Occupy Oakland Police Brutality

I want my faith in the police restored. But it is not happening.

I am getting so sick of seeing police brutality in response to the Occupy protests. I’ve been posting terrible pictures and videos for weeks. And today I have to do it again.

The injured man in the video is reportedly Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen. He lived through two tours in Iraq only to come home and get shot in the head by police with something that fractured his skull, while exercising his first amendment rights, which both the military and police are supposed to exist in order to protect.

And when people come to help Olsen, the police throw a flashbang grenade into their midst.  The police attacked an injured person and those daring enough to try to help him.

The media has finally picked up on the police brutality, with over 3800 news articles now coming up with a quick Google search. Apparently this had to happen in order for people to take notice.

Care2.com has more video (similar to the above), lots of good links, and brief comments from some of Scott Olsen’s friends. The LA Times also has a good post on the events and a picture of a terrible bruise caused by some type of projectile weapon. And Daily Kos has a string of disturbing pictures showing injuries and evidence of rubber bullets fired, and at least two other individuals with bleeding head injuries.

I am going to keep posting these stories as long as they keep happening.  I understand that in difficult situations humans, even well-trained police, can lose control of themselves and behave inappropriately.

But when police officers do this, they must pay an even higher price for their wrongdoings precisely because they are tasked with public safety. Officers must be held to a higher standard. Not a lower standard. The highest things fall the farthest.

How can we call these individuals “public safety officers” when they do this? They are seriously injuring the people they are charged to protect. They need to lose their jobs or even go to jail. Totally unacceptable.

And it doesn’t take an ethicist to figure that out.

When I was younger I thought the police only did good, that they were all the “good guys.” It is now, unfortunately, quite clear that I was wrong. I am severely disappointed, disgusted, sickened. Brutality, over and over again, all over the country. Even if it is “just a few” bad cops, they are not being controlled, not being stopped.  What is going on?  Is this to be expected of our police now? What am I supposed to tell my children?

I want my faith in the police restored. Please. I want the myth that all cops are good to be real.  I feel like I am not living in the nation I thought I lived in, that somehow I am in some other country or some other time.

21st century America, where are you? Damn.

Brian’s Links 25 October 2011: Superheroes, Gods, and Aliens

Sometimes when a dam is being removed you just have to use some explosives and blow it up. This project deserves more attention and I will have to say more on it soon.

Bionic suits become a reality for the mobility impaired. And don’t forget the military applications either, surely you have seen the end of the movie Aliens…

Speaking of suits, Occupied Wall St. needs your extra suits for “tactical camouflage.” Because if you have a suit on, the police won’t bother you.

And, if you were wondering, the world is intrigued by the Occupy Wall St. movement.

And some distributists ask: is OWS the beginning of a distributist economy?

Slavoj Zizek speaks at Occupy Wall Street. And he even mentions the Holy Spirit.

GTU’s Ted Peters talks about aliens on Huffington Post.  Because aliens and religion go together like… something. Wait! Things that are above us! They both come from the heavens. Well, I wrote about it here before, anyway, and io9 and the Daily Mail also picked it up, so it must be an important recurring contemporary theme in the world… (at least for some of us).

Morality as a sociological function. Interesting.

The rocking and rolling rocks of the Atacama. Polished smooth by millennia of… earthquakes!

Crime predictor coming on line… Just like in the movie Minority Report, right?

New York City cops fabricated drug charges to lock people up for quotas.

Colbert questions a Jesuit priest on God’s job performance. Maybe God should go negative on the other candidates? Hmm…

Turn your smartphone into an ultrasound machine. Because smartphones can actually do anything. They are prime matter.  (Or is that tofu? I can’t remember…)

Great, now we have an ozone hole in the north too.

A vertical forest on a skyscraper in Milan. I like it!

Phoenix Jones! Seattle’s own real superhero behind bars! Right out of a comic book. And now with Phoenix Jones out of the way, Russian supervillains plot to take over Seattle…

The New Vatican Richter Scale of Teaching Authority

This is my summary of the levels of Vatican teaching authority, using the metaphor of the Richter scale (because I live in California).  “Shaking” occurs when doctrine develops in one of these areas.  For example, the pope talking to a reporter about condoms is an insignificant 0-1, while the Second Vatican council allowing religious freedom is an enormous 8-9 on the scale, causing some groups to divide from the Church.

