Dear patient readers,
I have been intermittently watching the updates of the appalling shootings in Dallas. I hope you will forgive the thin original material in light of this event. A dark day for this country.
In Siberia in 1908, a huge explosion came out of nowhere BBC
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Mandatory Federal GMO Labeling Is On Its Way Motherboard (furzy)
U.S. Regulator Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes From Operating Labs for Two Years Wall Street Journal. The members of her blue chip board should be embarrassed for not having resigned months ago.
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The Andrea Leadsom march on parliament was even weirder than we thought it could be indy100
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BREXIT – Part 7: NYT Editorial Decrying the Vote Bill Black, New Economic Perspectives
Brexit’s Potential Impact on the Transatlantic Partnership Strategic Culture Watch
Experts debate how far currency will fall Financial Times
I am confident US alliance with UK and EU will endure Barack Obama, Financial Times. This is a first, I believe. Public statements affirming the strength of a relationship outside ritual statements at summits are seldom a good sign.
After Greece, Slovenia takes a taste of the European Financial Dictatorship! failed evolution
Lagarde warns of Trump-style protectionism Financial Times
Another Banking Crisis in Europe? This Time, Save Banks, Not Bankers INET
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Putin calls Obama, cancels region visits amidst Donbass escalation Fort Russ. Chuck L: “Is Ukraine about to resume stoking the fires in Donbass?”
Merkel says Russia damaging Europe’s security Financial Times
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UK foreign secretary: US decision on Iraqi army led to rise of Isis Guardian (resilc)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Michigan man can’t sue Pandora for divulging his tastes Detroit Free Press
Facebook Decides Which Killings We’re Allowed to See Motherboard (resilc)
Ohio Court Sanctions Lawyer For Sharing Publicly-Available Court Documents With Journalists Techdirt
What happens if you lie to Congress? CNBC (Phil U)
Facebook Decides Which Killings We’re Allowed to See Motherboard (furzy)
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Whose Century Is It? Life on an Increasingly Improbable Planet Tom Engelhardt
Meet the Neocons’ Apologist in Chief National Interest (resilc)
The Problem With Regime Change American Conservative (resilc)
Clinton E-mail Tar Baby
State Department reopens internal probe into Hillary Clinton email scandal; administrative sanctions possible Associated Press
State Department Reopens Clinton Emails Probe ABC (furzy)
FBI didn’t record Clinton interview, did not administer sworn oath The Hill (Wat)
FBI director: charging Hillary Clinton in email case would be ‘celebrity hunting’ Guardian (resilc)
House will ask FBI to investigate if Clinton lied to Congress The Hill (martha r)
CLIFF ARNEBECK’S LETTER TO LORETTA LYNCH SandersForPresident/reddit (martha r). Warning from Lambert: “Even if true he sounds like a nut.” Sheesh, the letter was removed!
So I just watched the Congressional hearings for a straight six hours…here’s what I heard reditt. Martha r: “Seems like a good precis.”
New York Post Cover. Do have a look.
2016
Democratic National Convention Philadelphia, Pa July (23,24) 25-28 Facebook. Martha r: “Resources and schedule for protests planned in philly.”
The people that didn’t vote for Bernie? They’re dying off The Hill (furzy)
Someone apparently got Proof that @BernieSanders “Hillary endorsement” started by mis-information. #SeeYouInPhilly pic.twitter.com/srpnQk89Tm @Kelticca versus Sanders to endorse Clinton next week: report The Hill (martha r)
The Horrors of a Fatally Flawed U.S. Elections System Election Nightmares (martha r)
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The Democrats Ignore the 500-Pound Lobbyist in the Room Bill Moyers
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Trump, seeking GOP unity, has tense meeting with Senate Republicans Washington Post
Peacemaking Goes Awry as Donald Trump Lashes Out at G.O.P. Senators New York Times. Is he trying to screw this up?
The 2016 Candidates and Our Warped Foreign Policy Debate American Conservative (resilc)
Unkept Promises of America’s Economy Drive Turbulent Election Wall Street Journal. Includes picture of Alan Greenspan in the thumbnail.
How IBT’s reporting is driving a controversy over a major healthcare merger in Connecticut Columbia Journalism Review
Dallas Shooting
Multiple Police Officers Reportedly Shot During Dallas Protest Huffington Post
Five Police Officers Dead, Several Hurt at Dallas Protest Wall Street Journal. The comment section is scary. Open racial hostility. Blaming blacks, Obama, Democrats, progressives. “Obama has the race war he wants.” Blaming deaths on Black Lives Matter. Another meme: shooting was to distract attention from Clinton e-mail mess (not making that up). You can hear the next one: DoJ will have no credibility in investigation because headed by Lynch.
It did not help that the Dallas police immediately posted the picture of a suspect, a black man carrying a rifle who was wearing a camo-themed T-shirt. He was the brother of one of the organizers of the protest. He turned himself in and per Guardian’s live blog (this as of about 2:30 AM EDT, which means before midnight Dallas time given reporting delays), was released. But this further cements the notion that peaceful Black Lives Matter was behind the shooting, as does this appalling DNC statement.
‘Like a little war’: Snipers shoot 11 police officers during Dallas protest march, killing five Washington Post
AMBUSH IN DALLAS: SNIPERS KILL 5 POLICE OFFICERS AT PROTEST New York Times
Raw: Video Shows Protesters Flee Dallas Gunfire YouTube
Dallas police excessive-force complaints drop dramatically Dallas Morning News
Black Injustice Tipping Point
President Barack Obama on deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling CNBC (resilc)
Shootings of Blacks Symptomatic of Racial Disparities in U.S., Obama Says New York Times
Obama speaks on fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Slate (resilc)
In Alton Sterling’s Baton Rouge, “Blue Lives Matter” Intercept (resilc)
Alton Sterling video was filmed on purpose, but not for the reason you may think Daily Kos (furzy)
The Counted: people killed by police in the United States – interactive Guardian (resilc)
Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are 2 of 728 Americans that police killed this year Vox
One Simple Change to the Law Could Make Prosecuting Killer Cops Easier Intercept (resilc)
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Labor Unrest in China: Workers Launch Wildcat Strikes on Walmart Michael Shedlock (EM)
Antidote du jour (@MeetAnimals). The Himalayan marmot:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Been watching CNN most of the night. No matter what, you can rest assured, the cops have just gone from brutal executioners to victims. The claims of how “Black Lives Matter want cops dead” (literal quote) and the way the anchors are helping the narrative along should prove useful in ending any unity and action on every aspect of the Black Injustice Tipping Point.
Almost too perfect – if one were to want such an outcome – to be believable.
Obscene economic inequality, 300+ million guns in circulation, unyielding racism, packed prisons, militarized police forces and social media. Quite a brew.
MikeNY: A while back, I was doing research that involved studying the Spanish Civil War. What worries me is that all of the factors that you mention as being in place in the U S of A were in place there in the early 1930s. Competing regionalisms. Decrepit elites that had looted portions of the country. Repression. Militarized police force often perceived as occupiers. Highly developed communications networks for so stagnant a country. Assassinations.
And then people started looking for the Man on the White Horse.
Spain in the 1930s was no longer a world power and was that rich at all.
Plenty of similarities as you pointed, but not all.
The USSR in the late 80s was a security state, involved in foreign adventures, with repression, morally decrepit elites, secret police seen as occupiers, highly developed communications networks.
And they waited for their savior – neoliberal version of democracy…and for their young voters, with rock-loving, easy Western girls and boys.
Perhaps not exactly the same, but also with plenty of similarities.
It’s when people feel things are spiraling out of control that they sometimes look for a strongman. I see Trump is already making these kinds of noises after Dallas.
What Trump is saying is that open borders have destroyed the descent paying jobs of black, USA citizens. There is a 59% unemployment rate amongst young black men. That is the crime. I am a father of two grown up (thank God!) sons. You have to keep young men busy (sports, hobbies, work, school, friends etc) or they get into trouble. Jobs, wives, children, houses, cars, clubs, hobbies (in all their myriad variations) is the time proven solution. It is simple and it usually works.
Donald Trump says explicitly, stop illegal immigrants crossing the border. Stop products flooding in (without tariffs), rebuild USA infrastructure and bring manufacturing and high paying jobs back to the USA. Rebuild the inner cities. Make certain that all legal USA young people (Black, White, Asian, Polynesian, Hispanic, Native American, male, female, trans) can have great paying jobs/occupations.
This would work! And would be good for everybody. Good for everybody!!!
Donald Trump Rally in Cincinnati, Ohio (July 6, 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp6l5ly3HZg
These are Trump’s simple, time tested plans. They are relatively inexpensive- Especially when compared to the cost of World Domination and World Subjugation that Our Adolescent Brainiacs are having nocturnal emissions about.
The people who signed PNAC (Project for a New American Century) are not teenagers. Cheney, Robert Kagan, Butcher’s Bill Kristol, Victoria Nuland, Paul Wolfowitz, etc. They’re the ones currently in control, so what we live with is what they intend.
i watched two videos of blacks being shot by cops yesterday, and was left thinking we just have to take the guns away from the cops…
we had to know something like this was coming…
what could’ve been the mindset of the shooters? there was planning but not much. this took place at the end of a peaceful protest, where officers were interacting with protesters and the officers unarmed like they were in Ferguson. seems like the shooters saw themselves as sacrificial lambs to get this party started…so to speak.
Not much planning?
From CNN:
Pfui. There was a single shooter and he had been simmering for a long time but already had everything he needed on hand. All you need is a rifle and enough ammunition. One box of cartridges would be enough for a competent marksman, but I suppose two or three would be better. I would prefer something more accurate at long range than your AR-15 or AK-47. Texas is an open carry state, so before the protest starts you go, with your rifle slung over your shoulder, to some high vantage point. I think the shooter was in a parking garage. Why would it take a lot of planning? Unless you think of musing for several months/years, “Well, gee, if I was gonna do it that would be a good place,” as being “planning.” Just another credentialed a**hole trying for ink or clicks.
They (the shooters) probably did not have well paid, secure fulltime employment.
Yes, it looks suspect, but no conspiracy needed for this to happen organically. Something like this had to happen sooner or later. The escalating visibility of official violence would create fertile ground for disaffected persons to act out their feelings of oppression and hopelessness. Whoever does gain advantage from the backlash to this didn’t have to foment anything, just be ready for it.
Also, these look to be amateurs. I have read that “real” snipers avoid high places where they could be easily trapped. These shooters are said to have fired from an upper level of a parking garage.
I agree with you however that the “official” backlash will be a ratcheting down on civil liberties.
If something like this happens at one or both of the conventions, all bets will be off.
As to whether the snipers are ‘amateurs’, i think that’s debatable. To kill/wound 12 cops, even with the element of surprise, requires a pretty sophisticated level of coordination. The times had a remark about how snipers were ‘triangulating’. That sounds much too sophisticated to be linked with some kind of spontaneous rage about recent police murders.
It seems amazing that they’ve got them in custody. At a glance, i wonder if an attack like this is a throwback to the tactics and ideas of the anarchists in 19th century Russia. Those were the original terrorists and their aim was to provoke a heavy-handed backlash from the czar to ‘radicalize’ and sharpen the contradictions.
Obviously, details are thin and this is knee-jerk speculation by me. So please keep that in mind. I am probably wrong.
It’s possible those shooters may have been ex military? marines? special forces?
and where did they get the guns and the armor to protect themselves from bullets?
According to the Daily Mail (!) there was one shooter. He was ex-army reservist. I was wondering, too, where he got a bullet proof vest – online? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html
The interesting thing about this is that, as far as I know, there are absolutely no laws restricting availability of body armor (even military grade) in the UK (unlike the US, where those convicted of crimes of violence are prohibited from purchasing it).
To provoke a heavy-handed backlash…
That’s always the question when we see a backlash, whether it’s from the Wehrmacht, the police, the Mongol conquerors, your teacher, your parents, your spouse/partner, the DNC or Hillary, the Czar, the IDF or any occupying army.
Oh, for Dog’s sake. “To kill/wound 12 cops, even with the element of surprise, requires a pretty sophisticated level of coordination.” That’s absurd. Have you never heard of Sgt. Alvin York? World War I? Awarded the Medal of Honor. Bolt action Springfield rifle, although I think it did have an internal magazine that held six cartridges. In one encounter he killed 52 German soldiers. Trained, experienced soldiers in a battle. Did it more than once, too, although that was his biggest head count. You may think it’s hard, but bear in mind that the cops had no idea of where the shots were coming from for a surprisingly long time.
Well folks, looks like I’ve been fooled again. Now the “official” version of the Dallas shooting is “one shooter on the ground level.”
As my earlier contretemps showed, one cannot believe everything one sees on the internet. (HT/Clive) I’m reminded of Winston Smith working away at the Ministry of Truth. Fluidity is the new normal. ‘Developing Story’ should be the standard blurb, not ‘Breaking Story.’
The DPD Chief just repeated statements by one suspect. He “just wanted to kill white people”. I can’t believe it was carried on some national networks live.
The traffic here in Dallas is like a Sunday. Not many people going to work. DPD officers are the only ones I would walk up to and ask for help or directions. I wouldn’t do that with suburban cops (who usually have ticket quotas).
Repercussions? How about no demonstrations at the Dem or Rep conventions? If Bernie supporters feel surpressed already, get ready for more.
Reckless at best, with intent to instigate at worst. Whether or not the suspect said it, you don’t repeat it if you want to de-escalate.
From federal, to state, to local there are no leaders at the helm……..
Also, they killed one suspect with what could be argued is a drone – chickens are coming home to roost.
Manson said he was trying to ignite a race war after the Tate-Labianca murders in 1969. Back then, he was just considered a nut, murderous yes, but no prophet or particularly capable instigator.
Killed by a drone???
Why don’t we also have robot cops?
Then, no one, that is, no cop, needs to risk being shot in this case.
Maybe robot cops would be less likely to panic and kill unarmed people, too. Win-win.
That’s the quote the NPR anchor repeated this morning too…
Not good to see suspect’s remarks repeated to the press.
I’m not surprised it was carried live, for it potentially serves as a pretext for TPTB/police state to carry out further assaults against oppositional movements such as #BLM, even though they are non-violent.
We don’t disseminate that.
Nor do we let, for example, hostage-takers go on TV.
To find out about the leader’s Last Will and Testament, you have to do the search yourself.
When you talk of repercussions, I think you may be right on point about this giving the political parties reason to keep the masses silent while they ‘conduct their business’ at the conventions.
Protests (people speaking out) will now have become too volatile so ‘must be banned’.
‘Nothing to see here. Move along.’
“the masses.” Who are the masses? A nonsense term and a category error.
The real shame here, apart from the death of these men, is that this thing is being sold as a battle between police and the black community, ensuring there will never be an actionable narrative. More generally these sorts of actions are a response to the crushing neo-liberal policies that are grinding this population into the ground. The justifiable anger of poor blacks is being channeled toward those representatives of the system that are nearest to their experience. There are certainly real injustices committed by police, as we all know. However, they are merely tools of a system that by virtue of its structure necessarily ends in tension between those most oppressed by it (the black community) and those charged most immediately with the mitigation of its crushing consequences (local police). There is plenty of anger to go around. Unfortunately, thanks to our media situation and other societal failings, the justified anger is likely to never find the right target.
Shortening the lives of billions of people by a month each is less visible than shootings of this kind.
And thus, the rich people’s world is always more peaceful, quieter and pollution-free.
It’s as if they live in some sort of Shangr-La or Eden.
+1 Well put.
I suspect, that when it comes to police training, firing ranges are cheaper than psychology courses. Though the reactions instilled might not be the most cost effective in the long run. Given there are only millions of police in the country, while there are hundreds of millions of people. Twenty years down the line, I can see “no go” zones in the US.
“is that this thing is being sold as a battle between police and the black community”
Isn’t it? Not just a battle; a war. One that has been going on a long, long time. And not just against blacks, against the lower levels of society in general. Cops execute people repeatedly on camera, and sooner or later someone is going to come hunting for cops. I’m not endorsing it, I’m just saying it was inevitable. You can only beat a dog so much before it snaps.
