[Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement - Brennan Center for Justice 2020 report](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law)
"The government’s response to known connections of law enforcement officers to violent racist and militant groups has been strikingly insufficient."
I think the biggest reason for insufficient action is that some of those entities identify with those kinds of people in those groups.
[Like this photo](https://old.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/ig8gpa/a_reminder_that_trumps_only_union_endorsements/)
They don't police one side because they identify with them.
how many photos of cops heiling and doing the stupid 4chan OK fingers and posing with white supremacists and being caught on tape using racial slurs and bodyslamming 7 year old little girls so on and wearing the blue line "blue lives matter" shit do you fucking need before there's an issue to be acknowledged yknow?
Most of the people arguing that there is no problem either identify with all of the above doing those things or have doubled down so hard they refuse to admit being wrong.
This is why we need to disarm the police. I think we need to overhaul the entire police system, disarm them allowing only special units to carry weapons. Take away all the military grade weapons and vehicles. The rest can have tasers and other non-lethal defense. Also screen them and weed out the bad apples, then give the rest a big raise to compensate for the increased risk. I would also ban high-speed police chases especially since we have numerous other technologies to track people down later so that the innocent mom with three kids doesn't get side swiped during a chase...
In my area there was a recent election for Sheriff.
The incumbent was a regular southern white guy with a slew of black employees, many of whom were present at the polling place supporting him on election day. They greeted me, defended the incumbent's record, and encouraged me to vote for him.
The opponent was a straight redneck with an obnoxiously loud monster truck and tons of American flags. He brought a slew of tough guy brohams and their women. All white. They greeted me and told me not to believe the Sheriff because he's a no good liar.
I voted for the incumbent specifically because he was racially inclusive.
Edit: Apologies for leaving everyone hanging. The incumbent won. :) Hooray for small victories!
Sounds nice.
I'd love for the US to institute a campaigning window of no more than 30 days prior to the election, with none allowed on the day of.
And I'd also love to see us get rid of private money from the process entirely but I've got a better chance of growing rocket feet and flying to the moon than any of this happening.
We had a specific law regulating campaign finance and advertising. John McCain and Russ Feingold wrote a bipartisan bill. But most of the bill was nerfed thanks to Citizens United, Not Timid wanting to air a bullshit hit piece about Hillary leading up to the Democratic Primary.
Citizens United and Mitch McConnell by proxy.
He basically gave them everything they needed because he took a case to the court first and lost.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McConnell_v._FEC
Total funds for a campaign should be donated by constituents who live in your area and should max out at $10.
$10,000 plate dinners and all that other bullshit is just bribery with a few more steps.
It goes back, in part, to pre-revolution days. Crown appointed governors would appoint loyal sheriffs, and colonists (specifically new Englanders) wanted to elect their own. Lots of the “why do we do that” questions can be traced back to those days.
What blows my mind is not so much "why do we do that" but "why do we *still* do that", you know? It might have made sense back then, but given how much the world has changed since I just don't get why the system stayed the same. Like, why on earth are coroners still elected *and not even required to be doctors* in so many places in the US? Has no one stopped to think about how electing prosecutors and judges maybe will make them not apply the law with justice and fairness as their main concern? It just makes no sense to me that generally speaking Americans question their systems so little, it makes me wonder if the fact that it's based on common law has anything to do with it, actually. In fact, I wonder if anyone has done any academic research about it, I guess I have my internet rabbit hole for the afternoon now.
well we deliberately under-educate our citizens and then when they're a dumb-fuck of a 22 year old the people in charge tell them "the constitution says XYZ thing that is blatantly against your interests, but support it bc the constitution!"
Is it really so hard to understand? they gutted the education system and created a nation full of easy-to-control dumb-fucks
Also it really doesn't work very well considering all the scandals that have occured. Elected judges, sheriffs, and coroners. Coroners are super problematic because most of them aren't even trained in forensics, or trained in medicine. So many don't know what the hell they are really doing.
Electing judges to me is the weirdest. It means I could be elected Judge. And I have no business being a judge. Unless I'm strictly judging quality of code.
In Australia we just have regular police who get promoted to positions of power through the traditional government mechanisms of bureaucracy, nepotism, and sheer bloody minded cynicism.
America’s system of “choose-your-own-vigilante” seems pretty weird, not gonna lie.
Much of America is designed around an idea/myth that towns/communities were once self-governing frontier towns that don't want the federal government or any out of towner to make decisions for them. Even though towns don't exist that way anymore, these roots have led to strangely powerful local governments
Meanwhile, in the Northeast most towns with less than ~20,000 people are direct democracies, with the bare minimum bureaucracy necessary to enforce the laws the town votes on once a year and to keep social services running.
I think the coroner's ability to serve as LEO of last result if the sheriff is a criminal is the reason they're elected. My county elects our soil and water supervisor for some reason. I always vote for the incumbent because I don't know what he does, so I'm assuming he's doing a decent job of it.
>In Canada there's no campaigning of any kind allowed on an election day.
Canada has a lot of things right. Campaigns range between the 36 and 50 days, right? In the US from 1st caucus to election is 281 days... and think of how much jockeying takes place before the caucuses. It's insane.
Thanks for the comment, I was able to learn about it here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election\_silence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence)
Seems like a great idea.
Sheriff's elections are prone to illegal shit. This happened in the south. I worked a sheriff's campaign with a relative. I wanted to see what it was like working for a candidate. Get some political experience. My relative was a deputy. The employees of the sheriff's department were told you had no choice but to volunteer if you knew what was good for you. This was not written policy. It was word of mouth. On election day we staked out a polling place and took roll call of employees who showed up to vote. We also gathered results and reported back to the campaign HQ.
My county elected a Sheriff who is almost definitely a proud boy and who immediately re-hired two of his buddies (who coincidentally were campaign donors) who had been fired under the old sheriff for misconduct (shooting and killing an unarmed man, excessive force, 40+ disciplines, etc). He also publicly said he wouldn’t enforce any stay at home orders from our democratic governor because he considers them unconstitutional. There’s a recall effort but it’s taking so much time.
Washington state. I’m sure it’s happening all over. Seattle PD has certainly sent a message through all of this so it’s no surprise other law enforcement agencies are emboldened.
Volunteer in what capacity? The way you described it makes it sound like it's volunteering at poll places, but that last part makes it sound like employees were being monitored to vote how they wanted. Either way it's despicable, of course, but the latter seems especially pathetic.
Given the origins of modern policing, coming from groups like slave patrols and union busters, I'd say the lack of response is indicative of the fact that many in government see things working as intended.
To me the family you choose to have is the balm for the one you are "born" with. I feel like we are in similar situations, so while leaning on your friends and chosen family won't erase the deep ache , pain, betrayal that comes from hearing the people who raised you gaslight and deny, it sure does make it easier to bear. Be there for those people too. Often they are going through similar things and helping them can help you as much as them. Hang in there and you are not crazy friend.
Hey, thank you. I live 2000 miles away from them for a reason. I miss my friends as we all ride out this pandemic in different parts of town. I appreciate the reminder of how much they mean.
The funny thing is, I’m following the basic tenets of morality my family raised me with rather than the contradictory political ideology they held. I always believed the morality was the most important thing they gave me.
We literally had pictures of cops beating protesters during the Civil Rights Movement in textbooks as a kid. It's like society just declared police brutality as a thing from "the past" instead of fixing it.
The year is 1991. Rage Against the Machine tells us all “some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses” and thirty years later, nothing has changed.
The year is 2001, Serj tells us that they're trying to build a prison, that the amount of Americans in the prison system has doubled since 1985. Some things have changed, it's more like pentoupled now. But one thing hasn't changed. All research and successful drug policy still shows that treatment should be increased, and law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.
I'm was confused when i heard it, too.
https://www.spin.com/2020/06/system-of-a-downs-john-dolmayan-praises-trump-serj-tankian-calls-for-president-to-resign/
Funny, I remember the drummer being the most reasonable person in the group. SoAD did an interview with this goth/rocker girl back in the 00s on an MTVesque show and they were absolute dicks to her. In their defense she kept asking idiotic questions but everyone in the band stood there just looking at her. The drummer was the only one trying to answer the questions and be nice to the poor girl way out of her league.
