Post: #1

Most things that happen in society have more than one cause. Many factors pushing in different directions both directly and indirectly. This makes it hard for most people to achieve a decent understanding of the issue. People are taught to look for a good guy and a bad guy and leave it at that. To look for a single explanation to complex situations. This makes them easy marks for those higher up the food chain.

Someone asked in one of the many 'bad cop' threads that are popping up here lately why we are seeing so many of this type of story in the media.

The answer opens several issues that are complicated in their own right.

We can start by ticking off the obvious:

More cameras mean more cops getting caught red-handed. A video of events allows people to reach their own conclusions. It also makes for a more arresting story for the media to sell.

Divisive stories sell. Anything with violence in it will push ratings. TV news has learned from the buzzfeed model of emotionally elicited revenue.

There are over a million law enforcement officers in the US today racking up millions of hours of interactions a day with criminals, suspects and the general public. Even with an almost perfect system you would have cases every day of officers abusing authority, corruption and losing their shit.

The uniform makes the personal institutional. If Bob Smith cop kills someone people don't see Bob Smith, they see a cop. A cop like the one ten feet from you. It ties what happened 1000 miles from you to the cops driving around your neighborhood. This makes the story more relevant to you and more likely to result in your attention and clicks.


There are many more mundane reasons and factors to add to that list. However, let's look at the more interesting ones:

The elite know that there are hard and tumultuous times ahead. The crash can get put off but not forever. I could not say which one of the unsustainable situations will trigger the crash (debit, entitlements, demographics, etc.) Nor could I say whether it will be a sudden catastrophe or a gradual slide. That is food for a thread of its own. Or a few. People keep finding ways to put it off for a few more years, but all bubbles eventually pop.

When hard times come the elite need a well-armed ruthless police force on their side, willing to put the people down and enforce whatever draconian or exploitative orders come down from above.

Whether they can first get the people to hate the police or the police to hate the people doesn't matter them them. One surely follows the other.

Setting the people and the police against each-other has other benefits as well. It drives out stand up guys that might question unconscionable orders. Also, if you can get people to think that police are mostly violent bullies that use their badge to intimidate and kill people without consequence, guess what kinds of people will be the only ones joining the police force.

When the public thinks that cops are just hired thugs it becomes a self-fullfiling prophecy.

Since the media already likes this type of story it's a simple matter to put in a word here and there to push the narrative. The media always comes to their sponsors for feedback.

"I really liked that story on X" is all it takes. On that level people can read between the lines fluently. Of course more explicit control of the narrative is necessary for the Rank and file. Journolist and Gamejournospro are examples of this type of narrative setting.

It's tempting to imagine the elites in business and government conspiring in some back room over cigars or in some secret basement with Illuminati type robes on. However, the truth is a lot more boring. It's not a conspiracy in the traditional sense. There are no 'bad guys' no evil organization. Just different people seeking their own ends in different ways. The media wants to make money, journalists want to push their personal biases and gain accolades and raises from their bosses. The one percent wants to keep their wealth and position. The people in government want more power and money.

The average guy doesn't realise that he is being set up to redirect his hate from the people giving the orders to the low end people carrying them out.

The more pissed off you are about the cop that shot a guy the less likely you are to notice that the alimony laws are fucked to a point that the victim was willing to risk his life running and fighting the cop.

The more you focus on hating the puppet the less you notice what the puppeteer is doing.