Other than entrap people???
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/department-of-justice-launches-probe-into-atf-storefront-stings-b99209920z1-246360711.html
http://www.mainjustice.com/2014/02/21/ig-reviewing-atf-storefront-stings-for-systemic-deficiencies/
In case you missed it, there was a shooting on October 17th at the apartments behind Heal STL and also the Hands Up United offices on West Florissant, in Ferguson.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/atf-shots-miss-burglary-suspects-during-capture-in-ferguson/article_86f44a88-c31e-563a-a102-cbe51caa0cbf.html
Wondering if Friday's Ferguson shooting is related to the shooting in the same apartments on October 8th?
http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/crime/2014/10/08/county-police-investigate-ferguson-shooting/16935009/
Turns out the ATF has been here for 2 years, stirring things up.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/four-month-atf-operation-in-st-louis-yields-arrests-seizures/article_42e103ee-7fd8-51ec-85b6-b4a87ba9f13e.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/man-shot-by-atf-agent-in-st-louis-dies/article_4fae8f64-f1f7-11e1-8f7c-001a4bcf6878.html
As the first two links make clear, the ATF is another law enforcement agency that creates crime. And they probably set off a lot of internal wars, once a gang member or criminal network gets whiff of either the agents, or the fact that someone new is cutting in on their territory.
Maybe another reason (in addition to financial instability, greater poverty, cuts to services, and an increase in heroin) for this years spikes in seemly random and unrelated violence is the ATF's presence?
I was spurred to look for signs of another global financial crisis waiting in the wings when the random violence began this spring, and it occurred to me that a rise in violence had preceded it. (Still willing to concede this is a coincidence, but I don't think so.)
I wonder if the truly "ruling" members of the Ruling Classes unleash the dogs (agency crackdowns)when they know that something is coming, in an attempt to create enough fear for a clampdown when the real shit--i.e., global financial collapse-- is pending?
This is something that a few years ago I would have thought was a conspiracy theory. There was ATF activity in St. Louis also, preceding the 08 meltdown, and accompanying the increase in violence. Again, this could be coincidence.
In 2006 a Washington University graduate was named Chief of Staff:
https://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2006/10/102706-atf-names-new-chief-of-staff.html
https://law.wustl.edu/magazine/Spring2008/classnotes.pdf
Here is the ATF in Jennings in 2007:
http://www.policeone.com/gangs/articles/1630510-Mo-town-breaks-street-gang-becomes-model-for-restoring-order/
Arrest in Florissant in 2007:
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2007/05/21/daily30.html
Okay and WARNING this blog has reprints of two article about ATF at Rutledge Flea Market, but it is a blog by a White Supremacist that thinks all gun laws are devised to get "Guns out of white men's hands" etc. (The local racist HQ seems to be Kirksville. I think I can live without eating at that bread throwing restaurant.)
http://www.kirksvilletoday.com/20061214/feds-steal-1000-guns-in-rutledge/
An 08 Methamphetemine arrest in Springfield:
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/stlouis052808.html
Two other finds, not wholly unrelated, this first one explains why so many people do not trust the DOJ at all:
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1154&issue_id=42007
And this one, about how the ATF signs off on permits, from a pro-gun site, talking about certain law enforcement people that are lenient, because "anyone that jumps through many hoops must be a good guy" or something equally silly.
http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=8&f=32&t=328565
And just FYI and/or reminder, there were NO homicides in Ferguson until Michael Brown. And the two subsequent homicides, and other shootings, have NOT been related to the protesters or protests, unless you count the police firing at unarmed people.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/homicide-map-of-st-louis-area/html_0881b0f3-b41b-5382-9f3e-55314556191e.html
There has been plenty of violence in Saint Louis this year before August 9th. And things were bad in 2007 as well. Time to re-think the whole narrative about what is really going on North St. Louis city and North County. Saint Louis is not at all what it seems.
I am not against law enforcement truly protecting the public from crime, guns and etc. But we have to be able to trust these agencies, and if they operate on the principle that all black people in the hood are terrorists, and go out of their way to encourage people to commit crimes in order to arrest them, we have a problem.
OPTINSTL
OCCUPY! PUBLIC TRANSIT Image by Eric Drooker for Occupy Wall Street, click on image for Drooker's website
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Friday, October 17, 2014
REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER: WHO NEEDS WHO?
There is no such thing as a "job creator". A job creator is really a "profit creator". Profit for a few from the labor of many. Many of the "jobs" that make people rich -- being a CEO or investor-- add no value to our world or our economy.
There is plenty of work, SO MUCH that needs to be done, but not enough jobs. There is so much abundance, SO MUCH that is produced everyday, that goes to waste NOT because it isn't needed, but because it cannot be SOLD FOR PROFIT.
They tell us immigrants are stealing our jobs, that welfare is ruining the economy, but the moment a "job creator" figures out a way to move jobs somewhere with lower wages, they do.
They don't care about us. They don't care about anyone but themselves. They don't care about people starving or dying from diseases. There is never enough for what we really need, and always plenty of excuses for things we don't need- like war.
The "job creators" need us a lot more then we need them.
Please, on November the 5th, DON'T BUY ANYTHING. DON'T GO TO WORK. DON'T GO TO SCHOOL.
FOR ONE DAY, withhold your labor and your consumption.
Instead, stay home and call every government official that represents you, from local to national, and tell them what you want from your government: better schools, worker's rights, healthcare, etc. When you are done, start calling the big corporations that are draining us of our livelihoods and demand they end their unfair and unsafe practices.
The Anonymous Million Mask March is happening that day, and I've heard it will be in Ferguson. But other than getting yourself to the march, don't participate in this giant scam called Capitalism.
They say that we need them. SHOW THEM that they need us.
(EDIT: not saying quit your job or never buy anything again, I'm saying PUT THE RULING CLASS ON NOTICE. They say they "create" their wealth "all by themselves"? Really? This is Missouri, so SHOW ME how you get rich without labour or control of natural resources. Just for one day. Take a vacation day, call in sick, etc.)
There is plenty of work, SO MUCH that needs to be done, but not enough jobs. There is so much abundance, SO MUCH that is produced everyday, that goes to waste NOT because it isn't needed, but because it cannot be SOLD FOR PROFIT.
They tell us immigrants are stealing our jobs, that welfare is ruining the economy, but the moment a "job creator" figures out a way to move jobs somewhere with lower wages, they do.
They don't care about us. They don't care about anyone but themselves. They don't care about people starving or dying from diseases. There is never enough for what we really need, and always plenty of excuses for things we don't need- like war.
The "job creators" need us a lot more then we need them.
Please, on November the 5th, DON'T BUY ANYTHING. DON'T GO TO WORK. DON'T GO TO SCHOOL.
FOR ONE DAY, withhold your labor and your consumption.
Instead, stay home and call every government official that represents you, from local to national, and tell them what you want from your government: better schools, worker's rights, healthcare, etc. When you are done, start calling the big corporations that are draining us of our livelihoods and demand they end their unfair and unsafe practices.
The Anonymous Million Mask March is happening that day, and I've heard it will be in Ferguson. But other than getting yourself to the march, don't participate in this giant scam called Capitalism.
They say that we need them. SHOW THEM that they need us.
(EDIT: not saying quit your job or never buy anything again, I'm saying PUT THE RULING CLASS ON NOTICE. They say they "create" their wealth "all by themselves"? Really? This is Missouri, so SHOW ME how you get rich without labour or control of natural resources. Just for one day. Take a vacation day, call in sick, etc.)
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
MORE SPIKES & HOMICIDE VERSUS COP-ICIDE
So St. Louis city has had 5 homicides in the last 24 hours, and the count for the year is 109.
http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Police-searching-for-suspect-in-fatal-stabbing-in-north-St-Louis-279231232.html
I already said most of what I think about the spikes in violence in this post from July 15th:
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/07/st-louis-spikes.html
Our country is becoming increasingly insolvent. There was no bail out in 2008, it was a band aid and only shifted the problem. Another economic crisis is looming. And who feels it first? The poorest.
Additionally, the heroin problem in the city has apparently gotten out of control in the last few years. It might mostly be poor, urban black men that have become addicts, but the problem has been noted as well among white, affluent teenagers in places like Webster Groves. (It was a headline in the Webster Kirkwood Times in 2010.)
Drugs don't miraculously surface in these neighborhoods. There's a two sided narrative in the media and mainstream white culture about black people in poor neighborhoods with high crime rates. Somehow, urban black people are portrayed as both lazy and shiftless, but at the same time motivated, crafty hustlers, running or part of criminal gang networks with enough motivation and organization to flood the streets with illegal drugs.
Neither is a correct description. And I guarantee you the drugs are coming in from much more organized, much more solvent, and much higher up and white-skinned "gangs." Drug balloon couriers, poor immigrants, biker and prison gangs, and drug cartels could not do this alone. Many of the drug planes that come from South America re-fuel at a former DEA agent's retirement home in Costa Rica. It's time to stop kidding ourselves about how drugs get into our country.
The mainstream has been swallowing the official story, i.e., the "Kool Aid", for so long that no one seems to really question it anymore. And the answer to almost every problem in North St. Louis is MORE POLICE.
If you go out to a "nice" neighborhood with good schools, a suburb that is mostly white, where the median income is $50K or above, and many of the mothers are unemployed "stay at home" moms, and you talk to people they will say things like: "I stay involved in my children's lives, and drive them to school and know all their friends and make sure they have lots of activities after school and build character and do family things together" etc.
These "respectable" people do all those things for their children because they want their children to have healthy experiences, develop a stable foundation for life, and keep away from kids that are considered a "bad influence", drugs, and dangerous mischief and crime. And they pat themselves on the back about what great parents they are when they succeed.
It never seems to occur to them that if they think their own children are so susceptible to "bad influences" in these "nice" neighborhoods with "good" parents, that kids in bad neighborhoods might be susceptible as well, and also be surrounded by bad influences. Their parents often work more than one job. And many are public transit dependent. Kids in North city and county schools do not take a lot of field trips or have well-funded after school programs. Gangs are rampant because teens want to form close bonds with their peers and find meaning in their lives. And the community does not offer many viable alternatives. (Youth centers might supply basketball courts, but they do not supply hopeful futures or meaningful lives.)
More ironic, is the outcry from these "decent" people that the "problem" with Brown and Myers started at home with their parents. Brown's parents weren't together, but both parents were active in his life, and he was on his way to his grandmother's when he was murdered. One of the first things his mother said when she arrived at Canfield Green was "do you know how hard it was for me to keep him in school to graduate?" I've heard the same thing from parents in the suburbs, facing much fewer obstacles! Moreover, many young men expressed their hopelessness about the future "why stay in school if I am going to get shot dead anyhow (by police or criminals)?"
(You know who DID NOT have a "good" family? Officer Darren Wilson. He had an absent father and his mother was a criminal. But the Kool Aid insists that all cops are honest and good, and all black men are liars and thugs.)
The Kool Aid drinkers might be surrounded by 2nd Amendment supporters with guns, but they don't live in areas where there is a lot of crime or violence. And these "decent" people mistake their privilege for integrity. I have had to restrain myself from laughing out loud when working among these "nice" white people (who usually assume I am just like them) when they pat themselves on the back for their successes in life. They no more chose to be born white and middle class than Brown chose to be born black and low income. And they congratulate themselves on surviving the comparatively small obstacles they have had to face, while diminishing the larger problems someone like Michael Brown, Jr. had to face. (He graduated from insolvent, unaccredited Normandy school district!)
Most of these "decent" people could not stand to ride public transit for four hours a day to fast food jobs for even a week, much less years. They moan about their inability to buy a more expensive car or go on a more expensive vacation, but seem to never consider what it would be like to go their entire lives without EITHER. These are the people that have fits when someone in their HOA doesn't mow their lawn often enough, can you imagine what sort of criminals these people would become if they lived in areas with crumbling buildings and vacant homes and few businesses or jobs? They'd be the first ones to start selling crack and heroin to make enough money to buy a car and move into a better area.
I invite you to look at the comments from the article that came out about John Crawford's murder * on August 6th, when the usual story of a "dangerous thug waving a gun in a Wal Mart" was shot and murdered by police. The "official story" has since been completely debunked, and do you see any retractions or apologies in there? No. Because these "decent" people are mostly racists that believe the only good "---" is a dead "---". One less lazy, unemployed, drug dealing, welfare thief off the streets. Hooray.
These people are not good or decent or better or more hard-working. They were simply lucky enough to be born in circumstances, and usually skin color, where they succeeded. And if they really believed all the congratulatory crap about themselves that they spewed, they wouldn't feel so threatened by affirmative action or social programs. They know that the current system does not have enough jobs (although there is plenty of work that needs doing) and that while there is excess and abundance, it is concentrated among the hands of very few people.
Instead of blaming the most power and richest in society, economic predators like Rex Sinquefield (what value does a hedge fund investor really bring to society? what has he done to make the world better that he deserves such wealth?) they blame the Crawfords and the Browns and the Myers. They blame the most oppressed in society. They blame dead black men.
If anyone bothers to take crime statistics in predominantly black communities and compare it to equal populations of white people and communities at the same income level it becomes obvious that crime is related to INCOME not COLOR. (But doing that would remove the smug superiority and congratulations that white privilege bestows on its' recipients. Then these folks would just be "lucky" and nothing more.)
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/09/vulnerableyouth/3/index.shtml
http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2012/09/19/income-inequalitys-strange-relationship-to-violence/
Do police stop crime or prevent it? Rarely. As I said in the "Spikes" post linked to above, these cops don't know anything about the people in the neighborhoods they patrol, don't seem to understand black culture at all (not every kid with saggy pants is a gang member or criminal) and for the most part just come to do a mop up and report.
Moreover, since most of the cops seem to think all black men are potential terrorists, they often create crime. ** The police response to John Crawford, III, Michael Brown, Jr. and VonDerrit Myers, Jr. are glaring examples of that. And in both cases the victim's were maligned to justify their murders at the hands of the police.
If calling the police means you might be inadvertently putting someone else at risk (police far too frequently mistake cell phones and toy guns for real guns, and do not seem to be able to tell black men apart "they all look the same" etc.) why call the police at all? How can the police help when they do not live in these areas and have no or little respect for the humanity of the people they police?
And what is really sickening is that none of these privileged people seem to be able to understand WHY there are protests against "cop-icide" of black men like Crawford, Brown, and Myers (and so many more). Even the cops on the STLMPD CopTalk blog act as if all black people are the same person, and that criminals and gang shootings should be treated the same as police killings. (Ironically not realizing they are, like the protesters, calling the cops criminals and thugs.)
The post link below on the Cop Talk blog is representative of this ideology. In it a poster asks "where are the Reverends?" to pray and protest when a drug deal resulted in a shooting and death in downtown St. Louis, yesterday, after "Moral Monday" actions by clergy.
http://members.boardhost.com/stlouiscoptalk/msg/1413314561.html
I'll tell you where they were: among their congregations in the many churches in North St. Louis city and county. Every day. Doing everything they can to make life better for their neighborhoods. I am especially sick of people disparaging Muslim Anthony Shahid, as he is one of the ONLY people, black or white, that has consistently reached out to young black men in the most dangerous neighborhoods in St. Louis. He might be theatrical, contentious, and possibly a separatist, but he has done more than ANY police force in turning young men away from gangs and creating viable futures for black youth of North St. Louis.
If "Black on Black Crime", as it is called by the Kool Aid drinkers, is comparable to police murdering black men, than there is the real problem right there. A cop murdering an unarmed man is not the same as a drug deal gone bad. And if you don't get that, I don't care if you are black or white or any other race or nationality, YOU are the problem. The police should serve and protect, NOT judge and execute.
(And to mimic the Cop Talk poster: where is the outcry over "white on white crime", in the case of Eric Frein or Adam Lanza? Or any of the other millions of examples of white people murdering other white people? Is it only about race when it is black people? yeah, that's what I thought.)
Law and Order is not the same as Justice and Peace. The Nazis had plenty of laws. They had more laws than any other country. And the concentration and death camps were very ordered. Right now we have "Just Us"- lawyers and judges and municipalities that have created a system where traffic tickets are a profitable business venture.
We don't need more cops, or stronger law enforcement. We need more economic equality, more jobs, better schools, healthcare, and repair of neighborhoods and infrastructure. We don't need more "order" we need more DIS-order. These violent, militarized macho cops that think they are the law or are above the law need to go. And we need to root out the racist individuals and institutionalized racism and white supremacy in Saint Louis.