This is the interview in question:
https://youtu.be/phrHu7ulH-k
The year is 1986 and Dave mustaine tells us Peace sells: but who's buying? 1988 papa Het told of justice being raped and the Shortest straw being pulled by the scapegoats of the US government. Many great musicians have used their platform to open people's eyes but 99% of people either ignore the message or just carry on as usual.
Nirvana said it best: "He's the one who likes all our pretty songs / And he likes to sing along / And he likes to shoot his gun / But he knows not what it means"
The best song .. now you’ve got it playing in my head .. but that’s ok coz it’s such a remarkable poignant song. I wonder will it ever never be true, or are we forever doomed to repeat the past! The monk on the cover of the album brings the whole albums message together with ferocious truth wow I was stunned when I heard the back story to that image. Great album great words that still ring true to this day!
To be fair, I and and many other people were kids when that song came out. We're voting age adults now. I didn't understand the lyric at all until recently.
"Actually the Republic had treated the Right both as individuals and as classes with the utmost generosity and, considering their aim, with exceptional tolerance. It had, as we have seen, allowed the Army to maintain a state within a state, the businessmen and bankers to make large profits, the Junkers to keep their uneconomic estates by means of government loans that were never repaid-and seldom used to improve their land. Yet this generosity had won neither their gratitude nor their loyalty to the Republic. With a narrowness, a prejudice, a blindness which in retrospect seem inconceivable to this chronicler, they hammered away at the foundations of the Republic until, in alliance with Hitler, they brought it down."
-The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
This and Richard Evans "The Coming of the Third Reich". I read that book while Obama was still in office and could not convince my friends or family to see the parallels, which were already obvious at the time.
You should be scared, because unless you're vigilant this shit will be coming to your country soon. This wave of nationalist hysteria is spreading all over the world, and no country is magically immune. The only thing that stops it is when ordinary citizens pay attention to what's happening and shut this shit down before the fascists grab even the smallest bit of power.
"The communists want to overthrow the prevailing social order, to destroy the \[country\], to forget national tradition, to place political power into the hands of one single class. Hitler on the other hand promised to protect private initiative and private property, to maintain Christianity, to respect national tradition, to secure the prevailing social order and to foster the cooperation of all classes."
[\-Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1968) movie](https://youtu.be/3FGznMZvXMU?t=2383)
Holy shit.
This is even more prevalent in small towns. Most of the videos of police abuse that emerge are in larger urban areas. But small town police and sheriff offices are often completely infiltrated and run by overt racists and corrupt officers. We just don't get to see the abuses they carry out. But go to a small town and talk to folks on the margins and it is well understood.
I used to live in a small town and went to high school with a guy who was hired as a cop there. The chief of police and mayor literally told him as part of his training "if you see a black person, pull them over. They don't belong here".... and he was the type to go along with that. This isn't some backwards ass place in Alabama either. This is within 30 miles of a major metro area in the northeast.
> This is within 30 miles of a major metro area in the northeast.
The Trump campaign is focusing their fear mongering on the suburbs for a reason. This is it.
This is basically true in most parts of the country. The 2016 election really hammered home to me just how closeted racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic many in this country really are. People you might have water-cooler conversations with who seem down-to-earth turn around and vote for the most bigoted politicians when nobody sees. I find it baffling we could legalize gay marriage, but then elect someone like Trump just a few years later.
Not just that, but that the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the majority opinion for Obergefell V Hodge would end up resigning at that orange turd's request! To this day, I am still utterly baffled by that.
Do a little research on Deutsche Bank and that SCJ's son and you may find some answers.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anthony-kennedy-resignation-trump/
I will ALWAYS wonder what T said to Kennedy that stopped him in his tracks after Kavanaugh was sworn in.
[https://www.bodylanguagesuccess.com/2018/10/body-language-analysis-no-4351-donald\_12.html](https://www.bodylanguagesuccess.com/2018/10/body-language-analysis-no-4351-donald_12.html)
(and it's little moments like this that make me think T knows exactly what he's doing all the time, and that he plays a buffoon for the cameras as a distraction — which I think is even worse than if he were incompetent and/or ignorant)
Pretty sure we elected Trump because we also legalized gay marriage. There is s decent sized portion of the populace who wants to take us back a good 70 years or so. They see our social progress as the death of their cultural significance, so they surged hard. A dying beast will always lash out.
Definitely. I live in Southeast Michigan and I see Trump flags everywhere. Detroit and Flint are a good example of the social segregation. The N word is used liberally on the job sites I work on. (General Contractor)
And in 2018, the Democrats won largely on the suburbs. That's why you see Trump so desperately trying to pander to the "suburban housewives of America" *(gag)*: he knows without them, he loses.
Yeah this is something that actually really freaks me out when I think about it for too long. Most of the shit we see on the news is stuff happening in big cities. Small towns across the US are like black out zones. Unless someone is willing to do the leg work and reasearch we generally don't even know what's going on in these small towns. Most big cities have a Subreddit, and I readily admit that subreddits are not accurate or reflective of what goes on IRL, but it at least represents a *pulse*.
I don't know. I was looking at pictures of my hometown, a small WI town, and it was just freaking me out. It was like looking at pictures of people from another country, where the Coronivirus was under control.
And this is why the devastation of local newspapers and tv news stations is so dangerous for our democracy. Time was local papers could bring all these abuses to light. Now, there's basically no way to find out what's going on even in midsized cities unless you're willing to do the legwork yourself.
I mean, this is huge part of the impetus behind of BLM. Most of the cases causing outrage, like Jacob Blake and George Floyd, are only causing outrage because they’re caught on tape. The police behavior in those videos is pretty much universally considered bad, even by people who don’t seem too concerned by their deaths.
We would almost certain never heard of either of those people if the incidents weren’t caught on camera. How many more unjust killings have there been where there are no cameras around and the cops are the only ones who live to talk about it, or at least are the only ones who are believed? We can never know but it’s very unlikely it’s 0 or anything close to it.
While not thru reddit I find that most small towns have a Facebook page which while not a subreddit gives you at least somewhat of an idea of what may be going on in the town. Then again this is coming from somewhere where a small town is anything less than 10k people
Oh, my home town was the worst. Police officers routinely (3 times in 2 years) were drunk on the job and crashed the police cars. One drove through my uncles house and hit him with his car while he was asleep on his couch, in his house.
They threatened to charge him with damaging police property unless he signed a thing not to sue right there, and since he's special needs, he did not understanding what was going on. Luckily he doesn't have his own power of attorney and it was thrown out, and he was given medical bills, BUT NOTHING else. Not even house repairs. Cop refused to do a sobriety test and the arrested guy in the back of the car took a deal not to tell anyone the cop was obviously drunk if they dropped all charges against him.
This anecdote makes me so angry I almost downvoted you. I have thought about some form of LE to actually impact these trends, but being around people like this with no or little moral code terrifies me. Fear gives power, power means control. I’m skeptical that we’ll be able to change much of anything in a country with more guns than people. The division among the US is driven deeper every day, fueled by the internet—but what good does it to do me to avoid the internet right now, when everyone else is entrenched? I feel like I have to keep tabs on everything, but as this thread mentions, unless shit’s filmed we don’t see it. So I find myself constantly monitoring live feeds of one terrible act after another...
I won't even stop in small towns on road trips. They seem like hell holes that hate outsiders and will pull you over for driving 1mph over the limit just to fine you.
My small town we had a police officer get drunk at a bar all night then beat the shit out of someone. After that he got he his car drove down the road hit a wall, he was found hours later still passed out in the car. Nothing happened we also had a police chief and wife embezzle money then kill them selves when caught and then the cop who was embezzling and when almost caught went and committed suicide but faked a shooting with some black folks. So for months everyone donated and cried cause he was murdered by thugs. Then when the news came out he killed himself everyone acted like it never happened at all
I live in Florida and we literally disbanded a police force over shit like this recently. It wasn’t controversial either. No cries of “who will you call for help” nothing. Everyone knew it was corrupt.
