A Week In Repose/Review/Reprise

I was not sure what the week would bring as with it came unrelenting heat and humidity, and in the Pacific Northwest it was truly a new level of pandemic catastrophes that have literally and metaphorically plagued the region. And being from there we thought Air Conditioning was for sissies and then this. For years they have been facing drought, fires that literally poisoned the air and once again proved that yes folks stupid does live in Liberal regions. They ran out of air conditioners and people being asked to turn off power to prevent surges, and even grocery stores had to stop selling perishables thanks to the issues with cooling. The irony was that Seattle, finally out of stage whatever level lockdown ends up with rolling blackouts, deaths and hospital overcrowding thanks to heat related illnesses. Portland was even worse and the irony is not lost as both cities took it upon themselves the last year to go batshit crazy over Black Lives Matter in ways that cities with way higher Black populations and incidents of Police related deaths and incidents did not. We saw some horrific displays of White Power in Kenosha and in Minneapolis where the Boys were proud to step it and up or whatever the fuck Trump said they did to basically make things worse; I did not see this in Newark or in Cleveland, Baltimore and Detroit that are by far more Chocolate cities. The South, however, well it is the South and even some Southern cities found themselves much calmer than the whitest cities in the U.S., Seattle and Portland. But again over 90% of the protests were in fact civil and peaceful. And with that the greatest threat to American safety is not urban crime or violence, but White Supremacy. Go figure. It is they who are suffering from White Fragility, not normal folks who simply are ignorant about race, as most folks are not actively oppressing those not of the same race, they are just as bubbled and self involved as our culture has permitted if not encouraged. That said, ignorance is not bliss it is ignorance and for many it took a pandemic where you forced into lockdown yourself to watch a man die and realize that this was not something new or unusual in the Black/Brown community. Yes we are now broadcasting Snuff films on national television and we watched, let the Gladiator games begin. Stephen King called it in The Stand, he is a prophet and now I am off to Maine to form a cult around him.

And with that we have the sentencing of Allison Mack former actress from a long ended series but who ended up with a new role as crazy recruiter for another angry sexually perverted white man, the head of NXVIM. Having watched all the documentaries on this subject, listened to the podcasts and read all I can I am trying to understand this as to why anyone would listen to this dude who looks like a Middle School Science Teacher, let alone get branded with his initials. I would not get a hand stamp from the man nor engage in what is multi level marketing, something this idiot did before turning it into a sex slave mindfuck cult. Hey, nice work if you can get it and my Stephen King one is going to be fantastic!

In more sentencing news, Derek Chauvin was also sentenced, the relative calm again surrounding it proves that Black Lives Matter and for many it was not long enough but it was enough as for years their tears went unrecognized. And the rest of the douches that sat there and watched the murder are up next. This may again prove that sometimes just sometimes Justice works.

Speaking of Justice the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell is getting ready to begin and this time I too am ready to finally photo bomb and become a MEME after Covid shut down the Harvey Weinstein trial which I had been prepping for days to attend. I actually find this more interesting as we seem to think Women are often just victims and yes many times they start out that way but to prevent further abuse they too become the abuser. And here we have two women who were never victims in any sense of the word, they simply joined the hideous lunatic in his pursuit of lurid sex and debauchery, and the examples are Allison Mack and now our dear Ghislaine. She too is the subject of her own documentary on Peacock which for the first time I will sign up, watch it and then immediately cancel, like I did Starz with the one on NXVIM.

And as one celebrity goes to jail another comes out and Bill Cosby was released as the Superior Court of Pennsylvania found that his prosecution was illegal. Who knew? Well half of the people currently in the slammer for crimes they did not commit. Ah yes but they aren’t famous and rich and have to wait for a non-profit to take up their case to dig that shit up. But hey Bill is free! And the only person happy about is Phylicia Rashad. Watch for her to get quietly written out of This is Us. Canceled!

In California they are trying to cancel the Governorship of Gavin Newsom and the contestants on this new reality show include a reality star from Orange County, the love tank filler of Vicky Gunvalson and formerly Bruce Jenner. This is again while a State reels from fire and drought and Covid and it appears that maybe all that glitters is not gold in California, home of Hollywood so that much is true, as the fire preparations were not what Newsom claimed. This could be the undoing as this has been a major problem in the region and with that a drain on the state in ways Covid could never be. And while the New York Mayoral race is plagued with issues it provides the cover for Cuomo that all the handy Covid art failed to do. Welcome to term three Andy!

And with that comes the last bit of the saga of Britney Spears who testified that it was abuse and imprisonment and promptly the new female Judge connected with her on a woman to woman level and retained the arrangement. Yeah, women our are worst enemies especially with little evidence to support Britney’s argument or the Conservators beliefs she is not capable, carry on! Really? And with that the Conservator is resigning leaving Dad to his trailer. But lawmakers are on it as they have never seen or heard a public lynching that didn’t require their intervention, just the type and kind have been debatable of late. Hi, Mike Pence! So they are beginning to look into these “arrangements” as it is a form of abuse and control that often enriches one and isolates the other held in non-covid captivity. Try to imagine that as permanent and even more restrictive. Again this is not about Britney bitch, but she brought this to light. One time White Fragility worked out and we got woke.

And talk about prisons, apparently Australia is one as it is now once again in big time prison bitch lockdown. Even residents are beginning to be come distressed as the costs and measures to make Australia number one in preventing Covid deaths is in fact killing people softly. Good on ya mate!

And with that the Trump Organization is facing its own type of inquiry and challenges and with that it will all I will say about he who should be nameless as it is time to move forward and onward with a new optimism and hope about the future. I never thought it would come in the form of an aging white man who has spent his entire life in politics and then yet again as I have long thought we are moving back in time and Biden is LBJ, which means Harris the JFK who will have a short term Presidency and be one that we will always look back with in fondness and go, “Wow we had a Black-Indian Woman as President and a Jew as her First Man.” Yes we go one step forward and two steps back, welcome folks to the late 60’s. Swing On!

Just Do It.

I suspect that song is ripe for a cover comeback soon as we are meeting many a Meanie Genie of late and more to follow; from the violence that led a man to shoot another, claiming he “violated his personal space” to the endless drama on planes, trains and automobiles as Americans are emerging from their exile, house arrest or captivity as few people really understood the serious ramifications of what that was and how long it lasted – here in New Jersey it was 439 days, for me it was 450 before I literally took flight. And with that comes a new social parameter of how do we rejoin a society that has definitely changed not just due to the pandemic but the social unrest tied to George Floyd’s murder and the January 6th insurrection. I think of the endless Libertarian flags at that riot and the one Don’t Tread on Me, the state motto of New Hampshire may need to be changed to – Tread Lightly.

Add to this the endless media hyping of the Covid variant, the push for vaccines which seems to have stalled and with school only eight weeks away and the likelihood that without students being able to be vaccinated this will of course lead to more fights about schools and when and how they will open. And of course masks, that ends sooner than later and it appears that the un-vaccinated will get Covid, the story of a party in Australia where out of the 30 who attended only the vaccinated folks (all health care workers) did not contract Covid. With that, note that Australia has an amazingly low vaccine rates and due to that parts of the country are again going on full on lockdown thanks to the new cases that have emerged. And why? Well you can thank those who have violated the current protocol the country follows. It was the same here in the early days of Covid so at some point I get the lockdown but again could it have been differently handled? And yes, there are breakthrough cases and with those demonstrate if not prove that yes you can still catch it but the ability to spread is nill and the seriousness of illness is decreased. What more do you need to say that vaccines work?

As I have written in may posts that I have adopted a No Compromise motto from here on out. We agree to disagree but there is nothing more to be said, debated or discussed, we will part neither friends nor enemies but we will simply part. And as I have gone against this mantra in two occasions of late I have found that I was right and I should not go against my instincts let alone my stated beliefs as little will come from it. I have to on some level compromise in some environments to retain a sense of sensibility but when it comes to anything beyond the professional, I am one and done and out. This was the attempt a volunteering, the other was trying to befriend the overly horny overly idiotic worker at my wine store. Nothing good was coming from either so what is the point to continue? These are no-win situations and we all need less of them.

In my encounter with the charming Canadian couple last weekend we discussed the view of America as that from the outsider. And the young man succinctly summarized our country as the Drunk Uncle that goes off at events when he has had one too many. And yes folks we are that drunk girl at the party, the uncle that spouts off and says what he thinks and talks nonsense. We have opened the barn door and the horses are out and running.

The essay below I think succinctly sums up the idea that America is meaner or is it just the same only now you actually notice it and feel compelled to talk about what was the elephant in the room, people not like you that you actually don’t like – co-workers, Physicians, family, friends and others whom you have been able to avoid and now find yourselves learning to navigate these new waters? If my Physician felt compelled to discuss the state of the world on my time and my dime I would find a new Physician. Funny that the Doctor had that time to share his views as given what I know about the average case shuffle Physicians process in a day, a visit is no more than 15 minutes on average. But yes I have had personal connections to providers, and again with this new world I will no longer. I should have done that the day my Dentist called the Police on me to do a wellness check after blowing my stack over the inane questions her patient provider was asking me that day as we set up my treatment plan. It did not get better and while I did get what I wanted and needed I wondered if I could have found others to do the same? Well the dog you know and once I knew what I was dealing with the last visits were highly entertaining as she passively aggressively insulted me, tried to overcharge me and I simply just never let up but was polite as possible to make this a win-win. And when the bills kept coming I finally stopped paying when I felt I had paid enough. I have never heard from them again and will never go back again. And yes as I left she asked me to come back in a year… well that pandemic worked out for me on that one! But the red flag was raised and I coulda, shoulda ,woulda. And guess what? It was sexism at its finest and I am not alone in what that means to be a woman on your own and it will not change, but how I respond to it can. Yes folks you can walk away. As Nike says: Just do it.

America Is Getting Meaner

June 25, 2021 The New York Times Opinion

By Timothy Egan

I went to see my doctor the other day for a Covid-delayed physical. Instead of talking about what ails me, he wanted to talk about what ails us. A dystopian country. The Babel of misinformation. The lack of trust in everybody and everything.

“And how did Dr. Fauci become the enemy?” he said. My doctor is politically moderate and ambidextrously smart. After much steam had been let off, I wanted to say, Enough with American vitals — what about my own?

Trust in institutions — government, the press, religion, big business — is at or near record lows. My own profession, journalism, has been kicked to the cellar of disdain. Almost 40 percent of Americans have little or no confidence in newspapers, according to Gallup’s annual surveys — up from 24 percent in 2000.

But the “press,” where free speech and all its cacophonous chaos reside, has been a punching bag for some time. More shocking is that about 50 percent distrust our electoral system, according to a Morning Consult survey. Diminished confidence in elections is among the worst of the many awful legacies of Donald Trump.

But underlying these cynicisms and suspicions is a truly sad development: The United States is becoming a mean country.

Take the story of the airline passenger who knocked out the teeth of a flight attendant — part of a frightening rise in unruly fliers. Or consider the man who shot and killed a Georgia supermarket cashier when she asked him to pull up his mask. Lament the absurd sorrow of the Philadelphia food festival that was designed to celebrate culinary diversity — then canceled after the decision to disinvite a food truck selling Israeli food sparked controversy.

It was a truly shocking breach when Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, shouted “You lie!” at President Barack Obama in 2009. Now an entire political party is shouting the Big Lie of election fraud, and will punish those who insist on the truth.

Tribalism, and the corrosive hatreds that go with it, has always been just below the surface in the risky experiment of our multiethnic democracy. Of late, it has surfaced in many of our daily interactions — and accounts for much of the meanness of this moment.

I trace the contempt of the press to Rush Limbaugh, whose longstanding goal was to equate what he called the “drive-by media” — that is, fact-checking news organizations staffed by underpaid people devoted to their craft — with fact-challenged, overcompensated, partisan gasbags like himself. It worked.

Once upon a time, the crackpots could mostly talk only to themselves on barstools; now they have an enormous community in the dark reaches of the web. That explains why up to one-fourth of Republicans believe the country is under the control of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, as they huff the vapors of QAnon. It’s also the likely reason a third of Americans continue to believe the fiction that Joe Biden took the election through fraud.

The jump from a provably false premise to physical attacks doesn’t require skill. In mean America, in January, nearly three in 10 people surveyed expressed support for politically motivated violence, if necessary.

Sadly, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — so heartbreaking and so norm-shattering — was much more of a reflection of the times than an aberration.

The left shares the blame, with its cancel culture, groupthink stridency and identity politics — tactics now picked up by the right. (See the canceled Liz Cheney, party fealty to the falsity that Trump won.)

Last summer, some protesters showed up at the homes of elected officials in Seattle, including that of Debora Juarez, a solid progressive and the lone Indigenous member of the Seattle City Council. She said she felt they were there to “terrorize” her after she was taunted with bullhorn insults and menaced with flashing car headlights. Her crime: Ms. Juarez failed to back a goal to defund the police by 50 percent. The political class in the city was largely quiet.

I’ve been working on a book about the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, a time when up to five million Americans belonged to the nation’s oldest hate group. That was a mean decade, with Jim Crow locked in place, Prohibition the law of the land and immigrants who weren’t white Protestants all but locked out.

A favorite tactic of the Klan in the ’20s was night-riding to people’s homes to terrorize them.

The underlying theme of all this meanness is intolerance.

My own better angel, currently on hiatus, tells me that the majority of people today aren’t as awful as they appear on social media, which rewards hate at a high volume. But who, or what, rewards civility and nuance?

It may be, as the writer George Packer says, that the United States is headed for “a cold civil war that continues to erode democracy.” No nation can survive for long as a lodestar without some self-evident truths.

There’s an old saying, attributed to the Sioux: A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass. What may be worse are a people without a heart, unable to see half their countrymen and countrywomen as anything but the enemy

Frayed at the edges

Normally that describes a well worn fabric that has begun to show the age by the stitching coming apart or “fraying” at the seams. Well that describes our Warrior Police as they are starting to show their age and with that the inability to do the job needed.

Across America the civil unrest that resulted from the Floyd murder led in some situations to escalate into days long violence. What we have since come to know that much of it was exacerbated by the Police themselves. And yes while there were some individuals and groups that had no interest in peaceful protest and in turn used the opportunity to wreak havoc and commit crimes they were lumped in and placed in the same classification as many of the peaceful if not pointed protestors who had organized in a type of fashion to send a clear message that Black Lives Matter. Now true this is a collective organization with no clear established leadership and headquarters with the ability to generate not only donations, but a hierarchy and expectation of formation in which to conduct and structure the message and the march. With that it leaves critical gaps for “others” in which to exploit that and use that cover to do harm. But under the circumstances and due to Covid protocol this largely fell online to anyone to read and of course extrapolate whatever information they could in which to either join, add and contribute productively or again use to take advantage. Gosh had they had all the private messaging and other secretive tools that the January 6th freaks had then maybe they might have really been able to coordinate across the country and send a cohesive coherent message and possibly prevent any violence from occurring. I doubt it, but again understanding collective bargaining which this is to an extent to encourage and retain a vigilant plan and organized structure takes training and money. Unless you are Trump insurrectionists and then apparently Churches and others take on that role to fund the campaign. Again, follow the money.

