On Creeping Militarism

Robo-Forces At the Ready, California State Capitol, Sacramento, c. 2011

In several recent installments, I've focused on the heavily militarized and highly abusive nature of today's more and more violent and oppressive police forces. We've all see it, time and time again.

While some Americans cheer these impositions of Authority, many are deeply troubled by what they see as a fundamental violation of basic American rights by an officious and out of control, mercenary and dangerous domestic control force.

I tend to be in the group of Americans who are very troubled by these developments. I have personally encountered the Robo-Forces at the the Capitol. It can be psychologically intimidating and shocking, even if you are not being chased, beaten, tased or shot by them. "Who are these people, and what are they doing on the grounds of my state Capitol? What are they doing on the streets of my city? What are they doing?"

I got to thinking about this phenomenon a little more deeply yesterday, though, while engaging in some reminiscences on another site about the way things were back in the early to mid sixties -- elementary school for one of us, junior high and high school for me.

As it turned out, we lived no more than a couple of miles from one another, though we had no knowledge of one another at the time. We were both youngsters in suburban Sacramento during a period when the whole city was essentially a military garrison town. There were two large Air Force Bases -- Mather and McClellan -- one to the south and one to the north, and there was an even larger one in Fairfield (Travis) not very far to the west; there was an Army Depot as well. There were plenty of Defense plants as well, the most prominent being Aerojet-General, where the rocket motors for many an intercontinental ballistic missile (along with all kinds of other rocket motors) were built and tested.

I was recalling that most of my friends in junior high and high school were Air Force brats -- and we took it for granted. What else are you going to do? Large parts of the population of the neighborhoods and communities round about were Air Force families. It's just the way it was. Those who weren't military households often had members who worked on base or out at "The Plant," ie: Aerojet. Some were government workers from in town who preferred to live in the suburbs.

The father of one of my friends was a B-52 bomber pilot who periodically went overseas to bomb the Gooks back into the Stone Age and would come back and act like his "job" was simply routine. I remember he was a very nice man.

It was a militarized and military culture that we took completely for granted. We didn't question how militarized civilian life was -- we didn't even notice if it was. Yet I got to thinking that the defense plants and the government presence, and especially the military bases themselves had been the basis of local and regional "stability and order," both in a socio-psychological sense and in an economic sense.

Nothing has been quite the same since the bases closed and the plants shut down. Travis is still in operation, but McClellan and Mather have been converted to civilian uses, and Aerojet has a very different and much smaller footprint and mission now.

Looking back from a distance of 50 years, it's hard to recognize just how militarized everything was back then, how controlled, conformist, and in many ways oppressive the whole society was.

No, we didn't have Robo-cops preening and protecting Our Betters from the rabble; in fact, in those days, the rabble had essentially open access to Their Betters. Government offices weren't behind barricades and metal detectors; there were very rarely any armed guards anywhere; and even the Highest of the Mighty were far more easily approachable than they are today. The idea of these Robo-forces to keep the proles in line was absurd -- at least until the upheavals and social unrest of the mid and later '60's.

But one shouldn't over romanticize the era or think that things were particularly "better." In fact, the local police and sheriffs were notoriously brutal, rigid, spiteful, and some were very corrupt. You got on the wrong side of them, and you took your life in your hands. There were far fewer of them for one thing, and they were much less tolerant of dissent and disruption than today's more numerous police tend to be. They were also grossly racist which meant that communities of color faced sometimes extreme levels of police abuse and oppression.

Perhaps because the whole society was militarized, there was less need for overt policing of the rabble. Most people understood adhered to social limits and conformed to social norms, so there was little call for the more general suppressive displays we've become used to as the New Normal -- at least since the Terror Trap we fell into back in Ought One.

I was a rebel by nature, so I was directly exposed to some of the tactics used against non-conformists during the period. I wouldn't say it was pleasant, and yet I can't recall anything even remotely resembling the kind of casual cruelty we experience from officialdom and police these days. It was a very different concept of social engineering, if you will. The psychology of control was completely different.

Of course school was the primary socializing and controlling element for children, as the job was for adults. But our neighborhoods and communities were just as important, and as this was the Post War Boom Era, suburban neighborhoods and communities were the idealized norm. I lived in a relatively new and expanding suburban communities that initially the freeways hadn't even reached yet throughout my childhood in Los Angeles and Sacramento, and when I wasn't living in a suburban community, I was living in small towns -- an alternate American ideal setting. Except in small towns, I almost always was in the first class in brand new schools.

