Police State......is this where we are headed?

[ruby slippers]

I found this today and was just appalled. This is a tiny town in NE PA (Hillary "bitter" country for sure). The cops there used to dress in blue and "walk main street" with nothing more than a bully club. Look at them today. Look at the guns they are using. Again, this is a very small rural town, not an urban area.

What is this world coming to?


http://www.bradfordera.com/articles/2008/04/29/news/doc4817dec9ea354014944827.txt

[tabasco]

1. It's the same in Maryland.

If it's not a police state now, we're well on the way.

People will still think they are free, but they will be prisoners.

[Tesha]

27. It's the same in Boston. The Transit Police now think they're Rambo.

Apparently, we weren't sufficiently frightened so they've
ramped-up the "Terra Terra Terra!" threat, complete with
Keystone Cops armed with automatic weapons.

Tesha

[Aloha Spirit]

35. Yep, and don't forget about the riot control bus!

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/23/mbta_unit_with_big_bad_bus_has_seen_little_action/

[The Traveler]

2. Have we found the bottom yet?

Have we hit the concrete hard enough to give up on the intoxicating idea of control ... the idea that through force of arms, through force of calumny, through the power of denial that we can coerce the world into fitting into the desired pattern? Have we come to realize that the powerful collude to retain and extend their power, that the oil company executive does not give a shit about what kind of world our children and grandchildren will inhabit, that Greenspan's idea of the good is the normal person's vision of Gehenna?

If not, then you and I do not really want to know what the world is coming to. We'll have to see the choices people make. If the people of this nation choose McLame , for example, we will have our answer. It just won't be the one we are holding out for ...

[ruby slippers]

3. I know. I always said "wait until it trickles down to feel scared" but

if it is trickling down to this kind of small, small town, then that day is upon us.

The other scary thing is that they are building a National Guard big new armory right near their little two seater plane runway. Probably to ship the boys out faster to Iran next......

[crim son]

4. Christ. My father grew up there, my 98 year old grandmother is dying there.

I've seen the place fail over the last forty years. It's been profoundly depressing without this.

Fuck me and goodnight. I'm going to have nightmares. Bradford. No shit. There is, in the downtown, a building named after mkyk father, grandfather and great grandfather, all republicans. This would hurt them.

[mac2]

6. Just in case people don't know Bradford is a small town in

PA. A show of power by the powers that be is about it.

[crim son]

8. It was once an oil town.

Pennzoil? My father's family did very well there but now, as my grandmother wastes away in a nursing home, the town is dying. Lovely old houses decay and the brick-paved streets crumble. It's a truly lovely area and I will never forget how pretty it was when I was a child with no interest in economics or the neighbor. The family actually has a mausoleum in the Bradford Cemetery. My cremated remains will rest there.

Damn, this makes me sad.

[ruby slippers]

9. check your private email......we

will be at rest together someday......

[crim son]

13. You may know the structure!

This makes me happy!

[ruby slippers]

know the plot, not the structure

[crim son]

18. Meh. Big grey stone building.

Like the others. It doesn't matter. :hug:

[mac2]

12. The beginning of oil is rather symbolic is it not?

http://pennbradoilmuseum.com/

Bradford history.

[crim son]

16. I promise to look at that tomorrow.

Right now I must sign off and go to sleep, all emotional and worked up. Thank you for your link! -Lisa
edited for stupid typo

[ruby slippers]

11. mac, I tried send you a pm, but you aren't accepting. I am

originally from there once upon a time, too.....

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d_izk-Vh8YM Enjoy!

[mac2]

17. I'm not from Bradford...but Western NY State.

I had a good friend from there.

I bet the rich oil barons of the age had beautiful historic homes. Hope someone is saving them.

[ruby slippers]

20. the homes link.......saving the pictures if nothing else....

http://www.bradfordlandmark.org/index.php?Photos%20Postcards

[mac2]

7. The Rust Belt.

Buffalo, NY lost 50% of their population since the 70s. It is so sad to see the decline of your home.

[crim son]

10. My grandparents were once the light of "society" there.

Gramma sold her huge, beautiful house for a pittance three years ago. My gawd. It's deeply sad and I wish more people could understand the value of these communities... the history. Apparently there are now weak and power-hungry morons with big guns "guarding" the place when they ought to be rebuilding.

fuck. off to bed now with this happy vision in my mind. it's soooooo sad.

