Soldiers And Their Critics et al.

Tommy that was a great post thank you.  While we may not like it you're right. In orer for Canada to sit at the grown up table we need to bring something TO the table. If you don't mind I would like to save it and reference it in the future.

Stargazer, Ive had my fair share of run-ins with asshole cops. From 22 year old guys walking around like they are gun fighters from the wild west with invisible jerry cans under their arms to jerkoffs stopping my wife for trumped up infractions "I could give you a ticket but I Wont today since I'm a nice guy...  Wanna go out sometime?"

Still, get rid of half of the police force? Would you be willing to accept the increased amount of crime that causes?

Would it perhaps be more safer to have police services held more accountable for their actions? Complaints are investigated more agressively and punishments handed out for abuse of power/authority increased.  Or are you saying that you fel police as a whole is just used as a weapon by the government and cutting the police strength in half means the gov't has a reduced amount of ability to impose their will or something?? I can be a double edged sword too though

One example I can think of is if you have a peaceful protest about aborgional rights and there is no police officers there to keep the peace and keep touble makers away. Further more a group of people show up with the intention of disrupting your peaceful protest and causing both mischief and harm.You call the police department and they say sorry our numbers were just cut in half, all of our on duty officers are busy, you're on your own.

Maysie, I admire your valour and patience, but you're talking to someone who believes that there's an inverse relationship between crime rates and numbers of police; that police protect aboriginal rights demonstrators; and that Canada needs a strong military so it can "bring something to the grown-up table".

Is this babble, or elbbab?

I posted at the same time as maysie and Unionist.

Realigned - exactly what maysie said. 

Tommy_Paine wrote:

Um, Realigned, more often than not, those groups who show up with the intention of disrupting a peaceful protest are the police.

Umm, Tommy, I think Realigned understands whose side the uniformed armed guys are on when people are fighting for their sovereign rights.

Given that he's one of them.

Quote:

Tommy I supose that's true that police can show up at a protest with the intentions of harassing them.  Sometimes though tey get put in shitty spots. Imagine being a police officer and having to defend the saftey and security of a pedophile being released (against people protesting it) or protecting the 'God hates fags' protestors from people.

I see. Protesters are as bad as pedophiles and Phelps. 

Police don't just show up at a protest with the intentions of harassment. They show up with the intent to violently disperse protesters. They show up to prevent people from exercising their rights, and to protect the wealthy and powerful from the inconvenience of the great unwashed. The police use excessive force, agent provocateurs, spys, and surveillance on the orders of their political masters (and their corporate sponsors) to disrupt and destroy people who make the mistake of thinking we are a democratic nation.

But really, you know that already. Your coy innocence isn't convincing. You've made your choice on whose side your on. Next, you'll try to convince us the the Ohio National Guard was firing in self-defense.

Stargazer,

Quote:

1) Enforce a complaint procedure that is run by citizens. Police should
not be policing themselves. It doesn't work and it isn't democratic

But police offiers ARE citizens. Do you mean a non-law enforcement  agency being in charge of handling police complaints?  If so I agree.

Quote:

2) Any person wishing to become an officer of the law should have
actually studied the law. They should also have to take sociology,
anti-racism and criminology classes. This way they may actually have a
clue as to why things occur and why they target the people they do.
More importantly, they will stop targeting people of colour and the
homeless disproportionately.

Police O study the law, they have to. Do you mean study at university?

I don't think it's up to a police officer to determine why something occurs. I think that's up to the courts to determine.

Quote:

3) Community Policing isn't working.  The police won't admit to
racism yet it is clear that the vast majority of them are racist.

What's comunity policing?

Quote:

4) Make it mandatory that the government implement the
recommendations of the many many studies done on police and police
abuse of force.

Totally agree.

Jacob Richter wrote:

Why hasn't anybody considered trade union rights for soldiers?

With people trying to blow them up for visiting their countries uninvited, and with their own children begging Santa to get their parents to quit soldiering, they wouldn't provide a reliable enough source of union dues income.

One thing to keep in mind is that the police are just as much targets as anybody else. In Winnipeg the mostly Aboriginal chronic car thieves have been deliberately driving into cops with sole aim of causing their deaths. Just yesterday a drunk Aboriginal was driving west on an eastbound street and rammed into a car going the opposite direction. It's a war zone here.

