Showing posts with label Joe Blow Report. Show all posts

Monday, November 19, 2018

Communities Make Police Obsolete

"12 THINGS TO DO INSTEAD OF CALLING THE COPS:

1. Don't feel obligated to defend property—especially corporate "private" property. Before confronting someone or contacting the police, ask yourself if anyone is being hurt or endangered by property theft or damage. If the answer is "no," then let it be.

2. If something of yours is stolen and you need to file a report for insurance or other purposes, consider going to the police station instead of bringing cops into your community. You may inadvertently be putting someone in your neighborhood at risk.

3. If you observe someone exhibiting behavior that seems odd to you, don't assume that they are publicly intoxicated. A traumatic brain
injury or similar medical episode may be occurring. Ask if they are OK, if they have a medical condition, and if they need assistance.

4. If you see someone pulled over with car trouble, stop and ask if they need help or if you can call a tow truck for them. If the police are
introduced to such a situation, they may give punishments and unnecessary tickets to people with car issues, target those without papers, or worse.

5. Keep a contact list of community resources like suicide hotlines. When police are contacted to "manage" such situations, people with mental illness are sixteen times more likely to be killed by cops than those without mental health challenges. [Note: Some suicide hotlines call police and rely heavily on law enforcement. Check local hotlines and make sure you ask about their protocols.]

6. Check your impulse to call the police on someone you believe looks or is acting "'suspicious.” Is their race, gender, ethnicity, class, or housing situation influencing your choice? Such calls can be death sentences for many people.

7. Encourage teachers, coworkers, and organizers to avoid inviting police into classrooms, workplaces, and public spaces. Instead create a culture of taking care of each other and not unwittingly putting people in harm's way. If you're part of a group that's holding a rally or demonstration, DON’T get a permit or otherwise cooperate with the police.

8. If your neighbor is having a party and the noise is bothering you, go over and talk to them. Getting to know your neighbors with community events like block parties is a good way to make asking them to quiet down a little less uncomfortable. Or find another neighbor who is willing to do so.

9. If you see someone peeing in public, just look away! Remember, for example, that many homeless people do not have reliable access to bathrooms.

10. Hold and attend de-escalation, conflict resolution, first-aid, volunteer medic, and self-defense workshops in your neighborhood, school, workplace, or community organization. When possible, donate to these initiatives so they remain recurring.

11. Don't report graffiti and other street artists. If you see work that includes fascistic or hate speech, paint over it with friends.

12. Remember that police can escalate domestic violence situations—especially those involving people of color. You can support friends and neighbors who are being victimized by abusers by offering them a place to stay, a ride to a safe location, or to watch their children. Utilize community resources like safe houses and hotlines.

👍🏾Calling the police often escalates situations, puts people at risk, and leads to violence. Anytime you seek help from the police, you're inviting them into your community and putting people who may already be vulnerable into dangerous situations. Sometimes people feel that calling the police is the only way to deal with problems. But we can build trusted networks of mutual aid that allow us to
better resolve conflicts ourselves and move towards forms of transformative justice, while keeping police away from our neighborhoods."

Source: May Day Collective, Washtenaw Solidarity and Defense, & PLOT

RSVP: PLOT: Bystander Intervention Training

PDF: https://drive.google.com/…/1BZhBZu1oN3VdbVz23lQga2DCyT6y5V…/

Note: These are (intentionally) not "one-size-fits-all" solutions. Looking for one-size-fits-all solutions is (in part) how we ended up with excessive reliance on the police. How we intervene or respond to harm is dictated by each specific situation, risk assessment, what resources and privilege are at our disposal, and the community. Community building requires nuance, open-mindedness, and work. This resource is merely one, non-conclusive tool among many.

In solidarity,

PLOT

--Joe

Friday, June 29, 2018

You Get The Government You Deserve

How many times have you heard that in your lifetime, "You get the government you deserve" or "you get the police you deserve"? Not many, I'll bet.

