Category: Human Rights

Twin Cities Pride Parade reversal on allowing cops in parade demonstrates “Blacks have no rights Whites are bound to respect”

Pride fest 1

 

The reversal of PRIDE parade leadership from its earlier decision to limit the participation of local cops in this year’s Pride Parade and festival, makes it clear that disrespect for Black folks is the order of the day in the Twin Cities. It has been for some time while claiming to be a bastion of liberalism, progressivism and decency. It is neither.

The truth is Black folks in this locale have long been treated as if they have “no rights that White folks (especially those in power) are bound to respect.”

The Twin Cities Pride Parade organizers were attempting to be sensitive to the community’s pain after St Anthony cop Jeronimo Yanez got away with killing Philando Castile, by limiting police participation in this year’s parade. The organizers wrote on FaceBook, “We always have several police departments wanting to roll down Hennepin with lights and sirens to participate in this announcement that the parade is about to begin.With the recent verdict in the Philando Castile case Twin Cities Pride has decided to forgo this part of the police participation in the parade for this year and respect the pain the community is feeling right now.”

It was a request that made sense, considering that people’s feelings are still raw from seeing the squad video and trying to make sense of the senseless killing and subsequent senseless verdict.

But both St Paul and Minneapolis police leaders acted as if someone had shot their dog.  Even the heads of the cops federation chimed in, as if they have some kind of moral standing.

“If your organization is about love and acceptance … it’s kinda ironic,” St Paul police assistant head Nash said. “Members of the LGBTQ cross a lot of occupations. There’s a lot of good cops every day trying to do the right thing.”

Dave Titus the borderline thug, who heads the St Paul Police Federation claimed,” to exile gay and straight officers from the parade runs counter to the values the organization claims to promote,”

Minneapolis Police Chief Janea Harteau, who is an open lesbian, claimed that  “the decision  was “divisive” at a time when the police were trying to mend fractured ties with marginalized communities.”

Harteau  has proven  that a gay person can run be just as ruthless, dishonest  and disrespectful in leading the occupying and oppressive force that we know as the police.  And this statement is further proof. There can be no mending of so-called fractured ties, unless the police stop over-policing and harassing the community and serving as patrollers enforcing unjust laws.

“I really struggle to see how this decision helps our community heal, and the message of division and not inclusion is hurtful to many of us,” she wrote. “Police officers are more than just officers, they are human beings with families who are also part of this community.”

Harteau claims that the cops are human beings! If that’s the case why didn’t they act like human beings, and respect the request of another set of human beings, asking that you respect their right to not include you for a year, because your very presence is a reminder of the community’s pain.

The police didn’t act like human beings in this case, they acted like armed Bullies! The correct human response would have been to say, I see the community needs it  space, so we will give it to them. But the cops couldn’t give that to the community, because they don’t respect the community. Their real role is an oppressive one, which is to remind us at ALL TIMES who is running things.

The truth is they are not human beings, they are the POLICE!

Moreover this dispels the notion that we live in a free, open and democratic society. If we lived in a free and open and democratic society, we could ask the police to sit it out and they would comply. The parade organizers permit required that a cop car lead the parade, that is all that the Parade organizers were bound to, they weren’t required to allow police to march in it.

But Harteau and her gang BULLIED the Festival committee and insisted that they be included because let’s face it, they don’t give a damn about the communities feelings.

Even the capitulation on the part of the liberal organizers hinted at disrespect. While they were concerned about hurting the cops feelings, there is no evidence that they INCLUDED BLACK PEOPLE IN THE DISCUSSION  with them and the police.

Yet the Star Tribune quoted Pride officials as vowing “to continue listening to minority groups.”

Pride Executive Director Dot  Belstler ,said, “To our transgender and people of color communities, we will continue to respect your pain and angst by bridging the divide and continuing conversations on both sides of this issue, to ensure we consider alternatives that make each group feel comfortable and safe.”

Ironically the Pride parade came about as a way for the LGBTQ community to assert its right to exist, to assert its humanity and its right to be different. It was also partially organized as a push back against police harassment.

