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Conspiracy Nation Vol. 01 Num. 62
Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 1 Num. 62
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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POLICE STATE AMERICA
by Brian Francis Redman, Editor-in-chief, Conspiracy Nation
Copyright (c) 1994 -- All rights reserved
For starters I want to say that in my younger days, in my
encounters with the police, many times they "cut me some slack."
For that I am grateful.
What sort of person would want to be a politician? I am
suspicious of anyone saying they want to go to Washington to "do
good." It may be that there are some who really *are* that
altruistic, it may be that some of them at least *think* their
motivation is that they want to "do good." But I've got to
wonder: Who in their right mind would want that job?
Ditto for policemen. Why on earth would anyone want to be a
policeman? It immediately cuts you off, whether you are aware of
it or not, from your fellow citizens. You become a snoop, whether
you mean to be or not, wherever you go. Who do policemen
associate with? Answer: other policemen. "I won't bust you if you
don't bust me."
I am not scared of crime. I just avoid certain areas, especially
at night. What I am scared of is being rousted from my bed at 4
in the morning. I am a law-abiding citizen, yet I am more afraid
of the police than I am of the crooks.
From here on, I am going to start being blunt in what I say. And
right off, there is some apprehension that they are going to "get
me" for boldly speaking my opinion. I already suspect that my
apartment was searched during the last Christmas season when I
was out of town. Maybe next time they will *plant* the "evidence"
that they didn't find then.
But basically, nothing personal Mr. Policeman, but I don't like
you guys. When Clinton says he will give us 100,000 more police,
and says it as if that is something that most people want, I am
personally not happy at the news. My experience with police is I
feel uneasy when they are around.
I am not saying that police are not necessary, to an extent. But
things in this country have been and are getting more and more
ridiculous. How many cops is enough? When we make everyone a cop
will there then, at last, be no crime because, after all, the
police never break the law? (I won't bust you if you don't bust
me.)
Or will we just lock up nine-tenths of the population and then
have one-tenth working as guards? An article in the Summer 1994
*Adbusters* suggests that this *is* where we are headed. As the
article points out,
Millions of people are already prisoners of television
technology. Although they are allowed to leave their
living rooms on "work furloughs," they have given up
control of their time to the rhythms and dictates of
institutional marketing strategies. But even television
technology is primitive compared with what's coming.
Designed to channel the flows of data and political
power, the panoptic project is a transnational effort to
overlay Earth with a computerized surveillance grid.
{1}.
I recently watched a show that is on in the afternoons called
something like "Tales of the Highway Patrol." The show has a
camerman ride along with various state highway patrol officers as
they do their job. One segment had the Utah highway patrol
following a car that was travelling 4 miles an hour over the
speed limit. So they pulled them over. According to what I saw,
the fact that they were going 4 miles per hour over the speed
limit (i.e. something like 59 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone) gave
the officers probable cause to search the vehicle. (I personally
don't see how that could possibly constitute probable cause to
search the car without a warrant. Maybe one of my readers can
enlighten me.)
So they had the guy get out of his car and said to him, "Empty
out your pockets." His fiance was sleeping in the back seat. They
woke her and commanded her to get out of the car. These two, the
guy and his fiance, were in their twenties. If impressions count
for anything, they seemed like nice kids. They were travelling
from Utah back to California, as I recall.
The highway patrol (a.k.a. the highwaymen) searched through the
car and at last they found an empty pint of rum, a pipe that
could be used to smoke marijuana, and one marijuana cigarette.
So they arrested the guy. By now, his fiance was in tears. They
took him to the magistrate. The "Tales of the Highway Patrol" did
not follow them into the little office where sat the magistrate,
but it did show the aftermath:
HIGHWAYMAN: You are so lucky. I have never seen the
judge let anybody off like he did for you. I don't know
why, but you just have to pay a $200 fine.
THE GUY: Gee, thanks, Mr. Highwayman.
In olden times, the highwayman was a guy who harassed travellers.
If they wanted to travel on *his* road, then by God they would
have to pay *him* some money. In a larger sense, the police in
general can be seen as a sort of armed tax collection agency. Of
course, they *say* things like "Your muffler is too loud," or
"The light over your license plate has gone out." But maybe the
highwaymen of olden times used to say things like "Your horse
needs new horseshoes," or "His neighing is disturbing the
neighborhood." (Maybe that is the etymology of *neigh*borhood, by
the way. It comes from the days of the highwaymen patrolling the
*neigh*borhood.)
So what is the policeman? He is an armed tax collector, *if* you
have money. If you are poor, or young, or working-class, then you
must "empty out your pockets" to the highwayman and say, "I have
no money left to give you, sir."
