The Root Of Police Militarization

“Ben Swann maintains that while Americans should be outraged at the idea of militarization, it should not be just because police show up in tanks to a protest. It should be because of the tactics that have been used by police for years, such as using battering rams to knock down people’s doors, and throwing stun grenades through windows, all for the sake of serving drug warrants.” – B Swann

MilitarizedPolice4“The militarization of America’s police forces has captured the nation’s attention, largely because of Ferguson, Missouri,” said Swann. “But what mainstream media has not told you, is how police forces got militarized in the first place, and why militarization is about a lot more than just military equipment.”

Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson during a confrontation in August. His death triggered protests, some of which led to rioting and looting.

Swann points out that what really “stunned the nation” was the way police responded to the protests. Rather than responding like a police force that intended to serve and protect, Ferguson police responded like a military unit, complete with armored vehicles and flash grenades. Swann said that for millions of Americans, “this was a stunning site on American streets.”

Swann said that while Benswann.com has been working to raise awareness about the militarization of police for over a year, “the rest of the media acted like they had no idea.”

The program ignored by the mainstream media is the 1033 program. Also called the Department of Defense Excess Property Program, this platform is used by police departments to obtain military equipment. Swann explains:

“It is a federal program that provides surplus DoD military equipment to state and local civilian law enforcement agencies for use in counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism operations, and to enhance officer safety.”

While the 1033 program does provide armored vehicles and flash grenades, it also provides police departments with other emergency supplies that go beyond weaponry. Continue reading

Chris Hedges ~ A Society Of Captives

Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans to launch a pilot program in New York City to place body cameras on police officers and conduct training seminars to help them reduce their adrenaline rushes and abusive language, along with the establishment of a less stringent marijuana policy, are merely cosmetic reforms. The killing of Eric Garner in Staten Island was, after all, captured on video. These proposed reforms, like those out of Washington, D.C., fail to address the underlying cause of poverty, state-sponsored murder and the obscene explosion of mass incarceration—the rise of the corporate state and the death of our democracy. Mass acts of civil disobedience, now being carried out across the country, are the only mechanism left that offers hope for systematic legal and judicial reform. We must defy the corporate state, not work with it.

The legal system no longer functions to protect ordinary Americans. It serves our oligarchic, corporate elites. These elites have committed $26 billion in financial fraud. They loot the U.S. Treasury, escape taxation, drive down wages, break unions, pillage pension funds, gut regulation and oversight, destroy public institutions including public schools and social assistance programs, wage endless and illegal wars to swell the profits of arms merchants, and—yes—authorize police to murder unarmed black men.

Police and national intelligence and security agencies, which carry out wholesale surveillance against the population and serve as the corporate elite’s brutal enforcers, are omnipotent by intention. They are designed to impart fear, even terror, to keep the population under control. And until the courts and the legislative bodies give us back our rights—which they have no intention of doing—things will only get worse for the poor and the rest of us. We live in a post-constitutional era. Continue reading

FBI Report: Americans Less Violent Than Ever, Except For Police

“While violence among citizens has dropped, violence against citizens carried out by police has been rising sharply. According to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report, 461 felony suspects were shot by police last year, which is the highest number seen in decades.” – J Vibes

PoliceViolenceIncrease

According to new FBI statistics released this week, violent crime rates in the US fell over 4% in the past year alone, bringing the amount of violent crimes lower than it has been in nearly 40 years. The statistics showed that there were an estimated 1.16 million violent crimes in the year of 2013, which is the lowest number since 1978, when 1.09 million were recorded.

Broken down, the report revealed that manslaughter dropped by 4.4% to 14,196, the lowest rate since 1968, while instances of rape were down 6.3%. Despite the tough economic times, robbery is also down by 2.8% and property crimes were down by 4.1%.

The violent crime rate has been steadily declining since 1994, but the prison population has continued to increase over the decades. There are currently over two and a half million people imprisoned in the US, which is by far the largest prison population in the  world.