The Pride organizers should have stuck to their decision if they really meant what they said about recognizing the community’s pain, they would have stood on it. Their spinelessness will only encourage more police intransigence in the future.

Since Pride organizers say they are listening, they should know that oppressed communities don’t respect folks talking about “feeling” their pain, they respect folks who rather than talking about it, “be” about it! “Oppressed people learn early that the problem of life is not the problem of evil but the problem of good.”

Imagine that, the Twin Cities can’t have a parade without the cops (who Harteau calls fellow human beings) and in an open, just and democratic society!

justice then peace

Philando Castile case proves that this society is neither decent, democratic,or just; Its not fit for human subsistence

Philando protest after verdict

 
Let’s face it, the society that allowed an armed agent of the State to shoot a man for absolutely no good reason and then failed to punish the shooter, is the society we live in and not the one you think you live in that is decent, democratic and just and believes in “liberty and justice for all.”
 
The sooner folks face this fact the sooner we can move to some real concrete solutions.
 
The Minnesota House People of Color and Indigenous Caucus summed up the killing of Philando Castile as well as anybody when they said,”We continue to believe the killing of Philando was senseless, without cause, and veiled in unfounded racial fear and prejudice.” But they also said ,”urgent reform of our policing and criminal justice systems is needed.”
 
Unfortunately the legislators got it half right. The system of policing, this social/economic /political system cannot be reformed. It is resistant to reform because these systems exist as they are for a reason. It has to be torn up and tossed out and a new one has to be put in its place.
 
If someone or something continues to do something over and over again, it is who or what they are, police killings and police brutality occur too much for it to be an aberration, a so-called exception to the rule; it is the rule!
 
Just today In Milwaukee, a Black cop was just acquitted of murder, for shooting Syville Smith in the back in August 2016 and while he lay on the ground helpless, killing him. A few weeks ago a female Tulsa cop was acquitted of manslaughter and excused for killing unarmed Terence Crutcher, last September. On Sunday, a Black woman suffering from mental illness was shot in killed by Seattle police. This is no accident.
 
And the system supports the killing! It is codified in law, reinforced by the highest law in the land. And you can’t reform it because the lawmakers identify with and owe their careers to the rulers and not the person on the street.
 
The Yanez verdict coupled with the Tulsa and Milwaukee verdicts, reinforce the fact that police can not only kill you, but the law GIVES THEM THE RIGHT TO KILL YOU WITHOUT FEAR OF REPERCUSSIONS OR NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES.
 
That is the system we live under and not the fairy tale.
 
When Plilando Castile’s lottery number came up, he didn’t have a chance; in life nor death. Yes being Black and surviving in the US means you hope you don’t win the reverse lottery, in which the winners reward is loss of life, or well- being.
 
Philando tried to tell the armed agent of the State that he wasn’t reaching for his gun, but Yanez didn’t listen, rather he listened to the propaganda; spoken and unspoken, conscious and unconscious that suggests a “ni–er” with a gun should be dead.
 
Sounds harsh? Nobody has come up with a reasonable explanation for why Yanez shot Castile. There was no evidence that he saw a gun, in fact all the logical evidence at hand indicates that was an impossibility since Castile got shot in his trigger finger and Yanez said immediately after the shooting that he didn’t see a gun.
 
Yanez was guilty he was proven to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (I was there), yet he was acquitted. That was not justice by any measurable standard. In a decent, democratic and just society the cop would have had to pay for his actions.
 
If the juror Broussard who has talked to the press is to be believed ten folks POSING as decent, fair minded, human beings made their minds up only hours after the trial ended.
 
And people shouldn’t be surprised that the two Black jurors caved in right away and believed the cop, they too have been fed a constant diet of White Supremacy and the “serve and protect” lie.
 
Folks should rather acknowledge and applaud the courage of the two holdouts according to the juror who talked: two White people held out. It’s likely the hold out jurors were forced to concede on Friday (after judge William Leary said he was going to force them to come back on Monday), for financial reasons because most working people can’t afford to miss more than two weeks of work.
 
Yanez would have had to stand trial again without the interference of the supposedly upstanding biased and undemocratic judge Leary, in the case who forced the jurors to continue to deliberate, though it was obvious the thoroughly propagandized and insensitive majority weren’t budging. As Mr Broussard said he “believed” the officer saw a gun; despite all the evidence presented to the contrary.
 
