#police militarisation

[thoughtlessarse]

An Israeli drone company is proselytizing to American police departments about an autonomous drone system that can automatically launch police drones to fly to the sites of suspected crimes. One sheriff’s department in Louisiana has repeatedly tested the system, called Orion, which is already in use by the Israeli national police and, since October 7, many Israeli settlements, according to the company’s founder. Created by the Israeli company High Lander, Orion allows users to direct hundreds of drones at once by automating them to navigate and perform actions without user input. The software system turns drones into “next-generation security guards,” according to an Orion brochure. In February, High Lander held a demo event in Baton Rouge to showcase the “drone-in-a-box solution,” which the East Baton Rouge Sherrif’s Office first tested out last June. “The system will be a game changer for the fight against crime in Baton Rouge,” High Lander wrote in a LinkedIn post about the event, which was attended by officers from around the country. The company has used its pilot program in Louisiana to encourage other police agencies to check out Orion, and its February event in Louisiana was just one part of a tour that included stops in San Diego, Phoenix, and Miami, according to LinkedIn posts. Orion’s capabilities are startling. A police force could have drones automatically launch from charging stations when triggered by “events like gunshots, burglaries, and car accidents.” Once they deploy, the drones can perform pre-set tasks: releasing cargo; relaying live video feeds; identifying and searching for people, objects, or vehicles using AI and thermal sensors; and making announcements over loudspeaker. If the system gets multiple calls, Orion can automatically choose which to prioritize. A High Lander blog post about the project adds “new capabilities are being discovered all the time.” The East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office held “mock scenario testing” with High Lander’s system “approximately 5 times,” Casey Hicks, the department’s public information director, told The Intercept. Hicks added that the demos were conducted at the sheriff’s range facility and that they “are not aware of any use out in the community at any time.” High Lander did not respond to a request for comment.

continue reading

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Police Chief Told to Get Help To Arrest His Son Over Brawl," Toronto Star. September 1, 1943. Page 2. --- Plage Laval, Que., Sept. 1 - Police Chief Rene Bolduc of Plage Laval was ordered by Recorder Rene, Dubois to enlist the aid of Quebec provincial and R.C.M.P. if he could not quickly arrest his son, Rene Bolduc, wanted on a warrant in connection with a recent Saturday night brawl, at a local dance hall.

At last night's trial of Andre Bigras, arrested following the fight, Bolduc told the court he had not been able to apprehend his son. Judgment on Bigras, charged with disturbing the peace, will be pronounced Sept. 14.

Dubois stated he was satisfied the brawl in which a well-known Montreal athlete, Moe Herscovitch, was seriously injured had not merely been a spontaneous incident, but had been deliberately planned.

Herscovitch is still in hospital and will shortly undergo an opera- tion in the hope of saving the sight of an eye.

"It is clear now who started this whole affair," said the recorder. "These French-Canadian boys thought that they could take the law in their own hands." Recorder Dubois expressed horror when evidence was given that Herscovitch was writhing on the ground while seven or eight attackers kicked him in the face.

Bigras admitted telling young Bolduc that "we should leave the police alone. It is these Jews that we are going to fight." He denied having used brass knuckles.

[lilydotparis]

[oifaaa]

The white knight universe really is something bc it has so many things I love like Robin Duke, red hood Jason with his own Robin, terry mcginnis, a cool as fuck art style and Bruce being questioned about if what he is doing is right plus holding himself accountable and then it's got things I absolutely hate like joker having children, cop dick grayson, the whole cops with batmobiles thing and Bruce and Harley quinn being a thing

[beeseverywhen]

"All political parties face a trade-off under a first-past-the-post electoral system. Governing depends on attracting a broad coalition of voters, inevitably involving compromises that leave a party’s base disgruntled.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that as we move closer to a general election, the discontent from the anti-Labour left who claim there is little to distinguish Keir Starmer from Rishi Sunak in the battle for the premiership is only getting noisier."

"The argument is threefold: there’s no meaningful difference between the Conservatives and Labour; Starmer supposedly can’t be trusted because he has dropped pledges he made in the 2020 leadership election to shift his party towards the centre; finally, the “Tories are toast” and Labour can’t lose, so disgruntled left voters can safely vote for other parties, such as the Greens.

With Labour so far ahead in the polls, the urge to debunk these sentiments may seem like an expression of paranoia. But all three aspects of this narrative are comprehensively wrong, including the reassurance that it is safe for anyone who would prefer a Labour government to vote for another party in Labour-Tory contests."

"But what this underplays is the number of Labour-Tory marginals where a relatively small vote for other left candidates could cost Labour a win. James Kanagasooriam, of the polling company Focaldata, has written about the “sandcastle” nature of Labour’s likely majority; his forecast is that there will be many more marginal seats in the 2024 parliament compared with 2019. If more than predicted numbers of those who voted Green in the locals decide they can afford to do so in the general election because Labour is so far ahead in national polls, that will boost the Conservatives.

