I'm only a little surprised that this hasn't been covered here yet, but Ferguson MO is in a full state of unconstitutional, military lockdown. For those that may not know, on Saturday Aug 9, a young, unarmed young black man was shot and killed by a Ferguson Police officer. To this day, the details of how many times the youth was shot, as well as the name of the officer who killed him, have not been released. According to an interview the Washington Post did with the police chief of Ferguson, the chief of Ferguson turned over jurisdiction to the county to investigate. The county is moving very slow, and so far, it appears they are deliberately holding back information and they have also been very slow to investigate and interview witnesses. The FBI is now also involved.
On Sunday, protests erupted into riots, and full scale looting. There is no excuse for that, and anyone who can be rounded up for that, should be fully prosecuted. Since then, however, there have been daily protests by community residents and the response of the city and St. Louis county has been to roll in with full combat, assault equipment from weapons to armored vehicles, including vehicles with turrets on top with police constantly training their weapon on the crowd. In this picture, the weapons appear to be the kinds that shoot the rubber bullets, but really? That many guys with those guns drawn on this person? For the past several nights, police have been demanding that crowds disperse and they have been launching tear gas and now stun grenades. Media footage showed the police on Monday night clearly firing canisters of tear gas at residents who were literally behind a fence, in a front yard. Yesterday, the police also started to arrest reporters and tell them to stop recording what was going on.
Where to begin? Recent history shows that when an event like this occurs, the first step by many who don't want to concede or acknowledge any sense of outrage by black communities is to portray the dead youth as a shitbag who deserved it simply for being a shitbag. There was plenty of that here for Trayvon Martin. The next step is to say that because of looting, the entire community suddenly loses any right to be outraged and needs to just shut the fuck up and go home. Fairly, I can understand why the police want to disperse protests, it simple human traits that a large, angry mob, is going to overreact and probably will eventually resort to violence. But, this is clearly true of the police as well and the results speak for themselves. Now that there is a brigade of fat white guys who can barely fit into their gear and who, by the admission of the police chief have not trained extensively with the gear, their response when they move in is nothing short of an assault with military grade weapons. Again, military grade weapons and vehicles in the hands of local police officers. And before somebody chimes in, to say a civilian version of a military weapon that doesn't have burst or full auto capability is not a military grade weapon is full of shit.
When it was Cliven Bundy on a ranch, hordes of white people showed up, pointed weapons at Federal agents, and the federal agents went away. If these people on the street even started to show weapons, legally purchased weapons, I think it's clear what the result what would be. They would be mowed down. Not long ago, Rand Paul took a stand that I give him full credit for, he openly acknowledged our justice system does not treat young white a black people the same. Now it's time to take the next step and acknowledge that the militarization of our police departments has gotten out of control and if the police chief can't keep control through what is typically a max of police force, it's time for the governor to call in the national guard and take control away from the police here who are clearly in over their heads and are probably just a day or two away from simply slaughtering people in the streets because they (the police) feel scared, outnumbered, and have way too much force available to them that they aren't trained to use.
I get that for many, it is hard to discuss race. Young black men with corn row hair styles, baggy pants, and tats do not make sympathetic characters and the bottom line is that if you are alone and see three guys like this, it's not a comforting site. Still, I don't think that most of us who are white can understand that whether you look like a black thug or a black college student, you don't have the same rights to due process that the rest of us have. This isn't going to get fixed here, and it won't be fixed by white people without extensive support from black communities. Still, this militarization of police departments has got to stop and further, needs to be unwound. I wonder what would happen if the Tea Party showed with weapons to here to show the government they are willing to defend freedom. Here's a good chance Rand Paul, for you to do something.
Good point, Max. Assault weapons, body armor, and feakin' tanks deployed by local police department are arguably very real examples of the government tyranny that the TEAs are always clamoring about.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should all be protesting ...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Images of police outfitted in paramilitary gear clashing with protesters in suburban St. Louis after the weekend shooting death of unarmed black teenager are giving new impetus to efforts to rein in a Pentagon program that provides free machine guns and other surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies.
DeleteRep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., says he plans to introduce legislation when Congress returns in September to curb what he describes as an increasing militarization of police agencies across the country.
"Our Main Streets should be a place for business, families and relaxation, not tanks and M16s," Johnson said Thursday. "Militarizing America's Main Streets won't make us any safer, just more fearful and more reticent."
This is a good step, to end that program, but I think a bigger problem is that the dept of homeland security has already armed many of these departments to a paramilitary level. Do they now take that stuff away? Liberals have been complaining about this for a few years now both in terms of cost and in terms of the sheer firepower. It's more complex problem now.
