Another grand jury somehow manages to avoid indicting a cop who put an unarmed man in an illegal chokehold and, ignoring his pleas (“I can’t breathe!”), strangled him to death. Eric Garner’s crime was peddling untaxed cigarettes on the sidewalk. He was a husband and the father of six. And he was a black man. I hope I may be forgiven for believing that last fact to be germane, both to the confrontation in which he died and the fact that his (white) killer, Officer Daniel Pantaleo, now escapes any scrutiny of law.
Another district attorney somehow managed to avoid gaining an indictment within a grand jury process he entirely controlled. It is said that any competent prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, if that’s what’s desired on the day. I hope I may be forgiven for believing that Staten Island DA Daniel M. Donovan Jr. had no intention of putting a cop on trial. Never mind that Officer Pantaleo was captured on video tape performing an illegal act that led to the death of a human being who’s threat to society consisted of dodging local tobacco taxes, cancer stick by stick.
I got nothing. This is not a justice system. This is not policing in any form that I understand. This is how law serves as cover for power when the forms but not the substance of civil society are all that is left.
I got nothing at all.
Image: Hans Memling, Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem, (detail), 1480.
coin operated
Eventually, whites will be the minority, and eventually as a minority we will lose our hold on power.
FSM help us…that we may be treated better as a minority than what we gave when we held the reigns.
JPL
The illegal choke hold caused his death and still there is no indictment. There’s nothing else to say but ………………………………..
James B Franks
I’ve served on a Grand Jury in New York state; the evidence bar is very low. Here is a link to the handbook.
aimai
We need a federal “accountability” act that states that once the Police begin taking you into custody, lay hands on you, or shoot at you they have to account for your death or injury completely and “I didn’t know he could die” or “I didn’t intend for him to die” is unacceptable, simply unacceptable. Frankly I’d also put “I feared for my safety” or “the safety of others” under really strict scrutiny as well. The police officer would have to prove that he hadn’t started the conflict and that the alleged crime was a major felony or terrorist act. Arresting someone for a misdemeanor or disturbing the peace or whatever the fuck should never, ever, result in injury or death. When it does the presumption that the police officer was entitled to use force should go out the window.
Liberty60
Here I sit, a white middle aged professional, and all I want to say is burn this shit down.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@aimai:
Good luck getting that to pass. The more realistic assumption is that we pass the exact opposite, giving cops even MORE latitude to kill as needed, and extending that same latitude to god fearing white folks to protect them from the hordes of savage hulking mutant blahs clearly coming to destroy everything good and American.
Because this is America, dammit. The Red, White, and Blue. Any other colors can get the fuck out because it’s clear that America doesn’t want you as Americans.
Frankensteinbeck
I have something to say. Vote. This isn’t new. We’re at a breaking point where the political power of racists is balanced on a knife edge against the non-racists. Where shit racists have been doing for a hundred years (before then they were doing worse) can be challenged. They vote, because they know how precarious their position is, and they’re desperate to keep the power to oppress blacks this way. We need to vote. That’s it. That will solve the problem. It will change local police departments. It will change national agencies that investigate and fix their corruption. It will change whether police are trained to use violence as a first resort. It will change what the highest courts in the land deem acceptable practice. It will change our economic situation. It will change our gun laws. This can all be fixed, if we vote as determinedly as they do.
Belafon
You’ve got anger and frustration. Claiming you have nothing is letting go. Do not allow yourself to let go, because, while it’s easy for us whites to let go, blacks can’t. Instead, use your anger and frustration. Do everything you can think of to try to change it: Contacting representatives at all levels, letters to the editor, whatever.
Mnemosyne
I honestly don’t understand why these juries are so frickin’ deferential to cops and decide that they can’t possibly do any wrong. They know that “Law and Order” is not a documentary, right?
Tommy
(I am joking) I will go kill a black person tomorrow for sport.
D58826
According to my little iphone news feed the cop who shot the 12 year old had been let go by a suburban police dept. as being unfit for police work. Since budgets are tight in Ohio maybe they can just say ‘do not pass go/donot collect $200.00’ and skip the grand jury dance.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m starting to doubt the power of the vote when it’s becoming clear that, low turnouts aside, a majority of the country at the least is still fucking racist to the very core, and a non-insignificant segment is still on the ‘both sides same thing’ centrist waffling line that blames everyone, and thus no one.
Suzanne
I just can’t even handle this shit today. Like, WHAT THE FUCK?! What the fucking fuck?! How can we as a society have so little regard for the life of one of our fellow members?! How can we care so little for justice?!
MG
@Mnemosyne: People obey and shut up because they’re scared it will happen to them.
beltane
While it may be true the the USA has never lived up to its hype, I’ve got to say that this country has really been showing its asscrack a lot more these past few years. Our preaching to other, less powerful countries, has never seemed as hoolow as it does now.
Tom Levenson
@Belafon: I got nothing = I got nothing but rage and frustration. It means I got no coherent reasoned argument to make at this point. Just blank incomprehension — you have the crime on tape and you can’t indict? — and rage, knowing that “can’t” actually means “won’t.”
singfoom
This is a farce of justice. One justice system for the elite. Another for their protectors, the police. Another for “normal” people. And another harsher justice system for those at the bottom. This country is lost. I’m all for body cameras for all police, but when I see this shit go down and it’s on video and they still can’t indict? What avenue other than protest is left?
Mnemosyne
@Tommy:
Too soon.
Cacti
@beltane:
It’s not just that a black man was elected POTUS. What really sent white people round the bend was that he was reelected, against the wishes of a large majority of white voters.
That scared them more than they will ever admit.
Tommy
@Mnemosyne: Is it?
I’d stand between those bullets. But it isn’t it clear.
Belafon
@Tom Levenson: I guess my point is, use those. I just keep seeing a lot of “I can’t even” and “I got nothing” and whatever the third one is, and I just want to make sure that, instead of brushing it off in a belief of impotence, that we do something. As I said, as a white person I have it easy: I can just say “there’s nothing I can do”. Instead, we need to do something and not back off.
It is frustrating watching another cop get off for killing a black person. I can only begin to understand what it’s like being a black person after these announcements.
Tenar Darell
No links I can find about protests for the Boston area, yet. Certainly looks like Staten Island police are setting up barricades according to NYMag.
scav
Expecting police departments to follow internal regulations, let alone the mere law has apparently become a step too far. Shit, they don’t even have to follow the rules of engagement that the military have to when engaging foreign enemies in hot war zones. All Hail the Good Guys with Badges!
Tommy
@Mnemosyne: Is it not. I hate to harm anybody or anything. Even a mouse. But we are clear here are we not?
celticdragonchick
@Suzanne:
I started wondering that when I saw how many of our fellow Americans were perfectly happy to exile every doctor and nurse who went to Africa and never let them back into the country again.
An awful lot of the country has turned into the sadistic asshole juror from 12 Angry Men.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Tommy: Yes. @Tommy: Again, yes it is, regardless of whether you believe it to be. It’s a tasteless piece of humor. Please refrain in the future. Thanks.
celticdragonchick
@beltane:
I agree.
Belafon
@singfoom:
This is what I’m talking about. It’s frustrating, no doubt. But blacks have had it worse in this country – though I want them to have the same expectations that I do – and it got better because people wanted it to get better. But it’s easy for those of us who don’t have anything to gain to not do anything.
Protesting is one of the things that can be done. There still has to be attempts to change people’s minds and get the right people into office.
The country is not lost.
celticdragonchick
Also, I guess we can put that whole “police body cams will protect us” thing out to pasture.
He’s dead, Jim…
Lavocat
This is the legalized murder of black men by a system overwhelmingly controlled by white people. Period. There is not a scintilla of justice involved in this. Rather, its purpose is to instill in blacks and other relatively powerless minorities a permanent fear of those enforcing the rules. And a system founded on fear is not one prone to longevity.