Funny how great minds work. I catch hell every time I post this in a comment on the Internet. I wondered who else had come to the same conclusion, so I did a search. It seems a Frenchman by the name, Joseph de Maistre (1 April 1753 – 26 February 1821) was a Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, writer, and philosopher, beat me to it by more than 200 years.

He also said, something else close to my heart: "False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing." So attributed to a majority of Liberal Type Americans today.

And his premonition of America's future, providing there is no accountability brought to bear upon the Democrats and their Media accomplices for their assaults on the Law and the end of Democracy. "All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears."

Here is a good example of what he is talking about that I got from Facebook.

Maxine Waters is Crazy:

ALERT: Maxine Waters fires up Leftist mob to attack Trump Administration officials, one year after Leftist activist attempted to assassinate Republican lawmakers during Congressional baseball game.

This is what happens just before neighbors start killing one another. Everyone has the legal right to defend their family from these kinds of threats and assaults. This woman is fomenting insurrection, plain and simple. A few are beginning to see the light.

What's on TV is a political tactic but something else terrifying is going on. Formerly responsible ppl suddenly sound like extremists. Left's no longer working to convince those who disagree. They’re trying to destroy those in the way. It’s not a pose. They're sincere. It's war.
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 20, 2018 on Facebook.

Another:

I really truly hope this is just a horrible joke. Sick sick stuff. https://pic.twitter.com/VggjNhkYbw
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) June 29, 2018

More than sick. This is the ultimate of evil. America is on the cusp and needs to decide: Live by the Law, defend, protect and honor the U.S. Constitution - Stop at stop signs - Full Stop. Or die by lawless corruption, anarchy and chaos. We are in the midst of the most deadly assault on Democracy since its inception and it comes in the guise of a harpy.

You Really Do Get The Government You Deserve.

FOURTH OF JULY UPPDATE
We should all understand, I would think, that our American Constitutional Democracy is predicated upon three legs, Legislative, Executive and Judicial. Destroy one leg or branch and the legal system of government fails. Yet a few days ago tens of thousands of well-intentioned, ill-informed and misguided people were doing just that all over the country: Demanding the Executive (President Trump) stop enforcing the law. These so-called demonstrations were a direct seditious assault on American Democracy. Here is a link to one of a local demonstrator's website posting: Some shots from today’s Keep Families Together march in Eureka.

The Founding Fathers may have formulated the Revolution's successful government on an idea, I'll guarantee you that idea was not the corrupt, wanton idea of freedom we see enforced today in all facets of our lives with absolutely no accountability. Neither the law nor the Constitution gives anyone the freedom or right to harass, intimidate or threaten by act or voice. We do have the right to defend ourselves and our families. We can start by complying with and demanding every law be enforced. -- A good way to celebrate the Fourth. Even though, the truth be known, we're in the throes of a civil war right now.

--Joe

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Name Them One By One

By ronniemcbrayer August 21, 2017

Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, asked participants in a months-long experiment to write down a few sentences each week. A third of the group was told to write about things for which they were grateful. A third of the group wrote about daily irritations, the things that made them mad. The last one-third wrote about general events with no emphasis on the negative or positive.

After a few months, those who catalogued their gratitude were more optimistic and generally felt better about their lives and the world than the other participants. And the “thankful” group exercised more, had fewer visits to physicians, and experienced less anxiety. Active gratitude, the researchers learned, is good for people: Spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and physically.

There’s an old hymn we sang in the churches of my youth that could serve as supplemental material to the above research. It is entitled, “Count Your Blessings,” and a stanza of it goes: “When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost. Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”

You have so much for which to be thankful, and while naming these blessings “one by one” might prove to be a list impossibly long, it would do you good to make a start of it. Consider your restful night of sleep and a good mattress; the roof over your head; for strong coffee in the early morning – and even the easy access to cream and sugar – to make that coffee the way you want it.

