One of the ways previous generations got through the tribulations of their times was through the same kinds of dismissal and denial our rulers like to propose to excuse their inability or unwillingness to deal with the current Outbreak. "Hoocoodanode" things would or could get this bad this quick or that so many people would get sick and die and hospitals would be overwhelmed and it couldn't be controlled as easily as flu?" Hoocoodanode??
Of course, practically everybody who should have known did know. The fact is they didn't properly prepare, didn't act quickly enough, didn't care enough to think it was all that important, and the truth is some still don't think it's all that important in the vast, eternal scheme.
To many of them, nothing is as important as making and keeping ever more money and ruling the lives and deaths of their serfs.
It's all about the money and power, not about people. I thought the furious push back against the Trumpist/money-maker notion that the country should be "reopened for business" by Easter was interesting. The idea, broached by several people who shoulda knowed better, at least one in the medical profession, was that we shouldn't let the fight against the virus be worse than the disease caused by the virus, and that, in the end, we would do well to let some of the ill die so as to make a better life for the survivors possible. Ummm, bad optics. Underlying the notion was the thought that the Economy (as it was) is ultimately more important to the future than the lives of old people and defectives.
Let them die. Compassionately, of course, but let them die nonetheless.
This is in no way different than the arguments to dispose of all sorts of people during the terrible times of the 1930s and 40s. It wasn't just the Nazis who thought this way. Genocides were practiced as a matter of course by the US and many imperial powers of the time as their right and duty as powers. The Nazis took it too far, but they didn't invent the idea.
Now we're seeing a revival of these ideas as a means to cope with the Outbreak. Part of the reason why is that the virus is running rampant through Western society and is strongly affecting the High and the Mighty, where it apparently first took hold outside China. When members of European royalty, the prime minister of Britain, the wives of the prime ministers of Canada and Spain, members of the US Congress, White House staff, guests at Mar-a-lago and so on all fall ill with the virus, and it spreads uncontrolled through the halls of power, priorities must be set.
As there is a serious lack of medical personnel, equipment and beds, no vaccine or cure, and people who matter are facing financial ruin because of the shut-downs of their usual economic exploitation and looting, something has to be done. Human sacrifice is always appropriate. But in times like these, large-scale human sacrifice, particularly of the Useless Eaters, is of paramount importance to preserve, protect, and defend a way of life that should never have been allowed and enabled in the first place.
Yesterday's conventional wisdom (thanks to Dr. Fauci, what a dude!) was that we should prepare ourselves for millions of infected cases and at least 100,000 deaths in the US alone, because why not get used to it now?
Trump even puffed himself up and beat his chest about it: coulda been millions dead if not for his brilliance and compassion. Bow down!
All kinds of other fallout is likely, on top of the direct consequences of the virus. We'll see shortages well beyond those of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Worker strikes are likely to spread and become more disruptive. The systems we've lived with -- and often loathed -- are trembling and parts will collapse.
We're seeing constant reminders of how soulless and disinterested, let alone incompetent, our rulers and their sponsors are.
How bad our circumstances will become is still a mystery, but BAD is the correct pre-assessment of the temporarily unknown future. "Hoocoodanode?"
We all shoulda.
Showing posts with label Death and Destruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death and Destruction. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Ongoing Though Largely Ignored Destruction of Lives and Cities Wherever Rebellion Is Detected
The recent Catalonia Thing put me in mind to write in more detail -- such as I can find anyway -- about the ongoing destruction of lives and cities wherever rebellion is detected or found.
It's interesting to me that as an article of faith in some of the darker corners of the so-called progressive blogosphere what's going on now, under the Trump Regime, nothing is to be said about the ongoing killing and destruction by the unleashed military -- unless it can be directly blamed on "Obomba" or even better, on The Hag "Clintoon." For some bizarre but unknown reason, Trump and His Generals are blameless, uninvolved, and apparently barely aware of what's going on, and that has been going on under Trump's watch. There are still individuals convinced he's winding down the many wars against rebellion when in fact he's been ramping them up and starting new ones.
One of the primary characteristics of these anti-Rebel actions is the utter destruction left in their wake. City after city, particularly in Iraq and Syria, has been utterly destroyed, their populations massacred or dispersed. Some of the cities have been destroyed for the third or fourth time since the start of the Imperial wars of aggression after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon so many years ago now.
I count at least a dozen cities in Iraq and at least that many more in Syria that have been partially or completely leveled in the last year or so, most of them during the Trump Regime, but not all of them.
Ramadi, for example, was destroyed in May of 2016.
Mosul's destruction began in October of 2016. It was completed, with enormous numbers of civilian casualties (by some counts 40,000 or more) in July of 2017.
Fallujah was destroyed -- again -- in 2016 while Tikrit suffered destruction in 2015 and 2017.
Tal Afar was destroyed in August 2017.
The list of cities destroyed in Iraq -- some in 2015, some in 2016, some in 2017, with the destruction continuing today -- goes on and on. The number of cities destroyed in Syria is nearly endless, Raqqa being only one recent example of many.
Cities are being destroyed as we speak in the Yemen, parts of Africa, and in the far-distant Philippines, and who knows where else that hasn't been reported? "They make a desert and call it peace." Indeed.
As these cities are destroyed, their populations are dispersed as refugees or are annihilated in uncounted numbers. They're killed by the bombs dropped from above by our Imperial forces, they're killed by epidemics, they're killed by street fighting, by death squads; they're killed by starvation and lack of water. They're killed by heat and suffocation and fear and hopelessness. No one hears the dead and no one counts them, either. It is as if they never were.
The toll of death and destruction has been mounting exponentially since Trump assumed the throne of the Empire and unleashed His Generals from the restraints that had chafed them so under Obama. They are now free to kill and destroy at will without "interference" from the White House and without accountability for what they and their allied forces and mercenaries do.
The excuse is the necessity for "Victory" at any cost to please the Emperor. We can argue all we want that this is merely a continuation of anti-rebel policies and actions that have been going on for decades, under Reagan, BushI Clinton, BushII, and Obama. We're supposed to believe there's nothing "new" and so accept the accelerating toll of slaughter and destruction as "normal." Trump himself is not the cause. As if that were the point.
No, what if we don't accept what's going on as "normal" or anything close to it, and what if we didn't accept its prior iterations under previous rulers, either? What if we see this situation for what it is -- murder of indiscriminate targets, total destruction of cities where uncounted civilians are forced to stay or are unable to escape to be slaughtered at will, all to control or kill a relative handful of rebels against the Empire.
The fact that it has been going on as long as it has does not in any way excuse the current occupant of the White House and his current crop of Generals for their actions, and yet that has become the default position of many of those who simply cannot bring themselves to acknowledge what's going on now.And that includes a whole cohort of "objectively pro-Trump" so-called progressives.
I guess the theory is that whatever he does is OK as long as he doesn't do what The Hag was sure to do: start a nuclear war with Russia.
To my mind, this is insanity. But that's how far down the rabbit hole our political lives have descended.
Excusing whatever is going on now (if it's even noticed) as necessary to "heighten the contradictions" and so -- eventually, maybe, could be -- bring down the Empire as if this were Tsarist Russia in the throes of WWI is morally repugnant and it's not likely to work in any case. The contradictions are not being heightened, they being reinforced as is the power of the Empire. This is not the time to overlook the crimes of the Emperor and Empire. This is the time to highlight them relentlessly. If, of course, the objective is to bring the edifice down. But I don't think that is the objective at all.
I'll try to get into that another time.
Meanwhile, Feliz Dia de los Muertos.
It's interesting to me that as an article of faith in some of the darker corners of the so-called progressive blogosphere what's going on now, under the Trump Regime, nothing is to be said about the ongoing killing and destruction by the unleashed military -- unless it can be directly blamed on "Obomba" or even better, on The Hag "Clintoon." For some bizarre but unknown reason, Trump and His Generals are blameless, uninvolved, and apparently barely aware of what's going on, and that has been going on under Trump's watch. There are still individuals convinced he's winding down the many wars against rebellion when in fact he's been ramping them up and starting new ones.
One of the primary characteristics of these anti-Rebel actions is the utter destruction left in their wake. City after city, particularly in Iraq and Syria, has been utterly destroyed, their populations massacred or dispersed. Some of the cities have been destroyed for the third or fourth time since the start of the Imperial wars of aggression after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon so many years ago now.
I count at least a dozen cities in Iraq and at least that many more in Syria that have been partially or completely leveled in the last year or so, most of them during the Trump Regime, but not all of them.
Ramadi, for example, was destroyed in May of 2016.
