The paramilitary nature of most police forces throughout the world scares me WAY more than most of the other catastrophe situations we currently face.

If we and other nations continue to train police as soldiers combatting the “war on” of the day we are in far greater danger than we are of the other admittedly nightmarish scenarios attached to global warming, health care, the global financial collapse, the despicable colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recommitment to nuclear power and arms etc. etc. etc.

Because they can declare a “war on” anything and send the police to seize your person and your property.

As clear and present as the other dangers are, the cops busting down your door, tasing you for “resisting arrest” for asking why the fuck they are there, incarcerating you and any male teen+ family member and taking your home is far more clear and far more present.

Because they can do it. It’s in the PATRIOT Act, the most fucked up name for the most fucked up legislation ever.

“Such is life.” Except it shouldn’t be.

That phrase comes from the last words of the famous bushranger (highwayman) Ned Kelly, an Australian Robin Hood-type figure, before he was hanged on the gallows at the Old Melbourne Gaol.

I’ve stood there and imagined what it must be like to contemplate your demise by a thirty-foot drop with an oiled hemp rope around your neck for doing what you believe is right.

Ned Kelly saw what was wrong and tried to correct it by violence.

As we all know, two wrongs never make a right.

See below…

To learn more about the fascinating story of Ned Kelly:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_kelly

To learn more about the series of compelling and truly eerie paintings of the saga of Ned Kelly by perhaps Australia’s most esteemed artist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Nolan

To learn more about the bushrangers of Australia in general:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushrangers

It is truly riveting stuff, on par with any of the Wild West iconography of the US.

Australian authorities refuse to respond to allegations that the Ned Kelly Memorial forms a crescent facing Mecca.

The part that pisses me off is this: “D.C. police initially denied that one of their officers pulled a gun” — youtube + citizens who document the atrocities is the biggest threat to their monopoly on unbridled and officially sanctioned power. I can’t help but wonder: how often in the past have they gotten away with that kind of lie, only because no-one was there to prove them wrong? We can continue to delude ourselves with the pre-formed notion that the cops/paramilitaries are simply there to “protect us” from “bad guys”, but as the police state grows ever more pervasive and they roll out ever more high tech toys to “control” situations and people, you gotta wonder when we’ll finally realize that they’re an integral cog in the machine that keeps us from instigating some real change…

I think you mean “when all you have is an Obamahammer, everything looks like a negro.”

very sharp! started my day off right!

Of course the police initially denied the claim about a gun. It’s what police officials do. Lie. Everyday. About everything. If the “official” statement from the cops is X the truth is Y. Always.

Oh that. That’s not a gun, that’s his gun-shaped cell phone.

Speaking of stupid-tinted lenses (not sure what colour that is, but probably some variation on beige with an eyedropper of pea green), this is hiliarious. (The first customer review is priceless.)

Birth Control is Sinful in the Christian Marriages and also Robbing God of Priesthood Children!!

Hoft is really on a campaign to prove himself the stupidest man in the whole U.S.A. I’ll give him the title now if he just stops publishing his fevered dreams and goes away. But I do love the way you mock him, T.B.

Oh God, I just got back from checking out:

Birth Control is Sinful in the Christian Marriages and also Robbing God of Priesthood Children!!

My side aches from the reviews. This has made my day.

Also.