by A. Michael for The Saker Blog
The Saker was kind enough to offer me an opportunity to write a rebuttal to Mr. Mazaheri’s article about the French police and their interactions with the protesters/rioters in France. I felt the need to do so given the fact that I have been in law enforcement for 26 years now and I wanted to give the Saker’s audience a different point of view of the situation. To start off, I would note that, in general, I support the protesters, as far as their desire is to stop a misdirected government from taking yet more money from them, especially for some dubious claim about addressing global warming. Additionally, this is not meant to be an attack on Mr. Mazaheri, personally. I don’t know him, I don’t know his political leanings, and I don’t know his state of mind, when he wrote his article.
However, I’m disappointed in Mr. Mazaheri for writing an article that was, at times, inaccurate, hyperbolic, and incoherent. To begin the article, Mr. Mazaheri extrapolates one incident involving a French officer demanding water from someone to then say, “What this story relates is just how elitist Western cops are in 2019. Truly, only 1% of society feels they can act so above-the-law and so humiliatingly disrespectful to others.” He then says, “The 1% can be only economic, but not necessarily.” He then provides no explanation for the circumstances under which someone can be the 1% of something that is not related to economics. But then later on in the article, he talks about the median police salary in the US ($59,680/yr), which means, he must be talking about economics, not something else.
In the US, in order to be in the 1%, one would have to make a minimum of approximately $458,000 per year. I challenge Mr. Mazaheri to find even one officer in the entire US, who made that salary or more. There are numerous officers in a number of states that make less than the median household income in their respective states. Contrary to what Mr. Mazaheri states, the police are not in the 1%. Police officers, like nearly everyone else in society, have to worry about paying the myriad of taxes that are levied upon them, paying their mortgages or rent, saving for emergencies, retirement, and their children’s educations, buying good quality food, managing health care costs, etc. and depending on their respective jurisdictions, that may be quite difficult. And yes, in some jurisdictions in the US, the police are paid handsomely and have great retirements and benefits, but they still are not in the 1%.
The title of one section of the article was, “Everybody, in every Western country, hates the police”. That statement is complete nonsense. So we are to believe that all the family members of those officers hate the police? Their friends? The real 1%ers? (On a side note, if we are to focus on one group of people for more accountability in western society, it is the .001%ers or the .0001%ers). According to one poll I found, in 2015, 52% of those polled expressed confidence in the police in the US. Is that good? No, it should be much higher and the police and society should work to increase that confidence. However, these statistics show that a majority of the population support the police, which is a far cry from the assertion made by Mr. Mazaheri that everybody hates the police.
Further down the article, he states, “Nor can they stop the appalling deification of police in Western societies since 9/11. Despite all the bullets in the backs of minorities, all the secret torture sites and all the smart phone videos of shootings, cops are culturally, legally and fiscally untouchable because they ARE part of the 1%. The Western Mainstream Media defies cops, and Western mainstream politicians protect their salaries and pensions while cutting those of other public servants, because they are all in it together against the 99%. Westerners know that I could go on and on with examples of glorification of cops which have become so extreme as to become disgustingly servile.” How can the police be deified and yet, at the same time, be hated by everyone?
He also states in the article that cops never join the protesters or change sides. That is simply not accurate. In Greece, off-duty officers marched with protesters several years ago. In Spain, the Catalonia local police were pitted against the Spanish federal police, after the central government decided to essentially prevent Catalonia autonomy. In the US, retired Captain Ray Lewis was arrested at Occupy Wall St., because he was protesting “illegally”.
It is unclear to me if Mr. Mazaheri has an adequate understanding of the normal police function within western societies. The police are there to maintain order and protect life and property. Yes, it does not always work that way in a riot/protest for a variety of reasons, some of which, are the police’s fault, but not all. Things that go wrong during incidents that can be attributed to the police are due to one or more of the following reasons: 1) The officer should have never been hired in the first place due to a lack of fitness for the position; 2) The officer was not properly trained; 3) The officer did not have the proper equipment; 4) The department in which the officer works was poorly led at the command and/or field level, which includes the lack of proper procedures and policies; 5) The officer failed to follow correct orders, procedures, and policies; 6) The officer made errors in judgment due to stressful circumstances; 7) The officer had a bad attitude; 8) The officer performed a corrupt act; and 9) The officer was in a no-win situation, i.e. there is only the least bad choice. Please keep in mind that officers are required to make split-second decisions in volatile situations and the critics of the police get to make judgments of those decisions in hindsight with no stress from a third-person perspective, often in the comfort of their homes or offices.
On the other hand, only the most naive among us believe that all the protesters in France (or any protest for that matter) are there for the right reasons and always conduct themselves properly. How many criminally minded people are in the crowds looking for opportunities to vandalize, steal, and maim, which includes other protesters? How many provoke and attack the police? Criminals, especially the psychopathic ones, love chaos and indeed, like to foment it.
Blaming the police for following the orders of corrupt politicians that are more worried about protecting oligarchs (or some Pan -European/United States of Europe dream in the case of Macron) than the country is not the fault of the police. The police function within many western societies has been perverted by corruption. The police in western society are subservient to civilian control, i.e. politicians. If the system is so corrupt that it only produces corrupt civilian leaders, what are the police to do? Are they to do a coup and thereby upend one of the very bases of western society and turn the country into a de jure police state? Does Mr. Mazaheri not see that most, if not all, western governments are under the heavy influence, if not outright control, of the oligarchy/plutocracy within and without these various countries and that the resulting corruption is wrecking the various institutions of western societies? How many countries in the west can say that a majority of the populace is satisfied with the government’s performance or is responsive to their needs?
Now, I fully understand and appreciate that, “I was just following orders”, can only go so far, but blaming the police actions in a given situation and making broad based assertions that work to create more division within society, in this case, divisions between the citizenry and the police, is irresponsible. There are grave structural problems within western governments due to corruption that need to be addressed and attacking the police is just attacking a symptom of the underlying problems, which include, ironically enough, the lack of the rule of law. For instance, it is very clear, that if one is a politically connected, highly-placed banker in the US, one not only will not be prosecuted for numerous economic crimes, one can lobby the government and get bailed out. Recently, certain political figures and former high-level government officials in the US are not only not prosecuted for their apparent crimes, they get book deals and go on the TV to give interviews. In these cases, crime literally paid and paid handsomely.
Furthermore, the police are not at fault for improperly written or passed laws and regulations that end up creating angst in a country’s population, especially those that undermine the rule of law. In the US, legislatures and executive agencies pass poorly written laws and regulations that have to ultimately be implemented by the police. There are numerous examples of legislators passing laws they have not even read. There are numerous examples where laws and regulations are written by various interest groups and signed into law with very little input from the public. Believe me, police do not like enforcing poorly written laws, especially those for passed for dubious reasons, because it unnecessarily can put themselves in danger. For instance, there are numerous sheriffs in the US refusing to enforce new gun laws that they feel are clearly unconstitutional and in general, I personally fully support their position.
I could go on, but my main point is to place blame on the police, when it is appropriate and not use the police as a scapegoat for underlying structural problems within a society. Ultimately, the police are just a tool for the management of society; just like any tool, it can be used for good or bad. If a society does not have a moral culture, a functioning economy, and a just legal system, the police will turn from being the guardians of society to the oppressors of society. Perhaps Mr. Mazaheri and I can agree on that point.