Why not just come right out and say it: “Ya get uppity and The Man is gonna put you down, boy!”
Burn. It. Down.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Lavocat: I’ve got nothing but incoherent rage. And despair.
beltane
@Cacti: One of the subtexts of the American Dream is the notion that here, unlike Europe, every white man can be king. Back in the old country, whiteness was nothing special and did not entitle one to special privileges. Here, whiteness constitutes membership in a quasi-gentry. The prospect of loosing this unearned, undeserved status, scares the shit out of many white Americans.
rikyrah
you can see the video. you can hear him say I CAN’T BREATHE.
and still it’s not enough to hold over to put the cop ON TRIAL.
I think people brush past this. I’m not even say that the cop would be convicted.
but, killing someone on video who is unarmed should AT LEAST WARRANT A TRIAL.
celticdragonchick
@Belafon:
Historically protesting has done very little except for one (1) 12-15 year period in this country. Right now, given the intracable culture war lines, you have a significant percentage of the country that thinks more black people and “white trash” should be shot.
Protesting is now the equivalent of feeding red meat to your own base. It feels good, but it also inadvertatly feeds the other side
And they have more billionaires then we do.
Darkrose
@Belafon:
For me? I got nothing. Seriously. All I can do is sigh because it’s what I expected, and then try as hard as I can not to think about it too much because if I do, I’m going to punch one of the perfectly nice, but clueless privileged white boys I work with in the face because they don’t get it and they never will and I am so fucking sick of this bullshit that I want to scream but I can’t.
So yeah. I got nothing.
elftx
and some of the NYPD will begin wearing cameras so they can enjoy their freedom of creating snuff films
a grand jury in Jasper Tx did not indict officers for beating the shit out of a woman also too
SiubhanDuinne
@Belafon:
After the midterms, after the Ferguson GJ decision, and again today, my personal default is and has been to allow myself time (up to 24 hours if needed, no more) to rage and weep and feel sick and swear and feel helpless.
Then I figuratively re-gird my loins and join the battle again. I’m not happy to be casting everything in such militaristic terms, that’s pretty new and unusual for me, but this truly is a war. I wish it weren’t….
kc
How can this keep happening?
Zandar
I have something, and it’s Fuck The Police.
goblue72
@Tom Levenson: As soon as I heard the words “Staten Island DA”, I already knew the verdict.
Staten Island is 75% White (65% non-Hispanic white). The largest ethnic group is Italian. Followed by Irish. Staten Island has long been the borough where you go to live if you are a working class / lower middle class white New Yorker who doesn’t want to live anywhere near someone who is black. Those guidos you see on “Jersey Shore”? That’s Staten Island.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: ding ding ding
just told my therapist this
gotta get over that urge to ragequit, none of the people I admire or look up to do that, I said what is different between them and me, they were persistent. I am teaching myself to be persistent too
it’s not an inborn quality, it’s a fucking choice. I never had to choose anything different, as a white skinned person I’ve always had the option to just run away and never think about this shit again. But I decided I didn’t want to be that person any more.
Lavocat
@Tommy: Dude, seriously? Not even close to funny.
rikyrah
@beltane:
SO ON POINT
singfoom
@Belafon: I hear what you’re saying. I’m not hopeless, but I have little respect for the system at this point. I will continue to vote, but the rich “campaign contributors” get to vote before the rest of us do and limit our choices to turd sandwich vs giant douche. It’s frustrating that there is so little justice in this country except for those who are wealthy/elite. Of course, even if you do go out and protest, step in the street and don’t obey that cops order? A baton to the head and a night in jail. What’s been accomplished? I can understand the whole “burn this shit down” mentality.
donnah
I just posted at Booman’s that the ghosts of Medgar Evers and Emmett Till must be walking the streets now, knowing they died in vain.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@celticdragonchick:
Pretty much. At this rate, all the protests have done is convince the people, including the leaners, that the other side is the righteous and morally justified side, even before any kind of violence really started. All that’s happening lately is every attempt to make things better being turned on its head in order to help make things worse, and I don’t know how to deal with that. I don’t know how to fight in a world where every attempt to fight makes things worse off and drives people away because to them, the very act that you’re fighting proves you the most wrong evil person in existence ever.
It honest to god feels like the breaking point has come, and the long backslide has become self-feeding enough to be all but inevitable now.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne: Have you ever sat in a jury selection process?
It’s utterly amazing (federal jury) where you go from a cross section of the community — young, old, black, white, educated, inarticulate, east side of county, west side of county, sloppy, neat, every profession represented, and then when they select the jury they’re all superannuated “comfortable” retired white haired white folk in conservative attire. Amazing! ///
Linnaeus
@singfoom:
Rebellion. The tree of liberty and all that…
No, that probably won’t happen. But I can’t blame someone for feeling that it should.
Another Holocene Human
@Kryptik, A Man Without a Country: @Suzanne:
Maybe, just maybe, 2014 is a year of radicalization for people who were sitting on a fence before. And that will translate into change.
2014 is certainly a breakthrough year for raising awareness of cop killings of Blacks and the mentally ill. Before, they would pop up and fade from the news. This shit has been going on for a very long time.
KG
@Mnemosyne: it’s not necessarily the grand jury as much as it is the DA. in a grand jury setting, it is the DA’s show. the problem is that DA’s have a conflict of interest when it comes to cops. DA’s need cops, and they’re often sympathetic to them because they see them as being on the same side. it’s the thing that really pissed me off about the Wilson case in Ferguson – reading the transcript made it clear that the DA wasn’t interested in getting an indictment. and I think it is in large part because of the relationship between most DA offices and police departments. Which is interesting, because a lot of times, lawyers will be hardest on other lawyers in law suits and criminal matters (it’s bad for the bar (the “brand”) when lawyers go all illegal/unlawful, mostly because we should have known better).
I have a lot of friends that work in various DA offices, it comes with being a lawyer. More than a few of those DA’s have dated and/or married cops. Like most all of the cops I know, they are good people, and trying to do the right thing… but we are all subject to bias.
I think we need to address the system when it comes to law enforcement, that conflict of interest is just too much. Even if it is something as simple as having a division/department within DA offices that focus on crimes by public officials, similar to an internal affairs department in some police departments. Someone to watch the watchers, if you will.
Lavocat
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): As an attorney, I am beside myself with rage.
Cops can lie with impunity, so I guess they might just as well be allowed to kill with impunity, too, right? Does it honestly shock ANYONE how few people have ANY faith in the system?
Here’s a little game you can play with this apparent Open Season On Black People. Wherever you see the word “black” substitute “white”. And ask yourself, what do you think those grand juries would do THEN?
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@Another Holocene Human:
My life experiences have unfortunately taught me otherwise, that people have a special enmity for those who try and fail and yet keep trying, because once you’re a ‘loser’, you’re nothing, and attempts at trying to better yourself just show how bitter and pathetic you really are.
People love them some winners. Winners are good people inherently. Winners are holy. And in America, white conservative Christians are the ultimate WInners, and the more they win, the more people love them and flock to them.
At some point, it feels like you lose enough that there’s no way left to ‘win’ again.
@Another Holocene Human:
2014 seems to be a radicalizing year, but it feels like most of it is coming from people seeing this shit exposed and liking what they see, rather than being outraged by it.
Lavocat
@Kryptik, A Man Without a Country: I’m just waiting for protests to form in my neck of the woods and I WILL BE THERE! Fuck yeah!
Linnaeus
@KG:
Take it out of local DA/county prosecutor offices entirely, at least when dealing with offenses by law enforcement. Local prosecutors are so entwined with the police, it’s hard to trust them to handle these cases properly.
BGinCHI
I do NOT want to sound pollyanna-ish about this, but I don’t think there is anything new about this. White cops have been killing and harming black folks for a long time. There are two differences.