Strether said just yesterday that it was as if BLM had never even happened. Correct. Peaceful marches and die-ins have had no effect. Now some people are going to escalate.
CNN? Hmmn, really open minded you are. Here is a still shot from CNN on the http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=42224 Philando Castile alleged shooting. Why alleged, you ask CNN watcher?, compare the video to the still my naive friend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNCbgJ55jQY
What is the difference? Anyone?
The steering wheel is on the RIGHT side of the car.
Was this video made in the UK, Japan? Was it a rare right side import, or perhaps something else, like a green screen studio production?
This appears more and more like a purposeful divide and conquer distraction to CAUSE what appears to be a real shooting in Dallas. – Bonus – Got Hillary and Comey off the front page.
As the Church Lady (Dana Carvey – SNL) famously said “How Conveeenient”
Don’t fall for it folks, we must Unite, and pursue the real criminals, the .01%.
No, when you flip the camera on a phone to film yourself it reverses the image. Like looking in a mirror.
It depends on whether you use front facing or rear facing camera.
It does feel to me like we’re entering a period of social instability. Every week is a new police shooting or a new mass shooting or both. It’s hard to read the news and not feel we’re TFOOC.
Was this how it felt in the late 60s?
yes, for me. there hasn’t been that level of violence, yet, and the backdrop war(s) not as significant.
Yes, you’re right about the wars. I wonder if the rage of black Americans and the burgeoning rage of white men is replacing the wars as a cause…
Not the level of violence, but I think the level of despair is far greater now than in the 60s. Maybe it’s because I was young, but then it seemed that people believed things were changing for the better and the violence was just a reflection of a status-quo on its way out.
Not exactly…whites were bombing establishments.
Including churches and synagogues in the Deep South.
well police are the establishment, so shooting at the police is rather equivalent
Just entering? This is the next logical place on our downward descent (to the drain). Societal instability is what has kept the momentum going and growing. You can expect more of this as commonplace the more that society is compressed and people (the molecules) heat up and react. There are bumps and lulls along the way down, but the closer we get to the singularity, the more bumpy it will be.
definition of TFOOC? I couldn’t find it on urbandictionary or duckduckgo search. Thanks in advance if anyone replies.
totally effing out of control
Thanks, forgot to ask myself!
TFOOC. I like it – to people in almost every country outside the US it is a perfect description of US gun laws. Another would be TFI, or Totally F Insane.
We’ll need some big urban riots and some high profile political assassinations and a much bigger war and war protest to get back to that 60’s feeling. Not saying it cannot happen but the demographics are not right.
the situation feels scarier to me now, in part because of the shredding of the constitution regarding dissent and of the militarization of police since 9/11. the government/police state is more entrenched now than it was then. surveillance of citizens is worse. risks consequent to whistleblowing are worse now. but then i am white. for blacks in the late 1960s the overall situation may have been and felt no less dangerous than now.
also back then while there was incipient outrage about the environment, we were not seeing climate change happening before our eyes, e.g. a devastating typhoon raging through taiwan while automatic rifles are being fired at cops and protestors in a major american city. we were not seeing rage shootings of multiple civilian victims every few days or so. we were not seeing the rise of a right enraged by austerity in europe or the usa.
we had a more accountable and reliable media. we had a better safety net for the impoverished. we had employee benefits and reciprocal loyalty between employer and employed. we had strong unions, for better or worse. education was far more affordable. and on and on.
the 60s was a cultural revolution more than a political one. it felt seismic, but it involved as much a feeling of liberation from old norms as any feeling of fear of who the police state, the MIC, and some poor crushed civilian were going to shoot next. again with the qualifier no doubt different if you were not white.
how did it feel? such a subjective matter. i remember feeling change was in the air and was happening. i’m far less sanguine today.
I don’t think so; in the 1960s there were huge mass movements of people trying to end the war, bring down American imperialism, win rights for African-Americans, women, LGBT, etc.
There are protest movements now but they don’t encompass most of society. A sense of hope pervaded the 60’s movements. It’s despair now.
agreed, unorthodoxmarxist.
the situation feels scarier to me now, in part because of the shredding of the constitution regarding dissent and of the militarization of police since 9/11. the government/police state is more entrenched now than it was then. surveillance of citizens is worse. risks consequent to whistleblowing are worse now. but then i am white. for blacks in the late 1960s the overall situation may have been and felt no less dangerous than now.
also back then while there was incipient outrage about the environment, we were not seeing climate change happening before our eyes, e.g. a devastating typhoon raging through taiwan while automatic rifles are being fired at cops and protestors in a major american city. we were not seeing rage shootings of multiple civilian victims every few days or so. we were not seeing the rise of a right enraged by austerity in europe or the usa.
we had a more accountable and reliable media. we had a better safety net for the impoverished. we had employee benefits and reciprocal loyalty between employer and employed. we had strong unions, for better or worse. education was far more affordable. and on and on.
the 60s was a cultural revolution more than a political one. it felt seismic, but it involved as much a feeling of liberation from old norms as any feeling of fear of who the police state, the MIC, and some poor crushed civilian were going to shoot next. again with the qualifier no doubt different if you were not white.
how did it feel? such a subjective matter. i remember feeling change was in the air and was happening. i’m far less sanguine today.
Unorthodoxmarxist–
Yes, an excellent four sentence summary!
–Gaianne
“Was this how it felt in the late 60s?”
Nixon’s resignation year of 1974, during a crappy economy and strong anti-establishment sentiment, rhymes pretty well too.
Though when it comes to assassinations, 1968 was some kind of high tide. Then the Charles Manson murders came along in August 1969.
Manson was/is quite an interesting character.
Case in point: One of my friends was a social worker for LA County. When the Manson case broke, there was quite a bit of concern over the children of the Manson Family. As in, whose kids were they?
Needless to say, officialdom had some work to do on that front.
My friend was tasked with interviewing Charles Manson. She said that he was one of the easiest people she ever had to deal with.
As one who – as it were – came of age in the 60s, I do remember very clearly the white fears of “race wars”, as the era of Malcom X, Elijah Mohammed and the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party, Stokely Carmichael, et al, had people convinced that “they” were coming after “us”, despite LBJ’s historic civil rights legislative achievements to attempt to redress massive racial oppression and injustices inflicted upon black people since the Civil War. “What do ‘these people’ want?”, was the plaintive cry from the white majority at the time, and the inevitable “backlash” in response to what largely was “tell-it-like-it-is” rhetoric from young black radicals induced considerable foot-dragging to see through civil rights laws enacted during this period. IMHO, what distinguishes the troubled racial times we are living through now, and what we and our cohorts experienced back in the day is social media, and its immediate access to the mass media, which really has qualitatively changed people’s perceptions of race-based issues, but has also perversely enhanced an apparent quantitative leap in social schisms and stresses. What we have witnessed the past several years doesn’t have a patch on the 60’s for acute social turbulence, believe it.
Thanks for all these responses. I appreciated reading them all.
Thank you for that antidote. I didn’t know these creatures existed.
Nice marmot.
We believe in nothing.
I’m not following you…is that a quote from a David Marmot play or something?
lol
ha!
diptherio: No in a David Marmot play it would be:
“We don’t believe in your f*cking marmot, f*ucking ground hog, f*ck.”
Because David M is a gritty realist kind of a guy. As is well known.
…while Pinter showed the absurdity beneath realism ““Listen. You know what it’s like when you’re in a room with the light on and then suddenly the light goes out? I’ll show you. It’s like this.”
He turns out the light.
BLACKOUT”
For those who came in late:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L2qP-xQ_7o
Humour is sorely needed on days with such horrendous news headlines :(
Aww but it cut off before one of my favorite bits, the cop’s response to the Dude asking about “the investigation”
Forget it Dippy, you’re out of your element :P
Well maybe just the babushka lady with biscuits
re: Education & Prison Spending
worth a scroll…it’ll take me weeks to read all these papers: http://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/education/
Example: Education Under Arrest The Case Against Police in Schools, [PDF]
Justice Policy Institute, November, 2011
“[School resource officers] and law enforcement in schools are not needed to keep kids safe, especially when youth pay the price of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system and suffer a lifetime of negative effects as a result.” we’re living this effect…yet more kids are herded through the juvie $y$tem
You militarize your police and train them to act like an occupying force, entrench an anyone not blue is against us mentality, protect them in ways that allow them to kill a man with impunity, and then when the blowback starts you are what?
Surprised?
It’s a terrible day but these are the consequences of decisions made long ago. It’s time to rethink them but perhaps too late?
Very sad.
not to mention we are probably the best armed nation on earth. much more effective weapons than existed during the civil war.
obviously our Super Power status was created from being the Worlds Larges Arms Dealer. what surprises me is our majority still can’t recognize this…so they won’t relate the outcome they’re living. furthermore, the economy will exasperate the realities…imo, this is what makes it different this time.
Pretzel, not to minimize the contrmporay weapons overkill, but things were pretty harsh during the US Civil War. Any torso wound was a desth sentence. Shattering limb wounds were a summary amputation then a likrly death sentence from infection. Just being in a conscripted unhealthy group of soldiers was damn near a latent biological weapons risk. We tend to minimize the hardship of previous generations, that seems to be human nature.
But point taken on the weapons overkill. The US desperately needs to deflect from the MIC as a primary economic engine as it was consciously converted to post WWII
Someone else in thread points out that probably not too many people are wired for appropriate interaction with the public with the thought they may have a concealed modern weapon.
Combine that with the mentality of people that are attracted to the morebase level of law enforcement , renforced with their militarized training and we have very challenging times ahead in this country that will not easily be unwound.
Let us not forget the series of SCOTUS decisions since the inception of the “war on drugs” that have essentially allowed open season on PoC. Basically, unless someone actually says they’re going to do something racist, profiling PoC isn’t racist, and law enforcement has been given carte blanche to do as they please. It didn’t seem to occur to anyone how easily this could expand to include everyone, but then, privilege tends to have that kind of blinding effect.
However, I find it appalling anyone would suggest all the planned demonstrations in Philly be cancelled. Great googly-moogly, that’s precisely the last thing that should be done. Better to go down fighting than die hiding in a hole.
Same thing that happened after the last concentrated round of black killings by police — remember the two officers in NYC that got shot while sitting in their car? Defused public anger over the black killings and redirected it to cop hero worship and outrage.
Here we are again. Sorry, cops have brought this on themselves. This country is going to have an uprising and these are just the opening skirmishes. I’m not saying it’s okay to kill cops, just to be clear.
I beg to differ.
First. the Dallas cops had been pretty successful in cracking down on police misconduct. So they will be presented as particularly sympathetic.
Second, one guy popping two cops in NYC (incorrectly perceived as an out of control hotbed of violence in most of the US) is completely different than snipers mowing down cops in the middle of a black protest. The story is getting front page banner headlines all over the US. The shootings are being blamed on the protests even by the DNC!
Black Lives Matter is now discredited through no fault of its own. The enlightened media will defend it, but any future protests outside deep blue cities will be met with suspicion and even hostility.
Go read the comments section at the WSJ story to which I linked. Google the headline so you can get access. Absolutely rabid hatred of blacks, Dems, Obama, “liberals” on display. The few sensible comments are quickly and viciously shot down.
There is going to be a monster backlash against blacks as a result of this. Trust me. Your smug reaction is in denial of what is going to be unleashed.
This question seems trivial, but my internet connection is running unusually slow today, and msm seems disinclined to be specific.
Were the shooters black?
I’d love to think it was white supremacists trying to start their eschatological race war. Unfortunately I doubt it.
cointelpro
Perception management strategies.
WSJ commenters have been spouting vile things for a while and even more so since Trumps run. Racism was always a festering boil underlying this country but it had been unveiled when Obama took office.
Vile racist comments in a WSJ article or local newspaper website are the everyday ordinary norm. There’s nothing new about it. It’s not some new-fangled thing. It’s why nothing has been done about murderous police in the first place. People don’t want to change their comfortable little privileged world views and will happily blame the Blacks for anything. Any tribe that’s not their own deserves what’s coming to them — the same optional empathy that enabled the Holocaust and every other monstrous injustice committed by man.
Will this blowback on BLM? What a question. BLM was going to get it regardless (and already has). White supremacists shot up a BLM protest in Minneapolis and no one gave a damn, but this changes the game? Whatever. Violence was already inevitable due to the lack of response. It was baked in. Like climate change. Too late now humans, the wind has been sown.
By linking the shooters to BLM, the DNC effectively shuts them out of any place in the D-Party tent and any participation/influence on party policy, platform, ideology, etc. And through guilt by association, ditto for the Berniecrat wing of the party as well.
Snipers firing during a protest … parallels to the euromaidan snipers in 2014?
Higgs Boson you finally get to the elementary matter:
“… parallels to the euromaidan snipers in 2014”
The “regime” change NGO efforts are now coming home to roost. All we need do is change the constitution…..
Excellent point; especially the Ukraine reference. Makes me wonder if all of this is being orchestrated to promote divisiveness and social chaos. This being an out-of-control election year, the coming global economic implosion, and the war mongering against the Russians indicates that the man behind the curtain may be pulling the chaos lever as the usual distraction for the sheeple.
The term “sheeple” presents such a combination of lazy cyncism, political ineptitude, and category error that I can’t even.
$SWHC (Smith & Wesson Holding Corp) was $2.52 on Sept. 30, 2011. It closed yesterday at $28.29. And looks to open this morning around $29.70.
https://www.google.com/search?q=swhc&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
There’s a bull market in senseless gun violence and someone profits from it.
Denying responsibility while simultaneuously doubling down is hard to do. It’s nauseating to see people try…
Some Black Lives Matter owns this.
Internet Revolutionaries own this.
Tenured radicals own this.
(Their) Media owns this.
Obama owns this.
Some Back Lives Matter has been encouraging “No Justice, No Peace” rhetoric for two years. This is what that looks like.
Internet Revolutionaries throw around words like “execution” and “terrorism” when referrring to officer-involved shootings. Right here on this website. The killing of St. Alton might eventually be determined to have been illegal. But it damnsure wasn’t an “execution.” Dallas was an execution – five of of them.
Tenured radicals (Thank You, 1960s) have been pushing anti-white Identity Politics for decades – and now the country is supposed to somehow “come together”?
(Their) Media’s parasitical behavior: selectively hyping some problems while ignoring others and thereby distorting context, systematically undermining politicans (Sanders, Trump) who pronounce the system rigged, constantly injecting degenerate, hyper-violent and hyper-sexualized “entertainment” into our minds – all to keep America divided, group against group, individual against individual, even individuals against their own very selves… while the parasites rub their hands together as the billions roll in.
Obama’s America: eight years of nothing but cosmetic fixes: trickle down affirmative action and sanctimonious rhetoric. Not what I voted for in 2008.
You say you want a revolution? Then you better get ready for more of this.
If you can’t handle that, then you don’t want a revolution.
your comment seems to cut both ways, Fork. elaborate for the less clever among us?
“You say you want a revolution? Then you better get ready for more of this. If you can’t handle that, then you don’t want a revolution.”
Feeling a little extra smug this morning?
Violent revolutions are foisted upon a people by the effects of long-term rampant injustice. At some undetermined point, it becomes vital for a society to stop narcissistic leaders intent on ever-increasing their destructive power.
The cycles created by the narcissism/sociopathy of a portion of humanity repeat through history. It’s disgusting.
Cruel people enjoy the chaos of revolution and throw violent spanners. Others sit in the balcony, smirking and snarking.
Ugh.
+1
Personally, I was hoping for a Sanders Presidency because I felt he might address inequality enough to perhaps remove some of the tension and stave off violent revolution. Lately though I’ve considered it will be Trump and if that occurs we might want to prepare ourselves for the pitchforks once his supporters realize they’ve been punked.
JFK once said, “Those that make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Will Trump then pull an Obama – give me what I want, so you can keep those with pitchforks away?
I honestly think there would be more for progressives to,like from a Trump Administration than from a Clinton one.
I think they would both be crappy Presidents.
My husband told me that he might surprise me, however I find it as equally likely as Clinton surprising me and becoming a great President(based on both their records with regards to how they treat others.)
My leftist vote for Trump would be a gamble that his ignorance and narcissism will remain in balance, refusing the influence/takeover of more powerful right-wing agents while also maintaining general impotence in governance.
