I recently experienced an officers use of the Tazer that will make you shake your head in disbelief. I was attending my mothers funeral, and had been distrought,with little sleep due to the events that unfolded prior to the day of. Early that morning before guests had arrived,with only family present,I had made a comment to my sister in law regarding some jewelry of my mothers that was missing. I said what I had to say, and sat in the viewing area in front of mom's coffin. Moments later an officer approached me as I was seated with my hands in my coat pockets and asked me to leave. I felt that I had done nothing wrong and said to him,"it was family business", to which was none of the concern of the police.He showed me the tazer and I said:"Oh, is that what you are gonna'do...Taze me at my mothers funeral?" with that, he grabbed me off the chair and pushed me to the ground forcefully. He then shoved the Tazer up under my coat and zapped me. As you have heard: it makes you board like and unable to respond.Unable to get my hands from my pockets was taken for further resistance and I was Tazed AGAIN. No one had said a word to me or even tried to console me before I was arrested for disorderly conduct,resisting arrest.How was I being agressive or violent, while seated with hands put away? PATHETIC....dont you think? He didn't talk to me at all, just told me to leave from an event that was my right to be at. The local judge added to my nightmare by ordering $50,000 CASH BAIL and I had NEVER been in trouble in my entire life! My lawsuit is being filed and I intend to tell the media. Overzealous Cop? He needs a new occupation and should tell his mother what he did that day. RIDICULOUS ?

Don't say "torture, coercion, brutality, corruption" or above all MURDER.

You'll be anti-cop.

We've been hearing for decades from "pro-law enforcement" types that the naughty Bill of Rights and legal restrictions on official behavior have been the primary reason for increased crime.

Piggy Fairytales!!!

over and over and over ad nauseum...

If we favor policing the police, we're told we're the cause of crime and now, "anti-victim."

The truth is the police will beat you to death and tell God you died, with absolute impunity... they do it all the time. The Television/Hollywood version of corruption being an isolated and rare issue is pure poppycock.

Are you an anti-globalist? Get ready to be on the FBI watch list... and AFTER they taser your happy ass... you'll disappear into the new gulags, labelled a terrorist. Think it can't happen here?

It's already legal and the camps are already built.

AndrewR said: "...that rush to violence that is the second nature of the authorities..."

V nicely put mate.

As the article says, more than 300 people in the U.S. and Canada have died after being tasered. So, don't be a jerk, Paul Bramscher, and pretend otherwise.

In your city, Minneapolis, brutal cops (known as "thumpers") have been killing innocent people for decades. It's no secret, the newspapers have reported dozens of such stories in recent years.

Read "Stolen Lives" at:

http://www.charityadvantage.com/CUAPB/HomePage.asp

The first issue here is does the Taser further the initial, grand purpose of a maintaining a police force?

First one must ask why have police at all.

And next ask, are they to serve the needs of the body common foremost over the protection of the state?

If one supposes that common has primacy over state, then it follows that the Police serve us.

As individuals, it can then be expected that all *reasonable* and non-violent courses of action be taken before any form of physical coercion is employed. Under conditions like these, discipline and selflessness would be the most critically dependent characteristics expected from and displayed by, an officer of the law.

Is this the situation we observe today?

ernesto: I'm curious, can you provide any names here so we can verify this?

I'm an RN who works mainly dementia patients. I know of a family who had a "cranky" grandmother who the family thought should leave her home and be placed in a nursing home. She "vigorously" rejected this idea. The family called the police who tasered her and killed her. Enough said.

Since everyone here is anti-cop, I assume you're big advocates of conceal & carry.

I have a hard time swallowing any wedge that divides working-class (racism, racial guilt, self-loathing, law vs. progressives, even soldiers vs. progressives).

I also have a hard time buying the anti-cop argument coupled with gun control. What are those folks advocating again? Curl up and die when attacked? Just reason with rapists, robbers, etc? Talk sense into that repeat drunk driver, that wife-beater, etc?

JustplainJack,

I did ask that question, and I don't think anyone here really addressed it. People here refuse to separate out certain issues:

* technology, physiological effects of each (baton/billy-club, gun, taser, mace, tear gas, etc.)
* de-escalation, appropriate use of force appropriate to the situation.
* those situations which do require non-lethal application of force.

I raise these issues not simply because I have multiple relatives and in-laws who've worked in law enforcement, but because I care about progressive issues. A lot of people here, I think, can't quite imagine themselves in a uniform, haven't listened to a police scanner on a busy night, or have no clue about how violent out culture is.

You're a cop, you get a call about a domestic. Some guy is beating his wife or kids. You show up on the scene, he's high, in a fit of rage, etc. I'm not aware of many PD's which train in the martial arts, and I'm certain there are extensive rules on what force to use in what circumstances, and how long non-lethal techniques can be tried until the ante must be raised.

The first issue here is protocol.
The second issue here is: what is the best non-lethal weapon to use?

So let's go back to the example. The cop shows up to answer a domestic, the wife-beater is not cooperative, still whacking his wife or kids -- even in front of the cop. You taser him? Strike him with a billy-club? Shoot him?

Luckylefty,

Too bad you have that stereotype of cops. It's essential to Empire wedge-builders, I think, that progressives and local police never begin to work with one another. God forbid that they'd ever begin to understand one another, recognize that they have identical class issues, etc.

Knock off the stupid cop tricks. I have a female relative who is a retired sergeant and a member of MENSA, as a matter of fact (no kidding).

martkwebbb February 7th, 2008 3:25 pm

Tour de force. Thanks. Saved it. Funny, nobody said a thing about your piece. It is the System and the System got Rules. Break the Rules they kill you. Try to change the Rules, they kill you. Til you cut off their heads and make something different. You showed difference.

Unfortunately the Nation/State identity structure is also joined at the hip to investor rights and the rights of property. I just thin out farther back. Pastoralist killer nomads. Central Asia, 3,500 years ago, something about competition from Mongols who were nastier than we were.

Ponies and mobile homes and patriarchy and families and clans and slaves and concubines and flocks and herds and trade goods and weapons. Meet someone militarily strong, get out the trade goods and probe for weakness. Meet someone militarily weak get out the weapons, take everything they have, and make the survivors into our slaves. We could kill people from the back of horse in more ways that I can count. Almost as nasty as the Mongols.

The reason I bring this up is that behind those Rules is a tightly knit network of families and clans. Those Rules were made to guarantee their interests back to our Founding Slave holders and the jumped up thugs and their Magna Carta. "You can have anything you can take and hold."

And into that mix, the willing cooperation of our people with that model of life: Our global economy is set up to transfer wealth from the Many to the Few through constant war and by owning our labor. Slave model back to the roots of Aryan culture. Goes with gender slavery. Like you said, Rules, and with all Rules, you have Corollaries, e.g. can't have Patriarchy without Gender slavery; can't have Constant War without the free floating rage of massive child abuse; can't have massive wealth in the hands of the Few without you have the Many in chains. Monumental architecture is always based on slave economies and behind them all, Families & Clans. Always.

And yes, Cops are my favorite heavily armed marginally literate high school graduates with badges and guns. My very favorite. In the 'burbs' with their insulated white privilege they meet friendly Officer Tim and his wonderful K-9 buddy Coco. Public Safety & Neighborhood Protection. In the Urban Center you get black sunglasses, jack boots, and Ripper the killer dog who loves "dark meat". Containment & Suppression. Our shared racist America for a long time.

Take a lesson from a young man who came of age during COINTELPRO: "Anyone in a uniform can kill you for any reason or no reason (just a bad hair day) with total impunity. You have no rights of any kind until you get an attorney if they let you live that long. That's for anything. If you're known as political, it's worse. Much worse." Welcome to AmeriKKKa folks. Been this way for a long time.

RIP

Tasers are just the latest in the cop/paramilitary-cult problem. Klein is absolutely correct in this matter.

Earlier Paul Bramscher asked (hopefully genuinely, I can't tell) when de-escalation fails, what's a cop to do? In a sober discourse that's a good question with a wide range of good answers. Ask a psych nurse, she'll tell you how to non-violently subdue someone who's bigger, more agitated, etc. Ask anybody who practices Aikido, we'll tell you exactly how to do it, including a technique called sankyo.