If you have clean clothes and transportation; for safe travels along the way when so much could go wrong; for a welcoming house of worship; for close friends with whom you share life; for the people who serve you at restaurants, change the oil in your car, teach your children, keep your lights on, and who look after your safety on so many levels.

There is the technology to easily communicate with your loved ones; for air conditioning, bug repellant, and cold beer; for home-cooked meals, music that moves your soul and speaks to your heart; for the beauty of art, the sustaining rain, and the glorious sunsets.

And I haven’t even gotten to “the biggies” yet! Your spouse; children and grandchildren; your health; your ability to make a living; for the unconditional love of a child or a dog; for the senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch; for having this chance – this one marvelous chance – to be fearfully and wonderfully made.

Meister Eckhart, a German mystic from seven centuries ago, said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘Thank you,’ it will be enough.” I think that is right, for gratitude is the truest act of worship. That, and it is good for you in almost every other way conceivable, as well.

--Joe

Monday, November 7, 2016

Voting as "a Citizen of the Kingdom of God"

The value of being a real citizen is not your worthless vote. How many time have I been down this road in my lifetime?

I Can’t Vote For Him And Won’t Vote For Her

By ronniemcbrayer November 7, 2016

I have never made a political endorsement, not in the conventional sense. This is because Christendom has committed a great many sins in its insatiable thirst for power over the centuries. In fact, the quest for power is the church’s most heinous sin. So officially aligning a congregation with any political party – left, right, or populist – only perpetuates this transgression. However, as this unprecedented election season comes to a merciful close, I am making my first endorsement: I can’t vote for “him,” and I won’t vote for “her.” Neither will I vote for any of the half-dozen candidates on the presidential ballot.

My faith, shaped as it is by Quakerism, the Anabaptists, and what historians call the “Radical Reformation,” leads me to live life based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This “manifesto,” found in Matthew 5-7, describes how Jesus’ followers are to live as citizens in what he called, “The Kingdom of God.” Per the Sermon, those in this Kingdom value humility, meekness, mercy, justice-seeking, and peace-making. Jesus’ followers are to be wary of lust, dishonesty, and anger. He instructs us to love our enemies, to do good to those who don’t deserve it, to resist violence and its escalation, and “to turn the other cheek.”

He warns us of unbridled greed and how chasing after more wealth only leads to greater anxiety. Then he sums it all up with what could be called an Oath of Citizenship: “Treat everybody the way you would want to be treated, love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

It’s not inaccurate to conclude that our political candidates and national leaders have intentionally modeled and organized themselves in the opposite fashion of Jesus’ instructions. Our entire political-societal complex is constructed on dishonesty, arrogance, violence, indignity, rage, vengeance, and getting ahead at someone else’s expense. I can’t achieve the cognitive dissonance required to reconcile these inconsistencies.

“Believe me,” I know the objections: “You have to choose the lesser of the evils!” But what if I consider the whole nationalistic system as evil? “People died to give you the privilege to vote!” Did Jesus not die for the principles he taught and lived? “It’s irresponsible not to participate!” Can faithfulness to conscious ever be considered irresponsible? “If you don’t love it, leave it!” Do you now see why the language of exile, wandering, and being “strangers in a strange land,” was so common among Jesus’ earliest followers? “But if you aren’t involved nothing will ever change for the better!” Why can’t I be involved on the margins, as Jesus and the prophets of old were, pointing to how life could be if only we would have it?

Simply put, the American Way and the Jesus Way are not always compatible. And when they are not, I must aspire – failing as I often will – to show my primary allegiance to Christ. For I am an expatriate: A resident of the United States, but a citizen of the Kingdom of God.

Ronnie McBrayer

--Joe

Monday, October 10, 2016

An Old Zen Story - An Apt Lesson For Donald Trump

Unwanted Gifts

There is a Zen story about a young, impetuous warrior who sought to defeat a great Master in battle. The young man was certain he could dispatch the old sensei with great fanfare and boost his reputation. The Master’s students begged the old man not to accept the challenge, but he resolutely agreed to the fight. The entire village gathered as the young warrior began the contest by striking at the Master with a staff. Skillfully, the Master deflected every blow, and every kick or punch that followed. Yet, the Master never made an offensive move. Frustrated by this, the young warrior resorted to nasty tactics.