And Yanez is a coward.
 
Yanez has been portrayed as a decent person, but he is anything but. A decent person would not have tried to blame Philando for his death. A good person would not in his BCA interview try to disparage Castile and make up a story about smelling marijuana. No one else on the scene smelled marijuana, his partner, nor any of the cops that showed up afterward said on the witness stand said they smelled marijuana. But he lied to protect himself.
 
If he was a decent person he would saved everyone all this grief and just admitted that he made a mistake. He could have pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. The system would have slapped him on the wrist and he would have been hired by another cop agency. The Castile family and Diamond Reynolds could have gotten on with their lives, but instead he committed a kind of soul murder against them as his actions, denied them the peace the justice that so desperately need to heal.
 
Even the defense lawyers were indecent. Earl Gray and Tom Kelly (who would probably represent Lucifer, if the money was right) weren’t satisfied with their tainted victory but decided to rub it in. Gray cold-heartedly told the press that “Castile would be alive if he followed Yanez’s orders.”
 
The truth is Philando would be alive if he hadn’t been profiled. Yanez had no reason to stop him at all.
 
And after adding insult to injury with their unjust verdict, the defenders of this unjust system have the nerve to demand that we respect it and its show trial. What kind of decent society demands that you respect it after they have it has spit on you? People have no obligation to respect anything, anyone, any law, or any system that does not respect them.
 
This is the society we live in and the sooner we acknowledge the truth, the sooner we can begin the work of creating a just humane decent society fit for human beings.
 
justice then peace

Jeronimo Yanez trial in a nutshell: Yanez shot Philando Castille because he was a Black man with a gun

yanez 2
 
On July 6 last year St Anthony policeman Jeronimo Yanez radioed to his partner that he thinks he spotted a suspect in a recent armed robbery. His only identifier, “cause he has a wide set nose.” After shooting Philando Castille he told the supervisor on the scene“I don’t know where it was.” Those two statements sum up this case as well as any after 10 days of trial.
 
It appears that Yanez stopped Castille as the prosecution police expert witness Jeffry Noble said, “because he was a Black man.” Noble said that Castille should not have been stopped because “a wide set nose is simply not a distinctive feature.” He also noted that a reasonable officer would not have shot Castille because he told him he had a firearm. Another way of putting it, is Castille is dead because he was profiled by the St Anthony cop and he broke the unwritten societal rule established and enforced since slavery that, if you are Black, thou shalt not have a gun, legal or illegal.
 
This was a gut wrenching 10 days as the mother of Philando Castille, Valerie Castille had to watch the video of the incident recorded by Yanez’s squad car several times, as well as view the autopsy of her son’s shot up body.
 
She heard the vaunted defense team of Earl Gray, Paul Enge and Tom Kelly callously say on two occasions that if Castille’s brake light was working he would still be alive and we wouldn’t be here. (Yes that was said twice I was there) the truth is had Yanez not profiled the deceased and chose to harass him, he would still be with us.
 
However Yanez had to listen to prospective jurors tell him to his face what they thought of his actions. A Black woman in her 40’s looked him in the eye and said he was “careless” with Philando’s life and that “no one should have to die as a result of a traffic stop.” A White guy said he thought he was guilty. A young White woman cried on the stand as she recalled how she has been given warnings when stopped by police and didn’t understand why Mr Castille had to die.
 
Needless to say no juror who had a bad experience with the police or had their doubts about the efficacy of law enforcement made the final cut, thus assuring that Yanez would have a jury decidedly “partial” to the system and the narrative of cops as those who serve and protect.
 
Ten Blacks were in the initial pool of 50 jurors and only two made the final cut. The defense challenged one of them, a young Black woman from Ethiopia who they said was too “incompetent” to sit on the jury.
 
That was laughable considering the make up of the jury which included several folks who said they hadn’t heard anything about this case and didn’t know much more about the justice system than what they had seen on TV. One woman lied hiding her decidedly pro-police views from the judge until the prosecution exposed her through her FaceBook posts, which she previously denied. She even revealed after hiding it initially that she was friends with the wife of a suburban Maplewood, MN cop who had been killed. The judge refused to strike her for cause. And the prosecution didn’t use one of its three strikes to unseat either.
 
