But I'm a fellow with a philosophical bent, in case you have not noticed. Using any one of various ideas (such as Paypal donation buttons?), I can deal with just about anything that comes along. It's a developed skill. As my grandfather says when agreeing that nobody wants to get older, "But what's the alternative?"

A computer pretending to be a jester and a sage (reminding me of the impermanence of so much) is not why I've been so quiet lately. And there are probably a few reasons. But part of the answer is simply my asking myself when I read any news "What the hell do I have to say in response to the unceasing, nattering mechanism of the groveling, sackless, sycophantic and deluded right-wing media?" and not being able to come up with a good answer. I mean, there may be many conversations out there, but its hard to join them without becoming a fool for even entering the fray-that-soils-by-validating.

Of course this does not mean that I remain untouched. While some of these issues seem common, they are still disturbing. Perhaps more so for how persistent certain patterns are.

Surprised about that Taser incident? Nah. Lived in NYC when the cops were shooting down a 22 year-old black man—with 41 bullets— for reaching for his wallet. (Wore a special textual hat for them during that time.) Surprised about out of control cops with weapons? Using them inappropriately? Really? I bet you been behind a keyboard a long time. Hell. Go downtown and consult the Brown. They been living under the cold shadow of the Blue Wall for years. Known about them for generations. Guess what? Sometimes your Officers of Da Law rape men in bathrooms with broken plungers. You can read it in the news. Oh yeah. Take ya where nobody can see ya and rip ya rectum out with dirty, splintered wood. You have the right to excruciating medeival procedures, so shut the fuck up, suspect.

These sound like two extreme instances, but part of the the investigations into both of these cases was the understanding that the "Blue Wall of Silence" prevents us from knowing of many more cases exactly like these.

But we all know this, eh? Sure. In various videos that have circulated over the years, you can see cops beating men in the street, already cuffed, punching them full force. Rodney King was only one! Oh yeah. Hey—by the way, have you ever been punched in the face? Seriously. Full force? I don't mean a glancing blow when you are moving around trying to get a hold on someone. I do not mean your big brother when you were 13, or your high-school nemesis who managed to scrape your bald chin with a few skinny knuckles. I mean as in when you are being restrained by a grown man, your heart is beating like a first-time auditioning drummer on mescaline, and another grown man winds up and cold-cocks your jaw? Do you know what that is like? Right. Then don't fucking defend it. Okay? Because you have no idea and you are talkin' Out Ya Ass. You may as well start Rush Limboing around, doing the Alzheimer Wave to Rockit for all the respect you'd deserve, defending this kind of abuse.

Don't defend the tasering of a 23 year old student in a goddamn library that he is paying to use. These cops are not heroes. They are not Weeding out The Lurking Demon; they are not struggling to raise up the flagpole at Iwo Jima! They are policing a library, choosing an "arab" to ID, being bullies and tasering him. Three (large) cops to one student. Telling the boy who lies on the ground "stop fighting us." Tasering him again. Sadism. That is what lies behind this. Along with whatever else motivates these law-sanctioned thugs, they are sadists.

Speaking of raw sadism, have you seen the video of the cop shooting Elio Carreon, the Black Iraq Vet he'd apprehended? Tells him to get up, and then as he does, shoots him as he tries. After he says "Okay, I'm getting up." Nice. These trigger-happy, club-happy, plunger-wielding freaks are fear-filled, violence-loving, state-supported gangsters. But—hello—cops' individual and personal neuroses are secondary to the fact that black, white, or brown, these goons are the strongarm and practical application of America's racist and oppressive policies and underlying philosophies. You cannot separate these pigs under discussion as "bad apples." Not when you look back over la historia de la Chota.

And now? Now they're targeting men with last names like "Tabatabainejad" and stun-gunning them in the library for getting defiant? Or not whipping out ID quick enough? I'm so surprised. "Shocked," one might say, were they aiming for punnery.

Sad, and infuriating, but that's America, mi amigo macacan. Welcome to the show. That tall, blue, crowned lady may have nice full lips, but they are as cold as ice. She has locked up Japanese, shot and killed countless Indians, waged military and economic war against Mexico (and her very own Mexicans), is currently hosting a bloody colonial Nightmare of Oilocracy in Iraq, and has shackled and enslaved and denigrated and demonized and brutalized every single non-White race she could find, so far. Shit. Her coochie so hot, she even gets Anchor Babes like Michelle Malkin to write books saying its alllll okay (sorry Malkobicho, live by the sword, judged by the sword), and vendidos like Alberto Gonzales to enable us to hurt all them brownies as bad as Lady Liberty likes.