Throwing rocks, spitting in the Master’s face, shrieking insults, and defaming the great teacher’s ancestors: After hours of such provocation, the young warrior finally gave up and left. The Master’s students hurried to him, confused. “How could you not retaliate?” they asked, and “Why did you allow him to insult your honor without consequence?”

The old Master answered, “If someone offers you a gift but you refuse its acceptance, then to whom does that gift belong?” One of the students answered, “To the one who tried to offer it.” The Master smiled. “Yes,” he said. “And the same goes for anger, misery, and insults. If you refuse to accept these, they will be carried away by the one who tried to burden you with them.”

There could hardly be a more truthful lesson than this; and there could hardly be a more timely lesson for our own day. We are so eager to blame the words, actions, and emotions of others for our own behaviors. We readily accept the “gifts” of anger, insult, and disrespect that are dished out, and are then forced to unload their heavy burden. We are made miserable, and thus, mete out misery. We take the hatefulness spewed in our direction, internalize and personalize it, and in turn become hateful. We accept, rather than deflect, hurt and conversely become hurtful people. Paraphrasing Father Richard Rohr, he believes more pain is inflicted in this world by those who TAKE offense rather than those who GIVE offense. We are enthusiastic acceptors, taking whatever is directed at us.

As old as this Zen story is the Hebrew proverb, a proverb with the same lesson: “Do not say, ‘I will do to him as he has done to me;’ no, wait for the Lord.” This is picked up multiple times in the New Testament: “Repay no one evil for evil, but so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all,” the Apostles said. And no less than Jesus told his disciples, “Do not try to get even with a person who has done something to you.”

A bumpersticker may sum up this lesson best: “No one can drive you crazy unless you give them the keys.” Amen. You – and only you – are the one responsible for your own feelings, actions, and reactions. Otherwise, you are bearing the weight of an unwanted gift.

[Unwanted Gifts] - By ronniemcbrayer October 10, 2016

--Joe

An Old Zen Story - An Apt Lesson For Donald Trump

Unwanted Gifts

By ronniemcbrayer October 10, 2016

--Joe

Thursday, August 18, 2016

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make your dreams your master
If you can think - and not make your thoughts your aim
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Not many of these kind of people around.

-Joe

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Settle Down. Lighten Up. Carry On

By Ronnie McBrayer

“A Farmer’s Advice”

July 28, 2016

I shared part of an excerpt this past Sunday entitled, “A Farmer’s Advice.” It is printed below. For a variation of the full quotation, see the “Appleseeds” website at: http://www.appleseeds.org. Enjoy!

“Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong…

Life is simpler when you plow around some stumps…

Hornets are considerably faster than a John Deere tractor…

Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled…

Meanness don’t just happen overnight…

Forgive your enemies not just because Jesus said so, but because it messes up their heads…

Never corner something that you know is meaner than you are…

A dog can whip a pig most every time, but in the end, both will be dirty and the pig likes it that way…

Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen…

Don’t judge folks by their relatives…

Sometimes silence is the best answer…

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time…

Don’t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none…

Always drink upstream from herd…

Good judgment comes from experience, and a whole lot of experience comes from bad judgment…

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.”

Ronnie McBrayer had a weekly column in the Times-Standard Newspaper.

--Joe

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Take A Deep Breath Eureka

... the air is sweet.

Justice Sotomayor in [a] Powerful Dissent on Police Powers

The Supreme Court has ruled evidence of a crime can still be used in some cases even if police obtained it illegally. While the 5-3 ruling deals a blow to civil rights in favor of police powers, it is likely to be remembered largely for the powerful dissent penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina justice on the court. In a ruling that cited Michelle Alexander, James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sotomayor wrote that "it is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims" of police searches. She concluded her argument: "By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged. We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are 'isolated.' They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our justice system will continue to be anything but. I dissent." The words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. [Emphasis mine.]

