The mayor of Uvalde’s response to the leak of surveillance video of officers milling around in the school hallway while kids were massacred is to call the leak “one of the most chicken things he ever saw.”
The news outlets were kind enough to edit out the sounds of kids screaming during the 77 minutes between the time that cops entered the school and the shooter was killed.
One of the cops standing around in the hallway was looking at his phone, and it had a Punisher lock screen image. That pretty much sums up those cosplay “police,” doesn’t it?
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Supermoon
Chief Oshkosh
Yep. That statement from the mayor had me yelling at the TV.
Fuck that fucking fuck
ETA: Missed the cop checking his phone, but did see one of them taking a moment to use the wall-mounted hand sanitizer. WTF.
ant
the way i see this whole thing is that the police see it as their job to maintain the privilege of the already privileged, and keep the rest knowing their place.
Whelp, the brown residents of Uvalde now know their place.
This is all going just as it should for lots of people.
See, also, the “prolife crowd”.
See, also, the roll of the US military on the world stage.
See, also, what MAGA means.
See, also, everything that motivates the Republican party.
mhm.
Rusty
Even the cops don’t want to face assault rifles. It exposes the lie that somehow having armed guards or arming school staff will somehow “solve” this problem. It won’t solve it in schools, and it won’t “solve” it in churches, supermarkets, parades or anywhere else. As a start we need military style weapons out of our society. Instead of expecting our public servants to engage in suicidal actions against people armed with assault rifles, maybe we should get rid of the damn guns. Even if we could find cops willing to do this, they are much more likely to be lousy cops for everything else. Quick to shoot and kill citizens at demonstrations, police stops and lots of other routine daily police actions. Let’s not hold up the video as a sign of cowardice, but as a sign that we need to rid of the damn guns.
Elizabelle
I don’t think they should have edited out the kids’ screams, if that is what they did.
Those are our children, and all of us, screaming. Listen to them.
Betty Cracker
Isn’t Mayor McLaughlin the one who went all Boss Hogg on Beto O’Rourke when he showed up at their press conference? What a piece of shit.
Elizabelle
@Rusty:
Thank you. That’s it, in a nutshell. A far better (retired) cop working as a security guard engaged the shooter the previous week in Buffalo. He was killed.
The Uvalde cops had a week to think about that. They did not want to be that guy.
West of the Rockies
@Rusty:
You make some good points about eliminating such weapons (although no one would want to face a single-shot deer rifle either).
BUT… These cops were/are cowards.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Better yellow than dead.
RedDirtGirl
I’ve been in intermittent Facebook contact with one of the founders of Fierce Madres, which is a group of Uvalde women organizing around gun violence, about how to send the group some money. Any interest in doing a small BJ fundraiser for them?
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: One of the major papers ran a story recently about the teacher who survived the massacre. The killer shot and wounded the teacher immediately, mowed down the children in his class and then came back and shot the teacher again later as the cops loitered in the hallway. It’s an absolutely harrowing story. I’ll see if I can find the link for anyone who wants to read it. That teacher went through hell, and he is righteously pissed off.
The Thin Black Duke
Everybody else is discovering a grim truth about cops that marginalized people already knew. They exist to “Protect and Serve” celebrities, politicians and corporate entities. Ask anyone who’s ever been on the wrong side of a picket line.
Mike in NC
Can’t fault the police for waiting until they finished their coffee and doughnuts before trying to rescue some fourth graders, right? /s
Immanentize
@RedDirtGirl:
I am! I think Water girl would be all in!
Tenar Arha
@RedDirtGirl: Yes.
Immanentize
@The Thin Black Duke: hey!! You OK?!
brendancalling
I’m going to look up the mayor’s phone number, and will politely explain what it means to be a chicken.
RedDirtGirl
@Immanentize:
@Tenar Arha:
Not sure if we care about this, but they don’t have tax exempt status yet, although they have a friend who is a US congressman, and that could put them on fast-track status with the IRS.
Scout211
@Elizabelle: I definitely understand why you feel that way.
But unfortunately, the narrative and reactions would likely be on the news station’s release of something so traumatizing. How could the news station do something so traumatizing?
The mayor tried to make it seem like the release was the problem and no one is buying it. If the children’s screams were included, the criticisms would be directed at the news station, not the officers.
Everyone knows that the kids had to be screaming. We can all imagine that and already feel traumatized.
