Showing posts with label Police State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Police State. Show all posts

Friday 12 June 2020

Loyalty Means Everything to The Clones














"It's awkward having a policeman around the house.
Friends drop in, a man with a badge answers the door, the temperature drops 20 degrees.

You throw a party and that badge gets in the way. 
All of a sudden there isn't a straight man in the crowd. 
Everybody's a comedian. 
"Don't drink too much," 
somebody says, 
"or the man with a badge'll run you in." 

Or 
"How's it going, Dick Tracy? 
How many jaywalkers did you pinch today?" 

And then there's always the one who wants to know how many apples you stole.

All at once you lost your first name. 
You're a cop, a flatfoot, a bull, a dick, John Law
You're the fuzz, the heat
you're poison, you're trouble, you're bad news

They call you everything, but never a policeman.

It's not much of a life, unless you d on't mind missing a Dodger game because the hotshot phone rings. 

Unless you like working Saturdays, Sundays, 
and holidays, at a job that doesn't pay overtime.

Oh, the pay's adequate-- if you count pennies you can put your kid through college, but you better plan on seeing Europe on your television set.

And then there's your first night on the beat. 
When you try to arrest a drunken prostitute in a Main St. bar and she rips your new uniform to shreds. 

You'll buy another one-- out of your own pocket.

And you're going to rub elbows with the elite-- pimps, addicts, thieves, bums, winos, girls who can't keep an address and men who don't care. 
Liars, cheats, con men--  the class of Skid Row.

And the heartbreak-- underfed kids, beaten kids, molested kids, lost kids, crying kids, homeless kids, hit-and-run kids, broken-arm kids, broken-leg kids, broken-head kids, sick kids, dying kids, dead kids. 

The old people nobody wants-- the reliefers, the pensioners, the ones who walk the street cold, and those who tried to keep warm and died in a $3 room with an unventilated gas heater. 

You'll walk your beat and try to pick up the pieces.

Do you have real adventure in your soul? 
You better have, because you're gonna do time in a prowl car. 
Oh, it's going to be a thrill a minute when you get an unknown-trouble call and hit a backyard at two in the morning, never knowing who you'll meet-- 
a kid with a knife, a pill-head with a gun, or two ex-cons with nothing to lose.

And you're going to have plenty of time to think. 
You'll draw duty in a lonely car, with nobody to talk to but your radio.

Four years in uniform and you'll have the ability, the experience and maybe the desire to be a detective. 
If you like to fly by the seat of your pants, this is where you belong. 
For every crime that's committed, you've got three million suspects to choose from. 
And most of the time, you'll have few facts and a lot of hunches. 
You'll run down leads that dead-end on you. 
You'll work all-night stakeouts that could last a week. 
You'll do leg work until you're sure you've talked to everybody in the state of California.

People who saw it happen - but really didn't. 
People who insist they did it - but really didn't. 
People who don't remember - those who try to forget. 
Those who tell The Truth - those who lie. 
You'll run the files until your eyes ache.

And paperwork? 
Oh, you'll fill out a report when you're right, you'll fill out a report when you're wrong, you'll fill one out when you're not sure, you'll fill one out listing your leads, you'll fill one out when you have no leads, you'll fill out a report on the reports you've made! 
You'll write enough words in your lifetime to stock a library.

You'll learn to live with doubt, anxiety, frustration. 
Court decisions that tend to hinder rather than help you. 
Dorado, Morse, Escobedo, Cahan. 
You'll learn to live with the District Attorney, testifying in court, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, judges, juries, witnesses. 
And sometimes you're not going to be happy with the outcome.

But there's also this: there are over 5,000 men in this city, who know that being a policeman is an endless, glamourless, thankless job that's gotta be done.

I know it, too, and I'm damn glad to be one of them."

Monday 21 January 2019

WPC : Yaz and The Rize of The British Policewoman


"Grown-ups really shouldn't need to call The Internet Police to sort it out for them."

Les Miserables isn't 
about The Policeman.




Jamie :
So, you’re sort of like a  — 
World Secret Police..?

Brig. Lethbridge-Stewart :
Well, no, we don’t actually arrest people — we just investigate.



[Call centre / Tardis] 

POLLY: 
UK Security Helpline. 
This is Polly. How can I help?

Our Lady : 
I'm sorry, what? 

POLLY: 
UK Security Helpline. 
How can I help?

Our Lady : 
Get me Kate Stewart at UNIT. 
This is a code zero emergency.

POLLY :
I don't know what that is, I'm afraid. 
Which organisation did you say?

