#1448 Pillars of Copaganda and the Lies We Are Told About Police
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2021
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date 10/16/2021
Today we take a look at some of the structures of "copaganda," from misreported stats and coverups to propagandistic opinion articles and police procedurals that flood the pop culture landscape.
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SHOW NOTES
Ch. 1: Alec Karakatsanis on "Crime Surge" Copaganda - CounterSpin - Air Date 10-1-21
We hear from Alec Karakatsanis, executive director of Civil Rights Corps, and author of the book Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System.
Today we break down a new study that shows police killings were undercounted by MORE THAN HALF. This confirms what many of us have suspected about the "official data" on police violence, and it's only the tip of the iceberg.
Ch. 3: Downstream: Is Line of Duty 'Copaganda'? Part 1 - Novara Media - Air Date 5-5-21
From Paul Blart: Mall Cop to A Touch of Frost, ‘copaganda’ has our pop culture bang to rights. What impact does the ubiquity of police dramas on our screens have on the real criminal justice system?
Derecka Purnell draws from her experience as a human rights lawyer in her new book, “Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom,” to argue that police reform is an inadequate compromise to calls for abolition.
Democrats and Democratic Party-aligned media have allied with conservatives and right-wing media are rehashing the same tired responses: more police, longer sentences, and tougher laws. Guests Alec Karakatsanis and sociologist Tamara K. Nopper.
Ch. 6: Downstream: Is Line of Duty 'Copaganda'? Part 2 - Novara Media - Air Date 5-5-21
MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S)
Ch. 8: What the Hell Happened to Police and Criminal Justice Reform - WhoWhatWhy - Air Date 10-8-21
The dean of UC Berkeley’s Law School looks at how the courts have prioritized criminal control over civil rights for suspects and defendants.
VOICEMAILS
Ch. 9: Thank you for the quality of the show and to all medical workers - V from Central New York
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 10: Final comments on the comparison between police work and conspiracy cults
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions):
- Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr
- Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent
- Activism Music: This Fickle World by Theo Bard (https://theobard.bandcamp.com/track/this-fickle-world)
- Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of Left podcast in which we shall |
| 0:07.0 | take a look at some of the structures of Copaganda, from misreported stats and cover-ups |
| 0:12.8 | to propagandistic opinion articles and police procedurals that flood the pop culture |
| 0:17.6 | landscape. Clips today are from Counter-Spin, Sirius Inquiries Only, Novara Media, Democracy |
| 0:25.3 | Now, Psychations Needed, and Who What Why? |
| 0:34.5 | New York Times readers have seen a couple of stories recently about a reported rise in the |
| 0:40.0 | country's murder rate. Among the top-driving forces, readers were told, quote, |
| 0:46.0 | increased distrust between the police and the public after the murder of George Floyd, |
| 0:51.8 | including a pullback by the police in response to criticism. But reference to the unsupported |
| 0:59.6 | inflammatory, so-called Ferguson effect, is only one of the problems with the Times reporting here, |
| 1:05.9 | which sparked a thoughtful Twitter thread by our next guest. A former civil rights lawyer and |
| 1:11.4 | public defender, Alec Carri-Kutsanis is founder and executive director of Civil Rights Corps, |
| 1:17.6 | an author of the book, Usual Cruelty, the complicity of lawyers in the criminal injustice system. |
| 1:24.0 | He joins us now by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome to Counter-Spin, Alec Carri-Kutsanis. |
| 1:30.2 | Thank you so much for having me. Well, there's some overlap in the problems in the September 22nd |
| 1:37.5 | story, bylined Jeff Asher, and then the September 27th Neil McFarquart piece on what's called a |
| 1:45.0 | murder spike in cities across the US. But maybe start with Asher's, as it originally ran, |
| 1:52.0 | because that's relevant, what was so wrong and so troubling about that report? |
| 1:58.1 | There are a number of concerns. I think that the most obvious and simple concern to highlight first |
| 2:03.2 | is that Asher has a long history, first working at TIA, then working sort of covertly with |
| 2:10.3 | Palantir, the TIA venture capital backed, tech firm that works with police department, |
| 2:16.5 | military and defense contractors, and also Ayesan and other sort of carceral entities |
... |
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