Mosul's destruction began in October of 2016. It was completed, with enormous numbers of civilian casualties (by some counts 40,000 or more) in July of 2017.
Fallujah was destroyed -- again -- in 2016 while Tikrit suffered destruction in 2015 and 2017.
Tal Afar was destroyed in August 2017.
The list of cities destroyed in Iraq -- some in 2015, some in 2016, some in 2017, with the destruction continuing today -- goes on and on. The number of cities destroyed in Syria is nearly endless, Raqqa being only one recent example of many.
Cities are being destroyed as we speak in the Yemen, parts of Africa, and in the far-distant Philippines, and who knows where else that hasn't been reported? "They make a desert and call it peace." Indeed.
As these cities are destroyed, their populations are dispersed as refugees or are annihilated in uncounted numbers. They're killed by the bombs dropped from above by our Imperial forces, they're killed by epidemics, they're killed by street fighting, by death squads; they're killed by starvation and lack of water. They're killed by heat and suffocation and fear and hopelessness. No one hears the dead and no one counts them, either. It is as if they never were.
The toll of death and destruction has been mounting exponentially since Trump assumed the throne of the Empire and unleashed His Generals from the restraints that had chafed them so under Obama. They are now free to kill and destroy at will without "interference" from the White House and without accountability for what they and their allied forces and mercenaries do.
The excuse is the necessity for "Victory" at any cost to please the Emperor. We can argue all we want that this is merely a continuation of anti-rebel policies and actions that have been going on for decades, under Reagan, BushI Clinton, BushII, and Obama. We're supposed to believe there's nothing "new" and so accept the accelerating toll of slaughter and destruction as "normal." Trump himself is not the cause. As if that were the point.
No, what if we don't accept what's going on as "normal" or anything close to it, and what if we didn't accept its prior iterations under previous rulers, either? What if we see this situation for what it is -- murder of indiscriminate targets, total destruction of cities where uncounted civilians are forced to stay or are unable to escape to be slaughtered at will, all to control or kill a relative handful of rebels against the Empire.
The fact that it has been going on as long as it has does not in any way excuse the current occupant of the White House and his current crop of Generals for their actions, and yet that has become the default position of many of those who simply cannot bring themselves to acknowledge what's going on now.And that includes a whole cohort of "objectively pro-Trump" so-called progressives.
I guess the theory is that whatever he does is OK as long as he doesn't do what The Hag was sure to do: start a nuclear war with Russia.
To my mind, this is insanity. But that's how far down the rabbit hole our political lives have descended.
Excusing whatever is going on now (if it's even noticed) as necessary to "heighten the contradictions" and so -- eventually, maybe, could be -- bring down the Empire as if this were Tsarist Russia in the throes of WWI is morally repugnant and it's not likely to work in any case. The contradictions are not being heightened, they being reinforced as is the power of the Empire. This is not the time to overlook the crimes of the Emperor and Empire. This is the time to highlight them relentlessly. If, of course, the objective is to bring the edifice down. But I don't think that is the objective at all.
I'll try to get into that another time.
Meanwhile, Feliz Dia de los Muertos.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Losing the Argument
I started a post the other day about the apparently endless flap over the White House response to the death of Sgt. La David Johnson in Niger. Of course the way it has been handled by the White House is appalling to anyone with a shred of decency, but decency is not what it's about.
It's about power and its exercise.
It's not an argument, in other words. It's not something you can rationally consider and come to a conclusion about from an intellectual or even moral standpoint. It's a visceral, immediate, emotional thing, and if you "stand with" the White House and Trump, literally nothing at all will change your mind about it. If you "stand with" the widow, Myeshia Johnson, and with the congresswoman, Frederica Wilson, you won't change your mind, either.
In the end, it doesn't matter. In the end, the one with the most power and the ability to exercise it wins. Period.
The issue I was trying to deal with the other day, however, was not so much that as it was the mechanisms by which power was being exercised in this example.
The White House was exercising textbook gaslighting. It wasn't merely that what they have been saying about it was false, it was that they had the power to say anything they wanted about it and to force you (all) to doubt your own perceptions and sanity in the process.
Trump lied repeatedly about it. It wasn't differing perceptions, it was deliberate lies, meant to put into question the sanity of Rep. Wilson and The Widow, Myeshia Johnson. The White House fabricated and Trump disseminated false stories about what had happened, and the only ones who could correct the record had far less power than the White House and Trump, so their corrections were generally treated as "he said, she said," and as everyone knows, when the President says something, even if it is wrong or a lie, one must give it due respect.
Not so with a couple of Negro women who can't say anything that a white person is obliged to respect or believe. Everyone knows they... tell tales. Amirite? And that sparkle hat! Who's to believe anybody who wears a sparkle hat on TeeBee? You see? And so it went.
When Gen. Four Star (Ret) Kelly was trotted out to stand at the podium and blatantly smear and lie about the Congresswoman with a purely Gaslighted story about what she said in her dedication speech for the FBI building in Miramar, FL in 2015, it was over. The argument, such as it had been, was lost. It was over.
Here's why: Kelly fabricated out of whole cloth a story of the self-aggrandizing Negress at the dedication who got up, bragged about her prowess in getting the money for the building and for her constituents, and how great she was, and then sat down. It "stunned" the audience, so said Kelly. They couldn't imagine anyone doing such a thing at such a solemn occasion.
Except for the fact that it didn't happen, one might understand his dismay and the dismay of those who were there. How dare she! Right?
Not only was Kelly's description of the event fabricated, a straight out lie as shown in a video of her remarks at the dedication, which did not self-aggrandize at all but celebrated the work of law enforcement and the FBI, and particularly the sacrifice of the agents for whom the building was being named, she never mentioned "getting the money," but only briefly spoke of the request from the FBI Director that she spearhead legislation to name the building after the fallen agents, a task she took on and which was successfully completed by bipartisan efforts in the House, the Senate and the White House just a few days before the dedication. It wasn't her doing alone, it was the doing of many.
But. Kelly's gaslighting went right round the world several times before the media and the Congresswoman got their pants on. Once the tape showed the General Four Star (Ret) lied, it was too late.
Subsequently, when the White House spox was asked specifically about the General's lies, she doubled down, suggesting that no one should question the word of a Four Star. Of course what she was doing was more gaslighting. She did not and would not address the actual questions about the actual lies Kelly told from the podium. Instead, she was referring to his comments about his son killed in action to deflect from his lies about the Congresswoman, and it seemed as if no one in the media at all, and darned few commenters on the situation, caught it.
From that point, there was mostly just flailing ineffectively.
There really is no defense against gaslighting. I didn't even know what it was until one day I saw the movie from which the term is derived. In it a husband forces his wife to question her own perceptions and sanity through a series of carefully crafted lies and fabrications about his actions and those of others. She witnesses things that contradict what he says, but he says in so many words she's crazy, and what she thinks she sees is not what's going on, oh no not at all. The only defense against the perpetrator is to get away--or take decisive unpleasant action to stop him.
You cannot argue with him.
He will just lie the more, fabricate more falsehoods, and continue to go on about his nefarious business until the bitter end.
And so that's the situation we are in with regard to much more than the fracas over the White House response to the death of Sgt. Johnson.
They get away with it because they have the power to do so.
It's a deeply, deeply dangerous situation for the rest of us.
It's about power and its exercise.
It's not an argument, in other words. It's not something you can rationally consider and come to a conclusion about from an intellectual or even moral standpoint. It's a visceral, immediate, emotional thing, and if you "stand with" the White House and Trump, literally nothing at all will change your mind about it. If you "stand with" the widow, Myeshia Johnson, and with the congresswoman, Frederica Wilson, you won't change your mind, either.
In the end, it doesn't matter. In the end, the one with the most power and the ability to exercise it wins. Period.
The issue I was trying to deal with the other day, however, was not so much that as it was the mechanisms by which power was being exercised in this example.
The White House was exercising textbook gaslighting. It wasn't merely that what they have been saying about it was false, it was that they had the power to say anything they wanted about it and to force you (all) to doubt your own perceptions and sanity in the process.
Trump lied repeatedly about it. It wasn't differing perceptions, it was deliberate lies, meant to put into question the sanity of Rep. Wilson and The Widow, Myeshia Johnson. The White House fabricated and Trump disseminated false stories about what had happened, and the only ones who could correct the record had far less power than the White House and Trump, so their corrections were generally treated as "he said, she said," and as everyone knows, when the President says something, even if it is wrong or a lie, one must give it due respect.