The defense team must have said the word marijuana over 100 times as it sought to make the case that Castille was responsible for his own death because he was high, causing him to fail to comply with Yanez’s commands. But as the prosecution pointed out, Yanez didn’t really give any commands.
 
In fact several cops who testified, admitted that if they thought the gun was a threat they would have told Castille to put his hands up or on the steering wheel where they could see them.
 
The prosecution put on an able and competent, though somewhat dispassionate case despite being in unfamiliar territory of prosecuting one of its own.
 
When cross examining Yanez on the final day, it’s hard to imagine that they would have let some guy in dreadlocks and sagging pants continue on and on, rather than answering the questions yes or no as instructed. Yanez continued to explain the inconsistencies in his statements by saying he was under stress.
 
The marijuana argument didn’t withstand the scrutiny of prosecutors. It appeared the prosecution discredited the defense’s toxicologist who couldn’t say definitively after cross examination if Castille was high on marijuana, or when he got high. In his initial testimony he claimed that the THC level’s found in the deceased proved that he had gotten high two hours earlier. The prosecution pointed out that according to the science there was no way he could prove that. In closing argument the prosecution labeled the defense’s toxicologist a practitioner of “junk science.”
 
The defense’s gun expert was made to look foolish after he claimed that he had timed himself sitting in a car pulling a gun out of his pocket and that someone could pull a gun out in a third of a second, when the prosecution asked if he had conducted his experiment while seat belted as Castille had been, he admitted he wasn’t in a seat belt.
 
The defense failed to present evidence showing that Castille resembled the armed robbers of days previous, who had robbed a Super America at gun point. The only resemblance Castille bore to the robbers was his color and maybe his wide set nose since the vast majority of African Americans have wide noses compared to White Americans.
 
Despite some of the reports coming out of the corporate newspapers which unwittingly make Yanez appear credible, in actuality the prosecution exposed the fact that Yanez gave several contradictory and inconsistent, statements which he tried to cover up on the stand by saying he was under stress. This was made even clearer in the prosecution’s closing argument by Jeffrey Paulsen.
 
The prosecution pointed out that despite his later claims in his BCA testimony that he saw the barrel of a gun he oddly failed to tell Roseville officers when they showed up that Castille had a gun. It is common practice when cops shoot folks who have a gun to point that out but Yanez did not. Its likely he didn’t because he didn’t see a gun as he admitted to the supervisor on the scene.
 
Yanez explanation for this was almost comical he told prosecutors cross examining him that he, “didn’t see a gun until he saw one.”
 
Incidentally the discovery of the gun by law enforcement on the scene exposed what appeared to be duplicity and collusion in effort to make Yanez’s story appear credible. The Roseville cop who initiated CPR on the already dead victim, claimed that the gun fell out of the dead man’s pocket when paramedics turned him to put him on the board to put him into the ambulance. The cop said that the gun had been sticking out of Castille’s pocket. When he was cross examined the prosecutors asked, if the gun was sticking out of Castille’s pocket why didn’t he see it? His response was, he was concentrating on administering aide to Castille.
 
A firefighter on the scene claimed he heard a clank and then saw a gun. It was revealed in the trial that one of Yanez’s brothers is a local firefighter.
 
But an EMT took the stand and said the officers patted the dead man down and then dug “deep” in his pocket to get the gun. He repeated his story under questioning and every time he acknowledged that the officers dug deep in Castille’s pocket to retrieve the gun.
 
So this begs the question, how did Castille manage to pull out the gun get shot up and shove it back down into his pocket? If the gun was out why wasn’t there any blood on the gun. He was also shot in his right index finger his trigger finger which again makes Yanez story less credible how could he have pulled the gun without his trigger finger and why wasn’t there any marks on the gun? Because according to Yanez in his statement in court , the deceased pulled the gun out.
 