1. More technological means of recording outright injustice (think of the cop shooting at the guy in SC who got shitcanned, or Rodney King).
2. And more importantly, it is provoking what I hope is a serious look at a system that needs reform. Further, though, our culture is at a tipping point in which we are either going to become more committed to egalitarian processes or not. We know who stands on one side and we know who stands on the other.
Now we have elections to see which prevails.
SatanicPanic
For some reason, for a moment, I thought NY was better on this issue and then I remembered, no it’s actually not. I blame that racist scumbag Giuliani.
Comrade Jake
Folks are saying this proves body cams on cops won’t work if there’s no accountability. Personally, I think they’re still worth doing.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: We’ve never not shown our ass.
Entire GWB admin, anyone? I mean, being able to point and laugh at our internal problems is a real upgrade for most nations out there.
Clinton’s State Dept during his second term had a tobacco agenda–muscle in US tobacco brands and no-holds-barred advertising in return for trade concessions (textiles, ag goods). Indonesia, Columbia, they were out there United States of Altria (or whatever the tobacco barons call themselves these days).
It’s probably unfair to point out that Bush Sr introduced the BASHU wo suru no koto. (Puking on diplomats.) I’m sure plenty of ass was shown from 89-92, I was just too young to remember it. I do remember the doubletalk on the environment.
SatanicPanic
@BGinCHI: I think we’re already there- I mean, look at children today, so much better than their elders. Police just haven’t got the memo yet.
SiubhanDuinne
The reaction at Faux News is both as bloodless and as silly as you’d predict:
singfoom
@Linnaeus: Yeah, I’m not advocating violent revolution, I want to be clear. But I also think that the people power of people protesting in the streets en masse has been nullified at this point. I remember how many of us there were worldwide in the streets in March 2003, and since it wasn’t on the news and everyone thought Bush and Cheney were somehow “good men”, we got ignored and went to war anyway. It’s still better to have your voice heard and say fuck you even if just to raise awareness. Not that I can do that myself now since I’ve got issues that preclude putting myself in physical danger now. NYC should be pretty lively tonight on the streets.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti: THESE ARE NOT THE DELICIOUS WINGNUT TEARS I WAS PROMISED.
goblue72
@Lavocat: Depends, if the white person was a white person from a lower socio-economic class, I’d expect the same result. If it was a young blonde woman from a “good” family – then there would be outrage.
A lot of this is race, but some of it is class. The Wobblies were right. They’ve always been right.
KG
@Linnaeus: yeah, federal prosecutors don’t typically have relationships with local law enforcement. i am curious too, if we have similar problems on the federal side, where federal prosecutors go easy on federal law enforcement?
trollhattan
Here’s an actual good thing that happened today, to Voldemort’s drug-testing policy.
SiubhanDuinne
@SatanicPanic:
I need to learn a little more about black-on-black crime before I can make a reasoned decision on America’s Mayor.
schrodinger's cat
I also don’t see how the constant drumbeat of negativity helps anyone or anything. One thing common among political blogs of all stripes is the constant refrain, we are doomed.
kindness
Here’s the thing though. Indicting him on the charges is a good thing. Because if you don’t what will eventually happen is that it will become open season on cops. It isn’t as if the deranged can’t get guns or anything.
Enlightened self interest. Let the moran stand trial so you don’t get killed.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: Yeah that was some fucked up shit but people are stupid, witness the popularity of Airborne and other “homeopathic” remedies.
My MIL bullied my wife into taking zinc lozenges on this last cold (I didn’t take any and our colds lasted exactly the same amount of time) and she didn’t stop taking them until her tongue went numb. I said I hope it’s not permanent … and I do. People have actually lost their sense of smell permanently using zinc sprays for a non-existent zinc deficiency. (I’d be less pissed about Airborne and the other quack shit if it was just sugar and water. But in the US they can sell pharmacologically active amounts of crap and slap a homeopathic label on it, say it cures whatever, and print money off the backs of stupid, reckless people. While CVS and Walgreens and Walmart snicker all the way to the bank with their cut.)
SatanicPanic
@Kryptik, A Man Without a Country: dude, please, take it easy. The civil rights side hasn’t had a win? Gay marriage? Obama’s election? Executive order on immigration? Man, give our side some credit
Old white people don’t leave their home to yell at people when they’re winning.
goblue72
@singfoom: I am. It took an army burning its way to the sea to subdue the plantation holders of the Deep South – and even that only took for so long. It took a guillotine to subdue the royals of France – and even that took several turns of the screw over most the 19th century to get it to stick.
One side – of one race, and predominantly one social class (the rich), has taken all the wealth and all the power. WTF are we supposed to do? Have a sit-in and maybe go pull a lever in a ballot box once every two years?
Fuck that noise.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@schrodinger’s cat:
Catharsis. If I didn’t air out my shit like I’m doing right now, I’d probably curled up crying for the next few days unable to get out of bed.
Linnaeus
@BGinCHI:
This is a good point to make. The availability heuristic may lead us to think that what’s going on now is particularly bad, when it’s a continuation of what’s already been bad for hundreds of years. I think, though, that people expect better and are surprised when they don’t see it.
schrodinger's cat
@Kryptik, A Man Without a Country: Carry on then!
CarolDuhart2
I’m black and frustrated too. But two ideas I’ve run into help:
1) DA’s should be appointed like judges. When DA’s depend on cops to get elected, there’s little chance they will rule against potential voters. Let the Governor appoint these people-in cases like cop prosecutions let them be out of town DAs who don’t live there.
2) Trial by a panel of judges-preferable appellate judges.
3) Body cameras do help because they can’t be said to be “edited” by an interested bystander, and because they discourage showboating.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: Don’t be daft. Some dirty cop just got fired the other day for turning off his camera. 10 citizen complaints couldn’t do that.
Some of these measures will have more impact in smaller depts nationwide than NYPD which has an entire bureaucracy and a web of supporters entrenched to protect all the crooks.
These assholes getting fired does modify behavior even if indictments aren’t happening. Couldn’t get convictions on KKK terrorists in the 60s but that doesn’t mean you give up.
schrodinger's cat
@goblue72: Yeah the Russian revolution really worked out well for the peasants in Russia.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane:
Beautifully put.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: Well if you were in Europe you could go lord it over the natives in Asia or Africa.
ETA: That only applies if your country was a colonial power like Britain or France or even Belgium.
GregB
Is it not strange how conservatives consistenly find unerring faith in the government when it comes to killing people.
Lavocat
@goblue72: Agreed. If you are poor in this country, you are well and truly fucked, regardless of race. However, being both black AND poor only makes things MUCH worse. Might just as well be 3/5s of a human being for all The System cares about you.
Linnaeus
@KG:
When it’s federal law enforcement involved, perhaps you’d need something like an independent counsel who is outside the scope of the Justice Department.
You may not even need the feds involved with deal with local law enforcement crimes. A state-level agency or prosecutor might be enough.
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: This. What about that guy who got his charges of assaulting an officer in NJ reversed AND the cops were indicted? Anytime that happens it’s an actual improvement over the status quo.
Lavocat
@goblue72: It’s called a tipping point for a reason; and when it tips, you don’t want to be anywhere near it.
BGinCHI
@Linnaeus: I’m going to go out on a thin limb and say that the extremely shrill reaction from the right and the white supremacists (the GOP) tells me that they are out of ideas and that their way of life is finally about to disappear.
We will always have injustice but we can at least have better process so that perhaps it can be minimized. This is why CORRUPTION is the biggest threat. A nation of laws (and not men) gives people a much better chance.
Linnaeus
@singfoom:
I didn’t think you were advocating violent revolution. I’m saying we shouldn’t be surprised if people were to resist violently.
SatanicPanic
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, this is tiresome.
