General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: LAPD are domestic terrorists. [View all]cali
(114,904 posts)look, you're a simplistic, black and white "thinker".
The LAPD is a large organization. Clearly it has done some very bad things and has a long history of corruption, but that isn't the sum total of the LAPD- anymore than atrocities committed by some National Guard members, for instance constitute the sum total of The National Guard. Large institutions are almost never without corruption and criminal activity. Part of that is an extension of institutional behavior. It's complicated.
The LAPD needs to be investigated by an independent entity. It needs reform. It needs, in simple words, to clean house, but it does not need to be abolished. Would that we lived in a place and time where police weren't needed. We do not.
Terrorism as a word suffers from such pervasive overuse and misuse that its been rendered near meaningless. I don't use it. At all. It's just become a bogie word like "Communism" during the 50s and 60s. It's used by people to indicate the worst possible thing anybody or any entity could be. It's fucking lazy to fling it about as a monkey flings shit.
At this point, who or what hasn't been labeled with the "T" word? President Bush was. President Obama has been. So has Congress, the Tea Party and on and on.
Surely it's not that hard to articulate one's thoughts about a person or organization without falling back on a word so overused that it now means virtually nothing.
Well, I wish it weren't.