Showing posts with label police state. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label police state. Show all posts

  • Recently, Abagond wrote about how the mainstream American media handles riots involving black Americans and riots involving whites. Anyone who's keeping score can see how there's a glaring double standard in the way those events are covered.

    Take a close look at the 1965 Watts riots, the 1967 Detroit riots, the 1992 L.A. riots and the recent Baltimore riots and you'll find a couple of common threads:

    1. These riots and many others like them have been about black America's ongoing frustration over genuine injustices directed towards the black community and ignored by white society - discrimination and police brutality being the two biggest injustices.
    2. Every time these riots happen, mainstream American media frames them as yet another demonstration of black America's innate criminality and lust for violence - a narrative that's played well among legions of upstanding white Americans ever since the Stono Rebellion and perhaps even before.

    Now take a look at the above photo, a snapshot of the riots that occurred shortly after the end of the 2013 U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, CA. According to the L.A. Times, this one broke out after a fight led scores of young, largely white and quite possibly intoxicated revelers to indulge in a bit of the old ultraviolence. Why? There's no injustice here, except that maybe they'll have to go home at some point.

    Notice how the media didn't dismiss this as just another display of primal Caucasian rage, nor was it tamped down with the same sort of heavy-handed show of force exemplified by Baltimore and Ferguson.

    That's the thing. Riots led by largely white participants over largely innocuous things (your favorite sports team lost, your favorite sports team won, your favorite event just ended, you're drunk, others are drunk so let's tear shit up) are never treated with the racial disdain that the highly uncommon riots that occur in black communities receive.

    There's no condemnation of white Americans as a whole, nor are there any calls for the Caucasian community to restrain itself and seek non-violent means of expressing itself. They're not denigrated as "thugs," accused of being "out of control" or used as fodder for unreconstructed fantasies of putting them back in their rightful place. Even the language becomes different - these are "disturbances," not "riots."  They're not "thugs," but "young partygoers" and "revelers" who just happen to be "over-exuberant."

    No one thumbs through Wikipedia to find the perfect MLK quote to tut-tut black Americans with for having the temerity to burn buildings (in their own neighborhoods, mind you), throw rocks and generally act out of anger and frustration. Even the good Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood perfectly what happens when the concerns of a frustrated people are constantly put on ice.

    Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view.

    I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society.

    These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

    It's no secret that mainstream America tends to be hard of hearing when it comes to the fears, concerns and strife black Americans have faced in this country, at least when said plight is couched in non-violent terms. It's only when those terms suddenly turn violent that mainstream America starts paying attention, only to learn the wrong lessons from what they've seen and heard and quietly hope that "those people" can leave them alone and go back to suffering in silence.

  • Yours truly has learned something these past few months watching and reading up on current events, especially those affecting black Americans:

    1. The value of a black life in the United States remains marginal, at best. At worst, that value is nonexistent.
    2. At any given moment, said life can be put to an end at the whim of a white American, whether under color of law or as a concerned citizen who "feared" for their safety and well-being.
    3. The value of a black life in the United States is determined and enshrined by mainstream America's view of the black community, and then verified and validated in its treatment at the hands of law enforcement and other institutions throughout the nation.
    4. Said law enforcement members have been given card blanche to respond to the black community and other ethnic and social minority groups as aggressively as possible.
    5. Respectability politics has long since proven to be absolutely ineffective in improving the black community's image in mainstream America's eyes or preventing further life-ending incidents at the hands of law enforcement and concerned citizens.
    6. When confronted with the above, many mainstream Americans will resort to blaming the black community for these problems based on a strict adherence to the Just World fallacy and their belief of black Americans as a morally bankrupt people. They'll also support law enforcement officials and concerned citizens who've put black lives to rest, at least as far as polite society will allow.
    7. Overt racism is still taboo and a serious faux pas in polite discussion. However, coded talk remains perfectly acceptable and preferred among many.

    The entire black blogosphere has undergone an airing out of grievances and a sharing of thoughts, feelings, experiences and the pain suffered by many within the black community. There have been protests, marches, demonstrations, the works. There have been a few indictments and even a few cases where authorities have quickly acted, if only out of self-interest and self-preservation.

    Still, the killings and the beatings continue.

    Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Rekia Boyd, Aiyana Stanley-Jones - the list goes on. And it's one that grows longer with each passing day.

