kpete
kpete's JournalFrom Salon:A Former Marine Explains All the Weapons of War Being Used by Police in Ferguson
A Former Marine Explains All the Weapons of War Being Used by Police in FergusonThere’s at least one line every Marine knows: “Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot.” The St. Louis County Police Department apparently never received that memo.
Lyle Jeremy Rubin August 20, 2014
As smoke hangs over the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, it’s important to understand its source. Some of this understanding will require us to reassess the history of police militarization in the United States. This will mean acknowledging its origins in the aftermath of the Watts Riots (1965) and the birth of the SWAT team shortly thereafter. It will mean noting the conservative reaction to the Warren Court’s civil libertarian protections in the 1950s and 60s to President Nixon’s launching of the drug war at the end of that same tumultuous decade. It will mean harping on President Reagan’s wholehearted embrace of racial policing and mass incarceration in the 1980s. It will mean interrogating the devastating effects of the 1208 Program (1990), which became the 1033 Program (1996), both of which authorized the transfer of military hardware to domestic precincts, a practice that has only accelerated in the wake of the Battle of Seattle (1999) and the attacks of September 11, 2001. The basic contours of this trajectory can be found in Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces (2013). As Tamara K. Nopper and Mariame Kaba argue in Jacobin, however, any serious reckoning must account for the ongoing dehumanization of black people, tout court.
One small way to measure the police violence against black people in Ferguson is to attend to its details. It is in that spirit that I present this simple catalog: (see link below)
HERE (way to many great links & pics to post here):
http://www.thenation.com/article/181315/catalog-ferguson-police-weaponry?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%20-%20Most%20Recent%20Content%20Feed%2020140821&newsletter=email_nation
Worldview Shattering--"The biggest success of the Obama presidency will be this."
It's incredibly unfair that it worked out this way but I think the historical take of the biggest success of the Obama presidency will be this.As a white, suburban, middle++ aged liberal, I saw the run up to his first election as proof of what I believed for a long time - we were in a post-racial world where the only thing that was holding individuals of color back was a willingness to do the hard work that the rest of us were doing to get ahead.
The re-surfacing of the hidden racism that had become invisible to me was (and is) worldview shattering. The breadth and depth and virulence of both institutional and individual racism is so enormous that I have a hard time coming to grips with it. I'm entirely embarrassed by my pre-Obama beliefs and am still trying to figure out what I can do to move from being part of the problem and becoming part of the solution.
While discussing Ferguson with folks who fall in to the "don't think there's any racism" category, I'm seeing a shift. Events like this, and the pro-protester media coverage seems to be chipping away at the middle. More people are starting to see the world like it really is.
Looping back to my hypothesis, I suspect that without an Obama presidency, the lens through which we view the current events would have been much less sympathetic to the protesters.
(from a post from The Hive via TPM)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/worldview-shattering
"Gun Happy"
?1408567789http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/21/1323314/-Cartoon-Gun-Happy
People rising up in righteous anger & rage in face of oppression should not be dismissed as a "riot"
According to media outlets and some residents, there’s been rioting in Ferguson since the killing of unarmed teenager Mike Brown. There have been reports of peaceful protests turning less than peaceful, with people confronting cops, throwing things at them, etc. I don’t know if the stories of rioting are true. Most of the video I’ve seen of Ferguson shows the protesters themselves gathered or marching relatively calmly. Angry sometimes, sure. But anger is a perfectly normal response to your unarmed teenage neighbor being gunned down in the street by police (police who have now showed up at your peaceful protest with attack dogs and riot gear).
But let’s get something straight: a community pushing back against a murderous police force that is terrorizing them is not a “riot”. It’s an uprising. It’s a rebellion. It’s a community saying We can’t take this anymore. We won’t take it. It’s people who have been dehumanized to the point of rightful rage. And it happens all over the world. Uprisings and rebellions are necessary and inevitable, locally and globally. This is not to say that actual riots don’t happen. White folks riot at sporting events, for example. Riots happen. But people rising up in righteous anger and rage in the face of oppression should not be dismissed as simply a “riot”.
Don’t be distracted by terms like “rioting”. Whether you’re for or against uprising and rebellion (side-eye if you’re against it, though), it’s a tool, not the issue itself. The issue is yet another Black teenager murdered by police. His name was Mike Brown.
More here:
http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/08/things-stop-distracted-black-person-gets-murdered-police/
"Don't Shoot" makes TIME Cover
The photo shows a kneeling figure with raised arms, a gesture adopted by the protestors in Ferguson to show they mean no threat, backlit by bright lights.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/time-magazine-ferguson-cover
Ferguson Official To Hannity: "No, I Don't Need Your Kind Of Education"
Ferguson Official Is Having None Of Hannity's 'Education' On Police Brutality (VIDEO)
.............
