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News Stories Which Highlight the Structure of the System

Started by Telarus, February 16, 2012, 01:06:06 PM

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Rococo Modem Basilisk

Quote from: BabylonHoruv on March 06, 2012, 05:31:52 PM
Quote from: Phosphatidylserine on March 05, 2012, 11:43:49 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on February 29, 2012, 03:15:03 PM
> He said: "Why this is a problem for us as politicians is that every single element of the regulatory regime failed."

That's a very important point. If on the one hand rich and powerful corporations get away with anything, while on the other hand powerless minorities are being beaten up and killed by policemen, well, you might as well not have any laws at all.

(Ok that's not entirely true because in between those two extremes, it's still keeping a lot of things in check, but for a large part that's just some people and corporations still believing the law's the law and you keep to it, just because that's what you do. Alternatively not everyone turns into a ruthless psychopath, some people inherently prefer to do right and good)

Hey, wasn't there also something about a suspicious suicide or death just as the NotW scandal started leaking? (unless I'm mistaken and I'm thinking of another suspicious death in a different story)

Seeing that there's still important people hacking away at the case, will there come anything of that too?

Idea (just throwing this out there): if policemen were appointed by lottery (like Jury Duty in the US), it would be difficult for a police fraternity to "protect their own" (i.e., corruption within the police force would be less likely than minor and temporary individual acts of collusion with outsiders -- accidental rather than systemic corruption, in other words), and citizens would be expected to be educated in all of the ways policemen are expected to be educated (just as citizens in Athens were expected to know the mechanics of citizenship in case it became their job to act as executive). Furthermore, violence against police as a group would be a little more rare (the policeman could be your teacher, or your mother, or your best friend's little sister).

There are clearly downsides (a decrease in average police competence, experience doesn't really accumulate), but I find it interesting to consider.

I can't see this as a useful approach.  It takes 2 to 4 years to train someone as a police officer.  Unless we approached this as something closer to a compulsory draft rather than a jury duty we won't have people who are adequately competent to do the job.  also, those 2 to 4 years are to achieve minimal competency which is then supplemented by on the job training and experience.  Even a military draft is usually only for 4 years.

I was certainly thinking of this in the context of a place with universal mandatory military service. It would be impossible to do police training the way we do jury duty training. However, there's a lot of overlap between many aspects of military and police training (physical training, combat training with and without weapons, a lot of equipment training, courses on ethics and acceptable behavior). On the other hand, judging by how people manage to rid themselves of knowledge they absorbed in mandatory schooling, I'm not sure I would trust a cop at 40 to remember the ethics training he went through at 17.


I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Phosphatidylserine on March 08, 2012, 09:17:58 PM
I was certainly thinking of this in the context of a place with universal mandatory military service. It would be impossible to do police training the way we do jury duty training. However, there's a lot of overlap between many aspects of military and police training (physical training, combat training with and without weapons, a lot of equipment training, courses on ethics and acceptable behavior). On the other hand, judging by how people manage to rid themselves of knowledge they absorbed in mandatory schooling, I'm not sure I would trust a cop at 40 to remember the ethics training he went through at 17.

Wait.

You want everyone to be a cop?
Molon Lube

Junkenstein

As an aside, if everyone had the powers and armaments of the police of their country, we would quite probably be in a book by Ann Rand.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 08, 2012, 09:58:10 PM
Quote from: Phosphatidylserine on March 08, 2012, 09:17:58 PM
I was certainly thinking of this in the context of a place with universal mandatory military service. It would be impossible to do police training the way we do jury duty training. However, there's a lot of overlap between many aspects of military and police training (physical training, combat training with and without weapons, a lot of equipment training, courses on ethics and acceptable behavior). On the other hand, judging by how people manage to rid themselves of knowledge they absorbed in mandatory schooling, I'm not sure I would trust a cop at 40 to remember the ethics training he went through at 17.

Wait.

You want everyone to be a cop?

Yeah, that's definitely in the "worst idea ever" category.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Telarus

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Telarus

http://www.alternet.org/story/154448/why_can%E2%80%99t_you_smoke_pot_because_lobbyists_are_getting_rich_off_of_the_war_on_drugs


Some interesting "follow the money" research out of Cali.

QuoteThe Federal anti-marijuana honeypot might have dried up if Prop 19 had passed. Legalizing marijuana would have generated billions in tax revenue for the state of California, while also reducing victimless crime prosecutions. But for lobbyists like Lovell, legalization was a direct assault on hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential fees for helping to solicit taxpayer money for his clients.
Telarus, KSC,
.__.  Keeper of the Contradictory Cephalopod, Zenarchist Swordsman,
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/||\   Episkopos of the Amorphous Dreams Cabal

Join the Doll Underground! Experience the Phantasmagorical Safari!

Rococo Modem Basilisk

Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 08, 2012, 09:58:10 PM
You want everyone to be a cop?

Less "everyone is a cop" and more "no one is a cop for very long".


I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Phosphatidylserine on March 10, 2012, 02:19:00 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 08, 2012, 09:58:10 PM
You want everyone to be a cop?

Less "everyone is a cop" and more "no one is a cop for very long".

