Glenn Greenwald: Police forces have been para-militarized to control this domestic unrest.

[Better Believe It]

OWS-inspired activism
November 17, 2011

It was only a matter of time before a coordinated police crackdown was imposed to end the Occupy encampments. Law enforcement officials and policy-makers in America know full well that serious protests — and more — are inevitable given the economic tumult and suffering the U.S. has seen over the last three years (and will continue to see for the foreseeable future). A country cannot radically reduce quality-of-life expectations, devote itself to the interests of its super-rich, and all but eliminate its middle class without triggering sustained citizen fury.

The reason the U.S. has para-militarized its police forces is precisely to control this type of domestic unrest, and it’s simply impossible to imagine its not being deployed in full against a growing protest movement aimed at grossly and corruptly unequal resource distribution. As Madeleine Albright said when arguing for U.S. military intervention in the Balkans: “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” That’s obviously how governors, big-city Mayors and Police Chiefs feel about the stockpiles of assault rifles, SWAT gear, hi-tech helicopters, and the coming-soon drone technology lavished on them in the wake of the post/9-11 Security State explosion, to say nothing of the enormous federal law enforcement apparatus that, more than anything else, resembles a standing army which is increasingly directed inward.

Most of this militarization has been justified by invoking Scary Foreign Threats — primarily the Terrorist — but its prime purpose is domestic. As civil libertarians endlessly point out, the primary reason to oppose new expansions of government power is because it always — always — vastly expands beyond its original realm. I remember quite vividly the war-zone-like police force deployed against protesters at the 2008 GOP Convention in Minneapolis, as well as the invocation of Terrorism statutes to arrest and punish them, with the active involvement of federal law enforcement. Along those lines, Alternet‘s Lynn Parramore asks all the key questions about the obviously coordinated law enforcement assault on peaceful protesters over the last week.

But the same factors that rendered this police crackdown inevitable will also ensure that this protest movement endures: the roots of the anger are real, profound and impassioned. Just as American bombs ostensibly aimed at reducing Terrorism have the exact opposite effect — by fueling the anti-American sentiments that cause Terrorism in the first place — so, too, will excessive police force further fuel the Occupy movement. Nothing highlights the validity of the movement’s core grievances more than watching a piggish billionaire Wall Street Mayor — who bought and clung to his political power using his personal fortune — deploy force against marginalized citizens peacefully and lawfully protesting joblessness, foreclosures and economic suffering. If Michael Bloomberg didn’t exist, the Occupy protesters would have to invent him.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/17/ows_inspired_activism/singleton/

[DirkGently]

1. Ooooh. THAT'S why a gigantic domestic surveillance apparatus & warrantless spying are bad.

And they're already deploying LRADs on U.S. citizens. So nifty how policies and weaponry developed for "national defense" can be applied to smashing civilian dissent.

Maybe this IS what a police state looks like.

[Eddie Haskell]

3. No maybes about it.

[KG]

2. rec

[chill_wind]

4. We'll be their much sought opportunity for "adjacent markets"

for more and more stuff finding it's way home for domestic exploit.

Facing U.S. budget cuts, the industry that makes drones, radar equipment, and sensors for use in Iraq and Afghanistan is looking to sell them at home to police, border patrol, and others

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2166532

[struggle4progress]

5. Greenwald doesn't know his domestic history. Militarization of local US police services

began in earnest in the Nixon era, about 40 years ago

[Better Believe It]

6. Not on this level. We did not have a Department of Homeland Security.

Nixon seems almost like a civil libertarian compared to what the Bush/Obama administrations have been doing along with local politicians!

[struggle4progress]

11. *snork*

:spray:

Nixon -- the great civil libertarian

:rofl:

We remember the last forty years differently, you and I

[Better Believe It]

12. So why do you think the Bush/Obama administrations have been defenders of our Bill of Rights ....

compared to the Nixon administration.

I think the factual record clearly proves that the Bush/Obama administrations have put into action attacks on our civil liberties that go way beyond anything the Nixon administration attempted.

Do you really believe that we have far more civil liberties, rights and freedoms today than under Nixon?

Come now.

You surely know better than that.

Of course Nixon was not a civil libertarian.

And George W. Bush certainly wasn't.

But tell everyone why you think President Obama is a great defender of our Constitution and democratic rights.

I'm listening.

[inwiththenew]

7. I would argue that police militarization is a result of the "War" on Drugs

The departments around here buy a lot of their toys (helicopters, armored vehicles, etc...) with seized assets.

[chill_wind]

8. LRAD Defends ‘Sound Cannon’ Use At Occupy Wall Street (TPM)

Carl Franzen November 17, 2011, 6:43 PM 3227 93

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/lrad-explains-sound-cannon-use-at-occupy-wall-street.php

[JDPriestly]

10. The LRADs are a form of psychological warfare.

They are completely inappropriate when used against unarmed people in a society that is supposed to be a democracy.

They could permanently cause damage to a person's hearing. I would like to see the research on just what they do to the hearing of the victims of this police brutality.

They might be appropriately used against armed insurgents, but not against unarmed civilians who are demonstrating peacefully. They should not be used just be their use makes people more obedient and less trouble.

These devices should be outlawed.

[JDPriestly]

9. I strongly recommend that people read the book The Lost City

by John Gunther which treats the crushing of the Socialist movement in Austria as corruption at all levels in Austrian society and government led to the failure of the Reichsbank.

From Wikipedia:

John Gunther (August 30, 1901 – May 29, 1970) was an American journalist and author whose success came primarily in the 1940s and 1950s with a series of popular sociopolitical works known as the "Inside" books. . . . .

http://www.worldcat.org/title/lost-city-a-novel/oclc/001060213

This book is long and may be a difficult read for those who do not understand the culture of Viennese cafes and the stratified society of post-empire Austria. But it depicts how the worm of fascism eats its way through the soul of a society distracted by trivial entertainment, gossip and comfort (gemutlichkeit) that it does not notice that injustice and immorality have overtaken it.