Training the Next Generation of Enforcers,Training the 99% to "Know Their Place"

It has been common for fictional television programs to paint a picture of everyday law enforcement as being encumbered by, and/or wantonly disregarding, many normal civil liberties supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution, its amendments, and case law. Intentional or not, this has the inevitable result of undermining accurate public knowledge of civil liberties and expectations for police behavior. Get a significant portion of the public trained via television dramas to the memes that nearly anything goes (and is justified) in policing, that civil liberties are an impediment to public safety, and, above all, that cops are always the good guys, then in the real world, abuses of power by law enforcement will be much more easily accepted.

September 11 also convinced many Americans that governmental spying on the American public — without cause or traditional court-issued warrants — was justified, even desirable. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have convinced much of the American populace that drones are a desirable method of surveillance and warfare. The "logical" next step — for those who believe in a logic that ignores the lessons from the history of totalitarianism — is to expand governmental surveillance of the greater American public by means that include drones. That is beginning to happen, as documented in Glenn Greenwald's recent pieces in Salon. (Indeed, it appears that the deployment of drones with offensive weaponry designed to be used against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil is also in the works).

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/12/the_growing_menace_of_domestic_drones/singleton/

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/06/nprs_domestic_drone_commercial/

Finally, it has also been established by surveys that a substantial number of Americans — far more than is justified by actual economic mobility — believe that one day, they too will be rich, and it has been suggested that this belief has contributed to the strength of American right-wing politics and opposition to adequately-progressive taxation.

Ah, but for those wishing to advance an authoritarian, intrusive, and economically-unjust system of social relations, a problem remains. If these various current public memes are to become maximally effective, how can they be instilled at the earliest possible age? As the Jesuits have said with regard to religion, give them control of a child before age seven, and they'll have a Catholic for life. Similarly, in matters related to projection of, and obedience to, governmental authority, early exposure and internalization are highly important. And one of the central methods to achieve that is play.

I present below a sampling of slick recent advertisements for toys that promote the aforementioned memes. (I ignore traditional militarism and mayhem, as toys devoted to those memes are even more widespread and undoubtedly already familiar to most people; I also omit video games, as most are aimed at children older than the demographic for most of the toys below).

Happy shopping!

*Pepper spray, handcuffs not included

Of course, the "Protect & Serve" motto is present. As someone once said: If only it meant protecting and serving the 99 percent, rather than the 1 percent.

Handcuffs ARE included

From the Toys R Us description: "... Blow the whistle and flash the badge to tell the baddies to stop, and if they don't, administer some justice with the nightstick before holding them prisoner with the handcuffs. A knife rounds out the kit. ... True Heroes police, fire and soldier toys and spy gear let your kids emulate the latest blockbuster action movie as well as the people who make the world safe and just!"

Above comment is by "Mom from NYC"

 

From the Hasbro description: "... Put his pistol or gas grenade in one hand, leaving the other hand free for his K-9 companion’s leash! Order will be restored with your G.I. JOE figure on patrol!"

Note the belt-fed portable machine gun above, presumably useful when firing forty-one shots at an innocent man via standard departmental-issue semiautomatic sidearms would be too tiring to police trigger fingers. And what is the nature of the complex-looking "attached revolving weapon" on top of the truck? It appears too large to be a riot-control water cannon, and includes what seems to be a telescopic sight, certainly unnecessary for a water cannon.

 

Et tu, LEGO?

 

Above: Note the weaponry carried

For the young one-percenter-wannabe

Should aspirations to become a one-percenter not pan out, there is always the prospect of more plebian employment behind the drive-thru window.

 

It's never too early to start drone operator training, or to help acclimate your neighbors to being spied upon.

(Photos and descriptions are from manufacturer and retailer websites, and are deemed to constitute fair use, as they are being used to illustrate the slickness of the products and their marketing, the psychological effects that the products may produce in consumers, and the political effects that the products may produce in the nation).

The NYC Police Taking Pride in their Work --- plus a Message about our Social Security

Below is a screen snip from the slideshow accompanying a New York Times story on how cities are starting to move against "Occupy" protests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/us/oakland-and-other-cities-crack-down-on-occupy-protests.html

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/26/us/20111027_OCCUPY.html?ref=us

I first took particular note of the photo for two reasons:

1) The sight of the two cops obviously straining, really getting into their "work" against an apparently hapless protester. Isn't it reassuring, in a time when so many employees supposedly don’t care about their work, to see two "workers" so serious about doing their job "right"?! (Or should I say "right-wing", instead of "right"?)

2) The large letters on the jacket of the "white-shirt" officer to the right that identify him as "police". This gets to the point I've raised previously (via comment to a story at the NYT, at the Sardonicky blog, and at RealityChex): I believe that all law enforcement and military should wear a large (at least 10 cm tall) identifying number on their uniform, to permit identification at a distance by witnesses and/or photography, of those in positions of authority who abuse their power. As in most jurisdictions, the New York City police have no problem wearing jackets with large letters that identify them as police — but when it comes to specific identification of a particular officer, that will be extremely small (if at all), and certainly not readable at a distance.

The photographer, Spencer Platt, has done a masterful job of capturing these essentials.

However, what prompted the screen grab was the incongruity of the juxtaposition of the above police action in the service of the powers-that-be, with the Charles Schwab advertisement about Social Security to the lower right — and the inanity of a New York Times system for placing advertisements with their content. While the Schwab ad refers to retirement planning, and the pairing was undoubtedly generated automatically, it nevertheless says much. It's about how the vast majority of the public — after more than three decades of being woefully short-changed relative to the corporations and the plutocracy — are about to have their social security and other benefits partially taken by a government (supercommittee, Congress, and the executive) seeking austerity on the backs of the people, in unjust response to a financial crisis largely caused by financial trading. It's about how our supposedly-guaranteed right to assemble for protest has been so constrained as to be a sham. It's about how the police as a whole serve the corporations and the plutocracy. And it's about how the powers-that-be — in any government — will always be able to find enforcers willing to physically act against the people.