Article first published on Technorati as Xave's Faves: A Cop Speaks Frankly on Occupy Wall Street
DISCLAIMER: All posts in the "Xave's Faves" section are re-posts and/or excerpts from anonymous police message boards. The original authors are unknown unless specifically credited, and no statement is made as to their truthfulness or accuracy. The opinions and statements made in this category are presented for general interest/entertainment only, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or ideas of Xavier Onassis.
In other words, items in this section may be gossip, nonsense, BS, unsubstantiated rumor and/or flat out lies, and I don't know who wrote them. I put them up here because I found them enjoyable to read and thought you might, too. — XO
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Today's Xave's Fave is from PBSO. I haven't edited at all other than to break paragraphs. This is all one post. It isn't funny, either. I know, you just thought, "Well gee, your Xave's Faves are never funny, what else is new?" But this one really REALLY isn't. It's stomach turning.
Anonymous poster: I find it very interesting that police officers and deputies across the country have not figured out that the Occupy groups are fighting for their (law enforcement officers futures) as well as our country's.
f the top 1% continue with their privatization movements and union dissolutions the officers now relishing trashing the Occupy group members will find themselves sitting beside them. Think it can't happen - think again.
I have seen very little commentary about Occupy from any police officer, either positive or negative. I was a bit surprised to see this post pop up on www.pbsotalk.com.
Anonymous poster: Here in Florida we've already seen our legislature vote to put 2/3 of the states Department of Corrections under privatization - selling it off in effect to GEO. (A court intervention is in progress but with the courts filled with Republican appointees it may not go well).
We now (along with all other state employees) must pay 3% of our pay into the state pension - but not get a penny more in retirement, plus we will no longer receive a COLA on any income earned after 7/1/11. Piece by piece the Republicans are whittling away at law enforcement benefits, upping the # of years they have to work to retirement, trying to limit over-time as included in pension payouts, etc.
Blackwater, GEO and others in the future would have no qualms about moving into law enforcement just as easily as they are taking over the Corrections field.
Think it can't happen open your eyes and see what's happening to law enforcement across this country. They want us to serve at their bidding but don't think we deserve the pay and benefits we've worked so hard to get.
I am also very disturbed by the military-industrial complex branching out into prisons and public safety. This is well underway, not only among prisons but among police and fire departments. The primary group behind the "papers please" law in Arizona is a private prison company.
The whole thing is so bad for our society in so many ways. We have allowed corporations to lobby our legislature to the point where the same people who profit from imprisoning people can push to make more things illegal and carry stiffer sentences.
The Cash for Kids debacle was surprising only in that the judge got caught and went to jail. Legislators and corporate lobbyists commit this corruption day in and day out all over America.
Even that doesn't satisfy their greed. The new trend is having the prisoners then work as firefighters. Sumter County, Georgia is apparently at the head of pack, and this ingenious plan is working its way through other counties in Georgia. They're unpaid of course, saving the government money.
So taxpayers pay politicians, who take money from corporate lobbyists, who get prisons privatized. The same lobbyists recommend increased criminalization and harsher sentencing, generating more customers. The politicians, who depend on corporate campaign contributions, dance with the ones that brung them. More people go to prison, and stay there longer.
The taxpayers then pay the corporations to house their fellow citizens. The politicians cut funding to public safety so the corporations won't have to pay taxes; those savings are worked around by closing fire stations and having the prisoners do public safety work for free, eliminating firefighter jobs.
Congratulations, America. We now have corporations literally enslaving us with the help of our government. Don't think we need to Occupy?