Book It, M!

Madame M,

Am always up for a summer of books!  Will follow whatever line you take!  You don’t  make this easy, as I have a lot competing in my head, lol.  [Ten?!!!  How can I choose just ten? J]

Okay, here goes.  For the “favorites off the top of head” list, also in no particular order (I’ve taken the liberty of mentioning as one books that go together):

Homeland and Exile, both by R.A. Salvatore.  A fantasy story of a good and honorable master swordsman raised in a society of unending evil, and the deep and epic insights.

The Greatest Miracle in the World, by Og Mandino.  The story of Simon Potter the ragpicker, and his influence on Augustine Mandino through the God Memorandum.

Embraced By The Light, by Betty Eadie.  A vivid near-death experience, and one of hope.

I Can’t Accept Not Trying,  and For The Love of the Game, both by Michael Jordan.  One of history’s greatest athletes—and maybe its greatest competitor—in telling his story relates to the rest of us what real success usually requires.

A Man Called Peter, by Catherine Marshall.  The story of Scottish immigrant Peter Marshall, Preacher Extraordinaire and a mighty man of God, who preached what are maybe the best sermons since Jesus (some of which are included in the book).

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, by Robert Olen Butler.  Stories of Vietnamese immigrants.  A way to look at the world, and a deep richness, that belies all the stupid simplistic talk.  If you’re going to read only one book about Vietnam, this is the one to read to have any hope of beginning to truly understand Vietnam.

Things Fall Apart, by Chinhua Achebe.   The classic African-written novel of village tribesmen in pre-colonial Nigeria—and the incredible insights into humanity.

Oil!  Upton Sinclair’s masterpiece novel of socialists, capitalism, the auto civilization, the fossil fuels industry, and more.

Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.  Lester Brown’s masterful work of just that.  By no means just an environmental book.

Conan 1, by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague deCamp, and Lin Carter.  The truest and best barbarian, with scant resemblance to the movies.

A veritable riot is taking place in my head right now.  The clamour from those that did not make the cut is that loud! J

How Close To The Bottom Do We Have To Go?

Madame,

Even if we manage to avoid a Great Recession/Great Depression type calamity, few are ready for the looming “Retiremageddon.”

Retirement is a relatively modern invention to accommodate much longer life expectancy.  Its invention rested on a three legged stool:  1) pensions companies and governments set up (defined benefit),  the largest piece; 2) individual savings (defined contributions, sometimes assisted), the next largest piece, and 3) Social Security, the smallest piece. 

In the 1970s and 1980s the assault on pensions was intensified for misleading reasons I might detail in another post.  Today,  the war of annihilation on pensions is nearly complete.  Few have them anymore and they are often being modified or eliminated (at least for new employees).

That left retirement to somehow make it on two legs, even though stools don’t make it on two legs.  Not to worry, the plutocratic misleaders told us.  Companies would “match” all sorts of savings, and the government would even give economic incentive to save.  What they failed to tell everyone was that, despite great increases in productivity (the profits from which went to a few), wages would almost certainly not keep up, leaving little to save.  And that each individual would also become responsible for more and more things, and thus further be able to save even less and less.

Contributing to the misleading discourse have been the financial idiots who are always blathering on that they wish they could “opt out” of their pension (for those few lucky enough to have one) or Social Security and “keep that money for myself.”  Those suckers are the financial equivalents of the voters who keep voting against their economic interests.  Like them, they have bought in to a philosophy where it is all too easy to exploit the individual.

An individual has so little economic power, even on occasions when they might have a little financial savvy.  They can’t command the economic clout that big institutions can.  And so, consequently, they don’t get the same financial returns, even when fees are small, which they rarely are.  What’s worse, individuals get hammered and exploited in the upswings and downswings of the market, let alone the crashes.  They have little to no protection against inflation either.  And that’s even if they don’t get outright ripped off by a financial industry that purposely complicates and confuses things to prey on ignorance and take advantage of greed.

A generation that bought the 401k, IRA, etc. “promise” is about to discover some pretty harsh truths.  When the money—for those frugal and lucky enough to have some saved—runs out, the wailing will begin.  What am I talking about?  Read on, readers!

According a March 2015 study, among households on the verge of supposed retirement, the median retirement account balance is…less than $15,000.  Not the yearly income one could expect from the “investments,”  but the total BALANCE.  Over 60% of American working households aged 55-64 don’t even have a total retirement savings sum that even equals ONE YEAR of their annual income.

And what of the formerly 3^rd  (now 2^nd) leg of this weak stool?  Social Security replaces, percentage wise, the greatest amount for lower-income earners.  Yet at most that is 40% of one’s annual income—and that’s for low income earners.  If they can barely make it now on 100% of their income, they sure aren’t going to make it on 40%.  For middle income earners, the prospects are even bleaker, with Social Security replacing at most around 15-35%. 

But even that is uncertain now.  The plutocratic (and their shills/politicians) assault against Social Security is relentless—and increasing.  The lies being spread against one of the most successful social responsibility institutions ever devised are repeated over and over because the plutocrats—and the media they control—know that a lie endlessly repeated gets believed.

Our disengagements from being informed and being involved mean we presently live in a plutocratic oligarchy with the veneer of a democratic republic and the last remaining vestiges of social responsibility.   The vast majority of Americans are poorer, more stressed, more insecure, see fewer opportunities, and see most of the economic trends going in the wrong direction, even though they strongly disagree on causes and solutions.  Their educational systems and infrastructure are either crumbling or starving for real investment, even when people don’t recognize the plutocratic withholding about all that.  Somewhere in the back of their minds, they suspect that all this debt—personal, business, government—is due to fundamental weakness, that things aren’t making it, once again even when they don’t recognize the plutocratic withholding that contributes strongly to that.  They fret about health care—the number one cause of bankruptcy—regardless of what “side” they are on.  They know the tax code is unfairly tilted away from them and toward the already rich.  They realize how corrupted and ineffectual the so-called “elites” have become.  They feel helpless against giant, rich, powerful entities that do what they want and face no real consequences from us.  They probably suspect at some level that our priorities are all off, that maybe we shouldn’t have a giant, ravenous, corrupting military-private sector-security-intelligence resource sink, and one used in perpetual conflicts that sink resources even more—and change us for the worse, maybe Orwellian-like.   They may see—or experience—freakish weather catastrophes, droughts, or floods, may even agree with scientists that we are changing the climate for the worse.