Not so with a couple of Negro women who can't say anything that a white person is obliged to respect or believe. Everyone knows they... tell tales. Amirite? And that sparkle hat! Who's to believe anybody who wears a sparkle hat on TeeBee? You see? And so it went.
When Gen. Four Star (Ret) Kelly was trotted out to stand at the podium and blatantly smear and lie about the Congresswoman with a purely Gaslighted story about what she said in her dedication speech for the FBI building in Miramar, FL in 2015, it was over. The argument, such as it had been, was lost. It was over.
Here's why: Kelly fabricated out of whole cloth a story of the self-aggrandizing Negress at the dedication who got up, bragged about her prowess in getting the money for the building and for her constituents, and how great she was, and then sat down. It "stunned" the audience, so said Kelly. They couldn't imagine anyone doing such a thing at such a solemn occasion.
Except for the fact that it didn't happen, one might understand his dismay and the dismay of those who were there. How dare she! Right?
Not only was Kelly's description of the event fabricated, a straight out lie as shown in a video of her remarks at the dedication, which did not self-aggrandize at all but celebrated the work of law enforcement and the FBI, and particularly the sacrifice of the agents for whom the building was being named, she never mentioned "getting the money," but only briefly spoke of the request from the FBI Director that she spearhead legislation to name the building after the fallen agents, a task she took on and which was successfully completed by bipartisan efforts in the House, the Senate and the White House just a few days before the dedication. It wasn't her doing alone, it was the doing of many.
But. Kelly's gaslighting went right round the world several times before the media and the Congresswoman got their pants on. Once the tape showed the General Four Star (Ret) lied, it was too late.
Subsequently, when the White House spox was asked specifically about the General's lies, she doubled down, suggesting that no one should question the word of a Four Star. Of course what she was doing was more gaslighting. She did not and would not address the actual questions about the actual lies Kelly told from the podium. Instead, she was referring to his comments about his son killed in action to deflect from his lies about the Congresswoman, and it seemed as if no one in the media at all, and darned few commenters on the situation, caught it.
From that point, there was mostly just flailing ineffectively.
There really is no defense against gaslighting. I didn't even know what it was until one day I saw the movie from which the term is derived. In it a husband forces his wife to question her own perceptions and sanity through a series of carefully crafted lies and fabrications about his actions and those of others. She witnesses things that contradict what he says, but he says in so many words she's crazy, and what she thinks she sees is not what's going on, oh no not at all. The only defense against the perpetrator is to get away--or take decisive unpleasant action to stop him.
You cannot argue with him.
He will just lie the more, fabricate more falsehoods, and continue to go on about his nefarious business until the bitter end.
And so that's the situation we are in with regard to much more than the fracas over the White House response to the death of Sgt. Johnson.
They get away with it because they have the power to do so.
It's a deeply, deeply dangerous situation for the rest of us.
Monday, September 25, 2017
Let Them Die?
I don't know what's going on in the Caribbean islands and Puerto Rico, but it sounds like something terrible is underway, worse perhaps than the botched Katrina rescue and recovery efforts.
The infrastructure throughout much of the Caribbean and Puerto Rico appears to have been destroyed to the point where there is no electricity, sewage treatment, potable water, and much housing has been flooded, wind-damaged or destroyed completely. This is much much worse than the post-apocalyptic hurricane situation in Florida and Texas. Hospitals are inoperative. There's little or no food available for millions of people.
"Looting" is underway (well, you know who's doing it, so it has to be "looting" rather than scavenging survival supplies.) Desperate measures are being taken by survivors on some islands, as humanitarian efforts appear to be absent or totally inadequate.
Under the circumstances, survivors do what they must, and it isn't always pretty.
There are reports that suggest Puerto Rico is being deliberately neglected by the High and the Mighty in DC, as if to say "let them die." After all, there are too many of "those people" anyway, aren't there?
Much the same was the case in Louisiana after Katrina. Volunteer rescue efforts were organized but not allowed to proceed. Innocent people walking on a bridge were shot and killed by police who then lied about what they had done. Those weren't the only ones killed by New Orleans' "finest." They were on a murder rampage. The lies about what was happening in the Superdome, where thousands of refugees had assembled, were nonstop and some of them are still being told. After all, so many of those who took refuge there were poor and black, and well. You know what that means? Babies are raped and eaten; the dead are stacked like cordwood under the stands; the animals are shitting and pissing everywhere.
Thousands died, to be sure, most of them drowned. Many of the dead were simply left to die.
And here we go again.
Monstrous.
The infrastructure throughout much of the Caribbean and Puerto Rico appears to have been destroyed to the point where there is no electricity, sewage treatment, potable water, and much housing has been flooded, wind-damaged or destroyed completely. This is much much worse than the post-apocalyptic hurricane situation in Florida and Texas. Hospitals are inoperative. There's little or no food available for millions of people.
"Looting" is underway (well, you know who's doing it, so it has to be "looting" rather than scavenging survival supplies.) Desperate measures are being taken by survivors on some islands, as humanitarian efforts appear to be absent or totally inadequate.
Under the circumstances, survivors do what they must, and it isn't always pretty.
There are reports that suggest Puerto Rico is being deliberately neglected by the High and the Mighty in DC, as if to say "let them die." After all, there are too many of "those people" anyway, aren't there?
Much the same was the case in Louisiana after Katrina. Volunteer rescue efforts were organized but not allowed to proceed. Innocent people walking on a bridge were shot and killed by police who then lied about what they had done. Those weren't the only ones killed by New Orleans' "finest." They were on a murder rampage. The lies about what was happening in the Superdome, where thousands of refugees had assembled, were nonstop and some of them are still being told. After all, so many of those who took refuge there were poor and black, and well. You know what that means? Babies are raped and eaten; the dead are stacked like cordwood under the stands; the animals are shitting and pissing everywhere.
Thousands died, to be sure, most of them drowned. Many of the dead were simply left to die.
And here we go again.
Monstrous.
Saturday, July 22, 2017
More Mosul "Liberation"
A few days ago, I speculated that the Mosul "Liberation" cost the lives of 20-30,000 civilians, not the "hundreds" or even the few thousand that was initially claimed. And then word started appearing in some of the foreign press -- not so far as I know in the domestic media -- that the civilian death toll was more like 40,000 -- and rising, as air strikes continue to "mop up," revenge killings continue, and searches of the destruction of the city turn up more and more rotting corpses.
In any sane world, this would be considered a catastrophe of major proportions, not a liberation at all.
The ISIS rebels may have been cruel and destructive, but they didn't slaughter tens of thousands of civilians, and they didn't destroy entire cities in their quest for their Caliphate, and this will be remembered in the Middle East for ages to come.
The Imperial Storm Troopers their air wings, and their allies, on the other hand, are all about slaughter, annihilation, and destruction of homes, families and entire cities, leaving abundant smoking ruins in their wake and calling it "liberation".
"Liberty?" For whom? To do what?
Given the figure of 40,000 civilians killed in Mosul now being bruited about, I'd venture to guess the actual figure is more like 100,000, but we shall never know, in part because the count will never be complete, and even if it were, the Imperium would never let it be verified.
Do Americans have any idea how many cities in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia have so far faced destruction in the Imperial "Fight Against Terror?" How many civilians have been randomly and/or deliberately exterminated in this futile quest? I would assume not because Americans seem not to care. They have become immunized to the slaughter of brown people and the destruction of their homes and cities. If they know anything about it, it's all a blur, and besides when Trump is acting up, who cares what's happening to brown people far away? I mean, really.
Priorities.
Media Lens did a compare and contrast exercise, The Siege of Aleppo vs Mosul, to show something of how the stories are twisted to fit a prepared narrative. East Aleppo's valiant struggle against the Soviets (damn near) vs the valiant struggle of the West against the perfidious Islamist threat to civilization in Mosul.
The propaganda was constant and heavy and essentially false. That's what we're dealing with, and the more we're immersed in it, the more likely it is that one day -- sooner rather than later -- blowback and karma will come back to haunt the West. Oh my yes.
When will they ever learn?
In any sane world, this would be considered a catastrophe of major proportions, not a liberation at all.
The ISIS rebels may have been cruel and destructive, but they didn't slaughter tens of thousands of civilians, and they didn't destroy entire cities in their quest for their Caliphate, and this will be remembered in the Middle East for ages to come.
The Imperial Storm Troopers their air wings, and their allies, on the other hand, are all about slaughter, annihilation, and destruction of homes, families and entire cities, leaving abundant smoking ruins in their wake and calling it "liberation".
"Liberty?" For whom? To do what?