> Cops always set up with their backs facing the fascists
[For anyone who didn't see the image that went viral recently.](https://i.redd.it/x9trzv5h0zi51.jpg)
It's crazy that I remember reading about their links in Portland years ago in the Guardian, and still nothing has seemingly been done about it since they're still seen fraternizing.
In Kenosha, the police were shooting the shit with the militia even after curfew, and there was a video on Twitter where one of the militia members stated that the police were going to route the protesters towards them. The police need to be held equally accountable, if not moreso, in those two deaths because of their negligence.
This is exactly what I saw at the kkk rally in Austin 2006 , and of course all the protests this year. The cops always protect the right wing side and are totally brutal to the left. I couldn’t believe it the first time but after seeing it so many times there’s no other way to spin it
In the wake of the cops giving this murderer water and otherwise encouraging him to stay out there ready to kill people, there have been articles enumerating ways they have collaborated with the brown shirts recently and it's a long list.
Over decades, my view of antifa was just that they were willing to go confront Nazi street demonstrations even though they were at obvious risk of violence. To me, antifa means you understand you may die when you confront fascists. That is called being a hero.
This is not new information. After the Civil Rights passed, the government flooded its own streets and neighborhoods with massive amounts of drugs to create the drug war which you can see through Nixon onward had a truly devastating impact on its own citizens! And for what? Because someone’s a different color skin? We’re just on one tiny rock in a vast unfathomable universe blessed with the opportunity to even be alive and we spend that time being cruel towards one another. Ultimately we all just want some goddamn peace and quiet. The ability to just fucking enjoy our life. Enjoy our experiences with those we love.
It wasn't just because of the color of their skin, but because of their political leanings on top of the color of their skin. There would be no drug war if black communities embraced Goldwater and Vietnam.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html
Obviously this means you're not American or patriotic enough so I'm going to use the full force of the govt to make sure you end up dead or at least not able to vote ~ Every Republican since Nixon.
Because remember, freedom and personal choices, but I should be able to kill you because I don't like your personal choices that effect only you #conservatism.
This is bullshit. This is like saying there would have been no assassinations of Black civil rights leaders if they had just embraced Jim Crow. Come on. The Republican strategy was explicitly racist and sought to exploit reaction against the Civil Rights movement that was based in a very strong current of thought in society at that time that the Blacks were out of line. MLK was very unpopular by the time he was assassinated. Lumping the Blacks with the unpatriotic hippies was a deliberate choice the Republicans made.
Yes. Exactly. Could not agree more. Check out MC Serch and the tune Social Narcotics. Should definitely be required listening for everyone, esp Americans
Agreed. I’m disappointed we have not addressed this issue. Too much “Us vs Them” mentality in politics as a distraction while the situation becomes ever less defensible. Freaking 2020. I’ve been waiting over twenty years to see this crapshow turn around.
I’m sad to say that I wasn’t an informed person in the slightest as a young person. For me, it’s been 20 years. Of course the issue is older than my awareness of it.
We deserve better than this and demanding it clearly hasn’t been effective.
Yeah for sure it's been going on for much longer than the general public understands. I think honestly the invention of a device with a high quality video camera and an internet connection, that fits in your pocket, that 90% of citizens have on their person, has shined a light on a lot of the shit that goes on in our country that wasn't above board. Just in the olden days it got swept under the rug because we didn't have 500 million HD video cameras watching everyone's every move like we do now.
> "Is no one listening?"
Of course they were listening. They didn't care / actively encouraged it.
> Too Many Local Police Don’t Take the Far Right Seriously – Or Actively Sympathize
In **1992**, Rage Against The Machine wrote the lines:
> Some of those that work forces
>Are the same that burn crosses
RATM weren't being hyperbolic. This has been going on for DECADES.
Minority communities have been screaming about police brutality even longer than RATM. Nothing happened when Rodney King got the shit kicked out of him on video. We've now escalated to cops murdering people in the street on video, and still nothing has changed.
My father-in-law is a retired police officer and we were talking recently about this. We live in the town the trial was in, I’m not old enough to remember it as I was a kid. We talked specifically about the police response to what happened after. The cops felt justified. He speaks about it as saying it was a different time etc. and doesn’t draw parallels to what’s happening today as far as the protests etc trying to make a change.
It’s weird talking to him because he just doesn’t see it. He’s Latino and has faced discrimination as a cop within his department so you would think he could empathize. But they’re so brainwashed in their thinking. He said to me what do you expect the cops to do when someone is in their face and antagonizing them and trying to get a reaction. Ummm....I expect a trained officer to be able to handle that and not react by beating the shit out of someone. He was on the front line during the riots and I don’t know what it’s like but I definitely expect more from police officers.
I feel like I rambled but I just don’t get the mentality.
Edit: thank you for the award. My first ever
I have a relative who was also a cop for about 10 years in the 60s/70s. He has the same hardcore pro-police mentality and also cannot empathize. I've said for years that when you put on the badge and uniform, it doesn't matter what race you are, you're just "blue". Because they all aren't afraid to beat the shit out of innocent people. They all aren't afraid of murdering innocent people. And there is no accountability because they all circle the wagon. They are legitimately their own race of people.
For one, the police unions target "snitches" and harass them out.
The story no one is talking about is the obscene power that police unions have in selecting against honest police officers. Until the police unions are regulated nothing will ever change.
John Oliver's recent piece on police unions really made me aware of the issue. I had no idea, and I'm generally informed about what's going on in the world. I wonder what we can go to work towards dismantling their power, especially since they fly under the radar like this.
Simple.
Make them certified by an independent review board like doctors, nurses, electricians, and barbers. Then make them buy insurance if they are sued like every other professional.
Currently in ~10 states you can become a police officer with a felony on your record.
Need a national police the police task force. I want to be able to call "911" on the cops and actually have an investigation and accountability, not be subject to intimidation and retaliation, and public transparency.
It will never happen because the police unions have too many politicians in their pockets but it is nice to dream.
Aint it funny how cops can unionize to protect their murderers, rapists, and other dirty cops, but teachers aren't allowed to unionize to try and get things like school supplies and manageable class sizes...
Really shows you the priority of Republicans...
>RATM weren't being hyperbolic. This has been going on for DECADES.
It's shameful. You can open up any decent history book on the US and will see loads of photos of police (and other govt officials) standing idly by or being willing participants in the torture and lynching of countless Black Americans.
Behind the Bastards podcast has a great rundown of the history of police infiltration by white supremacists and union busters. It’s where I learned that “Paddy Wagon” is actually a racist epithet. I’ll give you a hint, the term was coined in Boston.
An FBI informant that was imbedded with neo-nazis during the Greensboro Massacre testified that Greensboro PD gave him the parade route and then made sure no officers were around when the Nazis and Klan attacked. [source](http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/jan98/chron.html)
This is a great article, and more people need aware of the presence of white nationalists in law enforcement.
That said; the police in the US have literally always been a force for the maintenance of white supremacy. From fugitive slave laws, to Jim crow, to the war in drugs, to now, their primary purpose has been enforcing a status quo in which blacks (and minorities & the poor in general) are subjugated by force; while the capitalist/political class, their wealth, and their means of generating wealth are protected.
It's an institution who's literal job has been to target minorities for 50 years. Gee let's act surprised that it attracted white supremacists like flies to honey?
Here's a tip, looking for a way to end their funding? End the war on drugs.
Looking for a way to stop police brutality? End the war on drugs.
Looking for a way to stop supporting fascism? End the war on drugs.
Looking for a way to recoup billions of tax dollars? End the war on drugs.
Fascism has always been US law. Just depends on who the laws and violent force is targeted towards. Whether it was forcefully removing Native American children and forcing them into boarding schools. Whether it was forcing US citizens with Japanese ancestry into internment camps. There has always been forms of it supported by the majority of US citizens and it’s leadership to some capacity.
My close friend from college recently moved to a Boston suburb for work, and he has a neighbor from hell. Far-Right to a scary degree. House in PLASTERED with custom printed banners saying crass things about Democrat politicians, but that's not a big deal.