The problem isn't the lack of techniques to address the real problem (that happens far less than the cop/paramilitaries want to own up to) it is the mental-emotional maturity of the average cop and the pathetic approach to training that cop.

In Los Angeles, back when there were phone booths, sankyo was taught to the LAPD as a method of non-violently getting a suspect holed up in a phonebooth out and on the ground. It takes time and considerable practice to perform sankyo properly. When properly trained, the technique is utterly fool proof and results in no injury to the suspect. The problem was, the LAPD was impatient. A bunch of testosterone saturated males (mostly white at the time) amped up on adrenaline did not care, or desire to take the time, to learn the technique and so they opted for choke holds, which ultimately killed people, lots of them. When that mentality was handed weapons, they transferred that choke hold technique to the stick, and now they use the taser. And more recently in LA, they just ring in SWAT and fill suspects full of lead, shoot first, then there's no need for any questions later, everyone will worship the cop who's injured or as of yesterday, killed.

The problem is lack of training and lack of desire to train or be trained in the first place. Cops want a short cut, period. They need to own up to that deficiency in their character. When they won't we need to fire them and hire people who are competent. Period.

If a condom is no cure for 'shock and awe' in the larger bubble,
why would withdrawal check a little 'shock and control' in the smaller bubble?

It's not really so much that tasers themselves are bad, it's how they're being used. A taser should be used when there's a threat to the officer's safety... but more and more, police are using them as a compliance tool along the lines of "Do what I say or I'll shock you". I've seen many videos on YouTube of the police saying just that...

A good example is this: Several months ago, the police had an encounter with a man who attacked an officer with a heavy chain... the officers were not equipped with tasers so they ended up pumping 7 rounds into the guy who died at the scene. That is a situation where a taser should have been used. The other side of the spectrum is using a taser on a driver who is arguing a traffic ticket... posing no physical threat to the officer... That is mis-use.

"Something about those French Canadian women."

Naomi Klein, as should be obvious from her first and last name, and her Barbara Streisand-equse good-looks, is an Ashkanazi Jew. She had a good, socialist upbringing and is a latter-generation version of the once common, Jewish red-diaper baby.

The article doesn't mention that Taser victims instantly lose control of their muscles and drop to the concrete. If standing when Tasered, the victims' heads fall (approximately) six feet and smash onto the concrete. When cops "test" Tasers on other cops, they always have two people standing by to catch the Taser victim and lay him gently on the ground.

Here's what it looks like in real life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMaMYL_shxc

The link is to a dash-board video of a highway patrol officer Tasering a man who he has pulled over for speeding (though the video makes it clear he was not speeding). The man calmly steps out of his vehicle when the officer tells him to, and then with his wife and small child watching, the officer Tasers him (twice).

It's hard to believe that anyone could argue in favor of Tasering.

First, I want to apologize for posting my fairly long winded commentary above without explanation. I had just finished writing the letter to Naomi Klein a few days ago and jumped at the chance to share it with people thinking about the topic.

I think it is important to understand police as the physical enforcers of law and more specifically defenders of property rights. Until we reconceptualize ownership and property, we will always need police, armed in some form, to make sure the "haves" are protected from the "have nots".

To respond to Poet, changing tax laws as I explain in my fairly long winded commentary is not going to cut it. Our current economic system depends on investment for profit. If you tax investment, there will be less profit and less reason to invest. With less investment will come less production. Less production equals economic recession. It is not that I like or agree with this logic or these rules, I am just saying that they exist and until we change it, building social democracy through tax reform is not going to be sustainable.

"More recently the police tasered a teenage girl - three officers couldn't handle her so they tasered her. "

What? They couldn't control a teenage girl? Well, they shouldn't be cops then.
That's what I've suspected for a while. I see a lot of fat idiots who can't reach their toes dressed as cops these days, of course those lard heads must use a taser to control a teenage girl! Look around cops are fatter and less and less limber and who's paying? You, the guy paying their salary.
Also, don't kid yourself, people in the police have problems. Psychological problems. Why would you be a cop if you were sane and decent?

Rules for a healthy peaceful society have been replaced with the quick fix, the adrenaline rushes, the glory of power, the ease of violence without recrimination. What are we afraid of?
One solution to the apparent police brutality and overuse of force, deadly or not, is to hold each individual personally liable for acts that cause unnecessary harm to others, with prison terms if found guilty. For that we need a fair honest court system, which does not allow the defenses of 'mistaken identity', 'thought it was a gun', and so forth to let obvious criminal acts go unpunished, and to set an example for all that this is unacceptable.
When we stop promoting violence in our culture will be a day to rejoice.
We should hold the boards and CEOs of companies that sell tasers for profit to the public (and police) accountable for the deaths associated with their use.

I was heartened to read some very serious discussions of this subject, amidst, unfortunately, the knee jerk and sophomoric "cops bad" garbage. Are there bad cops, certainly there are, in any group of many thousands there are going to be highs,lows and middles. The type of police force we get is, in my opinion, a direct result of the type of society in which we live.

What I am trying to note here is that , if the progressive viewpoint is going to be accepted, if we are expecting to change things , including minds, we have to do a much better job at avoiding the simplistic commentary that offers no insight into the problem, only exposes the immaturity of the poster.

As to tasers, my son in law ios a former Federal Marshal who got tired of riding airplanes for a living and started his own security company. He carries a taser as well as a Beretta, and he would ask you, regardless of the flaws in this new technology, which would you rather have him use? Do the police need to do a better job in screening applicants? Certainly. Do we wish to see the use of tasers come after all due diligence in otherwise subduing a suspect? Of course we do. Are all policement and policewomen fascist pigs who carry out Lord Cheney's wishes daily? Get a life.

I met a Police Officer in New Orleans outside the Starbuck's Cafe, who asserted "When a person with a felony record is caught red-handed in the commission of another felony, Law Enforcement Officers should be authorized to carry out summary executions on the roadside." He was serious. The truth is, it happens all the time. He just wants to avoid the work of covering it up... manufacturing evidence, withholding evidence, faking charges etc.

The issue is the Bill of Rights of the United States which have been under attack with anecdotal piggy fairy tales and an escalating campaign of propoganda for decades here. The goal is absolute power and control... the freedom to commit crimes in the name of crime prevention.

Those advancing the argument that high tech developments in "non-lethal" force are more "humane," are neglecting the obvious issue... Why should we expand the capabilities of law enforcement officials to exercise extra-judicial, extraordinary punishments on the general population without due process? Especially in light of the historical fact, that these agencies are INCAPABLE of POLICING THEMSELVES?

Mark Porter Webb finally after an exhaustingly long polemic wonders:

So, how do we change the basic cultural rules of capitalism? What is the magical tool that will help transform our current economic system that, as you described so well in the Shock Doctrine, currently relies on all sorts of nasty practices to keep profits flowing?

**************

Poet responds:

For starters, let's change tax policy so that the everybody has to pay taxes and have social security witheld on all their income over $50,000--including especially capital gains from investments in T-Bills and appreciation of value on commercial real estate with no depreciation allowance for the structures contained on such property.

This would be a start towards restoring a more progressive taxing policy designed to expand wealth for all and not just the top 1/10th of one percent of the people.

Jim Glover, I can tell you are just holding on by your fingernails to what used to be. Take heart! The spirit lives on. Naomi is a prophet of hope, not of doom. We are seeing better times emerge all around us. But we have to be here, waiting with the better ideas and a strong spirit. It doesn't just work for the right, it works for anyone. Be ready.

If we all joined the NRA we could alter their agenda. Join the NRA and let your voice be heard.

worth tracking down -- a somewhat obscure documentary called "The Miami Model" -- where officers use tasers in large groups while chasing demonstrators --

beyond scary

John Mitchell - oops! thanks for straightening that out. For some reason, I misremembered that the whole thing was won by negotiation. I know there are situations that were. I must have gotten them mixed up in my aging brain. Looks like I've got some studyin' to do.

A senior moment.......now where did I leave my Gosling's?

Check this out http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cjs10.htm

Tasers are being marketed as non-lethal. Trainers are teaching that Tasers are non-lethal. The manufacturer insists that the deaths after Tasers were used were not caused by the Tasers. The corporation manufacturing Tasers is making a fortune. This is a problem of perception by those already willing to act forcefully when necessary. Once sold on the non-lethal concept, they remain in denial. A comparison could be made with the decades of denial by smokers influenced by the tobacco corporations. As the mother of a tall autistic, mute son with a seizure disorder who is on powerful anticonvulsants I can tell you that I am worried. He lives in a community where the police carry Tasers. I have been talking to his assisted living program about establishing policy with the police concerning their residents who have difficult behaviors and are also being treated with psychotropic drugs and anti-convulsants.