DeleteBut as Max says where are the teas? Constant complaining of government overreach and here is a shining example. Are cows worth more to the teas then black young men? Are the teas happy with the status quo of this latest incident? Big Government handing it to the citizens. Where are you at. Really we progressives would like to know.
ReplyDeleteDoes this matter
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/huffington-post-reporter-arrested-ferguson_n_5676829.html
http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/how-police-are-keeping-journalists-from-doing-their-jobs-in-ferguson-20140814
Main stream media I guess doesn't deserve the right of free press.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-ferguson-washington-post-reporter-wesley-lowery-gives-account-of-his-arrest/2014/08/13/0fe25c0e-2359-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html
This story is just now entering the Australian media. Not in a big way but certainly large enough to help perpetuate the unspoken view within our community that America remains a country divided by color. From my friendship on web sites such as this and my contact on a personal level with Americans over most of a long lifetime, I have seen the same good and bad in Americans as I see in any race including my own. I am just a bit concerned that Max has brought politics into this particular story. The Teas may be a bit wacky by standards used by others; they do however appear to hold their beliefs sincerely. Your ancestors fought a revolution which ended at Yorktown so that you could prosecute your own political creed. From the reports on our media outlets and the account by Maxi can only deplore the conduct of the authorities to date. Disclosure of facts should certainly occur where possible and authority should be used to stem civil violence. What is more important however is to be transparent so that there is no excuse for civil disobedience in the first place?
ReplyDeleteThis final para may perhaps lose me some friends but it does aid in expressing a widely held view here concerning racism. I always speak to the owner of an American accent anytime I hear it spoken here. There are not a lot of Americans who get to Tasmania so it is always a good chance to increase my knowledge. I have seen only two colored people ,a 30 something husband and wife about three years ago in a café .The café was in a very small town in the middle of the wilderness and the couple were sitting in the corner looking worried as they pored over a map and sipped coffee.
I introduced myself and asked it I could assist in any way. The reaction was unexpected as the wife immediately assumed I was about to throw them out of the place. They had a view about Australia as outlandish as many Australians view America. We sorted out the minor problem with their travel and then had a yarn about what they thought Australia was all about. Soon others in the café joined in and my new friends had their views changed in about fifteen minutes. The outcome was they did not get any further for three days as the dozen or so residents of that small town took them hunting and fishing throughout the district. What a good outcome, the little town has made lifelong friends and “Our Yanks” are returning this coming summer for another visit. I wonder if the kid who was shot had ever tried to interact with the policeman accused of shooting him. I do not think I could ever shoot a kid, particularly a black one; it seems to me to be perpetuating the days of white supremacy and the clan.
With sadness from Aussie
For what it's worth King, though I strongly disagree with the voice of the Tea Party in this country, I will not hesitate to voice agreement when it exists and I have done so countless times with William, Brandt, Yourself, and even Brian (gottaluvit) when he chimes in. I guess, I don't see the politics so much because of those of us here who are progressive, I assume a sense of outrage over what is happening. I don't feel that liberals here need to be conviced of an atrocity. Conversely, the over reach and military like smack down by local police here should be something that liberals like myself and tea party types like William should be able to join hands on and truly do something about. Honestly, I don't believe that all teas are hypocritical, though I believe many are for defending their rights while letting others fend for themselves. If one wants to consider the politics of this, I see an enormous opportunity for any conservative politician who has some spine to march into this situation, unarmed, and help begin to bring some calm and justice.
DeleteAfter the initial rioting and looting, the demonstrations have taken a different tone. I'm not going to pretend they aren't angry, because the black citizens of Ferguson are very hyped up. Still, for all the prognosticating that conservative white people did in Florida before the Trayvon Martin verdict, the black community accepted it, regretfully, and no black posse has formed to hunt down Zimmerman. My point in saying that is that here in Ferguson, rather than openly show what is happening in the investigation, the police have opted instead to put down what they believe is a crowd that has no standing for their anger. Rather than letting it dissipate, the police are locking it in and the rage is only building.
I read a blurb that the governor there is going to relieve some of the police of their command. This is welcome and overdue
King the political comes from three points. #1 the teas are always talking about government overreach which is massive in this instance. Due to 911 America passed a law where the armed forces gave surplus gear to American police departments free of charge. We now have militarized police depts. and it has been on show in Ferguson Missouri this week as officers, poorly trained to use the equipment, have shown up in armored vehicles toting M16 rifles.
ReplyDeleteNot being a tea so I cannot speak definitely but I think they kind of like it. But I wonder how they would feel if such a show of force arrived at their door to take their precious weapons away from them. Could happen, as this is the police of today's America. We had a subject here not long ago about the EPA confiscation of a Land Rover. Same deal King, these people showed up in military fashion and confiscated a land rover right out of someone's driveway.
