{"id":78852,"date":"2014-08-16T05:54:50","date_gmt":"2014-08-16T09:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=78852"},"modified":"2014-08-17T02:32:36","modified_gmt":"2014-08-17T06:32:36","slug":"breaking-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/breaking-through\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Through"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Something quite unique happened this week, although it came with tears and sorrow, with anger and determination. The smoke cleared away to wisps; news agencies attempted a thoughtful response to difficult stories, and we — haltingly, but surely — began to tell the truth to one another about some core issues that have goaded, driven and all but immobilized us for years. <\/p>\n

\"PoliticalFor instance, we followed the dots of the tragic suicide of Robin Williams to an urgent need to not only discuss burgeoning problems of depression, but to raise our voices in a call to adequately fund services for an America struggling with mental health challenges. It wasn’t just his personal loss that touched us, it was our collective loss that motivated us. As if something loosened the strictures that kept us mum, we seemed to find our voice.<\/p>\n

TV news buzzed with a level of candor that startled the casual viewer, and web sites provided details to news bites the editors seemed to think we’d already chewed, swallowed and assimilated. Although it took more than a decade to achieve, it feels as if, with Hundredth Monkey agility, the collective mind has turned a page without even knowing it. We are suddenly able to track the mission creep of genocide relief in Iraq to strafing in protection of Kurdish oil reserves without impaling ourselves on the razor-sharp edges of our fractured American mythology. <\/p>\n

Without a blink or a stumble, we can openly examine Hillary Clinton’s\u00a0hawkish inclinations<\/a>, including her coziness with both Israel and Wall Street. We can name the death of a Two Star General in Afghanistan a hollow and\u00a0meaningless finale<\/a>\u00a0to a ruinous and disastrous war; we can even rethink the possibility that spying does not keep us safer but instead\u00a0threatens our freedom<\/a>. And don’t look now, but it appears that we’re also talking candidly among ourselves about the growing problem of police brutality and racism in America.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

About two hundred miles north-east of the Pea Patch — in a state that is red in the rural areas, blue in the cities and deeply polarized along racial lines — we have finally tipped the national conversation about innate racism and authoritarianism to include the growing, worrisome militarization of America’s police force. First noticed by many of us in the massive display of\u00a0military equipment<\/a>\u00a0— some 4 billion dollars worth in these last years — moving through neighborhood streets\u00a0after the Boston Marathon bombing, this is recycled Pentagon equipment that has made its way into small communities around the nation. This seems to have exacerbated the use of\u00a0<\/strong>excessive force, rather than forestalling the need for it. The war machinery and self-protective nationalism of the Pluto in Cancer generation have finally come to look as tired and overdone as the latest Arnie and Sly presentation in movie theatres, “Expendables 3.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps it took a little town of just over 21,000 — not a big one like New York, where the choke-hold death of another out-sized but gentle soul, Eric Gamer, is still being discussed, protested and remains unresolved — to capture the sense of how fragile the lines of trust between community and police authority have become. I suspect that isn’t helped by the feeling, not just nationwide but worldwide, that government can no longer be trusted to serve public good, let alone protect the individual. Especially if that individual is not white or rich or somehow privileged.<\/p>\n

I’m thrilled that this situation has come to the public eye. We have lost too many of our citizens to the mindless machinery of authoritarian police departments in the last decade. I have (cyber)files stuffed with years of examples of excessive force and take-no-prisoners mentality, illuminating the ‘dangerous world’ rhetoric that has infected our national consciousness since 9\/11, and illustrating a deep need for a return to the Serve And Protect policies that encouraged police personnel in the use of problem solving techniques rather than force. Since we declared a bogus war on drugs, and especially since the privatization of the prison system, we have accustomed ourselves to the routine death and incarceration of young men of color, the unqualified use of stun guns to control children, old people and pregnant mothers, and a growing “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality from those in authority.<\/p>\n

Now that failure to confront the steady erosion of civil liberties has come home to roost, showing us just how far we’ve slipped from an earlier period of functional civility and rule of law. Listen to ex-police chief Robert McNamara as\u00a0quoted by Digby<\/a>: “The need to give our officers what they require to protect themselves and us has to be balanced against the fact that the fundamental duty of the police is to protect human life and that law officers are only justified in taking a life as a last resort.” How long has it been since you’ve heard something so benign and service-oriented?<\/p>\n

Now, compare that to the ham-handed press conference given by Ferguson’s police chief\u00a0on Thursday, when he stammered, “… considering the chaos, I’m just glad nobody got seriously hurt.” Really?\u00a0Tell that to the parents of Michael Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old who was to begin college the day after his — some would say — murder. Tell it to the witnesses who were not questioned by police for days, and have only recently been considered credible\u00a0as news coverage has painted a picture of police overreach, militarized zealousness and cover-yer-ass stonewall that includes throwing journalists (for Washington and Huffington Posts) into a cell, later releasing them uncharged.<\/p>\n

