there's what i believe, and then there's you

If it were an individual thing, you’d give them the benefit of the doubt, but it isn’t; it’s an institutional thing. the job itself is a bastard, therefore by carrying out the job, they are bastards. To take it to an extreme: there were no good members of the gestapo because there was no way to carry out the directives of the gestapo and to be a good person. it is the same with the american police state. Police do not exist to protect and serve, according to the US supreme court itself, but to dominate, control, and terrorize in order to maintain the interests of state and capital.

Who are the good cops then? The ones who either quit or are fired for refusing to do the job.

While the following list focuses on the US as a model police state, ALL cops in ALL countries are derivative from very similar violent traditions of modern policing, rooted in old totalitarian regimes, genocides, and slavery, if not the mere maintenance of authoritarian power structures through terrorism.

police shoot people twice as often as previously thought. Keep in mind that this was self-reported, so we have no way of knowing if these numbers speak to the actual number of shootings in the US. Many of these people are completely unarmed. Police kill far, far more people than terrorists in the US and have killed over a hundred people more than mass shooters did in 2019 that we are aware of. Mass shooters are easily tracked. Police killings are not. 1 2

Oh, and cops also killed more people in 2019 than school shooters did in all of US history.

And if they don’t shoot you, they might just airstrike your block and burn your children alive.

They also shoot one dog every hour, every day. At the absolute least.

Once you’re in jail, be prepared to sit there for weeks -or months or years. It’s so bad that people constantly plead guilty just so they can get out. It’s so bad and so common, in fact, that over a third of all exonerations come after an individual has pleaded guilty. So much for the right to a speedy trial, huh?

And getting arrested is easy - tens of thousands of people yearly, in fact, thanks to lowest bidder garbage that police departments use in order to test for illicit substances. Field drug tests are about as reliable as lie detector tests or horoscopes. They just don’t work. They just don’t.

Think you’re safe if you just follow directions? Yeah, no. And if they don’t just outright kill you, they could make their instructions so arcane and hard to follow that they’ll kill you for not following them, and they’ll usually get away with it. He got away with it, by the way. Surprise!

They’ll prosecute you for even knowing about crimes cops have committed.

Think you’re safe in your home? lmao nah. Not even your 7 year old is safe from getting her brains blown out. check out this horrifying megapost on no-knock raids

Being a taxi driver is literally more dangerous than being a cop.

cops are more of a danger to themselves than anyone else is to them

they’ve admitted to stealing as much -or recently more- than burglars through “asset forfeiture,” and the rate of their thefts has been climbing yearly. Keep in mind, these numbers only articulate what’s been reported. It’s probable that they’ve stolen far more than just this.

police are literally allowed to rape people on the job in 35 states, as they have the power to determine whether or not you consented to sex with them while in their custody.

up to 50% of the people police murder are disabled

the police are being trained to kill as if they’re an occupying army and we’re an insurgency. this is an inevitability, as the military-industrial complex needs to keep expanding into new markets.

Eugenics was still alive and well in the prison-industrial complex up until very recently, and could very well be continuing for all we know, as it was forcibly sterilizing inmates as late as 2010. I honestly don’t see a reason to believe it’s stopped.

The US surveillance state is massive (and while this post primarily focuses on the US, other countries are just as bad), though much of our surveillance is privatized. This doesn’t stop the police from partnering with private companies, however. This will only get worse as time goes on. Also, we can’t forget about the Patriot Act and Snowden’s PRISM leaks.

the police, as an institution, are so completely steeped in violence, that up to 40% of them commit acts of domestic violence and other forms of domestic abuse. Most citizens are not even allowed to own firearms if found guilty of domestic violence, and these guys are expected to handle military-grade equipment.

Police exist to control and terrorize us, not serve and protect us. That’s only their function if you happen to be rich and powerful.

also this: lol

the police as they are now haven’t even existed for 200 years as an institution, and the modern police force was founded to control crowds and catch slaves, not to “serve and protect” – unless you mean serving and protecting what people call “the 1%.” They have a long history of controlling the working class by intimidating, harassing, assaulting, and even murdering strikers during labor disputes. This isn’t a bug; it’s a feature.

The justice system also loves to intimidate and outright assassinate civil rights leaders.

The police do not serve justice. The police serve the ruling classes, whether or not they themselves are aware of it. They make our communities far more dangerous places to live, but there are alternatives to the modern police state. There is a better way.

