Ted Rall for September 15, 2021

Interesting that one of the selling points for tasers, pepper spray and rubber bullets is that they are less lethal than bullets. It’s really NOT the tools that are the problem. It’s the wielders of the tools.

PS: That’s something we all have known for a long time: “Guns don’t kill people…”

Horrible terrorist-run countries are dictatorships that take away rights and choices from the citizens living there.

Civilized countries have broken “checks and balances” that silently allow states to tap dance around the rule of law and wantonly take away rights and choices from the citizens living there.

Ted makes a fine sobering point today.

Yes Ted, we know. We are no better than they are.

I agree with you on this one Ted

Very good, Mr. Rall, except if the protesters are storming the U.S. Capitol.

America has the very best equipment for “crowd” control. And, like the Taliban encourage vigilantes.

Can’t argue with this one…sadly. The big difference in the case of the United States is that we use more pricey implements for suppression that have to purchased from manufacturers. In a sense, putting down protesters in the United States is good for the economy.

Excellent, Theodore. Spot on without blaming Biden.

Yes, in Portland the police just stand back and let the mob do as they wish. How’s that working for you?

I was arrested in Washington, D.C., back in 1967 and taken to the back room of the precinct and roughed up. I didn’t resist at any point. The cops just didn’t like what we were doing. I was in a big crowd in NYC after Kent State protesting in Union Square. They brought in the tactical squad to break it up. I wasn’t injured, but the person beside me was clubbed to the ground.

And LRADs, and anonymous kidnapping squads, and armored vehicles, and …..

As I recall we have been calling unnecessary violence by police “brutality” for some time now. The use of recording cameras, civilian and police cams since Rodney King’s beating have become almost universal. In Minneapolis the police that are “savages” were arrested and charged, tried and found guilty. It may be too slow to come for some, but we are working on making our rights better served. We will always need to.

Stop voting for fascists.

and automooiles

Now we have “civilized” cops who are upset that they’re not allowed to use so much excessive force anymore… especially kneeling on a suspect’s neck…

Ted? Actually criticizing those who have bribed him?

I think this counts as one of the signs of the Apocalypse!

I’m pardonably proud of the April 2018 intelligent de-escalation in a public Toronto vehicular assault holding what appeared to be a gun, practiced by Constable Ken Lam. It could easily have gone badly but his training led to a bloodless resolution.

OT, but…

In July, one member of the mob that stormed Congress turned out to be dumb enough that a judge agreed to let him out of jail pending trial. Noting that a widely shared video showed Douglas Jensen exclaiming amazement that he was “touching the f*#&ing White House” when he was in fact touching the Capitol building, Judge Timothy Kelly suggested this showed he was not a leader of the movement in any sense. It was hard to believe Jensen could have coordinated with others or helped plan the attack, the judge said, “when he had no basic understanding of where he even was that day.”

It’s the same guy in panels 1 and 2. Nice touch.