An interesting tidbit discovered while browsing the web. First it shows the ethnic diversity of the New York City police department…a good thing, but it also shows a rather heavy handed approach by New York City towards the issue of 911 and associated illnesses.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
1st collector for Revolutionary Politics::Revolutionary Politics …
Follow my videos on vodpod
Another victim claimed violence at the hand of someone from the minority community only to have it turn out to be a LIE! There’s a long line of people who claimed some black person did them great bodily harm and I agree with Dr. Jeff Gardere’s assessment that fixing the blame on fictitious black people is a part of the Black Bogeyman phenomenon that says whites and society at large must fear angry black people who are intent on doing everyone they come into contact with great bodily harm. I’m not so sympathetic to insist the behavior of falsely ascribing victim status on one’s self is a personal mental disease; the larger society cannot escape the role it plays in allowing someone to think such behavior is plausible. Bethany Storro, the victim turned perpetrator, belongs in a jail that offers mental health services.
It’s days like this when I really think America would be better off without police, and especially bad police. We have the 2nd amendment which assures every American the right to arm himself, and therein be able to protect him/herself, so what else do we need? Oh, it probably is necessary to have a judge adjudicate those sticky ‘he said, she said’ cases, but police who think they are better than the average citizen or feel they have special powers over and above those of everyday citizens are really a hindrance to the well being of society, and not a protector. People have got to stop thinking of police as their personal saviors.
Wayne Burwell was in his own home, minding his own business when police broke into his home, arrested and dragged him outside where incredulous neighbors who knew him rushed to his defense and in turn were threaten by police as well. What kind of sense does that make? Even one of his neighbors, a retired policeman tried to vouch for Burwell and was told to butt out or face arrest. Maybe Burwell’s problem is he looked out of place in that neighborhood or maybe because of his physical condition he didn’t respond quickly enough to officers’ demands but whatever the case he was assaulted in his own home and arrested.
Perhaps someone can tell me how that happens in modern day America; maybe you know how it came to pass that police were called to a scene by someone other than the homeowner, entered the home where they discovered the homeowner who they subsequently arrested with some degree of violence attached to the arrest and then later had to release. I don’t understand that principle at all.
While faux pas French feminist criticize the candidacy of one of their own because of an article of clothing, America’s other allies, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates have figured out how to make the best use of all of their human resources, men and women, those who wear a scarf and those who don’t but still want to serve their country. Why a country would want to deny participation of one half of its citizens because of a scarf or a religious belief, even while the very same people want to serve, participate, protect is a study in racism and a mindset that takes people backwards in time we decided was counterproductive or worse. No forward thinking country should countenance such a philosophy neither should a country support one that does. A new America would do well to cast its lot with the likes of Pakistan and the UAE and shun the homophobia that is overtaking Europe, and countries like France and Denmark and clearly and emphatically make a statement that the religious rights of a citizen of a country and that’s citizen’s desire to serve his or her country are the basis of solid, long lasting relationships America will honor. Anything less than that is contributing more to the problem than to the solution.
Here are three very stark examples of where government that has politicians and their minions who don’t feel responsible to the people abuse their power and deny citizens their rights to liberty. You’ve probably seen snippets of these news stories before, but I want to condense them to show how insulting power can become in the hands of the non approachable.
The internet, for now the only place where one can find a myriad of opinions, as well as a place of disinformation, has always been a sore spot for government, which can only monitor but not control it. Well guess again.
In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated “cognitive infiltration” of groups that advocate “conspiracy theories” like the ones surrounding 9/11.Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, co-wrote an academic article entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” in which he argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups.
Sunstein’s article, published in the Journal of Political Philosphy in 2008, states that “our primary claim is that conspiracy theories typically stem not from irrationality or mental illness of any kind but from a ‘crippled epistemology,’ in the form of a sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources.”
By “crippled epistemology” Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public — the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated.