The protests against the police killings of black men have nothing to do with criminals of any color killing other criminals. And more police, and especially not the kind of police that are the majority of the force right now, are not the answer to crime. I'm sorry that people have to demonstrate for 68+ days and disrupt sports games and symphonies and march through neighborhoods chanting at night to get this dialogue going.
If you find this so inconvenient, and you have all the answers, please, come move into the Canfield Green apartments or to College Hill or any black community of your choice, and live for a year, or even a month. Please come and demonstrate- literally- exactly how things are supposed to be. Since your kids are so amazing, and you are such great parents, enroll your kids in Normandy or Riverview Gardens schools, and "Show Me" how everyone can be as perfect as you.
You will learn very quickly that it takes more courage to be a black man in the U.S. than to be a police officer in the U.S. Especially in the most crime ridden neighborhoods.
Otherwise, shut the hell up, because you don't know shit and you have nothing to offer. And if you are a cop that is reading this and you work anywhere in North city or county, and you wear a "I am Darren Wilson" armband, or are any of the posters in this sickening CopTalk thread (bragging about sending protesters to the hospital and squashing freedom of speech and demonstrations: http://members.boardhost.com/stlouiscoptalk/msg/1412902526.html ): PLEASE RESIGN NOW.
In regards to the protests, since we are PROTESTING THE POLICE, you, Officer I Am Darren Wilson, are really nothing more than a counter-protester!
Police ESCALATE the anger of protesters simply by being there. And police bring so much violence, and potential for violence, and desire for violence, with them!
Officers I Am Darren Wilson, please go work in one those lillywhite "nice" neighborhoods you live in. Or convince your fellow officers to go on extended blue flu. (Don't worry, if you are one of the "Good Cops" you will be re-hired.) We The People will be able to organize a new system of policing much easier if you are gone.
THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IS GUILTY AS HELL! Time for change!
Footnotes:
*Crawford murder and comments:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/man-police-shot-in-walmart-killed-over-fake-gun-fa/ngw77/#cmComments
One of the most representative comments:
Lets see here. They go to Walmart and for whatever idiotic reason he grabs,I suppose a toy gun from the shelf, and I am guessing takes it out of the packaging. I think most come in some kind of card board packaging, then starts waiving it around pointing at people to the point were folks in the store sure must have thought it was a real gun since they called 911 to report that very thing. Im sure a commotion was started and people were getting the heck out of there. And at no time during this did this guy think... Hey Im waiving a toy gun around ???why???? freaking people out. Maybe I shouldnt do that??? Or maybe the cops are gonna get called... And then of course when they do he still is waiving it around refusing to put it down.???? Why?????what was the goal here. What normal person would do this?? why would anyone do this to the point of causing a panic in the first place and then when the police come you still are doing it and wont put it down as ordered.. .. That said dont be surprised that you get shot for your efforts. This guy made the decisions to act like he did and those actions and decisions led to his death. HIS ACTIONS AND HIS DECISIONS. So his babys mamma and or the girlfriend and baby momma to be can call the NAACP Jessie Jackson and try to make it racial all you want. Call Santa Clause if you want but the bottom line is this. He made the choice to act like he did and his actions caused the outcome. Lets not forget that his actions is what started this entire sequence of events and contributed to the death of a truly innocent woman who suffered a heart attack due Im sure in part to the stress of the incident when she was in the store. An incident that HE and HE alone chose to start. That is it period. The officers actions were just and correct. Good job. Im sorry that you have to go through this but you did the right thing. never forget that.
We now know 911 caller Ronald Ritchie lied, that Crawford was carrying a bb gun pointed downward, there were no other shoppers around, and that the Swat officers shot him in less than one minute after coming through the doors of the Wal-mart. You can watch the video with the 911 dispatch here: http://youtu.be/S9FtNOV6Qhk
** Cops create crime
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Man-films-local-officers-attempt-to-intimidate-him-under-false-pretences-249957921.html
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Two-Hillsdale-officers-allegedly-partner-with-drug-dealers-to-steal-heroin-253004751.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-police-officer-suspended-two-prosecutors-leave-jobs-amid/article_85b82473-efba-562f-b966-7c0ec0350feb.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/31/drug-search-trekies-stopped-searched-illinois_n_1364087.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-county-cop-charged-with-assaulting-man-with-baton/article_267e68a7-8496-5663-8c81-a951172a904f.html
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/06/04/man-sues-missouri-cops-claiming-deleted-footage-police-abuse/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/29/oklahoma-cop-charged-sexual-assaults/14830063/
http://youtu.be/h65WaOSS6sE
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/03/1333925/-Is-it-a-coverup-House-of-Cards-level-corruption-in-Ferguson-and-beyond
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2014/09/nixon_stumps_for_rep_jeff_roorda_an_ex-cop_who_says_body_cameras_make_people_less_safe.php
https://news.vice.com/article/el-paso-releases-video-of-cop-executing-handcuffed-man-wheres-the-anger
http://topconservativenews.com/2014/05/police-state-horror-reckless-driving-cop-that-charged-his-victim-with-fake-crimes-gets-to-keep-his-badge/
http://www.ky3.com/news/local/ky3-investigation-confidential-settlements-and-police-licensing/21048998_26075114
http://www.alternet.org/more-americans-killed-police-terrorists-crime-down-why-police-aggression
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-caught-millions-seized-assets-surveillance-gear-weapons-clowns/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/08/19/3472902/police-economic-ferguson/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/
http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Police-searching-for-suspect-in-fatal-stabbing-in-north-St-Louis-279231232.html
I already said most of what I think about the spikes in violence in this post from July 15th:
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/07/st-louis-spikes.html
Our country is becoming increasingly insolvent. There was no bail out in 2008, it was a band aid and only shifted the problem. Another economic crisis is looming. And who feels it first? The poorest.
Additionally, the heroin problem in the city has apparently gotten out of control in the last few years. It might mostly be poor, urban black men that have become addicts, but the problem has been noted as well among white, affluent teenagers in places like Webster Groves. (It was a headline in the Webster Kirkwood Times in 2010.)
Drugs don't miraculously surface in these neighborhoods. There's a two sided narrative in the media and mainstream white culture about black people in poor neighborhoods with high crime rates. Somehow, urban black people are portrayed as both lazy and shiftless, but at the same time motivated, crafty hustlers, running or part of criminal gang networks with enough motivation and organization to flood the streets with illegal drugs.
Neither is a correct description. And I guarantee you the drugs are coming in from much more organized, much more solvent, and much higher up and white-skinned "gangs." Drug balloon couriers, poor immigrants, biker and prison gangs, and drug cartels could not do this alone. Many of the drug planes that come from South America re-fuel at a former DEA agent's retirement home in Costa Rica. It's time to stop kidding ourselves about how drugs get into our country.
The mainstream has been swallowing the official story, i.e., the "Kool Aid", for so long that no one seems to really question it anymore. And the answer to almost every problem in North St. Louis is MORE POLICE.
If you go out to a "nice" neighborhood with good schools, a suburb that is mostly white, where the median income is $50K or above, and many of the mothers are unemployed "stay at home" moms, and you talk to people they will say things like: "I stay involved in my children's lives, and drive them to school and know all their friends and make sure they have lots of activities after school and build character and do family things together" etc.
These "respectable" people do all those things for their children because they want their children to have healthy experiences, develop a stable foundation for life, and keep away from kids that are considered a "bad influence", drugs, and dangerous mischief and crime. And they pat themselves on the back about what great parents they are when they succeed.
It never seems to occur to them that if they think their own children are so susceptible to "bad influences" in these "nice" neighborhoods with "good" parents, that kids in bad neighborhoods might be susceptible as well, and also be surrounded by bad influences. Their parents often work more than one job. And many are public transit dependent. Kids in North city and county schools do not take a lot of field trips or have well-funded after school programs. Gangs are rampant because teens want to form close bonds with their peers and find meaning in their lives. And the community does not offer many viable alternatives. (Youth centers might supply basketball courts, but they do not supply hopeful futures or meaningful lives.)
More ironic, is the outcry from these "decent" people that the "problem" with Brown and Myers started at home with their parents. Brown's parents weren't together, but both parents were active in his life, and he was on his way to his grandmother's when he was murdered. One of the first things his mother said when she arrived at Canfield Green was "do you know how hard it was for me to keep him in school to graduate?" I've heard the same thing from parents in the suburbs, facing much fewer obstacles! Moreover, many young men expressed their hopelessness about the future "why stay in school if I am going to get shot dead anyhow (by police or criminals)?"
(You know who DID NOT have a "good" family? Officer Darren Wilson. He had an absent father and his mother was a criminal. But the Kool Aid insists that all cops are honest and good, and all black men are liars and thugs.)
The Kool Aid drinkers might be surrounded by 2nd Amendment supporters with guns, but they don't live in areas where there is a lot of crime or violence. And these "decent" people mistake their privilege for integrity. I have had to restrain myself from laughing out loud when working among these "nice" white people (who usually assume I am just like them) when they pat themselves on the back for their successes in life. They no more chose to be born white and middle class than Brown chose to be born black and low income. And they congratulate themselves on surviving the comparatively small obstacles they have had to face, while diminishing the larger problems someone like Michael Brown, Jr. had to face. (He graduated from insolvent, unaccredited Normandy school district!)
Most of these "decent" people could not stand to ride public transit for four hours a day to fast food jobs for even a week, much less years. They moan about their inability to buy a more expensive car or go on a more expensive vacation, but seem to never consider what it would be like to go their entire lives without EITHER. These are the people that have fits when someone in their HOA doesn't mow their lawn often enough, can you imagine what sort of criminals these people would become if they lived in areas with crumbling buildings and vacant homes and few businesses or jobs? They'd be the first ones to start selling crack and heroin to make enough money to buy a car and move into a better area.
I invite you to look at the comments from the article that came out about John Crawford's murder * on August 6th, when the usual story of a "dangerous thug waving a gun in a Wal Mart" was shot and murdered by police. The "official story" has since been completely debunked, and do you see any retractions or apologies in there? No. Because these "decent" people are mostly racists that believe the only good "---" is a dead "---". One less lazy, unemployed, drug dealing, welfare thief off the streets. Hooray.
These people are not good or decent or better or more hard-working. They were simply lucky enough to be born in circumstances, and usually skin color, where they succeeded. And if they really believed all the congratulatory crap about themselves that they spewed, they wouldn't feel so threatened by affirmative action or social programs. They know that the current system does not have enough jobs (although there is plenty of work that needs doing) and that while there is excess and abundance, it is concentrated among the hands of very few people.
Instead of blaming the most power and richest in society, economic predators like Rex Sinquefield (what value does a hedge fund investor really bring to society? what has he done to make the world better that he deserves such wealth?) they blame the Crawfords and the Browns and the Myers. They blame the most oppressed in society. They blame dead black men.
If anyone bothers to take crime statistics in predominantly black communities and compare it to equal populations of white people and communities at the same income level it becomes obvious that crime is related to INCOME not COLOR. (But doing that would remove the smug superiority and congratulations that white privilege bestows on its' recipients. Then these folks would just be "lucky" and nothing more.)
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/09/vulnerableyouth/3/index.shtml
http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2012/09/19/income-inequalitys-strange-relationship-to-violence/
Do police stop crime or prevent it? Rarely. As I said in the "Spikes" post linked to above, these cops don't know anything about the people in the neighborhoods they patrol, don't seem to understand black culture at all (not every kid with saggy pants is a gang member or criminal) and for the most part just come to do a mop up and report.
Moreover, since most of the cops seem to think all black men are potential terrorists, they often create crime. ** The police response to John Crawford, III, Michael Brown, Jr. and VonDerrit Myers, Jr. are glaring examples of that. And in both cases the victim's were maligned to justify their murders at the hands of the police.
If calling the police means you might be inadvertently putting someone else at risk (police far too frequently mistake cell phones and toy guns for real guns, and do not seem to be able to tell black men apart "they all look the same" etc.) why call the police at all? How can the police help when they do not live in these areas and have no or little respect for the humanity of the people they police?
And what is really sickening is that none of these privileged people seem to be able to understand WHY there are protests against "cop-icide" of black men like Crawford, Brown, and Myers (and so many more). Even the cops on the STLMPD CopTalk blog act as if all black people are the same person, and that criminals and gang shootings should be treated the same as police killings. (Ironically not realizing they are, like the protesters, calling the cops criminals and thugs.)
The post link below on the Cop Talk blog is representative of this ideology. In it a poster asks "where are the Reverends?" to pray and protest when a drug deal resulted in a shooting and death in downtown St. Louis, yesterday, after "Moral Monday" actions by clergy.
http://members.boardhost.com/stlouiscoptalk/msg/1413314561.html
I'll tell you where they were: among their congregations in the many churches in North St. Louis city and county. Every day. Doing everything they can to make life better for their neighborhoods. I am especially sick of people disparaging Muslim Anthony Shahid, as he is one of the ONLY people, black or white, that has consistently reached out to young black men in the most dangerous neighborhoods in St. Louis. He might be theatrical, contentious, and possibly a separatist, but he has done more than ANY police force in turning young men away from gangs and creating viable futures for black youth of North St. Louis.
If "Black on Black Crime", as it is called by the Kool Aid drinkers, is comparable to police murdering black men, than there is the real problem right there. A cop murdering an unarmed man is not the same as a drug deal gone bad. And if you don't get that, I don't care if you are black or white or any other race or nationality, YOU are the problem. The police should serve and protect, NOT judge and execute.
(And to mimic the Cop Talk poster: where is the outcry over "white on white crime", in the case of Eric Frein or Adam Lanza? Or any of the other millions of examples of white people murdering other white people? Is it only about race when it is black people? yeah, that's what I thought.)
Law and Order is not the same as Justice and Peace. The Nazis had plenty of laws. They had more laws than any other country. And the concentration and death camps were very ordered. Right now we have "Just Us"- lawyers and judges and municipalities that have created a system where traffic tickets are a profitable business venture.
We don't need more cops, or stronger law enforcement. We need more economic equality, more jobs, better schools, healthcare, and repair of neighborhoods and infrastructure. We don't need more "order" we need more DIS-order. These violent, militarized macho cops that think they are the law or are above the law need to go. And we need to root out the racist individuals and institutionalized racism and white supremacy in Saint Louis.
The protests against the police killings of black men have nothing to do with criminals of any color killing other criminals. And more police, and especially not the kind of police that are the majority of the force right now, are not the answer to crime. I'm sorry that people have to demonstrate for 68+ days and disrupt sports games and symphonies and march through neighborhoods chanting at night to get this dialogue going.
If you find this so inconvenient, and you have all the answers, please, come move into the Canfield Green apartments or to College Hill or any black community of your choice, and live for a year, or even a month. Please come and demonstrate- literally- exactly how things are supposed to be. Since your kids are so amazing, and you are such great parents, enroll your kids in Normandy or Riverview Gardens schools, and "Show Me" how everyone can be as perfect as you.
You will learn very quickly that it takes more courage to be a black man in the U.S. than to be a police officer in the U.S. Especially in the most crime ridden neighborhoods.
Otherwise, shut the hell up, because you don't know shit and you have nothing to offer. And if you are a cop that is reading this and you work anywhere in North city or county, and you wear a "I am Darren Wilson" armband, or are any of the posters in this sickening CopTalk thread (bragging about sending protesters to the hospital and squashing freedom of speech and demonstrations: http://members.boardhost.com/stlouiscoptalk/msg/1412902526.html ): PLEASE RESIGN NOW.
In regards to the protests, since we are PROTESTING THE POLICE, you, Officer I Am Darren Wilson, are really nothing more than a counter-protester!
Police ESCALATE the anger of protesters simply by being there. And police bring so much violence, and potential for violence, and desire for violence, with them!
Officers I Am Darren Wilson, please go work in one those lillywhite "nice" neighborhoods you live in. Or convince your fellow officers to go on extended blue flu. (Don't worry, if you are one of the "Good Cops" you will be re-hired.) We The People will be able to organize a new system of policing much easier if you are gone.
THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IS GUILTY AS HELL! Time for change!