I have little confidence that this balance will be maintained, and I’m not much of a fan of ‘make it break’. In my experience, the bottom can always drop lower, and every new descent would be meaningless devastation. The only destruction I can get behind is one that has potential, the kind that cleanses.
Never Hillary. A vote for Green is of very limited value. I have no idea what I will do. I get enraged just thinking it over.
And Jesse Jackson blames Trump
I would be a bit fearful of traveling to a red state at the least.
I got around the paywall but see no way to access comments
I recall reading a stat, that if the police killings in Germany (all Germans of any demographic group) is G, the US rate on white USians is 20G, & of black USians is 80G. Something like over 1000+ USians/yr are being killed by police.
The outrage should be to bring this US rate down to G for ALL USians. Failure to do so kills orders of magnitude more USians than T3rism, just like PTB politicians’ continual blocking of Canada-style MedicareForAll does.
“Racism helps explain why African Americans and Native Americans are particularly vulnerable to police violence… But racism alone can’t explain why non-Latino white Americans are 26 times more likely to die by police gunfire than Germans. And racism alone doesn’t explain why states like Montana, West Virginia and Wyoming – where both perpetrators and victims of deadly force are almost always white – exhibit relatively high rates of police lethality.”
https://theconversation.com/why-do-american-cops-kill-so-many-compared-to-european-cops-49696
The Increasingly Unstable United States
Immanuel Wallerstein
“…. We need to look at another of the changes in the United States. The New York Times ran a long front-page article on May 23 about gun violence, which it called “unending but unheard.” The article was not about the well-reported massive gun shootings that we call massacres and that are considered shocking. Instead, the article pursues shootings that the police tend to call “incidents” and never get into newspapers. It describes one such incident in detail, and calls it “a snapshot of a different source of mass violence – one that erupts with such anesthetic regularity that it is rendered almost invisible, except to the mostly black victims, survivors and attackers.” And the numbers are going up.
As these “unending but unheard” deaths by violence go up, the possibility that they may go beyond the confines of Black ghettos to non-Black zones in which many of the disillusioned are located is not so far-fetched. After all, the disillusioned are right about one thing. Life in the United States is not as good as it once was. Trump has used as his slogan “make America great again.” The “again” refers to the golden era. And Sanders also seems to refer to a previously golden era in which jobs were not exported to the global South. Even Clinton now seems to look back at something lost.
And that is not to forget an even fiercer sort of violence – that propagated by a still very small band of deeply anti-state militias, who call themselves the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom (CCF). They are the ones that have been defying the government’s closure of some land for their cattle or indeed for their usage. The CCF people say the government has no rights and is acting unconstitutionally.
The problem is that both the federal and local governments are unsure what to do. They “negotiate” for fear that asserting their authority will not be popular. But when the negotiations fail, the government finally uses its force. This more extreme version of action may soon spread. It is not a question of moving to the right but of moving towards more violent protest, towards a civil war.”
http://iwallerstein.com/the-increasingly-unstable-united-states/
I should preface this response by noting that there was a shooting two days ago at a house just three doors down from mine, that I pass nearly every day on my way to the bus. Each time I walk past, I stare almost obnoxiously at the missing piece of siding the police removed as evidence.
No one was hurt, by some miracle, and nothing is likely to be resolved in the meantime. The “community meeting” held just yesterday turned into an opportunity for white residents to vent their thinly veiled racist sentiment (both the perpetrator and shooter are black). People are on edge, and if there was already something of a bunker mentality in my neighborhood, it’s now much worse. It’s hard to think clearly about any of this. The teenagers who were the victims are also a pair of stupid hotheads who go out of their way to show how “hard” they are, always demanding respect while showing none to others. It’s not surprising to me one of their long-standing machismo contests finally blew up into something violent.
I grew up in circumstances where violence was a barely stifled undercurrent of daily affairs. If you’ve ever seen/read Winter’s Bone, you have a pretty good idea of what I mean. Yet, weirdly, I never felt especially unsettled in that environment. It was brutal and stupid, but it was at least navigable; if you were paying attention, you could figure out what the rules are and behave accordingly. There were at least signs indicating where the minefields were.
Now, I just don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I’m older and responsible for more than just myself, but I feel like I can’t read the signs. I even suppress my own instincts. When the shooting happened, I was at home, and I heard that distinct pop pop that I new in my gut could only be gunshots. Yet, my desire to live in peace and quiet immediately overrode my gut and said it must be fireworks. After all, people had been lightly their 4th of July leftovers off that very afternoon and evening. It was a reasonable response, but not the right one.
That seems to be the world we live in these days, where the reasonable is rarely correct, where the impulse to keep your head down and just get by is likely to just make matters worse, because other people’s stupidity, their hotheadedness, their wars, their demands they be held in high esteem while holding everyone else in contempt, their greed–it’s all spilling over and ruining the lives of people who did nothing to deserve any of it.
I cried like a little baby holding my daughter yesterday, because it easily could have been my house with the bullets lodged in the siding.
A report on the shooting, for reference purposes, showing the absent bit of siding.
Ugh, “perpetrator and victims” not “perpetrator and shooter.” Thoughts are racing so much I can barely construct a coherent statement.
Aiee so much pain and fear involved in parenting these days. I feel for you, U.
It’s a damn shame about Dallas. Black Lives Matter will be maligned as angry, dangerous whitey-hating blacks out to piss on our collective apple pie, and the blood-thirsty, militarized police that terrorize the entire population (but particularly those who are poor and of color) will be unduly exalted and worshiped as heros. (Again) All of the crazies on both sides will feel vindicated and emboldened in their opinions and the racial tension level will rachet up yet again.
I believe things will settle down at some point but right now the broadcast media and the social media echo chamber need to cool off with click bait, identify-politic Trump/BLM/god/gays/guns etc.stories that only seek to inflame people instead of informing. There are many among us who are very susceptible to advertising and race baiting. Many people can’t differentiate between the fact, fiction and propaganda in their Facebook feed.
Chill America. I think we all need to smoke a J together.
my brain just EXPLODED…MSNBC just aired a commercial by Koch about ending the American Divide…ending corporate rule and less resource for the most vulnerable. is this what cable advertises today? i don’t know b/c i don’t watch the yak. we are full tilt
I flipped to MSNBC early this morning and within 30 seconds some talking head blamed Trump for the Dallas shooting. It’s a good thing only 10K people watch MSNBC.
dear gawd i’m not dreaming:
“Koch Industries Inc. has gone from a media campaign explaining what it is to a new one that explains why it is pushing for major political change, the Wichita Business Journal reports.
The new campaign, called “End the Divide” focuses on the believe that misguided policies are “creating a two-tiered society that give unfair advantages to the financially privileged and politically connected few.” More specifically, the campaign addresses issues such as criminal justice reform, corporate welfare and freedom of speech.
If the views are surprising coming from a company controlled by billionaire brothers who are dominant political voices, that’s part of the message, too.
“Many people don’t realize that Koch advocates for policies that could actually hurt our bottom line, but we do so because we believe in creating long-term value, not short-term gain,” Koch Chief Communications and Marketing Officer Steve Lombardo told the Wichita Business Journal.”
With the exception of Donahue and Olbermann who were their own people (which is why they were fired despite being their highest rated shows), MSNBC was created to lobby for corporate tax cuts for GE and Microsoft. Those aren’t “reporters” but Comcast and GE pitchmen.
Olbermann was a sports center anchor who wanted to the YES network play by play job and was auditioning. The Special Comment went viral on sites such as Crooks and Liars. I watched because I always watch and listen to Keith and Dan Patrick, but until the special comment, Olbermann’s show was more goofy than anything. Tucker Carlson had a show.
” ‘Splody heads start ‘splodin’ “.
Historians Mark Grimsley. Ethan Rafuse, and William B. Feis have dealt with why the South eschewed guerilla warfare, especially at the end of the conflict. Although Jefferson Davis toyed with the idea, Lee, Johnston, and Beauregard were all completely opposed to sending the troops back home to become bushwhackers, and did everything they could to sabotage it. They argued that guerilla war led to thieving, violent reprisals, and the rise of the most ruthless and violent types and the undermining of traditional authority and restraint. After the war, just that sort of resistance would breed the Klan and create a backward, atavistic society based on Jim Crow terror.
The violence in Dallas was the kind of theatrical, symbolic action that you get in a media-saturated society. It goes nowhere and leads to nothing good. We’ve got to start thinking long and hard about what violence gets you and where it leads. We need strategies that don’t wind us up in a worse place than we are in already.
Unfortunately when the threat of terror is vastly exaggerated by government and media, it gives violent people the notion that terror tactics will be effective on their part.
Arguably, the horrific shooting in Dallas is a form of domestic blowback. Arm “moderate rebels” overseas, and you get armed moderate rebels at home too.
But the reaction is wholly predictable: amp up the force protection. Larger, more heavily armed police forces; triple-teaming for “busted taillight” traffic stops; maybe even National Guard armored personnel carriers rumbling through the streets.
After all, with the USA Patriot Act, we’re already under martial law.
Stop and Frisk becomes Federal Law.
Hot time, summer in the city…as I sit here in downtown Baltimore, two blocks from police headquarters and a couple blocks down and over from the latest trial in the Freddie Gray death, I am feeling some unease. There’s a protest scheduled for 6:00 pm tonight, so we’ll see how the day goes. I find myself thinking things like, “well, it’s good that the weekend is coming – all the office workers will be at home.” And then I think, “the Orioles are back in town for a series with the Angels before the All-Star break.” and I remember one game where people were held in the stadium until it was deemed safe for them to leave, one game canceled and one played to an empty stadium, while helicopters circled overhead and cops with assault weapons stood guard on street corners and rooftops.
I get to escape to my nice home in the country, where there is one patrol car to cover the entire north county. People get things taken from sheds, or garages, but there’s little violence. I don’t drive in fear, or worry about being shot. My daughters, who live in the area, don’t worry that their little ones will be shot while playing in the sandbox on their deck, or at the water table in the backyard.
As a mother and a grandmother, who can always find something to worry about, I’m pretty sure that even though I try to put myself in the shoes of those who do struggle with these realities, I can’t come close to understanding it. I admit that when I come close to feeling the horror of losing a child or a husband or a friend to such senseless violence, I feel myself retreat from it, because it hurts too much.
I guess what I want to know is, do police even see the people they are supposed to serve as actual human beings? Do they go into every interaction already having decided that those they encounter are not entitled to basic respect?
I know that not all cops are bad, that not all citizens are good. I get that the bad cops are making it hard for the good ones to be able to maintain and foster good relationships in the communities they serve. And I get that the bad citizens put the lives of the good ones in danger.
But it’s like a lot of other situations we’ve seen – pedophile priests come to mind, Good cops have to stop protecting the bad ones, have to set standards that push them out. Police unions need to stop putting a wall around bad cops. Good people trying to do the right things in bad communities need protection and safe ways to bring the bad people to justice.
I just feel so sad and angry today. Worried for what comes next. Appalled that people who should know better, who have the power to make a difference for the better, are choosing to appeal to the worst in people. To send messages of hatred and racism. In some cases for petty, personal political gain.
Be safe, everyone.
“Good cops have to stop protecting the bad ones.”
Yes. Impunity in government goes beyond violent cops, all the way to the top.
Hundreds of federal DEA warrants were illegally obtained from a compliant state judge in Riverside CA who had no authority to issue them. It was discovered and stopped. But none of the DEA agents who flagrantly violated the law has been charged. They have official impunity.
Impunity in ALL firms, actually. Company loyalty is the primary quality the Prussian educational model was designed to instill. Until we stop obeying people because other people tell us they’re “betters”, imaginary friends will continue to puppet and be puppeted by people to outgroups’ detriment.
“I guess what I want to know is, do police even see the people they are supposed to serve as actual human beings? Do they go into every interaction already having decided that those they encounter are not entitled to basic respect?”
Mistake to think and speak about police as an indistinguishable block but given US societal inequality and historical racism and the thin blue line syndrome there is an inevitable quality about it.
It would seem anyone working a policing job in the US is in an untenable position of defending perverted, oppressive systems of economy and law, of patrolling a heavily armed citizenry, of serving as homeless and psychiatric first line workers on top of law enforcement duties.
The job must be soul crushing and some who enter the field are already damaged souls when they enter. I would think anything past five years of work in that arena is burnout territory that endangers citizens and the institution of law enforcement.
“ Because the cops don’t need you. And man they expect the same.”
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues b. dylan
I couldn’t get to the link, but a group of police officers who went down to Baton Rouge to help out during Katrina wrote a letter, I think to the Louisiana AG, whistleblowing about the terrible treatment the Baton Rouge cops were meting out to Baton Rouge citizens. We need more like that.
What we need, unfortunately, is probably not what we’ll get……..
…What we’ll get is more kick ass in bluish…..with an even greater military flavor !!! …now with robot bombs!
…backed by our uppers Bloomberg, Rhamrod Emanual, The Flying Clintdragon, the BIG 5 Media Corps, ….and lessor syncophants everywhere !! …….. Oh….and not to mention the Black misleadership Class, along with the DNC and the GOP…….!!!
“And there was JOYOUS BULLSHIT throughtout the land”
Well said. As long as our sick culture continues fetishizing military and police as a sacred protected caste of mythical heroes instead of seeing them as actual fallible humans I don’t see any answers.
So, CIA pulled off a domestic Maidan massacre.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article189953.html
In Dallas, the traditional home of induced police panics!
Breaking News: the suspect said to negotiator, “you will find the other IED’S”…the shooter military angle just strengthened. if the shooters were military, and the police are former military…we’ve witnessed brother against brother.
It appears there was just one shooter, which is not surprising at all. If you have seen the video of the the shooter apparently killing an officer it is obvious the shooter was highly skilled in tactics and the Dallas police officer was no match against the shooter. Chilling video.
From the link: Important, timeless advice from @onthemedia:
#4. There’s almost never a second shooter.
Ok, so who did they kill in the garage then?
Oh, nvm. The guy in the garage who died was the ‘sole shooter’. So I guess there are no live suspects then? That would be too bad.
The clip I saw involved one officer sheltering behind a column to avoid rounds hitting all around him. As he shelters, a gunman on foot approaches the officer ,does a fake out to one side of the column and then doubles back around the other side to shoot the officer before he can react. Incoming fire continues to strike the column and surrounding area before, during and after the gunman strikes. Looks like this was either a friendly fire situation or there was a second “bad guy.”
NYT has changed it’s reporting to sole gunman.
https://twitter.com/billmon1/status/751478546971889664
So I just watched the Congressional hearings for a straight six hours…here’s what I heard reditt. Martha r: “Seems like a good precis.”
=====================================
“He did not receive a specific referral from Congress to investigate whether she committed perjury during the Benghazi hearings and so did not investigate this issue. He did not receive a specific referral from Congress to investigate whether she concocted this system to avoid FOIA requests and so he did not look at this issue either. Comey confirmed that her lawyers, who did not have any clearance to do so, read secret, secure information, sorted it and then destroyed whatever they deemed to be “non-work-related”. When specifically asked about the Clinton Foundation, Comey answered with a stone faced “No comment” answer. During the OIG portion – – When asked about whether the committee could see/have/read the classified emails they were told, NO, too secure, SO SECURE in fact, the guy couldn’t even tell them what agency they were from…so…so secure the members of this committee can’t read them or even know which agency….but she sent them through her home-brewed server, attended by people without clearance and then handed them over to her lawyers who had no clearance either!!!! WOW…just effin’ WOW.”
==============================================================
I have been very tough on the repubs – and I think rightly so – with regard to not only the politicization of Benghazi but the inept, inchoate running of all the hearings run by repubs – obviously just for political purposes. When you cry wolf so many times, when you trivialize the hearing process and political discourse, when something truly serious occurs, you have used up your aliquot of public attention. So in this case, I owe the repubs a bit of an apology. The questions (I haven’t found a copy of the transcript yet) from the hearing I am able to glean show a lot more focus and concentration on facts and logic, and a much more seriousness of purpose. It really is about time.
One important thing missing from the above synopsis is that it didn’t include the questions about whether Clintoon’s email was hacked, or whether that was even examined.
