America

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 23 comments
Categories: the praiseworthy and the pitiful, us politics - Tags: , ,

america-cops-armour

Jonathan Bachman, Reuters photo from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

23 comments on “America”

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    1. 2.1

      Dressed to kill. People are justifying the cops coz of sniper attack but those uniforms won’t stop a high powered bullet. Back to the drawing board for police work I think.

    2. 2.2

      They obviously don’t get it. It doesn’t matter how much body armour you wear, or how many firearms you carry — you’re always going to be outnumbered by “the people”. And if those people gather in large enough numbers and are sufficiently motivated, you and all your “protect and serve” friends are fucked. It looks like America is going to have to learn this the hard way.

    1. 4.1

      Yes, and as an aside, USA has no more right to refer to itself as “America” than does Belize, Bolivia, Mexico or any of the other two dozen nation states within the Americas.

      1. 4.1.1

        A mentor of mine fled Nazi Germany in 1938. Immigrated to the USA in 1945. Left the USA in the mid-1970’s and said to me:

        “Someday the US will become like Nazi Germany.”

        1. 4.1.1.1

          Amerika has always had its obvious appeals to fascism=Nazi support
          http://www.radixjournal.com/altright-archive/altright-archive/main/the-magazine/the-enigma-of-american-fascism-in-the-1930s

          and not so obvious like prohibition?
          http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/alcohol-prohibition-was-failure

          http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=347

          http://centuryofaction.org/index.php/main_site/document_project/suffrage_and_temperance_differing_perspectives

          fascism against African Americans,
          http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2015/oct/05/ben-carson/did-margaret-sanger-believe-african-americans-shou/

      3. 4.1.3

        Except it is included as the main part of it’s official name. Mexico is not known as the American Republic of Mexico.

        1. 4.1.3.1

          America is the continent, not the country. Saying this, the Empire State, today known as the good ol’ USofA, once, when “Empire” was something they openly admitted to, and which they called their “manifest destiny” saw as their right the domination and control of the whole continent, which even today the US has reserved as its “sphere of influence”.

          But the ambition of the Empire State never stopped at the Americas.

          The Empire State has also tried to project its sphere of influence beyond the Americas, into the rest of the world, but with mixed (often disastrous), results.

          Even in the Americas the Empire State’s so called “sphere of influence” US domination and control is not total, and has had to be maintained with military interventions and coups to install US friendly dictators.

          And even maintains a school to teach such things.

          School Of The Americas</b

  5. 5

    …And of course, sitting there alongside the fear of the African American underclass, the refusal to address any of the issues that create and sustain that underclass (and the assumption that all African Americans belong to that underclass) is the (obscene, dreadful) idea that people need guns and that guns help to protect them. The sad fact is that both Philando Castille and the cop who shot him were carrying guns. Castille was licensed to carry one, he wasn’t doing anything wrong under US law and he certainly wasn’t a threat to the cop who shot him and then treated his partner so dreadfully, but the two guns (his and the cop’s) were there and they transformed an ugly moment (institutionalised racism) into a fatal one.

    I know it’s an obvious point, and it’s not easy to imagine how the US could make really significant change, with their various states having different laws, the NRA, the constitution written for a different era (also related to fear and conflict between the powerful and the oppressed) and the ways in which guns are embedded into their culture, but they’ve really got to start trying. They see their system spreading government between states, federal government, the lower house, senate, supreme court etc as checks and balances. Another way to see it is gridlock. And when you add the ridiculous costs of campaigning and the role of funders like the NRA into the mix the grid gets locked up pretty damn tight.

    A bit of a ramble, I know, but I think we (or rather, the citizens of the US) need to do more than just point the finger and say, “Bad cop.” That might be part of the truth, but it’s certainly not the whole truth and it’s not enough to stop the cycle. The protests about black lives are impassioned and necessary, but there are other issues that are also part of this mix.

  6. 6

    Incredible photo.

    This is the US’s second Civil Right’s Movement. For those that think Black Lives Matter has failed consider that the first movement spanned more than a decade and didn’t achieve what it did in one upward trajectory that suited the Pākehā mind on what success looks like.

    Something else to consider. I read an analysis a while ago that suggested that during the first Civil Rights Movement the racists left the Democractic Party and joined the Republicans, consolidating that aspect of US politics there.

  7. 7

    Everybody form a circle
    Put your left foot in
    Your left foot out
    Your left foot in
    And shake it all about

    Oh. It’s not a caption thang?

  8. 8

    One in four employed to guard the 1%’s wealth and one police officer for every 265 citizens – something is rotten in the land of the free.

    /

    The numbers are staggering: 90 percent of all criminal defendants fall below the poverty line; incarceration rates have increased 800 percent in the last 30 years; and the statistics continue to pile up as the disparity between resources for public defense and prosecution widen. The ability for indigent defenders to find a state-provided defense, with the time and money to offer a thorough representation, has become increasingly rare.

    For example: Miami has exactly 200 public defenders working 850,000 cases a year, constituting a case-to-attorney ratio of 4,250:1. The problem of inadequate public defense only amplifies as the annual budget for public defenders levels off at $150,000, while the prosecution receives $4.3 million. In light of these findings, it is no wonder why the poor stand a dismal chance for putting up even the most basic defense.

    https://www.aclu.org/blog/speakeasy/innocent-until-proven-indigent

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