US Constitutional Issues – Page 24

Why Are Police Looking for Apologies?

What’s with the police union presidents in New York City, St. Louis and Cleveland? All are outraged by fairly tepid comments on the recent and controversial actions of their members, and all want apologies now, dammit. Let’s start with Cleveland.

TPM reports that the Cleveland police union has demanded that the Cleveland Browns football team apologize for a player who wore a T-shirt before last Sunday’s game protesting the police shootings of two black people. Here is the T-shirt:

That’s Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins wearing a shirt reading “Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford III” during pre-game warmups.

To refresh your memory, Rice was the 12 year old kid killed last month when a Cleveland police officer shot him when he mistook the boy’s toy gun for a real weapon. John Crawford, 22, was killed by police in August at a Cleveland area Wal-Mart while he was holding an air rifle. Crawford was shot while doing absolutely nothing illegal. He was not threatening anyone. He was on his phone in Walmart carrying an item that’s sold at the store. Cops showed up and shot him.

So, seeing the T-shirt, Cleveland Police Patrolman Union President Jeff Follmer reacted:

It’s pretty pathetic when athletes think they know the law…They should stick to what they know best on the field. The Cleveland Police protect and serve the Browns stadium and the Browns organization owes us an apology.

So, nice stadium ya got there. Be a shame if something happened to it. The Browns did not apologize.

On to St. Louis, where the police overreacted earlier this month after a few Rams players entered their stadium making the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture popular with protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. The St. Louis Police Association called the gesture “tasteless, offensive and inflammatory”, asked the Rams team for an apology, and called on the NFL to punish the players who ran on to the field using the “hands up” gesture.

And in New York City, the city’s Patrolman’s Benevolent Association (PBA) have been angered by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s reaction to the killing of Eric Garner. And NYC’s cops are now telling the Mayor to stay away from cop funerals. The PBA distributed a flier to members, blaring: “DON’T LET THEM INSULT YOUR SACRIFICE!” Cops were encouraged to sign and submit the “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver to ban what they see as a cop-bashing mayor from their funerals. The NYC mayor traditionally attends all funerals for fallen officers.

De Blasio basically said that he didn’t think the NYPD should be chokeholding its citizens to death, a matter that may require a seasoned NYC lawyer Mitchel Ashley or others to intervene for the families left behind. PBA President Patrick Lynch reacted by accusing the mayor of throwing cops “under the bus.”

De Blasio then went further, speaking about his 17-year-old mixed race son Dante:

We’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him…

That was too much, and PBA president Lynch replied: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

We have to teach our children, our sons and our daughters, no matter what they look like, to respect New York City police officers, teach them to comply with New York City police officers even if they think it’s unjust.

Three cities where cops use questionable tactics. Three cities where using those tactics caused controversial deaths. Three cities where the police are thin-skinned when their tactics are questioned.

These thin-skinned reactions seem totally natural, and consistent with a culture of “comply or die”.

And the police union presidents, by jumping on the comments of athletes and the NYC mayor, make a clear case against public-sector unions. They are not there to serve or protect the greater community, they are there to serve and protect their members, right or wrong. The presidents also are making the case that the police are not part of the community, but exist in a world above the community, since they deserve the community’s respect and legal immunity, regardless of their actions.

And it’s remarkable to see just how incredibly insular, tone-deaf and hyper-sensitive these police union presidents, and at least some of their rank and file, seem to be.

In Cleveland, the union president should be more concerned about the recently completed two-year Justice Department study that found the Cleveland police have a pattern of “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force”. Will different tactics emerge as the Cleveland police adapt to their consent decree?

We need to rein in our police. There is way too much “comply or else” out on the streets. We see weapons meant for warfare pointed at people trying to exercise the small shred of their free speech rights that remain. All of these cops who killed in these controversial cases have said that in the same circumstances, they would shoot/choke again.

Who should receive the apologies? Hint: it’s not the cops.

