- Those whispers of Ego, those post-apocalyptic fantasies of a 14-year-old boy, have never left me.
I’m 56 years old, and I still fantasize about how I could take out a motorcycle gang assaulting the farm. I’ve figured out where to set up the enfilade line of fire, where to plant the IED and how big it would need to be to take out a half-track armored vehicle. I’ve spent many a pleasant hour figuring out how to construct a laser-guided RPG for when, you know, the cannibal, faux-religious, statist army-remaindered horde sends their helicopter out in support of the (now dead) motorcycle advance troops and half-track APC.
If I were a betting man – and I am – I would place a large wager that every first-world post-pubescent reader of this note similarly burdened with a y-chromosome harbors similar fantasies. Not just Harry Potter/Disney/comic book oh-I’m-a-special-orphan-destined-to-lead-a-grand-struggle fantasies, but “real” post-apocalyptic how-do-I-kill-the-motorcycle-gang fantasies.
...The purpose of a well-armed militia being freely established...
Yes, lets do that. Some people think defunding the police means abolishing the police but the leaders I find interesting are a lot more nuanced than that. Every day they become a little bit less nuanced, every day I become a little less nuanced. Last night a protester dropped an inflatable sausage on the ground. The cops told her to pick it up, she kept walking. The cops walked up to her, put the sausage in her hands, slapped it out of her hands and arrested her for littering. The cops then copped a feel on her. The girl was seventeen. I don't know why that one bugs me so much, I guess because it's a child being sexually assaulted by the police. The other night I watched both sides face off. Someone threw a water bottle. The cops started shooing the whole crowd with pepper rounds. A protester asked why they were getting shot. The cop pointed at the lady who threw a water bottle and said "She threw a water bottle at us." The protester said "than arrest her! but stop shooting us." The cop fired off a few more rounds into the crowd, big shrug. Every night the cops are doing some combination of the following: gassing people, hitting people, arresting people, destroying food that is for homeless and protesters, destroying medical supplies and coordinating with dangerous right wing militia type groups. They are doing this to minors, religious leaders, disabled people and elderly people. Gassing, destroying food and medical supplies are considered war crimes on the international stage. National media talks about the violent protesters... Local media is mixed and it depends on who pays the bills. Ted Wheeler abets the purposeful violation and of our citizens constitutional rights and violence from the police and violent right wing groups. The guy shouldn't be mayor and as head of the police force he should have to face some kind of criminal or civil penalty for violation of constitutional rights. Makes me so mad. This part is just a bit fanciful and silly but fuckin a literary!Portland mayor Ted Wheeler, who refuses to defund the police in the way that Portland protesters mean the word (i.e. abolish), should resign. AND he should run in the special election called to replace him.
AND the Portland protesters should put up their own candidate who will, in fact, defund the police to oblivion. Then vote. Let’s do this next week. Let’s see who the people of Portland put into office. Either the dog catches the car or the car runs over the dog. Either way, the story arc of this particular protest narrative ends there.
Because it's a cruel cartoon of police brutality written by an unimaginative melodramatist in order to outrage a willing audience with purple prose. The fact that actual police are gleefully assuming that mantle demonstrates a gutting lack of empathy. The most consequential development I've seen was an antifa medic kicked away by police so that a protester could bleed out and die. So that police medics could wait 20 minutes for help to come. So that the protester could be revealed to be an ardent member of Patriot Prayer. Which is not the outcome all those cops were planning on, guaranteed, and there it is on video at least three ways. Somewhere on here there's an article about policing Los Angeles by helicopter. The article makes the point that Los Angeles has the fewest cops per capita than anywhere else in the US while also having the largest area so of course they have an air force. They also have an extremely active SWAT culture and a notorious history of racism and violence. If you sort this list per capita you see something interesting: there are 100 countries with more cops per capita than the United States. And yet. Gear you get to amortize for tax purposes. Employees you have to pay a pension. Much has been made over how little training we require of our cops; I wonder at the social effects of adding Cop Corps to Americorps and Peace Corps such that your gap year is spent as a public resource officer in the United States instead of as a tourist with a Eurail pass. And I wonder what would happen if we spent our money on people instead of riot control vehicles.I don't know why that one bugs me so much, I guess because it's a child being sexually assaulted by the police.
I'm reading Content with my Wages by Gregory Murry atm. His time in Vietnam overlapped my father's time in the A-1-16 Infantry, and he was in one of the same battles. The police you describe remind me of American soldiers in Vietnam atm. No clear mission, poor leadership that disregards the facts on the ground, poor training, and a population that is afraid and resentful. It's a recipe for disaster. It seems that Detroit has better police force leadership atm. I harbor absolutely no cathartic anticipation of burning it down. After years of hardship and violence and rape, we'll have nothing gained. I don't expect the arc of history to pull us to the promise land. I expect things to go as they normally do, especially with more guns than people. 10% of the population that is determined to be counter-productive will prevent any organization but authoritarian terror.
