in here is "we had encircled them, and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us"

But of course, the cops should have just sat there and waited.

It's funny though that I can post 1000 police chiefs agreeing with me and you guys call it an appeal to authority or tradition, but once you find one that agrees with you, it's totally fine.

They should have sat there and waited, yes. We'll have to agree to disagree on that. Pepper-spraying non-violent people who are sitting on a path to protest the arrest of other non-violent demonstrators should not be met with chemical agents and batons.

Of course you can find 1000 police chiefs agreeing with you, as Norm Stamper said in that interview, this is a structural problem. Why is finding someone who agrees with me not fine?

Well, that second last post just squared the argument for me.

ELLI PEARSON: "And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us"

If you basically say "I refuse to move and if you want me to your going to have to go "through us" then gak, I'm gonna go through you!


Its fair enough then surely?

Blocking with your body has a long history as a nonviolent way to resist injustice and the misuse of power. Nonviolent demonstrators should not have force used on them.

Radiation wrote:It is asinine to think there are no comparisons to be made

There are comparisons to be made, but not in terms of dignity or importance of the movements which I think is the more significant aspect of this to be concerned with.

Radiation wrote:and your sensibilities are easily offended.

Only in the face of such colossal ignorance.

murdog wrote:Blocking with your body has a long history as a nonviolent way to resist injustice and the misuse of power. Nonviolent demonstrators should not have force used on them.

Yeah mate I agree with you, but did you read the quote in full? I sided with the protestors until I read it!

Look...

"And at one point, they were—we had encircled them, and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us."

If they have "encircled" you, and your trying to leave, but they wont let you, and then they tell you "If you want to leave your going to have to go through us" then surely you HAVE to go through them dont you?

Whats the other option? Just shrug and say "Oh ok you captured me then, ill just stay here even though I really wanted to leave"

As I said, im no fan of police brutality, but.. well.. It seems like they kinda had no option once it got to this point.

mattyrm wrote: If you basically say "I refuse to move and if you want me to your going to have to go "through us" then gak, I'm gonna go through you!

The fact that pepper spray, which is used as a "crowd" dispersant, was used to disperse an uncooperative "crowd" is so shocking is baffling to me.

Jihadin wrote:
Research this a bit more before throwing it out. I handle quite a few of the movements to local and state law enforcement

To what end? and what am I looking for?

dogma wrote:

murdog wrote:
Police HAVE become more militarized.

Eh, I don't know. Definitely more professional, maybe not more militarized.

I do, however, acknowledge that its a difficult argument. Is the cop with the 9mm more militarized with respect to the soldier with the M4 than the cop with the truncheon with respect to the soldier with the Brown Bess?

I don't think its that hard to argue at all. I'd rather use pictures though.
These jackwagons are on patrol it looks like the State Fair. Other than the fact you are generally more likely to encounter motorcycle cops these guys are dressed for daily duty.

when we compare them to say...these guys. The difference is striking.

Not so much when we drop North County Swat next to Israeli Army


You don't even have to go very far from home to see the militarization of police forces. Above I showed Arizona DPS in thier daily wear here's Phoenix PD at a raid, I picked this one because out of seven officers ONE is not wearing an OTV (its optional wear but most wear it). Its probably even better that its a raid because I could drive to the mall and take a picture of the officers there in the same gear. But not the same department, depends on the mall.

So when patrol officers are a helmet and carbine away from SWAT, and SWAT is near indistinguisable from the military what do YOU call it?

Jihadin wrote:para military = a group of civilians organized in a military fashion (especially to operate in place of or to assist regular army troops)

Not that your definition excludes the police as they are civilians, but Websters says:

of, relating to, being, or characteristic of a force formed on a military pattern especially as a potential auxiliary military

or to parse out the relevant portion for the discussion:

characteristic of a force formed on a military pattern

Not all police forces are paramilitary, but not all aren't. Utilizing military tactics and training against the civilian population IS paramilitary by definition, so any police department that includes SWAT, by its very nature has a paramilitary element.

Rented Tritium wrote:It's funny though that I can post 1000 police chiefs agreeing with me and you guys call it an appeal to authority or tradition,

Protip: In the Dakka OT, citing sources is an appeal to authority. I just read "that's an appeal to authority!" as "I can't argue that point, so I'm being petulant".

Rented Tritium wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Of course you can define militarism by tools and tactics.

One only needs to compare the old style "rugby scrum" police with the modern force to see the clear change.