  • In any case where a young person of color has been beaten, shot and/or killed at the hands of law enforcement, there are inevitably two competing narratives: one where the victim is described by parents, family and friends in the most positive and loving light as possible and one where the victim is reduced to that of either a mere criminal or a potential criminal.

    Prior to Michael Brown's fatal encounter with Ferguson P.D. Officer Darren Wilson, Brown was featured on surveillance camera at a nearby convenience store, where it appeared that he was involved in a strong-arm robbery. The events, as they unfolded on-screen, fed into the "Michael Brown is a Criminal" narrative trotted by CNN and many other mainstream news outlets. It also gave many with an already-low opinion of Brown and black Americans like him all the justification necessary to consider his life forfeit at the hands of Wilson. In other words, to say that Michael Brown deserved to die, but without actually uttering those words.

    Narratives are a powerful thing. They can easily influence how Americans think or feel about an issue and sway opinion from one end to another. The pictures and footage of 1960s-era civil rights advocates suffering assault after ruthless assault at the hands of a cultural and state apparatus intent on status-quo preservation created a powerful narrative that swayed many on the side of justice. But even that narrative had to compete with the equally powerful narrative firmly codified by D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation and ruthlessly reinforced by the behaviors and actions of both cultural and state actors.

    Painting Michael Brown as a deadly giant of a criminal wipes any sympathy that anyone has for what happened to him that fateful day. It encourages a mindset that figures, "he was a natural-born criminal and he had it coming. He deserved to die."

    He didn't deserve to die, but that's all academic at this point.

    As it turned out, he did pay for what he was suspected by many of stealing. But I suppose that's also academic at this point, too.


    Michael Brown's designated status as a deadly giant and a vicious beast is nothing new. Trayvon Martin was described by many in the media and elsewhere as a powerful Uber-Negro with innate MMA training and the capacity to destroy innocent lives by sheer force of his own blackness, nevermind his actual physical appearance. The powerful narrative of the black man as a superhuman beast is a common one, carefully cultivated over the centuries as proof of his suitability and destiny in the fields of the planter class.

    Sheena C. Howard's Huffington Post piece goes into detail about this powerful and long-lasting narrative and how it's shaped this country's perception of black men and women. By highlighting this prolific and persistent pathology, it's easy to understand why the American public is both in awe and in fear of the black specimen:

    During the Reconstruction Period (1866 -- 1877), many Whites argued that free Blacks were a danger to society because they were animalistic beasts and savages that needed to be tamed by White slave owners. In 1901, the writer, George T. Winston stated, "The black brute is lurking in the dark, a monstrous beast, crazed with lust. His ferocity is almost demoniacal. A mad bull or tiger could scarcely be more brutal. A whole community is frenzied with horror, with the blind and furious rage for vengeance". These sentiments are eerily consistent with the ways in which Officer Darren Wilson describes Mike Brown as a "demon" in his testimony.

    Since the 1930's scientists have been trying to generate evidence of superhuman physical features that characterize Black people to explain their exemplary success in sports. The century old-debate of the "slave gene" seems to resurface every four years, particularly when athletes of African descent outperform competitors at the Olympics, -- most notably in track and field.

    The supposedly untamable, animalistic nature of the black man justifies mainstream America's fear of him while, at the same time, justifying his return to his proper lot in life (under the watchful eye of the slave holder). It also justifies dealing with the so-called superhuman in the most final manner possible. So instead of merely talking a man out of wielding his weapon or spending minutes ordering him to surrender peacefully, law enforcement officers are expected to respond to the dire life-or-death presence of the superhuman Negro by ending said Negro's existence, full stop.

    America's pathological obsession and fear of black men, a current that runs deeply underneath the national bedrock, was useful as a way to destroy any sympathy for the black creature as he was used and abused on the farms and plantations. It remained useful for severing any sense of solidarity between poor freed blacks and their equally impoverished white counterparts, while keeping the rest of America in fear of their mere presence. And today, it's used as an effective narrative to continue justifying the actions and tactics of law enforcement agencies throughout the nation, as well as the corrupt actions of the prosecutors and the judiciary.

    Sadly, enforcing that narrative always comes at a cost. For Michael Brown's family, it cost them their son. For black families across the U.S., it cost them their peace of mind and sense of justice. For America, the cost is its morals and, as some would say, its soul.


