We Don't Need No Stinkin' Responsibility

 Instead of truly speaking to others today,
we are all waiting merely to unload on to others
the words that have collected inside us 
--The World of Silence, Max Picard
 _______________________

Today's Diane Rehm show featured a discussion on the press's latest concatenation on race (Fallout From Freddie Gray’s Death And Underlying Causes of Urban Poverty And Racial Strife In Baltimore And Across the Country).

It provided the usual Public Radio imbalance of 4:1 uber-liberal opinions, everyone talking at cross-purposes to the other's view in the service of advancing his (or more often, her) agenda. Which was particularly amusing considering the rhetoric of the Left was to champion the position of the "Othered". Perhaps only other Others are favored (=patronized) on Rehm's platform.

The rhetoric was getting so thick that the moderator asked the panel if white people suffer from problems of oppression and mobility, too. Does anything indicate naivete and bias more than such a question?

Former Army Lt. Colonel and black State Representative Allen West (FL-R) held up his 20%, but his opening statement was too logical, and he was therefore marginalized. He laid out his and his family's history in segregated Atlanta of the 1950's, and the ways in which the black community thrived then as opposed to its dismal state today. (His opening presentation is impressive, but re-plowing through the other voices on the re-broadcast would be intolerable, so that mission is left for the staunch reader at the above link, if you so choose.)

The impossible female voices which have come to define public radio jumped in with their shrill patter of "Otherness" and how Baltimore and other cities are being "over-policed", and the problems with not being racially-diversified, when Mr. West interrupted by re-stating that the businessmen in Atlanta of his youth were not racially diversified, and that blacks walked amidst positive role models every day.

West continued with the example of Harlem's "Success Academies," public charter schools which have shown outstanding success thus far with traditionally blighted student populations, yet which NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio wants to shut down, caving to the pressure of the teacher's union. 

He used the "R" word: Responsibility, a thing outre on NPR when talking about anything, really. You may simply presume the blame lies with the U.S. government not throwing out enough money, and call it a day.

Someone asked the panelists about "black-on-black" crime in Chicago, the ensuing response eliciting my only laugh during the show. One of the apoplectic females insisted that focusing on personal responsibility was a misbegotten path. 

"We don't need to be saying, 'Mom's need to take responsibility for their babies'!" The 80% refused to even entertain ideas like the welfare state might have entrenched a fractured family unit for many in the black community, or that family cohesion is a bedrock of a sound society. But as Ranger says, "Don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em," and this goes for all people of course.

The concluding caller, who said that he had grown up in the worst of NYC hoods and yet managed against the odds to get out and get an education, seconded the problem as expressed by West, namely, no examples and no neighborhood opportunities. The moderator gave the final word to one of the shrill panelists as to how this problem might be addressed.

Of course, she would not veer from her well-trod path. "The police should have asked Mr. Gray, 'How can I help YOU, young man?' He's part of our community, our society."

But to that Mr. West had already given a pre-emptory reply.

He said in the Atlanta of his youth, if a policeman approached you, the only possible reply was, "Is there a problem, officer?" As he said, if you're not guilty, why wouldn't that be the first response out of your mouth? Certainly, you would not run. West's brother, who joined the Atlanta police force after returning from service in Vietnam, would expect no less.

Courtesy and civility -- it works both ways.

To the Point

  We don't see things as they are,
we see them as we are
--Anais Nin
__________________

Amidst today's talk concerning police procedure vis-a-vis the deaths of black Americans sparked by the police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, there is an unasked question, namely:

"Would the police have acted any differently if the suspect were white?"

If the answer is "No", then the shooting in Ferguson was not a racial incident from the police perspective. The answer to the question is discrete from how the event was perceived by the black population. Moreover, that precipitating event was a discrete event from each future police engagement with a black citizen.

Unfortunately, the concatenation of all following (or preceding) events is a human overlay, and humans have a compulsion to finding meaning or connection; we are pattern-makers. (We must be wary of our tendency to apophenia, as Lisa's Cambridge friend reminds her.)

Law enforcement officers have an unfortunate and built-in adversarial relationship with many of those those whom they must police. They are not filming a Hollywood police procedural and do not have the luxury of several takes. A pretty simple formula for not getting killed would be to not engage in crime, to not point a weapon at an officer and/or engage him in any physical way. Otherwise, it is an easy guess that the outcome will be an extremely violent one.