#2. The teas showed up earlier this year at the ranch of Cliven Bundy in Nevada. What Bundy was doing was grazing his cattle on government land yet not paying the rent that is due from anyone in America who grazes cattle on public land. The teas showed up fully armed and created a standoff with Bureau of Land Management Agents who were sent to confiscate Bundy's cattle to pay the back rent. The agents backed down and the teas cheered because they found the whole affair government overreach and felt that Bundy was being unfairly singled out.
What we know in Ferguson Missouri right now is that there could or could not have been a scuffle between a cop and a young teen. The teen eventually thrust his hands in the air in surrender and was shot several times by the cop. The police chief states that the cop was injured by the teen in the scuffle apparently he had a swollen face from being hit. The point is King the kid had backed off. I do not condone violence towards a police officer having been one myself as a younger man. But police officers have to have more self control then what was shown here.
3. Last night in Ferguson Missouri two reporters one from the Huffington Post and one from the Washington Post were roughed up and arrested inside a McDonalds restaurant where they had went to unwind and work on their stories. The McDonalds had sort of been a haven for all reporters in the area since the trouble started. These reporters were asked to leave and were photographing and attempting to get audio recordings of the affair when they refused to stop they were arrested. One reporter was white the other was black. Both were manhandled although neither one was resisting arrest. One had his head slammed into the exit door with a chuckle from the cop and a sarcastic sorry. The other was thrown into the soda tower with enough force to break it. King that is conspicuous refusal to let the press to do their jobs. We have the right of free speech and press in this country. Oh if only the teas were as adamant about that as they are their beloved firearms.
So King that is the present dogma. The teas are pretty much silent on all this constitutionally questionable action by the Ferguson Police Dept. All they care to talk about is that this is going on and Obama is on vacation. Otherwise they don't give a rat's ass and it isn't hard to figure out why.
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Walter Sobchak9 minutes ago
....and all of this is ignited by community organizers formerly those involved with OWS.
watch (and listen) to the NYC protest last week. the videographer details the OWS people behind the march....with names, video, etc.
it's Election season....and the democrats need to stir up their base.
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Dennis Cossiboon9 minutes ago
Get ready for the oncoming ethnic civil war. Doers vs. Takers. Ignorant vs. Educated. And who is to blame for this??? not Jolly Q White Collar Business owner, but the HNIC himself King Obama and the ENTIRE democratic party and Most of the MEDIA.
In fact, the media is responsible for the riots in Ferguson. First reported 12yrold unarmed black kid shot by white cop, who later turned into a 300lb 6'4'' Criminal, with a record, and just committed a crime, for which he was stopped for, later learned he bumrushed the cop after being told to Freeze.
All the meanwhile in Salt Lake City, 24hrs before this happened, a 20yrold white boy was shot and killed by cops because he had headphones on and didn't hear the warnings. He too was a criminal. But since he was White, he never made national news.. and nobody was outraged, and nobody rioted and nobody cried foul.
We are quickly sliding into the final chapter before USA breaks apart. Thanks King, and Democrats...
But really, Thanks officers for cleaning up the streets!!!
Now the fog begins to clear. The facts begin to develop. The main street media is shown for what it is, garbage. Now MAX and rick can spew all they want in new directions. The fact is a young man is dead and a police officers life is forever altered.. All the other crap, the racist cop, the militarized police, the slanted coverage all don't mean anything.
What in He'll ' s name Max has the Tea party have to do with this?
IJ Review. Just another scandalous online rag for you to punch the clown to William. I knew from the first that Michael Brown was 18 years old. Here's what's wrong with your recount. It is very well known that the cop who stopped Michael Brown had no idea that a strong armed robbery had occurred or that Michael Brown was responsible. Brown was stopped for walking in the middle of the road. Your so called "facts" only serve to deepen the fog as other witnesses have said that he was backing away with his hands up. No William nothing is definitive even now.
ReplyDeleteWhat does the tea party have to do with this William? Did you read my post to king? It's all there. You say nothing about a militarized police department squaring off against the black citizens of Ferguson Mo. You jack a little harder when the teas militarize themselves to defend Cliven Bundy who is equally guilty of malfeasance. You my friend are the sicko here.
You say the militarization of the police doesn't mean anything? Just a couple weeks ago you posted a thread entitled Knock Knock about the confiscation of illegally imported Land Rovers. Your whole tun was government overreach. The whole Cliven Bundy deal Government overreach. Don't you think militarized police
armored personnel carriers, M16's, machine guns against citizens who initially were exercising their constitutional right to free assembly and speech just a bit of a government overreach? Or the fact that it's state and local militarized police makes it OK? Or is it the fact of who they stood against?
I'll wait for the facts to develop you can conjecture all you want. Comparing the Bundy situation to this is total nonsense. But what else should I expect of someone who falls on the side of the likes of Sharpton and Jackson.