UPDATE:

The column above needs to be updated with the news that on Monday, the Supreme Court decided that our police don’t have to know the law when they stop or detain a citizen. The message is that ignorance of the law is not a barrier to policing. From Think Progress:

There is one simple concept that law students learn in their very first weeks of criminal law class: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. This principle means that when an individual violates the law, it doesn’t matter whether or not they knew what the law said. If it’s a crime, and they are found to have committed the elements of that crime, they are guilty.

But now, that rule doesn’t apply to the police. On Monday, the US Supreme Court in an 8-1 ruling, found that North Carolina cops who pulled over Nicholas Heien for a broken taillight were justified in a subsequent search of Heien’s car, even though the reason he was pulled over was not a violation of the law.

The case involved the 2009 arrest of Nicholas Heien near Dobson, North Carolina. Sgt. Matt Darisse pulled Heien over for having only one working brake light, then found a bag of cocaine while searching his vehicle and charged him with attempted drug trafficking. However, state law only requires motorists to have one brake light working at any time. Heien’s attorneys argued that this made Darisse’s search unlawful. They lost.

So, our Supremes failed to draw a line limiting the scope of police stops, at a time when they are rampant and racially disproportionate. Now, police have more leeway to stop passengers on the road, even in jurisdictions that had previously said cops are not justified when they make mistakes of law.

During the past weeks, we have heard a lot about Grand Jury procedure and the “latitude” our legal system affords police and prosecutors. That latitude apparently now includes their right to be ignorant, of our laws. That goes along with:

• Their latitude in discerning what may be a threat to their person.
• Their latitude in the use of fire-power.

Now, they have latitude not to know the laws they enforce.

Is Our System More Like Huxley, or Orwell?

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. – Judge Learned Hand

Yesterday was Human Rights Day. Maybe, with all that has happened to our human rights in post-9/11 America, it is a good time to look very carefully at the current spate of bad outcomes for people who draw attention from our police. One question is, who still believes in our system? Below is one answer that points to where we are:

Here is the poll question that produced the above response:

How much confidence do you have in police officers in your community to not use excessive force on suspects: A great deal, a fair amount, just some, or very little confidence?

Note that “no confidence” was not an option for your answer. One way to look at the poll is that it shows that our system is working exactly as it is intended to work. From Ian Welsh: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

If a police officer tells you to do anything, you do it immediately. If you do not, anything that happens to you, up to and including death, is your problem. The legal system exists today to ensure compliance.

And if you fail to do what is asked, the police will say, “He/she was non-compliant.” That is a way that this part of the American system performs as designed. It rewards compliance, it identifies those who will not obey laws, or who will fight or organize against the system, and then it works to push them down.

In our system, the wolves and the sheep self-identify, they know which group they belong to. If an injustice is committed, if people protest, the most aggressive protestors, even if not violent, are arrested. Our oligarchy is built on the idea that we must keep people from effectively resisting. More from Ian Welsh:

Any part of the population which is inclined to resist, must be taught that it cannot resist. Get out millions to demonstrate against the Iraq war: it will not work. Protest against police killings of African Americans, it will not work.

Occupy Wall Street? That didn’t work either. The system operates in two ways to repress and control people. America’s system has been 80% Huxley and 20% Orwell for decades, but now, the ratios are approaching 50/50. Let’s unpack the Orwell vs. Huxley worldviews: (h/t highexistence.com)

• Orwell feared the government would ban books.
• Huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban books, because no one would want to read them.
• Orwell feared the government would deprive us of information.
• Huxley feared they would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be invisible in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture.
So, we became the trivial culture that Huxley feared. Now, the powers that be are tilting to Orwell to nudge us toward a captive culture.

Huxley’s vision of how human nature or human aspirations could be manipulated for the purposes of the controlling elite rings true in the US. But, Orwell’s depiction of the controlling/interlocking elites of allegedly opposed factions (R’s vs. D’s, government vs. private sector, Wall Street vs. Main Street) is truer than ever before.