Police are the guardians of the city — the Polis, the Political system, the Polity, and in a good RePublic the Police are Public servants: Polite. But in a bad Republic, such as the countries of the EU$A have become over the past 30-40 years, the Police are becoming the attack dogs of a Kleptocracy.
This is not to criticize the police alone: all Public services become distorted to serve the interests of a Kakistocry. So do most members of the Public itself.
That is the problem: not just corruption of the Police but corruption of the Polis, the body Politic: corruption of Public servants, of Public services, of the very members of the Public itself. That is what the Yellow Jerkins protest, and what Ramin is protesting: the arrogance of the Oligarchs, which translates into the arrogance of those who have become the servants of “the 1%” rather than the servants of the Public. What is worse, in our time the Public itself has become the arrogant servant of the Oligarchs.
“I blame Pericles for the disasters which befell the Democratic Polis of Athens, because Pericles at the height of his Political power was busy filling Democratic Athens with gold and ivory and marble when he ought to have been filling it with Justice and Temperance”. — Plato
A state based, as are ‘neo-liberal Free Market’ fundamentalist capitalist kakistocracies, on insatiable greed, elite egomania, fear, hatred, xenophobia and unlimited class hatred and social savagery directed, mercilessly, at the poor, weak and defenceless, is Evil and self-destructive, from the top, where the rot begins and is worst, to the very bottom. Such states are not even capable of, or indeed even interested in, saving their own descendants from extinction in an ecological Holocaust caused by the normal practises and inescapable modus operandi of capitalism, which is innately cancerous in its drive to consume everything in existence in order to turn it into the excrement that we call money.
Oh boy Mulga! you must have studied at Cambridge with Rupert.
That language is almost poetic. No wonder psychologist Raymond Seal was so impressed with you.
Mulga has pondered long and deeply over What is Wrong with the World Today, with increasing anger the deeper he digs into la cause de notre malaise. And finally he has managed to distills its essence into a single paragraph. I have cut and pasted this for my notebook.
There is nothing more to be said except, What is To be Done. I am too old for that, so farewell my friends on Saker Vineyard; the most intelligent, well informed and wide ranging Truther site that I have come across in 30 years of digging for reason behind the EU Madness which began with NATZO’s war against Serbia under the guise of “Setting up a Safe Haven for Croats” then spread to Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and now, France.
What is behind this madness is much bigger than any country — probably bigger than the EU & U$A combined. Global Capitalism. But as Mulga said, there is an additional, insane self-destructive element in this Global Capitalism which threatens to destroy our Global Ecosystem — the very thing Capitalists wish to exploit for their profits.
Thanks Doc-you are absolutely correct, I believe, that this End Stage of Western elite destructiveness began with the destruction of Yugoslavia. The local fakestream media sewer has been playing up the Christchurch butcher’s ‘links’ to Serbia all week, with the usual lies that the Serbs were totally guilty of all aggression and atrocity there, and that the poor old Bosnian Moslems were total innocents who never harmed a fly. The sheer imbecility of the lies is what is most impressive, and the usual absolute uniformity of opinion, as always and on all topics.
I was at school with Rupie-he was my fag. In my dreams, of course.
disappointing. an apologia rather than a dissenting response.
Sure, there are good police officers everywhere. Sure Mr. Mazaheri may have used hyperbole. I think its better to do that than to spread fake news or disinformation about how the police have our backs.
Anyway, police officers are not really the same kind of people once they put on their uniforms (do they ever take them off?). I was raised in communist Poland and witnessed how the state, through the police (Milicja as it was called then) deals with dissent and protests. I saw the same thing in Thatcher’s Britain – during the miners’ strikes. No protest is ‘good’ and no police ever go to jail for violence. States have a monopoly on violence and police are the tool of repression. Law and order my ass…serve and protect…hahaha.
No need to apologize for the police, most of the time they know not what they do – they just follow orders. I remember learning about certain trials in Nuremberg where this defense (excuse) did not cut it…Boy have we forgotten a LOT!
Round and round we go…where it stops everybody knows!
Dear Idiocrates,
You stated: “police officers are not really the same kind of people once they put on their uniforms (do they ever take them off?).”
I must disagree. I have known some very good people within the Police Force, but Oh, I’ve known some bastards, and the uniform didn’t alter them one iota, in fact I would believe that they joined ‘the job’ simply to exercise that power of bastardry.
Also, in my day under section 8 of the Police Regulations a policeman could be charged with ‘Behaviour unbecoming a member of the Police Force’, whether on duty or not, but they only used that on members they wished to persecute, not any of the real offenders.
What I have also noted is the corruption never starts from the bottom, but rather from above and works its way down, Thus if a police station had a good boss there was virtually no corruption, but if the boss was bent, well, you know.
And this also works with governments, so if there is a bad premier, or political party, then the corruption works from the top down, and the police farce then knows it can literally get away with murder.
And I’ve seen it.
Dear Andrew,
We must agree to disagree :-)
In my experience (some of which I briefly shared in the original post) a police officer wears a uniform so that he is distinguishable from citizens. I don’t think this is controversial. His uniform says ‘I am not the same as you’.
Underneath there is (still) a human being, but soon enough you will see true robocops (as in robots). Ask yourself this: why is there a push (by governments) to automate this function? What possible benefit is there to society?
Surely, its not for our own good, or because robots are impartial. It would be naive to think so. For me, the only reason which makes sense is that robots do as they are told, and will not mutiny, or turn on their masters (unless hacked :-).
Arguments about good police officers and bad police officers will then be moot. I would consider making that statement already i.e. police officers are, first and foremost, not the same as citizens – they are a function. I think this is what we’ve been discussing: the function of the police. Whether they are good human beings or not is somewhat irrelevant to the argument about their function.
As I state previously, the main function (when talking about protests) is to repress, keep the masters safe and happy.
Dear Idiocrates,
On looking back, I think it was me that erred, and for that I apologise. People can be good bad or indifferent, and if they wear a uniform all that does is increase that person’s ability to be good, bad or indifferent.
When I was studying at the Police Depot, we were taught the three duties of a policeman. I forget the second duty but the first was the prevention and detection of crime, and the third was the keeping of good order within the community.
What I’ve seen over the past years is the failure of police to keep the peace and good order in our communities, in Britain, in Europe, in America and Canada, Australia and now in New Zealand. Those ‘terrorist’ events were the work of governments with the assistance of police at the highest level, and thus can only be construed as ‘Terror by Governments’.
The events in Melbourne from 1987 were directly related to the Far-Left Labour government under John Cain. In the August 87 Hoddle Street massacre, the uniformed police were told to isolate the area and await the arrival of the SOG’s, and thus permit the murders to continue. However on this occasion, a Divisional van crew from Fitzroy ignored the orders and entered the area from the residential area and were able to arrest the shooter, Julian Knight.
In the Queen Street massacre, again when the police were informed of the shooting they were ordered to seal off the area and await the SOG’s, but this time it was the sacrificial lambs that confronted the shooter, disarmed him and Frank Vitkovic ended up jumping out of a twelfth story window. Again at the East Melbourne Abortion Clinic after the shooter shot the security guard it was a boyfriend of one of the patients that grabbed the gunman and enable others to disarm him and hold him until the police arrived. The same scenario occurred in the Monash University shooting when Xiang first shot his two Asian friends another student was able to grab him from the rear, and in the ensuing struggle the lecturer Lee Gordon Brown was wounded, but they held him until the police arrived.
At the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, the gunman murdered 35 people and wounded about twenty but was loathe to shoot any policeman during the siege at Seascape Cottage, Figure that one out for yourself.