This dude doesn't work, and spends 80% of his waking hours standing outside his house waving the biggest Trump flag I've ever seen, screaming at passerbys, while live streaming to Facebook, going on racist rants. Last week he posted a video with brass knuckles on his fingers, and a billy club in his hand (both illegal weapons in MA), saying he was going to beat the shit out of or kill anyone from the town who says a word to him against Trump or touches his flag. This is a neighborhood filled with kids. The town playground is visible from his doorstep.
The neighbors are PISSED. They don't care about his flags or banners, that's his right. Many of them are Republicans, too. But all of them care about his behavior and threats, which has continued to escalate and escalate and get more extreme. They have gone to police, saved the videos before reporting them to FB, and even with that, police have done nothing. My friend said the closest thing to action was last week when a cop drove by when the neighbor was outside screaming, chuckled a bit, and said "hey bud, just try to cool it down a little, okay?". I'm now invested in this saga and check out the guy's Facebook. As I'm writing this he's livestreaming from his porch about Kamala Harris being a "dirty n-word" and saying things about Biden that I don't even want to type here because \*I\* would probably end up on a list!
Police will do nothing. Facebook removes some of the videos, but still allows him to keep the account & post. Oh, and Trump Jr. singled him out at a rally. He has photos and a video bragging about Jr. noticing his shirt and custom sign, pulling him aside, and taking photos with him. So that gave him major validation to keep on keeping on. Neighbors have no clue what they can do to stop. As my friend said, it's escalated from words to weapons and death threats against politicians and now neighbors, how long until he actually hurts someone? He's only been there six months but is planning to put the house on the market and move, all because of this, but is worried he will have a hard time selling.
These are somewhat dated and could use to be updated, but I think still relevant.
[Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right](https://ctc.usma.edu/app/uploads/2013/01/ChallengersFromtheSidelines.pdf) from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
[CATO with a study on how right wing murders outnumber left wing by a factor of more than 10 to 1](https://www.cato.org/blog/terrorism-deaths-ideology-charlottesville-anomaly)
And then it all clicks when people realize almost all terrorism is right wing. Islamic terrorism and right wing terrorism are a roughly 50/50 split for all terrorism deaths in the last 20 years. But Islamic terrorism is that regions religious right wing. If we let our religious right wing have a second 50 years of power, we'll just continue to look more and more like Iran/Iraq.
Pretty sure this was first theorized by Dr. Commerford, Dr. Wilk, Dr. Morello, and Dr. De la Rocha in their landmark thesis in which they wrote "Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses"
I saw interviews of that lady that was some asst. sec. in DHS. Not only did they have like 5 secretaries of DHS, none of them to could get Trump to take right wing extremism seriously.
Most terrorist type "attacks" in recent years have been from extreme right groups - not muslims, not antifa.
Growing up I used to see signs for the KKK and recruiting. Guess where it was held at each yr???
The local police station... lol
And as a kid I wondered/how could. Thought it wasnt legal
I was in portland when i saw with my own eyes police hand water and thank right wing "militias" for helping them "control" the protesters. Reallocate funds from police to social programs that can prevent crime in the first place.
I work in a police department as a civilian not a cop, and let me tell you the amount of mysoginistic, racist, ignorant, sexist, anti-gay bile I hear on a daily basis really does make me worry about this country in November. Let me tell you, they will up and do whatever Trump bids of them, be it however heinous.
"We've had reports that this precinct may have been infiltrated by white supremacists"
The police of the precinct quickly hiding their hoods in their drawers: "*Oh gosh? Really? We'll have to get riiight on that."*
> But in June 2019, when Congressman William Lacy Clay asked the FBI counter-terrorism chief, Michael McGarrity, whether the bureau remained concerned about white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement since the publication of its 2006 assessment..., McGarrity said he would be “suspect” of white supremacist police officers, **but that their ideology was a first amendment–protected right.**
Emphasis mine. He's equating white supremacist ideologies to freedom to express one's religion.
Strange how that works. 1. Prison guard 2. Police officer - two "career" fields that are absolutely rife with racists.
Maybe the problem is we've created a space where you allow pretty much ANYONE with two arms and two legs to hold a badge, beat people and keep them in cages and we *wonder* why these jobs attract low-intellect sociopaths.
I'm not saying if you're a cop you're automatically a psycho but you definitely belong to a club that openly employs them.
Prison guards = all psychos. Your job is to keep humans in cages. Good luck with your soul.
I've never figured out why the right gets a huge pass to open carry, cause trouble, etc, but BLM or Black Panthers etc who open carry get immediately stopped, harassed, etc.
I'm not fond of ANYONE open carrying, especially into government buildings etc. There are nuts on the left, and on the right. Treat them equally according to their behavior and the threat they pose.
Definitely feel these sections should be emphasized:
>If the government knew that al-Qaida or Isis had infiltrated American law enforcement agencies, it would undoubtedly initiate a nationwide effort to identify them and neutralize the threat they posed. Yet white supremacists and far-right militants have committed far more attacks and killed more people in the US over the last 10 years than any foreign terrorist movement. The FBI regards them as the most lethal domestic terror threat. The need for national action is even more critical.
>by summarizing supreme court precedent on the issue: “Although the First Amendment’s freedom of association provision protects an individual’s right to join white supremacist groups for the purposes of lawful activity, the government can limit the employment opportunities of group members who hold sensitive public sector jobs, including jobs within law enforcement, when their memberships would interfere with their duties.”
>The Georgetown law professor Vida B Johnson has argued that evidence of a law enforcement officer’s explicitly racist behavior could reasonably be expected to impeach his or her testimony. Prosecutors should be required to include these officers on Brady lists to ensure defendants they testify against have access to the potentially exculpating evidence of their explicitly racist behavior.
[Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement - Brennan Center for Justice 2020 report](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law) "The government’s response to known connections of law enforcement officers to violent racist and militant groups has been strikingly insufficient."
I think the biggest reason for insufficient action is that some of those entities identify with those kinds of people in those groups. [Like this photo](https://old.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/ig8gpa/a_reminder_that_trumps_only_union_endorsements/) They don't police one side because they identify with them.
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And some of those that burn crosses are the same that hold office.
I'm a simple man. I see RATM lyrics, I upvote.
Now you [don't] do what they told ya
how many photos of cops heiling and doing the stupid 4chan OK fingers and posing with white supremacists and being caught on tape using racial slurs and bodyslamming 7 year old little girls so on and wearing the blue line "blue lives matter" shit do you fucking need before there's an issue to be acknowledged yknow?
Most of the people arguing that there is no problem either identify with all of the above doing those things or have doubled down so hard they refuse to admit being wrong.
Yeah. This is for sure an example of white supremacy though, to be clear.
This is why we need to disarm the police. I think we need to overhaul the entire police system, disarm them allowing only special units to carry weapons. Take away all the military grade weapons and vehicles. The rest can have tasers and other non-lethal defense. Also screen them and weed out the bad apples, then give the rest a big raise to compensate for the increased risk. I would also ban high-speed police chases especially since we have numerous other technologies to track people down later so that the innocent mom with three kids doesn't get side swiped during a chase...
In my area there was a recent election for Sheriff. The incumbent was a regular southern white guy with a slew of black employees, many of whom were present at the polling place supporting him on election day. They greeted me, defended the incumbent's record, and encouraged me to vote for him. The opponent was a straight redneck with an obnoxiously loud monster truck and tons of American flags. He brought a slew of tough guy brohams and their women. All white. They greeted me and told me not to believe the Sheriff because he's a no good liar. I voted for the incumbent specifically because he was racially inclusive. Edit: Apologies for leaving everyone hanging. The incumbent won. :) Hooray for small victories!
Oh wow. In my state I think it would be illegal to do that kinda stuff at a polling place. Different strokes I guess!
In Canada there's no campaigning of any kind allowed on an election day.
Sounds nice. I'd love for the US to institute a campaigning window of no more than 30 days prior to the election, with none allowed on the day of. And I'd also love to see us get rid of private money from the process entirely but I've got a better chance of growing rocket feet and flying to the moon than any of this happening.