DeleteThey pay talking heads to feed trained seals like you your daily ration of tripe. You gobble it up and can't get enough.
Once again the liberal left has charged in and chaos reigns. Asked why the Tea Party or indeed libertarians have lost their voice on the issues surrounding Ferguson... well, when the question was asked, far too few facts were known. It is becoming clearer from multiple points of view that the series of events given by the cop are being corroborated by over a dozen witnesses, one recorded by accident while talking to a friend.
DeleteNever letting a crisis go to waste, the self loathing left has once again sent in their top race baters to fan the flames of haltered against whites and the federal government will use the opportunity to consolidate its police powers over local authority. Both groups have fanned the violence and the media is making a circus out of the collective pain of the family, community and the nation. Interestingly the black state cop who took over from the white local police pulled back to give people the room to vent in an appropriate way.... they burned down the rest of the business district and he had get even more heavy handed. The militarized police set an atmosphere for sure, but I can almost guarantee that regardless the response, the left was set to exploit this incident to the fullest.
I find the outrage of the left over militarized police forces to be hypocrisy beyond belief. Some 20 years ago they cheered GHW Bush for renouncing his lifetime membership in the NRA when a member of the leadership called federal agents "jack-booted thugs" "wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms."wanting to “attack law abiding citizens” . Rather than focusing on the issue presented, the left chose to use the opportunity to demonize the NRA for political purposes. Those strong-arm tactics have been transmitted to local police. Militarization of local police forces started long before the 9/11 spawned laws accelerated the process. 1964 Philadelphia being the first in the nation with a SWAT team. And who trained them? Why, the FBI of course. Policing is no longer about maintaining order in a free society... it is about control of society itself.
Having said all of that, the black community has a right to be pissed. I have said for years that the only way that equality of justice will happen is when whites realize what is going on and how laws are being applied unfairly. Well we are starting to get a taste of what unbridled police power looks like and what blacks have experienced for decades. We are starting to understand what law enforcement looks like with... no knock warrants... no warrants at all, dogs and kids being shot, wrong homes being invaded while serving a warrant for a traffic violation, pre-conviction confiscations... but we still don't have the number of felons convicted of victimless crimes... in this free society. This gives no excuse for blacks to condon the behavior of people who use incidents like these to burn down their own communities and ruin what business exists to serve them.
Let the facts be known, let peaceful people have their say, take back military hardware from local law enforcement, return power of policing to the elected sheriff, stripe federal agencies of their police power and let the state police and if necessary the national guard arrest every single looter and trouble maker right up to Al Sharpton....
A government that is big enough to give you everything is big enough to take it away.
Just for the record William this is what I feel the president should do. He should go to Ferguson Mo. He should tell Al Sharpton togo the hell home because he isn't helping in any way. See William some common ground. Al Sharpton is an idiot. He and Jesse are Martin Luther King Jr. wannabes and together they don't make a pimple on that great man's ass.
DeleteI agree rick but Obama is no MLK either. He'd rather be in the vineyard fiddling.
ReplyDeleteMore common ground nobody said he was. It is just a shame that this all happened when the president was on one of his two yearly vacations. hey I get three a year so what's the big deal. Presidents are never on vacation William they are just out of Washington. Maybe if he was in Texas cutting brush it would sit better with you.
DeleteHe was on the golf course within ten minutes of making a statement regarding the beheading of the journalist.
DeleteI know, I know, he needs his relaxation.
The governor late evening on the eve of A Holder arriving in town and a Grand jury convening calls for the police officers hide.
ReplyDeleteTalk about putting ones thumb on the scale of justice. This former lawyer, this former state AG, this political hack has extended the collapse of law and order in our country.
What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty Mr. Nixon? Step down now. You have made a complete fool of yourself and are putting even more lives in danger.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/08/breaking-report-po-darren-wilson-suffered-orbital-blowout-fracture-to-eye-socket-during-encounter-with-mike-brown/
ReplyDeleteD Dorian Johnson, the primary witness to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, has an outstanding warrant for a 2011 theft in Jefferson City and pleaded guilty for filing a false police report related to that theft.
ReplyDeleteSt. Louis ABC affiliate ABC 17 cross referenced Johnson’s name against several records and discovered the warrant.
Johnson will be the star witness for any potential prosecution proceedings against Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of Brown. Johnson was walking with Brown when the shooting occurred.
He has already done multiple media appearances where he falsely claimedBrown was shot by Wilson in the back. He also has claimed that Brown never reached for Wilson’s gun, was “shot like an animal” and that Brown had his hands up and told Wilson he was unarmed.
Johnson’s claims helped inspire the protests and riots in Ferguson over the past 10 days, as well as the “Hands up, don’t shoot” rallying cry of the protesters and their supporters.