  • Michael Brown's death and the subsequent protests in the city of Ferguson, Missouri have laid bare a few simple, troubling facts about living in this country as a black American:

    1. You are always considered a danger or a threat until proven otherwise.
    2. As a possible threat, you are subject to the wishes and whims of law enforcement, the courts and the penal system.
    3. Even ordinary citizens can deal with you as they see fit if they consider you a threat, as codified in both de facto and de jure forms.
    The above has had an effect on how the black community sees and deals with law enforcement, as highlighted in Ta-Nehisi Coates' latest piece. When you know the police are more likely to see you as a threat rather than as a person in need, you're less likely to want to interact with them in any way, shape or form. Out of necessity, community-driven self-policing becomes the norm.

    But the reason for LEO insistence on treating black Americans as a clear and present danger has little to do with criminal stats or personal experiences - those are often used as pretextual justifications for their behavior. Instead, it's a bit deeper than that:

    The police departments of America are endowed by the state with dominion over your body. I came home at the end of this summer to find that dominion had been. This summer in Ferguson and Staten Island we have seen that dominion employed to the maximum ends—destruction of the body. This is neither new nor extraordinary. It does not matter if the destruction of your body was an overreaction. It does not matter if the destruction of your body resulted from a misunderstanding. It does not matter if the destruction of your body springs from foolish policy. Sell cigarettes without proper authority and your body can be destroyed. Resent the people trying to entrap your body and it can be be destroyed. Protect the home of your mother and your body can be destroyed. Visit the home of your young daughter and your body will be destroyed. The destroyers of your body will rarely be held accountable. Mostly they will receive pensions.

    Ownership of and authority over the black body is something that stretches as far back as the beginning of the slave trade, when the purchase and use of involuntary African labor came into vogue. It was most apparent during the heyday of the plantation system, with the southern planter class and their allies in control of black labor and black movement. The black body was theirs to do as they saw fit.

    This attitude did not vanish once the plantation system - at least in its slavery-supported form - vanished. The loss of control over the black body also meant a grievous economic loss. When black Americans began taking advantage of the Reconstruction period, there was a realization that this loss of control could be permanent. The fight against Reconstruction, the imposition of Jim Crow laws throughout the south and the use of those laws to create a new prison-supported plantation system marked the re-imposition of control over the black body.

    Today, mainstream America struggles to maintain authority over the black body, to do as they see fit with it. Even if it means warehousing your body in a secure facility for decades on end. Or bruising your body to the point of disfigurement and paralysis. Or simply destroying your body outright.

    It doesn't take a united organization to exercise that sort of control over the black body. Such tasks are often outsourced to ordinary individuals - people who have their own agendas, but nevertheless inherently understand the need for policing the black body. Jason Zimmerman did his part to re-impose societal control over the black body - he understood clearly what society subconsciously asked of him once he saw those black teenagers behaving in a way that suggested a lack of control.

    LEO behavior in Ferguson, L.A., N.Y.C. and points elsewhere are part and parcel with the continuing need to control the black body, whether for the benefit of the scared white suburbanite, the unrepentant Lost Causer, the workaday man or woman who doesn't want to lose their job or home to "those people," the businessmen who see black bodies as a goldmine of dependable cheap labor or the politician who uses black bodies as a "tough on crime" liferaft to keep his or her career afloat.

    Control of the black body has always been good for business and good for society. Yours truly doesn't expect that to stop anytime soon.

  • It's been established throughout history that there's nothing scarier to many Americans than the sight of a black man with a gun, let alone a large group of black men armed to the teeth.

    In light of Michael Brown's death at the hands of an overzealous police department in a racially charged tinderbox of a town, it looks like I'll have to amend that, as follows:

    It's been established throughout history that there's nothing scarier to many Americans than the sight of a black man.

    Of course, it's not so much "fear" than it is an ingrown, almost reflexive need for "control." Today's highly-militarized law enforcement are the runaway slave patrols of the new millennium - if they're not busy funneling a growing number of able-bodied black men and women into the prison-industrial complex and the permanent underclassery that it entails, they're busy with displays like these.Walking around in full military-surplus gear. Firing tear gas into private homes. Aiming AR-15s at innocent passersby.

    Make no mistake: this is state-sanctioned terrorism. It's something black America has long since been intimately acquainted with, from the moment the first batch of African slaves were dragged off the boat.

    Throughout slavery.

