Your Police State in Action

Anyone who has been following the events at Zuccotti/Liberty Plaza events today knows why I'm posting "Gee Officer Winski" at this point.



Jake -- JRozLive on Ustream -- was video streaming the events as police moved in to the park this evening and started harassing and arresting people. Ultimately, Jake himself was arrested. He managed to document the action in the video below:



Video streaming by Ustream

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/23928054

Nate was also streaming, and according to reports, he recorded Jake's arrest, though I haven't see it yet.

Officer Winski figured prominently in all the police violence today. But then, as someone drolly put it, "That's his job."

"Gee, Officer Winski..."

Highlights of the evidentiary video submission in the federal case of Rodriguez Vs. Winski seeking oversight of NYPD, MTA and other entities in light of the systematic suppression of the constitutional rights of politicans and journalists to observe police actions against Occupy Wall Street protesters.



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I just want to add that these sorts of actions have the effect of delegitimizing the police in the eyes of more and more Americans. Of course minority communities have been subjected to far worse over a far longer time, with the result that the police and the civil authorities that back them have literally no legitimacy in the community at all. They are the equivalent of an army of occupation. Throughout the Occupy Era (isn't that a turn of phrase!) the police, particularly in New York, have extended their "occupation army" theory of operation far and wide, such that all public space whatever is now subject to arbitrary imposition of authority, Americans are routinely subjected to arbitrary and random mass arrest, and numerous cases of police raids -- mostly in the dead of night -- on fishing expeditions for "communists" and "anarchists" are now expected features of our police state no matter where one lives. In addition, police forces all over the country have acquired military equipment through DHS with which to "combat" the People should they persist in demonstrating their displeasure with the way things are.


All of it together, cumulatively, has the effect of making the police look like an army and behave like thugs and goons toward the People they are sworn to protect and serve. Most especially, their behavior makes mock of their oath to "protect and defend the Constitution."

This behavior ultimately is a severely destabilizing force in a society that is already under extraordinary strain from continued economic shocks. Apparently, the belief on the part of Authority is that by force alone they can maintain control of the deteriorating situation. In other eras, in other lands, for a time, that may have been the case. I doubt it will prove to be so in the United States as the 21st Century wears on.