If you have no money left to give, then you are effectively
punished for having no money. How dare you say, "I have no
money," when the armed tax collectors pull you over or otherwise
stop you under some pretext?! Just think if *everyone* started
telling them "I have no money left to give" when the highwayman
comes riding, riding, riding up to your door. These citizens have
got to be beaten, imprisoned, and otherwise punished to show them
that "By God, you'd better have some money when I come
a'callin'." The word gets around, whispered from ear to ear,
about how dismal the jails are, how overcrowded they are, how all
sorts of disgusting things can happen to you in there. So you
*know*, it is common knowledge, that when the coppers come
a'callin' you'd better have some bucks you can give them.
*That* is what the police are about in Police State America.
Billy Boy Clinton doesn't give a damn about how safe you are.
Billy Boy's job is to bring in the bucks for =The State=. And
nowadays, with =The State= having to pay huge interest on its
debt, the need for a massive influx of funds is desperate. It is
so desperate that =The State= is about to put 100,000 new, armed
tax collectors out on the street.
Coincidentally with their "fine" collecting function, the
plethora of police will also serve to dampen criticism of =The
State=. You don't want to get fined, do you? But that is
incidental (although it *does* serve to maintain things as they
are). What you should know is, at this point in time, =The State=
is absolutely desperate for funds. =The State= will seize your
property, it will increase your taxes, it will disguise new taxes
as social security payments, it will seize your cash, *and* it
will put 100,000 new police on the street, for your "safety."
Why do we put up with it? Well we are heavily propagandized so
that we do not see the police for what they are: (1) armed tax
collectors, and (2) muscle for the elite class. Why is it there
are and have always been so many police shows on television? All
my life the cop show has been a mainstay of "entertainment" in
this country. We are instinctively repulsed by these henchmen of
=The State= as they stick their noses into our lives. To make the
situation more palatable, =The State= *massively* exaggerates who
these people are. We see them in television-land as if they are
the last hope of civilization. We see "bad guys" massively
caricatured as major, heavy-duty foul protuberances who must be
beat back to the pit from whence they came. We see the saintly
policeman, overworked, hemmed in by the pesky Bill of Rights,
nobly doing his all to save us from these "others".
For any police forces who are monitoring this, I have a major
question to ask: If you are so concerned about saving us from the
"drug menace," then why aren't you speaking out about Bill
Clinton? There is convincing evidence that our President not only
used and abused drugs, but it appears that his political campaign
was actually financed in part by illegal drug sales. Why don't we
hear you speaking out about this, since you are supposedly so
concerned about saving us all from the "drug menace"?
Here's another question for you: Suppose you were to actually win
this thrice-cursed, never-ending "War on Drugs". Wouldn't you
then be out of a job? You know, like with the military finally
winning the Cold War. Hooray! We've Won! (You're fired.)
So you see, these guys have a career at stake. Best to keep on
pushing around the little guys rather than really do anything
serious. Don't worry. The television will cover up your true
purpose.
Why are the police wearing star-trek uniforms now? Here at the
university of Illinois, training ground for future forces of the
law, I have been seeing guys wearing these weird helmets with
visors that don't let you look 'em in the eye. Why the new police
fashions? Is this the new trend? Don't you want us to be able to
see the man behind the uniform anymore? Is this meant to isolate
you more, robotize your function, hide your human side, or what?
One last thing. There used to be a class of people called
"reporters." This bunch often had working-class roots, working-
class sympathies, and wasn't afraid to take on the big guys.
*Then*, they went to college, became journalists, and I swear
they are now just *so sweet*. Why *no one* ever gets offended by
what they say anymore! They wouldn't *dream* of "rocking the
boat" or anything like that. Nope. No need to worry about them.
*Now* we have the police doing the same thing. The police used to
come, in large part, from the ranks of the working-class. But
now, we have got this new, improved, college-trained police force
arriving on the scene. I suspect that many of these "Babes in
Badgeland" have gone straight from high school, to college, to
policeman -- all without having much of a connection with, or
much of an empathy for, those beings who work at minimum wage and
crawl back exhausted to their hotel rooms at night.
So where is the wisdom? A lot of the old-time cops at least had
that. They came from or had in their memories what it can be
like. How can they teach these new techno-cops what it is to have
a heart?
Hey, coppers. Wise up.
Get a real job.
Stop bugging us.
-------------------------<< Notes >>-----------------------------
{1} "Techno Prisoners" By Rick Crawford. *Adbusters*, Summer
1994, Vol. 3 No. 2.
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
