Continuing the police madness in the US

[Peter Lemkin]

Thanks for sharing that, Peter. At this point, I fear any interaction with the police. I'm sure I'm not the only law-abiding American citizen who feels this way now.

The problem of police abuse should be a central issue in our national political dialogue. Instead, the powers-that-be took a case that can be argued both ways, and exploited it to the hilt, in an overt effort to cause racial discord. The fact that all these "journalists" and political representatives can remain silent in the face of all the videos documenting the outrageous behavior of law enforcement tells us all we need to know about our "free" society.

That happened to me ten years ago and had a GREAT effect on how often I return and how I plan and execute a return. For the years of the Bush Admin. here in Europe I was regularly meeting Americans looking around Europe for a new home. Since Obama, not...though very little has changed. Amazing how they somehow found a way to make the horrible appealing enough for most to stay and not do anything much about it.....make one think of slow boiling of frogs.....

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[TD="width: 84%"]The Game Is Rigged: Why Americans Keep Losing to the Police State

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[TD="width: 50%"] 12/10/14[/TD]
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Being a citizen in the American police state is much likeplaying a game of cards against a stacked deck: you're always going to lose. Thegame is rigged, and "we the people" keep getting dealt the same losing hand.Even so, we stay in the game, against all odds, trusting that our luck willchange.
The problem, of course, is that luck will not save us. Thepeople dealing the cards--the politicians, the corporations, the judges, theprosecutors, the police, the bureaucrats, the military, the media, etc.--haveonly one prevailing concern, and that is to maintain their power and controlover the country and us. As long as they are dealing the cards, the deck willalways be stacked in their favor.
We're in trouble, folks.
We have relinquished control of our government to overlordswho care nothing for our rights, our dignity or our humanity, and now we're saddledwith an authoritarian regime that is deaf to our cries, dumb to our troubles, blindto our needs, and accountable to no one.
Even revelations of wrongdoing amount to little in the wayof changes for the better.
For instance, after sixyears of investigation, 6,000 written pages and $40 million to write areport that will not be released to the public in its entirety, the U.S. Senatehas finally concluded that the CIA lied about itstorture tactics, failed to acquire any life-saving intelligence, and was morebrutal and extensive than previously admitted. This is no revelation. It'sa costly sleight of hand intended to distract us from the fact that nothing haschanged. We're stilla military empire waging endless wars against shadowy enemies, all thewhile fattening the wallets of the defensecontractors for whom war is money.

Same goes for the government's surveillance programs, whichare just as invasive as ever. In fact, at President Obama's urging, the ForeignIntelligence Surveillance Court just quietly reauthorized the National SecurityAgency's surveillance of phone records.
Police misconduct and brutality have been dominating thenews headlines for months now, but don't expect any change for the better. Infact, withObama's blessing, police departments continue to make themselves battleready with weapons and gear created for the military. Police shootings ofunarmed citizens continue with alarming regularity. And grand juries, littlemore than puppets controlled by state prosecutors, continueto legitimize the police state by absolving police of any wrongdoing.
These grandjuries embody everything that's wrong with America today. In an age ofsecret meetings, secret surveillance, secret laws, secret tribunals and secretcourts, the grand jury--which meets secretly, hears secret testimony, and isexposed to only what a prosecutor deems appropriate--has become yet anotherbureaucratic appendage to a government utterly lacking in transparency,accountability and adherence to the rule of law.
It's a sorry lesson in how a well-intentioned law or programcan be perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes. The waron terror, the war on drugs, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, schoolzero tolerance policies, eminent domain, private prisons: all of these programsstarted out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns. However, once you addmoney and power into the mix, even the most benevolent plans can be put tomalevolent purposes.
In this way, the war on terror has become a convenientruse to justify surveillance of all Americans, create a suspect society,expand the military empire, and allow the president to expand the powers of theExecutive Branch to imperial heights.
Under cover of the war on drugs, the nation's police forceshave been transformedinto extensions of the military, with SWAT team raids carried out onunsuspecting homeowners, and police officers given the green light to shootfirst and ask questions later.
Asset forfeiture schemes, engineered as a way to striporganized crime syndicates of their ill-gotten wealth, have, in the hands oflaw enforcement agencies, become corruptsystems aimed at fleecing the citizenry while padding the pockets of thepolice.
Traffic safety schemes such as automated red light and speedcameras, ostensibly aimed at making the nation's roads safer, have been shownto be thinlydisguised road taxes, levying hefty fines on drivers, most of whom wouldnever have been pulled over, let alone ticketed, by an actual police officer.
School zero tolerance policies, a response to the horrors ofa handful of school shootings, have become exercises in folly, turningthe schools into quasi-prisons, complete with armed police, metal detectorsand lockdowns.
As for grand juries, which were intended to s erveas a check on the powers of the police and prosecutors, they have gone frombeing the citizen'sshield against injustice to a weapon in the hands of government agents. Afar cry from a people's court, today's grand jury system is so blatantly riggedin favor of the government as to be laughable. Unless, that is, you happen tobe one of the growing numbers of Americans betrayed and/or victimized by theirown government, in which case, you'll find nothing amusing about the way inwhich grand juries are used to terrorize the populace all the while coveringup police misconduct.

Unfortunately, as I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The EmergingAmerican Police State, we're long past the point of simple fixes. Thesystem has grown too large, too corrupt, and too unaccountable. If there's tobe any hope of reform, it has to start at the local level, where Americansstill have a chance to make their voices heard. Stop buying into the schemes ofthe elite, stop being distracted by their sleight-of-hands, stop beingmanipulated into believing that an election will change anything, and stopplaying a rigged game where you'll always be the loser.
It's time to change the rules of the game. For that matter,it's time to change the game.