Then they blank it all out.  Or latch on to some minor thing.  Or simplistically lay blame on one (usually wrong) cause—and usually with some equally wrong “solution.”

Thus leaving the problems to the few activists—and to the power of money.  Leaving it to others (including their descendants) to deal with, let alone try to solve.

While the battering rams of our failures to meet our problems thunder at our doors, our response so far is only to turn up the volume louder on our electronic and other diversions.  This mass denial, if it continues, will be—rightly—judged harshly and venomously by future generations.  Instead of The Greatest Generation, we will be known as The Failure Generation, The Despised Generation, The Contemptible Generation.  Unless we quit diverting and “amusing ourselves to death” in Neil Postman’s apt words,  we will, like opiate addicts and lotus eaters, still be diverted when the problems break through and finish us.

Every day we don’t arrest our descent is future pain—deep, agonizing, lengthy pain—for ourselves and our descendants.

GD, we can do so much better.  I for one don’t want to be despised by the future.

And yes, I realize that, except for the last few paragraphs, I sound surprisingly similar to Bernie Sanders.  What a pity the man has no power base, no team of best and brightest, no movement to sweep with him into office in state and national legislatures.  Without that, any effectiveness of his would be greatly reduced.  Even a year and a half is not enough time for anything except near-total people power to overcome the many (and deliberate) roadblocks and transform the political scene.  It takes a lengthy effort, not some relatively brief and emotional one.  

It requires a continually engaged public.  One not in evidence so far.

Maybe They Need Heard Too

Madame,

“Lots of people tend to think of our problems in little compartments that don't affect anything else. It may be our fatal mistake.”

Well said.  You keep spinning the gold!

Our blind and often destructive bludgeoning of nature to force it to do our will is meeting the lack of wisdom we have exercised in that force of will.  Various short-term tasks or challenges we “successfully” address blow back on us with consequences we have chosen to not foresee. As just the honeybees example demonstrates, we can probably dispense with the sapiens sapiens part of our species classification.  Maybe even the sapiens part entirely!

Or maybe we should just auto-exclude America, as we seem to lead the charge into unwise behavior—and our behavior then manifests into 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th order effects across the rest of the world.  Yes, yes, there is much wrong in the world that is not a result of America’s actions and inactions, but the America-can-do-no-wrong crowd are injurious fools for failing to acknowledge where we have gone and do go rogue.

We know why many of us refuse to acknowledge reality, or worse, distort it or allow others to distort it for us:  “Reexamination of basic assumptions temporarily destabilizes our cognitive and interpersonal world, releasing large quantities of basic anxiety.  Rather than tolerating such anxiety levels, we tend to want to perceive the events around us as congruent with our assumptions, even if that means distorting, denying, projecting, or in other ways falsifying to ourselves what may be going on around us.” Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership.

I see and hear many angry statements from the above crowd. Are those statements not in most cases the result of anxiety? Anxiety that deep down they know something is off and maybe wrong, that their world-view is not consistent, that the world is changing in many ways, that their previously established “standard order” is transforming and they’re not ready for it to do so, that despite supporting the views and policies they have that things are not getting better and in fact are getting worse?  Are they not people who do not know what their place in the world might become, but in any case are fearful that it might not be a good place—at least not as good as what they’ve become accustomed to?

Is there a way to reach out to them in their anxiety?  And, especially, is there a way for those who will collectively become the new majority to reach out to them?  To acknowledge their fear, the anger, the anxiety, the division, and then try to transcend it?  That maybe if we acknowledge that we hear their anxiety, that we can then address its roots and have healthy, healing conversations about all that?  Or is this vocal quarter so resolutely, blindly, destructively on the wrong side of history that the tide of history must simply wash them aside until they are ready to swim with it?

I think we as society should be strongly seeking to answer the above.

Your ideas for positive, empowering action should be heeded by all.  The depressive assault must be combatted, and people must empower themselves to the greatest extent—the various political and economic and institutional systems out there are rarely if ever going to do it. 

Seeing “Tomorrowland” might help a bit.  No spoiler alerts here though! :)

Connect Or Die

Madame M:

I did not know.  Thanks for the education!  How very many things there have been throughout history that have been subverted and perverted away from the originator’s intent.  Thinking about that makes me wonder how likely it would be that my Independence Week idea could be corrupted in much the same way.

You and I have not met in person in quite a while now, and we are both not the richer for it!  If we feel that way, how much the letter writers from the days of difficult and long travel must have felt it even more.

When the female bees demonstrate social and economic cooperation, amazing how much easier and more satisfying things seem to be.  In the book The White, which I mentioned once before, a similar phenomenon was demonstrated among the Native American women, of whose society the white woman had become part of.  She contrasted it with the hectic, overworked, highly stressed life her white mother had lived in the hyper-individualistic society of her youth.  When are we going to be ready to take our lesson?  Our good friends the Scandinavians have demonstrated that one does not have to give up one’s individualism to live in a cooperative society.

Yes, we need men and women of calm and reason in aggrieved and put-upon communities.  But as you rightly intimate, if we just end only with our very, VERY large expectation—that the repressed and victimized swallow their emotions and not “get out of hand” or “go violent”—then we will have selfishly, arrogantly, compassionlessly failed to be siblings to our fellow human beings.

What’s more, we will be self-blind to the intricate pattern we are ourselves woven into.  Because just like about environmental responsibility, in social and economic responsibility, we keep thinking there can be an “away.”