There were no campus police; the idea was absurd. Even more absurd was the idea of school district police forces, despite the general fear and loathing of "juvenile delinquents" who were thought to be out running wild all the time, though they were rarely actually seen. They were more a media/police creation than a reality -- at least in my experience. The fictive "juvenile delinquent" was instead a kind of boogeyman produced as a contrast to keep everyone else in line.

That was one way of many used to ensure conformity. "You don't want to be like that do you? Of course not!" Big smile.

Very few people were jailed at any given time, but there were quite a few in psych wards and state mental hospitals. One's sanity was questioned before one's criminality. Social rebellion was relatively rare and low key until the mid-sixties, and such rebellion as there was (for example at the HUAC hearings in San Francisco in 1960) was considered the work of Communists and Fellow Travelers or in the case of Beatniks, was seen mostly as harmless eccentricity. Well, unless you were Alan Ginsberg, and then you were considered a Threat to Society.

There was no drug war, though there has always been a drug using subculture. Alcohol abuse was pretty rampant and generally tolerated as were many other kinds of abuse including that of children, single women and odd characters of any sort.

"Gangsters" and "mobsters" and "communists" were the social pariahs, but they were never numerous.

On the other hand, officials in office were respected no matter their party affiliation, the police were considered society's friends and helpers, teachers were regarded with remarkable respect (unless they were accused of communism or homosexuality) and pretty much everyone's economic situation was better than it had ever been and was getting better bit by bit all the time.

It was not an idyllic period of peace and prosperity, however. War with the Soviet Union and instant incineration via massive nuclear attack were constant existential threats, and there was no escape, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. There were periodic panics -- such as during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- that led to widespread social insanity. After Korea, there seemed to be constant low-level conflicts overseas, particularly in Vietnam which became the focus of American armed forces action early in the 1960's, certainly by the beginning of President Kennedy's brief term.

His assassination, following so closely on the assassination of  Diem in Saigon, was an unparalleled shock to the social and political system from which I believe the United States has never recovered. From November 22, 1963 until today, the United States has been in a nearly constant state of social, political and economic turmoil.

The student and counterculture rebellions of the 1960's grew out of the Civil Rights and Nuclear Disarmament movements of the 1950's, but the trigger for the rebellions of the 1960's was pulled in Dallas that sunny November day in 1963. That was when in a way the curtain was pulled back, we saw a very ugly side of the collective and conformist nature of American society and change -- toward peace and love and understanding, of course -- became essential.

Change actually came very quickly. Civil Rights and Great Society programs passed in Congress almost instantly, lifting up the poor and abused minorities in ways that had never been possible before. At the same time, the war in Vietnam -- which had been going on at a low key for some time -- ramped up into a full-scale conflict sucking more and more young people in to the military and for some a very ugly death or dismemberment in the nameless swamps of a far-away land.

Protest increased, and as campuses erupted, so did the inner cities; riots and civil insurrections were brutally and lethally put down by National Guard troops; campus unrest, on the other hand, was mostly handled by local and state police unless it got completely out of hand at which time the Guard was called in and more forceful measures were employed. Anti-war and civil rights campaigns were constantly infiltrated and spied upon by police at every level, notoriously as part of the COINTELPRO operation out of Washington, DC. Of course, anti-war and civil rights campaigns were considered to be the work of Communists during the period as no "true American" would be advocating peace and voting rights for the Colored.

As rights were extended, though, and poverty was reduced, there was a trade off that is still being paid in devastated communities, particularly communities of color, wherein a huge proportion of the male population is criminalized, incarcerated, and placed under a lifetime of scrutiny by the civil authorities.

Peace of a sort would be secured with the defeat of the "Allied" forces in Vietnam, and for a time, it seemed that the United States would de-militarize, especially after the military draft was ended. But something else happened instead.

