A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State

by Whitehead, John W.

  For example, a SWAT member who believes a raid is unconstitutional will likely not defy orders from his superior because compliance was engendered in him during the training process. Norm Stamper, a former police chief, believes that the current "rank-and-file" organization of police departments results in "bureaucratic regulations [being emphasized] over conduct on the streets."635 In war zones, soldiers are trained as subordinates and fulfill their superior's commands. Milgram's participants felt they were under the employ of the researchers and took the orders issued to them. Stamper argues that utilizing similar rigid power hierarchies in police departments leads to blind obedience. Researcher Eungkyoon Lee backs up Stamper's musings with empirical research. Lee found that trait compliance is highest in contexts that feature a well-defined authority figure and when the subject in question has a clearly inferior role.636

  Pleasure in Violence?

  Unfortunately, merely reorganizing systems of authority will not end excessive compliance. Individuals can, without orders from a superior, still act violently, as the Stanford Prison Experiment showed. Observational evidence, like the infamous smiles on the faces of American soldiers stationed at Abu Ghraib, has long suggested that it is human nature to take pleasure in violence. Following the 1992 Rodney King incident, police brutality became a hot-button topic, especially as it relates to whether individuals who are predisposed to enjoy violence seek out positions as police officers. According to a study done by Brian Lawton, such self-selection into law enforcement does occur.637 Making matters worse, "non-lethal" weapons such as tasers, pepper spray, and so on enable police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely. Case in point: the fact that seven-months-pregnant Malaika Brooks was tased three times638 for refusing to sign a speeding ticket, while Keith Cockrell was shot with a taser for jaywalking.639

  Rodney King (AP Photo)

  After the advent of automatic weapons, psychologists began examining whether or not modern weapons had their own independent effect on violent behavior. Researchers discovered that dehumanizing weapons like guns or tasers, which do not require the aggressor to make physical contact with his victim, are aggression-eliciting stimuli. One study found that simply showing an image of a gun to students caused them to clench their fists faster (a sign of aggressive effect) when presented with an aversive situation.640 If a simple handgun can noticeably increase violent behavior, one can only imagine what impact the $500 million dollars' worth of weapons and armored vehicles (provided by the Pentagon to local police in states and municipalities across the country) have on already tense and potentially explosive situations.641

  The Bystander Effect

  While explanations have been proffered for the inclination towards violence on the part of law enforcement officials, what isn't immediately evident is why the American citizenry doesn't take a stand against such tactics. What, psychologically, is holding us back from staving off the emerging police state? Social psychologists believe the answer is centered on our group dynamics.

  In 1964 dozens of onlookers witnessed the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York, but no one called the police or took any other action to stop the crime.642 This widely-reported case became the archetypal example of the "bystander effect" defined as people doing nothing in response to some injustice because they believe another witness will take responsibility for the situation.

  From the film Obedience

  (© 1968 by Stanley Milgram; copyright renewed 1993 by Alexandra Milgram; distributed by Alexandra Milgram)

  An offshoot of the bystander effect–a desire to conform to the group–could also be responsible for the lack of outcry against the growing police state. We all want to fit in: if our peers aren't doing something, we probably won't either. A recreation of Milgram's shock experiments that involved allowing participants to watch one another administering shocks found that people were systematically more likely to "conform" to the group behavior (be it administering shocks or refusing From the film Obedience to shock).643 As a species, (© 1968 by Stanley Milgram; copyright renewed 1993 by ™ learn bv modeling the Alexandra Milgram; distributed by Alexandra Milgram) behavior of our peers and parents. Thus, it is not surprising that we put so much weight on the group norm. Indeed, doing what the group does can be an incredible tool when learning social standards, a new physical skill or how to cope with difficult emotions.

  Zimbardo's Myth

  Finally, consider that obedience to authority is not exclusively taught in militaristic contexts. Many parents attempt to foster trait compliance in their children. Commenting on Professor Milgram's experiment, Phillip Zimbardo–the mastermind of the Stanford Prison Experiment–noted that American society engenders obedience in its youth, at home and in school. Zimbardo argues that "obedience to authority requires each of us to first participate in the myth-making process of creating authority figures who then must legitimize their authority through the evidence of our submission to them."644

  Zimbardo's "myth" is alive and well today. For example, a police officer may follow his commander out of deference to authority according to his training, or a citizen may follow an officer's order according to his or her moral teachings. In other words, we are raised to be obedient. Nowhere is this rigid adherence to rules and compliance better illustrated than in the schools with their zero tolerance policies, surveillance cameras, and other instruments of compliance.

