np Stuttgart 21

[rich]

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>
I do not suggest
> this is solely American, just typical of the American state's response
> to non-violent civil disobedience. I remember too well the day we
> heard the National Guard had opened fire on peaceful American citizens
> in Kent, Ohio. America is, yes, barbarous. And cops are not garbage
> men, they are thugs. Just two years ago I was stopped, searched and
> cited for jay-walking on a side street at 10 a.m. where no cars were
> passing. Backup cruisers passed four times, lest I become
> unmanageable. I was on my way to talk to the mechanic who was working
> on my car. He needed a piece of paperwork to smog the vehicle. That is
> not the work of garbage collectors, it is the work of pigs. You won't
> find much honest depiction in movies or on t.v., you have to be on the
> street to see how the pigs work. They don't often pursue criminals.
> They team up with powerful weapons to bully the unarmed. Don't
> romanticize them.
_______________

I think calling all cops thugs is a gross exaggeration (though I
sympathize w/ your plight). Its easy to extrapolate from our own
experiences (whether good or bad).
I believe in many cases police are put into a situation not of their
choosing or are there because of bad policy (using national guard
troops at a protest rally is no different than using the Parachute
Regiment to police the streets of Derry in the 60s and 70s or even in
Stuttgart whose heavy-handedness was supported by the state governor
and even the Chancellor worried about re-election. that's whose to
blame ultimately in many cases)
It would be great if police were to exercise restraint no matter the
political pressure but situations get heated one thing leads to
another and bam, blood flows. I'm not condoning police repression and
yes the depiction of police work in tv and movies is laughable for the
most part but I do think their have been honest portrayals of cops
(The Wire comes to mind)
In every profession, you got your thugs and psychos. For very, cop
with a hardon for harassment there are those protesters, e.g. in
Greece who decided to burn alive some poor low level bank employees in
Athens during a demonstration.
Finally, I think of the Iraqi occupation after Saddam's fall,
particularly in Baghdad. If there was ever a need for strong and
efficient police presence, it was there. It never came (thanks to
American ineptitude) and the answer--you had American troops doing
policework. the product of that:  Abu Ghraib.

rich