Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[wcw43921]

Or just be thoroughly gorgeous, as per Pussy Galore and Xenia Onatopp.

[Ternaugh]

The things you find from a Google search.

 

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Sergeant Corey Mills is a minor character in the Superman: The Animated Series episode "Prototype".

He was a sergeant of the Metropolis Police Department's SCU (Special Crimes Unit) and was chosen to wear a power suit (the animated version of The Suit), but later went insane with power.

 

 

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Corey_Mills

[Cygnia]

https://eand.co/we-need-to-talk-about-ron-desantiss-fascist-paradise-e3784261dd7c

 

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It sounds like something you might have seen a sign for, cruising down a golden, sunlit highway, in your convertible, once upon a time. A motel, perhaps, in shades of seafoam blue-green. Ron DeSantis’s Fascist Paradise. (Well, except for the fascist part, that is.) And yet that appears to be what Florida’s becoming, and no, I’m neither kidding nor exaggerating.

Perhaps you read a recent series of articles and tweets that went viral. One by Amanda Marcotte, worth reading in full, is an excellent summary. Let me cite a little bit of it, which is shocking.
 

A Florida law signed by DeSantis requires that every book available to students “must be selected by a school district employee who holds a valid educational media specialist certificate,” in most cases, the school librarian. This may sound reasonable on its surface, but as the situation in Manatee County shows, in reality, it’s about creating a bottleneck preventing books from getting into the hands of students.

How bad is it? Just how dystopian are we talking? As the journalist Judd Legum pointed out, “Teachers in Manatee County have been told to remove all books from their classroom libraries. On Monday, for example, teachers at Bayshore High School in Manatee County received the following message: ‘Remove or cover all classroom libraries until all materials can be reviewed.’”

Did you get that? Teachers are removing or covering up…all the books. Until they can be “reviewed.” For what, precisely? We’re about to get to that, but first: if that sounds a whole lot like the Taliban, that’s because it is. We should never, ever see — in a modern society, a democracy, a liberal state, and I don’t mean that in a partisan sense, just as in “one founded on notions of liberty”…something like all the books in classrooms or libraries being covered up. (Like, for example, the way women are, under the Taliban, who also do things like ban books, which are dangerous and subversive, because they…enlighten people.)

We should never see books being covered up. This is literal, actual, very real Nazi style stuff. One of the very first things the Nazis did as they came to power was to get rid of the books. In open, loud, violent, symbolic book burnings. Seriously. Read this, for context.
 

On May 10, 1933 student groups at universities across Germany carried out a series of book burnings of works that the students and leading Nazi party members associated with an “un-German spirit.” Enthusiastic crowds witnessed the burning of books by Brecht, Einstein, Freud, Mann and Remarque, among many other well-known intellectuals, scientists and cultural figures, many of whom were Jewish. The largest of these book bonfires occurred in Berlin, where an estimated 40,000 people gathered to hear a speech by the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, in which he pronounced that “Jewish intellectualism is dead” and endorsed the students’ “right to clean up the debris of the past.”

Let me say it again. One of the very first things the Nazis did was burn books, by authors they considered dangerous, subversive, antithetical to their ideology. That’s the difference between us and them. Nobody’s burning books — LOL, “books” — by Tucker Carlson or who have you. They’re right there for everyone to read, as absurd as they are. Who does things like burn, ban, cover up books? It’s a pretty good sign you’re dealing with actual, real deal, bona fide fascists.

And so symbolic attacks on books aren’t just some kind of minor-league thing to blithely, pleasantly ignore: they are a warning sign that a society is in troubled waters. A big, clear, blinking, neon red sign of such a thing. Nobody should take this lightly. Whether or not you’re a bookworm or not, because books aren’t just things made of paper — they’re living embodiments of all the values modern societies hold dear. Expression, association, movement, intimacy, equality, truth, justice.

In fact, the Nazi book burnings were one of the things that began to turn America against the Nazis. That was a contentious struggle at the time, as Ken Burns has so sagely documented in his new “America and the Holocaust” series — essential viewing. And now? Here’s America itself, banning, covering up, “removing” the books. Think about how bad that actually is. Big deal.