  CHAPTER 27

  V for Vendetta

  Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine–the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression.

  And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease.

  There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives.

  So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if y ou see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

  -V FOR VEND
ETTA

  The year is 2020 and the world is plagued by environmental plight. Great Britain is ruled by a totalitarian corporate state where concentration camps have been established to house political prisoners and others deemed to be enemies of the state. Executions of various undesirables are common, while other enemies of the state are made to "disappear." And, of course, the television networks are controlled by the government with the purpose of perpetuating the regime. Most of the population is hooked into an entertainment mode and are clueless.

  is a bold, charismatic freedom fighter who seeks revenge against the government officials who tortured him and disfigured his face. He urges the British people to rise up and resist the government. V tells them to meet him in one year outside the Houses of Parliament, which he promises to destroy. And as November 5 approaches, V's various resistance schemes cause chaos and the people begin waking up to the tyranny around them.

  organizes the distribution of thousands of Guy Fawkes masks, resulting in multitudes, all wearing the masks, marching on Parliament to watch the destruction of Big Ben and Parliament. Unfortunately, V does not make it to the finale. He is killed and dies in the arms of Evey, a young girl he befriended and whose eyes he opens to the reality of the world around her. Accompanied by the "1812 Overture," Parliament and Big Ben explode as thousands watch, including Evey. When asked to reveal the identity of V, Evey replies, "He was all of us."

  With the film V for Vendetta, whose imagery borrows heavily from Nazi Germany's Third Reich and George Orwell's 1984, we come full circle. The corporate state in Vconducts mass surveillance on its citizens, helped along by closed-circuit televisions. Also, London is under yellow-coded curfew alerts, similar to the American government's color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System.

  In speaking of the graphic novel upon which the film was based, the director James McTeighe said, "It really showed what can happen when society is ruled by government, rather than the government being run as a voice of the people. I don't think it's such a big leap to say things like that can happen when leaders stop listening to the people."647

  Clearly, we have reached a point where our leaders have stopped listening to the American people. However, what will it take for the government to start listening to the people again?

  We are–and have been for some time–the unwitting victims of a system so corrupt that those who stand up for the rule of law and aspire to transparency in government are in the minority. This corruption is so vast it spans all branches of government–from the power-hungry agencies under the executive branch and the corporate puppets within the legislative branch to a judiciary that is, more often than not, elitist and biased towards government entities and corporations.

  We are ruled by an elite class of individuals who are completely out of touch with the travails of the average American. We are relatively expendable in the eyes of government–faceless numbers of individuals who serve one purpose, which is to keep the government machine running through our labor and our tax dollars. Those in power aren't losing any sleep over the indignities we are being made to suffer or the possible risks to our health. All they seem to care about are power and control.

  Sadly, we've been made to suffer countless abuses since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the name of national security, we've been subjected to government agents wiretapping our phones, reading our mail, monitoring our emails, and carrying out warrantless "black bag" searches of our homes. Then we had to deal with surveillance cameras mounted on street corners and in traffic lights, weather satellites co-opted for use as spy cameras from space, and thermal sensory imaging devices that can detect heat and movement through the walls of our homes. Now we find ourselves subjected to cancer-causing full-body scanners in airports, and all the government can say is that it's "a really, really small amount relative to the security benefit you're going to get."648

  "We the people" have not done the best job of holding our representatives accountable or standing up for our rights. But there must be a limit to our temerity. What will it take for Americans to finally say enough is enough? The First Amendment guarantees us the right to "assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances." Nonviolent, public resistance is often the only recourse left to those who want to effect change in the cumbersome, often corrupt, bureaucratic governmental process.

  The time to act is now if we are to make any meaningful move towards regaining our freedoms.

  CHAPTER 28

  Have We Reached the Point of No Return?