Next up is the idea that Starmer’s dropping of some of his leadership pledges makes him dangerously untrustworthy. But this is the product of a system in which the tiny unrepresentative slice of the electorate that is a party membership pick their leader before voters choose their prime minister. Anyone hoping to be PM would have to shift position between a leadership selection and a general election: a Labour leader’s most important job is to connect with potential voters, not to coddle members with the comfort blanket of a policy platform such as the “free broadband for all” 2019 pledge that was roundly rejected.

Liz Truss provides a cautionary tale of what happens when a party leader seeks to impose a membership-endorsed platform on the country without a general election. For Starmer to have stuck to his 2020 leadership election pledges, instead of spending the past four years understanding voters, would have been fundamentally anti-democratic.

The most egregious aspect of the anti-Labour left argument is there isn’t much to choose between Starmer and Sunak. Yes, Labour’s “Ming vase” election strategy has seen it take a much more cautious fiscal approach than many of us would like: it has effectively adopted the Tory macroeconomic worldview and with it a set of spending constraints that no one sensible thinks either party could stick to in the wake of the election.

That is frustrating for anyone hoping this election campaign may illuminate some of the tough trade-offs facing Britain; but it would have been incredibly risky for one side to go it alone on this. The alternative is Labour walking into the trap and handing the Conservatives a “Labour tax bombshell” election campaign.

From a commitment to scrap the Rwanda plan to making clear that in an ideal world Labour would discard the two-child benefit cap, there are plenty of reasons that it is preposterous to think that a Starmer government would make the same trade-offs as successive Conservative governments that have financed billions of pounds worth of tax cuts for more affluent families by cutting tax credits and benefits for low-income parents. The six pledges Starmer launched two weeks ago may be incremental, but Labour needs voters to believe they are deliverable, and they are indicative of a very different set of priorities than those that animate Sunak."

"Starmer is not without weaknesses, as shown by the days he took to clarify an interview last October in which he gave the impression he thought Israel had the right to withhold power and food from Gaza. But there is no doubt whatsoever he would make a vastly more compassionate and competent prime minister than Sunak. To encourage people to put that outcome at risk by casting a protest vote against a Labour government that does not yet exist is perhaps the ultimate form of luxury belief campaigning."

[malewifehenrycooldown]

Anti-facism, anti-captialism, community action and class solidarity IN MY FAIRY TAIL?!Surprisingly much more likely than you think or remembered!

[thepixiediaries]

good to know that cops across the pond are also as evil /s

[apothekaries]

germany is turning into an autoritarian state as we're watching and the media are completely ignoring the police's power and violence. they are actively ignoring democratic rights and criminalizing activism goddamn even the UN issued a warning about that

[kesslersymbolic]

[psychotrenny]

Like when are all of Biden's idiot fans gonna realise that he is not the "lesser evil". They love threatening people with how any opposition to Biden is gonna let Trump win and how Trumps gonna do all these awful things to the US as though said awful things aren't already happening under Biden. Increased border militarisation and deportation of migrants, loss of reproductive rights, legal assaults on the existence of gay and transgender people, corporate malpractice, police brutality etc etc. Like they're not just continuing to happen they've actually gotten worse under Biden than they were under the Orange Satan himself. The only substantial difference between them is foreign policy and in that area Biden is actually even bloodthirsty; in particular he's been an especially bad zionist for his entire political career and there's nothing to indicate that Trump would have somehow handled it worse beyond the mindless truism of "Orange Man Bad". Looking at their actual policies, voting for Joe Biden isn't gonna protect anyone within the US and is arguably more dangerous for the rest of the world (i.e. where the majority of the world's population lives). There is no "harm reduction" here.

If you're actually looking to help create a better world and protect vulnerable people, as opposed to feeling good that you helped the blue team win, then you're going to have to do it through avenues beyond voting for Joe. Vote third party, withhold your vote to pressure the democrats into nominating a better candidate, engage in action beyond electoralism; there are plenty of options out there. And they're all more effective than lecturing people on the computer (most of whom don't even live in your country they're just part of your empire and so forced to follow the politics) about how being mean to Biden makes you functionally a fascist or whatever

[starlightshadowsworld]

It's important to recognise that what's happening in Palestine, what we are witnessing and what people are experiencing, are not isolated to Palestine.

You may hear people talk about the war in Sudan, the silent holocaust in Congo.

It's because these and so many more atrocities in the world are linked. They are preperuated by the same systems.

[Video Transcript:

So as a Palestinian when I say Free Palestine, I am not just talking about Palestine. I started nursing school in 2015 at Saint Louis, just a few miles away from where Michael Brown was killed by police.

Being in that city at that time, watching Black Lives Matter being born, stirred up a lot of feelings for me as a Palestinian.

I saw a country justifying a child being murdered by the state, in the street. I saw the people protesting that murder being vilified.

Standing there, protesting, watching a militarised police force with tear gas and rubber bullets matching towards me.

And I thought, this is that.

As a Palestinian to understand what is going on in Palestine is to understand the de facto aphartied that black Americans experience here in the states.

It's not an accident that when my grandfather came here, he was told to sit and the back of the bus. And it's not an accident that he marched with MLK.