Continue reading

RT News ~ World News Links (August 28 2014)

Sub-glacial eruption of Iceland’s volcano forms row of ‘cauldrons’

A warning sign blocks the road to Bardarbunga volcano, some 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) away, in the north-west region of the Vatnajokull glacier August 19, 2014. (Reuters / Sigtryggur Johannsson)
A warning sign blocks the road to Bardarbunga volcano, some 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) away, in the north-west region of the Vatnajokull glacier August 19, 2014. (Reuters / Sigtryggur Johannsson)

Icelandic volcano activity increased on Wednesday, with scientists detecting 10-15 meters deep cauldrons of melted ice at the Vatnajökull glacier, prompting fears of an imminent eruption.

Icelandic scientists have detected a series of 10-15m deep cauldrons at Bardarbunga volcano glacier. They apparently are a result of melting following a sub-glacial eruption, the Icelandic Civil Protection Scientific Advisory Board reported. A surveillance flight over the surface of Vatnajokull has shown the cauldrons to be 1 km wide, located in a straight line some 4-6 kilometers south of the Bardarbunga caldera. Continue here . . .

Selected RT_News LInks

Pew Research: African-Americans think race relations have worsened under Obama

British Jews, Muslims issue joint call for peace

Ferguson aftermath: California city tells cops to get rid of armored vehicle

End occupation or face ICC: Palestine to ask UN set ‘timetable’ for Israeli withdrawal

ISIS: US-made monster running amok in Middle East

‘TTIP agreement is an attack on people, society and environment in both Europe and the US’

Carrots and sticks: New Iraq crisis is part of US agenda to target Syria and Iran

White House Press Secretaries have a history of avoiding questions – report

Childhood blues: English kids among world’s unhappiest

Black arts of banking: The higher rate dilemma

Cars in the US might soon be mandated to broadcast speed and location data

Over 60 Ukrainian troops cross into Russia seeking refuge

Space junkyard: New tech designed to combat dangerous trash in orbit

Rotherham child abuse: Crime commissioner urged to resign amid misconduct allegations

22 years for 100s of murders? Pablo Escobar’s favorite hitman walks free

Florida cops accused of beating driver for not rolling down his window all the way (VIDEO)

Danger, drones! Concerns as Amazon gets support over UAV delivery testing

SF Source RTNews

Charlton S. Stanley ~ Bleed On A Ferguson Police Officer? Get Charged With Destruction Of Public Property. Oh My!

“After being restrained and kicked in the jail cell, paramedics took Henry Davis to the hospital where he insisted that his picture be taken before he was treated (photo and story at the link). The Emergency Room doctor diagnosed him with a concussion and stitched him up before releasing Davis back to custody of the Ferguson PD.” C Stanley

We should have seen this coming. I believe it is going to get worse before it gets better, if ever. At some point there is going to be a “pitchforks and torches” backlash.

Ferguson MO logoIt may be starting in Ferguson, MO. Take a look at one of the latest stories to come out of there. It’s sad that we have to look overseas to get reliable and up to date news about what is happening in the good ol’ US of A. Because of the great sucking sound that is the US corporate mainstream media, people who want to get a more balanced read on the news check sites such as Al Jazeera, The Guardian, RT, The Epoch Times, and Der Spiegel.

This is a brief clip from a story posted yesterday on RT (Russia Today). Emphasis is mine:

Nearly four years to the day before Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson opened fire and killed Brown, 18, a complaint filed in federal court accused the same law enforcement agency of violating the civil rights of a man who says he was badly beaten after being wrongly arrested, then later charged with “destruction of property” for bleeding on the uniforms of the cops alleged to have injured him. Full story at this link.

It gets better. Reading the court filings, we learn that on September 20, 2010, Henry Davis missed his exit and found himself in the the St. Louis County community of Ferguson at 3:00 AM. As it happened, there was a warrant was out for a Henry Davis, but the wanted man has a different middle initial, different birth date, and different Social Security number. Continue reading