The New Jim Crow, Black Lives Matter & Hillary

“But now that I’ve been speaking out and saying that mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow, now all of a sudden the Clintons are saying, ‘oh wait a minute, we are going to be back on the other side of this issue right now.’”

Rand Paul

The African American under the Clinton Boot

The Clintons injected steroids in the New Jim Crow. It is amazing to me that Hillary Clinton, Democrats and other Hillary supporters have the unmitigated gall to claim that others are racists.

Why the fuck Black Americans supported Hillary is beyond me. Bill Clinton is the one who amped up the Drug War, Incarceration and Police Militarization that has led to the exact complaints of #BlackLivesMatter. This is exactly why I believe the BLM movement to be nothing more than Sorosian Propaganda. If BLM were really an intelligent, meaningful movement, there is no way that they would have supported Hillary Clinton. They’d have supported Rand Paul, Bernie Sanders or Gary Johnson.

You want to talk about cognitive dissonance. Black Lives Matter Activists supporting a candidate like Hillary Clinton is the very definition of it.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Police Brutality Never Ending

This happened 70 years ago but could have happened this morning.

Marijuana

Marijuana, like alcohol, is neither inherently good nor evil. It is a substance that occurs in nature. If abused, it can harm. If not, there are actually healthful properties and benefits to those who use it. Marijuana, on the whole, is much less harmful than alcohol and other “drugs.”

One person’s weakness should not negatively affect the lives of others. The weakness of some should not be justification for the use of force or tyranny of the State.

America must ask itself. Is the prohibition of a plant which grows wild in nature worth the Billions of dollars invested? Is prohibition of marijuana worth the lives damaged and destroyed? Is marijuana prohibition more important than the proven medical benefits of marijuana?

The Government of the United States of America has waged a war of lies against the American People for well over 100 years in this War On Drugs. Marijuana and Hemp have hundreds of possible applications that would be beneficial to Americans and the American Economy. Ending the War On Drugs, or at least the marijuana portion of it, would save the American Tax Payer Billions of Dollars.

Why, knowing all of this, would we continue to support a War On Drugs that has truly only been a War on American Liberty and the American People?

Think about this America.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Dear Black People [of Ferguson and the USA]

Hey there! How ya doin’?

Lots of us out here empathize with you. Lots of us have actually sided with you. However, when you decide that directing violence against random White people simply because they are White People is the right and proper thing to do, you lose all of the support and empathy.

Racism is racism. Bigotry is bigotry. These acts are self defeating. These acts are what your enemies want.

The people who did this to you are YOUR community leaders. The person who killed Mike Brown is a Police Officer. Random White Dude walking down the street did not kill Mike Brown. I realize that passions are high. At times such as these, it may seem that it is you against the world. I say to you that it’s not you against the world.

There are Americans out there who agree that there are issues at hand here that need to be resolved. You targeting people who have done you no harm makes any kind of resolution or real conversation impossible. Be rational. Don’t be complete fucking idiots. Think before you act. Stop targeting businesses owned by regular people.

I can’t, for the life of me, understand why you have not staged “sit-ins” and such at your local city, county and State Governments. These are the real oppressors. White dude sitting at a red light is not your enemy. The Police are the enemy. The County Prosecutor is your enemy. The District Attorney is your enemy. The people in your local government are your enemy in this fight. The State Government and the Federal Government are your enemy.

Yes, that includes Barack Obama. I know this is difficult to reconcile but while you are attacking random White guy just because he is random White guy, the Federal Government is militarizing your Local and State Police and making possible, ney making it certain, that your local police will treat you not with the respect of a citizen but with the disdain of an enemy combatant. Barack Obama has done much to further the programs that are militarizing our Nation’s Police Forces.

You can, if you wish, continue to  blindly support Obama as he makes your lives harder, oppresses you at the hands of Billionaires and lies that he’s “here for you” and that he’s “surprised and angered” by the situation. However, he’s not. He’s a part of the system that had led you to this moment. Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney and the rest of our politicians stand right there with him against you and against the rest of us.

I know. Barack is Black. It was a proud moment. However, he’s not your friend. Any more than the criminal who steals your last few dollars is your friend. He’s a politician. He’s no different than George W. Bush.

So, stop targeting random White dude who is just as much a pawn of the State as are you. Direct your angst against the Government. Demand change. Real change. March against them.

Join with your fellow pawns (White, Latino, Asian & Arab Citizens) and march against your government. If you allow them to divide you by fomenting racial angst instead of political angst, you are already defeated.

Your government has betrayed you…from the President on down to your local council person.

The Police & Corruption, Brutality and Militarization ~ A Discussion

I grew up in a family that honors the police.  My grandmother was friends with a Police Captain.  My Uncle is a Police Officer.  His son is an Security Police Airman in the USAF.  Another Uncle was a Sheriff for a small town outside of Louisville, KY.  I have a nephew in Law who is in the process of joining the LMPD.  One of my best friends is the widow of a Police Officer.  A great many friends are Police Officers and I have still more friends who were Military Police in the US Army.

For a great part of my life, I did not question the activities of the Police.  Even though I had witnessed some corruption myself in the Army Military Police Corps and had been involved in some idiotic, though not corrupt, interactions with civilian police.

I never questioned.

When something like the Michael Brown shooting occurred, my initial and, usually, lasting reaction was “he deserved it.”  When laws were passed that allowed the police to violate the rights of citizens, I thought; “If you don’t have anything to hide…if you aren’t guilty, you’ve nothing to worry about.”

That all changed.

In the past few years, I’ve noticed a slow creep in police attitudes.  I’ve noted changes at the airports in America.  I’ve noticed changes in the justice system.  I’ve noticed a large amount of people being set free from incarceration due to incompetence, negligence or willful corruption of the American Justice System.

This has, to put it mildly, upset me.

I grew up believing that America was the Greatest Nation on Earth.  I grew up believing that we were the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

I’ve lost faith in these concepts.

America has the largest prison population in the world.  We incarcerate more people than China, Russia, Iran and, it is said, North Korea.  This is, to my way of thinking, insane.  Many of the people whom we have imprisoned in America are guilty of nothing more than partaking of a weed that grows in nature.  Yes, I speak of marijuana.  Others are in prison due to various other drugs.  This is legislated criminality.  This is immoral.  We imprison people, violate their person, destroy their spirit because they desire to smoke a plant that can be found in the forest.  We raid farms and property and destroy families because people wish to smoke a plant.

This must change.

The War on Crime and the War on Drugs has done more damage to America and to the United States Constitution than the Soviet Union, al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, ISIS, North Korea and Iran combined.

These pseudo-wars are fully supported by the majority of our police forces.  The State lied and continues to lie to this day about drugs and crime.  They lie to support the State and centralization of power to the Federal Government.

This must change.

I have written about these issues fairly extensively on this blog.  I will not repeat everything that I’ve written in this blog.

I will say only this.  The American people need to wake up to these facts of our existence.  Our police have become tools of State oppression.  The Bill of Rights is being dismantled.  Look only to Ferguson to see this.  Look past Michael Brown.  Look past the looters.  Look to the peaceful citizens who assembled and how the State reacted to them.  If you can say with a straight face that the Bill of Rights meant anything to the police of Ferguson, you are a better actor than I.

Another issue that I have is with folks who have family who are police.  WAKE UP!  Yes, you are emotionally invested.  Certainly, your family member may not be one of the corrupt State Goons.  Your family member or friends may be one of the “good Cops.”  It doesn’t matter.  If he or she is one of the “good” guys, they have no voice.  They follow orders and fall in line or they will be fired, jailed or, worse yet, killed.  Just ask Frank Serpico and numerous other Cops who tried to fight the corruption and Statism that prevails in America’s police forces today.

You can be as mad at me as you wish for stating my opinions and shouting my facts as to the State of American Policing and the Federal power grab that has been occurring since Nixon.  Fact is, I don’t care about your feelings.  I don’t care that you have a good cop as a friend, Uncle, Father, spouse, grandfather or BFF.  I care that the American Police Forces and the American “Justice” System is killing innocent people.  They are incarcerating innocent people.  They are ruining lives.

You can stay huddled up in your little bubble for as long as you like.  I care not.  Do not expect me to not speak out about what I see as a great injustice and a direct attack on America’s soul.

Solutions: The American “Justice” and Police Crises

I have offered plenty of solutions as have many others as have many others.

However, the average emotion focused Conservative American can only react with faux outrage instead of actually thinking through the complicated issues of the day.

That you have not taken the time to read about solutions is not the fault of those of us who have offered them.

Here are some solutions that I and others have proffered in the past:

1. Abolish the War on Drugs by legalizing marijuana first.

2. Require actual evidence from non-criminal elements before issuing arrest warrants or search warrants for the illegal raids on the citizens of the United States of America.

3. De-Militarize the Police. Get rid of the MRAPs. Get rid of the M203 Grenade Launchers which are illegal for use against civilians in the first place. A top to bottom evaluation of weapons, equipment and tactics of all departments to ensure that the weapons and equipment on hand is actually necessary and not simply nice to have Rambo wannabe redundancies and drains on resources.

4. HALT all revenue enforcement and quota systems for “crimes.” No more speed ticket quotas for Cops. No more ticketing quotas.

5. Ensure that SWAT teams are trained properly in the use of force, elevation of force and proper tactics. Ensure that SWAT teams are trained on how to interact with the public. STOP the aggressive tactics against civilians who are merely exercising their RIGHTS.

In America, we have the Bill of Rights. This ensures that we have the right to peaceably assemble. The government and their police forces no longer recognize this right. In Ferguson, they gassed and shotgun bean bagged civilians for simply standing in protest. They gassed neighborhoods. They gassed and arrested journalists. They gassed and arrested civilians simply for being in the general vicinity of the protests. This is unAmerican. This is unlawful. This is not professional. This is Statism. It is despotism.

6. Ensure that Police are properly trained and halt the “shoot to kill” training. Police should not be trained to shoot to kill FIRST. Killing a citizen should be a last resort. It should not be a first resort. Pulling up to a mentally retarded teenager should not resort in a death within 11 seconds.

7. Police should be trained on the Bill of Rights. A man standing in a Mall waiting on his children should not be accosted by the Police for merely standing near a store and “looking suspect.” Police should be about the business of preventing criminality and arresting actual criminals. They should not be in the business of bullying citizens, tazing citizens for merely not answering their questions. Especially when a citizen has committed no crime.

8. Change the laws for “resisting arrest.” No citizen should ever be arrested for the sole crime of “resisting arrest.” This is a bullying and intimidation tactic used by Police against minorities and other citizens. If the only crime that can be charged is resisting arrest, it means that there was no crime in the first place and the police are merely being bullies by trumping up charges on citizens. This is not protecting and serving.

9. Hold Police, Prosecutors and Judges responsible for their verdicts and indictments. If an innocent citizen is jailed, there should be an investigation by an independent organization. If dereliction of duty, negligence or willful misconduct is found on the part of Police, Prosecutor or Judge, these persons should be fully investigated, indicted if necessary, tried if necessary and if found guilty sent to prison with extreme prejudice. The Police, Prosecutors and Judges are entrusted by the public to serve JUSTICE. Justice is not always served. We are finding more and more that innocent men and women are sent to prison and the prosecution and police know full well that these men and women are innocent. However, the Prosecutor’s statistics are based on findings of guilt. They are not looking to solve actual crimes. They are looking to find someone guilty. It matters not who is found guilty as long as someone is found guilty. Innocents serve decades in prison while the guilty roam free because the “Justice system” doesn’t take the time to actually do it’s job. They want a high conviction count. Who is convicted oftentimes does not matter.

This is a start.

These issues have been broached, discussed, dissected and bandied about ad nauseum. Somehow folks miss these conversations and come around only to whine about people being big meanies to the Police and not offering solutions.

The solutions are out there. However, until citizens like you demand to be treated as actual citizens and not prisoners or parolees on the Great United States Prison system, there will be no change.

I get it. Folks who have family who are Police Officers or who want to be a Police Officer see all of this through and emotional lens. Every critique aimed at the Police is seen by these folks as a direct attack on their family member. That’s the wrong way to look at it.

Citizens are being murdered on the streets by poorly trained police. Citizens are being murdered in their homes by poorly trained and overly aggressive SWAT teams. This doesn’t affect you. You don’t care. The only thing that you seem to care about is that your Father is a police officer and you are offended that people are saying anything other than “the police are the greatest in the world.”

The NYPD are America’s most celebrated Police Force. They have at least one major scandal every decade. In most decades, they have two or three major scandals.

Facts are incontrovertible. Ignore these things at your own peril. You are a citizen of the United States of America. The government is supposed to serve the Citizen. Because of people who look away from injustice, the rights of the US Citizen are eroding.

If interested in solutions or simply becoming aware of the issues, start with Andrew Napolitano and Radley Balko.  They have written excellent books on the subjects of the Constitution, the war on drugs, police militarization and other related matters. 

 

 

 

Corruption, The Extraordinary and the American Police

In the linked article, Mr Vargas states, in part, the following:

“There is a ceaseless campaign to vilify law enforcement these days.

The amplification of these voices through social media has resonated throughout mainstream media and generated a false narrative about the professionalism of police officers.”

The author tells us to judge police not as a group but as individuals.

First of all, I would hope that people treat individual Police Officers as human beings and respect them as such WHILE keeping a steady and watchful eye on these human beings in their official capacity as Police Officers and servants of the public.

Second, it is impossible to judge the police as an entity except by what we see as the result of their work. The body of work of the American police does not induce a feeling a pride nor do I see professionalism in the American Police Forces.

I have read numerous articles, research papers and books on our American Police Forces. What I have come to see is a pattern of failure. Thousands of SWAT raids per year produce results a mere 30% of the time. SWAT teams raid the wrong locations constantly. They get the wrong address from their CRIMINAL informants or, even worse, they raid, in error, a different house than that which is listed on their arrest/search warrants.

Yes, that is correct. The address on their search warrant might say 201 Westboro Ave and the Police mistakenly raid 207 Westboro Ave.

When they make these mistakes, they destroy property. They injure people in these mistaken raids. They’ve even been known to kill people in these raids. And it’s almost a given that if there is a pet such as a poodle or cockerspaniel in these homes, that pet is as good as murdered.

Mr. Vargas goes ends his opinion piece with this study in hagiography:

Police officers are not collectively a bunch of racist, boot-jacketed thugs and mindless drones. They are a group of extraordinary individuals who have willingly taken on the challenge of policing a society that has serious issues.

 

Officers didn’t create the socioeconomic environment that gives rise to violence and crime. Rather they are willingly choose to go out everyday and deal with a public that seems to believe they are the bad guys.

While I have no doubt that there exist extraordinary individuals in the police forces across this Nation, I also know that the history of American police forces is rife with corruption, brutality and inhumanity.  The examples are legion.  From the New York City scandals of the NYPD in the ’70s to the LAPD Rampart scandals of the ’90s.  Those are simply two of the most heinous examples.  Actually, it seems that the NYPD has, at least, one major scandal per decade.  Police were hired by the largest corporations in America in the early 20th Century not to protect and serve the community but to oppress and suppress the American worker.  These police forces were union busters.  They weren’t serving and protecting the community.  They were actively oppressing the community.  The Police were active partners of Gangsters such as Al Capone in the Prohibition Era.  In the South, the Police were on the front lines of the Jim Crow era oppression of minorities.  In our day, we have police raiding barber shops with Machine Guns and Military Gear simply to check licenses.  We have constant and consistent examples of police brutality and disregard for basic human rights.  Not only that but the Police constantly violate rights guaranteed to Citizens by the United States Constitution.  

Speaking to professionalism.  The police are trained to actively violate the rights of US Citizens.  They are trained to trick us into surrendering our rights voluntarily without our being aware of such.  This is police professionalism.  

Certainly, policing is a dangerous profession.  However, my answer to that is that if one is not willing to take on these risks, one should not become a police officer.  Find a profession that doesn’t produce fear so great in you that you feel the need to shoot to kill your fellow citizens.  The age of summary justice is ended.  The priority of the police should be the safety of the public.  How can the police serve the public in this manner if they are a) considered a menace to society by a large and growing portion of the citizenry and b) if they are in actuality a growing menace to society.

The Police do seem willing to go out and “deal with the public” on a daily basis.  This is, after all, their job.  However, they also seem all too willing to shoot that public in any circumstance whether there exists a genuine threat to their safety or not.  And if that threat is shown later to have not existed in reality but only in the mind of the Police Officer, they Police are also extraordinarily willing to engage in public propaganda and character assassination in order to actively obstruct justice for their victims.  

This must change.  If a Police Officer is found to be guilty of negligence, error, malfeasance or criminality, that officer must immediately be taken off the streets and that officer must be vigorously prosecuted.

Police must stop assuming guilt all around them.  This assumption of guilt has proven to cause over-zealousness in the prosecution of victims of the criminal justice system.  All too often, we are finding that citizens who have been imprisoned for crimes are innocent of the crimes for which they were prosecuted.  In many cases, the police and/or prosecution knew of the existence of evidence that exonerated these innocent citizens.  Yet, the police held back the evidence in order to gain a conviction.  Any police officer who is guilty of these heinous crimes should be tried and imprisoned.  The prosecution should serve sentence right alongside the guilty police officer.

Too often, the Police are guilty of greater criminality than the public at large.  Yet, this goes largely unpunished.  

It is time for this to change.  

Along with the War on Drugs, the Justice System in America serves oftentimes not to ensure the rights of America’s citizens but to deny rights to American citizens.  The Police are integral to each of these injustices.  

Is it any wonder in this age of instant information that the police are being thrust into the spotlight.  Heretofore, they could not be held accountable for their actions.  With the ubiquitous cell phone camera and video recorder, the police can no longer hide their actions.  This, in my opinion, is a good thing.

I hear apologists for the police state that is becoming America say that if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to worry about.

This goes for the America Police as well.  If you are innocent, the recording of your actions is nothing to worry about.

Is this the reason that so many Police become so irate when Citizens record their actions? 

Talking to the Police

Be careful.  Especially if you have a dog with you.

Why Should The Wealthy Pick Up Their Share?

Why should the rich pay more tax than the average American citizen?

The military since World War II has almost exclusively been used to safeguard markets, build markets and patrol the sea lanes for commerce.

If that’s not enough, low wages and job cuts caused technological advances among other things and by the desire inflate stock prices causes welfare rolls and public entitlements to increasingly expand.

United States corporations, as all corporations, pay the lowest possible wages for the most possible work. Americans are wage slaves held hostage at the point of a figurative gun. Mortgages are a gun held to the head of every family in America. Rent is a figurative gun held to the head of every American family.

Of course, we have the “War on Drugs.” This nightmare of American fascism is spurned on by corporations in order to inflate use and consumption of military hardware granting greater profits to the corporate heads of America’s Military Industrial Congressional Complex. The fascist drug war targets the poor in order to increase profits for corporations at the expense of the average American citizen who wants nothing more than to be left alone. Lobbyist for firearms, military equipment and armored vehicle manufacturers and police equipment manufacturers profit handsomely from this wretched endeavor.

The criminalization of the poor in America keeps our prisons full. To ensure that there is a place to housed our profit motivated, politically manufactured “citizen” criminals, primarily poor and under or unemployed Americans, we have given a boost to construction and privatized prison (gulag) builders.

The rich profit from all of this by creating the need via punitive legislation targeted at the poor.

This is not to mention the courts which the wealthy purchase at the price of the soul of America.

Why should the rich pay more taxes? Why should they not? They benefit from every facet of the lives of the poor.

For who fights our wars? What is the cost of the blood of American soldiers?

For the wealthy, who profit immensely from the flood of blood, the mountains of lost limbs and the lives of American soldiers, apparently, no price is to minimal to shirk.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.