The newly styled 'militarized' police...and some dark possibilities because of it...
I've been watching the riots over the last couple of weeks with the the 'Yellow Jackets' in Paris - and today - just now, in fact - the protests against the UN in Brussels.
It got pretty heated today.
From what I have seen so far, the police have been pretty brutal in the treatment of the people who pay their wages protestors.
A sign of the times perhaps - of the fear the authorities have, and the sense of their power being challenged...Finally.
Brussels today...
...And then some thing stuck me... ( not a tear gas canister, or a baton - I wasn't in the protests).
The policemen - who are now 'militarized up to fuck', are becoming more and more anonymous.
They are hardly human beings anymore -and have been turned into some cyborgesque 'unit' to quell the protestors.
Dehumanized automatons - is what I felt, after watching many hours of footage.
While this outfit might make for some pretty good psychological intimidation at the time of rioting , I don't think this strategy has been thought through, fully... (surprise, surprise).
Here's why, I think...
There are very few policemen in relationship to the population numbers, and if these protests continue their will be a lot of anger and hate and frustrations from the masses.
And some anonymous non human, black clad storm trooper , is easy to hate.
An object of hate. Not a person to hate.
BUT if this social unrest progresses and the hate mounts up, then don't be surprised if off duty policemen suddenly start to become the targets of violent attacks...
While they might be 'very human', and have families and a life, off duty, what they represent will not stop with taking off the uniform...
And the millions of very angry people who have found themselves protesting in the face of some darth vader suit may find it very easy to see that 'dehumanized' policeman as just that - and make it easy to be the target of their anger.
On duty, or off duty....
When they are not grouped together with 300 of their mates at work - with some guns, water cannons and horses to back them up... then the pent up anger and 'mob mentality' may very well take over and could find that the off duty individual may be on the receiving end of their hate..
I have an uneasy feeling that this cycle of unrest is the beginning of the breakup that we have all been talking about for the last decade.
If so, I would be having some serious second thoughts about donning a black clad uniform to go to work...
There won't a lot of mercy or justice - not in the short term at least - from those who have been defending 'the establishment' with their guns and truncheons.
Retribution tends to find an outlet...
The time is coming I think - and if you chose the uniform and the system, ' cos you can't be beat the system'- then you might well have chosen the wrong time in history to take that particular side...
The masses always beat their tyranny at some point, and today's tyranny in the west, is built on some very, very, shaky foundations.
Molotov Cocktails for them all!
Posted using Partiko Android
...if things keep escalating, it will start happenng...
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Interesting point of view!
When the anger and mob mentality take over, so does perspective.
(for better or worse)
Pretty much sums it up in the west. Even in Birmingham the police now look more like the army than the bobby on the beat.
To any police officer who reads this, a police state always ends with all the police being killed.
A police person exists because people aren't willing to commit actual violence. When the average person gets pushed to far into a corner, when that line is crossed, being a police officer is dangerous. Everyone knows where you live. That cruiser parked out front becomes a target, a beacon.
Today, riots are nothing. Back in the time of The US Revolution, a mob would take someone's house apart and carry off the bricks.
People were tarred and feathered and sent out on a rail (train).
The only reason these storm troopers are allowed to exist is because our protests are peaceful. In america, the only violence has its roots in people actually paying for violence, like Zoros, or the police getting into the quay and inciting the group to violence.
And the biggest problem, especially in The US, is that the people think they are paying for the police to protect them. They aren't. The govern-cement is paying for them. They are there to protect the govern-cement.
If the people were paying for them, most of the police force would be out on their ears. As they aren't doing their stated job.
The dehumanization, meanwhile, has been quietly aided by the entertainment industry... elsewhere, we have seen more and more sci-fi programming and movies with "robo cops." Which are "just machines."
Now we see these guys on the street, and our subconscious calls up that something that looks like a cop in riot gear is... "just a MACHINE." Makes the hatred much easier and more palatable... right?
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