[lbo-talk] more on Tasers in the library

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Thu Nov 16 10:38:56 PST 2006


On 11/16/06, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> A cellphone camera captures UCLA police using a Taser on a student
> who allegedly refused to leave the library Tuesday night.

I find Yale prof David Graeber's statements disturbingly prophetic, in retrospect:

"Of course, if any of these academics were to walk into their university library to consult some volume of Foucault without having remembered to bring a valid ID, and decided to enter the stacks anyway, they would soon discover that brute force is really not so far away as they like to imagine — a man with a big stick, trained in exactly how hard to hit people with it, would rapidly appear to eject them.

"In fact the threat of that man with the stick permeates our world at every moment; most of us have given up even thinking of crossing the innumerable lines and barriers he creates, just so we don't have to remind ourselves of his existence. If you see a hungry woman standing several yards away from a huge pile of food — a daily occurrence for most of us who live in cities — there is a reason you can't just take some and give it to her. A man with a big stick will come and very likely hit you. Anarchists, in contrast, have always delighted in reminding us of him."

-- David Graeber http://www.prickly-paradigm.com/paradigm14.pdf



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