But what also occurred across the country was a consistent Police message as warrior cop. This tattered concept is about appearances, much is the same way the Domestic Terrorists arm themselves, throw on furry costumes and carry bear spray. The only difference is that their zip tie handcuffs and homemade weaponry were better quality as it worked to both intimidate the Capitol Police and breach the building. The true tell that it was not Antifa as the right wing crazies like to claim, there was not one homemade Molotov Cocktail among them they were way better trained and coordinated and knew how to appropriate any item and convert it into a weapon/projectile. Flag poles, confiscating police equipment, using fire extinguishers are just such examples of those who have familiarity with that type of adaption. What we did see in Portland by the demonstrators there was co-opting what they had observed in Hong Kong with how the pro-democratic protestors used umbrellas and tennis rackets to lob back tear gas canisters and other makeshift gear in which to protect themselves. And our Police did just what the Chinese do in the same situation, round up protestors, throw them in unmarked black vans and take to an op-site. Wow and you think Trump learned some tricks from China too?

The Police are a group of frightened overarmed men with a badge and title not much different that the Domestic Terrorists frankly and we know that many of them were in fact there at the insurrection, in uniform or not. And when I read this article yesterday my first thought, “Well they should ask Zip-tie guy where he got his plastic handcuffs.” Again this is why communication, training and this thing called leadership and communication come in handy, on both sides. We have a real problem in this country with the idea of compromise. We don’t in any aspect and it shows.

In City After City, Police Mishandled Black Lives Matter Protests

Inquiries into law enforcement’s handling of the George Floyd protests last summer found insufficient training and militarized responses — a widespread failure in policing nationwide.

Protesters clashing with members of the Chicago Police Department in August.Credit…Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune, via Associated Press

By Kim Barker, Mike Baker and Ali Watkins

• March 20, 2021 The New York Times

For many long weeks last summer, protesters in American cities faced off against their own police forces in what proved to be, for major law enforcement agencies across the country, a startling display of violence and disarray.

In Philadelphia, police sprayed tear gas on a crowd of mainly peaceful protesters trapped on an interstate who had nowhere to go and no way to breathe. In Chicago, officers were given arrest kits so old that the plastic handcuffs were decayed or broken. Los Angeles officers were issued highly technical foam-projectile launchers for crowd control, but many of them had only two hours of training; one of the projectiles bloodied the eye of a homeless man in a wheelchair. Nationally, at least eight people were blinded after being hit with police projectiles.

Now, months after the demonstrations that followed the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police in May, the full scope of the country’s policing response is becoming clearer. More than a dozen after-action evaluations have been completed, looking at how police departments responded to the demonstrations — some of them chaotic and violent, most peaceful — that broke out in hundreds of cities between late May and the end of August.

A confrontation between protesters and the police in Brooklyn in May.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

In city after city, the reports are a damning indictment of police forces that were poorly trained, heavily militarized and stunningly unprepared for the possibility that large numbers of people would surge into the streets, moved by the graphic images of Mr. Floyd’s death under a police officer’s knee.

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The mistakes transcended geography, staffing levels and financial resources. From midsize departments like the one in Indianapolis to big-city forces like New York City’s, from top commanders to officers on the beat, police officers nationwide were unprepared to calm the summer’s unrest, and their approaches consistently did the opposite. In many ways, the problems highlighted in the reports are fundamental to modern American policing, a demonstration of the aggressive tactics that had infuriated many of the protesters to begin with.Read the documentRead Document

The New York Times reviewed reports by outside investigators, watchdogs and consultants analyzing the police response to protests in nine major cities, including four of the nation’s largest. The Times also reviewed after-action examinations by police departments in five other major cities. Reports in some cities, such as Oakland and Seattle, are not yet completed. In Minneapolis, the city that sparked a national reckoning over policing, the City Council only agreed last month to hire a risk-management company to analyze the city’s response to the protests, despite months of pressure.

Almost uniformly, the reports said departments need more training in how to handle large protests. They also offered a range of recommendations to improve outcomes in the future: Departments need to better work with community organizers, including enlisting activists to participate in trainings or consulting with civil rights attorneys on protest-management policies. Leaders need to develop more restrictive guidelines and better supervision of crowd control munitions, such as tear gas. Officers need more training to manage their emotions and aggressions as part of de-escalation strategies.

A report from the New York City Department of Investigation noted that most officers had not been adequately trained for policing protests.

An after-action report from the City of Dallas cited poor training in the Dallas Police Department’s response to the protests there.

An examination of the police response to protests in Los Angeles noted a lack of command-level training for such events. 

Those first days of protest after Mr. Floyd’s killing presented an extraordinary law enforcement challenge, experts say, one that few departments were prepared to tackle. Demonstrations were large, constant and unpredictable, often springing up organically in several neighborhoods at once. While the vast majority of protests were peaceful, in cities like New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Portland, buildings were looted and fires were set, and demonstrators hurled firecrackers and Molotov cocktails at law enforcement officers. At least six people were killed; hundreds were injured; thousands were arrested.

The reports are strikingly similar, a point made by the Indianapolis review, which said that officers’ responses “were not dissimilar to what appears to have occurred in cities around the country.” Of the outside reviews, only the police department in Baltimore was credited with handling protests relatively well. The department deployed officers in ordinary uniforms and encouraged them “to calmly engage in discussion” with protesters, the report said.

Reviewers more often found that officers behaved aggressively, wearing riot gear and spraying tear gas or “less-lethal” projectiles in indiscriminate ways, appearing to target peaceful demonstrators and displaying little effort to de-escalate tensions. In places like Indianapolis and Philadelphia, reviewers found, the actions of the officers seemed to make things worse.

A Minneapolis police officer pointing a rubber-bullet gun at protesters in May.Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

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Departments also were criticized for not planning for protests, despite evidence that they would be large. In Los Angeles, “the lack of adequate planning and preparation caused the Department to be reactive, rather than proactive,” inhibiting the officers’ ability to control the violence committed by small groups of people.

As with the protests in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 that culminated in the Capitol riot, police also did not understand how angry people were, in some cases because they lacked resources devoted to intelligence and outreach that would have put them in better touch with their communities.

“American police simply were not prepared for the challenge that they faced in terms of planning, logistics, training and police command-and-control supervision,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit that advises departments on management and tactics.

Police departments in some cities have fought back against the findings, arguing that officers were asked to confront unruly crowds who lit fires, smashed shop windows and sometimes attacked the police. Business owners, downtown residents and elected leaders demanded a strong response against protesters who were often never held accountable, the police have said.

“Heaping blame on police departments while ignoring the criminals who used protests as cover for planned and coordinated violence almost guarantees a repeat of the chaos we saw last summer,” said Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association in New York City.

‘Warrior’ vs. ‘guardian’

On May 29, Indianapolis police showed up with helmets, face shields, reinforced vests and batons. Protesters told investigators this “made the police look militarized and ready for battle.”

At a largely peaceful Chicago protest on May 30, a demonstrator later told the inspector general’s office, the mood shifted when the police arrived. “They were dressed in riot gear,” the protester said. He added: “They had batons in their hands already.”

The Office of Inspector General in Chicago described a disconnect in how the police response was viewed by leadership and rank-and-file officers. 

The reports repeatedly blamed police departments for escalating violence instead of taming it. At times, police looked as if they were on the front lines of a war. They often treated all protesters the same, instead of differentiating between peaceful protesters and violent troublemakers. In part, the reports acknowledged, that was because of the chaos. But it was also because the protests pitted demonstrators against officers, who became defensive and emotional in the face of criticism, some reports said.

In Portland, where protests continued nightly, police officers used force more than 6,000 times during six months, according to lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice, which reviewed officers’ actions as part of a previous settlement agreement. The review found that the force sometimes deviated from policy; one officer justified firing a “less-lethal impact munition” at someone who had engaged in “furtive conversation” and then ran away.

In Denver, officers used similar “less lethal” weapons against people who yelled about officers’ behavior. Officers also improperly fired projectiles that hit or nearly hit heads and faces, according to the report by the city’s independent police monitor. In Raleigh, N.C., a consulting firm that reviewed body cameras and other footage said videos appeared to show officers using pepper spray indiscriminately.

None of these findings were new.

Police officers using pepper spray on protesters near the Colorado State Capitol in Denver in May.Credit…Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

For decades, criminal justice experts have warned that warrior-like police tactics escalate conflict at protests instead of defusing it. Between 1967 and 1976, three federal commissions investigated protests and riots. All found that police wearing so-called “riot gear” or deploying military-style weapons and tear gas led to the same kind of violence police were supposed to prevent.

In 2015, after national protests over the killing by police of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., another presidential task force said police should promote a “guardian” mind-set instead of that of a “warrior,” and avoid visible riot gear and military-style formations at protests.

U. Reneé Hall, who resigned as the chief of the Dallas Police Department in the aftermath of protests, said the recent assessments have provided a learning opportunity for departments nationwide.

Understand the George Floyd Case

• On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police officers arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, after a convenience store clerk claimed he used a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes.
• Mr. Floyd died after Derek Chauvin, one of the police officers, handcuffed him and pinned him to the ground with a knee, an episode that was captured on video.
• Mr. Floyd’s death set off a series of nationwide protests against police brutality.
• Mr. Chauvin was fired from the Minneapolis police force, along with three other officers. He has been charged with both second- and third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He now faces trial. Opening statements are scheduled for March 29.
• Here is what we know up to this point in the case, and how the trial is expected to unfold.

“We did the same things and made a lot of the same mistakes,” Ms. Hall said.

‘To be precise takes practice’

For years, only Los Angeles police who were certified and frequently trained to use a 40-millimeter “less lethal” weapon — usually loaded with hard-foam projectiles — could use it to control crowds.

In 2017, the weapon’s use was expanded to other officers. But the new training lasted only two hours. It consisted of learning how to manipulate the weapon and firing it a few times at a stationary target.Read the documentRead Document

The independent report on the Los Angeles police, commissioned by the City Council, said officers who may have had insufficient training in how to use the weapons fired into dynamic crowds. “To be precise takes practice,” it said.

Multiple reports said these projectiles injured people, including the homeless man in a wheelchair.

Several reports faulted departments for failing to train officers to de-escalate conflict, control crowds and arrest large numbers of people. In Raleigh, N.C., officers said they were supposed to be trained to manage crowds annually, but those trainings were often canceled. Most Portland police officers had not received “any recent skills training in crowd management, de-escalation, procedural justice, crisis prevention, or other critical skills for preventing or minimizing the use of force,” the city’s report found.

In Chicago, investigators could not even determine the last time that officers had been trained in mass arrests, but the most recent possible time was likely before a NATO summit meeting in 2012.

In Chicago, reviewers noted that the police force was not adequately trained to conduct mass arrests.

No one knew who was in charge

The Chicago police response on the night of May 29, when hundreds of people marched through the streets, “was marked by poor coordination, inconsistency, and confusion,” the city’s Office of Inspector General found.

The next day, police intelligence suggested that a few hundred protesters would attend a planned demonstration; 30,000 people showed up. Senior police officials in Chicago, when interviewed after the protests ended, still did not know who was in charge of responding to the demonstrations that day. “The accounts of senior leadership on this point were sharply conflicting and profoundly confused,” the report said.

The police were supposed to have “mass arrest” kits to take large numbers of people into custody, but many kits were from 2012, the report found.Read the documentRead Document

The arrest cards inside the kits were sometimes outdated; the plastic handcuffs in many kits were decayed or broken, a senior police officer later told investigators. Early on May 30, the department’s deputy chief of operations emailed another command staff member requesting 3,000 flex cuffs for the following day.

The email recipient gave no indication that the department “could not supply that number of flex cuffs, simply replying ‘[o]kay, will do,’” the report found, describing this as a signal of “a widespread, multi-faceted system failure from beginning to end.”

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Chicago police also did not have enough computers to process large numbers of arrestees. In Los Angeles, police did not have enough buses to transport arrested people — a problem the department has had for a decade — and did not plan appropriately for field jails.

Senior law enforcement officers in Cleveland developed plans to manage a large protest but did not share the details with patrol supervisors. Dallas officials said the department had trouble figuring out how to get water to officers on the front lines.

The reviews did not examine protesters’ complaints of racial bias in policing. But activists in Indianapolis told reviewers they wanted an acknowledgment by the department that systemic racism exists. The Portland Police Bureau said it was planning anti-racism training for all officers.

All told, the reports suggest the likelihood of problems in the event of future protests. The trial now underway in Minneapolis of the officer facing the most serious charges in Mr. Floyd’s death, Derek Chauvin, is one potential trigger.

“What we’ve been doing needs to be acknowledged as a failure,” said Norm Stamper, a former police chief in Seattle, who said he made some of the same missteps while trying to contain the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, when tear gas unleashed by officers triggered an escalating backlash.

Now, he looks back on that moment as one of his greatest regrets in decades in law enforcement. “We continue to make the same mistakes,” Mr. Stamper said. “We’ll be doing this time and time again in the years ahead, unless we are ready for a hard assessment.”

New Year Fireworks

We often start the new year with fireworks, but due to Covid those were cancelled but hey in a pandemic there is nothing like blowing up shit to bring in the New Year. We got a head start at Christmas with the Nashville Bomber and ruining the song “Downtown” along with it. Well not to mention a city block of small businesses and a Hooters (again not a loss) which will mean years of infighting as the city will sell off the riverfront to millionaire developers and that solves that! I always said that Nashville wanted shit to happen there as they thrived on it.. from a tornado, to a pandemic, to a lone bomber that shit brings it.

Then we have of course the phone call. The hour long phone call where Trump decides to circumvent procedures, law and order and generally threaten a State official in Georgia to find votes. Meanwhile planning to declare Martial Law as a way of over turning the election. In other countries we would call that a Coup, here it is just Trump being Trump. Well, its too late to impeach at this point so let’s Mr. Toad this one to January 20th. That is if we can get there as of Wednesday some of the Confederate members of Congress plan to cede from the Union and declare Trump their President. That worked out so great the last time. I said Joe Biden was not going to live through his first term but this is not quite what I was thinking of. Joe, stay out of the theater for god’s sake!

And then we have a Church shooting. This time the good guy with the gun got shot with his own gun.

Pastor killed, 2 injured in Texas church shooting

The pastor was killed with his own gun after the suspect disarmed him, authorities said

By Meryl Kornfield The Washington Post. Jan. 3, 2021

A pastor was killed, and two people were injured in a shooting at a Texas church on Sunday. The pastor was killed with his own gun after the suspect disarmed him and shot him, authorities said.

Mytrez Deunte Woolen, 21, was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one count of capital murder, Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith said Sunday evening.

The shooting, at Starrville Methodist Church, about 100 miles east of Dallas, occurred just after 9 a.m. when only about four people were in the church, authorities said.

The Rev. Mark Allen McWilliams, 62, of Frankston found Woolen hiding in a bathroom stall and drew his weapon, Smith told reporters. The pastor ordered the man to get on the ground, but when McWilliams began speaking with his wife, Woolen lunged at him, disarming him and shooting him, Smith said.