Footnotes:
*Crawford murder and comments:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/man-police-shot-in-walmart-killed-over-fake-gun-fa/ngw77/#cmComments
One of the most representative comments:
Lets see here. They go to Walmart and for whatever idiotic reason he grabs,I suppose a toy gun from the shelf, and I am guessing takes it out of the packaging. I think most come in some kind of card board packaging, then starts waiving it around pointing at people to the point were folks in the store sure must have thought it was a real gun since they called 911 to report that very thing. Im sure a commotion was started and people were getting the heck out of there. And at no time during this did this guy think... Hey Im waiving a toy gun around ???why???? freaking people out. Maybe I shouldnt do that??? Or maybe the cops are gonna get called... And then of course when they do he still is waiving it around refusing to put it down.???? Why?????what was the goal here. What normal person would do this?? why would anyone do this to the point of causing a panic in the first place and then when the police come you still are doing it and wont put it down as ordered.. .. That said dont be surprised that you get shot for your efforts. This guy made the decisions to act like he did and those actions and decisions led to his death. HIS ACTIONS AND HIS DECISIONS. So his babys mamma and or the girlfriend and baby momma to be can call the NAACP Jessie Jackson and try to make it racial all you want. Call Santa Clause if you want but the bottom line is this. He made the choice to act like he did and his actions caused the outcome. Lets not forget that his actions is what started this entire sequence of events and contributed to the death of a truly innocent woman who suffered a heart attack due Im sure in part to the stress of the incident when she was in the store. An incident that HE and HE alone chose to start. That is it period. The officers actions were just and correct. Good job. Im sorry that you have to go through this but you did the right thing. never forget that.
We now know 911 caller Ronald Ritchie lied, that Crawford was carrying a bb gun pointed downward, there were no other shoppers around, and that the Swat officers shot him in less than one minute after coming through the doors of the Wal-mart. You can watch the video with the 911 dispatch here: http://youtu.be/S9FtNOV6Qhk
** Cops create crime
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Man-films-local-officers-attempt-to-intimidate-him-under-false-pretences-249957921.html
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Two-Hillsdale-officers-allegedly-partner-with-drug-dealers-to-steal-heroin-253004751.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-police-officer-suspended-two-prosecutors-leave-jobs-amid/article_85b82473-efba-562f-b966-7c0ec0350feb.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/31/drug-search-trekies-stopped-searched-illinois_n_1364087.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-county-cop-charged-with-assaulting-man-with-baton/article_267e68a7-8496-5663-8c81-a951172a904f.html
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/06/04/man-sues-missouri-cops-claiming-deleted-footage-police-abuse/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/29/oklahoma-cop-charged-sexual-assaults/14830063/
http://youtu.be/h65WaOSS6sE
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/03/1333925/-Is-it-a-coverup-House-of-Cards-level-corruption-in-Ferguson-and-beyond
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2014/09/nixon_stumps_for_rep_jeff_roorda_an_ex-cop_who_says_body_cameras_make_people_less_safe.php
https://news.vice.com/article/el-paso-releases-video-of-cop-executing-handcuffed-man-wheres-the-anger
http://topconservativenews.com/2014/05/police-state-horror-reckless-driving-cop-that-charged-his-victim-with-fake-crimes-gets-to-keep-his-badge/
http://www.ky3.com/news/local/ky3-investigation-confidential-settlements-and-police-licensing/21048998_26075114
http://www.alternet.org/more-americans-killed-police-terrorists-crime-down-why-police-aggression
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-caught-millions-seized-assets-surveillance-gear-weapons-clowns/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/08/19/3472902/police-economic-ferguson/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/
Sunday, October 5, 2014
THE REVOLUTION IS BEING TWEETED & DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WHITE CULTURE RACISTS, RACISTS, & WHITE SUPREMACISTS
TWITTER REVOLUTION
In case you don't know already, the revolution is not being televised but it IS being tweeted. If you want to follow what is happening in Ferguson and the struggle to get justice for the murder of Mike Brown, you need to be on twitter. Check the hashtags #Ferguson, #JusticeforMikeBrown, #ArrestDarrenWilson, #Handsupdontshoot, and #Blacklivesmatter,
If you are over 25 and not used to social media, or only used to facebook (like me), twitter is kind of hard to navigate. And it is not a good venue for complex or deep discussion, since you are limited to 140 characters per tweet, and if you are responding to someone their @twitter handle takes up some of those characters as well. Ditto if you want to add those hashtags to the convo.
Also, it can be confusing who is talking and what they are saying. Irony and sarcasm don't always come across in a single tweet. And as with any social media, people can hide behind fake names and profile pics. A whole lotta white supremacists are using black profile pics to troll Ferguson tweeters. (Footnote 1- trolls, below)
There are also a lot of opinions expressed about racism and white people that I think are too broad and generalized, and this post is my attempt to break down what I see as the main forms of racism at work in our society.
RACISM AND THE RULING CLASS
So, first, I want to establish that I think all people have the capacity to be racist. I think it is hardwired in the "snake brain" the most primitive part of the human brain. If there aren't enough resources for everyone, the people that aren't the family or tribe or people are the ones that are going to be cut out.
And racism is worldwide. I can't find a people or culture where it is not present. Buddhists in Myanmar are racist against Royhinga Muslims and Karen Christians. I've heard Nigerians make racist remarks against the Fulani tribe (when a Fulani was in power). The Chinese discriminate against the Han people. Even among American white supremacists there are divisions over what constitutes "white" ("blood in the face" or DNA, etc).
Each individual person has to make a conscious decision to not be racist or prejudice.
This why racism is such an easy tool of oppression and oppressors. Racism presents itself (again, as far as I know) in every people that have become the dominant rulers of more than one people or culture.
And most individual people never move passed the culture they were raised in if they are part of the dominant or oppressor culture because they don't have to ("White privilege"). And while the dominated cultures and people's are forced to understand and live within the dominant culture- in order to get jobs, or even be allowed to survive- as outsiders that culture is not necessarily adopted, for any number of obvious reasons.
The rare person is the one that steps outside of their own culture and learns another, or many others, and then begins to view his own culture from an outside perspective. But the majority of people seem to fall into 2 categories: The conformists who mostly embrace it, the rebels who mostly reject it. Most people seem to do a combination of both. (I.e., the Catholic that goes to mass weekly, but believes that abortion is okay, etc.)
The Ruling Classes are separate. People with this much wealth and power have so much control over their environment at all times that they can live however they choose. The Bush family that gave us two Presidential regimes are oil people. Some of their best friends are bin Laden family members. The Ruling Classes don't really give a damn about skin color, or anything other than money and power. The very small percentage of people that run this world and that suck up most of the wealth are white, Arab and Chinese. And for class society to function the Ruling Classes need two things:
1) Cheap labour from a large group of people, most of whom are surplus workers (unemployed). That way people will continue to work for low wages because there aren't enough jobs. And will be too overwhelmed working to survive to create trouble.
2) Consumers with enough of the excess wealth & privilege that they will defend the system that benefits them, and also buy a lot of crap they don't really need, and go into a cycle of income and debt that will last a lifetime (house, cars, college, etc) and will be too overwhelmed being consumers to create any trouble.
If those two groups of people got together and realized that they were fighting each other, instead of fighting the people that are robbing them, then we would have a real revolution (and it wouldn't even need to be violent). So even though the ruling classes don't give a crap about what culture or race is dominant, they need racism and oppression to exist in the world. It's the best division to keep people fighting and blaming each other for all the poverty and struggle and lack and war in the world.
If there is a "they" it is the Ruling Classes.
THE WORKING OR LOWER CLASS FOX NEWS RACIST
But most people, everywhere, only see what is in front of them. And that white guy living in a rotting trailer, on food stamps, drinks the ruling class's "Kool Aid"- in other words, buys the story- that he is living in poverty because black people and lazy people and immigrants and women are stealing his fair share of the jobs and wealth. If it weren't for affirmative action and illegal aliens, he'd have a job. If it weren't for welfare fraud and "handouts" to undeserving people he wouldn't be on food stamps himself, etc.
In fact, he believes that if only all of these other poor, oppressed people around him weren't "stealing" from him, he'd be as rich as a Walton heir. He's white and he's a Christian and that is what all the people he admires are. Of course, it's the Walton heir who is the real thief. It is the Walton heir that engages in wage-slavery, sends jobs overseas to save profits by paying less for labour, etc. But Racist is blind to that or refuses to see it. (Footnote 2- status quo)
But what about that middle or upper middle class guy Racist? Trust me, no matter how big this person's house is, it still looks like a rotting trailer to him. He only sees up, he only thinks about acquiring more, and views everyone that is not exactly like him as somehow "stealing" from him.
And even if it isn't about material wealth for the Racist, it is about having more of something- superiority, worth, religious destiny, etc. This kind of Racist doesn't feel like there is enough of whatever it is for everyone, and he is determined to have as much as he can for himself .
This type of person feels so entitled and so overburdened by diversity of any kind that he is pretty much a hopeless case, and makes up the majority of the trolls. (And is also an embryonic white supremacist, more on that in a minute.) This Racist might be worth a try in person, but on the internet it does not appear to be a worthwhile endeavour, except for maybe in a public forum or comments section, if you think you might reach the next type of racist.
THE UNAWARE "WHITE CULTURE" RACIST
Then there are the middle and upper classes that often seem more liberal or radical because they have enough privilege and comfort that they can recognize racism's existence in some parts of society. They don't need their privilege as much and are not afraid to recognize it exists, even if they know it gives them an unfair advantage.
This is where cultural racism comes in. There are a lot of white, middle class liberals that voted for Obama, but still think that anything North of Delmar is a rain of bullets and gang drivebys. They hate rap music, saggy trousers and "Ebonics" (meaning the English of black culture). They don't judge black people by their skin colour, but by the black person's culture or cultural identity.
This kind of white culture person (WCP) is not against skin color, so they get real upset when someone calls them a racist, because they probably know alot of people like the regular Racist, listed above.
In other words, they have black friends, voted for a black President, may even go at time to predominantly black areas to shop, travel to black and brown countries on vacation, etc, but somewhere inside them, sometimes very deep inside, they actually believe that black people that are black culturally are scary and different and dangerous. They are often afraid of black neighborhoods-- even those without crime-- because they don't understand black culture.
Moreover, this kind of liberal white person is often a kind of "reverse racist". They feel personal guilt for having white privilege, and even though they find some or many aspects of black culture offensive they feel that they must "make up" for the institutionalized racism against black people in this country.
And that often leads to continuing to also view all black people as a group instead of individually, but by romanticizing each black person they encounter as being saints, instead of "thugs". No black person can ever do wrong, which means black people are still not fully human, with individual flaws and characters, etc. It's also the "those poor people, they can't help it, I need to save them" hero/savior attitude. Etc.
They try too hard, make themselves uncomfortable, and get defensive. This group is not hopeless. I know because I have successfully argued with many of them in the past. Among many white people I know that are fighting for justice for Mike Brown and support the Ferguson protesters, the consensus among us is that WCP that we really need to be dealing with. These are the people we know that ask us, genuinely confused but really trying to understand, why we are not afraid to go to a protest, or go to (or live in) areas they find intimidating, etc.
(I should add that I know a few black people that are also "white culture racists". Not kidding. If I shut my eyes while talking to these men their words sound like white men's words.)
White culture person (WCP): I get the First Amendment and freedom of speech and peacefully protesting, but this civil disobedience, like sitting in the street, or banging drums and walking through the neighborhoods chanting after 11 at night, how can you support that?
Me: The protesters are doing the same things that white people- and the Civil Rights movement- have done throughout US history to affect change. Make sure you are not viewing them through the mainstream lens of "all black people are inherent 'thugs' and 'criminals' " and then look again. What makes them different from the suffragists? Or Occupy?
This isn't just about Mike Brown and one racist cop, this is about institutionalized racism and 450 years of oppression.
Consider how hard black people have had to fight for their rights in this country. If this had happened in Kirkwood and Michael Brown had been white, Darren Wilson would have been in jail after the first night and a silent candlelight vigil. St. Louis has quarantined the black lower classes in North city and county, far from all the white people in power. They have to make a lot of noise. These kids have to shout at the top of their lungs all day and all night to get anyone to really listen or take them seriously simply because they are black.
WCP: How is (whatever protester action) helping anything? What is it doing? It might be alienating people that might otherwise be on the side of the protesters."
Me: Most of the people that would be alienated by civil disobedience are unlikely to affect any real change in ANY sphere of society or any issue. You should be thanking the protesters for challenging the status quo and revealing just how fascistic our society has become. Save your condemnations for the police that teargassed their own citizens. I'd rather have drums banging than teargas in my neighbourhood wouldn't you? I'd rather have people protesting than cops shooting unarmed teenagers.
(I also suggest bringing up the bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia in the 80's, in addition the the teargassing down in Ferguson, when talking to the WCP.)
I've been having the above type of conversation with WCP for a long time, before Brown's murder. If I recognize that a person has the ability or desire to change but is really trapped by the system or beliefs they live in, I try to remain open and not be too reactive. Because I WANT them to come talk to me about things like Brown's murder and the Ferguson protests. Otherwise they are just talking to other white people who might be racist or might be clueless.
So, if you encounter a WCP you feel like has real questions, try to stay open to them, even if they are really angry or generally repulsive. Trust your heart. Sometimes the most imprisoned people are yelling the loudest and/or angriest. Also, remember you may not get an immediate reaction to your words. It could be hours, days, months, years, etc. Get your ego and need for immediate change out of your head for better results.
What also helps with these kind of White Culture People (WCP) is to bring up parallels in their own ancestry and history. (This on my personal blog: http://www.laladyrae.blogspot.com/2014/08/more-on-how-to-explain-things-to-fox.html )
You probably will have to have the same conversation over and over again with each WCP. In regards to Browns death, even the white people that think Brown's death was awful, that even if he did punch Wilson, etc, he didn't deserve to die. The WCP might also think that there were legitimate grounds for Wilson shooting Brown. And this is tricky, because it really requires that the WCP understand things they have no experience with. But if they have a mind that wants to be open, they will listen and try.
The official story that Mike Brown grabbed for Wilson's gun or attacked Wilson in any way is flat out unbelievable. But you have to be able to see cultural and class differences to see why.
"Nice" middle class white people are cultured to not argue with the police. And your well-meaning WCP is probably one of these people. Their idea of protest is to rent a community room and have speakers and food and to march with a permit, single file on a sidewalk during daylight hours when the weather is nice. They are voters and taxpayers and their phone calls to City Hall get answered when they call politicians and judges. They sign petitions and expect legislation to follow. They are taken seriously by the Ruling Classes and the government. (At least to a point, but this post is long enough.)
In their minds, they know that white people are, in fact, often disrespectful to police and shove store clerks. They know that Webster Groves has a growing population of white high school students addicted to heroin. And maybe even they themselves have stolen cigarettes or bought beer illegally, or used a fake I.D. to get into a bar, or even been disrespectful to police But Webster is not poor and is not violent. It's not that white people are inherently nice or better, but that the middle classes are mostly white, and middle class culture is not poor or openly violent.
And since the WCP matters to society, is the part of society the Ruling Classes rely on to "keep order", the police are not likely to shoot white suburban teenagers for being mouthy. If that were the norm, yours truly would have been shot by police 30 years ago.
To really get through to the WCP you need to bring these things up. You need to point out how many white people would be afraid of Mike Brown simply because he was a large black man. All white people know that paranoid white woman that clutches her purse and cringes when she sees a large black man. All white people know someone that becomes either overly friendly or overly hostile when a black person shows up at an otherwise usually all white social function.
In fact, the WCP you are trying to reach probably has similar conversations with the purse clutcher. As in, "That's my friend so and so, he's employed, professional, speaks English like a white person, listens to white music not rap, stop judging all black people." (I've overheard these convo's.)
Institutionalized racism and mainstream media work hard to equate black culture as synonymous with gangster criminals. So when your WCP hears that Mike Brown and Dorian Johnston were disrespectful to a policeman and shoved a store clerk, they are vulnerable to exactly the manipulation Jackson and McCulloch have used so skillfully, even if they are not skin-color racist.
So now, get your White Culture Person to think about life from Mike Brown's shoes. Ask them to imagine how often Brown would have been seen as a threat and had to deal with either that over-arching false niceness, or heavy handed hostility- both of which were rooted in fear.
And even if Darren Wilson was the first time Brown had interacted with the police (and I really doubt that, not because I think he had a juvenile record, but because I have never met a black male over the age of 10 that has not been stopped/harassed/questioned/detained by the police) why would ANYONE think Brown grabbed for Wilson's gun?