IMO, the focus should be 100% on the “well trained” law enforcement officers’ multiple failures.
ETA to add IMO
Omnes Omnibus
@The Thin Black Duke: At the 1968 Dem convention, my mom asked a cop where she could find a restroom. I had just turned four and I needed to go.* The cop told her to fuck off. It had a marked effect on her attitude toward the police going forward.
*For those who care, a restroom was found in time.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@The Thin Black Duke: How are you doing?
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, I would be interested in that link.
I am hoping that cops and schools all over the country are realizing that any chances to mitigate deaths reduce dramatically when the weapon of threat is an assault rifle or any type of powerful, originally military-grade weapon.
People can point and laugh and jeer at the Uvalde cops, but that could be a lot of cops. Hoping that some of the brighter police leadership realize they don’t want to put their departments through that again.
Police chiefs and cops used to be against “cop killer” bullets. And for an assault weapon ban. It keeps law enforcement safer, too.
West of the Rockies
@The Thin Black Duke:
You are righteously angry. We all should be. There have been and are brave and good police officers. I am not saying they are the majority. I am not making a “few bad apples” argument. But I have known cops of all colors, male and female, queer and straight, who were dedicated and decent.
ETtheLibrarian
If the families weren’t made aware of it (much less saw it) before it was release it was a dick move.
With that said, what is see is clearly why police didn’t want anything to get out because it is not good and everyone seems to be (rightly) pushing back hard on the city’s/police’s inclination to cover their asses.
The Thin Black Duke
@Immanentize: Yes. Thank you. My Beloved informed me on how incredibly supportive you were. That meant a lot.
cain
@The Thin Black Duke: Nice to see you back here – I understand you had a bit of a medical emergency. I hope you’re doing better now.
Apologies if you posted prior in regards to the status…
rikyrah
No.
Don’t get rid of the sound. The sounds of the children should be there.
Let’s point out that none of these muthaphuckas have been fired.
trollhattan
Can I presume the average Texan backs the blue on this? Those kids probably had it coming, etc?
If something needs fixing, Greg Abbott is on it, believe me.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
So glad to see you posting. I hope that you are healing.
taumaturgo
We know the police is under no duty or obligation to protect citizens in distress. Maybe more funds could compel them to act, especially if children are being massacre? Like most of our governmental failures, this is another institution doing more harm than good.
The Thin Black Duke
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Better. Readjusting to the new Reality. For example, driving won’t be an option for at least six months. (sigh)
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, he did.
They all knew that the Police Department didn’t so shyt, and they put forth that bullshyt conference to gloss over that these incompetents let those children be slaughtered.
The Thin Black Duke
@rikyrah: Thank you so much.
Steeplejack
Thread with videos:
Cop with Punisher logo on his phone.
Twitter comments:
“Using his gun as a stylus.”
“Doing a double tap to zoom and negligent discharging his hand off.”
ian
@Rusty:
?Por que no los dos?
O. Felix Culpa
@The Thin Black Duke:
Sorry about the driving restrictions and GLAD that you’re around to be frustrated by them.
cain
@taumaturgo:
Just create a new force with a different mandate and reduce the budget for the original police force. Hell start a new union as well. Might as well make these cops compete.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
Preach.
Steeplejack
@Rusty:
Amen.
Immanentize
@The Thin Black Duke:
I had an eminently mockable Crim Law Prof who had done too much acid in the hippy days….
But he was right about one thing — Law exists and is followed by balancing two concepts: Legitimacy and Control. If a case seems to empower people, it is touted as an example of the great legitimacy of the law and the courts — they are recognizing societal needs and realities. But this is only historically a small % of cases or laws.
The primary function is Control. And Weber (who I really like) agreed that the monopoly on violence must rest with the State. This was one of those binary theories that could encompass all things and therefore invalid (or as my Dad used to put it: there are two types of people — those that say there are two types of people and everyone else.) In class, we even started making little “L” or “C” finger signs to register our annoyance with the binary aspects of the theory….
But it has enough truth to be useful as a lens for today. The state does not have a monopoly on violence, laws are not being used to legitimize (except in drastically reduced numbers) and the societal control is left not only to the State, but to individuals of malign intent (think Texas SB8 vigilante/bounty provisions). So where does this leave “law” qua law?
Well, I’m really of two minds about that….
