Some things as to why shit is happening in American cities

[nadinbrzezinski]

To some here this will be well known and understood, but to others this will be new.

The shootings of young black men are symptoms. They are symptoms of police militarization. They are symptoms of lack of police accountability, These are also symptoms of a broken legal system that sees more African American youth go to prison than go to college.

They are symptoms of the deindustrialization of American cities, among other things due to NAFTA.

They are symptoms of a legal system that tends to punish AA men far more harshly than both hispanic and white males for the same exact crime. They are symptoms of the war on drugs. They are symptoms of the re-segregation of American cities and of gentrification. They are symptoms of lack of hope and jobs, and worst schools, not just bad, than those in white suburbs.

I could go on... but until people take off the blinders and realize where this is coming, we will continue to see this. All the body cams in the world will not solve this, if we do not work on the real causes. And some of them are lack of accountability for a legal system (that includes the police) that tends to go after black men, young preferably.

So to just say that if cops did this or the other will not do it. It is the whole system. If (and I do not expect to see it) we do not deal with it, well we will continue to see this every so often. That includes dealing with white supremacy...which is not accidental, and with implied bias, which we all happen to have dose off. Self awareness is the toughest part of this, but all can do it. It just takes a lot of self introspection.

And with that, back to work with me. Been at it all day.

Ed. Clarity

[RKP5637]

1. K&R!!! n/t

[carolinayellowdog]

2. so glad you are here to tell the truth

in the face of various trolls and propagandists. MUCH appreciated!

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. And this is not even the whole truth

The post would be pages long...

[NYC_SKP]

33. Generally, oppression of the many by the few, including rich globalist presidential aspirants.

It takes a billion to run for president these days?

What have we become?

I wish more people had your vision, Nadin.

[Newest Reality]

4. We are a product of conditioning...

And that conditioning is geared towards a very myopic, one-sided view of reality. That view is very useful and valuable as a way to focus on one side of a problem while avoiding the other. That's a tactical approach.

We may have been told, emphatically, all of our lives that we are responsible for everything that happens to us and it is only our choices that determine our results. In some ways, that is true, but only half true. We can't make choices or be responsible without a context that exists in which we can act. Remove the context, and there is no one who makes choices and can be responsible. And, for the individual, when we are not in that context, there is no doer of said actions.

We deal with many abstractions, and, in a way, we are easily hypnotized by falsehoods based on assumptions that those abstractions are concrete. We have a society, but that is an abstract construct that stands as a symbol for a collective version of all of us combined. The same applies to what we call "culture".

Now, when we invest our attention to much to either side of the individual or society equation, there are going to be imbalances and problems that may not be obvious to us unless we carefully take the time to investigate and look into the matter of the relationship between these two, abstract concepts.

Currently, in our natural tendency to fixate, we seem to be focusing intently on events and individuals while ignoring or avoiding the very factual relationship to a far more complex set of events concerning history, economy and total environment--which, in total, represent the society or culture they are occurring in.

When we cannot or will not consider both aspects of this as important and relevant, we are then liable to project only our subjective fears, hopes and views on what is happening in current events. Then, we simply resort to bias, how it was or should be, and find ourselves discussing and arguing, not about the real event, but about our distortions and expectations.

Let's hope we can expand our views to be more inclusive and begin to see that our culture and society are also involved in creating the events that erupt before us as much as the individuals whom we observe behaving in a certain way. They go together and you really cannot have one without the other, no matter how the movers and shakers and powers that be would like you to ignore the fact.

[butterfly77]

5. Kicked&Recommended...

[Cheese Sandwich]

6. recommended.

[Thespian2]

7. Some non-white middle eastern fellow said

clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, heal the sick...these things can become the fabric of a remarkable community...only if the people work for them...many societal problems will disappear if we follow the basis of what that fellow from the middle east said.

[Cleita]

8. I saw tonight's Baltimore coverage and suddenly had a feeling come over me that

said the next revolution has started. I knew it was coming but I'm surprised that this is where it's starting. I expected New York or Los Angeles. The last one started in Boston.

[Moostache]

14. Its about damn time...

The fact is the system has been co-opted to the breaking point. There are no negotiations planned. There are no plans to seek a peaceful resolution. The rich have determined that they are beyond reach and that the carnage will somehow be contained to the cities and minorities. They could not be more wrong.

The first stirrings were years ago in Seattle WTO...before that really.
In-between there was the marginalization and punch the hippie politics.
Then the economy imploded.
Then Occupy.
Then Ferguson.
Now Baltimore.

Each time this gets more violent, more reactionary, more incendiary.
Each time the navel gazing of the press stays stuck on burning cars and buildings and misses the burning passion of the oppressed beginning to lash out as the number of things to lose for them dwindles by the day.