One can only guess what government’s idea of “conspiracy theories” is or what Mr. Sunstein has in mind when he uses that term. I doubt he wants to expand the number of sources available on the internet even though according to him there are a limited number which has caused this crippled epistemology, but instead he proposes infiltrating places where people talk about their limited sources. Mind control comes to mind. I hope Mr. Sunstein puts at the top of the conspiracy list the official/government’s version of what happened on September 11, 2001, but I seriously doubt it.
We covered the story of the “suicides” of three Gitmo detainees, prisoners, who were blamed by the Bush administration for their own murder, even though that murder was done by the hands of people within the Bush government. (Talk about blaming the victim) Now there is more information about this story reported in great detail by Scott Horton of Harper’s Magazine with some very scary detail that is blood curdling, including the idea that Gitmo had horror/torture chambers that even surpassed what was done at Gitmo itself.
According to the NCIS, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously.
The fact that at least two of the prisoners also had cloth masks affixed to their faces, presumably to prevent the expulsion of the rags from their mouths, went unremarked by the NCIS, as did the fact that standard operating procedure at Camp Delta required the Navy guards on duty after midnight to “conduct a visual search” of each cell and detainee every ten minutes. The report claimed that the prisoners had hung sheets or blankets to hide their activities and shaped more sheets and pillows to look like bodies sleeping in their beds, but it did not explain where they were able to acquire so much fabric beyond their tightly controlled allotment, or why the Navy guards would allow such an obvious and immediately observable deviation from permitted behavior. Nor did the report explain how the dead men managed to hang undetected for more than two hours or why the Navy guards on duty, having for whatever reason so grievously failed in their duties, were never disciplined.
……returned to Saudi Arabia was the body of Mani Al-Utaybi. Orphaned in youth, Mani grew up in his uncle’s home in the small town of Dawadmi. I spoke to one of the many cousins who shared that home, Faris Al-Utaybi. Mani, said Faris, had gone to Baluchistan—a rural, tribal area that straddles Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan—to do humanitarian work, and someone there had sold him to the Americans for $5,000. He said that Mani was a peaceful man who would harm no one. Indeed, U.S. authorities had decided to release Al-Utaybi and return him to Saudi Arabia. When he died, he was just a few weeks shy of his transfer.
The difference in the account found on the pages of Harper’s and others we’ve covered is that there are now names, people who were in Gitmo at the time of the deaths who have come forward to describe in detail what they saw and participated in during the fateful night of the deaths of the three prisoners. What’s particularly disturbing is the new government of Obama, packed full of career government bureaucrats is continuing the legacy of Bush’s assault on the US constitution and the rule of law, covering up the testimony of those soldiers of conscience….not just one, or two or three, but more who have gone on record to say what they witnessed. At a time when we are asked to honor the troops, it is more than hypocritical to discount the recollections of those troops who allege government malfeasance….but we do and with a straight face. Again, our government at work for you; all of this is done in the name of the United States of America.
Finally, comes word that despite all the shortcuts given to members of the government to carry out legal surveillance against citizens and others, it simply wasn’t enough to satisfy a government run amok with an unquenchable thirst for invasion of the privacy too many of us were willing to give up. In the mother of all understatement, an admission that the government lied in order to surveil people should come as no surprise after living through a decade that was full of deception, lies and deception.
The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions.
FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni said in an interview Monday that the FBI technically violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when agents invoked nonexistent emergencies to collect records.
“We should have stopped those requests from being made that way,” she said. The after-the-fact approvals were a “good-hearted but not well-thought-out” solution to put phone carriers at ease, she said. In true emergencies, Caproni said, agents always had the legal right to get phone records, and lawyers have now concluded there was no need for the after-the-fact approval process. “What this turned out to be was a self-inflicted wound,” she said.
Until the citizens of the republic of the United States make it clear that government’s role is to protect the rights guaranteed under the Constitution and not abrogate them with phony wars and lies, one can expect government will continue its spiral into fascism, and this country called America will cease to exist.
The media, that’s who and with the insertion of the word black men, the media played us the public. It was able to inflame American passions about a subject we’re known to want to avoid, and embroil the Obama presidency at a time when it needs public support for issues like health care and Afghanistan. Turns out the word “black” men was NOT used by the caller who placed the 911 call. In fact when she was asked if the people she saw were black she said she wasn’t sure, so how did this description get inserted into media accounts?? Anyone?
