Stop and Frisk vs. NSA

In revelation of the government accessing millions of internet activity and phone call databases of U.S. citizens, public outrage should not be considered too alarming. 

Even those of us who have already assumed government agencies to be operating in such capacities and beyond through the NSA, Homeland Security, CIA, etc, would be lying if we were to remark that we were not ourselves shaken in the same way that a 17-year old teen finally catches his mother swapping out his last missing tooth for a $10 dollar bill under his pillow.  GOTCHA!

In our constitution, we are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures.  Without probably cause, it is nothing short of treason for government entities to violate that protection.  So yes, national discourse has begun on what is to many a very new infringement by authority on the people.  Meanwhile, many "other" people have one thing to say to these alarmed newbies: where you been?

New York's stop and frisk policies have existed for nearly a decade.  The policy grants police authorities the right stop someone without probable cause, unless, of course, you consider skin color and fashion sense to be criteria for probable cause.

For the past couple of years, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers have been systemically profiled, stopped, and frisked in the mayor's attempt to get guns off streets.

The problem?  You do not have to be committing a crime, or guilty of anything, for an officer to decide that he wants to have you place your hands against the wall, spread your legs, and pat you down.

Blacks and Latinos make up approximately 85% of the "suspects" that are targeted for these stops.  The communities targeted are predominantly low-income, predominantly minority, and predominantly immigrant.

Further, of the more than 500,000 stops just last year, less than 0.5% ended up culling guns from the hands of these dark skinned, hardened criminals.  Despite the disproportionate targeting of minorities, whites that were stopped had a higher rate of commuting with guns or contraband.

This is a policy that has afflicted low-income, minority communities in New York for far too long now.  Authorities in New York have patently infringed on the liberties of a demographic that doesn't have the economic, political, or social leverage of wealthier, better networked, and (to be blunt) white communities.

Now that the latter has to deal with the effects of having their 4th amendment disavowed, the nation is in an uproar and those with social-economic clout are going to make a point to challenge the government and be heard.  Hopefully this outrage isn't applied selectively.  Hopefully we have the wisdom to observe that the 4th amendment is not meant to be carefully applied to one class and denied to another.

I recall a scholar and a gentlemen (shall we call him Slim Shady) once expressed this willful ignorance most of us as Americans remain comfortable with until it becomes a problem that we have to deal with ourselves.  In controversial lyrics, addressing the national outrage and sadness of the horrendous Columbine High school massacre, he opines on a contradiction seen between inner cities staggered with routine violence as nothing unusual in contrast to middle-class communities that get catapulted into CNN specials and national spotlights:

"And look where it's at; Middle America, now it's a tragedy, now its so sad to see; an upper class city having this happening."

 

You know I'm getting serious when I resort to my conscious rap antics.  And that is not to add humor to a terrible consequence of policy and an ashamedly unconcerned public.

To be frank, Americans don't care what is happening as long as it's not to them.  A few big Tea Party conservative names were promoting New York's stop and frisk policy, some suggesting to expand it into profiling Arabs as well.  Curtailing civil liberties of others sounds brilliant until you have to live with the consequences too.

 

For all the criticism Marshall Matthers receives, I believe he had one thing right.  When you make this an issue that effects the middle-class, what was once considered inconsequential to everyone else becomes superlative and dangerous, of pandemic proportions.

The Prison Crisis

And by crisis, I mean the privatization of the prison complex.

Louisiana has the largest incarceration rate in the entire world, 13 times that of China. This is a state where two car burglaries can be met with a 24 year prison sentence.  Alarming as car burglary is (no pun intended), it pales in comparison to white collared Enron CEO's who at first, sentenced to 24 years, cut deals of appeals, and finally has his sentenced reduced because a federal appeals court thought the original sentencing was "too harsh".  Even after the original ruling judge condemned the former CEO for "imposing" on "hundreds, if not thousands of people a lifetime of poverty".  Louisiana is a big fish in the scheme of America's prison complex.  Examining it can help to challenge and question a system that disproportionately affects and punishes blacks and latinos than any other demographic.  But for all that is wrong and brow-raising in Louisiana, it dwarfs the size of America's incarceration rate in whole.  Americans makes up 5% of the global population, yet accounts for 25% of the entire worlds incarcerated citizens.

There are more incarcerated persons locked up in America than the Gulags Joseph Stalin was internationally scorned for.  And for some reason, this is ok.  The only thing we're doing better than Stalin, ethically, is that we haven't exterminated millions of people...yet.  Or have we? 

