The elephant in the room
The Dallas shooting was both tragic and counter-productive, but also inevitable.
It's ridiculous to think that cops can continue to kill hundreds of people every year, year after year, without there eventually being a violent reaction.
Unless real reforms are put into place, and there is no evidence of this happening, this shooting will only be the first of many.
However, that isn't the element of this story that bothers me the most.
It's this part.
The Dallas shooter wasn't representative of BlackLivesMatter, but he was inspired by some of the extreme rhetoric surrounding it.
According to a large percentage of people in the movement, this is about race first and foremost. Specifically, it's about white people killing black people.
If you don't believe me, visit the GOS almost any time of the week and see the daily "I'm sorry for being white" diaries.
It's like being white is to liberals like Original Sin is to Catholics.
The thing is, when you look at the numbers, the reality is that the problem is cops killing people.
That's it. The problem doesn't extend any further than that.
This essay is going to be about numbers.
The disturbing and growing problem that I've seen on the GOS and elsewhere is how hostile liberals have become to these numbers when it doesn't fit into their world view. It's almost like talking to conservatives about global warming.
White People Killing Black People
When you go to the FBI web site and look at the stats for murder, it becomes clear that violent crime is segregated.
Blacks kill black people and whites kill white people. Murder between races isn't common.
Less than 8% of blacks being murdered are done by whites.
Less than 15% of whites being murdered are done by blacks.
This is, of course, outside of police shootings which are almost never called murder. I'll address that shortly.
My point is that outside of people in police uniforms, there is no reasonable evidence of blacks being in danger of being killed by whites. Or visa versa.
White Cops Shooting Black People
There are many different sources and many different numbers, but the patterns remain the same year after year.
Half or more of the people killed by cops are white.
Yes, blacks are killed by a ratio of two to three times more often, and that's important. I'm not saying otherwise.
But I am saying that any examination of an issue that starts by dismissing a majority of the instances as irrelevant is not a serious examination. It's someone looking for a predetermined conclusion.
I got to thinking about this.
There are just short of a million sworn police officers in America.
Roughly 75% of them are white.
There are 223,553,000 white people in America.
Let's say for the sake of argument that every single black killed by a cop was killed by a white cop.
It's ridiculous, but follow my thought for a moment.
If you add together the FBI murder number, and blacks killed by (white) cops, then over 62% of all blacks killed by whites were killed just by cops.
To put it in another way, 62% of blacks killed by whites was done by an organization that only makes up just 0.335% of the white population.
And liberals want to tell us that ALL whites are the problem?!?
That's ridiculous.
It's like saying all whites are responsible for KKK cross-burnings.
The problem is obviously a trigger-happy cops problem.
Now we could go back to my assumption above about all cop shootings being done by white cops and adjust the numbers to be more proportional and realistic. Maybe by saying that 25% of cop shootings were done by minority race cops, but by doing so the entire premise of this being a white people killing black people problem breaks down from a logical contradiction.
Once again we return to the problem being obviously a trigger-happy cops problem.
So why are white liberals so determined to make this into a race problem?
I don't know, but it doesn't appear to be being pushed from the media. It appears that white liberals really want to blame themselves.
My concern is that all their talk of this being about race, instead of cops, is that it's going to cause innocent people to be killed.
Lessons Of Low Expectations
"White Privilege!" liberals will be quick to respond with. Because whites have it soooo good in America.
It's the all-inclusive shaming device for winning arguments with other liberals.
Yeh. Ah no.
Whites don't have it soooo good in America, and all it takes is a quick look overseas to know it.
Let's say that suddenly that problem is "fixed" and that blacks are "only" being killed at the same rate as whites are.
Does BLM no longer have a reason to exist? Mission accomplished? Wrong.
Let’s look at our immediate neighbors to the north, Canada. The total number of citizens killed by law enforcement officers in the year 2014, was 14; that is 78 times less people than the US.If we look at the United Kingdom, 1 person was killed by police in 2014 and 0 in 2013. English police reportedly fired guns a total of three times in all of 2013, with zero reported fatalities.
From 2010 through 2014, there were four fatal police shootings in England, which has a population of about 52 million. By contrast, Albuquerque, N.M., with a population 1 percent the size of England’s, had 26 fatal police shootings in that same time period.
China, whose population is 4 and 1/2 times the size of the United States, recorded 12 killings by law enforcement officers in 2014.
Let that sink in. Law enforcement in the US killed 92 times more people than a country with nearly 1.4 billion people.It doesn’t stop there.
From 2013-2014, German police killed absolutely no one.
In the entire history of Iceland police, they have only killed 1 person ever.
All that would happen if blacks were "only" being killed by cops in this country at the same rate as whites is that blacks would still be getting killed at around 50 times the rate as anyone else in a first world country.
Talk about lowered expectations!
On the other hand, it seems perfect for today's liberal politics, where real world defeats are sold to us as symbolic victories.
Thinking Outside The Box
Every once in a while someone says something so incisive that it causes you to look at an issue in an entirely different way.
Rev. Jesse Jackson managed to do that in 2015.
Police kill more whites than blacks. Of the 700 killings it has recorded, the Guardian reports that 340 were white, 179 black and 101 Hispanic. The Post reports that African-American men were 40 percent of the unarmed deaths, but whites and Hispanics made up the majority. The system has a class bias as well as a race bias. An investigation by Alternet’s Zaid Jilani revealed that in the first five months of this year, 95 percent of police killings occurred in neighborhoods with median family incomes under $100,000. There were no killings in neighborhoods with median family incomes of $200,000 or above.
Not surprisingly, lower-income whites are more likely to say police abuse of authority is on the rise than middle- or upper-income whites.
Excessive force puts white lives at risk, as well as those of blacks and Hispanics. But the silence of the white community and of the white church is deafening. The victims of police abuse are left to seek justice on their own.
So I went looking for the Zaid Jilani article Reverand Jackson was referring to and I found it.
For the 441 police killings I researched, the average neighborhood family income where a killing occurred was $57,764. The median family income was $52,907.