Lisa has a deputy sheriff friend who explained to her that many officers develop a poor attitude because they are dealing predominately with confrontation and shady characters on a daily basis. He, as a very Christian person, is able to access his faith and maintain a charitable outlook, but he allows that it is difficult in his position. He and his other deputies wear bullet-proof vests daily, a reminder that all do not welcome his appearance on the scene, despite and indifferent to his charitable outlook.

This is the law, which has no exceptions for race. So the question is:

"Do we have a race problem, or a police problem?"

Our Inner Captain Renault

--Mob Rule

 There isn't any real good reason for fighting
except self-defense 
--The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton 

I'm shocked, shocked to find
that gambling is going on in here! 
--Casablanca (1942)
 ___________________

We have been discussing the small tragedy of the Zimmerman - Martin story not because it is unusual but as the phenomenon it is: a too-common story usually ignored, but once the media hops on (for whatever self-serving reason), one for which liberal people feel compelled to pull out their inner Capt. Renault --shocked, you know? All very predictable.

We will have a few more things to say about the disingenuity surrounding the tale (=The Spectacle), but today, a look at the neighborhood watch: Good Neighbor Policy, or stateside Counterinsurgency (COIN)?

For those inclined to exploit the event, The Trayvon - Zimmerman story is one of vigilantism, and becomes an excuse to label an otherwise reasonable self-protective action (=neighborhood watch) as racism. This is an involution of the posture vis-a-vis crime which we have been encouraged to take as a nation since becoming the victims of terrorist acts, namely, one of reasonable caution and vigilance. Florida highways have state-sponsored billboards which urge citizens to be alert, and not afraid. It is a foolish entropy to encourage a naive approach to one's safety.

Vigilantism has been a part of our society since its inception, and actions like tarring and feathering loyalists served many functions, primarily identification and ostracism of The Other. Neighborhood watches are not vigilantism, for The Other is already identified qua his Otherness.

The function of the watch is to identify possible criminal behavior before the action takes place, the purpose not to punish, but to identify. When one enters such a community, one can expect to be asked about one's purpose within the gates; the residents therein have usually paid a premium to feel their safety will be enforced. When an outsider enters the perimeter, he can expect to be identified as such; this is not racism or vigilantism, though it is vigilance.

Profiling has become taboo as it has become conflated with racism, but profiling is the basis of solving most crimes. In Zimmerman's case, the community had suffered numerous robberies and criminal situations in the preceding months. Surely he was aware of the descriptions of the perpetrators in these cases, and it would be sensible to identify figures which match those descriptions and confirm their intent.

And Zimmerman is not alone. Our own President racially profiles every time he sends a Predator or Hellfire downrange in the sandy regions of the world. Mr. Obama acts as the Neighborhood watch captain of the World with every missile strike. Yet when Obama approved the strike which killed another 16-year-old United States citizen, Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki, no liberals cried crocodile tears.

In fact, no one did, despite the sad fact that our President made two kills on that day -- one of the young man, and one a direct shot through the heart of our Constitution.  The young man's grandfather recently wrote a plaintive letter published in the NYT 17 July 2013 asking "Why?",  but there will be no answer ... State secrets, you know?

As a nation, we are an easily-distractable crew. We are suffering an en masse plague of ADHD, and we get our daily feed of pap through the umbilicus that leads to the online and on screen "news" outlets.

Here is the reality on neighborhood watches: Community-based policing has always been the center of our police functions; as citizens we can and must participate in ensuring our own safety. When neighborhood members shut their doors and roll into automatically-controlled garages and don't know their neighbors, you have a community ripe for crime.

Since the events of 9-11-01, U.S. police forces have been degraded as the military and contractors have bled off personnel who now work for Counterinsurgency (COIN) and Foreign Internal Defense (FID)-sponsored programs. At the same time public safety funds have shriveled on the home front, and community-based policing has been drastically reduced.

The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) has come home to roost.

If we as citizens do not have the right to ensure own safety in our own neighborhoods, then we have crossed into a police state mentality. When the death of Trayvon Martin is criminalized by a witch hunt trial, what is the message? When the police are not on the scene, the safety of the streets devolves to the citizens.

One may argue til the cows come home why young black men constitute the pages of most police blotters -- hint: economics -- but nonetheless, there you have it. It is a sad fact, but if you live in a vandalized community and see a black youth appear to be scoping out residences, you have reason to suspect. The comic Chris Rock has a skit, "You can't have shit when you around niggas, you can't have shit." referring to the high burglary rates in black communities. We laugh in recognition and then walk out of the theater.

Why pretend it is not a problem?