Given the figure of 40,000 civilians killed in Mosul now being bruited about, I'd venture to guess the actual figure is more like 100,000, but we shall never know, in part because the count will never be complete, and even if it were, the Imperium would never let it be verified.
Do Americans have any idea how many cities in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia have so far faced destruction in the Imperial "Fight Against Terror?" How many civilians have been randomly and/or deliberately exterminated in this futile quest? I would assume not because Americans seem not to care. They have become immunized to the slaughter of brown people and the destruction of their homes and cities. If they know anything about it, it's all a blur, and besides when Trump is acting up, who cares what's happening to brown people far away? I mean, really.
Priorities.
Media Lens did a compare and contrast exercise, The Siege of Aleppo vs Mosul, to show something of how the stories are twisted to fit a prepared narrative. East Aleppo's valiant struggle against the Soviets (damn near) vs the valiant struggle of the West against the perfidious Islamist threat to civilization in Mosul.
The propaganda was constant and heavy and essentially false. That's what we're dealing with, and the more we're immersed in it, the more likely it is that one day -- sooner rather than later -- blowback and karma will come back to haunt the West. Oh my yes.
When will they ever learn?
Monday, July 10, 2017
Destroying the City to Save It
Celebrate! Dance to the music!
Mosul, they say, is "liberated."
Battered and bombed into rubble, its people slaughtered and left to rot in the streets, but they're Free Now, aren't they? Free from the oppression of... whomever the Enemy of the Moment might be. Free to dance in the streets, throw flowers and chocolates at their Liberators, the few wretched and wounded survivors Free to live what remains of their crippled lives in the debris of the conflict.
Whoopee!
I heard a mention of civilian deaths in the conflict with (whomever) in the Middle East since 2014. The stated number? "Almost 600." Wow. Really? Gee golly. That's a lot, isn't it?
Of course if that's the stated number due to Our Glorious Side's operations, it's not just a lie, it's deliberate fraud and deception. Remember when Our Glorious Side refused to count any casualties except those of Our Valiant Troops? If Wogs died, so be it, but their numbers were to be uncounted and unknown.
It's been suggested (by NGOs) that as many as2000 4000 6000 8000 and rising civilians have been killed ("by both sides") in the Liberation of Mosul. Given the apparent scale of destruction of what was once a city of well over a million population (prior to "Liberation" from Whomever) it would be no surprise if actual civilian deaths are closer to 20,000 or 30,000 and civilian casualties are in the hundreds of thousands.
They will not be counted.
They are Wogs and Wogs don't count -- they never have counted in the Imperial Liberation of Wogistan.
How many cities in the Middle East have now been destroyed in progress of its Liberation? A dozen? Two dozen? No one keeps count, do they? Falluja of course set the pattern.
Total destruction of a city, merciless slaughter of its people, Apocalypse justified by... rebellion.
One does not rebel against ones overlords without paying a heavy price, no?
And so it has gone, rebel city after rebel city leveled to the ground, depopulated, destroyed, wiped from the map and the memory of man. Or so the story goes.
The Empire shall not be defied.
Mosul, they say, is "liberated."
Battered and bombed into rubble, its people slaughtered and left to rot in the streets, but they're Free Now, aren't they? Free from the oppression of... whomever the Enemy of the Moment might be. Free to dance in the streets, throw flowers and chocolates at their Liberators, the few wretched and wounded survivors Free to live what remains of their crippled lives in the debris of the conflict.
Whoopee!
I heard a mention of civilian deaths in the conflict with (whomever) in the Middle East since 2014. The stated number? "Almost 600." Wow. Really? Gee golly. That's a lot, isn't it?
Of course if that's the stated number due to Our Glorious Side's operations, it's not just a lie, it's deliberate fraud and deception. Remember when Our Glorious Side refused to count any casualties except those of Our Valiant Troops? If Wogs died, so be it, but their numbers were to be uncounted and unknown.
It's been suggested (by NGOs) that as many as
They will not be counted.
They are Wogs and Wogs don't count -- they never have counted in the Imperial Liberation of Wogistan.
How many cities in the Middle East have now been destroyed in progress of its Liberation? A dozen? Two dozen? No one keeps count, do they? Falluja of course set the pattern.
Total destruction of a city, merciless slaughter of its people, Apocalypse justified by... rebellion.
One does not rebel against ones overlords without paying a heavy price, no?
And so it has gone, rebel city after rebel city leveled to the ground, depopulated, destroyed, wiped from the map and the memory of man. Or so the story goes.
The Empire shall not be defied.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
"Every Eight Hours"
The killing and violence by police continues.
Every eight hours, three a day, day in and day out, someone is killed by police. From my own analysis of figures compiled last year by "Killed by Police," a third of those killed by police are unarmed, a third are black or brown, a third are mentally ill or suicidal, a third are involved in domestic disputes.
Very, very few are engaged in active criminality when they are killed. Sometimes the excuse for killing is that the victim had a rap sheet. The pattern is repeated over and over: someone calls police for assistance, the police arrive with guns drawn, the soon-to-be victim fails to comply immediately with often unheard or uncomprehended police orders. Or the victim runs. The victim is killed.
Until recently, almost every one of these killings was officially deemed to be "justified." Someone did a statistical study recently and found that only 1 out of 1000 police killings resulted in the prosecution of the officer. One out of a thousand. That sounds about right.
And yet I've long contended that 90% or more of police killings are not necessary. Too often, police kill their victims because they believe that's what they are expected and are supposed to do with people who don't follow their orders or who don't fit certain rigid guidelines of appearance and behavior.
They believe that because that's what they've been told by those in charge of police forces. "You have a gun; you have training; use it at your discretion." So they do.
And they are protected by law when they do.
Laws and court decisions over many years say that police have qualified immunity from prosecution, and that they can kill blamelessly -- even when they kill the innocent.
But it's not the law that enables police killings. The law protects police who kill. It is instead the policies of police departments that enable the constant rat-tat-tat of police killings, the year in and year out "every eight hours, three a day" killing spree the police have been on for decades. Those policies can change.
Many people argue that the drug war is the main cause of so much police violence and murder these days, and they have a point. Others argue that the level of police violence and murder was greater in generations past than it is now, and they have a point, too.
The idea that the police can kill or torture/beat down suspects with impunity is woven deep in the DNA of most police forces in the country. Violence and murder is part of what they were organized to do -- whether it was as slave patrols in the South, Wild West marshals, county sheriffs patrols or civil police forces in the big cities of the 19th century.
Their violence was intended to "protect" white women from negro rape, to suppress slave uprisings, to control immigrant populations, to keep the wild Indians at bay, to maintain a rough and ready order among contending white men -- by killing those who got out of bounds or out of line.
This is who our police forces are and have always been.
When the police killing spree was well under way in Albuquerque, last year for example, it was often pointed out that police shootings and killings had a strongly 'Wild West' quality to them. I don't doubt it's true. And you still see elements of Wild West shoot-em-ups in police behavior in many cities in the West, particularly in Texas, in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and even supposed Progressive bastions as Portland and Seattle.
It happens in the country, too.
Not long ago, for example, a dude was shot and killed by a state police sniper in a little town not far from us in New Mexico. The incident was eerily similar to a state police killing last year even closer to us. In both cases, a relatively young armed (white) man had an "episode" during which he became enraged and seemed to pose a threat to others. Negotiators were sent to obtain his surrender, but he would not surrender as ordered. He insisted he be left alone. In the recent case, apparently the man wanted only to go home. In the earlier case, the man was in his own home.
In addition to negotiators, a sniper was deployed by the state police -- I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same one in both cases. When the opportunity presented itself -- in the earlier case, when the victim appeared in a window, in the recent case, when the victim got out of his truck -- the sniper shot and killed the victim.
Episode concluded.
This is not unlike what happened to James Boyd in the Sandia foothills last March. After hours of negotiation, snipers were sent, and Boyd was killed. Apparently the decision was made to kill him rather than continue negotiating or allow him to surrender. There's apparently an unstated time limit on negotiations between someone having an "episode" and police before snipers are deployed and the victim is shot and killed, regardless of whether the victim chooses to surrender.
Albert Redwine, for example, was killed by a police sniper in Albuquerque as he was surrendering shortly after James Boyd was killed as he was surrendering as well. Both were aware of the jeopardy they were in -- whether or not they surrendered. They knew the police were out to kill them no matter what they did.
Redwine was Native American, Boyd was white and mentally ill. Both of the (white) men killed by state police snipers out in the country where we live were having episodes of rage, whether fueled by drugs or alcohol, I don't know. But both of them had had previous encounters with police, and I think they both had fairly long rap sheets.