Just over five percent of the killings were in neighborhoods with over $100,000 median family income. The richest neighborhood that saw a killing was the 700 block on 14th street in northwest Washington, D.C.
This skews against what the actual income variation in America is. A household income of $100,000 or more puts you in the top 21% of American income earners; this means that incomes below this number are overrepresented by four times compared to the income distribution in how often they are killed by police.
Being black makes you three times as likely to be killed by cops, but being middle-class or poor makes you four times as likely to be killed by cops. In fact, according to this article, "95 percent of reported police killings were in neighborhoods with incomes under $100,000."
Looking at this from face value, the greater determining factor of whether you are going to be shot by the cops is the amount of cash in your pocket and where you live, not the color of your skin.
Then I ran across this article in Mother Jones.
When you ask why such "bad" cops are nevertheless armed and allowed to patrol the streets, one begins to see that lurking beneath this violence is a fiscal menace: police departments forced to assist city officials in raising revenue, in many cases funding their own salaries—redirecting the very concept of keeping the peace into underwriting the budget.
Time and time again, these outrageous police killings start from traffic stops for extremely minor offenses.
But consider: In 2010, this collaboration between the Ferguson police and the courts generated $1.4 million in income for the city. This year, they will more than double that amount—$3.1 million—providing nearly a quarter of the city's $13 million budget, almost all of it extracted from its poorest African American citizens.
Then comes the money quote that links police shootings, Reverand Jackson's concerns, and this article,
In 2014, Ferguson's bottom-line-driven police force issued 16,000 arrest warrants to three-fourths of the town's total population of 21,000. Stop and think about that for a moment: In Ferguson, 75 percent of all residents had active outstanding arrest warrants. Most of the entire city was a virtual plantation of indentured revenue producers.
The problem of police killings goes far, far deeper than just blaming white people.
We have a deeply corrupt criminal justice system, and nothing will be accomplished until that is addressed.
Unfortunately, white liberals will flat out not listen to reason.
Comments
The symptom is white cops killing blacks, but ..........
Another symptom is cops killing poor people.
Let's look at this another way: Cops have become para-military enforcers of civil obedience directed and enforced against poor people, who often just happen to be black. It is also not such a stretch to presume that cops who have been trained to support "order" over "law" will quash legal protests and disturbances without considering the legitimacy and legality of the protest actions. They often prioritize the traffic and inconvenience such protests aggravate over the legal rights of those who are protesting.
Be a Friend of the Earth, cherish it and protect it.
Money, money, money
"Time and time again, these outrageous police killings start from traffic stops for extremely minor offenses."
Towns, as we know, using the poorest, usually black, people to raise money.
Have any of us been stopped 52 times by police?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/stopped-52-times-by-police-was-i...
thank you for this essay.
Women, of all races, are also targeted for these money raising
car stops and made up traffic law violations. Some of the fines for minor infractions are truly ridiculous.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Thanks! Indeed, it's
Thanks! Indeed, it's evidently those perceived as being more vulnerable, from groups least able to muster legal defences/a commotion over loved ones, who are typically most often being murdered. Hate/fear/division media propaganda and the imposition of the pathological, wealth-worshiping corporate culture measuring human worth by money upon the brainwashed in society seem to me to have worked to try to Keep America Backward.
In the US, easily identifiable people of Colour are often perceived by the bullying ignorant among police as likely poor and easily smeared into 'thug' status which is supposed to somehow justify their abuse and murders, making Existing While Black a hazard - but it seems to me to basically boil down to a pathology where those seen as easy prey are disposable, whether skin colour, disability or homelessness are used as the criteria to, essentially, identify someone as being 'too poor to really matter'. But the media 'othering' of people who happen to have a darker skin tone has kept old sicknesses alive as well...
We must keep Berning for democracy, whatever happens; Americans can still achieve that, although it seems to have come down to now or never.
Democracy - government of, by and for the people, with equal rights, treatment and opportunity for all - was the real American dream, not merely 'making good' by making a fortune. Money is everything only when people lack sufficient for their needs and comfort. As with most Americans now.
But all of us non-multi-millionaires/billionaires are basically disposable, not being one of Those Who Matter, by being able to buy public policy and the ability for greater riches at public expense.
It'sUsNotThemBeingTargeted# - united we stand, divided, we fall.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Careful
You're not allowed to say that. If anyone suspects you of thinking it you will be forced into a public act of contrition.
Cops killing blacks is the ultimate example of white privilege and consequently the ultimate justification for identity politics. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and Jesse Jackson all came to the conclusion that the only way forward was a coalition among working class whites and people of color. The first two were murdered. I suspect Jesse Jackson is alive because his voice has been safely removed from the hearing of working class whites. The only black voices working class whites hear join neo-liberal whites in lecturing them about white privilege.
Browse through the GOS and read the comments made about working class whites. One diarist wrote, to what appeared to be general agreement, that he didn't even want white working class votes for Clinton. (I'm reasonably sure she'll take them as long as she doesn't have to give anything in return.)
Why is it that when it comes time to pay the debt of white privilege the least privileged whites are always allocated the largest share?
There is still widespread racism in this country. It would be addressed far more effectively by integrating blacks and working class whites. Putting blacks and working class whites on separate identity islands isolates people who have essential interests in common from one another. It benefits people at the top including people of color at the top at the expense of people confined to the the identity islands.
The most obvious symptom of widespread racism in the US
is the continuing economic discrimination that disproportionately impoverishes african americans.
In another context, liberals have not been shy about pointing out the statistical implications of poverty in the US -- namely, when they (used to) observe that a considerable majority of welfare recipients were white, not black.
The wealthiest nation in the history of humanity is rife with endemic poverty, and the punishing social consequences thereof. It's sickening.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
The discovery that at this
The discovery that at this non-billionaire level we're all freaking people in this together would certainly benefit an awful lot of people, those conned by propaganda into thinking the most vulnerable people are somehow responsible for the socially toxic and economically disastrous results of the drain of a relative few parasites sucking the public dry for their own benefit to become billionaires at everyone else's expense, often while destroying the environment and polluting us all...
