Don’t get mad, get better lawyers to sue for damages on the part of victims.
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Yeoman of the Guard, perhaps. I like that one.
Bringing back a full-time draft for military and public service that would involve millions more young American men and women in routine service to the United States (with no educational exemptions) would be a good step to more broadly democratize and deglamorize the military.
Are you on board with that?
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It is interesting why the NRA,which has previously noted the over militarization of local police depts.,and called them jack booted thugs,has not commented on those jack booted thugs in Ferguson guess it is OK to point your rifles at Americans who don’t look like you
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This program is simply corporate welfare for the MIL/IND Complex. Most of the surplus has never been used by the military before it moves on down the food chain. Yet this stuff still gets produced and paid for day after day. It’s apparently the only targeted Jobs Program this Congress can agree on. Sad.
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Stay tuned for the NRA reaction to the Huey P. Newton Gun Club.
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As well as the Angela Davis contingent.
Let’s get all of our bogey men in a row.
I think the program should definitely be reviewed and there should clearly be much more oversight. A rural town of, say, 10,000 doesn’t need tanks. On the other hand, it does make sense for the military to give or sell to police departments some of it’s used equipment. I read that Ferguson PD had gotten two humvees and a generator through the program. That makes sense.
It’s silly to pretend the killing of black men by police has a damn thing to do with militarization. They’ve been killing black men and boys since long before 1033 was even thought of, and they’ll be killing black men long after. What needs to change isn’t just this program, it’s America that desperately needs to change. If you take back every last bit of military gear, it won’t change a damn thing for black America. Sure, it will make some people feel better, but it doesn’t address the problem that led to folks in Ferguson taking to the streets. It won’t change the fact that all too often police officers see themselves as overseers who need to crack heads and beat the n(clang)s into submission. It won’t change the lawlessness and brutal, “us against them” mentality of far too many police officers possess. Until we start addressing that it’s all just lipstick on a pig.
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“…I think there will be some bipartisan interest in reexamining some of those programs…”
Better yet… let House Republicans continue to stuff more excess in the federal budget, getting their constituent’s taxes free-and-clear of any accountability for paying for pork. Plus they can go back to the voters they’re taxing, and build a re-election campaign based on “taking back” control of government spending! Campaigns funded by donations received from businesses, who happen to also control consumer prices.
You’ve got to give it to conservatives.
Seriously. You’ve got to give to conservatives.
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I know this comment is not going to go down well with many but I hopefully can frame it so some will see the point.
Firefighters accept a lot of risk in their jobs, often going into burning buildings to rescue civilians. We honor the fallen with miles long processions of firefighter and equipment with civilians lining the road.
If seems to me that police once accepted that kind of risk in their jobs but no longer do accept it. Instead of waiting a few moments to really see if they are threatened they react with lethal force. The statement “I felt threatened” now really means “I did not want to wait long enough to see if I was at risk”.
It disturbs me to post this but I offer it for discussion.
BTW, read an article recently in the Detroit Free Press that had a listing of all the military hardware in Michigan that has been given to the State in the last decade or so…It listed 3 grenade launchers, 17 MRAPs, bayonets and scabbards. Some of that stuff is so outrageously unnecessary and inappropriate. They’ve been performing those mock school shootouts by a deranged killer and filming them in a bunch of W. Mi. schools in the last year with the hopes of using some of that gear. Law enforcement has been selling the local community on the necessity of these exercises. The local news was falling all over themselves to praise that shit too, trying to convince the TV viewers how necessary it might be for those vomit-filled PTSD-inducing exercises in our K-12 schools.
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Did you happen to notice the kind of weaponry the Oath Keepers and such who came out for Cliven Bundy had? I’d think the police should be able to match it, but on the other hand the traditional food chain for used military hardware was the National Guard first, and they actually have a legitimate claim to it since they can be federalized to perform their constitutional duties of executing the laws of the union, suppressing insurrections, and repelling invasions.