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, I think that’s him. Shitbird.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: The story I was thinking of is a NYT link. Here’s a WaPo link also.
Immanentize
@RedDirtGirl: It doesn’t matter to me — why not a go fund me first (pay lawyers and fees?) To achieve tax exempt status?
The Thin Black Duke
A lot of these problems would go away if the cops would start pushing back against the NRA and the gun lobby like they do whenever they show up at BLM rallies. Their union is one of the strongest in the country. It’s time for them to start using that clout.
Immanentize
@The Thin Black Duke: Still am! I wanna be helpful and I am close enough to do so. BTW: is a fine partner indeed!
Geminid
@RedDirtGirl: The Washington Post had a good long article about Fierce Madres about three weeks ago. They are very determined to hold government officials accountable for their actions May 24 and after, and among other activities they are mounting a voter registration drive. Uvalde was a center of Hispanic activism in the early 1970s that was centered around the city’s segregated schools. The elementary school of the massacre was the “Mexican school” back then. Now Uvalde residents understand that the job of winning their civil rights is not over.
That Washigton Post article would be a good one to link if somebody cares to. When I try, my smart phone almost always outsmarts me.
Immanentize
@trollhattan: I don’t think that is true. In Texas, even in more lefty settings, the Uvalde police are being portrayed as corrupt outliers. Crazy border town shit. Etc.
middlelee
@ian: Exactly.
Elizabelle
I have never been a fan of having a gazillion rotating tag lines. A lot of them are way too inside baseball.
But I think this would be a good one.
piratedan
Would be helpful to see all of the police unions and LEO organizations perhaps lobby to get AR-15’s off the street, since they’re so concerned about their own life and safety.
Immanentize
OT, but funny in the category of Let Them Fight:
Immanentize
@Baud:
me like your new police motto
Josie
Here is the link to WaPo article about Fierce Madres. Forgive the naked link, but I’m old and not good with computers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/23/uvalde-walkout-activism-school-shooting/
ETA: Okay, the site fixed it for me. Yay.
RedDirtGirl
@Geminid: Yes, that’s how I found out about them.
RedDirtGirl
@Josie: Thanks for posting that!
UncleEbeneezer
@The Thin Black Duke: The irony is that they get a lot of their power from the constant defenses that they are willing to “risk their lives to save yours” to do such and such (so how dare anyone criticize them!), meanwhile we see time and time again that they always prioritize THEIR safety, even when it means killing unarmed people and trampling on their rights. I would love to live in a world where police were the brave heroes, always willing to sacrifice their own safety for the sake of the public and protection/respect of rights. But that is definitely not the reality. Hell, they wouldn’t even take a goddamn safe, effective and free vaccine to help keep us all safe.
stacib
@Baud: I’m in no way trying to make light of this situation, but my mother had two sayings for a situation like this – better to be a live chicken than a dead duck, and better to say “there she run” than there she lay. I didn’t imagine police said similar stuff.
RedDirtGirl
@Immanentize: That might work. I’ve written to WaterGirl and she asked if they are set up with ActBlue yet, and I will take a wild guess and say No. They told me I would be their first donation! Very grassroots!
Immanentize
@cain:
I am a Union guy all the way (The Band)
But I now think this is the only answer to our woes. Barney Frank once out of office IIRC, concluded that police should either have Union protections, or civil service protections, but we can’t afford to give them both.
Raoul Paste
The Punisher screen on the cop’s phone jumped out at me. Quite a gap between the self image and the reality
UncleEbeneezer
I know we have several Pasadena-adjacent people here so I thought it worth sharing this event from Craft Sierra Madre:
“Hi friends, it’s been a while. Are we ready to play? Given the state of affairs it seems like the right time, and the right class, to come and gather in community….because F$ck this Sh!t.
The joy of spending some time away from Craft, has been the reality that this is no longer a business I have to worry about creating classes to pay bills, versus now where I get to teach subjects I want and come back with the excitement of pure creativity and gathering like minded people to express ourselves together. So on that note….
It’s 2022 and sh!t is still a dumpster fire. So lets stitch and bitch as a way to let off steam, have some fun, and find community in a cause.
This class will be donation based, with all proceeds going to the National Network of Abortion Funds.
Always wanted to learn how to embroider? Now’s your chance!
In this class you will practice your hand lettering skills while learning to embroider your favorite curse words.