In all what I have noticed is that the police duties in regard to protecting the community and the keeping of peace and good order have totally vanished and instead, our police are there simply to protect corrupt governments and politicians as well as raising funds that were lost when those governments sold off our utility services to big business.
I can never forget the look on Joan Kirner’s face when the Traffic District Chief Superintendent, Ray Shuey gave Joan a demonstration of what a Speed Camera was capable of at the Nepean Highway at Seaford. Joan would have been singing “I’m in the money’ all the way back to Parliament House Melbourne.
Dear Andrew,
You wrote:
In all what I have noticed is that the police duties in regard to protecting the community and the keeping of peace and good order have totally vanished…
Agreed! However that is not my personal experience – but I absolutely see that it could be yours. This I say simply because we clearly come from difference backgrounds. To repeat myself: I was raised in communist Poland and this has obviously biased (or tainted) my view of the police and their function. Furthermore, I have not lived in a place/system where I could look at police favourably i.e. feel that they’ve been keeping peace and order. I know there were place like this and from what you wrote, I guess it was your experience in days gone by.
Now times have changed, and here we are coming to roughly the same conclusions, but arriving to it via different routes. Does it mean we’re onto something?
I can also say that there were policemen in my family – so I obviously know they are people like you or me. However, because of their function, it was never something I openly advertised (in Poland).
Shame on the governments for selling their souls to the devil!
Dear Idiocrates,
My mother told me much later that she cried for three days when I told her I had joined the police. Not that much difference after all; eh!
I have never advised any of my children to make the mistake I did.
A friend’s son joined the Mounties. Once while we were at the friend’s house he mentioned his son. Basicly the kid he raised was not the human the Mounties trained and sent back…………………..his son was never the same person. That’s a father’s assessment of how his kid was changed by the indoctrination the police provide.
The author of the article fails, from I read, to mention ‘Agent Provocatours” who work for the security services. The ‘agents’ enter, then disrupt the protest by smashing things…………he calls them thugs………….knowing full well whom pays the ‘off duty’ cops wages.
When it comes to police I teach my children to avoid, not interact, with them.
The situation in France, professionally and passionately documented by Ramin Mazaheri’s first-hand, front-line reporting, is very clear. At this stage, the litmus test of the collective honor, or infamy of the police is embedded in the word mutiny. There is honor in mutiny, infamy in no-mutiny. Thus, for the time being the litmus test verdict is woefully clear…
Maybe in the coming weeks…. inshAllah… dai Bog…
and… (a little bit of the immortal Gramsci’s ‘optimism of the will’ could help) France can go back to being France, with its vices, like that protean veneer of vanity that permeates many layers of society, and virtues, as in the timely popular revolts that show the way to other nations.
A.Michael, thank you for your writing. Perhaps I carry bad news but I don’t think you will get a supportive and ‘sympatico’ response. I personally do not want to be your or anyone’s enemy, but there are a few things …
” … place blame on the police, when it is appropriate and not use the police as a scapegoat for underlying structural problems within a society.”
If the cops are supporting by their actions the underlying structural problems, and if they defend those by working against the population wanting to change those, then I believe that we can say that the cops are the enforcement arm of the state and the 1%.
I don’t see the cops marching in order to change anything, never-mind any structural problems.
“Ultimately, the police are just a tool for the management of society; just like any tool, it can be used for good or bad. If a society does not have a moral culture, a functioning economy, and a just legal system, the police will turn from being the guardians of society to the oppressors of society.”
Yes, you say that well, but, it so happens that this has turned into oppressors of society. It is not that it is going to happen, it is that it has happened. You are now my oppressor because you oppress dissenting voices, and because of your actions, you support the society without “a moral culture, a functioning economy, and a just legal system. And really, you are not a tool, you are a human being. If you are a tool, somebody can use you. If you are a human being, you have a hope to make the moral decisions yourself.
When the ordinary person uses the only dissent that is possible now, mass action, you the police, have become our enemy. We don’t trust you, because of your actions. We do not believe you protect and serve, because you protect only the state and serve only the 1%. If we walk down the street marching to regain our own voice and our own humanity, you kettle us in, you beat us, a mob of 5 to 6 against 1, especially if you can find an outlier from the group that is weaker than the rest and cannot fight back – to teach us a lesson -, you teargas us, you shoot us with rubber bullets, you ‘seed’ the marching community with agents provocateurs, and you stop us from changing our own circumstances, and you actively work against us changing yours.
You quote 1 retired policeman, Captain Ray Lewis who was arrested at Occupy Wall St., I ask why are there not 100’s or 1,000’s of these? How can you even pretend to be ‘with the people’ with this record. Bless Captain Ray Lewis, but where are the rest? If you are trained in crowd control, why do you not do crowd control instead of inciting, shooting, teargassing, and arranging yourself like a phalanx of a quasi army against any protest?. What is it to you if the yellow vests want to pull Macron out of his palace and out of his job and replace him? What’s it to you if the Occupiers want to protest peacefully? Who are you protecting and serving by violently breaking these movements? How about using those skills of yours and working together with the yellow vests to stop this move to violence which is now called out. You, the cops by oppressing the movement are supporting violence because you make it impossible to protest and carry a message of “a moral culture, a functioning economy, and a just legal system” peacefully. Of course, you also frequently start the violence. What about going to work with the Yellow Vests or the dissenters in your own space … plan a route with them, walk next to them, help them with their mission, arrest the looters and the provocateurs, and protect and serve those that at the end of the day, will change your circumstances as well.
Now, it is you that is arranged in your riot gear and weapons and sticks against us. And we have only proverbial yellow vests.
Cops are going to need to make decisions. not as tools, but as members of their community. If next there is a march for correct cause in your neck of the woods, what about changing the focus of the cops. Change it to, we will protect and serve this marching community and the broader community around them, we will arrest provocateurs and those intent on violence, and we will do our part that the societal message that is being expressed, cleanly and clearly goes directly to where it needs to go. Go and work with the marching community, agree a set of rules, do your part without fail and you will find that you are then not a deeply hated community any longer.
You, the cops, are the difference between violent mass action, and peaceful mass action. And mass action is not going to stop anytime soon.
@Amarynth (March 20 at 8:10 am)
Brilliant reply. Could not have said it better myself. I grew up in the 60’s when there were still law enforcement officials who took the oath to ‘serve and protect’ as a badge of honour. I wonder how many policemen take that seriously today. It seems to me that you could just as easily find criminally minded people among the police as criminally minded protesters. There are too many examples of police brutality and excessive force on a daily basis. Not only in France. I live in a big city in Canada and there is no difference here. And I’m talking about crimes caught on video. It makes me wonder how many more brutal acts of police violence occurs when there are no cameras around. You get the impression that the police enforcement agencies in the West get their training manuals from Israel. Sorry, I have lost almost all respect I once had for the police.
Sadly, it has been quietly but widely reported in recent years that the police agencies in the West are now employing Israeli instructors and tactics. One of the selling points for their methods is that they have already been field-tested on the Palestinians.
The widespread training of Western police forces in Israel, or by Israeli ‘experts’, is astonishingly dangerous. It is as if the cops were being trained in Israel’s old ally and lost love, apartheid South Africa, in the 60s, 70s or 80s, with sight-seeing trips to Sharpeville and Soweto to see how to keep the rabble in line.
Indeed. Police in France look more like an oppressing force on cocaine with their, unprovoked, unneeded violence against peacefull protestors. Plenty of video’s on internet to come to that conclusion.