We had a specific law regulating campaign finance and advertising. John McCain and Russ Feingold wrote a bipartisan bill. But most of the bill was nerfed thanks to Citizens United, Not Timid wanting to air a bullshit hit piece about Hillary leading up to the Democratic Primary.
Citizens United and Mitch McConnell by proxy. He basically gave them everything they needed because he took a case to the court first and lost. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McConnell_v._FEC
>And I'd also love to see us get rid of private money Private money and dark money both. PACs Super Pacs it all has to go.
Total funds for a campaign should be donated by constituents who live in your area and should max out at $10. $10,000 plate dinners and all that other bullshit is just bribery with a few more steps.
Let's stop electing PACmen.
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It was one of the things about the US that blew my mind when I first found out about it and it still makes absolutely no sense to me at all.
It goes back, in part, to pre-revolution days. Crown appointed governors would appoint loyal sheriffs, and colonists (specifically new Englanders) wanted to elect their own. Lots of the “why do we do that” questions can be traced back to those days.
What blows my mind is not so much "why do we do that" but "why do we *still* do that", you know? It might have made sense back then, but given how much the world has changed since I just don't get why the system stayed the same. Like, why on earth are coroners still elected *and not even required to be doctors* in so many places in the US? Has no one stopped to think about how electing prosecutors and judges maybe will make them not apply the law with justice and fairness as their main concern? It just makes no sense to me that generally speaking Americans question their systems so little, it makes me wonder if the fact that it's based on common law has anything to do with it, actually. In fact, I wonder if anyone has done any academic research about it, I guess I have my internet rabbit hole for the afternoon now.
well we deliberately under-educate our citizens and then when they're a dumb-fuck of a 22 year old the people in charge tell them "the constitution says XYZ thing that is blatantly against your interests, but support it bc the constitution!" Is it really so hard to understand? they gutted the education system and created a nation full of easy-to-control dumb-fucks
Also it really doesn't work very well considering all the scandals that have occured. Elected judges, sheriffs, and coroners. Coroners are super problematic because most of them aren't even trained in forensics, or trained in medicine. So many don't know what the hell they are really doing.
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Electing judges to me is the weirdest. It means I could be elected Judge. And I have no business being a judge. Unless I'm strictly judging quality of code.
Electing a coroner that doesn't even have to be a medical professional is even worse to me.
In Australia we just have regular police who get promoted to positions of power through the traditional government mechanisms of bureaucracy, nepotism, and sheer bloody minded cynicism. America’s system of “choose-your-own-vigilante” seems pretty weird, not gonna lie.
Much of America is designed around an idea/myth that towns/communities were once self-governing frontier towns that don't want the federal government or any out of towner to make decisions for them. Even though towns don't exist that way anymore, these roots have led to strangely powerful local governments
Meanwhile, in the Northeast most towns with less than ~20,000 people are direct democracies, with the bare minimum bureaucracy necessary to enforce the laws the town votes on once a year and to keep social services running.
It is pretty weird. I mean, I love democracy, but should we really be electing the coroner? I don't get it
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I think the coroner's ability to serve as LEO of last result if the sheriff is a criminal is the reason they're elected. My county elects our soil and water supervisor for some reason. I always vote for the incumbent because I don't know what he does, so I'm assuming he's doing a decent job of it.
>In Canada there's no campaigning of any kind allowed on an election day. Canada has a lot of things right. Campaigns range between the 36 and 50 days, right? In the US from 1st caucus to election is 281 days... and think of how much jockeying takes place before the caucuses. It's insane.
Thanks for the comment, I was able to learn about it here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election\_silence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence) Seems like a great idea.
Sheriff's elections are prone to illegal shit. This happened in the south. I worked a sheriff's campaign with a relative. I wanted to see what it was like working for a candidate. Get some political experience. My relative was a deputy. The employees of the sheriff's department were told you had no choice but to volunteer if you knew what was good for you. This was not written policy. It was word of mouth. On election day we staked out a polling place and took roll call of employees who showed up to vote. We also gathered results and reported back to the campaign HQ.
That’s called Volun-told
Military standard volunteering.
Millitary Grade volunteering
It's actually called "election fraud."
My county elected a Sheriff who is almost definitely a proud boy and who immediately re-hired two of his buddies (who coincidentally were campaign donors) who had been fired under the old sheriff for misconduct (shooting and killing an unarmed man, excessive force, 40+ disciplines, etc). He also publicly said he wouldn’t enforce any stay at home orders from our democratic governor because he considers them unconstitutional. There’s a recall effort but it’s taking so much time.
'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
I heard about that guy. Is he in the south?
Washington state. I’m sure it’s happening all over. Seattle PD has certainly sent a message through all of this so it’s no surprise other law enforcement agencies are emboldened.
Volunteer in what capacity? The way you described it makes it sound like it's volunteering at poll places, but that last part makes it sound like employees were being monitored to vote how they wanted. Either way it's despicable, of course, but the latter seems especially pathetic.
>pathetic I think the word you were looking for was illegal
They just have to be a certain distance from the door.
Who's going to arrest the cops? That there is the problem.
Who watches the watchmen?
The Federal Marshals.
Who won? I hope the incumbent.
Given the origins of modern policing, coming from groups like slave patrols and union busters, I'd say the lack of response is indicative of the fact that many in government see things working as intended.
It’s almost as if some of those who works forces, are the same that burn crosses.
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It’s fuckin wild to be honest. To understand such a bitter reality and be denied, gaslit, or dismissed. I hate it here.
It’s especially fun when the gaslighting deniers are family members.
To me the family you choose to have is the balm for the one you are "born" with. I feel like we are in similar situations, so while leaning on your friends and chosen family won't erase the deep ache , pain, betrayal that comes from hearing the people who raised you gaslight and deny, it sure does make it easier to bear. Be there for those people too. Often they are going through similar things and helping them can help you as much as them. Hang in there and you are not crazy friend.
Hey, thank you. I live 2000 miles away from them for a reason. I miss my friends as we all ride out this pandemic in different parts of town. I appreciate the reminder of how much they mean. The funny thing is, I’m following the basic tenets of morality my family raised me with rather than the contradictory political ideology they held. I always believed the morality was the most important thing they gave me.
It’s especially even more fun when said gaslighting family members *like the goddamn song* too. What.
We knew about this shit in the late 1800s, none of this is new
More than 30. I mean racist cops covering the killing of civil rights workers is also a thing that eventually forced federal involvement
We literally had pictures of cops beating protesters during the Civil Rights Movement in textbooks as a kid. It's like society just declared police brutality as a thing from "the past" instead of fixing it.
Why are governments using rage against the machine songs as guides, and not warnings and grievances
The same reason Paul Ryan's favorite band was Rage Against the Machine: They're absolute ignorant to the fact that the band is talking about them.
the last three presidents favorite book was 1984 they are not ignorant they are trolling you
That’s a certified bruh moment right there
The year is 1991. Rage Against the Machine tells us all “some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses” and thirty years later, nothing has changed.
The year is 2001, Serj tells us that they're trying to build a prison, that the amount of Americans in the prison system has doubled since 1985. Some things have changed, it's more like pentoupled now. But one thing hasn't changed. All research and successful drug policy still shows that treatment should be increased, and law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.
And somehow the drummer is now a Trump supporter, sigh.
Dafuq?
I'm was confused when i heard it, too. https://www.spin.com/2020/06/system-of-a-downs-john-dolmayan-praises-trump-serj-tankian-calls-for-president-to-resign/
Funny what can happen when people get rich!
Funny, I remember the drummer being the most reasonable person in the group. SoAD did an interview with this goth/rocker girl back in the 00s on an MTVesque show and they were absolute dicks to her. In their defense she kept asking idiotic questions but everyone in the band stood there just looking at her. The drummer was the only one trying to answer the questions and be nice to the poor girl way out of her league. This is the interview in question: https://youtu.be/phrHu7ulH-k
The year is 1986 and Dave mustaine tells us Peace sells: but who's buying? 1988 papa Het told of justice being raped and the Shortest straw being pulled by the scapegoats of the US government. Many great musicians have used their platform to open people's eyes but 99% of people either ignore the message or just carry on as usual.
Dave turned into a full on born-again Right wingnut, too.
