Police Armored Vehicle Purchase Causes Uproar in New Hampshire Town

image: Keene, New Hampshire, don't need no stinkin' tanks for its police force

Here is a story from the Huffington Post with multiple storylines, all of which are indicators of just what is wrong with America these days. First up, you have the ongoing unwarranted militarization of local police forces:

"We're going to have our own tank."

That's what Keene, N.H., Mayor Kendall Lane whispered to Councilman Mitch Greenwald during a December city council meeting.

It's not quite a tank. But the quaint town of 23,000 -- scene of just two murders since 1999 -- had just accepted a $285,933 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to purchase a Bearcat, an eight-ton armored personnel vehicle made by Lenco Industries Inc.

But those plans are on hold for now, thanks to a backlash from feisty residents. Resistance began with Mike Clark, a 27-year-old handyman. Clark, who said he's had a couple encounters with Keene police and currently faces a charge of criminal mischief, read about the Homeland Security grant in the newspaper. "The police are already pretty brutal," Clark said, claiming he was roughed up in both his encounters with local police. "The last thing they need is this big piece of military equipment to make them think they're soldiers."

Then you have municipal governments who often conduct their business in almost complete secrecy because of public apathy:

Clark's father, Terry Clark, is on the Keene City Council, and so far the only council member to publicly oppose the Bearcat. But Mike Clark said he knows how the council works. "They can pass these things without any public discussion," Clark said. "And you don't hear about them until they've already passed. But if you collect enough signatures, you can force them to reconsider the motion." Clark did just that, collecting more than 500 signatures opposing the Bearcat.

Throw in a federal government that has run up over five trillion in additional debt during just the past four years alone somehow still giving out massive amounts of money for such boondoggles:

Since the 1990s, the Pentagon has made military equipment available to local police departments for free or at steep discounts. This, along with drug war-related policies, has spurred a trend toward a more militarized domestic police force in America. Law enforcement and elected officials have argued for years that better-armed, high-powered police departments are needed to fight the war on drugs.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the war on terror has accelerated the trend toward militarization. Homeland Security hands out anti-terrorism grants to cities and towns, many specifically to buy military-grade equipment from companies like Lenco. In December, the Center for Investigative Reporting reported that Homeland Security grants totalled $34 billion, and went to such unlikely terrorism targets as Fargo, N.D.; Fon du Lac, Wisc.; and Canyon County, Idaho. The report noted that because of the grants, defense contractors that long served the Pentagon exclusively have increasingly turned looked to police departments, hoping to tap a "homeland security market" expected to reach $19 billion by 2014.

Shake well, and when you're done you'll get one of the most hateable statements from a contemptable Corporate Flack I've read yet:

Jim Massery, the government sales manager for Pittsfield, Mass.-based Lenco, dismissed critics who wonder why a town with almost no crime would need a $300,000 armored truck. "I don't think there's any place in the country where you can say, 'That isn't a likely terrorist target,'" Massery said. "How would you know? We don't know what the terrorists are thinking. No one predicted that terrorists would take over airplanes on Sept. 11. If a group of terrorists decide to shoot up a shopping mall in a town like Keene, wouldn't you rather be prepared?"

Massery said Keene's anti-Bearcat citizens deliberately mischaracterize how the vehicle would be used, and pointed to incidents he said have saved police officers' lives. "When you see some Palestinian terrorist causing problems in Jerusalem, what do you usually see next? You see a tank with a cannon show up outside the guy's house, and the tank blows the house to smithereens. When a Lenco Bearcat shows up at a crime scene where a suicidal killer is holding hostages, it doesn't show up with a cannon. It shows up with a negotiator. Our trucks save lives. They save police lives. And I can't help but think that the people who are trying to stop this just don't think police officers' lives are worth saving."

Keene residents opposed to the Bearcat point to a video Lenco uses to market the vehicle to police departments. (See below.) The video doesn't stress negotiation, but shows the vehicle being used aggressively. The video viewpoint is similar to that of a shooter role-playing game, set to the AC/DC song "Thunderstruck." Cops dressed in camouflage tote assault weapons, pile in and out of the vehicle, and take aim at targets from around and behind the vehicle. They attach a battering ram to the front of the vehicle, break through the front door of a house, then inject tear gas. The Keene city council barred Clark from showing the video at the February committee meeting, and LENCO has since removed the video from publicly-accessible pages of its website.

