December 30, 2014

This is why calling out all police to speak out against bad cops is justified

As I and others have said before, we applaud the cops that have broken the silence, stepped over the thin blue line. They are facing serious hardship and some awful backlash from their brothers in blue and police apologists. These few, brave, individuals are leading the way for others to do what is right.

Brutality in any and all forms must be acknowledged by law enforcement for there to be any real change. Remaining silent about racial profiling, unnecessary roughness, outright beatings and of course, murder, does nothing but allow the behavior continue.

It is the solidarity, the self reference to "family," "brother and sister" that allows us to call out all police officers to break the silence when there is police brutality. The fact that police officers from around the country came to the funeral for Officer Ramos, and plan to come to the funeral for Officer Liu proves the unity within the police forces.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/cops-country-vow-return-2nd-nypd-funeral/story?id=27855406

The solidarity is admirable in many aspects. But when that solidarity allows for the outright, blatant abuse of power to continue, it shows that their respect for law, law enforcement and the citizens of the US is far from what their objectives as officers of the law should be. It also gives the appearance of a very racist organization. When the police that turned their backs on Mayor De Blasio did so, it wasn't just those from New York. But it was an affront to The Ramos family, black people, protesters against racist practices and brutality, the Garner, Rice, Brown, Crawford and other families of unarmed black men killed by police, and all citizens of the US.

So when people get angry at those of us calling out all cops to step forward and break the silence, when they say that we shouldn't expect all cops to be responsible for calling out bad cops, remember the solidarity and claims that they're brothers. It is exactly that solidarity that keeps the horrific happening. It is exactly that solidarity that allows us to say "all cops..."

Thank you to the following police officers for stepping up

Deputy Chief Allwyn Brown
Chief Chris Magnus
Officer Pedro Serrano

Please let me know of any officers I missed. I did do many searches and this is all I could find

December 28, 2014

You can count them one by one, it could be your son.

In The Mississippi River

With all these young black men, black teenage boys and the young black boy, Tamir Rice, being murdered by cops, and the prosecutors protecting them; with the trumped up charges used on protesters and the insane charges against Tiny Doo, I can't get this song out of my mind.

Back in 1964 when the FBI was searching for the bodies of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, they dragged the Mississippi and Pearl Rivers. Though they didn't find those three Freedom Fighters in the river, they did find others. One was just a 14 year old boy with a C.O.R.E. t-shirt on. Seventeen bodies were found altogether, all were black males, at least 3 of which were Freedom Fighters. One was never identified, his head was missing. All were murdered.

No one was ever charged in any of those murders.

The only thing that has changed is how the murders of black men in America are executed.

Mavis Staples made the song famous but it was written by Marshall Jones in 1964. It is about the bodies found when the rivers were dragged. Mr. Jones was one of The SNCC Freedom Singers. They performed it in Chicago in 2007 for a reunion concert, which is where this video was recorded.


In The Mississippi River (SNCC Freedom Singers, C…:

Some of the lyrics:

December 28, 2014

Cross post

I just wanted to bring this story to everyone's attention. Making me sick. But it's just one in a plethora of horrible laws and laws twisted, to attack another black man

There's a link to donate to Tiny Doo's defense in the first comment

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026010581

December 27, 2014

Rapper facing 25 years to life for lyrics

Brandon Duncan, also known as Tiny Doo, is a rapper in San Diego. He's a 33 year old father with a baby on the way. He has no criminal record and is not part of a gang and never was part of one.

In 2012 he wrote, produced and distributed his own album. The lyrics are about gangs but do not promote violence.

A California law, legislated in 2000, that allows the prosecution of anyone that benefits from gang violence to be charged, is being used to prosecute Tiny Doo. Forget the fact that the lyrics were written in 2012 and the shootings he's supposed to have benefited from happened in 2013. Forget he has no gang affiliation, has no criminal record, has worked in music since he was 14. Mainly, forget he has a first amendment right to free speech. The prosecutor in the case has convinced the judge that there's enough evidence to go to trial.

The ACLU is getting involved and Tiny Doo's attorney is appealing the decision, though the prosecutors contend "this isn't a first amendment case. It's not about free speech."

So now we live in a country where we have a white cop, on video, using an illegal maneuver that kills a black man, and walks without charges, and a black man, who has worked since he was a teenager on his music, who has no criminal record and no involvement in any way with shootings he's charged with benefiting from, facing 25 years to life.