But the people united will never be defeated, and therefore this possibility terrifies the abusers. Hence the propaganda campaigns and the hate/fear/discrimination fostered regarding people of other skin colours, religions, political leaning or whatever other identifiable trait might be used to trigger a negative reaction to someone they'd probably like, if they only saw them as people. Scary...
Sorry, not up to browsing TOP - the stomach turns. And I used to practically live there...
You're obviously painfully right also about the horrendous level of racism despite shared essential interests, though I believe that to have been artificially fostered and something which would have vanished without the right-wing/corporate hate media. People aren't born with that sort of thing - it's inflicted on them, shrinking their world down to 'us and all of them', even 'us against all of them' creating a wretchedly sick society with a lot of easily manipulated people and, in the US, a lot of created horror.
A real American democracy would look so very different - I'd love to see it happen.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
TOP
Please don't apologize for not visiting the other place. I should have written "Those who have browsed . . ." I can only attribute my wording to the lateness of the hour. I don't go there either except sometimes when someone here provides a link.
This is why it was important for Hillary to sabotage
any connection btw Moral Mondays and Bernie.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
divide and conquer... the
divide and conquer... the most effective strategy of tyrannical governments throughout history
Funny you should use that
Funny you should use that term. Walker in Wi was caught on tape saying that exact phrase concerning the electorate and the state workers and it worked to perfection for him.
What is GOS?
I'd like to see those comments myself.
Great Orange Satan
A nickname given to the Daily Kos.
http://www.dailykos.com/
It's a shithole of glib, willfully ignorant, often pitifully stupid neoliberals infected with the Hillarian pox.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
No need to go so easy on them Sojurns...
You are too kind, but we all know it is much worse than that.
[video:https://youtu.be/dRd_vZT6zPY?t=9]
(Edited to add an M in the title and also does anyone know why the site embed parses off the ability to link a video from a particular starting point? The code still has the time modifier but the embed seems to ignore it.)
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
I will endeavor to do better!
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
I fully agree
I just wasn't familiar with the acronym
Thanks for posting this.
Reason.
Thanks.
Peace -
Murph
I see another Elephant in the Room
This one began at the same time and follows the abruptly expanding spike of aggressive civilian killings at the hands of police. Like the civilian killing trend, which abruptly spiked a decade ago and increased rapidly year over year, this other Elephant-in-the-Room appears to have a direct causal relationship to the trend. I think of it as our little Neocon war bonus.
My research indicates that the killer cops were likely deployed in US global wars, specifically in Iraq or Afghanistan, one or more times between 2002 and 2014.
As soldiers, they were trained to kill, serially and aggressively, non-white humans. With their current suicide rates approaching twenty per day, it is clear that their brains were gravely damaged by the experience. When they were discharged from the military, a special government program began to funnel them directly into the nation's police departments, complete with their untreated PTSD. Police departments that cooperated with the hiring program and proactively employed these trained killers, were rewarded with free military weaponry that could be used against the civilians they policed.
USians have steadfastly refused to recognize the causal connection between the murderous US wars and the growing domestic carnage that US-soldiers-turned-police use against unarmed citizens, everywhere in the nation. The government that produced this deadly demographic phenomenon will never allow this enlightenment to emerge. It could affect the people's willingness to sacrifice their futures for Empire's global depravity.
Instead, people are encouraged to indulge in paralyzing polarity, and their perpetual arguments about "guns" or "racism" are the very topics eagerly promoted by our Media Overlords. Social programming via positive reinforcement. Guns and racism, of course, were the national pastime long before this recent trend of police carnage hit the US. Grinding discussions about these ubiquitous issues has never produced a solution because they are not the problem. They are not the cause of the dystopian tragedy unfolding in the US. They are merely lagging indicators in socioeconomic collapse.
The American people are full participants in the manufactured denial of inconvenient truths. This is why they will not act to prevent these terrible outcomes and protect society. Is there a higher priority? Does their selective denial of reality indicate that the people instinctively feel they deserve what is happening to them?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Yup - and, apparently, other
Yup - and, apparently, other issues as well.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/09/27/press-tv-tragedy-of-us-police-tr...
http://homelandsecurityssi.com/homeland-security-training-israel
Say, what? WHY???!!!
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/homeland.html
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-trains-us-law-enforcement-in-counter...
https://www.revealnews.org/article-legacy/us-police-get-antiterror-train...
Sound familiar?
Seems to be a trend toward ensuring that many police officers are willing to kill citizens at the drop of a hat even when no hats are actually present... ever since the cheated-in Bush Admin and their initiation of the TPP and other corporate coups.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I don't see the Israeli connection in my own research
...but that's because I am looking only at the direct causes, the big bang that generates the current situation. (On the other hand, the interests of Israel and Saudi Arabia are the highest priority of the United States, via the Neocon agenda. If the US has a higher priority, I have yet to find it.)
In the context of Police violence against US civilians, the topic this essay, Israel tangential. There is a vast army of peddlers, consultants, and vendors that sell goods and services to both law enforcement and the military. Israel is just another vendor, although Mossad outshines most competitors in security services and covert warfare. If a police force has the money, they're going to go with the best. Although, those junkets to Israel are quite the marketing device.
Veterans Today slants toward a certain audience. That doesn't mean their sources are not credible, but their overall emphasis is agenda-based. On the other hand, whose isn't.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Whoops--I should have read your comment before posting
my link on the Israeli training of cops.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Several of us had a conversation on this topic a couple of days
ago but we didn't have the facts that you present. Many thanks. This should be a permanent part of this site because the militarization of the local police is a major wrong that needs to be righted.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
It's interesting the information that is left out of the news.
For example, the Dallas shooter who killed all the cops = was deployed to Afghanistan not that long ago.
He was angry about the experience. And angry to see the same type of indifferent kill-shots being used at home to kill black Americans.
Thanks for the feedback.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
You're welcome - I am grateful for your information.