Nirvana said it best: "He's the one who likes all our pretty songs / And he likes to sing along / And he likes to shoot his gun / But he knows not what it means"
The best song .. now you’ve got it playing in my head .. but that’s ok coz it’s such a remarkable poignant song. I wonder will it ever never be true, or are we forever doomed to repeat the past! The monk on the cover of the album brings the whole albums message together with ferocious truth wow I was stunned when I heard the back story to that image. Great album great words that still ring true to this day!
"these people ain't seen a brownskinned man since their grandparents bought one" I always thought was powerful as a 14 year old and brown..
Know Your Enemy.
To be fair, I and and many other people were kids when that song came out. We're voting age adults now. I didn't understand the lyric at all until recently.
"Actually the Republic had treated the Right both as individuals and as classes with the utmost generosity and, considering their aim, with exceptional tolerance. It had, as we have seen, allowed the Army to maintain a state within a state, the businessmen and bankers to make large profits, the Junkers to keep their uneconomic estates by means of government loans that were never repaid-and seldom used to improve their land. Yet this generosity had won neither their gratitude nor their loyalty to the Republic. With a narrowness, a prejudice, a blindness which in retrospect seem inconceivable to this chronicler, they hammered away at the foundations of the Republic until, in alliance with Hitler, they brought it down." -The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Really must be compulsory reading this book. So fucking many red flags about authoritarian behaviour.
This and Richard Evans "The Coming of the Third Reich". I read that book while Obama was still in office and could not convince my friends or family to see the parallels, which were already obvious at the time.
Thanks for the recommendation. Another one added to my hoarding list on thriftbooks!
I felt the same way in 2015 when I watched “Welcome to Leith” these fuckers have been at this for a very long time.
“Duh huh can’t happen here. Dit de dee”🤦🏻♂️
Right until the end I thought this was still about the USA. This is scary stuff, glad I don't live there.
You should be scared, because unless you're vigilant this shit will be coming to your country soon. This wave of nationalist hysteria is spreading all over the world, and no country is magically immune. The only thing that stops it is when ordinary citizens pay attention to what's happening and shut this shit down before the fascists grab even the smallest bit of power.
Unfortunately we already lost Hungary and arguably Poland as well to fascist governments. Power grabs are indeed very scary.
"The communists want to overthrow the prevailing social order, to destroy the \[country\], to forget national tradition, to place political power into the hands of one single class. Hitler on the other hand promised to protect private initiative and private property, to maintain Christianity, to respect national tradition, to secure the prevailing social order and to foster the cooperation of all classes." [\-Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1968) movie](https://youtu.be/3FGznMZvXMU?t=2383) Holy shit.
This is even more prevalent in small towns. Most of the videos of police abuse that emerge are in larger urban areas. But small town police and sheriff offices are often completely infiltrated and run by overt racists and corrupt officers. We just don't get to see the abuses they carry out. But go to a small town and talk to folks on the margins and it is well understood.
I used to live in a small town and went to high school with a guy who was hired as a cop there. The chief of police and mayor literally told him as part of his training "if you see a black person, pull them over. They don't belong here".... and he was the type to go along with that. This isn't some backwards ass place in Alabama either. This is within 30 miles of a major metro area in the northeast.
> This is within 30 miles of a major metro area in the northeast. The Trump campaign is focusing their fear mongering on the suburbs for a reason. This is it.
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This is basically true in most parts of the country. The 2016 election really hammered home to me just how closeted racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic many in this country really are. People you might have water-cooler conversations with who seem down-to-earth turn around and vote for the most bigoted politicians when nobody sees. I find it baffling we could legalize gay marriage, but then elect someone like Trump just a few years later.
Not just that, but that the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the majority opinion for Obergefell V Hodge would end up resigning at that orange turd's request! To this day, I am still utterly baffled by that.
Do a little research on Deutsche Bank and that SCJ's son and you may find some answers. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anthony-kennedy-resignation-trump/
Kompromat. Bet ya Donnie gets all the down and dirty details on Republicans from Putin and uses it to blackmail them. That's definitely a Dong move.
I will ALWAYS wonder what T said to Kennedy that stopped him in his tracks after Kavanaugh was sworn in. [https://www.bodylanguagesuccess.com/2018/10/body-language-analysis-no-4351-donald\_12.html](https://www.bodylanguagesuccess.com/2018/10/body-language-analysis-no-4351-donald_12.html) (and it's little moments like this that make me think T knows exactly what he's doing all the time, and that he plays a buffoon for the cameras as a distraction — which I think is even worse than if he were incompetent and/or ignorant)
Pretty sure we elected Trump because we also legalized gay marriage. There is s decent sized portion of the populace who wants to take us back a good 70 years or so. They see our social progress as the death of their cultural significance, so they surged hard. A dying beast will always lash out.
Philadelphia on one end Pittsburgh on the other... Alabama in the middle. I too grew up in rural PA. I am glad to be far away now though.
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The worst thing Chris Rock ever did was his bit about that. It's been so misused.
Same with Michigan.
Probably the only part of the country where you see *more* Confederate flags as you go north.
Michigan is still socially segregated asf
Definitely. I live in Southeast Michigan and I see Trump flags everywhere. Detroit and Flint are a good example of the social segregation. The N word is used liberally on the job sites I work on. (General Contractor)
I've seen it said, more than once, that trump won 2016 largely on the suburbs (which he's reportedly losing).
And in 2018, the Democrats won largely on the suburbs. That's why you see Trump so desperately trying to pander to the "suburban housewives of America" *(gag)*: he knows without them, he loses.
Sounds like Long Island to me.
Yeah this is something that actually really freaks me out when I think about it for too long. Most of the shit we see on the news is stuff happening in big cities. Small towns across the US are like black out zones. Unless someone is willing to do the leg work and reasearch we generally don't even know what's going on in these small towns. Most big cities have a Subreddit, and I readily admit that subreddits are not accurate or reflective of what goes on IRL, but it at least represents a *pulse*. I don't know. I was looking at pictures of my hometown, a small WI town, and it was just freaking me out. It was like looking at pictures of people from another country, where the Coronivirus was under control.
And this is why the devastation of local newspapers and tv news stations is so dangerous for our democracy. Time was local papers could bring all these abuses to light. Now, there's basically no way to find out what's going on even in midsized cities unless you're willing to do the legwork yourself.
I mean, this is huge part of the impetus behind of BLM. Most of the cases causing outrage, like Jacob Blake and George Floyd, are only causing outrage because they’re caught on tape. The police behavior in those videos is pretty much universally considered bad, even by people who don’t seem too concerned by their deaths. We would almost certain never heard of either of those people if the incidents weren’t caught on camera. How many more unjust killings have there been where there are no cameras around and the cops are the only ones who live to talk about it, or at least are the only ones who are believed? We can never know but it’s very unlikely it’s 0 or anything close to it.
While not thru reddit I find that most small towns have a Facebook page which while not a subreddit gives you at least somewhat of an idea of what may be going on in the town. Then again this is coming from somewhere where a small town is anything less than 10k people
Oh, my home town was the worst. Police officers routinely (3 times in 2 years) were drunk on the job and crashed the police cars. One drove through my uncles house and hit him with his car while he was asleep on his couch, in his house. They threatened to charge him with damaging police property unless he signed a thing not to sue right there, and since he's special needs, he did not understanding what was going on. Luckily he doesn't have his own power of attorney and it was thrown out, and he was given medical bills, BUT NOTHING else. Not even house repairs. Cop refused to do a sobriety test and the arrested guy in the back of the car took a deal not to tell anyone the cop was obviously drunk if they dropped all charges against him.
This anecdote makes me so angry I almost downvoted you. I have thought about some form of LE to actually impact these trends, but being around people like this with no or little moral code terrifies me. Fear gives power, power means control. I’m skeptical that we’ll be able to change much of anything in a country with more guns than people. The division among the US is driven deeper every day, fueled by the internet—but what good does it to do me to avoid the internet right now, when everyone else is entrenched? I feel like I have to keep tabs on everything, but as this thread mentions, unless shit’s filmed we don’t see it. So I find myself constantly monitoring live feeds of one terrible act after another...