The Thin Black Duke
Jim Crow ain’t dead. He’s just been sleeping. But when Obama was elected President of the United States he woke up and now he’s singing “Happy Days Are Here Again”. And he wants his country back.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Or America. This is a colonial country. Unlike the rest of them, the success genocide of the native Americans assured that the colonists were in the majority, at least for the first few hundred years.
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: You make a good point. I think they are lashing out like cornered animals right now, and they are very dangerous.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: You live in NC. Where a movement born in protest has had an impact on the ballot box despite the billionaires. (No, not everything they wanted but I don’t think anyone’s ready to quit, especially not with 2016 in their sights.)
What skin is it off your nose if people on the NEC are protesting something that happened in NYC? It’s their issue, and they’ve been protesting since day one, and every incident before that, too. They are doing exactly what lefties always say they’ll do but fail to on a national level–putting unremitting pressure on their “more and better” progressive pols to do what they promised during their campaign. There is a great tradition of protest in NYC and Boston and while you can probably list a lot of ostensible failures of protest on more local matters it has a great track record of success which is why new protesters are being born every day and keeping up the full court press.
The South doesn’t have much of a protest tradition because that has been kept in check by a terrorist tradition. The only callback is the civil rights movement. For those who do protest anyway in the South, keep up the good work. It makes me sad to see how many people are still paralyzed by fear, inaction, and ignorance. They have no concept that people in the North live in a democracy where the 1st amendment is a living letter of law and stuff is being protested on a daily basis.
If protests and rallies only made people feel good they could go to an outdoor concert and party in the backyard with their friends. When you have a culture of political action it’s part of a system that feeds itself. In a democracy you get to call out pols who disappointed you. You get to call out a justice system that failed. That’s a protected activity.
Eric Garner’s family has already been out there day after day.
The Ancient Randonneur
DA’s are using these grand jury proceedings as a fig leaf. They don’t have the stones to just admit they aren’t going to prosecute cops for killing ANYONE. THIS is the get out of jail free card for cops to kill people who scare them. Guess who cops are afraid of? NOT people who look like they could be a family member.
BGinCHI
@schrodinger’s cat: All you have to do is watch that Joe Scar freakout.
What a tell.
Another Holocene Human
@elftx: NYPD needs an independent internal affairs review whatever board instead of that fucking HR dept joke it has now, where legitimate issues go to die and the crooks get protected and honest cops get railroaded.
The crooks run the union and internal affairs. If you are just a regular shmoe you’re going to figure out pretty fast that you have to play the game or you go up against the system, get shitcanned and when you try to complain get smeared as a whiner and crank with performance problems who’s just mad they couldn’t hack it in NYPD.
Remember ticket fixing?
Remember who took the fall for it?
Linnaeus
@BGinCHI:
Possibly. But you’d be surprised – actually, you probably wouldn’t be – by how many people who aren’t out-and-out white supremacists acquiesce to this state of affairs, because they really can’t countenance that something is wrong.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: Australia is another one. I don’t know much about the history of Australia but I have never heard much about the native populations there.
@BGinCHI: No cable so no Joe Scar, thank the Ceiling Cat. BTW congrats on your book!
Richard Shindledecker
All your anger is understandable but the choke hold is not illegal in NYC or state. It’s against the policy of the NYPD to use it and a policy violation is not a crime. Sitting on the guy while he’s fighting for air – now that’s a different story.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: Five protests happening right now in NYC with a big one scheduled for tomorrow. Unlike the Guiuliani days, I do not expect the mayor to be an asshole about it.
Betty Cracker
@goblue72:
And here we have it — too many people think it’s not important to go pull a lever in a ballot box every two years. But it IS, goddamn it. It IS.
Peter
@Mnemosyne: There’s a reason why there’s never been a Law & Order: Internal Affairs. And it’s not because there wouldn’t be plenty of material to work with.
Another Holocene Human
The other problem with NYPD is Compustat and its misuse.
One thing: NYC’s reported homicide rate is a lie. They don’t report vehicular homicide as homicide. As a result, they don’t prosecute deliberate and indifferent killings of pedestrians. This is a massive injustice. And they brag about a lower than average urban homicide rate when they’re lying.
Another thing: the quotas for confrontations with pedestrians which is fueling stop’n’frisk. Why do they have a dept policy that forces cops to break the law?
Another Holocene Human
@kc: They wanted this to happen. NYPD cops and their enablers are furious they even had to go through the motions of a case with Garner at all. The whole thing is utterly outrageous from beginning to end, starting with the illegal chokehold. Heads shoulda rolled.
Goblue72
@schrodinger’s cat: They went from serfs eating dirt to having roofs over their heads, some food on the table, indoor plumbing/electricity, roads, an excellent public education system, and modern(ish) healthcare.
The serfs by and large did ok. Eventually, they deserve even more economic development and less totalitarianism – and which point the communists run out of answers.
schrodinger's cat
@Goblue72: What about the millions who died under Stalin? Or just plain disappeared.
Goblue72
@Betty Cracker: I vote, Miss Thing. But it clearly is wholly insufficient.
Fuck that mealy mouthed comfortable liberal white people noise.
Peter
@Richard Shindledecker: A chokehold itself is not a crime, but I think arguing that chokeholding someone to death isn’t a crime is a bit of a hard sell.
Iowa Old Lady
The ME in the Garner case said death was due to homicide. Apparently ghosts did it.
AndoChronic
It’s as if the “powers” that be actually want a full-scale revolution or race war to occur. To that I say, aren’t they also susceptible to bullets and chokeholds? Also, haven’t they all but guaranteed massive arsenals to every man, woman, and child in this country? Wonder what their angle is?
trollhattan
@Another Holocene Human:
NY’s renowned for not prosecuting or even ticketing motorists who maim and kill bicyclists. The entire Citibike kerfuffle was a tell as to how the NY aristocracy feels about their supposed lessers, and the NYPD is an extension of that aristocracy.
BGinCHI
@Linnaeus: I’m not surprised. But those people feel like there is no system at all; it’s just “natural.” They are not blessed with a lot of self-consciousness….
@schrodinger’s cat: Thanks! Makes a great gift.
Another Holocene Human
@goblue72: It’s also where a lot of the cops live, including that #winner who shot and killed a highly decorated Black cop oh, about two years ago.
You are correct about the politics. It’s also the borough with the worst public transit and most residents are like proud of that fact and act like they want to make love to their car. Cars are the Northern version of gunzzz in the South/sunbelt states in that they are a meta fetish for the perpetuation of white supremacy. Texans may use gunzzzz as a manhood proxy as well but when I was growing up in the Northeast a beemer or even better, a buttugly new SUV served that purpose.
Hell, I was in Amherst MA walking down the sidewalk a decade ago and the person I was hanging out with screamed “Sorry about your penis problem!” at a particularly rude Jeep driver. I don’t advocate screaming that at people but the car or SUV and the open carried gun or rifle seem to feed the same psychological need and others tend to perceive it that way.
Peter
@Goblue72: This is an interesting historical view, given that serfdom ended in 1861.
BGinCHI
@Betty Cracker: Nothing prevents goblue72 from pulling the lever all the way out and then using it to hit his Tea Party uncle in the shins with it. But pull it first.
pseudonymous in nc
Grand juries were functionally abolished in England in 1933:
You can indict a ham sandwich, but not a white cop.
dedc79
@Goblue72: One problem with your formulation is that the “they” you’re speaking of is really a subset composed of the people who had the good fortune to not be murdered either directly by the state or via a policy of starvation.
Goblue72
@schrodinger’s cat: You think life under the czars was that much better? Seriously?
Conmunist Revolution didn’t occur because stuff was awesome. And if you dodged pissing off Stalin, life was measurably better.
