COP STORIES

• I am at the Portland, Maine airport preparing to head to San Francisco.  I refuse to go through these X-ray security scanners so always get the pat-down from TSA agents.  It's amazing to see how compliant we all have become with this ever present surveillance system that has been imposed on us. Do people going thru these machines ever have second thoughts about it?

• Once through security I walked into one of the shops and was gazing at newspaper headlines.  The New York Times had a color top-of-the-fold photo from Spain that jumped out at me.  In a fog of tear gas police were beating up firemen who were protesting against austerity cutbacks that were impacting their jobs.  I can't help but wonder what will happen when local police begin to realize they are being screwed as well by the corporate oligarchy.  Once they go on strike who will be brought in to beat the hell out of them?  Maybe the National Guard, Homeland Security, or the 7th Cav.  Cops need to figure this one out real soon and join the non-violent peaceful revolution.

• On Facebook in recent months there has been a flurry of stories (often with videos) of local cops beating and even killing innocent Americans at traffic stops, home raids (sorry wrong house), or at other similar situations.  In many communities cops are on a rampage.  The question is are many of these police actually former GI's who were in Iraq or Afghanistan and have experienced war trauma?  When they get into adrenaline producing situations (and remember they often had free reign in the war zones) do they just revert to default behavior?  Very serious problem.
• Update from Chicago airport: Local newspaper big headline reads Bush Official Picked by Obama to Run FBI.  The continuity from one authoritarian administration to the next is quite apparent.  Good cop - bad cop.  Black hat - white hat but still cowboys.  Same old story.