We will go over the basics like Satin Stitch, French Knots and Split Stitches to get you on your way to stitching like the f$cking badass you are.
Have you taken this class before? Do you already know how to do these stiches? Get your a$$ here anyways!!
Let’s get together and game plan how to support activists doing the work to dismantle this f*cking patriarchal nightmare.
*Registration required at http://www.craftsierramadre.com
adult class ( 18+ )
Supplies List: Hoop, Fabric, Embroidery Thread, needle, Stitch guide, Fabric Marker
*Supply Kits available for shipping at $35 – Orders must be placed by 7/20/22
July 31st – 11am pacific
BYOB cause yes to day drinking![]()
*Suggested donation of $10 minimum for registration can be sent via Venmo to @Ariannareel
*Membership credits cannot be used for this class*
*Class link will be emailed after registration, via zoom
*Pattern to trace will be available online 5 days before class in the DOWNLOADS section of the TAKE A CLASS page.
*Video replays are available if you cannot make the live class.”
Immanentize
@UncleEbeneezer: That has been their song forever!
I remember in one of the rather sleepy little towns (Johnson City) in the area where I grew up, they had a police budget meeting that was for some reason contentious — in the mid 70s. The police chief came in with, “Our men our out there every day ducking bullets for you!” And some citizen wag called out “the only bullets they duck are when their wives catch them cheating on duty.”
West of the Rockies
@The Thin Black Duke:
Absolutely. The cop union is extremely strong and part of why there are so many shitty cops. Be nice if that power bettered society.
catclub
@trollhattan: I think the STATE of texas is underbussing Uvalde and the Uvalde Cops.
O. Felix Culpa
@catclub:
Perhaps true, and it looks like the Uvalde cops may have earned their view of the muffler.
JCJ
@ant:
Some of those that work forces
Are the same that burn crosses.
Some of those that work forces
Are the same that burn crosses,
And some of those that burn crosses
Are the same that hold office.
And some of those that burn crosses
Are the same that hold office.
Geminid
@Josie: Thanks for posting that link.
Very impressive! When it comes to the digital world, I’m like some old dinosaur, plodding around the swamp and marveling at those quick mammals scurrying about on shore.
Mike in NC
WaPo columnist Kathleen Parker has a profile out on Lindsey Graham, whom she describes as an “obsequious footman to a reality-show hoodlum”. He’s always presented himself as a polyp in Trump’s colon.
scav
@O. Felix Culpa: Cops at Uvalde. There were a cross-section of useless badges with guns and sanitized hands listening to kids scream.
Immanentize
@catclub: @O. Felix Culpa:
The Uvalde police deserve everything they gonna get for their horrific inaction. But the obvious play by Abbot and his horror movie minions is to make them out as unique, otherwise unheard of, outliers. That is our challenge — to show that they are what police all are. Not heros. Not guardians. But overpriced, overarmed, slackers of the first order.
Sure Lurkalot
@Geminid: Here’s the article about the Fierce Madres (free link)
https://wapo.st/3P4WSjT
HumboldtBlue
If you’ve ever wanted a dick waffle, well, head on over to Manchester, England. They have dick waffles. They have a pussy waffle too, it appears.
Immanentize
@JCJ: I appreciate your version!
But I think it was performed better by RATM
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Elizabelle:
Remember Saturday Night Specials? Even that trash ass band Lynyrd Skynyrd sang against them.
Tenar Arha
@RedDirtGirl: It’s okay. I don’t have to get a deduction, I just have to remember not to claim one for an organization that doesn’t currently have that status.
ETA end clause
germy shoemangler
Baud
Jon McNaughton should paint a portrait of the Uvalde police force.
JCJ
@Immanentize:
That is the way they performed it Saturday night. It is an accurate adaptation.
(I hope Zack de la Rocha’s leg is OK – he hurt his leg on the second night of the tour in Chicago. Glad I saw them the first night!)
Geminid
@Sure Lurkalot: Thank you!
Elizabelle
@Baud: /snort. Indeed.
Jinchi
Yup. And for the same reason. Someone was messing up his PR strategy.
Geminid
@germy shoemangler: Plenty of more important stuff went on at that event besides Biden shaking hands with Netanyahu.
Anyway, the Times of Israel report I read said that Biden started out bumping fists, and later “broke protocol and shook Benjamin Netanyahu’s hand, and others’.”
