("Quid coniuratio est?")
POLICE STATE AMERICA
by Brian Francis Redman, Editor-in-chief, Conspiracy Nation
Copyright (c) 1994 -- All rights reserved
For starters I want to say that in my younger days, in my encounters with the police, many times they "cut me some slack." For that I am grateful.
What sort of person would want to be a politician? I am suspicious of anyone saying they want to go to Washington to "do good." It may be that there are some who really are that altruistic, it may be that some of them at least think their motivation is that they want to "do good." But I've got to wonder: Who in their right mind would want that job?
Ditto for policemen. Why on earth would anyone want to be a policeman? It immediately cuts you off, whether you are aware of it or not, from your fellow citizens. You become a snoop, whether you mean to be or not, wherever you go. Who do policemen associate with? Answer: other policemen. "I won't bust you if you don't bust me."
I am not scared of crime. I just avoid certain areas, especially at night. What I am scared of is being rousted from my bed at 4 in the morning. I am a law-abiding citizen, yet I am more afraid of the police than I am of the crooks.
From here on, I am going to start being blunt in what I say. And right off, there is some apprehension that they are going to "get me" for boldly speaking my opinion. I already suspect that my apartment was searched during the last Christmas season when I was out of town. Maybe next time they will plant the "evidence" that they didn't find then.
But basically, nothing personal Mr. Policeman, but I don't like you guys. When Clinton says he will give us 100,000 more police, and says it as if that is something that most people want, I am personally not happy at the news. My experience with police is I feel uneasy when they are around.
I am not saying that police are not necessary, to an extent. But things in this country have been and are getting more and more ridiculous. How many cops is enough? When we make everyone a cop will there then, at last, be no crime because, after all, the police never break the law? (I won't bust you if you don't bust me.)
Or will we just lock up nine-tenths of the population and then have one-tenth working as guards? An article in the Summer 1994 Adbusters suggests that this is where we are headed. As the article points out,
Millions of people are already prisoners of television technology. Although they are allowed to leave their living rooms on "work furloughs," they have given up control of their time to the rhythms and dictates of institutional marketing strategies. But even television technology is primitive compared with what's coming. Designed to channel the flows of data and political power, the panoptic project is a transnational effort to overlay Earth with a computerized surveillance grid. {1}.
I recently watched a show that is on in the afternoons called something like "Tales of the Highway Patrol." The show has a camerman ride along with various state highway patrol officers as they do their job. One segment had the Utah highway patrol following a car that was travelling 4 miles an hour over the speed limit. So they pulled them over. According to what I saw, the fact that they were going 4 miles per hour over the speed limit (i.e. something like 59 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone) gave the officers probable cause to search the vehicle. (I personally don't see how that could possibly constitute probable cause to search the car without a warrant. Maybe one of my readers can enlighten me.)
So they had the guy get out of his car and said to him, "Empty out your pockets." His fiance was sleeping in the back seat. They woke her and commanded her to get out of the car. These two, the guy and his fiance, were in their twenties. If impressions count for anything, they seemed like nice kids. They were travelling from Utah back to California, as I recall.
The highway patrol (a.k.a. the highwaymen) searched through the car and at last they found an empty pint of rum, a pipe that could be used to smoke marijuana, and one marijuana cigarette.
So they arrested the guy. By now, his fiance was in tears. They took him to the magistrate. The "Tales of the Highway Patrol" did not follow them into the little office where sat the magistrate, but it did show the aftermath:
HIGHWAYMAN: You are so lucky. I have never seen the judge let anybody off like he did for you. I don't know why, but you just have to pay a $200 fine.
THE GUY: Gee, thanks, Mr. Highwayman.
In olden times, the highwayman was a guy who harassed travellers. If they wanted to travel on his road, then by God they would have to pay him some money. In a larger sense, the police in general can be seen as a sort of armed tax collection agency. Of course, they say things like "Your muffler is too loud," or "The light over your license plate has gone out." But maybe the highwaymen of olden times used to say things like "Your horse needs new horseshoes," or "His neighing is disturbing the neighborhood." (Maybe that is the etymology of neighborhood, by the way. It comes from the days of the highwaymen patrolling the neighborhood.)
So what is the policeman? He is an armed tax collector, if you have money. If you are poor, or young, or working-class, then you must "empty out your pockets" to the highwayman and say, "I have no money left to give you, sir."