So, both are right. Orwell’s fear is already a reality in the East (North Korea, China, Iran) and Huxley’s fear is reality in the West (US, Scandinavia, UK).

Look at how easily the citizenry acquiesced to militarized police in Boston a couple of years ago. Tanks rolled down the streets and officers dressed like they were in Afghanistan demanded that people go inside their houses, for their “safety”. This “army” then searched for the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. This took place over a huge area—whole towns. Was this just the police testing their new toys? Or was it also something darker… like a test of how far the government can go with the Security State? It didn’t hurt that the people got to say they were “Boston Strong” and got the rest of the country to buy in to that.

Power and information are continua. The Orwellian vision tends towards power, while the Huxleyian view tends toward information. However, they are neither separate, nor divisible. Human history has always used deceit as a tool, backed by power, while the biggest bullies have tried to control things since prehistory.

Both manifest legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, wherein the government becomes the largest organized crime syndicate, controlled by the best organized criminals. Welcome to America.

These “crime syndicates” are destroying the foundations of our society, creating the twin near-religions of the State and the Corporation.

The system will not change until the people who want change have enough power to force change. But first, they have to open their eyes to what is happening: Ordinary citizens cannot change the system if the elites don’t agree with the changes the plebes want to make. If they try, they will be arrested or killed at the scene. This must change first.

After that, we can begin working to restore the fundamental systemic change that we brought about during the times of FDR through LBJ.

Ferguson Points to Our Real Problem

This is not a column about Ferguson, except by extension. In August, after Ferguson, the images of cops climbing out of armored vehicles with military-grade weapons caused some in both Houses of Congress to push for change in the program. Lawmakers vowed changes to the 1033 Pentagon program that provides military-grade equipment to local police. The Obama administration called for a policy review of the 1033 program, but on Monday, they backed away from substantive changes to the program.

There was a White House meeting on Monday to address the issues raised by military-style policing and Ferguson. Yet, the evidence shows that the meeting has changed nothing. This was The Guardian’s Monday headline:

Obama resists demands to curtail police militarization calling instead for improved officer training

Mr. Obama did call for a $263m, three-year spending which, if approved by Congress, could lead to the purchase of 50,000 lapel-mounted cameras to record police officers on the job.

Sounds good, but there are 765,000 state & local law enforcement officers in America, so you better hope that you are stopped by one of the 6.3% of local police officers that will have a federally-funded camera three years from now. Oh, and hope that the digital file of your brush with the law hasn’t been accidentally erased.

The Institute for Public Accuracy made comments from Peter Kraska available. Kraska is considered a leading expert on police militarization. He said yesterday: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

From my meeting at the White House, frankly, they — like most political players — were interested in a quick fix. They want to hear that by somehow tweaking the 1033 program (which transfers equipment from the Pentagon to local law enforcement) that they can have an impact. That program is important symbolically, but there’s an entire for-profit police militarization industry that wouldn’t be affected.

We also have to review the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant program which provides far more to local police than does the DOD. DHS grants are lucrative enough that many defense contractors are now turning their attention to police agencies — and some new companies focus solely on selling military-grade weaponry to police agencies who get those grants.

That means we’re now building a new industry whose sole function is to militarize domestic police departments. Which means it won’t be long before we see pro-militarization lobbying and pressure groups with lots of (mostly taxpayer) money to spend to fight just the reforms the Obama administration and some in Congress say are necessary.

Say hello to the military/police/industrial complex.

And why have we entered a time of “shoot first” in our cities? It must be because our police feel that their lives are more in danger than ever. Sorry, that isn’t supported by the facts: The number of law enforcement officers killed as a result of criminal acts:

2004: 57
2009: 48
2012: 49
2013: 27

So, if there are 765k in local law enforcement that equates to a 2013 death rate from criminals of 3 per hundred thousand per year. Also, 2013 incidents are equal to the lowest level since 1887. Yet, nationwide, America’s police kill roughly one person a day:

The Economist, August 2014

And evidence exists that this number is dramatically understated. The FB page, Killed by Police says the number of deaths at the hands of police as reported to them since their launch in May 2013, is 1450. In 1994, Congress instructed the DOJ to “acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers” and “publish an annual summary”. They have yet to do that. There are over 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the country, yet fewer than 900 report their shootings to the FBI.

