Former Madison police chief David Couper, now an Episcopal priest, lamented...

Former Madison police chief David Couper, now an Episcopal priest, lamented three years ago about how “dead wrong” it was to equip our police with the tools of warfare such as rocket launchers, armored vehicles and camouflaged clothing. “When police become an occupying force in a neighborhood,” he wrote, they lose their effectiveness and lose the trust of citizens. “Police should model who we want to be – people who can negotiate difference without resorting to violence, and who are respectful of one another’s individual rights.”

Three years later things have only gotten worse. Our police departments are much more militarized and unprovoked assaults and excessive force are a daily occurrence. As Cornel West has pointed out, “the increasing militarization of U.S. society is inseparable from its imperial policies (211 deployments of U.S. armed forces in 67 countries since 1945).”


Donald Trump has declared that the police (and military, if necessary) need to “dominate the streets.” An out-of-control military budget and weapons like the F-35 ensure that the U.S. can dominate the rest of the globe. Make no mistake, whether in our neighborhoods or other nations, it is black, brown and red people of color who are subject to this control and domination, and the pollution that is so often concentrated in their neighborhoods.

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