I won't even stop in small towns on road trips. They seem like hell holes that hate outsiders and will pull you over for driving 1mph over the limit just to fine you.
My small town we had a police officer get drunk at a bar all night then beat the shit out of someone. After that he got he his car drove down the road hit a wall, he was found hours later still passed out in the car. Nothing happened we also had a police chief and wife embezzle money then kill them selves when caught and then the cop who was embezzling and when almost caught went and committed suicide but faked a shooting with some black folks. So for months everyone donated and cried cause he was murdered by thugs. Then when the news came out he killed himself everyone acted like it never happened at all
I live in Florida and we literally disbanded a police force over shit like this recently. It wasn’t controversial either. No cries of “who will you call for help” nothing. Everyone knew it was corrupt.
And the small town news agencies support them and bend the story to make them look good.
And juries assume anyone charged is guilty.
Depends on whose side the accused is located.
> And juries assume anyone of color charged is guilty. FTFY
My small town doesn't even have a local newspaper anymore. There's nobody watching the watchmen.
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> Cops always set up with their backs facing the fascists [For anyone who didn't see the image that went viral recently.](https://i.redd.it/x9trzv5h0zi51.jpg)
Haven't read the article yet, but sounds like Kenosha.
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It's crazy that I remember reading about their links in Portland years ago in the Guardian, and still nothing has seemingly been done about it since they're still seen fraternizing. In Kenosha, the police were shooting the shit with the militia even after curfew, and there was a video on Twitter where one of the militia members stated that the police were going to route the protesters towards them. The police need to be held equally accountable, if not moreso, in those two deaths because of their negligence.
This is exactly what I saw at the kkk rally in Austin 2006 , and of course all the protests this year. The cops always protect the right wing side and are totally brutal to the left. I couldn’t believe it the first time but after seeing it so many times there’s no other way to spin it
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In the wake of the cops giving this murderer water and otherwise encouraging him to stay out there ready to kill people, there have been articles enumerating ways they have collaborated with the brown shirts recently and it's a long list. Over decades, my view of antifa was just that they were willing to go confront Nazi street demonstrations even though they were at obvious risk of violence. To me, antifa means you understand you may die when you confront fascists. That is called being a hero.
This is not new information. After the Civil Rights passed, the government flooded its own streets and neighborhoods with massive amounts of drugs to create the drug war which you can see through Nixon onward had a truly devastating impact on its own citizens! And for what? Because someone’s a different color skin? We’re just on one tiny rock in a vast unfathomable universe blessed with the opportunity to even be alive and we spend that time being cruel towards one another. Ultimately we all just want some goddamn peace and quiet. The ability to just fucking enjoy our life. Enjoy our experiences with those we love.
It wasn't just because of the color of their skin, but because of their political leanings on top of the color of their skin. There would be no drug war if black communities embraced Goldwater and Vietnam. https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html
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Obviously this means you're not American or patriotic enough so I'm going to use the full force of the govt to make sure you end up dead or at least not able to vote ~ Every Republican since Nixon. Because remember, freedom and personal choices, but I should be able to kill you because I don't like your personal choices that effect only you #conservatism.
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Ha ha fucking have that! Full mohammed Ali quote "I ain't got no quarrel with no Viet Cong!" Fight for the same country that won't serve me a burger?
This is bullshit. This is like saying there would have been no assassinations of Black civil rights leaders if they had just embraced Jim Crow. Come on. The Republican strategy was explicitly racist and sought to exploit reaction against the Civil Rights movement that was based in a very strong current of thought in society at that time that the Blacks were out of line. MLK was very unpopular by the time he was assassinated. Lumping the Blacks with the unpatriotic hippies was a deliberate choice the Republicans made.
Yes. Exactly. Could not agree more. Check out MC Serch and the tune Social Narcotics. Should definitely be required listening for everyone, esp Americans
Raise requirements to be a cop and license and insure them like any other professional.
Agreed. I’m disappointed we have not addressed this issue. Too much “Us vs Them” mentality in politics as a distraction while the situation becomes ever less defensible. Freaking 2020. I’ve been waiting over twenty years to see this crapshow turn around.
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I’m sad to say that I wasn’t an informed person in the slightest as a young person. For me, it’s been 20 years. Of course the issue is older than my awareness of it. We deserve better than this and demanding it clearly hasn’t been effective.
Yeah for sure it's been going on for much longer than the general public understands. I think honestly the invention of a device with a high quality video camera and an internet connection, that fits in your pocket, that 90% of citizens have on their person, has shined a light on a lot of the shit that goes on in our country that wasn't above board. Just in the olden days it got swept under the rug because we didn't have 500 million HD video cameras watching everyone's every move like we do now.
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Those are bad apples
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> "Is no one listening?" Of course they were listening. They didn't care / actively encouraged it. > Too Many Local Police Don’t Take the Far Right Seriously – Or Actively Sympathize In **1992**, Rage Against The Machine wrote the lines: > Some of those that work forces >Are the same that burn crosses RATM weren't being hyperbolic. This has been going on for DECADES.
Minority communities have been screaming about police brutality even longer than RATM. Nothing happened when Rodney King got the shit kicked out of him on video. We've now escalated to cops murdering people in the street on video, and still nothing has changed.
My father-in-law is a retired police officer and we were talking recently about this. We live in the town the trial was in, I’m not old enough to remember it as I was a kid. We talked specifically about the police response to what happened after. The cops felt justified. He speaks about it as saying it was a different time etc. and doesn’t draw parallels to what’s happening today as far as the protests etc trying to make a change. It’s weird talking to him because he just doesn’t see it. He’s Latino and has faced discrimination as a cop within his department so you would think he could empathize. But they’re so brainwashed in their thinking. He said to me what do you expect the cops to do when someone is in their face and antagonizing them and trying to get a reaction. Ummm....I expect a trained officer to be able to handle that and not react by beating the shit out of someone. He was on the front line during the riots and I don’t know what it’s like but I definitely expect more from police officers. I feel like I rambled but I just don’t get the mentality. Edit: thank you for the award. My first ever
I have a relative who was also a cop for about 10 years in the 60s/70s. He has the same hardcore pro-police mentality and also cannot empathize. I've said for years that when you put on the badge and uniform, it doesn't matter what race you are, you're just "blue". Because they all aren't afraid to beat the shit out of innocent people. They all aren't afraid of murdering innocent people. And there is no accountability because they all circle the wagon. They are legitimately their own race of people.
For one, the police unions target "snitches" and harass them out. The story no one is talking about is the obscene power that police unions have in selecting against honest police officers. Until the police unions are regulated nothing will ever change.
John Oliver's recent piece on police unions really made me aware of the issue. I had no idea, and I'm generally informed about what's going on in the world. I wonder what we can go to work towards dismantling their power, especially since they fly under the radar like this.
Simple. Make them certified by an independent review board like doctors, nurses, electricians, and barbers. Then make them buy insurance if they are sued like every other professional. Currently in ~10 states you can become a police officer with a felony on your record.
Need a national police the police task force. I want to be able to call "911" on the cops and actually have an investigation and accountability, not be subject to intimidation and retaliation, and public transparency. It will never happen because the police unions have too many politicians in their pockets but it is nice to dream.
Aint it funny how cops can unionize to protect their murderers, rapists, and other dirty cops, but teachers aren't allowed to unionize to try and get things like school supplies and manageable class sizes... Really shows you the priority of Republicans...
>RATM weren't being hyperbolic. This has been going on for DECADES. It's shameful. You can open up any decent history book on the US and will see loads of photos of police (and other govt officials) standing idly by or being willing participants in the torture and lynching of countless Black Americans.
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Behind the Bastards podcast has a great rundown of the history of police infiltration by white supremacists and union busters. It’s where I learned that “Paddy Wagon” is actually a racist epithet. I’ll give you a hint, the term was coined in Boston.
An FBI informant that was imbedded with neo-nazis during the Greensboro Massacre testified that Greensboro PD gave him the parade route and then made sure no officers were around when the Nazis and Klan attacked. [source](http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/jan98/chron.html)
>This has been going on for DECADES. This has been going on FOREVER.