I love Naomi Klein. She's very cute and she's smart.

Something about those French Canadian women.

Ah good one Samski, & all: The days of being innocent Until proven guilty in a court of law and judged by ones peers. Only then was a person guilty and even then they were treated humanely as we are(were)a humane people & society. I long for those days.

"medusa" wrote that negotiation is "how they got people out of situations like Entebbe." mesuda, I share the opinions you expressed, but Entebbe is an unfortunate choice - the hijackers had threatened to kill the hostages, and the hostages were freed by a commando raid that killed many people, including three hostages, allegedly after negotiations failed.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on the Israeli special forces group that conducted the raid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayeret_Matkal), states that in 2003, thirteen reservists from the group officially refused to continue performing military services in the occupied territory. They wrote:

"We have come to tell you, Mr. Prime Minister [Ariel Sharon], that we will no longer be accomplices to the reign of oppression in the Territories and the denial of the most elementary human rights of millions of Palestinians, nor shall we be the shield of settlements erected on confiscated land."

An adviser to Prime Minister Sharon later said that the protest was among the factors leading Sharon to resolve upon the Unilateral Disengagement from Gaza. He comments:

"... These were not weird kids with green pony-tails and a ring in their nose with a strong odour of grass. These were really our finest young people."

Maybe that's what it will take to get the U.S. out of Iraq. Ehren Watada can't do it alone!

I suggest rodeo training. If you can get close enough to taser them, you can rope them.

Maybe they can set up tasers everywhere operated by GPS coordinates. That way it can all be privatized. Instead of calling 911 and pry Barney Fife's overweight grandson out of the donut shop, you can just enter the right code and taser all the criminals out in the street. It's safe, so why not just taser all the people you don't trust, like inlaws, other races, etc.

The only good stranger is a tasered stranger.

If police were armed only with Tasers when confronting, for example, organised drug dealers, they'd beat a hasty retreat chased by flying bullets and hoarse laughter.

Tasers, my friends, are meant for use upon you and I - average, occasionally cranky, citizens.

Protect and Serve: Command and Control on steroids.

What I find amazing is how much of this has been going on for years but nobody cared as long as it went on behind closed doors and to somebody whose only crime was to be homeless, tired, and hungry.

Check out "electroshock therapy" and see how its making a comeback.

It can be applied to anybody who has the audacity to disagree with a doctor.

Check out "forced drugging" too while you are at it.

i love naomi klein ( & the other naomi, too ), and also the poster who gave a long diatribe contesting some her points, but basically reconciling w/her. i agree w/paul that tasers are primarily a symptom of what's wrong. in fact, i asked for one for chrismas,& was extremely disappointed at getting a shirt & a dvd instead. i remember when the reagan admin laughed as they repressed people already suffering more than we do in el salvador, guatamela, honduras,etc. in ways much worse than the average tasering (tho, oops we make a mistake sometimes). yes, how to confront this corporate state beast!

"Everything can be solved with a little violence."
(As a sweet young bank-clerk girl recently shocked me by saying when I fumbled with pulling the cap off a ball-point pen...)

That's the lesson from the USA's "unilateralism" (read: assaults) on other countries. Like Afghanistan and Iraq lately - but many before, a little less openly.

This "might is right" approach to every issue "trickles down" to all interpersonal interactions. In everyday life it has become so much easier, over the past quarter century or so – by a slow slide, for people to use aggressiveness rather than reason to accomplish wishes. While «Happy Ultra-Violence» has become a norm for movies to be «successful» - and everything else is largely perceived as boring.

That's why it's important to resist deviations from the norm of "one standard for all", and demand universal values implemented on the powerful as well as the weaker. With language used in equal-rights forums as the exchange-areas (no, not «battlegrounds» - that's a very aggressive metaphor) for differing views.

Without «one standard for all» upheld and strengthened, we'll all soon be cattle-prodded into submission everywhere and about everything.

The standing in line on airports and accepting all kinds of mindlessly irrational invasions of privacy only to board a flight is a not-so-subtle training in obedience which is de facto – whether deliberate or not - readying everyone for accepting random tasering over unspecified breaching of unwritten norms. Like objecting to unreasonable commands.

"Use talking - not tasers" is a good demand.

But of course, talking an issue over carries the risk of the authority in question having to admit some unreasonableness and having to acknowledge a stated universal norm. Which is where the need for violence to subdue rational argument comes in.

SAMSKI - Good one! It's too often forgotten that the subjects are not criminals until they're convicted in an open court of law.

Ah, the good old days!

We may be missing the important question here, which someone needs to ask Michael Mukasey as soon as possible:

"Mr. Mukasey, if you were tasered while being waterboarded in a secret detention site during your indefinite detention without charge, would it just FEEL LIKE torture, or would it BE torture?"

The answer needs to be recorded for posterity.

The real problem is that too many police departments aren't bothering to screen their "Job Applicants" to weed out the sadists and sociopathic personalities who Enjoy watching someone lying on the ground, screaming in agony.

The sort of person a Good police force tells "Take A Hike".

The sort of person our Military USED to tell "Take A Hike". Before the Chimp broke the military, that is.

It is sad to see the breakdown in Canada's moral compass. It seems to accompany the exxploiting of her once pristine wilderness. Welcome to the United States of Land To Be Exploited, Canada. Oh, Canada.

These tasers need to be treated like a gun, to be used only where a GUN might have been used. Until then, ban them: too many deaths! This is the kind of issue that we NEED REAL leaders to lead/ steer our moral ship of state.

Thanks Naomi. Not only is this an under-debated subject, it is of personal importance for everyone - because as all the examples have shown- anybody could be at risk of getting tased under the right toxic combination of haphazardly circumstances. All the examples from a child to the elderly. It is immoral to continue as is.

someone wrote: "War for profit creates the present fascist environment. The cops are victims too."

Yeah but there are the victims who are being victimized and the ones tasering them. It's pretty thin to call the cops 'victims'

Anyone one ever hear of a net gun. Non lethal, and completely renders a resisting suspect helpless. There is no place, for tasers. period.

Naomi's the most clever journalist I know of

And a bright smile too...

Naomi, keep writing, keep smiling, we love you...

Well, I agree with the sentiments expressed here. There are so many examples of the police using tasers in situations where it was obviously unnecessary. And the devices are being sold as "safe", while they kill people. They are repulsive if you ask me.
Another poster (PAUL) mentioned that the statistics aren't being correlated with the statistics of abuse and injury from other forms of police force such as batons, etc. I think this is a good point. We don't really know from the information given whether injury (or even death) due to police force has increased due to the use of Taser's until we compare with all forms of police force.
But as "medusa" said in her post, the bigger issue is the brutalization of the citizenry of the U.S. I agree completely. However she also says it started with Kent State, which I have to respectfully disagree with. It has been going on since the beginning. Read Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States", and you'll see that the brutalization of our citizenry is nothing new.
So, I don't think eliminating Tasers will solve the problem. It's much bigger than this one type of weapon.

Considering the negative arrangements that Kline eloquently details in her recent body of work, and the role of the policeman in similar historical periods, vicious control is needed for "success." It's not the stooge hiding in the bushes with loaded ticket book during your solitary morning commute, it's a labor dispute where heads are getting cracked open or you're being hauled away from so-called democratic assemblies. No one's fooled, the "gearing up" of your local finest after 9/11 was part of the theft, monies designated for control in anticipation of violence. Tazers' deliver intense pain, easily understood as brutal, short term motivation.

"Have any tasers been used on actual criminals yet?"

No, only on Runners by The Sandmen.
Note: even criminals are human beings.

Have any tasers been used on actual criminals yet?

Paul and others,

The "either tazer or billy club" argument is in most cases, a false dichotomy. In any situations with an "uncooperative" suspect, help is called in, an then theycan easily overpower and constrain the suspect adequately to get the handcuffs on. No blows to the head with clubs, or shocks with tazers, are required.