The fire is coming. It can't be put out. It can't be contained. It can't be stopped once it gets out of control.
The powers that be are terrified of what comes next. Its not peaceful protests and marches. It is pitchforks and torches.

They are calling out their attack dogs and militarized police more and more. It reminds me of Deep Water Horizon and the fruitless deploying of boom to "stop" the spread of the spill.

They are going to learn a painful lesson, again. The immutable truth about life is simply this - life is a series of lessons for people, for countries, for groups, for individuals; and the lessons will continue until they are learned. You can hide, you can pretend, but you cannot escape the lessons, and several large ones loom.

Nature does not care if you "believe" in it. Whether its something rather obvious like evolution or more slightly nuanced like climate change. Individual belief is not required and the lesson is clear - outstrip the resources or damage the system too far for recovery and there will be consequences.

Economics is another. Banks, when given too much power - whether in the 1870's, the 1930's or the 2000's through the present - will concentrate wealth, crush equality and crash the system to the ground as sure as the sun will rise in the East and set in the West. It happens over and over and over and is still happening now. Another lesson that cannot be changed no matter how much money is thrown at it to obfuscate and deceive.

Finally, there is the over-reliance on the military and force as the only solution; the one we seem to have forgotten from Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan. The lesson that tells us, you cannot impose order at the point of a gun unless you are willing to kill millions in the process.

It is armed insurgents and guerrilla warfare. Its what we have been watching on our TVs for a decade plus in countries our "leaders" destroyed and invaded or invaded and destroyed...which ever way you choose to see it. IEDs and small arms are a little beneath the armaments of the gangs and disaffected here in the good ole US of A. There will be far worse than roadside bombs and ambushes when the shooting starts for real.

There will be blood in the streets, so much it will shock the soul and benumb the senses beyond anything we think we are prepared to witness.

This is the last chance of the 1% to bring to heel the 0.01% and save themselves in the process. If you are in the kitchen and see the pot about to boil over, you get it OFF the heat. Look around at the common thread in the unrest and conflict of the recent past - overzealous, often racist police firing on and killing the unarmed, the economic disparities and flat out despair. THAT is the heat that is bringing the melting pot to a boil and without a reduction in the heat - severe AND sustained - the choice is clear.

Get the pot of the burner or lose the meal, and still spend 10X longer cleaning up the mess in the end.

Or maybe the "plan" is to just burn the kitchen to the ground and sacrifice everyone in it in the process...

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. I am not sure if this is the next revolution

or just another spasm due to a looonggg history locally. All I can say is that this fed up and tense situation is not just Ferguson, or Baltimore, but also San Diego, and LA and Oakland.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. OMG, I had very similar thoughts--

not about where, but wondering if this one was the beginning. I've been thinking a lot about MLK and passive resistance lately. There is definitely a ferment under the surface, undetected as yet (or at least effortfully ignored) by M$M.

[Cleita]

34. A new Declaration of Independence? Let's look at the old one.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Most notably:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Of course, instead of ranting against the King, we need to rant against our new kings, the multi-national corporations that are driving our government and legislatures. Police brutality and rioting by the oppressed are symptoms of a nation being ruled for the benefit of an elitist, business class to the detriment of everyone else.

[Stonepounder]

9. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

When every hand is against you, when you can be stopped and killed for riding a bike down the street while talking on a cell phone, for playing with a toy gun in Wal-Mart, for wearing your pants too low, then you have nothing left to lose and the rage just boils over. When the 'thin blue line' will cover up, lie, commit perjury to make you the wrong-doer and the cop the knight in shining armor, you have nothing left to lose. When you can be locked up for over two years with no charge and no trial, when you know that if 'they' want, you will go to prison for nothing, or the most minor offence, then you have nothing left to lose.

I stand in awe of the black communities at their restraint. Why they haven't burned down all or Baltimore, or St. Louis, or New York, or Los Angeles, I will never know. I know black men are not stupid. I've worked with them, I've socialized with them, I've marched with them. By, my God, the number of black men who seem to think that when confronted by a cop the smart think to do is to try and grab for the officer's gun - and then miss. WTF?

I don't know the answer. I don't know how to change the incredibly pervasive racism. But I hope and pray someone, somewhere will figure it out. Where is another King, or Kennedy, or even a Southern radical like Johnson when you need them. I'd even settle for another Ghandi to rally around and force America to actually look at itself.

[Bonobo]

10. Recommended. And I would add

that violence as a response to violence is a natural reaction. Even an appropriate one.

[Half-Century Man]

12. There will come a point when

The pain of not standing will overcome the pain of the ones who beat you down.

Unorganized, spontaneous and small in scale equals a riot
Organized, coordinated, and nation wide is a revolution.
Riots only temporarily burn off some of the anger that drives revolution.

