What is the Role of a Police Officer?

…..Well it’s not to be judge and jury,

So blaming the person they are arresting for being the wrong’un doesn’t excuse the officer for going too far, does it? The arrest is supposed to end with the criminal going to trial. Being held in a mental ward or jail till their case is heard by a judge.

You might reasonably expect a little human frustration when the wrong’un fights back and resists arrest. But that should be something like a few bruises. At worst a broken bone. And immediate assessment by a doctor to be sure there is nothing dangerous or deadly in their injuries.

And gauging the amount of response should be a fiscal and humane quest by police as well. If they get asked to check on someone’s welfare or break up a spousal spat, then what do riot gear and tanks do, except escalate the mood of the wrong’un and the fear aggression of the police? AND cost money.

But all these views do is focus on one interaction and that is where we lose ground. Because it’s not one, it’s systemic.

And the biggest flaw of the system is that policing diverts funds from the CAUSE of the need for police to be involved at all. The largest of which is poverty. People tend to get mad when they have to raise their kids in shanty towns, where they have limited fresh water and healthy food. Where every step out the door leads to interactions between gangs and police. When your kids are making pets of rats and roaches that come to visit them in their beds. And their only option to put food on the table is govt assistance.

Because nothing is being done to create healthy, local economies. The larger society is geared toward the success of the 1%. Not the poor, who are the majority of the people in any given country.

The larger economy is geared toward consumerism and consumption. Convenience and usery. It is not geared toward people.

….. it’s not to be your parent either

And the police are shoved thru a training system that focuses on power, rather than dealing with people in a humane fashion. Instead of seeing the person as a human being who is probably facing the worst day of their life, they see them as a criminal. Someone to be overcome rather than soothed. Or at least distracted from their negative aims.

Countries that take more time training their officers and those that have less punitive systems have less crime. So political groups that focus on crime rather than the systemic causes of it, like poverty, don’t serve the people. Or the police.

Police training should include things like de-escalation, negotiation, stress reduction and calming themselves and the wrong’un or wrong group down. And having tanks and riot gear visible are not calming.

…. it’s not to prevent crime

Frankly as many as there are, there aren’t enough to be everywhere.

Police are the front line for a system that is horrendously costly and ineffective. It’s become a money grab for big business and govt. With costs going up every year. And no resolution in sight.

Not only does it not solve this generation’s issues, but it practically guarantees that the next gen will follow in mom or dad’s foot-steps. Whether it was addictions, poverty, finding alternative incomes to a govt check, like prostitution and gang incomes like drugs.

It’s self-perpetuating.

…… or to be an investigator

Because very few of them actually succeed at doing more than racial profiling. Forensics excepted. So officers are there to secure the scene.
Presuming it’s reported

…..

And that is why there is a call for police to be de-funded. So the money allocated to policing and incarceration can address the roots of crime and stress reactions such as addictions and mental illnesses.

Police are not the solution. The problem is systemic. To the point that protests are going world wide. And instead of listening, the police’s response is to further their violent actions.

And again, it’s not one incident. The problem is a systemic attitude that needs to be changed. You might believe that one officer went off the deep end, or one little band of police… But Amnesty Int’l has confirmed acts of brutality against people who are peacefully protesting. Across the USA. It’s not unique, And it needs to be addressed.

##…. not to be a social worker or therapist
But not by putting in another racist system. Like social work. Or the medical fields and drug companies that prey on the poor and disenfranchised.

The only way to deal with the wrong aspects of the systems are by addressing the roots of crime and mental disease.. Roots like poverty.

… police ARE meant to be first responders.

Not as military or para-military. But as an adult who can assess who needs to be called to help. If this person needs a cooling off period. Time away from society till they can cooperate and comply with the social rules again. Or if they need medical attention.

And to assist fire and ambulance to be safe.

To give first aid/CPR till someone with more medical training gets there.

….. resources

defund the police
doctors for defunding
critical resistance
thoughtco
reliefweb
concernusa
fraserinstitute
borgenproject
poorpeoplescampaign
unitednations
amnesty intl map of brutality against peaceful protestors in usa

Today in History – June 28, 1969 – The Stonewall Riots, Why June is Pride Month

 

The Stonewall riots marked a change in gay activism. From peaceful means like newsletters and sip-ins, to protesting the “lavender scare” of McCarthyism, enduring being gay considered to be a psychiatric illness, police harassment in gay clubs and the arrest of customers who were “masquerading”. Things were heating up.

The Stonewall is the place where gay pride celebrations began. To mark the 1 yr anniversary of several days of riots.

….

June 28, 1970: First Gay Pride parade sets off from Stonewall.

…..

history.com
history.com
harvard.edu

…. How far have things come?

hrc – APA removes being gay from list of diseases in 1973

…..