Starting during the Reagan era of deregulation, reigning in with the "war on drugs", incarceration rates skyrocketed.  Private companies like GEO and CCA stepped in during the 80's to offer a helping hand to the struggling federal prison systems that were afflicted with overcrowding prisons.  These conglomerates today are behind lobbying, contributions to political campaigns, and allegedly have had their hands on the writing of U.S. domestic policies such as the "the three strikes" rule, which sentences anyone with a third criminal conviction to a 25 year sentence.  

With these for-profit-prisons getting paid per prisoner per day by state and federal tax dollars, it becomes clear to the discerning person that these institutions benefit from harsher sentencing, highest possible frequencies of crime, and the most vague interpretations of criminal law.  When you contrast that with the goal of a civilized and productive society, the goal of which is to proactively eliminate crime and its seeds of discord for a better tomorrow, it is readily apparent that for-profit-prisons and productive societies have goals that diametrically oppose one another.  There is no value in a society that is crime free in the eyes of  for-profit-prisons.  Society profits from productive law abiding citizens.  Private prisons, in a nutshell, do not.

With the skewed rate at which Americans are locked up to the rest of the world, you would imagine that Americans are innately savage and unlawful, born without civility.  You would imagine that America, land of the free, is perhaps also land of the most insidious, dangerous people out of more than 200 other nations.  

At the center of this discussion on America's prison system is how we frame the purpose of the prisons.  Are they to rehabilitate criminals?  To punish them and teach them never to behave unlawfully again?  To separate them from society and keep citizens safer (inwhich case we are failing as over 50% of inmates are incarcerated for non-violent crimes)?  Among all of these mentioned, one purpose that would seem far from possible is monetary profit.  But research, statistics, and studies indicate that the privatization of prisons has been driven by just that.

This is the definition of government oversight.  This is the conversation that is lacking during presidential debates.  This is our democratic republic being sold to the highest bidder; when the interests of a governments citizens are culled to millionaire lobbyists and campaign contributors.  When it comes to for-profit-prisons, this is a step towards that police-state we philosophize about in movies and novels.

Last year, the CCA offered to buy 48 state prisons in exchange that the states guarantee at least a 90% occupancy of inmates.  How can a state guarantee such a figure without curbing the civil liberties and rights of citizens?  I guess New York's stop-and-frisk policy figured out how to handle that loophole.

"It's not 1980 anymore."

Pat Brady resigns as GOP Chairman sharing a last moment of wisdom, reminding us that "it's not 1980 anymore."

Brady recently came out in support of gay marriage. The resignation comes with the discovery of his wifes battle with cancer.  However, it is also rumored he was pressured into resignation after his public support for a policy that is strongly opposed by his political base; gay marriage.

"I think it’s time we need to put a different face on the party. I’d like to see a woman do it."  Brady ponders.

Well Congressman, I think those are great ideas.  With almost 100 women in congress, I almost feel like that idea sets almost anyones "no-shit-sherlock-meter" off at astronomical levels.  Were these statements made moments after descending from his time machine as the carburetor was idling down?  I'm lost.  At the same time, I'm glad Brady has finally caught up to the new millenium with us!

A couple of other reminders/updates for Pat Brady and his GOP subjects to consider:

1. The Cold War is OVER.  Keep fear mongering of communism to a minimum.  Shitty photoshop images of Obama with a Hitler-stache, included.

2. The South ain't comin' back!  Put away your "the south will rise" bumper stickers.  It's not the 1860's no mo'.  The  British aren't selling merchandise reading "the red coats are coming...AGAIN!"  At least, not to my knowledge.  The south lost and there will be no insurrection.  I find it funny in this country people actually put up with such high-falutin obnoxious rhetoric.  Way to romanticize the literal rebellion of the evil, northern federal government by the virtuous, God-fearing southerners.  Gloating about the "glory" days like a depressed alcoholic makes me question your revisionist history.  I know it's fun to collect stickers that draw out the mason dixie line.  It's even funnier to hear indefensible arguments about how the image isn't a blatant endorsement of segregation.  I can already hear it now, "but my Granpappy raised me thaddaway!"  With all of that said, I do love to indulge on sweet tea, cornbread, and butter milk biscuits.  Mmmm.  (Full disclosure: I was Texas born)

3. Reagan happened to be President during one of the greatest developments of inequality since the 60's.  That is not a coincidence, it was policy.  Even more important, he was the ejaculatory fantasy of the baby boomers..not of the facebook/twitter/any-kinda-social-media boomers.  If the GOP want to win next election, they're going to have to pick a new face to christen.  With Ron Paul bowing out of 2016 elections, catch the youngn's that were sprung on the heels of his libertarian policies.  Between Reagan and Clint Eastwood, you folks have a hard time getting the right kinda inspiring icon to storm the electorate with.