Maybe, maybe, just maybe it is beginning to dawn on some repubs of what happens when repubs can say anything with total disregard to logic and fact – that you reap what you sow:
“When asked about whether the committee could see/have/read the classified emails they were told, NO, too secure, SO SECURE in fact, the guy couldn’t even tell them what agency they were from…so…so secure the members of this committee can’t read them or even know which agency….but she sent them through her home-brewed server, attended by people without clearance and then handed them over to her lawyers who had no clearance either!!!!”
As I used to say years and years ago when I worked for NSA, my job is so secret that even I am not allowed to know what I’m doing…”
I’m still left banging my head about the fact that the FBI interviewed Clinton without recording it, obviously agreeing with a demand from her and her lawyers. I’m glad they will now be tasked with looking into whether Clinton lied to Congress, but I hope they make it clear that all Clintons must be interviewed on the record whatever the investigation (the stony no comment Foundation investigation included). No recordings and transcripts are unacceptable from this point on.
Mind you that will mean that Clinton will never be interviewed in any manner that could remotely be perceived to be voluntary. I mean they know why Martha Stewart went to prison even if most of America doesn’t.
And I’m beyond pissed that having your lawyers sort your email which includes documents so classified Congress cannot see them does not count as INTENTIONAL distribution of classified material. I hope that little question gets asked of Lynch. Along with Lambert’s favorite.
Martha Stewart just proves that one should never “cooperate” with authorities when questioned and always have a slew of lawyers on your own side of the table.
We’ll have equal justice under law when everybody who gets questioned by law enforcement gets 5 lawyers on their side of the table (or was it 7????)
Being a cynic, I would propose the system is DESIGNED to be weaseled out of if you can AFFORD many lawyers….
Of course, when your friends get to appoint the FBI director and attorney general, and you promise to reappoint them, that may help…a little.
Again, there are lessons for us to learn.
(Never mind teaching lessons to the Clinttons – that’s good for the ego, but it will only make them stronger).
1. We know they are persistent (waiting for decades to gain power)
And
2. You have to be prepared
I think Hillary already won before going into the ‘voluntary’ interview.
That’s how prepared they were.
You set the ground rules.
The ground rules determine outcomes…just like you want to own the language (the lingua franca), the currency (global reserve currency), the Washington Aesthetics Consensus (control of the world through their worshiping of our gods and goddesses), the current intellectual paradigm (whatever ism you are peddling).
Attorney-client privilege trumps national security’s classified material?
That’s what happens in a democracy.
uhh…..a Republic !
..a democracy is the mob…….
Righto! Save the elites! There’s an interesting British precedent. At the close of his book on the Civil Wars of England, historian James Kenyon quotes a 17th century official praising the virtues of having the people elect their leaders from among there betters. Kenyon drily comments that this was a recipe for an oligarchy which persisted until WWI. I was struck by the uncanny similarity between this justification and Madison’s in the 18th century USA. But I don’t believe for a moment that the British oligarchy ended, nor that the American “Republic” didn’t found one in America. BTW, most of the rest of the world regards “republic” and “democracy” to be synonymous.
Comey said that charging Hillary Clinton in email case would be “celebrity hunting”.
But isn’t that what the IRS does when it wants to get more compliance with tax laws?
By going after a well-known tax evader, the IRS hopes many other less prominent evaders will change their behavior in concert.
It should be viewed as a good use of scarce enforcement resources.
Maybe the IRS doesn’t call it “celebrity hunting”.
Makes one wonder where the cutoff line for celebrity magnitude is to get this treatment by the FBI.
And what message this gives to the army of low celebrity people the USA government wants to carefully handle national security information.
Both celebrity-hunting and avoiding celebrity-hunting is to politicize it.
That quote, right there, is evidence of politicization.
The way to not politicize it, I believe, is to engage the No-Mind of Zen, be one with the arrow and focus on the present.
I heard after they got Martha Stewart for insider trading the SEC backed off others. See they do go after important people. But that was from a new grad/new hire.
Dallas is a good place for shootings of significance. What was it, the Grassy Knoll and/or the 5th floor of the Schoolbook Depository where Texas School Board acceptable history and several bullets were discharged from?
And let us not forget this made for tv episode: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout Great video!
One Simple Change to the Law Could Make Prosecuting Killer Cops Easier Intercept (resilc)
He suggested a solution. Congress could lower the intent standard to “something like if the officer acted with reckless disregard.” That way, “you don’t have to actually show that the officer intended to use more force than was necessary…if the officer recklessly used more force than was necessary, he could then be prosecuted.”
Many in Congress have expressed their regret over cases of police abuse and police killings, but this simple change from willfulness to recklessness would make it easier for the federal government to actually prosecute it.
=========================================
I know that there are a number of localities that have enacted over the years “blue shield” laws – i.e., laws that confer special, and really outrageous unique protections on police accused of crimes against citizens. For example, Maryland has one where the police suspect can’t be questioned for 3 (3!!!!) days!!! Why this special right? Well, politics of course.
Until we make oversight of police a federal task, I believe that localities will simply not affect effective oversight. Police don’t even get objectively investigated in too many local areas.
I was wrong – police can’t be questioned in Maryland for 3 days after being suspected of wrong doings…..its TEN days
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/27/blue-shield#.uxuz5VxM5
As was true in a spate of recent death-in-custody cases, the Baltimore police department’s seeming reluctance (or inability) to mount a prompt, thorough investigation of its own officers has generated escalating protests, fueled by existing distrust of the police and suggestions of a cover-up.But in this case it wasn’t just the thin blue line of solidarity shielding the cops involved from having to testify against themselves or each other. The problem, said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, is that city officials were unable to “fully engage” with the officers “because of our Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.”
That such a bill of rights exists was news to many in Maryland. But the mayor was correct to note the significant role that the LEOBoR, as it is called, has played in the investigation into Freddie Gray’s death. A set of due-process rights for police officers under internal investigation for alleged misconduct, Maryland’s LEOBoR includes a provision that the officers cannot be forced to make any statements for 10 days after the incident, during which time they are presumed to be searching for a lawyer. It is partly because of this “cooling-off period” — to critics, a convenient delay for the cops to tidy up their stories — that so little has been said by the only people who know what took place within that vehicle.
===========================================
Before cops are cops, they are citizens and should of course have all rights of citizens.
But it ironic, and ridiculous, that cops have extra rights that actually undermine impartial enforcement of the law, and in the long run undermine respect for law enforcement.
Love the antidote. I must admit I never thought a woodchuck relative would make it into the list of animals I want in my life despite reality but they did it.
Re Wiesel–here’s the Max Blumenthal piece on Wiesel that Hillary condemned even though the author is the son of one of her close associates. The gist
http://www.alternet.org/print/grayzone-project/huge-part-elie-wiesels-legacy-being-whitewashed
Of course as a victim of the Holocaust Wiesel’s parochial view of genocide was understandable, but the propaganda uses being made of him are considerably less so. After all 27 million Russians were also Hitler victims which makes Hillary’s statement that Putin equals Hitler particularly vicious and stupid.
People scoff when Trump says “all lives matter” and who knows how much he means it but perhaps it’s time to drop the special pleading and embrace this most humanist of slogans. The alternative is crazy violence spinning out of control, as fresh events demonstrate.
Trump blew any credibility on this long ago with his crazed full page screed condemning the Central Park “rapists” as animals. Take a gander at that one, and then show me where Trump admitted he was completely wrong taking that add out, and has said that cops who shoot people should face the death penalty (which he believes in) and then I will retract what I said and agree that you are right and I am wrong. If Trump thinks “all lives matter” then what has he said and done about the black people gunned down by cops since he started running for president?
And what has america’s first, twice-elected black president “done about the black people gunned down by cops” since he has BEEN president?
Unless, of course, you count making sure that everyone has a cellphone with which to live-stream their own murders.
You didn’t address what Trump has said and done–you deflected it in best Obamabot style. As for the President, he did open is mouth yesterday and for that he’s going to be blamed for this because if a black man opens his mouth in this country to defend black people he is automatically attacked.
BHO coughs up a bromide along the lines if “we are better than this” , why that’s better than he, the one guy in the best position in the United States for the past seven years to actually do “doing something”, actually making a focused effort to actually provide some meaningful influence!
what he said (has said time and again) is about as courageous as giving yesterdays Weather Report. Time to dust off: “we need to have a conversation in this country, and somebody needs to do something”
But we know he maybe at least fleetingly chatted about fighting the good fight on targeting the root cause(s) of out of control violence and blatant inequality of Law Enforcement in this country while on the golf course w/ Eric Holder before dismissing the notion out of hand.
“Eric, try this Club….”
Do you know what an “obamabot” is?
By his usage, no.
Technically, I agree with Levy only in the sense that his argument as presented was unanswered.
I would say that Levy is pointing to a symbolic construct (an ad) while you are pointing to real life ineffectuality (lack of sound policy). The confusion of the two seems endemic on the Democrat side of the Overton Prism (not saying that Levy is one such) and it’s a category error typical of the creative class that is part of Clinton’s professional base.
I see it as one side advancing his infantry on your left flank, and you move your center force forward.
The field has been set and battle about to be engaged.
Then, the one side says, ‘you have not responded to my movement on your left.”
When the thing to do – speaking from the other side’s perspective – is to proceed with the plan on the enemy’s left (and answer for him – to your advantage – what he refuses to answer) and react to the thrust on the center.
You take over the battle.
That’s what I would do – don’t respond directly (or only) to a probe. Make him work, keep him busy.
I see it as orthogonality — “ships passing in the night” — where two sides fail to truly engage.
Could be so.
We are in a dark cave.
An Obamabot is a person who, when confronted by bad policy choices or simple ineptitude on the part of the president deflects the criticism by switching the subject to how awful the Republicans are.
Whenever any criticism of Trump is levied around here, people (although not usually Lambert) immediately jump in to change the subject to how awful Clinton is.
The day after Trump is elected with a malignant Republican Congress at his back, you may find yourselves in deep shit, but will, like the Obamabots, turn around and tell us all how worse it would all be if Hillary was elected. That will be your defense and your excuse, and I expect you to stick with it as blindly as the Obama worshippers do.
Again, I tire of your arrogance and self-appointed superiority.
> you deflected it in best Obamabot style
When I read that, I took it to imply that you were referring to an actual Obot (typical usage, at least in 2008) which was odd since the comment attacked Obama rather than mindlessly supporting him.
So you were referring more to a *-bot, or person exhibiting bot-like mentality, rather than to ObamaBot as such. To me that was confusing.
That said, we all have priors, and like them confirmed. We all fail at critical thinking. I’m not sure your choice of labels shows your case to best advantage. As this thread proves.
There hasn’t been a time when the O-man speaks out against a seemingly daily occurrence of racial injustice that the Repubs and their media allies jump on it and accuse him of “divisiveness”, or “playing the race card”, rather than “bringing us together”, or – the really appalling – “begin the healing process”, whatever. And surely as the sun rises in the east this a.m., we hear again the SOS…and of course Obama has “created the climate” that led to the Dallas cop shootings, yadda-yadda. As many of us have remarked over the past 8 years, the mere presence of a black man in the Oval Office has unhinged a significant subset of white America, and – sad to say this – perhaps only after leaving office, can his (white) successor begin some sort of credible dialogue to address generations-old racial problems that now threaten to go beyond the tipping-point into irreversible insolubility…truly, grim times ahead.
And if Obama hadn’t squandered every opportunity presented to him in 2009, there’s a very good chance we wouldn’t be where we are. Start with losing the Senate in 2010 because he did squat on the foreclosure crisis: Votes for Brown not Coakely correlated to foreclosures. You want a climate, there is its. Both liberals and conservatives failed the country badly.
And while we’re talking about climate, Obama did noticebly badly for black communities and most black classes during the recession. That means financial pressure on both the localities and the citizens, and that’s notably stressful. Leaving the effects of illness and suicide aside, many of the localities under financial pressure (Ferguson, for example) turned to law enforcement for profit, targeting, naturally, the least powerful: Poor blacks. Flipping the coin over, we see lost jobs among the the population targeted, hence less ability to pay the fines without sinking their households. I’m not claiming “class first” because I don’t think these issues are linear in causation or solution. I am saying that we’re confronted with a “wicked problem,” that race is not the only issue, and that Obama’s nostrums were in essence irrelevant absent concrete material benefits from economic policy (or even on policing matters under his control as an executive. I mean, why not stop departments that whack people from getting Federal money?)
You miss my main point, LS, which is that Obama – as a black President, cannot make any substantive move re: race relations or racialist mitigation because he is black, and so many white people would view those actions, however significant – or trivial – as “race-based” and “divisive”, or “favouring black people over law-abiding whites”, or the like. You seriously believe that programs – if even funded by Congress – to improve economically the lives of not only black people but low-income whites would ease racial tensions? Cut off fed funds to local PDs until they clean up their act?? Seriously? What do you think the reaction of city govts. would be to that action? About all that the DOJ can do is create oversight programs within those PDs deemed hard-core incorrigible, and hope that a reformist police administration would tame the worst excesses of the rank-and-file…which, by the way, usually if not always results in big pushback from police unions. Come on, man, this is America, for God’s sake. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Obama twisted himself into a pretzel in the early years of his terms specifically not to be perceived as “the black guy acting according to his skin colour”, which regrettably caused the MSM to prattle on about “post-racial society” nonsense. Yes, all of his policy deliquencies are easy enough to catalogue, and I for one will be too pleased to see the office door shut on his backside; but, on questions of ameliorating racial issues, it’s the devil and the deep-blue sea, mate.
I’m not so sure. If Obama had delivered on concrete material benefits, he might get cut more slack, if only because the crabs in the bucket wouldn’t be packed together so tightly.
On the post-racial society nonsense, I think that was liberal triumphalism pure and simple, of which the press was part. (I never took it seriously, so its hard to remember.)
On funds to local PDs, you could be right. (There were a lot of ideas thrown around on the Twitter last night, because the Dallas events were also a policy debacle.) How about cutting back purely on militarizing stuff, then? No more LRADs for you?
And YOU missed the point that has Obama not caved to the bankers, the black community would not lost significant wealth under his admin.
A 90 year old black woman is facing eviction in Seattle. 90- years old.
Obama’s speech was almost notably bad. That “people might feel they are not being treated fairly and it makes them sad that they aren’t being treated fairly” focusing on feelings and whether they feel things are fair rather than the reality of an innocent person being murdered by cops. The reality is so much more stark than “feelings of fairness”.
Also the “it’s all our problem” rather than it’s a problem of police departments (at best “all of us” could put pressure on the local police which I guess would mean joining BLM protests!). While this may be worthy, it is NOT in the most basic sense “all of our problem”, it’s police policy. Even if the problem grows out of wider structural r-ism, the police some places are notably MORE r-ist than the population and are not being made to reform their inappropriate police responses. This is the chief executive saying this, like he had no more power than some preacher or something lamenting.
He’s looking into it.
Your logic?…not so much.
What has any POTUS candidate done?
As katniss points out, what has the POTUS done?
The same standard, the same requirement for everyone.
No one is exceptional. No one is an exception to that rule.
Consider this, if you will – it appeared in my Facebook feed:
It’s not that people are scoffing at “All Lives Matter” as much as – at least for me – making the point that wanting it to be about “All Lives Matter” is a way of – or has the effect of – enabling the ongoing avoidance of actually doing anything about the problems facing people of color. I put it in the same category with people who want to know why there’s no Straight Pride Month, or White History Month: asking those questions moves away from acknowledging the difficulty and struggle for acceptance and equality on all fronts that the LGBTQ and communities of color face, and working to create a culture of acceptance and equality, and makes it feel more like white people are afraid of losing their hold on the territory of superiority.
If people say “everyone deserves food” but then ignore the person who has no food then obviously they are just mouthing a slogan and don’t mean it. My statement is in favor of people meaning it and that goes for Hillary, Trump, Wiesel…everyone.
This may be a trite sentiment but it’s increasingly obvious that the US has a culture of violence that starts at the top.
Sorry, Anne, but your facebook friend deserves some serious pushback.