29 countries have legalized gay marriages Canada was 3rd. USA 22nd
cbc.ca
Paul Martin’s speech
Obama Foundation

….

UN launched ‘Free and Equal’ July 26, 2013

….. are daily lives and discrimination changed?

Not really, not tangibly. And in the days of a pandemic, the bigotry is found still.
UN news Rights and shifts previously gained seem to be in the process of being rolled back on one side…
global news – Trump and transgender
and protected on the other in the USA.
cbc.ca – Supreme Court – LGBTQ and job discrimination

……

Maybe the biggest sign that things have changed for the better is that LGBTQ now have an avenue to explore if they need assistance.

Today in History – G20 protests in Toronto, Canada – June 2010

Today in History – G20 protests in Toronto, Canada – July 2010

When the world can hear you, because they’re looking your way. When the financial leaders of the world gather, and all the cameras are on them. Even the tightest security cannot stop the people from letting you know there are issues, even in the richest nations in the world. And that is what the meeting of the G20 in Toronto was like that year. Protests, riots, a human rights investigation and over 1000 people arrested. one of the largest mass arrests Canada has seen.

thestar

…..

mayor or Toronto in 2010 – David Miller
police chief of Toronto in 2010 – Bill Blair
Prime Minister of Canada in 2010 – Stephen Harper

…..

The G7 are: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.

…

The G20 comprises 19 countries and the European Union. The 19 countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.

….

utoronto
gc.canada
gc.canada

Today in History – June 26, 1945 – the United Nations signed it’s Charter – Happy 75th B-day!!

UN

Justin Trudeau

…..

Statement by the Prime Minister on the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations
June 26, 2020
Ottawa, Ontario
The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations:

…

“On this day 75 years ago, Canada and 49 other countries signed the Charter of the United Nations. This historic moment created the United Nations (UN), an international organization that promotes cooperation, dialogue, and peace around the world – a mission it held in 1945 and still does today.

“As the world grappled with the harsh lessons of the Second World War, people representing over 80 per cent of the global population – and the diversity of the human family – gathered in San Francisco to sign the UN Charter and create an organization that would help build a better world.

“The UN Charter lays out the fundamental purpose of the UN as an organization committed to peace and security, social progress, better living standards, and human rights. The UN now includes 193 Member States that have committed to these shared values and goals. A truly universal global organization, the UN knows that these goals can only be achieved by coming together as an international community. By bringing together a diversity of views, ideas, and experiences in a spirit of cooperation and collaboration, we can better address the major challenges of our time.

“Every day, the UN defends human rights by promoting freedom and equality for all people regardless of origin, gender, language, or religion. As Canadians, we must recognize that systemic discrimination and racism still exist in our communities and in our institutions, and that we need to take action to dismantle barriers and to create a fairer, more equitable, and more just society for racialized communities and Indigenous peoples in Canada and around the world.

“In response to the global pandemic, Canada joined the UN Secretary-General and the Prime Minister of Jamaica last month to launch an initiative to address the economic and human impacts of COVID-19, and advance solutions for a sustainable recovery. In these uncertain times, we need to work together – more than ever – to solve the problems we face as a global community, so that no one is left behind.

“As a proud founding member of the UN, Canada will also continue to play a productive and collaborative role at the UN and on the international stage. This includes as the 2020 Chair of the UN Peacebuilding Commission and through our commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals at home and abroad. Canada is dedicated to building a better future, by advancing economic security and gender equality, building and sustaining peace, addressing the impacts of climate change, and strengthening international cooperation. We believe that real change is possible if we continue to engage with international partners to reach these goals – together.

“On this day, let us reflect on the indispensable role of the UN in bringing the international community together, and recommit to our values of peace, justice, human dignity, inclusion, and cooperation as we continue on our path toward a better world for everyone.”

The Role of Amnesty Int’l in the Investigation of Police Harming BLM Protestors

What can Amnesty Int’l do?
Seems like mostly lobbying and witnessing/documenting breaches of int’l law.

And they have witnessed and mapped @125 incidents of acting against peaceful protestors in the BLM movement.
If you want to see the confirmed incidents, there is an interactive map on the Amnesty Int’l site.

Everybody Has a Cause Célèbre, But We’ve Got Compassion Fatigue

There are so many things we should care about these days. And it seems like all of them are urgent. Well, yeah they are! Those babies we should give just the right amount of attention to are all screaming. And we haven’t got any ear plugs! (oh lord!)

We know that babies die if they’re neglected. At the very least have some form of arrested development. And frankly we do want to do our best. We pride ourselves on it, don’t we? We want to be good parents. good citizens, leave the world a bit better off, right?

But this one has been crying for as long as we can remember, our friends are looking at us with hairy eyeballs, our family is telling us we suck at being a parent, and we feel like we’ve fucked up.

