Ferguson

[JonCole]

A friend from the UK was asking on Twitter why police are armed in the US and really the only answer I could give is that if they didn't have guns, they'd be in trouble because practically any criminal could have a gun. Some dude subtweeted at that point saying that not that many civilians have guns and it's hard to get a license to carry. I don't know my gun laws by heart but I know it's pretty damn easy to get a gun here in Florida, so I looked it up. You basically have to be over 18, pass a background check, not have a recorded medical illness, have enough money to afford a gun, fill out a form, and wait three days to have a gun. And it's just that easy to legitimately get a gun, let alone the plethora of other ways that are sure to be easier like gun shows and just straight up person-to-person untrackable transactions.

 

No wonder police feel like they need to be so well armed. Doesn't make it right, but the insanely weak gun laws in this country make it partly necessary (though clearly not to this extreme).

[JonCole]

Apparently CNN thought Ron Johnson was a gang member because he was throwing up "gang signs", which is a reason some people were stating he should be pulled off the Ferguson security post -

 

 

Washington Post did a lot of intense investigative journalism to find out that it's just a sign that people of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity flash each other.

 

Lol.

[feelthedarkness]

A friend from the UK was asking on Twitter why police are armed in the US and really the only answer I could give is that if they didn't have guns, they'd be in trouble because practically any criminal could have a gun. Some dude subtweeted at that point saying that not that many civilians have guns and it's hard to get a license to carry. I don't know my gun laws by heart but I know it's pretty damn easy to get a gun here in Florida, so I looked it up. You basically have to be over 18, pass a background check, not have a recorded medical illness, have enough money to afford a gun, fill out a form, and wait three days to have a gun. And it's just that easy to legitimately get a gun, let alone the plethora of other ways that are sure to be easier like gun shows and just straight up person-to-person untrackable transactions.

 

It's a simple enough google, but 40% of american households have a gun. I feel like that even skews low for unreported gun ownership, or stuff bought at gun shows, which aren't as stringent about paperwork.

 

Which is to say, I understand cops need to be armed, but more importantly, they need to be members of the community in which they operate, not act like an occupying army, and get some understand of a racist power structure. 

[MrHoatzin]

"A former LAPD officer turned sociologist observed that the overwhelming majority of those beaten by police turn out not to be guilty of any crime. “Cops don’t beat up burglars”, he observed. The reason, he explained, is simple: the one thing most guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to “define the situation.”…The police truncheon is precisely the point where the state’s bureaucratic imperative for imposing simple administrative schema, and its monopoly of coercive force, come together. It only makes sense then that bureaucratic violence should consist first and foremost of attacks on those who insist on alternative schemas or interpretations. At the same time, if one accepts Piaget’s famous definition of mature intelligence as the ability to coordinate between multiple perspectives (or possible perspectives) one can see, here, precisely how bureaucratic power, at the moment it turns to violence, becomes literally a form of infantile stupidity."

—David Graeber, 'Beyond Power/Knowledge, an exploration of the relation of power, ignorance and stupidity' (2006)
 
I am a bit of a Graeber groupie... a graeoupie... ¬¬

[Nachimir]

Huh! That dovetails well with all of the people talking last week about the police regarding their deadly equipment as toys, which led me to think if they are going to use tear gas, MRAPs, grenade launchers, handcuffs, etc. as action man toys, they need to be put under more supervision than the average toddler.

 

Working through my own anger, I have felt incredible hostility and malice to Ferguson Police this past week just by seeing the ways they're acting. I realise militarisation can't be fought by installing or instigating an alternate monopoly on violence though. It can be fought with cameras and witnesses.

[Dewar]

A friend from the UK was asking on Twitter why police are armed in the US and really the only answer I could give is that if they didn't have guns, they'd be in trouble because practically any criminal could have a gun. Some dude subtweeted at that point saying that not that many civilians have guns and it's hard to get a license to carry. I don't know my gun laws by heart but I know it's pretty damn easy to get a gun here in Florida, so I looked it up. You basically have to be over 18, pass a background check, not have a recorded medical illness, have enough money to afford a gun, fill out a form, and wait three days to have a gun. And it's just that easy to legitimately get a gun, let alone the plethora of other ways that are sure to be easier like gun shows and just straight up person-to-person untrackable transactions.

