In such a climate of media-endorsed military/police paranoia, it's not surprising that the day after the 60 Minutes stroke job an NYPD counterterrorism commander is seen randomly pepper spraying citizens for expressing views contrary to the flag-waving norm.
Those on the top in this society are trying desperately to hold onto all the power and wealth they've accumulated. They're like deer caught in the headlights of history. So it's not surprising to see NYPD cops who, by now, must be so thoroughly brainwashed in post-9/11 paranoia they're ready to play out the things Chief Bouza speaks of on a scale he could not have imagined in 1990. We see NYPD cops near Wall Street attacking harmless, peaceful street protesters simply expressing a desire for economic justice. When have we seen a right wing Tea Party demonstration calling for an end to taxes and programs for the poor attacked like this?
Which takes us back to the opening of this story. Whether a society is seen as a "police state" depends entirely on whose ox is being gored. To cite an egregious example, the powerful and elite in Guatemala during the 1970s and "80s did not see their society as a police state -- at least not in a critical way. Instead, this class saw what the police and military were doing (in this case, slaughtering and "disappearing" thousands) as necessary for their security, necessary to keep a massive, poor Native American population and their leftist supporters in check.
Right wing police defenders might take this as a reason to praise this country. See! Our police and military are not slaughtering people by the thousands. That's because, again, we're a sophisticated, "soft" police state. But the identical dynamic works here: The police use the power they have and the discretion they are given, as Chief Bouza makes clear, to do what cops feel is necessary to check "the group they've been pressured, implicitly, to control."
Chief Bouza clearly sympathizes with cops in how they are placed by society between a rock and a hard place. Some cops clearly take personal joy in abusing leftists who would publicly demand justice. But cops are necessary in a society, and the job is not an easy one. Most cops are decent working men and women simply caught in the vice. That seems to have been the case in New York, with a few cops stirring things up to create a chaotic situation good cops were, then, compelled to address.
But it's also tough being a leftist in America. The media is bought and sold by huge, cold-blooded, profit-making corporations and money runs our democracy to the point we have a government dominated by bullshitters and panderers. When a concerned citizens has had enough and takes to the streets, these days he or she is corralled and humiliated by a range of sophisticated and well-funded police agencies. Marginalization is assured.
What's an American leftist to do?
What the young activists in New York are doing is a good model. You turn into Howard Beal and declare, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Everybody gets cameras and puts quotes from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on posters or t-shirts. You realize the poor slob in uniform in front of you with the can of pepper spray is also a working man or woman and it's him breaking the law when he pepper sprays you or slams you into a Volvo for using your First Amendment rights.
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