Summations Only

In this specific instance:1) there is no possible justification whatsoever for shooting an unarmed man in the face with a tear gas canister. Nothing could possibly have happened "just before the video" that would have justified that.2) there is no possible justification for throwing a flashbang grenade into a group of people attempting to assist a wounded person. Nothing could possibly have happened "just before the video" that would have ever made that an acceptable course of action.Dispersing a crowd can be justified depending on the actions of the crowd. But those two actions cannot be justified in absolutely any case at all, ever. I want the officers responsible fired, immediately, and I want an investigation done by a 3rd party into who authorized the use of those weapons and how the officers are trained to use them.Not that it'll happen.

They do tape themselves quite a bit, but only release what serves their purposes. Filming protestors started as far back as the 50s, pursued by local police, the FBI, and (illegally) the CIA in order to identify and then persecute peaceniks and other subversives.My father's car was photographed outside a Black Panther storefront in the sixties, and the resulting harassment changed his views on the police a bit. I think citizen surveillance of the police does help, if only to limit the scale of police violence. Some of the undocumented police actions from the sixties were truly horrendous.Naturally, police nationwide react with force, often violating local laws that expressly permit filming the police, to prevent citizens from taping them at work.Some of them are, unfortunately, pigs in the classic sense. American police forces have been heavily militarized, both in tactics and arms, for the past few decades--as violent crime rates have steadily declined. Demilitarizing the police, and instituting reforms like more stringent psychological screening of applicants and citizen boards of review, are badly needed.Like with prison guards, the folks you'd least want to have those powers want them the most.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

I agree with your analysis, especially with regard to the turning point under Reagan. But I'm not optimistic about change in the near future.For 30 years or so, working class and middle class wages have stagnated or fallen, in step with the near eradication of unions in the private work force. Yet one of the most effective rallying cries for conservatives is "Union bosses! Union thugs!"--as they turn their sights on unionized public employees.The wealth that drained away from the 99% geysered up to the wealthiest--yet working class and middle class conservatives cheer on tax cuts for the rich, budget cutting that will further stunt the economy, and the shredding of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.I see no sign of this masochistic enthrallment waning. Instead, it seems to have intensified into a mass hysteria.This change--in which working people have been persuaded not just to tolerate, but to demand actions that harm them--concerns me the most.I don't mean I see no hope, or that I see no reason to try. But I fear we will suffer an era of domestic conflict that makes the sixtes look like a PTA meeting before we see real change.

I am at work and don't have the time to really dig through this to see if they have written in enough back doors to allow the behavior of the police in Oakland, but I found certain sections to be interesting. Page not found - National Police Accountability Project

I, too, am at work so I can't find the video, but I saw one that appeared as though the police were using strobe lights in what appeared to be an attempt to render video cameras useless.

There was no possible justification for Officer Joe Mehserle to shoot a restrained, compliant Oscar Grant square in the back at point-blank range in a summary execution, either, but immediately - even at this forum - people fell all over themselves to justify the officer's conduct and despite the entire incident being captured on dozens of cell phones from dozens of angles, plenty of people asserted that Grant must have "done something" just before any of the cameras started rolling.Just as, when Tony Bologna of the NYPD wantonly and without provocation pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters, commenters fell all over themselves to explain that they had provoked it - in the seconds immediately before the video, then somehow got over to a seated position just in time for the cameras to start.Now, in both of those cases, the officers were punished for their unjustified violence, though not severely. (Despite executing a man in cold blood, Mehserle served only two years.) But those reprimands came long after most people had concluded that it was just another example of cops being unfairly blamed for a ruckus they weren't responsible for, due to the ready mob of people willing to say whatever it takes to justify police brutality. They want police to be brutal.

Video clearly shows the police tossing some kind of device (that explodes, bright light and smoke) directly into the (small, unarmed, nonviolent) group trying to help an injured protester. So there's one gross violation.I've heard the OPD blaming the officers from "other" places for pretty much all of the bad behavior. Not OUR fault, must have been officers from Petaluma or Navato. It's clearly not the OPDs responsibility to make sure those reinforcements they've called in act in accordance with the city policies. That would be asking far too much. Seems to me the OPD should have been arresting the out-of-town officers then. Weren't they, too, breaking the law?

Yes.