Radley Balko in The WaPo concludes that militarization of police and their use of military-style force to suppress protests are bad mistakes. He quotes the Salt Lake City chief of police, Chris Burbank:

I just don’t like the riot gear…Some say not using it exposes my officers to a little bit more risk. That could be, but risk is part of the job. I’m just convinced that when we don riot gear, it says ‘throw rocks and bottles at us.’ It invites confrontation. Two-way communication and cooperation are what’s important. If one side overreacts, then it all falls apart.

We have bulked up America’s police. With DOD’s assistance, they developed units trained and equipped in military-style tactics. They demonstrate a consistent picture of organizations evolving from community-based law enforcement to security services whose primarily focus is maintaining public order. They see protests by minority or politically dissident elements as inherently illegitimate and potentially violent. The police can pretty much do whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want. And it’s gonna be your fault.

Order, not justice is the new goal of our police, a significant shift in emphasis. As such, displays of overwhelming force are considered a logical way to prevent organized protests from happening. If demonstrations occur in spite of police presence, then massive use of force is a logical way to quell its impact and prevent its re-occurrence.

Many things demonstrate the evolution in America of police from “Protect and Serve” to a quasi-military force. This creates an emotional distance from the communities they patrol. We see this most clearly in their casual use of force, often disproportionate to the situation, and with a near-total lack of accountability.

That is an ugly symptom of our Republic’s weakness. The crushing of the Occupy Movement’s camps and the militarized response to the Ferguson protests are the natural outcome of our new policing.

When the country was founded, there were no organized police departments, and there wouldn’t be for about 50 years. Public order was maintained through private means, in worst cases by calling up the militia. The Founders were quite wary of standing armies and the threat they could pose to liberty, but they concluded (reluctantly) that the country needed an army for national defense.

They feared the idea of troops patrolling city streets — a justified fear colored by the antagonism between British troops and residents of Boston in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

The Founders couldn’t have envisioned police as they exist today. It is probably safe to say they’d be appalled at the idea of police, dressed and armed like soldiers, breaking into private homes in the middle of the night, as happens on drug busts on most nights in America. Using militarized police to roust demonstrators would likely be appalling to them as well.

Let’s close with Radley Balko:

We got here by way of a number of political decisions and policies passed over 40 years. There was never a single law or policy that militarized our police departments — so there was never really a public debate over whether this was a good or bad thing.

It’s time to have that debate.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 2, 2014

When people decide not to vote because the parties are not different from each other, candidates with strong ideological commitments win. That elected person then tries to move the country in the direction of an ideology supported by a minority of voters.

For the past 20 years, that direction has been a death warrant for the American middle class. If you think that the middle class is really what made America “exceptional,” then those political leaders elected to implement and sustain a corporatist agenda have worked to destroy the American Dream, while they hypocritically endorsed and exploited it in order to get elected.

The US is in the middle of a course of corporate political imperialism that has savaged average Americans, while it enriched plutocrats. Wealth has been consolidated, the means-of-production have been concentrated in the hands of a few corporations, and big business has effectively purchased our governments, both state and federal. Mostly because not enough of us take the time to bone up on the issues, or to vote in the off-year elections.

Two things need to change: First, more people need to vote. Second, we must throw off our corporate political masters. As long as we have a situation where corporations have all of the rights, but none of the liabilities of the people, they always have a competitive advantage over the public.