Manitoba Girl wrote:

One thing to keep in mind is that the police are just as much targets as anybody else. In Winnipeg the mostly Aboriginal chronic car thieves have been deliberately driving into cops with sole aim of causing their deaths. Just yesterday a drunk Aboriginal was driving west on an eastbound street and rammed into a car going the opposite direction. It's a war zone here.

Where did you get the idea that it was okay to write racist tripe like this on babble?  You've outlived your usefulness on babble, Manitoba Girl.  Bye.

Realigned wrote:

with some undetectable first nations roots which I'm not only proud of but it gives me a wicked tan in the summer =)

This kind of statement may go over well in your circles, but it reeks of racism and cultural appropriation, just to name two. Let's not go there, shall we?

Realigned wrote:

 Before I always thought "anti-police" talk like this was bullshit to be honest. People who just didnt like the police or getting tickets or being told they can't do drugs.  I'm looking at it differently now trying to put myself in the shoes of the peoples you mentioned.

Kewl.

Realigned wrote:

 A statement like stargazer most cops are racist is pretty big.  To me that means there is something about policing that either attracts racists fromt he onset OR something in their training turns men and women racist.

Actually, SG is right, and not just about the police. Most white folks are racist no matter what profession they're in. And that's a whole other conversation. Moving past that, as an anti-racist activist, I'm very concerned when white folks, the vast majority of whom are racist, who are trained and paid by the state, receive job training on how to restrain, injure and kill people, receive training on who "matters" and who doesn't (although they probably already "know" this) and then use this violence against society's more marginalized populations. With impunity. There's nothing that a few months of police training can do to instill racist attitudes that are already embedded in Canadian culture and haven't already been internalized by their recruits (and everyone else).

Realigned wrote:

 To the latter point I would wonder how coloured police recruits react.

Similar to your "retard" comment in another thread, I request that you not use the term "coloured" to refer to people of colour. You may not think there's a huge difference between the terms "coloured people" and "people of colour", another fascinating topic that we've discussed on babble many times. You actually have a number of allies for this one, but that would be thread drift. 

Realigned wrote:

 Do they 'turn on their own and join the system' or do they quit police trainig or what? I have some friends who are cops (not all white either) and they never mentionedanything when we compad training.

Realigned, there has been tons of documentation about how racist the police system is, from within and without, how all must comply with police culture, regardless of one's connection to maleness and whiteness. GIYF (google is your friend)

............

Maysie: the babbler formerly known as bigcitygal.

hi folks, not sure what thread to post this under exactly, but following up on the Afghanistan situation, the new governor of Kandahar stated on an interview last week at CBC radio http://www.cbc.ca/clips/mov/wesa-invu081218.mov (about 2/3 of the way along the clip) that CIDA and the federal gov't gave its money to SNC Lavalin to do the work on the Dhala dam in Kandahar province.  as a reminder, here's who's on SNC's board- lots of familiar faces: http://www.snc-lavalin.com/about_board.php?lang=en .

I was drawn to the CBC interview initially because a radio clip included Wesa's catch-all phrase in support of Canada's 'development goals in the pipeline', which can be interpreted in several ways, and he reiterates this same phrase in the beginning of the linked clip above.  Wesa as an agricultural 'expert' also promotes petrol-based chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

So we have the usual story, mega-pipelines, reconstruction of mega-dams, big chem-white ag, propped up by military boots on the ground and in the board rooms.  and small farmers planting roadside bombs beside the pipeline/ highway corridors that bring the troops into their land along with the foreign companies who seek to control the water and other resources of Afghans.

No realigned. there is nothing at all with pointing out the fact that most people are racist. Thankfully, Manitoba Girl is gone, but she is the norm.

And talking about PoC's as "coloured" people is racist. Frankly, I don't care if you are offended by that or not. Suck it up. us FN people and people of colour have had to deal with racist bullshit since time immoriable. It's time for white people to realize just how much they own this world (in particular white men). I feel no pity about that and that reverse racism crap does not fly here. 

Racism 101 on resistracism blog: http://resistracism.wordpress.com/racism-101/ 

The Art of Defending Racism (please note, this is a sarcastic article) http://community.livejournal.com/sex_and_race/296541.html

Resources for Change: http://www.accesstomedia.org/rfc/

We Heard it Before on resistracism blog: http://resistracism.wordpress.com/we-heard-it-before/

Jane Elliot's Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise (thanks to AfroHealer): http://www.janeelliott.com/learningmaterials.htm

There's more where those came from. 