The previous conversation mentioned how, years ago, many municipal police departments did not want ex-military people as officers because they had to be de-trained before they could be trained. As you point out, the military training is so extensive, and the person goes through it at a younger more impressionable age, that in an emergency situation, or a perceived emergency situation, the officer falls back on the original training - military - and ignores the academy training.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
The true borderline psychopaths among discharged soldiers
...the shooters who are smart and clever — they are scooped up right away by the US defense industry, the fat and rich beneficiaries of massive defense contracts. The born-to-kill hires become the shadow military, the privatized mercenary army that the US sends back to the hot zones to replace "official" US troops, sometimes by a ratio of 4 to 1. The US government can then tell the American people that the troops were withdrawn, while the new hires are paid six-figure salaries to continue the bloody wars, fully indemnified and unbound by any laws or treaties. The corporate-owned armies remain in strategic locations where they work to destabilize pre-designated countries so they can be depopulated and asset-stripped. Libya and Syria come to mind. As always, from their strategic perches, the defense contractors keep the drugs and tax free profits flowing, just as they have done since the Reagan years.
It's the ones who don't get the defense contractor jobs who are farmed out to the nation's police forces.
That is probably a good thing, when you think about the chickens who didn't come home to roost.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
You summed it up nicely right here....
That is indeed a huge factor in the shootings, but another one that is also usually completely overlooked is the direct tie in with prohibition.
The failed social policy we call "The War on DRUGS!!!" has got to end.
It is nothing more than a war on our own citizens to treat what every reasonable person admits is a health and education issue with a law enforcement response.
I can't think of a single other health and education issue that we dump 67 Billion a year in addressing and not only not improving the situation but worsening it.
In a war people always die to "Friendly" fire and right now our government has a DECLARED war against it's own citizens.
It's only to be expected that innocents will die during the persecution of a war. Hasn't that always been the case?
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
The demonization of those who use illegal drugs has been
part of US culture for over 100 years. When pot was made illegal in 1937, Harry Anslinger was a regular quotable on the dangers these people posed to civil society. Remember "dope fiends" - the users of pot and other now-illegal drugs actually gave up their humanity and were now fiends. Harsh, but believed.
The War on Drugs is an integral part of US foreign policy and has had roles in the overthrow of governments who didn't toe the corporate line. As you say, it needs terminating and the money sent to the Treasury or returned to the tax payers(not the tax avoiders).
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
From an article in the Atlantic
I am copying something from a series of essays that I wrote early in the year about police brutality. The differentiation between the mission of a cop versus the mission of a soldier comes from an article in the Atlantic. This differentiation makes it very clear why we need to demilitarize our police forces.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS
"As soldiers, they were trained to kill, serially and aggressively, non-white humans. With their current suicide rates approaching twenty per day, it is clear that their brains were gravely damaged by the experience."
" When they were discharged from the military, a special government program began to funnel them directly into the nation's police departments, complete with their untreated PTSD. Police departments that cooperated with the hiring program and proactively employed these trained killers, were rewarded with free military weaponry that could be used against the civilians they policed.
I had to read, and reread this several times. Didn't know about this program, was blaming so much on the military weapons the police now had. This, added to the incentive the police have to use the poorest people in their communities to raise money for the towns, devastating.
thank you for this essay.
You are right
The Forever War gets translated into a militarized occupation army at home.
But this essay was already long enough, so I left that for another day.
and when that's not good enough
we take cops and send them over to Israel to learn from the IDF how to pacify a population:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/ferguson-police-violenceisr...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
This is not the first time in history that this has happened
The 1870's were the wild west decade when the civil war veterens were turned loose - they had the knowledge, the guns and the 'can't matriculate back in society' mindset.
So interesting to see that the cop problem turns out to be the post war problem. ( except we do not have any post war - it is continuous war) And the police force militarization problem. Ironic isn't it? We thought all the problems were overseas, come back to bite. Karma for america.
While Prohibited By The Posse Comitatus Act...
The 1% has recognized that the police of yesteryear at some point would stay somewhat within the confines of their mission "To Serve And Protect." Thus increasing the vulnerability of the 1% as the income and economic inequality collapsed the low and middle income classes, to include the police and their families. At some point with this original model of policing the police would abandon their protection of the 1% ruling elite and allow the overthrow of the 1% rule...
Since The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 signed into law by Slick Willie Clinton with many new crimes and enhanced penalties targeting the lower classes and minorities we have seen a militarization of police and a steady decline of rights which have been upheld as constitutional by a conservative corporate SCOTUS...
The net result of the crimes and penalties has resulted in the largest per capita incarceration rate in the world, and vast numbers of citizens labeled as criminals with individual rights and liberties having been stripped from them. Many of our nation's youth have fallen into this trap and are forever marked as a target for low employment rates, unable to gain an education, and as a target for additional criminal charges and incarceration...
The "New Militarized Police" are a mercenary force designed to operate against the Citizens of the United States as a "Work Around To The Posse Comitatus Act" and provide protection to the vastly outnumbered 1% Ruling Elite by quelling any protest or demonstration even if peaceful against the interests of the 1%...
The militarized without a conscience police protected by it's "Blue Wall" is now free to murder at will...
They will not be charged and if charged they will not be convicted...
Is it any wonder that individuals are starting to target police?
I'm sure we will see more people with "Nothing Left To Lose" go out in a blaze of glory...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfjon-ZTqzU]
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
As I often do, I was nodding along to your comment
agreeing with all of it, right up till I got to this:
The American people are full participants in the manufactured denial of inconvenient truths. This is why they will not act to prevent these terrible outcomes and protect society.
No. You might as well say: "The American people are full participants in the production of our tainted food supply. This is why they will not act to stop buying or eating this horrid food."
This is an argument that lefty folks, and just non-status-quo folks, make a lot. It's a lot like the preacher pointing at a random joe schmoe in the crowd and saying "And YOU, too, ordinary guy, are a SINNER!" It's like climate activists focusing on Joe Blow buying a steak or a car with a V-8 engine when talking about climate. It's understandable, because it puts the focus on personal responsibility and the power of the little guy to determine what happens in the world, and those are fundamental beliefs of American culture. And I brought up the tent revival on purpose, because this belief not only hearkens back to the fundamental belief in democracy, but to a very Christian and Protestant notion of being responsible for one's sins. The little guy has to be complicit, and his complicity has to be focused on, while the elite become ever-more invisible, and end up being regarded more or less like the weather.
