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Notes -
What do you think of the small-sized war between coal miners and police in the 1920s? To an extent I think you're saying 'things started to go wrong with Jim Crow and maybe the LA riots'. But some of the biggest unrest in the US had little to do with race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
Or the British using troops. They didn't have police back then so cavalry would do the work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre#Cavalry_charge
I think there's always been a certain heavier-handed aspect to policing when going beyond mere law enforcement into the political realm of what laws should there even be, how should power be distributed, who is in control. It's not a post-WW2 thing but an eternal thing. Riots and aggressive policing are two sides of the same coin, it's about showing who's in control in a visceral way.
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