Amarynth, thank you for putting these concepts into words. This is a superbly useful set of principles that we can all employ in the future.
You’re correct that mass action is the only recourse left, and it’s not going to stop. The police should see it as their duty to protect peaceful demonstrators from violence.
Fantastic post.
They could have striked in solidarity with the gilets jaunes, or at least a segment at least could have.
But they didn’t.
They never do.
They are basically a bodyguard for the status quo.
The ‘brass’ like the army are handsomely paid and utterly corrupt.
Management are petty enforcers and devoid of any principled objectors.
The rank and file are made up of too many people who otherwise would have difficulty getting a white collar job – dull, obedient and all too often thuggish when the chance arises.
The rest are like the gilets jaunes in their concerns, but they won’t risk their money – and they won’t inform themselves of realities.
If they did, the level of corruption now on display in the political class would never have succeeded.
@amarynth
Are you a lawyer, Sir?
Wish to thank you for a piercing response.
There’s nothing more appropriate and beautiful than the voice of truth and reason.
Yes,I found this piece to be a bit of a snivelling apology for the current status quo rather than any true form of dissent–and I have met some truly pleasant and helpful police, in addition to the numerous robocops, in my time.
Regarding Mr Michaels conclusion, “If a society does not have a moral culture, a functioning economy, and a just legal system, the police will turn from being the guardians of society to the oppressors of society” I think that the point at which police turn from being guardians of society is long past, if indeed it ever existed in reality, the guarding of property having always taken precedence over the guardianship of society for anyone with eyes even half-way open and not completely clouded with dreamy ideals of a perfect world.
Decisions and choices are ultimately made by the individual, and we all reach a difficult point of deciding whether we support the human being or whether we go along with perpetuating the system of oppressive power that Mr Michael makes a heart-felt apologia for here. Blaming the system and then claiming clean hands is the Eichmann defence, unsuccessful then. It makes no better sense now, though many more follow Eichmann’s example today since it is such a convenient excuse for avoiding personal responsibility and can be applied to any contentious subject.
I support law and order generally, but that goes out of the window when the law proves, as it so often does, to be an absolute discriminatory ass that proves that what we, as a society, generally endorse is not guardianship at all but ‘might is right’, and ‘power and control over’, not power and control to accomplish anything better.
Hannah Arendt makes a good case that there are no valid excuses for the forms of totalitarian depravity that are now multiplying in our globalised world to the point of being ‘normalised’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism
I applaud the Saker’s invitation to another “voice” to counter Mr. Mazaheri’s points. A most salient observation, really about human behavior, is that a significant portion of “well-off” society” will support the “1%-ers”, even if not belonging to them. This is observed at this moment in Venezuela, where the middle class is at least tending to “side” with the Comprador class, against the newly-enfranchised, numerous, lower classes. In my work as a physician I met many well-off but by no means wealthy Venezuelans supporting the Compradors, because they perceived their modest benefits to be at risk by the elevation of the poor to the level of real people, with I.D. cards “and everything”. Historically and unfortunately, the top 20-30% will support the wealthy, hoping to ride “coattails”. That is probably a major reason why getting real change is so difficult.
Excellent points.
Spot on.
Katherine
Thank you Saker for inviting Michael. Let’s hope some of his colleagues will read the comments.
Well, I really appreciate this article, as my mother’s first cousin used to be a colonel in Greek Police force in Athens. I also appreciate, the fact that it is a generally accepted thing to “$hit” on cops and blaming them for being corrupt, as if everyone else is saint. My father, in the late 40’s was beaten almost to death by the police as they were trying to interrogate him and force him to admit to something he never did (political). They used machine gun barrel to do that. Mind you, the officer, head of the interrogation unit, came to my father 40-some years later and apologized publicly in taverna, where my father and some members of our family were enjoying their get together. I guess, it shows us that sometime it takes us long time to realize our wrong doings.
Move forward, it is my understanding that during last great protest in Athens (2019-01-20) many police officers as well as military including one very respected and high ranking General were participating. This brings another point, that while generally speaking hooded goons (accused to be ultra-left or ultra-right, depending on who was reporting) were throwing chemical bombs and Molotov cocktails at Police it was really directed against the protesters. Never the less causing many of the police officers to suffer severe burns and few deaths.
As I said in my other comment, current government politicians insisted that there were no injuries to speak off and those said injuries were only imagined by the police officers (this basically explains who was in charge of the goons).
Let’s cut to the bone.
There are “good” cops and “bad” cops in every society. The public knows this and so do police departments. However instead of weeding out the undesirable officers that commit crimes such as murder, they are suspended with pay and ultimately kept on the police force instead of being prosecuted. Justifiable homicide is their alibi and the definition is stretched way beyond what is allowed for average citizens.
Here are some facts (1) cops pull out their pistols and point them at people when their lives are not threatened in any way (2) they will fire their weapon multiple times at you if you don’t comply (3) if you lay on the ground defenseless, the cops will let you bleed out and die. This is the standard, “dead men tell no tales” training that Israel IDF soldiers use when they shoot to kill innocent Palestinians who protest the abuses and usurpations put upon them by their Zionist occupiers. Apparently this heinous practice has crossed the Atlantic Ocean and made landfall in America.
Here is a recent video capture of countless recordings that demonstrate the wrong way to make an arrest.
See: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/mar/07/little-rock-police-release-video-police-shooting/
Some facts: The car that was stopped was reportedly a stolen vehicle. The officer drew his weapon promptly as we heard at the 15 second mark of the video. Why did the cop point his gun at the driver? The driver had not displayed any type of weapon (firearm, knife, club, etc.) to threaten the officer. The officer did not ask the driver for any identification (e.g., driver’s license, registration, proof of insurance) but immediately escalated the situation by ordering the driver to exit the vehicle without reason. The driver refused to comply and slowly pulled the car away. The cop then decided to jump in front and on the hood while discharging his weapon a total of 15 times at the driver’s side window and killed the driver. There was a female passenger in the vehicle as well who was put at risk while cop bullets were ricocheting inside the car.
Why did the cop act aggressively instead of using his head and engage the driver in conversation to stall for time? Another police officer came on the scene less that 1 minute during the incident. If anything, the cop could have shot out the tires and immobilized the vehicle instead of acting like “Rambo” and go for the kill.
Inadequate instruction on how to assess a tense situation, poor training on the use of deadly force, and little or no accountability when murder ensues for no reasonable cause.
All it takes is one “bad” cop like this one to stain law enforcement’s reputation in a community. The problem is it’s not isolated and becoming the norm. The public will reach a tipping point and react violently if it does not stop.
If there are “good cops” who feel their reputation has been besmirched by “bad cops”, then it is firmly the responsibility of the “good cops” to solve the problem. Ordinary citizens are at a severe disadvantage in trying to deal with “bad cops”. The people with both the authority and interest in taking care of the “bad cops” are the “good cops”. And yet, what we see instead is just a constant whining about how the “bad cops” give the “good cops” a bad name while the “good cops” do absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
PTT, let me play a devils advocate.
You said: ” instead of weeding out the undesirable officers that commit crimes such as murder, they are suspended with pay and ultimately kept on”.
Have you ever had anything to do with unionized work force? This is why things happen the way you said it.
The more years of service the more BS is involved.