A Most Peculiar Man

 --You could be in his sights
(A member of our Leon County 
Sheriff's Office SWAT team)

He had no friends, he seldom spoke
And no one in turn ever spoke to him,
'Cause he wasn't friendly and he didn't care
And he wasn't like them.
Oh, no! he was a most peculiar man 
--A Most Peculiar Man, 
Simon and Garfunkel

Now he just sits on a stool down at the Legion hall
but I can tell what's on his mind
Glory days yeah goin' back
Glory days -- Aw, he ain't never had
Glory days, glory days 
--Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen 

If you look long enough into the void
the void begins to look back through you
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
_____________________

In the Army we have a saying: "Do something, even if it's wrong."  Civilian law enforcement has now adopted that maxim, to the detriment of civilian lives.

The latest stateside spree shooter, Kurt R. Myers, 64, was given a conflicted presentation in the New York Times ("Questions Linger After Gunman is Killed in Standoff"): the report is center page, but it is page A20.  It is written like a sophomoric effort to cover a Stephen King mystery, the shooter described as "spooky", "weird" and "shadowy", the town residents feeling "fearful", the apres-shooting hours described as a "drama" with a "denouement" occurring in the defunct "Glory Days" bar.

The story had all the usual suspects: a loner, unconnected victims and a sympathetic Governor Cuomo calling for solidarity ("'It is now time for mourning those who we lost in this senseless act of violence,' Mr. Cuomo said in a statement on Thursday.") The coverage of spree shootings is now become boilerplate, and the outcome (the death of the shooter) is expected.  But the template is not the full story.

In the case of Mr. Myers, the final moments were hardly a standoff: he had abandoned his car, and made his way into the small back room of an empty bar -- the avenues of escape could be clearly seen and barricaded.  The town of Herkimer's police chief said Mr. Myers had "overwhelmed instantly" his small department, but in truth, two police should have been able to neutralize him; hardly a standoff, as the perpetrator ended up on a morgue tray.

If we believed President Obama's dictum that gun laws should be enacted if we save even one life -- if we believed that all life was sacred -- then why could Mr. Myers' life not have been saved? Myers was killed by a team of state and federal officers who had tracked him to the abandoned bar. "After a frigid overnight standoff, officials said that they had decided to move in on Thursday morning."  But why?

Police Special Reaction Teams and especially FBI hostage rescue types are not military assault troops tasked with the mission of killing "bad guys".  They are dealing with us, and we are citizens of this nation, and not combatants.  Unfortunately, the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) view of virtuous SEAL assassination teams killing terrorists in their bedrooms has bled over into LE, who are now given the imprimatur of badass killers. Killers for us, against us ... Killers ARE us (think about it -- maybe K.A.U. deserves a copyright symbol, too.)

Myers shot his victims with a shotgun, and the first question the team of state and federal officers should have asked is, what sort of ammunition did Myers use -- bird shot, buck shot or rifled slugs, and how much ammo was he toting on his body? This information is essential for the assault team to create their threat assessment.  This information is more essential than saying Myers was very quiet, a little weird and spoke in a sing-song way, but we are not presented the facts, only a mantra created to elicit an equally mindless response: freaks walk among us, therefore, we need gun control to solve the problem of possible violence. (It should be noted that Myers' weapon was not an assault rifle, so this sort of shooting would happen despite Gov. Cuomo's latest gun control bill.)

The fact of utmost importance is: Myers was not killed in the execution phase of his spree. He was killed when he was not mobile and cornered in an abandoned building.  He was not an offensive threat since the police and FBI had, by training, an inner and outer cordon around the situational perimeter, and a Situation Command Post.  This is all standard operating procedure, and a Hostage Negotiator (HN) should have been present to talk the shooter down from his perilous position.

So -- since the shooter was barricaded and of no offensive threat, why was he assaulted?  An assault is only executed to save life or to prevent further unnecessary loss of life.  In a hostage barricade situation, even the life of the perpetrator is of value in our system of justice.  The police and FBI are not executioners but LE.

Had Myers attempted to shoot, move or even threaten more shooting, then the minimum bar to assault would have been met, but the report says Myers made no attempt to flee. In addition, were his rounds harmless past 75 meters?  Ranger surmises that his kills were close-up and done with small game shot shells rather than killer slugs or buckshot.  If so, than the assault that killed Myers was an execution by rogue LE.  If so, than the criminal event in Herkimer, N.Y. extends beyond the actions of Mr. Myers.

Why was the FBI even on the scene?  This spree was not of federal interest or jurisdiction.  The State of New York and the County Sheriff  had sufficient assets to contain this situation. Why are we comfortable with police violence and reaction teams using questionable military tactics and employing military weapons?  We no longer question the application of gun violence upon those we view as kill-worthy, even when the killing is done in violation of our laws and accepted police procedure.