[ruby slippers]

14. yep and Mayer Brausers is going out of business, too.....because

the kids left town and no one else wanted to buy the place.....

[mac2]

5. They are training riot police today like we are the enemy.

Yes...this is very scary and could get out of hand.

I was working at the Meyer Memorial Hospital when the Attica prison riots happened.The National Guard got spooked and just shot at the prisoners. Some one in the media reported a hostage had his throat cut. Of course it wasn't true. They were untrained and panicked. It was a media event that's for sure. Whoever wrote that story should have been fired.

I think the over reaching of power and installing fear is on purpose to get their agenda and remove our rights. It has little to do with security and terrorism.

[LibDemAlways]

15. In my daughter's small suburban high school in our little

community where everybody knows everybody school district officials hired a private security firm to burst into classrooms unannounced to conduct drug raids using dogs. Kids are told to remove their jackets, leave their belongings and exit the room while the searches of their backpacks and jackets are conducted - without a warrant or probable cause. This would have been considered completely out of line and loudly protested when I was growing up in the 60's. Today nobody makes a peep, and if a person does speak up, he or she is branded a troublemaker.

We're not only headed in the direction of a police state. We're there already.

Re: Bradford, PA. If it's anything like the little Pennsylvania town where my dad grew up, I have no idea who the police would consider a threat. All of the jobs left long ago, and the vast majority of the people left behind are on Medicare and collecting Social Security - hardly the types to instigate a crime wave.

[ruby slippers]

19. yup, that is Bradford left behinds, for sure......and

as for the school, how sad....

[mac2]

21. when Bush talks about stimulating the economy I guess

he forgot about the Rust Belt.

[ruby slippers]

22. probably because he still thinks it is the OIL belt.....since

anything that brings him pennies to his pocket in the form of oil money he thinks is working.....

[lligrd]

23. We've Been Headed That Way For A While Now nt

[no_hypocrisy]

24. SWAT teams on NYC subways for terrorists.

Generic crime was a given, but terrorists get the first class treatment.

[mac2]

30. Have they ever defined terrorist?

[cali]

25. This is so different from my reality

I rarely even see a cop. Hell, the last time I saw one was 2 months ago at town meeting when the new police chief of our 4 member police dept, introduced himself and urged towns people to drop by his office with their concerns. Before that it was on Christmas night when we set off a shitload of fireworks without a permit and Fred sheepishly showed up and told us to cut it out- after we were through.

[Perry Logan]

26. Don't look now, but America is awash in guns. The cops are simply trying to stay alive.

[crankychatter]

28. The War on Terror and Illegal Immigration are the START BUTTONS

... but the machine was built early on in the Bush Presidency and even further back...

Clinton contributed with media consolidation...

I know way more than I want to know...

it's bad... it's very very bad.

[mac2]

31. Or at least the button to the big one of the Americas Union

Fascist world government.

[benEzra]

29. I suspect that if this is a small-town department, they don't have a SWAT team.

I suspect that if this is a small-town department, they don't have a SWAT team; rural officers have to be able to deal with situations than an urban officer would call in SWAT for.

FWIW, Departments have been replacing their shotguns with small-caliber rifles for a long time. The rifles don't generally get carried on the person, but ride in the trunk or roof rack, just like shotguns have since the early 20th century. There is a general consensus that small-caliber rifles are safer for bystanders than shotguns (reduced risk of ricochet, and much greater precision), particularly at range.

The rifles in the photo in the OP are non-automatic civilian carbines in .223 Remington (STG-556, a civilian derivative of the Steyr AUG) and are noteworthy for having a scope built into the carry handle. They are nontraditional looking, but are functionally identical to one of these:



and don't fire any faster, FWIW.

There are indeed some worrisome police-state tendencies going on in this country (the whole Homeland Security thing), but this isn't it, IMO.

[Aloha Spirit]

32. Who needs a bullet broof vest when you have this?!

[zulchzulu]

33. The small town is between Methhead and Losthope

Take a drive from the stripped down Main Street to the broken down highway...take a left...watch out for potholes.

[izzybeans]

34. It's beyond that.

We were on our way in the 60s-early 70s when they first decided to militarize the police force in LA to suppress poor rioters and anti-war protesters. We became a police state city-by-city since that time and now the rural areas have their pseudo-rambos too.

We've been at war with our poor for a couple of decades now.