And, as someone who frequently engages in demonstrations on the street, the most disturbing thing about tazers is their use against nonviolent, sitting-disobiedience protestors. Where formerly, the non-resisting but non-cooperating protestor was simply picked up and carried or dragged to the paddy wagon, they now tazer the protestor until they cooperate in their own arrest. Yes, i've seen it in person.

Do you think even Ghandhi would have had the fortitude to continue to promote satyghara in such a situation?

PAUL "If de-escalation doesn't work ..." Then something more assertive may be necessary.

But it appears to me that more and more often, the violent option is the first choice. So we get people killed, who are getting their ID out of their pockets, or are brandishing a threatening ice cream cone, or are hunkered in a threatening way in their wheelchairs (beware those killer grannies). Poorly trained police are often more hysterical than their subjects, high on adrenaline, and incapable of making a good decision under pressure.

Police work is inherently dangerous; there's no way to guarantee the safety of a cop, good or bad. Unfortunately. A good cop is worth twice his/her weight in gold, fully armed...and soaking wet.

cows with guns

braithwa842 February 7th, 2008 3:00 pm
So where do you suggest moving? Canada likes Tazers, Mexico no one has guns except the police, Army and drug gangs-try walking down the street of a Border town in Mexico after dark-ANY street. Then we have Guatemala and Honduras where one is at risk in the cities or countryside of mugging, carjacking and murder. I hear that Belize city is not much different but never been there so can't say for sure. I have never considered buying a hand-gun for protection but a tazer is starting to look like a reasonable option.

The situation in the United States today is, anything can be done to someone "resisting arrest." We've seen a lot of it lately.

Recently, there was a police video (which is now off the net) of a situation where a young lady was apparently injured by a cousin and she called 911. The arriving officer found her on the floor, apparently assumed she was the assailant, picked her up and slammed her back to the floor. (eyewitness, no camera here) She was hauled, screaming and protesting, out to the patrol car (resisting arrest) taken to the cop shop and filmed being held down by four burly male cops, who stripped the clothes off her, with a female deputy to do the finger waves. She was then dragged down the hall and thrown nude into a cell for six hours. She was later convicted of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Her screams during the film were heartrending. Apparently, trying to explain that you are the victim, not the perpetrator is resisting arrest.

What seems to be happening with tasers is is the same thing.
"you're under arrest!"
"For what?"
"He's resisting arrest!" ZAP!!
"Hold still!"
"He's twitching, he won't hold still."
"Zap him again!" ZAP!!

We the People are to freeze, obey a cop and don't question what he is doing, even if you were just walking down the street. To do so is to court tasering, beating, charges of resisting arrest or assault. Don't ever question or interfere in the beating or tasering of a police victim or you will find yourself alongside him.

In Germany, you feared the Gestapo. You did not want to even catch their eye. We are being conditioned the same way here in the US. Fear and obey the police, the establishment, don't question, don't protest. Remember, the camps are just a signature away.

One of the Code Pink ladies went through this, just trying to save a person's life. She identified herself and said what she was trying to do. She nearly had her arm dislocated and was slammed against a wall and told to hold still. Every time she tried to get her arm in a less painful position, she was slammed against the wall again and told, "I told you to freeze."

This is not the same nation we grew up in, and the neighborhood cop is a thing of the past.

OK, Paul. I work in an ER. We have dangerous, drunk, violent, high on drugs, any kind of obnoxious human you can think of. But we're not allowed to injure them.

We subdue them with people. One time we called the police for backup, but by the time they got to our ER, the guy was subdued and restrained, although it took 7 people. The cop commented, "We do it better, because we don't worry about hurting them."

I consider that a problem.

There was a psychiatric hospital I worked at that had mattresses that they used to subdue violent people. OK, cops can't carry mattresses, but they could have some kind of inflatable device, plus, wait for backup. There are an abundance of cops in our over-policed society.

here's a summary list of some of the other "non-lethal" weapons that are being researched/made.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/nl-weapons_terms/

I especially like:
"Acousitc Bullets: High power, very low frequiency waves emitted from one to two meter antenna dishes. Results in blunt object trauma from waves generated in front of the target. Effects range from discomfort to death..."

Dear Naomi Klein,
I recently finished reading your latest book, The Shock Doctrine. Your detailed account of the connections between neoliberal economic policy and violent government repression, the decline of welfare states, and the rise of corporatized war and disaster capitalism is commendable. You begin by seamlessly threading together the recent histories of military brutality in the Southern Cone of South America, union busting in Margaret Thatcher's England, and the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. Through these histories you make explicit that acts of violent political repression against leftist organizers were not chance occurrences during periods of economic transition. On the contrary, you show that they were deliberate acts of "shock therapy" used by governments to numb and eliminate those opposed to the implementation of neoliberal policies such as the privatization of public services, the elimination of spending on social programs, and the deregulation of industry wage, safety and environmental standards.

You continue on to demonstrate the "constricted freedom" of post cold-war governments in Poland, Russia, and South Africa, who, in spite of initial aspirations to build social democratic welfare states, ended up implementing neoliberal economic reforms with disastrous consequences for the majority of their people. You then bring your analysis of neoliberalism home to describe the rise of the privatized war machine in the United States and the parallel emergence of the occupation of Iraq as a profitable market for investments in military technology, homeland security, and the rebuilding of basic infrastructure destroyed by the aforementioned military technology. Finally, you tie it all together neatly by concluding that the neoliberal economic model, in its thirst for new markets, is now preying upon areas struck by natural disasters to accumulate the profits it desires. "Disaster capitalism," as you aptly name it, was evident in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and in Sri Lanka after the tsunami when large numbers of poor people were prevented from returning to their weather damaged homes in order to create lucrative new investment opportunities on the land they previously inhabited. The scariest part of neoliberalism's trajectory, as you note at the end of your book, is that when war and disaster are profitable enterprises, there are increased incentives to start wars and allow natural phenomenon to deteriorate into social catastrophes.

First and foremost, I want to say that I learned a lot from reading your book. I was continually impressed by your ability to organize complex historical events into easily understandable patterns. You have clearly demonstrated neoliberalism's historical dependence on political, economic, and physical "shock". I am writing you, however, because despite my deep appreciation for the work you have done, I also have a major concern. You do a very good job of describing many of the problems that come with neoliberalism, but I am afraid your analysis does not give a good account as to why neoliberal ideas are being implemented in the first place. Without a clear understanding of why neoliberalism is the policy of choice for many governments and economists today, you are unable to put forward a comprehensive vision for how neoliberalism can be transformed.

For these reasons, I am concerned that many people will read your book and become motivated to make change, but will not be equipped with the right tools to do so. I am concerned that without the right tools, these motivated people will continue to focus on pressuring governments and/or economists to make change but will not have much success persuading them to do so. I am concerned that these motivated people, after not having much success, will start to believe those who say that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union prove that free market capitalism is the final stop on the train of economic history. Moreover, I am concerned that these motivated people, frustrated by their inability to make change, will reluctantly give into the idea that capitalism (and the neoliberal ideology that now accompanies it) is the only way to organize economies after all.

With these concerns in mind, I would like to make a suggestion. I would like to suggest that you take a look at another book that maps the rise of neoliberalism in the latter half of the twentieth century. The book is The Dilemmas of Social Democracies by two Peace Studies Professors at Earlham College, Howard Richards and Joanna Swanger. Instead of focusing on the violence and repression associated with neoliberal economics, Richards and Swanger focus on rules. They would argue that your book takes a wrong turn on the second to last page of the introduction when you make the claim that there is no reason that market-based economies are incompatible with decent wages, free health care, and quality public education. They would say that there is a very good reason that markets and government led social welfare programs do not mix: the basic cultural rules that shape our current economy do not allow them to. They would explain that until the basic rules of our economy are changed, governments have few options for making economic policies that serve the needs of all their people.

Fearing that people might understand this to mean that capitalism is here to stay, Richards and Swanger would then enthusiastically proclaim that effective strategies for ending the problems of neoliberalism do exist. There is no reason that the basic rules of our current economic cannot be changed or that concerned people can work collectively to change them so that everyone's needs can be met in ecologically sustainable ways. In the following pages, I will explain some of these strategies as I more fully articulate my concern with your book. I will start by describing what Richards and Swanger mean by "basic cultural rules of capitalism." I will then summarize a few of their case studies of nations whose experiments with social democracy failed as a result of these basic cultural rules. One such case study, that of South Africa after Mandela rose to power, is particularly illuminating for my goals. Both you and Richards and Swanger give detailed accounts of how Mandela's South Africa ended up implementing neoliberal economic policy, but have very different explanations as to why this happened. The conclusion of this letter will explain how your differing analyses of South Africa, and the rise of neoliberalism in general, lead to vastly different approaches to transformative social and economic change.