You can only buy that if you believe that Brown really was a lawless thug and thief with no regard for his own life. If you point out that he was a teenager, that he was likely used to much worse police harassment than an order to "get the fuck on the sidewalk", and that he knew well that any interaction with the police needed to be taken more seriously by a black person than a white person, what you see is a teenage kid trying to assert what little dignity he has. "We almost to our destination," Johnson said he and Brown responded to Wilson's order.
(That Wilson was concerned about Brown and Johnson's safety as pedestrians in the street is ludicrous. The OPTINSTL blog is entirely about how little anyone in power cares about pedestrians and transit riders of any color, in most areas of St. Louis city and county. You might be able to convince me that Wilson was irritated about his vehicle's right of way being impeded by two men he obviously viewed as "thugs", with or without knowledge of the alleged stolen cigarillos or incident with the clerk at Ferguson Market, which I also think is bogus.)
My take on what happened: I can see Brown being a rebellious teenager and fed up with being targeted by cops, and "mouthing off"- i.e., not immediately obeying or saying "yes sir" at Wilson.
But punching a cop and trying to steal his gun? That would be a big step even for a hardened criminal or gang member. EVERY black man would know that brought a death sentence. And tragically, in Brown's case, that death sentence was handed down simply for "contempt of cop".
(And probably because Wilson did open his car door suddenly, to grab for Brown through the window, and Brown did pull his arm away, and the door bounced back. And there was "the tussle" which Wilson ended when he pulled out his gun and Brown and Johnson fled instead of immediately surrendering on their knees, in submission, which is what all the racists seem to think is what should have happened. Whereas I think Brown running away probably saved Johnson's life as well. Or at least saved Johnson from being shot and injured.)
You can only buy the official story if you view all black men as criminals and terrorists. And if you buy that all policeman are good and that there is no institutionalized racism or corruption. And WCP usually only need to be really challenged on these two beliefs, and given freedom to express views that they hold that they do not realize are racist and unfounded in reality. (In other words, give them the chance to throw out the bathwater, and save the baby.)
Just keep pointing out to WCP the far too many examples of police brutality and abuse against black people, particularly black men. As a white person with any knowledge and understanding of the black community, and especially how differently black people are treated by the police, the best thing you can do is challenge WCP on their racism.
THE SERIOUS WHITE SUPREMACISTS
Now, about those white supremacists. This is a whole different breed of person. These people are not mainstream. And while there are certainly many white supremacists in the Ruling and middle classes, the culture itself comes from poor white people, like the Fox News watching trailer trash Racist I described earlier.
There is a reason the biggest white supremacy group, the Aryan Brotherhood (AB), is a prison gang. These Kluxers and White Revolution and neo-nazi's (WR) are the white boys that have the same type of encounters with the police that black people do. Except these guys really are all criminals. And ironically, whereas black men are all mostly viewed as being the same by police, these white men are singled out and known individually in their communities. In other words, to be white and have the police treat you like a black person, you have to work to distinguish yourself. (Another example of institutionalized and cultural racism and oppression, think about it. White people retain their own identities, are recognized as individuals, etc.)
Being white is the only thing that makes feel better about themselves. It gives them a lot of people to blame for their problems in the world. That's pretty sad and scary, in and of itself. Coupled with the fact that these are very violent men by nature. The more violent and hateful they are, the more they feel like real men. Real men fight. Real men kill. Real men hate their enemies and give them no quarter. They equate violence and lack of mercy with strength and power.
(Take a look at these mugshots of the Aryan Brotherhood leadership. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trials-seek-to-crush-Aryan-Brotherhood-2502116.php That is a genuinely scary person. If cops like Darren Wilson cannot tell the threat difference between a big, cocky teenager with black skin and a guy like that Aryan Brotherhood leader pictured, they should not be carrying a gun. Worse, if Wilson and cops like him are white supremacists, I don't want them carrying guns at all.)
But most importantly, white supremacists have made a conscious decision to exclude everyone but other white people that believe in white supremacy. I have white skin and they hate me. There is really no way to get through to them. You can humiliate them by pointing out world population statistics and how no matter what they do, white people are becoming the minority. (Footnote 3)
You find more middle class whites in the neo-Nazi and White Revolution groups. The level of violence is usually in direct proportion to how violent the person (men mostly) is as an individual. All seem to have very violent fantasies, but whether they become violent has to do with culture and opportunity. They are essentially less isolated and more united Adam Lanza's and James Holmes. More integrated into their family lives and society (precisely because it is that white family and white society they are avenging/protecting) than the "average" random shooter (who is violent and delusional but cut off from any unified group or culture). But violent sociopaths nonetheless.
These people are only dangerous if events in Ferguson or the U.S. become chaotic or violent enough for them to feel comfortable enough to fit their own violent acts in without being noticed. I doubt at this point that will happen, because there are too many of the WCP on our side or on the fence.
However, on the third or fourth night of the protests after Brown's murder, there was a news report of four armed white men in a car on West Florissant. My first thought when I heard this was that these were White Revolution people had been motivated to see if in the chaos, they might be able to go shoot some ----- (you know the word).
I do worry about individual sociopaths trying to instigate violence, but so far the movement seems to be very strong and very good at isolating and removing troublemakers. Another worry I had was that KKKops might try to start a race war, but the few that have been exposed by livestreams and their own social media pages have shown that society is not on their side.
On the internet the only directly effective way to deal with the white supremacists trolls is with non-violence and humor, as violence only escalates things, and as they have no ability to respond to humor. Humiliation, especially sexual humiliation, delivered by white women these men find attractive or desirable. Also making light of what they say ("haha you called me a N--- lover, oh I'm so hurt, no one has every called me that before." or "Oh I'm so shocked you used a racial slur, how offensive, gee I've never heard that before! Go away troll and come back when you have some new material! lol")
They are deadly serious and racist hate is their entire life's meaning. If you can, make them insignificant and then ignore them as much as possible.
Otherwise, it is best to get to know who they are and keep an eye on them, be watchful about any situation involving them escalating (hence the humor) and to continue working to create an environment that is hostile and excluding to them.
I think the best way to continue creating a diverse and "anti-racist" environment is to keep talking to the WCP, the white cultural racist person, about racism and racists and the institutionalized racism of this country, and pointing out how a country where everyone was truly equal would benefit us all.
I hope this is helpful.
Thanks for reading this. Sorry it is so long. Below are things I edited out and turned into footnotes. I also deleted stuff that really needs to be stand alone blog posts. I have a hard time not going off on tangents.
1) TROLL- A troll is someone that makes it a point to follow and respond antagonistically. For instance, regarding Mike Brown and Ferguson, I am attacked by trolls. But I sometimes am a troll when I go to right wing sites and make antagonistic comments to them. Then there is trolling the trolls- finding the haters and racists and following them back, attacking all their posts. Something I enjoy at times, but lately have had no time for. There are just too many of them and they all say the same things.
2) STATUS QUO Ironically, it is the lower classes- working and poverty level-- that often have to invest the most into the current status quo just get a step up on the ladder. The idea of a revolution or change means that the ladder will be toppled, and all humans fear change. If the ladder goes, then so goes the only chance to better his life that he can see in his narrow little world. And since he has so few opportunities for advance in his own life, he unwittingly fights to preserve the status quo that is actually his enemy, too.
3) ARYAN BROTHERHOOD With the Aryan Brotherhood, despite what you hear about the amount of black men that are locked up, the prisons are still full of mostly white people, because white people are the majority in this country.
But in places like Los Angeles, as Hispanic people (either born here or immigrants) become the majority, their numbers grew in the prison system, too. The Aryan Brotherhood had to form alliances with gangs like the Mexican Mafia and El Salvador's MS-13. The Aryan Brotherhood had to include brown skinned gangs or risk those gangs uniting with the black gangs against them. (All oppressive systems follow the same principles. And all are rooted in the use of violence, fear and hate.)
In case you don't know already, the revolution is not being televised but it IS being tweeted. If you want to follow what is happening in Ferguson and the struggle to get justice for the murder of Mike Brown, you need to be on twitter. Check the hashtags #Ferguson, #JusticeforMikeBrown, #ArrestDarrenWilson, #Handsupdontshoot, and #Blacklivesmatter,
If you are over 25 and not used to social media, or only used to facebook (like me), twitter is kind of hard to navigate. And it is not a good venue for complex or deep discussion, since you are limited to 140 characters per tweet, and if you are responding to someone their @twitter handle takes up some of those characters as well. Ditto if you want to add those hashtags to the convo.
Also, it can be confusing who is talking and what they are saying. Irony and sarcasm don't always come across in a single tweet. And as with any social media, people can hide behind fake names and profile pics. A whole lotta white supremacists are using black profile pics to troll Ferguson tweeters. (Footnote 1- trolls, below)
There are also a lot of opinions expressed about racism and white people that I think are too broad and generalized, and this post is my attempt to break down what I see as the main forms of racism at work in our society.
RACISM AND THE RULING CLASS
So, first, I want to establish that I think all people have the capacity to be racist. I think it is hardwired in the "snake brain" the most primitive part of the human brain. If there aren't enough resources for everyone, the people that aren't the family or tribe or people are the ones that are going to be cut out.
And racism is worldwide. I can't find a people or culture where it is not present. Buddhists in Myanmar are racist against Royhinga Muslims and Karen Christians. I've heard Nigerians make racist remarks against the Fulani tribe (when a Fulani was in power). The Chinese discriminate against the Han people. Even among American white supremacists there are divisions over what constitutes "white" ("blood in the face" or DNA, etc).
Each individual person has to make a conscious decision to not be racist or prejudice.
This why racism is such an easy tool of oppression and oppressors. Racism presents itself (again, as far as I know) in every people that have become the dominant rulers of more than one people or culture.
And most individual people never move passed the culture they were raised in if they are part of the dominant or oppressor culture because they don't have to ("White privilege"). And while the dominated cultures and people's are forced to understand and live within the dominant culture- in order to get jobs, or even be allowed to survive- as outsiders that culture is not necessarily adopted, for any number of obvious reasons.
The rare person is the one that steps outside of their own culture and learns another, or many others, and then begins to view his own culture from an outside perspective. But the majority of people seem to fall into 2 categories: The conformists who mostly embrace it, the rebels who mostly reject it. Most people seem to do a combination of both. (I.e., the Catholic that goes to mass weekly, but believes that abortion is okay, etc.)
The Ruling Classes are separate. People with this much wealth and power have so much control over their environment at all times that they can live however they choose. The Bush family that gave us two Presidential regimes are oil people. Some of their best friends are bin Laden family members. The Ruling Classes don't really give a damn about skin color, or anything other than money and power. The very small percentage of people that run this world and that suck up most of the wealth are white, Arab and Chinese. And for class society to function the Ruling Classes need two things:
1) Cheap labour from a large group of people, most of whom are surplus workers (unemployed). That way people will continue to work for low wages because there aren't enough jobs. And will be too overwhelmed working to survive to create trouble.
2) Consumers with enough of the excess wealth & privilege that they will defend the system that benefits them, and also buy a lot of crap they don't really need, and go into a cycle of income and debt that will last a lifetime (house, cars, college, etc) and will be too overwhelmed being consumers to create any trouble.
If those two groups of people got together and realized that they were fighting each other, instead of fighting the people that are robbing them, then we would have a real revolution (and it wouldn't even need to be violent). So even though the ruling classes don't give a crap about what culture or race is dominant, they need racism and oppression to exist in the world. It's the best division to keep people fighting and blaming each other for all the poverty and struggle and lack and war in the world.
If there is a "they" it is the Ruling Classes.
THE WORKING OR LOWER CLASS FOX NEWS RACIST
But most people, everywhere, only see what is in front of them. And that white guy living in a rotting trailer, on food stamps, drinks the ruling class's "Kool Aid"- in other words, buys the story- that he is living in poverty because black people and lazy people and immigrants and women are stealing his fair share of the jobs and wealth. If it weren't for affirmative action and illegal aliens, he'd have a job. If it weren't for welfare fraud and "handouts" to undeserving people he wouldn't be on food stamps himself, etc.
In fact, he believes that if only all of these other poor, oppressed people around him weren't "stealing" from him, he'd be as rich as a Walton heir. He's white and he's a Christian and that is what all the people he admires are. Of course, it's the Walton heir who is the real thief. It is the Walton heir that engages in wage-slavery, sends jobs overseas to save profits by paying less for labour, etc. But Racist is blind to that or refuses to see it. (Footnote 2- status quo)
But what about that middle or upper middle class guy Racist? Trust me, no matter how big this person's house is, it still looks like a rotting trailer to him. He only sees up, he only thinks about acquiring more, and views everyone that is not exactly like him as somehow "stealing" from him.
And even if it isn't about material wealth for the Racist, it is about having more of something- superiority, worth, religious destiny, etc. This kind of Racist doesn't feel like there is enough of whatever it is for everyone, and he is determined to have as much as he can for himself .
This type of person feels so entitled and so overburdened by diversity of any kind that he is pretty much a hopeless case, and makes up the majority of the trolls. (And is also an embryonic white supremacist, more on that in a minute.) This Racist might be worth a try in person, but on the internet it does not appear to be a worthwhile endeavour, except for maybe in a public forum or comments section, if you think you might reach the next type of racist.
THE UNAWARE "WHITE CULTURE" RACIST
Then there are the middle and upper classes that often seem more liberal or radical because they have enough privilege and comfort that they can recognize racism's existence in some parts of society. They don't need their privilege as much and are not afraid to recognize it exists, even if they know it gives them an unfair advantage.
This is where cultural racism comes in. There are a lot of white, middle class liberals that voted for Obama, but still think that anything North of Delmar is a rain of bullets and gang drivebys. They hate rap music, saggy trousers and "Ebonics" (meaning the English of black culture). They don't judge black people by their skin colour, but by the black person's culture or cultural identity.
This kind of white culture person (WCP) is not against skin color, so they get real upset when someone calls them a racist, because they probably know alot of people like the regular Racist, listed above.
In other words, they have black friends, voted for a black President, may even go at time to predominantly black areas to shop, travel to black and brown countries on vacation, etc, but somewhere inside them, sometimes very deep inside, they actually believe that black people that are black culturally are scary and different and dangerous. They are often afraid of black neighborhoods-- even those without crime-- because they don't understand black culture.
Moreover, this kind of liberal white person is often a kind of "reverse racist". They feel personal guilt for having white privilege, and even though they find some or many aspects of black culture offensive they feel that they must "make up" for the institutionalized racism against black people in this country.
And that often leads to continuing to also view all black people as a group instead of individually, but by romanticizing each black person they encounter as being saints, instead of "thugs". No black person can ever do wrong, which means black people are still not fully human, with individual flaws and characters, etc. It's also the "those poor people, they can't help it, I need to save them" hero/savior attitude. Etc.
They try too hard, make themselves uncomfortable, and get defensive. This group is not hopeless. I know because I have successfully argued with many of them in the past. Among many white people I know that are fighting for justice for Mike Brown and support the Ferguson protesters, the consensus among us is that WCP that we really need to be dealing with. These are the people we know that ask us, genuinely confused but really trying to understand, why we are not afraid to go to a protest, or go to (or live in) areas they find intimidating, etc.
(I should add that I know a few black people that are also "white culture racists". Not kidding. If I shut my eyes while talking to these men their words sound like white men's words.)
White culture person (WCP): I get the First Amendment and freedom of speech and peacefully protesting, but this civil disobedience, like sitting in the street, or banging drums and walking through the neighborhoods chanting after 11 at night, how can you support that?
Me: The protesters are doing the same things that white people- and the Civil Rights movement- have done throughout US history to affect change. Make sure you are not viewing them through the mainstream lens of "all black people are inherent 'thugs' and 'criminals' " and then look again. What makes them different from the suffragists? Or Occupy?
This isn't just about Mike Brown and one racist cop, this is about institutionalized racism and 450 years of oppression.
Consider how hard black people have had to fight for their rights in this country. If this had happened in Kirkwood and Michael Brown had been white, Darren Wilson would have been in jail after the first night and a silent candlelight vigil. St. Louis has quarantined the black lower classes in North city and county, far from all the white people in power. They have to make a lot of noise. These kids have to shout at the top of their lungs all day and all night to get anyone to really listen or take them seriously simply because they are black.
WCP: How is (whatever protester action) helping anything? What is it doing? It might be alienating people that might otherwise be on the side of the protesters."
Me: Most of the people that would be alienated by civil disobedience are unlikely to affect any real change in ANY sphere of society or any issue. You should be thanking the protesters for challenging the status quo and revealing just how fascistic our society has become. Save your condemnations for the police that teargassed their own citizens. I'd rather have drums banging than teargas in my neighbourhood wouldn't you? I'd rather have people protesting than cops shooting unarmed teenagers.