And this baby they keep tossing at us, well it isn’t the cute one or the smart one. The one that should get the attention. The one that will get us the most praise. Is it?

Those babies are so much easier to love. Esp if they’re the quiet, placid one with a sunny disposition that makes everyone around smile. No this baby takes ALL.THE.WORK. and gets NO. REWARDS.

That is what it’s like these days.

The climate is at an all time bad and dying before our eyes. And I suck at science. I hate reading temperature charts and graphs of minutia about species. And that Latin I took in school only goes so damn far folks! Why am I reading all the shit I hated in school?? But if we don’t do something soon, we won’t have a planet to live on, will we? Pffft! So I read.

Racial and cultural insensitivity is blaring all around the world. And here we thought things were improving. Most nations have laws about that shit. Why are we still even talking about stuff that belongs in the history books?? Srsly!! And yet we find that it wasn’t finished, like a bad meal. Just hidden better. Someone opened your storage closet and all the shit came tumbling out!! Dammit! (sighs). You vomitted and ugh nothing tastes good regurgitated. Nothing!

We live in the richest nations in the world and our charters say everyone is equal… Yet in order for the 1% to have all they want, someone’s child has to die today. No really, that is the rule. The exchange!. Because the 1% don’t fucking share well with others. They missed kindergarten. (holy muther!) And the wider the spread between rich and poor, the more children have to die to keep the 1% happy.

And just when you thought women’s lib had solved things so we know our place is secure, abortion gets set back, transgender is being screamed about, rapist politicians get put in office anyways. And kept there too!

And that is in the so-called “enlightened” nations. In the third world, women still face honour killings, genital mutilation and have to marry their rapists and live with their abusive partner. So what did our moms and grandmoms die for? (Holy hell!)

And after all these months of pandemic hysteria, hoax and WE WANT TO GO CAMPING, DANCING, DRINKING, BDSMing….it still aint fucking over??? Just SHAWT OPP!? BOUT DAT Shit!! I need a job, a meal, my savings is gone! LEMME in the line up!!

If I forgot one I’m sorry. But I think you get the drift here, right? All the houses on the street are burning at once and people are tired of hearing about it all.

Me too! But then I remember it’s not me I’m listening and reading for, is it? I’m ok with dying in the next 20 years. And if I’m dead, who cares if there’s a planet left? (goes out dancing!)

….Oh crap! Wait!….

I have a daughter! She might have kids and so on… It’d be kind of nice if they had a planet, right? Do you know of another one they can use? Well. do you?? Yeah I didn’t think so. All the other issues, babies, fires have time. But not this one thing.

So I go read a romance, or watch some music or cat doing silly stuff videos and I buckle down into that caring mode again.

You know, the not-sexy, not-fun brain stultifying, ear wigging crap that made me glad I left school. (Muther wants to get laid again. And someone has to bend over.)

I have a head ache. And no one reads my shit anyways, right? They just want another meme or shoe, or some erotica about male dom and female sub I don’t write anyways. (just ugh!)

(waves at the crowd) Keep it down folks, I got some reading to do!

United Nations’ definition of Indigenous – for Canada’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day – June 21, 2020

The Indigenous People have faced hardship wherever they tried to live or were brought. They faced laws that were meant to assimilate or annihilate them. They faced a dominant culture that wanted to enslave them, and/or destroy them. And they faced a govt and churches that wanted/want to separate families, children taken from their parents to bring up among the dominant culture.

They face/d being blamed for having everything taken from them, then being blamed for being poor and distressed. Killed for the colour of their skin; by the police & the army (on behalf of the govt) and the churches.

And everytime they rose to take back their lands, they met settlers with guns who weren’t about to give the land they had worked on back.

And they watched in horror as their land was overused; for forestry, fishing, hunting and mining. Filled with garbage heaps. Till their ancestral spirits were as raped and destroyed as the people.

Nothing we can do will change the history. Which is as recent in some ways as today.

But maybe knowing the story beyond our borders will create a movement for change… except Canada is far from the only country to act like this. So who do the First Nations ask for help?

…..

(International Day is
Sunday, August 9.)
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in September 2007,
indigenous peoples—numbering more than 370 million in some 90 countries around the world
a) native to the land prior to colonization
b) separate from their ancestral lands/not of the dominant culture of the land. Dispossessed/Diaspora (the Americas’ First Nations)

….

Justin Trudeau’s Address

……

Indian Act of Canada – 1876
status terms
status terms 2
denial of cultural practices etc.
self govt agreements in progress
Some progress has been made by the Cdn govt thru the years. It isn’t something that can be done overnight.