The problem with this is not so much the unfairness of letting the elites get away with things while we lambaste the little guy; the problem with this way of thinking is what it renders invisible.
People, and Americans in particular, seem to have a really hard time talking about power, power relations, and power differentials, as if they are real. We can talk about them as abstract concepts of injustice (like income inequality), but we can't apply those concepts to other concepts we discuss. It's like the idea of power exists in its own little box, and then we shut the box and talk about other things like propaganda as if everyone has some kind of free choice as to whether to interact with propaganda or not, kind of like everyone has a free choice of whether to eat an environmentally-destructive and tainted food supply. In our culture, we are obsessed with consumer choice as if it is both the most powerful thing in the world and also a clear and simple reflection of individual moral character. (We are also obsessed with individual moral character, and a case might be made that that too is problematic.)
The fact is that our choices of which menu item to pick (Democrat or Republican? NRA or BLM? bean sprout sandwich or steak?hybrid engine, V-8, or bicycle?) are manipulated and circumscribed in a dozen ways, many of which we pretend don't matter because If We Had A Good Moral Character We Would Overcome All That.
The writing of the menu of choices, and the manipulation of people to accept those choices--whether you're talking about a political affiliation, a policy position or your choice of sandwich--is where the real power of propaganda lies. Believing that the little guy is complicit in the manufacture of propaganda because he consumes it is, in itself, propaganda. It's one of the establishment's favorite talking points!
That is not to say that the little guy is always a blameless saint. It's to say that any analysis that erases the idea of power, who actually has it, who doesn't, and how that affects outcomes, is going to go wrong, and often will end up doing the flat opposite of what it intends to do: just as those Black people who support Hillary Clinton are going to end up achieving the flat opposite of what they intended to do.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Just to provide one concrete example of this:
We all have the "free choice" of buying a bicycle instead of a car, and of course we could all do that. The fact that our cities and towns are (almost all of them) built around the idea of the automobile is considered just fluff, not something to be considered, indifferent, neutral and unintentional like the weather; something we could all overcome if we were just hard-working and tough. The fact that our jobs are far from our homes and that there has been an all-out assault on our time for the last 40 years is barely considered. The fact that the population is, as a whole, extraordinarily fatigued, depressed, and demoralized, leaving them extremely unlikely to do anything that will cause them one more iota of trouble or difficulty, is used to prove the point that Joe Blow is a really bad guy, of a weak and lazy moral character, who puts his own comfort above the survival of the planet.
What this narrative of Joe Blow's Evil Desires obscures is the fact that Joe is not in charge.
Joe doesn't decide how we produce electrical energy--or distribute it.
Joe doesn't decide how we produce food--or distribute it.
Joe doesn't decide how we produce propaganda--or distribute it.
In fact, Joe literally can't stop the powerful from using fossil fuels to produce electrical energy, can't stop factory farming and other practices of Big Agriculture and their associated pollution and soil exhaustion, and can't stop Big Media and the assorted talking point manipulators from producing and disseminating propaganda on behalf of the status quo. At least, Joe can't do any of this by using his consumer power. The power of Joe's buck is enmeshed in web of extraordinarily complicated economic relationships all basically designed to uplift the elites & render them invisible, while screwing Joe over and placing the blame for any moral detriment on him.
In addition to these complicated relationships, there's often also a very simple example that shows how Joe's choices of what to do with his bucks and his time is not the paramount cause of injustice and destruction. Looking at the example of purchasing the bicycle instead of the car, the fact is that Joe buying a bicycle is not going to disturb the Koch brothers or BP at all. Ten million Joes could buy bicycles and the oil barons' profits would remain high, and they would remain both rich and extremely powerful. Why? Because at this point, all the world's militaries still run on fossil fuels (alternative jet fuel is a tough lift, though they are researching it. Whichever military figures it out first wins, always assuming they figure it out before we destroy ourselves.) The Kochs, BP, and the rest of the oil barons are the kings of war. Without them, most of the military capability of the world doesn't run.
Unless they are stopped from mining fossil fuels and selling them, no change will occur. That will not happen unless a) someone manages to seize power from the current elites, or b)it becomes unprofitable to mine and sell those fuels.
Joe's boycott--even the combined boycotts of ten million Joes--will not stop the mining and selling of fossil fuels. The world's militaries will be happy to buy the fossil fuels Joe doesn't.
This is the point in the argument where people start saying that the writer has a bad character because s/he is spreading demoralization and despair, as if pointing out that consumers have little power is the end of all possible action. As if our only possible gesture is choosing off a menu of predetermined choices surrounded by pressuring circumstances we are all supposed to ignore, while we assert that we really, really are free.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Good rant, you could easily make that it's own essay.
it is certainly worthy of discussion.
Thanks for sharing that!
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
Thanks! I was thinking about it--
But I don't want to end on such a down note, because I don't actually feel despair is the right tone here--it's more like there's a couple fundamental errors in how we habitually think, that can lead us astray.
I'm sadly behind in my writing. I've been looking for a house. I really should talk to you b/c I never realized how emotional, and how emotionally stressful, buying a house is!
It doesn't help that I've got four people (including myself) that I have to keep happy.
Stress!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Too true on the stress in homebuying!
After a couple experiences with terrible Realtors it was what motivated me to become one, I figured if they were my competition I would do great, lol!
I think I probably spent half my time "Hand Holding" and reassuring clients that everything was gonna be ok and would work out in the end and explain why and get them relaxed again.
Every good Realtor needs to be half psychologist.
I always thought of myself as a terrible salesperson though, because I would talk my clients out of buying houses instead of into making a purchase, lol!
Sure, it may have ended up taking longer and in some cases cost me sales but I never sold anyone a house I didn't truly believe was right for them and always got referrals (as well as several good friendships) out of doing it that way so who knows.
Regardless, it let me sleep with at least a little less guilt at night.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
You may need help.