Unionist wrote:

Quote:

During the Cold War....the Soviet bombers would sometimes probe Canadian airspace at night.....so CF-188's were fitted with very bright spotlights to permit identification of the bomber at night. Because this was "peace time" probing.......the CDN pilots could fly up....ride along side and flip on the light.....in a time of actual war this tactic might not have been used.

Don't need a military force to do that, any more than we needed military help in boarding the Spanish trawler and arresting its crew. These are patrol and police operations.

Quick question, oh quacky Unionist. How the hell do you expect to train people to fly the military aircraft that are necessary to meet up with other high performance military grade aircraft and perform these things? You sort of need an airforce to train a large pool of skilled pilots.

It's more like the amount of relative privilege that our group enjoys - something we CAN do something about.

Realigned wrote:

Make fun of me all you want,

Have no fear - our sarcasm resistance movement has only begun!!

Refuge wrote:

Maysie wrote:

 Most white folks are racist no matter what profession they're in.

 

I understand there is a lot of racism but I don't like being called racist just because of the colour of my skin.

Excatly.

Stargazer wrote:

As a white man, what would you possibly know about racism? Really? Do you have any idea whatsoever the effects that racism has had on Aboriginal people's? Do you? You cannot possibly have, as a white male, you enjoy the priviledge of being the least discriminated group in the entire freaking world. Not only do white males run almost everything, they whine when they get called out on racism. How quaint.

Stargazer I usually like your posts quite a bit but this sounds silly. You're throwing around white males with the same venom Manitoba Girl was throwing around aborigionals. Why is it okay for you?

So to wrap my head around this..  You (and others) basically judging other human beings by the colour of their skin, basically.

And you can't see (or don't care) how someone would conclude that's being racist too? Or the rules are different because it is being addressed to someone who is white. Okay. "You're reverse racisim cries fall on deaf ears here"

I think racisim is racisim but I'm new at this =)   I'll take a look at the links provided above, thanks Malayse (and reply you Loretta) after work.

Once again, for the cheap seats in the back:

From the Angry Black Woman, "Some things You Need To Understand #1" http://theangryblackwoman.com/2006/05/07/some-things-you-need-to-underst... 

Quote:

An ongoing series. Here’s something you need to understand before engaging me in any debate:

Racism = Prejudice + Power

By definition, Blacks and other minorities cannot be racist because they do not have insitutional, systemic power. The term Minority doesn’t even refer to a minority of numbers any more (after all, minorities outnumber whites in many places, now), but instead to a minority of power.

(snip)

Reverse racism does not exist. It just doesn’t. 

From The Angry Black Woman, "Some Things You Need to Understand #4" http://theangryblackwoman.com/2006/09/14/things-you-need-to-understand-4/

Quote:

White Privilege exists whether you know it, acknowledge it, or understand it. Any attempts to convince me that you, a white person, don’t have White Privilege will result in laughter, mockery, and possibly a beat down.

It is a given that, whenever I engage in debate with a white person and mention privilege, the white person in question gets all upset. “I do NOT have privilege!” they say, and then begin to tell the story of their poor, rural upbringing or something. I think this reaction stems from two sources. Firstly, White Liberal Guilt, which I have written about before. Secondly, a misunderstanding of the word ‘Privilege’.

(snip)

What they don’t realize is that economic privilege is only one kind of privilege. When I speak of White Privilege, I am not speaking of economics (though they may come into play based on the individual), I am speaking of unearned advantages one has because one is born White. That’s not the only kind of Privilege there is, of course. Another I’m very familiar with is Heterosexual Privilege. 

I'll end my lecture with a link to Tim Wise. He's not an angry black woman, he's a middle class white guy! So he *must* be right! (Actually I love Tim's writing a whole lot, he can reach many people that can't otherwise be reached.)

"White Whine: Reflections on The Brain-Rotting Properties of Privilege" 

http://www.zmag.org/zspace/commentaries/1901 

The new elbbab never fails to bemuse. Is this some kind of thought experiment - pretend someone is just "confused" and see if we can turn around his basic instincts by providing hyperlinks to reading material?

What about that tingling feeling in the back of your spine? Doesn't that count for anything any more?

I am going to repost a quote from the first thread as we spiral further down......

