Activism Change

Police State Grows, People Scoff?

Question:

2) Countries like China and Singapore are proving that a market economy can   exist while little to no personal freedom exists. I’m sure there are   plenty of forces in this country that would like to move to a system   where individual freedoms don’t get in the way of the free market. China and Singapore are in a unique situation. Both offer low-wage economies in which payroll taxes, health, safety, and environmental protection standards are commensurately low. Both countries have fairly widespread poverty and relatively low living standards – relative, that is, to North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia.

Poverty in Singapore?  Have you people been there?  It is a very affluent city, no crime, no trash, everyone owns a house, everyone has access to medical care.  How many Americans have a house, access to medical care?  Yes they have strict laws, but the rewards for being a law-abiding citizen are great.  In America there is little reward.  In fact for some life in jail would be better. UMMO

Response:

snip I think that the lack of freedom in other countries allows the US to continue to abuse our rights.  If there was a free-er country to go to, all the good people would be gone in a minute.  Instead, the other countries are being forced to our level, at which point, we may have to go into a freedom-for-freedom competition with those other countries. Is there any way we can speed this process up? hblask

End the phoney war on drugs and start a real war on the military-industrial-intelligence complex — with their pocket-politicians at the top of the list? H. Michael Sweeney

Response:

snip, mostly my own verbage and kind comments thereupon… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – It’s possible that without an external enemy, people’s hunger for sadistic entertainments is fed by police activity.  Here in New York City, Mayor Giuliani, a prime police-stater, as been ordering many minor busts by the police — coming home Friday I saw _five_ police cars pulling over cars and vans in the space of a few minutes, and this is becoming routine.  You’d think people would dislike this kind of harassment, but in fact Giuliani has a good approval rating in the polls, something like 55%.  More serious abuses — there has been a sharp rise in police violence in the last few years — go unremarked. I don’t watch television or read the daily newspapers, but it occurs to me that the police state could be presented to the public as a good thing by the media — an endless cop show.  And that would relate to (1) and (2) above. —

Your last paragraph is very close to the mark.  It is the role of media in Portland to act as Police PR.  The Oregonian and the three key TV stations seldom touch anything critical of COPS.  When they cover a shooting, the coverage is matter of factly with few facts.  They always say the shooting is under revue and the officer(s) involved on paid leave pending findings.  A few days later, the revue finds for the officer and that is reported.  If public protest or civil charges are filed, they are not reported at all or are treated in an obvously biased way (obvious to someone who understands disinfo).  For instance, in the law suit over the Shaw murder and the Liebe Street shooting, the Oregonian went out of its way to imply the matter was sealed and it was completely rediculous that these people would go after the city and the cops.  These are the same people (Oregonian) who even today still call Randy Weaver a White Supremecist because the first FBI press briefing used the term.  He has NEVER been shown to belong to any such group or share any such feelings.  But it is telling in that Fred Stickle, overseer of the Oregonian, was given an FBI award for reporting favorably on FBI by the very FBI agent in charge of Weaver’s assault and the murder of his wife. So, as long as media focuses on crime (despite dropping crime statistics), we will have growing police state with public apathy. H. Michael Sweeney

Response:

snip my own verbosity Mr. Sweeney: I’d venture to say the LAPD would like to talk to you regarding your views that police are too aggressive.  The recent incident in which the criminals had far more gunpower than the police says something is very flawed in your reasoning.

        <forgive my snip of your reply, but I wanted to respond to this too         That is because law enforcement has become "competitive."  It is no longer a matter of right and wrong, but a question of who has more power.  An arms escallation is inevitable!  It has to happen!  This is not going to make the public any safer, no matter which side wins.         The only way is to build a better society that places less emphasis on competition and is more inclusive of people that don’t fit in.  If people truely feel that they belong to a society and are welcomed in it, then they have no motivation to go around shooting people.  There’s just no point to it!  Oh, a few insane people, perhaps, but they are never organised or effective and are not the real problem.         We have to find a better philosophy for life.  What happens when the terrorist all get nuclear bombs?  How can we stop them?  It’s not a question of "if" they will get nuclear bombs, but "when" they will get them!  We have to provide higher moral standards for all people to accept, or we are not going to survive as human beings.  Perhaps we deserve whatever fate we get, but I think we can do better. — Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.                          Peace, Siblings,                                         Fred Williams,

Response:

| Damn Good Answer, Ian… | | I remind people who might think Waco as a minor and exotic exception to | the rule that the Police State manifests itself in other equally | disturbing if not lesser impacting ways in many cities.  Here in | Portland, the Police regularly defied a Judges order and illegally | applied National Guard armored units, helicopters, and troops in | so-called drug raids.   | | They pass ordinances and laws which violate Constitutional rights faster | than citizens can affored to challenge them in the courts.

[...] | In the same general time frame, Police shot and killed:  One mentally | disturbed woman weilding a pocket knife to keep Police away;  another | woman threatening to kill herself with a knife; a small child being held | at knife point by an adult (shot everybody, actually); and several | others, some undoubtedly rightously — but one which was premeditated | murder witnessed by citizens, citizens Police and Grand Jury | investigators refused to hear. A couple of opinions as to why this is happening: 1) Stepping up police state atmosphere in preparation of large numbers of   people falling out of the economy due to current reforms.

It should come as no surprise that without a police state you won’t be able to support the prison industry that is fast growing in the U.S. Unwarranted civil forfeitures and the War on Drugs are the means by which the prisons and the police forces will be financed. My feeling is that civil war will break out long before the U.S. becomes a _bona fide_ police state. 2) Countries like China and Singapore are proving that a market economy can   exist while little to no personal freedom exists. I’m sure there are   plenty of forces in this country that would like to move to a system   where individual freedoms don’t get in the way of the free market.

China and Singapore are in a unique situation. Both offer low-wage economies in which payroll taxes, health, safety, and environmental protection standards are commensurately low. Both countries have fairly widespread poverty and relatively low living standards – relative, that is, to North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Believe me, if you’re flat broke and desperate for a regular income, you *will* gladly give up many of your personal freedoms if you know that doing so will bring even part of the money you need to survive. Why do you think minimum wage workers in North America frequently work the hardest and have the poorest working conditions? Very simply, they have few or no alternatives. The only way you can achieve a Singaporean style economy is to impoverish the masses (basically bankrupt them), destroy the consumer economy as we know it, and transfer 98% of the wealth to the uppermost 2%. North Americans and Europeans, I think, have enjoyed high living standards for too long to simply acquiesce to such outright robbery. Then again, there is the possibility that people may have become so anaesthetised by high living standards that they lose the will to fight back, or blindly expect that the gravy train will continue the way it has – that technology, perhaps, will save the day and restore fading fortunes. Even if you do manage to pull off such a massive transfer of wealth, who will be left to buy products made in low-wage countries and sold by large multinational corporations? Not that the

Filed under: Human Rights

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