"Let me educate you, committeewoman," Hannity cut in.
"No, I don't need your kind of education," Bynes shot back.
"Let me educate you about the legal system in America," the Fox host continued over Bynes. "You can try to talk over me, but let me tell you in our system of justice a person is innocent until proven guilty."
.....................
"Legally let me educate you again," Hannity said later. "If (Brown{ was charging at the police officer, the police officer, by law, that would be defined as justifiable use of force. You're aware of that, right, committeewoman?"
"I'm very much aware of that," Bynes responded. "But there's no way an unarmed man should have two shots in his head and four in his body. So you keep wanting to talk over the facts, but I think you need the education here."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ferguson-official-not-having-sean-hannity-education-police-brutality
Black Texas Gun Club Stages Open Carry Protest against Killer Cops
Raw Story
A Texas gun club named after one of the founders of the Black Panthers Party marched in Dallas on Wednesday to protest against police brutality, KTXA-TV reported.
Around two dozen members of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club carried rifles and red, black and green flags as they marched through the city’s south side, sometimes chanting in support of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old man killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9.
“If they don’t get these killer cops and corrupt cops under control,” a member identifying himself as Commander Drew X was quoted as saying. “What happened in Ferguson is going to be nationwide.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/20/texas-gun-club-named-after-black-panthers-leader-holds-armed-march-against-killer-cops/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/21/1323444/-Black-Texas-Gun-Club-Stages-Open-Carry-Protest-against-Killer-Cops
Sen Bernie Sanders: Create Jobs For Young People Instead Of Giving Police Military Weapons
"When you see the kind of force that's been used inFerguson, it really does make it appear that the
police department there is an occupying army in a
hostile territory and that is absolutely not what we
want to see in the U.S."
-Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/an-occupying-army
"If we are going to address the issue of crime in low-income areas and in African-American communities, it might be a good idea that instead of putting military style equipment into police departments in those areas, we start investing in jobs for the young people there who desperately need them.
” http://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/dear-colleague-youth-jobs?inline=file
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/jobs-wanted-08-20-2014
Joe the Not Plumber
?1408583781
?1408583778
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/20/1323333/-Well-Joe-The-Plumber-Has-Weighed-In-At-Last
I Finally "Get" White Privilege and I'm Sorry
WED AUG 20, 2014 AT 05:58 PM PDT
I Finally "Get" White Privilege and I'm Sorry
by pajoly
This is important enough for me to say out loud in this crowded room.
I'm 50. I'm a white male.
Still, I'm also liberal. I live in a predominantly black neighborhood. My wife coaches a girl's softball team where the kids are almost all African American. We've had to confront racism from other teams.
...Yet, it was not until now -- not even after watching the drama unfolding from the murder of Michael Brown, staying up until 3AM nightly watching events unfold. No, not until carefully listening to Van Jones late last night speak of the subconscious nature of racism and then finally listening to actor and activist Jesse Williams that I finally get it. How ironic this should happen while I sit in a hotel room five miles from Ferguson. It must be in the air.
I get it. I am sorry.
Indeed, I now know that my white privilege does not require anything from me for it to exist. No matter where my heart is, whether it be colored in hate or exalted in equality, my white privilege is there. I now understand I was born with it.
Yet, born with it, I cannot thus owe an apology for it; I had no role in the womb in its cultural persistence. What I do owe is an apology for not recognizing it fully, not understanding completely enough to leverage that understanding to forcefully argue for affirmative action.
I owe an apology for thinking it something I could reject if I wanted to. I cannot, because, as an American white person, it emits from my skin -- a cultural pheromone traveling at the literal speed of light. I walk into a convenience store late at night where a lone cashier awaits and my white privilege manifests as a sigh of relief the cashier. When my path crosses with a cop, my white privilege cloaks me in near invisibility; I pose no threat.
I get it. I am sorry.
Because, when I was blind to it, it is all too easy to think affirmative action is not needed. Not being wakeful to the reality of white privilege, a 21st century white male instead sees only the unfairness to him; he does not want to "lose" a job opportunity to a black person if his skill set is equal. The slaves were made free generations before he was born, after all. Why is he -- me, I -- being "discriminated" against?
I get it. I am sorry.
I now understand that -- like the existence of 'good' by definition and mere measurement requires the existence of 'evil' -- affirmative action MUST exist where white privilege exists. There must be affirmative action; we must visibly hack the fossilized cultural grain of white privilege, if only as our feeble attempt to tell our black brothers and sisters we recognize the inherent unfairness and unsheddable nature of our own privilege.
I get it. I am sorry.
(I think Daily Kos allows more than 4 paragraphs - let me know if I am wrong - I simply could not delete one word, kp)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/20/1323332/-I-Finally-Get-White-Privilege-and-I-m-Sorry
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