4. It's likely that marriage equality will eventually hit all the states in the freeland.  Religious demogoguery will have to be reduced to abortion (still a very formidable and charged talking point) and how Jesus would want America to be a tax-free haven for the wealthy so the debt burden can fall on working families (but obviously mentioning nothing about them during party debates).  Quite ironic is that the bible has very few verses scrutinizing homosexuality (all of them contextual, none of them from Jesus), and more than enough versus scrutinizing governments and people that neglect the needy and the poor.  I would say the conservative platform is backwards for such a bible inspired base.

Don't get too down.  Health care is still a mostly divisive issue.  Taxes: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em...but mostly can't live with 'em!  So let's not fan attention towards the estimated 200 billion dollars that the IRS reports goes yearly unaccounted for by the super wealthy thanks to off shore tax havens. 

A haiku: Mothers Day, Murder Day

Watch dead bodies pile.

A national tragedy?

'Course not, man!  They black!



-In sympathy for the victims of senseless, pointless acts of violence in New Orleans during Mother's Day.

Oversimplifying of "Boston Strong" and alot of sidebar thoughts

The debris and smoke have subsided and been swept clear following what has been described as a nightmare by many as two bombs went off during the Boston marathon. 

Immediately hysteria erupted as fight-or-flight stimuli kicked into the the 27,000 participants and observers alike.

One man, running erratically just as everyone else around him, was tackled to the ground, blood flowing from the shrapnel wound in his leg.  He would later become the first victim of media lynch mobs allegedly responsible for the horrible Boston terror that befouled the beautiful day in the eyes of TV screens across the nation.  Hospital staff recounted that within hours, people were arriving to the hospital doors with baseball bats, ready to serve justice to this suspect the FBI had in custody, only to find shortly after he was not in FBI custody, merely being treated for the wounds that hundreds of others in attendance suffered from.  He was a Saudi Arabian exchange student who had every reason to fear for his life.  Not because of fatal shrapnel wounds, but because of the potential fatal repercussion that come with his ethnic identity.

He was just a marathon participant.  A very unfortunate one, with brown skin.  One Saudi Arabian foreign exchange student (out of two that I know of) whose apartment was searched and raided within a day of the Boston terror.

A couple days later, a class of 30-ish Saudi Arabian Bostonian students would be informed during their ESL class to refrain from speaking Arabic publically for their own safety.  You see, a plane was diverted from the Boston tarmac back to the concourse.  Two men were speaking Arabic to each other and other passengers informed a stewardess they didn't feel comfortable being on the same flight. 

After much hublah, FBI agents boarded the plane and left with the two men in custody.  But the reprieve was short lived for the passengers, as the agents released the two men from their custody in only minutes, and the two Arab men boarded the plane once more.  A little more hublah among the other passengers, and the two men were requested to board another flight by the aircrew.  They must have been too brown.

Apparently, not many Bostonians felt comfortable sharing the same slab of concrete to walk on either.  Following the Boston bombings, a Muslim woman in a hijab was assaulted physically and verbally.  As other passerby's watched with indifference.

Erik Rush, Fox News contributor and correspondent took to twitter to vent declaring "[Muslims are] evil. Kill them all."  Fox News and much of its ilk, I'm sure, appreciate Erik's disgusting islamophobia.  Hell, I'm sure much of America did.  Any search through twitter and facebook will reveal the ugly face of racism and islamophobia.

A tragedy befell Boston, but what many media outlets and patriotic Americans alike are missing out on are the hate rhetoric and racism.  We prefer the rose-colored lens of "Boston Strong" and how the communities have all come together.  It's easy to forget Arab's are apart of that community when they're shutting the blinds and locking themselves inside when a public lynch mob is in session.

Live CNN footage broadcasted a celebration that looked like a block party with Bostonians jumping and rejoicing over the capture of one known live suspect.  There were some blacks, some asians, but on a second look, absolutely no one who looked remotely of Arab descent.  We can't blame that on Ramadan yet.