But sooner or later, there isn’t.  The social and economic injustice we inflict, or even that we permit or look the other way and deny about, has a way of coming back to haunt us.  Even if we don’t make the connection.  The brutalized, the marginalized, the communities nearly sucked dry of hope, the young with no real opportunity, the lack of ever growing up safe or getting to feel safe, the ever-present racism (both overt and subtle) that infects law enforcement and society both like an angry poison—how dangerously foolish we are to think that all that can be contained or quarantined. 

Things spill out, spill over, spread.  Those with few options and little to lose are a powder keg of hostile variability.   It happens in the Middle East, and it happens right here. 

Except we keep missing the connections.  That actions and lack of actions have consequences, sometimes delayed years or decades, but consequences nonetheless.  Robbery, drugs, kidnappings, violence, death, to name just a few.  Where there is little or no justice, there is no peace.  Where there is little or no fairness, there is no tranquility.  Where there is marked economic inequality, there is no sustainability.

Connection may be our only hope.  We need—desperately—to reconnect with each other. 

Because the alternative is, for both us individually and as society, literally killing us.

The Cell Phone as a Civil Rights Tool

Professor J,

And now we have Baltimore and Freddy Gray.

But let's back up to your question which I answered. You asked, simply, what was the first reaction when seeing the police, without thinking about it intellectually. You assumed, even bet, it would be fear. You didn't ask whether there were any circumstances under which I might be fearful of police. If that is the question, then of course there are several instances in which that would be true, some of which you outlined.

From the rest of your last post I think we are agreeing that: yes there are lots of good police officers, there are some officers that have issues (whatever the cause) and shouldn't be in a position of authority let alone armed, and that police forces have a code of protecting their own and that is a huge contributing factor in all of these cases.

I'd be interested in knowing what the statistics are for female officers involved in cases like the ones we've seen a rash of recently.

While I was looking up statistics on that I found that last month a female officer in Pennsylvania was charged with shooting an unarmed white man twice in the back of the head after she'd tased him. I wonder why that story didn't get any national attention. I thought that was because there wasn't any video to stream on a 24 hour news channel, but there was actually audio and video of the assault that showed him not behaving in an aggressive manner (but guess what she'd reported). I'm guessing the reason we never heard about the story is that she was arrested and charged on March 24th. Which made me wonder about whether gender as well as race had any bearing on how these cases were perceived and resolved.

I can't help wondering if the greatest civil rights tool ever is the cell phone. Currently at the museum we have an exhibit of civil rights photography taken by nine photographers where were actual activists. Lots of photographs from that era are from publications where journalists showed up and chronicled an event then went home. These pictures were taken by people who were in the trenches, so to speak. But they still had to be published and publicized by the "gatekeepers" of information at the time. Which might have meant first winning those people over. Those barriers no longer exist. That anyone can record an event and post it or send it to someone in authority is helping to shine a light on the real problems that cannot be so easily covered up.

In recent years the law has upheld the right of citizens to record police officers doing their job anyplace that could be considered in plain view as long as it doesn't interfere with them. In the past it was up to the officer to decide whether or not that was happening (a problem) but that is changing. They also don't have the right to confiscate a camera or delete any images or video.

People who control the flow of information have power. Much of what we are seeing is a significant shift in who has the ability to shape the conversation and public opinion. In the Freddy Gray case the video that shows him before he got into that van looks damming. We can all speculate but only those officers inside the van know how he came to be so horrifically injured that it resulted in his death. We'd like to think that people conduct themselves whether or not they think they are being watched. Unfortunately we know that simply isn't the case. Any citizen would feel safer knowing that their interaction with a police officer was being recorded.  A camera inside the van and on every officer involved would eliminate the mystery of what happened to Gray once those doors were closed.

It may even have saved his life.

“In the Back” Is Not “Back” Because It Never Left

Dear Readers:

Just when I was anxiously awaiting Madame’s reply to all of what I wrote on Sunday, she is off to a pleasant locale for a wedding weekend.    Guess I’ll have to wait. :)

In the meantime, of course, we have, as I said, other matters to discuss.  Mere days ago, another unarmed African-American man was shot and killed by a police officer.

And there’s video of at least the latter parts of the incident.  Another incident that once again appears to have escalated because a police officer pulled someone over for a minor thing—a busted tail light in this instance—and somehow things turned violent.

The now dead man appears to have been in a scuffle with the officer, appears to be have been shot at or actually shot by the officer with a taser.  The taser appears to have been discarded at that point, contrary to the officer’s story that the man took his taser.  The man attempts to run away from the officer.  The video does not record that the officer ever told the man to stop or surrender. 

Eight shots are fired by the officer at the 50 year old man attempting to run away.  At least three (and probably all eight; the forensics aren’t final yet) strike the man in the back, killing him.   The officer appears to then put HANDCUFFS on the dead man (what kind of CRAZY paranoiac fear causes that?).  The officer is recorded by the secret video as dropping something (appears to be the taser) by the dead man’s body.  Second cop, an African-American, arrives on the scene and goes to the body.  First cop appears to pick up an object (the dropped taser), violating crime scene protocol at least. 

First, my (Shameless plug!) 4+ piece post-Ferguson decision from several months ago would make for good reviewing here. 

In the North Charleston case, the police officer has been fired and charged with murder, albeit only after the evidence (from the video) was so damning even the man’s lawyer dropped him.

Many activists are suspicious of a local racist pattern, but it’s possible that the mayor and police chief are being sincere in their remorse and determination to take positive action over the incident. 

Some now familiar questions get asked:  When did running away from the police, especially when you aren’t wanted for a deadly force offense, become an automatic capital offense, carried out extrajudicially and immediately?

Do the police get to hire the best?  Do they get to give their officers the best training?  Even when resources actually get sent their way, isn’t it seldom for increases in salaries or training, but only for weapons and militarization and the like?

What are the effects on police who spend too much of their day looking at and dealing with the worst aspects of a disconnected society that they themselves are disconnected from?  Doesn’t it distort their views and feelings immensely, far worse than jaded teachers get about students?

Don’t incidents like this initiate cycles of violence?  Siege mentalities where arrogant, perhaps even racist, police shoot an unarmed black man for failing to instantly obey ANY command from police overlords?  Violence somewhere else that erupts in response?  Instigating police to then be even more trigger prone? Repeat?