Many people think that most of those killed by police are black, typically young black men. It's not true. In fact, the majority of those killed by police are white men. It seems that mostly black men are killed because those killings are the ones most widely publicized. The reason for it is clear enough: police killings of black men are a form of terrorism long used against the black community to keep them in fear of what could/would happen if they got out of line, above themselves, or made trouble. This has been going on since Slavery Time, and it hasn't substantively changed. There is a fear among white folk that if the blacks aren't kept in a state of perpetual terror, they would run wild and rape all the white women after they killed all the white men.
Publicizing the police killings of blacks while barely acknowledging the more frequent police killings of whites is one way to maintain the terror so often deemed necessary to control the black population.
The resistance through "Black Lives Matter" and other movements is growing, though, and the terror that police killings of black men is meant to inspire is fading. "We are not afraid" is part of the protest movement philosophy. Until police killings stop, people will continue to die, of course. But the movements are losing their fear. The terror no longer is as effective as it once was. Soon enough, it may not be effective at all.
When police terror is no longer effective, sometimes the terror tactics are increased, but sometimes the terrorist police or occupation forces withdraw. That's eventually what happened in Iraq. After causing as much mayhem and misery as possible and triggering a civil war, and after their own terror tactics ceased causing more than momentary fear among the Iraqi people, American ("Coalition") forces withdrew, first to bases, then out of the country altogether, leaving only a remnant force to protect the Fortress America Embassy. Something similar was happening in Afghanistan but has recently stalled.
The use of police as domestic terror-squads to control the population is nearly at the point of diminishing returns. Payouts and settlements for police murder and misconduct are probably reaching into the billions annually, at least into the hundreds of millions, and crime, such as it is, even with many, many more activities criminalized, is at the lowest rate in generations. The purpose of police killing, brutality and terror may have been to control those deemed to be criminals, but compared to the past, there are so few such people on the streets, police aren't even considered necessary in some communities. They cause more trouble than then solve.
For the first time in anyone's memory, police are being indicted and may even go to trial for the killings and brutalizations of civilians. Police misconduct is being acknowledged by segments of the powerful -- the very powerful whom the police serve.
This startling development wouldn't have happened were it not for the sustained pressure of the nationwide movements and protests against police violence and murder that were triggered by the brave people of Albuquerque who stood in surprising solidarity against continued police violence and impunity last year following the outrageous killing of James Boyd.
Protests continue, but so does the killing.
The locus shifts. I did a quick analysis of where civilians were being killed by police most often as of February, according to data compiled by "Killed by Police," and I was startled to find that the majority of the killings were in Texas, followed closely by California, and then, with far, far fewer killings, but still at a high rate considering the smaller population, by Arizona. Florida -- with a much larger population than Arizona -- had the next highest number of police killings.
Most states had very few or none, notably New York, with only 2 at the time.
While we may think that police killing are random-universal throughout the country, they're really not. They're concentrated in certain states and certain cities of those states. One of them was once Albuquerque, and another was Oakland, CA. Both cities have reduced their police kill-rate to practically none over the last few months or a year. Many other states and cities never had a significant police kill-rate.
The strong message is that police don't have to kill, and further, that police killings can be significantly reduced without leading to collapse and chaos.
This lesson has yet to be learned in places like Texas and California where it seems that the killing has intensified since February. But there are other places where it hasn't, and some places where police killings are almost completely absent.
A key factor in police training that seems to be a cause of so much police killing is the "active shooter" scenario. Active shooter situations are very, very rare but some police forces train as if all encounters with the public were potentially active shooter scenarios -- with predictably tragic results. Hundreds of innocent and/or unarmed individuals are killed every year by police who seem to think they are defending against an active shooter -- that doesn't exist. Black and brown men are stigmatized and shot way out of proportion to their numbers in the population in part because for some unfathomable reason they are considered existential threats by police who are playing out "active shooter" scenarios or something similar in their minds eye. That's how John Crawford III and Tamir Rice -- among many others -- were summarily executed by police officers who thought that both were armed and prepared to engage in an active shooter situation. No, the only ones who were actually armed and who shot and killed were the police.
Another factor is the constant -- and inappropriate -- deployment of SWAT teams to serve warrants. Doing such is a recipe for tragedy. SWAT was never intended for routine warrant service, but since it is deployed for these actions, many individuals who have done nothing wrong have been killed -- along with their pets and children -- and lives and homes have been destroyed all to violently serve a routine warrant that could be handled much more peacefully.
These deployments must end, the active shooter scenario brainwashing must be curtailed.
Doing those two things alone would probably reduce police killings by 50% right off the bat.
The killing must stop.
Violent policing must stop as well.
Wendy Davis over at her own site clued me to one means of curbing police violence, the substitution of police forces with a model based on threat management rather than threat neutralization. It's explained in this video by Dave Brown in Detroit:
Brown makes clear in this video something I've been saying for a long time: Violent policing, let alone police killing, is almost never necessary. There is another way that works as well or better to control crime/criminals, and that is what he calls "threat management." All it takes is the will to do it and the skill to do it -- which many police forces today lack.
But that can -- and must -- change.
Every eight hours, three a day, day in and day out, someone is killed by police. From my own analysis of figures compiled last year by "Killed by Police," a third of those killed by police are unarmed, a third are black or brown, a third are mentally ill or suicidal, a third are involved in domestic disputes.
Very, very few are engaged in active criminality when they are killed. Sometimes the excuse for killing is that the victim had a rap sheet. The pattern is repeated over and over: someone calls police for assistance, the police arrive with guns drawn, the soon-to-be victim fails to comply immediately with often unheard or uncomprehended police orders. Or the victim runs. The victim is killed.
Until recently, almost every one of these killings was officially deemed to be "justified." Someone did a statistical study recently and found that only 1 out of 1000 police killings resulted in the prosecution of the officer. One out of a thousand. That sounds about right.
And yet I've long contended that 90% or more of police killings are not necessary. Too often, police kill their victims because they believe that's what they are expected and are supposed to do with people who don't follow their orders or who don't fit certain rigid guidelines of appearance and behavior.
They believe that because that's what they've been told by those in charge of police forces. "You have a gun; you have training; use it at your discretion." So they do.
And they are protected by law when they do.
Laws and court decisions over many years say that police have qualified immunity from prosecution, and that they can kill blamelessly -- even when they kill the innocent.
But it's not the law that enables police killings. The law protects police who kill. It is instead the policies of police departments that enable the constant rat-tat-tat of police killings, the year in and year out "every eight hours, three a day" killing spree the police have been on for decades. Those policies can change.
Many people argue that the drug war is the main cause of so much police violence and murder these days, and they have a point. Others argue that the level of police violence and murder was greater in generations past than it is now, and they have a point, too.
The idea that the police can kill or torture/beat down suspects with impunity is woven deep in the DNA of most police forces in the country. Violence and murder is part of what they were organized to do -- whether it was as slave patrols in the South, Wild West marshals, county sheriffs patrols or civil police forces in the big cities of the 19th century.
Their violence was intended to "protect" white women from negro rape, to suppress slave uprisings, to control immigrant populations, to keep the wild Indians at bay, to maintain a rough and ready order among contending white men -- by killing those who got out of bounds or out of line.
This is who our police forces are and have always been.
When the police killing spree was well under way in Albuquerque, last year for example, it was often pointed out that police shootings and killings had a strongly 'Wild West' quality to them. I don't doubt it's true. And you still see elements of Wild West shoot-em-ups in police behavior in many cities in the West, particularly in Texas, in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and even supposed Progressive bastions as Portland and Seattle.
It happens in the country, too.
Not long ago, for example, a dude was shot and killed by a state police sniper in a little town not far from us in New Mexico. The incident was eerily similar to a state police killing last year even closer to us. In both cases, a relatively young armed (white) man had an "episode" during which he became enraged and seemed to pose a threat to others. Negotiators were sent to obtain his surrender, but he would not surrender as ordered. He insisted he be left alone. In the recent case, apparently the man wanted only to go home. In the earlier case, the man was in his own home.
In addition to negotiators, a sniper was deployed by the state police -- I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same one in both cases. When the opportunity presented itself -- in the earlier case, when the victim appeared in a window, in the recent case, when the victim got out of his truck -- the sniper shot and killed the victim.
Episode concluded.
This is not unlike what happened to James Boyd in the Sandia foothills last March. After hours of negotiation, snipers were sent, and Boyd was killed. Apparently the decision was made to kill him rather than continue negotiating or allow him to surrender. There's apparently an unstated time limit on negotiations between someone having an "episode" and police before snipers are deployed and the victim is shot and killed, regardless of whether the victim chooses to surrender.