Where I live now, I have been reading the local papers. And I have also talked to local residents. And we agree that there have been a rash of cops shooting people lately. Locally. Killing them. And each time, an acquital. Please understand, my feelings on a Police Force are not just based on the racism that is found there. Some of these local people have been White kids. Racism is but one of the ideologies (and it informs so much of what is done in this country and our country's foreign policy that I claim it is an ideology) enacted by a Police Force. But force is its own motivator, too. The latest victim of a cop's bullet around here was a mentally handicapped boy who was threatening his parents. La chota showed up, aforementioned developmentally-disabled child came out holding a kitchen knife, wouldn't stop approaching at their command and they shot him dead. Many people in town are outraged at an excessive use of force. But you're not surprised. And neither am I.

I invite you into a couple different neighborhoods. First, I ask you to stroll with me through my old 'hood, the Upper West Side of Manhattan. That's right. Bono's nayb. Roseanne's digs. It's where the lahdi-dahdi glitterati live. (How I got there is too long a story for this post.) The garbage put out to the curb is so choice that it is not uncommon to see people (perhaps from the Village?) cruise it, snatching an Ikea® coffeetable, or a discarded pair of shoes that cost $200 last year. At night, the streets are emptyish and feel safe. Cop cars cruise here and there. You know you are safe. Because they don't stand for no shit up theah. They like the cops up theah. All those White Women who hire Black and Latina nannies are happy to see the po-po rolling down the street when they hop from the car, cab, or limo to their front door.

Then, I shall bring you to another 'hood. Where should I choose? Should I pick the "ghetto in the meadow" of Monticello, New York? The welfare housing there, where you can score mota, rock, tina, smack, or whateva—just by walking across a parking lot? Where the blister-lipped stickwomen with the hollowed out eyes haunt the asphalt peppered with empty caps, pecking the pavement like starved maniacs? Where nobody keeps a woman safe from what comes to destroy her nightly? Where the cops themselves are a threat? Should I choose the projects in tha Brook, where hungering mad shadows come and go as they choose? Where the cops turn their head at the sight of ---- on ---- crime? Where it ain't crime unless it begins bleedin' out tha boundaries? These people would love to discuss your grand ideas on Law and Order and the duty of the police. Perhaps. I have to warn you, though—they might not be amenable to much of the righteous shit you lay down on your wi-fi keyboard—you know, all that junk about economics, or equal opportunity, or Hamurikan Justice. They know what the law protects. They know who gets served.

So, what can I say to this that I haven't already said. It breaks my heart to hear a person screaming in pain because three armed men shot him multiple times with an electric weapon for no dire reason. But what breaks my heart even more is that endless conversations will now ensue about what it does or doesn't mean, or what it may mean to certain pundits, or what "law" justifies the cops' disproportionate violence, how many volts you can ethically flood through the brain of a belligerent college student, blah blah BLAH.

Let me get you in a place you feel you have the right to be (paid much college tuition lately?), demand ID, and then when you don't have it, begin bullying you and finally, stun-gun you. Let you be on the ground pissing and screaming and then I'll zap you again, looking down over you as you lie squirming in pain, everyone looking on. Talk to me about "laws." Talk to me about "laws" in a country that launches illegal wars, endorses torture, repeals habeas corpus, jails reporters, pays for fake news, engages in fraudulent, illegal practices to win elections, and runs on kickback and payola and institutionalized racism. PLEASE! Talk to me about laws, citizen!

I'll tell you about Law. Law is the chuckling brass knuckling of the State. Law provides the illusion of order. It is a mechanism to control you and allow those with money and on the other side of the Blue Wall to do whatever they like to those of us with little or no money or brown skin. It is a convenient mechanism to justify anything the ruling class wants to enact to protect them and the status quo. It has nothing to do with Truth, or a just sense of order. If there is an actual order evident in the standing system, it is one that perpetuates the strong preying upon the weak. This is also the Law of the Jungle. In this sense, there is no law, or there remains only one.

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UPDATE: Seems the Taser-happy cop has some history:

The UCLA police officer videotaped last week using a Taser gun on a student also shot a homeless man at a campus study hall room three years ago and was earlier recommended for dismissal in connection with an alleged assault on fraternity row, authorities said. [...]

In May 1990, he was accused of using his nightstick to choke someone who was hanging out on a Saturday in front of a UCLA fraternity.

--LAtimes.com