Being "tough on crime" sounds great to people.Putting murderers and rapists behind bars and punishing them has a certain appeal.Few people think of what is or is not appropriate for crime and punishment from the perspective of how they believe they should be treated if they were ever accused of a crime. "Criminals" are typically thought of as subhuman (and that term applies regardless of the crime committed, from stealing a pack of gum to raping a child), and they "deserve whatever they get."Nobody cares about police brutality, or prison rape, or the realities of solitary confinement, or anything wrong with out justice system because nobody ever thinks they'll have to see that side of the system themselves.So brutal cops are okay. Who cares if a cop beats the crap out of some child-raping murderer, am I right?And if police violence is okay in principle, then when someone gets beaten, they must be a criminal, they must deserve it.The Stanford Prison Experiment should be a mandatory topic of extreme focus in schools.

Jar! Even though i can understand the graph, it is very bad of them who made it to reverse the Y-axis. "Better" should be on top. The Graph should slope DOWNWARDS. Most of us here can understand it, I would like to think, but we must allow for those who may gut-react & see the US on top, when they are really at the bottom.

There are specific steps that can be taken.For example, the term "For Profit" when linked with certain areas of life must be ridiculed, laughed at, made to seem obscene and vulgar.For profit health care and for profit schools and for profit incarceration should be the first on the list. Those three need to go down the toilet with the rest of the excrement.They are obscene and near terrorist level behaviors.Second, we need to put a very progressive inheritance tax in place that assure it is impossible for a moneyed class to arise in the US.Third we need a single payer health care system and education system and abolish all "for profit schools".And if it takes something like the 60s and 70s to accomplish it, then I believe that would be a worthy fight.

Rahvin again: Kudoes, my man.As my song says, "It's not gonna happen". But what if the Tea Party and OWS could see the common ground they have (about 80% of vitriol espoused by each side)?? Wouldn't it fuckin' kill the Evil Kings in power of this sorry country to see the demonstrators sporting AK-47s? "Go ahead - shoot a canister at my face, sucker."Oh I so wanted to see them build a trebouchet and launch the park's weekly supply of excrement up at those vicious assholes joking and drinking champagne. Smear them all with shit.But no no no - this is foolish folly, for they would only incarcerate you for drawing as much as a half-inch scratch with your finger nail on a cop's arm as you struggle to avoid their clubbings, calling it Assault on an Officer of the Peace - you're looking at 30-40 years.Problem is - those in power of the USA have Nuclear Weapons...tanks, smart missiles, the whole bit. This ain't gonna be solved by some Riva Ridge/Waco compound/Weathermen enclave/Black Panther militia effort with NRA support.Ladies & Gentlemen - that game is over. They have won there. They control the corporations, the government and the media. We have some firearms, some grenades maybe, and maybe after those are done & spent, some bows & arrows. Then some sticks, some stones, maybe. WTF?It's time for a new game. We already are a third world nation. They are Fascist Totalitarians. They have nothing else on their agenda but turning the 99% into SLAVES. For harboring such thoughts, they should all just DIE. Horrible broken brains.Dig it: The Tea Party thinks there's way too much power in Government. OWS thinks there's way too much power in Big Corporations.They are actually on the same page, because these 2 entities are one & the same. There are details that make them very different, but in this issue, they are on the same side. We need to UNITE!This country is about to boil all over the world with stinky acid.

Of course I would be remiss if I did not throw my hat into the Group that thinks this has Already Occurred. I THROW MY HAT THERE!hint: sulfuric would be an example

You are such an optimist, Jar.

I don't think so.None of this is really much of a surprise and I've been singing this same song now for well over a quarter century.BUT...I can look back a history. There have been many similar periods and each one was resolved, unfortunately almost all through very bloody revolution, but in one shining example through a relatively small revolution with limited bloodshed and violence.Granted, one example out of many is not that hopeful but it does show it is possible with minimal pain.If we look at the reforms that began under Theodore Roosevelt and pretty much continued all the way through the Johnson administration, we can see a lesson plan of how to proceed. It is a matter of changing the government from being a tool of big business to being a tool of the average American.Now those battles were not without bloodshed and pain, but compared to the English Civil Wars, the French, Russian and Chinese Revolutions they were pretty mild.There will eventually be a redress, it is up to us to try to make the pain of paying the bill as small as possible.