This was written by my friend, Jeff , it is too good not to share with all of you. A word or two about cops - Ive been a pretty outspoken opponent of police militarization, the security/surveillance state, abuse of police power, and a penal system that has industrialized incarceration. In so doing, I may have given the impression that I am down on cops themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, its entirely possible that I owe my life to a cop. As a kid I hitch-hiked all over the western half of the country. I got myself stranded in Watts, in Minden and in Hawthorn Nevada. In each case I was in real danger. In each case it was a kindly cop who took me to a safer place, who kept an eye on me and, in one case took me to a restaurant where a very nice woman fed me all the mashed potatoes and gravy I could eat, and charged me nothing. I also got hassled and harassed, and have been treated far more roughly than the situation merited, by cops who were clearly enjoying themselves. Cops have power, license to wield it, and a degree of immunity when they abuse it. They are draped in the instruments of violence and are exposed constantly to things that would tempt anyone to use them. They see much of what is worst in humanity and are too often damaged by it in ways that erode their judgement and restraint. Theres an even darker side. Kurt Vonnegut, once said something like: Any society has a ready supply of young men anxious to experiment with homicide, so long as no very harsh penalty is attached. Vonneguts young men will always be attracted to professions permissive of violence and domination. We will inevitably find them in the ranks of those vested with the symbols and instruments of authority. I fear those men the way sheep would fear wolves among the sheepdogs who protect them. Indeed more so - for while the wolf seeks only to eat, there is sadism in the soul of Vonneguts young man. Cops have power that expands the range of their essential selves. The good ones are a a good deal better than most of us. The bad ones can be much, much worse. Then theres the matter of a cops mission: The role he plays in society and the structure of the organization of which he is part. We all saw the the disastrous results of mission creep and unintended consequences when we directed force outward during the Iraq war. We have simultaneously been directing force inward. Our laws have been rewritten or reinterpreted, our enforcers have been empowered and equipped in unprecedented ways, and we have redefined the mission, the means, and the very institutions that determine their operations. We do not yet appreciate the unintended consequences of this and, thanks to people like Edward Snowden, are only beginning to understand the degree to which the mission has crept. This is happening at every level of law enforcement, from the small town with its SWAT team and MRAP, to the massive, quasi-military occupation of an American city we saw in response to the Boston marathon bombing... from traffic cams to PRISM... and its happening FAST. So when, against this background, I see reports of abuses to immigrants and US citizens at our borders, of beat-downs during arrests, of the killing of unarmed suspects, of attacks on the press and citizens engaged in lawful filming, of LRADs, MRAPs, rubber bullets, flash-bangs, body armor and machine guns, of police and government drones... when I think about what police work is becoming, I fear not just for myself and my country, but for the good people who became cops out of a sincere desire to protect and serve. How shameful it will be if the land of the free allows mission creep and unintended consequences to create a police state, empowering bullies and sadists while making a mockery of the good will and noble intentions of those who sought only to do good - those who took a hitch-hiking kid to a safer on-ramp.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 15:52:38 +0000
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