Damn right we've...
Damn right we’ve had a problem; but it isn’t just confined to Houston. From what I know it is pretty much nationwide in every major city and seems to be growing as each day passes. Even the small towns aren’t exempt from this problem.
By now you...
By now you've seen the video or heard a report on a black man named George Floyd. He had encounter in Minneapolis earlier this week in which he was “suspected” of passing counterfeit money. I don’t know all the details of that situation and I won’t try to pretend I do.
Since there is now an ongoing investigation into that ordeal we’ll have to wait for the authorities to inform us of their findings.
George Floyd however...
George Floyd however didn’t get the opportunity (like us) to wait for the outcome of the investigation. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and executed for his “suspected crime” on a street in Minneapolis, MN. by a gang of four armed men who belong to an organized crime gang. That crime gang has a street name of “Minneapolis Finest” or aka; Minneapolis Police department.
We are in...
We are in the year 2020 not 1820.
George Floyd would have had a better chance at surviving his encounter with “the law” in 1820 than he did in 2020; and back then black folks were not free in this country. In 1820 lawmen were men of honesty and integrity. So what has changed in 200 years? How does a country that is supposedly the greatest nation in the world end up with the police being judge, jury, and executioner?
“Houston we’ve had a problem” comes from an old NASA recording of a space mission, Apollo 13. George Floyd was a native Houstonian so that sort of prompted my thought on that old quote.
The problem I'm...
The problem I’m speaking of isn’t the riots / protests that have sprung up from the death of George. Those are definitely concerning and peaceful protests are certainly understandable given what has happened.
Just last night in Houston over 100 people were arrested for various charges for participating in the protesting of George Floyd’s death so there is another tie in to that quote.
The problem as ...
The problem as I see it has to do with police and policing.
George would have stood a better chance in 1820 because there were no police in back then. There was law and there was law enforcement back in 1820, and the law enforcement was in the form known as “sheriff’. The law was common law.
The sheriff was and still is an elected official; he has to answer to the public (voters) every four years at the very least when he is up for reelection. That is where the honesty and integrity comes into play; a sheriff might get elected once but if he doesn’t live up to expectations he or she will be voted out come next election.
I asked the...
I asked the question, “What has changed in the last 200 years?” The major change has been in the law itself.
We can blame every elected official that had to do with changing our system of law (common law) and replacing it with codes and statutes. There is where the heart of the problem lay in my eyes.
The creation of “victimless crimes’ and the profitability to gain by prosecuting those crimes in an administrative court rather than a justice court is directly the source of the problem.
The more laws...
The more “laws”(codes & statutes) that can be passed and put on the books the bigger the opportunity to relieve you and me from the fruits of our labor.
The term “police” came from their work as policy enforcers. If memory serves me correctly the first “police” department here originated in Boston, Massachusetts back in 1838 or 1839. Leave it to so some damn Yankees to guzbuck up things; history has proven that time and time again.
I wish I...
I wish I could remember the exact name and location of the lawyer who tried to join a police department and was rejected by that department because he was basically too educated.
He scored way higher on the entrance tests than the other applicants and was physically fit but was turned down on getting a job with police department. I need to find that story again and see what the final outcome was because I know that he filed a lawsuit over that.
That situation of...
That situation of his though brings to light that some (most likely many) police departments don’t recruit the best folks for the job.
The police departments look for “other characteristics” like military background for one. In the military unless you have achieved a high rank you follow orders rather than give them. Face it folks; we are the enemy in the eyes of the police.
The police departments also know that military people have experience with weapons which is a plus in their eyes. Military men are trained to shoot to kill their enemy which is both a positive and a negative I would think if I were a police department official.
How do these police chiefs and city officials sleep at night knowing that they’ve hired what I would term as “not the sharpest knife in the drawer” then give them a gun and badge? Do you think that the city council and mayor of Minneapolis are getting much sleep these days? I think not.
The people of...
The people of Minneapolis need to do some investigating on how their police department hires officers and trains those officers. The civil protests should be at each upcoming city council meeting and every other city council meeting across the country that is experiencing riots and protests right now.
You can bet that where that lawyer was rejected for a position is not the only place where that has happened; police have conventions and share ideas with each other just like any other business or industry.
As a country...
As a country we need to do away with “victimless crimes” and get away from policing for profit which is mostly what the codes and statutes were intended for.
Unless there is an actual victim who can be compensated for something that has been done to them by another person we all run the increased risk of being a victim of the type of policing that was on display in Minneapolis earlier this week.
I’ve said enough on this subject for right now but I want to leave you with a quote from a good friend of mine who lives in the Minneapolis area and is experiencing firsthand what is going in there.
"Civil servants and elected officials should be working for the us not vice versa. We should not live in fear of them.", Eric Vance Walton.
Well said Eric. Here is a link to that story and poem by @ericvancewalton
This week HIVE winners are @deerjay , @bigtom13 , and @buttcoins glad to see all you folks this week in my HIVE journey.
