Never So Proud…

I talk a lot about pride on this site.  I say you shouldn’t have any.  Well, at least not have any in some amorphous group that you belong to due to the happenstance of birth.  That is to say pride comes before a fall.  You can take pride.  Or you can earn it.  But you can’t steal it.  I take no pride in the spot I live in on the globe.  I assume a lot of guilt for it…but who wouldn’t considering what this area is known for.  But I think we all can find something over which we should hang our heads…in the shenanigans that some duly elected official of the area we live in has accomplished.  That’s a given if you identify with areas, countries, clubs, parties et al.  I don’t.  But when someone correctly places me in the category of “amerikan”…my first emotion is that of shame.

But that isn’t what I wanted to tackle here today.

When I was a teenager I had a frequent hang-out.  A resteraunt in which we kids felt at home and could drink coffee, cut-up and smoke for hours on end without hassle.  I’m sure you had such a place.

My oldest brother was a cop.  We weren’t too close for various reasons, one of which was that I was supposed to hate ‘the man’.  I didn’t hate my brother….but I also didn’t advertise the fact that the town’s first hippie…had a ‘pig’ for a sibling.
One time in this hangout of mine, a patron flipped out.  It started with an argument with his(I assumed)wife.  He got out of control.  Waiters and even the eatery’s manager tried to calm him down or get him to leave…to no avail.  He became violent.  Turning over tables…slapping his companion…screaming at other patrons…a very ugly scene and it was getting worse by the second.  Just as he had grabbed some guy that told him to “either shut up or leave”… in came the cops.  I immediately recognized my brother leading two other officers…and I thought “oh no, this is going to be embarrassing”.
My brother strode over to the guy and had his arms behind his back and hands cuffed before you could blink an eye.  All the while…calmly reassuring the perpetrator that “everything’s going to be alright”…and “we need to go outside now”.  He carefully led the man out of the coffee-house and by the time they reached the door the man was weeping on my brother’s shoulder.  He had obviously just had enough that day…and snapped.  He didn’t need beating or manhandling…just a firm hand and a calm, cool voice of authority.  As they walked by the front window outside…people began applauding my brother’s action.  We all watched as they both talked a few minutes and my brother patted him on the back and helped him into the back of the squad car.  I looked around at the grateful patrons cheering and at first my heart swelled with pride for my brother’s expertise and judgement…then shame for not understanding and appreciating him before that night.  Such ambivalence.  Pride and shame can go hand-in-hand at times.

I read everywhere out here about cops gone bad.  Shooting innocent people…manhandling citizens.  I see videos that clearly show such action.  I am not going along with what these reports…mostly on the MSM outlets…want me to believe about them.

I am not going to defend such police mayhem either.  But I am going to point something out.  You see and read…generally speaking…what someone(usually a jewish editor) wants you to see or read. Yes, even on the ‘alternative’ sites.  And I think the fare is loaded.  It is fashioned to produce an outcome…an emotion…that benefits the ruling class.  An emotion of fear and loathing; not only in the spectator of such reportage…but in next week’s ‘viral video’ of police brutality.  Cops are also subject to the media’s influence.  They are only human…I can attest to that since quite a large portion of my family were police officers or worked in law enforcement.  Some time later I asked my brother about that night.  He barely remembered it…but when he did, he related that it turned out to be a sad story.  The man had just that day lost his job.  He had also recently lost a child to illness.  He had had enough of everything life had to offer on that evening.  But it was just another shift report to my bro.  I’m sure he handled many such cases as efficiently.  As do most cops.  However…cops also watch…and are shamed by these video reports.  They are trained to fear for their lives more and more every day.  Much more than even those that watch the evening news.  It is all purposefully ‘divide-and-conquer’.
They are made to believe now that there is reason for fear from every citizen…especially those that they deal with on a day-to-day basis.

There were mass murders…insane people in public…robberies and all sorts of crimes two hundred years ago…but no instant media to scare the public about regarding them.  And no agenda driven purpose to do so.  There is now.  And both the public and the police are subject to such horrific intent.  Our police are now even being trained by IDF soldiers in dealing with the public uprisings that their bosses contrive.  The world is not going to hell-in-a-handbasket…it is being driven in that direction by those same people that bring you the evening news while they sell you their wares.  I wish more people understood this.  Police violence…and indeed most violence is self-propagating due to this type of ‘journalism’.  This is a fact of our modern world.

Of course there are ‘bad cops’.  Ones that join the force to prove their masculinity by any means they see fit.  There have always been.  Of course a line of police facing an angry mob are going to react to aggressive behaviour from such a crowd.  That is their job…basically. And often with emotions coming to the surface that are planted there deliberately.  But human frailties aside…most police officers are dignified individuals, I have found.  So forgive me if I am still very proud of one that I know.