It has been black and Palestinian solidarity, and it continues to be black and Palestinian solidarity.

Because yes, Free Palestine is about Palestine ceasefire now and the military occupation of the Palestinian people. It's also about resisting the global colonial hegemonic structure.

Because the shit happening there is happening here. If it isn't Palestinian women and babies being killed by bombs in Gaza, it's black women and babies being killed in American hospitals.

If its not Palestinian girls missing in the rubble. It is missing and murdered indigenous women here in the United States.

The rage I feel when I hear the names Michael Brown and Treyvon Martin is the same rage I feel when I hear the names Shireen Abu Akleh and Ahmad Manasra.

That's not to say that allyship is transactional, it is to say that the only thing we have is each other.

There's a reason that when people ask me about Free Palestine, I will point them to books on Black Lives matter.

When I say Free Palestine, yes I mean Free Palestine but I also mean Black Lives Matter, I also mean abolition now. I also mean reparations, I also mean land back.

This movement cannot lose steam, not just because there is currently a genocide being perpetuated against my people. And every minute we don't do something Palestinian lives are being lost.

But because this is a global struggle for justice. It does not start and end with Palestine, we will not be free until all of us are free.

The world is waking up, there has never been global solidarity for Palestine like this.

And we have them so scared. The violence is so disproportional because we are challenging a global power structure. Don't let the momentum die because this is about all of us.

Ceasefire now.

End the occupation.

But know what I mean when I say, Free Palestine.

End Transcript.]

Books shown in the video:

"When they call you a terrorist a black lives matter memoir" by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & asha bandele.

"Freedom is a constant struggle. Ferguson, Palestine and the foundations of a movement" by Angela Y. Davis

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

The thing about enforcing a militarised police response under the guise of “we fear for the safety of Jewish students” is that this facist army of cops have been sent to enact force and violence on a population of people that includes Jewish students.

The people preaching about safety don’t actually care about the safety of Jewish people. You’re also profoundly on the wrong side of history.

Also it goes without saying that no one asks how Palestinian students are supposed to "feel safe" at institutions who invest in and profit off of the murder of their relatives.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"La rixe de Plage Laval," La Patrie. August 4, 1943. Page 4. ---- Un jeune homme de Ste-Dorothée, village voisin de Plage Laval, a été arrêté et conduit devant le recorder, Mtre Désiré Desbois, C.R., sous accusation d'avoir, durant la soirée du 24 juillet "troublé la paix et résisté à un officier de police". "L'accusé. André Bigras, a nie sa culpabilité et son procès aura lieu le 12 août prochain. Nous apprenons aussi que René Bolduc, 23 ans, de Ste-Rose ouest, est recherché par la police et qu'il devra répondre à la même accusa- tion que Bigras. Les deux jeunes hommes auraient été les meneurs du groupe mélé à la terrible bagarre qui a envoyé Moe Herscovitch à l'hôpital. La rixe éclata dans le restaurant "Kosy Korner" et une soixantaine de personnes y prirent part.

[the-bibrarian]

I do want to object to the idea that it’s easy and safe to protest in France tho. And that our beloved anti-riot police isn’t also pretty militarised…

Look at that last picture, look at the hatred on the face of the police officer, and look how those protesters seem dangerous and armed to the teeth. A perfectly proportionate answer right?

They just ordered a bunch of these for “peacekeeping”.

This is going on all over the world. This isn’t a US-vs-France thing. If you’re not part of the richest 1% or a cop, we’re in it together 🤝

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

In Brazil’s favelas, activists find common ground with Palestinians in Gaza

Residents of Brazil’s poorest neighbourhoods say they see their struggles reflected in Israel’s treatment of Gaza.

Cosme Felippsen’s nephew was 17 years old when he was killed by Brazil’s military police in a Rio de Janeiro alley nicknamed the Gaza Strip.

“Almost every favela in Rio has an area residents call Gaza,” Felippsen said, pointing to the bullet holes along the alley walls. Residents have used the name for at least 15 years, he added. “It designates the area where most of the gunfire is concentrated at any given time.”

The neighbourhood where Felippsen’s nephew, José Vieira, died in 2017 is called Morro da Providência. It is one of hundreds of impoverished communities — or favelas — strewn across the city.

Activists and residents say the violence they have seen in the favelas has given them unique insight into the urban warfare currently unfolding in Gaza, a Palestinian territory under Israeli siege. And the parallels they perceive are motivating them to take action.

“Militarisation, armed groups executing inhabitants — many things that happen in Palestine also happen in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro,” said Felippsen, a local politician and tour guide who specialises in Black history.

Continue reading.

[elinaline]

Nan mais attendez y a tjr des gens qui sont persuadés que Macron n'essaye pas de faire progresser l'extrême droite et veut décrédibiliser le RN ? Après les lois immigrations les lois islamophobes la réforme des retraites la réforme du chômage les tentatives en cours de limiter la contraception les lois transphobes les protections des flics assassins les sorties racistes la militarisation de la police les nasses sur les manifs climats ????