For both your Halloween hangover and your pre-election headache:

Jeb Bush floats idea of continuing the family dynasty:

Ebola Volunteers are heroes and potential disease vectors. Some politicians can’t hold both thoughts:

Other epidemics caused by not voting:

Texas has apparently “solved” the voter fraud problem:

Texas GOP "encouraged" by reports of students & disabled citizens being denied right to vote http://t.co/lqlsbgOyJ1 pic.twitter.com/1acKK1r9Wh

— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) October 31, 2014

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 5, 2014

Our country is hated abroad, and frightened at home. We have reached a point where we could reasonably refer to the great American Republic in the past tense. We have edged into a post-constitutional era, no longer a nation of laws, but an autocracy run by law evaders and law ignorers, a culture in which corruption is no longer a form of deviance, but the norm.

We all live in a Mafia-run neighborhood:

By now, everyone knows about the evils of bankers and their Washington facilitators: Wall Street lobbies Congress for favorable deals, Congress then approves them at taxpayer expense. When things are this bad, the very structure of our society is threatened, and voters have to stress fundamentals over issues. We need to move beyond the divisive cultural issues, all the single issues, even critical things like the environment, war and peace, and the “economy”, and focus on structural issues. We have to leave the culture wars and even big political differences behind, and make alliances among voters–because right now, none of us are being heard.

Will White House security improve with new leadership?

However, a new threat jumped the fence:

For months, the Ebola outbreak was confined to West Africa, a region more than 8,000 miles away. But this week a patient was diagnosed with the deadly virus in Dallas, Texas, bringing Ebola hysteria right on home. We have heard typical reassurances from the CDC, while some politicians have engaged in fear-mongering. But, unless lots of Americans plan on exchanging bodily fluids with people who live or work in West Africa, we’ll be fine.

Politicians talk about terror and say: “we could all be killed”. They speak about Ebola and say: “we could all be killed”. Mothra could also come back, and you know the nation isn’t prepared for Mothra. Where will we get enough Raid? Do we have Godzilla’s cell number? OK Obama, what are we supposed to do?

Meanwhile, the actors in the Middle East continue to mis-hear each other:

And in HK, not only no hearing, there is no listening:

Is Secession From the USA a Possibility?

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sept. 19th, 23.9% of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away from the country. The poll had 8,952 respondents. About 53% of them strongly opposed or tended to oppose secession, slightly less than the percentage that kept Scotland in the UK.

The exact wording of the question asked was: “Do you support or oppose the idea of your state peacefully withdrawing from the United States of America and the federal government?”

The LA Times reported the results by region:

You can see the interactive results here. They can be filtered by age, region, income, party affiliation, etc. Any way you slice it, the data are startlingly clear: Almost a quarter of those surveyed said they were strongly or provisionally inclined to leave the US, and take their states with them. Given the size of the polling sample, the online survey’s credibility interval (digital for “margin of error”) was only 1.2%, so the poll seems to be an accurate representation of where the country stands.

Politically, conservatives and Republicans seem to like the idea of leaving more than Democrats. Among people who said they identified with the Tea Party, supporters of secession were in the majority, with 53%.

Secession got more support from Republicans than Democrats, more from right-than left-leaning independents, more from younger than older people, more from lower- than higher-income brackets, more from high school than college grads. In general, men were slightly more predisposed to secession than women. Those making $25,000 a year were 11 points more favorably disposed to rebellion than those making more than $150,000 a year. But there was a marginally higher level of support in every group, especially the Rocky Mountain States, the Southwest and the old Confederacy.

Fifty years ago, most Americans would have laughed at the idea of any state or region seceding, calling it the talk of a radical or a crackpot out of touch with reality. But, with Americans becoming increasingly frustrated by the protracted economic recovery, and by big government, they seem to be expressing an interest in returning to smaller jurisdictions. In the last year or so, we’ve seen:
• Actual secession votes in California and Colorado
• More than 125,700 Texans signed a secession petition
• Secession petitions were circulated in Maryland, Arizona, and Michigan
• Wisconsin Republicans came close to voting on a secession plan this spring

Had the poll first presented lists of “This is what you will no longer have from the Feds, and have to get along without, or pay for them yourself”, the vote might have been different. Consider, for example: the FAA, all those little City, County, State “Grants”, Court Systems, Law/Medical, and various Copyright, Food inspections, education grants/research etc. Who will pay for these things?