And the now familiar refrain from the unrepentant, resentful segment of the white population who blamed the victim for his own death?  Has the changing demographic landscape frightened people that much?  Has the often degraded economics of their own situations made them, unlike during the middle-class centric (and white prosperous) 1950s and 1960s  that enveloped the Civil Rights Movement, less sympathetic to the plights of others?

And are we so blind to the plutocratic economy and social implications thereof, that we don’t see the irony of relatively poorly paid and trained police officers killing those also poor and poorly trained?  That some are just more put upon than others? 

Since at least the days of plantation owners, racist actions and racist policies have served intensely the interests of a few.    Getting angry because one points out racist incidents is reactionary.  People who want these things to stop being talked about need to help make them stop happening.

And for further irony, both the dead man and the police officer were Coast Guard veterans.

Or is it just tragedy?

Perspective and Prospective

Madame:

The “drifting” of power and money to the few does indeed take place all the time, because the majority of people are concerned with living their lives, not seeking to amass great power and wealth.  And power and wealth tend to slowly beget more power and wealth.

Largely, only the driven, ambitious, focused, etc. care to amass great power.  Unfortunately, those are also more likely to have among them great numbers of sociopaths, megalomaniacs, the dangerously insecure, the unenlightened, the monstrously selfish, etc., not to mention the hypocritical and shallow.  Even more unfortunately, many of them will not even be satisfied with fomenting the “drift,” but will move rapidly to strongly and unscrupulously to either 1) serve bad power, or 2) amass bad power for themselves.  The cycle will continue at least until we both infuse in ourselves the sentiment that Jefferson repeated—the price of liberty is eternal vigilance—AND find a way to improve the human mental, emotional, and spiritual condition to vastly reduce the numbers of sociopaths, megalomaniacs, etc.

Which also means the better rule sets we craft and enforce, the better the playing field can contain the attempted excesses.

Still, there is no doubt that perspective needs to be maintained.  For instance:

“News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen.  You never see a TV crew reporting that a country isn’t at war, or that a city hasn’t had a mass shooting that day.  Or that millions of 80 year olds are alive and well.

“Violent crime has fallen by half since 1992, and fiftyfold since the Middle Ages.  Over the past 60 years the number of wars and number of people killed in wars have plummeted (Prof note: The carnage of WW2 made that comparison too easy).  Worldwide, fewer babies die, more children go to school, more people live in democracies, more can afford simple luxuries, fewer get sick, and more live to old age.

“Problems that look hopeless may not be; human ingenuity can chip away at them. “We will never have a perfect world, but it’s not romantic or naïve to work toward a better one.” Steven Pinker, Harvard psychologist

“When things are bad, do good.”  Little known motto of a major charitable organization.

“I could do other things.  Make more money.  But I choose to be here, teaching here, because I believe in YOU.  That some of you are going to change the community, our society, even the world for the better. May your days be filled with passion, may you have a wonderful, exuberant career.”  Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, explaining to students why he teaches at Berkeley.

“The free MUST remember the oppressed.” Amnesty International motto.

Muslim countries often don’t charge interest.  They have fees for transactions and pay dividends instead.  There are ways to think outside the box, and it may make greed not quite so damaging.

And if we are paying attention, we will always find life more wonderfully complex than we realized.  For instance (‘free market” fanatics may want to hold their heads to contain any explosive force), competition in Europe has often been CREATED by governments.  Certainly this is so for the phone service there, with the added twist that the governments forced the phone companies to be interoperable (one of the reasons phone service is generally much better in Europe than in the US).

I am, as you know, no advocate for pollyanish thinking, outlooks, or behavior.  But I also know that we can do much to make ourselves better.  One of the ways is to embrace the written word.  As Levar Burton asks, do your children, friends, family, and colleagues see you reading?  How many books do you have around home?  Do you have an evening a week where you don’t watch TV or do other things, but just read?  

Our reply to those who focus ONLY on negativity, who do so without contribution or desire for action to change, can thus be two simple questions: “What good book are you reading?  What are you filling yourself up with intellectually and emotionally?”

And yes, good Madame, I realize that I am speaking to the choir!  Try not to roll your eyes. :)

Sunning Up

Madame,

Adore the picture! (and caption)

Yes, it’s maybe the lack of sunlight. :)

Only YOU could be sunny and cheery and also avoid the false positive psychology trap.  Consider yourself in need of bottling. :)

Yes, yes, as the historian, I have been quite remiss in pointing out improvements.  For instance:

Even as the population increases, millions rarely die in a short period of time.  Thousands sometimes, certainly.  And we take note of such a tragedy.  Past generations dealt with a lot worse.

American unemployment is down, even adjusted for the hidden unemployed.

More comforts exist for more people than ever before (I am aware that Gibbon would find this a weakness, at least among elites).

Great medicines and medical advances exist.

Travel is way more than hoofing it 20 miles to the next town.  And better, and convenient, and comfortable!

Food is a lot more interesting.

People can post naked pictures of you one week, and no one cares (or much remembers) a month later.  For both celebrities and “regular” people.

Information is very plentiful and convenient.  Mostly! :)

Mass nuclear war/utter destruction is far less likely.

Smoking is restricted or penalized.  Okay, personal bias on that one.

The younger are making music that I enjoy.

Jon Stewart is still around. :)

Ah.  Much better. :)

Un-Polarize

Madame:

Nice job tying up many of our subject divergences.  Permit me to add one tie-in to the original post before going on to another topic.