Until next time,
Sult
Photo credits: Sult N Papper
Well said. We're living in terrifying times, and I worry that the violent reaction to this, which always comes from a minority, as most protestors are peaceful, will be used to bring in more restrictive laws and controls. It's great that people are rising up and saying "enough is enough" because that's the only way that things are going to change.
I was quite astonished to see Obama's moralising tweet speaking out against the police murder, because there were lots of police killings during his eight-year term, and I don't remember him speaking out much against any of them... Or maybe I just missed his angry words condemning police violence when he was President because I live in Scotland??
Enough is enough but burning buildings and looting stores isn't the answer either. We do have class warfare in this country and it isn't rich vs poor in my eyes. It is government vs people at all levels of government not just the police and courts.
Historically minorities are victimized the most by this war because they haven't (as a whole) been financially able to put up much resistance. O'Bama talked out three sides of his mouth, so he did speak out some about police violence but never did anything to try to put a stop to it. He was the typical politician; promises after promises and then blamed congress for what he couldn't do.
As for the protesters all of them are doing it right and within the law. I know that is hard to believe seeing what is taking place but I am speaking of the legitimate protesters. There are groups of folks posing as protesters that are nothing more than thugs and thieves who subscribe to the theory that some of our politicians subscribe to which is "never let a crisis go to waste".
So well put. There will be George Floyd protests in Scotland this weekend, and I expect a whole array of politicians will be lined up to speak, and bask in the glow of reflected virtue.
I feel that we are worse off now than we were even 100 years ago. Here in Nicaragua, we have at least three different levels of policing within the police department with the lowest level directing traffic and being school crossing guards. The highest levels get to use military weapons and have the "honor" of accompanying the paramilitary (mercenaries and riff-raff private army of the gruesome twosome). There is another group of paramilitary charged with keeping "public order". Then you have the military "keeping the country free of interlopers. All cross boundaries and can shoot first and ask questions later. No-one is safe from these marauding forces...
I couldn't even begin to name all the different "policing" agencies we have here in this country. But the different levels are federal, state, county, precinct (county), and then municipal(city). Even the school districts have their own police departments in a lot of areas, including the school district we live in. It is really insane just how much and many police agencies we have to have here in the USA.
It isn't uncommon that the different agencies end up at odds with each other either. I've been following a story in the state of New Mexico where a local police department is having issues with the county sheriff. The police even went as far as arresting the sheriff for interfering with police activities within the city's jurisdiction. A full SWAT team from police department surrounded the sheriff's office and had rifles locked and loaded and trained on the sheriff's department employees in "case some trouble" erupted.
Reminds of drug cartels or motorcycle gangs having a "turf war".
Our police are equipped with military style weapons and vehicles that were "donated" by the federal government when they updated the army's equipment. Of course it was also mandatory that those local agencies had to follow federal guidelines and agree to federal programs. I think that all started about the time that the DOJ started rolling out 'civil asset forfeiture' where the law enforcement agencies can confiscate property of people who are suspected of criminal activity.
Those are types of things we expect to hear about in countries such as yours where a dictator is in charge but it happens right here in the "good old USA". We really are worse off in one sense than people living under a dictatorship and that is that we believe in the "illusion" of our freedom. We need to admit our failures like a drunkard does in his acceptance when he joins an alcoholic recovery program.
At least those living under a dictator have enough sense to realize it, we are like blind people when it comes to realization, we just don't see it even though we stare right into it everyday.
Unfortunately, there are still people who follow the dictatorship blindly.
In 1820, the guy would probably have been hanged within 30 minutes by a lynch mob and the sheriff would have done nothing because the guy leading the lynch mob was the sheriff's brother-in-law.
You might be very well right too, we can never know for sure about something that never happened in the past.
One thing we can be fairly certain on is that George Floyd died with his hands cuffed behind his back and a cop with his knee pressed against his neck for over 5 minutes while he pleaded he couldn't breath. Now all hell is breaking lose in several cities in reaction to the treatment of George Floyd.
What happens next is another unknown...
Command and Control. It's ALL about command and control. That's the purpose AND the result. By now the entire system is clicking along rather nicely if you are well placed up to control ladder.
Thanks my friend. For the hive and all the support and truth.
You hit the nail on the head. Command and control is the ultimate goal for anyone in some position of authority. It makes me ill to watch these live police shows that my wife likes to watch in the evenings where film crews ride along with cops. She makes me leave the room because I have a tendency to point out all the unlawful things the cops do in those shows.
You are most welcome on the HIVE. Don't spend it all in one place.
Once you are in the water you never know how far from shore you've drifted until it is too late to swim back.
Yes, cities need to take a deeper look into the way that hiring and training of police is done. I remember their motto was "to serve and protect." I pray that this may be done in sincerity.
Well said with that analogy @mineopoly , well said. That motto is still on several police departments cars and vehicles the problem is that no where in that motto does it say who they are "to serve and protect", we've made the very bad mistake of assuming that we are the ones when sadly that's not the case.