Quote:

If you do respond to the personal attacks in a similar manner, there is the possibility that you might not be able to continue posting to the site, because the mods might step in on their behalf to quell the disturbance.  It may in fact be the motivation behind the attacks.  Clever aren't they?

martin dufresne wrote:

"You (and others) basically judging other human beings by the colour of their skin, basically."

That's pretty rich coming from someone who basically guns down Afghan people by the manner of their dress, basically.

How did you get a hold of our rules of engagement??

Hi Loretta,

I am checking out the links I'm being given by hte members here. Thank you. I admit it's hard for me to aproach this from a neutral point of view when I hear things like most white people are racist.

Does that mean that most white babble posters are infact racist?  It just surprises me thats all.

The angrey black woman suggests that only white people can be racist however this is what I'm finding on wikipedia.

Quote:

[i]Racism, by its simplest definition, is the belief that race
is the primary determinant of human traits[/i] [IE. most white people are racist]and capacities and that
racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular
race.

That sounds like what you guys call thread drift anyways.  Back more to the nature of the thread, yes I agree the military conditioning does make it hard for many of it's people (especially younger) to be open minded but honestly you'll find the same mentality in people here. "I'm right, if you don't agree with me here is something wrong with you." Some people are so sure they are right they won't even entertain looking atit from another point of view save to simply make sarcasic comments. Do you agree?

I'm really not rejecting any ideas.  Though good ideas + comments like your a murderer get tossed to the back of the que. Some people have really good points but the jabs they feel the need to toss in really ruin it.

Here's a question Loretta. I never thought there was racisim in the Canadian Military. I never saw it. When I went down to Kentucky to train I was blown away by the segrigaion I saw amongst the americans there.  Whe you were in, did you find there was racisim among the soldiers? If so what kinda stuff would you see?

Unionist wrote:

They need the integrity and courage to either not enlist in the first place, or else to speak out against injustice, or else to desert - like their thousands of U.S. comrades.

However, those who have made those choices, got to that place through a series of developments within that made them start to break through the propaganda of war before they were able to take those steps.

It may be that Realigned is not what he is presenting to be and/or it may be that he's not able to get to that same place -- however, engaging with those in a place of privilege who are asking questions isn't a waste of time. First, it may result in openness to new ideas around privilege, propaganda, etc, in that person and second, it may influence/educate others who are reading the threads without anyone even being aware. My view is that if those who are seeking are treated with disdain because they aren't where we are in our conclusions around war, human rights, prejudice, etc, how can we expect people to stay with the new ideas or thoughts long enough to give those concepts that are new to them (at least at deeper levels) credibility within themselves? Also, isn't it likely that, if people who don't think like us are shot down and made unwelcome, the conversations become "preaching to the choir"?

Unionist wrote:

And guess what? I have never witnessed, nor even heard of, [b][i]ONE SINGLE CANADIAN SOLDIER[/i][/b] who either deserted, or at least spoke out publicly against the invasion, occupation, and war crimes committed in Afghanistan.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/513548

**Edited to respond to Realigned --

Realigned, I was quite young when I was in the military and wasn't looking for examples of racism. To be honest, when I look back, although there were a few people that I knew who were obviously people of colour or those of aboriginal descent, they were vastly in the minority and I was so self-absorbed and unaware of my own privilege, I never gave the question of the experience of those young women and men any serious consideration.

Just following my release from the CF, the whole outcry broke open about RCMP officers who were Sikh being permitted to wear turbans -- Legions were particularly outraged by this decision. I remember thinking how ridiculous their position (the Legions', that is) was and I am in no doubt regarding the high degree of likelihood that Sikh members of the RCMP and the CF suffered a huge backlash to their presence in those organizations during those days.

I can tell you many first-hand experiences and observations about the mysogyny present in the CF then, which has changed shape and perhaps muted but not disappeared from our present day military. As I mentioned in the other thread, those experiences were part of what began to allow me to open my eyes to the dynamics that exist in our societies and our world around inequalities on the basis of ethnicity, sex, gender, orientation, etc.

Realigned, is your wife of aboriginal descent or a person of colour? If so, it is not "in her head" but racism playing out and, if not, depending on what kind of shops she is frequenting, it could be sexism. I'm thinking of stores that aim their wares at men, traditionally, such as those places that sell car products, or building supply places, etc.