One other interesting point I noticed about what was heard from the released police tapes is Sgt. Crowley asks the dispatch to send someone from Harvard’s police. Why? Gates supposedly supplied both his state’s driver’s license as well as his university identification; did Crowley not accept them, were they not good enough, were they suspect, would he only accept the word of a fellow police officer? Perhaps this was the cause of Gates’ ire; having done everything he was asked to do, i.e. give identification and then some, it still was not good enough for Crowley to stop what at some point must have been considered harassment by Gates.
The media gets knocked around a lot, and this time, it’s deserved. If anyone thinks media doesn’t have an agenda, think again. By touching on a hot button topic, race, the media was able to portray all in a way they determined and at a time and place of their choosing. That said, this wasn’t an issue of bad policing, as I think it was, but rather a racial issue, which the media made. One solution to that is to forsake organized, main stream, corporate media and turn to citizenship media. It has some of the same risks, but it provides you more choices and I am a believer people are their best police, leaders, politicians, defenders, doctors, owners of companies. Try it.
In light of all the controversy surrounding the Henry L. Gates arrest, I offer this advice to him and anyone else who may have to deal with the police. Don’t say a word, unless you are in the presence of your lawyer.
UPDATED STORY BELOW
BLACK PHILADEPHIA POLICE SUE OVER MESSAGE BOARD
A group of black Philadelphia police officers filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against their department, alleging an online forum geared toward city police is “infested with racist, white supremacist and anti-African-American content.”
The suit alleges white officers post on and moderate the privately operated site, Domelights.com, both on and off the job.
Domelights’ users “often joke about the racially offensive commentary on the site … or will mention them in front of black police officers,” thus creating “a racially hostile work environment,” according to lawyers for the all-black Guardian Civic League, the lead plaintiff in the suit.
A look at the site’s forums Friday for racist comments found several possibilities.
Reads one: “In urban areas, it seems [African-Americans] living on welfare in paid for housing is ingrained in their culture as well as fighting. … Kids, along with adults can’t speak proper English or spell at a 3rd grade level, but they can sing among “theyselves” the lyrics to a rap song.”
Said another Domelights user of an African-American woman: “She is a classic example of that exact non tax paying, no car insurance driving, bad weave wearing, all the whitey’s are racist black women.”
The site’s tagline is “the voice of the good guys.”
“Every time African-Americans do or say something in our city, we get this backlash of cops who think they’re anonymous on this Web site — just racist, nasty, hurtful things about what we do,” said Rochelle Bilal, the president of the Guardian Civic League and a 23-year veteran of the force.
The league’s attorney said other black officers echo Bilal’s statement.
“We’ve heard the same story over and over again, which is that [African-American officers] witness in the workplace Domelights being used and discussed [in a racial manner],” said Brian Mildenberg, whose firm is also representing several campers from a mostly black Philadelphia day camp that recently gained national attention when its members were turned away from a swim club.
He said it was “a gift from the heavens in a way that the two things happened at once.”
While Mildenberg and Bilal said they had been monitoring the 10-year-old Web site for years, the pool incident did seem to play into the timing of the lawsuit.
“When they said something about our pretty, brown, young, innocent children and called them monkeys because they wanted to go swimming, that was enough,” Bilal said.
She may have been referring to this comment posted on Domelights: “Maybe the people who work for a living didn’t want to swim with a bunch of ghetto monkey faces.”
The lawsuit also highlights comments made on Domelights by the site’s founder and administrator, a sergeant in the Philadelphia police force who goes by the online handle “McQ.”
A statement from McQ that Mildenberg described as “racially abusive commentary” reads, “Blacks and other minorities frequently don’t have the resources that white people have. Consequently, blacks may not be able to keep their vehicles inspected, registered, and roadworthy.”
McQ is also listed as a defendant in the lawsuit. Asked why McQ bears responsibility for the racist remarks of his site’s anonymous commenters, Mildenberg said it was because “he started it.”