Well, sure.  Experience is a terrible thing when dealing with shit like domestic disturbances.

UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!
Molon Lube

Cain

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/09/naacp-un-voter-disfranchisement-us

QuoteThe leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, will travel to Geneva next week to tell the UN human rights council that a co-ordinated legislative attempt is being made by states across America to disfranchise millions of black and Latino voters in November's presidential election.

The delegation, headed by the NAACP's president, Benjamin Jealous, will address the council on Wednesday and call on the UN body to launch a formal investigation into the spread of restrictive electoral laws, particularly in southern states. The NAACP intends to invite a UN team to travel across America to see for itself the impact of the new laws, which it argues are consciously designed to suppress minority voting.

The UN has no power to intervene in the workings of individual American states. But Jealous told the Guardian that the UN had a powerful weapon in its armoury: shame.

"Shame alone is effective. The US, and individual states within the US that have introduced these laws, have a vested interest in maintaining the opinion that we are the world's leading democracy. That means something," Jealous said.

In the NAACP's view, the voting rights of black and other minority groups are under more threat from laws restricting their participation at the ballot box than at any time since the segregationist days of Jim Crow.

A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice estimated that since last year more than 5 million eligible voters had had their right to vote stripped from them.

There are already 19 new laws on the books in 14 different states, which between them account for 63% of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the US presidential race in November. Some laws involve a requirement to show photo identification in polling stations – disproportionately hitting black and elderly people, who often do not have such ID.

Other laws have cut back on early voting schemes, heavily used by ethnic minority and older people, and still others disfranchise former convicted prisoners, even in some cases years after their sentences were completed.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cain on March 10, 2012, 07:13:45 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/09/naacp-un-voter-disfranchisement-us

QuoteThe leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, will travel to Geneva next week to tell the UN human rights council that a co-ordinated legislative attempt is being made by states across America to disfranchise millions of black and Latino voters in November's presidential election.

The delegation, headed by the NAACP's president, Benjamin Jealous, will address the council on Wednesday and call on the UN body to launch a formal investigation into the spread of restrictive electoral laws, particularly in southern states. The NAACP intends to invite a UN team to travel across America to see for itself the impact of the new laws, which it argues are consciously designed to suppress minority voting.

The UN has no power to intervene in the workings of individual American states. But Jealous told the Guardian that the UN had a powerful weapon in its armoury: shame.

"Shame alone is effective. The US, and individual states within the US that have introduced these laws, have a vested interest in maintaining the opinion that we are the world's leading democracy. That means something," Jealous said.

In the NAACP's view, the voting rights of black and other minority groups are under more threat from laws restricting their participation at the ballot box than at any time since the segregationist days of Jim Crow.

A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice estimated that since last year more than 5 million eligible voters had had their right to vote stripped from them.

There are already 19 new laws on the books in 14 different states, which between them account for 63% of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the US presidential race in November. Some laws involve a requirement to show photo identification in polling stations – disproportionately hitting black and elderly people, who often do not have such ID.

Other laws have cut back on early voting schemes, heavily used by ethnic minority and older people, and still others disfranchise former convicted prisoners, even in some cases years after their sentences were completed.

Oh wow, that would be awesome if it worked!
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cain

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-copper-the-lawrence-killers-father-and-secret-police-files-that-expose-a-corrupt-relationship-7537762.html

QuoteA key investigator in the original botched hunt for the killers was corrupt and engaged in extensive criminal enterprise, according to the secret Met files. Detective Sergeant John Davidson, who interviewed key Lawrence suspects and witnesses within days of the stabbing, was a "major player" in a ring of bent detectives "operating as a professional organised crime syndicate", according to previously unpublished intelligence reports.

* Davidson had corrupt relations with informants, dealt in Class A drugs and "would deal in all aspects of criminality when the opportunities presented themselves", according to the files written by senior anti-corruption officers.

* Davidson is alleged to have admitted that officers had a corrupt relationship with Clifford Norris, the gangster father of murderer David Norris. A police supergrass recently gave evidence under oath at the Old Bailey that Davidson had told him bent cops "looked after old man Norris".

* Anti-corruption officers were aware of the alleged link with Norris during the 1998 Macpherson inquiry, according to new testimony from the former Crown prosecutor on the case, but an internal Met legal memo suggests that the force feared the claim would get out while it was being sued by the Lawrence family.

* John Yates, the former Met Assistant Commissioner who led the investigation into Davidson and his colleagues, can be revealed to have prepared testimony for police corruption proceedings last year, unrelated to Davidson, confirming that "there was a huge appetite to prosecute John Davidson, who we considered then and still do now to have been a major corrupt player of that era".

In other words, the Lawrence Enquiry, such as it was, may have been intentionally set up to find the police as institutionally racist, because it was better to be seen as racist than be seen as involved in organised crime.

It can also explain, to a degree, the level of cooperation among the Met and the News of the World/Sun/London Times.

Consider the triangular relationship that exists between the press, the police and the government.  By upgrading its influence with the press, which was well known to be highly influential on the Home Office of the previous government(s) under Labour in particular, it allowed the police to put pressure on the politicians to forestall the kind of reforms which may affect this police syndicate, which involved both currently serving and former officers - in many cases the same officers who went on to be employed by News International in some capacity or another.