Further Reading:

(all links are to free versions of the texts found online - many curated from this source)

white nationalists court and infiltrate a significant number of Sheriff’s departments nationwide

Kropotkin and a quick history of policing

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. (2013). Let Your Motto Be Resistance: A Handbook on Organizing New Afrikan and Oppressed Communities for Self-Defense.

Rose City Copwatch. (2008). Alternatives to Police.

Williams, Kristian. (2011). “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing.” Interface 3(1).

Williams, Kristian. (2004). Our Enemies in Blue: Police and power in America. New York: Soft Skull Press.

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ok so marina reminded me this post exists, and it just occurred to me that elias didn’t even have to do spooky shenanigans to martin in this scenario. he could have just played the s1 tapes where jon was being nasty about him. is that what he meant by “preparation”? was that what he might have done if he had had the time?

and oh– i just had a terrible, terrible idea:

(which, then, Martin, why even - how did you even developped a crush on Jon - but nevermind) 

So I’m just envisionning Peter, being all fake sweet and letting the tapes run (an idea of Elias?) and Martin’s eyebrow twitch, and Peter thinks ‘aaah, emotions’ but then suddenly Martin is looking up to him, unimpressed, and goes: 

‘So, what? I already knew Jon didn’t like me before. That’s not new. Do you think he only said those sort of things to the tapes? He’s not exactly very good at lying, you know. Or I guess you don’t. You don’t know Jon and you don’t know me and that’s - whatever this is - that’s certainly not going to advance anything. So, if we could just - just go back to work, please, Peter -”

and I guess it’s the fact that so much of Martin’s character and development revolves around his being someone who has spent most of his life unhesitatingly giving everything to take care of people who do nothing to reciprocate his kindness, and the fact that this time, this one time, his boss – who is irritable and standoffish and dislikes Martin specifically and isn’t inclined to believe the kind of story Martin has just told him – listened to him, believed him, and then without prompting or hesitation invited Martin into his own space and assured him not only that the Archives are safe and he has nothing to be afraid of there, but that he’s going to actively ask Elias to make them safer

Well everyone, here it is. The video begins with a roughly 1 minute summary, so you don’t have to watch the whole thing if you don’t want to, but there IS some bird-call identification in it :^) !!

[video includes an explanation of my situation and the need for a fundraiser, which is also explained below]

If you’ve been following me for any time at all, you may know I’m majoring in wildlife biology. You may also know what a struggle it was for me to get here. In high school, I was reeling from the loss of my father in a house fire, along with trying to cope with undiagnosed mental illness and autism. I was told by my school staff I wasn’t “smart enough” to pursue science. Four years after I graduated high school, I said “I don’t believe that,” and I started my path and made it to where I am today despite those early challenges, and as I say in the video, I love it. I love what I’m learning, and I love what I do. In wildlife studies, I don’t just get to enrich my own knowledge of the world. I’m given the chance to share what I learn with others. In the last four years I have worked as a camp counselor, as a naturalist, and volunteered hundreds of hours to public education about wildlife, plants, and the world around us. This is more than a degree or a career to me. It’s a call to duty. I could become the smartest wildlife biologist in the world, but nothing I studied would matter if people don’t understand, care about, or connect to the world.

My studies are allowing me to act as a bridge for that connection, but now, in the home stretch, I am about out of funding for my schooling. The aid I receive this year will not cover my tuition and living expenses. My school only just informed me of this, months after the deadlines for scholarships that I could use for my final semester this fall. I won’t know my exact expenses and how much (not enough) funding I will get until July 1st, only 4 weeks before the bill is due on August 1st.

I know you have all given and done so much for me before, even for some of my tuition for this summer, and I feel extremely vulnerable coming to you with this, with my expenses and my debt and my life out there this way, but it is my final chance.

I have gone into detail on the campaign page about my expenses and why I am trying to raise this number.

I am exhausting all other options for funding, but they are extremely limited, so I am fundraising as what is my best option and hope. In return, I will be posting videos and doing live-streams for any of my readers, even if you can’t donate, about nature, wildlife, and all I’ve been learning over the last for years.

Pursuing this degree has been the biggest challenge, but also the greatest joy, of my life. Please help me finish it.

Thank you so much for your consideration! If nothing else, please share. Thank you!

TL;DR: I AM OUT OF FEDERAL FUNDING FOR MY DEGREE, AND I AM SUPPOSED TO GRADUATE THIS SEMESTER! I am desperate and doing everything I can to raise the funds, but my options are EXTREMELY limited. This is a fundraiser to finish my schooling after years of hard work! Thank you!