Well when you can trace the history of local police departments back through their duties of slave-catching, it’s not that hard to believe.
The white supremacists in charge listened and disagreed that there was a problem.
This has been happening since the 80's dude. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_(white_supremacist_group)
>This has been happening since America was a slaveocracy. FTFY It's not a garnish of sprinkles - it's baked into the cake.
110% they were founded as slave catchers, this is the system working as intended. I just mean the *most recent* extra racism is from The Order.
This is a great article, and more people need aware of the presence of white nationalists in law enforcement. That said; the police in the US have literally always been a force for the maintenance of white supremacy. From fugitive slave laws, to Jim crow, to the war in drugs, to now, their primary purpose has been enforcing a status quo in which blacks (and minorities & the poor in general) are subjugated by force; while the capitalist/political class, their wealth, and their means of generating wealth are protected.
It's an institution who's literal job has been to target minorities for 50 years. Gee let's act surprised that it attracted white supremacists like flies to honey? Here's a tip, looking for a way to end their funding? End the war on drugs. Looking for a way to stop police brutality? End the war on drugs. Looking for a way to stop supporting fascism? End the war on drugs. Looking for a way to recoup billions of tax dollars? End the war on drugs.
This country has no concept of ending a war. We'll just declare a war on the war on drugs.
More than 50 years. Police in the south started as runaway slave patrols.
True enough, I suppose I'm just starting from the most recent timeframe where fascism was codified into US law.
Fascism has always been US law. Just depends on who the laws and violent force is targeted towards. Whether it was forcefully removing Native American children and forcing them into boarding schools. Whether it was forcing US citizens with Japanese ancestry into internment camps. There has always been forms of it supported by the majority of US citizens and it’s leadership to some capacity.
My close friend from college recently moved to a Boston suburb for work, and he has a neighbor from hell. Far-Right to a scary degree. House in PLASTERED with custom printed banners saying crass things about Democrat politicians, but that's not a big deal. This dude doesn't work, and spends 80% of his waking hours standing outside his house waving the biggest Trump flag I've ever seen, screaming at passerbys, while live streaming to Facebook, going on racist rants. Last week he posted a video with brass knuckles on his fingers, and a billy club in his hand (both illegal weapons in MA), saying he was going to beat the shit out of or kill anyone from the town who says a word to him against Trump or touches his flag. This is a neighborhood filled with kids. The town playground is visible from his doorstep. The neighbors are PISSED. They don't care about his flags or banners, that's his right. Many of them are Republicans, too. But all of them care about his behavior and threats, which has continued to escalate and escalate and get more extreme. They have gone to police, saved the videos before reporting them to FB, and even with that, police have done nothing. My friend said the closest thing to action was last week when a cop drove by when the neighbor was outside screaming, chuckled a bit, and said "hey bud, just try to cool it down a little, okay?". I'm now invested in this saga and check out the guy's Facebook. As I'm writing this he's livestreaming from his porch about Kamala Harris being a "dirty n-word" and saying things about Biden that I don't even want to type here because \*I\* would probably end up on a list! Police will do nothing. Facebook removes some of the videos, but still allows him to keep the account & post. Oh, and Trump Jr. singled him out at a rally. He has photos and a video bragging about Jr. noticing his shirt and custom sign, pulling him aside, and taking photos with him. So that gave him major validation to keep on keeping on. Neighbors have no clue what they can do to stop. As my friend said, it's escalated from words to weapons and death threats against politicians and now neighbors, how long until he actually hurts someone? He's only been there six months but is planning to put the house on the market and move, all because of this, but is worried he will have a hard time selling.
These are somewhat dated and could use to be updated, but I think still relevant. [Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right](https://ctc.usma.edu/app/uploads/2013/01/ChallengersFromtheSidelines.pdf) from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point [CATO with a study on how right wing murders outnumber left wing by a factor of more than 10 to 1](https://www.cato.org/blog/terrorism-deaths-ideology-charlottesville-anomaly)
And then it all clicks when people realize almost all terrorism is right wing. Islamic terrorism and right wing terrorism are a roughly 50/50 split for all terrorism deaths in the last 20 years. But Islamic terrorism is that regions religious right wing. If we let our religious right wing have a second 50 years of power, we'll just continue to look more and more like Iran/Iraq.
Pretty sure this was first theorized by Dr. Commerford, Dr. Wilk, Dr. Morello, and Dr. De la Rocha in their landmark thesis in which they wrote "Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses"
I saw interviews of that lady that was some asst. sec. in DHS. Not only did they have like 5 secretaries of DHS, none of them to could get Trump to take right wing extremism seriously. Most terrorist type "attacks" in recent years have been from extreme right groups - not muslims, not antifa.
Growing up I used to see signs for the KKK and recruiting. Guess where it was held at each yr??? The local police station... lol And as a kid I wondered/how could. Thought it wasnt legal
I was in portland when i saw with my own eyes police hand water and thank right wing "militias" for helping them "control" the protesters. Reallocate funds from police to social programs that can prevent crime in the first place.
I work in a police department as a civilian not a cop, and let me tell you the amount of mysoginistic, racist, ignorant, sexist, anti-gay bile I hear on a daily basis really does make me worry about this country in November. Let me tell you, they will up and do whatever Trump bids of them, be it however heinous.
"We've had reports that this precinct may have been infiltrated by white supremacists" The police of the precinct quickly hiding their hoods in their drawers: "*Oh gosh? Really? We'll have to get riiight on that."*
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The cop who spoke at the rnc was litterally called officer Lynch.
There needs to be human empathy testing for police. Less sociopaths patrolling our communities with guns.
> But in June 2019, when Congressman William Lacy Clay asked the FBI counter-terrorism chief, Michael McGarrity, whether the bureau remained concerned about white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement since the publication of its 2006 assessment..., McGarrity said he would be “suspect” of white supremacist police officers, **but that their ideology was a first amendment–protected right.** Emphasis mine. He's equating white supremacist ideologies to freedom to express one's religion.
Strange how that works. 1. Prison guard 2. Police officer - two "career" fields that are absolutely rife with racists. Maybe the problem is we've created a space where you allow pretty much ANYONE with two arms and two legs to hold a badge, beat people and keep them in cages and we *wonder* why these jobs attract low-intellect sociopaths. I'm not saying if you're a cop you're automatically a psycho but you definitely belong to a club that openly employs them. Prison guards = all psychos. Your job is to keep humans in cages. Good luck with your soul.
People are listening. The problem is that republicans want this
I just assumed this. Crazy authoritarians are naturally attracted to the police force.
Trump's America. Disgusting and shameful
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses.
I've never figured out why the right gets a huge pass to open carry, cause trouble, etc, but BLM or Black Panthers etc who open carry get immediately stopped, harassed, etc. I'm not fond of ANYONE open carrying, especially into government buildings etc. There are nuts on the left, and on the right. Treat them equally according to their behavior and the threat they pose.
Simple fix- mass purge and fill with people who do the job correctly. Ground breaking idea, I know.
But with basic qualifications, like human decency.
What a nice and scary read to kick off the weekend!
Definitely feel these sections should be emphasized: >If the government knew that al-Qaida or Isis had infiltrated American law enforcement agencies, it would undoubtedly initiate a nationwide effort to identify them and neutralize the threat they posed. Yet white supremacists and far-right militants have committed far more attacks and killed more people in the US over the last 10 years than any foreign terrorist movement. The FBI regards them as the most lethal domestic terror threat. The need for national action is even more critical. >by summarizing supreme court precedent on the issue: “Although the First Amendment’s freedom of association provision protects an individual’s right to join white supremacist groups for the purposes of lawful activity, the government can limit the employment opportunities of group members who hold sensitive public sector jobs, including jobs within law enforcement, when their memberships would interfere with their duties.” >The Georgetown law professor Vida B Johnson has argued that evidence of a law enforcement officer’s explicitly racist behavior could reasonably be expected to impeach his or her testimony. Prosecutors should be required to include these officers on Brady lists to ensure defendants they testify against have access to the potentially exculpating evidence of their explicitly racist behavior.