According to Richards and Swanger, the basic cultural rules that shape and sustain our current economic system are made up of a couple of interconnected parts. First, as Marx explains in Capital, capitalism is based upon a culture of accumulation through commodity exchange. Commodities are produced not in order to meet people's needs directly, but to so sell for profit that is then reinvested in the production of even more commodities. Second, a simple set of ethics exists that produce, protect, and make normal both the right to own property and the freedom to do with it whatever one wishes. This minimalist set of ethical values emerged in western culture as the Romans sought to create a basic system of rules- a common economic language- that could facilitate commerce between the vastly different cultures that had been conquered in their quest for empire. Enlightenment philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, and classical economists, such as Adam Smith, would later adopt this emphasis on property and freedom to construct the ethical foundations of free market capitalism.

Focusing on the two interconnected parts of capitalism's basic rules allows Richards and Swanger to provide a simple explanation as to why capitalist markets and welfare states usually cannot coexist peacefully. This simple explanation, preceded by another brief summary of capitalism's interconnected parts, now follows. First the summary: at the core of capitalist culture is the accumulation of profit through investment. At the same time, the ethical values of property and freedom give investors the right to do what they want with their capital because it is their capital. This freedom to invest in whichever market one chooses, remove investment from one market and place it in another, or not invest in any market at all, is guaranteed by the rules of the system. Now the simple explanation: in a capitalist economic system where the purpose of investment is to make profits, and the basic rules of the system give investors the freedom to choose where they invest, investors inevitably choose markets where profit can be made. You do not usually find profitable markets in countries with high wages and a large tax base to support government funded health care and education. Thus, markets in these countries are not usually chosen.

At this point, you may be protesting loudly, "But what about all the countries in the past that have combined social welfare with capitalist systems of production? What about Sweden!?!" Anticipating this response, Richards and Swanger support their argument that the basic rules of capitalism are causes of poverty and economic instability with a number of case studies. They examine Spain's failed attempts at social democracy before and after the Franco dictatorship. They explain why Nelson Mandela had to forgo the people-centered economic principles of the Freedom Charter when he became president of South Africa. They note how even the brutal end to communism and imposition of neoliberalism in post-colonial Indonesia still could not entice investors to stay for very long. They lament Venezuela's missed opportunity to organize their economy around social democratic principles when the country amassed great wealth during oil booms in the seventies. And yes, they describe the rise and fall of Swedish social democracy. I will now focus on a few of these case studies in greater detail, starting with Sweden, and then making a few comments about their writings on Indonesia. Finally, I will show how their analysis in general, and of South Africa in particular, is different, and more useful towards transformative social change than the one that you present in the Shock Doctrine.

For the twenty or so years following World War II, explain Richards and Swanger, Sweden was hailed by the world as a social and economic utopia. Wages were high, employment was practically non-existent, and government funded education and healthcare met the needs of the Swedish people. Things began to change, however, with the dramatic increase in oil prices and other global economic shifts in the early 1970's. The Swedish economy began to run a deficit, unemployment began to rise, and overall economic production went down. As a result of these growing economic failures, and their inability to fix them, the social democrats were voted out of power in the early nineties. A government more willing to adopt neoliberal policy replaced them. For the last four decades, the welfare state that had once made Sweden a shining model for those working to create more just economies, has been in serious decline.

If one looks at the rise and fall of Swedish social democracy with Richards and Swanger's understanding of the basic rules of capitalism it is not hard to understand what happened. Social democracy in Sweden was never much of a Marxist project; it was always an experiment in carefully planned capitalism. Even in the glory days of social democracy, the Swedish economy was based upon production for exchange and the reinvestment of profits to initiate further production. What made the Swedish welfare state possible was a beautifully orchestrated dance between the major labor union and the major business guild during a time when Sweden was able to export enough of what the world needed in order to maintain steady economic growth. For the first two decades in Sweden after the Second World War, labor and business were able to fairly divide the profits of this economic growth between them. When rising oil prices made production more expensive, and when the markets that Sweden had been previously exporting to no longer needed their products, Swedish social democracy began to stumble. There was no longer enough profit to stimulate growth. In order to get investors to choose to keep their investments in Sweden, sacrifices had to be made. Wages had to be reduced. Government spending on social programs had to be cut back. The welfare state had to be diminished. Swedish social democracy did not change the basic rules of the capitalist system, so the basic rules of the capitalist system changed Swedish social democracy.

The plight of Indonesia is a similar story through which Richards and Swanger give other important insights about the basic rules of the capitalist system. When Indonesia achieved independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1949 it had social democratic aspirations. When in the 1960's their aspirations turned into a communist government attempting to nationalize foreign companies, these foreign companies exercised their freedom and property rights and left the country. The economy then collapsed, chaos ensued, and a military dictatorship rose to power that systematically eliminated leftist organizers and union leaders. The dictatorship enacted government policy that favored profit over social welfare; investment then returned and the economy began to thrive. At this point in Indonesia's history, without peering further into their tumultuous future, it may seem logical to conclude that violent state repression against leftist social movements, while not pretty, was worth the struggle to "fix" Indonesia's economy.

Two responses can be drawn from Richards and Swanger's work to refute this conclusion. First, while Indonesia's economy did grow during the dictatorship, the result was not the end of poverty in Indonesia. Investing in ending poverty is usually not profitable and investors usually do not choose to do it. In this way, the argument that free market capitalism is good because it leads to economic growth masks both the widening of income gaps and the impoverished masses left behind by this growth. Second, Indonesia's economy, in spite of its military government's hard work to create a climate favorable to investment, collapsed multiple times as a result of investors collectively moving their investment elsewhere. The basic rules of capitalism allow investors to come and go as they please. Regardless of how favorable to investment a government makes their country, investors, for whatever reason, may still choose to leave or not come at all.

Hopefully, these brief overviews of Richards and Swanger's case studies of Sweden and Indonesia have brought more clarity as to how the basic cultural rules of capitalism can be understood as a cause of the failures of social democracies and government's decisions to implement neoliberal economic policy. To crystallize this concept further, as well as to demonstrate why focusing on rules is more useful than focusing on "shock" with regards to building movements for transformative change, I will now compare your analysis of what happened in South Africa during Mandela's presidency with Richards and Swanger's.

Let us began this comparison of perspectives on what happened in post-apartheid South Africa by focusing on the points where you both agree: Nelson Mandela, upon his release from a twenty-seven year prison term, was still firmly in favor of the people- centered economic principles of the Freedom Charter. These principles included collective sharing of resources through nationalization of major industries and land redistribution, freedom to unionize, minimum wage standards, employment for all, and the right to health care and housing. You both make it fairly clear that Mandela had every intention to make radical changes to the South African economy that for many years had short changed and excluded the majority of black South Africans. History has since shown that these radical changes were never made and that the majority of black South Africans are still being short-changed and excluded by the South African economy. Explaining exactly why that happened is where your perspectives diverge.

According to your analysis in the tenth chapter of the Shock Doctrine, what happened was that while Mandela's party, the African National Congress (ANC), was in important and heated discussions about the political transition to a post-apartheid South Africa, the country's economic future was being decided in back room deals. You claim that through these covert economic negotiations, a constricting net began to fall upon the Mandela and the ANC, limiting their options to make radical economic changes. You note that last minute changes were made to the constitution protecting private property and preventing land distribution; industry subsidies that would help create millions of jobs had to be removed because the ANC had already signed on to free trade agreements that prohibited them; money could not be printed because the central bank was still a private institution run by its apartheid owners; and funds originally destined to build houses for the poor ended up being used to pay of South Africa's massive international debt that had been incurred by the previous apartheid government. Your explanation of what happened in South Africa is that as a result of the shock of political transition not enough people were paying attention to what really mattered: planning the future of the economy. You thus infer, that had the ANC been more aware of the decisions being made about their economy at the time, they could have escaped from the constricting net that began to fall on them and gone ahead with their radical plans for the South African economy.