  "I have begun the struggle and I can't turn back. I have

  reached the point of no return."649–MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

  Police Arresting Martin Luther King Jr. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)

  The date was January 26,1956. The white leadership had done everything possible to stem the boycott of their segregated bus system by the black citizens of Montgomery Alabama. Inevitably the city leaders resorted to what had always worked in the past: the use of police power.

  It was in the afternoon, and the young minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was on his way home with two fellow church members. The acknowledged leader of the highly controversial boycott, he was put on notice to follow the traffic laws meticulously. There was no reason to make himself an easy target for arrest. But, as fate would have it, the police targeted the young minister, and he was arrested: "Get out King: you are under arrest for speeding thirty miles an hour in a twenty-five mile zone."

  Thus begins Martin Luther King Jr.'s journey toward jail. The moment of truth had arrived for the young minister. Warned that he could be made to disappear by the authorities, fear began to grip King. As he writes:

  As we drove off, presumably to the city jail, a feeling of panic began to come over me. I had always had the impression that the jail was in the downtown section of Montgomery. Yet after riding for a while I noticed that we were going in a different direction. The more we rode the farther we were from the center of town. In a few minutes we turned into a dark and dingy street that I had never seen and headed under a desolate old bridge. By this time I was convinced that these men were carrying me to some faraway spot to dump me off. "But this couldn't be," I said to myself. "These men are officers of the law." Then I began to wonder whether they were driving me out to some waiting mob, planning to use the excuse later on that they had been overpowered. I found myself trembling within and without. Silently, I asked God to give me the strength to endure whatever came.650

  This was at the height of segregation in the American system. It was a time when, if blacks got out of line, at a minimum they faced jail time. Only a month earlier, Rosa Parks, a seamstress, had refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man. This violation of the segregation law brought a swift arrest.

  By this time, King was already seen as a troublemaker. Understanding that if you cut off the head, the movement dies, King began to panic as his ride with the police continued:

  By this time we were passing under the bridge. I was sure now that I was going to meet my fateful hour on the other side. But as I looked up I noticed a glaring light in the distance, and soon I saw the words "Montgomery City Jail." I was so relieved that it was some time before I realized the irony of my position: going to jail at that moment seemed like going to some safe haven!651

  As the jail doors slammed shut behind King, he felt a strong inner peace: "For the moment strange gusts of emotion swept through me like cold winds on an open prairie. For the first time in my life I had been thrown behind bars."652

  Taking a Stand

  Soon King's bail was posted and he was free to leave, but King's rendezvous with jail cells was just beginning. More importantly, the movement that began in Montgomery, Alabama, was moving beyond state borders. A nationwide movement was in process, making King even more of a target.

  Several weeks later, King happened to be in Nashville, Tennessee, giving a lecture when he learned that he, with others, had been indicted by a grand jury for violating Mo
ntgomery's segregation laws. He immediately booked a flight home, stopping over to see his father in Atlanta. Martin Luther King Sr. recognized that a new scenario had developed. The threat was no longer jail time. It was death. "My father, so unafraid for himself," writes King, "had fallen into a constant state of terror for me and my family."

  Earlier, King's home in Montgomery had been bombed and the police were watching his every move. After the bombing, King's mother had taken to bed under doctor's orders.

  King's father brought some of Atlanta's leading citizens into his home to speak with his son about the dangers of returning to Montgomery. But King knew that often courage in the face of tyranny is all that the oppressed have at their disposal. It was time, as King said, to take a stand. As he told those assembled:

  My friends and associates are being arrested. It would be the height of cowardice for me to stay away. I would rather be in jail ten years than desert my people now. I have begun the struggle, and I can't turn back. I have reached the point of no return.653

  Upon arrival in Montgomery, King headed for jail to discover that the others indicted with King had the day before surrendered for arrest. "A once fear-ridden people had been transformed. Those who had previously trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom."654

  Nonviolent Resistance

  Against incredible odds, the blacks of Montgomery not only won the right to be treated equally on the city's buses. Soon the movement took on amazing proportions which would compel a government that refused to hear their pleas to listen and heed their demands. But not a shot was fired by blacks of Montgomery.