VLVL2 re Critiquing Hector and TV Crime Drama

[pynchonoid]

from the study davemarc quoted:
[...] On the issue of violations of Constitutional
rights of citizens by
police [...] The result of the constant
violation of such rights by TV cops is that a
significant portion of the
public has come to expect it as standard operating
procedure of real police
officers. [...]

This acceptance slops over to benefit prison officials
and guards, thus some Americans are "outraged at the
outrage" re treatment of prisoners at the hands of US
soldiers and mercenaries in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Guantanamo.  As Senator James Inohofe observed in a
televised hearing the other day, prisoners in the US
(in police stations and in prisons) are routinely
treated as harshly, so what's the big deal. 


from:
"U.S. Must End Torture of Prisoners in America As Well
As in Iraq, ACLU Says" 11 May 2004
[...] Like most Americans, I am horrified by the
sexually degrading photographs and the reports of
Iraqi detainees being threatened with electrocution
and rape by members of our military at Abu Ghraib
Prison in Iraq. Those who are shocked by these human
rights violations, however, should be aware that
equally depraved acts are committed against prisoners
in the United States regularly without the outrage and
disgust currently being expressed by U.S. officials in
response to conditions in Iraq.

Indeed, accepted correctional practice allows male
officers to work in housing quarters that provide
views of women showering, undressing and even using
the toilet. In certain circumstances male guards even
strip search confined women, many of whom are victims
of sexual abuse, often leading to unnecessary trauma
and pain.

For U.S. prisoners who have suffered treatment similar
to what has been carried out in Iraq, Congress has
banned them from bringing a lawsuit in our federal
courts to gain redress for their injuries. The Prison
Litigation Reform Act, passed in 1996 without any
congressional hearings on its provisions, prevents
prisoners, jail detainees and even confined juveniles
from seeking damages for deliberate sexual misconduct
and other forms of abuse, as long as the prisoner
suffers no “physical injury.” Indeed, if a prisoner in
our nation’s capital were threatened with
electrocution by his captors and suffered a heart
attack or a mental breakdown as a result, he would
still have no remedy in federal court. [...]

...read it all:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=15674&c=206

[...] For State Senator Tom Hayden, who vigorously
opposed Prop 184, California is sinking into a "moral
quagmire" reminiscent of Vietnam: "State politics has
been handcuffed by the law-enforcement lobby. Voters
have no real idea of what they are getting into. They
have not been told the truth about the trade-off
between schools and prisons, or the economic disaster
that will inevitably result. We dehumanize criminals
and the poor in exactly the same way we did with
so-called gooks' in Vietnam. We just put them in hell
and turn up the heat."[...]
quoted by Mike Davis:
http://www.rut.com/mdavis/hellfactories.html

The police drama has morphed in recent years to offer
up another set of American heroes:  prosecutors and
forensics specialists.  The wildly popular "Law and
Order" series breaks its episodes in half, the first
half addressing the police work involved in a
particular crime (sometimes including dramatic scenes
of interrogations where police officers terrorize and
brutalize prisoners), while the second half features
the prosecution of the crime in court. Law and Order
spin-offs include a series that specializes in sexual
crimes and one on forensics. 

http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order/index.html

Talking-head shoutfest shows (they virtually dominate
the US Tube now) couldn't exist without current and
former prosecutors.

America as police state?  Given the amount of time
people spend worshipping police and prosecutors at the
Tube altar, the already incredibly high and always
increasing number of people housed in US prisons, and
the way we're exporting these attitudes and practices,
I'd say you'd have a difficult time convicing people
the US is not a "police state".  Unless you happen to
be a Reagan-Bush brainwashee, of course.


	
		
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