Albert Redwine, for example, was killed by a police sniper in Albuquerque as he was surrendering shortly after James Boyd was killed as he was surrendering as well. Both were aware of the jeopardy they were in -- whether or not they surrendered. They knew the police were out to kill them no matter what they did.
Redwine was Native American, Boyd was white and mentally ill. Both of the (white) men killed by state police snipers out in the country where we live were having episodes of rage, whether fueled by drugs or alcohol, I don't know. But both of them had had previous encounters with police, and I think they both had fairly long rap sheets.
Many people think that most of those killed by police are black, typically young black men. It's not true. In fact, the majority of those killed by police are white men. It seems that mostly black men are killed because those killings are the ones most widely publicized. The reason for it is clear enough: police killings of black men are a form of terrorism long used against the black community to keep them in fear of what could/would happen if they got out of line, above themselves, or made trouble. This has been going on since Slavery Time, and it hasn't substantively changed. There is a fear among white folk that if the blacks aren't kept in a state of perpetual terror, they would run wild and rape all the white women after they killed all the white men.
Publicizing the police killings of blacks while barely acknowledging the more frequent police killings of whites is one way to maintain the terror so often deemed necessary to control the black population.
The resistance through "Black Lives Matter" and other movements is growing, though, and the terror that police killings of black men is meant to inspire is fading. "We are not afraid" is part of the protest movement philosophy. Until police killings stop, people will continue to die, of course. But the movements are losing their fear. The terror no longer is as effective as it once was. Soon enough, it may not be effective at all.
When police terror is no longer effective, sometimes the terror tactics are increased, but sometimes the terrorist police or occupation forces withdraw. That's eventually what happened in Iraq. After causing as much mayhem and misery as possible and triggering a civil war, and after their own terror tactics ceased causing more than momentary fear among the Iraqi people, American ("Coalition") forces withdrew, first to bases, then out of the country altogether, leaving only a remnant force to protect the Fortress America Embassy. Something similar was happening in Afghanistan but has recently stalled.
The use of police as domestic terror-squads to control the population is nearly at the point of diminishing returns. Payouts and settlements for police murder and misconduct are probably reaching into the billions annually, at least into the hundreds of millions, and crime, such as it is, even with many, many more activities criminalized, is at the lowest rate in generations. The purpose of police killing, brutality and terror may have been to control those deemed to be criminals, but compared to the past, there are so few such people on the streets, police aren't even considered necessary in some communities. They cause more trouble than then solve.
For the first time in anyone's memory, police are being indicted and may even go to trial for the killings and brutalizations of civilians. Police misconduct is being acknowledged by segments of the powerful -- the very powerful whom the police serve.
This startling development wouldn't have happened were it not for the sustained pressure of the nationwide movements and protests against police violence and murder that were triggered by the brave people of Albuquerque who stood in surprising solidarity against continued police violence and impunity last year following the outrageous killing of James Boyd.
Protests continue, but so does the killing.
The locus shifts. I did a quick analysis of where civilians were being killed by police most often as of February, according to data compiled by "Killed by Police," and I was startled to find that the majority of the killings were in Texas, followed closely by California, and then, with far, far fewer killings, but still at a high rate considering the smaller population, by Arizona. Florida -- with a much larger population than Arizona -- had the next highest number of police killings.
Most states had very few or none, notably New York, with only 2 at the time.
While we may think that police killing are random-universal throughout the country, they're really not. They're concentrated in certain states and certain cities of those states. One of them was once Albuquerque, and another was Oakland, CA. Both cities have reduced their police kill-rate to practically none over the last few months or a year. Many other states and cities never had a significant police kill-rate.
The strong message is that police don't have to kill, and further, that police killings can be significantly reduced without leading to collapse and chaos.
This lesson has yet to be learned in places like Texas and California where it seems that the killing has intensified since February. But there are other places where it hasn't, and some places where police killings are almost completely absent.
A key factor in police training that seems to be a cause of so much police killing is the "active shooter" scenario. Active shooter situations are very, very rare but some police forces train as if all encounters with the public were potentially active shooter scenarios -- with predictably tragic results. Hundreds of innocent and/or unarmed individuals are killed every year by police who seem to think they are defending against an active shooter -- that doesn't exist. Black and brown men are stigmatized and shot way out of proportion to their numbers in the population in part because for some unfathomable reason they are considered existential threats by police who are playing out "active shooter" scenarios or something similar in their minds eye. That's how John Crawford III and Tamir Rice -- among many others -- were summarily executed by police officers who thought that both were armed and prepared to engage in an active shooter situation. No, the only ones who were actually armed and who shot and killed were the police.
Another factor is the constant -- and inappropriate -- deployment of SWAT teams to serve warrants. Doing such is a recipe for tragedy. SWAT was never intended for routine warrant service, but since it is deployed for these actions, many individuals who have done nothing wrong have been killed -- along with their pets and children -- and lives and homes have been destroyed all to violently serve a routine warrant that could be handled much more peacefully.
These deployments must end, the active shooter scenario brainwashing must be curtailed.
Doing those two things alone would probably reduce police killings by 50% right off the bat.
The killing must stop.
Violent policing must stop as well.
Wendy Davis over at her own site clued me to one means of curbing police violence, the substitution of police forces with a model based on threat management rather than threat neutralization. It's explained in this video by Dave Brown in Detroit:
Brown makes clear in this video something I've been saying for a long time: Violent policing, let alone police killing, is almost never necessary. There is another way that works as well or better to control crime/criminals, and that is what he calls "threat management." All it takes is the will to do it and the skill to do it -- which many police forces today lack.
But that can -- and must -- change.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Two Deputies Shot And Killed in California. Suspect Apprehended and In Custody After Multi-County Chase.
Two deputy sheriffs were killed in California yesterday, one in Sacramento, one in Auburn. I was alerted to this news by a friend's email, otherwise I might not have known about it.
The suspect allegedly shot and killed a Sacramento County sheriff's deputy outside a Motel 6 in suburban Sacramento yesterday morning when the deputy approached the suspect's car. The deputy was shot and killed before he could reach the car to ask the occupants what they were doing. The car, containing the shooter and a female passenger sped off. Before they did, the officer's partner opened fire on the car and its occupants, apparently without effect.
According to the Sacramento County sheriff's office, the shooter and his passenger, who may be his wife, then tried to carjack a driver's vehicle a couple of blocks away, but the driver apparently resisted and was shot in the head. They then drove a short distance where they carjacked another vehicle which they drove some distance away to another residential area where they took a gardener's truck at gunpoint -- after detaching the gardener's equipment trailer.
The couple were spotted some distance away at a county park; police were dispatched but the couple had already driven quite a distance farther on, to I-80, which they drove to Auburn, another twenty five miles or so from the scene.
In Auburn, Placer County deputies spotted the truck and pulled it over. As they approached the vehicle, the driver opened fire, killing one deputy and wounding the other. From that point, the story is somewhat confused. Apparently other deputies arrived on the scene and arrested the female passenger while the driver/shooter escaped the scene on foot to a house nearby where he hid for several hours while heavily armed officers patrolled the area searching for him.
They entered the house where he was hiding and arrested him. Apparently he surrendered without incident. He was apparently wounded in Sacramento when the car he was driving at the Motel 6 was initially fired on, but he was not badly injured.
My account is taken from the Sacramento Bee's report of the day's actions. The report is fairly coherent, though it is not at all clear why deputies were approaching a car in the parking lot at the Motel 6 in the first place. The fact that the driver, Marcelo Marquez, was apparently able to kill two deputies, wound another, as well as wounding a civilian, elude capture for hours and yet was apprehended and taken into custody alive and apparently relatively unharmed is... little short of astonishing given the litany of individuals who are killed by police day in and day out all over the country, too often for little or no reason.
Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner had this to say yesterday:
What he's saying goes against so much routine police dogma and doctrine, however. By contemporary policing standards, every civilian is a potential enemy illegal combatant -- especially if they are brown or black male -- a threat to be neutralized, neutralized with as much force as the officer deems necessary.
But that isn't quite what happened in either Sacramento or Placer County yesterday. A man who was clearly a threat -- who had allegedly killed and wounded officers and a civilian, was pursued and apprehended without killing him or even (apparently) severely wounding him. Civilians in Auburn especially were put through a very difficult situation when schools were locked down and checkpoints established, manned by heavily armed police who seemed to have no problem implicitly threatening them, putting much of downtown Auburn under a hostile occupation.