If you have no money left to give, then you are effectively punished for having no money. How dare you say, "I have no money," when the armed tax collectors pull you over or otherwise stop you under some pretext?! Just think if everyone started telling them "I have no money left to give" when the highwayman comes riding, riding, riding up to your door. These citizens have got to be beaten, imprisoned, and otherwise punished to show them that "By God, you'd better have some money when I come a'callin'." The word gets around, whispered from ear to ear, about how dismal the jails are, how overcrowded they are, how all sorts of disgusting things can happen to you in there. So you know, it is common knowledge, that when the coppers come a'callin' you'd better have some bucks you can give them.
That is what the police are about in Police State America. Billy Boy Clinton doesn't give a damn about how safe you are. Billy Boy's job is to bring in the bucks for =The State=. And nowadays, with =The State= having to pay huge interest on its debt, the need for a massive influx of funds is desperate. It is so desperate that =The State= is about to put 100,000 new, armed tax collectors out on the street.
Coincidentally with their "fine" collecting function, the plethora of police will also serve to dampen criticism of =The State=. You don't want to get fined, do you? But that is incidental (although it does serve to maintain things as they are). What you should know is, at this point in time, =The State= is absolutely desperate for funds. =The State= will seize your property, it will increase your taxes, it will disguise new taxes as social security payments, it will seize your cash, and it will put 100,000 new police on the street, for your "safety."
Why do we put up with it? Well we are heavily propagandized so that we do not see the police for what they are: (1) armed tax collectors, and (2) muscle for the elite class. Why is it there are and have always been so many police shows on television? All my life the cop show has been a mainstay of "entertainment" in this country. We are instinctively repulsed by these henchmen of =The State= as they stick their noses into our lives. To make the situation more palatable, =The State= massively exaggerates who these people are. We see them in television-land as if they are the last hope of civilization. We see "bad guys" massively caricatured as major, heavy-duty foul protuberances who must be beat back to the pit from whence they came. We see the saintly policeman, overworked, hemmed in by the pesky Bill of Rights, nobly doing his all to save us from these "others".
For any police forces who are monitoring this, I have a major question to ask: If you are so concerned about saving us from the "drug menace," then why aren't you speaking out about Bill Clinton? There is convincing evidence that our President not only used and abused drugs, but it appears that his political campaign was actually financed in part by illegal drug sales. Why don't we hear you speaking out about this, since you are supposedly so concerned about saving us all from the "drug menace"?
Here's another question for you: Suppose you were to actually win this thrice-cursed, never-ending "War on Drugs". Wouldn't you then be out of a job? You know, like with the military finally winning the Cold War. Hooray! We've Won! (You're fired.)
So you see, these guys have a career at stake. Best to keep on pushing around the little guys rather than really do anything serious. Don't worry. The television will cover up your true purpose.
Why are the police wearing star-trek uniforms now? Here at the university of Illinois, training ground for future forces of the law, I have been seeing guys wearing these weird helmets with visors that don't let you look 'em in the eye. Why the new police fashions? Is this the new trend? Don't you want us to be able to see the man behind the uniform anymore? Is this meant to isolate you more, robotize your function, hide your human side, or what?
One last thing. There used to be a class of people called "reporters." This bunch often had working-class roots, working- class sympathies, and wasn't afraid to take on the big guys. Then, they went to college, became journalists, and I swear they are now just so sweet. Why no one ever gets offended by what they say anymore! They wouldn't dream of "rocking the boat" or anything like that. Nope. No need to worry about them.
Now we have the police doing the same thing. The police used to come, in large part, from the ranks of the working-class. But now, we have got this new, improved, college-trained police force arriving on the scene. I suspect that many of these "Babes in Badgeland" have gone straight from high school, to college, to policeman -- all without having much of a connection with, or much of an empathy for, those beings who work at minimum wage and crawl back exhausted to their hotel rooms at night.
So where is the wisdom? A lot of the old-time cops at least had that. They came from or had in their memories what it can be like. How can they teach these new techno-cops what it is to have a heart?
Hey, coppers. Wise up.
Get a real job.
Stop bugging us.
-------------------------<< Notes >>----------------------------- {1} "Techno Prisoners" By Rick Crawford. Adbusters, Summer 1994, Vol. 3 No. 2.
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"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."