"My generation, labeled Millennials (b. 1981-2000), is less formal, less concerned with customs and traditions, and honest about our view that excessive work demands might not be worth the cost of advancement.  In general, we have an affinity for digital technology and social media. We look for meaningful work in a collaborative environment and value a results-based promotion system over the traditional tenure track. Many of us desire a more sustainable work/life balance than previous generations, and we are willing to work for less money to achieve it. We like to ask 'why?' and desire to innovate and change our workplace rather than operate under the status quo. Millennials want to operate in an efficient workplace that values obtaining results over managing prescribed processes. We want clear direction and timelines on assignments followed by the flexibility to complete the tasks within the given parameters. On the aggregate, we admit our seniors have a stronger work ethic, but we do not accept the premise that time at the job equates with efficient mission completion.  The notion that we require excessive positive praise for doing our job is overplayed and insulting. We do, however, desire candid feedback, either positive or negative, more often than previous generations." From "Lead Us!" by  Lt Michael Mabrey, USN, Proceedings Magazine, February 2015.  Read the full article here: http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2015-02/lead-us

I watched the recent vaccination brouhaha and noticed it took on an all too familiar pattern: the shallow corporate media slid into easy groupthink, and after that, there was only polarization—one was either on board with vaccination in toto and without question for any and every vaccine, all the time, or one was a soft-headed pampered liberal or paranoid conservative kook.  Not surprisingly, John Rosemond was one of the few to make any discernment and take a calm and rational approach, although perhaps even he didn’t go deep enough.

Let’s get some facts out there:

The 1998 study that linked autism with vaccines has been thoroughly discredited.

However, that does NOT mean vaccines are “safe.”  Vaccines carry some risk, usually small, of an adverse, sometimes even fatal, reaction, depending on the individual, and, very rarely, even on the quality of the vaccine.

That risk is usually outweighed by the benefits of being inoculated, especially given the seriousness of what is being protected against.

Inoculation is especially important in attaining “herd resistance” and preventing small outbreaks from spreading (and particularly from them going epidemic).

Some individuals cannot be given a particular vaccine, for various reasons, whether allergies, immunity system condition, medical condition, etc.  This increases the importance of others becoming inoculated,  to attain “herd resistance.”

A few inoculations “don’t take.”  That is, the individual was inoculated, but, for whatever reason, resistance or immunity is not attained.

The younger a child is, the harder on its system a vaccine typically is.  This is a nervous dilemma for parents, as intellectually they may know the increased risk taken in inoculating a small child or baby is still low, and the probable benefit is great, but this is their child, and emotionally, that’s a big hurdle.

This dilemma is made even harder by the fact that there is correlation (although no proven causation) between Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and vaccination.  As a parent, I can sympathize with the concern.  As a historian who is familiar with the historical record of disease devastation to children under age five, I can tell you statistically, on both a local and grand scale, the difference between inoculated and un-inoculated populations is vast and tragic.

At one time, a case could be made that vaccination zealotry had overreached, that we were urging inoculation for a number of things that did not require it—flu, chickenpox, HPV, etc.  Now, however, the research seems to indicate that, despite sometimes mixed results, the overall benefit is warranted.  Still, we must be wary that we don’t carry it too far.

Understanding the above could help unstiffen the polarization.  For instance, I wouldn’t suggest a parent forego inoculation for their children in most cases, and would instead urge them to follow the advice of a trusted medical professional.  However, if they did, contrary to advice, choose to forego inoculation until age five, I could understand it.  We could even allow a number of un-inoculated children to attend public school (kindergarten or pre-school), but once the statistical (small) limit had been reached, un-inoculated children would have to find another school or be home schooled.  We don’t need to throw the parents in jail, as some, incredibly, chillingly, advocate.  We need to continue to present evidence, and increase the chance of persuasion.  We also need better research to help us make better decisions and increase confidence.

What we HAVEN’T had on all this, aside from Rosemond’s column, is a calm and rational discussion between the sides.  We have had instead the emotion-driven certainty of the ABSOLUTE correctness, enforceable by force if necessary, of one’s position.  A hallmark of fanatics. 

And there in the unvisited middle, is, again, the lonely truth, waiting for discernment to come calling.

Preserve, Inform, Inspire

Madame:

My, my, we have been flitting from subject to subject.  How odd we are!  We can take a year on a single book and then change to three different subjects in a single post!

Your mention of the return of virulent anti-semitism and other hatreds we thought were on their way to fading out:  have you noticed that they may be fulfilling Toynbee’s famous warning  with just a slight modification—that when the last survivors, the last direct rememberers of a horrible mass evil have departed this life, the next one begins to form.  Or even  the departure of rememberers of “just” a systemic injustice.

It’s so easy to be cynical and revel in our supposed helplessness, to give ourselves permission that nothing can be done.

That’s what the status quo’ers want. 

But we don’t have to play, and particularly, don’t need to use their playbook.

We can instead choose a little pushback, or a determination to do good, to be a positive light; to be, as you remind us, our own little light. 

Like this person:

For those who can’t read the sign, it says

“Welcome Young Readers! This is a ‘Little Time Library’ Please take a book and return it for another book.  Read often! Read every day!”

Ah, libraries.  The mission of one near me is “to preserve yesterday, inform today, and inspire tomorrow.”

A good mission.  Whether it’s a public library, or, like above, a private one opened to the public!

Sending Word

Professor J,

First up is a movie recommendation. Imitation Game is the best thing I've seen in a long time. I came straight home and downloaded the biography of Alan Turing on my Kindle. Btw, you may have guessed that W&P is in the middle of a huge pile of reading material. I am only saved by the Kindle that holds many more so inconspicuously. I keep telling myself I won't buy any more until I finish all that I have. And then... It's a sickness really. ;)

I'm rereading my question about the time capsule and it sounds like something from a lame middle school essay assignment. But you provided a great answer.

I asked the question because frankly I expected a little more from such esteemed thinkers and revolutionaries. The coins made little sense to me, newspapers unimpressive, the remaining items perplexing. How valuable would a diary of a common person appear to us now! Or as you suggest items that they probably didn't feel were special enough to have been included. I agreed with all your suggestions. People study history and memorize the names and accomplishments of the famous, yet behind those (mostly) men are the passionate desires and dreams held close to the heart of the average person. I'd have liked to have seen something of that in the capsule.

Your recommendation of what we ought to include in a time capsule being buried now reminded me of a quote from The Book of Eli:

"People had more than they needed. We had no idea what was precious and what wasn't. We threw away things people kill each other for now."

