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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[GavJ]

If you have no intention of identifying with past group actions, why are you using their label? That makes no sense. The ONLY reason to call yourself anonymous is to identify with group history and reputation, whether you were involved or not.

I'm confused what you guys think is the point, other than that? Complete freelance hacktivist not intending any group associations would merely look up the relevant evidence of who they thought shot the guy, and post it somewhere as a dossier, and call it a day.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Anyways, back to Ferguson.

Does anyone know if the PD has released, well, anything to show what happened? Any pictures from the scene maybe from social media? I would *love* to see the police cruiser that had a "shot fired" in it over the "struggle for the weapon" which made the officer decide to murder the kid while he was surrendering. I don't believe they'd move that vehicle off the scene immediately, if there were a shot fired in it it'd need to be documented [photographs for ballistics, where the casing ended up, etc] and taken into evidence.

[Darvi]

anonymous

identify

[GavJ]

 

iden·ti·fied iden·ti·fy·ing
1
...
b :  to conceive as united (as in spirit, outlook, or principle) <groups that are identified with conservation>

[smirk]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/us/ferguson-missouri-police-shooting.html?_r=0

Governor has had Missouri State Police step in to relieve the St. Louis County police of its security responsibilities in Ferguson.

About fucking time.

I hope the State Patrol operates the same way it dose here. They're appointed directly by the governor, usually on merit.

That still may or may not change anything, 'cause it's Missouri after all. But at least someone else is calling the shots over there now, ostensibly.

General agreement in the air seems to be that the staties are less bad as a whole. Rumor also has it that the officer to be put in charge is both African-American and a native of Ferguson, but I have no good source for that yet.

[SalmonGod]

This is really the end result of the massive overfunding of law enforcement post-9/11 in the Bush years.

I think it's very important to be mindful that this didn't end with Bush.  Every authoritarian trend that began with Bush has continued to grow under Obama.

Probably more accurate to say this is the end of massive overfunding of law enforcement post-Snowden, the spotlights are on and the Americans are unlikely to forget. First milestone.

I'm not so optimistic.  This is far from the first time police have killed innocent people, gained national attention doing so, and terrorized a populace with military equipment.  I don't know why this time would be different from any previous.

[GavJ]

I'm not so optimistic.  This is far from the first time police have killed innocent people, gained national attention doing so, and terrorized a populace with military equipment.  I don't know why this time would be different from any previous.

Indeed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings

additional photos:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actual national guard in that case, but if used as police and vice versa, what's the difference?

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler: Je anonymoose, nous anonymooses (click to show/hide)

group history and reputation

anonymous

anonymous
Pronunciation: /əˈnɒnɪməs    /
ADJECTIVE
1.1 Having no outstanding, individual, or unusual features; unremarkable or impersonal

Anonymous is not a an organization, to say "Anonymous" is a group is to even imply the individuals who comprise it work together or share common beliefs which is also a lie. There is nothing to attack because it is an incoherent blob of random people who don't know each other, aren't working with each other and only share one belief and that's to not give yourself an identity, and even then you see a plethora of people who openly use their facebook accounts with their real names to say they are a part of "anonymous" hilariously missing the point in that it's not a group it's a state of being - that of being anonymous.

I'm not so optimistic.  This is far from the first time police have killed innocent people, gained national attention doing so, and terrorized a populace with military equipment.  I don't know why this time would be different from any previous.

Look at some other time when the police force demonstrated their martial power, like at the Boston Bombing. City shut down and you get panicking voices but overall America's ok with this. Then you look at this and on all the forums with Murricans in abundance condemn this and are crying foul, Obama's up in there too and in the modern age nothing stains longer than a racially motivated murder by a state worker and this is all happening post-ZimZam trial. Worse case scenario here is that St Louis county makes token changes in the police force to appease everyone and the American people largely forget about what's happened, but I'm optimistic here. Without the whole racial thing here everyone could before all look at US police force and say, oh, the power won't be abused or when it does it's the stress of the job or something. But if a high profile case like this shows up where the US police lockdown a county to protect a LEO with military force (after said LEO may have also abused power)! Yeah, living this down will be like Microsoft trying to live down the Xbone launch a thousand times worse.