[Bonobo]

13. All flames must start small. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

30. It kinda depends on what you mean as "appropriate."

In these circumstances, I might equate "appropriate" to "effective in accomplishing a purpose."

Reactive riots seldom meet that criterion, while more systematic approaches such as organized passive resistance might better serve the purpose.

[handmade34]

11. good read...

http://aeon.co/magazine/society/how-african-americans-get-schooled-for-failure/?utm_source=Aeon+newsletter&utm_campaign=02111b1de0-Daily_newsletter_April_274_27_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-02111b1de0-68622033

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Thanks, good read

[raccoon]

18. Looks good. I bookmarked it to read later. nt

[malaise]

32. Must Read

Thanks

[handmade34]

39. another by the same Baltimore man...

D. Watkins

"My black friends call it Murderland. My white friends call it Charm City, a town of trendy cafés. I just call it home"

http://aeon.co/magazine/society/these-are-the-two-baltimores-black-and-white/

[malaise]

40. Wow!

And yet that is the experience of so many young men - and not just in America - we don't have the racial problem but it is well replaced by class prejudice - if you're fromt he wrong address you'll never get the job.
Even the schools are different and I won't even mention the neighborhood.

[LiberalLoner]

17. K&R

[bemildred]

19. It's like we are revisiting the 1960s again. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. In some ways we are

just condensed.

[amandabeech]

24. Watching the coverage of Baltimore was like a flashback

to the mid-60s.

I sincerely hope that the summer does not bring a number of '60s style riots.

[bemildred]

26. We are on our way to that.

One gets the feeling that the Justice Department will now take an interest in these issues, but with the current congress one wonders if that will be enough?

[amandabeech]

27. The failure of the recovery to "trickle down" to the middle and lower classes

is part of the problem, too. Again, the current congress, and even the President, will do nothing about the lack of decent jobs.

I guess things had to blow at some point.

[malaise]

21. It is systemic

Institutional racism from top to bottom - and I mean racism not prejudice - the well organized and official policy to prevent people of a different race/ethnicity from participating as equals in all spheres.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Yup

and complex...the solutions are actually not that hard...but politically they are next to impossible.

[malaise]

23. You know I disagree with you on this

It's way more economic than it is political - the United States rose on the backs of free labor from African-Americans and the system is still weaned to enriching itself while pretending that it is those who have worked the hardestt who are lazy.

They are deliberately kept in poverty and these days imprisoning African-American men provides an abundance of free labor in the privately owned prisons - the plantations have changed form but not content. Those who remain outside fund the city while their schools and basic community infrastructure are looted daily by said system.
It's a fugging mess across the planet - neo-liberalisn is exploitation on steroids but the old tricks remain.

Never forget that the political system is only useful of it props up capitalism.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. It is both

you need the political will and capital to fund Lincoln High as well as La Jolla, where the only difference is the street address. If you find a pol willing to do that, this poll will not win a seat on the board, or will be a token crazy.

If by mistake they found the political will, they would have to find the money.

It is inverse with the cops. La Jolla has one officer, while Lincoln Heights is under occupation. You need political leaders (we had one do that recently) tell the cops to stop their racial profiling.

So it is truly both, the politics and the economic go hand in hand. Capitalism is not just an economic system, nor would Adam Smith call what we have at present capitalism, since it resembles exactly what he ranted against in his three books, mercantilism.

[malaise]

29. Well given that politics is decision-making about the allocation

of resources (scarce or plentiful), it is both, but we must always follow the money.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. One does not happen without the other

And after spending three years watching this closely it is a chicken-egg problem.

Now off to write a non news story as far as DU is concerned, but it matters to San Diegans and Calufornians. I see this place as a separate entity from the real world these days. Mostly it is, completely separate from the real world. It is it's own bubble.

[Buzz Clik]

31. As Aristotle once said (in Greek, of course, but translated)

Anybody can become shit-flinging angry - that is easy shit, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - shit, that is not within everybody's power and is not fucking easy.

Aristotle

Not sure if I trust that translation, but the message is clear. And relevant.

[glinda]

36. Also a symptom of the fear that minorities will become the majorities in just a few years. This

militarizational control enacted and conveniently looking the other way also extends out and encompasses the poor, the homeless, those of many colors who are standing up in response to the injustices around the planet.
This is a planned control IMHO. It is dangerous and has the backing of many that fear loosing control of their profits. This is sick and it is a crisis.

[Calista241]

37. My issue is...

People expect things to happen in a couple days, and everything will be better by the end of next week.

That's not the way shit happens. The original civil rights movement took 14 years. I understand that for black people this was just the way things were for decades, but the majority of white people are just coming to terms with realizing this is a huge issue.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. While you are correct with some of the activists

(We cover this shit locally), Most understand that this will take years, and in fact started to take shape during Occupy. The first conversations happened during Occupy. That was 2011.