[lbo-talk] Re: death squads

[joanna bujes]

At 04:16 PM 04/28/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>I suspect this has been and will be the method of dealing with Arab
>and Muslim American groups in the states. Target them as `terrorist'
>organizations, harass them, raid them, arrest them on bogus
>charges. Sooner or later the authorities can get the same vicious
>cycle started by criminalizing their political activities and
>motivations. Then they can bust them on weapons, terrorist links over
>seas, etc. Armed raids become death squat like in effect, since you
>can always manage to shoot somebody in a raid and if that doesn't
>work, then you can charge them with enough crimes to make something
>stick.

Chuck is, as usual, quite right. I was brought up with a very healthy fear 
of the police. Then, in my twenties, I become a state park ranger very 
briefly and received six weeks of full time "peace officer" training 
...including firearms instruction from the FBI. That's when I realized that 
my parents were completly right: the police are scary. First, they divide 
the world into two camps: the police and not the police. In the 
not-the-police camp there are those whom they serve (the rich/white) and 
those they don't serve: everyone else. The police have absolute discretion 
in everything they do and they can get away with anything. They have utter 
contempt for the law. Usually things only go wrong because they are too 
stupid/arrogant to construct a case properly.

Joanna