I think many places will pass comprehensive police reform in the next few years. I think it will show that firing the worst, most violent officers decreases use of force drastically. I think we'll find that having an unarmed non uniformed first responder that specializes in mental health crisis response reduces use of force and realized better outcomes for everyone. Reducing the use of swat teams for warent service and taking away some of the extreme weaponry might make a difference. Police probably don't need to use tear gas. I think think the future of law enforcement in the U.S. look sunny, it's just going to take a bunch of busted heads and gassed kids to get there.
They run this country. They always have, and always will because they keep it just bad enough that the rest of us tire and give up, give in, and stop being Good. 10% of the population that is determined to be counter-productive will prevent any organization but authoritarian terror.
That's not the 10% I am talking about. The 10% in power you reference is actually maintaining a pretty good thing on a global comparison, although we've declined significantly in terms of taking care of the working and middle class in the last 20 years. But there is a peaceful path for improving upon it. Like AOC, the people that need it fixed can even join it. IMO if we had as many people seek to be an AOC as have given up hope, we would have a much better thing in a short amount of time. The 10% I am referencing is any faction that isn't aligned with the new order after we've pulled the old one apart. It's even easier to join, and the only thing that will prevent a constant churn of a new destructive 10% will be authoritarian terror.
All the stuff about destroying political parties and what not is speculative but exciting. Things aren't working the pressure is intense. I don't know if it's going to make us all cling a little harder to the comfort of what we know or force us to make a change. Either path is daunting. Comprehensive police reform shouldn't be a hard decision for urban politicians to support but it doesn't seem like anyone is really going for it. I feel like I see more movement from progressive DA's than I do from any other political grouping.
You think he’s right and we will have chaos in November? Part of me wonders what sort of chaos would be unleashed for a trump second term. I honestly think the liberals are significantly more prepared to riot than conservatives, they are younger have more women and get laid more while rioting. Seattle and Portland protested for months during the first term and now they have had 4 years of practice
I just started Yuval Hariri's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. He makes the point that panic is much easier than bewilderment and much more comfortable because you know what's going to happen: the worst. Bewilderment, on the other hand, is uncertainty. Personally? I think Donald Trump is motivated by vanity and lethargy. I think he will do the easiest thing in the moment that will earn him the most praise from those around him. It's the game theory of everyone else around that makes the matter complex.
Is this not restating the old-as-humanity trope of "these kids today"? Shit is bad. It is worse than it ever has been before. But that is ALWAYS the case. Nothing ever improves, materially. It all gets worse. And every generation bemoans the fact that shit is worse than when they were a kid. I know, it sounds like I'm being flip. Like I don't fully appreciate the moment or the gravity of the situation. The thing is, I have seen bad situations only get worse throughout my entire life. The crash and hangover from radical freedom and hippie culture, into the 1970's worship of plastic, and materialism, and disco. The absolutely catastrophic explosion of the legal profession - and, totally coincidentally, cocaine - in the 1980's, that led to tort law and slip-and-fall and the methodical picking at the seams of the legal code by freshly minted lawyers with no moral code or experience, that has led directly to our overly litigious society of today. Ronald Reagan defunding and closing mental health care across the nation, and the explosion of psychotic homelessness as a direct result. George Bush, ex-head of the CIA as President. Then his moron kid. Fucking twice! The great liberal savior Obama being completely cuckolded and his every effort stifled by a Republican Senate with no goal or policy other than obstruction. Obama's ramping up of our overseas war follies to unprecedented levels, even under Republican war-mongers, and his total dereliction of duty toward immigrants; a people that this country is founded upon. Nothing gets "better". Ever. There are minor wins here and there, but they are offset by the absolute avalanche of destruction and moral turpitude of the Rugged American Individual... who cashes their government check every week while on disability funded by Medicaid and bemoans the demon spectre of socialism. Women get the right to vote. But the ERA fails to pass. For DECADES, thereby reinforcing the unspoken agreement that a woman is 3/4 of a Real American Man. Is shit bad? Yes. But it always is. And it doesn't get better. Ever. The bird asked the fish, "How's the water?" And the fish replied, "What's water?" We complain that the current rainstorm is making the surface choppy ... while living in the unfathomable deep.
But chaos is fun only when you are young and know it all. When you are married and have a mortgage and kids, donning the black and going out and rioting every night just isn't in the cards. It is neither fun nor productive. So isn't the author really just indirectly using the "these kids today" trope? Can't we restate his whole article as, "For these kids to affect real change, they need to stop burning stuff up, and start going to City Council meetings. Here's a recipe for how to make them do that..." Which is just, "hey kids, grow up. This isn't how Things Get Done." Or is there more nuance I am missing here...?