Paul in KY
@ant: I think they were just sorta chickenshit. Scared to death to face someone with a combat rifle who had nothing to lose, etc.
Maybe the perceived ‘brownness’ of the children didn’t fire em up enough. Just disgusts me. Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: Agree. Those poor children need to be heard, to show how much they were failed.
Paul in KY
@UncleEbeneezer: I said it weeks ago in another thread that even in the military, where soldiers know their job is to assault positions when required, they have to be ordered. Very few will do so of their own accord.
There was no leadership there at that school.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: One of the “Fierce Madres” quoted in the Washington Post article linked above was convinced the students at Robb Elementary were sacrificed because they were Hispanic. It’s a fascinating article, well worth reading.
Paul in KY
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Man, Lynyrd Skynyrd were one of the greatest Southern Rock bands of all time. Jeezus!
Paul in KY
@JCJ: Wow! Glad you saw them. I sure hope to see Rage one day. Hopefully they’ll do a few fests.
Bill Hicks
Immanetize: “I had an eminently mockable Crim Law Prof who had done too much acid in the hippy days….”. Srsly? You should try some psychedelics, it might help you be less of an incorrectly judgemental ass.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: My son is black. He’s the sweetest little boy. If I thought he was sacrificed or not helped because he was black, I just don’t know what I’d do.
Those poor parents. I have tears in my eyes right now.
scav
@Paul in KY: And they — nearly 100% of them — made very little attempts to correct that situation. As though chaotic situations were something entirely unexpected in their cozy little pampered professional (don’t forget necessarily heroic!™) lives.
stinger
@Rusty:
Stealing this.
Josie
@Geminid: Lol. Love this description. I totally relate.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
There are times when horror beats racism into the ground. They are rare and likely always deadly to someone, but they exist.
This may be one of them. People see what the cops didn’t do at all, their jobs. That many children died and all of them extremely needlessly. It is the guns. But it also is the cops. All those cops with body armor and guns were afraid to do anything whatsoever for those defenseless kids. Everyone expects their kids to be safe in school, even as they suspect they might not be. But mass murder of children, with cops standing around doing jack and shit in all that body armor, while those kids had desks to dive under? Texas may be a redish state but children being murdered while cops stood around with not just their fingers but their entire heads up their asses is not something that many people can not see might be their kids or grandkids, no matter the color of their skin. They know what they would feel having their kids slaughtered, even if their racist asses can’t admit it out loud.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: Agreed.
And I wonder if we are going to see some Uvalde police suicides, in the years to come. They failed in a terrible and very public way. Maybe parents and community members too, sad to say.
No one is going to forget this.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Scout211: Possibly the kids were not screaming, at least at first. Most kids over the last several years have been through active shooter drills. One of the things that is emphasized is hide, the other is don’t make a sound, turn off your phone, cover your mouth if you are crying, don’t make anuy noise at all while your teacher and classmates are dying. Play dead….
Subsole
@taumaturgo: But what would we replace it with?
That’s the issue. It is well and good to point out the failure. What is the solution?
We tried abolition, up at the CHAZ. It ended with a couple black kids getting ventilated for looking suspicious, as I recall.
For whatever it may be worth, I agree that dumping more money on these guys is no good. It’s gonna take a lot of money to fix this, but that money does NOT need to go to the cops. They clearly don’t know how to spend what we’re giving them.
Subsole
@cain:
Honestly, this isn’t getting solved without some hardcore union busting. Because I feel like that’s where this culture of impunity is coming from.
I mean, it’s like the GOP, or the media.
Why bother doing your job? You ain’t getting fired.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
Too many cops today (and likely for all time if we are honest) look at the job not to lay down their lives for others, but to be the “bad guy” the person that stops crime by looking badass, by having a shiny badge. No one wants to get shot or die (if they did suicide is painless…) and I’d bet that most cops really do not want to run, walk, slither in front of a gun held by a madman. Most humans have a level of self preservation that precludes placing themselves in the line of fire. Even in combat, few humans will blatantly assault an armed enemy directly unless they see no other choice. And that’s where AR-15 style weapons are used by everyone. I am specifically not trying to protect these cops in the least. The job that day called for them to pull up their big boy pants and do their fucking jobs and they didn’t at all. Is it the guns? They sure as fuck don’t/didn’t help, almost no one wants to die, and cops are no different. But they get paid to at least make the attempt to stop a mass murder. And a lot more pay than a solider does to do the same. And in Uvalde, at the very least, they fucking failed miserably, by not even trying. No amount of trying is going to change the fact that they didn’t even try to do their jobs that day.
