*Inadvertent* Cop Brutality?

Or teaching kids what police can and will do to them?

Officer Chris Webb was attending “career day” at Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School when he sent 50,000 volts of electricity into the child’s chest on the playground. 
The young boy blacked out and has, according to his legal representative, been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder ever since; the officer faces a civil suit. 
According to the complaint, Webb shot his Taser at the child (referred to only as “R.D.”) after he said he did not want to join fellow classmates in cleaning the officer’s patrol car.  [...] Webb responded by pointing his Taser at R.D. and saying, ‘Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.’

From here. More.

Such casual and callous disregard for a child's life because he gave the cop "attitude", such reactionary and self-protective response to the legitimate criticism that this was abusive - and illegal - police authority.

We've written much about the systemic and tactical deployment of cop brutality at DJ!, from brute force directed at adolescents, reprisal against someone reporting inappropriate police actions, sexualized violence and degradation of female detainees, to G20 security and SPVM accountability.

Not Keeping Sweet

The phrase referenced in my title is used mostly these days by evangelical Christians (like the Quiverfull Duggars) and Mormons (especially the polgyamist communities) The words may vary a bit, but 'keep sweet' is meant (by far in the majority) for women and children and is directed at their behaviour.

Their job, should they want it or not, is to always be obedient to the commands of their community leaders and always maintain a cheerful, 'happy to obey' mien whatever their inner mental states, because to do otherwise, to be complaining and rebellious, to question and doubt and contradict, brings shame on the reputation of the men divinely ordained to lead their households and communities.

Those who don't 'keep sweet' face a range of punishments until they learn to fake being happy or surrender to Stepford wife robotic joy. The problem is not, so they are told, that the system is failing them, it's that they are failing the system. It's the ultimate tiger trap in the positive thinking guilt trip.

Positive thinking is great, but the more systemic blocks are placed in the way of success, the more that bizarre goals identified as 'success' are set, the more someone's inner survival system will be balking at jumping through razor-edged hoops too small for them to fit, or it will be psychologically melting down repeatedly trying to overcome rigged circumstances with inadequate support and resources. Balking is not negative thinking. That's a reality check.

That's the trouble with evolving large group societies out of group loving critters like humans, who can also anticipate suffering and death.

So, the hypothesis gets set up again and again, is it better for survival inside a society to...

A/ 'keep sweet' and think positive so some day you'll be the very best at what you do and what you do is what you're told (which is always possible to be what you merit if what you merit is what you're told you merit) .

B/ balk against a rigged game and demand a rewrite of societal rules that promotes more participants in the society gaining survival factor by positive merit.

Historically, option B events have had the crap lethally kicked out of them a lot by the societal leaders in position to judge option A. Survival conditions have to have serious diminishing returns to go against the framework of a society by individuals. One of the classic ways of 'keeping sweet' aka 'being shut the fuck up' is to be dead. It takes many, many feet in the streets to shift B to a positive outcome. Fall of the Berlin Wall. Collapse of the Soviet Union. Latin America. Arab Spring.

But here we are again on a local level. G20. Occupy seedpoints. And now, Attawapiskat. The band didn't keep sweet. They were swiftly judged, warning them to get back to option A.

They're not going. This is serious B-ball. Attawapiskat isn't the first or the only community in Canada to have nothing to lose, but it has finally gained international attention amid international unrest against the wealthy and powerful, and by that, it's hurting Harper's pride while he's lecturing other countries on how *their* little people are not keeping sweet.

What can possibly go wrong?

(edited to take out a sentence fragment that should have been deleted before posting and sprinkle a few commas around)

Dicktators Say The Funniest Things...

Silvio Berlusconi offers his support: "...President Mubarak is considered a wise man by the US and other occidental countries, and a specific point of reference for the Middle East..."

Damning with faint praise, Silvio?

You'd think that Berlusconi would leave poor Mubarak alone, given the little incident back in October.

A scandal over Silvio Berlusconi's relationship with a teenage Moroccan girl took on legal and political overtones today when a senior police officer confirmed that the Italian prime minister's office had intervened on her behalf when she was detained on suspicion of theft, claiming she was the granddaughter of the Egyptian president.

That would appear to leave Berlusconi open to claims that he abused his position – a criminal offence under Italian law.

How can Mubarak possibly reciprocate? Mmm ... he might suggest that the Catholic Church needs a leader like Silvio, and should change their electoral rules to allow him to become Pope Maledict when the current titleholder shuffles off to hell. That sounds fitting.

Grand merci to lagatta who provided source material for this post.

Authoritarian WIN!

Honest to Gord, somedays I despair.

The majority of Torontonians believe police actions against G20 protesters were justified, according to a new poll.

The Angus Reid poll, which surveyed 1,003 Canadians and 503 Torontonians, found that 73 per cent of Torontonians and two-thirds of Canadians believe police treatment of protesters was justified during the G20 summit.

It's true. We get the fucking government we deserve.


ADDED: There's something wrong with Blogger. I just approved 3 comments -- from Brian, Kateland, and Chet -- and they disappeared. Grrrrrr. They were good too. Hopeful, even.

OY: So, Chet's and Kateland's show up. Brian is still missing and one I just approved from Dave doesn't appear. I'm beginning to get a little paranoid.

I GIVE UP: Comments seem to be taking a side trip to Huntsville before appearing.

DJ! Gets into That Juxtaposing Thingy

Experts good.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews explained the costs were a result of an “unprecedented event” with two back-to-back summits.

“And we believe the experts when they say this is the necessary level of security. I understand that the Liberals don’t believe in securing Canadians or the visitors here. We are different,” Mr. Toews said.

Experts bad.

The Harper government turned its back on advice from its own civil servants when it excluded abortion funding in its G8 maternal- and child-health initiative, The Canadian Press has learned.

Briefing notes prepared in January by the Canadian International Development Agency for International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda suggest access to safe abortion services could save numerous lives in developing countries.

ADDED: Really bad elite experts.

The Conservative government, having ignored advice from public servants that abortion was an essential component of an effective maternal-health initiative, now appears to be turning its back on similar advice from the elite national scientific academies of all G8 countries.

The Royal Society of Canada as well as the national academies of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia issued a joint statement late Tuesday.

It is a unanimous call to G8 leaders to ensure that access to contraception and “measures to reduce unsafe abortion” are part of a richer, more focused and more coordinated maternal and child health initiative in June.

. . .

But Bev Oda, Canada’s international aid minister, who said “I used to be an English teacher,” read it differently.

She said the statement recommends family planning services and adequate treatment of the complications that result from abortion, but does not recommend measures for the provision of safer abortions.

Keee-rist these people are braindead.