Now. Why is all this happening? As ridiculous as the reason is, you already know it, even if you don’t quite believe it. Let me quote Judd Legum again.
 

Florida teachers are being told to remove all books from their classroom libraries OR FACE FELONY PROSECUTION. The new policy is based on the premise that teachers are using books to “groom” students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies.

Did you get that? Now we’re seeing an even stronger, truer signal that, yes, this is real deal fascism. What signal is that? Teachers are being criminalized. Teaching is being criminalized. Why is that bad — exactly, precisely, even though it’s intuitively obvious? Let me spell it out for you — sorry, long quote, but a very necessary one.
 

As the Nazis worked to consolidate their power and build a cohesive “national community,” suppression of dissent played a key role. In 1933, the Nazis issued a decree that required Germans to turn in anyone who spoke against the party, its leaders, or the government (see reading, Outlawing the Opposition in Chapter 5). That decree, “For the Defense against Malicious Attacks against the Government,” stated:
Whoever purposely makes or circulates a statement of a factual nature which is untrue or grossly exaggerated or which may seriously harm the welfare of the Reich or of a state, or the reputation of the National government or of a state government or of parties or organizations supporting these governments, is to be punished, provided that no more severe punishment is decreed in other regulations, with imprisonment of up to two years and, if he makes or spreads the statement publicly, with imprisonment of not less than three months.
If serious damage to the Reich or a state has resulted from this deed, penal servitude may be imposed.
Whoever commits an act through negligence will be punished with imprisonment of up to three months, or by a fine.
To enforce the decree, the Nazis set up special courts to try people who were accused of “malicious attacks.” In December 1934, the government replaced the decree with the “Law against Malicious Attacks on State and Party,” adding a clause that criminalized “malicious, rabble-rousing remarks or those indicating a base mentality” against the Nazi Party or high-ranking government or party officials.

Did you get that? To consolidate their power, the Nazis criminalized dissent. Against their ideology. But even that’s a poor way to put it, because, of course, dissent again fascist values just means you believe in, LOL, democracy, and its fundamental values of freedom, justice, equality, truth, and so forth. The Nazis didn’t just make dissent a crime — they criminalized believing in democracy itself.

Think I’m kidding? Then let’s keep going — sorry, another long quote, but again, necessary.

 

 

Alfons Heck, then a member of the Hitler Youth, recalled the effects of the law. In 1938, he was living with his grandparents when his father came to visit.
In retrospect, I think it was the last time my father railed against the regime in front of me. . . . He wasn’t much of a drinker, but when he had a few too many, he had a tendency to shout down everyone else, not a small feat among the men of my family. “You mark my words, Mother,” he yelled, “that goddamned Austrian housepainter is going to kill us all before he’s through conquering the world.” And then his baleful eye fell on me. “They are going to bury you in this goddamned monkey suit [his Hitler Youth uniform], my boy,” he chuckled, but that was too much for my grandmother.
“Why don’t you leave him alone, Du dummer Narr [you stupid fool],” she said sharply, “and watch your mouth; you want to end up in the KZ [the German abbreviation for concentration camp]?”
He laughed bitterly and added: “So, it has come that far already, your own son turning you in?” My grandmother told me to leave the kitchen, but the last thing I heard was my father’s sarcastic voice. “Are you people all blind? This thing with the Jews is just the beginning.”

As it turned out, the grandmother was exactly right. Eerily and presciently so. She was the only one in the family who picked up on the warning signals. That criminalizing basic democratic values was what made it possible for the Nazis to go out and then commit modern history’s greatest crime, the attempted annihilation of the Jews. Made it possible for them to make average people — who weren’t even German, as Ken Burns documents — to lead and participate in it, like villagers and townspeople across Eastern Europe helped march Jews to trenches where Einsatzgruppen soldiers…shot them by the tens, then hundreds of thousands.

Grandma felt the horror and pain of that as a premonition in her bones, because she understood the threads which hold this thing called civilization together. Criminalize democracy, and you make the rest possible — the worst abuses of all, like genocide.

