Civil Rights – Page 11 – The Wrongologist

Why Does The FBI Work For The Koch Brothers?

“If you have nothing to hide, it will still be found.”

Climate Progress referenced a story in the Canadian Press:

Unexpected visitors have been dropping in on anti-oil activists in the United States — knocking on doors, calling, texting, contacting family members. The visitors are federal agents.

Opponents of Canadian oil from tar sands say they’ve been contacted by FBI investigators regarding their involvement in protests that delayed northbound shipments of equipment to Canada’s oil sands. These protests have blocked highways in order to delay shipment of the equipment.

The FBI visits have been happening in Oregon, Washington State, and Idaho, and a lawyer working with the activists told the Canadian Press that he has advised them not to talk to the agents: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)

It’s always the same line [by the FBI]: ‘We’re not doing criminal investigations, you’re not accused of any crime. But we’re trying to learn more about the movement.’

Yet, the FBI told the Canadian Press that it doesn’t investigate political movements, but focuses on crimes. They quote FBI spokesperson, Ayn Dietrich:

The FBI has the authority to conduct an investigation when it has reasonable grounds to believe that an individual has engaged in criminal activity or is planning to do so…This authority is based on the illegal activity, not on the individual’s political views.

But the FBI made public in January 2014 that they had changed their mission statement. Instead of listing “law enforcement” as its “primary function,” as it has for years, the FBI fact sheet began to list “national security” as its chief mission. Foreign Policy reports:

Between 2001 and 2009, the FBI doubled the amount of agents dedicated to counterterrorism, according to a 2010 Inspector’s General report. That period coincided with a steady decline in the overall number of criminal cases investigated nationally and a steep decline in the number of white-collar crime investigations.

Back in 2000, the FBI sent prosecutors 10,000 cases. That fell to 3,500 cases by 2005. Foreign Policy reports on a 2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer investigation that the Justice Department did not replace 2,400 agents assigned to focus on counterterrorism in the years following 9/11. The reductions in white-collar crime investigations became obvious:

Had the FBI continued investigating financial crimes at the same rate as it had before the terror attacks, about 2,000 more white-collar criminals would be behind bars.

That explains why no executive in a “Too Big to Fail” bank went to jail after the 2008 economic meltdown.

Now, we have one serious issue. The FBI is essentially doing pre-emptive security work for a private corporation, and it’s a Canadian corporation at that. From Charlie Pierce:

The idea that your friendly neighborhood Fed is stopping by to “learn more about the movement” should be chilling for a number of reasons. The first is…the FBI has no business dropping in on citizens who have not committed a crime, nor are they suspected of having committed one, and especially not at the behest of a private multinational concern.

If Keystone were approved, it is likely that there would be demonstrations up and down the route of the pipeline, from northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. More from Pierce:

That the FBI is already gathering intelligence indicates that the Bureau knows this and is warming up for such eventualities. Names are going into a file…This never has worked out well in the area of political dissent in this country, and, given the fact that we now have a staggering network of covert domestic intelligence-gathering and a huge government law-enforcement apparatus, it’s unlikely to work out well in the future…

There is a name for what happens when the government’s law-enforcement powers are put at the direct convenience of private corporations. Fascism.

Here are a few questions: Is this just a little hippie punching by the Fed Coats?

Is the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover back, dresses and all?

Why do the Koch brothers’ corporations now justify FBI support?

The FBI owes the oil sands activists and the rest of America, a better explanation than, “Don’t worry. We’re not doing what all of you know we did in the past.”

Friday Music Break – February 6, 2015

Today we have music, but first, here is our latest Police State Watch: Vox reported that NY Police Commissioner Bill Bratton unveiled a new militarized police unit that will be trained and armed with heavy protective gear, long rifles, and machine guns to restrain terrorists and social justice protesters. Bratton explained the purpose of the unit, which will consist of 350 officers: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

It is designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris.