In fact, in most of the media, the only time someone of Arab ethnicity received spotlight was when internet lynch mobs start circulating pictures on the web of random brown skinned men as suspects for no other reason than, well, being brown skinned.  A brown family whose son has been missing for over a month had his charming smile posted on all sorts of internet outlets, alleging he is wanted by the FBI, and further humiliating his already grieving family, when there was no such information disclosed by any agencies of the sort.  A highschool student avoided going to school for an entire week because of death threats in his locker.  Many brown families reported feelings of isolation in their "Boston strong" neighborhood.  What is also strong is the invisibility they have received of everything except knee-jerk condemnation from the media, the citizens, and the nation as a whole.

America can procalim "Boston Strong" until it hurts to swallow, or until their checking account reads insufficient funds at the vendor who's cashing in millions from Boston Strong tee's, or until they realize the Boston Strong concert that has already sold out has more of the profit going into the pocket of the executive and shareholders than the actual city itself.

Trademarking and capitalism are as patriotic as ever whenever a great disaster befalls us, perpetrated by the "other".  The Sandy Hook shooting perpetrator was a crazy white person with a gun.  It touched the nations heart when innocent children were murdered in cold blood.  But he was an "American", not the "other" in a geopolitical sense.  Timothy Mcveigh was a lefty high on lunacy.  But still, totally white (which is a subject for anther time; the Tsaernaev brothers being literally "caucasian", from the Caucuses).  Totally American.  The theatre shooting catapulted an interesting national discussion on gun control, only digging the pro-gun and anti-gun advocates so deep in their trenches that they were nearly shoveling into the ground the families of the victims of the mass shooting were grieving in.  The Sikh Temple shooting?  A sikh?  You mean like undercooked chicken?  No, I mean like the white supremist who killed and injured worshippers in a temple he presumed to be a mosque; a new kind of totally ignorant racism.  Where you hate so much, you don't even know what it is you hate.  But Sikhs wear turbans, and 'Merica doesn't like those.  So it's kind of ok that the mass shooting spree was hardly reported in the mainstream media.  The shooter was an American actually eliminating cultural, religious, and geopolitical "others".  Literally.  Take a second to consider what is implied simply based off of what gets a headline.  It is disturbing to me when I take these examples and more into consideration and struggle to make sense of how to side step around a conclusion (that I could go more in depth on) that America simply does not like "certain people".  To the mainpoint, none of these instances allowed for a "kumbayah" come togetherness against a foreign "other".  Instead, they actually allowed Americans to grieve, except for the case at the Sikh Temple inwhich I imagine their community was the only one grieving.

But no matter how "strong" we believe Boston to be, a microcosm of America's tenacity, what remains stronger is our reluctance to confront our differences, our racism, and how our "American" identity is still marred by benchmarks that are 100 years old.

The feigning of patriotism that comes with "boston strong" allows us to cover up cultural issues and ignore indepth discussions about what it means to be "American". 

Buy some wristbands, rock out at the concert.  Maybe Kid Rock will sign your shirt after he shares some thoughtful words about love, compassion, and togetherness.  Stay Boston Strong.  Just don't be blind that the fear of your neighbor is even stronger, America.

When Referendums become civil rights advocates...shit done hit the fan

"The fact of the matter is, I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South." - Gov Chris Christie

Voting rights as a proposition to be granted by the upper echelon when they see fit, rather than an indisputable human right. I'm sure Governor Christie realizes that the progress of civil rights did not happen overnight.  The "fighting" and "dying" mostly belonging to the side that had to cut down brown carcasses from tree slopes they hung from; shoes muddled with water from the firemen that assault them with water canons. All the result of what New Jersey's beloved Governor would like to chalk up to a single oversight: the lack of a referendum to prevent acts of violence that were staggering communities of color. Though we live in a democratic republic, where every vote counts (unless the electoral college has a say about that), what we as human beings cannot leave up to referendums or the "people" is equality for all.

It is by that token that civil rights should not be left up for referendum. Initiative-74 will be in Washington state's ballot, a measure to provide marriage equality for everyone, straight and gay alike.  I will be voting yes.  Governor Christie believes people are "happy" this is finally a referendum, and they are.  But more importantly one should be disgusted and offended that marriage equality is proposed as a referendum in the first place.  Remember how excited everyone was for women's suffrage?  The right for women to own land?  Me neither.  Instead I remember Susan B. Anthony called disgusting names and the tyranny that would befall the nation.  Remember how happy the Emancipation Proclamation made everyone?  Oh yea, that's right, the confederates flipped the bird and conceded from the north.  The lesson the Governor wants to retell is that southerners weren't unhappy because of their capitol loss on totally free labor, it was instead they had no say in a referendum to grant their own capitol loss!  Speaking purely economically, they would've been more than happy to release from the bonds of slavery assets that they saw worth slightly more than mules.  The Confederates were just misunderstood, poor fellas.