Linnaeus
@AndoChronic:
Many of those those folks won’t be rebelling against TPTB – they’ll serve them as Freikorps.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: The treatment of the Aborigines was, and remains, horrifyingly vicious. The idea that a European country’s underclass, its “thugs”, could be transformed into ubermenschen at the expense of the native population is even more apparent in Australia than it is here. The difference with the US is that we have the additional legacy of large-scale slavery to contend with, and that the descendants of those slaves make up a significant percentage of the population though not enough to be the majority in any region of the country.
Goblue72
@dedc79: Which would be the vast majority of the Russian population.
Another Holocene Human
@Kryptik, A Man Without a Country: As Gandhi said, first they laugh at you.
If you never get past the first they laugh at you, then you win is off the table.
schrodinger's cat
@Goblue72: No I don’t, but bloody revolutions don’t necessarily turn out wonderful for the suffering masses either.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@The Ancient Randonneur:
They’ve never said it outright in San Diego, but in my lifetime we’ve only had one cop prosecuted by the city for anything here that I know of.
Took the bastard nine rapes before they finally decided to drag him in, and then they promptly hired a detective agency to follow his victims around. Which is still going on, by the way. They seem to be very concerned that the victims might not be truthful, and for some reason this requires 24/7 surveillance.
For years.
It’s a great town to be white in. Which I am. If I weren’t I’d have left decades ago.
SatanicPanic
@schrodinger’s cat: Or the million or so that died in the Russian Civil War. Hey! here’s some white on white crime that no one’s talking about.
Another Holocene Human
@goblue72: The Wobblies went after race and class. I think you know that but your comment was ambiguous.
Gender too.
Wobblies did not believe in women’s auxiliaries.
The CPUSA did more to destroy the IWW than the federal gov’t and their judicial railroading ever did. CPUSA promised race/gender/class solidarity and a revolution too. They fucking destroyed the Left in the US. Smashed it up from the inside.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
Because that’s what the voters want. Enough of them want an official policy of harassing minorities that it’s being implemented as an official policy, and legality is completely beside the point.
Goblue72
@Peter: I’m speaking shorthand. It’s not like after the Emancipation of 1861, that life all became magically better for the Russian peasant class. Woo hoo – we aren’t bonded to the land. But we still don’t really own anything and still get to eat shit for dinner! Woo us – we might be happier if we could actually read.
schrodinger's cat
@SatanicPanic: I thought the CIA was responsible.
/channeling Comrade Bob.
burnspbesq
@singfoom:
If you believe that, if you’re too god-damned lazy to do the hard work that Frankensteinbeck outlined in his comment, then just get the fuck out. Emigrate. Go somewhere else. Vote with your feet for some other country that you think is better.
Still here? Get your ass in gear. The changes you claim to want won’t happen without your engagement. And no, vomiting up incoherent rage on a blog doesn’t count. We have Cole for that.
trollhattan
@The Thin Black Duke:
Gary Trudeau had aDoonesbury series noting just that–voter suppression is a revival of Jim Crow. But it’s “just a comic” so not like a real conversation, which the media are dead set against us having.
“What’s it going to take to halt these killings?” is a question I fear has the same answer as when we asked it after Sandy Hook, i.e., there’s no event, however horrid, that’s enough to get the country to pay attention. It just pivots back to “Who’s going to most lower my top marginal tax rate?”
Goblue72
@Another Holocene Human: Yes that’s what I meant – namely that it’s about class AND race, and that the IWW had it right with respect to recognizing both.
Also too – Wilson and the Feds had a pretty big role to play. It wasn’t just internal dynamics in the fall of the IWW.
SatanicPanic
@Goblue72: I’d rather live under the czars, for sure. I don’t remember reading about any 5 year plans starving 5 + million people to death under them. Communism replaced a lot of crappy regimes, almost invariably with something much worse.
schrodinger's cat
@burnspbesq: I think most people who go on and on about how bad things are over here have never actually lived in another country.
raven
@BGinCHI: He runnin his mouth about what he’s “gonna do” again. Anyone that was going to do something wouldn’t be talking about it on some fucking blog/
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: True that, the LGBT movement showed up in DC in droves in the early 1990s for a protest that most of the outside world found bizarre and irrelevant, and look where we are now.
Didn’t hurt that they influenced the students in law school who are now coming into their own as judges and pols.
The Gay Liberation Movement played the long game because they had to. The Civil Rights Movement was a long, drawn out struggle. If you’ve never been involved in these kinds of movements from the beginning it’s easy to lose hope because you get the illusion that things rise to the surface and get fixed quickly if they’re going to be fixed at all. Well, that’s just not true.
Stuff would simmer for years in the gay press or in the Black press that was completely absent from the “mainstream” press until somehow at the end it crests over the top and becomes nationwide news. Sometimes that has to happen a couple of times, too, before anything changes.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah:
This.
@BGinCHI: Also this.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: The people who were in a social class to do that did that. The people who were not often came to the US. The exception is the anglo-american elite class who were traveling back and forth for education and marriage and had a solidarity that most of the rest of the US found suspect (but in the end could do little about … in their last act they took over the CIA and ran US foreign policy according to British elite interests for decades. The only thing that’s reduced the importance of that relationship is that the UK changed. And the assholes can still get their way on the important stuff.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Lavocat: I’m right there with you, and I’ve been a prosecutor.
@Another Holocene Human:
I have to take issue with this. Ive “selected” dozens of juries, state and federal, in both civil and criminal cases. Actually juries are “unselected,” as you start with a venire and then (in oversimplified description) challenge the potential jurors you believe will be adverse to your client’s position. For cause (harder to get) or with a peremptory (for any or no reason, not required to be stated) challenge.
Federal jury pools draw from the entire judicial district which will span several counties. In a metropolitan area this tends to result in a group that is much more rural than a county jury, and certainly less local. In either case. the potential jurors counsel has to (un)select from is quite random in terms of what kind of people got a notice for that time period. Then random again in terms of which of those folks are sent to any given courtroom on the day that a particular trial begins.
But unlike on TV, juries aren’t selected – “jury selection” is a misnomer, and misleading. Rather, counsel for each side starts with the folks, from the larger pool that’s sent to the courtroom, who are assigned to the jury box for initial questioning. Then counsel can begin whittling that group down with the use of allotted challenges. After a challenge, a new potential juror moves from main room seating to jury box. Ultimately a jury and alternates are seated.
/legal pedantry and likely more than anyone ever wanted to read about jury selection.
scav
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, sometimes. The roads in France are better maintained though, from the bits I’ve visited. They’re having their own social problems and they can manage some nutcases, but the roads are better paved, even little ones in fairly rural areas in the Herault and Aude vis-a-vis even parts of urban and suburban Chicago. Doctors too, rather liked their doctors the times I’ve needed them (near Paris and Bordeaux and earlier those events.) Often the ones crowing loudest about how perfect everything is here also haven’t been abroad for comparison.
Goblue72
@burnspbesq: was wondering when you’d show to start bossing people around and whitemanslain things for us.
El Tiburon
@Frankensteinbeck:
No offense, but fuck that.
Let’s see: Civil Rights Amendment passed in the 60s. And still…
Voting may cure this shit, in, oh, another 50 years?
no, voting, sadly, is not the answer.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav:
Which part of “abroad” always matters.
singfoom
@burnspbesq: Thank you for your lovely comment. I’ll keep voting as I have and making observations as I like. One can think this country is on a bad course and at the same time do what they can to correct it. But thanks for making assumptions about what I do and don’t do. I’ll try to run my comments by you first next time to get approval, champ.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: I think you mean state, there are plenty of regions.
ETA: also, you missed the complicated situation following the huge seizures of territory with the Mex-Amer war. You have people with Spanish colonial land claims vs an anglo power structure. You have people who were forcibly deported only to be allowed back in with some sort of bullshit work permit scheme. And then there’s Louisiana.
Tree With Water
That Staten Island DA must be a piece of work. Who are his political allies?
Still, WTF, NYC? I can hardly believe this happened there, of all places in the country.