Two other people sustained injuries that weren’t life-threatening: An unnamed victim was shot, and the pastor’s wife fell during the shooting.

Woolen fled in the pastor’s truck with the church’s red bank bag, Smith said. Law enforcement officers located the car using GPS tracking and detained Woolen, who also had a gunshot wound.

“Our hearts are with the victims and the families of those killed or injured in this terrible tragedy. I am grateful for the law enforcement officers who apprehended the suspect,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in a statement.

Police said they think Woolen was hiding in the church Saturday night after he evaded a chase with police officers and subsequently ran off the road nearby. They suspect the “criminal episode” began in the city of Marshall, where Woolen is a suspect in a drive-by shooting of a home, about 5 p.m. Then, in Lindale, 911 callers told law enforcement officials that a driver brandished a shotgun out of the sunroof of a dark-colored Volkswagen Jetta

Lindale police officers, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and Smith County deputies chased Woolen before he crashed near the church and fled the car for the woods.

Law enforcement officers later recovered the gun but could not find Woolen over the course of a two-hour search involving police dogs and drones, Smith said, and they eventually believed he escaped and left the area.

It was cold, and the church was probably a convenient shelter, Smith said, adding that it was “a crime of opportunity” and unrelated to religion.

No one with the church could immediately be reached to comment.

Smith declined to say whether Woolen has a criminal record but said he was “known to law enforcement” before the incident.

Smith said he believed McWilliams was right to arm himself.

“They did everything we would tell them to do; they were carrying,” Smith said of the church. “But the thing about it is, and I don’t want to get off into it, but if you are going to carry a firearm, you got to be willing to use it. I don’t want to be second-guessing the pastor by any means.

“You got a much younger person, a much more agile person,” he continued, referring to the suspect.

As this was Texas we can sum up all the stereotypes we need to but we are aware that of late many houses of worship of many faiths have been the target of gunmen as that is again the paranoia and rage of those who are so isolated and extreme in their views that by going into what is perceived as a sanctuary for those practicing their faith is the strongest way to get their message across. What that message is is fear and loathing of one’s self and not knowing those in their community unlike themselves. We live in a bubble and the pandemic has made that even more oppressive. However, this situation seems to have been a true accident, a stumbling upon a young man hiding in the Church as a refuge and not for an insidious nature. A Minister should have at that point pulled out a Bible and not a gun but this is shoot first ask questions later. And we are again in a dark time when faces of color are often assumed to have possession of weapons and are again “dangerous” so that presumption of guilt I believe is what has contributed to the disproportionate amount of young black men getting murdered by Cops. Again once in the firing line of Police they make that call and they usually make the one that is always against the target regardless. They are trained to kill first and cover it up after. Cops are not your friend and any PR that states otherwise is just that, PR. Police are warriors and this is how they see us, as enemies.

I feel much of this time reminds me of New Orleans post Katrina, the way the media exaggerated their narrative of violence and desperation. The lack of oversight and of course how the Police assumed “control” over the city to bring order. If you have not hear of the Podcast, Floodlines, I suggest you seek it out. It does an excellent job of reporting from those on the ground, the real citizens and people affected by that disaster. What it also does is report on the reporting, the missing facts, the “fake news” and of course rumor and unverified stories that are used to build said narrative. As well as. the use of the same footage over and over showing chaos, the looting and misbehavior of some of the residents without asking the why. Sound familiar? It should if you recall the civil unrest of a few months ago surrounding the George Floyd murder.

We use a narrative to convey a sense of urgency, purpose and to build an image. We seem to focus on the image of that being the Black male predator. Ah yes the infamous ‘super predator’ of Hilary Clinton’s imagination. The Welfare Queen of Reagan’s addled brain. Rioters and looters can be of all colors and when I see the reports, I do see black faces in the foreground, but look in the background, quite a rainbow of colors. Things that make you go, hmmm. Although admittedly I loved it when a Reporter asked a Black Woman at the Target in Minneapolis at that time, she informed him, that “Hell yes I am taking stuff. Think of it as reparations.” To that I say carry on madame.

But I want to point to this speech by a woman in the streets of NYC who can articulate this in a way I cannot.

We see people when we wish to see them and how we see them is entirely our own choice. But we don’t, we can’t or we won’t. We have our bubble in the form of a magical 3×5 card that entertains, distracts or informs us. We choose our news, we choose our friends and we choose to be ignorant.

There are so many what if’s and if only’s one can hear. Travis Reinking the Waffle House shooter stole a BMW and yet was never arrested the day before he opened fire on innocent people eating waffles. Why did anyone buy a gun for Kyle Rittenhouse to carry with him into a town he did not live, nor have any reason to be there, and take him to supposedly “help” in the middle of civil unrest? Had someone not given him the gun, had someone channeled that desire to something more positive that outcome might be different. Had the kid at the shop not called the Cops on George Floyd’s counterfiet $20, had Trump been a competent leader, had George Bush hired competent people to handle FEMA would these disasters be better, less damaging, or even at all? Hell if I know I can’t say but I can say that as long as we choose to not be involved, to not know we will see more of this. All I know is that White Men seem to do the most damage. Ask the Michigan Woverine Watchmen what their original target was, not Governor Whitmer but in fact to shoot and kill cops. As prior to the lockdown one such member stated, “I’m sick of being robbed and enslaved by the state.” This after receiving a ticket for driving without a license. So in enters a homeless white deadbeat thug and joins the group with the notion of storming the Statehouse. These rag tag unemployed, lowly employed fuckwits spent thousands obtaining a Taser, night vision goggles, guns and planning to buy explosives to carry out this plan. So you wonder how a 63 year old white fuckwit in Nashville built a bomb in his RV? Really? Ask the Cops who passed on the opportunity to find that out when they visited his home a year before. The cops there are really grade A idiots.. the A stands for assholes.

Perhaps that may explain why Police prefer to chase down an kill unarmed black men, they know they will be safe, its the white ones who are dangerous.

Let us not forget that Trump hired many, literally, many idiots to work with him. There was Michael Caputo the spokesperson for the the Dept of Health and Human Services, who has no public health experience what-so-ever, but clearly in need of it, who go on Facebook live, encouraging people to buy ammunition. Then rambled on about how the Scientists in America do not want America to get better. Further disintegrating into madness about Biden, Antifa and violence in the streets that encouraged the Wolverines. And in turn led Mr. Caputo to take medical leave. Is he still on that?

Or another of Trump’s watchmen, Brad Parscale, go all postal with his gun collection waving and threatening his wife, which led him to go all mental and check in to a nice wellness clinic of his own. Had he been black I am sure that is not where that individual would be checking into, if he had lived.

Remember the Batman movie shooter, James Holmes? Or how about Jared Lee Loughner, who shot AZ Rep, Gabrielle Giffords? Or the Cascade Mall Shooting? Dayton Ohio? Gilroy Garlic Festival? Borderline Bar & Grill shooting? Those are mass shootings but there are thousands of acts of violence via guns across the country. It only takes one bullet and one gun to do massive damage. The reality is that good guys with guns DO NOT stop bad guys with guns, again look at Cops, point proven.

This article explains how guns don’t save lives they actually enhance the risk of getting killed by them. But Carry On!

Carrying a gun increases risk of getting shot and killed

By Ewen Callaway New Scientist October 2009

Packing heat may backfire. People who carry guns are far likelier to get shot – and killed – than those who are unarmed, a study of shooting victims in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has found.

It would be impractical – not to say unethical – to randomly assign volunteers to carry a gun or not and see what happens. So Charles Branas‘s team at the University of Pennsylvania analysed 677 shootings over two-and-a-half years to discover whether victims were carrying at the time, and compared them to other Philly residents of similar age, sex and ethnicity. The team also accounted for other potentially confounding differences, such as the socioeconomic status of their neighbourhood.

Despite the US having the highest rate of firearms-related homicide in the industrialised world, the relationship between gun culture and violence is poorly understood. A recent study found that treating violence like an infectious disease led to a dramatic fall in shootings and killings.

Overall, Branas’s study found that people who carried guns were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as likely to get killed compared with unarmed citizens. When the team looked at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher.

While it may be that the type of people who carry firearms are simply more likely to get shot, it may be that guns give a sense of empowerment that causes carriers to overreact in tense situations, or encourages them to visit neighbourhoods they probably shouldn’t, Branas speculates. Supporters of the Second Amendment shouldn’t worry that the right to bear arms is under threat, however. “We don’t have an answer as to whether guns are protective or perilous,” Branas says. “This study is a beginning.”

Daniel Webster, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, Maryland, thinks it is near-sighted to consider only the safety of gun owners and not their communities. “It affects others a heck of a lot more,” he says.

Crashing and Burning

Currently the state of the world now seems as if it is crashing and burning into a wall of Covid. There are few havens of safety and in turn places that seem to have handled this crisis well.  Well, not true as many countries have been successful in stomping Covid transmissions but this walk in the woods is not over yet and the sun is setting and its not getting brighter anytime sooner.

A great deal of success seems to center on Women leaderships and how they approached their response to this in both political and social ways.  Those two issues are essential for a buy in to gain the cooperation and more importantly the collaboration of those in communities to uphold the demands placed upon them.   We can look at each approach and realize that to compare New Zealand to Taiwan is a relative easy one as they are small in size and have a smaller populations to manage.  Then we have Sweden the outlier in the idea they did nothing but ask those to be careful with the idea of herd immunity as the ultimate goal. It did not work as planned, and they faced serious deaths but in the process I have never heard from one single person in Sweden with regards to how they felt about it.  We here in America have never stopped opining on that. Well funny there was a survey on that and it was the cohort more at risk and older who responded favorably to the Government’s plan.   And if you recall when Texas’s Lt. Governor said that old people would be willing to be sacrificed to get the economy going he may have well been right with regards to Swedish people but  I am 60 and no, no I’m not.  But in turn Sweden’s populace has greater respect and trust in Government which few Americans do and given the dopey Grandpa in office that is not surprising.

But in reality that is why he was elected, to drain the swamp and of course he was the greatest swamp dweller of them all in his private life so why would that change in the present.  The Federal Government became a divisive mess of partisan politics with the arrival of the swamp king from Louisiana, Newt Gingrich.  Now given that Newt was from Pennsylvania originally, it seems fitting that he found his tribe in the place where marshes and swamps dwell.  He is the one man who turned Congress into a blood sport and that is being carried on with another Southerner, Mitch McConnell.  Between those two enablers of Trump (for the record Newt in the early days was Trumps back up surrogate) it explains much of the bizarre contradictory behavior.  I have often thought Trump was from the South, given his idiocy, his pretentiousness and his overwhelming raging temper and racist leanings.   Again, I cannot stress enough that racism is not a Southern “thing” but the arrogance, the moral superiority, is built in the DNA and in turn racism is just a part of that but it is not mutually inclusive.  Racism is fear of the outsider and with the current state of America that has now been turned towards the Immigrant.  This is largely directed to those of Latin origins but this includes anyone not white.  And yes this means Africans, Indians, Middle Easterners and anyone not Christian.  The South really loathes those not Christian, so Jews, Russians or Greek Orthodox, Hindus, etc.  are not going to be any more welcome.  However they may be more tolerated as they are again not of a color that that is black or brown.  For the record folks from India, the founders of Caste system are often respected as they are ultra conservative in politics and attitudes.  Funny how that works out. I have said had anyone talked to any Latinx family they too would be surprised, they are conservative and religious but it is Catholic and again I have met many Evangelicals who suspect Catholicism as a faux religion. Again religion and money rule in that region over race.

Right now in Tennessee they are a hot mess, they are in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas and the rest of the alignment that defines the South. It appears that for all show and tell, Tennessee is expecting a rash of financial failures.  For all the lists they loved to claim they were on, the failed to mention the most in debt.   And look at the bankruptcy filings by State and reconcile them as per capita as New York makes sense given the size and scale of businesses/people here, but that top ten list is regarding Commercial lending. What is interesting is that States much smaller in scope and size,   the amount of debt on the personal level and the South is right up there in both. Surprised? No. I have never lived anywhere where I have seen means and ends not meet and denial is the river that runs smack through Nashville its just called the Cumberland.

As for Southern men, they  are a unique breed. I have repeatedly given the women the moniker of cum dumpsters, and that is largely a way they are raised as worth comes from the vagina, to attract the right kind of man an in turn breed.  But again, here is the conundrum,  men are not raised by men, they are usually raised by their Grandmother, the Matriarch in the family.  It is she who instills in them the whole notion of heritage and manliness all while not facing the truth that their own children have dumped them with another generation to raise, so they toughen their children to match their skin, rough, worn and scarred from the abuse, physical and mental, they endured themselves over their years.  It is a cycle that is very much the beauty parlor philosophy – lather, rinse, repeat.

And when you look at the leadership of this area, all white, and all male they are children in search of a  Mother and of course the resentment that in fact that is what they want – Mama.  One’s Grandmother is not the same as a Mother and it instills the Misogyny and distrust of women that dominates the Southern mentality.  Obsessed with sex they fear Homosexuality as that is the ultimate in male power,  the ability to fuck without recourse or that women can be happy without men.  As for Transgender folks that just is too much, it simply confuses them and frightens them more. If you can be a man then how can they be their own man?  Competition is the rule and the honor code is the game.  Almost all violence centers on sex and money. That is the twinset of Southern rules. And it explains that for the last decade the same states have gravitated to the businessman as leader or retaining it in family dynasties, which is another Southern thing.  We have that here right now with Cuomo,  but the cities and states across the country are largely helmed by professional legislators/career politicians or as Trump calls them “swamp dwellers.”  Ask Ohio about Mike DeWine.

Again folks I don’t hate the South, I just get it.  It wants to be someone else, anyone else but it also wants to be loved as it is.   Think of a 10 year old child who just wants you to love them as they are but they are angry, stubborn and selfish and just won’t play nice. That is the South.   Who else does it sound like?   That is the only difference between Trump and some of the other Southern elite, he was raised WASP and spoiled by a Scottish mother and abused by a Teutonic father.  But the end results were the same, childish, abusive, spoiled, stubborn and retaliatory.  Welcome to the South!

As I watch what happens in Tennessee it makes sense as you see it throughout the rest of the region, a businessman elected Governor (a Trumpolyte) , a lack of communication, an agenda, blurred lines about personal and professional obligations, an obsession with the Church (real or imagined), focus on money while eschewing the reality that most of the state and its constituents are laden with debt while professing fiscal responsibility.  The best part is the overwhelming cases in Alabama with a woman Governor whom Trump has not vilified despite her own issues and failures but hey its the South and they want women to fail too!  You can see the constant contradictions that I call the reality of the South, the wishing to be one thing while being that which you hate.  And all the Covid idiocy has been from the Governors of the region, its a dumb off down there clearly.  Ah the conundrum that plagues all of the area and that crosses color lines. I read today about the meltdown of Andrew Gillum of Florida and thought, “Where have I heard and seen this before?”  Oh yes Ray Nagin, the former Mayor of Orleans who was complicit in some of the most horrific racist bullshit during Katrina and well documented in the book with the same name.  Ah the white power brokers never stop marginalizing the black man and that time in that place in history is an utter atrocity that shows how money can do more damage than even a hurricane could.