Our recent protests? He’s speaking of the reaction to the killing of Eric Garner, most of which was peaceful, if antagonistic to the NYPD. The nation watched in horror last August as police officers deployed tear gas, sound cannons, and armored vehicles against crowds that were peacefully marching and chanting on the streets of Ferguson Missouri. Many of these protests grew increasingly lawless, partly as a result of police responding with military-grade gear.

But there’s more. Here is what Mr. Bratton said at the time of Garner’s killing:

You must submit to arrest, you cannot resist…The place to argue your case is in the courts, not in the streets.

Now, it looks like he supports punishing people arguing a misdemeanor arrest or who are protesting a perceived injustice even more harshly for resisting arrest. Bratton told a hearing at the NY State Senate:

If you don’t want us to enforce something, don’t make it a law.

That’s just the opposite of how resisting-arrest cases work in NYC. Most cops bring in very few cases of people resisting arrest, while a few cops bring in most of them. New York’s Public Radio station, WNYC analyzed NYPD records and found 51,503 cases with resisting arrest charges since 2009. Just 5% of officers who made arrests during that period accounted for 40% of resisting arrest cases — and 15% account for 72% of such cases:

It seems that “resisting arrest” charges say more about the police than they do about the demonstrators or defendants, and making resisting arrest a felony won’t lower the number of arrests, it will just give more power to the police.

This means you take your life in your hands if you engage in public dissent in NYC. You could be facing a heavily armed small army. You are certainly facing possible prison time and a permanent criminal record for getting on the wrong side of the wrong cop.

Your freedoms, particularly your First Amendment right of assembly, is under attack by Mr. Bratton and others like him all across America. First, they say you cannot resist arrest. Second, they have a military-style army mobilized to make sure you are busted hard, and fast.

So, with all this talk about cops and arrests, here is Janis Joplin doing “Ball ‘n’ Chain” at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. This was Janis’ first large-scale public performance, and it was as a member of Big Brother and The Holding Company. At Monterey, she owned the song, the stage, the crowd, and the festival. Columbia Records signed Big Brother and The Holding Company on the basis of this performance. Here is a live performance for the ages of Big Momma Thornton’s song:

See you on Sunday.

Is The Waze App Killing Cops?

You may not have heard of, much less used, the mobile phone GPS app Waze. Waze is a free social GPS app that has turn-by-turn navigation to help drivers avoid traffic. That makes it just like a lot of other smart phone navigation apps. But Waze is different, since it’s also a community-driven application that draws information from other drivers. And it even learns from users’ driving times to provide routing and real-time traffic updates.

Developed by an Israeli start-up, Waze has gained a strong following worldwide. Over 50 million users globally use it. In June 2013, Google acquired Waze for $966 million. The charm is that it makes the auto industry’s dashboard navigation systems obsolete. While auto navigation systems offer beautiful graphics and larger screens, they have their faults. Aside from expensive prices, most of these systems require updating via pre-made DVDs, instead of the Internet. This is far less competitive than real-time updates by apps like Waze. In the case of Waze, the updates are crowd-sourced in near-real time.

One Waze advantage is that it lets users know where police are located along the driver’s route. That feature means that ~~our whiniest~~ the police are far from pleased with that feature of the Waze app. Waze users mark police, who are generally working in public spaces, on maps without much distinction other than “visible” or “hidden.” Users see a police icon, but it’s not immediately clear whether police are there for a speed trap, a sobriety check or a lunch break:

(This screen shot is illustrative, the police could be more than .2 miles away)

That might make you want to download the app right now. But there is trouble in paradise. DailyTECH reports that the Los Angeles PD’s Chief, Charlie Beck, is among a growing contingent of police officers nationwide who claim Waze and its new owner Google, are endangering officer safety by warning people of the location of police. To some in law enforcement, this feature makes Waze a stalking app for people who want to harm police; and they want Google to disable the feature. In a letter sent on Dec. 30, Chief Beck warns Google that the app: (Brackets by DailyTECH)

[The service’s information could be] misused by those with criminal intent to endanger police officers and the community…I am confident your company did not intend the Waze app to be a means to allow those who wish to commit crimes to use the unwitting Waze community as their lookouts for the location of police officers.

