Tag Archives: police state

The United States as a Police State

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I was just reading this article on JSTOR from right after Jean-Bertrand Aristide was first forced into exile by the Haitian military, and how one way to bring stability back to Haiti at the time is to create a police state, which had already been tried and failed (the other was to build democratic institutions in Haiti through party-list PR elections and an independent judiciary).

I wonder if this applies to us.

Is this how we maintain the semblance of peace while our elections system is below international standards, maintained by at least 50 election regimes who are in jealous, bitter legal conflict with each other, and threatened by a racist party which is willing to sell the postal service for parts and gum up the census returns to exclude noncitizen residents in order to, among other things, ensure their victory at the polls?

Does the larger body of those who have a monopoly on violence – military, reserve, law enforcement and armed partisan civilians – actually maintain a police state?

We have an incredible number of military bases per capita. I wonder if we have the most domestic military bases in the world, in addition to the most overseas military bases.

We have over 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, and we have the world’s largest prison population, maintained largely by at least 50 state governments.

We live with the legacies (and ongoing practices) of redlining and housing discrimination, draw up discriminatory districts for elections and for boards of education, segregate against multi-family housing through downzoning, and create whole cities from non-annexed land so that those apartment-dwellers don’t move near and hurt the property value.

We keep people apart by force, and have built our entire political system upon keeping people apart through geographical isolation of the undesirables. And we’re supposed to be OK with this when we see the destruction, waste and resentment caused by this forced isolation? When so many of us deride any semblance of overriding responsibility to other Americans in the name of convenience because we’re not one of those city people, only to be the recipient or cause of someone’s receiving of COVID-19?

When the Third Reconstruction comes, I hope it means we can opt out of being residents of any state and just be citizens of this country. I hope it means that we can abolish state prisons, create a federal voter roll for a single voter registration website, replace the U.S. House’s elections with party-list proportional representation (or, as a half-measure, ranked-choice voting), move to single-payer healthcare, and establish not only an affirmative right to vote, but also an affirmative right to participate in free and fair elections.

Legalizing Weed Leaves the Glass Half-Full

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I think the states where initiatives and referendums are legal – most of which are out West – will see the greatest advancements against criminal justice abuses in the coming years.

I can’t see Georgia or most other Southern states legalizing recreational marijuana anytime soon. Florida could, since they almost did not long ago.

I’d say that legalizing marijuana and de-felonizing state drug laws is the great cross-racial, cross-religious, cross-class criminal justice struggle of the moment.

But even as more states out West legalize possession and regulate distribution, the racial disparity has persisted in Colorado and Washington with police now targeting predominately young Black/Latino male street dealers for felony distribution instead of possession. I expect a similar report from California in the near future now that weed is legal there.

If racial justice, economic justice and marijuana legalization can intersect anywhere, it’s at this location. Street sales need to be decriminalized, amnesty should be granted to past arrestees, taxes should be temporarily reduced to undercut the underground market, and arrestees should be provided job counseling.

I want to see 0 arrests for anything marijuana-related, 0 people denied jobs for anything​ marijuana-related, 0 people having to sell weed on the street to feed their family.

Trump vs. the Southside of Chicago

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Trump’s rage on Chicago is the latest manifestation of conservative rage against Chicago’s gang violence.

The gang violence is largely concentrated in the predominantly-black Southside.

The Southside of Chicago has always been a destination for the working class.

The Irish working class settled there for low skill jobs, committed violence against each other in gang warfare and killed Black working class emigres in race riots because they competed for jobs. The Black working class of the Deep South migrated to the Southside for low skill jobs and committed violence against each other in gang warfare.

Guess which group had more ability to get out of that hood?

Guess who is still stuck in the Southside after the low skill jobs have left?

This desire for hamfisted martial law against the Southside will score him points among his White conservative supporters.

None of those supporters give a shit about what produces young Black men killing each other in the Southside. They want explosions.

Get out of the Southside while you still can.

White paternalism, unfettered by tact, is about to get more innocent Chicagoans killed.

