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These fucking people literally do not care about this country, or helping their constituent bases whatsoever. Neglecting your duties should be fucking arrestable.
Maybe it would be if every dirtbag cop in the country wasn't on their side.
I'm way more worried about the cops becoming Brownshirts than the military.
Becoming? You think they aren't already?
You should be more worried about foreign influence doing a really good job taking down this country from the inside. Cops are just a side effect of this corruption. The Cold War is spicy hot these days.
Dude as much as there is an amount of foreign interference, I have lived in the USA for over forty years and the people who live here have genuinely always been this fucking dumb so blaming it on the "spicy hot cold war" sounds to me like not being willing to take responsibility for the massive amount of absolutely dumbfuck motherfuckers in the USA.
No, sorry, they're real, and we don't get to pretend that they've just been subject to a foreign influence campaign.
Further, what about the non-foreign influence campaigns like FOX News, One America News Network, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Xitter? Those are totally okay because they're not foreign? Our own influence campaigns are fine?
And yes, I'm way more worried about people who have the State backing them when it comes to owning guns and being able to violently assault citizens than a fucking foreign influence campaign. Because they're actually here and have actually already been causing massive damage to US social cohesion for fucking decades. Just look up Killology. A foreign influence campaign didn't create Killology, a fucking psychopath ex-military American created it.
So let's go over once again:
This just sounds too much like blaming it on everything but our own fucking real homegrown problems.
I mean...both points of view are valid for sure. I'm positive we're in the situation we're in due to collusion and influence from foreign adversaries, but it's because people are so easily led and dumb that it's possible.
I'm just saying like all things American, it's a very, very Amerocentric view of the world, where we're the most important and need to be destabilized.
We wrecked our own soft power with the Iraq War and Snowden leaks. No foreign actors forced our hands. Iraq War was just plain stupid and Snowden leaked because his big boss was lying to congress (and has never been punished for it).
Foreign influence kicked up after that because we created an opening with our own fucking hubris by destroying international credibility as well as credibility at home with our own citizens.
Cops were already practicing Killology and being a violent problem in US communities long before the Iraq War and the death of US soft power. (EDIT: In point of fact, the Iraq War was when the cops started to get all that disused military equipment, too. No foreign entity forced that, Bush did. Cops generally didn't have APCs at local departments in the '90's)
I'm far from US-centric, but the US is the most powerful nation in the world right now.
The first Iraq war increased our soft power, the second war pissed all that away, and more, as did the debacle in Afghanistan. On the other hand, the Snowden leaks were largely ignored by most of the world except a few people interested in secure communications and the surveillance state. But no nation-state would be alienated by those revelations, since they all do it.
As for cops, their continuing militarization also has to do with some other Bush-era brain-farts like bringing in the Israelis to train Homeland Security and local cops. It's a miracle we haven't had more 12-year-olds on the casualty lists after that. Colonialist occupiers sure as shit aren't the best people to teach policing by consent. And without community buy-in, cops behave very much like hostile occupying forces.
American police evolved directly from fugitive slave patrols and strike-breaking Pinkertons, so... yeah.
Two or more things can be true at once.
Most of the things you mention have been features of the system for generations. So why have things suddenly gotten worse? What's different now?
One thing is the power of propaganda enabled by social media. Another closely related thing is foreign interference. Do we have our own homegrown scumbags? Of course we do. But only lately have they allied themselves with hostile foreign states to attack the rest of us.
My dude, there’s more than just a single problem. If you’re looking to point a single finger, you’re not going to find a solution.
I literally listed out several problems, all which are homegrown problems. Nor did I ever deny the existence of foreign influence. But sure, that's just a "single problem." Technically you're the one who acted like your single problem was the most important.
I’m saying I understand it’s bigger than foreign influence. But that I think influence outside of the government, foreign or corporate, is the root cause and bad cops is a symptom.
My friend, as someone who has lived here my whole life. The cops were bad way, way, way, way, way, way before corporate influence and foreign influence. You ever heard the term "Good ol boys?" Seriously, do you know the history of US cops? If not, you really ought to look into it and you'll stop thinking they're not an issue of their own entirely.
But otherwise we're on the same page. Cheers.
I live here too, and I’m not exactly young. Corruption in government is the problem. We can fix the government without the involvement of the cops, but we can’t fix the cops without the involvement of the government.
And since you’re choosing to be rude, you really ought to learn how to find the root cause instead of being lazy and blaming the symptom. I realize our education system skips that beat, but you can learn this basic concept on your own.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt4anPWBEmo
Here is a good learning resource, and an interesting video that explains it without being rude. If you apply this to ACAB, the root cause becomes clear.
The root cause is that cops have have always been enforcers for the owner class. They started out as fugitive slave patrols and strike-breakers and transformed into their modern form as a government institution when the plutocrats figured out that they could socialize the costs by duping the public into funding them with taxes.
Good job at identifying the root cause.
Umm, no.. Study the history of policing. You sound kinda...not smart.
Keep going… who are the police working for?
Dude. Are you saying they work for (checks notes) foreign influence??
They work for capitalists, buddy. The problem with policing starts way the hell before the cold war was a thing. They're a symptom of capitalism. And foreign influence is a symptom of? C'mon I know you can get there. Wait, no I don't... 🤪
They work for the government.
The government is corrupt (for many reasons).
The government is controlled by the ruling class.
The ruling class is the root cause.
The police are just one head of the hydra. If you cut it off, two will come back. That’s not a solution.
🙄
If it was just capitalism, China wouldn’t have problems—oh wait they’re also capitalist. Hmmm. Maybe you’re right.
They're just assholes looking for people to torment.
These people have names and addresses.
All humans are not immune to death.
In Minecraft.
All I'm saying is, people like having certain things in their home, like working sewage, and running water, and electricity.
Be real miserable if that got shut off somehow.
I think it would be much more effective not to shut any of those services off. Rather, ensure very thoroughly that they're all present and accounted for, but just not existing in any of the places they're expecting them to be.
ITS ALMOST LIKE EVERYONE'S WATER MAIN IS ON PUBLIC SIDEWALKS AND CONCRETE IS A THING...