We all know the answer. Many say it out loud. IT’S THE FUCKING GUNS. No one in civilian life needs a fucking assault rifle. NO ONE.
I’ll say it one more time – IT’S THE FUCKING GUNS. We can do the gun side, we can’t fix the human insanity. We used to have actual better gun laws. I’ve been around automatic weapons in the military. I’ve fallen to the deck when a moron almost killed a bunch of us because he was a moron. But that moron wasn’t trying to kill 40 people. If he had been a bunch of us would have been killed. No one, and I mean absolutely not one fucking civilian needs a weapon that can fire massive amounts of bullets in seconds.
I’ll repeat myself – IT’S THE FUCKING GUNS.
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: Hear hear!!!
Subsole
@Mike in NC: Man, that’s powerful stuff.
Would have been nice if they had discovered all those harsh words back when the Clown was actually, y’know, in office…glad they remembered how to use them once a Dem got into office. I mean, nice to see the memory loss weren’t permanent…
Subsole
@germy shoemangler: Ugh. Ariel Sharon lies rotting and that fucker is STILL walking around…
Subsole
@Paul in KY: I’m not a fan, but they do seem to get a lot of trash.
Mainly because people think they were the band that Kid Rock thinks they were, instead of the band they actually were.
Subsole
@Bill Hicks:
“I’m just sayin’. If he thought he could fly, he should have taken off from the ground. Don’t blame drugs on this doorknob…”
Paul in KY
@Subsole: I fucking hate Kid Rock (have actually seen a set of his & the kindest thing I can say was that all the songs sounded the same), but (IMO) Lynyrd Skynyrd were one of the greatest rock acts of the 70s. Should have been inducted into the Hall 1st ballot. Need to read what Neil Young said about them.
Understand they’re not your cup of tea.
Ruckus
I’m going on a rant.
Just so you know.
In the old west, people could carry a weapon, a six gun or two. But many towns did not allow guns to be openly carried. Because they could be used and innocent people would die. Now today the open carrying of weapons is mostly not allowed. We have armed cops and bullet “proof” vests to sort of keep from the open carrying of weapons. But not all the guns are single shot 6 guns. They can be military style weapons with replaceable magazines and some can fire automatically and have extended magazines. All guns are killing devices, semi and full automatic weapons allow killing at a much faster and higher rate, and that’s why they exist. I’ve stated here before that on duty in port I carried a .45 semi automatic pistol. My direct order was, if I saw anyone trying to board or take over the ship, shoot to kill. I sure as hell did not want to be the person making that decision or pulling that trigger, but that wasn’t my choice. The job was to protect the ship, not my life. I never had to make that decision, a lot of others weren’t so lucky, they did have to kill and did have to die.
This is a prelude to my question, Why do we have, in this country, in this day and age, such a massively fucked up situation that we have murders and shootings so often and regularly that we can’t even keep up with the news of them. People in this country die every god damned day, from guns that we are supposedly able to have in the name of freedom. Is that freedom to die of a gun shot in a supposedly civilized society? or the freedom to actually kill someone in a supposedly civilized society. That word supposedly is currently doing a hell of a lot of work and not doing it very well.
What the hell is wrong with us that we can’t see that weapons of war do not have a place in a civilized society? What the hell is wrong with us that we can’t have a civilized society? We’ve been doing this for some time and we have only figured out how to make things worse and seemingly only because of fucking profits, people getting wealthy far more than anyone has any need for, a system that favors the fucking over of a large percentage of the people so that a relatively few can have fortunes that most often make them worse humans. And that everyone needs a gun to protect themselves from what, those that we can’t feed and house because some shit has to have far more than they could ever productively spend? I see a lot of our problems are interrelated around money and the ways we get it, and hold on to it. Money is important but the hoarding of it at the cost of society isn’t. We seem to like our “independence,” but how independent are we if we have this large a subsection of society that we refuse to support when they need it? How independent are we if we are constantly worried about being shot going to fucking elementary school? Or the grocery store, or the bank, or….. It is the fucking guns. The weapons of war cause war as much as they pretend to prevent it. If you count the deaths by gun in this country on a daily basis we are at war, in a supposedly civilized society.