"That video is totally irrelevant," Massery said. "We used some Hollywood effects and slick marketing to promote our product. So what?"

But hey, it's "free," right? So what the hell?

Some city council members have said that because the vehicle will be paid for by a federal grant, the town would be foolish not to take it. O'Meara doesn't buy it. "They try to say it's 'free.' Well it isn't free. Taxpayers are still paying to put this militaristic thing in our town. And it isn't about the money, anyway. It's about what kind of town we want to be."

And, after all of that, we get to the real problem afflicting not just Keene, New Hampshire, but the entire country these days:

The Keene city council will take up the issue again next month. Massery predicted opposition from Keene residents will ultimately be in vain. "We have Bearcats in 90 percent of the 100 or so largest cities in America," Massery said. "This is going to happen. It has already happened. To resist now would be like saying police officers should scrap the Glock and go back to the revolver. It's a fantasy."

Yep...when it comes to a battle between corporate profits and democracy these days, corporate profits always win. That's the part of the whole "personal liberty" equation rigid-minded Libertarians like Ron Paul never seem to get.

God Bless America, and be sure to bow down in welcome for our new corproate overlords when the jackboots and their fucking tank coming marching down your street.


Bonus: Dedicated to Lenco Government Sales Manager Jim Massery...I think we now know who the thieves are in this case

Rats in a Cage: Talk of Base Closings Angers New England States

Everyone is familiar with the concept of NIMBY-ism, the "Not In My Back Yard" mindset where people adamantly oppose the placing of certain economic development projects, from prisons, to power plants, to wind farms, to sports stadiums, where they will actually have to look at them...and job creation be damned. Now that "austerity" has become the new hot buzz word in the Imperial Capital, and the Pentagon in particular is being forced to reduce its grotesquely bloated budget, we are now starting to see a reverse NIMBY-ism, in which our ever gallant "leaders" are freaking out that military bases in their own states and districts will be on the chopping block.

Here is CBS Money Watch with a recent story covering this newest trend:

Less than seven years after local and state officials, business owners and civic groups beat back recommendations to shut a submarine base in Connecticut and a submarine repair yard in Maine, the Obama administration has again raised the specter of base closings.

President Barack Obama will ask Congress to approve a new round of domestic base closures, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday, although the timing was left vague and there is little chance lawmakers would agree to it in a presidential election year.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney and U.S. Sens. Joe Lieberman and Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, who are members of the House and Senate armed services committees, said in a news release that the proposal has drawn bipartisan opposition and would be "dead on arrival."

Courtney, whose district is home to the submarine base in Groton, called it a weak proposal because the administration did not include the cost of closing bases, which he said is enormous. In an interview Friday, he said residents have been nervous for years, "convinced that it's only a matter of time" before the issue of base closings returns.

To the north, where the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is viewed by some as vulnerable, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine derided the idea of another round of base closings and suggested that the military should look to close overseas bases before targeting domestic bases.

"All I can say is it's preposterous to suggest another base closing round," Snowe told The Associated Press.

The 212-year-old Navy yard that repairs and overhauls nuclear submarines in Kittery, Maine, has survived three reviews from Base Closure and Realignment Commission, including the most recent in 2005.

"The Kittery-Portsmouth shipyard is probably the one facility that has been through the most rigorous scrutiny of any military installation in the country, having been evaluated in three separate base closing rounds. It suggests to me how vital it is for maintaining our submarines," she said.

Snowe, joined by Maine colleague U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, issued a statement saying another round of base closings doesn't make sense either in advancing national security or saving money.

Right there in that last passage you can see why it is so difficult for this country to get serious about reducing the federal budget deficit, let alone the national debt. We can no longer afford our planet dominating military, but that doesn't mean the politicos and their constituents aren't going to fight like hell to keep their piece of the Military Keynesianism pie from being cut. Like I first wrote in my August 1st post from last year, "Rats in a Cage," as things unravel every interest group is going to fight like hell to protect their interests and the common good be damned.


Bonus: "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage"