I just heard that the woman who pepper sprayed shoppers in Los Angeles to get an edge on bargains could be charged with "battery". Seems right.
And what about the UC-Davis police who pepper sprayed non-violent students week before last?
No such justice.
At least, not so far. The two cops who pepper sprayed the students, and the head of their UC-Davis police unit, have suspended with pay, pending investigation.
Are students in California worth less as human beings than shoppers, or are cops out there somewhere above the law?
If anything, the cops should be charged with a crime worse than what was brought against the pepper sprayer of shoppers. Police are (a) paid by taxpayers to (b) protect not attack law-abiding citizens.
If anyone should be suspended - without, not with, pay - it should be the officers who stood around, watched the two pepper-spraying cops, and did nothing.
I'd like to think that most police in America wouldn't stand by when their colleagues were breaking the law, and certainly wouldn't break the law by assaulting peaceful protesters themselves. We do every good police officer a disservice by going easy on the rotten apples in uniform.
Governor Jerry Brown of California, is there any reason you're not saying this? How about you, President Obama?
Occupy Wall Street Chronicles, Part 1
And what about the UC-Davis police who pepper sprayed non-violent students week before last?
No such justice.
At least, not so far. The two cops who pepper sprayed the students, and the head of their UC-Davis police unit, have suspended with pay, pending investigation.
Are students in California worth less as human beings than shoppers, or are cops out there somewhere above the law?
If anything, the cops should be charged with a crime worse than what was brought against the pepper sprayer of shoppers. Police are (a) paid by taxpayers to (b) protect not attack law-abiding citizens.
If anyone should be suspended - without, not with, pay - it should be the officers who stood around, watched the two pepper-spraying cops, and did nothing.
I'd like to think that most police in America wouldn't stand by when their colleagues were breaking the law, and certainly wouldn't break the law by assaulting peaceful protesters themselves. We do every good police officer a disservice by going easy on the rotten apples in uniform.
Governor Jerry Brown of California, is there any reason you're not saying this? How about you, President Obama?
Occupy Wall Street Chronicles, Part 1
4 comments:
There are Doctor Who (I made this image myself) and Star Wars images satirizing the pepper-spraying cop, which you may or may not appreciate...
Thanks, James. And there's also this prehistoric cave painting of the pepper-spraying cop, which somehow just surfaced ...
I guess I have mixed feelings about this humor. That is, I can see the humor, but I can't really enjoy it, because the pepper spraying of the students is such a grievous matter.
Anyway, congrats on the deft image-making.
I think the aim is to take what could be a scary image of authority terrifying people into subjection, and poke fun and ridicule, as one way of robbing that authority of its power to scare and intimidate.
If it were just humor I am sure I would share your reservations. But I feel that this meme may be something more, mockery of a sort that is important and necessary in such circumstances.
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