(I also suggest bringing up the bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia in the 80's, in addition the the teargassing down in Ferguson, when talking to the WCP.)
I've been having the above type of conversation with WCP for a long time, before Brown's murder. If I recognize that a person has the ability or desire to change but is really trapped by the system or beliefs they live in, I try to remain open and not be too reactive. Because I WANT them to come talk to me about things like Brown's murder and the Ferguson protests. Otherwise they are just talking to other white people who might be racist or might be clueless.
So, if you encounter a WCP you feel like has real questions, try to stay open to them, even if they are really angry or generally repulsive. Trust your heart. Sometimes the most imprisoned people are yelling the loudest and/or angriest. Also, remember you may not get an immediate reaction to your words. It could be hours, days, months, years, etc. Get your ego and need for immediate change out of your head for better results.
What also helps with these kind of White Culture People (WCP) is to bring up parallels in their own ancestry and history. (This on my personal blog: http://www.laladyrae.blogspot.com/2014/08/more-on-how-to-explain-things-to-fox.html )
You probably will have to have the same conversation over and over again with each WCP. In regards to Browns death, even the white people that think Brown's death was awful, that even if he did punch Wilson, etc, he didn't deserve to die. The WCP might also think that there were legitimate grounds for Wilson shooting Brown. And this is tricky, because it really requires that the WCP understand things they have no experience with. But if they have a mind that wants to be open, they will listen and try.
The official story that Mike Brown grabbed for Wilson's gun or attacked Wilson in any way is flat out unbelievable. But you have to be able to see cultural and class differences to see why.
"Nice" middle class white people are cultured to not argue with the police. And your well-meaning WCP is probably one of these people. Their idea of protest is to rent a community room and have speakers and food and to march with a permit, single file on a sidewalk during daylight hours when the weather is nice. They are voters and taxpayers and their phone calls to City Hall get answered when they call politicians and judges. They sign petitions and expect legislation to follow. They are taken seriously by the Ruling Classes and the government. (At least to a point, but this post is long enough.)
In their minds, they know that white people are, in fact, often disrespectful to police and shove store clerks. They know that Webster Groves has a growing population of white high school students addicted to heroin. And maybe even they themselves have stolen cigarettes or bought beer illegally, or used a fake I.D. to get into a bar, or even been disrespectful to police But Webster is not poor and is not violent. It's not that white people are inherently nice or better, but that the middle classes are mostly white, and middle class culture is not poor or openly violent.
And since the WCP matters to society, is the part of society the Ruling Classes rely on to "keep order", the police are not likely to shoot white suburban teenagers for being mouthy. If that were the norm, yours truly would have been shot by police 30 years ago.
To really get through to the WCP you need to bring these things up. You need to point out how many white people would be afraid of Mike Brown simply because he was a large black man. All white people know that paranoid white woman that clutches her purse and cringes when she sees a large black man. All white people know someone that becomes either overly friendly or overly hostile when a black person shows up at an otherwise usually all white social function.
In fact, the WCP you are trying to reach probably has similar conversations with the purse clutcher. As in, "That's my friend so and so, he's employed, professional, speaks English like a white person, listens to white music not rap, stop judging all black people." (I've overheard these convo's.)
Institutionalized racism and mainstream media work hard to equate black culture as synonymous with gangster criminals. So when your WCP hears that Mike Brown and Dorian Johnston were disrespectful to a policeman and shoved a store clerk, they are vulnerable to exactly the manipulation Jackson and McCulloch have used so skillfully, even if they are not skin-color racist.
So now, get your White Culture Person to think about life from Mike Brown's shoes. Ask them to imagine how often Brown would have been seen as a threat and had to deal with either that over-arching false niceness, or heavy handed hostility- both of which were rooted in fear.
And even if Darren Wilson was the first time Brown had interacted with the police (and I really doubt that, not because I think he had a juvenile record, but because I have never met a black male over the age of 10 that has not been stopped/harassed/questioned/detained by the police) why would ANYONE think Brown grabbed for Wilson's gun?
You can only buy that if you believe that Brown really was a lawless thug and thief with no regard for his own life. If you point out that he was a teenager, that he was likely used to much worse police harassment than an order to "get the fuck on the sidewalk", and that he knew well that any interaction with the police needed to be taken more seriously by a black person than a white person, what you see is a teenage kid trying to assert what little dignity he has. "We almost to our destination," Johnson said he and Brown responded to Wilson's order.
(That Wilson was concerned about Brown and Johnson's safety as pedestrians in the street is ludicrous. The OPTINSTL blog is entirely about how little anyone in power cares about pedestrians and transit riders of any color, in most areas of St. Louis city and county. You might be able to convince me that Wilson was irritated about his vehicle's right of way being impeded by two men he obviously viewed as "thugs", with or without knowledge of the alleged stolen cigarillos or incident with the clerk at Ferguson Market, which I also think is bogus.)
My take on what happened: I can see Brown being a rebellious teenager and fed up with being targeted by cops, and "mouthing off"- i.e., not immediately obeying or saying "yes sir" at Wilson.
But punching a cop and trying to steal his gun? That would be a big step even for a hardened criminal or gang member. EVERY black man would know that brought a death sentence. And tragically, in Brown's case, that death sentence was handed down simply for "contempt of cop".
(And probably because Wilson did open his car door suddenly, to grab for Brown through the window, and Brown did pull his arm away, and the door bounced back. And there was "the tussle" which Wilson ended when he pulled out his gun and Brown and Johnson fled instead of immediately surrendering on their knees, in submission, which is what all the racists seem to think is what should have happened. Whereas I think Brown running away probably saved Johnson's life as well. Or at least saved Johnson from being shot and injured.)
You can only buy the official story if you view all black men as criminals and terrorists. And if you buy that all policeman are good and that there is no institutionalized racism or corruption. And WCP usually only need to be really challenged on these two beliefs, and given freedom to express views that they hold that they do not realize are racist and unfounded in reality. (In other words, give them the chance to throw out the bathwater, and save the baby.)
Just keep pointing out to WCP the far too many examples of police brutality and abuse against black people, particularly black men. As a white person with any knowledge and understanding of the black community, and especially how differently black people are treated by the police, the best thing you can do is challenge WCP on their racism.
THE SERIOUS WHITE SUPREMACISTS
Now, about those white supremacists. This is a whole different breed of person. These people are not mainstream. And while there are certainly many white supremacists in the Ruling and middle classes, the culture itself comes from poor white people, like the Fox News watching trailer trash Racist I described earlier.
There is a reason the biggest white supremacy group, the Aryan Brotherhood (AB), is a prison gang. These Kluxers and White Revolution and neo-nazi's (WR) are the white boys that have the same type of encounters with the police that black people do. Except these guys really are all criminals. And ironically, whereas black men are all mostly viewed as being the same by police, these white men are singled out and known individually in their communities. In other words, to be white and have the police treat you like a black person, you have to work to distinguish yourself. (Another example of institutionalized and cultural racism and oppression, think about it. White people retain their own identities, are recognized as individuals, etc.)
Being white is the only thing that makes feel better about themselves. It gives them a lot of people to blame for their problems in the world. That's pretty sad and scary, in and of itself. Coupled with the fact that these are very violent men by nature. The more violent and hateful they are, the more they feel like real men. Real men fight. Real men kill. Real men hate their enemies and give them no quarter. They equate violence and lack of mercy with strength and power.
(Take a look at these mugshots of the Aryan Brotherhood leadership. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trials-seek-to-crush-Aryan-Brotherhood-2502116.php That is a genuinely scary person. If cops like Darren Wilson cannot tell the threat difference between a big, cocky teenager with black skin and a guy like that Aryan Brotherhood leader pictured, they should not be carrying a gun. Worse, if Wilson and cops like him are white supremacists, I don't want them carrying guns at all.)
But most importantly, white supremacists have made a conscious decision to exclude everyone but other white people that believe in white supremacy. I have white skin and they hate me. There is really no way to get through to them. You can humiliate them by pointing out world population statistics and how no matter what they do, white people are becoming the minority. (Footnote 3)
You find more middle class whites in the neo-Nazi and White Revolution groups. The level of violence is usually in direct proportion to how violent the person (men mostly) is as an individual. All seem to have very violent fantasies, but whether they become violent has to do with culture and opportunity. They are essentially less isolated and more united Adam Lanza's and James Holmes. More integrated into their family lives and society (precisely because it is that white family and white society they are avenging/protecting) than the "average" random shooter (who is violent and delusional but cut off from any unified group or culture). But violent sociopaths nonetheless.
These people are only dangerous if events in Ferguson or the U.S. become chaotic or violent enough for them to feel comfortable enough to fit their own violent acts in without being noticed. I doubt at this point that will happen, because there are too many of the WCP on our side or on the fence.
However, on the third or fourth night of the protests after Brown's murder, there was a news report of four armed white men in a car on West Florissant. My first thought when I heard this was that these were White Revolution people had been motivated to see if in the chaos, they might be able to go shoot some ----- (you know the word).
I do worry about individual sociopaths trying to instigate violence, but so far the movement seems to be very strong and very good at isolating and removing troublemakers. Another worry I had was that KKKops might try to start a race war, but the few that have been exposed by livestreams and their own social media pages have shown that society is not on their side.
On the internet the only directly effective way to deal with the white supremacists trolls is with non-violence and humor, as violence only escalates things, and as they have no ability to respond to humor. Humiliation, especially sexual humiliation, delivered by white women these men find attractive or desirable. Also making light of what they say ("haha you called me a N--- lover, oh I'm so hurt, no one has every called me that before." or "Oh I'm so shocked you used a racial slur, how offensive, gee I've never heard that before! Go away troll and come back when you have some new material! lol")
They are deadly serious and racist hate is their entire life's meaning. If you can, make them insignificant and then ignore them as much as possible.
Otherwise, it is best to get to know who they are and keep an eye on them, be watchful about any situation involving them escalating (hence the humor) and to continue working to create an environment that is hostile and excluding to them.
I think the best way to continue creating a diverse and "anti-racist" environment is to keep talking to the WCP, the white cultural racist person, about racism and racists and the institutionalized racism of this country, and pointing out how a country where everyone was truly equal would benefit us all.
I hope this is helpful.
Thanks for reading this. Sorry it is so long. Below are things I edited out and turned into footnotes. I also deleted stuff that really needs to be stand alone blog posts. I have a hard time not going off on tangents.
1) TROLL- A troll is someone that makes it a point to follow and respond antagonistically. For instance, regarding Mike Brown and Ferguson, I am attacked by trolls. But I sometimes am a troll when I go to right wing sites and make antagonistic comments to them. Then there is trolling the trolls- finding the haters and racists and following them back, attacking all their posts. Something I enjoy at times, but lately have had no time for. There are just too many of them and they all say the same things.
2) STATUS QUO Ironically, it is the lower classes- working and poverty level-- that often have to invest the most into the current status quo just get a step up on the ladder. The idea of a revolution or change means that the ladder will be toppled, and all humans fear change. If the ladder goes, then so goes the only chance to better his life that he can see in his narrow little world. And since he has so few opportunities for advance in his own life, he unwittingly fights to preserve the status quo that is actually his enemy, too.
3) ARYAN BROTHERHOOD With the Aryan Brotherhood, despite what you hear about the amount of black men that are locked up, the prisons are still full of mostly white people, because white people are the majority in this country.
But in places like Los Angeles, as Hispanic people (either born here or immigrants) become the majority, their numbers grew in the prison system, too. The Aryan Brotherhood had to form alliances with gangs like the Mexican Mafia and El Salvador's MS-13. The Aryan Brotherhood had to include brown skinned gangs or risk those gangs uniting with the black gangs against them. (All oppressive systems follow the same principles. And all are rooted in the use of violence, fear and hate.)
Friday, October 3, 2014
FERGUSON POLICE DEPARTMENT HAVE TRULY CROSSED A LINE
We live in a fascist state called St. Louis.12 people out of a group of
20 were arrested tonight. 12 people that have had their voices and rights ignored, have been tear gassed,
threatened, harassed, kidnapped and held hostage (these arrests
and detainments are not legal- it IS kidnapping and holding hostage).
http://youtu.be/wOpjCxO4JSI
Tonight they said that "speech that incites violence" is illegal. Does that mean if the protesters say something that incites the police to violence, the protesters are to blame? Why didn't this apply to Westboro Baptist Church, or Cliven Bundy (who was armed)?
They have doubled the bonds and are holding the 12 for 24 hours. The legal people were told to call Devin James, the PR spokesperson as to why and how the police were able to do this legally.
Is this really the world you want to live in? What if Mike Brown had been your child? What if something happened in your community that brought large groups of people demanding change? No one was looting, no one was armed. The protesters weren't a large crowd tonight and there were no drums, no one was sitting in the street.
They were doing less than last night, and the Ferguson PD sent out congratulatory tweet to themselves and other departments. According to them, it was the massive police presence, not that they had no real grounds for any arrests, and too many people present and filming to arrest anyone.
The police have been attacking leaders and livestreamers since last Thursday when they were caught in a huge lie. They said the protesters "attacked" Chief Jackson. Only a few officers had their body cams and only one was recording. They said they had it on tape, but livestreamers and photos proved the police to be liars.
http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_dd486708-49d1-11e4-9734-8fedcbcd786a.html
Tonight they arrested a journalist who was filming. I think they didn't know she was a journalist. I think they just a camera. But let's not forget they arrested a reverend two nights ago and locked him in a paddy wagon with bloodstains on the ceiling.
This is not just police called out to monitor protesters, THE FERGUSON POLICE DEPARTMENT IS WHO WE ARE PROTESTING AGAINST. These cops are wearing bracelets that say I AM DARREN WILSON, on duty or off, that is who they are.
For this reason alone we need a Department of Justice (DOJ) observer AT ALL TIMES.
If this violation of your Constitutional rights enrages you call the Department of Justice, the Ferguson PD, and your state and local elected officials. These cops will not change on their own. And if we don't start demanding our rights we will have none left soon. All of us.
Don't wait. Do it now.
Department of Justice 1-855-856-2132 toll free
http://youtu.be/wOpjCxO4JSI
Tonight they said that "speech that incites violence" is illegal. Does that mean if the protesters say something that incites the police to violence, the protesters are to blame? Why didn't this apply to Westboro Baptist Church, or Cliven Bundy (who was armed)?
They have doubled the bonds and are holding the 12 for 24 hours. The legal people were told to call Devin James, the PR spokesperson as to why and how the police were able to do this legally.
Is this really the world you want to live in? What if Mike Brown had been your child? What if something happened in your community that brought large groups of people demanding change? No one was looting, no one was armed. The protesters weren't a large crowd tonight and there were no drums, no one was sitting in the street.
They were doing less than last night, and the Ferguson PD sent out congratulatory tweet to themselves and other departments. According to them, it was the massive police presence, not that they had no real grounds for any arrests, and too many people present and filming to arrest anyone.
The police have been attacking leaders and livestreamers since last Thursday when they were caught in a huge lie. They said the protesters "attacked" Chief Jackson. Only a few officers had their body cams and only one was recording. They said they had it on tape, but livestreamers and photos proved the police to be liars.
http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_dd486708-49d1-11e4-9734-8fedcbcd786a.html
Tonight they arrested a journalist who was filming. I think they didn't know she was a journalist. I think they just a camera. But let's not forget they arrested a reverend two nights ago and locked him in a paddy wagon with bloodstains on the ceiling.
This is not just police called out to monitor protesters, THE FERGUSON POLICE DEPARTMENT IS WHO WE ARE PROTESTING AGAINST. These cops are wearing bracelets that say I AM DARREN WILSON, on duty or off, that is who they are.
For this reason alone we need a Department of Justice (DOJ) observer AT ALL TIMES.
If this violation of your Constitutional rights enrages you call the Department of Justice, the Ferguson PD, and your state and local elected officials. These cops will not change on their own. And if we don't start demanding our rights we will have none left soon. All of us.
Don't wait. Do it now.
Department of Justice 1-855-856-2132 toll free
Monday, September 29, 2014
FERGUSON POLICE ARE VIOLATING YOUR RIGHTS TOO
Today was the second part of an ACLU lawsuit filed in federal court, against the 5-second rule, being used by all Law Enforcement agencies policing (you can also spell that "counter-protesting") the protesters.