There are no known connections between any attack on police and Waze, although the Associated Press reported that Chief Beck said in his letter to Google, that Waze was used in the killing of two New York Police Department officers on Dec. 20. The fact is that Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s (the gunman) Instagram account included a screenshot from Waze along with other messages threatening police.

But, it was impossible for Brinsley to have used Waze to ambush the NYPD officers, since he tossed his cellphone away more than two miles from where he shot the officers.

This is not the first time law enforcement has raised concerns with these types of apps. In 2011, four US Senators asked Apple to remove all applications that alerted users to drunk driving checkpoints. The effort to disable Waze’s police function reminds us of when police tried to give tickets to people who would flash their headlights to warn oncoming drivers of speed traps. Last year, a Missouri Federal Judge decided that it violated the 1st Amendment free speech rights of the people ticketed.

The cop killer argument is hilariously wrong. You could simply look up the address of your local police station and drive nearby if your plan is to kill cops. The honest reason the police are against Waze is because it helps people avoid speeding tickets. You can’t take something that was used once by Ismaaiyl Brinsley and label it a “cop killer” app.

Google isn’t “helping” people break the law. It’s not against the law to tell someone where an officer is. People just want to know where those nasty speed traps are – it doesn’t have to be so complicated! But, if you are caught by one, you can at least be comforted by the thought that there is legal help available to you, should you find yourself facing repercussions.

We already live in a police state. They monitor us dozens of different ways, some of them unconstitutional, like the Stingray devices. But the second someone makes a video recording of an interaction with a cop, or uses an app that indicates their whereabouts, they get all indignant about their privacy and security.

Waze isn’t increasing the exposure of the police force to “cop killers”.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Although it was first observed in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. Day wasn’t recognized by all 50 states until 2000. It isn’t simply a day about the man; it’s a day about a Dream. MLK remains the hero of a certain generation of Americans for whom activism was a building block of their personal journey to adulthood.

In most ways, our nation has lost that sense of can-do, that all things are possible if you follow your Big Idea, because sadly, we no longer have people who can rally us to make Big Ideas happen. And isn’t it fascinating that the three men of the 20th Century who had big ideas and brought them to fruition, Gandhi, Mandela and Dr. King, all faced “it can’t be done” opposition, often violent, from the white power base in their countries. All three modeled non-violence for their followers, and all three lived to see their Big Dream become a reality in their own country.

Since it is Wake Up Monday, here are 3 songs that pay tribute to Dr. King, his ideals and his relentless drive for equality. It is important to remember that he was just 39 when he was killed.

First, “Glory” by Common and John Legend from the soundtrack of the current movie “Selma”:

50 years later, we are far from completely erasing our race-related issues, except on TV, where all day, every day, commercials show people of all races having fun together while shopping for fast food.

Let’s work together to make it a reality outside of TV before too many more MLK days come and go.

Next, U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)“. From their 1984 album, “The Unforgettable Fire”:

If listeners have any doubt that Martin Luther King Jr. is the subject of the song, these lyrics drive the point home:

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride.

But, MLK’s assassination took place in the early evening, rather than the early morning. That didn’t matter, everyone loves the song, and the Edge’s guitar at the start is one of the most recognizable riffs of the 1980’s.

Finally, the Wrongologist’s favorite MLK song, “Southern” by OMD from their album “The Pacific Age“. On April 3, 1968, in Memphis, King delivered his last speech, which we now know as his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech. He was assassinated the next day. OMD samples some of the content of that speech for their song “Southern”:

Although everyone knows the “I’ve been to the mountaintop” part of the speech, Wrongo thinks our focus should be on the following:

I want young men and young women, who are not alive today
But who will come into this world, with new privileges
And new opportunities
I want them to know and see that these new privileges and opportunities
Did not come without somebody suffering and sacrificing
For freedom is never given to anybody

Why should we focus on that part of the speech? Because one day down the road, and it will not be long, young people will have forgotten what MLK meant to America, and how whatever remains of their rights came to be.

