{"id":8700,"date":"2015-01-06T11:18:53","date_gmt":"2015-01-06T16:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=8700"},"modified":"2015-01-06T11:18:53","modified_gmt":"2015-01-06T16:18:53","slug":"youre-either-a-cop-or-little-people-the-american-police-state-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/youre-either-a-cop-or-little-people-the-american-police-state-in-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You\u2019re Either a Cop or Little People\u2019: The American Police State in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HappyNewYear\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re either a cop or little people.\u201d\u2014Police captain Harry Bryant in Blade Runner<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For those of us who have managed to survive 2014 with our lives intact and our freedoms hanging by a thread, it has been a year of crackdowns, clampdowns, shutdowns, showdowns, shootdowns, standdowns, knockdowns, putdowns, breakdowns, lockdowns, takedowns, slowdowns, meltdowns, and never-ending letdowns.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been held up, stripped down, faked out, photographed, frisked, fracked, hacked, tracked, cracked<\/a><\/span>, intercepted, accessed, spied on, zapped, mapped, searched, shot at, tasered, tortured, tackled, trussed up, tricked, lied to, labeled, libeled, leered at, shoved aside, saddled with debt not of our own making, sold a bill of goods about national security, tuned out by those representing us, tossed aside, and taken to the cleaners.<\/p>\n

As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State<\/em><\/a><\/span>, we\u2019ve had our freedoms turned inside out, our democratic structure flipped upside down, and our house of cards left in a shambles.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had our children burned by flashbang grenades, our dogs shot<\/a><\/span>, and our old folks hospitalized after \u201caccidental\u201d encounters with marauding SWAT teams<\/span><\/a>. We\u2019ve been told that as citizens we have no rights within 100 miles of our own border<\/a><\/span>, now considered \u201cConstitution-free zones.\u201d We\u2019ve had our faces filed in government databases, our biometrics crosschecked<\/a><\/span> against criminal databanks, and our consumerist tendencies catalogued<\/a><\/span> for future marketing overtures.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been given the runaround on government wrongdoing, starting with President Obama\u2019s claim that the National Security Agency has never abused its power<\/a><\/span> to spy on Americans\u2019 phone calls and emails. All the while, the NSA has been racing to build a supercomputer that could break through \u201cevery kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world<\/a><\/span>.\u201d Despite the fact that the NSA\u2019s domestic surveillance program has been shown to be ineffective at preventing acts of terrorism<\/a><\/span>, the agency continues to vacuum up almost 200 million text messages a day<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen the police transformed from community peacekeepers to point guards for the militarized corporate state. From Boston to Ferguson and every point in between, police have pushed around, prodded, poked, probed<\/a><\/span>, scanned, shot and intimidated the very individuals\u2014we the taxpayers\u2014whose rights they were hired to safeguard. Networked together through fusion centers, police have surreptitiously spied on our activities and snooped on our communications<\/a><\/span>, using hi-tech devices provided by the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been deemed suspicious for engaging in such dubious activities as talking too long on a cell phone and stretching too long before jogging<\/a><\/span>, dubbed extremists and terrorists for criticizing the government and suggesting it is tyrannical or oppressive<\/a><\/span>, and subjected to forced colonoscopies and anal probes<\/a><\/span> for allegedly rolling through a stop sign.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been arrested for all manner of \u201ccrimes\u201d that never used to be considered criminal, let alone uncommon or unlawful, behavior: letting our kids walk to the playground alone<\/a>, giving loose change to a homeless man<\/a><\/span>, feeding the hungry<\/a><\/span>, and living off the grid<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been sodomized<\/a><\/span>, victimized, jeopardized, demoralized, traumatized, stigmatized, vandalized, demonized, polarized and terrorized, often without having done anything to justify such treatment. Blame it on a government mindset that renders us guilty before we\u2019ve even been charged, let alone convicted, of any wrongdoing. In this way, law-abiding individuals have had their homes mistakenly raided by SWAT teams<\/a><\/span> that got the address wrong. One accountant found himself at the center of a misguided police standoff after surveillance devices confused his license plate with that of a drug felon<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been railroaded into believing that our votes count, that we live in a democracy, that elections make a difference, that it matters whether we vote Republican or Democrat, and that our elected officials are looking out for our best interests. Truth be told, we live in an oligarchy<\/a><\/span>, politicians represent only the profit motives of the corporate state, whose leaders know all too well that there is no discernible difference between red and blue politics, because there is only one color that matters in politics\u2014green.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve gone from having privacy in our inner sanctums to having nowhere to hide, with smart pills<\/a><\/span> that monitor the conditions of our bodies, homes that spy on us<\/a><\/span> (with smart meters that monitor our electric usage and thermostats and light switches that can be controlled remotely<\/a><\/span>) and cars that listen to our conversations and track our whereabouts<\/a><\/span>. Even our cities have become wall-to-wall electronic concentration camps<\/a><\/span>, with police now able to record hi-def video of everything that takes place within city limits.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had our schools locked down, our students handcuffed, shackled and arrested<\/a><\/span> for engaging in childish behavior such as food fights<\/a><\/span>, our children\u2019s biometrics stored, their school IDs chipped, their movements tracked<\/a><\/span>, and their data bought, sold and bartered<\/a><\/span> for profit by government contractors, all the while they are treated like criminals and taught to march in lockstep with the police state.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been rendered enemy combatants in our own country, denied basic due process rights<\/a><\/span>, held against our will without access to an attorney or being charged with a crime, and left to molder in jail until such a time as the government is willing to let us go or allow us to defend ourselves.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had the very military weapons we funded with our hard-earned tax dollars used against us, from unpiloted, weaponized drones tracking our movements<\/a><\/span> on the nation\u2019s highways and byways and armored vehicles, assault rifles, sound cannons and grenade launchers<\/a><\/span> in towns with little to no crime to an arsenal of military-grade weapons and equipment given free of charge to schools<\/a><\/span> and universities.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been silenced, censored and forced to conform, shut up in free speech zones<\/a><\/span>, gagged by hate crime laws<\/a><\/span>, stifled by political correctness, muzzled by misguided anti-bullying statutes<\/a><\/span>, and pepper sprayed<\/a><\/span> for taking part in peaceful protests.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been shot by police for reaching for a license<\/a><\/span> during a traffic stop, reaching for a baby<\/a><\/span> during a drug bust, carrying a toy sword down a public street<\/a><\/span>, and wearing headphones<\/a><\/span> that hamper our ability to hear.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had our tax dollars spent on $30,000 worth of Starbucks<\/a><\/span> for Dept. of Homeland Security employees, $630,000 in advertising to increase Facebook \u201clikes\u201d<\/a><\/span> for the State Dept., and close to $25 billion to fund projects ranging from the silly to the unnecessary<\/a><\/span>, such as laughing classes for college students and programs teaching monkeys to play video games and gamble.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been treated like guinea pigs<\/a><\/span>, targeted by the government and social media for psychological experiments on how to manipulate the masses. We\u2019ve been tasered for talking back to police, tackled for taking pictures of police abuses, and threatened with jail time for invoking our rights<\/a><\/span>. We\u2019ve even been arrested by undercover cops stationed in public bathrooms<\/a><\/span> who interpret men\u2019s \u201cshaking off\u201d motions after urinating to be acts of lewdness.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had our possessions seized and stolen by law enforcement agencies looking to cash in on asset forfeiture schemes<\/a><\/span>, our jails privatized and used as a source of cheap labor<\/a><\/span> for megacorporations, our gardens smashed by police<\/a><\/span> seeking out suspicious-looking marijuana plants, and our buying habits turned into suspicious behavior<\/a><\/span> by a government readily inclined to view its citizens as terrorists.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had our cities used for military training drills, with Black Hawk helicopters buzzing the skies, Urban Shield exercises overtaking our streets, and active shooter drills wreaking havoc on unsuspecting bystanders in our schools, shopping malls and other \u201csoft target\u201d locations.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been told that national security is more important than civil liberties, that police dogs\u2019 noses are sufficient cause to carry out warrantless searches, that the best way not to get raped by police<\/a><\/span> is to \u201cfollow the law,\u201d that what a police officer says in court will be given preference<\/a><\/span> over what video footage shows, that an upright posture and acne are sufficient reasons for a cop to suspect you<\/a><\/span> of wrongdoing, that police can stop and search a driver based solely on an anonymous tip<\/a><\/span>, and that police officers have every right to shoot first and ask questions later if they feel threatened.<\/p>\n