ACLU filed for a Temporary Restraining Order on 8/18 and it was denied. Today was part 2, a hearing for an injunction.
For reasons I don't understand, only the Missouri Highway Patrol and St. Louis County PD were named in the suit.
For more reasons I don't understand, the ACLU did not have any video footage of either of those entities threatening protesters with arrest if they didn't "keep moving." (PLEASE contact the MO ACLU if you have footage of a STLCO or MHP cop telling you to "keep moving or face arrest" etc! No, they didn't ask me to send people to them, they don't even know I am doing this, but there is PLENTY of footage out there and it should have been seen in court today!)
I have more to say about what I learned in court today, especially about how truly delusional the police are, and how easily they lie under oath. But something more important, all of the police arguments for telling people to "keep moving" were based on the amount of protesters gathering.
Well, I was told to keep moving, and to shut up (I was yelling at the police) and that I would be arrested if I didn't keep moving. And I was alone.
A lot of people took pictures and video of me, and I really need help finding it. The more documentation I have the better. Please read this and see if you can spread the word, help me find someone with a photo or video. I think I have a very good lawsuit to file.
On 8/19 I took the #61 bus from Riverview to West Florissant and walked down to the protest area across from Quik Trip. I was wearing a pink cowboy hat and shorts and white tennis shoes. (That's all I remember of my clothing.)
I was wearing a hand painted green sign with white lettering that said "There is no such thing as Unlawful Assembly. The entire USA is a Free Speech Zone at all times. #Justice for Mike" It hung on a cord around my neck.
I got there about 4:30. I gave Anderson Cooper, several MoHP personnel, and several protesters a copy of this leaflet. http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/08/dear-ferguson-police-department-mo.html
I stood near some folks selling hands up don't shoot t-shirts. At 5 PM I noticed that traffic had slowed considerably, and I saw the police were setting up illegal roadblocks, one at West Florissant and Highmont.
Let me be clear about some things: There were no big crowds. Everyone was on the sidewalk. Everyone was moving around (except for the 100's of cops in their cars and Swat vehicles or just standing around talking to each other).
THERE WAS NO REASON FOR THE ROADBLOCKS.
I tried to get the St Louis County cop manning the roadblock to call his superior officer that had ordered this, but he told me that EVEN THOUGH HE AGREED HE WAS VIOLATING THE 1st AMENDMENT AND THERE WAS NO REASON FOR THE ROADBLOCK he was afraid to lose his job. Another cop made a lame attempt to warn me of arrest but did nothing about it.
So I started yelling at passing cars "This roadblock is illegal. These officers are violating Constitutional law. Every single one of these police officers should be in jail. If their boss told them to steal cigarillos and they did, they would be arrested for stealing. They are breaking the highest law in the land. There is no reason for this roadblock. We are peaceful, we are on the sidewalk. You should not have to go through a roadblock to drive down streets you pay for. You should not have to show your ID to the police to drive down a major street..." Etc, and so on, for almost 2 hours.
The vans filled with cops in SWAT gear would come by and sneer at me, and laugh. A lot of people in cars took my picture or recorded me, and many nodded in agreement and more than a few just drove around the roadblock without stopping.
As it got near sunset their was a storm coming and I left Highmont and went up to Chambers to catch the bus home. When I got there I had time so I started yelling the same thing at the cops blocking Chambers. Several of them threatened me with arrest and I read them the 1stAmendment. Then they told me had to keep moving. Then that I had to shut up. Then that I couldn't stand at the median for the crosswalk but on the sidewalk.
Then the officer went and got a Sergeant. I got his name. He not only threatened me with arrest, he informed that the roadblocks were set up at the request of the Ferguson County Council (none of them could site ANY ordinance or reason for the roadblock) and that since pedestrians could get through it was ok, because "driving is a privilege" in Missouri. Meaning, I thought, that any cop has the right to take it away from you at any time.
When I told him he couldn't arrest me for shouting Free Speech while walking to the bus stop, he pointed at the southbound West Florissant bus stop, for the #74, and where the bus couldn't go anyhow, because they'd shut down the street.
He finally left me alone, I think because his shift was over. When the cop cars unblocked Chambers I stopped yelling (but continued to wear my sign) and went to catch the #61 back to Riverview. At the bus stop a white guy in a car stopped to take a pic of my sign. I gave him my last leaflet.
I'd say I have a good case here, but it'd be better if I could some more documentation, as I was alone, and since the cops seems to have memory problems, and also seem to feel just fine lying outright, I'd like to find some more documentation, witnesses, etc.
My glasses are different now, but this is the only pic I could find wearing the hat.
Please email me at optinstl@gmail.com
YOUR rights are being trampled in Ferguson, too. And it has not stopped. The police are still illegally arresting people and making up excuses to attack the protesters. REMEMBER, what we are protesting is THE POLICE. And they are far too comfortable in their impunity.
Please, ask everyone you know if they saw a loud mouthed crazy woman shouting on West Florissant about the Constitution, on Tuesday August 19, 2014, between 430-730, approximately.
ACLU filed for a Temporary Restraining Order on 8/18 and it was denied. Today was part 2, a hearing for an injunction.
For reasons I don't understand, only the Missouri Highway Patrol and St. Louis County PD were named in the suit.
For more reasons I don't understand, the ACLU did not have any video footage of either of those entities threatening protesters with arrest if they didn't "keep moving." (PLEASE contact the MO ACLU if you have footage of a STLCO or MHP cop telling you to "keep moving or face arrest" etc! No, they didn't ask me to send people to them, they don't even know I am doing this, but there is PLENTY of footage out there and it should have been seen in court today!)
I have more to say about what I learned in court today, especially about how truly delusional the police are, and how easily they lie under oath. But something more important, all of the police arguments for telling people to "keep moving" were based on the amount of protesters gathering.
Well, I was told to keep moving, and to shut up (I was yelling at the police) and that I would be arrested if I didn't keep moving. And I was alone.
A lot of people took pictures and video of me, and I really need help finding it. The more documentation I have the better. Please read this and see if you can spread the word, help me find someone with a photo or video. I think I have a very good lawsuit to file.
On 8/19 I took the #61 bus from Riverview to West Florissant and walked down to the protest area across from Quik Trip. I was wearing a pink cowboy hat and shorts and white tennis shoes. (That's all I remember of my clothing.)
I was wearing a hand painted green sign with white lettering that said "There is no such thing as Unlawful Assembly. The entire USA is a Free Speech Zone at all times. #Justice for Mike" It hung on a cord around my neck.
I got there about 4:30. I gave Anderson Cooper, several MoHP personnel, and several protesters a copy of this leaflet. http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/08/dear-ferguson-police-department-mo.html
I stood near some folks selling hands up don't shoot t-shirts. At 5 PM I noticed that traffic had slowed considerably, and I saw the police were setting up illegal roadblocks, one at West Florissant and Highmont.
Let me be clear about some things: There were no big crowds. Everyone was on the sidewalk. Everyone was moving around (except for the 100's of cops in their cars and Swat vehicles or just standing around talking to each other).
THERE WAS NO REASON FOR THE ROADBLOCKS.
I tried to get the St Louis County cop manning the roadblock to call his superior officer that had ordered this, but he told me that EVEN THOUGH HE AGREED HE WAS VIOLATING THE 1st AMENDMENT AND THERE WAS NO REASON FOR THE ROADBLOCK he was afraid to lose his job. Another cop made a lame attempt to warn me of arrest but did nothing about it.
So I started yelling at passing cars "This roadblock is illegal. These officers are violating Constitutional law. Every single one of these police officers should be in jail. If their boss told them to steal cigarillos and they did, they would be arrested for stealing. They are breaking the highest law in the land. There is no reason for this roadblock. We are peaceful, we are on the sidewalk. You should not have to go through a roadblock to drive down streets you pay for. You should not have to show your ID to the police to drive down a major street..." Etc, and so on, for almost 2 hours.
The vans filled with cops in SWAT gear would come by and sneer at me, and laugh. A lot of people in cars took my picture or recorded me, and many nodded in agreement and more than a few just drove around the roadblock without stopping.
As it got near sunset their was a storm coming and I left Highmont and went up to Chambers to catch the bus home. When I got there I had time so I started yelling the same thing at the cops blocking Chambers. Several of them threatened me with arrest and I read them the 1stAmendment. Then they told me had to keep moving. Then that I had to shut up. Then that I couldn't stand at the median for the crosswalk but on the sidewalk.
Then the officer went and got a Sergeant. I got his name. He not only threatened me with arrest, he informed that the roadblocks were set up at the request of the Ferguson County Council (none of them could site ANY ordinance or reason for the roadblock) and that since pedestrians could get through it was ok, because "driving is a privilege" in Missouri. Meaning, I thought, that any cop has the right to take it away from you at any time.
When I told him he couldn't arrest me for shouting Free Speech while walking to the bus stop, he pointed at the southbound West Florissant bus stop, for the #74, and where the bus couldn't go anyhow, because they'd shut down the street.
He finally left me alone, I think because his shift was over. When the cop cars unblocked Chambers I stopped yelling (but continued to wear my sign) and went to catch the #61 back to Riverview. At the bus stop a white guy in a car stopped to take a pic of my sign. I gave him my last leaflet.
I'd say I have a good case here, but it'd be better if I could some more documentation, as I was alone, and since the cops seems to have memory problems, and also seem to feel just fine lying outright, I'd like to find some more documentation, witnesses, etc.
My glasses are different now, but this is the only pic I could find wearing the hat.
Please email me at optinstl@gmail.com
YOUR rights are being trampled in Ferguson, too. And it has not stopped. The police are still illegally arresting people and making up excuses to attack the protesters. REMEMBER, what we are protesting is THE POLICE. And they are far too comfortable in their impunity.
Please, ask everyone you know if they saw a loud mouthed crazy woman shouting on West Florissant about the Constitution, on Tuesday August 19, 2014, between 430-730, approximately.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
LONG STORY SHORT: WILSON WAS 100 FT AWAY FROM BROWN, NOT 35 FT
Shaun King has been tweeting and working with residents in the Canfield Green Apartments to expose the biggest lie the Ferguson P.D. have told us about Michael Brown:
35 feet is the distance for justifiable use of force.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/512647624071995392
The rear end of Wilson's SUV is 100 feet from Brown's body. Remember, Mike Brady couldn't see Wilson clearly, because Wilson was obscured by his vehicle.
http://youtu.be/pYqrAhpo_w4
I wish someone would get the plate number on Wilson's vehicle. I STILL cannot find out when the vehicle left, if Wilson and the supervisor left in it, as was first reported from the police channel, and if it was at the scene after Wilson left, when was the car processed, and how was it removed? SO many vehicles during the crime scene, and not enough video and pics on the vehicle.
35 feet is the distance for justifiable use of force.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/512647624071995392
The rear end of Wilson's SUV is 100 feet from Brown's body. Remember, Mike Brady couldn't see Wilson clearly, because Wilson was obscured by his vehicle.
http://youtu.be/pYqrAhpo_w4
I wish someone would get the plate number on Wilson's vehicle. I STILL cannot find out when the vehicle left, if Wilson and the supervisor left in it, as was first reported from the police channel, and if it was at the scene after Wilson left, when was the car processed, and how was it removed? SO many vehicles during the crime scene, and not enough video and pics on the vehicle.
THE POLICE STARTED THE RIOT, AND THE BIGGEST CROWD AT THE CRIME SCENE WAS NOT MOURNERS, BUT COPS
Here is a good set of pix from after the murder of Michael Brown, Jr.
http://instagram.com/phoenix_amun
The "crowd" that the police claimed was too "unsafe" for the coroner to drive through? Yeah, it was that gang in blue and brown that has been terrorizing poor and black communities for years. They all wear a badge as part of their gang insignia, and are very identifiable. They are also armed to the teeth.
Where is the army of psych workers that would have been sent to console the people that had just witnessed a horrible act of violence, IF this had been a "nice" white neighbourhood? Where is the concern?
And where is the huge and dangerous crowd that the police say they were so afraid of?
I been saying all along that the police have been nothing more than counter-protesters. (Once they broke Constitutional law and violated the First Amendment they ceased to have any authority as police officers.)
And no one needs me to point out that they reason they came down so hard and viciously is because we were protesting them. Like sending the fox to guard the henhouse.
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/08/dear-ferguson-police-department-mo.html
http://instagram.com/phoenix_amun
The "crowd" that the police claimed was too "unsafe" for the coroner to drive through? Yeah, it was that gang in blue and brown that has been terrorizing poor and black communities for years. They all wear a badge as part of their gang insignia, and are very identifiable. They are also armed to the teeth.
Where is the army of psych workers that would have been sent to console the people that had just witnessed a horrible act of violence, IF this had been a "nice" white neighbourhood? Where is the concern?
And where is the huge and dangerous crowd that the police say they were so afraid of?
I been saying all along that the police have been nothing more than counter-protesters. (Once they broke Constitutional law and violated the First Amendment they ceased to have any authority as police officers.)
And no one needs me to point out that they reason they came down so hard and viciously is because we were protesting them. Like sending the fox to guard the henhouse.
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/08/dear-ferguson-police-department-mo.html
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
WHY VOTING FOR MICHAEL BROWN JR IS A GREAT ACT OF FREEDOM, AND THE BEST REASON TO VOTE THIS NOVEMBER
EDIT: Consider voting for "Justice For Mike Brown" or "BlackLivesMatter" instead of Mike Brown, in respect to his mother's wishes.
I didn't realize that other people had started the same campaign when I came to the conclusion that the only person to vote for as Prosecutor (McCulloch is running unopposed) was Michael Brown, Jr.
(One link is the leaflet, the other is the original post.)
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/09/november-4th-2014-vote-for-michael.html
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/09/vote-for-michael-brown-november-4th.html
But now that the movement has become visible, I found this article about it, and all the (sarcasm alert) "lovely" trolls in the comments.
http://twitchy.com/2014/09/16/furious-st-louis-county-residents-start-campaign-to-writeinmikebrown-for-county-executive/
After responding to all of them individually, and making the same points over and over, I thought I'd just consolidate it all here.
First, let me explain something about voting in this country that a lot of people don't seem to understand. Your vote is NOT just a choice about who is on the ballot, IT IS YOUR VOICE TO THE GOVERNMENT. As far as I know, we are unique in all the world for this. VOTING and the election process replaced the monarchy. It was the voice of the individual citizen which is sovereign. And we have the right to say whatever we want, without fear of government reprisal. (Well, in theory, anyhow.)
We The People even have the right to vote for someone not on the ballot. We can write-in ANYONE. You can vote for ANYONE. (I think Mickey Mouse and Jesus, and during the 1960's, Snoopy's friend Woodstock, are the most famous.)
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/columnists/mckenzie-from-your-mom-to-hank-the-cat-write-in/article_f377eab4-304a-11e2-b874-001a4bcf6878.html?mode=jqm
And did you know there is a cat that has been mayor of an Alaskan town for 16 years?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/us/alaska-cat-mayor-attacked/
We can write-in the name of a dead man that was killed by the police. He won't be elected, obviously, or serve in office, but we can tell the government that is who we want to vote for. That is what voting is in this country. Who we want, not NECESSARILY who is on the ballot.
This is an unparallelled freedom in this world. That we have such freedom and power we can legally mock a candidate and the entire electoral process if we choose.
As I said before, I hope the voter turnout this November is 100%. Not just the African American vote, not just North county and city, but that everyone that is eligible votes. Let us exercise and protect this freedom.
Your voice is the strongest weapon you possess. By all means, keep protesting, attending meetings, petitioning, and seeking out leaders that can run for office, but please vote. Vote to protect your voice. Vote to make your voice heard. Vote to send McCulloch a message that we want Justice for Mike in that office.
http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_5509968c-3e8c-11e4-b8fa-d3c00efcf341.html
Because there have been so many attacks on voter rights, and because there is a chance the Board of Election Commissioners may not officially tally the votes for Michael Brown, Jr. I suggest you send the BOEC a message BEFORE the election, in addition to calling on them on November 5th (the day after the election) requesting that they uphold the voice of the people and report the number of votes write-in candidates receive, whether those write-ins are living or dead. It wouldn't hurt to send a letter to the media outlets, requesting that they too ask the BOEC for a tally of all the votes cast, including all write-ins, and not just for those names on the ballot.
Feel free to use part or all of this letter.
Dear Board of Election Commissioners:
You may be aware there is movement growing among voters to write in Michael Brown, Jr. for St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney, against Robert McCulloch, who is running unopposed.