They won’t know anything about the intellectual foundations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Or, how the 13th Amendment ending slavery came about, and why, 100 years later in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, or how 48 years later, in June, 2013, the Roberts Court eviscerated it.

So, today, teach a child about why MLK is important.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 18, 2014

With the media and the political parties now shifting their focus to 2016, once again, the Democrats need to remember how badly they have been shellacked under the Obama presidency. The WaPo reports that Republicans have gained more than 900 state legislature seats since 2010. Here is the sorry record:

Mr. Obama now holds the record for “worst coattails” by a modern president, eclipsing even Nixon. There are more than 7,000 state legislative seats in the USA, so the Democratic losses between 2010 and 2014 amount to 12% of all state legislative seats nationwide.

Republicans now control more than 4,100 seats, their highest number since 1920. After taking over 11 legislative chambers from Democrats in 2014, Republicans now control 30 state legislatures completely, and have full control of state governments (legislatures and governorship) in 23 states.

Democrats, by contrast, have full control of 11 state legislatures and total control of state government in just seven states. This isn’t just Obama’s fault, Democrats have focused almost exclusively on the winning the Electoral College since Mr. Clinton left office. Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy is long dead. This loss of state legislatures owes much to the spectacular failure of Democrat’s leadership. Democrats should throw out their entire leadership team and start over. Why would any candidate want to brand themselves with the organizations run by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and whoever it was that said Democratic candidates should run content-free campaigns in 2014?

How bad is this? Remember that policy is made first at the state level. With Republicans in control of so many state governments, the policy track record for their side will be vastly superior to what Democrats can do at the state and local levels. Also, State legislatures and governors redraw congressional lines. In most states, how the nation’s 435 House districts will look after the 2020 Census will be determined by governors and state legislators. Republican legislators are more likely to draw lines that are friendly to their side. Unless Democrats can reverse their state House and Senate losses before the 2021 redraw, Republicans will control the House for a very, very long time. Finally, State legislatures are the minor leagues of politics. Most politicians − President Obama included − who go on to great things, hone their craft in the state legislature of their home state. The Republicans’ farm system is now significantly larger than that of Democrats.

So begins the Republican’s discussion about 2016:

Mitt’s lessons learned in 2012:

GOP opens the 114th Congress with an anti-immigration statement:

Mr. Obama should have bought a clue:

The GOP has an impossible task ahead in certain states:

Tomorrow is MLK Jr. Day. There have been gains and losses since his death, but some things are unchanged:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 11, 2015

This was a week when cartoonists and free speech came under assault. The cartoonists died. Free speech will survive. From cartoonist Tom Toles, whose work appears here often:

The one response I saw to the Paris murders that I didn’t care for is that they were killed for ‘just cartoons.’ The event proves the opposite. Amidst the floodtide of ‘content’ that contemporary communications are generating, it was precisely the cartoons that stood out as having so much power that someone felt they needed to be silenced. They still have that kind of power.

Free speech is the single most important aspect of what makes a “free society” free. As a free society, we can debate what is a wise use of our free speech rights. But, we have just been reminded in the most terrible terms, how important and vulnerable it can be. Cartoonist David Horsey, whose work also appears here often, (including today) said this week:

Not only can freedom not exist without truth tellers, freedom cannot exist without obnoxious expressions of opinion, no matter who is offended.

Ted Rall, a cartoonist who also appears here occasionally, said this on his blog:

There could never be a mass shooting of staff political cartoonists in the United States, because American newspapers and magazines have fired almost all of them.

He estimates that today, there are only 30 or so cartoonists employed full-time by American newspapers and magazines. The declining number of cartoonists has made curating Sunday cartoons for this blog more difficult over the years.

How do we move forward? The Wrongologist does not usually quote any Catholic Pope, but this from Paul VI seems appropriate today:

“If you want peace, work for Justice”

What does that mean in practical terms today?