As liberation advanced and poverty was reduced and peace seemed to break out for the first time in almost anyone's lifetime, economic conditions seemed to freeze and then to march backwards as wages stagnated and the cost of living kept going up. All of a sudden it took two incomes per household to make ends meet, and even then, it often wasn't enough. Debt skyrocketed as incomes stayed flat, but not expenses. Productivity increased spectacularly, but all the economic gains went to the Overclass, a phenomenon that first recognized during the Carter administration. Reagan's response was that "government was the problem." But liberating business from government regulation, as individuals had been liberated restrictive laws, had the effect of compounding the economic tribulations of ordinary people while endlessly enhancing the economic benefits to the already rich and growing richer.

Social militarization may have ended, and along with it restrictions and regulations on business and banking, but official repression was just getting going.

Now, after decades of this, we have a situation in which the People are socially liberated and "free," and yet they are faced with an indomitable extractive Overclass intent on impoverishing them on the one hand and suppressing any effective protest through what amount to military campaigns by mercenary police forces against the People on the other.

In a way, we are back where were were a hundred years ago and more.

Lucky us.

San Francisco

Coit Tower Mural, c. 1936

The last time I was in San Francisco, only a year or so ago, to see Asleep At The Wheel at the Herbst, I thought that it would be the last time, for sure. I hadn't been there in quite a while, there being no earthly reason to go any more than I typically go to downtown Sacramento unless on duty. But I'm in San Francisco today and will be spending the night because it turns out that Ray Davies of the Kinks is playing the Fillmore, and well... there's a story.

There's a whole novel, if you want to get into it.

Yes, I was at the Fillmore for the Kinks/Taj Mahal, Sha-na-na concert on one of those dates November 27-30, 1969; it was quite something, and I can almost remember it. Well, you know how the old saying goes, "If you can remember the '60's, you weren't really there." I wonder if I would remember as much as I do (in bits and pieces to be sure) if it weren't for the movies and television programs that from time to time provide documentation of the era.

I came across a box the other day as I was packing stuff up for the move to New Mexico. It was full of surprising stuff: letters I'd written, a hotel brochure from San Francisco, some projects I'd done in college, etc; all from the 1960's, some of it as early as 1966 or possibly even before that. I barely recognized my own handwriting (it was much neater then!), I had no idea exactly when I'd picked up the hotel brochure and stationery but I found a San Francisco travel brochure dated 1973, and a letter written on hotel stationery dated "Saturday" -- referring to the Kinks at Winterland. I sort of remember that concert as well; it was where I was introduced to Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. Oh. Of course. Who could forget.

There's a story about them, too; not quite a novel though, say a novella.

At any rate.

So off we go to visit Baghdad by the Bay at least one more time.

Like many others, I have mixed feelings about San Francisco. From a tourist perspective, there's practically no city better, but I'd rather not live there. It's foggy and cold and damp and windy. All. The. Time. The hills are monstrous if you're on foot; they can be more than a challenge if you're driving, too. Traffic is often horrendous. I remember a time when it took me over five hours just to get on the Bay Bridge to leave town one Friday evening after I'd conducted a training at the Civic Center. There wasn't a wreck. It was just extremely heavy traffic. This was during the dot.com bubble, and Bay Area traffic in general was nearly impossible practically  everywhere nearly all the time. One reason I was leaving town rather than spending the night was that it was almost impossible to get a hotel room anywhere in the Bay Area as well. (Grouse, grouse, complain, complain. But the Money!) There are earthquakes, too, you know! Sometimes bad ones.

Ah but! The galleries, the museums, the parks -- Golden Gate Park remains my all-time favorite urban park -- the beaches (brrrr!), the views from practically anywhere; gasp inducing. The Marina, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Presidio, the Bridges; Marin. The flowers... there used to be a lot more flowers. There were flower stands everywhere, flowers seemed to be blooming everywhere too. Now there are not so many, nor are they "everywhere."

The City (we always capitalize it) used to be very dirty; trash in the streets and on the sidewalks was almost as common as flowers. It was like no one ever cleaned up, and those who tried found themselves defeated in short order. I found some pictures of San Francisco street scenes taken in the 1850's, and it was like that then, too. So I figured all the trash in the streets was a historic/cultural thing, but then there was a big campaign to clean up when Willie Brown was mayor, and by and bye, it worked. I wouldn't say San Francisco is as clean as Seattle (Seattle is really too clean for an American city), but it is much, much cleaner than, for example, when I lived there in the mid-70's.