By now it should come as no surprise that Richards and Swanger's analysis of what happened with post-apartheid South African economy starts with the basic cultural rules of capitalism. Their analysis is rather simple, and strikingly similar to what they say about Sweden and Indonesia. Post-apartheid South Africa was a poor country with high unemployment, few resources, and great debt. Ending unemployment requires creating jobs, and creating jobs requires investment. According to our current economic rules, investment occurs in a country when investors choose it to occur, and frequently only after that country has demonstrated that it has created an environment where profits can be made. Creating an environment where profits can be made usually means discarding values based in social welfare, like those of the Freedom Charter and adopting neoliberal economic policy. Based on this analysis, Richards and Swanger would probably agree with you that a net constricting economic policy options covered South Africa during this time. They would most certainly disagree, however, with your analysis that this net fell upon South Africa while the ANC was focused on negotiating the countries political transition. They would say that this net was there before the ANC came into office. Furthermore, they would say that this net is the basic cultural rules of capitalism.

By ignoring the basic cultural rules of capitalism, and concluding that the ANC could have acted differently in its economic negotiations, you are stating implicitly- as you stated explicitly in your introduction- that governments still have the ability to build social welfare states within a capitalist economic framework. This sentiment is seen throughout your book from the Southern Cone to England and China, to South Africa and Poland and Russia. You seem to be saying that if governments had only implemented more socialist policies or not had neoliberalism violently opposed upon them, they could have met the needs of all of their people. You ignore the cultural rules of the capitalist system that leave governments in need of resources with few choices but to adopt neoliberalism in order to attract investment. You ignore the fact that most socialist economies have struggled and declined in the face of the basic rules of capitalism, and that those who violently imposed neoliberalism on these countries with socialist economies usually did so with the intention of stopping that decline. In sum, you ignore the current cultural fact that given the basic rules of capitalism, neoliberalism is a logical choice for governments in need of foreign investment, and that the violent repression of leftist organizers is a logical choice for governments who want to retain or attract this investment.

As an activist and community organizer, my major problem with your failure to ground your analysis of neoliberalism in the basic rules of capitalism is that you are unable to provide your reader with a clear framework to guide work for transformative change. According to your analysis, governments and/or concerned citizens would be able to stand up to investors and neoliberal economists if it were not for the physical or economic shock that accompanies it. From this analysis it would follow that concerned people need to become more "shock" resistant so they can elect or create new governments with better, less neoliberal economic policies that are also more resistant to "shock".

As a result of this line of thinking, the conclusion of your book places high hopes on the growing number of left leaning presidents now in Latin America. Chavez in Venezuela, Lula in Brazil, Eva in Bolivia, Kirchner in Argentina, Ortega's return in Nicaragua, are evidence to you that "shock" is wearing off and the people of Latin America are ready to stand up again to the neoliberal policy that was so brutally imposed upon them in the last four decades. I too am pleased that the left is gaining a strong foothold in the Americas, but I am doubtful these presidents hold the golden key to unlocking the door of economic change. The current economic independence felt by many of these left leaning governments is a result of the large number of natural resources that have been nationalized and are now controlled by the state. The large revenues generated by oil in Venezuela or natural gas in Bolivia provide these countries with a temporary buffer against the whims of investors, but when oil and natural prices go down or when oil and natural gas runs out, Venezuela and Bolivia will once again have to face the consequences of the basic cultural rules of capitalism. That is, unless they can use this buffer period to build alternative economies that would release them from the constraints of those rules.

Which brings me to a second part of your conclusion. It is a part that doesn't exactly line up with the rest of your book, but a part I find much more hopeful than looking to presidents and governments to make social and economic change. This is the part where you talk about people organizing to meet their own needs, from the landless people's movement in Brazil and the number of growing coops in Argentina, to the indigenous fisher's who rebuilt their own communities after the tsunami in 2005 and the Hezbollah organized and locally led construction of Beirut after the 2006 Israeli missile assault on Lebanon. I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph that these examples of alternatives to neoliberal economic development do not exactly line up with the rest of your book. I say this because throughout most of your book you seem to be arguing that it was the presence of some form of "shock"- whether economic turmoil or violence or a period of political transition- that led governments to impose neoliberalism. You do not seem to be arguing that governments imposed neoliberalism in the absence of an alternative economic system that could meet people's needs based on other basic cultural rules. It therefore comes as a surprise, albeit, a pleasant one, when you also conclude that that above people led movements, that are in fact meeting their needs using different rules, are also examples of ways to resist and transform neoliberalism.

The problem, though, is that listing examples of community organized systems of meeting needs in the same breathe as the return of leftist governments in Latin America as alternatives to neoliberalism, makes it sound like both examples are equally effective paths towards its transformation. The problem is- that after an introduction and twenty one chapters that more or less explains the rise of neoliberalism as a mistaken choice made by governments after periods of "shock"- your claim that leftist governments can resist and transform neoliberalism holds a bit more weight in your conclusion than the idea that communities can work to overcome neoliberalism as well. The problem is- that particularly in North America, where much energy of concerned people is already spent on criticizing conservative politics and working to elect more leftist politicians- people will think that if they only did more of what they are doing now we would eventually have more people-centered economic policies.

Finally, the problem is- that when you describe these community led movements that have built economies independent of the current basic cultural rules of capitalism without having previously focused on the current basic cultural rules of capitalism- you do not make clear what makes these community led movements an effective alternative to neoliberalism. When you do not make clear what makes these movements effective alternatives to neoliberal capitalism, you do not help concerned people build similar movements. Working with concerned people to organize movements that build alternative economies is, in my opinion, the most important thing those who desire social change need to be doing today. The conclusion of this letter will, for that reason, focus on some concrete strategies for doing just that.

As Richards and Swanger lay out their numerous case studies of countries that have thus far failed to build long lasting social democracies, they also equip their reader with a variety of different tools for constructing better, sustainable models. Richards and Swanger do not explicitly name them as tools for organizing, but I don't think they would mind my describing them to you as such. The first tool that the reader can take away from their analysis is a pair of glasses that allows one to see what most economists, social scientists, and even many well-intentioned, leftist progressives ignore or take for granted: the basic cultural rules that organize capitalism. Without these glasses, these rules rarely come in to the view of those thinking about capitalist economics. Richards and Swanger support this idea by making an interesting and provocative point: they argue that you can learn more about the basic cultural rules of capitalism by pretending to be homeless on a park bench for an afternoon than spending a semester in a university economics seminar. According to the basic rules of our capitalist culture, the people who pass you by as you sit on the bench have no obligation to help you. They may or may not stop to give you money or food. Somebody might hire you to do a job at a decent wage, but since nobody has a duty to do so, there is a good chance that they will not. Having no money to pay rent, you will continue to sit on the bench, until someone offers you an alternative. No one has to offer you an alternative, however, so it is very likely you will continue to sit on the bench.

I have already spent a great deal of time talking about the basic cultural rules of capitalism and it should be relatively clear how the plight of the homeless person is mirrored on the larger scale of international investment relations. I will not say anymore about that here, but instead move on to the second tool that Richards and Swanger offer their reader. Keep in mind as we move on though, that the glasses that allow us to see the basic cultural rules of capitalism give us the focus we need to work with the other tools.

The second tool that can be taken away from Richards and Swanger's work is a holster without a gun. With our focus on rules also comes a shift away from a focus on power. This shift away from power and towards rules means working to change the basic cultural patterns that organize the current capitalist system, and not to control the government or of the means of production. Governments in need of resources, even those with the most progressive intentions, can do very little to build people friendly economies in the face of investors backed by the cultural rules to make free decisions about where to place their investments. The case studies of Sweden and South Africa detailed above have already demonstrated this point. Similarly, a labor-friendly owner of the means of production will not be able to pay higher wages to her workers, and sell her products at competitive market prices, and accumulate a profit, and have enough money left over to start the production cycle over again. As long as the rules of the economy are organized around competition, profit, and reinvestment, high wages will often be the first casualty of the system- regardless of who owns the means of production. The empty gun holster is a tool to remind us that taking power, whether by violent force or the ballot box, is not effective means to changing capitalist economies.