The questions I would ask about yesterday's events in Sacramento and Auburn start with "Why the difference" between that and, say, almost any of the more than 1,600 police killings since May 1, 2013 -- some of them in Sacramento and Placer Counties. What was it that allowed or required police and sheriff's deputies from city and county agencies throughout the area (one I'm very familiar with having once lived in that general area of Sacramento and Placer Counties for decades) to apprehend the suspects without killing them whereas in so many, many, many instances documented over and over and over again, police use lethal force all but instantly in confrontations with civilians.
What made the difference this time?
I don't know. I have some ideas, but I'll have to think about it a bit more and ask other questions along the way.
There's a followup story in the Bee that's also interesting, pointing out that Marquez and his wife were apparently from the Salt Lake City area, and that there was "nothing unusual" about them.
I would also point out that the killing of law enforcement officers is EXTREMELY RARE in this country, vastly fewer than the number of police killings of civilians. That two were killed and one was wounded yesterday in Sacramento and Auburn is remarkable, especially given that the alleged shooter is still alive, and according to reports is willing to speak with the media -- though he is not being allowed to while the investigation continues.
I grieve for all those killed and wounded yesterday in Sacramento and Auburn. It shouldn't have happened, ideally it wouldn't have. It's remarkable that law enforcement officers were able to apprehend the suspect and his wife/accomplice without using lethal force.
It's a story that needs to be told more fully. There are many lessons to be learned...
The suspect allegedly shot and killed a Sacramento County sheriff's deputy outside a Motel 6 in suburban Sacramento yesterday morning when the deputy approached the suspect's car. The deputy was shot and killed before he could reach the car to ask the occupants what they were doing. The car, containing the shooter and a female passenger sped off. Before they did, the officer's partner opened fire on the car and its occupants, apparently without effect.
According to the Sacramento County sheriff's office, the shooter and his passenger, who may be his wife, then tried to carjack a driver's vehicle a couple of blocks away, but the driver apparently resisted and was shot in the head. They then drove a short distance where they carjacked another vehicle which they drove some distance away to another residential area where they took a gardener's truck at gunpoint -- after detaching the gardener's equipment trailer.
The couple were spotted some distance away at a county park; police were dispatched but the couple had already driven quite a distance farther on, to I-80, which they drove to Auburn, another twenty five miles or so from the scene.
In Auburn, Placer County deputies spotted the truck and pulled it over. As they approached the vehicle, the driver opened fire, killing one deputy and wounding the other. From that point, the story is somewhat confused. Apparently other deputies arrived on the scene and arrested the female passenger while the driver/shooter escaped the scene on foot to a house nearby where he hid for several hours while heavily armed officers patrolled the area searching for him.
They entered the house where he was hiding and arrested him. Apparently he surrendered without incident. He was apparently wounded in Sacramento when the car he was driving at the Motel 6 was initially fired on, but he was not badly injured.
My account is taken from the Sacramento Bee's report of the day's actions. The report is fairly coherent, though it is not at all clear why deputies were approaching a car in the parking lot at the Motel 6 in the first place. The fact that the driver, Marcelo Marquez, was apparently able to kill two deputies, wound another, as well as wounding a civilian, elude capture for hours and yet was apprehended and taken into custody alive and apparently relatively unharmed is... little short of astonishing given the litany of individuals who are killed by police day in and day out all over the country, too often for little or no reason.
Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner had this to say yesterday:
“The suspect is in custody, as you know,” Bonner said quietly. “I think there’s those people who would say, ‘Well, you know what, I wish you’d killed him.’
“No, that’s not who we are, we are not him. We did our job. I’m incredibly proud of the men and women who go out there every day and put their life on the line, and today this organization, this family, has suffered a horrific loss.”
What he's saying goes against so much routine police dogma and doctrine, however. By contemporary policing standards, every civilian is a potential enemy illegal combatant -- especially if they are brown or black male -- a threat to be neutralized, neutralized with as much force as the officer deems necessary.
But that isn't quite what happened in either Sacramento or Placer County yesterday. A man who was clearly a threat -- who had allegedly killed and wounded officers and a civilian, was pursued and apprehended without killing him or even (apparently) severely wounding him. Civilians in Auburn especially were put through a very difficult situation when schools were locked down and checkpoints established, manned by heavily armed police who seemed to have no problem implicitly threatening them, putting much of downtown Auburn under a hostile occupation.
The questions I would ask about yesterday's events in Sacramento and Auburn start with "Why the difference" between that and, say, almost any of the more than 1,600 police killings since May 1, 2013 -- some of them in Sacramento and Placer Counties. What was it that allowed or required police and sheriff's deputies from city and county agencies throughout the area (one I'm very familiar with having once lived in that general area of Sacramento and Placer Counties for decades) to apprehend the suspects without killing them whereas in so many, many, many instances documented over and over and over again, police use lethal force all but instantly in confrontations with civilians.
What made the difference this time?
I don't know. I have some ideas, but I'll have to think about it a bit more and ask other questions along the way.
There's a followup story in the Bee that's also interesting, pointing out that Marquez and his wife were apparently from the Salt Lake City area, and that there was "nothing unusual" about them.
I would also point out that the killing of law enforcement officers is EXTREMELY RARE in this country, vastly fewer than the number of police killings of civilians. That two were killed and one was wounded yesterday in Sacramento and Auburn is remarkable, especially given that the alleged shooter is still alive, and according to reports is willing to speak with the media -- though he is not being allowed to while the investigation continues.
I grieve for all those killed and wounded yesterday in Sacramento and Auburn. It shouldn't have happened, ideally it wouldn't have. It's remarkable that law enforcement officers were able to apprehend the suspect and his wife/accomplice without using lethal force.
It's a story that needs to be told more fully. There are many lessons to be learned...
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Summer of Our Discontent
What a blood-soaked summer we're in, and it's not even half over. The slaughters throughout the Middle East crescent go on and on, more and more mountains of bodies piling up, or like that poor man I read about in Gaza, collecting the parts of his exploded child in a plastic shopping bag. I gagged and then I cried. What is the matter with people that allows and requires this to go on?
The Malaysian plane shot down in Ukraine is only a handful of dead compared what I'm hearing are thousands already killed in the conflict, many tens of thousands forced to flee, villages and parts of whole cities left in ruins.
And the bloodletting goes on and on and on while our leaders celebrate it, yes they do, each and every one, gleeful at the spilling of more and ever more blood. It is a passion among them, this thirst for blood.
Victim blaming continues without let up.
The victims are always to blame, the rebels are always to blame, the dead are to blame.
It's insane. And it is becoming more and more universal.
The Malaysian plane shot down in Ukraine is only a handful of dead compared what I'm hearing are thousands already killed in the conflict, many tens of thousands forced to flee, villages and parts of whole cities left in ruins.
And the bloodletting goes on and on and on while our leaders celebrate it, yes they do, each and every one, gleeful at the spilling of more and ever more blood. It is a passion among them, this thirst for blood.
Victim blaming continues without let up.
The victims are always to blame, the rebels are always to blame, the dead are to blame.
It's insane. And it is becoming more and more universal.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
A National and International Disgrace -- Police Abuse and the Mentally Ill
Back in the late 1960s, the Ronald Reagan administration in California (he was governor for two terms before he was President -- and I only say that because it was so long ago now that many seem not to know or remember) began the process of dismantling the state public mental health care system that had existed in one form or another for a century.
Dismantling the public mental health care system nationally became part of an official consensus soon afterwards, and by the time Reagan entered the White House, the process was nearly complete.
Part of the rationale came from Nancy Reagan's adoptive father, a neurosurgeon who was convinced that mental illness -- as it was typically understood and treated -- was an illusion, a chimera. Mental health, in his view, was largely a matter of brain chemistry, and if chemistry went off track, it could be and should be treated with drugs, not warehousing in state mental institutions. In some cases of so-called mental illness, surgery might be necessary to repair or bypass damaged brain and nerve cells. There might be a genetic component to cases of Down's Syndrome (called "Mongolism" in those days) and Autism (sometimes seen as Idiot Savance) which couldn't be treated by any means.
His goal was to eliminate the mental health care system as it had long been operated. Like many others, he saw it as cruel, unnecessary, and the cause of more harm than help.
The ideal substitution would be for those encountering mental health issues to go to community clinics where their condition could be assessed by competent professionals and an appropriate course of medication or medication and surgery could be determined and prescribed. Those with genetic mental conditions that could not be treated would be assigned to board and care homes in their local communities rather than to giant State Institutions for the Feeble Minded.