 

[Lord Liaden]

I've always said it, this brand of American fascism is nothing new. They're acting directly according to the playbook. Anyone with a passing knowledge of history can recognize the signs, and knows where they lead. That's why they want to suppress the teaching of history.

[unclevlad]

https://vimeo.com/cityofmemphis

 

 

These are the videos released by Memphis PD, of the beating of Tyre Nichols.  PLEASE respect the warnings.

 

I couldn't get past 4 minutes on video 3...it's only 6 long too.  No, I'm not gonna watch the others.  This was too much as it was.

[csyphrett]

10 hours ago, Cygnia said:

https://eand.co/we-need-to-talk-about-ron-desantiss-fascist-paradise-e3784261dd7c

 

 

If it makes you feel better, some students are threatening to sue Desantis and his government over african american history

CES

[Pattern Ghost]

4 hours ago, unclevlad said:

https://vimeo.com/cityofmemphis

 

 

These are the videos released by Memphis PD, of the beating of Tyre Nichols.  PLEASE respect the warnings.

 

I couldn't get past 4 minutes on video 3...it's only 6 long too.  No, I'm not gonna watch the others.  This was too much as it was.

 

I hope they get hard time.

 

Also, pepper spray followed by TASER is not a good recipe. A TASER will light that stuff up, even the stuff labeled non-flammable.

 

Not that these clowns gave a crap about the safety of their victim.

[unclevlad]

From AP:

 

Quote

The officers, who are all Black, each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

 

Second degree murder:  15-60 years

Aggravated kidnapping:  8-30 years

Aggravated assault:  3-15 years

 

The official misconduct and oppression charges would also be felonies;  I wouldn't be surprised if the sentencing judge considers them more as aggravating factors, leading to sentences on the long side for the 3 larger crimes.

 

Then you figure, these are going to be ex-cops in prison.  This will probably be very hard time.

 

[Starlord]

22 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

I'd rather have a pen-and-pencil gift set--or anything else.

 

 

[unclevlad]

::bows to Starlord::

 

 

[Old Man]

5 hours ago, unclevlad said:

From AP:Second degree murder:  15-60 years

Aggravated kidnapping:  8-30 years

Aggravated assault:  3-15 years

 

The official misconduct and oppression charges would also be felonies;  I wouldn't be surprised if the sentencing judge considers them more as aggravating factors, leading to sentences on the long side for the 3 larger crimes.

 

Then you figure, these are going to be ex-cops in prison.  This will probably be very hard time.

 

 

They're doomed, but the question that needs to be asked is, would they even have been charged if they were caucasian males?  I've noticed that police coverups tend not to protect cops that don't fit into that category.

[unclevlad]

That's a point that will continue to arise for a long time, unfortunately.

 

My feeling is, in Memphis...yes, this would still have been handled this way.  Also, the body cam evidence goes FAR beyond a smoking gun.

[Lectryk]

2 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

They're doomed, but the question that needs to be asked is, would they even have been charged if they were caucasian males?  I've noticed that police coverups tend not to protect cops that don't fit into that category.

They'll go in to a segregated.  I can't imagine Tennesee not having such a policy in their DoC.  It'll be time, but they won't be in pop.

[Lectryk]

What I find interesting (a corollary to OM's comment about the race of the officers) is that there are no command officers/staff being penalized (at least yet).  Training, sop's, p&p's, etc exist for a reason.  This corpus is written by the command staff, presented in the form of training (either in-house or contracted in some way), and is part (should be, at least) of the road staff evaluations....  Who had the brainstorm to launch the Scorpion program, with so little oversight that behaviors like this could grow (in my experience, this would not have been the first time these guys threw on somebody - but it takes a very lax/unobservant  hand from command for it get like this).  Some command staff weren't doing their jobs of training/modeling/monitoring appropriately, for quite a bit.  Will rank protect them, or will higher heads roll sooner or later?   

[Pariah]

That depends on how soon the lawsuits start, I expect.