I don't care for Muni, and I still won't ride the 38 Geary bus, but the cable cars are fun and they can get you where you need to go. A variety of old fashioned street cars now run on Market Street, and that's a good thing. I'm old enough to remember when they still had streetcars in downtown Los Angeles, and while I can only remember riding them once or maybe twice, I was very fond of streetcars when I was little. So it's nice to see the old ones on Market Street in San Francisco rattling and careening along.

We had a one bedroom apartment on Geary St. between Leavenworth and Hyde. Neighbors called it "Lower Nob Hill," we called it "The Tenderloin." It was an urban neighborhood, not that rough, but certainly not deluxe and very convenient to my work and practically everything we needed. We paid $225 a month rent, which we thought was outrageous, and we had to park the car at a garage over on O'Farrell St. for an additional $45 or $50 a month. Well. I saw a listing last year for a one bedroom apartment in the building where we lived in the mid-'70's. It actually looked just like our apartment -- it was in the back of the building with a view of a beautiful garden where we could sit on nice days somewhat protected from the wind. The kitchen and bath had been upgraded, so there was that. The rent was $2450, if I recall correctly. Parking at the garage on O'Farrell is running about $300 a month these days.

We didn't like paying as much as we did to live in San Francisco back in the day, but we could afford it.  I wasn't making a lot of money by any means, but it was enough to get by -- on one salary.

It would take two "median American" salaries to approximate our living standards in San Francisco in the 1970's -- standards we could maintain on what was then considered one relatively low single salary. This gives an idea of how far workers' compensation has fallen since then and how much costs have increased.

As the number of employed Americans went up from the 1970's onward -- thanks in part to the pressure of a lot of liberation movements -- the value of their labor, strangely -- or maybe not so strangely -- went down. Workers today, if they can stay employed at all, are earning about half on average what they should be making based on productivity and comparable living standards. Of course there are tens of millions of unemployed -- forcing down wages and benefits for those who remain employed. Millions more Americans are forced into poverty every year which further erodes the living standards of everyone else -- except the 1%.

For their part, they've been happy to help themselves to all the profits of the last few decades. How much longer they'll be able to ride on the backs of everyone else is a question, though, isn't it?

Meanwhile... there's some geezer performing at the Fillmore...

Lessons of Impunity and Internalization of Perspectives

Last week, a report regarding police conduct at the November 9, 2011, rallies at the University of California at Berkeley was issued. It was the first of what will no doubt be a blizzard of studies about police conduct during their efforts to prevent or remove protest encampments on University grounds last fall.

The video above shows some of the actions of both police and protesters on the Sproul Plaza lawn that day; though I can't be sure of timing, the video description says that this particular confrontation occurred after the tents that had been briefly erected on the lawn were seized and removed by police, thus after the initial charge by police against protesters. It was apparently during the confrontation shown above that most of the injuries were sustained by protesters that day.

The report was prepared by

Jeff Young, Assistant Chief of Police UCLA Police Department

and so is an institutional-serving document that reflects both the culture of impunity with which the UCPD is imbued and the astonishment within the institution of the UCPD that civilians would question the behavior of the police or -- even worse -- not know the policies that they were properly implementing and enforcing.

If people were assaulted, arrested, or injured during the police actions November 9: too bad for them.

As I read the report, I was thinking back -- as I admit I often do! -- to the Free Speech Movement in late 1964 and early 1965 and how it was dealt with, and how there was nothing approaching this level of violence by the police, even though thousands of students actually occupied Sproul Hall (the UC Berkeley administration building) repeatedly during the FSM protests, and hundreds and hundreds of protesters were arrested. So far as I can recall, no one was beaten or sustained more than minor injuries (mostly from being dragged) during those police actions.

To refresh my memory, I watched "Berkeley in the Sixties," Mark Kitchell's 1990 documentary of those and other events in and near the Bay Area of California during the decade. (The link goes to part one of an eight part Spanish subtitled version on YouTube.) Indeed, so far as that documentary shows, there was no overt police violence during the FSM period though there were plenty of arbitrary impositions of police authority (most especially, the seizure of Mario Savio by police at the Greek Theatre while he tried to address the administration on behalf of the students). In fact, according to Jo Freeman's accounts, the Berkeley administration was directed by the Governor's Office to defuse the protest without violence.

My how times change.

