We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Cop Throws Elderly Man Down, Slaps Him in the Face, For Trying to Use a Restroom

Click here to access article by Cassandra Rules from The Free Thought Project.

I just discovered this website which from my 15 minute inspection appears to offer excellent filmed evidence by ordinary citizens of police brutality. Because the website also reports on a few incidents of police good conduct, I think one can safely conclude that the website administrators are objective in their coverage. 

This is only one incident among many that I noticed on the website. There are numerous others depicting far worse scenes of police brutality and murders by police directed against the most vulnerable citizens. Check it out.

There have always been some such incidents like this since the establishment of police forces simply because policing agencies like all institutions were created and/or shaped to serve a ruling capitalist class. However, the increasing reports of such incidents and the use of force against peaceful demonstrators of recent years suggests an epidemic of police violence toward vulnerable and protesting citizens that usually goes unpunished, and is dramatic evidence of a definite trend toward a police state. Apparently our masters in the One Percent have no answer for the increasing precarity of ordinary citizens, and thus are relying more on police violence to intimidate resisting citizens into passivity. However, people are fighting back by videotaping such incidents and showing this evidence to all the world.