• Work toward achieving economic equality everywhere
• Include the topics “Understanding Cultures” and “Promoting Cultural Integration” in school curriculums. This could help reduce fear of “The Other”, a common human trait
• Encourage moderate Muslims living in the West to root out the extremists among them
• Ask Muslim countries to do more than to offer condolences to France

On to cartoons. If you stop cartooning, the terrorists win:

Their real motivator wasn’t Allah:

In other news, we had a semi-favorable jobs report:

Republicans took over the Congress:

The NYPD continued their soft coup:

NYPD Job Action continued:

NYPD Should Remember They Work for the Taxpayers

You should have cut the NYPD some slack when the two police were killed in the line of duty. Here is what the Wrongologist said on 12/22:

The harsh reaction that blamed Mayor de Blasio and the Eric Garner and Ferguson demonstrators should be viewed through a lens of that tragedy. The statements made by the PBA, and Commissioner Bratton were over the top, but under the circumstances, we can let go of them.

Fast forward to this week, when a large number of New York’s ~~Finest~~ Most Entitled once again turned their backs on Mayor de Blasio at the funeral service for Officer Wenjian Liu. From the Atlantic: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

The show of disrespect came outside the funeral…[of a man] remembered as an incarnation of the American dream: a man who had immigrated at age 12 and devoted himself to helping others in his adopted country. The gesture, among officers watching the mayor’s speech on a screen, added to tensions between the mayor and rank-and-file police…

This came after Commissioner William Bratton asked them not to stage a repeat of their actions at Officer Rafael Ramos’s funeral. His request:

I issue no mandates, and I make no threats of discipline, but I remind you that when you don the uniform of this department, you are bound by the tradition, honor and decency that go with it.

Finally, the New York Times reported that ticket issuance by police in this city of 8.4 million was down by 90% last week:

Most precincts’ weekly tallies for criminal infractions — typically about 4,000 a week citywide — were close to zero.

And, New York continued to function normally, with people going about their business, seemingly secure on sidewalk, street, public transit and in their homes. So, let’s see:

• The NYPD disrespects the mayor.
• They do so for a second time even after a request not to do so by their Police Commissioner.
• They engage in a job action that, in some parts of the city, meant that no tickets were issued.

It’s now time for the NYPD to give some slack to the rest of us. Aren’t the police supposed to answer to someone? It appears that the more vocal among them think they answer only to themselves. And don’t say anything critical of the police, or anything bad that happens is our fault.

We know that they have a tough job, and that they have worked without a contract for more than a year, but they are quickly losing public support, given their current attitude.

When people can’t criticize the police, you have a police state.

And this isn’t the first time the NYPD has had issues with a NYC Mayor. In the early 1970s, Mayor John Lindsay had similar issues with the NY police unions. The NYT, in an editorial reviewed what de Blasio has done wrong:

1. He campaigned on ending the unconstitutional use of “stop-and-frisk” tactics, which victimized hundreds of thousands of innocent young Black and Latino men.
2. He called for creating an inspector general for the department and ending racial profiling.
3. After Eric Garner was killed on Staten Island, he convened a meeting with the police commissioner, William Bratton, and the Rev. Al Sharpton. He gave Sharpton greater prominence than the NYPD thought he should have.
4. He said after the Garner killing that he had told his biracial son, Dante, to “take special care” in encounters with the police.
5. He generally condoned the peaceful protests for police reform — while condemning those who incited or committed violence — and cited a tagline of the movement: “Black lives matter.”

Mayor de Blasio was elected by a wide margin (he got 74% of the vote) by, among other things, promising to reform the policing excesses that had been found unconstitutional by a federal court. He hired Mr. Bratton, who had achieved with the Los Angeles Police Department what now needs doing in New York.

The NYPD can’t stand behind the bad behavior on the part of some of their fellow officers. The “blood on his hands” rhetoric against Mayor de Blasio sounds like something the NYPD union leaders have learned from watching the Republican Party: Predict that a politician will fail, then do everything in your power to make it happen.