And your idea about including something by way of apology might at least make it clear that some of us tried. And yes, they might hate us a little less, though hopefully they'll be unaware of our extreme excess. But I'm sure that's doubtful since we document it all so swimmingly with reality television and magazines.

I'm having one of those periods of life when the universe seems to be trying to tell me something and you are unwittingly contributing to brick walls falling and what-not. I was just this morning reading a book in which the author quoted Amusing Ourselves to Death.

In case you are unaware the new trend in resolutions is to pick just one word to sum up your intention for the year. Courage, simplify, mindfulness are all fine candidates. My daughter chose brave. The one I settled on is deliberate. I'm hoping to focus from time to time on a different area of life and be intentional about it.

I could easily start with my time and stay there for the next 11 and a half months. Can you imagine what could get accomplished if we were all just intentional about how we spend our precious hours?  Or how we spend our money? What if we deliberately ate? Imagine us all being deliberate with our words. It all seems impossible even as I write it. We fritter away so much. So that idea of making "your choices fit your values even in little things as you can" might be something of great potential impact.

Wouldn't if be funny if you started a revolution like that? 

Personal Values

Madame:

I am recovering, slowly.

I believe the good English gentlemen would comment that we have diminished ourselves.

The gas guzzler truck mania is well in swing around here as well.  Self-delusion and self-justification are in full swing.  Plus there’s a lot of mental and emotional unresolved issues to boot I’m guessing.

Time capsules are always a bit problematic because what we truly should store—massive data—does not hold up well typically for long, unrefreshed storage, for a variety of reasons.  That’s a pity, because everyday life needs to be depicted.  Social history is needed, but often the most shortchanged.

What definitely should be included are measurements of where we are.  Soil, air, water, resource depletion, reserves, etc.  A long listing of where exactly things stand at the moment in history.  And what we value—and no longer value.  What we’re concerned about—and no longer concerned about.  How we communicate, and how we no longer communicate.

We also need the words of every day  people and their concerns, hopes, plans, etc.

They might despise us a little less if we include an apology to future generations as well.  That we didn’t take action, better action, sooner action.

Our mistake, unfortunately (mine too especially), has been thinking that “changes” could be “fit in” among ALL our entertainment—sports, games, shows, movies, etc. The result?  We have “fit in” little or nothing.  Neil Postman was right—we have amused ourselves to death, and in the process let ourselves become near defenseless and near powerless against the corporate and individual oligarchs (and the politicians and judges who serve them) who dictate to us with near impunity.

My father always said I had too many hobbies and not enough focus.  I truly, magnificently, deeply enjoy games, movies, entertainment, and other recreation.  It’s just that I now realize I can’t really enjoy them like I want to when I know that American and maybe world civilization appear to be sinking towards a dark abyss.  It’s like trying to enjoy dinner and dancing aboard the Titanic when one knows ahead of time what’s about to happen.  I would much rather right our course so I could truly enjoy my hobbies, without guilt, without that terrible feeling that I am sinning against my children and their future.

The oligarchs hold a great weapon over us—fear.  Of jobs, of security, of personal safety, and other Maslow hierarchy basic needs.  There is a small amount of time yet to resist and reverse the slide toward overt totalitarian control.  But it can’t be mere intention.  It has to be that action thing.

Those who can be activists, great, engines like you are sorely needed.  For the rest of us, two things:

1.     Make your choices fit your values, even in little things when you can.  Here’s an example I used in my choices.  I like green tea.  Since I’m going to buy green tea, I decided if necessary I would buy less of it if what I did buy supported values I agreed with.  There are probably several that do.  The one I settled on was Organic India.  Why?  Listen to their story—“At the heart of Organic India is our commitment to be a living embodiment of love and consciousness in action.  We work with thousands of small farmers in India to cultivate sustainable organic farmland.  All our products produce health and True Wellness and are made with loving care.  Each product is one link in a chain of love and connectedness between Mother Nature, our farmers, and you.  By choosing Organic India you are actively participating in our mission to create a sustainable global environment, provide training and a life of dignity to our farmers, and bring health and happiness to you while supporting well being and respect for all beings and for Mother Nature.”

2.     Simply starting a new conversation with those in your social circle is the second thing you can do.  And especially those of you who are skittish about being labeled “weird” or “radical,” there is a method to use.  Socrates gave it to us over 2000 years ago…

Ask questions.  It raises fewer defensive barriers and elicits fewer defensive reactions.  Questions like:  “Did you hear about X?  Have you ever thought about X?  Have you ever thought about why X?  What do you think we should do about X?  Does it bother you that X? Have you ever spoken to your friends and family about X? Do you think that Neil Postman was right?  Does it ever make you uncomfortable that X is happening while we amuse ourselves?  Have you read Aldous Huxley?  Have you read George Orwell?  Does that ever scare you?  Do you ever get uncomfortable when people you know know more about sports figures, sports teams, and celebrities than they do about all these things happening?  Am I making you uncomfortable now?  If so, why do you think that is?  What should we do about it?  Do you think we’re part of the problem?”

The alternative is to watch 1984 put into place.

30 Years Later

Madame:

Hard to believe, but the year just passed was 30 years after the year George Orwell set his famous novel in.

I am quite under the weather, but my concern about this topic is undiminished. 

Don’t expect Britain, Orwell’s country, to be the vigilants:

http://iainmacwhirter.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/1984-in-2014-have-we-learned-nothing-from-george-orwell/

From the land of Finland comes this warning (and TED talk):

http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/02/22/1984-vs-2014-george-orwell-was-an-optimist/

And who has been successfully prosecuted for the monstrous intrusions into private lives along with the manipulation?  What entire country has been up in arms over Watergate Exponential?

No one.  And none.  In fact, the only ones persecuted, prosecuted, jailed, or made fugitives have been—the whistleblowers.

Pullitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist James Risen has been one of those persecuted through both the Bush and Obama  administrations.  His latest book, “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War,” is worth picking up as well.  While he does not believe we are yet in the 1984 mold, he believes we have traveled far down that road.