As do I.

--JB

Saturday, April 30, 2016

The Importance of Being a Person of Value

Or becoming self-actualized - the difference between me and you.
[Self-actualized people are those who were fulfilled and doing all they were capable of.]

Self-actualization

Instead of focusing on psychopathology and what goes wrong with people, Maslow (1943) formulated a more positive account of human behavior which focused on what goes right. He was interested in human potential, and how we fulfill that potential.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that human motivation is based on people seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth. Self-actualized people are those who were fulfilled and doing all they were capable of.

The growth of self-actualization (Maslow, 1962) refers to the need for personal growth and discovery that is present throughout a person’s life. For Maslow, a person is always 'becoming' and never remains static in these terms. In self-actualization a person comes to find a meaning to life that is important to them.

As each person is unique the motivation for self-actualization leads people in different directions (Kenrick et al., 2010). For some people self-actualization can be achieved through creating works of art or literature, for others through sport, in the classroom, or within a corporate setting.

Maslow (1962) believed self-actualization could be measured through the concept of peak experiences. This occurs when a person experiences the world totally for what it is, and there are feelings of euphoria, joy and wonder.

It is important to note that self-actualization is a continual process of becoming rather than a perfect state one reaches of a 'happy ever after' (Hoffman, 1988).

Maslow offers the following description of self-actualization:

'It refers to the person’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially.

The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions' (Maslow, 1943, p. 382–383).

Maslow (1968): Some of the characteristics of self-actualized people

Although we are all, theoretically, capable of self-actualizing, most of us will not do so, or only to a limited degree. Maslow (1970) estimated that only two percent of people will reach the state of self actualization. He was particularly interested in the characteristics of people whom he considered to have achieved their potential as persons.

By studying 18 people he considered to be self-actualized (including Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein) Maslow (1970) identified 15 characteristics of a self-actualized person.

Characteristics of self-actualizers:

1. They perceive reality efficiently and can tolerate uncertainty;
2. Accept themselves and others for what they are;
3. Spontaneous in thought and action;
4. Problem-centered (not self-centered);
5. Unusual sense of humor;
6. Able to look at life objectively;
7. Highly creative;
8. Resistant to enculturation, but not purposely unconventional;
9. Concerned for the welfare of humanity;
10. Capable of deep appreciation of basic life-experience;
11. Establish deep satisfying interpersonal relationships with a few people;
12. Peak experiences;
13. Need for privacy;
14. Democratic attitudes;
15. Strong moral/ethical standards.

Behavior leading to self-actualization:

(a) Experiencing life like a child, with full absorption and concentration;
(b) Trying new things instead of sticking to safe paths;
(c) Listening to your own feelings in evaluating experiences instead of the voice of tradition, authority or the majority;
(d) Avoiding pretense ('game playing') and being honest;
(e) Being prepared to be unpopular if your views do not coincide with those of the majority;
(f) Taking responsibility and working hard;
(g) Trying to identify your defenses and having the courage to give them up.

The characteristics of self-actualizers and the behaviors leading to self-actualization are shown in the list above. Although people achieve self-actualization in their own unique way, they tend to share certain characteristics. However, self-actualization is a matter of degree, 'There are no perfect human beings' (Maslow,1970a, p. 176).

It is not necessary to display all 15 characteristics to become self-actualized, and not only self-actualized people will display them. Maslow did not equate self-actualization with perfection. Self-actualization merely involves achieving ones potential. Thus, someone can be silly, wasteful, vain and impolite, and still self-actualize. Less than two percent of the population achieve self-actualization.

Educational applications

Maslow's (1968) hierarchy of needs theory has made a major contribution to teaching and classroom management in schools. Rather than reducing behavior to a response in the environment, Maslow (1970a) adopts a holistic approach to education and learning. Maslow looks at the entire physical, emotional, social, and intellectual qualities of an individual and how they impact on learning.