Another Holocene Human
@Goblue72: Emphasis on Russians. Other ethnic groups did not fare so well.
SatanicPanic
@El Tiburon: OK, what’s the answer then?
Goblue72
@raven: figured your royal butthurtness would show up
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Exactly.
jharp
And I’d like to remind everyone that if you are white and disagree with law enforcements actions that all you have to do is point loaded weapons at them and they will leave.
Still can’t fucking believe those fucking yahoos at the Bundy ranch got away with that.
Obama’s weakest moment. Those criminals should be in jail or dead.
RaflW
So I saw several people talking about voting so that this horrible bullshit stops. OK, sure. What’s noted progressive mayor Bill de Blasio gonna do about this?
I’m not saying voting won’t do anything, but the elected officials gotta feel some heat when miscarriages of justice happen. Not in 3.5 years, either.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: Well, OTOH the Haitian Revolution turned out just fine. Most of their problems today can be traced back to Woodrow Wilson’s invasion of the island and the systemic destruction of the economy, political structure, social structure, the peasant class and anything they possessed, legal system, social fabric, etc, etc since.
AndoChronic
@Linnaeus: I don’t know, a lot of groups you’re eluding to would probably join in if it meant over throwing the government. Are you forgetting who’s in the WHITE House?
bemused
@Frankensteinbeck:
Meanwhile Fox’s Doocy and panel opine that Americans pass the citizenship test before they can vote. My immediate thought was could Doocy, Hasslebeck and what’s his face pass it.
Goblue72
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve been to France, the Netherlands, and Scandanavia. It’s better over there. For pretty much everyone except the well to do who I could give a shit about.
Elie
As a black person, I am reminded of one of the worst scenes in 12 years a slave – when Northrup woke up in chains after having been sedated and kidnapped back into slavery. You see, he thought he was a free man.. a free man. He tried to tell them that a mistake had been made – to no avail.
What must we do to be free- to expect to be treated as full CITIZENS, with rights?
Certainly, white people must know that if we cannot be free, no one is free. Its just who is the next one. This should make everyone who loves freedom and justice, sick to their stomachs and in their hearts.
raven
@SatanicPanic: I wanna kill, I wanna see dead burnt babies, I wanna kill.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: “Abroad” isn’t homogenous? Yoikes! What will they think of next?!
singfoom
@jharp: You’re right to a certain extent. But then there’s this: http://www.vice.com/read/city-of-silence-117?utm_source=vicefbus
The reality is that if you don’t obey exactly when and how a cop wants you to, regardless of whether you’re in the right or the wrong, you’re in for a world of hurt. Resisting arrest becomes the reason that they can beat the fuck out of you, even though they weren’t even arresting you.
Watching the Garner video, they could have given him a ticket for it and walked away. It seems like police everywhere need to be trained to minimize use of force appropriately to the context of the crime.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: White and have money. I don’t and I just about broke out in hives after a few hours. Fuck that place. (30 years ago my dad literally broke out in hives on a visit to San Diego. At that time my aunt was stationed there.) Also, I’m not a fucking hypocrite with my head up my ass. The only thing I enjoyed while there besides Thai curries was going to the old town San Diego park/mall thing and having Mexican food cooked by Mexicans. The Mexicans were really nice, too.
I tried to enjoy the transit system since I am a transit geek but the whole subtext of the trolley was FUCK THE POORS. I mean not the first time I’ve seen that but ugh. Even asshat Portland, OR is not that out there about that. Their streetcar is public run and the inspectors were pretty chill and there was a whole block where there were visible homeless and they’re all like yah we’re drunk, gotta dollar? SD had me looking over my own damn shoulder. Fuck that place.
scav
@raven: Kill! Kill!! Kill!! Kill!!!
Elie
@Goblue72:
Get real man. Those are mostly all white countries with just a few “coloreds”. Trust me, soon as the “coloreds” reach a certain threshold, racism pops up right on time. They also have very restricted immigration policies for “coloreds”. Check it out.
beltane
A difference between Missouri and New York? Senator Gillibrand asks the DOJ to investigate the killing of Eric Garner http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/03/1349155/-Sen-Gillibrand-to-Ask-For-DOJ-Investigation-of-Police-Killing-of-Eric-Garner
Voting doesn’t change things as much as it should, but at least it gets you representatives who value the humanity of their constituents.
JPL
Oh my, the police union is not going to be happy with Mayor de Blasio. .
jimmiraybob
@Richard Shindledecker:
Why wouldn’t negligent homicide be in play?
Another Holocene Human
@Roger Moore: Please break that down for me because judging by public comments and internet comments, the stop n frisk junkies made it into a campaign issue, DeBlasio was against it and Liu was for it, with the usual suspects openly saying that NYC would return to Dinkins era crime levels without it and guess what, DeBlasio beat Liu by a landslide. So where is this supposed majority of NYC voters who are deadset on stop n frisk?
They lost. In the polls. By a landslide. They lost.
It’s people in power who staked their careers on this shit who want this shit, and sadly by pulling mr compustat back in (maybe he felt there wasn’t anybody else ‘credible’ to tap), the voters are not getting what they clearly, emphatically voted for.
This ain’t Gitmo closure redux. And not-in-NYC people’s votes don’t count here no matter how much time per day they spend in the city limits and how much they publicly whine.
So no. I strongly disagree. No way in hell.
beltane
@JPL: What did he say?
JPL
@beltane: Long story short, black lives matter. He is now talking about Cleveland .
RaflW
@RaflW:
Update: Twitter is lighting up that Bill De Blasio is in fact speaking out. Next up, will it start any change in the police, D.A., or grand jury processes??
Omnes Omnibus
@Goblue72: Ever been somewhere that wasn’t a wealthy country in Western Europe? I bet you might find it different in Karachi or Porto Novo, Benin – to pluck a couple of cities out of a hat.
Another Holocene Human
@Goblue72: The IWW had always been looking towards a revolution and the Communist Party had succeeded at one. So even with Big Bill Hayworth I don’t see how CPUSA doesn’t drain IWW of their vital essence in the early 20th.
Remember, the US Army was in Russia for years fighting on the “white” side. And they lost! IWW couldn’t take on the US gov’t but the Communist Party International could! Game over.
The problem was, CPUSA took their marching orders from Stalin. There was probably no chance of them being independent because they attracted so many disaffected authoritarian followers. But that lockstep destroyed them and in doing so destroyed the left.
JPL
@beltane: Here’s Cuomo’s statement..
“The circumstances surrounding his death were nothing short of tragic. And while there will be people who disagree with today’s grand jury decision, it is important that we respect the legal process and rule of law. At the same time, the justice system also allows for additional investigations and reviews, and it may be appropriate for the federal government to do so in this case. And if there are improvements to be made and lessons to be learned, we at the state level are ready to act to better the system.
cckids
@rikyrah:
THIS. Same goes for Ferguson, though its not on tape. I know enough of the way this sad world works to realize that, in a trial, neither this cop nor Wilson are likely to be convicted, but how is there NOT EVEN A TRIAL?? It absolutely reeks that the fix is in, cops can do whatever the hell they want.
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: hey hey, leave my town alooooone. The trolley sucks but it’s getting extended and MTS is better than it used to be. I used to ride the bus, it’s not so bad. We’re just waiting for all the old white people to retire to AZ and then things are going to get much better. But we’re making progress and it’s not exactly easy to fix all the planning mistakes we made in a short amount of time.
J
There are probably other and better comparisons, but it seems to me that this is a Dreyfus like moment. Just as Dreyfus had to be guilty and the officers who fabricated the evidence innocent for the French right wing of the time, for people like Scarborough Wilson just has to be innocent and Brown just has to be the villain, and the people who don’t agree have to be liars.
mouse tolliver
@goblue72:
Last season one of the winners from CBS’s Big Brother was from Staten Island, and she was an old school, unapologetic Archie Bunker-style racist. (Actually used the N-word a couple of times; said an Asian woman should get smacked in the face to straighten out her eyes; became visibly angry when she found out a fellow contestant had a mixed race child; spent the whole season bullying a black woman; and said black people were a different species from white people.) She acted like this even though she knew she was being recorded. My takeaway from that is that SI must be extremely racist if it’s producing the kind of racists who don’t even feel the need to use coded language when they’re being racist.
