The Vigilante's View on Ferguson and the US Police State

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]

Long time Dollar Vigilante (TDV) readers have probably noticed that TDV is rarely the first to report on non-financial current events.  While many including those in the alternative media often jump right on a story and add their views to it we tend to watch, analyze and do more research before putting our view on things out into the ether.  This isn’t to say that those who jump immediately on a story aren’t doing good work or add a lot of value but you will always find a more tempered and more analytical view of things here… often days or weeks after an event has begun so as we can take in more of a bigger picture.  Now, after a week of watching the events transpire in Ferguson we are prepared to give our vigilante view on what we have seen so far.

Most know the general backstory so we won’t rehash that too much but from our perspective what has happened is that there was a particular event in which a lighter skinned armed individual wearing police gang colors shot six times got into an altercation and killed a local man who had dark skin.  Really, the color of the people’s skin is irrelevant for reasons I will explain below. 

The evidence to date seems to indicate that the lighter skinned individual may have been legitimately protecting himself… however, what isn’t discussed very much is that the police, in and by itself, is illegitimate and that they nearly always cause more trouble than they repress.  In any case, this set off a wave of events which now have a life of their own as the community in and around Ferguson, much like many other parts of the US, have nearly reached their limit with the amount of abuse, extortion and death caused by the police in the US.

To somebody who might not pay that much attention to world events, the gist of the situation goes something like this – the police killed a person in the US (who just so happened to be black), people got angry, and so the government jailed many of them, shot them with rubber bullets, tear gassed them and imposed a curfew taking away more rights of the people. That’s par for the course in “The Land Of The Free.”

The teleprompter reader for the world’s largest and most dangerous terrorist organization, Barack Obama said, “While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving in to that anger by looting or carrying guns, and even attacking the police, only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos.” 

Notice the clever use of words.  In his speech Obama lumps stealing (looting), attacking people maliciously and carrying an inanimate object (carrying guns) in the same category.  In fact, it was because of many in the area owning guns that quelled most of the looting.

Many in the US think the only reason they are “allowed” to own self-protection aids is because of the 2nd Amendment. That is an obsfucation.  Humans have an inherent natural right to life and the right to defend that life. The US constitution is a piece of paper. If the US constitution didn’t exist, the rights expounded therein would still exist… although those natural rights are now actively suppressed by the US federal government itself!

What is most interesting about the events in Ferguson are the amount of true journalists bringing truth to the internet with live stream broadcasts. This is world changing. We have access to much more truth today than is normally available through mainstream television. In fact, there are so many independent journalists recording what is going on that one journalist pointed out in a live stream, “Most of the people here are journalists.  Last night, for example, when the police began to get aggressive the number of actual protesters was down to perhaps 15 to 20 people while there were more than 50 journalists.”

Just some of the live, streaming feeds you can watch each night include Vice News, Infowars and Activist News.

The media, both independent and mainstream, has been flagrantly attacked by US authorities including Al Jazeera, Info Wars, Huffington Post, Washington Post and others.

In one example, Al Jazeera was reporting when they were shot with rubber bullets, tear gassed and their equipment was torn down by the police.  So much for the 1st amendment and “freedom of the press”… another long lost artifact of the US constitution.

The media is not just getting caught up in the crosshairs, they are being systematically targeted. Free speech is dead in the US. If reporters don’t comply with “turn your cameras off” requests, they get fired upon with tear gas and rubber bullets.

The military police state has become so acknowledged now that the NY Times recently provided an infographic showing which counties in the US have received what military gear (hint: nearly every county has… but click here to see what military equipment your local cops have received).

Even CNN is covering the militarized police state that we’ve been talking about for years at The Dollar Vigilante Blog (TDV Blog).

They’re quite shocked in some cases at the degree to which the police have been militarized. In this video Jake Tapper was totally floored by the scene.

I want to show you this, okay? To give you an idea of what’s going on. The protesters have moved all the way down there… they’re all the way down there. Nobody is threatening anything. Nobody is doing anything. None of the stores here that I can see are being looted. There is no violence.

Now I want you to look at what is going on in Ferguson, Missouri, in downtown America, okay? These are armed police, with — not machine guns — semi-automatic rifles, with batons, with shields, many of them dressed for combat. Now why they’re doing this? I don’t know. Because there is no threat going on here. None that merits this. There is none, okay? Absolutely there have been looters, absolutely over the last nine days there’s been violence, but there is nothing going on on this street right now that merits this scene out of Bagram. Nothing.

So if people wonder why the people of Ferguson, Missouri are so upset, this is part of the reason. What is this? This doesn’t make any sense.

The situation has grown so dire in the US that Amnesty International has sent human rights teams in the US for the first time ever and China and Iran have stated their concerns about human rights violations.

The statists who constantly say we need police or there will be chaos and disorder are seeing that this particular chaos and disorder was caused initially by the actions of the police (shooting of the man and a long period of anger about their actions) then there were peaceful protests met by very aggressive police which escalated the situation… there was some looting but in this case the police never responded (this is where you would think they would respond if they really were there to protect life and property)… then the police escalated even further on peaceful protesters trying to draw them into an all out battle.

There is no reason to have high expectations of the police. After all, you can actually be too smart to be a cop. That’s right, departments all across the US refuse to hire people who are too smart, presumably because they would question orders and think before shooting unarmed individuals. In other words, there is a maximum IQ to become a police officer.  War gear has long been flowing to local police departments and the US has long been paramilitary and not public servants.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter that Mike Brown was a person of color. It’s likely that the police officer is racist. But, ultimately, the truth of the matter is that police are killing people of all creed, colors and sexes in the US. They’re even burning faces off of babies. The police will kill your grandpa (in his bed), your wife, your mom, your grandma, your dog – it doesn’t matter what color. And they’re doing it with the weapons of war all the while trying to make sure your law abiding neighbors have less access to guns.

Rob Hustle, who will be the headline music act at the Anarchapulco freedom festival this coming February in Acapulco distilled the current US police state into one excellent and eye-opening music video.

Sadly, many of the people in Ferguson don’t realize that government and the police are the problem.  Countless interviews have been had with local activists who say that the way to fix the problem is to “register to vote”!  All of this while being attacked by the police and government while locals in the community help to quell violence and rioting on their own.

We’ve been warning for a long time about police militarization and we’ve been called tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists the whole time. When we said the government was watching and recording your every move, we were laughed at, but now that’s common sense.  When we warned that police were turning into a Nazi style Gestapo force, we were laughed at. Today the government takes little issue with mainstream media showing such images and discussing these things semi-openly because it is likely to further divide the police from so-called “civilians” (everyday people) and continue the cycle of violence.

The only solution to ending this state-created chaos and insanity is to spread information like this as widely as possible so that people can see the real problem isn’t black versus white or republican versus democrat.  It is people versus the government.  And only one of those is an unneccesary evil.

Questions or comments on the situation in Ferguson? Join us at The Dollar Vigilante Blog.