Diamond Reynolds came across as honest and forthright in her testimony, she consistently stated that Castille never reached for a gun. Yet defense attorney Earl Gray referred to her as a liar in his closing argument, because she said she was held for five hours without food and water and she couldn’t remember being given $40 for groceries which had been confiscated for evidence.
 
However this writer and other activists on the night of the shooting are aware that she was held against her will for several hours because we recruited two local attorneys to represent her. Both tried for hours to locate her and were told different stories about her where she was being held by St. Anthony and Roseville police in a thinly veiled attempt by law enforcement to prevent her from securing legal protection.
 
By his own admission (and it can be heard on the video) Yanez says “Don’t pull it out”he didn’t yell, put it down, which would have made more sense had the victim actually pulled the gun. And Yanez can be heard on the police video yelling again after Castille is dying from the bullet wounds to the heart, “don’t pull it out as if he was doing it for posterity’s sake.
 
The closing argument by prosecuting attorney Paulsen appeared ironclad. According to him, “Yanez was the only one in this entire case who says Castile pulled a gun from his pocket.” He also reiterated that while the defense claimed that Castille was intoxicated, almost as if to say he was drunk and therefore wasn’t listening, it was Yanez who wasn’t listening and admitted that after hearing “weapon” he developed “tunnel vision,” and was getting nervous.
 
Paulsen’s also responded in his closing arguments to Yanez claim that he was nervous, “Everyone on both sides of this case agrees,” Paulsen said, “that being nervous is not a reason to shoot and kill someone.”
 
The prosecution in my opinion made its case. We will find out in a matter of hours or days, if the jury can overcome stereotypes about Black people and Black life along with how well US propaganda about the role and duties of police in US society has made its case despite evidence to the contrary.
 
justice then peace

Memorial Day 2017: Pour one out for those who fought the War at Home

memorial day

Memorial Day gives us a chance to pause and reflect somberly on those who have left us, while more recently serving in wars of US aggression. Do the research. When was the last time the US sent men and women to fight a war in which the country has actually been attacked and threatened. And Afghanistan doesn’t count.The original intent of the day  was to allow folks to remember the dead and their sacrifice, after the Union victory over the South in the US Civil War. But  it also gives us a chance to reflect on the casualties of the internal war waged by our bourgeoisie against the population at home.

Incidentally, Memorial Day is one of the holidays that make up the pillars of US Civil Religion, which is the real “faith” of many North Americans despite their claims of allegiance to other gods the diety that is most revered is their country.

So today with the possible exception of WW I and WWII vets many will honor those who fought honorably for a dishonorable cause. While those who sacrificed serving what they believed to be the interest of this country, in reality they gave themselves up to improve the bottom line of the corporate robber barons the banksters and the ruling families while expanding the reach, the ego and the territory of the rulers of this country.

On the other hand the less celebrated  heroes of this country are those who fought to improve the living conditions and lives of their fellow Americans.

Today we honor the Native Americans who fought to hold on to their land and their birthright. Geronimo who was such a threat to European hegemony that he had to be murdered in his jail cell.  The Seminoles and runaway former slaves gave the famous Indian Killer Andrew Jackson and the US government all it could handle. The US government lost a few battles to these Indians and slaves in the swamps of Northern Florida. It took the government decades to subdue them and when they did they resorted to dirty tricks, terror and burning of Seminole homes and agriculture. The Seminole leaders including Osceola, were only subdued after being tricked into attending a so-called “peace” conference.

And the Indian population has continued to fight for their rights and the rights of others.

We should honor those who sacrificed so that workers could have an eight hour day and not have to work from sun up to sun down. We should honor the early unionists who sacrificed and sometimes were killed by police and other armed agents of the government for asking for just a little more from the bosses.

Today we should remember the abolitionists who sacrificed well being and social position  and sometimes their lives to take a stand against slavery.

We should tip our hat to the courageous White sharecroppers who banded together sometimes with fellow Black sharecroppers and tenant farmers and formed cooperatives often at the risk of death or just short of it.

This is a good time to remember the women who fought for the right for women to vote and continued to fight for women’s rights and everyone’s rights. Some as a result lost freedom and others lost livelihoods.