It arise from the desire to use the police as a para-military force.

No. You are redefining words. You don't get to redefine "paramilitary" to mean "having big guns and tanks". Police have literally always been a paramilitary force since day one.

British police haven't.

The British police don't have SWAT teams?

We have nowadays. We didn't use to. Obviously they are called a much more dignified name than SWAT.

Kanluwen wrote:And I suggest you read my statement again.

Comparing this movement to the Civil Rights movement is downright asinine.

No it's not. That's an insulting and I think deeply misguided statement. Both are nonviolent protest movements seeking to cause social change in response to social injustice. You could make an argument that the things the Civil Rights movement were trying to change are worse, of course. You could absolutely make the point that the responses to them were frequently more brutal, but if I (as an example) stand up and nonviolently protest something, and a police officer responds by either pepper-spraying me or sicking a dog on me, it's still and inappropriate and violent response. The dog or the bullet is certainly worse than pepper spray or a punch, but that doesn't make the less-violent but still violent response okay or appropriate.

Kanluwen wrote:ANo one is being killed for their beliefs.

Sure. As I said, the situation was certainly WORSE in the 60s. That doesn't mean the two movements are totally dissimilar.

Kanluwen wrote:At worst, you've got officers who have no business being officers. But you know what? That goes down to "you reap what you sow".

And some protesters who are being idiots and giving the movement a bad name, too. Sure. But because a few protestors are being antisocial idiots does not give any police the right to "sow" violence on protestors in general. The police bear a greater responsibility, inherently. They are armed, trained professionals whose duty is to ensure the safety of the protestors as much as any other citizen.



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Monster Rain wrote:The British police don't have SWAT teams?

A SWAT team is just part of it. Look at those pictures Auston posted above. I can look at the cops on the street here in Manchester and observe that they've been more militarized in the last couple of decades just by observing how much more often I see BDUs, combat boots, and submachine guns on them. Certainly better tactics have needed to evolve over the years, and cops have needed to become more professional. But there is certainly an undeniable trend toward local police becoming more military in their tactics, disposition and attitudes.


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Monster Rain wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:It's funny though that I can post 1000 police chiefs agreeing with me and you guys call it an appeal to authority or tradition,

Protip: In the Dakka OT, citing sources is an appeal to authority. I just read "that's an appeal to authority!" as "I can't argue that point, so I'm being petulant".

Everyone's aware of the distinction, right? Citing a source means referencing a specific piece of evidence. Appealing to authority is saying "this authoritative person agrees with me", independent or exclusive of an actual substantive argument.

mattyrm wrote:

murdog wrote:Blocking with your body has a long history as a nonviolent way to resist injustice and the misuse of power. Nonviolent demonstrators should not have force used on them.

Yeah mate I agree with you, but did you read the quote in full? I sided with the protestors until I read it!

Look...

"And at one point, they were—we had encircled them, and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us."

If they have "encircled" you, and your trying to leave, but they wont let you, and then they tell you "If you want to leave your going to have to go through us" then surely you HAVE to go through them dont you?

Whats the other option? Just shrug and say "Oh ok you captured me then, ill just stay here even though I really wanted to leave"

As I said, im no fan of police brutality, but.. well.. It seems like they kinda had no option once it got to this point.

I did read it, and I watched the video. It's not that they couldn't leave, it's that they didn't leave. Clearly the police could have stepped over them and left. They were sitting on the ground, not standing up. It was more of a symbolic block than actually blocking them, although it would have been difficult to drag non-violent demonstrators down the path fo sho.

Mannahnin wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:And I suggest you read my statement again.

Comparing this movement to the Civil Rights movement is downright asinine.

No it's not. That's an insulting and I think deeply misguided statement. Both are nonviolent protest movements seeking to cause social change in response to social injustice.

The difference is that one was in fact a known, proven social injustice while the other is the realm of conspiracy theorists for the most part.
Is the government a bit more receptive to the economic quarter's problems than society at large? Of course. But you don't solve that by "occupying" Wall Street. You solve that by trying to push for more transparency in the ties between the political quarter and economic quarter's links, and then pushing to sever those ties ensuring that business does not get a toehold in politics again.