Would it be OK if “bob” got a plate full of cat food, while others got hot dogs and one or two got grass-fed steaks–which is the way things work now? Everyone got “food.” Used to be called “separate but equal.”
Saying “all lives matter” is another way of saying “all men (and sometimes women!) are created equal.” And it’s the only position that avoids not only “special treatment” but special “mis-treatment.”
Encouraging people to self-segregate and fight each other is a time-honored elite tool for controlling a population that would overwhelm them if that population united.
Used to be called “divide and conquer.”
One of these things where the literal truth of the words is falsified by the context in which it is used.
Agreed. BLM is hardly a Nation of Islam or separatist movement. ALL are invited to join in advocating against the injustice perpetrated against blacks in this country.
Or they can undermine the effort with specious arguments and false equivalencies.
You’re missing the forest for the trees, believing that whoever came up with this metaphor intended it to actually be about food – and that was not, in my opinion, the point of this person’s effort.
Imagine if Bob had said, looking at his empty plate while others were chowing down, “I’m hungry.” And his tablemates had said, “Hey, Bob (chewing away), we’re all hungry.” What do you think Bob takes from that? That the others at the table don’t care that his plate is empty.
How many of us know someone who tends to respond, when we relate some problem or issue we have that, “everyone’s got problems?” And how does that make us feel? I can’t speak for others, but when I get a response like that I infer that the person I’m speaking to doesn’t give a rat’s ass about my problem.
That, I believe, was the message that was intended to be conveyed by the metaphor: that when the response to “Black Lives Matter” or “Gay Lives Matter” or “X Lives Matter” is “Hey, all lives matter” it’s meant to send a message that your life – be it black, gay, female, old – doesn’t matter.
Honestly, it seemed so obvious to me that I’m finding it hard to believe so many people here are so literal that they thought the metaphor wasn’t a metaphor at all, and was actually about food.
It’s not that they don’t get its a metaphor, Anne. It’s more insidious than that. They are doubling down on All Lives Matter exactly as your friend accurately describes it, a dismissal of BLM.
It’s no such thing.
All lives matter means exactly that. All includes everyone, including those that aren’t of color.
It’s pretty sad that YOU seem to think that if a police officer guns down a white person that somehow the suffering of their family is less because their skin color offers them some sort of protection from that loss. Magical white skin who knew?
You are quite the mind reader when it comes to “they.” As I said in my original comment, which kicked off this whole rather bizarre digression, it’s impossible to know how much Trump means it when he says “all lives matter” but that doesn’t invalidate the statement. Perhaps as Lambert says the context turns it into some sort of dog whistle but on the other hand perhaps Trump and many of the people who support him are sincere and not just being dismissive of black concerns. And even if that isn’t true trying to demonize them as some irredeemable other doesn’t help. Attacks on prejudice that resort to stereotypical thinking and prejudice are not too impressive.
Meh.
I’d like to introduce some of the putzes who think I’m being dismissive to my sister, her significant other and three of my nieces and nephews. I’ve got another cutie nephew who was in utero in this pic. She’s since had him and I found out recently I’m to be an auntie again, a niece this time.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200330776726921&set=pb.1079495735.-2207520000.1468015025.&type=3&theater
The idea that idea that I would be dismissive about the world I’m leaving to these babies as well as my own is as absurd as absurd can get.
It wasn’t personal. Apologies for the offense.
Apologies, I picked up the thread at Anne’s comment, dunno what came before, but I don’t find the tangent if that it is to be bizarre, I think this is one of the deepest divides in the body politic right now
If irredeemable, would I bother to engage?
Demonize? Prejudice? Surely you jest.
You are correct I am speculating as to what is in the minds of others so if you object please don’t do the same to me.
I think this is an honest and important difference of opinion. I take no issue with the person but rather with the argument.
It is dismissive.
The movement suffers from the same naming conundrum as feminism. They are both named in a way that suggests primacy of a specific group of individuals when the actual goals are equalization of those groups amongst fellow humanity.
I like the obviousness of this but doubt it could be effective with those who need it. They never sit at the table with Bob and assume because he has a huge TV and expensive kicks he could damn well afford to feed himself if it wasn’t for that nasty crack habit.
divide and conquer
Since my earlier comment is in limbo, I’ll summarize:
The current “solution” is to give “bob” cat food, give obama, loretta lynch and eric holder grass-fed steaks, and call it good because “bob” didn’t work as hard as his more successful “brothers and sisters” even though the “opportunity” was “obviously” available.
The opposite of “all lives matter” is “some lives don’t matter.” So one needs to be careful in one’s criticism.
Let’s face it: they don’t really want to “give” Bob anything unless they are forced to. They think giving Bob cat food is a form of incentive, to motivate him to get off what they suspect is his lazy ass – paying no attention to the fact that Bob wasn’t even sure he could come to dinner because he’s working three jobs just to keep from being homeless. And he couldn’t bring his wife because she had the chance to work a double shift and earn some overtime.
It kills me that so many people really do have the attitude that the poor – even the working poor – must resign themselves to lives of uncomplaining deprivation because their poverty means they do not deserve anything that might raise them above a subsistence level.
“You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.”
To a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005”
― George W. Bush
Cream rises to the top! — I looked but cannot find the direct quote. The phrase appears in Listen, Liberal and I believe it was attributed to Obama (though I cannot confirm).
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/131983-you-work-three-jobs-uniquely-american-isn-t-it-i-mean
This strikes me as disingenuous. Black Lives Matter indeed arose due to the extraordinary and unchecked (as of yet) killing of BLACK FOLK by police in this country, which behavior is precisely the equivalent of the statement, “some lives don’t matter”.
What strikes you as disingenuous?
To attribute to BLM the message that some lives don’t matter.
I didn’t do that at all.
My comment referenced criticism of the sentiment that “all lives matter.”
Nary a mention of BLM.
Your analogy might work better if BOB was not the only one at the table without food since in reality AAs are not the only culture to be targeted by the police. Let’s call my imaginary person JIMBOB.
Poor white people have been shot thanks to excessive police force too. Yes, police violence is disproportionately skewed towards blacks. However, POVERTY itself is disproportionately skewed towards AA.
It’s completely offensive to say we should offer BOB food, while ignoring the fact that JIMBOB also has no food. Particularly when clearly JIMBOB hasn’t benefitted culturally from being white. He’s still poor and he’s still without food. All feeding BOB and preening about how unfair it was that BOB had no food to begin with is going to do is annoy the crap out of JIMBOB because from where he’s sitting he ALSO has no food(and you’ve completely ignored that.)
Point well taken, JimBob needs food too. But all whites DO benefit from white privilege one way or another.
It becomes meaningless to say all whites benefit as a certain point, when we’re talking someone losing coal jobs in Appalachia and the already poisoned land they live on, it really truly becomes a meaningless statement. You could say they would theoretically be less likely to be shot by police if they moved to some urban center so the might have some kind of theoretical opportunity benefit there, but there may really truly be no benefits in the actual lived reality.
Many white people who aren’t so poor and without hope benefit from white priviledge but it’s the *ALL* white people I’m questioning.
Some classic examples of the messages black kids as a class soak up that white ones don’t: seeing their parents followed around in stores like criminals, not seeing positive role models in positions of authority (and no, one prez doesn’t fix that), pervasively negative media representations of people who look like them. Not to mention the economic and justice system disparities.
Soul crushing. Using the model of society as concentric circles of control there is no comparison between the innermost circle, the psychological, in the damage done to blacks vs poor whites.
The internalized sense of being less than, undeserving, runs much deeper for blacks, who after all cannot aspire not to be black. There is no way out.
So in this society yes, ALL blacks carry a burden that whites simply do not. Think of the police stopping Henry Louis Gates, Jr, or the tennis player James Blake. Both persons now of privilege but not immune from racism.
That the poor are also stigmatized is undeniable. But they can aspire not to be poor.
Check out Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Broken lives matter….
Are you honestly saying that poor whites have never been targeted as shoplifters?
That’s a pretty ridiculous assertion.
I’m white. I don’t drive. I actually had to contact the town manager and the chief of police to tell them to stop already with the “checking on me.” I literally had them stopping me and asking for me to show them my ID weekly. One of them was actually honest enough for them to admit it’s a fishing expedition to see if you have any outstanding warrants.
I also think it is beyond ridiculous to assert the color of your skin gives you some sort of protective power from struggle. My father was white and alcoholic. He took his life when he was in his forties after spending almost a decade in prison. My brother could have been his twin. He ALSO took his life before he even hit 40. It’s an insult to suggest they had it easy because they were white. My stepfather was diagnosed with cancer at 17. He lived to 43. He died leaving behind 3 small children under the age of 10. He didn’t have it easy and neither did his kids. Two of them are Brevard county deputies. Three of the grandkids he never got to meet by the way, are AA(my sisters significant other is AA.)
Could my father aspire not to be an alcoholic? How about my stepfather could he have aspired not to have cancer?
Some of you seem to be laboring under the delusion that if we could eradicate racism that somehow that will make life fair. It won’t. It doesn’t mean we don’t strive for fairness however it is absurd to suggest that inequality only exists for people of color and only their struggles are real.
I have my doubts people actually do aspire (not even achieve merely aspire) to not be poor based on some distant role model (whites on the television say) rather than what they see every day in their family and community (and in a poor white community this is poverty).
So while positive role models may inspire a rare few, I’m not sure Hollywood etc. is really all that powerful compared to on the ground lived experience.
Agreed. The larger issue that is much harder to battle is socioeconomic inequality.
“absurd to suggest that inequality only exists for people of color and only their struggles are real”
Which I did not say.
No, what you said was worse. You stated that someone’s skin color gives them privilege.
It doesn’t.
It does by definition, which you seem to have difficulty understanding. Maybe if you talked to some of your AA family members about it you’d start to get it.
I too come from a working class multiracial family and I know for a fact I don’t have to deal with a lot of the garbage they do. It’s not pretty but it’s true. Maybe you live in a less racist area than I do, who knows, or maybe your eyes are just closed to the difference between yourself and them. Which is, in fact, what privilege enables you to do: ignore some of the ugliest parts of daily life because you are not affected.
Are economic factors hugely important to life outcomes — hell yes. But this is not a post-racial society.
You can bite me.
I roomed with AA women when I was stationed in Pendleton. It was interesting to me that they, not I, assumed that I had never known poverty or that I had been insulated from things like an absent father who was incarcerated.
It was quite the shock to them to realize that the things they assumed to were unique to their “culture” weren’t that unique after all. So yeah, I’ve TALKED to black people. I LIVED with them. And no, I can honestly say they didn’t agree that they had a harder lives because they had darker skin. Then again, I’m not the one treating it like it’s some warped contest.
Oh and the family that has a problem with my sister’s multicultural relationship isn’t white. Racism is a two way street.
Brevard County? Florida? Could be we are neighbors.
Next time you tell me to “bite you,” which you have done several times if memory serves, it, apparently, could be arranged. :)
OK. That was a joke, Possible Neighbor.
I live in SW Virginia. You might be neighbors with my siblings and my mom though.
My two brothers are sheriff deputies and I’ve got a sis that works at Cape Canaveral. Mom is medically retired she was a property clerk for the Brevard County Jail.
I spent my teen years in Titusville before I joined the Navy in 1986.
> Using the model of society as concentric circles of control
Is that the right model, though? I’m partial to Venn diagrams.
Perhaps you haven’t seen the memes making fun of the poor white “trash” at Walmart? I suspect that those pictures were had by following these poor whites (generally) around the store to poke fun and everyone laughs. (Almost everyone. I, however, think of my schizophrenic sister who people would poke fun of and not laugh…..at all.)
“May the odds be so ever in your favor”
cwaltz, I think you are overthinking this. The metaphor – which fwiw, wasn’t “mine,” but something I read and shared – was an effort to explain the problem with “X” Matters v. “All” Matters using something – food – that most people can relate to and could think about in a context not so emotionally loaded as race.
You’ve made an assumption that “Bob” is black, when in fact, Bob’s race isn’t mentioned at all, nor is the race of anyone else at the table. The metaphor doesn’t require “Bob” do be black or white or yellow or brown: he’s just a human being who needs food to live. He can be any color or gender you want him to be. It wasn’t meant to engender a microscopic dissection of the various food needs that exist.
It was meant to suggest – at least in my opinion – that changing the narrative from something specific that matters to something general that matters allows people to resist paying attention to others and addressing all manner of needs and inequities. Saying “All” of whatever matters means people can stay in their little bubble with their eyes closed and their hands over their ears.
I’m really NOT overthinking it. I have been up and down the economic ladder my whole life and have had to struggle with some very real hardships during my life(some of the worst by the way when my family was living in middle class suburbia) Other people have been right next to me struggling too. Some of them have been people of color, some not. I find it very demeaning to those of them not of color to say that somehow their struggles were any less real.
For the record, I believe privilege exists where choice exists and there are lots of scenarios where people don’t have choices(we don’t choose our parents or their financial situation when we are brought into this world, we don’t choose to get sick, we don’t choose to have a specific sexual identity or gender identity, skin color ,etc, etc) and therefore lots of opportunities for someone that might be considered “privileged” to have an opportunity to see and experience struggle.
> therefore lots of opportunities for someone that might be considered “privileged” to have an opportunity to see and experience struggle
This is of course absolutely true.
Life isn’t easy for anybody.
But some people have to play on nightmare mode, and the more out-groups you belong to the harder things can get.
Wow, thx for the excellent link
Meaning this, specifically
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/07/07/police-and-me-and-philando-castile/
Yes, Scalzi is spot on there.
Nightmare mode is when you believe your life is so hopeless and horrible that you take your own life.
That’s what both my father and brother did and they were white.
Privilege has nothing to do with skin color. Nothing anyone here can say is going to take that conviction from me.
That doesn’t mean I can’t or don’t feel horrible for people who have to deal with inequality(or even worse , loss), it just means I don’t believe it’s helpful to do so on the basis of skin color. My heart aches for the families of the two young men gunned down by the police AND my heart aches for the families of the officers who had their lives cut short.
> Privilege has nothing to do with skin color.
I have to disagree, but it’s taken travel to Thailand to bring my privilege home to me (in other words, travel to a place where I am not a person with the “default settings” as it were.) There, I am treated with physical signs of deference (and not just in tourist areas) because I am a male, older, and tall. Thais also privilege white skin (although for reasons that are historically different from ours, I think.) Then when I came back to Maine I started to think through how it worked here.
If my teeth had gone bad, I’d probably have a little less privilege. If my clothes were ragged, still less. At some point, my educated speech wouldn’t be enough to save me.
“Privilege” at the root means “private law.” There are lots of systems I enter into that I can work just a little more to my advantage than many others because of personal characteristics that I was born with and did not earn. My skin color is one such.
I lived in the Philippines for a year and half courtesy of Uncle Sam so I do get where you are coming from.
It was hard to know that in the country I lived in girls would have to quit school in 6th grade and sell their bodies to make money. It was even harder to see others from my home country taking advantage of that.
I also know though that hundreds and hundreds of kids in THIS country are abused before 6th grade and I doubt any of them would see themselves as privileged. Life for them may be just as hard as it was for those girls in the PI.
Privilege is in the eye of the beholder and probably relative to each person. I daresay everyone of color or from another nation would trade skin color or nationality with me if they knew the cost meant having to endure the loss of a child or many of the other experiences my skin color gave me no immunity from and cause me pain. Then again, it’s not like people see those type of things as clearly as they can see things like skin color.
Today has been emotionally exhausting to me. My heart literally hurts knowing that stuff like this is probably only beginning.
> it’s not like people see those type of things as clearly as they can see things like skin color
Yes. That’s a big problem…
Thanks to all for your concern.
lol
*Hands Bob 2 slices of pizza and asks him to pass it down to anyone else who is hungry*
:)
Wiesel is just a human with human limits in what he was able to perceive. So you could say he was therefore not a great man/person as a great person would transcend their own limitations to full humanity. Fair enough. I’d tend to agree, a great person would transcend, Wiesel was not able to. He was an ordinary human who had been through an atrocity, no less, no more. And yea of course if that was the atrocity you had been through you would want a Jewish state etc. – maybe not support everything it did but at least see the need even if it never was a land without people.