As I watched the documentary -- the first time I've seen it in its entirety in many years -- I was somewhat startled to see so many things I remember or was part of during the era, even more startling to me was how much I have internalized the ideas and ideals of the era, and further, how much those ideas and ideals seem to be informing my perspectives about the current uprisings and rebellions under the Occupy rubric.

My. My. My.

I hadn't forgotten, I had internalized. And I got to thinking that something similar has happened to the police and their institutional culture in the intervening 40 or 50 years. I take for granted my point of view about rebellion, ideas and ideals, and of course I believe I'm "right" -- just as they do.

In 1964 and 65, the police didn't behave violently toward student protesters on campus. In fact, they were ordered not to. By 1966 and 67, police violence against protests would become commonplace in California, and in 1968 in Chicago, it became what was deemed a police riot. The term can only be properly understood in the context of the uprising and riots that were going on all over the United States and the world that year. 1968 was a transformative year on many levels. Nothing would be the same afterwards.

But back to the report and the impunity for police actions expressed therein.

From the outset, the thrust of the report is clear:

The specific purpose of this operational review is to determine if the
UC Berkeley Police Department followed its policies and procedures and generally accepted police and safety practices in dealing with the protests that occurred on the UC Berkeley campus on November 9, 2011. Other purposes that naturally flow this charge include determining:

1. lf the actions of the UC Berkeley Police Department provided an appropriate level of preparation and pre-event planning for the protest.

2. lf UC Berkeley Police Department command staff, including the Chief of Police,provided adequate leadership and command/control of the protest event.

3. If UC Berkeley campus administration provided adequate direction, guidance and the appropriate support of the indicated direction and guidance that they provided.

4. What actions of the protestors and crowd conditions contributed to the eventual outcomes of the event?

5. What recommendations for future consideration can be made?

According to institutional culture, events transpire in a vacuum, independent of all other events. Assessments are only made regarding the specifics of the moment according to established rules and policies as they are interpreted and enforced against perceived or real threats. Context, to the extent it is considered at all, is an abstraction. That UC Berkeley's history of protest is too widely known to be ignored, but that history does not directly inform today's realities and considerations. Instead, the events of 9/11 and the more recent Oakland actions -- including the police violence on October 25 and the vandalism by Oakland activists on November 2 -- will loom large.

From the outset, it is clear that the only issues under consideration will be whether the police responded properly according to their mission and policy as they understand it and as it was communicated to them by the campus administration. The implication is that to the extent they face accusations of wrongdoing, they are ultimately victims of policy choices they are not responsible for.

In other words, by the standards of this study, there is no way for the police to be in the wrong regarding their conduct so long as policies were followed.

And, of course, they were. Consequently, everyone can just sit down and shut up. The police were only following orders and doing their jobs. No one has any right to criticize them for their performance.

What was their all-important mission? What "job" was so important that they had to beat the crap out of and injure students to accomplish?

Interestingly, the report sidesteps that question and instead puts forth the following "Message" from the Chancellor:

In advance of the event, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau issued a "Message to Campus Community". In this message Chancellor Birgeneau warned students that camping would not be tolerated. Birgeneau's statement reminded "community members of some of the basic expectations for our campus." He specifically mentioned, "encampments or occupations of buildings are not allowed on our campus. This means that members of our community are free to meet, discuss, debate, and protest, but will not be allowed to set up tents or encampment structures." The chancellor stressed support for "our campus community in leading the collegiate movement in a way that is productive, dignified and consequential." Birgeneau also noted that "in these challenging times, we simply cannot afford to spend our precious resources and, in particular, student tuition on costly and avoidable expenses associated with violence or vandalism."

This statement is strikingly obtuse, in that it seems to be focusing everywhere except the interests of the students engaged in protest on campus, and it is remarkably similar to statements issued from the administration with regard to the People's Park in 1969. In other words, Birgeneau seems to be saying, "You can have your silly little protest if you must, but only on our terms, not on yours."

Note the matter of "costly and avoidable expenses associated with violence or vandalism" that are paid from student tuition. Nice touch.

While not explicitly stated, the all-important mission, indeed the obsession of the police on November 9, was preventing an encampment on the campus. When they were thwarted and tents were erected on the lawn in front of Sproul Hall, they became enraged and commenced their brutal actions against the protesters. For their part, protesters resisted for a time and then retreated.

