DOJ Ferguson report reveals extent of police state in U.S.A.

POSTED BY: oldenglanddry
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 04:19
VIEWED: 3278
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OLDENGLANDDRY

Sunday, March 15, 2015 7:48 PM

The very act of being alive is rapidly becoming a crime in order to facilitate court racketeering;

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-robinson/the-shocking-finding-fro
m-the-doj-ferguson_b_6858388.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

1KIKI

Sunday, March 15, 2015 11:36 PM

It's not something I've spent time looking into, trying to understand the processes at work, their structure and lack of regulating feedback.

But the question that comes to my mind is this - how does this happen in a democracy? And not just in Ferguson, but all across the country. How does the average citizen become a commodity for the government to unilaterally repress and exploit at will?

And the answer I tentatively proffer is this: government runs itself to accommodate rich people and itself. The faces change in an election, and there are differences in policy, but nothing is allowed to happen that affects the power structure very deeply.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9836.html
They conclude that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

WHOZIT

Monday, March 16, 2015 1:47 AM

16,000 people have arrest warrants and the cops are crooked, maybe they should just bulldoze that town off the face of the earth.

KPO

Monday, March 16, 2015 2:08 AM

You also need to read/listen to individual cases to get a sense of what life is like for African Americans in that town. This is from the Department of Justice report:

Quote:
Even relatively routine misconduct by Ferguson police officers can have significant consequences for the people whose rights are violated. For example, in the summer of 2012, a 32-year-old African-American man sat in his car cooling off after playing basketball in a Ferguson public park. An officer pulled up behind the man’s car, blocking him in, and demanded the man’s Social Security number and identification. Without any cause, the officer accused the man of being a pedophile, referring to the presence of children in the park, and ordered the man out of his car for a pat-down, although the officer had no reason to believe the man was armed. The officer also asked to search the man’s car. The man objected, citing his constitutional rights. In response, the officer arrested the man, reportedly at gunpoint, charging him with eight violations of Ferguson’s municipal code. One charge, Making a False Declaration, was for initially providing the short form of his first name (e.g., “Mike” instead of “Michael”), and an address which, although legitimate, was different from the one on his driver’s license. Another charge was for not wearing a seat belt, even though he was seated in a parked car. The officer also charged the man both with having an expired operator’s license, and with having no operator’s license in his possession. The man told us that, because of these charges, he lost his job as a contractor with the federal government that he had held for years.

http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachme
nts/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf

It's not personal. It's just war.

GEEZER

Monday, March 16, 2015 8:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
But the question that comes to my mind is this - how does this happen in a democracy?

Because no one votes.

In the 2013 municipal elections, although 2/3 of Ferguson's citizens are black, only around 6% of black citizens voted. Around 17% of white citizens voted.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

1KIKI

Monday, March 16, 2015 12:26 PM

The vote only works if people actually know who's responsible for the problem, and additionally if the person - or people - are elected officials.

Assume you're a black person in Ferguson. You know the place is shitty. How do you figure out who's responsible? Where are the orders coming from? How widespread is this in the system? And if you think the police are involved, how do you 'vote' them out?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Monday, March 16, 2015 4:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
But the question that comes to my mind is this - how does this happen in a democracy?

Because no one votes.

In the 2013 municipal elections, although 2/3 of Ferguson's citizens are black, only around 6% of black citizens voted. Around 17% of white citizens voted.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

So if only 6% show up to vote in an attempt to improve their situation, how many do you think do more than just bum around all day. Not many from that neighborhood. They are broken and how to fix them is the problem.

This is the kink of situation where if you vote in a black city council they better make sure to improve things or the white community will move away and the whole area will collapse. It has happened before, like in Detroit.

1KIKI

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 2:04 AM

"So if only 6% show up to vote in an attempt to improve their situation ..."

You left out one important word and that's 'random' - as in: "So if only 6% show up to vote in an RANDOM attempt to improve their situation ..."

FWIW when I was younger and had more energy I was on a(n unpaid) city commission to comply with a new California law. It took a LOT of time. What I found out was that unless you go to every city council meeting and the more important commission ones as well, you don't know what's going on. It's not like local government makes an effort to let people know. And unless you're directly involved behind the scenes as a commission member, you don't actually know which individual(s) is(are) directly responsible for doing what. And then, if you have a situation like the city of Bell where these things are discussed in private, you as an average citizen have no access to the information at all.

When you have people who are working and taking care of a family (and that's what ultimately led me to leave the city commission), due to the lack of time to participate they're shut out of the process, EVEN IF it takes place in public. Which, as I mentioned, doesn't always happen, especially when those involved have something to hide.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

SECOND

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 9:59 PM

I saw a Scott Adams cartoon that applies to Ferguson:
News Flash! Rich people continue stealing from the poor.
A spokesperson for the wealthy said, "The poor have a surprising amount of money to steal."
In other news, studies say dolphins understand math better than most humans. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/113782355111/robots-read-news-15-20

That last part: “dolphins understand math better than most humans” explains it all. Numbers bigger than 10 confuse them. Most people think the ideal is one person against the government. Most people are unwilling to add themselves to a group against something bigger. For most people, their family or a mob is their most organized level of group action -- as demonstrated in Ferguson. People are always waiting for a single hero to rally that mob, either US Attorney General Eric Holder or Superman or 1kiki or Mitt Romney or MLK Jr or Gandhi or Joss Whedon. But heroes retire or die. Or just get tired.

People will have an endless series of problems like Ferguson until they stop acting like it's one person or one crew in a tiny spaceship against the Universe. Did you notice in last year's Firefly comic Leaves on the Wind that Malcolm Reynolds was the “greatest military mind alive”? Worst case of hero worship I have seen by a mob of wannabe Browncoats.

That comic was a perfect example of the search for one person, Mal, to save everybody. It works a little ( once again, see Attorney General Eric Holder going to Ferguson and then having his minions issue a report ) but it's not good enough. Eric Holder would have to investigate every police department, but he is retiring. Who's the next lone hero fighting the wealthy who steal from the poor? Nobody.

The wealthy always have a natural advantage and it is not just being rich. The pile of money gives them very clear directions, as in go directly, and in secret, toward the nearest pile. And it gives them a very simple purpose, as in transfer secretively the nearest pile to their bank. Don't act like an unconscious pile of money for the wealthy to steal.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Wednesday, March 18, 2015 4:37 PM

I have no idea about Ferguson, but I do think that people dont get how systems create poverty and disenfranchisement and power imbalance, and that changes in the system can have a profound affect on the circumstances of a place or a group of people.

Some systems compound poverty, powerlessness, hopelessness. What's even worse is when those who benefit from the system, those in positions of power, blame the people without power and who are prevented from changing their circumstances even when they wish to. I find it shocking to read these sort of views.

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