While taking power is not an effective way to transform capitalism, changing rules is. For Richards and Swanger, changing rules involves two parts: having a clear idea of what new rules should guide our cultural economic systems, and having a method for getting there. Continuing with the theme of organizing to build alternative economies, I will describe the "what" and the "how" of changing rules as two more tools useful for our jobs as cultural construction workers. Richards and Swanger suggest that the rules of our new economy should be based on a culture of solidarity. The tool of the cooperative game is helpful towards understanding what is meant by a culture of solidarity. A cooperative game is a games organized around the theme of working together towards a common goal. It is different than a competitive game because everyone is on the same team and the object is not to win by defeating another team, but to win by achieving something together. A brief, personal reflection about cooperative games will help describe this tool further.

I am currently a community organizer in the Dominican Republic with a grassroots organizing school based out of Santo Domingo called Justicia Global. During our leadership formation process of new organizers, we lead groups through a sequence of games that help them see the difference between cooperative and competitive games. We will usually begin by playing musical chairs. This is the classic children's party game where the group will walk in a circle around a row of chairs as music is being played. There is always one less chair than the number of people walking in a circle so when the music stops, and after the mad dash and the pushing and shoving, one person is always left without a place to sit. The game continues until there is just one person, the "winner", sitting in one chair, while the rest of the group, the "losers", watch chair-less from the sideline. Not surprisingly, this game often results in tears at birthday parties for younger children.

After we play the original version of musical chairs in our leadership formation workshops, we teach the group a different, cooperative, way to play the same game. In this second version the group walks around the row of chairs to music like before, but instead of working against each other to leave one person out each round, they work together to get the whole group on the chairs without anyone touching the floor. The game continues like normal musical chairs and each round another chair is taken away. The result is that the group must work harder, and more together than before, to get everyone on the chairs without touching the ground. Quite the opposite of the original version, cooperative musical chairs usually ends up with a pile of tangled people, laughing hysterically on the floor.

The cooperative game, understood in relation to the competitive one, is a useful tool for understanding what sort of rules might help us build an alternative culture to capitalism that would meet everyone needs in ecologically sustainable ways. The rules of the current economic culture that emphasize freedom and property are echoed in competitive musical chairs. In our current economic culture, investors are free to do what the want with their investment. Exclusive control of property is encouraged while sharing is not. Likewise in competitive musical chairs, each participant is responsible only for her or his self and has the right to claim sole ownership of a chair if they can get there before someone else, or push hard enough while the parents are not looking. Cooperative musical chairs, however, provides a model for what can happen when the rules of the game are shifted towards principles of solidarity, togetherness, and sharing of resources. Keep in mind (and keep those glasses on) that the only basic difference between competitive musical chairs and cooperative musical chairs was the difference in rules. The number of people starting the game was the same. The number of chairs in each round was the same. The difference was that the rules of the game were changed to serve a different purpose.

Similarly, changing the basic cultural rules of capitalism so that they are organized around cooperation and sharing of resources means changing the purpose of economics. Capitalist economics will never meet everyone's needs because the purpose of capitalist economics is not meeting needs. The purpose of capitalist economics is the accumulation of capital. Investors invest to make more money than they started with. They do not invest to end poverty, or pay workers a living wage, or provide tax revenue to local governments to pay for schools and healthcare. Luckily, investing in order to accumulate more money is a cultural practice, made possible by cultural rules. Cultural practices can be changed. New cultural rules can and should be constructed. If it were the cultural norm for people to share their resources and work collectively to end poverty, to create meaningful jobs with high wages for all, and to fund quality education and healthcare for everyone, everywhere, then poverty would be ended, meaningful, high paying jobs would be had for all, and good education and healthcare would exist universally. It is both that simple and that complicated.

So, how do we change the basic cultural rules of capitalism? What is the magical tool that will help transform our current economic system that, as you described so well in the Shock Doctrine, currently relies on all sorts of nasty practices to keep profits flowing? The tool is us. We are the ones we've been waiting for. It is up to us to build cultures of solidarity, to think about our property in new and creative ways, to share the resources we can share with others, to build communities that meet their own needs independent of the current cultural rules of capitalism. It is not enough to critique, to opt out of, or to stop working within unjust economies. We must also construct alternative economies together, nourish the alternative economies that already exist, and practice, teach, and promote the alternative cultural rules needed to organize these economies within our families and communities.

Sincerely,
Mark Porter Webb

I want Paul to stay here and keep his guns ready for the big one.

When the USA tries to disarm the public that is when you will really see Fascism like you never seen before.

"Last night I had the strangest dream I've never dreamed before... I dreamed the world had all agreed to put an end to war"

Strangest Dream... a great song by my old friend from the village, Ed McCurdy.

@Paul Bramscher February 7th, 2008 2:22 pm

"sensible credibility" "If cops are mere fascists not to be trusted under any circumstance, and people can't be allowed to defend themselves either, then what's left? Curl up into a ball and die?"

If people dont carry weapons, then they are at risk, are they? Perhaps the USA has degenerated to the extent where such statements are true? It is not true outside outside the USA. A total attitude change should be in order. But I think the USA is headed in the downward direction. Tasering people rather tha talking will, of course, only have the effect of making it worse.

Have you considered emigrating to a less violent country? If you do, then leave behind the culture of violence and please dont bring your guns or your tasers with you.

Zamboni,
Please come down here and vote often.

I am saddened to see Canada becoming more like the USA--at least in terms of law enforcement using tasers. I for one sincerely want Canada to stand independently of USA on all pressing issues of the day, be them tasers, the Iraq War, oil in the arctic, NAFTA, etc. Naomi Klein makes brilliant observations here: "why talk when you can tase?" That says it all. Unfortunately the proverbial pandora's box has been opened...the Taser is here to stay and will become more and more prolific. We can never go back to how it was even a few years ago. The taser is a classic example of how all types of modern technology is being used to further erode and limit democratic and egalitarian values: nonviolence, negotiating solutions, privacy, habeas corpus, freedom of the press--we have seen all of these cherished rights SERIOUSLY compromised since 1980. Look at the rise of Fox "News" in the USA. The tragedy of Fox News is that Americans--millions of them--are dumb enough to actually think of this programming as 'fair and balanced' news! This is why America is so fucked up today as a nation. What a tragedy. Back in the days of Walter Cronkite there was at least an inkling of honesty and decency in American news reporting: those days are long gone, replaced by Fox "news". But back to the taser: this is a sinister product and we are here seeing the tip of the oncoming iceberg where there will be more and more devices and contraptions marketed for "personal safety" that can be used to neutralize that annoying person who disagrees with you--be it at home, at work, or in public. Think alienation of modern man magnified many times over. Freedom of expression, freedom of speech is effectively stifled with this little contraption. Everybody will think "I'd better not say anything because they might taser me". Holy fuck. We now are living in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Tasers have replaced billy-clubs as the new method of punitive law enforcement. Why beat somebody over the head when you can watch them have a seizure, vomit, and defecate in their pants. As an old Canned Heat song once said, "Sicken them pigs on you!!"

Yes, discussion is usually not the strongest trait of an average officer of the law. I once tried to calmly debate one such type of person and when his little brain saw that it had nowhere to go once my superior logic convinced him of something he didn't want to be convinced of it was off to jail you go... this was the pre-taser era. I imagine back then I might have also died for having a brain and being stupid enough for having acquired an education in a world where the truly stupid reign supreme.

Paul,
I don't think many here are calling cops Fascists.

War for profit creates the present fascist environment. The cops are victims too.

I've always believed that police should be required to train in karate and be at a high-level skill before they are allowed to serve. One of karate's basic tenets is to seek all peaceful solutions before resorting to violence. It teaches people to control their anger, respect others, and stay disciplined. Imagine if police were trained to be humble and peaceful, and to only resort to force when it's truly necessary. It would never happen in our current society, but this is something we can do when we take back our institutions and set up our own police forces.

There are some here who lose sensible credibilty.

Let's combine the calling of all cops as fascists with the advocating for gun control. It really makes no sense. There are drunk drivers who kill people, they need to be taken off the roads. Gangsters, drug-dealers, wife-beaters, etc. If cops are mere fascists not to be trusted under any circumstance, and people can't be allowed to defend themselves either, then what's left? Curl up into a ball and die?