 

No wonder police feel like they need to be so well armed. Doesn't make it right, but the insanely weak gun laws in this country make it partly necessary (though clearly not to this extreme).

 

Keep in mind that's rules for a handgun. I could walk into Walmart right now and buy a hunting rifle or a shotgun.

[Bjorn]

...and get some understand of a racist power structure. 

 

This is a huge part of it, but there's an entire narrative structure that is supported by many leaders that racism doesn't exist.  Or if it does, it's people like the KKK.  But there's not systemic racism, and you can't act in a racist way if you're not a slur spewing racist.  So you can't even try to talk about it without significant pushback.  And if a cop or police force don't want to listen, they have powerful political and cultural allies who will reinforce their existing beliefs. 

[tegan]

All of this makes me wonder how people would have reacted to the guy who went around my city killing cops a few months back if it had been after this instead of before it.

[Henroid]

Apparently CNN thought Ron Johnson was a gang member because he was throwing up "gang signs", which is a reason some people were stating he should be pulled off the Ferguson security post -

 

 

Washington Post did a lot of intense investigative journalism to find out that it's just a sign that people of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity flash each other.

 

Lol.

Reminds me of when Obama fist-bumping his wife was called a "terrorist fist jab" without irony.

[Bjorn]

So the reporter who the cop threated to "fucking kill" on video turned out to work for Infowars, a conspiracy theorist site.  You can't make that shit up.  Or you could, if you were a conspiracy theorist.  But then it actually happened, so it wasn't made up.  And, OMG IT'S ALL REAL, JFK WAS AN ALIEN.

[feelthedarkness]

Reminds me of when Obama fist-bumping his wife was called a "terrorist fist jab" without irony.

 

The story behind this is sort of weird. "terrorist fist jab" is like comically offensive, but it wasn't originally said by any right wing media pundit. So, in the hours after the fist bump that shook the world, the right wing media machine was baffled by it. On some dopey right wing blog a commentator said "Hezbollah fist jab", and the reader comment was eventually removed. But not before a Slate blogger cited it in a story about how the fist bump confused the right wing media world, and linked to the article where the comment was made, but it wasn't expressly stated that the column's author didn't say it. Then that night, Fox News had a panel about what it all meant, and the host (E.D. Hill) said  "A fist bump? A pound? [or] A terrorist fist jab?," but never explained where it came from. She lost her show over that.

 

Now, the right constantly traffics in racist innuendo, and Fox has often suggested that the American born president is actually a Kenyan terrorist, and an arguement could be made that E.D. Hill was doing that, but in this ONE case it wasn't an original thought. 

[MrHoatzin]

Infowars is a weird baby of Alex Jones, an Austin legend/fixture who often once in a blue moon has cogent geopolitical commentary which he thoroughly undermines at the last moment by blaming lizard people for everything. You can find the mag next to other free publications in restaurants around town. It has really weird ads for gizmos and commodities that are supposed to help you survive in the mad Max apocalypse...

[Bjorn]

After the Infowars factoid, I thought we could at least enjoy a moment of levity for a break from all the other grim news and reality of what's happening.  But then the local StL alt-weekly broke a story that one of the Twitter accounts spreading false information and inflammatory posts was actually being run by a cop who has been on the ground working in Ferguson.  Besides lying, he justified police force as saying that Ferguson was like a "war zone", and so the police action was appropriate.  He also mocked protestors, undermined the authority of the officer in command and said he'd like to punch the Attorney General in the face.

 

Edited to add: Also, Hercules is a racist asshole.

[Henroid]

Speaking of the Attorney General,

 

[Gwardinen]

Edited to add: Also, Hercules is a racist asshole.

