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We have been keeping an eye on what's going on with the Solidarity Singers, the people who gather each day to sing in the rotunda of the capitol building in Madison, thereby inconveniencing Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin. Walker very much would like to run for president and, therefore, does not like to be annoyed by people in the course of selling off the state piecemeal to the people who might one day fund his campaign. So his apparatchiks in the state government have sic'ced the capitol cops on the singers, resulting in the arrests of several dangerous grandparents. However, recently, this has ceased to be amusing. The capitol cops -- and tell me again that law-enforcement in this country has not been dangerous militarized at every level -- have taken to use "pain compliance" techniques to affect these arrests, which serves no other function except to scare people into Not Doing It Again. This is the kind of logic common to people nostalgic for the old South Africa,

The National Lawyers Guild has gone up the wall.

Two well publicized arrests of African Americans at the Solidarity Sing Along August 26 in the Wisconsin State Capitol showed Capitol Police officers using excessive force and pain compliance techniques. Christopher (C.J.) Terrell's arms were wrenched behind him and police applied to pressure to the front and side of his neck to immobilize him, after he sat down during his arrest, then he was dragged out with arms pinned behind him. Six officers tackled Damon Terrell, pinned him to the marble rotunda floor, twisted his wrist, and carried him out in a prone position face down; he was later charged with felony assault of an officer although he appears to be the victim. On August 21 a young woman was arrested using pain compliance as well.

And, of course, there's video.

This, I should remind you, is the 50th anniversary of what non-violent resistance can accomplish.

Pain compliance is polite torture. It is the infliction of physical pain in order to achieve a political end. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh, he's a nasty piece of work, Scott Walker is. He's the guy who gets e-mail spam from waterboard manufacturers.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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