[SalmonGod]

If the public's reactions are really that different this time around, I'll be mystified.  I don't see how the circumstances and police behaviors in this case are any different from the crackdown on Occupy, the murder of Oscar Grant, the treatment of protesters at every single political event the last 15 years, etc.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Victory by degrees, SG.

[SalmonGod]

I've been paying attention to the issue of police militarization/abuse for like 10 years.  Seeing the same things happen over and over, spreading the news every time, and always getting the same reactions.  I noticed some shift after Occupy - one degree there, but felt like public perception had pretty well solidified once again since.  Not like I'm measuring or taking surveys, but a steady ratio of the same reactions for as long as I've been paying attention, with a slight bump towards condemnation since Occupy.

If this turned out to be some kind of breaking point, I wouldn't see it as a matter of degrees.  It would be a sudden about-face.

And I would seriously want to know what made this one different... 

I mean... Oscar Grant was a young black man murdered in front of dozens of cameras.  You could go right now and watch him get coldly shot in the back while pinned motionless face-first into the ground by two other officers, and then nonchalantly dragged off to the side as if nothing serious had just happened.  And the same confrontations between the community and the police followed.  The Michael Brown case isn't even as clear-cut.  I cannot fathom why anyone would see a problem with this case that they didn't see with the former.

[Frumple]

There doesn't really have to be something "different" -- just that it gets latched on to. Camel's back, just happening to be at the right time, stars being right, s'a whole bunch of things that could cause it to cause policy or perception change, even when identical or near identical events in the past didn't.

Doesn't mean it will, but there doesn't have to be anything strange or unusual about this particular case of police bullshit for it to be the one that strikes something off. If it does. Which it probably won't, but *shrugs*

[nenjin]

I'm not that optimistic either. I don't think this is a breaking point, and especially not with Obama deciding this is a good week to vacation and phone-in platitudes. 

This is one of those places too where I think real change ultimately has to come from within police departments; cops hold too much solidarity with each other to yield to anything but a higher power, and even then most mandates are enacted half-heartedly. They can hold all the state and federally-mandated sensitivity training they want, but until police departments stop teaching their own officers that their lives are more important than the lives of the people they serve (including the ones that might be guilty), or don't disrupt the BS-pseudo-special-forces-macho culture of police in this country, very little is every going to honestly change. I'm not saying self-policing is the best option. I just think it's the most realistic one. But that will take decades of cultural change from the way police think and act today.

And that's still setting aside what always seems to be the racially motivated side of the equation too.

[Descan]

If you have no intention of identifying with past group actions, why are you using their label? That makes no sense. The ONLY reason to call yourself anonymous is to identify with group history and reputation, whether you were involved or not.

I'm confused what you guys think is the point, other than that? Complete freelance hacktivist not intending any group associations would merely look up the relevant evidence of who they thought shot the guy, and post it somewhere as a dossier, and call it a day.

That's the other question, is who is calling them Anonymous? Is it themselves labeling themselves as anonymous, or is it something pinned on them?

Also, Anonymous is a well known label. Riding the coat-tails, so to speak, to get noticed or to get your information noticed.

[Lord Shonus]

This is one of those places too where I think real change ultimately has to come from within police departments; cops hold too much solidarity with each other to yield to anything but a higher power, and even then most mandates are enacted half-heartedly. They can hold all the state and federally-mandated sensitivity training they want, but until police departments stop teaching their own officers that their lives are more important than the lives of the people they serve (including the ones that might be guilty), or don't disrupt the BS-pseudo-special-forces-macho culture of police in this country, very little is every going to honestly change. I'm not saying self-policing is the best option. I just think it's the most realistic one. But that will take decades of cultural change from the way police think and act today.

The ONLY way that situation can be reduced is getting more people to actually show the police some respect. As things are, the police get shit on from every possible direction (seriously, going down the streets with your radio blaring "KILL THE PIGS! KILL ALL THE FUCKING PIGS!" is not a recipe for any kind of improvement), EXCEPT other cops. The result is that they see all non-cops as enemies, and that leads to an extremely tight US V THEM mentality.