As in Scotland, the vote might have been different if the estimated increase in taxes and other payments to fund secession were included in the discussion.

For example, earlier this year the personal finance website WalletHub.com conducted a study of the amounts individual states are paying in federal taxes compared to the amounts they are receiving. WalletHub analyzed data from the IRS, the US Census Bureau, the US Commerce Department and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As it turns out, it is red states that are overwhelmingly the Welfare Queen States, with Mississippi scoring the first (worst) position with 45.8% of its funding coming from the federal government. Yes, that’s right. Red States — the ones governed by folks who think government is too big and spending needs to be cut — take in more federal spending than they pay out in federal taxes.

They talk a good game, but are sticking the Blue States with the bill. WalletHub’s research demonstrates that, as a rule, the states that are the most likely to rail against “big government” are the most likely to be benefiting from it.

Secession is not illegal, unilateral secession is. A state can secede with the approval of the Federal Government by means of Constitutional amendment. A state that wants to secede legally and peacefully has to convince not only their own population but the rest of the country as well.

Think about Arizona seceding. It would be surrounded by the country it had just left and the country it seemingly hates most (Mexico) with little hope of defending itself, educating itself or paying its own way. Plus, a large number of their citizens are on Social Security and Medicare from (gasp) the United States of America. Decidedly not smart.

The question is, what do these results mean for the country?

The US hardly seems on the verge of a successful secession movement. But the poll results scale up to represent 60 million unhappy people in America, who are willing to consider secession.

This should scream out to our leaders that we are susceptible to the sophistry of a demagogue, or to a serious political reform movement.

Friday Music Break – September 12, 2014

Today’s music break is a reflection on 9/11. It’s still hard to process those events, despite the millions of words written about the attacks. Musically speaking, it was a very creative time. But there were bad calls too. After the attack, a Clear Channel program director took it upon himself to identify a number of songs that certain markets or individuals may find insensitive: No less than 165 songs were purportedly banned, ranging from Peter Paul and Mary’s “Leaving on a Jet plane,” to Sugar Ray’s “Fly,” to REM’s “The End of the World as We Know It”, and all songs (!) by Rage Against the Machine.

The music created in the aftermath of 9/11 documents America reacting to our collective trauma. There is sentimentalism. Anger. Calls to arms. Revenge. This long after 9/11, you already know many of the tunes that, like in church, are played on each anniversary, and you know where to find them, they are not here today.

For the 13th anniversary, here are a few songs (and a short film by Woody Allen) that you may not have heard/seen as much that memorialize how we felt after the attacks.

Among the best songs produced after the attack is On That Day by Leonard Cohen from his 2004 album, Dear Heather. Cohen is simply “holding the fort” for a “wounded New York.” No pointing fingers, no aggression, its a healing number to get you started on your day of reflection:

Here is the key lyric:
Some people say
It’s what we deserve
For sins against god
For crimes in the world
I wouldn’t know
I’m just holding the fort
Since that day
They wounded New York

If there was nuanced reaction to 9/11, it was Springsteen’s 2002 album, The Rising. With “You’re Missing,” Springsteen translates the horror of 9/11 into raw pain:

Lyric:
Pictures on the nightstand, TV’s on in the den
Your house is waiting, your house is waiting
For you to walk in, for you to walk in
But you’re missing, when I shut out the lights
You’re missing, when I close my eyes
You’re missing, when I see the sun rise
You’re missing

Children are asking if it’s alright
Will you be in our arms tonight?

