General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: It is going to be a FUCKING REVOLUTION! [View all]woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Or would that be too mean to Obama?
I welcome the Third Way's concern about Ferguson if it is genuine and means they will stop circling the wagons around the actual policies and politicians who grow the militarization....and instead demand that the militarization stop and the weaponization be reversed. We also need a public, national database of police brutality and murders of citizens, and RELENTLESS Department of Justice attention to this garbage until it STOPS.
Here's to the citizens standing up against a viciously corrupt system. Now, let's pressure some politicians into doing more to dismantle this outrage than merely adding some cameras to America's police state.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025390424
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/aclu-police-militarization-swat_n_2813334.html
It's almost certain that if the police agencies cooperate, the ACLU will find that the militarization trend has accelerated since Kraska's studies more than a decade ago. All of the policies, incentives and funding mechanisms that were driving the trend then are still in effect now. And most of them have grown in size and scope.
The George W. Bush administration actually began scaling down the Byrne and COPS programs in the early 2000s, part of a general strategy of leaving law enforcement to states and localities. But the Obama administration has since resurrected both programs. The Byrne program got a $2 billion surge in funding as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, by far the largest budget in the program's 25-year history. Obama also gave the COPS program $1.55 billion that same year, a 250 percent increase over its 2008 budget, and again the largest budget in the program's history. Vice President Joe Biden had championed both programs during his time in the Senate.
The Pentagon's 1033 program has also exploded under Obama. In the program's monthly newsletter (Motto: "From Warfighter to Crimefighter" , its director announced in October 2011 that his office had given away a record $500 million in military gear in fiscal year 2011, which he noted, "passes the previous mark by several hundred million dollars." He added, "I believe we can exceed that in FY 12.
Then there are the Department of Homeland Security's anti-terrorism grants. The Center for Investigative Reporting found in a 2011 investigation that since 2001, DHS has given out more than $34 billion in grants to police departments across the country, many of which have been used to purchase military-grade guns, tanks, armor, and armored personnel carriers. The grants have gone to such unlikely terrorism targets as Fargo, N.D.; Canyon County, Idaho; and Tuscaloosa, Ala.
https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/war-comes-home-excessive-militarization-american-police-report
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025413841
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025404667
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025416747
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025428157
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025412909