    After Reconstruction.

    During the Jim Crow era.

    During the Civil Rights era.

    During the so-called era of "colorblindness" and "post-racial America."

    Up to today.

    And yes, there are people out there who not only support this state-sanctioned terrorism of black souls (because they're assumed to be criminals who probably definitely deserve it), but they revel in it.





    It's a small taste of the shit sandwich black America has had to deal with for generations on end. And there's no end to it in sight.

    This and other acts of state-sanctioned terrorism is a cancer. This is the cancer that is slowly but surely killing this nation. It metastasized early on, up to the sloppy and life-threatening surgery that was the American Civil War. It went into remission with Reconstruction, but flared up in its full glory with Jim Crow. Chemotherapy came in the form of the Civil Rights movement and after that, everyone thought it would finally stay in remission and eventually disappear.

    But like any virulent cancer, it never leaves. It just bides its time until the conditions are right to spread. And spread, it has. And it keeps spreading.

    The cancer won't go away until America is finally ready to acknowledge that black life has the same worth as a white life, and that a black life deserves just as much protection. Until then, this country will remain in hospice, slowly awaiting the day when the cancer swallows it whole.



    Tell us something we don't know.

  • The man on the right is Earl Sampson, a 28-year-old employee of the 207 Quickstop on 207th Street in the suburban city of Miami Gardens, Florida. There's not much remarkable about Earl - except if you ask him how many times he's been stopped and questioned by the city's police department. The answer? 258 times in four years - or at least once a week. He's gone through 100 pat-downs and was arrested and jailed 56 times.

    Earl Sampson's depressing familiarity with local law enforcement isn't due to his supposed innate criminal nature - possession of marijuana is the only serious charge he's ever faced. A close look at his rap sheet reveals the answer: trespassing - 62 instances of it, nearly all of them at the 207 Quickstop. So how does a guy get yanked up on trespassing charges on a weekly basis at the very place he's supposed to be?


    The guy on the left might have a few answers. He's Alex Saleh, the 36-year-old owner of the 207 Quickstop. Three years ago, Saleh signed up with the Miami Gardens Police Department for a "zero-tolerance" program to help combat crime. Back then, the city's violent crime and property crime rates were 77.64 percent and 38.05 percent higher than the state's overall respective rates. In response, the police wanted to apply a bit of the "broken windows" theory Rudy Giuliani used to powerwash New York City, so it seemed like a good idea at the time to sign up.

    What Saleh didn't expect was three years of seeing his black customers harassed, harangued and arrested by Miami Gardens police for the most minor of infractions. According to the Miami Herald:

    Miami Gardens police officers, he said, began stopping his patrons regularly, citing them for minor infractions such as trespassing, or having an open container of alcohol. The officers, he said, would then pat them down or stick their hands in citizens’ pockets. But what bothered Saleh the most was the emboldened behavior of the officers who came into his store unannounced, searched his store without his permission and then hauled his employees away in the middle of their shifts. He finally told them he no longer wanted to participate in the program and removed the sign.

    The officers, however, continued their surveillance of his store over his objections. The officers even put the sign back on his store against his wishes, he said.

    This is chilling.

    In June 2012, Saleh installed 15 surveillance cameras in and around his store. Not to safeguard his store from robbers, but to safeguard his customers from the behavior and actions of police:

    The videos show, among other things, cops stopping citizens, questioning them, aggressively searching them and arresting them for trespassing when they have permission to be on the premises; officers conducting searches of Saleh’s business without search warrants or permission; using what appears to be excessive force on subjects who are clearly not resisting arrest and filing inaccurate police reports in connection with the arrests.

    “There is just no justifying this kind of behavior,’’ said Chuck Drago, a former police officer and consultant on police policy and the use of force. “Nobody can justify overstepping the constitution to fight crime.”

    Saleh finally had enough and is now making preparations to file a civil rights suit against the police department. However, doing that has likely made him an even bigger target for police harassment:

    Since Saleh has served notice that he is going to sue the city, Sampson hasn’t been arrested, and police are not as active in the store’s parking lot.

    But Saleh is mindful of his David vs. Goliath battle with the city’s police department. He worries about his safety, and carries a licensed firearm.

    In December, Saleh was followed out of his parking lot by a Miami Gardens police officer, who stopped him after a few blocks. The officer, Carlos Velez, said he stopped Saleh because his tag light was out.