Today we should  remember those who died trying to get this country to live up to its creed of justice and equality for all. The Civil Rights Movement created quite a share of martyrs too many to name here but suffice it to say that many more died simply trying to live out their lives and demanding the rights promised to them by their birthright and the US Constitution.

One soldier upon being asked to deploy to Iraq in the US second intervention in that country said, “It to me is embarrassing to fight for a way of life in which basic human needs, like a place to sleep one hot meal a day and some medical attention cannot be met in our nation’s capitol.”

We should pour one for the many heroes and sheroes who actually fought and died to make men and women free, who fought so that everyone could make a decent living, decent and affordable housing, equal rights, equal access and equal treatment.

Today we should remember all the freedom fighters who have paved the way for us to enjoy the few freedoms we have left. Today pour one for the freedom fighters who sacrificed fighting the war at home.

justice then peace

Mother’s Day 2017: A Reflection

purple rose

Mother’s Day is an odd holiday considering the fact that in our patriarchal and capitalist North America women aren’t quite fully accepted as equals fully part of Americana it seems patronizing. The cynical among us might suggest that the holiday was invented to boost business sales particularly the greeting card industry, the cut flower industry and to fill restaurants.

 

And Mother’s Day must be a painful day especially for the Mothers whose children are no longer around to wish them a Happy Mother’s Day especially those who have lost sons through senseless violence. Whether its violence launched on behalf of the US billionaire class, (the idea of soldiers defending the constitution or the country hasn’t been true in a long time) or police violence, gang violence, or violence in the streets, it is all without a doubt senseless.

 

The Mothers of Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Philando Castille, Rekia Boyd, Jamar Clarke, Alton Sterling,…. and the list goes on, are missing their children in the US because of State violence, which is the result of a need to maintain a system of power and control  and which exists to reinforce racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and classism. Their children are dead for that reason and that reason alone.

 

The justifications after the fact are only accepted by those who are fully duped and propagandized, empathy deprived and or blinded by class and racial prejudice.

 

Mothers are missing their children in oppressed communities because  when a society places certain groups  outside of the mainstream and makes it difficult to join the mainstream, while crowding them into ghettos and targeting them for special treatment; that attitude, that societal hatred, will be internalized.  If I don’t value my own life, I am not likely to value anyone else’s and as a result the cycle of violence continues.

 

Others are missing their children because of other kinds of violence; perpetrated by the State’s looking away, allowing the George Zimmerman’s to get away with murder.

Mothers are missing their children because of the incarceral State,the US has become one great big gulag.

 

Furthermore children are missing their mothers because of the incarceral State, the tough on crime proclivity of  US jurisprudence. But crime has declined while the number of children made motherless by this system’s desire to exact revenge and enforce a draconian and Dark Ages kind of justice, has increased.

 

Motherhood is not necessarily valued in this country which is exposed by the fact that the US leads the world in deaths of mothers during childbirth.

 

“The ability to protect the health of mothers and babies in childbirth is a basic measure of a society’s development. Yet every year in the U.S., 700 to 900 women die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes, and some 65,000 nearly die — by many measures, the worst record in the developed world.”  That quote was taken from an article by NPR about the problem of women dying in childbirth, which focused on the fact that the US trails all of the developed world in its efforts to prevent it.

 

It’s a particularly hypocritical celebration in light of the fact that there is a large group of US citizens who are lobbying to get rid of (or at least have the government defund Planned Parenthood), which incidentally helps would be mothers get badly needed pre-natal care. Oddly many of these people claim to be Christians. They walk a really bizarre tight rope of wanting women to carry their babies to term while making it difficult for them to get all the care they need to do so.

 

And then there is a recent story that does separate the Mothers from the rest of us. Stacey Greenwood’s husband was killed by Kenneth Williams, while trying to elude police after escaping from prison in Arkansas and wound up on death row for the killing of another man during that escape. Williams was recently one of several men put to death by that state.

 

Ms. Greenwood repaid Williams with kindness and forgiveness. Ms. Greenwood and her daughter Kyla made national news after announcing that they had forgiven Williams and written letters to the Arkansas parole board seeking clemency on his behalf. They further made headlines when they paid for airline tickets for Williams’s daughter, whom he hadn’t seen since she was three and granddaughter to visit him before he was put to death.