Now there are those who still insist that they are beyond the reach of the police state because they have done nothing wrong and have nothing to fear. To those sanctimonious few, secure in their delusions, let this be a warning: the danger posed by the American police state applies equally to all of us: lawbreaker and law abider alike, black and white, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, blue collar and white collar, and any other distinction you\u2019d care to trot out.<\/p>\n

The lesson of 2014 is simply this: in a police state, you\u2019re either a cop or you\u2019re one of the little people. Right now, we are the little people, the servants, the serfs, the grunts who must obey without question or suffer the consequences.<\/p>\n

If there is to be any hope in 2015 for restoring our freedoms and reclaiming our runaway government, we will have to start by breathing life into those three powerful words that set the tone for everything that follows in the Constitution: \u201cwe the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to stop waiting patiently for change to happen and, as Gandhi once advised, be<\/em> the change you want to see in the world.<\/p>\n

Get mad, get outraged, get off your duff and get out of your house, get in the streets, get in people\u2019s faces, get down to your local city council, get over to your local school board, get your thoughts down on paper, get your objections plastered on protest signs, get your neighbors, friends and family to join their voices to yours, get your representatives to pay attention to your grievances, get your kids to know their rights, get your local police to march in lockstep with the Constitution, get your media to act as watchdogs for the people and not lapdogs for the corporate state, get your act together, and get your house in order.<\/p>\n

In other words, get moving. Time is growing short, and the police state is closing in. Power to the people!<\/p>\n

WC: 1678<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019re either a cop or little people.\u201d\u2014Police captain Harry Bryant in Blade Runner For those of us who have managed to survive 2014 with our lives intact and our freedoms hanging by a thread, it has been a year of crackdowns, clampdowns, shutdowns, showdowns, shootdowns, standdowns, knockdowns, putdowns, breakdowns, lockdowns, takedowns, slowdowns, meltdowns, and never-ending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":8701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,214,226,212],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8700"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8702,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8700\/revisions\/8702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}