The encampment was destroyed, a number of protesters were injured and arrested, and "order" was restored to the campus.

The police conduct was quickly intercast around the world and was met with widespread outrage and disgust. Captain Margo Bennett, UCB police spokesperson, and Chancellor Birgeneau both tried to justify the violence of the police toward the protesters by asserting that the protesters' behavior was "not nonviolence," which doesn't make any rational sense at all. At no time did any protester address the police violence with violence of their own. It simply did not happen.

In the report, however, the issue is not directly addressed. The statements about "not nonviolence" are not given. Instead, the report quotes definitional terms as understood by the police regarding matters of "resistance", to wit:

A word about terms such as "Passive Resistance" and "Non-Violent" "Passive Resistance" and Non-Violent" are controversial terms that mean different things to many different groups. The UC Berkeley Police Department "Crowd Management Policy" provides definitions for three
categories of demonstrator response to police orders:

1. Compliant - behavior consistent with submitting to lawful police orders without resistance.

2. Non-Compliant - non-violent opposition to the lawful directions of law enforcement during an arrest situation (sometimes referred to as "passive resistance").

3. Active Resistance - intentionally & unlawfully opposing the lawful order of a peace officer in a physical manner (i.e. tensed muscles, interlock arms/legs, pushing, kicking, etc.).

Viewed under these definitions, the actions of the crowd on November 9, 2011 were "active resistance."

Note, "passive resistance" is not defined further than "non-violent opposition" whereas "active resistance" is defined as essentially what the protesters did as a consequence of the violence of the police.

Also, not clearly mentioned in the report is that the police policy toward "active resistance" is to use force. Once the protesters engaged in any behavior the police regarded as "active resistance" then use of force was guaranteed. "Active resistance" in police parlance includes any action they so deem. Thus, for example, it is often noted that witnesses to aggressive arrests often hear police shouting "Stop resisting!" to fully controlled and compliant suspects. This is so that later when they are sued, the police can claim that the suspect was engaged in "active resistance" thus justifying the use of force against them.

It is acknowledged in the report that some of the protesters did not recognize that their behavior was considered "active resistance" by the police.

However, it was clear to me during my interviews of several protestors and witnesses said that they did not see protestors interlocking their arms and pushing back against the line of police officers as anything other than "passive resistance." This is a misconception held by many. In most cases, the police have a very different definition of passive resistance. Any action other than a protestor passively sitting or standing and going limp is usually considered more than passive resistance. For example, the UCLA Police Department Policy 300, "Use of Force" provides specific detailed definitions of active and passive resistance:

Actively Resisting - Evasive physical movements to defeat an officer's attempt at control, including bracing, tensing, pushing, linking arms or verbally signaling an intention to avoid or prevent being taken into or retained in custody.

Passive Resistance - Actions that do not prevent the officer's attempt to control a subject. For example, a subject who remains in a sitting, standing, limp or prone position with no physical contact (e.g., locked arms) with other individuals. A subject in handcuffs meets the definition of passive resistance if: (a) the subject is in a sitting, standing or prone position as directed by the officer and is not engaged in any motion reasonably likely to injure, resist or remove the handcuffs; or (b) the subject is walking accompanied by and following the directions of an officer.

A subject who, while sitting or standing, has locked arms with another subject is not engaged in passive resistance but is engaged in active resistance to obstruct. A subject who has previously engaged in passive resistance but who subsequently engages in behavior such as flailing, kicking, elbowing, head butting, biting, shoving, jerking, pulling away, twisting or other action that an officer interprets as a threat or actual act of active resistance is no longer considered to be engaging in passive resistance.

It should be easy to see that by these definitions, any action by a protester, suspect or arrestee that can be interpreted by an officer as a "threat" to act -- which means anything at all including complete compliance -- can be used as justification for police violence.

Anyone who has studied the issue of police brutality knows that's exactly what happens, too, with sometimes -- all too often -- deadly consequences. In almost every case, however, police brutality is considered "justified" because the officer perceived a "threat" of some sort. It's a matter of force protection that applies to the military as well. The perception of a potential "threat" is all it takes for the use of force against civilians, force which can be and too often is deadly.