What would Huxley and Orwell think of us?

Care

Readers:

Madame persuaded me that I should not interrupt the series, and offered to forego her posting for another week.

It has occurred to many that perhaps it is more than haughty, untouchable arrogance on the part of the police and prosecution that all of these killings of unarmed people and lack of indictments are occurring.

That it is almost like the system WANTS to provoke to the point where an indignant rage reaches the level of some significant violence or destruction, and then the system will have the excuse to crush all—protesters and rioters and resisters alike—by force in a brutal counterreaction.

To send the message that resistance is futile.

After all, the coroner said in the official autopsy of Eric Garner that it was a homicide.  Note: not “accidental death” or “complications from physical ailments worsened by physical restraint.”  Cruelly executed by the state, without trial, while he pleaded in vain for mercy.   And once again, despite indisputable video evidence, an unelected secret tribunal—really just an extension of the complicit prosecutor—chillingly said that those who selectively enforce the law can do no wrong, and are above any law, even murder. 

The Berkeley protesters over Eric Garner’s death—note, protesters, not rioters—were roughed up nearly as bad as the Occupy protesters were there.  Citizens’constitutional rights to assembly and protest and to petition their government seem a barely tolerated irritation to the police in that once tolerant place, and in many places.

The infrastructure—by design or not—for a police state was put in place by the Bush administration following 9/11, amid the fearful clamoring for “security.”  That infrastructure has barely been even cosmetically changed by the Obama administration.

Police and national guard orders for deployments in force regularly refer to US citizens, potential rioters one presumes, not as potential troublemakers or potential lawbreakers, but as “the enemy.”  

And Edward Snowden and the reporters who talked with him revealed—among many disturbing things—that at least 1.2 million American citizens are on a government watch list.

And the release yesterday of the Senate report on CIA abuses and torture and resulting policies—all done in our name—during the Bush administration had information so revolting it shocked even many of the jaded in Washington.  It is quite apparent that knowledge and responsibility for it were at the very highest levels. 

Yet it is a virtual certainty that next to no one—perhaps no one at all—will be prosecuted for what we once considered—when moral character and adhering to our own laws and codes meant something—heinous war crimes.

Is this what the failure of—no, the disappearance of—democracy looks like?  Is this the nation we want to be?

The tools of repression would seem to be unveiling before our very eyes.  Hedges once again lays bare the awful, raw, and agonizing picture:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_society_of_captives_20141207

If there is not enough resistance to police-state behavior now, when there is still the power to resist, a day will come when effective resistance is no longer possible without MASSIVE suffering.

Martin Luther King said that injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere.  Something to remember when thinking that injustices to African-Americans don’t affect you, that at least you and yours will be “safe.”  There’s also a poignant reminder to all of us from another great African-American:

“If they take one of us in the morning, they’ll come for the rest of us in the night,” James Baldwin said.  And Martin Niemoller would desperately add and remind us if he were still here that if you think they can take any “group” without them eventually coming for you, you are monstrously, tragically, delusional.

As we gaze through the illusions, and look at all the sleepwalkers around us, I can’t help thinking: If Americans feel they are overwhelmed with everything now, what will it be like as the country continues to transform in such terrible and ugly ways?  At what point did Romans start to wonder about the same things?  At what point did the Germans?

For in all this there is a warning to willfully ignorant white America:  The tyranny that you fear will probably not materialize. The one that you do not fear—indeed, choose not to even see—will be the one that enslaves you.

Unless you start to care—about what happens to every group of people, including the one with more melanin than you.  Because against the real adversaries, the real threats, you really are nearly all in it together.

The Taking In Of Ferguson, 4

DETAILS AND RESULTS

The Scene

There is a theft of items (a box, or possibly just a handful of cigarillos; it’s never crystal clear) totaling less than $50 in value.  The store didn’t even report the theft, apparently because it was so small.  Some unknown person reported it.  The report apparently later gets upgraded to “strongarm” (no weapon) robbery.

On that Saturday morning, the streets apparently were relatively empty.

Why was Michael Brown walking (behind his friend Dorian Johnson, it should be noted) in the middle of the street?  Unclear.  It could have been arrogance; it could have been some mind and mood alteration drug (Spice? Unlikely; nothing but marijuana was found in the blood sample); it could have been perception of light or no traffic (the likeliest answer); it could have been racial, economic, and/or personal rage and frustration boiling over into a desire to assert independence and dignity; it could have been the mindless stupidity of youth (especially male youth); or it could have been something else entirely.  We’ll never know now.  The dead don’t tell tales. 

Officer Wilson confronted the two.  Responses when spoken to can vary depending on the way one is approached.  Was it a calm approach?  Were the pair smilingly (best) or expressionlessly (second best) asked what they were doing walking in the middle of the street, as Wilson claims?  Given the lack of community policing and the historical record of police and black Ferguson relations, that probably didn’t happen (first hint at deeper problems), and with Wilson by himself, less than secure, and possibly in perceived need of asserting authority, the chances are even less that it was an inquiring approach.

Did the officer ASK (with easiness in his voice) or ORDER the two to step to the walk?  Ordered, according to Johnson.  And with belligerence in both his tone and actual words (“Get the f**k on the sidewalk!”). 

Words and tone make a difference.  A big one.  Especially when the history between similar communicators and similar receivers has been so poor.  And although we have seen no record of previous confrontations between Wilson and Brown and/or Johnson, that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.  In a relatively modest-sized town, the chances of previous dynamics are not small.

Both Wilson and Johnson agree Johnson said he and Brown were only minutes away from their places, and would be there shortly.

Wilson then, according to him, realizes these are the petty theft suspects, and wheels his car to block the road.  That’s what he claims, despite his supervisor saying immediately afterwards that there was no way Wilson could have known at that point (Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson’s conflicting public statements on the matter make things even more problematic).  Even if Wilson was correct in his statement, however, why the escalation and power play for a petty theft?