Another thing that irks me with the Civil Rights movement comparison is that these protesters are purposely provoking a reaction that is acceptable within any and all police department procedures for dispersing groups of people and then acting as if their Constitutional rights are being violated afterwards.
They claim that they have "done nothing to deserve this!"--and then you get statements like we have from the UC Davis students where they KNOW the officers had been leaving. They KNOW the officers are trying to perform their job, and since they can't without inappropriate force--they're leaving. And what do they do?
They sit down around them and try to hold them there.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Those officers did exactly what they're trained to do, and what is acceptable within that situation. If the officers had actually been wearing riot gear/body armor or had started whaling on the students with their nightsticks after pepper spraying them--I would be saying that they were way out of line.

You could make an argument that the things the Civil Rights movement were trying to change are worse, of course. You could absolutely make the point that the responses to them were frequently more brutal, but if I (as an example) stand up and nonviolently protest something, and a police officer responds by either pepper-spraying me or sicking a dog on me, it's still an inappropriate and violent response. The dog or the bullet is certainly worse than pepper spray or a punch, but that doesn't make the less-violent but still violent response okay or appropriate.

To continually equate pepper spray to actual violence is silly. Does it involve potentially injuring someone?

Sure. But circumstances for actual injuries to pepper spray require a certain set of contextual circumstances which are not always present.
And again:
This was not a case of people being "pepper sprayed for standing up and protesting something". This was a case of people "being pepper sprayed for obstructing officers in the course of executing their duties". Officers cannot lay hands on someone or physically restrain them without serious repercussions. They should not be able to taser someone for the same reason.
Which leaves pepper spray as the only viable, nonviolent solution for officers.

Kanluwen wrote:And no one is being killed for their beliefs.

Sure. As I said, the situation was certainly WORSE in the 60s. That doesn't mean the two movements are totally dissimilar.

Thinking they're similar does not necessarily mean they are, Mannahnin. That's what I've been trying to get across for quite awhile now.

Kanluwen wrote:At worst, you've got officers who have no business being officers. But you know what? That goes down to "you reap what you sow".

And some protesters who are being idiots and giving the movement a bad name, too. Sure. But because a few protestors are being antisocial idiots does not give any police the right to "sow" violence on protestors in general. The police bear a greater responsibility, inherently. They are armed, trained professionals whose duty is to ensure the safety of the protestors as much as any other citizen.

It's to ensure the safety of the protesters when they follow the law. Police are there to ensure that the protesters are not injured or targeted by the public at large and to ensure that the protesters do not injure or target the public at large.

When the protest falls outside the scope of the law allowing their protest, it gets shut down.
It's not complicated.

As for my "you reap what you sow" comment, it has nothing to do with the protesters being antisocial idiots. It has to deal with society at large and the frankly ridiculous lack of requirements for some police agencies to recruit officers. It's related to a perception and/or need for officers.

Monster Rain wrote:The British police don't have SWAT teams?

A SWAT team is just part of it. Look at those pictures Auston posted above. I can look at the cops on the street here in Manchester and observe that they've been more militarized in the last couple of decades just by observing how much more often I see BDUs, combat boots, and submachine guns on them. Certainly better tactics have needed to evolve over the years, and cops have needed to become more professional. But there is certainly an undeniable trend toward local police becoming more military in their tactics, disposition and attitudes.

Auston's pictures seem to be a bit prejudicial. Those do not look like officers you will commonly see patrolling. Those look like officers who have been seconded to an operation being run by ICE or the DEA and are responding to a call afterwards. The other potential is that those officers are required by their department to wear such protection due to potential situations patrolling certain areas.

But really. There's a reason you're seeing BDUs and combat boots. They're cheaper for a department than full dress uniforms--and they're far more comfortable for officers to wear.

Mannahnin wrote:No it's not. That's an insulting and I think deeply misguided statement. Both are nonviolent protest movements seeking to cause social change in response to social injustice.

The conditions that the Civil Rights movement were protesting about were absolutely horrific. People were being denied basic human dignity, lethally at times.

Comparing that to people tweeting about how financially oppressed they are from an iPhone 4 is what is misguided, in my opinion.


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Kilkrazy wrote:We have nowadays. We didn't use to. Obviously they are called a much more dignified name than SWAT.

Oh, I don't know. Special Weapons and Tactics has a spartan, utilitarian ring to it.


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Mannahnin wrote:A SWAT team is just part of it. Look at those pictures Auston posted above. I can look at the cops on the street here in Manchester and observe that they've been more militarized in the last couple of decades just by observing how much more often I see BDUs, combat boots, and submachine guns on them.

The cops in Manchester carry submachine guns now?

I neither support nor deny the OWS right to protest. Just want to throw that out there