“What bullsh*t, Liam. If your lot really thought they [i.e., the police] were part of the “99%”, you’d be doing something to protect them, too,” Sorcha Nic Congail
Well, it has to be admitted that my cousin Sorcha has a point. A powerful point. Not the sort of thing that I would have been inclined to explore on my own unbidden. But that’s what friends are for, I guess. To prod you along some paths you would never have even considered, left to your own devices.
Here’s where the hole ugly mess began:
Photo, allegedly of the dog Parrot moments before being shot to death by police.
I received a copy of this photo last weekend from an FB friend and as a dog lover was immediately horrified. As a kid I grew up with dogs — lots of dogs. Probably the best, most loving and loyal animals on earth. I’d long ago come to see dogs as man’s natural companion and most trusted comrade. My nerves just could not handle the image of a so-called “law enforcement officer” crushing the spine of a beloved family pet. I blanched at the nightmare of a child discovering this photo haunt the web, eternally memorializing the brutal killing of his best friend — the best friend that would have done anything to protect him, but whom he himself was powerless to help in his hour of need.
The accompanying text was spare. It described this officer backing a frightened family pet named Parrot into a corner, pouncing on the hapless creature and applying the full weight of his body to the animal’s back before it was corralled to a concrete pen where another officer executed the creature at point blank range with his service revolver.
In the context of a stream of videos and text updates on the various Occupy protests throughout the company, I assumed (though was not told) that a protester had brought the animal along, either not wanting to subject the poor beast to the intolerable neglect and lonliness that his/her long absence would create, or maybe even as some stype of service animal like a seeing eye dog. This time the cops had gone too far, I thought.
Scott Olsen, victim of police violence
I know — this was a sick, sick notion. The whole world had seen a participant of Occupy Oakland, 24 year-old, 2-tour Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen shot in the face by overzealous police in California. You may well say, “What kind of pervert are you, Liam, that you care more about a mere DOG than a human being?!”
I don’t blame you or disagree with you necessarily. That is essentially true; my reaction was indeed a reflection of the bizarre, inverted distinctions I maintain in my various relationships with humans and animals.
Like I said, I grew up considering dogs to be my closest, most loyal friends. My father was an expert at picking family pets. My mother nicknamed Dad “St. Francis” because of the uncanny rapport he had with all sorts of animals. He really did radiate an almsot supernatural calm among them that could lead to the most anamolous sights you’re ever likely to see outside of a Pixar(tm) animation. At one point he had somehow trained our two Labrador Retrievers to calmly (if inquisitively) accept the unfettered prescence of a parakeet hopping about the living room floor. Believe it or not, those dogs NEVER molested the bird.
And this is precisely where the pardoxes enter the story of the photo above. Three paradoxes, really.
Read the rest of these menacing meditations at Dystopia Diaries