As for the “cop shooting”. Have you ever had anything to do with handguns? If you did you would have known that in reality handguns are very ineffective weapons, which require either a very well placed shot in a vital area like heart or fire as many lousy shots until the target drops down and does not move.
Generally speaking its the kinetic energy that kills. This is a combination of bullet wight and its speed and bullet diameter helps as well. Someone made comment with regards to that, it’s difficult to carry a cannon in your pocket. I believe that you have to go above 6″ barrel to speak of more effective handgun, but that is hard to hide in your pocket. Oh yes, very few people can handle magnum handguns (Dirty Harry with his 44mag comes to my mind).
Have you ever seen any videos on youtube, where the cop neglects to be vigil and suddenly gets shot to death by the driver of the car or his passenger? This is why they are so nervous approaching any vehicle.
Of course we could go on and on arguing the points. Just saying.
In the video I provided the cop acted with wanton disregard for human life under color of law. Cops can’t assume every citizen is armed and will shoot them when they approach a vehicle. That’s where competent training, practice and discipline comes in, as each law enforcement situation is different.
In the video the cop made the worst choice to affect an arrest. He acted irrationally, not calmly. There was no threat to his life and his backup arrived in less than 1 minute. The only firearms used were by the cops and not the occupants of the vehicle. However if the driver displayed a weapon and refused to surrender it, then the shooting would be justified but that was not the case. The murder by cop was manslaughter without question.
I use to shoot a .40 caliber pistol twice a month for many years. I was far from an expert but I could hit a human silhouette a distance of 10 yards dead center mass 10 out of 11 rounds at a 4 second elapsed time. I shot one-handed and fast to simulate a high stress situation because that’s what happens in real-life. The more you shoot the more comfortable you feel with your weapon and trust it’s lethality. I also shoot a short-barrel 12 gauge pump action loaded with number 2 buckshot. That’s my weapon of choice for home defense. Cops today do not practice shoot on a regular basis, sometimes not even once a month; it’s one of the reasons they get so nervous and “spray and pray”.
PTT, it is also my understanding that cops are generally known to be bad shots, as they do not seem to want to polish their shooting skills. We have had many videos where they seem to abuse their authority, such is life. The best thing is to pray that none of us finds ourselves facing one of those trigger happy cops.
Like I said, I was just playing devils advocate.
Also, it is a generally known fact that while the “normal” folk have to pass dozen “gun safety” courses, the people who carry them on daily bases have a serious disregard to those simple things like “gun safety”.
Long time ago, when I had some pistol training, we always used one hand, mind you they were Tokarev 7.62mm. The two hand BS, I believe, is yet another one of those Hollywood gimmicks, just like the horizontally positioned gun as it’s commonly handled by the street gangs in the movies.
Short barrel shotgun? Legal length? I agree, 12Ga is considered the best for defense at close quarters. In my young days, one and only time I tested slug at 100m on a tree, to find myself totally amazed at the damage it did (shotgun had bolt action).
Oh Anonius,
Please do not make that mistake. The criminal ‘Jockey Smith’ from Melbourne made that mistake when he was confronted by a police sergeant at Creswick. Smith fired a ‘warning’ shot at the policeman and the sergeant shot him dead. That sergeant was also a sergeant in the local Citizens Military Forces (CMF) and was well trained in firearms.
In Victoria, most of the police are not overly enthused with firearms, but there are those who lavish great works on their guns and practise frequently. Of course when an old hermit in Tumut in New South Wales upset a local policeman, he called the SOG’s in and they surrounded his tin shack and called on him to surrender. He had a single shot .22 rifle often used in hunting rabbits to defend himself against these heroes so they fired 93 shots into his shack killing him.
The best story though is in history with the ‘Siege at Glenrowan’ which involved the Kelly gang.
Dobbed in by a schoolteacher, the police under their Commissioner, Captain Standish rushed from Melbourne to Glenrowan by train. They surrounded the pub in which the Kellys had taken sanction, and of course the shooting started. Then the police set fire to the pub, and in the midst of fire and smoke, Ned Kelly stepped out through the front door, wearing his full body armour made of steel, and shooting with two handguns at the police and the police returned the fire, finally shooting Ned in the legs and capturing him alive.
Now Ned was a good catholic lad and when his younger brother Dan joined him, Ned promised his mother that he would take good care of his sibling. Thus when they were trapped in the burning pub, Ned went out the front door, while young Dan, slipped out of his armour and left via the back door and escaped to Queensland, without the police being any wiser. Ned had kept his promise to his mother, and Captain Standish faced a Royal Commission into his handling of the affair.
Andrew, I think I get your point, although I never suggested any standoffs with police force. Obviously your stories started with some people breaking the law and then resisting arrest. Well, I also acknowledge your comment about some police officers practicing with their weapons, as they all should, because there could be a day when their life would depend on the ability to use their weapons effectively.
Also, I believe that police officers do think about political re-precautions each time they pull their handgun out of the holster, as there is a lot of anti-something politics hanging over their heads.
Poke, the standard Zionazi tactic of finishing off wounded ‘two-legged animals’ is known as ‘confirming the kill’, and has been used on victims as young as 13, in which instance an entire clip of bullets was fired into a wounded girl.
From both a historical interest in the process of how a society changes when the rulers have prevented change, and from a lifetime of being opposite of US police officers at protests ….
In normal circumstances, the police are of course in the pay of the governments. The governments are financed by tax money, although in the US the police are allowed to steal private property to finance their departments (the process is called “Civil Forfeiture”). However of course, since the US is now an oligarchy and not a democracy (as stated by Ivy League political scientists who have studied the question), the government is not really under the control of the taxpayer, but of the oligarchs, or, in loose terms, the 1%
Since the police are under the control of the Oligarchs, the Oligarchs then use the police to forcibly prevent any change in a society that does not benefit the Oligarchs. The, the police are used against the people demanding change, and they do so under the control of the 1% (or fewer). This is includes spying on any movements for change, disrupting through agents such movements, and at times forcibly attacking the people who insist that they will have a hard time surviving unless something changes.
Thus, the police are seen, and correctly so, as the agents of the 1%. It is a police billy club or police tear gas that protesters find literally in their faces when they dare to protest against the government of the oligarchs, by the oligarchs and for the oligarchs.
On the other hand, it is of course not the children of the 1% that serve as police officers. The police do come from the people. They grow up in the same neighborhoods, go to the same schools, and before they become police drink in the same bars as the people. Of course, once they become police, the Oligarchs try to keep them on their side, with both propaganda aimed to keep the police loyal, and attitudes where the police think of everyone else as the enemy and mainly only associate with themselves, drinking in police bars for example.
Thus, in most movements for any real social change, there comes a time when the police, as the enforcers of the 1%, find themselves across the barricades from their neighbors and school chums and family. In most successful movements for change, there is a key point where the police stop fighting their neighbors and families and change sides and support them. This is usually the moment that the rulers decide that a helicopter out of town is a real good idea.
For radicals who want change, one thing that is seen rarely in history is the subjugated fighting the police in a straight up battle and winning. That is very difficult. The traditional path towards real change in a society goes through the police changing sides.
This is hard on protestors. On one hand, it is police billy clubs that are being swung at their heads, and they are breathing police tear gas. But on the other hand, even though the police are their enemy in that moment and trying to do them harm, the ultimate goal has to be kept in mind that the police need to be convinced to change sides and stand with their neighbors and their families against the Oligarchs.
People in Europe do not hate the police? Shouldn’t the author go and visit the real world?