[unclevlad]

Plus, the vicious assault was only 3 weeks ago.  It's telling to me that

 

a)  the assault was on the 7th

b)  the victim died on the 10th

c)  the perps relieved of duty on the 15th

d)  they were named publicly and fired on the 20th

e)  charges filed on the 26th

 

When you're talking actions involving the police, IIRC this is *seriously* fast.  There are significant procedural issues;  this has to be done properly.  Named and fired 5 days after temporary suspension is arguably about as strong an implication that there is no other *possible* interpretation.

 

Back tracing this to training issues...it's far harder to connect the dots.  That said, the special unit they were on, which has a questionable (at best) history, has been shut down.  From CBS:

 

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The name SCORPION stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. There are more than two dozen officers assigned to SCORPION teams. They  wear black hoodies and tactical black vests with "POLICE" emblazoned across the front and back, and drive dark colored Dodge Chargers marked with a SCORPION seal. 

 

The crime-suppression teams patrol in groups and at times use justified low-level traffic stops as a way to find violent criminals, drugs or weapons.

 

This suggests a serious predisposition to make unjustified stops, and to escalate any stop.  It's plausible this will have repercussions up the chain, to be sure.

[Pattern Ghost]

The acronym and the attire are cringe. I can't believe any responsible adult signed off on this concept of policing.

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Pattern Ghost said:

The acronym and the attire are cringe. I can't believe any responsible adult signed off on this concept of policing.

 

I doubt any responsible adult did.

 

My next question is, how often does this happen?  Are we only hearing about it because the victim died this time? 

[csyphrett]

The unit broken up in New York was like this, and the infamous Crash unit in L.A. are the first examples I can think of at the moment. I think there was also a special unit in Chicago that was busted when their black site holding center was revealed

CES

[Ranxerox]

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I doubt any responsible adult did.

 

My next question is, how often does this happen?  Are we only hearing about it because the victim died this time? 

 

Based on what I have read, there were numerous allegations of abuse and police brutality against the unit, but this is the first death.

[Old Man]

It was a targeted attack:

 

Spoiler

 

[Cancer]

If that stands up, that makes it capital in some jurisdictions.

[Lord Liaden]

When many American urban police departments deliberately recruit thugs, it shouldn't be surprising when they act like thugs.

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, Cancer said:

If that stands up, that makes it capital in some jurisdictions.

 

Yes, that's premeditation now, IF that tweet is accurate.  That absolutely can't be assumed, and while I can find social media trash, I can't find a legitimate report about it.  But I'm not trying all that hard either.

 

That said, Haley was also accused of beating a prisoner when he was a corrections officer.  There was a lawsuit but it was dismissed on procedural grounds, it seems.  

 

Plus, it disturbs me that a corrections officer becomes a police officer...then gets onto a unit like this.

[Clonus]

Did you ever watch the pilot episode for the new Hawaii Five-Oh? In it the governor of Hawaii decides to a create a police unit unhampered by things that get in the way of results. No red tape, no rules, no respect for civil rights. Just kicking ass and naming names. Getting the bad guys no matter what it takes.

 

In short an adolescent power fantasy that only a moron who confuses real life with Mel Gibson movies would think would produce good results if they tried it in real life. Newsflash. People try it in real life. They take the most aggressive cops, give them a badass backronym like SCORPION or STRESS, tell them they’re “elite” even though they actually have no special training just special latitude. They encourage the unit to prioritise maximizing the number of suspects they take down over worrying about proper procedure, put them on constant patrol in the most crime ridden areas, encourage them to think of everyone around them not as people to be protected but enemies to be suppressed and make maximizing their number of busts per week the priority while ignoring the misconduct complaints.

 

And then wait for the inevitable results.

Units like these don't just suffer from a lack of transparency and use tactics likely to spawn violence. Their rhetoric attracts "police officers who enjoy being feared," Balko notes, and it positions these officers as both elite and beyond the normal rules. There are all sorts of horror stories about similar units, such as Detroit's STRESS unit ("Over a two-year period, the units killed at least 22 people, almost all of them Black") or Los Angeles' CRASH unit ("More than 70 officers were implicated in planting guns and drug evidence, selling narcotics themselves and shooting and beating people without provocation").

https://reason.com/2023/01/30/the-most-popular-police-reforms-cant-stop-the-next-tyre-nichols-from-being-killed-heres-what-might/