evangotlib: motherjones: UC Davis police...

Original by Mother Jones magazine on Tumblr

10:19 am - Sat, Nov 19, 2011: 6,226 notes

motherjones:

UC Davis police officer pepper sprays sitting students because, well, just because.

Think that’s %$#ing horrible? The video’s worse.

Via John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:

I’m sorry, this has gone too far. This has happened in police department after police department, and it has gone too far. Our police look like the goons in Russia and China. Please watch this video and send it to everyone you know. This has gone too far.

One of the books that most impacted my thinking as a young man was Hannah Arednt’s The Banality of Evil. I read it for the first time as a sophomore in college and it had - and still has - a profound impact on how I look at the world.

I never thought it would apply to my country in 2011. We’re headed for a correction of cataclysmic proportions.

Evan,

I’d say we’ve been headed there for years, but inertia tends to work against massive social change. Real change only happens when there’s a spark to force people into action (think the first six months post 9/11). Unfortunately, that cataclysmic correction is becoming nearly inevitable when multiple municipal authorities across the country keep (pepper) spraying (tear) gas on the fire.