I could write a whole book about the cases of power abuse, violent behaviour, outright racism, extortion, callousness and much much more, that in the course of the decades I have either witnessed or been myself subjected to as a very young leftist, later as a semi-hippie, then a wandering salesman and later still as a well-dressed businessman. From Belgium to Croatia and from the Czech Republic to Scandinavia, without omitting Germany or the Netherlands. And France, which goes without saying.
If I were to write that book I would certainly point out that a couple of times I have come across a gentle, thoughtful, polite and helpful policeman, as much as I have (very) occasionally met some sincere and honest politicians. And I would mention that the three places in the world where, as a foreign visitor, I have been treated most courteously by the police have been Italy, Brazil and, yes, the USA (it did help to be one of the “most favoured” ethnic group, though). But the largest section of such a book would without a doubt be dedicated to France, which I still see as the country in the whole of Europe where one is better off trying to avoid any contact of any kind with the police. Even more so if your skin carries a hint of a tinge in it. Although I have to confess that twice in my life I did meet French policemen that were friendly and courteous, even relaxed, actually a pleasure to have a conversation with. Both of them were out-posted from the Métropole to a small, faraway Territoire d’Outremer, and both of them told me that they felt as if they were on a holiday. They had become human again.
Leaving any personal experiences aside, how many people do know that in the recent past the French police has invaded some villages in the Italian Alps and intimidated their inhabitants while either chasing some poor sod or dumping some unwanted migrant out of France?
Elsewhere… what are the types that are attracted to this kind of job? How many people remember that the Golden Dawn, when they turned up on the political scene of Greece, made a real killing (in votes) at the one polling station in Athens that was located inside of a police station? How many people are aware of the fact that a couple of decades ago, some surveys in Scandinavia that intended to relate peoples’ electoral choices to their professional activities found that a much larger percentage of policemen than the average were likely to vote for far-right, racist parties?
Besides the obvious observation that the one percent that holds the riches of the world is not the same as that one percent that works in the police forces, I can meet A. Michael part-way with another life anecdote. Back in some of the earlier days when demonstrators’ heads were the favourite target of cops’ truncheons, I happened to be in a bar having a chat with a couple of these who were off-duty. To my question as to why they had to beat demonstrators up, their answer was, “That’s what our superiors demand of us.” Around that same time I was invited to dinner at a friend’s whose father was a chief of police of sorts. Same question, different answer: “We just can’t hold our men back”.
In other words, same old story.
Dear Robert,
Late last Century, a Dutchman married to a Pinoy like myself explained it all to me.
He said, “If you give a Pom a broom and a bit of authority, he will use it.” To further that piece of wisdom, if you give a man a uniform, he will use it; if you give that man a baton, he will use it. If you give him a firearm, again he will use it. And if the parliament makes a bad law he will use that as well.
After all, isn’t that what bad laws are made for?
Thanks to Mr. Michael for venturing into Mazahiri-friendly territory to joust with ideas, conception, misconception, stereotypes, etc. regarding the role of the police and attitudes toward them. Michael vs. Mazahiri.
Michael makes a few good points—he points out some hyperbole deployed by his opponent, Mazahiri.
Basically, though, his piece reads to me like an extended essay on the concept of “a few bad apples.” There are a few bad police apples and a few bad Vester apples, who supposedly just join the protests to damage property.
I admit that to me the most damaging footage to the Vesters’ position has been some of that shown by Mazahiri in which he stated that the protesters were targeting banks that serve the wealthy, in a wealthy part of Paris. Personally I wonder whether smashing up banks and store fronts is an effective message. But I am neither the sender nor the intended recipient of the message, so I guess I can’t be sure what the message is.
What I have seen clearly is how a few violent protesters have been transformed by US media into the whole show. And this lets the police off the hook for their actions. The lens should be on the police, not on the protesters.
The protesters as the villains is in stark contrast to the footage I have seen while watching videos of Vincent Lapierre. Those videos have shown the police in Paris gasing, shoving with their shields, shooting rubber bullets into the faces and eyes of peaceful protesters who had a permit and permission to march where they did. The police have continually squeezed the path of legitimate protest while increasingly injuring peaceful protesters and chasing them away from the public streets of their capital, where they have a right to be. To get specific
here are some videos that show gratuitous police brutality against elderly, women pushign prams, etc. as well as young or older male protesters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCOgNKWeffA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsNuUqidzCM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsNuUqidzCM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnOCbNWlD6E
Etc. Just do a search for “Vincent Lapierre Youtube.”
He is a great interviewer and you will enjoy the interviews (with subtitles).
Back to the topic of the police: In these protests you can see lines of police standnig threatening behind their totally overkill Plexigals shields etc. and they do look faintly ridiculous when compared to the French citizens being interviewed. The latter are so intelligent, charming, articulate. But then one sees the police actions against these people, bloody injuries, people have lost eyes, hands, etc. and the whole thing looks disgusting and it is no wonder that the police have made themselves a target—not *the* target but *an additional* target— of the GJs.
See for example 14:54, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnOCbNWlD6E
The protesters know they will be gassed so they bring masks, also snacks and water. The police take all of this, including snacks and water from the protesters. ????? Michael would assert thta these are their orders. Actually, are their superiors there ensuring that they take water and food from protesters? (Hint: I think the answer is no.) Would you do this for pay?
The police are acting as proxies of the elite forces to suppress protest, to try to quash the movement as a holding action while Macron sits in this silly throne room writing Diktats and not solving any of the real problems the people have clearly identified.
A lot of people knew that Macron was going to be a useless poppycock. And the police must have been able to figure this out, too. The police would do themselves a favor if they would engage in the same kind of analysis concerning their role that the people of France are undertaking. The elites are simply not listning to the people of France, and the police are acting like the on-the-street muzzlers and enforcers. Furthermore they are being used as PR tools. Surely they are smart enough to figure this out.
katherine
Sorry A Michael, but it’s very simple. The police are there to defend the status quo, to defend private property, to defend the very system that exploits and crushes almost all of us – the system that causes such misery and despair. Also known as Capitalism. Those that protest against injustice and economic inequality are targeted by who? The police are on the side of the 0.1℅. They are not our friends.
What if there was no policing? By the sound of it, and to exaggerate slightly, pretty pink flowers would grow from the sainted yellow-vest footprints, as they blithely march to an assured conquest of all the evil in the land.
Get over it. The police are no better nor worse human beings then anyone else. Walk a mile in their shoes — better yet, take a look in the mirror.
Dear Saker, and dear readers,
I have read the articles by Ramin Mazaheri, and on some points I will agree with him and on others I will strongly disagree, as I have previously stated. The very same goes for this article written by A Michael.
My qualifications in regard to my observations in life are these:
My name is Andrew S MacGregor born 6th. October 1947 at Tongue Street Footscray in Melbourne, Victoria Australia. On Friday the 3rd of March 1967 on her 24th birthday, my eldest sister was shot with a shotgun from appr0x 12ft in the left chest, in the front yard of my parent’s home, in front of her two young children. That was the sole reason why I joined the Victoria Police.
I joined the Victoria Police in April 1968, becoming a member of 4 Squad and after 20 weeks graduated and was posted as all the recruits were to the Russell Street Police Station. In 1984, after being ordered by a police Inspector (Bud Annand) I made a statement to B11 (Bureau of Internal Investigation) in regard to police corruption. Shortly after that I was interviewed by my Divisional Inspector (Bill Aldrich) and the following day arrested and lodged in the Police Hospital for 14 days. Following these events I took ‘sick leave and applied for retirement due to ill health, and was retired in May 1985. I had served 17 years and 16 days.