Next, from the British band James, here is Hey Ma. James’ lead singer Tim Booth sings, “Now the towers have fallen, so much dust in the air,” on this title track from the Brit-pop group’s 10th studio album. The song examines the price paid for revenge. Many of us felt a need to avenge the wrong that was done, perhaps by making “choices worse than the fall.” Some images are disturbing:

Next, Juliana Hatfield takes us through the early parts of the 5 stages of grief with her song, “Hole In The Sky”. This is a conversation by the artist and DJ George Bodarky on WFUV, Fordham radio,with her song mostly in background. Hatfield admits that she was terrified about going into New York City after the 9/11 tragedy. She was also too afraid to fly. She talks about creating some of the lines in the song as well:

Finally, a short film by Woody Allen made for the Concert For New York City, 2001. Watch it and laugh:

Best lines:
“I was mugged coming back from the Opera. They took my gas mask, my flashlight, all my Cipro™“.
(You may remember that Cipro™ was for the deeply paranoid who thought that there would be anthrax attacks)

Bebe Neuwirth: “I heard that Rudy Giuliani and Al Sharpton got a house together on Fire Island”

Thinking About the Slurry Wall on 9/11

It’s 13 years since that beautiful sky-blue September day when our world changed.

Consider the parallelism. Today, as we remember the terrorist attack 13 years ago, we begin another “war” against yet other group of Sunni terrorists. Mr. Obama, who was elected in 2008 to get us out of wars in the Middle East, has us on track to lead another “coalition of the willing” into the ME. The purpose of this crusade sounds depressingly familiar: To blunt the threat of another attack on the Homeland, despite little evidence that an attack is possible or imminent. And we do this because the people who face a direct ISIS threat can’t (or won’t) handle it for themselves.

The rise of ISIS is in part a consequence of US policy in the ME. Our war in Iraq and the subsequent 8 years of Iraqi internal political squabble have left many Sunnis in Iraq willing to support any challenge to the Shia central government. And now, 13 years after 9/11, we’re again strapping on our weapons and heading into war.

So today, let’s talk about the slurry wall at the World Trade Center. The Wrongologist took this photo in July, 2014 of the portion of the slurry wall that remains exposed in the Foundation Hall of the National September 11 Memorial Museum:

The slurry wall is the outer wall of what WTC engineers called the “Bathtub” in the 1960’s:

The bathtub is the 9-block area of the World Trade Center site that is excavated down to bedrock…and ringed by the slurry wall. The bathtub was created to enable the building of the Twin Towers’ foundations, and was ultimately filled with seven stories of basements housing the parking garage, mall, and building services.

Except that this bathtub kept water out of the 70’ deep basement. The ground water level at the WTC site is just a few feet below the surface, while bedrock is about 70 feet below the surface. Creating the bathtub required first building a 7-story dam below the water level of the adjacent Hudson River – that was the slurry wall.

After the 9/11 attack, the concern was that the slurry wall would fail. A breach in the wall and a flooding of the bathtub might have also flooded other adjacent below-grade structures, such as the PATH tunnels that passed through the bathtub. The NY subway, built below the PATH tubes could also have flooded with a breach of the wall.

On 9/11, most of the central portion of the wall’s south side (bordering Liberty Street) had moved inward by more than 10 inches. But, it held. According to the New York Times, George Tamaro, a former staff engineer at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who was closely involved with the construction of the trade center, believes: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

[The slurry wall construction]…may have helped prevent the Hudson River from flooding parts of Lower Manhattan

According to Tamaro’s report on the aftermath of the attack, the PATH tunnels in Jersey City, New Jersey, at the Exchange Place Station, were 5 feet lower in elevation than at the WTC PATH Station. Exchange Place became a sump for fire water, river water, and broken water mains discharging into the bathtub. But the slurry wall held.

Looking up at the exposed portion of the slurry wall in Foundation Hall, one can’t help but be thankful for the work of engineers and construction workers back in the sixties who built the bathtub, and the engineers and firefighters who stabilized the walls after 9/11. Since the attack, that unseen wall is now a symbol of the resilience of both New Yorkers and America.

