And then there's the lovely Officer Bubbles, from the G20 in Toronto 2010.

And the good people of Canada stand back and allow that to happen? At least here in the states we sometimes rebel like in the case of Rodney King. I don't agree with the riots, but I do understand them like I understand what happened in the UK. And sometimes it takes the financial impact of riots like that to make the difference, since our legislators won't do what they should.

I an hoping this doesn't escalate to riot crisis status. But the person who sprayed these women needs to be addressed, and hopefully expensively, both personally and civically. He and his employer need to pay and assure the society it won't happen again.

In the U.S., we were sold on the idea of police carrying electrocution weapons and chemical incapacitants (lest people forget just what "Tasers" and "pepper spray" really are) by government and police officials swearing up and down that they would only be used to subdue violent suspects who posed an immediate threat of harm, always and only in lieu of lethal force, and even then only after all attempts had failed to defuse the situation.
What have we gotten? See Humboldt County, 1997; Eugene, OR, 1998; Seattle, WA, 1999; Los Angeles, 2000; Oakland, CA, 2009; Portland, OR, 2006-11; etc, etc, etc...
These "less-lethal" (i.e. the victim is less likely to die) ordnances are *always* used as pain-compliance tools to punish uncooperative suspects, while violent suspects are shot dead.
Now we see the next step in the ever-plummeting "threshold of use."

Couple of people from High School I know ended up being cops. At least with the ones I knew, they were not the ones being beat up on the playground in K-12. They were the ones beating others up.

And now they have a badge and a gun. Good grief.

It's the sexist dodge of "don't hurt me, I'm a woman..." when it it should be "don't hurt me, I am a human."

If you hide behind skirts in everyday discourse, then when someone discriminates because of the skirts, you really don't have much you can say without being a hypocrite. People are equal or they are not. There isn't a middle ground and when you use the gender as a talking point for your argument, you lose the right not to have the other side use gender when talking back.

corvo wrote:
"The only difference is the corporate fascism nowadays, but they were always eager servants for whatever authoritarianism was the rule of the day."

I thought your term 'eager servants' just about sums it up.

So very willing to do the work of those who they keep in power with ever-diminishing moral values an actual boon to not only their careers but their standing with their brethren. They also always heavily lean on their 'duty' to serve credo's as a feeble crutch of conscience should ever they be called out on their actions, inactions, and outright hostilities.

'Only following orders' and procedures is what they rely upon as a scapegoat and should they ever be pulled up on anything then inevitably the final outcome by authorities is that 'the procedures' were possibly at fault and might need to be addressed, not the actual person performing the thuggery who damn well knows exactly what they're doing. ------ ie. the British police force is becoming infamous for this worldwide in the media.

Don't count on US police having a conscience however that can be swayed because just like military soldiers if they aren't already of a mindset that suits their profession with a talent for thuggery, it's soon enough developed, fostered, and encouraged so that it takes hold and becomes their normal existence.

For instance I saw a documentary about civil rioting and actions in the 60's, much of it peaceful Gandhi-like sit-ins and obstructions -- and the completely disproportionate and truly aggressive police actions in dealing with them resulting in deaths by police shootings and so on.

The documentary interviewed one of the police officers involved in a very famous case where students sat-in and blocked a corridor only to be set-upon without warning by police using truncheons. The man, now an elderly citizen was still just as venomous as he was then and had no regrets whatsoever in meting out extreme violence upon anyone deemed by him and his superiors as being targets.

In a country and society and a world where such men and actions are actually held in esteem, or are trivialised or explained away to be forgotten except by the dead, injured and the innocents attacked, it should go without saying that people should expect this is an aspect that is altogether apparent and increasing just as rapidly as world events and situations are becoming more intolerable.

These eager servants who maintain the status quo are nothing new and have been resplendent throughout history. I've seen it time and again where a civil force which is assigned for normally civilian protection is used as a weapon and hides behinds its primary role as a shield but is one that is rapidly rotted away to reveal their dominant roles.

The USA with it's truly sickening hero worship of the military is ripe to be abjectly cowered by the very thing they hold in such blithely high esteem They too are eager servants but are more death-orientated and have been trained accordingly.

For instance, I was idly looking at a forum thread on the net one night and came across a thread whereby the US users posed the question along the lines of, 'would US troops fire on US civilians on US soil?'. --- After a long discourse and insipid forelock-tugging to their much loved military they surmised that no, the soldiers moral senses would ultimately prevail, preventing them from performing harm and they would actually disobey orders and so true honour the American way would succeed. --- It was truly sickening in it's social shuttering of their minds to see these people actually not only coming up with a myth but then increasing it exponentially through user message after message posting. I don't actually thought I even saw a message of dissent. --- A truly frightening and pitiable outcome of their eagerly generated wilful ignorance.

The powers that be, be they whomever you may consider, all throughout history have used violence and death as a means to not only get what they want but to also maintain the status quo at any costs. They also use reactionary violence generated from their deliberate use of violence as an excuse for even more violence. All of this will continue unless a paradigm change occurs with world society.

Laws are made by legislators we elect. Like the police we pay their salaries. They are accountable to us, not the other way around. How electable do you think someone who passes a law like that will be? We are 99 percent of the electorate.