The US Department of Defense’s 1033 program sends “surplus” military equipment to US police forces (“surplus” in quotes because military contractors lobby for the US military to buy more weapons than they need in order to feed materiel to the program), which has created a situation in which cops show up in their communities literally clad in the armor of an occupying army.
This is reflected in many ways, such as the use of “civilian” to denote someone who isn’t a police officer. Police are also civilians, which is why the military police are called “Military Police” – to contrast them with “civilian police.” If your police force considers you a “civilian” then they, perforce, consider themselves to be military occupiers, not community peace officers.
A academic trio consisting of a political scientist, a psychologist, and a social scientist examined the use of force records from similar police forces with differing levels of military equipment and training transfers under 1033 to determine whether militarizing the police results in increased use of force by the officers.
Conclusion: “We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between 1033 transfers and fatalities from officer-involved shootings across all models.”
Moreover, they used clever methods to determine that the causal arrow runs in the direction they hypothesized, showing that it wasn’t that cops in violent communities got more military stuff and were thus involved in more violence – rather, getting military goods made the cops more violent.
“I mean, look, we’re trying to take healthcare away from tens of millions of people, ensure that women are second-class citizens, remove the regulations that keep Americans safe, and put those uppity Black people back into their proper place,” Paul Ryan added, “and when I have to pretend to be a leader who cares about anything other than those things, it takes up precious seconds of my time that I could be spending writing even more Ayn Rand fanfiction disguised as laws.”
Ryan then looked at the reporters and added, “I mean, it’s not like anything I say right now matters, anyway. I’m in such a safe district, I can do whatever I want and stay in power. Watch.”
Mr. Ryan then kicked a puppy and continued. “But, let me say again: I will not stand by and say nothing when a rich, white celebrity is criticized by the president who I support in every single way that actually matters. You know it, I know it, and let’s continue to pretend that a single word I am uttering right now matters at all.”
The Department of Miniature Marvels just found its newest member: artist and photographer Vatsal Kataria, who recreates locations he visits in his dreams as miniature models and then takes beautifully lit, atmospheric photos that recreate scenes from his dreams.
“I created miniature versions of the places I saw in my dreams. It took me about two months to create all of them. I saw these places in my dreams and it was a bit challenging to turn my imagination into reality but the whole process was fun and awesome.”
someone created a random generator that creates randomized inspirational quotes overlaid on random images in a soothing fashion and each and every image is comic gold
it’s pretty much the best thing ever and here are some of my favorites so far
so good
I’m getting this one made into a motivational poster for my home office