With this law being used in this fashion, the Boomtown Rats, more authors of books and movies than I can count along with the studios and production companies, should all be charged.

Racism is rampant in this country.

Here's a petition his sister has set up on change.org
https://www.change.org/p/my-brother-is-facing-25-years-to-life-for-making-a-rap-album

Here's a couple articles on the story

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/dec/03/tiny-doo-rapper-facing-life-for-making-album

http://mashable.com/2014/11/24/tiny-doo-charged-crime/

Here's an interview with Brandon

http://m.noisey.vice.com/blog/tiny-doo-interview-jail-no-safety-faces-life-in-prison-for-recording-album

December 23, 2014

Changing The Conversation To, "You're Saying, 'All Cops Are Bad' So You're A Hypocrite"

Why can't people be extremely pissed off at the inhumanity shown by so many cops, so often? Better yet, why wouldn't someone be angry? Police brutality is inexcusable yet it almost always goes without punishment, is often excused and is even lauded at times. The police unions are so incredulous they have excused and lauded the murder of a 12 year old boy.

It's like the Catholic Church with the pedophile priests. There were wonderful priests and nuns risking their lives to help others. But these selfless people represented the church, which protected the pedophiles. The Roman Catholic Church allowed children to be abused, molested and raped, for decades. I'm sure for centuries. Every single, solitary priest and nun who knew about the abuse and didn't do everything in their power to stop it, was just as guilty as the abusers and the protectors. They share the guilt because every child that was abused, and forever haunted by the abuse, wouldn't have been if the "good ones" the “heroic ones” did something. Fucking anything!

The same holds true with law enforcement officers and police brutality, racial profiling, abuse of power and outright murder. There are some absolutely wonderful, fearless, officers of peace who would protect your life with theirs. But if they keep silent about known abuses, they are just as guilty as the abuser.

Even without that being true, there is every reason to be sick of, sick from and completely outraged at police brutality and State sanctioned murder at the hands of the police.

The problem is, it is true. It is only with those in the know speaking out, that this will end. The silence from the “good ones” speaks as loudly as the defenders of abuse, murder and impunity for police in all matters. The silence from the heroic is as deafening as the shouts from police union representatives defending the murder of unarmed, of countless people being shackled without reason, of god knows how many kids now terrified to play at the park, of the thousands beaten bloody for not having the "right" color skin.

I applaud the few police officers who have spoken out against these senseless beatings and tragic miscarriages of justice. I find them to be the most courageous of all in law enforcement. They deserve our thanks and encouragement. Police Chief Chris Magnus is one of these heroes.

Unfortunately, there are only a few.

Until there is a stand by police officers against brutalizing fellow human beings, there will be outrage at cops. Until more than a handful of police officers speak out publicly against the atrocities that we see happening daily, there will be those that believe that all cops are bad. Only the police that can change that perception.

There should be outrage. We all should be outraged. The police should be outraged. Shame on anyone who isn't outraged as they are part of the problem.

December 22, 2014

Does anyone know if cops are tested for steroids?

I am sure there us some type of drug testing, whether random tests or on a regular basis. But do they specifically test for steroids?

I find it difficult to believe that all this aggression is natural in so very many. I understand an adrenaline rush. I understand anger causing a physical outlet. I don't understand, nor do I believe, that so many can be so volatile over so little in so many cases.

Don't get me wrong. I whole heartedly believe that training, attitude, racism, etc play a huge role in the unending, seemingly unprecedented, cases of police brutality. But I also think there's something more involved. And I think it's steroids.

December 21, 2014

I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night

Just because, I had too much to dream last night

Electric Prunes - I Had Too Much to Dream

December 19, 2014

apropos of everything It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding

It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - Bob Dylan

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music



Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/its-alright-ma-im-only-bleeding#ixzz3MIvJirzn

December 19, 2014

apropos of absolutely nothing, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

THE LOW SPARK OF HIGH-HEELED BOYS - TRAFFIC

December 15, 2014

I want to publicly thank MIRT

These people are on top of things. I imagine that the number of trolls jumping in DU has increased dramatically. Nothing more important to a racist, RWNJ than defending the their beloved Dubya and Cheney, or the racist cops.

The number of "name removed" or "message auto removed" (whatever it says) increases daily. They're so on top of it that the post removed is often not seen by more than a few. But every single one I have seen needed to be shut down

I know people have some issues with different aspects of MIRT. I understand some of that. But not a job I would want.

Thank you, MIRT people, for keeping the trolls under the bridge, where they belong.