And while South Carolina and Louisiana have both elected Governors of Indian heritage, Nikki  Haley has tried desperately to remain relevant even after leaving a job in the Administration of which she was vastly under qualified for and Bobby Jindal, is well nowhere to be found after his own idiocy was  revealed, only continues to prove to me that when you are a face of color in the South you are a convenient shield from which to hide behind. For it is the faces behind the door who are controlling it all  and they are anything but of color, and of any gender other than male.

I have seen this repeated throughout history, by putting faces of color in jobs that are high profile, Clarence Thomas comes to mind, and enabling them to do little more than simply protect that job and using boring tropes and myths to somehow justify how they earned their way with the whole bootstraps bullshit.   I have not seen nor heard of Thomas helping young faces of color excel nor move forward in the legal field or mentor anyone of import.  I am aware the Obama’s are doing so but at this time I can  understand why that is not as active as it should be, but Thomas has been in his gig a long time.   And his wife is another Trumpian who has no interest in mentoring anyone nor doing anything but putting forward policy that is to say racist and elitist.  I would also mention Ben Carson, who for a brain surgeon neglects to have a functioning one. Again the caste system is alive and well in America.

And there is no irony that in the most liberal bastions of Seattle and Portland that black vans and unmarked cars, conveniently rented from Enterprise Car Rental are sweeping young and largely white protestors up and dumped later with little information as to where they were taken and held during that time.  Are these the same facilities used by ICE? I suspect so.  And again this is not new behavior but like the Moms who marched, they too have a role in history over Civil Rights. But when white folks do it its as if its a new shiny toy in which to play with.

As for my new home State, New Jersey, well its New Jersey, and we swing in more directions that a Trump golf club, from Christie the fatty swampiest one to the business elite Murphy, we just have no clue and this is a State where  we are even more corrupt and sexist than the South and no one seems to care.  And with that I suspect Murphy is history come next election as many in most States will find themselves at the end of the line.  Irony that it appears New York State is going to be the most liberal political state in America.  Once again proving that I was right to come here when I did and not one day goes by where I thank myself for that decision. God, not so much, as I have never thought he was real other than being a good invisible friend to talk to.  As for Jersey,  we seem to be outliers and I love it here for that very reason, no one gives a flying fuck about anything here.  We may do it first, we may do it worse, we may do it better, but hey it’s New Jersey so fuck it.    But one thing is that none of our streets burned during all of this and those that did were quickly put out.  No black vans, no massive press coverage, just handled without histrionics.

 Just one PATH stop away is Newark, the other Manhattan, and both saw protests and unrest. It was non existent in Newark as their Mayor was front and center, while in Manhattan it was a week of unrest but the protests have been ongoing.  However right now is the summer of violence and  we have a new plan, as the Cops who have decided to give us a preview of what it will be like when the Police are defunded.  Apparently they will not be there when children are gunned down in the streets in broad daylight, or are shot crossin the street, at a  BBQ, or in a playground.  But a murder of a wealthy tech entrepreneur is solved within a week. Well money talks.  And to add more mystery to irony the tech dude was Indian, the alleged killer, a young black male who used to work for him.  Or did he? Again there will be a story as all crimes have history and a past. We live in the past now in the present.

As for us here on the East Coast the reason why there are no black vans here – MONEY. We are the financial center of the world and Trump’s family still have interests here.  The adage goes, follow the money and so I do. That and Fox news is in Manhattan and they can’t be having shit in front of their studio so guess where they target? The West Coast.

And that is why in the South, the riots in Kentucky continue but without interference as that is home to Mitch McConnell.  Where Covid is running rampant there is no Governor screaming on TV daily as ours did to demand accountability and in turn try to do something versus nothing.  And the Governors of Washington and Oregon are of course not as vocal and posturing in their demeanor as Cuomo is and that has a lot to do with also what is happening.   Cuomo is a bully and that is well known among anyone in the area and I suspect that throw down would do nothing for Trump so pick on the easy targets, as Oregon’s Governor is a woman and Inslee of Washington State is well, Inslee.  Seattle’s Mayor a woman and Portland’s Mayor who tried to join protests, Trump gleefully proclaimed he “got his ass beat.”  This is Trump, he is the Southern President right down to racism, elitism, sexism, and of course the bullying tied to the honor code.  And yet perhaps one of the most dignified and beautiful memorials occurred this weekend, with the late John Lewis, making the last trip home.  Again if this was about those whose faces are Black, the issue is not about color but about race and again about poverty.  It is always about money first in the South and when you have fame, success, and recognition then color is not an issue unless it serves to be one.  It is a complicated dynamic.

The critical element here is allowing if not forgiving the South for slowly realizing Confederate flags, Statues and other memorabilia dedicated to the Civil War is less about heritage and more about racism and suppression than recognition of what amounts to loss and ostensibly war crimes but hey one thing at a time!  The New York Times did this piece on a town that centers almost solely on Civil War icons and how does and can it change? The idea that you can erase this history and who these people are is perhaps the worst idea ever.  If that was the case why do we teach about Hitler? Stalin or any other despot or individual capable of hideous acts?  To perhaps not repeat history?  I do think that there should be a Civil War Museum dedicated to the Confederacy, to contain the statutes, the letters and other items that enable a teaching moment to put context and understanding to the complicated issues that surround the Civil War.  In the same vein that Tom Cotton is in histrionics about the 1619 Project, it is just another tool in which to use to offer perspective. Again I recall the People’s History of the United States being controversial at some point, and today I wonder if anyone has ever heard of it or if it is still used?   If all curriculum was left to the ed reformers it will strictly be STEM and that would remove any of the icky sticky shit like English, History and PE that nerds never did wellin anyway. Right Bill Gates?  And that is why subjects like Music and Philosophy and Civics are barely taught if at all as they cannot be tested to a metric that takes away the objective versus the subjective. Yes I can ask you names and dates but the nuance, the actual long term affects and effects of an act or deed that went beyond the moment in time is in fact interpretational.  We can say Columbus was a man who destroyed a peoples but in turn he is a respected individual in history and a man of respect in the Italian community.  Who wants to wrestle with that one? Not me.  Just keep it basic, simple and allow those to take from it a full and realized portrait, warts and all.   You can sill look at a Picasso and see the beauty beyond the artist and yet there is no beauty without the artist.  It’s never going to be easy and that is why we don’t want to teach it or do we? Or more importantly how?  No one will like it regardless and yes someone will be offended and that is how life is. But not today, we cannot have that today. Grow the fuck up, we are not perfect, not ever will be and that is what makes us all better for it.  We crash and burn and we get up and heal. And yes you do heal, you are not the same but maybe that is the point.  Times change and we can be persuaded to do the right thing in the right way.

A Liberal Town Built Around Confederate Generals Rethinks Its Identity

In Lexington, Va., where Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are buried, people are reassessing the town’s ties to a legacy that symbolizes slavery and oppression.

By Reid J. Epstein
The New York Times
July 26, 2020

LEXINGTON, Va. — It’s a short drive in Lexington from a home on Confederate Circle past the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery and over to the Robert E. Lee Hotel, where locals like to stop for a drink.

There may be tourists there looking for directions to the Lee Chapel, or one of the two Stonewall Jackson statues in town. They might see a Washington and Lee University student paddling a canoe down the Maury River, named for the Confederate oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury.

If medical treatment is needed, residents can head to the Stonewall Jackson Hospital. For groceries, there’s a Food Lion at Stonewall Square, which isn’t far from Rebel Ridge Road, just up the way from Stonewall Street and Jackson Avenue.

For 150 years Lexington, a picturesque city nestled in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, has been known to the outside world as the final resting place of Lee, the Confederacy’s commanding general during the Civil War, and Jackson, whom Lee referred to as his “right arm.” They form the basis of a daily existence here that has long been tethered to the iconography of the Civil War and its two most famous Confederate generals, whose legacy has seeped into the town’s culture like the July humidity.

But Lexington is no longer a bastion of conservatism. It is a liberal college town of about 7,000 people that voted 60 percent for Hillary Clinton four years ago, and in 2018 gave 70 percent of its vote to the Democratic Senate candidate, Tim Kaine. Black Lives Matter signs dot the windows of downtown stores, and residents haven’t backed a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan.

These dueling sensibilities place Lexington at particularly delicate intersection of the national debate over Confederate monuments and emblems. As Americans protesting racial injustice have torn down statues and memorials to Confederates, the town finds itself reassessing its identity, divided between the growing imperative to eradicate symbols of slavery and decades of cultural and economic ties to the Confederates who fought to preserve it.

“When you’re surrounded by all of the symbols, it just is a way of life,” said Marilyn Alexander, 67, the lone Black member of the City Council. “It was not until recently that there was a realization for me that there was such an outcry from the community, that felt these symbols and signs needed to come down or be changed.”

City Council meetings in July have been almost entirely devoted to the question of the city-owned cemetery named for Jackson; one session lasted five hours, ending with a unanimous after-midnight vote to remove signs bearing Jackson’s name. A second meeting began with pleas from residents to put the signs back up. The council plans a session on Friday to discuss new names, with a vote possible in September.

“I long for the days of people complaining about potholes and not heritage,” said Lexington’s mayor, Frank Friedman.

Ms. Alexander said it had never occurred to her to propose taking Jackson’s name off the cemetery, believing that it would have no support from white Lexingtonians. “Most of my life I have come to realize that these are things that have just been, this is the way it is and this is the way it’s always going to be,” she said.

For decades, the names of Lexington’s Confederate forebears have mostly gone unchallenged. A 2011 City Council vote to forbid flying the Confederate flag on municipal flagpoles drew a lawsuit, eventually dismissed by a federal appeals court, from the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans; until this spring no one had proposed removing Jackson’s name from the cemetery, where a towering statue of the general rises above his family plot.

At Washington and Lee, students’ degrees still come with portraits of its two namesakes, and at the Virginia Military Institute, where Jackson taught before the war, first-year students are required to re-enact the 1864 Battle of New Market as Confederate soldiers.

Still, attitudes have started to change in recent years. Grace Episcopal Church downtown dropped Robert E. Lee from its name in 2017, and last year the local Boy Scout council changed its name from the Stonewall Jackson Area Council to the Virginia Headwaters Council.

Bigger changes are now afoot in town, which has a Black population of just under 9 percent. Carilion, the Roanoke, Va.-based health care conglomerate that owns the Stonewall Jackson Hospital, said Thursday that it would change the name to Rockbridge Community Hospital. Francesco Benincasa, whose family owns the Robert E. Lee Hotel, said Friday that it would be renamed “The Gin” starting next month.

“It’s a little hard to brand hospitality after generals,” Mr. Benincasa said in an interview.

Adama Kamara grew up in Lexington, attending preschool in a church named for Stonewall Jackson. A 2020 graduate of Emory University, in Atlanta, she had never protested the city’s Confederate memorials, but when the City Council met on July 2 to debate the cemetery’s name she called in via video conference.

“It’s not just the history that’s shameful, it’s the way the people are so committed to preserving it in this town,” she told city officials. “This preservation has caused me deep pain.”

Almost instantly, Ms. Kamara, 22, began receiving supportive text messages and emails from former classmates, teachers and longtime friends in town, people with whom she’d never before discussed the city’s Confederate forefathers. She and other young people, Lexington natives who’d gone away to college but returned during the coronavirus pandemic, began organizing to protest the city’s street names, statues and the local public school curriculum, which they said focused too much on lionizing local Confederate history at the expense of America’s Black experience.

“I don’t think we have ever been given the space to say we as Black people feel very uncomfortable about this,” Ms. Kamara said. “We have been silently thinking these things and silently compartmentalized this, but until we started hearing each other we had no idea that we all felt this way.”

It did not take long for resistance to removing Jackson’s name from the cemetery to grow.

Representative Ben Cline, a Republican who represents Lexington in Congress, wrote on Facebook: “I suppose they’ll rename it something like ‘Lexington Cemetery: Now with Surprise Inside!’ Or if they want to be more accurate, something like ‘Future Democrat Voter Quarry.’” His office did not respond to phone calls, emails or text messages seeking an interview.

Heather Hopkins Barone, a local marketer, wrote to the City Council that she had more than 2,000 names on a petition opposing the change.

“You cannot erase history because a few people are offended,” she wrote in the letter that she also shared on a Facebook page devoted to local affairs. “The affect that it will also have on the tourism industry and the Alumni will destroy this town.”

Tourism is the biggest component of the city’s revenues after property taxes, and the biggest economic drivers are the two universities, which are inextricably linked to Lee and Jackson.

In a house two blocks from a downtown shopping strip that includes the Red Hen — a restaurant briefly famous for refusing to serve then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2018 — Ellen Darlene Bane, 64, flies three flags: The Confederate battle flag, a flag that combines the Confederate emblem with the Virginia state seal and the yellow Gadsden flag that’s become associated with the Tea Party.

Ms. Bane, who lives across the street from a Black church, the Gospel Way Church of God in Christ, said she began flying the flags six years ago and has never received a complaint. She called the movement to remove Lee and Jackson’s names “crap” and predicted escalating racial tensions in Lexington.

“Everybody’s getting racist,” she said. “It’s going to be the Blacks against the whites.”

Lexington’s universities are facing their own reckoning. At Washington and Lee, 79 percent of the faculty voted on July 6 to strip Lee’s name from the school, prompting the board of trustees to announce “a thoughtful and deliberative process” to examine Lee’s legacy.

One of the leading proponents of keeping the Lee name is Lucas E. Morel, an Abraham Lincoln scholar who is chairman of the politics department. He argued that the name honors Lee’s contributions to the school — he led its revival after the war — without making a judgment about his leadership of the Confederate army.

“We can separate Lee’s generalship of the Confederacy and his symbolism as patron saint of the Lost Cause from his laudable contribution to the university,” Professor Morel said. “To remove Lee’s name is to say, ‘Thank you for the gift of saving this college, but we don’t appreciate that contribution to such an extent that we think we should continue to honor you.’’’

At the Virginia Military Institute, until 2015 all students were required to salute the statue of Jackson when passing it. A public university, the school has retained its conservative politics, well after the Supreme Court ordered it to admit women in 1996.

But Virginia’s state politics, which govern the school, have changed. Democrats control the state legislature. Gov. Ralph Northam, a 1981 V.M.I. graduate who is working to take down state-owned Confederate monuments, “has confidence that V.M.I.’s Board of Visitors will do the right thing,” said his spokesman, Grant Neely.

Jennifer Carroll Foy, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates who in 2003 was among the first group of Black women to graduate from V.M.I., said the Jackson statue should be moved to a museum.

“We can’t say in Virginia that we’re open for business but we’re closed to diversity and inclusion,” said Ms. Foy, who is now running for governor. “No child looks at a Confederate monument and feels inspired.”

David Sigler, a City Council member who graduated from Washington and Lee and works as the financial aid director at V.M.I., said renaming the Stonewall Jackson Cemetery ought to be the first move to pivot the town’s identity away from its Confederate past.