Omnes Omnibus
@J: I don’t think it is a bad comparison at all.
D58826
@cckids: And if there is a trial there is always the chance, no matter how slim, that the cop will be convicted.
Kristin
@jharp: Or any of those open carry yahoos brandishing semi-automatic weapons at Chili’s. That makes me think it’s more about race than class.
Omnes Omnibus
@cckids: While the ham sandwich analogy is an overstatement, there was easily enough evidence to support probable cause in both of these cases. A prosecutor who wanted an indictment could have gotten one.
tybee
@scav:
blood and guts and gore and veins between my teeth. i wanna eat dead burnt bodies.
RaflW
@JPL: quoting Cuomo:
So, governor. This would be the legal system that ignored lynchings for a couple of generations? This would be the legal system that didn’t even empanel women for a century or more, depending on the state?
The SCOTUS didn’t rule until 1975 that a jury drawn from a pool of all men “deprived the accused of a fair trial.”
I could go on. In so many directions of disrespect by the law.
So, yeah, Cuomo. We gotta respect the rule of law. Because it sure as hell respects human rights!
F*ck this shit.
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: Not so fast, life under the Czars was indeed fucking ugly. The word pogrom ring a bell? The bloodied tip of the iceberg following the Panic of 1872.
dedc79
@J: If it is, then it doesn’t exactly bode well for the long-term.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: I think most people who go on about how great things are over here have never lived in another country.
Sooooo wealthy and sooooo stupid about how we spend it.
Though you are right in a sense, because it’s the same people who say USA #1 who also cry about dictatorship and have no concept of what that is actually like. Dictatorship is not getting my way all the time.
David in NY
De Blasio apparently gave a good speech — can’t find a video of it.
Another Holocene Human
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I appreciate your inside view. The schlub pulled for jury duty only sees one small part of the process. But I did get to see the starting group and the ending group and my understanding is that this was no outlier.
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: yeah, I’d still choose that. USSR was still worse. But here’s the thing, imagine if, instead of a revolution Russian citizens had just pressured Nicholas II for more rights. Can you imagine how much better things would have turned out? Russia might look like Germany now. Not to mention all the other places the Soviets wouldn’t have made a mess of.
scav
@tybee: So they all moved back, shook my hand and we had a great time on the bench there. . .
It’d be nice to think we’d triumph over Office Obie this round, but I think the Judge’s seeing eye dog is more a front and a deliberate refusal to see this go-round.
El Tiburon
@SatanicPanic: I don’t know the answer. I’m a white dude who has always lived in mostly white neighborhoods, so I can’t exactly feel what the black populace must feel right now.
But as a white male, I am sickened at the abuse of power and as a liberal, I tend to side with the powerless. If it were my white mates and friends and family who were continually being murdered and brutalized by the power structure going on 200 years now, I don’t know that voting would be at the top of my list, nor the 10, as a cure.
You dig?
Another Holocene Human
@scav: France spends more money on communal needs and less on individual households in terms of infrastructure. Houses are much bigger (gaudier, etc) in the US than in France.
There are getting the sprawl as well and that will impact their road spending because sprawl costs more to maintain. That is part of the reason for the US tax malaise. We chose a higher cost option and now are throwing a tantrum. (The motives behind that going unexamined because they are twisted and ugly. Plus, somebody who is making a profit off of this scheme wants to retain the happy position. So they actually pay shills to try to destroy attempts to develop in the other direction.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: FWIW my experience of the system more or less matches Bella Q’s.
beltane
Obama: “I am not interested in talk, I am interested in action.”
Another Holocene Human
Our feminist 2nd wave foremothers had a great saying which is perfectly applicable to today’s events:
DON’T MOURN, ORGANIZE.
SatanicPanic
@El Tiburon: no not really. Telling people not to vote doesn’t sound like a good idea at all. It’s not like it is so time consuming you can’t do a million other things in the meantime either.
Punchy
Just wait and see what happens when we hit the Shit Trifecta and that cop in Cleveland who shot the 12 year old skates. If he’s even grand juried, which seems unlikely.
Another Holocene Human
Today was a wake up call for some of y’all. This is a war and we lose battles every day.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: That saying comes from Joe Hill. “Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize… Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.” While second wave feminists may have used it, they didn’t originate it.
Linnaeus
@SatanicPanic:
They did, repeatedly. Nicholas’ response was to either repress his citizens’ demonstrations for reform (often violently) or to promise reforms and then undermine them. Our own country rebelled over less.
SatanicPanic
@Linnaeus: he can’t have been any harsher on protestors than the Soviets were
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: Hello, they did that, and the revolutionary vanguard killed the moderates in the old regime to “heighten the contradictions”.
It wasn’t the fucking peasants who made the wrong call, mmmkay?
Honestly at the point where I know more about Russian history than you do and I know about three things, this is a shitty example for you to be flogging.
The mainstream take on the revolution is that peasants had been protesting for a while (1905 anyone?) and they were feeling their oats. Think about what Malcolm X said. Chickens coming home to roost?
You can’t break down every institution and turn it into a farce and then expect that everyone will keep respecting those institutions. This is the exact playbook for destroying civil society and causing unrest to break out. The elites in this country are playing with fucking fire and no, I don’t want to see that happen, and yes, I can see why non-violent political transformation is more powerful and effective than violent coups, but remember what Kosh said: The avalanche has spoken. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
I HOPE to hell the elites are pissing their pants at the thought of civil society breaking down for reals and will pull back from the edge. I have a lot to fucking lose, okay!
And we can make this argument without positing idiotic counterfactuals about life under the Tsar from 1861-1917. It’s unpersuasive and a distraction.
Karen in GA
@Tree With Water: It’s Staten Island. For anyone who recalls the Yusef Hawkins murder in Bensonhurst in the mid-80s, and the people waving watermelons at the protesters marching there a few days later, those people have left Brooklyn for Staten Island.
I grew up surrounded by those racist, sexist, gleefully ignorant assholes. It was hard enough to be a woman with a triple-digit IQ — I can’t fathom being black and having to share the country with these bastards without snapping and swinging an ax at everyone I meet.
goblue72
@SatanicPanic: Its pretty easy to play “what if” pretend. But since you can’t actually come anywhere close to proving the what if lets pretend, it not really all the persuasive.
Another Holocene Human
PS: just because the life under the Ayatollahs sucked doesn’t mean you can find more than two Iranians not relatives of the ex-Shah (pining for the fjords!) or mentally ill who are panting after a return to that regime
part of it is probably that psychological defense that all of us have but seriously, there are some rational reasons as well
same with Russia, if you’re an ethnic Russian at any rate
Another Holocene Human
@Karen in GA: A lot of them moved to Florida.
El Tiburon
@SatanicPanic:
I agree. And I never said that. YOU made the claim that the solution was to VOTE. While that may be true to an extent, it’s not very realistic, is it?
Factor in gerrymandering and our screwed up political system, voting certainly does not offer any remedies for all of the dead black bodies, not to mention the countless others of all ethnicities who are brutalized, tazed, whose children are nearly killed by flash bombs and the raping and so on.
beltane
Per CBS the DOJ is launching a criminal civil rights violation investigation into Eric Garner’s death.
Patricia Kayden
@The Thin Black Duke: It was never his country. Ask the Native Americans.
I assume Garner’s family will sue and at least there will be some justice in this case. Body cameras are still a good idea, in my opinion, since I assume it will force bad cops to modify their interactions with Black people. Knowing that one’s actions are being taped should give one pause no matter how racist one is.