Dallas Revenge

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I had said earlier that there was going to be a Timothy McVeigh-Terry Nichols type of reaction when LEOs shoot the “wrong type of people”.

I did not expect a retaliation of this magnitude, not over LEO murders of African-Americans, not in #Dallas. The shooter in the video, who is now dead, looks like he had training to shoot at remote targets from around corners. Snipers.

With his accomplices, he was able to kill 5 officers and wound 5 others. They could have killed many, untold numbers of civilian protesters after they were frightened by the shooting, but they didn’t. Just picking off the LEOs.

This wasn’t an ordinary clapback against police brutality. This was planned, the channeling of emotion from abject despondency to stone-cold revenge. The shooters wanted to make a seething nick in the skin of that institution.

“The end is coming”, he said in the garage. Apocalyptic. No one expected this. I thought there wasn’t going to be this sort of channeling. Just more protests, more arrests, more burning of buildings.

But this. THIS. Stone-cold, planned revenge. A selective propaganda of the deed.

Interestingly enough, I read that McVeigh and Nichols were trained and stationed here at Fort Benning in the late 80s. Maybe military training? I’m as mesmerized by what happened in Dallas as I am disgusted and despondent over ALL of the unjustified deaths of the last 96 hours.

NOTE 12/28/2017: This is NOT a justification for revenge killings of police, nor of anyone at all. Stop the killings.

Corporal Punishment and State Violence in Schools

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I remember clearly when I was slapped in the mouth twice by a teacher at Christian Fellowship Academy in #WarnerRobins in 2000/2001.

Even if I can remember clearly that I had insulted another student and I was wrong for that, the teacher did not have the right to slap me in the mouth. This is what I think about when I see the teacher’s role in the #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh.

I didn’t tell my mother about this until around 2013, and this is my first time talking about it in public.

Intimidation, between teachers and students, between classmates in different grades, between classmates in the same class, among admin, was rife at CFA from 1999-2005. Paddling was the standard corporal punishment, and it was frequent for me. I don’t think I turned out as I am today because of that experience. I turned out as I am today despite, and maybe in spite of, my time at CFA, and despite the intimidation and bullying in the Houston County public school system that I previously attended.

I still haven’t faced that time because of the trauma and ignorance that came from teachers and admin in both periods. It was worse that this was a predominantly-Black and Black-ran private school inside the predominantly-Black Christian Fellowship Church.

That didn’t protect me from intimidation, violent punishments and the like from teachers and administration, nor did it protect us from student violence and intimidation against each other. Incidents like being slapped in the mouth, admin and teacher intimidation, paddling as a ritualistic, violent punishment, student bullying, gutter homophobia. I haven’t exorcised those experiences at CFA, Rumble Middle, Miller and Russell Elementary from my mind.

I don’t know how to talk about my childhood, because that’s what I remember most. The pain that we traded with each other. And that’s what I see in that #SpringValleyHigh assault video: Organized Pain from above. #Shout.

I fear that one of my relatives will die by the savagery of the police, or by the gun-happiness of their own neighbors. #StLouis is a soul-crushing metro area, and my relatives reflect its unhappiness. I don’t like going there. There’s very little that is redeemable about it. I associate STL with relatives being on drugs or mentally ill or illiterate or in overcrowded, rundown houses or religious crazies or in-and-out of jail; the fried rice from the Chinese corner shops are the sole upside. I’m not surprised that the people are coming to violent blows there. #Ferguson #STL

#disclaimer Again, the craven bootlickers will say “FALSE NARRATIVE” and “OBEY THE LAW LIKE WE DO” and “DON’T RESIST”, just to derail this train heading off a cliff. Just know that I don’t care for your derailing or concern-trolling at this time. I really don’t.

You may be human and an American, but you still lick the boots of people who are trained to see their jurisdiction’s community, and often people who look like me, as a mortal threat worthy of death. It’s nicer to see that in #BDSM fantasies, not in real life. Please stop licking police boots for a few seconds and think about more than yourself or your personal resentments. Otherwise, law enforcement will continue to dehumanize every last one of us, including you. Yes, YOU.