“Our small business owners, they have products to sell, meals to prepare, they want their tables filled in their restaurants,” he said. “I will feel bad if they lose one customer because we renamed the cemetery. But I think we might gain two customers for every one we might lose in the long run if we’re not so one-dimensional.”

Fool Me Once

When I read the below editorial piece I had to agree wholeheartedly.  Seattle has some type of nirvana belief that has dominated the landscape of Sound and Mountains all my life.  I lived there most of my life and the only place that does not have any of that is here in Jersey City.  There are racists here, idiots here, foreign born, white folks, brown folks, black folks, more languages than even I recognize and in turn we don’t all get along but we get along enough to prove that over the last few weeks as unrest rose, we chose to be vocal but civil and that is the point.  A five minute train ride and I am in Newark a city plagued with massive problems and a history of going down with flames and yet they too rose which means something when even just a little voice can add to a larger one to drown out the hate.

I did not realize I was in fact a Racist until I went to Nashville and then as I sat there horrified at what I witnessed, experienced and felt it was then I knew it was all to familiar. I do want to say that the focus on Religion there is an additional issue that further contributes to many, as in many of the problems that plague that city in ways Seattle has managed to avoid.  But besides that the two cities could be bookend as Nashville aspires to be Seattle and Seattle aspired to be San Francisco, the two cities never wore their monikers well and still don’t.

Seattle elected the name, The Emerald City, reference to the faux city of Oz or in fact the idea that we were so green due to the rain we were shiny as the jewel itself. Either/or the reality is that again it shows that we like to create a false face like the city of Oz run by a sad little man behind a curtain who had none of the powers and terror that Dorothy and her motley crew believed.  And that defines the people who migrated there over the years as they were in search of the elusive magic and jewels that they believed would give them the persona they identified with.   And today that is not just Billionaire but that is Binary, Cisgendered, Liberal, Gay, whatever you choose. And the idea that it is live and let live is ludicrous as Capitol Hill where CHOP/CHAZ (proving that even picking a name is a very Seattle thing) is located is the most gentrified and expensive area in the city itself and none of those people could afford to live in any of the apartments that align the very streets they are camped out in. And largely I suspect most have been doing so long before the zone was created.  For if there is one thing Seattle shares with San Francisco is an immense homeless problem.   And it is a problem that existed for decades long before the Bezos ship sailed into the Port of Seattle.

Seattle was working class and union organized. There was strong philanthropic roots and even characters that defined the Seattle persona but that too was a false hold as the KBO movement (Keep the Bastards Out) firmly established the us against all the “others” who wanted to live in the city of Emeralds.   The Seattle Freeze became a badge of honor and it marks the character and quality of life in that city that if anyone questions or comments on is immediately further denigrated or ostracized and the joke is that few if any are in fact actual born and raised Seattleites as over 60% of the population is from elsewhere and that any one born and raised there doesn’t give a flying fuck as they have theirs and that is what matters. I have mine is a motto my friends that should be the motto of the United States, as that is the state of our country today. Austin has its keep it weird mantra,  and that has not been true for decades either, as when I lived there it was neither weird nor much different than Portland, their sister city in concept.  A city that is so white and so racist its history speaks for itself.  But in today’s politicized world we believe that being “liberal” means one is not racist.   So wrong.  The only place that lives up to its hype or its truth as we like to say is Massachusetts. Masshole is a name well deserved and again that many long term famous Liberals came from that state is that they are outliers, even Elizabeth Warren is not from there, she just lives there.  Point proven.   Again look to their history over race and the Busing issues in the 70s.  Then the scandal of the Catholic Church the past decade.  Yeah, they are trash bags there in ways that again make me laugh.  A city that revolves around Harvard and where half the people there could never set foot inside their racist legacy walls.

And that brings me to Nashville. I have never once felt it was anything but what it was, a shithole.  And it was after walking into their public schools I knew immediately there was  massive problem. Then a book came out, Making the Unequal Metropolis, and its history about their schools and segregation that confirmed the reality that in the South education is for the rich and the rest can well go fuck themselves.  I heard it openly and it was public the racism, the loathing for the “outsider” and of course the arrogance that accompanies that level of rage and hate.  It was across the board regardless of color and it was the most divisive city I have ever lived in or visited in my entire life.  And then I read, How to be an Anti Racist, and went oh yeah I get it.   The idea is that we all carry conceptions, biases and beliefs that we act upon either directly or subliminally that affect our perceptions and attitudes about the “other.”  And we all do it.  We all hate anyone who is not like us despite the fact that we may share many commonalities we seize upon the most obvious, the most extrinsic and in turn we embrace that as a way of validating our “beliefs.”

I looked at the schools in Seattle and realized how so bad they were it explains why I never went back to full time Teaching. I really hated being a part of it.  I never verbalized it out loud nor cared enough to actually do anything but try to keep my head above water.  You can pick and choose schools so I quit going to the troubled ones, the Rainier Beaches, the Aki Kurose’s and the rest of them that had so many issues, from turnover of Principals and Staff to massive discipline and other issues that plagued the district.  There was a Native American school and it closed, there was an African American school closed, Alternative schools with a independent streak closed.  All of them run by faces of color who were committed or just misguided but wanted to try, but they had no political clout.   Superintendents who were hired and fired, quit and moved on.  Teachers who taught about Social Justice, disciplined or fired. Problems with field trips from sexual abuse to other issues, and on and on and on.   I never worked for a school that had not had a vote of no confidence regarding the Principal, and I never worked or knew of one that was capable. They were deck chairs on the Titantic, and the ones that were good were at high achievement schools, aka, white.

 Two local bloggers exposed many of the problems and they too were harassed and goaded to finally shut shop. True they were very Seattle in that you either agreed with them or did not and if not you were ostracized and shamed, it is the liberal version of sheep,   but they were lauded and placed on magazine covers; however, when one attempted to get elected to the School Board openings it did not happen as that is the last person they want on a board. Curmudgeons are popular in the press there but not in any position of influence and that goes across the boards from the City to the County, they elect and place people regardless of their race or gender or sexual identity who quickly tow the line to prove that they are doing well for the community, when all they are doing is maintaining the status quo. And as they did that they did that with Mayors in the same way and there have been few who ever made it past the state line for importance of note. That is not the Seattle  persona, you never do more than what you said you would and what more importantly given permission to do.  Anyone who does  try to do more are worried in reality about their agenda than that of the those they represent, as you will see in the article below. That is Seattle and that is everywhere. I got mine.

I used to think something was very wrong with me and in turn I became a loner and isolated myself from others to avoid this shit.  I occasionally emerged and then quickly realized that I was not safe and in turn I got mine was the mantra I had to live by.  I had to protect myself at all costs and to finally land in New Jersey with a pandemic on my ass and civil unrest just above it I knew I was finally safe.  Funny how that worked out as I feel safer here dealing with the idiots here than I ever did in Seattle or Nashville. Denial does not to seem to be a problem here it is out there with every other person who is just doing their best to make it work however they choose.  Politicians come and go here, corruption is everywhere and yet look to Camden,  a city that disbanded its Police a decade ago. Funny how that worked out and it is not perfect but its better than it was.  It all happens here but in oblivion, that is New Jersey, an afterthought.  It is a perfect fit for me.  It is the butt of the joke it is the land of the Shore and of the failed Trump casinos, of loudmouths and of the Sopranos and it is all here and very much just a part of a large state that has it all.  Let’s not tell anyone.

Seattle is a shithole like Nashville and that Nashville aspires to be it, I have news for you, you are just not as well educated and more religious but you worship the same thing, being rich and white.

Don’t Be Fooled by Seattle’s Police-Free Zone

The city looks progressive but has a history of racism and exclusion. This could be a turning point.

By Margaret O’Mara
Contributing Opinion Writer
The New York Times
June 24, 2020

SEATTLE — Seattle’s police-free “autonomous zone” is coming to an end.

After two largely peaceful weeks, shootings over the last several days near the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area, CHOP for short, left a 19-year-old man dead and three others wounded. Mayor Jenny Durkan announced on Monday that the city would retake the abandoned police precinct at the heart of the zone and wind down the occupation.

In its brief life, CHOP has reinforced Seattle’s reputation as a quirky left-coast bastion of strong coffee and strong progressive politics. Many white Seattleites like to think of their city that way too. But Seattle’s progressive appearance is deceiving.

It is a city and region with a long history of racism, of violent marginalization, and of pushing back against more radical movements for social change. It is, in short, much like the rest of America.

The global protests of the last few weeks have rightly generated the feeling that the world is at a turning point on redressing racial inequities. This moment has great possibilities, but the history of Seattle and other seemingly progressive places should make us realize that change is not that simple.

A 2008 report found that black people make up less than 10 percent of Seattle’s population but well over half of the drug-related arrests. The police department was placed under federal oversight in 2011 after incidents of excessive use of force on nonwhite residents. The public schools here are more segregated than they were three decades ago. Less than three weeks ago, the police sprayed protesters with tear gas on the same streets now given over to the teach-ins and community gardens of CHOP.

There is, to be sure, a radical streak in the city’s history. In 1919, Seattle shut down for five days as 60,000 unionized workers walked off the job in a general strike. In the 1930s, the Communist Party was so ascendant here that James Farley, a close adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt, said that “there are 47 states in the Union, and the Soviet of Washington.”

Huge anti-globalization marches greeted delegates to the World Trade Organization meeting here in 1999, causing a partial shutdown of the conference and such a ferociously violent police response that the chief was forced to retire.

But these movements often have been squelched by pushback from political leaders, even those who once were allies. Mayor Ole Hanson, who led Seattle during the 1919 general strike, once had been a labor-friendly moderate but quickly turned into an implacable union foe.

“The Soviet government of Russia, duplicated here, was their plan,” he wrote in an essay published on the front page of The New York Times shortly after the strike’s end. Now, he assured anxious readers, “law and order are supreme in our city.”

Paul Schell, who was mayor during the 1999 protests, was less pugnacious in his analysis but remained reluctant to condemn the police. “I wish everybody had behaved themselves,” Mr. Schell later reflected. “And that it would have been more civilized.”

But the story here goes beyond political leadership. It involves deep, systemic racial inequalities baked into the fabric of this overwhelmingly white city.

“For most of its history,” James Gregory, a historian, observes, “Seattle was a segregated city, as committed to white supremacy as any location in America.”

Discriminatory mortgage lending and racially restrictive covenants limited Seattle’s nonwhite population to a single neighborhood, the Central District. Fair housing laws opened up new parts of the city and suburbs to minority homeowners and renters after the 1960s, but Seattle’s overwhelmingly single-family zoning limited the housing available to new buyers.

Such zoning has been remarkably difficult to change. The region’s homeowners may vote Democratic and plant racial solidarity signs in their front yards, but often resist higher densities that can increase the affordable housing supply.

Civil rights issues, particularly measures to combat anti-black racism, can be subsumed by broader social justice agendas. The city’s most prominent voice on the left in recent years is Kshama Sawant, a socialist elected to the City Council in 2013. She has focused much of her ire on Seattle’s high-tech employers and the politicians who support them.

As protests escalated in recent weeks, Ms. Sawant frustrated some allies by renewing her push for an “Amazon tax” on large employers to bolster homelessness initiatives. After the tax became a rallying cry at a recent Sawant-led demonstration at City Hall, one protester asked in exasperation, “I want to tax Amazon too, but can we please for once focus on black lives?”

Similar patterns have shaped politics and opportunity in other seemingly progressive cities. In Minneapolis, the poverty and police violence that killed George Floyd are legacies of a century of racial segregation, enforced by restrictive covenants, zoning and an Interstate highway that sliced through the city’s largest black neighborhood. A comparable mix of public policies and local prejudice have maintained segregation and inequality in Oakland and San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, Los Angeles and New York.

Nevertheless, this looks like a moment when Seattle and other cities like it might move past their histories of racism and exclusion.

Almost every day for weeks, Seattle has seen peaceful marches organized and led by black and minority activists but drawing heavily white crowds. Silent marches organized by Black Lives Matter brought nearly 85,000 people to the region’s streets one recent, rain-drenched Friday. “B.L.M.” and “Silence=Violence” signs have sprouted along the roads in affluent suburbs. Similar scenes are playing out across the country.

This extraordinary swell of activism is happening in Seattle for many of the same reasons it is happening elsewhere: horror at police violence, anger at Covid-19’s inequities, the pent-up energy created by months of lockdown. Another factor is the energy unleashed during the Trump era. From the Women’s Marches to March for Our Lives to Black Lives Matter, progressives have gotten familiar with inking up protest signs and putting on their marching shoes.

What comes next? Will Seattle and other cities embrace the changes necessary to end racist policing? Will citizens change their everyday lives to match the ideals that propelled them out into the streets?

Clearly something remarkable is blooming in this season of pandemic and protest. It is forcing our city to reckon with truths that can and should make white citizens like me uncomfortable, and that remind us just how much Seattle is like the rest of America: impossibly divided, and impossibly full of hope.

Ferguson Legacy

The other day I listened to the Sam Harris podcast (he is a famous Atheist) who had struggled with what to say about the current unrest regarding George Floyd’s death at the hands of cops.  Mr. Floyd is not the first nor the last and the deaths keep coming as it is already half the year and it is clear that law enforcement want to hit their annual count again this year despite it all.   I cannot stress enough if you have not reviewed the Washington Post/Guardian data base on annual deaths at the hands of police then you should. 

What seems to be of issue is the nature of the arrest and what led up to the conflict that ended up with the individuals arrest. Well we know that close to 90% of them are wellness checks when an individual calls law enforcement to aid with a mental health issue, either they or someone they have witnessed is acting strangely or seems suicidal and needs an intervention.  Just the kind of people you need in that are a couple of cops with guns and no mental health training what.so.ever. 

When Vanderbilt called the Police to do a “wellness” check on me after my rant four days earlier, actually on a Thursday and it was now Tuesday I found that bizarre given that if I was going to off myself wouldn’t I and how would they know? They had no warrant and it was in fact four days with no calls to the Police about hearing gun shots from neighbors so again what the flying fuck. When I witnessed this last year in the Vanderbilt main floor reception with a man who was having a meltdown I found that odd that the Police were called to intervene.  He was leaving they tasered and arrested him for threatening to kill himself. All of this in a hospital with witnesses and in fact a staff that undoubtedly had some mental health experience somewhere in the building.  Okay then.

What had me worried when the Cops showed up at my door was that only two days earlier the local Police were called on a wellness check as a woman has parked her car by the Cumberland threatening to drive into the river and when she attempted to do just that the two Cops jumped in to “save her” and in turn one was killed by the current and drowned and irony she lived to be later charged with vehicular manslaughter and maybe even a DUI.  Okay then.

Here is what I think.. what the flying fuck were they thinking not calling for an EMT or Fire Department should anything go wrong as they are trained rescue teams.  (Again we have problems there as well as they are often called on many issues often relating to homeless issues that are not about fires and EMS and they in turn go right to Cops to arrest and prosecute the same)  Again follow the money when it comes to Criminal Justice. 

