This Is Your War on Drugs

Skulle det mot förmodan vara så att någon som läser den här bloggen inte läser fantastiske Radley Balko så rekommenderas att styra upp det omgående (RSS-flöde).

Balko har en tendens att inte lämna särskilt mycket att tillägga, och så även nu, och jag anar att han inte har något emot att jag kopierar hans inlägg rakt av, så here goes:

We have another video of a raid by the Columbia Police Department. The action starts at 5:30. There’s more violence. More perfunctory dog killing. (I didn’t hear a single menacing growl, and the dogs were shot while retreating.) There’s more careless tossing of flash grenades. (They threw five, then, bizarrely, two more “to prove that the previous 5 grenades had done no damage.”) This raid, once again, was for marijuana.

I’ve become somewhat inoculated to the outrage in many these stories. I think you probably need to in order to write about this stuff every day. But I was shaking while watching this one. Then I let out a string of profanities. Then I gave my dog a hug.

All of which is why you need to watch it. And help distribute it as far and wide as the Columbia raid video from last year [vilken även jag länkade till]. This isn’t like watching video of a car accident or a natural disaster. This doesn’t have to happen. You’re watching something your government does to your fellow citizens about 150 times per day in this country. If this very literal “drug war” insanity is going to continue to be waged in our name, we ought to make goddamned sure everyone knows exactly what it entails. And this is what it entails. Cops dressed like soldiers breaking into private homes, tossing concussion grenades, training their guns on nonviolent citizens, and slaughtering dogs as a matter of procedure.

More details from the good people at Keep Columbia Free.


(Direktlänk)

Och den högst rankade Youtube-kommentaren:

I'm confused. Which activity is illegal? Selling a naturally-grown plant that has been an accepted part of cultures all over the world for thousands of years; or breaking into someone's home, threatening them with weapons, and murdering their pets? Oh right, of course it's the first. Good thing we have these authority figures to serve and protect us.