The period around the late 1960’s was when Australian soldiers were serving in Vietnam, and the Anti-Vietnam war supporters demonstrated. The first demonstration that I attended was in 68 outside the American Embassy in Commercial Road Toorak. I was at the front of one of the barriers, and on the other side were a heap of university students of a similar age. At one stage when there was a bit of a shove and a push, we went backwards for a bit and then returned to our original position. I had my police hat knocked off, and ended up with a young lass in my hands. A lad on the other side ended up with my hat, and so we swapped. I gave him the lass and he gave me my police hat. No animosity at all.
However, a little bit later on a group of demonstrators got to the police horses and threw marbles on the ground under the horses hooves which caused the horses to panic, and the troopers on the horses had great trouble controlling them. It was this incident that gave Superintendent Frank Holland the cause to order the police to draw batons and to charge the demonstrators, and they were trapped like fish in a barrel. It took me a long time to realise that the group with the marbles were actually government agitators.
Another protest that I attended was the ‘Proteas’ demonstration in about 71-72, I don’t recall much as the demonstration was stopped and the demonstrators were caused to scatter. I came across a group of 4 mobile policemen who had a demonstrator on the ground and were beating him with their batons. I simply grabbed the bloke by his collar, hauled him up to his feet and told the four policemen that he was mine, and they didn’t know what to do and so let me walk off with him. I got him round the corner, asked if he was okay, he nodded yes and I let him go with a warning not to get caught again.
I have no doubt that police when in a herd mentality do resort to violence, not all but sufficient to cause damage. And many police do hold some animosity towards protestors/demonstrators. This is because in order to have the police numbers at such events the working policeman finds that his timetables are altered, his RDO’s (rostered days off) are cancelled, and extra burdens are placed upon him.
And all of this without even considering the Quasi-military teams within the police farce (correct spelling). The Victoria Police instigated their ‘Special Operations Group’ (SOG’s) in around 1976 which was a Federal government response to possible so-called terrorist events. There had actually been moves prior to that date to prepare the Victoria Police for such events.
In 1974 Det/Sgt Max Read told me he had just completed a ‘Bomb Disposal course, while we were completing a ‘Vehicle safety Testing Course’ which Max was required in regard to possible ‘terrorist’ activities.
The Victoria Police SOG’S were trained and indoctrinated in regard to requirements of the Federal PSCC (Protective Security Co-ordination Centre) agendas which included attending exercises with other State and Federal units as well as ASIO and the SASR, within Australia and some seminars overseas.
With all of this extra training and courses come extra earnings and suddenly the quasi-military police have become the new ‘Elite’ forces fighting tyranny and terrorism, or creating tyranny and terrorism, depending on where their actions are viewed from. There is another problem with all of this training; the police develop a “Them versus Us” mentality, where ‘Them’ being the bad guys and often members of the general public, and ‘Us’ being the good-guys who can do no wrong in their ‘fight against terrorism’.
And the corruption is there when the police can get an opportunity to make some ‘extra’ cash. A classic example with the Victoria Police SOG’s was a little deal they did in about 1994.
At that time the SOG were armed with Ruger Mini 14’s and AR-15s which had been declared illegal and 16 had been handed in to various police stations and one confiscated by the police. However in 1994 the SOG’s armament had been updated and the previous weapons were to be destroyed, and 56 of these weapons were written off in the books as being destroyed at the Sims metal works in Laverton. However book entries may not be what they seem to be.
These 56 firearms had in fact been sold to the Bendigo arms dealer Garnet Featherstone, who then sold the Ruger Mini 14’s to the Queensland Prison Service. The AR-15s though were a totally different matter. Three of those firearms were sold by Featherstone back into Victoria, which was discovered by two members of the Victoria Police Firearms Registry, and reported. But it got worse!
Two of the AR-15s ended up in Tasmania, one owned by Martin Bryant and the other found at Seascape Cottage by Sgt Gerrard Dutton. Not only that, but the former owner of the AR-15 found at Seascape Cottage was able to recognise that weapon by a mark on the barrel. We now have the Victoria Police SOG’s being owners of firearms, registered as being destroyed, turning up at a crime scene involving the deaths of 35 people.
Inspector Warren from the Tasmania Police travelled to Victoria and spoke with Assistant Commissioner Graeme Sinclair and were able to hush that matter up.
In April 1968 when I first joined the Victoria Police, the recruits were lectured by the Senior Sergeant, Derek Bateman who was a product of ‘The Isle of Man’. Derek Bateman informed us that we were not Public Servants, but rather officers of the Crown, which was why it was present on out badge. The powers that were instigated by that crown were given to each individually, and were to be acted upon individually, and that governments and politicians had nothing to do with our powers and should be viewed as being required to follow the laws as everybody else.
But corrupt politicians, create corrupt governments, and each will flock to the other which is why corrupt politicians will select corruptible police be they men or women as their commissioners, and when the Police Associations unite with corrupt Labour Unions then that corruption is complete, and there is no better example as that when we look at the Victorian government selecting General Thomas Blamey as their CCP back in the late 1920’s. Blamey was a pox-ridden brothel owning, bludger of the highest order, and the Police Association today has forgotten the damage he did to their office.
Great post Mr. MacGregor, thanks.
The police, like all public servants almost everywhere, are promised extravagant undeserved pensions and health care for their lifetimes. That is a very simple way for the elites to control them. The fact that all these countries are going bust has yet to penetrate the consciousness of these plebs. It is beyond their comprehension. They were never very good at math.
IMHO, the police are being fooled on a massive scale. It can only end very badly – when their pensions either go unpaid or arrive hugely devalued.
It is all baked in the cake. I suggest you read some of the writings of Martin Armstrong to understand the scale of this problem.
“CalPERS on the Brink of Insolvency”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/pension-crisis/calpers-on-the-brink-of-insolvency/
France is no different from California. Macron keeps on trying to raise taxes – and the ordinary people are now pushing back.
Alfred from Cairns,
You don’t know what you are talking about!
1) Police are not public servants, they are ‘officers of the Crown’. Only (Removed language,MOD), politicians and bureaucrats like to suggest that police are public servants.
2) Police do have a very good Superannuation scheme, but it is the same scheme that every State employee has. Government employees may not be paid as well as in the private sector, but that is made up or at least it was by their superannuation scheme.
3) The ‘Elites’ do not control the police as that is called bribery, and if you had watched the events in Melbourne on the 20 January 2017, you just may have hear the uniformed police sergeant stat; “This is not a terrorist event”, which caused Dopey Dan and his sidekick Silly Graeme Ashton to adopt a different pose for that Police Training exercise.
4) And no, the State Superannuation fund will not go broke. However that doesn’t mean that it will be raided by desperate pollies as what Joan Kirner did in Victoria back in about 1989 when she ‘borrowed $300 million from the State Superannuation Fund after she broke the State Revenue.
You had good points in the beginning, but you insisted on missing the thrust of what he meant when he wrote “they are part of the 1%”.
They’re part of the 1% in the same sense that military enlistees are a part of the Empire. The enforcement arm. The individual members don’t matter to the wealthy few who control the politicians and the properties and the banks and the major trade entities, but the institutions that prop up their power do.
But really, the 1% aren’t that important either. Think .01, or even .001%.; Thanks to neoliberal economics, everything funnels upward.