The numerous stories of individuals who have taken a mental health break only to be killed is significant. There was a period of time where the phrase “suicide by cop” was commonplace in the vernacular.  Funny their own website advocates that it can be handled without lethal force. But again what if proper medical mental health people been on the scene?  Again hindsight is 20 20 and we cannot see clearly here when it comes to lionizing the Police. The Cop who drowned was lauded for days in Nashville to the point I thought did a head of state die?  I will be honest I said the same regarding George Floyd not to diminish his death, a young man died a week before his death, another the same day, Breonna Taylor three weeks before, and since and even before then there have been more. This is America.  You would think that at this point Cops sitting around spraying Protestors and doing nothing to looters might have said, “We need to stop this shit.” But nope. 

As I listened to Mr. Harris he cited a study about gun violence and the reasons Cops are trigger happy, a study that has been brought into question as again even the research and “investigations” into these shootings are plagued with bias and deception as that is the the thin blue line to protect one’s own. Cops who have complained about other Officers and their behavior on duty have been met with resistance and often terminated, just ask this Officer.   So white folks are distressed but then again they are bored, hate Trump and this may be some fallback to the whole Covid lockdown so while I laud their efforts few seem to know history, do their homework and actually know real black and brown people, have never had a serious encounter with Police or the Justice system and yet guess what?  Without them this won’t change.  

Again we will never know what transpired on the streets of Ferguson the day of Michael Brown’s fatal encounter; however, I do know it was over cigarettes. The same with Eric Garner  and with George Floyd it appears that was what he purchased with the “counterfeit” $20 that led the clerk to call the Police.  Wow just wow, death over a criminal misdemeanor.   The same with Mr. Brooks a DUI. All of them were needless if not stupid and could have been handled better and that comes from training and education and building community support and connections.  Fuck that, this is how the money is made bitches! 

Nothing has changed’: Ferguson grapples with legacy in wake of Floyd protests

 The Washington Post)
By Annie Gowen
June 15, 2020

FERGUSON. Mo. — Kayla Reed marched on these streets for weeks after a white police officer fatally shot unarmed black teen Michael Brown Jr. nearly six years ago. When she returned in recent days to protest the death of George Floyd, the black man who died after Minneapolis officers held him down for nearly nine minutes, she had a painful sense of deja vu.

The same helicopters buzzed overhead, the same police officers clutched shields and batons, the same chants of “No justice, no peace” filled the air. When riot officers draped in heavy body armor lined up in front of the town’s police department, Reed knew she had to leave. She couldn’t bear to watch violence erupt again.

“It feels too familiar to me,” said Reed, 30, a well-known activist.

After Brown’s death galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement in this St. Louis suburb in 2014, protesters’ demands for policing reform made the city’s name synonymous with the cause of racial justice. Over the intervening years, Ferguson has seen some change.

Four of the six City Council members are black, compared to just one six years ago. A black police chief now leads a more racially diverse department, whose rank-and-file officers wear body cameras. The city — once accused of harassing its black residents with tickets and fines to fill its coffers — now collects far less in revenue this way than it once did.

And this month, voters made history by electing the city’s first black mayor.

Yet residents say that a deeply ingrained racism still exists in Ferguson, that black neighborhoods are still overpoliced, and that even with the more diverse leadership, remnants of the old guard remain.

They say the city has been slow to implement changes that are part of a U.S. Justice Department consent decree to change discriminatory practices, such as implementing an effective civilian review board and collecting data on police use of force. Much of the economic boost that streamed into the region after Brown’s death flowed toward the whiter, more affluent end of town, a Washington Post analysis in 2018 showed.

Chris Phillips, an activist and filmmaker who once lived in Brown’s apartment complex, said that many Ferguson residents still have anxiety-fueled dealings with local police, and they’ve been airing their grievances at local Floyd protests.

“You still see the same police presence. Nothing has changed as far as that goes. It’s night-and-day different from white, middle-class neighborhoods,” Phillips said. “You’ll see police every quarter to the half-mile patrolling, and people getting stopped. This is basically traumatizing for people, an African American person seeing a cop in their rearview window. That anxiety doesn’t go away.”

Then on June 6, another video surfaced from a neighboring town that showed a white officer ramming an unarmed black suspect with his car, then beating him as he lay in the street. The officer was fired on Wednesday.

Veteran protesters in Ferguson see this latest incident of local police brutality as evidence that systemic racism in the region — one of the most racially segregated in the country — is endemic, and that true change remains elusive.

Nationally, officers have continued to shoot and kill nearly 1,000 people a year since 2014, a Washington Post database shows, and are on track to do so again even during the pandemic. They’ve been filmed using excessive force at rallies across America — and across the street from the White House.

“I think in some ways it’s really inspiring to see so many people out, and black folks understand this moment will have the same legacy of the Ferguson uprising,” Reed said. “But there is a piece of it that’s difficult to process — so much time has passed since Mike Brown was killed and so little has been done.”

The tear gas from the Floyd protests had barely cleared the air and business owners were still boarding up broken windows when the city went to the polls on June 2 and elected Ella Jones the first black mayor of this former sundown town of 21,000 residents.

Jones, 65, a former Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman and pastor, said she was inspired to enter politics after Brown’s death, winning a seat on the council in 2015. She earlier ran for mayor in 2017, trying to unseat the controversial former town leader who had defended Ferguson police after Brown’s death — and lost.

But she has never been part of the city’s protest movement, and as a consequence, some have viewed her with suspicion.

“We’re going to wait and see what she does,” Phillips said. “If you were to categorize how protesters feel about Ella, it’s almost keeping both eyes open and not put this blinded trust in her.”

Jones said that after Brown’s death, she believed the best thing she could do was knock on the door of City Hall. As a City Council member, she held events to showcase vacant homes to new buyers and helped clean up businesses damaged in the last round of riots.

“Once you protest, what’s the next step?” she said. “So, I ran for council, and that was my way of saying Ferguson needs to change.”

Jones’s primary goal is to complete the mandates of the 2016 consent agreement, including improved training, increased civilian oversight and expanded diversity. The city has contracted a firm to collect data on use of force complaints and other actions, she said.

The consent decree was put in place after the protests, when the Justice Department found that the police department had routinely violated the rights of black citizens in traffic stops, unlawfully ticketed them, made arrests without probable case and used excessive force.

Income from tickets and fines has dropped from nearly $2 million the year Brown was killed to $344,711 last year, state data shows.

But some activists remain worried that Jones may not be strong or progressive enough to heal the still-fractured city.

Katurah Topps, a policy counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a St. Louis native, argued in a recent editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Ferguson’s leadership has resisted progress, and that the “very power structures that preyed on their most vulnerable residents remain intact today.”

For example, Jeffrey Blume, the finance director who was in charge when Ferguson wrongly ticketed and fined black residents millions of dollars, is now the interim city manager. Jones had opposed his appointment. Phillips called Jones’s opposition to Blume’s appointment a rare instance in which she went against the status quo.

“She had opportunities to be more progressive in her approach and to vote on issues that were in the better interest in the city, and she did not take all of those opportunities,” Phillips said.

On June 6, a grainy home security video posted on a local news website showed a white officer from a neighboring town allegedly ramming an unarmed suspect with his car, then beating him. The officers had responded to a report of gunshots, authorities said, but neither the suspect nor his companions had a weapon.

Ferguson veterans found themselves mobilizing again, finding the latest incident to be proof that, as Reed put it, “police reform is just as fragmented as the political landscape.” Nearby police departments in the St. Louis area have shown little interest in implementing reforms that the Justice Department ordered in Ferguson, she said.

Veteran protester Cheyenne Green was 21 years old in 2014 when she joined the crowd that gathered around Brown’s body as it lay in the street for more than four hours.

She says she didn’t even know what an activist was back then. Now she’s a 27-year-old veteran protester and political consultant.

Green joined about 200 other protesters Wednesday in front of the Florissant Police Department headquarters as they wielded bullhorns and led the crowd in now-familiar chants. At one point, leaders asked the crowd to raise a middle finger to the officers standing nearby.

Green sees part of her role now to educate the new ones coming out — white, black, Latino — about the cause.

They’d received good news that day, she said. The officer, Detective Joshua Smith, had been fired. Police Chief Tim Fagan had told reporters earlier in the day he had been moved by the protesters demonstrating outside the station.

“I hear those cries. We are listening to the voices of the people,” Fagan said, noting that the video showed Smith had probably committed “numerous policy violations” during the stop when the suspect was mowed down.

Green grabbed a bullhorn.

“This isn’t no kumbaya,” she said. “We understand the officer was fired, but was he arrested or convicted?”

“No!” the crowd hollered back.

“Is that right to you guys?” she asked.

“No!”

Green had some words for the younger people in their group, many of whom were in middle school when Michael Brown was shot and had been to their first protests in recent days.

“As we’re occupying, we’re going to have conversation, something you can take back home to your families,” she told the younger protesters. “This is only the beginning.”

Cleaning House

Well the house cleaning continues from tearing down statues that two years ago led to a girls death on the streets to firing reality TV stars one wonders if this is the turning point for real and more importantly lasting change?

Well let’s review all the bullshit of the past 50 years when most of this began in earnest and ended where we are today.  And on that note no.

I have read the book, seen the movie and bought the T-shirt and this time while I commend and appreciate all of it, I am staying Switzerland for no other reason than keeping my health and sanity during what has already been a trying past seven years.  And as I embrace the seven year cycle of life I have every intent on making my next seven years, in what I suspect is the last act in the play of life, to work for me in a way that finally gives me the things I need and want.

Life is like that, reconciling wants and needs.  You compromise with yourself, you compromise with others in both life and business.  It is a series of tradeoffs with ultimately the goal being happiness, satisfaction and overall personal gain.  That can come through one’s professional goals and ambitions, to one’s personal desires in both material and physical terms.  What that means morons as most of you have no fucking clue is that we all want shit, we want to be the hottest, the smartest, the richest, to have the most toys, to fuck the hottest person, live in the coolest house and be well the bestest in everything and anything.   Few summed it up more than the morons on Vanderpump Rules who seem to perpetuate the stereotype to the nth degree. How they found that washed up crew is still the most amazing casting secrets of legend as few reality shows can top that group of idiots.

When one of them writes a garbage book and it makes the bestseller list of the New York Times that again only proves the fact that Americans don’t read and may I remind you many of Trump’s books did as well and look where we are.  We are all stars when social media enables the idiots access to share their random thought. **Note singular as few have more than one

I know not a single person who reads the news, reads books, magazines or even watches the national news or listens to NPR.  Few seem to know facts and repeat many bizarre stories and tales either told to them by friends or read on the Facebook News of the World. Ah the Tabloid that brought scandal to the impenetrable Murdoch clan.  I remember that when it too was global news.  What I always loved the Weekly World News where Bat Baby/ Martian that predicted the Presidency, clearly he called that as this is now alien land.  Explains Covid now doesn’t it?

As Protests rage on, in Seattle they actually did accomplish something by establishing an autonomous zone and closing a Police Precinct.  At one point they had posted a printed up list demands which would end their long lasting sit in and then a different more lengthy list showed up online with naturally 6 times more demands.  This is Seattle, herding cats.

As per the New York Times:

The demonstrators have also been trying to figure it out, with various factions voicing different priorities. A list of three demands was posted prominently on a wall: One, defund the police department; two, fund community health; and three, drop all criminal charges against protesters. But on a nearby fence, there was a list of five demands. Online was a list of 30.

I saw this pan out in Occupy Wall Street and the debacle that led to the collapse of the Women’s March with digging up more old news and not allowing people to move forward from what was the past and this too happened with the Gun Violence Movement so powerful post the Florida shooting, but then children grow up and on with life and of course can we ever forget the Tea Party. Lord that was a sad group but they made a lasting mark.  In the interim we have had massive Climate Change protests and there are clear leaders and organizers but the waning interest of the public ebbs and flows like the floods, tornados and other climate related disasters so it is onto the next. Is this too another?

This is much like a relay race where you pass the baton to the next and they have to jump hurdles, run faster to the next and finally to the finish.  So much in these two weeks have happened and yet I think the race is still ongoing, the Olympics may be cancelled but this is by far more important.  I wish them all luck as I have no dog in this one.

After 15 stunning days of anti-racist protests … what happens next?

Can the phenomenal response to the police killing of George Floyd be channeled to secure lasting political change?

by Ed Pilkington
The Guardian
Wed 10 Jun 2020

The New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb captured best the sense of wonder at what is happening on the streets of America. He posted a tweet from Mitt Romney, the Republican senator from Utah, which showed the former presidential candidate marching alongside demonstrators under the banner Black Lives Matter.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Cobb remarked. “This is what you call uncharted territory.”

Fifteen days and nights into this nationwide conflagration, the protests following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis are truly navigating the unknown.

Enormous crowds, overwhelmingly peaceful and highly diverse, have erupted in cities across the country; a movement against police brutality has been met with police brutality; the US president has responded with one of the most memorable – and violent – photo ops of the modern era.

“The popular reaction to the gruesome Floyd murder has been astonishing in its national scope, fervent commitment and interracial solidarity,” observed the philosopher and social critic Noam Chomsky. “The malignancy that infects the White House has been exposed in all its ugliness.”

But as the demonstrations tear through their third week, with no apparent loss of momentum, the little voice that inevitably arises with all such public outbursts begins to be heard. As it grows louder, the question it poses intensifies: what happens next?

Where does all the energy unleashed by the protests go? What happens to “Defund the police” when the chanting fades? When the day comes – as presumably, eventually, it must – what will be left on the empty streets to show for it?

“Marches are a tactic,” Chomsky told the Guardian. “Not much has emerged about strategy, or even specific articulated goals, beyond major reform of police practices and responsibilities.”

A potential cautionary tale for the present-day protests is offered by Occupy Wall Street. Like the current maelstrom, those protests burst on to the public stage in September 2011 quite unexpectedly, with a thousand or so people cramming themselves into New York City’s Zuccotti Park under the rubric: “We are the 99%.”

Also in an echo of today, the Occupy protesters were met with violent police shutdowns leading to hundreds of arrests. The park was finally brutally cleared two months later.

Nobody could doubt the success of Occupy in changing the nature of the national political and social debate. It put concepts of income inequality, of the “1%”, firmly and permanently on the map.

But once the protest had been broken up, its resolutely anti-hierarchical nature, combined with the distrust of many of its activists towards institutions and infrastructure, meant that it had nowhere else to go. It dissipated into the downtown Manhattan air.

“Occupy was also a tactic, not a strategy, and one that could not continue,” Chomsky said. “It had an impact: focusing on extreme inequality that is poisoning the society under the neoliberal regime. But from that point on other forms of activism have to take over, and to some extent have.”

Nelini Stamp, the director of strategy for the Working Families party, is well-placed to comment on the “what next?” conundrum, having been deeply involved in Occupy and now being immersed as an organizer of the George Floyd protests in New York. Though she agrees that Occupy didn’t directly change America – income inequality in the US has increased steadily every year since 2011 – it did spawn a number of powerful campaigns to long-term effect.