The person known as McQ did not respond to a request for comment, but posted a message on the site citing the lawsuit. McQ wrote that the suit may cause the Web site to be suspended, but added his statement was not an admission of wrongdoing.
“I categorically deny any wrongdoing on my part,” the message reads. “I did not make racist posts. I did not maintain the Web site on city time.”
Ideally, Mildenberg said, his clients would like to see the site shut down. Failing that, they want Philadelphia police officers to be prohibited from posting comments on the site, particularly during working hours.
The plaintiffs in the class-action suit also are seeking unspecified financial damages available under the Civil Rights Act for Philadelphia’s 2,300 African-American police officers, according to Mildenberg.
Shelley Smith, Philadelphia’s city solicitor, said. “The lawsuit is about a private Web site. It’s not a police department Web site. It’s not operated or overseen by the police department. The allegations against the city and police department are misplaced.”
With each step we take forward, we take three steps back. Our denial that there is a problem on our shores, insures we will continue to wage wars on distant ones in order to satisfy our blood lust to denigrate, destroy or kill people who are “different” from us. We’ve taken more than 200 years to fix this problem of racialism in America and we still haven’t gotten it right! Wake up America and FIX THIS!
UPDATE
I’m so sorry, I meant to say for every step forward we take five or six steps backwards. In what could only be called momentously stupid, it appears Philadelphia police have taken the story above to another level. I now know why Obama was asked about the Gates story, because his remarks, while headed in the right direction, will not be sought after to comment on what follows.
After the Guardian Civic League sued Domelights last week in federal court, several postings on the site attacked league president Rochelle Bilal.
One said she “deserves to be gang-raped.”
Bilal, a sworn officer who works in narcotics intelligence, has been assigned officers from the dignitary protection unit to guard her during the investigation.
Two uniformed officers accompanied Bilal Wednesday night at a meeting at Guardian Civic League headquarters.
The investigation is to “determine if the threat requires any further police action,” said Lt. Frank Vanore, a police spokesman.
Domelights, which is administered by a police sergeant, had been a public forum until this week, when access was restricted to registered users.
Last night, the site was disabled. A message posted by the site operator read: “Until further notice, all Domelights.com services (i.e. forums, galleries, blogs) have been suspended. Thank you. McQ”
While the site is commonly seen as a forum for police to discuss crime news and gossip, not all of its members are active-duty officers.
“If the person making the threat is identified, they will face the same action criminally” whether it’s an officer or a civilian, Vanore said.
Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey initiated the investigation, Vanore said. Bilal did not file a complaint.
Hats off to the Police Commissioner, for now, for taking the step to investigate this “threat” and let’s hope something comes of it. We have the best cyber law enforcement money can buy, so we can know to a 100% certainty, or at least that’s what Homeland Security tells us, who wrote the offending posts and from where. But this speaks to something I’ve said here all along, and which I picked up from a former police officer’s article that unless people in authority speak out against, AND punish officers who commit acts of violence or threaten acts of violence against citizens, nothing will change and the brutality will continue. There has to be zero tolerance towards police brutality, given the judicial system’s determination it did indeed occur. Police officers are not above the law, merely the enforcers of the law; their standard is no different from mine. Either obey it or face the consequences; it’s just that simple. It is NOT rocket science. I like how the city of Philadelphia blocked the offending message board from its computers in order to keep some people from posting on the forum while at work. The City should not be the editor of offensive comments by its employees against other employees. You can say whatever you want, but if it interferes with job place cohesion, not on my dime, seems to be the reasonable attitude of the city. I hope to post some of the more offensive comments here at some point if they can be found. Frankly I don’t care about racist remarks as long as they are not incediary, threatening violence as in the case of the ‘gang rape’ remark. Some sensitivities are a bit too hyper, in my opinion, but it appears the city of brotherly love is keeping a level head while dealing with a very un brotherly situation, and quite simply any inappropriate behaviour on the part of Philadelphia’s police should be dealt with severely and swiftly. I hope the police are listening.
Miscellany101's Weblog 