You can play the game and fill the role or not. Every individual makes a choice, but as with soldiers I’ve no doubt that cops are more focused on their immediate environs than on the political or long term social impact of their actions.
The militarization of Police and policing of protest is also a step in the wrong direction (think following orders, think dehumanized targets, think ‘the enemy’).
Now, I’ve see reports that France is to deploy troops to maintain security during planned weekend protests – Macron. As was my luck, the next article after I read that was the following: Israeli soldiers shoot students protesting killing of Palestinians.
The idea of using the army to ‘help with policing’ is VERY BAD – for obvious reasons and on so many levels. Once you make this step, there is no turning back. France: get ready for a rough ride!
Dear Idiocrates,
On this point you are totally correct, and to further your statement in some countries it is unlawful and unconstitutional to use the military as a police force.
I would further argue that to turn the police into a quasi-military force is also unjustifiable. Our major Terrorist threat is our own government.
Great article. Good points. Good explanation.
About police shootings of black people here in the US, almost all, from my view, are suicide by cop. It seems to me that black people have decided amongst themselves to never comply with a policeman’s commands. I have watched many body and dash camera views of shootings, and in ALMOST ALL of them, the suspect did not comply with directives, resisted, and endangered the lives of the officers by either producing a deadly weapon, or trying to get the officers’ weapon(s). Of course, there were a few obvious murders of blacks by officer(s), but I could count them with the fingers on one hand.
Black people for some reason, seem (to me), in general, to not value their own lives or the lives of other black people. Black on black murders are a huge red flag, mostly disregarded by MSM. They call each other the derogatory and racist N-word. And they endanger themselves in their encounters with police, knowing that they will be subdued by force, with potentially fatal outcome. Their non-compliance is a choice, and they know the risk.
I wouldn’t want to be black in this country. I’d probably want to commit suicide, too. It used to be worse. But when your friends and family call you N-word, wow, where’s the respect? I can understand why they kill each other so frequently. Sometimes it’s the only way to get a person to shut up. Not that it’s right, but it seems, to me, to be the way it is.
I respect the police. They’re doing a tough job, often thankless, often dangerous. I trained as a volunteer once and found out how easy it is to die on the job.
Another time I saw a police officer fighting to subdue someone, and they were locked in what seemed like mortal combat. I ran over and crouched next to them, ready to pounce on the suspect if he started to get the upper hand. Fortunately the officer prevailed and managed to cuff the guy. Right after that other officers arrived, in a hurry!
The police are in a tough spot when the .001% are terrorists who are plundering the planet, using the military to destroy nations, vaporizing families, and using governments to cover their tracks. Until the bastards are brought to justice, police work is going to be frustrating work. It’s not the fault of the police. It’s the fault of the people, who are gullible, ignorant, and poorly informed.
This article ought to help Mr. Mazaheri do a better job of informing us. If he’s wise, he’ll take notice and make an adjustment.
‘Suicide by cop’ when running away, shot several times in back? ‘Suicide by cop’ when shot several times by two cops when talking on grandmother’s phone in backyard. Racist garbage. The WSWS has excellent reports on how the pigs in Paris led the looting, and allow their friends in the ‘black block’ get away with it.
Those were two of the blatant murders. Doesn’t make me a racist to know that blacks commit suicide. It’s sad that they do it, but knowing they do it doesn’t make anyone a racist.
@pdb
You may not be a “racist”, but your comments demonstrate that you are endowed with as little perception of other peoples’ psychologies and sensibilities as your average mechanistic WASP. Which implies nill understanding of words and their nuances, of why and how other people react as they do in certain circumstances, of their sense of humour, of the incommensurably rich palette covered by the subject of “suicide”. (Not that other parts of the world always fare much better — as the saying went in China already a hundred years ago: Americans are only an extreme form of Europeans.)
I have no doubt that there are episodes when a young black American (man) gets in a rage, his last rage maybe — wrong place and time, especially in such a society born and raised on violent machismo as yours is — for all the shit he’s been subjected to since the day he was born. Some people, like myself, react differently: when I’m confronted with a really serious situation, I freeze and all of a sudden I’m mute, and that has saved my life more than a couple of times. For the same deeply embedded reasons as your murdered young Black, lots of other people do not have this ability, acquired by your truly long after a rather agitated youth. Like, say, and more often than most people are aware of, some young woman who happens to be across the wrong kind of brute, and ends up blowing steam off one last time.
What would you call that…, “suicide by mate”?
Is it your B/W, O/I cultural background that makes you incapable of understanding the difference between “nigger” as a kind of [dark] humour between peers, with the variety of shades it entails, (and as such, perfectly acceptable), and “nigger”, as an insult, hurled by a gang of WASPs to a Black?
Enjoyed almost every comment, the article and the real leftism, from Persia, With Love.
Of the Polis…but not the Police.
Andrew MacGregor is the microcosm, both behind the badge and faced with of the dilemma in consciousness that policing presents to societies everywhere….and the personal detail is invaluable
On the international scale down to the tribal one, the same deployments of violent conquest (offensive war) or justified force (National Defense) are presented…today and as far back as history is recorded….either justifiably …or criminally.
Every comment I read has truth to it, but the more black and white….the less complete.
I used to live in Glendale and the local saying about the Glendale Police Department was that thier job was “To Keep L.A out of Glendale”.
It seemed like a reasonable mission, actually…..LOL.
But in all seriousness, tools do get to be owned by those with the resources to buy them and I recall a number of Podcasts I watched a few years ago on the topic of military and police as actually mind-damaged (with brain scans of the actual damage regular doses of adrenaline do to the human brain…) zombies of clone-like character …..at the worst end of the scale of human unconsciousness.
The Dude Has A Point…and he drives it home with hours of analysis and visuals like these:
I’m going to kick your ass!…..And Get Away With It!
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/125.jpg
We come as Liberators:
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/122.jpg
Irak Jima:
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/121.jpg
Military Men, According to Kissinger:
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/096.jpg
The Base Consciousness Black and White Tiles of Ignorance Around the Temples of the Police:
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/084.jpg
Soul-dier:
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/095.jpg
Stop Sign Octagon on Police Forehead:
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/083.gif
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/082.gif
Sussex Police Symbolism:
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/081.jpg
STOP! FREEZE!:
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/079.jpg
http://whatonearthishappening.com/images/stories/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/078.jpg
and eyewitness accounts of mid-level Satanists bragging of “owning” local police departments to the point that their rapes and sacrificial killings of children were 100% safe.
Yet I also recall the Berkut forces trudging out of Kiev, exhausted after being faced with sniper fire and trained attackers spraying their plastic face masks with paint, so that the face shield would be lifted…so that their faces or eyes could be jabbed with pointed sticks.
Yes, there are sign of occultists training their “dogs of war” (with dog tags, mind you, around their necks, just like real dogs…) and the average soldier or police recruit knows ZERO about their occult controllers.
But part of the beauty of the Demise of The Fake Stream Media is that a thousand times more people than ever before are going to see through the hidden hand of the controllers……not, IMHO (sorry Mark) to have every person trained in martial arts self defense and fire arms use…..but to better govern their nations and communities in a more orderly, just, and lawful way.
“The police are there to maintain order and protect life and property. ”
In his context, bullshit.
But truly, “The police are there to maintain order and protect life and property (of the elites).” You little people are on your own.
“If the system is so corrupt that it only produces corrupt civilian leaders, what are the police to do?”
I was just following orders…….. for a paycheck. An amoral mercenary in other words. Coward.