    Two other squad cars arrived at the scene, bringing the total number of officers on the scene to six. A police dashboard camera captured it all.

    “I thought, you know, there is a lot of serious crime in Miami Gardens,’’ Saleh said. “Why do they need six police officers on a car stop with a burned-out tag light?’’

    Another officer, Eddo Trimino, approached Saleh’s passenger side, opened the door and removed a gun that was in a bag containing the store’s money, Saleh said. They ran a check on the gun, which Saleh was licensed to carry.

    They cited him for having a bad tag light, tinted windows and bald tires.

    Before leaving, the unit’s then-sergeant, Martin Santiago, allegedly told Saleh:

    “I’m going to get you mother-f-----,’’

    The next day, Saleh viewed video of his truck as it pulled out of the parking lot the night before.

    His tag light was working.

    If they weren't wearing badges, we'd call them mobsters. But even the mafia would blanch at this sort of behavior.


    According to the CATO Institute's National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, there have been 4,861 unique reports of police misconduct that involved 6,613 sworn law enforcement officers and 6,826 alleged victims, based on information gathered for the 2010 calender year.

    Seeing instances of police misconduct for yourself is piss easy thanks to the proliferation of cameras, from cell phone cameras to dash cams and body cams a la GoPro and the like. The footage from most encounters often ends up on LiveLeak, YouTube and other popular video sites. Law enforcement officials often argue that such footage is illegal to take. Time and again, the courts have ruled otherwise, although you might end up getting cuffed and booked if an officer doesn't want his face or actions on video.

    For the average black American in most major cities, seeing instances of police misconduct is as easy as stepping out of the front door.

    Stories like Earl Sampson's and those like him hint towards an even bigger problem lurking under the surface, one that's institutional in nature and thoroughly embedded within the nation's bedrock. It has a lot to do with the relatively unchecked powers of law enforcement and the implication that those powers can be exercised on undesirable groups with as much vigor as possible in the name of safety and crime prevention. It also speaks to the ongoing evolution of the police department into a paramilitary force largely concerned with revenue generation, politics and protection of those well-to-do or those closely linked to law enforcement.



  • The above video shows exactly what a "perfect storm of abusive power and arrogance" looks like. Watch the video in its entirety. This is what a police state looks like.

    Also, note the conduct and demeanor of the deputies involved. They crack jokes, hurl abuse, intimidate and issue threats. One deputy even states, "I wish we could cane the both of y'all though." Highly aggressive, antagonistic and waiting for an opportunity to issue physical and possibly lethal violence.

    All because one of the occupants had a warrant for an overdue $1,000 civil fine, which was paid the next day.

    The Dekalb County, Georgia sheriff has already vowed to punish the seven deputies and their sergeant for their conduct. Sadly, most "punishments" involve the words "paid leave" and "suspension with pay."

    As one of the deputies barked, "there's repercussions and consequences behind everything you do!" For the deputies involved in this shameful and arrogant display, we'll see.
  • Millions of Americans expect to go about their day without worrying about a simple traffic stop effectively ruining the rest of their lives. They don't expect to be incarcerated and face thousands of dollars in fines for trivial offenses, but it happens:

    Three years ago, Gina Ray, who is now 31 and unemployed, was fined $179 for speeding. She failed to show up at court (she says the ticket bore the wrong date), so her license was revoked.

    When she was next pulled over, she was, of course, driving without a license. By then her fees added up to more than $1,500. Unable to pay, she was handed over to a private probation company and jailed — charged an additional fee for each day behind bars.

    For that driving offense, Ms. Ray has been locked up three times for a total of 40 days and owes $3,170, much of it to the probation company. Her story, in hardscrabble, rural Alabama, where Krispy Kreme promises that “two can dine for $5.99,” is not about innocence.

    It is, rather, about the mushrooming of fines and fees levied by money-starved towns across the country and the for-profit businesses that administer the system. The result is that growing numbers of poor people, like Ms. Ray, are ending up jailed and in debt for minor infractions.

    “With so many towns economically strapped, there is growing pressure on the courts to bring in money rather than mete out justice,” said Lisa W. Borden, a partner in Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, a large law firm in Birmingham, Ala., who has spent a great deal of time on the issue. “The companies they hire are aggressive. Those arrested are not told about the right to counsel or asked whether they are indigent or offered an alternative to fines and jail. There are real constitutional issues at stake.”