So greatness is much more than just surviving atrocity though the later is sympathetic and worthy of pity of course.
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying away and the new cannot yet be born; in this interregnum, a great number of morbid symptoms is appearing. [My regular pasting of a quote from Antonio Gramsci.]
Many commenters above mentioned big problems of U.S. society, and I agree. Structural racism. Income inequality. Denial of the vote. Guns by the million. (I barely want to comment on the protester who was called in because he had a “legitimate” long gun at the demonstration in Dallas–his judgment and the law that allows such things are beneath contempt.) Endless war abroad. The execrable and suspect racial categories with mythological names like Caucasian and Latino that Americans are sorted into.
Yet two major scandals indicate that we are country living on its savings accounts: Trump is not a viable candidate because he will not be able to govern. There is no indication that he is prepared to do so. Conversely, Clinton is like a plug of hair in the bathroom drain: She and the sclerotic elites of BlueLand (as George Saunders calls it in his recent maunderings in the New Yorker) are obstructions. Only a country this rich can afford to run two incompetents for the presidency.
+1
There were other options. Ben Carson, for one, seemed promising.
Incompetent voters. We get who we vote for.
“We get who we vote for.”
How many humans, if they understood the issues, would vote against their own interests? That it happens so often shows this canard to be awry, esp in the face of rampant election fraud and since propaganda (of a particularly wretched sort) has long taken over those places where the citizenry are told there is news and information.
Those of us lucky enough to have scoured the internet for more accurate information, and who have found it at places like NC, might be responsible to deliver news/sources to the rest.
“Slouching towards Bethlehem…”
RE: Mandatory Federal GMO Labeling Is On Its Way …
Can’t be “mandatory” if there’s no penalty for violating it. Can’t be “labeling” if the information doesn’t have to be on the label. And it doesn’t cover all GMOs.
I found out about this last week in an e-mail alert from Bernie and spent the next hour and a half looking for the number and text of the bill so I could write to my senators (Cantwell and Murray; they both voted against it). I finally thought to do a keyword search in the Congressional Record and found that it was introduced as an amendment to a bill on a totally unrelated subject, itself an amendment to a bill called the “Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015.” There’s no way this was anything but a deliberate attempt to try to keep it under the radar until after it passed. Sanders and Leahy were furious.
I saw in yesterday’s comments that some folks think it’s no big deal, they’ll just buy organic or look for products voluntarily labeled “no GMOs,” I haven’t read the entire bill yet, but I listened to a floor speech by Jon Tester, a senator from Montana who has an organic farm. He said some alarming things about how it could impact organic farming, and he also said it’s possible that some GM foods grown using organic methods could be labeled “organic.”
Given Monsanto’s history with rBST, it’s likely they will try to get a ban on labeling products as “no GMOs.” They lost the rBST fight, but they did get a regulation requiring companies labeling dairy products as free of rBST to add the disclaimer that there’s no difference between milk from cows fed rBST and those without it. I can see that coming with GMOs — “There is no difference between genetically engineered foods and those grown by conventional methods,” or, “Genetically modified foods have been determined safe for human consumption.”
Another problem with this legislation is that it would prohibit states from passing their own regulations, so no more ballot initiatives like the one that industry managed to kill in Washington State in 2012. This is a victory for the agri-biotech lobby, which is why they’re all saying, “Oh, yes, we WANT legislation, we want transparency,” blahblahblah.
If anyone is interested, Tester’s speech is on C-SPAN. It starts at 1:49:23.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?412291-1/us-senate-debates-sanctuary-cities-bill
It reminds me of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act – which garnered great bipartisan support (passed 403 – 12) and from the supposed environmental group, EDF. However, upon closer inspection, seems to be a pile of crap.
I’m sure you can imagine that stuffing the EPA with industry cronies will ensure that nothing ever gets done.
Forgot to add…Ka-ching!
Missed that one, thanks. You’re right, it’s a similar situation and, predictably, it will be a similar outcome. That’s why industry lobbyists get the big bucks. They know what “works.”
Congress passes the laws, but the executive agencies write the regulations, and they typically are stacked with revolving-door staff, regardless of which party controls the White House and Congress. If I’m not mistaken, it will be primarily the FDA and USDA (need to confirm), and they will have two years to write the rules. In other words, it won’t be a done deal even if the bill makes it to Obama’s desk. It will be up to consumer and environmental groups to monitor the process and make sure they don’t write in even more loopholes.
Whistlepigs!
Groundhogs are hilarious to look at. Chubby and awkward. You wonder how they can possibly survive the vicious wild.
I do hunt them because they insist on destabilizing all my outbuildings. But then all my raspberry brambles keep them fat and happy, so they have it good.
They stick to hot areas most predators avoid. Their body size is perfect for extreme cold and heats.
My old elhi had a tribe of white ground hogs who lived on the soccer field and the woods between two nursing homes.
That sounds mystical.
We trapped a family of 6 ground hogs this spring, brought them to a marsh preserve. They were enraged to find themselves caught, banged and slammed the cage when we were present. Each one that we let out of the trap ambled down a ways, then turned around and glared at us for full minutes (we waited them out) before disappearing into the brush.
They are adorable. They eat our veg.
We grow tons of veggies in raised beds made of rectangular stacks of concrete blocks, two high. First year, they were nothing more than feeding grounds for whistlepigs. Rabbits were another plague upon the veggies.
Now we lay down galvanized wire before building the beds, which keeps whistlepigs and moles from digging up into the beds for their ’round the clock picnics. We also keep several Havahart traps always at the ready, but rarely catch anything.
This spring, we put a double strand of electrified fencing wire around the top edge of the concrete blocks, very close together. One wire is hot, and one is the ground wire. Each bed has to have an 8-foot piece of rebar driven almost entirely into the earth to get a good electrical ground. A second wood post brings in the hot wire. You have to have the hot wire and ground wire close together so a small critter touches both, or there is no shock. A master switch by the outside door turns off the juice when we go out to garden.
It’s a pleasure to see whistlepigs stand up to climb the 16″ tall blocks, then suddenly run for the hills, and never come back. They can really move. Rabbits still sometimes hop right over the wire into the beds, but a bit of fox urine keeps that to a minimum.
Wow, I hope we won’t need to electrify to keep the critters out. Lots of work/materials! We’re only burying chicken wire 1 1/2′ down along perimeter of in-ground garden. Haven’t seen moles and bunnies are not getting past the dogs, so far. Lost a lot to groundhogs this spring, but yeah, we figured that’s how it goes in a new place.
They look like Ewoks….but without the ‘second skins’ and the weapons !!
polecat
July 8, 2016 at 2:06 pm
Thats because they don’t want you to see them with their second skins and weapons….
“Call in the Imperial Walkers”……….
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/07/what-happens-if-you-lie-to-congress.html
Fixing the CNBC link “What happens if you lie to Congress”
The Five Thirty Eight article reported to be about whether Johnson support will hurt Clinton or Trump is a big nothing. At least the author notes there are no new polls to talk about. They still spend about 800 words and a couple of graphs saying nothing except they still expect Clinton to win handily, and aren’t sure about the rest.
For all the big data / data driven / quantitative analysis / moneyball politics / charts graphs statistics of 538 and their friends, they’ve really done a terrible job with this election. It appears all their modeling is based off of a few elections that they consider normal, then extrapolated into eternity.
Between Bernie’s win in Michigan and Trump’s candidacy, we should really put to bed Nate Silver and his team. Their excuses about things unprecedented, unpredictable, and so on show that they are the priests of the big data religion, where pivot charts will solve all our problems.
Forgive me if this is old news; first I heard of it. Stein offers Sanders the top of the Green ticket:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/08/jill-stein-bernie-sanders-green-party
Wow. One has to admire such an offer. Dr. Stein is a great human being showing things are much bigger than one person. That said, it’s is both predictable and disappointing a Green would whisk aside their anti-war platform by offering a position of authority to the MIC-likes of Sanders. The biggest danger to Greens has always been current or former Democrats… who are not likely to change more than thier color.
I’ll still vote for Stien at the top of the ticket with the Green platform as it is, but this is just wrong.
The Green candidate should be organic to the green party, for everybody’s sake, including the greens.
Bernie Sanders fits well into the Green Party. He’s a much better fit than Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, George W. Bush, . . . He’s may even be a better fit than Ralph Nader was.
A lot of Green supporters in states with Green primaries had a hard decision to make. Should they vote in the Democratic primary to help Sanders, who’s obviously one of the greenest of this year’s candidates, or should they vote in the Green primary, to maintain ballot access and to choose down ticket candidates? I’m sure a lot of them wished that they could vote for Sanders AND vote in the Green down ticket primary races.
Come to think of it, Bernie Sanders is more organic to the Green Party than he is to the Democratic Party. And then there’s Trump — is he organic to the Republican Party? Sure, he won the primaries, but as an outsider.
If Sanders and the Greens want to work together, I think they should do so.
Now THAT, Bernie, that would be revolutionary.
Really. Why>?
Because it would be the beginning of the destruction of the Damnocratic (every time the Democrats do anything, I end up cursing “damn”) wing of the 1%’s party that controls this country while Trump splits the Repugnant wing of the party.
Sanders would not win because the 1% that counts the ballots will not allow it to happen like occurred in California but he could get 30-36% of the vote and split/destroy the Damnocratic Party. Only 30% of voters are Damnocrat and Sanders could take 50% of them, about 26% are Repugnants and Trump won’t get all of them, and about 40% are Independent and a large percent would go to Sanders over the Warmongress and Trump.
Trump is going to win despite what DWS says and if that is the case (even if it isn’t), the destruction of the Damnocrats is a huge first step in taking the country back from the 1% for the working people of this country.
In January of this year, Sanders still didn’t have much name recognition, and that impeded his vote totals. Now that it’s July, he has plenty of name recognition. If he were to be the Green Presidential candidate, the Green ticket would benefit greatly from his name recognition, and they would easily earn more than enough votes to qualify for federal grant money. A few down ticket candidates would probably be elected, too. All of this would strengthen the party for the 2018 and 2020 elections, and would weaken the D/R Duopoly.
At this stage, we can’t know how revolutionary this would be. In 1854, the Republican Party was formed, and they ran their first Presidential candidate, John Charles Fremont, in 1856. He lost. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was the Republican candidate, and there were three other candidates. Had there been only one other candidate, Lincoln’s victory would have been a lot less likely. But he did win, and some of the foundation of his victory was laid in 1854 and 1856. Who really knows what foundation would be laid by a Sanders Green candidacy in 2016?
Stein (effectively) endorses Sanders, but Sanders has pledged his endorsement to another candidate who beat him in a fair and square contest, oh wait….
Sounds like a “bizarre endorsement triangle” to me …(I love that song! I am going to be listening to New Order and Depeche Mode all night now.)
From Wikipedia: “Texas has no laws regarding possession of “long-barreled firearms” or “long guns” (shotguns, rifles and similar) by persons 18 years or older with valid identification, or handguns by persons 21 years or older, without felony convictions; all existing restrictions in State law mirror Federal law.”
…a social experiment in the works
With fully informed consent, too.
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/07/picking-up-james-comeys-pieces-what-he.html — Gaius Publius
A great analysis and summary of the current Comey – Email Tar Baby
Really worth a read, should be a main heading.
My thoughts exactly. I recommended it to Yves on Twitter (where I found it via Gaius).
It’s a good post but I disagree with the thesis. Accountability is not a binary prosecute/no prosecute decision. Comey, presumably for a reason, raised the possibility of administrative sanction. The Republicans didn’t pick up the ball they passed him (whether because they’re incompetent, my view, or they want to impeach Clinton later). The administration then reopened an investigation, possibly to throw an underling (Huma) under the bus.
I think almost any clear demand for any form of accountability would sink Clinton, but for whatever reason, the Republicans refuse to make it. They’re stuck on proving what the majority of the American people already accept, that the whole hairball is a screwup of collosal dimensions.
Roger Smith
July 8, 2016 at 10:12 am
Thank you for that – a particularly insightful and erudite article
=======================================================
Thus she’s very likely vulnerable under the letter of the law. Yet unlike others she will not be tried (a word that means “tested”), much less punished, for violating it. Her lack of prosecution, when others have been vigorously pursued in court for similar acts or less, explains much of what exercises her critics. To understand their frustration and anger, let’s look at those who have been prosecuted under the Act for negligence or worse. Then let’s look at the critical element that separates their situations from Clinton’s. (It’s not just her elevated status.)
The Espionage Act Under Obama
It turns out that the Espionage Act has become a popular tool of punishment under the Obama administration, which has broadened its application from use against actual espionage to use against unfriendly leakers and whistle-blowers:
Under the Obama administration, seven Espionage Act prosecutions have been related not to traditional espionage but to either withholding information or communicating with members of the media. Out of a total eleven prosecutions under the Espionage Act against government officials accused of providing classified information to the media, seven have occurred since Obama took office.[89] “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk,” the President said at a news conference in 2013. “They can put men and women in uniform that I’ve sent into the battlefield at risk. I don’t think the American people would expect me, as commander in chief, not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed.”[90]
………………
Clinton may well have been let off because the Justice Department thought prosecution was just the wrong thing to do. Given all the arcane rules of classification, and the fact that Clinton, put plainly, is not a spy, Comey and Lynch may well have decided that prosecution was pointless. Espionage, after all, was never her intent, and getting Hillary Clinton convicted on espionage charges may have looked to them like a very heavy lift. Yet espionage was never the intent of Sterling, Drake or Manning, yet they had the proverbial book thrown at them, and more. (Read the rest of the article on Sterling to see how his prosecution nearly destroyed his life, literally.)
The government’s behavior in these four cases isn’t clarified when comparing motives, at least not initially. It could be argued that the motives of Sterling, Drake and Manning were entirely beneficial, since whistle-blowers intend to perform a societal good, whereas Clinton’s motives were more self-centered, less morally defensible, and possibly illegal — at the very least, she was attempting to move all of her communication beyond the reach of FOIA records requests. (We’ll have to wait to see if she may have had other motives, such as shielding the Clinton Foundation from embarrassing scrutiny, or worse. I keep seeing mention of a separate investigation into that.)
Which brings us to the the matter of intent — not the intent contemplated by the law (intent to steal or to otherwise mishandle government secrets), but the intent contemplated by the prosecutors in applying the law. Look again at the Sterling conviction and what the prosecution relied on to get it. The man was painted by his prosecutors as, in effect, evil — a man whose goal was to harm the government, a betrayer, a traitor, motivated by anger, bitterness, selfishness, a man taking revenge. Though most stark in Sterling’s prosecution (and in Manning’s torture), you see this thread in all three whistle-blower cases.
What separates these cases from Clinton’s is the desire of the government to punish “evil deeds,” attempts to harm the country as the prosecutors defined harm, then secondarily to use the Espionage Act as a tool of that punishment, wielded in such a heavy way as to frighten others. Note that this initial filter — looking for who has done the kind of harm deserving of punishment, as opposed to looking for who violated the law — precedes the prosecution itself. What doesn’t precede the prosecution — certainly not in Clinton’s case — is an even-handed application of the law.
Yes, this is selective prosecution, but it’s much more than elites protecting elites, though it’s that as well. It’s also and primarily using the prosecutorial weight of the established state to mercilessly crush the perceived enemies of that state, while protecting its friends from that weight should they also stray under the law’s dark umbrella.
In other words, the key to determining who will be prosecuted is indeed intent, but not intent to violate the law. What’s being prosecuted is intent to violate the state as the state perceives it.
=============================================================
“…..to mercilessly crush the perceived enemies of that state,”
Although we are relentlessly subject to the Bullsh*t that the parties fight tooth and nail, we probably have never had a more lockstep belief in war as a means of policy. Advocacy for peace was never all that popular – now opposing the war state is criminal
BLM needs to immediately release a statement distancing themselves from this atrocity (I cannot find one), and condemning the actions. Right now there are a slew of MSM articles that not so subtley insinuate through headlines and content that they are complicit in this horrible act of violence.
This is just another reason why movements that purposely lack a clear leadership or at least a clear spokesman (occupy style “we are all leaders, everyone speaks for the movement”), that are so popular today, must start implementing some concrete organization.