Because reading what you write is like listening to my own thoughts. You are on the money so often. I'm old enough to remember when the powers that be ripped up our trolley car rails so Detroit could sell more busses. I also remember when small businesses were able to prosper and when big businesses didn't feel it their duty to gouge as much as possible from us for "shareholder value." I remember when even national corporations felt they had a duty to be good citizens in the communities they served and when newspapers, radio, and television actually brought us real news and a variety of opinion. The neoliberal agenda has been enacted thanks to the Republicans and the Clinton/Obama Democrats and to the greedy business interests who have bought them. We may not survive neoliberal economics with its emphasis on shortterm goals, anti-labor policies, war profiteering, and pauperizing 90% of the populace.
So we come back to the present and what to do. Bernie has revived The New Deal even if most people don't recognize it as such. We must push for this unequivocally. At the same time we must resist the corporate double talk by thinking and by helping others think. I have never advocated armed insurrection because no one wins. The plebs are usually no better off or even worse off and the same old greedy people are in charge even if the names are changed. This time may be different because the oligarchs are endangering the whole earth not just one or two or a few countries and have been successful in stripping power from the plebs world wide. I won't be surprised by bloodshed at the conventions this year or by more police executions (see gjohnsit's essay "The Elephant in the Room") or by a return to violence by disaffected radical groups of both the left and the right. Throughout history the greedy people have never known when to quit and sooner or later reaped a bloody harvest. This time is different only in the possibility that we will all be annihilated along with most species.
I agree with Alphalop that this essay should be written as a separate piece. Thanks.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
I could have written your response myself.
In fact, I have, in thousands of different ways. I consider it my fundamental political position, one I've had since I was thirteen years old.
The reason my tone is often strident is that I struggle to mask my pity and my grief for Americans. You broadbrush their situation, and I agree with that broadbrush. Behold a population that is isolated, confused, programmed, indentured, brainwashed, frightened, helpless, dumbed down, disenfranchised, defeated, abused, misinformed, reactive, easily manipulated, superstitious, economically insecure, easily terrorized, cognitively dissonant, plantation bound, uninformed, suspicious, and rabidly divided from one another.
They want a better life but they reject the big-picture-reality that the tide must lift all boats to sustain a better life on earth. Even on the Left, brains are scarred from a lifetime of enslaving propaganda.
Behold the hardest working people in the world, decent people at heart, who comprise the most self-destructive society on the planet. That just kills me every day.
But I didn't say that. You did.
Here's what I said:
I am asking if it is possible that the American people actually "believe" that they "deserve" what the state is doing to them. Did they turn the corner on the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and enter the Stockholm Syndrome, in order to cope and survive as individuals? Is that why they don't not push back at the moral abuses committed in their names? Is that why "they participate in manufactured denial," such as the heinous behavior of Democrats after 2008, when they all lost their moral compasses at the same time and said not.one.more.word against the continuation of the US global murder sprees that became among the most obscene acts in US history?
I'm asking if somewhere deep inside — programmed as they are for social self-destruction — the American people really believe they deserve what has happened and what is about to happen to them? Is their intellectual paralysis in the world some sort of atonement for what they didn't do for their country after the Vietnam Mini-Enlightment?
I am not blaming them. I am asking if they blame themselves.
As for you, my friend, I heartedly enjoy and appreciate all your comments, especially this one. But I always cock my head like the RCA Victor dog after I read you and ask why someone so worldly and smart is still in the US. Fighting for it, no less. You have an International destiny.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
once upon a time, europe's rulers sponsored
crusades with the expressed intent of shipping off all of the psychopathic professional killers to foreign lands where they would prey on heathens instead of the rulers' own subjects.
today, our rulers sponsor crusades and must create the required population of psychopaths, which they then bring home and turn on their own subjects.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Quick quiz: imagine a poor community.
Are the faces white or other? I am near a small demographic city, but semi-rural. My kids went through a city elementary school (water at drinking fountains now test high for lead). There is an area in the city that is mostly black. another area (this is a college town so international) that is highly Asian. I am in the boonies, semi-rural, and the elementary school population was income-integrated, not so much concern [wrong denotation, no othering of different racial designations] about racial. Within three miles (same school district) there were very poor kids, two free meals a day poor. Before Christmas break there was a gift drive, wrapped gifts boy/girl to hand out to the free-lunch kids. Canned food drives, etc.
I have seen some places of those kids. My kids went through infant/child care in places like that, because that was what I could afford. I have no judgement.
My imagine of above: urban=black, suburban=white.
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Both
I've lived in dirt-poor black/urban communities and dirt-poor white/rural communities.
People are people and poverty doesn't discriminate.
All
I grew up in public housing in Detroit in the 50s - 60s. Most of the faces were white and all of us were dirt-poor.
We live in one of the seedier parts of town,
where we receive sex offender notices on a regular basis, and police helicopters routinely fly hours-long harassment flights with spotlights at least once a week. We're here by choice (initially) because I refuse to pay the rents they want for the so-called 'best' or 'safest' neighborhoods.
In our little complex of 13 units, there are 6 white families (a bigger share than the neighborhood at large) 2 Latino families, 1 Black family and 1 Native American family.
This is not a matter of race and never has been, though the structural inequalities in our society ensure that minority populations will be hit hardest by poverty. It's about class. It's been about class right from the beginning and TPTB have successfully convinced a majority that objecting to class divisions in a supposedly egalitarian society is gauche and is driven solely by jealousy.
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." - Mark Twain
I sense that yes, the haves are unwilling to share.
Even "middle class" friends are leery of those who have less and are different colors. In circles I have spun in, I note the general treatment of those beneath us:waitstaff, store clerks, cleaners, etc. Often no eye contact is made with those.I was surely guilty of this, it is a learned exercise. I don't do that now. Break one link in the barrier.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Reverend Dr. William Barber III
Speaking to the American Federation of Teachers in 2014, Courtesy of Batocchio, The Vagabond Scholar:
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
The Vagabond Scholar
Link: http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2016/07/independence-day-2016.html?m=1
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I believe that screaming headline
"He Wanted to Kill Whites" is the distraction they desperately needed to shift our focus from the problem of black lives mattering to the police who are murdering them with complete abandon. We're his words recorded?Have we heard him say those words in a recording or are we taking someone's word for it? Even if it was recorded, even if he did say it, why aren't we talking about WHY he said it? Why aren't we talking about what he might have heard about those "other" people in Afghanistan he watched being killed, or participated in killing himself? Why aren't we talking about HIS PTSD from the war and what he was suffering from?