…..

pbs- global map
UN- state of indigenous people

….

empires – foreignpolicy

….. Europe

God, glory and conquest – khanacademy
expansion – lumenlearning

…. Catholicism – in the name of “saving” the hethens

Sulpicians
Jesuits
Dominicans
Franciscans
Recollets
Capuchins
Augustinians

…. in the name of child protection

disproportionate representation of Indigenous children in care and families broken
Yorkton
cbc

… in the name of community safety

disproportionate representation of Indigenous in system
John Howard Society
Elizabeth Fry Society
prisonfreepress

…. contrary to our principal act

Cdn Human Rights Code

…Purpose

2 The purpose of this Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, to the principle that all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

…. role of Pierre Elliot Trudeau

(current PM’s father) Brought the Constituion home to Canada and embedded the Human Rights Code of Canada within it. These acts supercede all others in Canada. It’s the daily practice by govt employees like police and social workers that defy that dream. But it’s institutionally sanctioned, so cannot be perceived as a miscreant acting outside their scope.

and just who was that Columbus anyways?

Britannica

….

who really discovered Canada?
Hint – it wasn’t Columbus!

… what do you mean the Vikings were here (Canada) first?

livescience

…..and they walked, or came by boat?

NPS.gov – Clovis and/or Solutrean

The Red Triangle…. – The Latest Reason Trump Needs Sensitivity Training Then

Before Trump was elected by the colleges, I lost a fet-friend or two because I called him a racist. But over and over he keeps doing the same things, and eventually you’d think he’d learn he needs browner faces in his cabinet, among his advisors. So maybe he could avoid some of these pitfalls.

Or he really is a racist.

And in the context of all these BLM, BIPOC protests, you’d think he would try to at least not agitate the water, the people… But oh no, he doubles down and gets really offensive.

And yes, I could say he just isn’t a polished poitician and be right about that.

Except for the constants in this… It never fails that Trump errs toward white supremacy, racist views and racist symbols. And he does allow racist groups to fund his campaign.

So is he playing to them?

Yes he does bluster and rant. And that is who he is.. and I’d be right to blame him for his own actions.

But where are all his polished political advisors? All the Republican party bigwigs?

When asked about Trump’s latest “gaffe” by reporters, their response seems to usually be, “I didn’t see that yet”. Sad, but…. everyone on twitter and facebook are seeing them. I get you’re busy Sir… but maybe one of your assistants or secretaries should log on now and then?

But then they wouldn’t have plausible deniability… at least till they have a publisher for their tell-all book deal. Right?

… Amnesty Int’l and UN calling out Trump

on racism in treatment of protestors
Amnesty Int’l
thehill – aclu complains to UN’s Human Rights’ Council

…. Juneteeth Rally and Trump

cnn

… twitter vs Trump and the racist baby ad

cnn

… facebook vs Trump and the red triangle

washingtonpost

…. the red triangle and Nazi Concentration camps

ushmm- classification system
ushmm – political prisoners
theholocaustexplained-political prisoners

On Saturday, June 20, 2020 : A Virtual March on Washington DC For the Voices of the Poor.

Whether it’s a pandemic or racial segregation and bias, the poor people are the first hit when resources are getting low. The first to be hated, and left to manage on their own. Therefore the first to die.

An issue that is exaccerbated when the poor people are those who are BIPOC, LGBTQ, or women (esp single parents).

This Saturday, a virtual march on Washington DC has been organized. Below are the contacts and the site. It seems to be primarily for US citizens, but maybe there is a way for people from other countries to let their voices support those who “attend”? At least let the govt know people are watching from outside the country.

If you want to be more than a ranter on your own platform, find a way to support those people who are doing something. Even if it’s just to let people know! (#passiton!)

….. Join up then

Watch the livestream at 10am and 6pm EST on June 20th, and again at 6pm on June 21st.

THE MASS POOR PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY & MORAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON
the ad
Reverend William J. Barber II is a member of the Nat’l Board of the NAACP
and pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church in a collective of churches

 

Politics Today in Canada — Oh Lord!

To begin,… In the middle of a pandemic, recession and civil rights unrest over structural racism, the opposing parties were trying to have the PM of Canada unseated. TG NDP sided with the Liberals on the bill in question. Or there’d have been an election called for.

If they hadn’t our govt would have basically been frozen for mths and millions would have been spent on an election no citizen wants to pay for. Whew! Pay attention folks! Who was at the bottom of this? (hint hint, SheerIdiocy, right?)
the outlook

…..

Canada and our PM have been vying for a 2 yr term on the United Nations Security Council. We lost that bid today. Maybe they were worried our govt is too unstable atm? How would a minority govt assure world leaders they can complete a 2 year anything atm? I’d blame all the other issues we’re going thru atm, but frankly we aren’t as bad off as some other entrants into the race.
cbc

And with this over, we can go back to our struggles and discussing if JT needs a hair cut or a man bun, right? I vote for the bun, so long as he shaves!