 

What’s striking about the mothers who have loss so much is their amazing lack of hatred and bitterness.If anybody can demonstrate real love and set this society on a civilized course it would be mothers; mothers like Stacey Greenwood and so many countless others.

 

justice then peace

 

 

St Paul cop who punched girl and jury that acquitted him belong in prison, a zoo, hell or all three

StPaul cop Michael Soucheray

In one of the more despicable and egregious miscarriages of justice( which calls into question our entire so-called civilization), a St Paul jury found St Paul cop Michael Soucheray not guilty of punching a reportedly suicidal 14 year old girl in the face.

Incredibly there is a video (see KARE 11 post below) of the event which shows a young girl who was clearly having a mental health crisis, who was handcuffed tightly and being manhandled and roughed up and talked to as if she wasn’t having as she termed it, ”a mental break.”

The fact that the comment pages are filled with those who approve of the cops is further proof that we humans may not be who we think we are. Where is the compassion, the empathy and sympathy?

Any 6 year old viewing video of the incident could tell you that the cop who hit this girl along with his partner are just wrong and are mishandling a girl in distress, mental distress at that.

This girl was at a shelter for sexually exploited girls and the folks running the place thought it was a good idea to call in an organization, that has proven time and time again that it doesn’t have the skills, nor the desire to deal with people in crisis.

Yes the girl did spit but it wasn’t a real back of throat mucus filled projection. And to be fair, most would have had reacted by lashing out. But I think most would have restrained themselves. much like is done when a clearly distressed person a mentally unstable person or someone in a crisis lashes out. A professional is supposed to recognize this and not respond in kind.

But that’s the problem with using the word professional to describe the police, we think they are professionals in the sense that they are public servants. But they are not public servants and their professionalism stems from their ability to keep order on behalf of the powerful. They are butt kicking specialists in the service of Big Business, well off white folks and the State.

Do your research, study the history, the origins of the role and development of the police and you will see this is not hyperbole! And its just important to simply observe what they do that is a good indication of who they are and keep in mind they enforce laws that are sometimes unjust and many times inequitable while at the same holding the poor, the immigrant, People of Color to a higher standard of the law.

At one point the 14 year old asks the cop after he punches and chokes her,” Why would you do that?” Is it because they never saw her as someone who could have been their daughter, who was simply in distress? It appears that they never once viewed her as a human being, but a problem to be solved, something to be put down, someone or thing that was resisting authority. They view us all the same, children, old folks,the handicapped, physically or mentally disabled,it doesn’t matter, all they know is that you are supposed to yield to them.

If we are honest many operate like professional butt-kickers, thugs in uniform. The kind public servant,is the exception to the rule.

If we were a society of human beings, we would have people who could respond to other people in crisis. But us so-called human beings sit back and let the animals among us, convince the rest of us that the sick and ailing and mentally disturbed deserve no help and we even allow them to cut funding from needed programs.

According to the cops lawyer Peter Wold, they (the cops) were “trying to calm a hysterical, reportedly suicidal teenager and get her to a hospital.” But the video shows them antagonizing the child, while she is clearly out of it.

The equally delusional counselor explained his clients actions thusly, “the girl spat at the officer, causing his training to kick in. Soucheray employed a tactic he called “startle, flinch and respond,” to defend himself and de-escalate the situation.”

Say what?

How do you defend yourself from spit? There was nothing to defend. And punching and choking a hand cuffed girl in the face (four times from what can be seen in the video) calling her, according to the video a “f—ing b—ch” didn’t reveal that Soucheray was defending himself, but rather that he was a sick, sadistic, bully. Notice he and his partner taunt the child about going to jail.

Incredibly, these public servants had the temerity to say after they put handcuffs on her too tight and punched her in the face, that her behavior got her in her position and that they came to help her and that she should have acted differently. As they admit in the video, they did’t know her name because they didn’t bother to ask. Because apparently, they didn’t come to calm her down, they came to make her yield, to make her obey.