 

Dammit, I hate it when actors whose performances I enjoyed turn out to be pricks. It makes me feel somehow guilty for liking them, even if it was just a persona they were donning. I felt the same way when I watched an interview in which Jeremy Irons argues against gay marriage (comparing it to bestiality and incest in ways that would be hilarious if only they weren't so creepy) - I can't fully enjoy Scar anymore, despite loving the Lion King.

[Bjorn]

To muddy the waters on Holder, some people have accused him of being asleep at the wheel when he was the US Attorney overseeing Washington DC and police shootings reached an all time high, and that he spent more time padding his political resume than he did enforcing the law. 

 

That's the only piece I've seen on his record, but it wouldn't surprise me that any analysis of US Attorneys (particularly those who have overseen DC) would find that they heavily favor law enforcement and make decisions to further their careers, so he may not be a statistical anomaly when compared to his peers.  It might actually be one of those cases of scrutinizing a black professional more harshly than his white contemporaries.

[Henroid]

For a second there, I thought, "Dwayne Johnson?!

[JonCole]

If you want to see the mind behind Infowars, Google Alex Jones's Piers Morgan interview in which he absolutely loses it.

[James]

Yeah, that guy's a maniac, and sometimes pretty racist.

[Bjorn]

Missouri newspaper editor insists that there was no racist intent in the spoilered image, because we all know that intent is magic.

 

 

[MrHoatzin]

Yeah, upon further reflection i feel like revisiting my "often" and replacing with "once in a blue moon"...

[Gormongous]

Missouri newspaper editor insists that there was no racist intent in the spoilered image, because we all know that intent is magic.

 

 

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I love the phrase "intent is magic" for how well it captures people's belief in the power of their own perceptions, and I hate that it's gradually getting unpopular for the "fuck you" undertone that many people find in it.

[Merus]

"A former LAPD officer turned sociologist observed that the overwhelming majority of those beaten by police turn out not to be guilty of any crime. “Cops don’t beat up burglars”, he observed. The reason, he explained, is simple: the one thing most guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to “define the situation.”…The police truncheon is precisely the point where the state’s bureaucratic imperative for imposing simple administrative schema, and its monopoly of coercive force, come together. It only makes sense then that bureaucratic violence should consist first and foremost of attacks on those who insist on alternative schemas or interpretations. At the same time, if one accepts Piaget’s famous definition of mature intelligence as the ability to coordinate between multiple perspectives (or possible perspectives) one can see, here, precisely how bureaucratic power, at the moment it turns to violence, becomes literally a form of infantile stupidity."

—David Graeber, 'Beyond Power/Knowledge, an exploration of the relation of power, ignorance and stupidity' (2006)

 

I am a bit of a Graeber groupie... a graeoupie... ¬¬

 

I might bring this up with one of the police officers I know to see how the Australian police handle it. Police brutality isn't as prevalent/visible here; I'd be curious to see if that's due to specific training or what.

[Bjorn]

I love the phrase "intent is magic" for how well it captures people's belief in the power of their own perceptions, and I hate that it's gradually getting unpopular for the "fuck you" undertone that many people find in it.

 

I try to withhold it for things so egregious that I would hope most reasonable people would have seen the racism/sexism/whatever inherent to what I am referring, just so I don't water down the usage of it for myself.  This is amusing, if you want to see someone take the phrase way to seriously, and a bunch of commenters do the same.  I googled "intent is magic" just to see how common it was, and it was one of the first things that popped up.

 

The defense, in this case, is farcical to me because editorial cartoons have a long history of problems with race.  The traditional style relies on heavy exaggeration to drive home unsubtle commentary.  Guess what else relies on heavy exaggeration to drive home unsubtle points?  All the racist, sexist, homophobic and every-other-type-of-shitty-stereotype people have used to dehumanize other humans.  You don't make it out of journalism school without knowing about this shit.  Or if you didn't go to j-school, you don't spend more than a couple of years in the business without running into it. 

[Nachimir]

I'd never heard "intent is magic" before, but I really like it. It would have been useful in a few "But I'm not sexist" or "But I'm not racist" discussions I've had.