Applications of Maslow's hierarchy theory to the work of the classroom teacher are obvious. Before a student's cognitive needs can be met they must first fulfil their basic physiological needs. For example a tired and hungry student will find it difficult to focus on learning. Students need to feel emotionally and physically safe and accepted within the classroom to progress and reach their full potential.

Maslow suggests students must be shown that they are valued and respected in the classroom and the teacher should create a supportive environment. Students with a low self-esteem will not progress academically at an optimum rate until their self-esteem is strengthened.

Source: Simple Psychology

So, if you are still wondering what is wrong with our social system, our economic system, our judicial system, our educational system, our governmental system and religious systems I suggest you click on this link and take to heart, take personal responsibility for what you are as a person and start acting accordingly.

--Joe

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Donald Trump's Secret Advantage

‏@Dictionarycom

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised. pic.twitter.com/XKiCE2xobR

Only someone of integrity would unapologetically understand who they really are.

--Joe

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Eureka Deserves the E.P.D.

Feel you’re being protected and served?

By Tim Martin, Eureka Times Standard
Saturday, January 16, 2016

Jim Pasco, executive director of the largest U.S. police union, recently offered a shocking statement to the press. He vowed to strike back at Quentin Tarantino for comments the movie director made against police brutality at a New York rally.

Pasco said he had a plan to hurt Tarantino “economically.” The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, a union representing New York City Police, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, and the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police called for a boycott of Tarantino’s movies, including his latest picture “The Hateful Eight.”

In other words they are blackballing the filmmaker Don Corleone style: “Nice movie you got there, Quentin. It’d be a real shame if somethin’ happened to it, ya know?”

After Pasco called for a boycott of Tarantino’s films, the director appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” to clarify his position. “The [police] unions are saying that I am a cop hater, which is slander because I didn’t say that,” he told Maher. “They’re implying that I meant that all cops are murderers, and I wasn’t. But the thing that’s really sad about it is we actually do need to talk to cops about this. We need to bring this to the table.”

What kind of police do you call on the police? Law enforcement has become a predatory culture in America. Cops are morphing into thugs and criminals. They beat, choke, shoot, pepper spray, and Taser unarmed citizens. Police unions have transformed into terrorist groups that threaten any and all critics. Pasco’s plan to financially cripple the “Natural Born Killers” director proves that many police departments are not interested in protecting citizens, but in maintaining their unchecked right to act unlawfully.

Has it ever occurred to cops that their aggressive and violent behavior is the main reason they have such a terrible image problem?

Since when did the police become a crime mob that issues threats and warnings of harassment and intimidation? Pasco’s gang-like threat to Tarantino was a warning so illegal and egregious it boggles the mind. It clearly illustrates the totalitarian idea that any criticism of authority is punishable by law. It also reveals how much some people want our free society to be markedly less so.

This is exactly what black people have been complaining about for decades. Surprise! We are all black now.

The Department of Justice needs to wake up. Law enforcement groups are becoming domestic enemies like the white supremacist groups Ku Klux Klan and Stormfront. There is too much police brutality in this country. Bullying only incites public anger. The public will tolerate unrestrained cop misconduct only so long. If police continue this current trend, they will force violence against themselves.

Cops have killed unarmed people using illegal choke holds and excessive force. The city of Chicago recently fired an investigator who tried to hold two officers accountable for beating a mentally ill man to death. Police need to get over themselves and address the weekly unnecessary murder of people over trivial issues. Many officers do a good job, but unfortunately, they also enforce a code of silence that protects bad cops. Until the cover-ups stop, all law enforcement will be tainted. More transparency and accountability is needed. Police should be working overtime to eradicate criminals from their own ranks instead of finding ways to censor a filmmaker’s freedom of speech. And judges must stop giving officers a free pass of “badge truthfulness” in court.

The Fraternal Order of Police and their over-the-top strawman Jim Pasco offer no help whatsoever. They only increase the problem.