I’ll give CNN kudos. They’ve reported the level of confrontation by the police force in Ferguson as “unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans.” Even old establishment lackey Wolf Blitzer asked, “Why can’t they shoot to injure? Why do they shoot to kill?” Jeffrey Toobin, legal eagle and SCOTUS reporter, assured Blitzer that cops are taught never to fire a warning shot, but are instead directed to shoot to kill. That’s if you’re leveling a gun at someone, of course, which should never have happened in Ferguson if you listen to a number of\u00a0military veterans<\/a>\u00a0who think protesters shouldn’t have been confronted by SWAT teams, having judged the local forces untrained and more heavily armed and outfitted than they were themselves, when at war. Since the duty of the police force is to defuse confrontations before they take place, said Toobin, officers in cammies and tactical gear using stun guns, tear gas, and rubber bullets against (reportedly) peaceful protesters have not created solutions, but instead poisoned the water, perhaps permanently, between the police force and the community it serves. Those sentiments were confirmed\u00a0on\u00a0Thursday\u00a0by a visit from Senator Claire McCaskill, who called for immediate change in police policy.<\/p>\n

Although we’re talking about a small town in a bucolic state with only three large population centers, Ferguson is suburb of the racially divided St. Louis metro area. While Ferguson is not a hotspot of race-baiting and inner city crime, St. Louis county has been outfitted\u00a0to handle crime with the\u00a0machinery of war<\/a>\u00a0(for pennies on the dollar.) Local forces possess the equipment, if not the training or the wisdom to use such power at will these days. And if you watch the press conferences given by the Ferguson sheriff, you’d more likely think him bumbling Barnie Fife than easy-going Andy Taylor, but still, cut from that same small town cloth. You’d be wrong.<\/p>\n

OK, I just intimated that the Ferguson police force is the knee-jerk, half-assed agency you supposed it was, but I can feel justified from all that transpired after the overwhelmed Sheriff called for help from the county mounties. That was when the mundane shooting of a black kid — the kind of thing overlooked by the\u00a0press for decades — took on a level of military action, albeit small, that included lines of men in tactical gear, shielded and Kevlared, pointing assault rifles at protesting citizens,\u00a0chanting with their hands up. Among them have been found the mayor of nearby St. Louis, the former mayor (a lawyer who initially represented family in the possible ‘wrongful death’ of the young man at the heart of this drama,) a state senator and a St. Louis alderman, all of whom fault the police for excessive threat and provocative behavior. Even Elizabeth Warren, looking on, felt the need to chide Ferguson leadership that “This is America, not a war zone.”<\/p>\n

As of\u00a0Thursday, (our Democratic) Missouri Governor, Jay Nixon — with whom I’m at odds on his rigorous death penalty policy and vacuous Blue Dog sensibilities — has put the situation into the hands of the State Highway Patrol, which will be directing security issues. Their representative is a savvy and sensitive black man, who spoke of calm and reconciliation today, but he will find himself fighting an uphill battle against racial stereotyping. Nixon talked about letting the facts come out, resting on results of the autopsy and toxicology reports. Can we agree that until today those reports weren’t needed to justify a cop’s quick trigger finger?<\/p>\n

Those who are taking their best shot at intervening in this situation are unwittingly using sound bites that — if they were progressive enough — would be readily identified as racist. The necessity for tox screening rests on the probability that the black kid was high when he was killed, as if that is justification for extreme force. Neither do allegations of petty theft justify the action taken against him. And the credibility of crime scene investigation rests on our trust of the standards brought to bear on physical evidence. Given their track record, if those tests fall to the local police, there can be no definitive answer at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

Shame on us all for allowing these glaring failures to be true for too long. While there are thousands of decent, hard-working police personnel in this nation, the job itself is subject to such internal and external pressures, especially in this day and age, that we should have proactively put systems in place to deal with problems of excess and overreach, burnout and PTSD. Because we shirked that responsibility, cops have enjoyed blanket credibility for decades based on our unwillingness to challenge them. That has only dug the hole deeper. As they run amok now, we can’t be all that surprised, and — seriously — if you’re white, reading this, please do understand the level of privilege you enjoy due to the color of your skin; the same cannot be said for your darker brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n

There’s no way to whitewash this, no pun intended. In a nation preoccupied with carrying weapons into restaurants and churches, law abiding black men do not hurry to get their open carry permit since that would only\u00a0put them in the crosshairs more quickly. On August fifth, a black man was reported to be waving a gun at an Ohio Wal-Mart. After he was picked off, it was discovered that the gun he was holding was a BB rifle he’d picked up in the toy department. On the 11th, a young man of color with mental disabilities in Los Angeles was reported to have tackled an officer, going after his weapon, whereupon he was shot dead. That does not align with the story given by witnesses who say he was complying with orders to lie on the sidewalk when he was shot in the back. In Victorville the next day, a black citizen on a bike was stopped as a potential suspect in a robbery, repeatedly tased, and died later that day in the hospital. All of these men were unarmed, with allegations against them unproven.<\/p>\n