WHY ARE WE FIXATED ON FKN WHITE PEOPLE?
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I believe these Black Death/Cop Killing stories
have supplanted the "Our Government Just Obviously Sold Its People Out Completely" and pushed Hillary Clinton and James Comey off the front pages.
Gotta love the amazing timing...
OMG! Luna!
This IS the fall of the American Empire. We are watching it in real time.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
How grateful Hillary and Obama must be for the subject
to change to race. Cops and the people they stop, arrest, abuse, and kill are the victims of the public policy the Clintons pushed and Obama did nothing to stop.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I tried to point that out yesterday
to a hardcore Clinton fan:
It came up when I saw the following tweet (text only here) from Kevin Gosztola (who, btw, is one of my first go-to news sources lately, the guy has his finger square on the pulses of all these con artists and the games they're playing):
If that ain't pandering, I don't know what is. It's pandering precisely because:
She just couldn't make the connection. Couldn't do it. Her brain just couldn't go there, because "all those people are dead and you're trying to take the focus off it". I just wanted to beat my head on a wall...
DNC Statement
WTF? 'while most protesters have made their voices heard peacefully'
What the hell does that even mean? There have been hundreds of thousands if not millions of BLM protesters. There was one individual unaffiliated with BLM that shot the Dallas police officers.
Where do they get off saying 'most' when it was only one out of a million that was not peaceful, and that one wasn't even part of the BLM protest?
Because "pandering" doesn't care if it bullshits or not
as long as it looks good and meaningful--even if it doesn't actually say anything in the end. The DNC, what remains of the Democratic Party and its brain-dead supporters, and particularly Hillary Clinton, are all masters of it.
Hallmark Card approach to life.
Ya kinda feel good and then think...wait? That is pandering. Whitman's Samplers, pandering. It goes on.
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Yup
it feels good to read--but if you're thinking, you DO say
and you realize it doesn't really say anything....
I had this very discussion with my brother Friday...
It's nice to get the discussion of a Hillary Indictment out of the way...
So the "Militarized Police vs. Civilian War" can resume...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkyyuvNB2Pg]
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Do not glance at NYT now.
Backstory on the lone gunman is getting embellished. I only read ledes there. I will say no more.
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Front page
That was my first thought as well.... "guess we won't be hearing much about Clinton's shit sandwich". Hillary has been obviously absent from direct media exposure throughout the entire campaign. We still only get "better than trump" from the MSM, and little else. The issues of using her status as SoS to funnel money to the Clinton Foundation has been completely blacked out by the media. Now we see the effects of military issues, training, PTSD, in domestic police forces, while she was instrumental in propogating the sale of American Military Hardware to ME countries where our outdated armaments "somehow conveniently" get into the hands of opposition forces, thus perpetuating war.
War is a very profitable business venture for the 1%.
I was a bit shocked by Comey--
Because my understanding is that Hillary has seriously pissed off certain parts of the Deep State--people that it's not usually safe to piss off.
Apparently, the Clinton crime family has so much power that not only the FBI, but even the fifth-branch covert ops guys out of the Pentagon have to run away with their tails between their legs.
That said, I doubt that most of my fellow citizens were surprised at all. It just confirms what they've known since at least 2010: that rich, powerful people are above the law.
I'm certain that message was well absorbed before OMG HE WANTED TO KILL WHITES!!! was spread all over the airwaves.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
And it's sensationalism.
He didn't want to kill white people in general. There were plenty of them around, and he didn't kill them. He wanted to kill white cops in particular. But the MSM wants to stoke fear among all white people: The angry blacks are coming to getcha!!
[Edited for clarity. EdG]
That's not what the Dallas police said
They could have been lying. He may not have said he wanted to kill white people.
But why would they have lied? What do they have to gain by lying?
around here,
we have a maxim: "All cops always lie. About everything." And it generally proves to be true.
We've had cops up on the stand literally claim day was night.
There is no lie, they will not tell.
Even justices of the Supreme Court recognize that cops are wholesale liars. As in Justice Powell's observation in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte that the exclusionary rule "creates the occasion and incentive for large-scale lying by law-enforcement officers."
We know in this case that these cops lied to Mark Hughes: "With police officers lying, saying they have video of me shooting, which is a lie, saying that they have witnesses saying that I shot a gun, which is a lie."
Motive? Claiming that Johnson said he wanted to kill white people, rather than white cops, that is useful, because it makes the white people more scared.
Word parsing about what a dead man siad.
And how police agencies do fluff to protect their own. And now MSM is all on it.. I am still stuck at lone gunman. But it probably doesn't matter other than scripted blame and feelgood.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
I think the point is, he may have said he wanted to kill
white people, but when he went after white people, who did he shoot? White cops.
It's obvious who's doing most of the white-on-black murder. (Though I'm grateful to you for putting the evidence where people can see it.)
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I didn't say Dallas police lied.
I apologize for my comment not being clear enough. I didn't say the Dallas police lied. What I was saying is that the media sensationalized "wanted to kill white people" in their reporting rather than the specific "especially white police officers" portion. My guess as to why the MSM did that was to create fear among all whites instead of just among white police officers.
Dallas. Single shooter. Sound familiar?
There will never be another story. Very convenient ending. We live in a conspiracy theory country.
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I prefer
"Lone gunman".
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
How many were waiting for something like this to happen......
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
It Certainly Won't Be The Last...
We are witnessing the Decline Of Our Country...
More to come...
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Keep dialed to this station for breaking news!!!!
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Anybody have exact numbers
for the amount of unarmed white and hispanic people shot by the cops for 2015? I know that the number for black people was 102, and that number represents around 37% of the total number of unarmed people killed by cops for 2015, but I can't find exact numbers for the rest of the groups.