The NYPD has a unique responsibility. They don’t work for a private company, they work for the residents of New York City; NOT for their union, or their fraternity. If they fail to provide that service, they cheat the taxpayers. New Yorkers pay the NYPD salaries. They pay them to ensure the security of all New Yorkers.

But, the NYPD didn’t just pull the slowdown on the Mayor, they pulled it on the taxpayers. Could it be that the city has been wasting a significant amount of the nearly $5 billion it spends annually on its over 34,000 uniformed cops?

In the words of the NYT, what New Yorkers have a right to expect of the NY Police Department is simple:

1. Do your jobs.
2. Don’t violate the Constitution.
3. Don’t kill unarmed people.

Two Police Killings, Two Different Reactions

A few more words about the killing of two NYPD officers. It was and is a tragedy. No one should think otherwise. The harsh reaction that blamed Mayor de Blasio and the Eric Garner and Ferguson demonstrators should be viewed through a lens of that tragedy, The statements made by the PBA, and Commissioner Bratton were over the top, but under the circumstances, we can let go of them.

It was different with the professional politicians. On Sunday, Ray Kelly, who was the police commissioner during the Bloomberg administration, said that in his view (and in the view of many officers), that Mr. de Blasio ran on an “anti-police” platform.

He wasn’t alone. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani attributed the killings to the protests that broke out across the city following a grand jury’s failure to indict a police officer for killing Eric Garner. But Rudy being Rudy, went over the top on Fox News on Sunday:

We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police.

OK, that makes the killings Obama’s fault. Then, it was Ex NY Governor George Pataki (R) who weighed in, blaming de Blasio and Attorney General Eric Holder for inciting the kind of anti-police fervor that led to the murders:

Sickened by these barbaric acts, which sadly are a predictable outcome of divisive anti-cop rhetoric of #ericholder & #mayordeblasio. #NYPD

— George E. Pataki (@GovernorPataki) December 21, 2014

(For those who receive this blog in email via FeedBurner, the tweet will not display properly. Pataki said):

Sickened by these barbaric acts, which sadly are a predictable outcome of divisive anti-cop rhetoric of #ericholder & #mayordeblasio. #NYPD

This, just days after Pataki said that he was thinking of running for President in 2016. Pataki seizes an issue and runs (literally) with it.

Yet, de Blasio said on the night of the killings, while standing next to Commissioner Bratton:

It is an attack on all of us; it’s an attack on everything we hold dear.

Isn’t it interesting how the shooting of two NYC cops became politicized, not just in NYC but throughout the country. Bratton blamed, in a roundabout way, the protests and so it goes. All of these guys looking for political advantage on Sunday. Then, on Monday, the headline in NYT said:

Officers’ Killer, Adrift and Ill, Had a Plan

Ismaaiyl Brinsley was a gang member who spent time in jail, who hated cops, who shot his girlfriend before he took the bus to NYC. He necessitates shutting down demonstrations, suggesting we recall the mayor, and blaming the White House.

Yet, in Pennsylvania, in September, Eric Frein, a white guy kills one cop and wounds another. But that story isn’t about how we should end marches and protests, or play the political blame game. He was just a loner with authority issues. This is typical of the coverage of the PA killing: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Police have not spoken about a possible motive for the crime, other than that Eric Frein has talked and written about hating law enforcement. Authorities have said a review of a computer hard drive used by Frein shows that he had planned the attack for years.

NO motive?? The same story says that Frein claimed to have fought with Serbians in Africa. That he was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted fugitives list. And that when they found him, he had two fully functional pipe bombs.

Clearly, Ismaaiyl Brinsley was the real threat to democracy, not Eric Frein. Two guys, two different plans, two different attacks on police, and two different reactions by the police and Republican pundits.

No surprise here.

Let’s move on to more music for the season with something to make us forget that the America we knew is disintegrating in front of us.

Here is an old Irish song that dates from the 12th century, “The Wexford Carol”. Take a listen to the melody and beautiful words. This version has Allison Krauss performing along with Yo Yo Ma. That’s the amazing Natalie MacMaster backing them on the fiddle:

First verse:
Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His belovèd Son.