Because the vote is the voice of the people in this country, and not just the means to make a choice from what is on the ballot, we are requesting that you tally and report the write-ins as well as the votes for official ballot choices.
If you are planning to sanction voters for writing in a deceased person, or discredit their ballots, please make public IMMEDIATELY under what terms you are legally able to do this.
I didn't realize that other people had started the same campaign when I came to the conclusion that the only person to vote for as Prosecutor (McCulloch is running unopposed) was Michael Brown, Jr.
(One link is the leaflet, the other is the original post.)
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/09/november-4th-2014-vote-for-michael.html
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/09/vote-for-michael-brown-november-4th.html
But now that the movement has become visible, I found this article about it, and all the (sarcasm alert) "lovely" trolls in the comments.
http://twitchy.com/2014/09/16/furious-st-louis-county-residents-start-campaign-to-writeinmikebrown-for-county-executive/
After responding to all of them individually, and making the same points over and over, I thought I'd just consolidate it all here.
First, let me explain something about voting in this country that a lot of people don't seem to understand. Your vote is NOT just a choice about who is on the ballot, IT IS YOUR VOICE TO THE GOVERNMENT. As far as I know, we are unique in all the world for this. VOTING and the election process replaced the monarchy. It was the voice of the individual citizen which is sovereign. And we have the right to say whatever we want, without fear of government reprisal. (Well, in theory, anyhow.)
We The People even have the right to vote for someone not on the ballot. We can write-in ANYONE. You can vote for ANYONE. (I think Mickey Mouse and Jesus, and during the 1960's, Snoopy's friend Woodstock, are the most famous.)
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/columnists/mckenzie-from-your-mom-to-hank-the-cat-write-in/article_f377eab4-304a-11e2-b874-001a4bcf6878.html?mode=jqm
And did you know there is a cat that has been mayor of an Alaskan town for 16 years?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/us/alaska-cat-mayor-attacked/
We can write-in the name of a dead man that was killed by the police. He won't be elected, obviously, or serve in office, but we can tell the government that is who we want to vote for. That is what voting is in this country. Who we want, not NECESSARILY who is on the ballot.
This is an unparallelled freedom in this world. That we have such freedom and power we can legally mock a candidate and the entire electoral process if we choose.
As I said before, I hope the voter turnout this November is 100%. Not just the African American vote, not just North county and city, but that everyone that is eligible votes. Let us exercise and protect this freedom.
Your voice is the strongest weapon you possess. By all means, keep protesting, attending meetings, petitioning, and seeking out leaders that can run for office, but please vote. Vote to protect your voice. Vote to make your voice heard. Vote to send McCulloch a message that we want Justice for Mike in that office.
http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_5509968c-3e8c-11e4-b8fa-d3c00efcf341.html
Because there have been so many attacks on voter rights, and because there is a chance the Board of Election Commissioners may not officially tally the votes for Michael Brown, Jr. I suggest you send the BOEC a message BEFORE the election, in addition to calling on them on November 5th (the day after the election) requesting that they uphold the voice of the people and report the number of votes write-in candidates receive, whether those write-ins are living or dead. It wouldn't hurt to send a letter to the media outlets, requesting that they too ask the BOEC for a tally of all the votes cast, including all write-ins, and not just for those names on the ballot.
Feel free to use part or all of this letter.
Dear Board of Election Commissioners:
You may be aware there is movement growing among voters to write in Michael Brown, Jr. for St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney, against Robert McCulloch, who is running unopposed.
Because the vote is the voice of the people in this country, and not just the means to make a choice from what is on the ballot, we are requesting that you tally and report the write-ins as well as the votes for official ballot choices.
If you are planning to sanction voters for writing in a deceased person, or discredit their ballots, please make public IMMEDIATELY under what terms you are legally able to do this.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
WHAT OPTINSTL HOPES TO SAY TO THE COUNTY COUNCIL AT TONIGHT'S MEETING
This
meeting will likely be packed, but this is what I am hoping to say to
the Council:
First
of all, I would like to remind everyone that it is public tax money
that pays for every one of your salaries. Taxes pay for the police,
and their guns and their jails. Public money paid for Darren Wilson
to shoot Michael Brown, Jr., and we continue to pay Wilson while he
awaits the Grand Jury verdict. All of you are paid public servants,
and you answer to us- whether we vote or not, and even if we
individually do not pay property or income taxes, or do not pay them
all the time. You are not legally allowed to pick and choose who you
listen to or serve. You serve all of us.
We
The People, are your true employers. We are who you answer to. We
have not been exercising our authority enough, but that has changed.
And it is the First Amendment that guarantees that we have the right
to assert that authority. There is no higher authority in the U.S.
The
police, and those that give them their orders, have been in violation
of Constitutional Law in regards to the protests. Almost all of the
arrests made were done while the police were acting illegally, and
most of the arrests are illegal.
Constitutional
Law is the highest law in the land, and the police and government
officials should understand it or be held accountable. If a Police
chief ordered one of his officers to steal cigarillos and the officer
complied, he would still be guilty of theft. The police are not above
the law. They do not make the law. And they are not authorized to
change it to make their own jobs easier.
First
Amendment:
Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There
is no such thing as "Unlawful Assembly". The entire USA is
a Free Speech Zone at all times. There is no curfew on the First
Amendment. There is no law that protesters keep moving. And just
because there might be some "un-peaceable" protesters, does
not mean that ALL the protesters can be arrested. The First Amendment
does not allow for suspension to make it easier for the police.
The
police are representatives of the Government, and we are petitioning
the Government for a redress of grievances against the police and the
judicial system. The police have essentially been doing nothing more
than counter-protesting, using their authority and weapons against
us. No one has done more "rioting" or caused more violence
than the police. Tear gas, military vehicles, filled with men armed
with assault rifles. And every one of them acting as illegally as
the few looters during the first few nights.
The
justification for setting up illegal roadblocks, assigning people to
"Approved Assembly" areas, quarantining the press in a
similar manner, and arresting people for "failure to disperse"
has been justified because of the POSSIBILITY that SOME people MIGHT
break the law and loot, etc.
But
even these justifications are illegal. I was arrested on my way to
the I-70 and Hanley demonstration. The police had illegally blocked
off Hanley because they asserted that everyone that was attending
might "illegally" walk out into the highway.
They
also sited "safety issues". For instance, one officer said
"what if someone ran out in the highway and got hit by a car?"
Well, first of all, and I will be looking into this, the First
Amendment rights of We The People probably require that if we wish to
assemble on a public highway, that the police shut it down for 4
minutes for our protest. Moreover, since they DID shut down Hanley,
there was no reason that we could not have assembled on the overpass,
in the street. And since the First Amendment does NOT require a
permit to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of
grievances, we have even more right to protest than the St. Patrick's
Day parade has the authority to shut down Market street.
I had come to be part of the protest, but had no plans to block the highway. I had come to hand out leaflets encouraging St. Louis County voters to write-in and vote for Michael Brown, Jr. as Prosecutor, to send a message of discontent to Robert McCulloch, who is running unopposed.
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/09/november-4th-2014-vote-for-michael.html
I came because I knew the First Amendment would be violated by the police, and that there would be illegal arrests. And I wanted to be there to remind people that those arrests were illegal.
I had come to be part of the protest, but had no plans to block the highway. I had come to hand out leaflets encouraging St. Louis County voters to write-in and vote for Michael Brown, Jr. as Prosecutor, to send a message of discontent to Robert McCulloch, who is running unopposed.
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/09/november-4th-2014-vote-for-michael.html
I came because I knew the First Amendment would be violated by the police, and that there would be illegal arrests. And I wanted to be there to remind people that those arrests were illegal.
I was
charged with "trespassing" because I crossed the police
line. In the same way that any concealed carry permit held by
someone looting became invalid the moment he entered a store and
stole juice, every officer's badge became invalid the moment he or
she broke Constitutional law. Since they had no legal authority to
shut down the street, my arrest is invalid, and was nothing more than
kidnapping and being held hostage. Moreover, every officer there
should be charged with blocking traffic and violating First Amendment
rights.
Changing
the complexion of the police force is not the only answer. Policing
must change. In the black communities more female officers need to
be recruited. The conditions that create crime need to be changed.
A lot has been said about traffic warrants, and as far as Berkeley
goes, where I was held, jail and jail conditions are used to punish
people and force them to pay their bond, without any due process to
determine guilt. I am certain Berkeley is not an exception, and that
the rest are as bad.
If
the Berkeley jail was in a Muslim the country U.N. observers would be
dispatched. No bond hearing, no right to see an attorney. Inmates
are held until they pay bond, and inmate's are allotted only $3.71 a
day to cover the cost of their incarceration. That's three 3 bread
and meat sandwiches three times a day, at less than 1000 calories.
Water only to drink, and only when you are eating. No toothbrush.
Women are charged for sanitary napkins they need, and good luck
getting one at night, when there is no one at the desk and you have
to wave at the cameras and hope that someone in dispatch sees you and
will send someone up to respond.
The lights are left on all the time. You get only one thin blanket and it is freezing. The bunks are metal. There is no hot water or soap to wash your hands. There is no clock. No outside light. You are only allowed free phone calls during meal times or must call people collect at a rate of $20 for a ten minute call. And even if you cannot pay bond and will be there for 30 or more days, you are not provided with a toothbrush and the opportunity to brush your teeth. In fact, no toiletries all all, even the once daily shower is only soap and the showers are unhygienic.
The lights are left on all the time. You get only one thin blanket and it is freezing. The bunks are metal. There is no hot water or soap to wash your hands. There is no clock. No outside light. You are only allowed free phone calls during meal times or must call people collect at a rate of $20 for a ten minute call. And even if you cannot pay bond and will be there for 30 or more days, you are not provided with a toothbrush and the opportunity to brush your teeth. In fact, no toiletries all all, even the once daily shower is only soap and the showers are unhygienic.
There
were people in there with traffic violations-- not violent
criminals-- that could not pay their bond. I understand now why
people kill themselves in jail, even knowing that they might get out.
Being suicidal is a natural state of mind in those conditions.
And
for traffic violations? The police have become a for-profit
business, preying on the poor. Plenty of lawyers and judges and
police drive through red lights, fail to stop at stops signs, and
speed, and they get their tickets fixed by their buddies. I hope the
Department of Justice audits ALL of the tickets that are written, and
looks very carefully at those that are dismissed.
I
hear a lot of people say “why don't THOSE PEOPLE just get jobs”?
Well try living in North county and riding the bus for two hours to
an area that actually HAS jobs. That's a ten hour day and if you are
making minimum wage the probability that you will be able to buy a
car is nil. The North side is living in a state of “incarceration
due to lack of economic opportunity and decent public transit.”
While Metro has been able to come up with $10 million to build the
Cortex Metrolink stop, a half a mile between the CWE and Grand
stations, there is still no work being done on the Metrolink from
Clayton to Florissant, which is the area of the city that rides and
relies on public transit the most.
BallPark
Village was given what? a 17 million dollar sales tax break, and what
did it do? It took business and jobs away from the local bars in the
area. Using public money for private business development does NOT
create prosperity. An equitable distribution of public money and a
commitment to economic growth in the poorest regions is the ONLY
thing that is going to make St. Louis solvent and viable for
everyone.
Thank
you, for giving us until January 7th to work on all of
these issues while we await the Grand Jury verdict. This gives us
more time to petition the Department of Justice to conduct further
investigations, to audit the books of the County, the City, and all
of the municipalities to learn why St. Louis is so insolvent and
bankrupt, and to find real leaders that will actually serve the
public.
The police and the prosecutor have broken laws in this course of this incident and investigation, and we will be looking to take legal action. We will be learning a lot more about all of you, our employees, and unless you start addressing the real problems and obeying the laws yourself, I think you can all look forward to termination of your employment without further benefits, and for some of you, jail time.
The police and the prosecutor have broken laws in this course of this incident and investigation, and we will be looking to take legal action. We will be learning a lot more about all of you, our employees, and unless you start addressing the real problems and obeying the laws yourself, I think you can all look forward to termination of your employment without further benefits, and for some of you, jail time.
Monday, September 15, 2014
LAWLESS BERKELEY COPS AND THEIR TORTURE CELL, AND MAKING SMART REVOLUTION
This is a reprint from personal blog
http://laladyrae.blogspot.com/2014/09/illegal-police-actions-berkeley-jail.html
http://laladyrae.blogspot.com/2014/09/illegal-police-actions-berkeley-jail.html
LAWLESS PO PO
I don't want to write too much on this blog (yet) about my actual arrest and charges, and interactions with the police. But I do want to briefly consider the Highway 70 and Hanley demonstration. This was to shut down the highway for 4 minutes. The organizers declared it a success because the police actually shut Hanley down. That's really ironic isn't it? The scene- as briefly as I witnessed before getting arrested- looked a lot like dueling protests.
Here are the people protesting the police and judicial system, threatening to shutdown the freeway. And here are the cops protesting the protesters, shutting down the adjacent street. And in terms of presence, the police outnumbered the protesters. The police brought the potential for much greater violence than the people protesting the police.
"If you want to know who is rioting, look at who came prepared for a riot."
And no government entity had any legal authority to shut down Hanley and restrict the gathering of protesters. There was no justification for that road block or the re-routing of protesters. It would have been one thing if they had blocked off part of the street for the gathering and then gone down to the edges of the highway and waited for people to actually try to go out in the street. But not everyone that was assembling, including me, was there to do something illegal.
And I am not sure there is a Constitutional basis for saying that a highway shutdown is not peaceable assembly. It may be that there is a legal basis for the police to be dispatched to instead close the highway down for the protest, not the other way around. One especially jerkish cop said to me in jail "The only time I've seen the highway shut down was for a Presidential motorcade, and that was only for five minutes."
Well, first of all, what is more important than the President? We The People. The Constitution, and especially the First Amendment. Moreover, MODOT's inability to provide structurally sound roads results in a lot of shutdowns for repairs, and in many parts of north city and county the streets are downright dangerous due to repair and lack of proper signs and lights. I call shenanigans.
And secondly, that Presidential motorcade was one minute longer than the demo was supposed to be.
The police think it is okay to yell at people and order us around and if we don't submit we should expect to face violence or detention, simply for not being respectful? Well, they had better expect some people to respond in kind, especially when they are breaking the law. Yes, I am getting right in their face as are a lot of other people. Too bad. They aren't Gods. They aren't the Law itself. They should not have this much power. And this anger has been burning under the surface for a while, and while Michael Brown's murder set it off, they have done nothing but pour gasoline on it since.
After dealing with the Berkeley police and that jail, I don't think that changing the complexion of the police is enough. Black or white, it seems largely comprised of bullies and zealous Good Germans. It is a culture of fear and everything about policing is based on fear. What kind of person is that? Especially given that the majority of people they deal with are NOT violent towards them. Yes, they see more of it than they would in their nice white suburban neighborhoods, but the majority of the public they interact with is not equal in the threat they pose to us.
I want the neighbourhood beat cop back. And preferably walking or riding around on bikes, getting out and talking to people and getting to know who is who. The police should know the people that live in their patrol areas.
The people should not be preyed upon by the police. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/
If taxes don't pay their salaries, and legitimate, fair and equal traffic fines, etc, they should not have the right to jack us up.
BERKELEY JAIL: YOU WILL PAY OR YOU WILL STAY... IN HELL
My cellmate was being held for a $1500 bond from a moving violation and failure to appear. They set the bond without a hearing, for everyone, and if you don't pay, you don't get out until your court date. I don't see how that is even legal, to set bond without a hearing or consideration of the person's character or past. (This is something I will be investigating.)
My cellmate was 15 days into a 30 day detention. They just flat out jack people up. The conditions are so awful (more on that in a minute) that they know the poor person will do everything they can to come up with that money.
And this is taking away from someone working, or finding work. This solves nothing. And cops break traffic laws. I hope all those cameras catch the cops that turn on their sirens just to get through a light (all too frequently talking on their personal cell phones.) And what about all the lawyers, judges and friends and family of the legal professions that get their traffic and parking tickets fixed, or never even get written?
If the law were fair about owing the government money for a crime or illegality, then all those sub-prime lenders would be in jail. If it were about who owes money people that claimed bankruptcy or didn't pay taxes would be held in detention until they paid or their bankruptcy hearing came up. No one's traffic tickets would get fixed. No traffic citations would be waived. To say that it is impartial is bullshit.
And do all these traffic citations make the streets safer? No. You just have single mothers that can't pay for insurance and already have a citation, but also have a job, and have to get the kids at school and to the babysitters and then to work, etc. And if you are driving around you see a cop you might be the kind of person that speeds to get away. Or makes a sudden, unsignaled turn.
All these traffic fines and warrants do is pay for the police. The jerkish cop that made the Presidential motorcade comment also bragged that it only cost $3.71 a day to house a prisoner. That comment is disgusting, and while the cash value is likely wrong, they operate like a for profit business.
When I first got there all the men in the other cell were yelling to me that Berkeley was the worst and that it would break the strongest person's spirit. (They said this kindly, the yelling was because we could not see each other.) After 2 days and nights in there, I don't know how anyone could do 30 days, much less 60 days.
It is Dickensian. It is freezing, probably to keep bed bugs and germs in hibernation as the justification, and to make it more miserable as the real reason. You only get one very thin blanket. You cannot use a toothbrush. Their are no toiletries and they charge you even for sanitary napkins. (It is Ferguson that is famous for charging an inmate that was beaten by the police for getting blood on the cops uniform, but Berkeley seemed like the same mentality. Just glad I wasn't beaten. Or molested by one of the cops.)
The bunks are metal. Two four bed cells and one two bed cell. A toilet with small sink attached. No soap or hot water. If you want water between the three ten minute meal and telephone call times during the day, you have to drink the water from the sink from your hand, And you can only wash your hands with hot water and soap before you eat and drink. (One at a time, waiting in the holding cage until the other person is done at the sink.)
The food is barely 900 calories a day. You get only three of the most awful bread and meat microwaved sandwiches made by Lancashire. The bread tastes like baked vomit. You only get water to drink, and you have to leave your styrofoam cup outside your cell. You get no water between the meal times, which are anywhere between 7 and 9 A.M., 12 and 1:30 P.M, and 8 and 9:30 P.M.
They leave the overhead flourescent lights on all the time. There is no visible outside light or view of outside, even in the holding cage where you eat and make phone calls for less than 30 minutes every day.
This is mid-level torture, especially with the low calories and cold and difficulty getting real sleep on the metal slabs.
There are cameras in the cell in addition to your cell mate or mates, so when you have to go to the bathroom, you wrap your blanket around you if you want privacy. And if you are taking a shit you have to wrap your blanket around you, even if you don't care about modesty, because you don't want to flood the cell with stink. It is so unsanitary but you don't care. Because the food will make you so constipated that when you can finally shit you just do.
You do not see any clocks or mirrors, and if you wear glasses as I do, you are not allowed to have them. There is nothing to read, nothing to watch and nothing to hear, other than the cops talking to each other and on their cellphones talking.
At night, there is no one at the desk, and if you need a sanitary napkin, or anything, you have to wave at the cameras and hope someone in dispatch sees you and will send someone up to respond. Sanitary napkins were not forthcoming during the night hours.
The place is so depressing that I understand why people become suicidal and even kill themselves even knowing they will only be in there for a thirty days, or even a few days. And while everyone seemed to have someone to call during meal times, I can imagine how much harder it would be if there was no one you could reach because someone had not paid their cell phone bill. (My cell phone was turned off, still is right now, for non-payment, and I was thinking "what if someone in jail could call me for free and got that message?")
In the cell there is phone for collect calls and crime tips only. The calls are ten dollars for ten minutes and they make the person you are calling give them a credit card number. When one of the cops that I confronted and who assisted in my illegal kidnapping (they called it detainment and arrest) cut off one of my phone calls (the free calls are on speaker phone, and the person I was talking to made a rude remark about them) he told me "That's not in your First Amendment preamble, You got your free phone call. No more free phone calls for you." When I got back to my cell I began trying to call everyone whose number I could remember.
(He and another cop also delighted in telling me that my lawyer could call the court, but not the jail, and if a lawyer does come "he might have to wait a long time, if we don't have anyone to bring him up here, cause, you know, we are real busy." Uh, yeah, looking at or talking on their cell phones. But actually, they were downright gleeful about it. They just want your bond money. They don't give a damn about your legal and human rights.)
While my phone privileges continued at the evening meal break, I had no way of knowing that for the day, and to have the only lifeline to the outside cut off was terrifying emotionally. (And again, how it legal for them to do this? Isn't that once again a violation of free speech? There is nothing in the Constitution that says people can only say nice things about the police.)
I did get out on Friday afternoon. The whole time I was in there I just kept thinking about James Foley and the others like him, who were in worse condition for much longer than I was, and how he was protecting the First Amendment rights of a people that do not have that in their own country. I thought about those kids that walked from Central America and Mexico and were sleeping on the ground. I thought about Nelson Mandela, Bobby Sands, Stephen Biko, George Jackson.
I looked at the woman who shared the cell with me and had been there for 15 days and still had that many to go.
On Twitter yesterday someone posted a picture of Kim Teehan, the Ferguson female officer that took part in the beating of Henry Davis and then made Davis pay for cleaning his blood off their uniforms. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/ferguson-cop-who-charged-suspect-bleeding-her-uniform-now-city-councilwoman
I wrote "I'd like to send her to Berkeley jail for a while." But actually, I wouldn't treat her or Darren Wilson that way. That is inhumane. It creates nothing but bad feelings AND IT IS JUST WRONG. Especially for traffic fines and warrants!
I have a draft about the Michael Brown, Jr funeral. (I will link here when it is done.) One thing I was really thinking about afterward was how different the experience of Jesus and religion is in black churches versus white churches. Same with jail. The average middle class white person is so terrified of jail and the police, and has so little judicial interaction with them.
In the black community the police are a constant presence. Like violence. And poverty. Even if someone has a stable family and a job, to be black is to be surrounded by young men that were gunned down by street gangs or police (whether unjustly or in the commission of real crime). And most black folks seem to know at least one person on food stamps, even if that person works full time.
Children grow up seeing more violence than white kids in nice neighbourhoods. When an Adam Lanza commits a random shooting, the children are flooded with psychological support and massive outpourings of community grief and solidarity. And when a black kid commits a random drive by, it's "oh, those people again."
Interactions with the police are not rare. And they pose a much greater threat than to the nice white suburbanites. Like my cellmate's children, hearing mommy or daddy call from jail is not that unusual. Most black folks seem to know at least one person that has been to jail for traffic warrants, and at least one man that has been to prison.
That black culture and white culture are so separated, and that black culture largely evolved in both submission and opposition to white culture, falls squarely in the lap of white history. The looting in the wake of Michael Brown, Jr.'s murder was nothing compared to white flight. Or the lack of funding for business development and jobs, aforementioned streets, etc.
Moreover, black people DO go to primarily white areas to do menial work, but white people ALMOST NEVER come to primarily black areas. If the neighbourhood is mixed, it is because black people moved in. (Except perhaps Old North, but most primarily black areas have a white flight legacy of white people that were too poor and stuck to be able to move.) It seems shameful to me that so many white people are afraid of black people, or have such a low opinion, when the interactions are so limited and one sided.
If the black community is violent, the violent police state and jail culture has a lot to do with it. When these white boys do come down to "the hood" they only get the worst because they are all about punishment. And who doesn't hate their jailers?
The police are all about fear, and they all seem afraid and vulnerable without the instant respect they expect for carrying a gun and wearing a badge. And I have really been trippin' lately on how their behaviour when one of "their own" is just how they complain about lack of witnesses and information in the black community. They say that rarely will any witnesses step forward, give them info, etc. (Again, local beat cops would change that.)
But that is EXACTLY what they have down with Darren Wilson, and all the other cases like before. No real information. No trust in the public, just as they say that the public will not trust them. They say criminals are lawless, yet they act with impunity, They have become the soldiers of the "business as usual" "good ole boy" "Local 1%" fortune. Chosen for their goose-step and desire to bully and be in control. We have no rights if they suspend them. They have too much power and they abuse it.
TIME FOR A REVOLUTON
I have totally committed to this "muggle" (non-magickal) world as it is, with all of us a great squeamish mass, writhing in discontent and desire. But I also believe that a real battle is going on right now between the people that see and feel a better life, and those that have no real faith in humanity to sociologically, politically, and economically evolve.
It's a great tug of war, very polarized, because it is such a new world and age, and a really big change with all the old anchors becoming archaic and useless. And in the past it was always the side that yanked the hardest that won, and that was always through violence and upheaval. And maybe that was the best solution in the past. I don't know. But I don't see it as a good solution now.
Seriously, look at this amazing new world we live in. This technology I am using now, and space travel, and massive abundance (and waste-- like debt it is a sign of wealth)-- and to have so many people be hungry and sick and thirsty and homeless and without satisfying work, suited to them? No. Crazy. Ridiculous. And wars and all this violence, and so much of it is really about fighting over who is going to get the greatest share of natural and human resources (labour and consumption, mostly manifested as money).
I feel like we are just really working it out and it is getting really messy because too much of the world's wealth is being withheld from the people that create it. And too much violence in the air. Just MELT ALL GUNS, and every other weapon. Symbolic step toward eliminating violence. There are enough other things that kill- accidents, disease, etc--that we should be able to find a way to get along without hurting each other and using violence to work out the ways to live together. But I can't get anyone else to do that unless they freely choose it for themselves. The Duck Dynasties and the Darren Wilson's are part of this world, and I think maybe it is time to start working around them.
Why can't those of us that can see the better world find a way to create it among ourselves? Maybe it will be the young people, but that is where I want to focus. Not on more violence. (One of the reasons I love trolling. A softer bite and no venom.) Anger is passion, I'd rather learn to live with it and soften it We need anger to create change. We don't need more violence. That is a fear based and a self-sustaining cycle.
I think the more people that begin to see that we can have a peaceful revolution and reorganize more equitably, all of us will be able to take advantage of what the world has to offer. Why can't share and divide up all the work so that everyone can do different things if they want, and constantly be learning new skills? And others that want to devote themselves to one profession can become the experts and masters to apprentice and journeyman? There is no shortage of WORK. There is SO MUCH to be done. It is a shortage of jobs. It is too much of the profits of labour and consumption being kept by only a few people.
North St. Louis city and county is like concentration camp for African-Americans. And the poor generally. This is the place of surplus labour, of the threat of more desperate workers to fill an employees shoes, so that everyone is so desperate they have to be obedient. A lesser version of the Berkeley jail, or any jail or prison. But there are a lot programs that could be altered and taken over without violence. Through massive voting, petitioning, and a lot attendance at community meetings, and applying for grants, engaging committee's and so forth.
I think there are enough grants and funding that if we fought for it we could create a prosperous, safe, city and county, with plenty of room for the capitalists to do their thing, but with more communities like the land trust over in Cherokee neighbourhood, More like the Hobo University, and Copenhagen's Christiana, and Findhorn.
And more co-ops. I am working on being the first psychic to win the lottery, and when I do, I want to open up a co-op in at least my neighbourhood, or even a buyer's club, so that people can get off the Wal-mart nipple and keep the money in the community. (The shorter distance that money has to travel, the stronger it is.) Until I win the lotto, let's start working on reshaping how government assistance comes into poor communities.
Co-ops would save a lot of money from going into corporations like Wal-Mart, and the jobs would be community based and sustaining. Without an owner or executives there would be no need for excessive profits beyond what was needed to keep it going. It would be self-sustaining and poor people could afford to eat decently, and not always be so afraid. And if there were soup kitchens and food pantries attached, the homeless and very needy would at least be able to eat, too.
Instead of HUD housing, why not HUD funds to buy people homes? No more of this fear of where am I gonna go? And if the co-op was also involved in the housing, maybe even an savings and loan. I haven't worked all that out yet.
The co-op could sell medical and auto insurance to the community at low cost, and perhaps even have a clinic and dental office, optometrist, etc. And the co-op could offer day care, and while it would require some funding, there is a lot of government money already going to programs like this.
But people aren't allowed to, or don't find a way, to pool together. For instance, you can get the government to pay a friend or family member to care for you if you are disabled, or for child care. But if the community could set up their own system with that money, and use it to fund a day care where people babysat children as a job instead of an assistance program, that would bring real prosperity to a community. And a sense of pride.
The local and state governments would see an increase in taxes paid by working people. The people that live in these "nice" communities and only want to be around other people that are just like them, and that have lives entirely built around the acquisition of possessions and the most luxurious, lifestyle then can acquire, they won't need to worry about people stealing $12 worth of copper wiring, or holding up liquor stores.
Probably some of that will go on, but I think it will be greatly reduced. Greed does seem to be part of past and current human behaviour. We see looting done by the richest Wall Street Bankers and the greediness of people like the Wal-mart heirs stealing wages from their workers. But the people that are in power now were born in a world that had less than half the population it has now. All of these technological advances we take for granted weren't invented during their childhood and formative years. They live in the past. They won't live forever. We don't have to get violent to stop the cycle. We just have to stop it.
We that are poor are able to live on much less, obviously. But the disparity is too great. This is too unbalanced. We The People are going to have to demand more and then manage it ourselves. Not just assistance, but better wages and better jobs.
It's HOW we are going to demand it that is really being decided. So instead of this tug of war, I think we need to share our knowledge and ideas with each other, and be smarter and more economical than they are. And be so sure of the abilities of humans to find solutions that we don't live in the kind of fear as someone that has billions and still doesn't have enough.
The state of the world right now does not even benefit the uber rich. Not just violence and diseases and crime. But out planet. Money cannot buy clean water, or more bees, or anything else natural. The earth, has millions of degrees hotter, and million of degrees colder. It is we humans that must keep it within a one hundred degree range, with very specific requirements for air, water, and food.
I don't think violence will wrest the entire world from the clutches of those that will plunder anything to make a buck. That might take awhile. I think we have to start looking for ways to create parallel worlds. Like those I listed above. I like the idea of a Christiana here that has its own police, community based, and centered around a "Peace Force". Let's have people that only have the job of going out in the community and finding out what people need and helping them getting it.
I don't want to invade everyone's privacy, but I do think all neighbourhoods should have an HOA, and the neighbours get together and work things out and get to know each other. We need to KNOW each other. If we are going to give cops the power of a gun and the right to detain people, let's make sure we are keeping an eye on everyone, both the cops and the robbers, and all of us in between.
And we need representatives from each community that go and talk to representatives in other communities. And perhaps that is what government officials are supposed to be now, but there needs to be some changes. We have to get MUCH MORE INVOLVED. It can't just be about voting, and then they just decide what happens with our money-- how much the school gets, and how much some private developer gets to build a business that the people that live in the community may or may not want or need or derive any benefit from.
Like Ballpark Village gets these huge tax incentives and credits, and it just put all the little guys out of business. They say it creates more jobs, but only if we don't lose a bunch as well. New businesses do not necessarily create more prosperity. And again, how much of that money is going out of St. Louis?
Or the insanity of building a new Metrolink a few blocks from the existing Central West End station, when the North side is so under served by Metrolink? And in relation to how dependent the North side is on public transit, under served generally. (And I am not even going to touch the Folly of the Loop Trolley.) If it didn't take so long to get to jobs outside of North St Louis on public transit, maybe people could get a second job, or save on daycare. (And fewer people driving without insurance, but, of course that will cut into all the local police budgets.)
A great public transit system that focused on the people that need it the most would benefit the whole city. And once there was some business development on the North Side, I'd bet that all these places that are so offended by saggy pants and grillz and whatever else wouldn't see those patrons anymore, anyhow. If you like to go to a place where "everyone knows your name" and they were playing your song, don't you think other people might like that, too?
The people that are the most loving and spiritually evolved and peaceful, like the Dalai Lama and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., need to create some sort of prison system that does not completely degenerate the humans we have decided to keep alive even though they are being punished by or kept separate from society. People should be treated with dignity and given DECENT nutrition, sanitary conditions, hygiene, and shelter.
The USA sanctions other countries for less than the conditions of the Berkeley jail and detention until bond is paid. If an Islamic group were treating people like the Berkeley jail, we would be hearing screams of terrorism and torture.
The protests and the activism of the people is strong enough right now to create real change. I think start by getting registered to vote, and let EVERY registered voter turn out at the polls this November 4th. Let's keep fighting for Justice for Mike. Let's work on getting the highway traffic stops turned over to the County PD and/or the Highway patrol. Let's demand better detention facilities and treatment. Let's keep demanding economic development. Let's get a $15 an hour minimum wage in St. Louis city and county.
Let's keep going with demands. Let's do it with wit and cunning, and smarts. Not violence. Not fear.
That's their game.
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