That's essentially the definition of impunity. While the police conception of their impunity is based on their perception of a "threat" -- which means in practice that anything at all can be cited as justification for police brutality and murder and be accepted by Authority -- the culture of impunity goes far beyond the police and infuses the culture of power and authority at every level.

This has been made starkly clear to Americans and many people around the world during the ongoing -- and seemingly endless -- financial crisis, during which those who made the crisis and keep it going are not held to account in any way but are instead showered with ever more rewards while millions of Americans are forced out of their homes and into poverty year after year.

In the case of the University, the stark realization of the impunity of power and authority is slightly different in that students and their families are being assessed higher and higher fees and tuition, while their opportunities to complete their educations are becoming more and more restricted (as access to classes is further and further limited) while extensive construction projects and higher and higher salaries for top administrators and sports coaches are instituted. Students and their families are forced deeper and deeper into debt to pay for degrees that take longer and longer to get, and for which -- surprise! -- there is often no market after graduation.

What a scam.

(I honestly did not realize until recently just how dire this situation has become for many students and their families who really feel they've been taken advantage of by a system that is out of control and run by people who believe they deserve impunity for their actions.)

We will find this culture of impunity permeates the power and authority centers of our society. The police are typically the public face of that impunity, just as they are in the report under consideration here.

When critics of the Occupy movement say that confronting the police is somehow a distraction from what's really important, I often wonder what they must be thinking. The police are at the base of the culture of impunity; their impunity is emblematic of the whole structure of impunity. Confronting the police is a means of confronting the structure they are part of and serve. Duh.

To wrap this up (because today and tomorrow are travel days) I'll just add that those with power and in authority in American society have largely internalized their belief in their own impunity of action. They take it for granted that the way things are is the way they are supposed to be, and that they deserve to be granted this impunity because of who they are.

At one time, their positions of authority and power were matters of responsibility and service. No longer.

At the same time, as I was reminded of what used to be (while watching "Berkeley in the Sixties") I recognized how many of the beliefs and attitudes of that era I have internalized and take for granted now.

Cold Chills -- "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)"

Damn, she was good!



(I was with a group of people in Monterey when we saw her for the first time in June of 1967. Her performance was more than astonishing. It lit up the whole damp and drippy arena -- the FOG! Well, that's the California coast in the summertime...)

Bless her heart. She died way too young, and yet, the gods took her, and she has no doubt been serenading them every since.

"Try, just a little bit harder..."

More Movies -- the Musicals

1958 was a surprisingly good year for wretched excess in the movies, and I probably saw all the most excessively overwrought pictures released that year. Excess was the zeitgeist. Just look at a 1958 Buick to catch the spirit of the year!



One of the highlights of the 1958 movie season was the release of Rogers' and Hammerstein's "South Pacific," one of the all time movie musical excesses.

For example, "There is Nothin' Like a Dame"



But we could easily pull out any musical number from the film and revel in its cinematic and musical excesses. "South Pacific" was the climactic movie musical. After that, everything was anti-climax.

But before the innundation of the senses that was "South Pacific," another Rogers and Hammerstein movie musical entranced audiences (including me) in 1956: "The King and I."



As overdone as "South Pacific" is, "The King and I," though lush and exotic as can be, is by contrast restrained.

In 1961, "West Side Story," by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim took the movie musical to another level altogether. I had been listening to the music from the Broadway show for years before I saw the picture, so I was pretty familiar with what it sounded like, but the movie experience it has stayed with me ever since. I love the show, I think it is great, one of the highest achievements of the American Musical Theatre bar none, and one that stands alone. There has been and is nothing else like it.



Well, except for this: "Web Site Story:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtPb8g8Jl6I

In 1963, a simple little movie musical called "Bye Bye Birdie" was released, and I can't count the number of times I must have seen it. It was a delight, and I was a young teenager at the time, so... I could relate. Heh.



Then in 1964, audiences were treated to what is very nearly the penultimate American musical (before the form imploded and became a specialty entertainment for connoisseurs): "My Fair Lady." I didn't much care for it, to tell the truth, but it was nicely done, so any objection I might have had was mild.



From that point on, at least until the release of "Cabaret" in 1972, the American Musical Theatre and the films that were made from those musical plays, were darned near dreadful. Despite occasionally interesting attempts, the art for has not recovered. That's my opinion. And I'm sticking to it! ;-)