It all seemed rational and reasonable. Many state institutions (as depicted in "The Snake Pit" for example) were terrible places, filled with suffering patients, indifferent or downright cruel staff, and from which it was too often nearly impossible to escape. The law enabled involuntary indefinite commitments, too often on the say-so of people who were unqualified to determine the mental condition of those who were committed. Getting out once committed could be a nightmare of bureaucracy and legal misconduct.
Treatment in these places was often non-existent or so inadequate as to be counterproductive.
Patient neglect was commonplace, medical malpractice was too common as well.
The community clinic approach to mental health care seemed far better given the liberationist tenor of the times and the rapid development of psychotropic drugs, some of which seemed to be better at treating common mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and manic behavior than any course of psycho-therapy.
Placing those who could not be treated with medication in community board and care homes where a few to a dozen patients might live in comfort and be cared for compassionately seemed far better for the patients and their families than warehousing them by the hundreds or thousands at a central location.
The law cooperated by making the indefinite involuntary commitment no longer possible and by strictly controlling how and whether any involuntary commitment would henceforth take place.
State mental hospitals were largely shut down or turned into prisons for the "criminally insane." Patients were released to their own or their family's recognizance. Community clinics were slow to be established or non-existent. Board and care facilities were initially few and quite expensive. Drug treatments for mental illness were sometimes botched by physicians unfamiliar with the side effects of medications, by patients who refused medication, and by pharmaceutical manufacturers who produced quantities of unhelpful medications. Surgery was expensive and rare.
In fact, the expense and bother of this new system proved to be a barrier to the widespread availability of mental health care services once the state systems had been dismantled.
For many patients, there was simply no place to go. Even where there were clinics, being seen and treated at them could be daunting for people in fragile mental condition.
Literally what happened was that the police took over the "care" of a large portion of the mentally ill, and jails and prisons became the new "Snake Pits" for many people who might otherwise have benefited from treatment had it been available.
In many jurisdictions today, 30% or more of those in jail or prison suffer from mental illness, and their conditions are rarely treated. It has become commonplace to read about mentally ill individuals who are shot to death by police when they act out, or to see the horrifying results of the beatings they endure under from police under the guise of public safety.
What replaced the state mental health care system was better for some patients, much, much worse for others. Deadly for too many.
What's replaced the state mental health care system is a national and international disgrace and embarrassment, but for reasons of economy on the one hand, and official indifference to suffering on the other, nothing substantive is done about it. The situation in which a significant number of mentally ill individuals is shot to death by police every year, and a much larger number is jailed or imprisoned is taken for granted. This is the status quo, and there is little official interest in changing it.
Yet this status quo is barbaric compared to public mental health care provisions practically anywhere else in the developed world. It's outrageous and unacceptable, and yet it doesn't change.
The theme running through the current system is one of official abuse and neglect of the mentally ill, and the continual deaths of mentally ill individuals by police gun fire. I call them summary executions.
The shooting death in March of James Boyd of Albuquerque was one of the most egregious examples, but by no means was it the only one. The Boyd killing, however, caused such an outcry that instead of looking the other way or simply dismissing his death as "unfortunate but justified", officials in Albuquerque and elsewhere had to pay attention.
The people rose up and demanded better from their police and their civic administrations.
So far, they have yet to receive anything better. The killing goes on unabated, there is no improvement in mental health care provisions, and police and civic officials defy every call for reform. The status quo seems so entrenched that it often appears that nothing can be done to change it.
It's almost fifty years since shutting down state mental health care services became the standard operational practice. The results are plain enough: much death and destruction of those unlucky enough to be afflicted with mental illness, much death and destruction among families and communities, much imprisonment of the mentally ill, little or no care for the mentally ill, and a barbaric disregard for the well-being of individuals, communities and society.
That's where we are.
What then must we do?
That will be a topic for another post.
Dismantling the public mental health care system nationally became part of an official consensus soon afterwards, and by the time Reagan entered the White House, the process was nearly complete.
Part of the rationale came from Nancy Reagan's adoptive father, a neurosurgeon who was convinced that mental illness -- as it was typically understood and treated -- was an illusion, a chimera. Mental health, in his view, was largely a matter of brain chemistry, and if chemistry went off track, it could be and should be treated with drugs, not warehousing in state mental institutions. In some cases of so-called mental illness, surgery might be necessary to repair or bypass damaged brain and nerve cells. There might be a genetic component to cases of Down's Syndrome (called "Mongolism" in those days) and Autism (sometimes seen as Idiot Savance) which couldn't be treated by any means.
His goal was to eliminate the mental health care system as it had long been operated. Like many others, he saw it as cruel, unnecessary, and the cause of more harm than help.
The ideal substitution would be for those encountering mental health issues to go to community clinics where their condition could be assessed by competent professionals and an appropriate course of medication or medication and surgery could be determined and prescribed. Those with genetic mental conditions that could not be treated would be assigned to board and care homes in their local communities rather than to giant State Institutions for the Feeble Minded.
It all seemed rational and reasonable. Many state institutions (as depicted in "The Snake Pit" for example) were terrible places, filled with suffering patients, indifferent or downright cruel staff, and from which it was too often nearly impossible to escape. The law enabled involuntary indefinite commitments, too often on the say-so of people who were unqualified to determine the mental condition of those who were committed. Getting out once committed could be a nightmare of bureaucracy and legal misconduct.
Treatment in these places was often non-existent or so inadequate as to be counterproductive.
Patient neglect was commonplace, medical malpractice was too common as well.
The community clinic approach to mental health care seemed far better given the liberationist tenor of the times and the rapid development of psychotropic drugs, some of which seemed to be better at treating common mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and manic behavior than any course of psycho-therapy.
Placing those who could not be treated with medication in community board and care homes where a few to a dozen patients might live in comfort and be cared for compassionately seemed far better for the patients and their families than warehousing them by the hundreds or thousands at a central location.
The law cooperated by making the indefinite involuntary commitment no longer possible and by strictly controlling how and whether any involuntary commitment would henceforth take place.
State mental hospitals were largely shut down or turned into prisons for the "criminally insane." Patients were released to their own or their family's recognizance. Community clinics were slow to be established or non-existent. Board and care facilities were initially few and quite expensive. Drug treatments for mental illness were sometimes botched by physicians unfamiliar with the side effects of medications, by patients who refused medication, and by pharmaceutical manufacturers who produced quantities of unhelpful medications. Surgery was expensive and rare.
In fact, the expense and bother of this new system proved to be a barrier to the widespread availability of mental health care services once the state systems had been dismantled.
For many patients, there was simply no place to go. Even where there were clinics, being seen and treated at them could be daunting for people in fragile mental condition.
Literally what happened was that the police took over the "care" of a large portion of the mentally ill, and jails and prisons became the new "Snake Pits" for many people who might otherwise have benefited from treatment had it been available.
In many jurisdictions today, 30% or more of those in jail or prison suffer from mental illness, and their conditions are rarely treated. It has become commonplace to read about mentally ill individuals who are shot to death by police when they act out, or to see the horrifying results of the beatings they endure under from police under the guise of public safety.
What replaced the state mental health care system was better for some patients, much, much worse for others. Deadly for too many.
What's replaced the state mental health care system is a national and international disgrace and embarrassment, but for reasons of economy on the one hand, and official indifference to suffering on the other, nothing substantive is done about it. The situation in which a significant number of mentally ill individuals is shot to death by police every year, and a much larger number is jailed or imprisoned is taken for granted. This is the status quo, and there is little official interest in changing it.
Yet this status quo is barbaric compared to public mental health care provisions practically anywhere else in the developed world. It's outrageous and unacceptable, and yet it doesn't change.
The theme running through the current system is one of official abuse and neglect of the mentally ill, and the continual deaths of mentally ill individuals by police gun fire. I call them summary executions.
The shooting death in March of James Boyd of Albuquerque was one of the most egregious examples, but by no means was it the only one. The Boyd killing, however, caused such an outcry that instead of looking the other way or simply dismissing his death as "unfortunate but justified", officials in Albuquerque and elsewhere had to pay attention.
The people rose up and demanded better from their police and their civic administrations.
So far, they have yet to receive anything better. The killing goes on unabated, there is no improvement in mental health care provisions, and police and civic officials defy every call for reform. The status quo seems so entrenched that it often appears that nothing can be done to change it.
It's almost fifty years since shutting down state mental health care services became the standard operational practice. The results are plain enough: much death and destruction of those unlucky enough to be afflicted with mental illness, much death and destruction among families and communities, much imprisonment of the mentally ill, little or no care for the mentally ill, and a barbaric disregard for the well-being of individuals, communities and society.
That's where we are.
What then must we do?
That will be a topic for another post.
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