This whole thing stinks to high heaven. 

Cain

What makes this all the more disturbing is how much of this did the Tory Party know?

The Tories were looking to integrate themselves closely with the News International crew, both with bringing the likes of Andy Coulson in, and with the close relationship between Cameron and Rebecca Brookes personally.  I've speculated before that I think this may have had to do with political intelligence gathering, among other things.

But then you also have the integration of News International people into the police press office, and the Tory Party Communications HQ.  Is this because the Tories were also upgrading their relationship with News International, to gain leverage over the police?  Or was something else going on?  There is known to be a definite pro-Murdoch group within the Cabinet made up of neoconservatives, Gove and Osborne primarily.  Are they the players?  Or are they being played?  Who is really making the moves here, the Met, News International or the Government?

Cain

I hate living in my head sometimes.  Of course, I could live with it a lot more easily, if I didn't live in the same city where it seems the police are the biggest criminal gang around, and I just threw half a dozen stories together to show a possible criminal conspiracy to undermine democratic rule, possibly initiated by them to protect their crime syndicate.

Good thing I'm using someone else's wifi access to write this.

Cain

Aha, knew I had it buried in my "keep for later reference folder" somewhere. 

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Witness-Statement-of-Bob-Quick.pdf

QuoteAt the police station, Green went through the normal reception processes and in accordance with standard procedure was asked to nominate a person to be notified of his arrest and to whom he would be allowed one phone call. Green nominated AndyCoulson and was allowed to make one call to Mr Coulson. At that time Mr Coulson was Director of Communications for the Conservative Party.

MP Dominic Green was arrested by counter-terrorism police, after being suspected as the source for leaks of certain documents.  That he chose his only call to be to Coulson is...interesting, in light of the above. 

It is highly likely that Coulson was some kind of fixer for the Tories, when it came to problems concering the police and bad press.  In fact, that is likely why he got his job in the first place.  Let us recall that George Osborne, current chancellor and member of the pro-Murdoch Cabinet group, was the one who recommended him for the position.

Now, what did Coulson do, aside from work for News International, to gain such an endorsement?  Well, he damage control on an embarrassing incident involving Osborne at a party with a dominatrix, and taking cocaine:

QuoteOn the day Miss Rowe's "exclusive" interview appeared in the Sunday Mirror, its arch rival The News of the World ran the story as well.

It was accompanied by an editorial emphasising how Mr Osborne totally condemned drugs.

The tabloid, then edited by Mr Coulson, quoted him as describing his drug addict friend's experience as a "stark lesson at a young age of the destruction which drugs bring to so many lives".

The News of the World version was seen as a "spoiler" to the Sunday Mirror scoop and Miss Rowe assumed the News of the World had been tipped off a "spy" in her "camp".

Despite the fact that Mr Coulson's newspaper had published the allegations about George Osborne, the two men later enjoyed a cordial relationship.

It emerged recently that the Chancellor had even played a key role in recruiting Mr Coulson for the Conservatives.

And as we now know, a private detective employed by the News of the World was hacking Sunday Mirror phones from as far back as 2005.  That this story was obtained via hacking, to protect Osborne, is almost a certainty.

Cain

Keep an eye on this:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/03/10/pols-resist-refunding-ponzi-cash/

QuoteOn Tuesday, Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford was convicted in a Houston federal court on 13 out of 14 criminal counts of fraud. As The New York Times reported:

"The jury decision followed a six-week trial and came three years after Mr. Stanford was accused of defrauding nearly 30,000 investors in 113 countries in a Ponzi scheme involving $7 billion in fraudulent high-interest certificates of deposit at the Stanford International Bank, which was based on the Caribbean island of Antigua."

Media accounts of Stanford's conviction were filled with stories of his excesses — mansions, private yachts and jets, and so much money invested in Antigua — including bribes — the small island awarded him a knighthood.

Among his other indulgences, noted the Reuters news service: "He bought a castle in Florida for one of his girlfriends and his oldest daughter lived in a million-dollar condominium in Houston. He wore custom-made suits and bankrolled a $20 million prize for an international cricket tournament."

But what most of this week's stories failed to mention was the large amount of his clients' cash that was spent on campaign contributions, greasing the corrupt nexus of money and politics for personal gain. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were given to candidates, including Barack Obama, John McCain, John Boehner and Harry Reid; as well as national fundraising committees for the Republican and Democratic parties.

The court-appointed receiver charged with returning money to Stanford's investors is trying to get the contributions back. And the committees are resisting.

Apart from the political funding aspect of this, a reason to keep an eye on this story is that Robert Allen Stanford is almost certainly a US National Security asset, and that his bank is suspected of being involved with laundering drug money as well as operating a ponzi scheme for the benefit of politically linked clients.

Obvious question: was Stanford backing the politicians he was because they were seen as the US intelligence community as serving their interests?  Also, what are we to make of Stanfords alleged links to Mexican cartels and the Fast and Furious program, if anything?