I don’t know that we can do better. I do know that we can do a lot worse.
Because guns.
We are afraid of the state taking away our rights, what about the civilians with guns taking away each other’s lives?
On a daily basis.
We reached crisis level long ago.
We ignore this at our peril, as citizens, as children, as a nation.
AT OUR PERIL.
J R in WV
Irony Died and Went to
HellTexasFixed that for ya!!
I saw snips of the video of those cops running like scalded dogs, the most chicken crap thing I ever saw with armed men wearing body armor.The mayor should be treated just like the cops, fired, licenses revoked. What a piece of shit. Texas!!
Ruckus
Why is my comment at #105 in moderation?
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
I see of course that it no longer is.
Thank you.
Subsole
@Paul in KY: oh, they did plenty of stuff I can respect musically. Not trying to diss them at all.
Just never gelled for me, I guess.
Jager
@Ruckus:
One morning, I watched a CHP officer pull up to a redlight, flip on his lights, drive through the red, then make an illegal left turn into the gas station/carwash/deli. When I got to the deli, I asked him how the “Call this number to report bad driving” works, he told me, then asked if I had the license number, “I said yes, and I’ve got the number of the car.” I gave him his car number, and he turned to me and said, “What are you a fucking smart ass, motherfucker!” I told him, “No sir, just a conscientious citizen.” He told me to go fuck myself and stomped out. I did call the CHP bad driving number, they were as bad as the cop, except they didn’t swear.
Tony G
The citizens of Uvalde chose to elect this worse-than-worthless mayor, and, de-facto, they supported the hiring of these cowardly police officers. Maybe they’ll learn something from this. Or maybe they won’t. Ultimately, the citizens of this country have to take some responsibility for the people they choose to put in positions of power.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
I, and other Black folks have thought this from the beginning.
That’s why I kept on coming back to the demographics of the Police Department.
I doubt highly that they are representative of the town.
Ruckus
@Jager:
Some people seem to think that pompous arrogance is a delightful thing to use upon other people. Said people seem to detest being seen as being the pompously arrogant assholes they act like/are. I have a friend who was a CHP officer for 30 yrs, retired about 20 yrs ago. He said that when he started very few cops he knew acted/were extremely pompously arrogant. But by the time he retired the percentages had switched and the majority were pompous, arrogant assholes. We see this in the population at large as well, people who think their shit doesn’t stink, while all the time it reeks massively. I’d say it’s a reflection of population growth, but there are other countries that seemingly have not made this shift and I wonder why that might be. Could it be that while we talk about freedom we all supposedly have, that many feel they have lost that loving feeling of being the in group, say white males? Because equality works both directions, when people that were out become “normal,” people that used to be “in,” no longer are. While we used to talk about all citizens were equal, in reality that was not even close to reality. I’m not saying we have any need to coddle those who lost power that they in theory never actually had, we all know that wasn’t true. A mediocre white male was higher up the status/food chain than blacks, browns, women. Hell we’ve hired some rather mediocre white males as president, and when an extremely competent woman runs more of us vote for the epitome of an actual shit for brains white male. Or an extremely competent black woman runs for president and is beaten by, yes, a very competent old white man who immediately asks that extremely competent black woman to be vice president. And then takes crap from the press for being an old, barely competent white male.
I believe that racism is still very, very much alive in this country, and is a matter of policy of one of our national political parties. They won’t say it out loud as they used to do, but it’s right there in front of our noses.
wenchacha
@UncleEbeneezer: You describe it all quite well. Are they heroes we must protect at all cost? Are their lives more precious than the civilians hey are sworn to protect?
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: Righteous rant, Ruckus. I don’t know how exactly it can be done, but somehow we have got to get these semiautomatic battlefield killing weapons out of our society. I have 2 myself (an M-1 and an AR-15). Both locked up in my gun safe. If I could get a pmt for them, I would turn them in to be scrapped tomorrow. I am not just going to throw them away or I will not sell them to anyone (unless in dire need of money), but they do have a value and I feel I need to get some money back for them, if I am to give them up. I think alot of responsible weapon owners feel this way.
Paul in KY
@Subsole: You cool!
Paul in KY
@Jager: That is American policing right there. Distilled into a brief encounter.
If you really want to be a cop…you should not be a cop.