    In a 2010 study, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law examined the fee structure in the 15 states — including California, Florida and Texas — with the largest prison populations. It asserted: “Many states are imposing new and often onerous ‘user fees’ on individuals with criminal convictions. Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe — and often hidden — costs on communities, taxpayers and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well as to meet child support obligations.”

    The New York Times article goes on to describe how the courts are turning to private companies to handle probation services and fee collection, and how these companies are making their earnings off the back of the poor who are fined, charged and sentenced. In short, the law enforcement and judicial arms are again being used as a profit center for private companies and the officials who take their slice of the proceeds.

    Historically speaking, this public/private profiteering at the expense of ordinary Americans lacking in the resources needed to do anything about it has had its greatest effect on the black American community. Today, Americans of all stripes who often don't have the means to take care of expensive fines or discrepancies in paperwork are now being placed into a form of debt peonage, which entails a cycle of stacked fees and incarceration for not paying those fees, many of which were accrued while they were incarcerated.

    There's nothing new under this sun. In December 1865, Congress adopted the Thirteenth Amendment, one of three "Reconstruction-era Amendments." This amendment was principally responsible for officially outlawing slavery as experienced by millions of people prior to and during the Civil War:

    Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
    Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

    Please note the highlighted phrase, as it plays a big role in the emergence of the Convict Lease system.

    In the post-Reconstruction era of the Deep South, the relative new-found freedom of millions of ex-slaves and other black Americans were sharply curtailed by newly-established Jim Crow laws and Black Codes all across the south. Meanwhile, industry was replacing the cotton industry as an economic driver, which meant moneyed interests were constantly in search of cheap or damn-near-free labor. Government officials began using vagrancy laws and other minor violations to issue steep fines and issue lengthy sentences to poor black American men and a few of their white counterparts. These people would then be pressed into labor and leased to various corporations and entrepreneurs until they "completed their sentences" or manage to pay their debts.

    Douglass Blackmon's definitive book on this issue, "Slavery by Another Name," sums up the issue thus:

    Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel Corp.—looking for cheap and abundant labor. Armies of "free" black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery.

    In short, the clause "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" was used as a gaping loophole as a way to revive a form of forced labor, not just for the benefit of moneyed interests who indeed benefited financially, but as a sop to a people born and bred to believe their black counterparts were naturally lazy and that only work via forced labor was the way to keep them "productive." This form of debt peonage was thought to have been done away with after World War II, but it managed to get a new lease on life during the 1980s. It currently survives thanks in part to the proliferation of private judicial services that manage everything from prisons to probation and drug testing.

    In an era where an outright refusal to properly fund the courts system collides with a ragged economy and a continuing thirst for punitive justice measures, private judicial services are flourishing, enticing states with a seemingly low initial overhead and the promise of savings to both governments and taxpayers. However, recent studies have shown the supposed savings to be negligible, if not non-existent. As noted in the article, many jurisdictions are using fees and surcharges as a new form of funding, usually in lieu of slashed state and local funding.

    There's also the risk of corruption among state and federal judicial members and these private corporations. This comment from Eric D. sheds light on the corruption that occurs when private profits collude with harsh public punishment:

    As I mentioned in my earlier text, this is just the tip of the iceberg in Alabama. In the county adjacent to where Childersburg is located, Shelby County, the only Judge in that county to hear felony cases has set up a "work release." This "work release" which is in fact a jail is run by the judge's sister-in-law. You can be incarcerated there for anything from child support or speeding tickets up to drug distribution.

    The deal is you are jailed and allowed to leave only for work or some project that the judge's sister in law decides to use her free labor for. If you can find a job under their many constraints then your entire paycheck must be made payable to jailers and at a later date the judge's sister in law will deduct 40% of your GROSS check, subtract whatever they choose for fines and fees including charges for drug tests that they administer at will and you get the difference if there is anything left.

    Because it is private it does not fall under Dept of Corrections guidelines. These inmates are required to purchase their own food although in theory bread and ham is given once a day. I personally know a man who spent 24 months incarcerated eating ham sandwiches every day, only to find out that he was held an extra 7 months after his restitution was paid but was not remitted by the judge's sister in law. And guess who hears any complaints? That's right, the same judge who made sure his sister in law runs the place. The Good Ole Boy system is still just fine in AL.