The uniformed sadists knew that 12 properly propagandized people, perpetrating the fraud of being “human,” would not empathize with the 14 year old, even though she was White. Because she was flawed, she was damaged goods, she was having a mental crisis. She wasn’t like them so they couldn’t empathize with her, she was acting out so she wasn’t deserving or her rights.

As the lawyer said, “Juries know what they’re doing,”

And you couldn’t make up the stuff that came out of the mouth of their morally challenged lawyer. He actually said that “the girl suffered no injuries and no marks on her face,” inferring that it was all somehow okay.

And in his closing arguments he said about the girl, She doesn’t get a free pass under the law because life may have been unfair to this point” This man actually implied that her being sexually abused was simply a matter of life being “unfair.”

Where is the outrage? Where are the women’s rights advocates? Don’t folks care about White girls anymore?

justice then peace

United Airlines fiasco: Munoz vs Dao was just business

United Logo

So United came to terms with Dr. David Dao the elderly passenger they publicly humiliated and brutalized. However it doesn’t remove the stain nor the stench from what happened. What happened two weeks ago on that airplane was shocking. But then again we should not have been that surprised, considering our social/ economic/ political system which is driven solely by the profit motive and reinforced by naked force.

It is a system built around the needs of profit, not human beings and it was in full display in the mistreatment of Dr. Dao.

Not even the fact that the offending passenger Dr. Dao had purchased a ticket, paid his way, pulled his own weight, so to speak could save him from the wrath of the money grubbers. This conflicts with the fallacy that if we do everything the right way, we will be okay.If we put our money down we are supposed to get what we pay for, well not exactly.

Many were upset with the initial response of the United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz, but in retrospect it made perfect sense. Good business acumen told him that whatever he did he shouldn’t admit guilt, which is tantamount to a confession of wrong doing, which could cost lots of money in a lawsuit. But he miscalculated in trying to save face and money he actually wound up looking callous and the company took a financial and public relations hit.

But not to worry, where else can the flying public turn? The folks running things and the go along to get along public have allowed the airline industry to be pared down to four major carriers. The lack of competition is reflected in airline ticket prices, which oddly never seem to go down.

So clearly Munoz went too far beyond the pale as it turns out, it would have been cheaper to simply apologize in the beginning and settle the inevitable lawsuit. Though United cleaned up their initial goof and sounded more humane in offering an apology the damage had already been done.

The hard core reality of a society that has been built around the needs of profit rather than those of human beings resulted in the CEO, the gate agents, the police, United Airlines in general viewing this man not as a human being, but a mere customer who had inconvenienced the profiteers.

The incident exposed the true and violent nature of US society. Human decency and compassion conflict with the profit motive.
It also exposed the fallacy of law enforcement as regular folks that are just doing their jobs.

If they were like most of us they would have stopped and said, ‘there has to be a better way to handle this situation.’ If they were just like us (as the propaganda would have us believe) they would have said to themselves I wouldn’t want anyone to force me out of a seat that I purchased. If they operated just like us, they would have seen Dr. Dao as they would their own relative, they would have said I wouldn’t want my grandparent to be dragged down an airplane aisle.

But they aren’t just like us they are programmed to view the world as us vs them. So they dragged a helpless old man down an airplane aisle like he was a piece of trash because the needs of capital dictated it. Note that after it’s been made obvious to the world that they were wrong the Chicago airport cops are pretending the man busted his own lip: he resisted.

But, after all that is their job is not to enforce the rules of decency, but the dictates that govern the profiteers.

And the gate agents succumbed to an us vs them mentality that allowed them to identify with the needs of their bosses, rather than the needs of a human being.

Check out what the leader of the Flight Attendants Union Sara Nelson had to say. She applauded Munoz saying “When something like this happens and people have to go to work and have order in their workplace to keep everyone safe, it can be incredibly demoralizing,” she said. “Some credit needs to be given to him.”

Her response was not only tone deaf, but it revealed how much the union bureaucracy identifies with their bosses.

But thank goodness that the passengers humanity kicked in and they screamed their disapproval as human beings should have. They let it be known that this was not proper despite the needs of Big Business.

Ultimately we have to resist our programming and not just voice our approval but stand in the aisles, block their path and say no not today.

justice then peace