Civil rights are not a referendum, Governor Christie. The "fighting and dying" in the streets in the North and the South were all a byproduct of racial inequality, and your comments are a fatal oversight.  "Justice delayed is justice denied", to quote MLK.

I have been a staunch advocate of Chris Christie. It is quite likely he'll run for President come 2016.  The New Jersey Governor has eradicated polarizing barriers that are normally in the way of ultra-conservative, republican party members. His appointing of a gay black mayor to the state Supreme Court, and appointing of a muslim judge last year, Sohail Mohammed, saved face for the republicans and rational alike in the midst of lampooning conservative rhetoric full of anti-homosexual and anti-muslim sentiments.  His policies for social welfare, however, show his privilege and out-of-touch ideas about equal opportunity (he's recently pissed all over the teachers in the public education system of NJ...maybe a post for another time).

Next time some is denied rights entitled to everyone else, let's just remind them that "we can't help you right now, there's no referendum for that..."

Romney tries his hand at "comedy"...

Presidency and birth certificates.  Sound familiar?  I'm not surprised.  Donald Trump popularized the questioning of Obama's legitimacy to presidency as far back as 2008.  Even after producing the long-form birth certificate proving Hawaii as his birth place, Trump declared that this wasn't enough.  Trump, billionaire mogul he is, needs the Presidents birth certificate hand delivered, preferably in a satin envelop lined with silk, to the helipad on top of Trump Towers.  This distraction was one of the many conservatives were introducing after the inauguration of President Obama into office.  It makes one wonder, "really?"  You were warned about the 2nd coming of Hitler.  You were warned about communism and the stockpile of guns and ammunition Obama's gestapo would seize.  You were warned about sharia law and Allah and the borders that would open to terrorist everywhere.  Surprisingly, the cache of stockpiled canned goods, apocalyptic underground shelters and the excess of firearms contained in them are collecting alot of dust. 

An idol of mine once coo'ed, "If at first you don't suceed...dust yourself off and try again."

The Romney campaign has recently come under heavy criticism for what his campaign has described as a harmless joke.  A video went viral earlier this week after Mitt "jested" to a Michigan audience that "no one’s ever asked to see [his] birth certificate", and further that "they know that [Michigan] is the place that [he was] born and raised."  He nearly drops the mic as the punch lines zing in the ears of the many Romney/Ryan enthusiasts, elated to applause and cheer on their republican comedian.

A piece of the joke that remains out of Willard Mitt Romney's reach reveals a plank in thine own eye.  The privilege implied by his own admission.  So salient, so clear.  Romney and his attendees are reveling in the safety net of white privilege and the fact they can so easily delegitimize the President.  What makes this further grating is Romney's own declaration that he believes the President of the United States, Barrack Hussein Obama, was indeed born in the United States.  However, that will never stop the opportunist Romney has revealed himself to be from addressing the concerns that many Americans have: the authenticity of Obama's U.S. birth.  Romney's "joke" effortlessly tips a hat to the many who remain unconvinced that Obama was birthed in America.  Retroactively declaring this gaffe as a joke allows him to distance himself in the public eye while allowing those reeling in birther conspiracies a wink-wink off camera.  Yes, Romney has not forgotten about your support, fellow birther conspirators.  

For those who doubt what is implied in Mitt's joke, it is the equivalent of saying "So, a Kenyan, a muslim, and a President walk into a bar.  They're all Obama!  Get it?  GET IT!?!?!?!"  Yes Romney, some people get the joke.  What others "get" is confirmation that their candidate is as far on the fringe of lunatic conspiracies as they are.

Setting aside political biases for a moment, it is fine to vote republican.  It's your freedom to vote democrat.  But don't polarize politics by othering the President of the United States.  Have a fucking back bone.  How humiliating is it, as President of the United States, to be the first President that is coerced into presenting a birth certificate.  To have the DOH and state Governor both state under oath that the documents are valid. To have this remain a central issue of controversy due to incessant misinformation and lies.  It's truly heart breaking that such "jokes" Romney is privileged to make have such a warm reception by his primarily white crowd of attendees.

In the infamous 47% video, Romney jokes about how running for president would be easier if he were Mexican.  I'm sure that in between being harassed by ICE, border patrol, and police officers, latinos in Arizona are doing nothing but bleeding their heart out in condolensces for Romney's priveleged, wealthy, and white childhood upbringing.