She points to the fight for a higher minimum wage and union representation for fast-food workers. She also credits Occupy with giving Vermont’s democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders the opening through which he burst on to the stage as a presidential candidate – twice.

“We created the space so that Bernie could do his run in 2016 and 2020, and for Elizabeth Warren running for president with her economic populist message.”

Stamp disagrees with Chomsky that the current wave of protests has failed to articulate a specific way forward. “I think the demands have been fairly clear: defunding police, reimagining public safety, and we are slowly winning.”

Certainly, today’s protesters can point to the first blossoming of change on a local level. The city council in Minneapolis, where the 46-year-old African American was killed by police on 25 May, has vowed to disband the police department and start over.

New York City lawmakers have moved to ban the use of chokeholds of the sort that killed Eric Garner. The Portland police chief is resigning amid calls for “bold reform”, and on a national level, Democrats who control the House of Representatives have unveiled the most ambitious plan for law enforcement reform in years.

In perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing signal of change, a street within spitting distance of Donald Trump in the White House has been renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza”.

In the grand scheme of things, these individual victories may amount to no more than pointillist dots on the vast canvas of America’s woes. But to the protesters they are vital oxygen.

“To maintain activism on the streets you need little successes,” said Dana R Fisher, a professor of sociology specializing in protest movements at the University of Maryland. “Think about the civil rights movement – it was a long, arduous, painful process to get the black vote, but it was sustained by these little successes along the way.”

Fisher believes that the huge sweep of protests in more than 750 cities and towns all across America holds out a golden opportunity for dramatic change to be achieved through the ballot box in November. Her recent book, American Resistance, tracked the impact of the 2017 Women’s March held the day after Trump’s inauguration.

Studying the data, she found that much of the energy released on that day – the largest day of protest in American history – was channeled back into local communities and their congressional races. The result was that Democrats took back the House in 2018 in the so-called “Blue Wave”.

She sees a repeat of that potential today. “We are seeing amazing opportunities for people to channel what’s going on in the streets into political activism, especially with such a crucial election looming.”

The question remains, though, is there a need for some structured vehicle that could absorb the positive radiation of the current protests without which the movement risks fragmenting and dissipating just like Occupy? Fisher thinks there is.

“I’m sure it will be unpopular to say this, but I think there is a need for some professionalized organizational ecosystem to support this movement. There is a void forming, and we need to fill it.”

Noam Chomsky also sees a need for greater strategic direction. He wonders whether popular movements will emerge “that seek to deal with the brutal legacy of 400 years of vicious racism, that extends far beyond police violence”.

Nelini Stamp is resolutely optimistic. She reminds us that Black Lives Matter was founded in 2013, took off the following year during the Ferguson, Missouri, protests over the police killing of Michael Brown, and has been beavering away at effecting change ever since.

“There has been a movement for black lives over the past six years that has never stopped. We have more infrastructure now for people to land and go places than we did then – we’ve built more muscle.”

Is she not anxious that the euphoria of the current protests could fade over time into disappointment?

“I mean, I’m always anxious about that,” she said. “But I’ve never seen a multiracial uprising in my life like we’re seeing right now, and for all the anxiety I have every morning about what happens next, that gives me hope.”

Change Ain’t Easy

If you have not watched John Oliver he has not once but twice done shows on the subject that has plagued our country for decades with regards to Police misconduct. (They are below)  What is also being ignored but a part of the problem is the trifecta of our Criminal Justice system – Prosecutorial Misconduct and Judicial bias.

The reality is that the entire system of criminal justice is a piece of shit and is utterly untenable as it stands today.  Again I can use only my personal experience to remind people of what I first hand saw, experienced and it reduced me to be broken beyond my wildest imagination.  I had to hide money, I had to move across country, I had to change my name. My own Attorney’s ripped me off blind, they did little to advocate for me from getting a subpoena to access cell phone records, to wanting me to take a lie detector (useless and inadmissible and I was to pay for it), to failing to bring up the Supreme Court ruling on blood draws without a warrant, which the Judge, who was Black but utterly incompetent regardless, conducted his courtroom with endless sidebars and seeming confusion as to the law on the issue, deteriminng that the ruling was irrelevant in my case.  Then there was the Prosecutor who inferred I was a whore and made it all up as I was ashamed for being a whore, drank myself into a stupor then crashed my car to kill myself. This woman called in sick numerous times, took a vacation during the endless motions filed  used to be a sex crime Prosecutor. Not MeToo, I guess.   I used to love her long black pointed fingernails, stiletto heels and other slut wear, takes one to know one right, Jennifer Miller?   I love that she now defends the same people she used to Prosecute. That is another massive issue the turn and burn and revolving door, they are all hypocrites.

 The we have laws written by Legislators who are lobbied and in turn paid to write them and while they are overkill and utterly destructive it makes it impossible for Juries to actually make any deliberations other than to determine guilt.

Washington State now requires anyone arrested (not convicted — arrested) for drunken driving to install an “ignition interlock” device, which forces the driver to blow into a breath test tube before starting the car, and at regular intervals while driving. A second law mandates that juries hear all drunken driving cases. It then instructs juries to consider the evidence “in a light most favorable to the prosecution,” absurd evidentiary standard at odds with everything the American criminal justice system is supposed to stand for.

 Then Jury composition which many who elect that option find out that Voir Dire means rule out the faces of minorities and anyone who is your peer.    The folks I saw as this went on for over three years were a panoply of people, largely white as Seattle is largely a white city; however there were faces of color, largely represented by overworked Public Defenders and that was the primary difference. They were unlikely to get bail, they pleaded as did actually most everyone down to a reduced charge, for if you go to trial they up the charges and in my case they did as well.  And that is the same with both civil and criminal courts, Seattle is no exception. Even this is a Google review on the Seattle courts.

Here’s a real thing that happened: I had a case against the city, and when challenged, the city prosecutor very blatantly lied about the law in order to win. The judge didn’t read any of the documents I brought in backing up my position. Needless to say, they ruled against me. I filed a damage claim to be reimbursed for my trouble, and those guys lied too, claiming they couldn’t find any evidence of my allegations. I sent them the evidence directly and they simply ignored it, leaving me on the hook for several hundred dollars worth of fraudulent charges. I couldn’t get anyone to do anything about it. 

I get that there are a lot of hard-working honest people in here, and many of them really are doing their best. But the system as a whole is fundamentally broken, and nobody cares. They have no problem lying in court just to squeeze you for a few extra bucks. I contacted an attorney about this and was told it was more or less normal and my chances of winning an appeal were next to nothing. These people are criminals in a very literal sense and it is embarrassing that this is the best our city is willing to do.

 So  after a trial that was cut short by the incompetent Judge who seemed to think that this was all a waste of time, I was convicted of a more significant charge and higher punishments and fines to further denigrate and degrade.  My costs were over 13K for charges and fees, thankfully that was on thing my Lawyer did do was to get those waived.  Again without a Lawyer you would pay and he had already taken most of mine and perhaps knew was a fuckwit he was to do that much, as his courtroom performance was passed onto a drunk, suicidal lunatic.  However, there are other incendiary charges, such as  the Interlock (I had no car so that was not an issue), a class for $150, which consisted of all white people, young old, women and men and all just incredulous about it all. Then add the home monitoring device versus ($50)  spending any time in jail. And give the fates they fucked up on that and rather than 30 days it was 3.  Whoops! At least one thing worked out, most often it does not. And you wonder why I ran, ran so far away.  I could not risk being a target in the future and for the record they do as it is more money.   And yes I knew those people who hurt me were still out there and they may come back to finish the job.. from Shar who drugged and shoved booze down my throat to whomever Harborview passed me onto when they released me. Again I have no idea as I was head injured and had bad amnesia so whomever they allowed to take me out of the hospital had their own agenda as well,  it was fortunate that I came out when I did, in one of the three Doctor’s office this same persons took me too, and NOT one single one took the woman’s name, checked to see if she had legal rights to attend to me or my care. Again another systemic fuck up.  So between the medical and justice systems I was fucked beyond belief.  And no I will not take a lie detector to prove I am telling the truth nor will I get in a “my story is worse than yours” contest as I win. 

But that was not the first time at the goat rodeo, as in Berkley, California in the late 90s, I was walking my dog to the store when  Black homeless man accused me of having my dog attack him. While I was in the store, the Police had my dog who was waiting outside and I came out to find them and her where I was “arrested;” theyy were going to call animal control but I asked as I literally lived down the street we could take my dog, drop her, call my husband and then a take me to the station to process the complaint.  The story as I was told was a Black man, apparently homeless, said as I walked had my dog attack him randomly.  There were no witnesses despite it a busy street and he had some type of visible wound and was going to a hospital to have the wounds repaired.  I never saw such man, or had I, must of ignored him and he followed me, in turn saw the dog and used that as opportunity for some type of misguided revenge.  The Cops could not tell me more as they were investigating the complaint.  They drove me home and there they issued me a citation and did not take me to the station and frankly I realize it was clear that I had done nothing, even the Checkers in the store were horrified as two came out to see what was wrong,  but the Police had to follow though. And again this is about proving a point, being right and being in Berkeley showing that all lives matter, What.the.fuck.ever.  Again perhaps it was because I was white, a woman, and really afraid and my dog adorable we were released without having to be processed in the station; However,  I still had to hire an Attorney, go to court, and of course the man did not show up, (nor do I think the Cops did either)  and  the charge was dropped.  That cost at the time a few hundred dollars but the fear was not lost.  My marriage failed shortly after that as I seemed to have nothing but luck when it came to Police or anything to do with men.

When I moved to Oakland, walking home on a Sunday evening the Police stopped me a block from my home and asked for my ID. I asked why as I was just coming home from work at Macy’s and was racing to get home to walk my dog and get ready to watch of all things, The Wire.  They said they were just checking the area and making sure it was “safe.” Really? Okay then.  I did not produce my ID and I went home, walked my dog and was not relieved in the least.  A few weeks later they and the SWAT team broke into a home nearby and shot a man in the head and his girlfriend and dog escaped through a window.

When I moved to California I got the first inking of this.  Driving across the country alone with my dog again in Arizona led to posturing and threats to kill her and take my car as it was odd that the registration was expired, my tabs, my address on my license was Texas and I was moving to California. All of that said, “Hey she is up to something.”  They threatened to take my car under the civil seizure laws that are still in place across this country and all over a speeding violation.  This went on with the woman cop until the male cop stepped in, issued me a citation with not just speeding, but other charges that would require me to  go to court (I cannot recall specifically what those were).  I was moving to Berkeley and when I got there I paid the citation for speeding and said I had not committed any other infraction and that I would not be able to come to Arizona for said charges. Funny I never heard a word again so maybe there is justice or just at that time who gives a fuck.  I am not sure but I can assure you that I have never set foot in Arizona again to test that. But it could have gone a completely different direction and that has happened to many who travel America’s highways. 

This is Policing in America. Busting down doors in the pre dawn hours, a no knock warrant, the shooting residents who are sleeping or confused, this was Breoanna Taylor who did nothing but the Police had the wrong address. Not the first time nor the last. They shoot dogs, take cars, cash and other personal items when they “think” they were earned from criminal activity under the blanket law of Civil Asset Forfeiture, which in turn it takes money, time and massive effort to have them returned, even when no crime was committed.  

Then lastly the three times in Nashville, one time in my home as some sort of “wellness check” after my outburst in the Dentist office over billing, which after time I realized with Vanderbilt that is the norm not the exception.  Then the two times at the Public Schools with the last one with me hitting the ground throwing my purse and crawling to get my Id sitting there to prove I was an employee.  The Nashville Police had just killed a black man running right in front of a school,  so perhaps I was overreacting,  but frankly who the fuck knows in that right wing cesspool.  I carry a lot of scars over Seattle and to this day watching all this hysteria over Policing I want to say, yes I know and guess what they do it to anyone just they do it more to those faces of color just because its easier.  I am not getting into a contest with anyone over who had it worse, I have simply been lucky, managed to have resources and be resourceful to circumvent worse.

That is why, they are not racist as much as they are highly charged to bring harm. And Prosecutors enable it via misconduct, Judges ignore it,  experts without any actual credibility and skill set testify with utter impunity as well, laws are written in such a way to absolve in the same way they are to punitive punish (think that there is the concept innocent until proven guilty, think again) , then you have the victims rights advocates (think MADD) who stand aside the elected Politicians who are in deference to them for financial support, as well as the Police Union and Lobbying system that holds them accountable over their members. So if you think taking to the street will change that you are wrong, this is a long game. Good luck.

Protesters hope this is a moment of reckoning for American policing. Experts say not so fast.

The Washington Post
Kimberly Kindy and
Michael Brice-Saddler
June 7, 2020

Glimmers of hope have emerged for Americans demanding action on police violence and systemic racism in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, the black man who gasped for air beneath the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer last month.

All four officers involved have been fired and charged in his death, a far more rapid show of accountability than has followed similar killings of unarmed black people. Massive, diverse crowds have filled streets nationwide, sometimes with politicians and law enforcement officials marching and kneeling alongside. Legislation banning chokeholds and other forms of force have been passed by local governments. And on Monday, congressional Democrats plan to roll out a sweeping package of police reforms on Capitol Hill.

But there are signs that Floyd’s killing might not be the watershed moment that civil rights advocates are hoping for, some experts say.

The extraordinary facts of the May 25 incident — the gradual loss of consciousness of a handcuffed man who cried out for his deceased mother with his final breaths — distinguishes it from the more common and more ambiguous fatal police encounters that lead to debate over whether use of force was justified. And the politics of police reform that have squashed previous efforts still loom: powerful unions, legal immunity for police and intractable implicit biases.

“We have 400 years of history of policing that tell me things tend not to change,” said Lorenzo Boyd, director of the Center for Advanced Policing at the University of New Haven. “It’s a breaking point right now, just like Trayvon Martin was a breaking point, just like Michael Brown was a breaking point. But the question is: Where do we go from here?”

It’s a familiar question for Gwen Carr, who watched her son take his final breaths on video as a New York police officer held him in a chokehold and he pleaded, “I can’t breathe.

Thousands of Americans filled the streets for Eric Garner in 2014 — mostly black men and women — with bull horns and protest signs in dozens of cities.

But their pleas for comprehensive police reforms took hold in only a smattering of the country’s more than 18,000 police departments. Dozens of agencies adopted training on de-escalating tense encounters. Sixteen states passed stricter requirements for use of deadly force.

Not a single piece of federal legislation passed on Capitol Hill.

So when Carr reached out last week to the family of 46-year-old Floyd, who uttered the same words as her son while officers held him down, she offered encouragement — and a warning.

“I told them, ‘Don’t think it’s going to be a slam dunk,’ ” Carr said. “They had video of my son, too; the world also saw him murdered. It should have been a slam dunk then — it’s been anything but.”

Changing perspectives

There are some signs that this time is different. For one thing, public perception of police bias has started to shift. Last week, a poll by Monmouth University found that 57 percent of Americans now say police in difficult situations are more likely to use excessive force against black people. That’s a substantial jump from the 34 percent of registered voters who said the same when asked a similar question after the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge in 2016.