Edit: Source of the numbers: http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/
Where did you find that? Guardian? cite please.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Slipped my mind
Had a restless night caused by pet cats being pests and an early wake up call in the form of a heavy storm. Edited to cite my source.
There are a number of police kill tallies running.
I follow this one, which has more demographic data than most. The data, however is not compiled, so you must scan the list to get an idea of races involved. They list 1208 civilian deaths for 2015.
http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2015.html
I believe Mother Jones still keeps a count, which is a bit more visual.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Here is another link
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/12/28/3735190/killed-by-police-2015/
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
There has been a big change for the worse in police training
since I was a deputy sheriff in the 70's and 80's. In my fairly "liberal" nearby small city, the recent streak of police killings started with a white musician who came home drunk and walked into the house next door. They had sorted it out and were standing outside talking when the city cops arrived and one shot him, to everyone's horror. There were no consequences for the cowardly incompetent cop, although it was the second unarmed person he had killed (got an award for the first one). The more recent two killings of unarmed people here were of blacks, and they have been carrying on the protests. No consequences anywhere, and the police chief, who came from the FBI (known as the Feebs by cops), is vigorously defending his training and the killings.
It doesn't help that there's been a Supreme Court decision that removed the "reasonable person" requirement for lethal self defense, at least as far as the police are concerned, not for the rest of us. A cop only has to say he felt afraid, whether it was a reasonable fear or not.
The aggressive and brutal language used by many of our politicians has something to do with it, too, I think. And getting Israeli training for police is truly insane. It's also insane to presume that combat experience is a qualification for being a peace officer, or that military equipment is appropriate for that.
And, the "furtive gesture" has replaced the search warrant
as far as what the officers sees(or doesn't see). Each exception the SC carves out, hollows the 4th Amendment and there's scarcely anything left of its historic safeguards for ordinary citizens.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I'm looking for a technical solution
I think that like the "I've fallen and I can't get up" button for old folks, what we sadly need in our world is some kind of small and unobtrusive web recording device that could be worn and when pressed starts instantly uploading to some site both audio and visual content of whatever encounter it is that someone wants to memorialize although I am thinking specifically of interactions with the police.
I realize that in making something like this commonplace, we're entering into a true surveillance society and that there is no protection against someone using such a privacy destroying device in inappropriate situations, but I don't know what else to suggest. Perhaps the site that it uploads to could have protections and safeguards in its end. But we have to negate the ability of people to seize and destroy phones or things like store surveillance tapes to further their own ends.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
There are already several technical solutions available.
There are apps that automatically upload your video to a server that the police cannot delete even if they take your phone while it is actively recording.
The ACLU has one that is in ongoing development
I have been using Bambuser for some time, but there are many other options also available at the CopBlock website.
We should ALL have one of these apps installed on our phones and short cutted to the home page, I know I do.
I hope you find these links/apps useful.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
that's great, thanks for the links :-)
I just realized I really should have phrased that differently
I hope you NEVER have to find them useful, lol!
But if the need does arise then I hope you can protect yourself at least a little bit with them.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
I've seen footage
of one two black "cops" (one male, one female) beating a disabled man in a wheelchair. They thought he was faking he couldn't stand.
"Cops" will kill any easy prey. Black, Brown, Teenager, Disabled, Homeless, Concussed, already a victim... as long as it's an easy kill - someone vulnerable.
The point is; Cops kill because they can get away with it.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
Not all cops
Please let's not stereotype all people in a group as the same as the worst of that group. Cops are people, too, and some manage to do a lot of good, despite our totally screwed up system. We should judge them as individuals, while we condemn the system.
You may feel free to do that
because obviously we have very different experiences. Cops are people, too. That's really nice and sweet.
Because I'd like to think my son is a person, too. But MOST cops don't judge him as a person.
MOST cops aren't speaking out against the so called "bad apple" cops.
I'm so glad you can live in a world where you can be so optimistic about the cop you may encounter.
Our constant, daily threat is and only is the cops. Because in our reality our son is autistic and is a fucking target for the extremely ugly in this country and for the most part that ugly has been in uniform.
The "System" may be screwed up but it was two steroid buggin eyed cops who really wanted to shoot my husband for doing meals on wheels in a cul de sac and not putting his foot down at a stop sign at it. The "system" is indeed broken but it's the cops who are pulling the triggers on our loved ones.
It's the system that forced cops to laugh at me when I was violated. They laughed. When I was attacked and left for dead I still remember screaming at the man who found me not to call the police. It's the one good thing about my attack is that no fucking cop had to be involved. I'd been there and done that.
My daughter and her young female friends can tell you about terror when a cops pulls you over. Girls try hard not to drive alone where we are.
My best friend's son was shot 4 times in the back. He is 13, autistic and was butt ass naked and scared. The cops showed up and despite everyone on the street screaming he was just a little kid... the fucking cops shot him anyways.
On MLK day this year. Thank dawg it was bean bag gun but he still almost died from his wounds. Forever changed and scarred. He got lost. He needed help.
Would you like to explain how the "good cops" handled the autistic girl found naked along the highway at 4am in Ashland, OR? Can look it up. They beat and tased her. Eleven year old child who couldn't speak.
Not all cops.... But ENOUGH of them to make a damn difference.
Don't tell me "not all cops". More than enough of them are bad to make us all afraid of them all.
It shouldn't be like the lottery on whether or not you are facing a good cop or one of the others....
And when you do find yourself face to face with not such a good cop... you can't fight back. That's the broken part of the system.
I'd rather take my chances with a bad guy than a bad cop.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
The biggest indicator of all
Being black gets you killed more often. Being poor gets you shot even more often.
But the group most likely of all to get shot by cops is those with mental illness, and few people are talking about that.
Yes indeed
the vulnerable
I have a shift I have to work. If I come across as angry. I am. This needs to be discussed and solved
Thanks for the essay
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
It's horrific.
It puts the parents (or caregivers) of adult autistic and mentally ill people in a horrible bind.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Powerful statement Janet. I'm
Powerful statement Janet. I'm afraid the anger you and many others have , me included, has boiled over, and things are going to get very ugly before they get better. It is not good, but it could very well be predicted as inevitable.
Peace
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