    The corruption is endemic, even at the juvenile level. In 2011, a Pennsylvania judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison for shipping over 4,000 kids, some as young as ten, off to two privately run youth detention centers, in exchange for over $1 million in kickbacks from the private prison company charged with running the facilities.

    Many private prisons also receive federal funding for housing and feeding inmates, which these prisons often do in a substandard manner. Others facilitate overcrowding and poor staffing to cut costs and pocket profits. One private firm actually required one state to have a 90-percent occupancy rate before it could take advantage of a sweetheart deal:

    The proposal seeks to build upon a deal reached last fall in which the company purchased the 1,798-bed Lake Erie Correctional Institution from the state of Ohio for $72.7 million. Ohio officials lauded the September transaction, saying that private management of the facility would save a projected $3 million annually.

    Linda Janes, chief of staff for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the purchase came at time when the state was facing a $8 billion shortfall. The $72.7 million prison purchase was aimed at helping to fill a $188 million deficit within the corrections agency.

    Ohio's deal requires the state to maintain a 90% occupancy rate, but Janes said that provision remains in effect for 18 months — not 20 years — before it can be renegotiated. As part of the deal, Ohio pays the company a monthly fee, totaling $3.8 million per year.

    It's little wonder the arrest rate for young black males in the United States remains at least eight times higher than their white counterparts. It's hard trying to maintain an ideal level of occupancy. It's also a part of why the War on Drugs (also known as the War on Weed) is slated to continue for the foreseeable future. After all, there has to be some way to keep the prisons full.

    The whole idea of having your finances, job prospects, reputation and personal freedom boned thanks to fines, surcharges and fees that stack up and prove financially insurmountable should scare just about anyone. However, some people don't see any of this as that big of a deal. After all, you should have obeyed the law. Problem is, there are so many laws on the books today that even the most innocent and law-abiding citizen can get fined or go to jail over a law he or she wasn't even aware existed.

    This is neo-peonage, in a nutshell. Lower and middle-class Americans who are often one or two paychecks away from poverty are financially devastated by fines and fees. If they can't pay up in time, they're put in jail and often put to work in a revitalized Convict Lease System for extraordinarily cheap. If B.B. Comer was to somehow time-travel to today's Childersburg to see the spectacle as told by Eric D., he'd be right at home with what he'd find.
  • If you've checked the ACLU's site or most other blogs within the past three to four hours or so, you've probably heard this about the National Defense Authorization Act:

    “The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself,” writes Chris Anders of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

    Under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor Monday, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill.

    The bill was drafted in secret by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), before being passed in a closed-door committee meeting without any kind of hearing. The language appears in sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA bill.

    “I would also point out that these provisions raise serious questions as to who we are as a society and what our Constitution seeks to protect,” Colorado Senator Mark Udall said in a speech last week. One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.”

    The key provisions to watch were Sections 1031 and 1032, which enclosed the language apparently authorizing the U.S. military to get all John Pike* on their own people. And that's where I ran into a little problem.

    You see, there's no "Section 1031". Just a "Section 1032". The money shot?
    (b) Applicability to United States Citizens and Lawful Resident Aliens-
    (1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
    (2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.
    I know bills get amended, and that may have been what happened. Still, this is not to discount the concern of the NDAA bill, but I just hate it when people run away with a shitload of misinformation.

    *I plan to spread the use of "John Pike" as a euphemism for causal, yet cruel violence as perpetuated by a police officer. Help me spread it.

  • Chancellor Katehi, your students aren't very happy with you. Not with the way you've handled things recently. Not with stuff like this happening.



    Allowing the authorities to do these things to your own students with nary a word in opposition? As the Field Negro would say, that's "House Negro" behavior. From The Second Alarm:

    A few commenters and people on Twitter have asked why the chancellor is at the center of this firestorm over the police pepper spraying. Chancellor Katehi approved of the police action (though specifics of what she ordered exactly are still a mystery), and ordered the UC Davis cops to evict the protesters, resulting in the heinous pepper spraying video now plastered everywhere on the web. She has not apologized to the students or worked to remedy the situation — for instance, one student who was pepper sprayed told me she still has health problems after the incident, and no one from the administration contacted her to see if she’s okay. Katehi’s refusal to condemn the police action has only made a bad situation worse.

