Denver cops get T-shirts that mock DNC protesters
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RAW STORY
Sunday, Sept 29, 2008
Denver's police union is facing criticism for printing a commemorative T-shirt that makes light of the use of violence by police, particularly in the wake of 154 arrests during the week of Democratic National Convention this past August.
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"We get up early, to beat the crowds," the shirt reads, followed by "2008 DNC." The words flank a grinning police officer holding a baton and wearing a hat with a crossed-out number "68," presumably making reference to activist organization Recreate 68, which staged several anti-war demonstrations during the convention.
"The people of Denver were assured by the city that it would respect First Amendment rights during the DNC, and that that police officers were being trained to do so. The actions of police during the DNC, which involved numerous violations of people's right to freedom of speech and assembly, put the lie to those promises," said Recreate 68's Glenn Spagnuolo. "And now this appalling, tasteless t-shirt shows why. The members of Denver's police union clearly have no respect for the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. The Denver Police Department Operations Manual includes a Law Enforcement Code of Ethics, which begins, 'As a Law Enforcement Officer, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind, to safeguard lives and property, to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all men to liberty, equality and justice.' The creation of this t-shirt makes a mockery of that statement."
Detective Nick Rogers of the Police Protective Association said that the union predicts sales of about 2,000 shirts in addition to the ones given free to Denver police officers, and also told KMGH that he hadn't received any complaints about the shirt.
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Eeeeeew!
They had better not provoke the crowds too much, being massively outnumbered and all...
Goes to show that fascist goons can (and sadly, will) pop up anywhere in positions of "authority". Speaking of myself, I definitely feel the urge to respond to this kind of provocation "in kind", if you catch my drift.
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happiness is either here or nowhere
What really sux is...
...that's what they want in order to justify pulling the really big hammer out of the bag. Â However, I do keep thinking of what Solzenitzen wrote:
"oh how we burned in the camps.
if only we stood up when they came, with pitchforks hammers, axes, anything we had, this bloody machine would have grounded to a halt."
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Though human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than men.
Dito.
Now, I'm as opposed to violence as any one of you, and still, I hope that there will be a revolution like that in 89/90's Germany -- peacefully uniting the populace under a common perspective of hope (which there definitely is, if only lacking on the PR front). However, we shouldn't let the "hammer perspective" paralyze us into submission, gruesome as it may be -- if a hundred thousand plus troops can't get the lid on Iraq, how many would it take for the continental US? WAY TOO MANY.
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happiness is either here or nowhere