Civil rights leaders and allied lawmakers point to substantial differences in protest crowds this time around: Their historic size, even during a pandemic. The faces, now as likely to be white and brown as they are to be black. After Garner’s death, there were about 50 demonstrations, compared with more than 450 so far this time around, based on media coverage and police records.

“I don’t think they used to think there was an attack on black lives. Not until it was recorded and people were seeing it, I don’t think they believed it,” said Lezley Mc­Spadden, mother of Michael Brown, who was killed by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer in 2014. “What is happening now is not new to those of us who live in these oppressed areas and communities that are devalued. But it’s new for people who don’t live in those areas. It’s changing people’s perspective.”

Even some Republican lawmakers have broken from strict law-and-order stances to express support for protesters. Last week, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said, “I think people are understanding that those protests make sense.” And Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a staunch Trump ally, allowed that “there’s a problem here, and we have to get to the bottom of it.”

The growing assortment of voices represents an important shift, said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). He is among the sponsors of the Justice in Policing Act, expected to roll out Monday. The massive package targets racial profiling, bans chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and makes it easier to prosecute and sue for police misconduct.

“No change in America that is worth it has been easy. But the demands are now coming from increasingly diverse coalitions,” Booker said. “I feel we are in a moment now.”

‘The deeper problem’

Reform advocates have won other victories. Last week, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously passed a ban on chokeholds and neck restraints. And the council in New York is poised to pass a law this month that would make using a chokehold in an arrest a misdemeanor.

Without systemic change, however, some experts say these piecemeal policies would do little to curb the use of excessive force and racial inequities in policing. And the effectiveness of policy changes is blunted by police union contracts that protect officers from discipline and firing for wayward behavior.

“There are so many terms and conditions in the collective bargaining agreements that insulate police from accountability and transparency,” said Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “Can we know who the bad police are? Are there public records? A lot of times, that is squelched in collective bargaining.”

Even changes to training can have little effect. A growing number of police departments are providing cadets with de-escalation and anti-bias training, but once they are assigned to a field training officer — a veteran on the force — the training can fall by the wayside, according to police training experts.

One of the rookie officers who helped hold Floyd down questioned whether they should roll the gasping man over, but then-officer Derek Chauvin dismissed the suggestion and insisted on “staying put” with his knee on Floyd’s neck, according to court records.

“Seasoned officers will push away from what they learned in the academy and go to what works for them in the street,” Boyd said. “And officers will often say, ‘We have to police people differently because force is all they understand.’”

Those views appear to disproportionately impact black communities, at least in the most extreme cases. A Washington Post database that tracks fatal police shootings found that about 1,000 people have been killed by police gunfire every year since 2015. So far this year, 463 people have been fatally shot. While the vast majority are white men armed with weapons, black men are killed at a rate that far outstrips their numbers in the overall population.

Other forms of police violence, from chokeholds to beatings in custody, also tend to fall heavily on African Americans, Armour said.

“When you give police discretion to enforce any law, it seems to get disproportionately enforced against black folk. Whether it’s curfew, social distancing,” said Armour, noting that Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill.

“Would you have put your knee on a white guy’s neck like that? Would you have a little more recognition of humanity, and when he’s screaming out, ‘I can’t breathe,’ would that have raised more concern?” he said. “That’s the deeper problem.”

The vast majority of such cases are not caught on video and therefore often go unnoticed, Boyd said. For example, Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency room technician who was shot at least eight times inside her home by Louisville police in March, is often left out of the discussion of systemic injustice — in part because no one was there to record Taylor getting shot by officers serving a drug warrant, said Andra Gillespie, director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory University. All three remain on administrative leave, but no charges have been filed, according to the Courier Journal.

“Video is certainly aiding in getting justice for these individual people,” Gillespie said. “Breonna Taylor hasn’t gotten comparable attention because there is no video. That’s also because she’s a woman, and we forget the black women are subject to disproportional police violence as well.”

Even killings captured on video rarely lead to prosecution of police officers. Sterling had a handgun in his pocket when he was tackled by police outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, and police said he was reaching for it when officers shot him six times. The DOJ and Louisiana attorney general decided not to file criminal charges against the officers involved. Attorneys for the officer who put Garner, 43, in a chokehold argued that he probably died because he was obese and had resisted arrest. Daniel Pantaleo lost his job after a disciplinary hearing four years later, but the Justice Department declined to bring criminal charges.

Floyd’s killing has received near-universal condemnation because it lacks the contradictory evidence that allows skeptics to deny that race was a factor in police behavior, said Armour, author of “Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America.”

“It’s almost like you have a case that’s so cry-out-loud bad that people who aren’t necessarily that sympathetic to black equality are able to come out and now make a big display,” Armour said. “It’s not that often you run into these knockdown, no-question videos.”

Setting a different tone

That raises the question of whether the nation is experiencing a real turning point or simply responding to a particularly egregious offense, some experts say.

There have been many questionable displays of solidarity: When the Washington Redskins joined the #BlackoutTuesday protest by posting a black square on Twitter, critics noted the perceived hypocrisy from an organization whose team name is a slur for Native Americans. And as New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea celebrated images of officers embracing peaceful protesters, video surfaced Wednesday that showed his officers beating a cyclist with batons in the street.

“We’ve seen officers kneeling in the same departments that are brutalizing journalists and protesters,” said Philip Atiba Goff, director of the Center for Policing Equity research center. “You can’t say justice for George Floyd, that you condemn the actions, while you condone the actions in your own house.”

Charles H. Ramsey, a former chief in the District and Philadelphia and co-chair of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, said perhaps the biggest obstacle to nationwide change is the unwieldy way in which police departments are organized. With every city, town, state and county fielding its own force, he said, it’s hard to standardize training and policies.

“Regionalizing them would be a solid first step,” Ramsey said. “But then you get into the politics. Every county and every mayor; they want their own police force, they want their own chief.”

For that reason, a coalition of nearly 400 disparate organizations is focusing on securing federal reforms. Last week, the group — including the NAACP, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Music Therapy Association — sent a joint letter to congressional leaders calling for legislation to combat police violence.

“With so many police departments, it is important that there is federal action,” said Vanita Gupta, a former head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Although past efforts at policing reforms stalled in Congress, Booker expressed optimism, noting that civil rights legislation has always traveled a bumpy road. Bills were introduced and stagnated for years before the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, he said.

Police reform advocates are skeptical. Ramsey noted that the playbook for reform that he created as chair of Obama’s policing commission sat on a shelf, unused, for five years. Meanwhile, the FBI still hasn’t followed through on a pledge to aggressively track the nation’s fatal police shootings.

“It’s been five years since they promised to fix that database,” Ramsey said. “Come on. That’s enough time.”

And this from 2016

SHUT IT DOWN!

Today another confirmation that my silent vow can’t come soon enough as once again someone heard, saw or knew of numbers of POS of Covid cases in New Jersey and said it should all be shut down. What the fuck does that mean?

Again I pointed out that unless you have a clear plan, clear data and transparency and of course infrastructure and enforcement in place how would you plan to do that.  The issue of this discussion was closing of city/state/federal parks and the purpose of that is what to force more of us indoors and yet despite it what does it accomplish and unless testing improves and in turn is accurate and of course treatment and tracking is in place to make sure all those who were in contact with said individuals are being tested and in turn treated and isolated.  So by shutting this down we accomplish what, no one ever getting sick anywhere? And how is this to be achieved? By ultimately shutting everything down it ends Capitalism as we know it. It means turning over all means of production, distribution and of course sales to a government entity and makes all those Grub Hub and Whole Foods workers, the UPS/FedEx and other delivery companies as well as all food suppliers, vendors and other now managed and supervised by Government and would what, make them Government employees while this pandemic is ongoing?  So we don’t leave our home, we get all supplies down to our socks, soup and underwear delivered by again an agent of the Government to ensure all materials and goods are clean of disease and the workers are in turn free of it and have health care and job security that will enable them to keep all of this running and flowing.  So yes shut it all down.

Again are all the tests accurate? Do they have false positives? False negatives?  What then? Are they healing or asymptomatic or are they carriers?  Are they in full thrown illness and to what degree and level of sickness are they – hospitalized on ventilators or just in emergent care or just on watch? Or sent home to self quarantine and isolate with all contacts tracked and contacted and tested?

And then the infamous dopey pony that I have come to know was provided in response.  Again this was a former Teacher so go figure why public education is in deep shit.

Again I am seeing all kinds of field hospitals, satellite locations and are all beds full and full of what kind of patients. Are we at capacity in every hospital in every city and what then?  So again if you are in a car crash you are admitted, you break a hip not admitted but then again what are the admissions that are Covid related and to what degree?

Again again and again the reality is that we get a whole lot of numbers without whole lot of information.  One thing is that Cuomo is cautious and aggressive with his information and warnings but he has been as transparent as he is allowed and that the reality is that we don’t know shit and in reality this is always in worst.case.scenario protocol.  That is where we are 24/7 always on red alert. Where is Jack Bauer when you need him?

So if you want to allow people to walk in the park to sit and read and segregate to stay safe it then becomes a law enforcement issue so close down the parks and place full time Officers or Park personnel to arrest and/or cite anyone violating the order.  Or how about those who simply refuse to follow the physical distancing requirements.  Why should I who leaves my home with masks, gloves, fully covered and maintain hand cleaning rituals and other simple manners as covering my coughs or sneezes and not allowing myself to expose myself or others to a virus I may or may not be carrying but have no knowledge of it.   So again that means testing every single person in America and then what?   We can leave and the rest stay home? And in turn will we have papers to provide when demanded by Police to prove we can leave?Which they do in Italy.

This same person was distressed when I said that the inability to track is not true as that China always  had that ability and did not use it, but we can’t even spy on them to know what is the what and what is true there.  Singapore did and they found that they leveled the curve with strong testing and controls.  Okay so then you want us to have civil liberties but not have the ability to practice them? Again you contradict yourself from paranoia, lack of information and of course the constant drum beat of fear and angst that the media has done an excellent job maintaining.

So this is Germany’s response to the virus.  Meanwhile Florida who wants to wall off the state to the New York/New Jersey and Connecticut area is refusing to place restrictions on the state.. makes total sense.. shut that down! And I have said repeatedly right now Covid is a rich man’s disease and when it hits  developing nations one wonders how severe it will be. Shut them down! Look at the difference between New York and California and their change in structure of shutting down.

Schools are shut and businesses are shut and let’s be honest there are few of either that  are set up for remote working but those who can do,  so  then what? Shut them down forever or whenever we know when this will end whenever it will end and then how do we renew and regroup?

We really don’t know what a Stay-at-Home order means but it could mean the equivalent of martial law or some variation and are you really wanting that?

In Italy they have gone from singing to protesting and yes if we tighten the noose we will also see the same.

Its coming and at the next Presidential convention (whenever if they are ever held) SHUT IT DOWN!

Teargas, beatings and bleach: the most extreme Covid-19 lockdown controls around the world

Violence and humiliation used to police coronavirus curfews around globe, often affecting the poorest and more vulnerable

Rebecca Ratcliffe in Bangkok
The Guardian
Wed 1 Apr 2020

As coronavirus lockdowns have been expanded globally, billions of people have found that they are now faced with unprecedented restrictions. Police across the world have been given licence to control behaviour in a way that would normally be extreme even for an authoritarian state.

On Tuesday, police in Kenya gave their “sincere condolences” after a 13-year-old boy was shot and killed on his balcony in Nairobi as police moved through the neighbourhood, enforcing a coronavirus curfew.

“They come in screaming and beating us like cows, and we are law-abiding citizens,” said Hussein Moyo, the father of Yasin, the boy who was shot.

Concerns are growing that police forces around the world are using gruelling and humiliating punishments to enforce quarantine on the poorest and most vulnerable groups, including tens of millions who live hand-to-mouth and risk starving if they do not defy lockdowns and seek work.

Over the past week, footage has emerged showing migrant workers in India crouched on the side of the road as they are sprayed with chemicals, apparently an attempt to disinfect them before they entered their home province.

The workers, who had returned from Delhi, were covered in a bleaching agent, sodium hypochlorite, which can cause damage to the skin, eyes and lungs, Indian Express reported. Elsewhere, in Punjab, people accused of breaking quarantine rules were made to do squats while chanting: “We are enemies of society. We cannot sit at home.”

Similarly humiliating tactics have been used by police in Paraguay, where people violating quarantine rules were made to do star jumps and threatened with a taser. Others were asked to repeat “I won’t leave my house again, officer” while lying face down on the floor.

Although there is a growing global consensus that efforts to protect public health in the face of the coronavirus pandemic demand temporary sacrifices of some individual freedoms, UN human rights experts have urged countries to ensure their responses by to the pandemic were “proportionate, necessary and non-discriminatory”.

It is often the least well off – who cannot afford to stop working, or who are forced to walk for days to return to their family villages from the cities they worked in before the virus emerged – who are targeted by such punishments.

In the Paraguayan capital, Asunción, Alberto Ruíz, a member of a residents’ social organisation in the deprived Tacumbú neighbourhood, told the Guardian that authorities had done very little to support families left without any income.

Almost all citizens in the country are confined to their homes. “They tell you to stay at home, to protect your family. But in poor neighbourhoods, you have to go out to earn a living: if you don’t, you die of hunger,” Ruíz said.

Videos of the punishments in Paraguay – recorded and shared by officers themselves – were praised by the country’s interior minister, Euclides Acevedo, who said: “I congratulate them. I don’t have the same creativity as those that are making the videos.”

In the Philippines, police and local officials trapped curfew violators in dog cages, while others were forced to sit in midday sun as punishment.

The country’s main Luzon island has been placed under a month-long lockdown, with more than 40 million residents asked to stay indoors. But remaining at home is a far more comfortable experience if you have the luxury of space. For those sharing cramped rooms with family members, the heat in Manila can be unbearable.

Across the country, more than 17,000 people have been arrested for coronavirus lockdown-related violations, the website Rappler reported. Human Rights Watch has pointed out that such action is most likely to be counterproductive if offenders are then placed in overcrowded detention facilities.

Activists in Kenya have warned that heavy-handed policing not only risks fuelling panic and fear but may also be heightening transmission of the virus.

In the port city of Mombasa last week, police fired teargas at ferry commuters, causing hundreds of people crowded together to cough and wipe tears from their eyes. Officers were also filmed hitting people with batons.

“If the operation was supposed to protect people from spreading the virus, the operation achieved the exact opposite,” a statement by Kenya’s police reforms working group said.

There are also fears that governments are using concerns over the pandemic to increase their own powers, bringing in sweeping legislation that could be used to quash critical voices. On Monday, Hungary’s parliament passed a new set of measures including jail terms for spreading misinformation and allowing the nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to rule by decree under a state of emergency that has no clear time limit.

In the Philippines and Thailand, states of emergency have been declared, granting governments greater powers for a temporary period. This includes the ability to crackdown on the sharing of false information – a vague term that activists fear could be misused by officials.

In a recent report, Human Rights Watch said that freedom of expression and access to information should be protected by governments. While some restrictions on rights, such as those limiting freedom of movement, could be justified, the group called for transparency and “respect for human dignity”.