    The dead silence (minus the reporters) speaks volumes. That's a hell of a way to send a message.
  • Dominic: We're under siege here. The whole city's gone mad.
    Finch: That's exactly what he wants. Chaos. The problem is that he knows us better than we know ourselves. That's why I went to Larkhill last night.
    Dominic: That's outside quarantine.
    Finch: I had to see it. There wasn't much left. But when I was there it was strange – I suddenly had this feeling that everything was connected. It was like I could see the whole thing; one long chain of events that stretched back to before Larkhill. I felt like I could see everything that had happened, and everything that was going to happen. It was like a perfect pattern laid out in front of me and I realized that we were all part of it, and all trapped by it.
    Dominic: So do you know what's gonna happen?
    Finch: No. It was a feeling. But I can guess. With so much chaos, someone will do something stupid. And when they do, things will turn nasty. And then, Sutler will be forced do the only thing he knows how to do. At which point, all V needs to do is keep his word. And then...


    An Iraq war veteran has a fractured skull and brain swelling after allegedly being hit by a police projectile.

    Scott Olsen is in a "critical condition" in Highland hospital in Oakland, a hospital spokesman confirmed.

    Olsen, 24, suffered the head injury during protests in Oakland on Tuesday evening. More than 15 people were arrested after a crowd gathered to demonstrate against the police operation to clear two Occupy Oakland camps in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

    It's been something I've been waiting on since Occupy Wall Street started. I've been waiting for the police to do something so jawdroppingly stupid that it would cause all hell to break loose.

    Given the previous animosity between locals and the police force, and the police department's own added zeal in "restoring order," Occupy Oakland could easily slip from being a protest to a full-on riot, one that the mainstream media most likely hope would discredit the entire movement, something that portraying the protesters as slackers, hippies, losers and sexual deviants couldn't do.

    Military members, those who have risked their lives in the defense of this country, are held in high regard by many. Having them injured or killed by people who are looked at as abusive, power-hungry bullies and servants of corrupt government and corporate American interests? There's no telling what would happen.

    I'd hate to even think of what would have happened if this Marine had died. As it stands, he's in "fair" condition in ICU. One report states he's suffered loss of speech due to the sustained injuries and brain swelling.


    As I said before, I can't help but wonder if the Powers That Be™ are hoping for a riot or two to break out at one of these Occupy protests. It'll give them all the pretext they need to really crack skulls en masse, while the mainstream media sighs collectively in relief and go back to investigating Paris Hilton's shopping patterns or something else that's completely inane and self-centered.


  • Under the aegis of "improving security," the folks over at the Republican National Committee and Tampa, FL. city officials are lobbying hard for a $55 million federal appropriation, part of which will be used to purchase, install and operate over 200 CCTV cameras during the 2012 Republican National Convention. Among these cameras will be two unmanned aerial vehicles. Because nothing says "we're concerned about your safety maintaining order" than a couple of drones flying overhead. You know, the ones similar to those used for scoping out terrorists targets before we "liberate" them to death with missile strikes. You can't help but think the Occupy Wall Street movement's got some cages rattled over at the RNC -- they don't want something like that to pop up come August 27. I'm sure they'll have the "free speech zones" set up, too.

    The following is a brief rundown of what most of that $55 million will go towards:

    • 164 cameras able to read a number 3 inches high at 300 meters in the day and identify people and vehicles at 100 meters in the dark. Many of these would be mounted on light poles.
    • Two "unmanned aerial vehicles" that could hover for 20 minutes, fly in 20-knot winds and carry cameras with zoom lenses or thermal imaging capabilities.
    • 20 helmet cameras with 2 1/2 hours of recording time to document crowd disturbances.
    • Six trailer-mounted mobile cameras on booms that rise 20 feet or more, six more breadbox-sized cameras for covert use around high-risk activities, and four cameras that could read license tags in six lanes of traffic at speeds of 100 mph.
    • 3,000 additional police officers the city expects to bring in, house, feed and pay during the convention.

    I understand a need for safety measures, especially during high profile and sometimes highly charged public events, but I just can't get over how the RNC and Tampa police plan to use flying drones. Once those things were invented for military applications, it was only a matter of time before they found their way in the hands of law enforcement. And the cameras? I'm sure the city will find a good excuse to maintain them as a permanent fixture of the city streets.

    Someday, law enforcement officials will find ways to attach tear gas and pepper spray canisters underneath the wings. Call it "deployable pacification."
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)