I applaud Quentin Tarantino’s bravery in speaking out against criminal cops and their terroristic grip on society. Protesting injustices peacefully is what makes American great. Many police officers have lost their moral compass and are abusing the badge. Even worse, they are protected and insulated by a system that allows them to continue to do so. Cops who kill unlawfully are murderers, pure and simple. Pasco is merely trying to deflect the issue by claiming Tarantino was referring to every cop as a murderer.

We were once an extraordinary country where people were free to speak their minds and criticize power without fear of retribution. Those days are over. America is no longer extraordinary. With the arrival of our police state we have become just another Iran or Russia. If we continue to turn a blind eye to police violence it will only grow worse. It’s long past the time to do something about this problem. Our entire legal system has gone to the dogs.

Tim Martin resides in Fortuna and writes this column for the Times-Standard. Email him at tmartin@sitestar.net.

URL: http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/20160116/feel-youre-being-protected-and-served

I was catching up on my "Times-Standard" news when I came across this article from Tim Martin and just had to post it. I'm sure it took a lot of courage to write. Personally, I've refrained from writing about the lawlessness that plagues our area and the dire consequences they portend. Personally, I believe you "reap what you sow" consequently, the people (most of them anyway) deserve what they got.

"Paranoid and delusional," and scared crapless - every encounter is a time-bomb ready to go off. The people of Eureka must really enjoy playing Russian roulette. See: Eureka Police - When the Police Use Force

--Joe

Friday, August 14, 2015

The Value of Your Vote

Donald Trump & Bernie Sanders Lining Up Clinton- Bush Success

Dylan Ratigan

Trump- Bernie Sanders equals Clinton- Bush very simply because both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are perfect for magnetizing the most radical sentiment in the democratic party and the most radical sentiment in the republican party and insuring that that sentiment is gratified emotionally and then remains behaved and orderly inside the respective parties. If Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders really wanted to confront the political establishment, they would step outside of the two party system and confront the two party system for the oligarchy that it is. As is it right now, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are simply lining up the ducks to be served on a platter to Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton next spring. [Emphasis mine]

http://www.dylanratigan.com/…/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-…/

--Joe

Friday, July 10, 2015

Bye, Bye America

Putin Leads BRICS Uprising

Posted By Mike Whitney On July 10, 2015 @ 2:05 am In articles 2015

There’s been a virtual blackout of news from this year’s seventh annual BRICS summit in Ufa, Russia. None of the mainstream media organizations are covering the meetings or making any attempt to explain what’s going on. As a result, the American people remain largely in the dark about a powerful coalition of nations that are putting in place an alternate system that will greatly reduce US influence in the world and end the current era of superpower rule.

Let’s cut to the chase: Leaders of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) realize that global security cannot be entrusted to a country that sees war as a acceptable means for achieving its geopolitical objectives. They also realize that they won’t be able to achieve financial stability as long as Washington dictates the rules, issues the de facto “international” currency, and controls the main levers of global financial power. This is why the BRICS have decided to chart a different course, to gradually break free from the existing Bretton Woods system, and to create parallel system that better serves their own interests. Logically, they have focused on the foundation blocks which support the current US-led system, that is, the institutions from which the United States derives its extraordinary power; the dollar, the US Treasury market, and the IMF. Replace these, the thinking goes, and the indispensable nation becomes just another country struggling to get by. This is from the Asia Times:

“Leaders of the BRICS… launched the New Development Bank, which has taken three years of negotiations to bring to fruition. With about $50 billion in starting capital, the bank is expected to start issuing debt to fund infrastructure projects next year. They also launched a foreign-exchange currency fund of $100 billion.

The two new endeavors are statements that the five largest emerging markets are both looking out for each other and, simultaneously, moving away from the western financing institutions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

“The BRICS states intend to actively use their own resources and internal resources for development,” Putin said, according to Reuters. “The New (Development) Bank will help finance joint, large-scale projects in transport and energy infrastructure, industrial development.”…..Birthing the two initiatives in Russia had been Putin’s top priorities.”