Here is an old police car that I photographed in Dallas a couple of years ago. The owner of the old police car put his own graphic on where the "to serve and protect" used to be. A sense of honesty and humor by the new owner I'd say.
Thanks for dropping in and sharing your thoughts. Very much appreciated!
Once again you hit the nail on the head Sult, we need to change the system and time is running out. If systemic change doesn't happen by peaceful means I'm afraid it will happen by violent measures. This incident in Minneapolis was exploited by groups wishing to use it as a stage and catalyst for their own end-goals.
My wife and I were walking our beagle about an hour before the 8pm curfew. We live right in the hot zone and saw many vehicles driving around with no license plates. Around mid-day a man pulled over to the curb and threatened a local couple just a block away from where we live. He told them, "We're coming for your neighborhood next."
This was being widely reported all across the city last night. Out-of-towners descended on the Twin Cities from groups like Antifa and the Bugaloo Bois to ramp up the violence. Some had AK-47s, some had trunks full of gas cans. Throughout the past few days pallets of bricks were mysteriously appearing in the middle of areas where protests were happening. This was a highly coordinated attempt to start a class war, in my opinion.
We did have some local looters but for the most part locals protested peacefully during the day and these groups took over the streets after the sun went down. Social media proved its worth these past few days, as horrible as it can be sometimes the truth about what was happening was spread quickly via Facebook and Twitter. This, I believe, is what kept the groups from being able to incite more violence amongst the citizens.
We were all afraid that things would ramp up last night but, thankfully, they didn't. The National Guard was pretty successful in dispersing the crowds. They blocked all of the bridges from Minneapolis to St. Paul so the crowd couldn't spill over into this city.
It's likely going to take years for Minneapolis and St. Paul to recover from this. Unfortunately so much of this classism and racism is "baked into" the system. We've seen "separation of church and state" but now we need "separation of corporations and state". I'm convinced this is the only way the people will win. Strip corporate influence in our government by putting an end to lobbying, put term limits in place, and end politicians being taken care of for life after their term is up. This would be a good start.
I hope the weekend has been a good one so far. Thank you for the mention and for the giveaway, I just noticed it in the wallet.
I've heard other sources discuss these "Agent provocateurs", although I can't say how true these reports are, as I'm in Scotland. I could not agree about the need for a separation of corporatism and the State. It's the same in the UK. The lobbying and "revolving door" syndrome has got so bad that people just shrug it off. It needs to be stopped.
Local law enforcement is reporting around 80% of those being arrested aren't from Minnesota. I believe corporatism is the root of a lot of our problems. It's interesting about what Sult is talking about as well, doing a hard reset on our legal system and law enforcement to the way it used to be. It would be an interesting experiment to see how it worked.
It would indeed. And I've just noticed that I wrote "I could not agree" when what I meant was "I could not agree more"! But I think you got what I meant 😅
Thanks for the first hand report from ground zero Eric, and my apologies for the tardy response. When I should have been tending to answering comments last night I got involved in watching live reports from around the country on the violence.
A "hard reset" is exactly what we need and as to whether or not it would work, it worked for well over 100 years here in this country at a time when the country was most vulnerable; its inception. I am not saying it would be easy since there is a lot of layers of crap that have to be cleared away. Your ideas of stripping away corporate influence and term limits are long overdue but what politician will vote to end his own gravy train?
One of the most overlooked things with these career politicians is the fact that several of them are collecting pensions and retirement from earlier lower level government jobs before they even get to Washington. My last congressman from my district was a former judge at the county level collecting his pension the whole eight years he was in DC, now he gets both his judge pension and one from his congress stint.
Rick Perry is another one who is on that gravy train as well that I know of. Talk about a man who who can't speak the truth; he is one for sure. When running for president he vowed he would eliminate government agencies and when he lost his bid for president he ended up being the secretary of one of the agencies he said needed abolished. How is that for hypocrisy?
You are very welcome on the HIVE. Take care and stay safe.
You're right, most of those who get into politics do so to enrich themselves or for the power. The system is so corrupt now it would be difficult to figure out where to begin. If the candidates are honest when they're elected they quickly seem to lose sight of their moral compass and the plight of everyday people. Lately I've been daydreaming quite a bit about moving someplace tropical and far-far away. Lol. Have a great week!
I think you are old enough to remember this island.... Gilligan's Island... that would be the perfect island for me.
Yes, I could handle that. Marianne was pretty hot. Lol.
Hi @sultnpapper! I just want to say thank you for the Hive! Hope I didn't upset you as that is never my intention and I do like reading your perspective on things. 💖
Heavens no...you didn't upset me and you are most welcome for the HIVE. I appreciate you coming by and sharing your thoughts on anything I write no matter what it is that you or anyone else has to say. There is plenty to chose from on this platform and I am honored to have you chose to read the Dash.
Thank you!
Okay and that makes me happy to know. Sometimes my thoughts don't translate into words so well lately. One of the reasons why I don't say much and takes me so long to say something when I do or write a post. 🙂