With no response mechanism and an “organic structure” it appears BLM cannot effectively draft a centralized response to this violence and the movements credibility, methods and motivations will continue to be shown as somehow supporting the shootings by the MSM.
“Needs to”, “must”? Really? Like the concern trolling of OWS, this needs to, nay, must stop.
If participants in the movement designate spokespeople to make a statement, they can model it on the statements made by police when police murder an unarmed person who may be lying face down on the ground, or can’t breath, or is in custody in a police van, or is a child playing with a toy, distancing themselves from the atrocity and condemning the actions, to prevent a slew of MSM articles that insinuate that the innocent victim is complicit in the horrible act of violence (I cannot find one).
If the media want to tar whole swaths of people for the actions of a few, it will happen regardless of whether some representative group puts out a statement condemning it. Muslim groups in the US denouncing violence in the wake of 9/11 did nothing to stifle the implication that all Muslims are terrorists (anyone recall “Islamofascism”?), it did nothing to prevent the FBI from setting up elaborate entrapment schemes in Muslim student groups throughout the country.
Expecting people who have nothing to do with someone else’s violent acts to take responsibility for it and denounce it only reinforces the connection in many people’s minds that the one has a necessary relationship to the other, when, in fact, generally the opposite is true.
What!? By not responding the MSM will continue to paint them as complicit or tacitly supporting these actions with impunity. while the media may very well continue to tar BLM after a response, without a response and condemnation, the entire movement is powerless to defend themselves against the accusations.
The worst thing a movement, business, or individual can do in a PR nightmare is to remain silent, under any circumstances. To not respond leads to a one sided narrative and fully destroys any chance save your reputation and supporters to rally around you.
Without a statement supporters have no foundation to stand with the movement and defend it from damage. Silence is the absolute worst course of action, a PR firms worst nightmare is a client who refuses to respond or release a statement to address bad press, marketing studies have found that it is actually better to respond negatively, than to not respond at all.
If the movement wants to save itself they must respond. If they don’t I guarantee they will be nonexistent within a month.
I mean this in the spirit of solidarity, since I know what we both want ultimately is justice.
But I would argue no, not just no, hell no. The onus should not be on victims to take responsibility for other people’s prejudicial claims of guilt by association. Christians in general don’t have to denounce the Westboro Baptist Church or Neo-Nazis, whose ideology is explicitly Christian at its base, nor are American Jews put on PR trial for each shitty thing Israel does. Just this afternoon, I was watching a committee chaired by that paragon of civil rights (/vomit), Ted Cruz, demanding American Muslims do precisely what you are proposing, collectively denounce Daesh or Al Qaida or whatever the bogeyman of the day happens to be, his premise being that ALL Muslims simply by being Muslims bear some responsibility for the actions of violent men was pretty clear, and it was appalling.
Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not your premise at all, that your intentions are much better than Cruz’s, but I think asking for this kind of denouncement plays directly into the hands of those who do make such assumptions of collective guilt, that somehow all black people fed up with police violence are partially culpable in the violence of one person who is also fed up with it, especially absurd when you realize that BLM has gone out of its way to be non-violent at all times. If the MSM are ignoring that patently obvious fact now, I don’t think a press release is going to change that.
That’s just how I feel, but if you’re right, and making such a denouncement does have some positive effect, I’d be willing to give everything I just said up.
I completely agree it is atrocious that the victims of so much violence and vitriol should have to make a statement denouncing a violent act that clearly had no connection to them (clearly to those slightly informed, which looking at the comments on the wash post article are not many).
From a PR perspective your other examples unfortunately don’t fall into the same category, the MSM isn’t using the actions of Westboro to attack the Vatican, daesh to attack a particular Muslim movement , or Israel to paint a particular US Jewish organization as complicit in the actions of violence perpetrated without their support. That is why on the PR side the multitude of organizations and movements that make up these groups don’t and shouldn’t respond, because none of them have been slandered individually.
This however is not the case with BLM. The media is picking this organization out in particular and clearly insinuating that they somehow support or condone the actions (while it is clear they don’t and never would).
This small but extremely important difference (targeting 1 organization, and not a nebulous group) is why the must release a statement condemning the actions if they want to save a movement that has and still could do some great good in exposing the unjust and deadly policies of those in power.
They should not have to do this, but because the MSM has targeted them specifically, if the movement is going to continue they have to do something and silence is not the right course if the movement is going survive this.
I think you’re confusing a movement with an institution. Movements don’t issue statements.
They have now released a statement.
http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/
This is from the three “founders” on one of whom invented the hash tag. I put the word in quotes not to denigrate them but to indicate that the origins of the movement were organic and diffuse. I would be extremely surprised to learn that this site, though important, was taken by all BLM activists as speaking for them.
A very good statement, Succinct to the point and a perfect foundation to address the MSM slander from.
It is a good statement. My issue is “they,” not the statement.
Here’s a working link to Arnebeck’s letter.
The whole “Negative Multiplier of Government Debt” thing has been disprove by history since, well forever.
“I am confident US alliance with UK and EU will endure Barack Obama, Financial Times. This is a first, I believe. Public statements affirming the strength of a relationship outside ritual statements at summits are seldom a good sign.”
really under-reported (big surprise re. non-US news) was the Chilcot Report in the UK.
It’s feeling like that the silent majority of the bottom-99% of Britons are finally realizing that the US plays the UK as lap dogs.
“I am confident US alliance with UK and EU will endure”. Odd. Recently Obama was in London to utter a breath-taking bit of hypocrisy: roughly: “United Kingdom, you are our best friend and ally, but if you dare leave the EU you will be last in line for a trade deal.” I think his intervention probably pushed people over to Leave.
Reminder that Gov. Pence signed this into law: NRA-Backed Law Spells Out When Indianans May Open Fire on Police
dcblogger
July 8, 2016 at 10:48 am
Very, very interesting!!!
==========================================================
Every time police Sergeant Joseph Hubbard stops a speeder or serves a search warrant, he says he worries suspects assume they can open fire — without breaking the law.
Hubbard, a 17-year veteran of the police department in Jeffersonville, Indiana, says his apprehension stems from a state law approved this year that allows residents to use deadly force in response to the “unlawful intrusion” by a “public servant” to protect themselves and others, or their property.
“If I pull over a car and I walk up to it and the guy shoots me, he’s going to say, ‘Well, he was trying to illegally enter my property,’” said Hubbard, 40, who is president of Jeffersonville Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 100. “Somebody is going get away with killing a cop because of this law.”
Indiana is the first U.S. state to specifically allow force against officers, according to the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys in Washington, which represents and supports prosecutors. The National Rifle Association pushed for the law, saying an unfavorable court decision made the need clear and that it would allow homeowners to defend themselves during a violent, unjustified attack. Police lobbied against it.
….
He said “public servant” was added to clarify the law after a state Supreme Court ruling last year that “there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.” The case was based on a man charged with assaulting an officer during a domestic-violence call.
Young cited a hypothetical situation of a homeowner returning to see an officer raping his daughter or wife. Under the court’s ruling, the homeowner could not touch the officer and only file a lawsuit later, he said. Young said he devised the idea for the law after the court ruling.
“There are bad legislators,” Young said. “There are bad clergy, bad doctors, bad teachers, and it’s these officers that we’re concerned about that when they act outside their scope and duty that the individual ought to have a right to protect themselves.”
==========================================
There is a real schizophrenia on the right. I don’t think most mainstream people understand the nuances of political groups, e.g., most “real” liberals have contempt for Clinton. By the same token, a rather substantial number of right wingers have seething contempt for the police.
Is the example of a police officer raping far fetched???
I think the average American would find it so, but I suspect a good number of NC readers could think of real life examples almost as bad as that scenario. The same goes for a lot of fervent 2nd amendment advocates and anti government activists.
This is a true statement with regard to bad people – once you get to the part about self defense it gets interesting:
There are bad legislators,” Young said. “There are bad clergy, bad doctors, bad teachers, and it’s these officers that we’re concerned about that when they act outside their scope and duty that the individual ought to have a right to protect themselves.”
And I think it is also true, to those who are intellectually honest, that the legal system in the US is way out of whack in over protecting police from reasonable oversight and accountability. For those willing to believe their own eyes, there is a myriad of evidence on video of abysmal police conduct, with shocking lack of punishment in the aftermath.
If you don’t do it reasonably, it festers until it gets done UNREASONABLY. It may surprise some that this comes from the right, but in my view (if you read the right wing regularly) it was entirely predictable. Many lower class whites are feeling as oppressed as blacks, and in no way view police as “protectors.”
There is always the assumption that the right as a monolith is always 100% pro police. That may be the repub propaganda, but their own “principals” conflict – you can’t constantly scream “FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM” and than enact more and more laws with fines and more fees and hire more and more police.
Fissures are forming – we live in interesting times…
I would just like to state that, in the main, it’s the republican house & senate reps who seem to be 100% pro police…… That’s your monolith right there…backed by corporate tubmans !!
…and yes, the plebs…..not so much !
Rape by police officers is far more common then you would expect. I personally know one person who was raped by an officer. That is all I will say.
In the past police officers forced young men and women to pose nude for photos in order to avoid tickets. That is sexual assault.
The Oakland case is clear statutory rape.
Police Officers are and have been out of control for years.
These shootings are not surprising as many others have said.
I have nothing more to add.
The situation in Oakland is like a horrific farce. I’d be writing FTP on walls if I lived there!
The AP studied the subject for a year and found 1000 police officers that were dismissed from the force between 2009 and 2014 for sexual assault and related crimes. Sexual assaults are very under-reported, and even less likely to be prosecuted and convicted, so the true number of monsters in uniform is difficult to estimate. For example NY and CA don’t keep records on the topic WRT police. Since I’m at work I’m not able to provide a direct link but The Guardian has an article on the subject titled “Investigation reveals about 1,000 police officers lost jobs over sexual misconduct”.
Some of the stories are horrifying.
reslez
July 8, 2016 at 7:25 pm
I am pretty critical of police, and your example is news to me – although I knew about the Oakland case and various other individual cases – I know there was a case in Oklahoma where the cop got away with raping women for years, as well as one here in CA in Sacramento.
It just seems to me that there is such an overwhelming propagandist background noise of “all cops are heroes” that is so overwhelming and pervasive, that is designed to make it seem as if cop misconduct is so rare and unusual that it scarcely is worth being concerned about, while the data suggest it is more common and pervasive than commonly accepted. I have to say that I don’t think the organized effort to diminish reporting of police misconduct is happening by accident…
Yesterday House Republicans + 10 Corrupt Blue Dogs And New Dems Voted For The 64th Time To Kill The Affordable Care Act
don’t you mean anti health insurance?
+
+2
I am not versed at all on ACA other than some generalities. Do the benefits really outweigh the negative aspects (for the people that matter–the 90%)? Is it really worth the neoliberal, benefits for insurance companies, approach? And does it really matter that these people voted against it?
To my knowledge it blocks being denied coverage due to preexisting conditions, which is a plus.
Speaking only for myself… 4 to 5k in forced premiums and 5 or 6k in deductables before about 40 percent off anything over the initial 10k IS denial of coverage.
And I know a whole lot of working stiffs who are pissed… either skirting it entirely or paying the fines rather than taking that ponzi scheme for anything more than what it is.
That was my take on the “mandatory or else” fines. I can imagine low income people, prior to the act, opting not to have health insurance (most likely because their employer does not provide it or even still that they cannot afford it with a full time job) to save money they need for other things. Yea it is unsafe and could, occasionally, put burden on hospitals or taxes ultimately, but I would imagine the impact was marginal.
Now these struggling individuals are forced to pay for poor health insurance programs they still cannot afford.
I presented an NBER study (too lazy to find the link) that half of the remaining unsigned had done the math and preferred to take the risk of going without rather than purchasing it.
I agree that coverage of pre-existing conditions is a plus, but the point is not that the ACA doesn’t do anything, the point is that it doesn’t do nearly enough (and that’s before we get to the complexity and the rent-seeking).
Is Ukraine about to resume stoking the fires in Donbass?
Quite possibly. NATO is meeting in Warsaw at this time to hammer a counter to ‘Russian Aggression’. The commentary I have read suggests that not all NATO countries are enthusiastic about the positions coming out of the Baltic states and Washington.
If Kiev launches a full scale assault on the Donbass, then I think Russia will have to respond militarily. That should be enough to quiet any dissent from Washington’s unbelievably reckless policies on the Russian border.
I have seen a number of comments here at NC worrying about Hillary’s being ready to risk open war with Russia. Well, the Obama regime is already doing that.
Surest way to elect Hillary is for 0bama to go out as a “war president,” with Hillary promising continuity of leadership during the armed conflict.
Is it Hillary continuing Obama’s work, or Obama preparing for Hillary’s arrival?
An October surprise….
Hmmm…
Russia had an ‘October Revolution,’ eh?
So, the Neo-Cons are right? Hillary really is the second coming of Lenin? Who’d a thunk it?
Daddies, “Dates,” and the Girlfriend Experience: Welcome to the New Pr Vanity Fair
She usually charged around $400 for an encounter. “The guys don’t like talking about money, so they’ll just like leave money in your purse.” What Holly Golightly called “$50 for the powder room” was discreetly offered, she says, “because then it can feel more like real dating to them.”
==========================================
Even though I am quite the movie buff, I only saw “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” a couple of weeks ago. I really had no idea what the movie was about – I imagined an ambitious young career girl meets up with a fuddy duddy guy who wants to settle down – which in a way is kinda what the movie is about…in a VERY off kilter way (rent boy finds rent girl). And I figured out that Holly was trading on her…uh, “charms.”
But I never understood the phrase “50$ for the powder rooms” – sure, its the pay for her “charms” but I just don’t get the phrase itself. Some restrooms have attendants that you tip, but I can’t imagine it being 50$ back in the late 1950’s – unless the atendants use to provide a lot more service back than than they do now…. Why not just say 50$ for incidentals? Or for shoes?
And I didn’t realize that “pay for play” was so acknowledged in the supposedly buttoned down 1950’s to have what I had thought was always one of the most wholesome actresses playing a rent girl in a major studio production…
You don’t tip the attendant $50. You give the attendant a buck (or whatever the going rate was) and keep the rest.
Hit post too soon.
This would have been at a time when a clever social climber like Holly would have considered it gauche to accept gifts like shoes that would have signaled that a man who wasn’t family was supporting her basic necessities*; an evening out, including gratutities, was another matter.
*For the social niceties of this, compare how Audrey Hepburn’s Holly is treated by the story vs. Joan Crawford’s Crystal in The Women. Crystal is greedy and gold-digging and is set up with her own account at an expensive department store. Holly, on the other hand, is supposed to be tragic and soulful.
thanks!
How much is that ($50 then) in today’s money?
$500?
Let’s keep inflation low by all means.
cliff arnebeck letter to loretta lynch in full. cliff arnebeck is a longtime election fraud activist-lawyer and is currently one of the two lawyers currently preparing to bring the RICO election fraud lawsuit in 2016 dem primary. some of his earlier election fraud lawsuits have succeeded. note the background on comey, interesting if all true.
ARNEBECK LAW OFFICE
Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr.
1021 East Broad Street
Columbus, Ohio 43205
clifford.arnebeck@gmail.com
July 7, 2016
Attorney General Loretta Lynch
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Via Electronic Mail
Dear Attorney General Lynch:
Because your decision of yesterday against further consideration by career FBI and career attorneys of the Department of Justice of the prosecution of Secretary Clinton appears to be a part of a full court press to preclude the consideration by the upcoming Democratic Convention of the preponderant evidence that Senator Bernie Sanders has received the most actual votes in the Democratic primary, I am sending this to you as an open letter.
Since July 17, 2008, when I issued document hold notices for: 1) Karl Rove’s White House emails carried over Republican Party private servers at SmarTech in Chattanooga, Tennessee and 2) The U.S. Chamber of Commerce documents relating to the corruption of the judicial system of the United States through its coordination with the Republican Party of illegal corporate expenditures, I have been serving in an acting private attorney general capacity, in waiting, under the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act. My status was “in waiting” because I could not file such empowering litigation until we could acquire testimony of the essential cooperating insider witness who could bring together the full range of this election racketeering conspiracy.
In our case that essential insider witness was Michael Connell, CEO of both New Media and GovTech, who was Karl Rove’s IT/Web guru for the full scope of his political operations before, during and after Rove’s tenure in the White House (2001-2007). I took Mike Connell’s deposition on the day before the 2008 Presidential election. He admitted that the placement of SmarTech in a control position over the 2004 Ohio Presidential election was a subcontract within his contract with the Ohio Secretary of State, but denied that he, Mike Connell, had put them there. On December 19, 2008, Mike Connell was assassinated according to an after-action report delivered to the Cleveland FBI by an informant deemed credible by Intelligence reporter and former NSA analyst Wayne Madsen.
Your decision of yesterday to accept Director Comey’s recommendation not to prosecute Clinton is inconsistent with your previous commitment to rely upon the recommendation of the career non-political attorneys in your office. Comey is a revolving-door political member of the Department of Justice. Comey’s assertion that no responsible prosecutor would undertake to prosecute Hillary Clinton upon the facts developed by the FBI has the appearance of being politically dictated by the same political forces behind the evident rigging of the 2016 Democratic primary election, so as to shift millions of votes from Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton.
President George W. Bush appointed James Comey Deputy Attorney General in 2003; he served for two years that included a short stint as Acting Attorney General while John Ashcroft recovered from surgery. In that capacity Comey had to have known of the extraordinarily great amount of evidence that the 2004 Presidential election had been stolen and of Karl Rove’s politicization of the Department of Justice. Karl Rove transferred his protégé Stanley Borgia from FBI Headquarters Counterintelligence to the position of Agent in Charge of the Cincinnati Office of the FBI for the purpose of obstructing justice by shutting down the then in progress FBI investigation of the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. That investigation had already uncovered the flagrant changing of votes from Kerry to Bush in Clermont, Warren and Butler Counties pursuant to the formal request for a federal criminal investigation made by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers. Under Stanley Borgia the FBI issued a formal finding that the FBI had investigated and found no violations of federal law. The plain and incontrovertible evidence of the fraudulent manipulation of the 2004 Presidential election, with particular focus upon Ohio, is graphically documented in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s historic article Published on June 01, 2006 by Rolling Stone, “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?”
According to Dana Jill Simpson whom we retained as a researcher in regard to the documented fraud in the 2016 Democratic primary: 1) in 2008, when Michael Connell was assassinated James Comey was Senior Vice President/General Counsel for Lockheed Martin, this nation’s largest military contractor and the company into whose hanger Connell’s plane was taken after its crash; 2) in 2010 when we arranged service of a deposition subpoena upon Rove and the US Chamber, Comey was the Chairman of Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce’s National Chamber Litigation Center. In that position Mr. Comey played a key instrumental role in achieving the plainly unconstitutional, corrupt and corrupting decision by a five-four vote majority of the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) and the subsequent fraudulent appearance in the 2010 general election of the largest partisan shift of votes since the Depression and 3) in 2012 when we were involved, again with Ms. Simpson’s professional research assistance, in countering election racketeering activity, Mr. Comey was serving as counsel to Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world and possibly part of the cabal seeking to fraudulently orchestrate the 2012 presidential election in favor of fellow hedge fund executive and Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
I had previously represented Ms. Simpson in discussions and a meeting with attorneys in the Public Integrity Section. The FBI had requested that Ms. Simpson provide guidance to the DOJ head of the criminal division in regard to organized crime in Alabama. In my first telephone conference with Jack Smith, the career US Attorney and newly appointed head of the Public Integrity Section, he informed me that if we presented evidence of crime to him he would prosecute it.
I recommend your consideration of bringing Jack Smith back to the Public Integrity Section of Department of Justice for the purpose of reviewing the facts gathered by the professional, career FBI and DOJ attorneys to determine the sufficiency of those facts as constituting probable cause for a criminal prosecution instead of relying upon a highly political revolving door FBI Director who has made many millions of dollars from the largest Defense Contractor, the largest big business global corporate lobbying and election buying organization in the world and largest hedge fund operation who, obviously from his background expects to return to the corporate world from which he has come to garner billions of dollars.
If you persist in rubber stamping the sole opinion of political appointee FBI Director Comey as to probable cause for criminal prosecution of Hillary Clinton, it will have the appearance that your decision is tainted by your own possible conflicts of interest, according to Ms. Simpson’s research, in 1) having served as a partner in the law firm Hogan & Hartson at a time it was serving as legal counsel to the Clinton Foundation and to the firm that set up the private email server for then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and 2) being a political appointee of the President who, on the same day of your decision to accept Director Comey’s sole recommendation was campaigning in the Democratic 2016 Primary for Hillary Clinton.
As of July 5, 2016, with the Huffington Post’s publication of “Exit Polls are the Thing Wherein to Catch the Conscience of Elections” by Tony Brasunas, the irrefutable evidence of fraud in the 2016 Democratic Primary is no longer recognized and reported only in the alternative and Internet media. Please also consider: “Hillary’s email revelation: France and US killed Qaddafi for his gold and oil” by Bob Fitrakis, The Free Press May 2016. Given Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s famous statement: “We came, we saw and he died,” in regard to Libya’s sovereign leader Muammar al-Qaddafi, is Ms. Clinton’s motive for secreting her emails from the public not clear? Did Wikileaks release of Ms. Clinton’s email from Sidney Blumenthal indicating that the NATO attack upon Libya had nothing to do with either humanitarian concerns for the people of Libya or the national security interests of the people of the United States not expose Secretary of State Clinton to appropriate criminal charges?
Very truly yours,
/s/ Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr.
Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr.
Attorney at Law
http://caucus99percent.com/content/cliff-arnebeck-please-distribute
Thanks for posting the letter.
I wonder why the GOP didn’t review or publicize contents of the political, not national security, e-mails of Hillary. Perhaps, because it describes the same system, the same ways the GOP use to “win” elections. They have a chance if they can out “fraud” the Democrats with systems, procedures, machines, personnel, that the GOP has perfected over many election cycles.
Cliff Arnebeck prevented the GOP’s fraud from working in 2012 which would have put Romney in office. He stopped the fraud by involving the FBI and courts to look for machine flipping out of Ohio late on election day. For fear of wiretaps, the voting machine company owners could not call Carl Rove to forewarn him that the theft was off. That is why Rove had a meltdown on election night on tv. Obama owes his presidency to Cliff Arnebeck. Cliff Arnebeck is fighting for democracy.
I would guess that in addition to Arnebeck’s concerns about those subjects of Hillary’s emails, might there also be emails which show coordination between Hillary’s campaign and the DNC, perhaps on the subjects of voter suppression, voter registration rolls scrubbing off validly registered Bernie voters (perhaps using that registration app, to know Bernie’s supporters), longer lines, vote flipping on those e-voting, e-scanning, e-tabulating machines for her, and more.
And, perhaps coordination with media to hide unadjusted exit polling data and replace with fraudulent adjusted exit polling to force a win for Hillary.
And, didn’t the Clinton’s ask Trump to run for Presidency? Then, perhaps coordination with media and Trump on how to set up to make Hillary more viable?
Also, since some polling shows that both Trump and Clinton have the highest unfavorable ratings of any major candidates running in the past for presidency, then how can she or he be winning? One report, I need to look up for site url, had Hillary’s favorability at 15%. If so, that would necessitate a major coordinating effort to alter perception that she is a winner. I would like to see those e-mails and emails with Trump on how to look like an even bigger ass.
I would like to know more about any e-mails on those topics above. And, if my guessing, for now, is correct, then, Cliff Arnebeck would have much more evidence to help us all regain our Democracy by recovering our election process to be inclusive of regular people. And, we should thank him for that.
Thx for illuminating me on Arenbeck’s good work in 2012. Now I feel like a heel for being harsh on him below.
Cliff Arnebeck’s goals are justice and democracy. He has been effective in the past. He is taking this on against a hurricane of opposition from a complicit media. He could use everyone’s help, instead of hypercriticism, because it is important that he wins back our democracy for us, and better with our help.
To see how important Arnebeck’s goals are, just look at a story from today, July 9th, at Naked Capitalism:
Michael Hoexter: Democratic Party Platform 7/1/16 Draft Would Lock In Catastrophic Climate Change – 07/09/2016 – Yves Smith
Compare and contrast the future given the goals of each. We should help Cliff:
http://trustvote.org/donate/
Ohio Election Integrity Litigation
(Ohio also includes the Federal RICO lawsuit affecting all states for discovery)
What a hot mess. Complex litigation is hard. It takes an especially gifted attorney to parse the handful of critical elements from a haystack like this one, then gather just enough of the chaff to weave a legible narrative around those facts. Needless to say, the big guns can afford to add infinite complexity to the conversation. This case wants lean, dinosaur, Clarence Darrow litigation. Setting aside the question, “is it genuine?”, if that letter is any indication of Team Arnebeck’s chops the suit is in trouble.
The facts support Arenbeck’s allegations, which means here be dragons. To mix metaphors, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.
Exactly. Sadly, if you want to communicate with elites, you’ve got to use elite forms. That is what a lawyer should be doing.
There’s some brutal discussion of the Arnebeck letter here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Kossacks_for_Sanders/comments/4rt5uz/important_cliff_arnebecks_letter_to_loretta_lynch/
Agreed, the letter is somewhat incoherent and appears to be a grab bag of historical grievances. Advice to election fraud activists: focus!
Exactly.
I sense another Clinton Sister-Souljah-moment coming on.
Opens purse, drops in bottle of hot sauce.
Alternatively, do not let Bill go off script. “Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn’t. She didn’t.”
Regarding the twitter spat following the DNC statement, in which Chris Geidner said, “This is journalism, sir,” I take issue with the claim that a press release is journalism. It may be straightforward information but is frequently propaganda. Journalists, as distinct from those who issue press releases, are supposed to evaluate the information provided, not merely repeat it.
Used to be a guy on another forum whose favorite morbid market advice was “Buy death.”
He’s right for today, at least. Job growth was strong, and the S&P 500 is 7 points below a new record high.
My comment above about Smith & Wesson (SWHC) stock price up over 1000% in under 5 years and up over 3% today as I post this…. Buy death; it’s profitable!
Are they all Made-In-America or do they import from China?
Word of the day: Necropolitics.
Seems more and more a propos as I think about it.
A good word to toss around whilst reading the Necro-economicon. :)
Makes me wonder what the attendees of the infamous Jeckyll Island conference were doing down at the beach at the moonrise.
Pellucid Illuminati anyone?
One thing that has really caught my attention about the Dallas police shooting (aside from the obvious) is what I heard in the news this morning that the police sent in a robot with an explosive device, which apparently detonated and killed the suspect. Is this a first? It certainly seems very unusual, and possibly illegal, if it was intended to kill him and no one was directly under threat at the time he was killed.
Found an article that reinforces my surprise and curiosity about this specific detail of the Dallas shooting story: http://fusion.net/story/323173/dallas-bomb-robot/
From what I have read, yes it was a first. It is a military tactic that has been used but never by police. More negative outcomes of problems we have chosen to ignore. I hope more people talk about it because that is a dangerous precedent.
Yes, I agree. A lot of military procedures and processes are making the shift from war fighting to police enforcement in the civilian sphere.
I made note of it in a comment above but yes, that caught my attention too.
They essentially killed him by drone.
All of these things we see now happening and beginning to happen domestically were foreshadowed after 9-11 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whatever they do in our name to foreigners in their own countries, they will eventually
do to us here at home. But I suppose it was unpatriotic to call them out on it back then.
:(
I noted in your earlier comment that we should have peace-keeping robot cops at the protest.
But that would mean we can afford to save money by firing human police officers.
So you came up with the above (peace-keeping robot cops) from this?
“they killed one suspect with what could be argued is a drone”
That’s not even in the same zip code as what I said. The point being made is that they’ve been killing people with drones in our name for more than a decade and now they will use similar technology against us at home.
I know you are trying to be cute, but please don’t put words in my mouth. Thank you.
optic
July 8, 2016 at 1:01 pm
Yes, I noticed that too. Now that a precedent has been set, I expect this will occur more and more…and more.
As in the rubout of Osama bin Ladin, they killed a suspect who might have provided information.
Will Micah Johnson be given a sea burial within 24 hours, in accordance with his community’s tradition?
“They” will probably drop him in the same spot ‘they’ deep sixed Kennedys’ Dallas to Bethesda casket.
See: http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/29/news/mn-42231
I don’t like the robot, and I don’t like the lack of a transcript with the (presumed) shooter, the guy they killed with the robot. You will remember that “kill white people” is single-sourced from the police chief.
We have to take the word of the police chief for both, and in my book that’s not adequate provenance.
“Daddies, “Dates,” and the Girlfriend Experience: Welcome to the New Prostitution Economy”
Well, new here maybe. The Japanese have had ‘compensated dating’ for decades. Though here it might be somewhat more voluntary if it’s mostly adult women trying to pay for things like loans, whereas in Japan it’s mostly high school girls who have been pressured. Japan is also the country that has the incredibly creepy maid cafes where you pay to have women play-act being cheerful slaves, essentially.
Is it really that hard for all these men to get dates/laid without bribery? There are at least as many women on the planet as men, no matter who you are chances are there is someone, somewhere who will willing go out with you. You could start by talking to them and treating them like actual people.
It’s probably easier to get a date in China…for Americans.
It’s not hard at all. I think most dudes like getting cookies without having to deal with the drama baggage issues that comes with the rest of the woman.
Nostalgia.
For a brief ecstatic moment, they can forget about ‘the modern female,’ and soak in that ‘pre-feminist movement’ woman.
Ah, of course. Men are drama free, and there are no women at all interested in a one-night stand. None whatsoever. Anywhere. And any kind of in-depth relationship by its very nature has to be complex and tiresome. How silly of me.
That was all sarcasm.
Personally, I believe you should call males that want to treat women like objects because treating them like people is too hard what they are…….boys, not men.
Calling someone a man insinuates they are grown people that recognize that the world is not all about them. Clearly that is not the case for people who think it’s okay to treat a person as a sex toy instead of living breathing human beings with all the messy components of being human. Taking advantage of someone’s need by exploiting them is pretty darn deplorable and selfish so in the case of these boys it might very well be they are undateable and unlikely to get laid without paying for it.
RE: The Democrats Ignore the 500-Pound Lobbyist in the Room
Seems we’ve heard all this before.
And yet…What’s this?!
Among many other examples.
Re Vanity Fair article on sugar daddies, off topic as this may be:
The writer left out one key detail: 57% of all sex workers were sexually abused in childhood. The average number of perpetrators for the survivors was THREE. IOW, as children these prostitutes were already trained “public sex toys.” By doing sex work these (mostly) women, with varying degrees of self awareness, repeat relationship patterns that scar many victims for life. What in heaven’s name could be healthy about this?? Of course, had the writer asked the sugar babies (or their therapists, if any) about childhood sexual history, the article would have lost just a bit of its “glamour.”
http://womensissues.about.com/od/rapesexualassault/a/Wuornos.htm
As a (male) survivor of serious childhood sexual abuse I’ve had to think about this topic, and my feeling is:
No one can sell (or buy) one’s way across the intimate sexual boundary without damaging oneself. I’ve fought my way to a halfway normal life only after decades of therapy, meditation, and everything else. All the fellow survivors I know, experienced something similar. I can’t imagine how much worse things would be for me if I had deliberately re created the problem in adult life.
Two more points: throwing a sex worker in jail is in effect punishing them for having been raped as children. It’s an abomination. Surely there are other ways to help prostitutes find emotional health and to help johns (janes?) find fulfilling relationships.
Having said that — I have a bone to pick with feminists who advocate prostitution because they are “sex positive.” My experience tells me that consensual sex within healthy adult relationship is a very different animal than prostitution. If feminism is about empowerment, prostitution undoes the good work.
Lacy Hunt on negative multiplier of government debt.
Negative?
Based on academic research. Where?
I can’t look at the adorable Central Asian marmots and not think of their important historical role as a vector for the transmission of plague.
Sort of like what the gods must feel when they contemplate us.
WAG THE DOG…..
False scenarios. Great way of controlling people without killing them. TV is sooo believable!