Our Lady : 
UNIT. Unified Intelligence Taskforce. 
This is incredibly urgent. 
The fate of the entire planet is at stake.

POLLY: 
Checking for you. 
Oh, I'm so sorry. 

UNIT operations have been suspended pending review. 

Our Lady : 
What? No, it can't have been. 

UNIT is a fundamentally vital protection for planet Earth against alien invasion.

POLLY: 
Yes, but when did that last happen?

Our Lady : 
Now! Right now!
What happened to it?

POLLY: 
Just checking. 

All UNIT operations were put on hold following financial disputes and subsequent funding withdrawal by the UK's major international partners.


Our Lady : 
You're kidding. 

POLLY: 
Other Armed Forces are available if you can answer a couple of questions to help me best direct your call.

(The Doctor ends the call.)

Our Lady : 
We're on our own. 



The Austro-Hungarian Empire was the ideal model of a Police State.

It copied (and perfected) the French model refined during the Revolutionary, Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic eras.

It was said of the Hapsburg Empire of Prince Metternich, it was maintained by —

A Standing Army of Soldiers

A Sitting Army of Bureaucrats

A Kneeling Army of Priests 

and 

A Creeping Army of Informants




This is why I am so interested by the timeliness of the new BBC adaptation of Les Miserables 



And, by Bane knitting —




The Colourful Jester : 
It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. 
It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known...
 
(Mel comes running in

MEL: 
Never mind the Sydney Carton heroics!
You're not signing on as a martyr yet. 

The Colourful Jester :
Go away, Mel. Go away. 

MEL: 
That trial was an illusion...!

(The tumbril vanishes and the Doctor falls onto the cobblestones.)
 

The Colourful Jester :
Ow! You've ruined everything!






Run, You Brilliant Girl —

and

BE A DOCTOR



A young Police Constable approaches two squabbling women. Her attitude to policing seems to channel Sgt Cawood from Happy Valley.

SONIA: 
She smashed it with a hammer!

JANEY: 
Cos you keyed me nearside door!

SONIA: 
Because you parked in my spot!

JANEY: 
It's not your spot. 
There are no spots.

YAZ: 
Ladies, please! 
Thank you. 

Can I suggest a simple solution? 

 “ Never Ask for Permission, It’s a Complete Waste of Time. ” 
— Tony Benn 

You pay for her cracked window,
 you pay for her scratched door, 
and we all agree that parking round here is a nightmare —

But that grown-ups really shouldn't need to call The Police to sort it out for them. 

Now, if we're all agreed on that, 
there's no need for me to take any further Police Action and we can all get on with our lives. 

What do you reckon?

[Police car / Police station]

YASMIN: 
I'm just saying,  
I am capable of more 
 than parking disputes.

RAMESH: 
And I keep telling you, 
Don't run before you can walk. 

You're a probationer, Yaz. 
Learn The Basics.

From Who? (See What I Did There..?)  
— She was sent out to attend the parking incident solo, so she already  knows “The Basics of Routine Community-Policing”, well enoughto do it unsupervised, without additional officers or back-up, whilst sleep-walking underwater, and with the lights off for the entire street, as well as the next 3 streets on either side. 

She Doesn’t Need Supervision
And They Know That.
Because She’s unpartnered — and out there on her own.

YAZ : 
I want to do more

Can you not get them to give me something that'll test me? 

Something a bit different.

RAMESH: 
There is something that just came in....
If you want ‘different’....


“For a over a Thousand Generations, The Jedi Knights were the Guardians of Peace and Justice in The Old Republic —”

“We Can Only Protect You;
We Can’t Fight a War for a You.”

“We’re Not Soldiers.”


“Before The Dark Times —

Before The Empire.


But There are Alternatives to Fighting.

You Must Face Darth Vader, Again.




BILL MOYERS: 
We downloaded something from your Web site the other day and there you were talking about how you wanted the Jedi to be more than just fighters. 

You wanted them to be “spiritual,” but you didn’t say what you meant by that?


GEORGE LUCAS: 
Well, I — I guess they’re like ultimate father figures or negotiators

And — and at this point in time they are — 

They’re sent out to negotiate a — a deal.


They help to put forth answers where people are in the middle of a dispute.




GEORGE LUCAS: 
They’re aren’t an aggressive force at all. 
They try to — Conflict Resolution, I guess, is what you might — 


Intergalactic Therapists.


“This is an Unexpected Move for Her — it’s too aggressive.


Ah,
1985 :