This list is meant to be a semi-humorous expansion of my previous post on this subject (and borrows liberally from it) concerning when, during a papal interview, the Pope mentioned condoms and the media had a feeding frenzy over a very small crumb.  And my list is, of course, unofficial.  I am not the pope or even a council of bishops.  Really.

In any case, the next time the media reports a church teaching, you can figure out the magnitude of its importance.  And if you have ideas or critiques for my list, comment them here!  I like revising things.

Each entry gives the magnitude, meaning, and an example.

0: Meaningless, business as usual. Somebody at the Vatican (not the Pope or his representative) says something about something.

0-1: Barely noticeable (yet likely to be exaggerated). Papal interview. For example, the Pope is overheard mentioning his favorite flavor of ice cream (just imagine the headlines!).

2-3: Barely noticeable (most likely noticed by “doctrinal seismologists,” a.k.a. theologians, professional or amateur), though vulnerable to media exaggeration. Papal commission studies, for example  “Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God” by the International Theological Commission.  This is just an advisory document to the pope, not official teaching of the church.  Also compendium documents (tend to be aftershocks; the authority of compendium documents are in the documents that are cited, not the compendium itself), for example the “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church” by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

4: Can be felt over short distances, may be a fore-shock (i.e. portend something bigger). Easily rationalized away by those in disagreement. Prime example: a papal allocution, that is, a papal speech.  Papal allocutions abound and form the basic building block of church authority.  Pope John Paul II has about five library shelves of allocutions bound into volumes.  Allocutions are important because they tend to appear again as bits in documents of higher authority.

5-6: Very noticeable. From those in disagreement, displeasure results, though still can be rationalized away.  Teaching instruction: this is a specific teaching instruction from the Church, for example the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1987 Donum Vitae, which answered specific questions on bioethical issues pertinent to the time.  These are often clarifying documents, based on what the Church already teaches, simply extended into more contemporary ethical debates. Also papal letters below encyclical level: for example an apostolic letter like Pope John Paul II’s 1988 Mulieris Dignitatem.

7: Significant, damaging if disagreement occurs. Papal encyclical: the encyclical is the highest authority level among kinds of papal letters, and is typically the most commonly referenced type of authoritative document.  For example, if someone wants to know what the Church teaches on labor, one goes to the social encyclicals like Rerum Novarum or Laborem Exercens.

8-9: Very important, potentially devastating, may cause schisms from those in disagreement. Conciliar documents: these are documents from the ecumenical councils like Vatican I or II.  Because they are approved by all the bishops together they have a still higher level of authority than an encyclical.  An example would be Gaudium et Spes from Vatican II.

10: Enormous, earth-shattering, Church-destroying. Ordinary and extraordinary infallible teachings.  Ordinary infallible teaching are things that have been taught from the beginning of the Church, such as that Jesus is both human and God.  These teachings are simply not up for debate, they are core to the faith itself.  A lot of these teachings are straight from the Bible, as understood through the tradition.  Extraordinary infallibility is the least used of all types of authority, having been used, for example, to define in 1950 the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary into heaven.

There. Now, the next time a papal document makes a kerfuffle, you can easily cut through the hype and figure out whether anything important has actually been said or not.

Brian’s Links 20 October 2011: Carnivory, Science, and Art

Hyperfacade light show. Very impressive!

Former GTU professor John Berkman (now at Regis College, University of Toronto) and Fordham professor Charles Camosy ask about the morality of eating factory-farmed meat.  A good analysis of the subject, in four parts.

1) Our addiction to animal cruelty (1)

2) Our addiction to animal cruelty (2)

3) Formal cooperation in evil

4) What is to be done?

Science fiction author Michael Flynn on the finality (the purpose) of science. Is science for studying the beauty of nature, or “The attaining of gigantick dimensions”? (That’s Robert Boyle, of “Boyle’s Law” fame. Yes, the early modern scientists did have some interesting goals.) In other words: beauty or power? Historically it began as the first and mutated into the second. A humorous and educational article.

Beyond the new atheists with Philip Kitcher. And beyond Kitcher with Charles Taylor. A review of ideas.

Selection bias and WWII bombers. Where should we armor these shot up bombers? Wherever there are no holes… Follow the link to understand the logic.

Iranian Christian convert due to be executed.

In the Indian state of Kerala, having a third child could land you in jail. I’m glad I don’t live there.  Interestingly the article is clearly addressed only towards men: “You can be imprisoned for impregnating your own wife.” Methinks the discussion is having several layers of problems.

Gandhi goes to Wall Street: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

The Journal Science on the anthropocene (article and text of a chat held a few days ago). Should we call this a new geologic age, are we that much or an impact on the planet?  My opinion: let’s wait a bit longer and see.

Hmm, a US government kill list for Americans, huh? I don’t think any American citizen should be happy about that.

Pacific Islands united against climate change.  But how? Through a goodwill mission of song and dance. Check the tour dates to see if they will be near you.

And lastly, I talked about her removal in June (after her mysterious appearance in April), but here is some recent news on the Surfing Our Lady of Guadalupe. She’s currently in storage, but the people of Encinitas are looking for a good home for her, maybe even (gasp!) on state land:

Surfing Madonna proposal faces wave of red tape

Surfing Madonna begins public art review

Surfing Madonna inspires architectural exam

The Surfing Our Lady of Guadalupe in Encinitas

GTU Graduates Promoting Evolution and Saintliness

Two GTU graduates making a difference in the world.

Peter Hess: boggling minds in the creation-evolution debate through his work with the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). I especially like the part where he renders Richard Dawkins speechless. Good story on being on the front lines of America’s science and religion problems.

And Peter Nixon tells Catholics to shape up, or the faith won’t die with your children – it will already be dead, in you. In all things, but especially in response to the abuse crisis, for the Church it is saintliness or bust. And I like the suggested penance for Cardinal Law (good penances are a lost art).

Police Officer Brutally Chokes Peaceful Occupy Boston Protester

Boston Police officer chokes protester (source: Occupy Boston)

This photo was taken at approximately 1:30 AM on Tuesday, October 11th, in the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.  The Occupy Boston protesters had formed a second camp in this location because they overflowed their first camp.

The Boston city government responded by sending the police, so the protesters couldn’t “tie up the city.” Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino puts it this way:

Civil disobedience will not be tolerated.

They were given a few minutes warning to get their camp packed up.  Then the police, rather than carefully pulling the protesters out one by one to take away, instead rushed the group, beating and choking people, even arresting the legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild.

The photograph shows a young woman being choked by a BPD officer. She was with a church group, led by a priest. When the police started attacking the person next to her she spoke up to try to get them to not be so violent. So an officer grabbed her by the throat and threw her backwards.

Regardless of how you feel about any of the “Occupy” protests, this photo depicts a disgusting abuse of police power.  When our law enforcement “protects” us by choking peaceful citizens gathered in a park then “law enforcement” has gone horribly wrong.

By the way, here is how the police described what they were doing:

Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said officers “have a right to protect themselves,” and acted with restraint.

“We believe all our officers were respectful and proportional,” she said.

Yes, that officer was obviously protecting himself from a very dangerous young woman. I hate to think what could have happened to him if he hadn’t been choking her.

Occupy Boston’s story sounds a little bit more plausible. And even after such an attack their press release maintains composure and goodwill, even towards the officers involved, whom they avoid implicating in any wrongdoing as “simply following orders.”

Well, “simply following orders” does not actually get anybody off the hook. Officers need to be investigated and, if necessary, punished over this.

Previously, I had no particular enthusiasm for the Occupy movement. I found it to be an interesting exercise in democracy. But now I am angry on the protesters behalf. Our government must never be allowed to treat peaceful citizens this way. Never. No matter what side of the political divide one is on, I hope we can agree with that.

For more information visit Occupy Boston (and below is a video clip from the Associated Press, via Occupy Boston).

And please share this story with others, we need to know how our police are behaving. They work for us, after all.