(“Russia’s Putin scores points at Ufa BRICS summit“, Asia Times)

Can you see what’s going on? Putin has figured out the empire’s vulnerabilities and he’s going straight for the jugular. He’s saying: ‘We’re going to issue our own debt, we’re going to run our own system, we’re going to fund our own projects, and we’re going to do it all in our own currency. Kaboom. The only thing you’re going to be doing, is managing your own accelerating economic decline. Have a good day.’ Isn’t that the gist of what he’s saying?

So can you see, dear reader, why none of this is appearing on the pages of US newspapers or on US television. Washington would rather you didn’t know how they’ve bungled everything by alienating the fastest growing countries in the world.

The Ufa conference is a watershed moment. While the Pentagon is rapidly moving troops and military hardware to Russia’s borders, and one bigwig after another is bloviating about the “Russian threat”; the BRICS have moved out of Washington’s orbit altogether. They are following the leadership of men who, frankly speaking, are acting exactly like US leaders acted when the US was on the upswing. These are guys who “think big”; who want to connect continents with high-speed rail, lift living standards across the board, and transform themselves into manufacturing dynamos. What do America’s leaders dream about: Drone warfare? Balancing the budget? Banning the Confederate flag?

It’s a joke. No one in Washington has a plan for the future. It’s all just political opportunism and posturing. Check this out from The Hindu:

“China and Russia have described BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as the core of a new international order…

Russian President Vladimir Putin said… “There is no doubt — we have all necessary premises to expand the horizons of mutually beneficial cooperation, to join together our raw material resources, human capital and huge consumer markets for a powerful economic spurt.”

Russia’s Tass news agency also quoted Mr. Putin as saying that the Eurasian continent had vast transit potential. He pointed to “the construction of new efficient transport and logistics chains, in particular, the implementation of the initiative of the Silk Road economic belt and the development of transportation in the eastern part of Russia and Siberia. This may link the rapidly growing markets in Asia and Europe’s economies, mature, rich in industrial and technological achievements. At the same time, this will allow our countries to become more commercially viable in the competition for investors, for creating new jobs, for advanced enterprises,” he observed.”….

The summit also acknowledged “the potential for expanding the use of our national currencies in transactions between the BRICS countries.” (“BRICS, SCO, EAEU can define new world order: China, Russia“, The Hindu)

The dollar is toast. The IMF is toast. The US debt market (US Treasuries) is toast. The institutions that support US power are crumbling before our very eyes. The BRICS have had enough; enough war, enough Wall Street, enough meddling and hypocrisy and austerity and lecturing. This is farewell. Sure, it will take time, but Ufa marks a fundamental change in thinking, a fundamental change in approach, and a fundamental change in strategic orientation.

The BRICS are not coming back, they’re gone for good, just as Washington’s “pivot to Asia” is gone for good. There’s just too much resistance. Washington has simply overplayed its hand, worn out its welcome. People are sick of us.

Can you blame them?

--Joe

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Hypocritical "_______" -- Why honest, conscientious citizens DON'T vote.

Hypocritical Dennis Hastert | The Real Ratigan

"Dennis Hastert is your classic Illinois politician: pure hypocrite, pure liar, pure scumbag, okay? Not only is he a classic Illinois politician, he is a classic American politician. He is a man with a sex scandal replacing another man with a sex scandal, whose prosecuting a man who had a sex scandal. And all these men with sex scandals are walking around beating their chests talking about how immoral Bill Clinton is with his sex scandal while they're busy keeping their own sex scandal in the closet. This is why Americans do not participate in the American political system at the rate that they do not, because they validly are of the belief that men like Dennis Hastert are in charge and they are the most weasel-y, underhanded, underlying, unreliable, lying individuals that this country has ever seen."

Put any politician's name in that title; they're all the same.

How does a moron's response legitimize anyone?

--Joe