It is not fashionable or savory these days to discuss the preservation of a life we deem "bad", but the coherence of civilization as we know it resides on our ability to do that hard thing, when possible and reasonable.  No one of us is Solomon, hence our body of jurisprudence; our viability as a nation depends upon our adherence to it.

In the military we do not have the option of not assaulting an objective nor do we have HN's.  Our job is to close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, and to apply the totality of the violence that is inherent in our unit's organizational capabilities.  Somewhere along the way. the police have replaced their "protect and serve" motto with the military's maximum force against the enemy.

The problem is, we are not The Enemy.

Boilerplate dictates Myers' shooting spree be called, "senseless", but clearly, it made sense to him.  This is not to justify murder, but to not dismiss it in such a facile manner, either.  "Senseless" implies an act beyond our capacity to reason, but violence perpetrated by those other than psychopaths usually has a reason.

That reason may not be good or pretty, but it deserves to be viewed and understood if we truly are resolved to reduce the incidence of these events.

--by Jim and Lisa

Spring Forward, Fall Back

You say yes, I say no
You say stop and I say go, go, go
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
--Hello Goodbye, the Beatles

The only thing I'm guilty of
is burning gas
--Silvertown, John Gorka

If one place is as good as any other,
it's high time we decided.
Otherwise when we get there,
we won't know we've arrived
--Dr. Doolittle (1967)
_____________________

Subtitle: Oppression is the New Freedom.

Republicans like Joe Lieberman (yeah, you) are attacking President Obama for his pledge to withdraw all troops from Iraq by year's end (Lieberman Slams Obama on Existing Iraq). But Obama will only be honoring a treaty negotiated by the Bush administration with the Iraqi government.

Is Lieberman proposing violating a treaty which he signed? Is he delusional? Additionally, doesn't the Iraqi government have any say in the matter? Is that not the definition of sovereignty?

A few pages away is the story that many police jobs in municipalities throughout the U.S. will go unfilled for want of funds.

USAToday reports:

By year's end, nearly 12,000 police officers will have lost their jobs, and 30,000 positions in county and municipal departments will go unfilled, both direct consequences of a faltering economy that has forced deep cuts in local government budgets.

The sweeping reductions, outlined in a Justice Department review to be delivered today to the nation's police chiefs meeting in Chicago, put law enforcement on pace for its first job decline in 25 years.

"'The effects of the economic downturn on law enforcement agencies may be felt for the next five to 10 years, or worse, permanently,'' the report concluded, adding that the days when local governments allocated up to 50% of their budgets for public safety are 'no longer a fiscal possibility'" (Economic woes take toll on U.S. police departments).

Connection?

The U.S. cannot muster $35 million in a jobs bill to help cities hire Five-O's stateside -- maybe the cost of a minute of the war in Iraq. Yet we are supposed to dig deep for $Billions we don't have for protection in our cities to give to continue funding police in the Iraq snafu, this after funding a costly and futile Libyan venture that Congress never even bothered to authorize. Which brings us back to the concept of democracy.

Look at women in any of the "Libya Liberation declared" photos and you will see nary an uncovered head or body. The liberators-nee-brutes are reinstating Sharia law as Job 1, which means among other things, four and only four wives per man, per the Quran. It just doesn't jibe with jibberish we spout about democratization and women's rights, and yada yada.

Why, in our time of need -- or any time -- is the U.S. supporting Islamic revolutions which will form Sharia theocracies? Money doesn't grow on date trees in an oasis. We are not England, and being colonial greatly conflicts with being democratic; it is like being a pushmi-pullyu from Dr. Doolittle. At the very best, one arrives at a stalemate. And look where England ended up; pretty knackered.
Democracy in the Middle East is a desert mirage.

J'Accuse!

I am a camera with its shutter open,
quite passive, recording, not thinking
--I am a Camera, Christopher Isherwood

I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind
--Eye in the Sky, Alan Parsons Project

Nobody naw give ya no Break,
0Police naw give you no break,
Soldier man naw give you no break,
Not even you idren naw give you no break
--Bad Boys, Bob Marley

It is a crime to exploit patriotism
in the service of hatred, and it is, finally,
a crime to ensconce the sword as the modern god,
whereas all science is toiling to achieve
the coming era of truth and justice
--J'Accuse!, Emile Zola
________________

We in the U.S. have the right to face our accusers. (That is, if you head isn't in a sandbag and you are not in the Charleston Naval Yard Brig.) That right is the bedrock of our judicial system. But that right has been compromised with today's secret court scenarios, and we all seem to acquiesce since it is them and not us getting bested by the legal system.