Monday Wake Up Call – December 22, 2014

RE: Sony. The twist in this case is the trope that North Korea is suppressing our Freedom of Speech. And, the suppressed “Freedom of Speech” is a shitty Hollywood movie. So the public is getting spun about an invisible, but somehow tangible, “attack” on our freedoms. The Wrongologist has no skills to determine who hacked Sony, but when the mainstream media jumps on something with both feet, you know it supports SOME government theme.

Is the plan to convince the American people that there are “threats” everywhere and that only the State Security Apparatus can protect them from Evil? The usual pun-holes on the Sunday tube talked about how big the threat is, and how vulnerable we are.

America has become a Factory of Fear. Fear the Muslims, fear Putin, fear China, fear immigrants, fear criminals, fear the national debt, fear detente with Cuba. Trouble is, once again, the only thing we’re being urged to do is muster up the courage to go shopping. Authoritarians need their subjects to be afraid. Their bet is that people will submit to bullying if they believe that the bullies are the only thing standing between them and their terrors.

Things have to change. Killing brown people for peace is not working. Our empire is bankrupting us, and has not made us any safer. Unfortunately in the US, our domestic politics, plus our failures in military adventurism, have created ever greater violence and lunacy, further feeding the rolling disaster.

As an example, take New York City. Two police were killed in their patrol car. NY’s Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the police union, reacts by declaring that the NYPD has “become a ‘wartime’ police department, and we will act accordingly.”
Wartime, really? Are these the union’s marching orders to the 35,000 armed members of the biggest police department in the US? The NYPD seems to be asserting their superiority to the NYC executive branch. This has the earmarks of an attempted coup.

As a former military, the Wrongologist respects the absolute need for a chain of command with an elected civilian at the top. As a former military, he knows that many in the military only respect the authority of civilian leadership if the civilian happens to be a conservative.

The NYPD seems to be ready to strike out at their civilian leadership because they have deemed it to be unworthy of leading their “honorable” police force. Their attitude of superiority should scare the living daylights out of all of us. This attitude is not amenable to any evidence to the contrary, or to self-reflection and examination. It will brook no doubts about the moral purity of the NYC police.

This seems to be coming to a head, and seems that it will only get uglier.

Monday’s Wake Up Music: On a much lighter note, some seasonal music. Here are the Capitol Steps with a seasonal song about Guantanamo:

Next, a semi-seasonal tune by The Firemen. Sounds obscure? It is. The Firemen are a duo of Paul McCartney and Martin Glover, who performs as Youth. There are some doubts about whether or not “Dance ‘til We’re High” is a real Christmas song, even though it has lyrics about “winter coming”, “snow falling”, “bells ringing out” and a catchy tune. But, it’s way better than McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”:

Your Monday Linkage:
Tanks that won’t go away. The CRomnibus funding bill includes $554 billion for defense spending. This lines up almost exactly with President Obama’s original request, but Congress made considerable changes to where this money is being spent. According to analysis by Defense News, 10% of the FY15 defense appropriations budget—and 30% of all line items—were changed in the logrolling process. The biggest ticket items include $120 million more for M-1 Abrams tanks, despite Army protestations (for the third straight year) that no additional tanks are needed.

Oops. On July 3, Homeland Security, which plays a key role in responding to cyber-attacks, replied to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about a malware attack on Google called “Operation Aurora.” Unfortunately, DHS officials made a grave error in their response. DHS released more than 800 pages of documents related not to Operation Aurora but rather to the Aurora Project, a 2007 research effort demonstrating how easy it was to hack into US power and water systems.

Ars Technica calls the Sony hack a “software pipe bomb.” Analysis by Cisco of a malware sample matching the signature of the malware that was used in the attack on Sony Pictures, reveals that the code was full of bugs and was anything but sophisticated.

Our frequent commenter, Terry McKenna, has a great post about Cuba and our Constitution. Go read it.