Where is Rand Paul on this issue, waving his Liberterianism, demanding the freedom of people of color to walk freely in the United States of America carrying weapons, as guaranteed in the Second Amendment? Where are those who would insist on the civil liberties of the thousands of black men who are harassed and challenged for the color of their skin daily in this nation? They won’t be found on the right, which seems counterintuitive to their Gadsden flag waving rhetoric but aligns with their contention that the left is fighting a “war on the white man.” If there had been five occasions in the last month where white kids died under these circumstances, there would be hell to pay — but the presumption of guilt does not sit heavy on their shoulders, never has.<\/p>\n

Yet there are defenders out there, demanding a new level of scrutiny and they’re us. A recent poll indicates that 45 percent of us do not believe that law enforcement personnel will be held accountable for killing citizens. Breaking through the old, dependable silences, the public seems to have stepped up, taking up the cause of these young men and their communities, no longer willing to see this as normal policing.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the story of Ferguson will be told by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and I trust they will do so in an even-handed manner. The black President and the black Attorney General have had no trouble identifying some of the lower-hanging fruit of this situation, where 50 of the 53 police officers in Ferguson are white, so let’s hope the FBI gets that memo. And while I’m sure you’re tired of me reminding you that so much of American politics is about racial inequality — just a portion of the class schism that defines our culture today — the fact that the Ferguson Chief of Police flies\u00a0a confederate flag<\/a>\u00a0at his residence might just\u00a0be one of those things that make you go\u00a0hmmmmmmm<\/em>!<\/p>\n

I usually write on Fridays but I’ll be working the Democrats’ booth at the State Fair on that day, so I’m writing this a day early. I wouldn’t be surprised if, by the time you read this, the situation in Ferguson has changed for the better. The call for community healing and peaceful, respectful interaction has spoken louder in the nation today than the fear-tapes running 24\/7 over at FOX News, and that’s a pretty amazing thing. I’m keeping my wings crossed that tempers will have begun to cool, now that Obama has spoken to the issues (and to the governor.) Both can be faulted for foot-dragging, while only one can be questioned for skewing to the “white makes right” meme. (This governor is a man of his place and time, once a heavy-handed criminal prosecutor and not very flexible on these issues. His mention of “both sides shooting, get real” is not born out by witnesses, and I’m more likely to trust the crackerjack reporting over at Hullabaloo on the actions of Ferguson police than the governor who took five days to get around to a visit. And in that regard,\u00a0here’s a\u00a0blog post<\/a>\u00a0on how to establish a liberal narrative; given the dramatic break in the energy, it is a worthwhile read.)<\/p>\n

Still, if God\/dess is good, calmer heads will prevail in the next days. Anger burns brightly but sorrow takes longer to leech away. The few incidents of looting, while regrettable, were less than we can historically expect from the shooting of an unarmed kid in broad daylight, and the churches and social organizations showed great courage in gathering immediately to plead for calm. A young man is gone, perhaps from injustice done, and his community needs time to grieve without grappling with tear gas, police aggression and the combat mentality of a fading paradigm.<\/p>\n

This week, we’ve seen a lot change. Google the names Williams, Bacall, Maliki, David Gregory to see how temporary things are on planet Terra, although I suspect that by the time the story of Michael Brown is finalized,\u00a0most of us\u00a0will remember the name of Ferguson, Missouri. But let’s face it. This could have happened anywhere, given how polarized we are, how anxious, stressed and\u00a0in\u00a0many instances, overmedicated. And although racism may have put its thumb on the scale in Ferguson, this is not exclusively a black issue: this is a human issue, affecting each of us and calling us to complete the work of an earlier Uranus\/Pluto transit that demanded we live\u00a0the principles of “all men created equal.”<\/p>\n

And now, finally, our silence seems behind us. We’ve found our heart, confronting a mother’s grief, a beloved entertainer’s despondency, a world’s weariness with war and death. There appear to be more people willing to talk about these challenges now, demanding common sense solutions to problems long ignored. More of us are seeing how things connect,\u00a0finally prepared to accept that America is fallible but fixable. More of us have tipped the balance of lethargy to come alive again. It feels as though we’ve finally broken through that wall of fear and exhaustion and hopelessness that has kept us dumb and desperate for too long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves Something quite unique happened this week, although it came with tears and sorrow, with anger and determination. The smoke cleared away to wisps; news agencies attempted a thoughtful response to difficult stories, and we — haltingly, but surely — began to tell the truth to one another about some … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78852"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}