But let us shift this denial of rights closer to home, to something each of us may have to confront one day. We now have cameras on our stop lights, and Ranger wonders how a camera may be challenged in court. Is a camera a person? How far away are from from the conferral of such rights upon our scanning technology? Will the human operator merge with his scanner into an inviolable voice of right?

Reader choloazul recently noted:

With a camera on every corner, and interlinked databases, I'd be more worried by the fact that there are around 3 private security employees for every sworn officer, and they are increasingly being given tactical equipment, and a heavy dose of 'us vs. them' indoctrination... inside the US of A.

This is a valid concern. Along with the warrantless and widespread wiretapping of the citizenry, this is new potential violation of our civil rights. If the courts confer personhood on a camera, do we automatically presume that the camera is correct -- especially in today's Photoshopped world?

As in The Terminator, humans are accepting the intrusion of electronic surveillance into all areas of our lives. As the economy worsens and crimes perpetrated by the desperate and criminal increase, we are happy for the guards and cameras stationed at the gates to our communities. But that same oversight can be turned on the watched for nefarious purposes.

The cameras at the stop lights are acting as proxies for the newly militarized police. The oddity of the system is that it adds to the municipality's coffers while it also allows for the reduction in the actual police force, adding to the numbers of the unemployed. But who knows -- the slack in sworn officers may be taken up by furtive eyes in some remote system room monitoring behavior.

Another great example of freedom that the troops are ostensibly fighting for in the alleys of sandbox nations.

Do we think about this stuff while watching Dancing With the Stars?

Tunnel of Love

Susan Finkelstein and husband.
His coffee cup is very small.

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions
where other women dared not tread.
Shame, Despair, Solitude!
--Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end, little girl
--Run for Your Life, The Beatles

My dear...
The end
Comes near...
--The End, Pearl Jam
_______________

Another entry in Ranger's continuing effort to uncover misogyny in these freedom loving times.

To wit, the case of Susan Finkelstein arrested last October for solicitation after she placed an ad in Craigslist for World series tickets: "DESPERATE BLONDE NEEDS WS TIX."

Alert officer Michael Brady of Pennsylvania's Bensalem Township Police Department—"Bob"— was trolling the site for prostitution when he typed in the word "blonde" and found Mrs. Finkelstein's urgent request (What else would one type in when looking for bimbos?) After she emailed him three photos of her breasts, they met a local mall.

Bob told the court that Finkelstein was willing to trade anal sex and threesomes in exchange for his tickets. "When Finkelstein, 44, learned of another ticket that Bob's "brother' had, she said the siblings could 'DP' her, Brady said. 'DP' is short for 'double penetration,' he explained," according to the Philadelphia Daily News (Blonde in sex-for-tix case offered 3-way, cop says.)

Before the case went to trial last week, the charges had been demoted from prostitution (a second degree offense) to misdemeanors of the third degree (carrying a possible sentence of up to a year in jail.) Her attorney, William Brennan, was delighted at the reduction, reasoning, "You can be a slut." And so it goes, and charges against Mrs. Finkelstein were dropped this week.

After WW II, "DP" stood for "displaced person". In the 70's, DP stood for Diversified Products of Opelika, Alabama, a company owned by former Alabama Governor Fob James. Times have changed.

It seems that the Pittsburgh police are even more anal than Ms. Finkelstein in their pursuit of victimless crimes such as this. It is a false concern. Law enforcement should focus on hate crimes, not love crimes -- or what passes for love in Pittsburgh. The love of the game, love for a reliably mediocre team. The love that surpasseth all understanding.

(Ranger does wonder what this enterprising woman would have done for five tickets? What if they were in the end zone?)

Do the police have nothing better to do with their investigative unit than to catch a broad trying to bag some tickets? It is salacious and misogynistic to bust women for plying their side of a trade a deux. As a post on the Support Susan Finkelstein Facebook page read:

"Sex is used by both, women and men, for advancement and never punishable. Sex has been used to further relationships, by those seeking new cars, engagement rings, jewelry, etc. therefore there is NO REASON this woman should be maliciously prosecuted as she is being done so now."

Why do we play these games? John Edwards' bimbo gets a gig in GC magazine this month, and was bought off during Edwards campaign by high rolling supporters, yet we damn this poor "slut" for working-for-tickets.

Charges against Finkelstein were dismissed this week.

But the case demonstrates hypocrisy of the first degree.