Yes Malfoyd,
I think It is not the shock doctrine as much as it is the War doctrine that the shock doctrine is derived from. When we become Shock numb from Shock fatigue witch is the purpose here we forget about the root of the problem.

The shock doctrine is not new... it is as old as War.

Too many trees to see the forest anymore.

Bush justifies torture because off War not because of the Shock doctrine... that is just an aspect of the overall picture.

http://www.democracynow.org/2001/3/15/new_electromagnetic_crowd_control_weapon_heats

Cut and past this one and try it on for size. I've read a more recent article about these contracts and will search for it but here's one to get your blood pumping!

medusa,

Of course -- de-escalation. That's the common denominator in any arrest, regardless of what mechanism a cop has at his/her disposal. But if my kid is resisting arrest, high on meth, etc. I've failed in my job as a parent. If a cop uses non-lethal (or lethal) force on someone who is fully cooperating, he's failed in his job.

But the question has gone unanswered. If de-escalation doesn't work -- police often deal with people under the influence, with psychiatric issues, violent tendencies, in the heat of irrational fits, domestic violence, etc. -- what is the best recourse? Taser? Billy-club to the head? Shooting them?

Yes, tasering is torturing. Torture is a treatment intended to evoke fear. It is not so much the pain caused by the technique as the fear caused by it that makes it torture.

The fact that people die from being tasered increases the fear of them. 'Will I be the one that dies?' is the question that anyone faced with a taser will ask himself.

What causes a society to accept the use of torture? Is it simply a response to the fear that is being promoted by purveyors of the shock doctrine?

Yes vaudree, I should be so lucky. Ahh Canada!

Why a taser should not be in the hands of a Cougar:

http://www.airfarce.com/seasons/season15/080118.html

In that situation also, it takes away the need to negotiate - or even talk.

I think there is a fundamental problem behind all this that we are missing when we get hung up and bit distracted on the debate "to taser or not to taser".

The root of the problem is the "War on Terror" and even that is subject to the war on everything mentality of our leaders.

The police are scared because of the "war" threat and are trained to do what they now are doing.

This escalation of our fascist environment wont cease or retreat until we deal with what old general Smedley Butler taught us about the Racket of War. This is done for their profit and under the guise of the protection of the public.

until we can like Obama says "End the mindset that got us here", this will all just get worse like it is now.

PAUL - The safest way is to de-escalate the emotionalism in the situation. to slow down, calm down, on both sides. It is possible to train people to negotiate an arrestee; that's how they got people out of situations like Entebbe. But it takes time and expensive education. And some respect, even for the least "deserving". If a policeman (in a privatized police force)has a quota, he may feel pressured to resort to physical means, of whatever type. If the policeman, who has divided the world into primitive categories of "Good Guys and Bad Guys", is also inadequately trained in calming a suspect, or if he is frustrated, angry, self-righteous, vengeful, contemptuous, or has some political or religious agenda/prejudice, he will turn to violence first. Whenever I watch "Cops" (not my choice), I'm shocked at the poor verbal and social skills, poor physical condition and poor professional training of many - too many - of the policemen. Yes, there are violent suspects who need forceful handling, but most of the time, it's bad training, poor differentiation that lead to the mess.

On the other hand, when the female cops are confronted with difficult arrestees, they tend to use more calming techniques; they tend to do more talking, not alienating the subject further.

So here you are: look at yourselves - citizens, discussing whether tasering is torture - in a sane society it is. Ask yourself: how accepting would you be if your child was tasered? Would that change if it occurred during an altercation? If she were running? and what are you doing, discussing how much taser power is torture and how much is "necessary"?

This is really deeper than it looks. There's been a distressing trend in the US of the brutalization of the citizenry. Vastly more force is being used, much more quickly, and too often as a first resort. The trend started with the Kent State massacre of student protesters. It has just got worse since. The heavy hand of the law, now fortified with texts full of laws, regulations, ordinances, by-laws; heavy duty punishments that lead to prison terms; institutonalized contempt of the citizenry; disregard for democratic principles and processes; and powerful weaponry have turned the friendly neighborhood policeman into an armed goon for the MIC caste.

In action:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7837

Paul Bramscher February 7th, 2008 12:38 pm:

"In our critique of tasers are we primarily making physiological arguments, or comparing them against other non-lethal techniques, or the over-use of non-lethal techniques in general? Klein's article is not clear."

The last line: "Taser use increased from an average of once a week to once a day."

Is getting at it.

Tasers were sold to the public as an alternative to lethal force. They are now, however, being increasingly used as the first rung on the force ladder. If the police at the Canadian airport had not had tasers, I doubt that they would have truncheoned the man to death in sight of all in twenty five seconds, let alone shot him.

In other words, Paul, yes truncheons are painful as well but not truncheons, not guns nor tasers should have been employed in the Vancouver airport incident or the Florida student at Kerry rally incident. Such incidents should have been handled with diplomacy. There was no valid time constraint, no one at risk and they vastly outnumbered an individual who was acting peacefully.

Dear Naomi,
I have 100 pages left to read of The Shock Doctrine. It is getting harder to sleep at night, for me. I see the repetition that you document starting to happen on our soil and I see New Orleans as the first place where resisters have been tanked (demolition of public housing). Each day a new, worse, thing. I wonder when the guns will be turned, out in the open, on us.

Now that tasers are being marketed to the public, expect to see similar incidents at your local mall, schools, universities and wherever else sociopaths congregate.

A literal example of the shock doctrine!

The dangerous edge of technology. More convenience(for police) but at a price.
There is always a price.

Cell phones make you able to talk to people anywhere--but reduces your connection to people around you.

In the micro picture "shock over talk" is a taser. In the macro picture "shock over talk" is waging war and occupation. Shock, talk and then walk on anyone who resists or sees things differently. All things evolve or devolve -- even the culture of bullies.

paul&felix-This is Robyn Doolittle's article, not Naomi's.

Greg--

Thanks for the reminder. I think it's a good point, though. Cop pulls over a drunk or junkie driver -- who could have killed you or me on the road. The guy is belligerent, taking swipes at the cop. The cop wants to throw on the handcuffs, but the guy will not cooperate. Nail him on the head with a billy-club until he collapses? Stun him? Shoot him? What's the safest way (for the cop and the bad guy alike)?

I heard a good point made on the radio a few days ago -- prior to tasers, the primary non-lethal technique of subduing a suspect resisting arrest was with a "blunt force weapon" (baton/nightstick/billy-club).

Apparently the rate of injury is pretty bad there as well, perhaps even worse -- possibly permanent brain damage.

In our critique of tasers are we primarily making physiological arguments, or comparing them against other non-lethal techniques, or the over-use of non-lethal techniques in general? Klein's article is not clear.

The reason they 'taser first' is because they like watching. It gives them something to laugh and talk about at the donut shop or back at the precint, and of course as Naomi says, because it's easier than talking.

I think it has been proven by science that it is easier to eat a donut while using a taser than using a Colt .357 which is why the cops love the taser so much.

We all realize that more concealed handguns and assualt weapons will make us safer, thanks to the NRA. Consequently, tasers should work the same way for our benefit. Also it makes it so nice for the police to be able to control anyone with no effort. It is a good feeling to have most women carrying a fashion colored taser around to put anyone down just to be sure and find out later if they were a threat.

At the moment, we have a Supreme Court that will likely be protecting officers of the law all the way, including overuse of tasers. By electing another Republican president, you can be assured of that sort of mindset on the Court for decades. Want taser restraint? Think: Court. That's where these issues end up. That's also who will be protecting (or not) the manufacturing and marketing liability on these things.

In Nova Scotia a friend of a friend was tasered to death. He was a middle-aged educationally sub-normal man who was normally peaceful. The police had him in the car park of the police station and yet felt compelled to taser him. Why? What harm could he have done even if he had escaped? This was three years ago. More recently the police tasered a teenage girl - three officers couldn't handle her so they tasered her. I agree that in such circumstances it is a basic breakdown in communication, that rush to violence that is the second nature of the authorities, from Canada in Afghanistan, to the sidewalk cop - why waste your breath trying to resolve a situation through speech when you can shoot, bomb or electrocute your way through.

I am trying to understand a situation where three cops have to taser a teenage girl who's had too much to drink. You know what?: if you are too scared of a 110 lb child when you have two buddies to back you up that you can only electrocute her then you shouldn't be a cop!