Bill O’Reilly said this on his show:

It’s easier to believe in a benevolent God — the baby Jesus — than it is in some kind of theory about global warming. It’s just easier, is it not?

O’Reilly was making the point that literal belief in the story of the virgin birth as it appears in the gospels is easy, while believing that burning fossil fuels causes climate change is hard. Another way of putting this is that O’Reilly thinks it is easier to believe that a woman can be impregnated without sperm than it is to believe the consensus of the scientific community on an issue he apparently doesn’t understand.

America: Fearful and Dysfunctional

It didn’t take long for America’s pollsters to get feedback about the CIA’s torture program. Pew interviewed 1001 people from December 11-14. 500 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 501 were interviewed on a cell phone. About a third each were Republicans, Democrats and Independents. The results are surprising:

• 51% of the public think the CIA methods were justified.
• 56% believe that torture provided intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks.

Here are the top line results:

So, according to a bare majority of the American people, torture is justified, and it works.

Before 9/11, most Americans were against torture. Yet here we are. The drumbeat of propaganda and our deep need to justify what America does (America is good, therefore America does not do evil), has coarsened the country.

And the public is less concerned about the methods used by the CIA, and way more about the Senate committee’s decision to release the report: As many call the decision to publicly release the findings the wrong decision (43%) as the right decision (42%).

A large majority of Republicans (76%) say the interrogation methods used by the CIA after 9/11 were justified. Democrats are divided – 37% say the methods were justified, while 46% disagree. About twice as many liberal Democrats (65%) as conservative and moderate Democrats (32%) say the CIA’s interrogation techniques were not justified.

Young people also are divided over the CIA’s post-9/11 methods: 44% of those under 30 say that the torture methods were justified, while 36% disagree. Among those 50 and older, 60% think the methods were justified. The over 65 group had the highest agreement at 62%. You can review the detailed survey results here.

While we could quibble about the form of the questions asked, every demographic had at least a plurality in favor of torture: men and women, young and old, white and non-white. The exception was Democrats, who did not believe that torture was justified, although they believed it was helpful.

• 65% of liberal Democrats said torture was not justified
• 25% said torture was justified

The opinions of conservative and moderate Democrats were much different: 48% say the CIA interrogations were justified compared with 32% who say they were not.

What does this say about America?

The physical damage done on 9/11 was nothing compared to the psychological damage to the US population. It has seemingly unleashed a latent fascism. We got nuked emotionally, we haven’t recovered, and we may never recover.

We are propagandized to an incredible degree. While people must ultimately take responsibility for their own opinions and actions, the media industry is bent on shaping perception and they are very good at it. Think television isn’t influential? Last night, the Wrongologist’s local TV news covered the hostage situation in Sydney, Australia. But the facts were used only as a jumping off point: The vast majority of the talking head’s time was spent quoting people from the DC security apparatus regarding how such attacks could happen here, how such attacks mean that we should to be hyper vigilant. This continual spinning up of average American’s fears about terror creates a response that isn’t easily calmed.

In post 9/11 America, our politicians have decided that the ends justify the means. They understand that instilling fear pays dividends politically. Their message to the people is that “any means necessary” is acceptable in order to keep us safe. At first, it was the gradual erosion of free speech and habeas corpus. Then, the “collect everything” mode of the NSA.

Now, for the majority of Americans, its “OK, torture if you have to, just keep me safe.”

Those people who think torture is justified are good people who have lost their moral compass, or whose compass points only in a bad direction. This is the dark side of moral relativity: the greater good can lead to terrible outcomes like torture. People do bad things all the time, particularly when they think the good produced outweighs the bad. If a few people’s suffering creates enough “good” (for the rest of us) and that good outweighs the suffering of the few, then, we guess that we should have no issue with it. Thus, torture is now acceptable to the majority of Americans.

And when you look closely at the Pew numbers, although “only” 51% think torture is justified, 20% didn’t have an opinion, so only 29% really think torture is wrong.

Ain’t that America: Fearful, and Dysfunctional.

Smell that American Exceptionalism!

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Civil Rights