Dear Occupy Wall Street: More on Distributism

I wrote about distributism and the Occupy Wall Street movement last week and mentioned that distributism is really common sense.  Concentrating wealth leads to power imbalances, injustice, and instability – both economic and social – as we are witnessing right now.

While distributism tends to be found among a certain subset of GK Chesterton-loving Catholics, distributism is not inherently Catholic or religious (though I happen to be Catholic, I think the case for distributism can be – and often should be – made on purely secular grounds).

So in this post I want to explore some secular aspects of distributism. I should say at the start that I am an ethicist, not an economist, but I know some of the places where distributism engages ethics and social philosophy, so that is what I will concentrate on. And please leave a comment if you know something I don’t. I like to learn.

Aristotle (Wikimedia)

As I said before, the idea that it is good to have a large middle class goes back to Aristotle, who said so in his Politics (Book 4, Ch. 11; Book 5, Ch. 1). Having a large middle class creates camaraderie and stability, and if they are also the ruling class (just by their large numbers) then they lend legitimacy to the government because they represent a majority of the population. A pretty basic idea from 23 centuries ago, and it still makes sense.

Moving 21 centuries into the future from Aristotle, Alexis de Tocqueville, the brilliant French social philosopher who ventured across the US in the 1830s, was fascinated by early America’s political and economic decentralization (in the North, not the South). He compared American’s can-do and independent local spirit with the French people’s feelings of powerlessness due to centralization, where no one would do anything without central approval.

Alexis de Tocqueville (Wikimedia)

Decentralization led to an empowered and participatory citizenry who were willing to get things done both politically and economically.

Centralization weakened local initiative and sapped the nation of talent overall, because it forced people to obey a few central authorities, making the citizenry into mindless followers with no feelings of hope for their own futures, only feelings of need for others to come help them.

This is the current situation in the United States, even moreso economically than politically (though both are heavily centralizing). Wal-Mart moves in and destroys dozens of small entrepreneurs. Local talent is lost, central planning gains. The same is repeated over and over again.

Brian’s Links 12 October 2011: Police Brutality, Legality, and Cyborgs

Regardless of your opinion of the Occupy Wall Street protests, there is something about them that should anger every American. The police brutality that has been permitted in response. Our government must not treat peaceful citizens this way. The offending police officers need to face legal action. This is just one video of countless, I post this particular one because it is from Russia Today and the irony is just too much.

Watch the guy in a suit wade easily through the turmoil at 1:20!

Keep those cameras rolling…

Jana Bennett on abortion and the death penalty…  can Catholics oppose both or only one?

ScienceNow on new biofuels produced directly by solar energy.

Palau prepares to take legal action over climate change.

And the Marshall Islands completely protects all sharks from hunting.

Al-Awlaki’s death. Terrorist, yes. American citizen, yes. Killing US citizens without due process? Last I checked that was even less allowed that beating peaceful American protesters.

And on the subject of terrorists, Al-Qaeda demands that Iran stop spreading 9/11 conspiracy theories! Because sometimes evil doesn’t want to hide: instead, in its pride, it demands proper attribution.

Lab rat gets artificial cerebellum and becomes a cyber-rat. The first partially disembrained and reconstructed creature?

And a monkey controls a computer simulation of a hand with only its mind.

A Paris mosque’s role in saving Jews in World War Two. A story that needs to be told.

And the Devil went down to Georgia. Just because winning fiddle battles with the Devil makes everything a tiny bit better.

Understanding what concerns the other side

A great op-ed piece by a sociologist, of course … “To move forward, we, as a country, need to lower the political conflict. Yes, the views found in fundamentalist churches are not exactly the same as those at the National Science Foundation. But we would see less of the polarizing “we real Americans” rhetoric from the religious right if its members were not ridiculed as know-nothings.” And I agree … he actually derives his opinion from data he’s gathered in regard to actual Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians as well.

Robert Bellah on his new book: Religion in Human Evolution

An interesting interview with Robert Bellah on incorporating biological and evolutionary sciences into the social sciences. Also a few interesting remarks on the discipline of sociology and biases against religion in the academy:

http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2011/09/14/nothing-is-ever-lost/