The U.S. military’s excess weaponry and equipment has been going to local U.S. police forces throughout the country in a little known program aimed at militarizing domestic law enforcement.
Passed in 1997 in the name of fighting the drug war and terrorism, the “1033 Program” facilitated more than $500 million worth of military arms and equipment to U.S. police forces in 2011.
Despite a 40-year low in the crime rate, police forces have received war machinery like machine-gun-equipped armored personnel carriers, M-16s, helmet-mounted infrared goggles, remote-controlled inspection robots, amphibious tanks, 16,000-pound bulletproof trucks equipped with battering rams, gun ports, tear-gas dispensers and radiation detectors, and more.
“It’s kind of had a corrupting influence on the culture of policing in America,” Tim Lynch of the Cato Institute told The Daily. “The dynamic is that you have some officer go to the chief and say, people in the next county have [military hardware], if we don’t take it some other city will. Then they acquire the equipment, they create a paramilitary unit, and everything seems fine.
“But then one or two years pass. They say, look we’ve got this equipment, this training and we haven’t been using it. That’s where it starts to creep into routine policing.”
Giving police forces the ability to wage a war for domestic purposes – that is, on the American people – is an indication that the state views its people as an enemy. Harsh police responses to Occupy Wall Street protesters is only one example of the unnerving trend.
When you have SWAT teams used to serve warrants, which has been going on for ages, then all this talk of "creep" is a day late and a dollar short. It was the preliminary end-run to Posse Comitatus before driving in the last nail with what just happened in the Senate: to codify and excuse the coming totalitarian response to a public gone berserk towards their overlords. All those "law and order" patriotic robots might have to reexamine their programming.
And with returning storm troopers slip streaming into sheriff and police departments you have your shock troops familiar in how to use the equipment and desensitized towards civilian casualties. I'm still waiting for a study on just how many vets are employed in these areas and just how many are involved in abusing the populace they no longer even deign to "serve and protect".
Thats the same shit I've been saying to any that would listen.
You see articles all the time about Police brutality, and its always posed as isolated.BS.
Its all the military guys going civilian.
After sometimes, what, 3-4 tours in Iraq/Afghanistan what would you expect.
Restrepo.
Well, I can tell you a little anecdote to corroborate your theory. About a month ago, I was driving down a county road here in lovely Georgia (the state not the country) and spotted two police cops stopping a landscaper. As I drove by, I saw a soldier (full military garb down to the gun holster) get out of the car and proceed towards the stopped landscaping truck. I was driving by so this is the extent of what I observed. However, it pissed me off so much that as soon as I got back home, I started making phone calls: city hall, police dept., county police, you name it to ask why soldiers were driving police cars and making routine traffic stops. Of course, nobody knew anything about it. One of them idiots down the line said to me "you have to understand that most of our police officers are also in the military" – to which I said, 'Yeah, I know that but the military is the military and the police is the police. I thought that the military had strict guidelines about the use of the uniform for non-related activities" – The entire thing was (as I knew it would be) an exercise in futility and got no answer. However, the point if my doing that was to let them know that people were paying attention to their shenanigans. Not that it makes a difference to them, of course.
All about conditioning the masses. Of course, using my own cynical sense of humor, I highly doubt the driver of the truck was telling the uniformed goon that he was "grateful for his service".
What jobs are left?
,Blade Runners.
Ok, where's the news here? Who didn't know that by now? Just wait till they start firing the drones on the protesters. That's next.
All hail Barack Hussein Obama II! Soon to be internationally referred to as the "Barack Hussein Obama 'Amin' II – First Emperor of America". Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Global Warlord, High Priest and Executioner of the Realm, Master Gaoler and Torturer of the many peoples of the Globe.
And what are any of YOU peasants out there going to do about it except yap, yap, yap, away?
Wake up and look around kiddies.
THE terrorists won!
And even as we speak they are now expanding the war of terror and to new countries each and every day. And they are even getting your kids to go out and fight this war of terror for them, and your children are fighting it in your name.
THE terrorist now roam the halls of Washington with proud heads held high and the best part is that YOU put them where they are with your votes. Everyone who saw the planes hit on CNN and FOX news ran out to vote THE terrorist into power. To protect you and give you security. But no one asked who was flying those planes and why? Well its too late to ask what the price of security is now after 70 years of terrorizing the planet with your bombs and drones and goddam marines.
The bill is now due and this is now the price you will pay for your security.
You can all now forget about all that "Land of the Free" crap.
Accept and learn to live in the new world order or get yourselves ready for Guantanamo.
The Emperor now decrees this should be so and so it shall be done.