When I first started hearing about Ferguson, Missouri I quickly jumped to the conclusion, as many did, that it was your typical inner city/black-police thing. A black kid gets shot, the cops defend their position and the lines are drawn. When the looting began my original opinion was confirmed that it was just a hot summer in the ghetto and an excuse to release built up tension.
Then I started to think about the “incident” at Bundy Ranch in Nevada. No inner city there. A twenty year dispute over grazing rights, ecological disruption and a Chinese factory looking to be constructed complicated the issue. Yes, it wasn’t as simple as the mainstream media would have you believe.
Two very dissimilar situations yet both were treated by the authorities with the exact same show of force, which led me to believe that each incident was simply a staging ground for future nationwide turmoil. In a sense a dress rehearsal?
In both incidents the police did not show up in the normal blue uniform, delivered in the traditional squad car, but arrived in military mode. Called SWAT Teams, their armament rivaled the best the US Army had to offer. The kids in Ferguson had their rocks, the farmers in Bundy had their hunting rifles, the “police” looked as though they had just done a sweep through a neighborhood in Bagdad.
As I started comparing pictures of the Middle East personnel, to those of Ferguson and Bundy it was almost impossible to tell one from the other.
Over the past few years’ police forces around the country, whether in large metropolitan areas or small rural communities, have, with governmental assistance, transitioned from being the citizens’ protectors to being the citizens’ intimidators under the excuse of anti-terrorism.
As the world continues to become inflamed in turmoil and the real economic America continues to erode, the line of government as the “they” and the populous as the “we” will be clearly defined. Simple protests will bring out a military response aka the police force.
Ferguson and Bundy were just dress rehearsals of what has become a national policy!
“I am afraid, based on my experience, that Fascism will come to America in the name of National Security”. James Garrison-October 1967.