But the world has spun off its normal axis since September 11, 2001. Isn’t it interesting that 9/11 was supposed to be about America striking back against a foreign enemy of freedom. Yet in the process of attempting to win the “War on Terror”, American citizens have given up a significant part of their personal freedoms. And just this month, we are starting to have a national discussion about how, since 9/11, the US Department of Homeland Security has transformed our local police into a paramilitary force. For example, the Los Angles School District Police got a MRAP (mine resistant vehicle) and 3 grenade launchers.

Schools need grenade launchers now? James Madison said in 1787:

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home…

Today, Americans own enormous numbers of weapons. Pew Research reports that the number of guns in the US is between 270 and 310 million, or roughly one for each of us. But, estimates are that about 37% of us actually own all the weapons.

So, today on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, we need to ask each other: What are we to make of a country in which:
• Local police are militarizing
• Citizens continue to arm themselves
• The federal government tramples on our Bill of Rights

Let’s think about what has been won and lost so far in the War on Terror. And let’s think about what remains of our social fabric. Is it as strong as that slurry wall? Will it hold when attacked? Do we still have that same problem-solving genius that built a slurry wall that was strong enough to survive attack?

Is America still built to last?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 24, 2014

Here at Casa Wrong, we see the end of summer coming. It’s a sad time most years, but not now. Today, August HAS TO DIE! Here’s why:

• Foley was beheaded
• Instead of “back to school”, this August it is “back to Iraq”
• Russia invades Ukraine, says it’s for humanitarian reasons
• The Ebola epidemic continues to grow
• The reason why a teen in Ferguson is dead remains unresolved
• Hamas and Israel seem willing to fight to the death
• We still don’t know who shot down the MH17 over Ukraine
• Mitch McConnell says he’s willing to shut down the government again

August brought home that every pillar that has supported international order is tottering, if not yet collapsing. That means the UN, NATO and a strong, unified America. The “what’s wrong” list could be much longer, but what would be the point? August must die. On to humor.

ISIS or IS or ISIL, it’s a cancer:

James Foley is the most recent in a long line:

And in Ferguson news, don’t shoot is everyone’s mantra:

In domestic ~~warfare~~ policing, mindset should be first, not last:

Mayor Daley, 1968: “The police are here to preserve disorder”:

Don’t you feel safer knowing she’s off the streets?

https://twitter.com/stevenjhsieh/status/501492139197759488

You can read about this 90 year old Ferguson demonstrator here

Friday Music Break – August 22, 2014

Continuing our national meditation on Ferguson, MO, Here are three songs about guns and state power:

First, “Guns of Brixton”, written by The Clash bassist Paul Simonon. The song pre-dates the riots that took place in 1981 and again in 1985 in Brixton, but the lyrics depict the feelings of discontent that were building due to the heavy-handedness of the police, and the recession at that time in England.

You can see The Clash perform this song all over the web. Here is the great Jimmy Cliff doing his take on their reggae-inflected song. Few remember that thirty years ago, the Clash were booed off the stage at Reggae Sunsplash in Jamaica.

The line we like:

When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
or on the trigger of your gun?

Next, here is Green Day doing “21 Guns”, an anti-gun, anti-war anthem from their eighth album, 21st Century Breakdown. The line we like is up first:

Do you know what’s worth fighting for?
When it’s not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away and you feel yourself suffocating?
Does the pain weigh out the pride?
And you look for a place to hide?

Finally, “Ohio” from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. It was released as a single in June of 1970, about a month after the May 4, 1970 shooting by the Ohio National Guard that killed 4 and wounded 9 students. In thirteen seconds, the guardsmen fired 67 rounds. If it hadn’t only been 3 years after the Newark NJ riot where the Guard killed 26, and if the Guard hadn’t killed white students at Kent State, we might not remember it today. Indeed, few remember that eleven days later, 2 more students were killed under similar circumstances at what was then Jackson State College in Jackson, MS, a historically black school.

Eight of the Ohio guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen claimed to have fired in self-defense. In 1974, the Judge dismissed charges against all eight on the basis that the prosecution’s case was too weak to warrant a trial. But we still remember: “4 dead in Ohio”.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: US Constitutional Issues