Patricia Kayden
@beltane: Love that Eric Holder is still at the helm of the DOJ. He should just stay for the next two years and leave when President Obama’s administration ends. I doubt the Republicans will confirm a replacement before then anyways.
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: Jesus fucking Christ.
Poor ethnic Russians probably fared the worst during WWII when conscripted into an underequipped army and forced to become Nazi cannon fodder or be shot by their own side.
After the war there were a lot of bennies to being an ethnic Russian unless you were a dissenter or something like that. It was a totally different life than what your grandparents had.
One issue is that Communism coincided with rapid industrialization and modernization. It was both time and it was part of the Party’s agenda, in fact they set goals that were just plain unrealistic and this fueled a lot of the shiznit that went on. (Mao, I guess just to prove that he could, was worse on this than Stalin. When Stalin starved civilian populations, he did that shit on purpose. Mao starved millions through fucking ineptitude. And his industrialization program involved “magic”. It turned out about as well as Stalin’s magical crop line breeding improvement plan. US is and was Russia’s biggest grain rival since 1872 and the US kicked the USSR’s fucking ass for decades on this.)
The USSR’s rapid industrialization was actually pretty impressive. Somebody more expert than me would have to explain what worked and why and what didn’t work. I think the non democratic, non open society made it very easy to hide problems so in a state run economy where 60% of everything is pure fiction I mean you’re going to have problems. There was also the need to destroy anything that was working too well because that creates a power base so for example some of the successful experiments they tried in farming communities had to be crushed with extreme prejudice because the people were getting too uppity. The closing of the “free” vs “socialist” economies probably was also a big problem, Russia tried to cover this up by taking enormous protectorates but in truth Western Europe was able to rebuild in part by selling to/borrowing from/accepting grants from the US. Russia was trying to become a US off of its own bootstraps.
You can’t untangle Communism and industrialization because they are intimately connected. There is absolutely no doubt that things like standard of living, education, and healthcare improved ENORMOUSLY under Communism in Russia and indeed in the entire Russian empire if you count those three things alone.
Karen in GA
@Another Holocene Human: True. A lot of my family did, mostly to 95% white Cape Coral, where they felt safe to become even more overtly racist.
A few of them did move back, though, but instead of returning to Brooklyn they moved to — everybody sing with me — Staten Island.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you for the reference. Not surprising it comes from a Wobbly!
Svensker
@mouse tolliver:
Yup. Pretty much it.
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: I never said peasants took the lead in that one. I said citizens. And I am well aware that it wasn’t a peasant led revolution. I read books too man. I don’t know what you’re getting mad and trying to credential-brag about. Sheesh.
Let’s just make is easy- was the Russian Revolution a good call? Or would people in Russia, on the whole, have been better off not going that route?
I think you’d have to be insane to say yes, knowing what we know, that it was, but hey, goblue or whoever else is free to argue, I guess.
Another Holocene Human
@David in NY: I’ll listen to his speeches when he FIRES some muthafuckas up in this b*tch.
IDK, that may in a sense be going on covertly. Some people have suddenly resigned and there’s a lot of speculation as to why. Also, it’s very clear from how Ghouliani and crew reacted that Bratton that he is not there to stay the course despite being Mr. Compustat.
Still. Want to see heads roll. Want to see indictments too. Until then, save the speeches.
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: So, I’m taking that as a yes on it being a good idea? Uh, OK!
SatanicPanic
@El Tiburon: It’s part of the solution. Duh. It’s kind of ridiculous to argue otherwise.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Goblue72:
Yes, that’s why the Freedom Riders fought and died so Black folks living under Jim Crow would to be allowed to vote. Because voting is something only white people care about.
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: Insane to say yes? You read books? Then why are you so ignorant about basic facts? I am not credential bragging, I learned some very basic facts in high school, stuff you can’t even keep straight. You have spent this entire thread digging a hole and arguing a counterfactual. The irony is that it’s completely unnecessary as there are completely historical arguments against “heightening the contradictions” and seeing violent revolution as a goal. In fact, the lead-up to the Russian Revolution makes this argument and you can’t even see it because you are confused about basic facts. I don’t know what books you have been reading unless they were written by David Barton and Bill O’Reilly’s ghostwriters.
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: If you’re going to posit a false choice, then revolution yes.
I’m actually with the moderates but you don’t know anything about that, and you don’t know why that ceased to become a possibility. Too bad because it seems like you would actually not be disagreeing with any of us if you did. But you’re arguing from some cartoonish distortion of the truth. That’s what I have a problem with.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Well that really classed up the conversation.
goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: What exactly the flying fart does comparing the U.S. to Pakistan prove? Don’t complain about the U.S., you could be living in Pakistan! That’s right up there with the America love it or leave it bullshit.
I’m sorry, but no. The fact is, shit is fucked up and bullshit in the country and there are plenty of countries with much more compareable levels of economic and political development that have much lower levels of social inequality than the U.S. Oh, like much of Western Europe.
Groucho48
Well, one small ray of light. Here in Buffalo, NY, a cop was actually convicted for beating on a black drug dealer he had already handcuffed and who wasn’t resisting. Luckily, a bystander captured it on his phone and was clever enough to switch phones with a friend before the cops approached him and demanded he erase the video.
Of course, the cop only got probation.
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: Dude, take it down a notch please because you’re going way over the line with that Bill O’Reilly comment. I am well aware that the USSR industrialized faster than it might have otherwise. But so did North Korea. In the 1970s the North’s standard of living was well above the Souths… in the end how did that work out?
What counterfactual am I arguing? The 5 year plan lead to massive famines, just like bonehead communist planning lead to famines in China and Ethiopia. Did anywhere in the world that wasn’t communist suffer the kind of devastating famines that planned economies did? Sure, they brought up standard of living, but nearly everywhere that didn’t have war taking place in the middle of it had its living standards improve in the 20th century- the green revolution did a lot more for people than communism ever did. And no one ever wrote 1984 about India or Brazil.
Omnes Omnibus
@goblue72: If you are incapable of reading the context of a thread, that is your problem. You responded to this comment “I think most people who go on and on about how bad things are over here have never actually lived in another country,” by listing a bunch of well-off Western European countries and saying things are better there. Quite probably true. On the other hand, not all of “abroad” is Western Europe. Things aren’t better everywhere else. And assumption that they are is either a sign of brain death or a level of Euro-centrism that is gob-smacking.
And fuck you with the love it or leave it bullshit. Dipshit.
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: if the revolution had gone according some of the revolutionaries best-case scenario and Mensheviks had won or whatever, sure, that might have been better. That didn’t happen so I don’t know what difference it makes.
AxelFoley
Welp, we knew this would be the outcome.
Jack the Second
I would like to add to the list of remedies — along with off course voting, in primaries, and maybe setting some shit on fire — go join the police, and then be better police.
The police have their own power structure. Having city governments willing to clean house would be nice, but you could accomplish a lot by packing the force with officers who will (a) not do this shit (b) not cover for their fellow officers who do this shit and (c) be promoted to positions of authority where they can drop the hammer who officers who do this shit.
WereBear
True a million times.
Quinely
Didn’t read all the great comments above. Has anyone posted about the guy who shot the Garner video and the fact he has been indicted since the video? Weapons charges, I believe. He thinks retaliatory.
PaulW
Raging at the moment. http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2014/12/what-hell-is-wrong-with-america.html
Peace to all the protestors on the streets tonight. Stay safe. Watch out for police over-reaction.
Goblue72
@Jack the Second: bwahahahahaha.
ruemara
@El Tiburon: We’ve really never tried the whole voting en masse, all the time thing. Maybe we should do it at least once before we toss it out.
Applejinx
Voting is leg days.
It’s completely ridiculous and unthinkable to ONLY do that, but if you just plain never do it that’s bad as well.