There are children's books on all of those things.

The book contains no such description. Is specifically describes water cannons being turned on RIOTERS. Of course any child is going to know that it's POSSIBLE to turn a riot cannon on anyone at all, even people who aren't rioting, but the book does not endorse or even MENTION turning them on protestors.

Besides, the book is entitled "Police Cars" and riot control trucks and SWAT vans are police cars. Why on earth would you NOT include them?

I don’t see anyone rushing to make books covering the military occupying Iraq and fighting terrorists or busting down on drug labs or prostitution.

Well there’s a book on anything, it just matters whether it sells or is an obscure print-on-demand run.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D4&field-keywords=Iraq+Warc+

A lot of it seems quite unlikely (I much prefer Brave New World or V for Vendetta when it comes to such stuff), but there was certainly the odd element that appeared to have been lifted straight out of Orwell’s nightmare and put to work…

This utter crock of shit War on Terror that’s been rammed down our throats seems almost too cliched to have any currency, but unfortunately the long-term creation of fuckwits program has been bearing fruit for a while now…

I hope the left of center hereabouts that are getting their backs up about the cop images in that book understand that it is precisely the same as when the right of center get their backs up on anything but abstinence.

Because sex is equivalent to State-sponsored repression?

But riot control trucks and SWAT vans are not inherently malicious or anti-democratic

How many riots have there been in the US in last half-century that weren’t the result of the police beating or killing someone?
1) Create a need.
2) Fill it.
3) Profit!

My young boy at 2 1/2 is completely infatuated with cars n trucks n such. I probably was too, and like me he’ll read any book he chooses to, I’ll be along for the ride.

I mention the cars because I loathe the NA transportation scene, on which I could if I chose call myself expert and for advice on which I have been paid. I hoped my boy wouldn’t fall in love with cars, but, I’ll just have to roll with it.

I hope the left of center hereabouts that are getting their backs up about the cop images in that book understand that it is precisely the same as when the right of center get their backs up on anything but abstinence. 

Because it aint pretty.

Europe, on the other hand, was fairly developed by then. In 1750 the average rate across euro nations was 45 per 100,000. Now it’s 3 per 100,000.

Rosy views of the past are often accepted for a lack of information to the contrary, but everywhere information can be had it demonstrates that people have been progressive over the long-haul, not regressive. There are ups and downs, war in particular drops homicide rates dramatically, but in general homicide rates have dropped radically since “the past”

If you want to imagine that frontiers were less hostile than developed areas in the past, I can tell you you will need your imagination. Homicide rates have dropped, not risen.

Maybe I’m only reading it that way because, if I try to talk about my experiences, some people tell me I must have been violent and must have done something to deserve the violence and ptsd, and I wonder where people learn the victim-blaming.

Every library has books on war, on torture, on murder, on drugs, on every vice and crime imagineable. Most kids never touch them, because they’d rather read something like the latest fantasy novel or a collection of sci-fi short stories or whatever. Sure, there’s always going to be a subset of kids who enjoy the various illustrated guides to WWII vehicles or who on a whim pick up and skim through ocollections of old newspaper articles on the IRA or the Kosovo War – I personally fell into that category from a very young age, six or seven years old. But the only harm that can come from it is if they aren’t given the tools to make sense of it in some way.

My father has told me stories of how when my mother decided to take away my brothers’ and my toy guns because she didn’t like the idea of such violent imaginings, we’d use sticks or cardboard tubes, or even our fingers. You could easily hear that same anecdote or similar from millions of families, stretching back over the past century, I’d bet good money on it.

Kids are going to be exposed to this stuff no matter what. But the only harm that ever comes of it is when the parents don’t help the kids understand properly. My father was a doctor, my mother worked with animals, I was taught from a very early age that life is precious and that even the “lesser” animals are more like us than we sometimes wish to admit. I was taught gentleness and compassion, and I was made to understand that violence, REAL violence, was unacceptable, that it was a last resort. All my life I’ve played video games, I must have “killed” many millions of enemies over the years, but I’ve never so much as struck another person in anger, even when my own safety has been on the line.

Looking back, more than anything I wish I had had someone who was willing to teach me about the darkness and the cruelty of the world. It’s a hard and isolating thing to teach yourself about war, hatred, stupidity, and greed – I’ve got the scars to prove it. I’d much rather have had someone to guide me, to help me make sense of human violence, to reassure me that despite these social ills there were ways to fight against them, to protect the good things.

But all I ever had were the very books Mr. Stearns is complaining about. And you know what? I learned more from the biased, unsavory, unsettling scrawlings of propagandists than I ever did from my formal educators. I put 2 and 2 together and I figured out what bullshit looked like. As a child I saw the flaws and contradictions that grown adults seem to miss. Why? Because I’m somehow special? No. I just had access to multiple competeing sources of bullshit, and the contradictions made me ask questions.

The most dangerous thing in the world is growing up not knowing that there are other ways of thinking about the world.

The reality is that the only other option is not to have books about this crap, but it’s fair to say few here would agree to that route.