What seems more plausible is that belligerence as outlined above was in the air, and angry words had been exchanged back.  Then we have a lone cop that feels disrespected and infuriatingly needing to assert/re-assert authority.  A cop who nearly hits the two as he backs the cruiser at an angle, then opens the door and hits Brown (and Brown may or may not have tried to close the door back or shove back on Wilson). 

As Ezra Klein put it, logic points more to that “it's a cop who feels provoked by these two young black men who won't get out of the street, and who tries to teach them a lesson, to put them in their place. His actions escalate the situation, and then the adrenaline floods, and then there's a struggle, and the situation escalates, and escalates, and escalates, and then Darren Wilson shoots Michael Brown and Michael Brown dies.”

Why would Brown say, as Wilson asserts, “You are too much of a f****ing p***sy to shoot me” to Wilson if Wilson had merely been in the car and had only ordered them to step to the walk? Veteran interrogators  would recognize Wilson’s statement as seeming to have a more than small probability of being manufactured to justify later behavior for one of two probable reasons:  1) Wilson had been belligerent and demeaning in his ordering of the two, and was trying to deflect things by asserting that Brown was already enraged for no apparent reason (assuming Brown was enraged) and lunging toward his police car; and/or 2) Wilson’s use of deadly force on an unarmed citizen needed further justifying to seem warranted.  Yet, unless Wilson had arrogantly, provokingly, and belligerently said from the beginning something like “do what I say or I’ll shoot you,” there was no reason for Brown to have mentioned anything about shooting or a gun (assuming Brown mentioned any such thing).  Confused?  Wilson will clear it up for you shortly.

And Wilson did escalate things.  He grabbed Brown through the window, a not very clear headed choice for the disadvantaged position it put him in, lending further plausibility to the fact that his anger and adrenalin were up.

Both accounts agree Brown handed the cigarillos over to Johnson.  It seems highly unlikely that one intent on fighting would do that; he would just drop them, period.  It seems logical that only someone trying to get away, but not leave evidence behind, would do what Brown did, unless he really thought that Wilson would not escalate further—and especially not escalate over something relatively minor.

And then Wilson’s account of Brown going for the gun gets even weirder, as the man who had just handed to Johnson the cigarillos—they were that important apparently—supposedly crammed his big torso inside the car to grab the gun.  The only corroboration for that would be the powder on Brown’s hands.  If one does not assume that the powder was somehow planted later, it needs explained.

It can be readily.  In fact, of course, Wilson told Brown, who was resisting Wilson’s attempt to hold him, “Stop, or I’m going to shoot you.”  Notice who further escalated things.  It is quite possible that when Wilson began to unholster his gun, Brown tried to stop him.

It is just as plausible that Brown was about the get away from Wilson, who, by his own admission, had grabbed Brown, and given Brown’s strength, Brown was about to succeed in getting away.  Brown, then seeing Wilson about to draw his weapon, tries to stop it.

An untrained man attempting on a trained one.

And MAYBE saying what Wilson said he did.  A little more understandable now.

Two shots go off, slightly wounding Brown in his hand.  The bullets, according to forensic evidence, struck a nearby home and endangered public safety and potentially the lives of other citizens.

It should be noted again that it was Wilson who reached for his gun and threatened to use it.  Discharge of a weapon is always primarily the officer’s responsibility, and by appearance, it does not look like Officer Wilson was being responsible.

Brown momentarily successfully flees at this point.   Wilson gives chase, for there is little that seems to make a law enforcement officer angrier than someone running away or driving away from him.

Wilson paints Brown as maniacal, irrational:  “When [Brown] stopped, he turned, looked at me, made like a grunting noise and had the most intense, aggressive face I've ever seen on a person. When he looked at me, he then did like the hop...you know, like people do to start running. And, he started running at me. During his first stride, he took his right hand put it under his shirt into his waistband. And I ordered him to stop and get on the ground again. He didn't. I fired multiple shots. After I fired the multiple shots, I paused a second, yelled at him to get on the ground again, he was still in the same state. Still charging, hand still in his waistband, hadn't slowed down.” 

From a man already wounded, apparently seriously.  Reach into his waistband?  Likely that is more justificationist invention, because why would anyone—especially anyone wounded—do that (hold up his shorts/pants maybe? But even that seems far fetched)?  And it contradicts Wilson’s previous statement where he says he didn’t believe Brown was armed. 

And how likely was it that Brown was going to “run” or “charge” at Wilson?  At 290 then non-athletic pounds.  Wounded in the hand, arm, and forearm.  After being probably winded from fleeing.  Unarmed, against an armed cop who had already fired on him and wounded him.

Johnson’s account seems more believable, especially that Brown was SLOWLY walking back with his hands raised.

What’s also possible is that Brown did not obey Wilson’s orders to stop walking toward him, hands raised or not, and Wilson panicked and fired.

Whatever the circumstance, Wilson continued to fire, hitting Brown in the chest and head, killing him.

 

The scene as painted by the prosecution, through Wilson and what little physical evidence there is, can be made to fit—clunkily—Wilson’s story.

As long as one is willing to ignore quite a bit and not question Wilson’s story further.

But if one chooses to question logically…

Shoddy Police/Detective Work

No real incident report.

The crime scene photos?  Poorly done.  Much that one would normally expect, or at least the methodological ordering, appears to be missing.

No fingerprinting or confiscation of the gun in the early going.

Body left there for over 4 hours.

The gun mysteriously misfires several times.  Evidence is indeterminate (not gathered?) about why that would have been the case.

No adversarial cross-examination (or more accurately, advanced questioning) of witnesses except for ones that disputed Wilson’s version of events.

The Poorly Explained

Wilson’s slight bruise—on the right side of his face.   The sole visible “injury” from supposedly being furiously and repeatedly attacked with great force while he sat in his police cruiser—in the left seat, with his left cheek facing the window.  Wilson’s slight injuries (slight as photos show; hospital records show even less, that is, NO bruises) do not match what he testified that Brown allegedly did to him.

The shifting explanation of why Wilson went to such extreme lengths about Brown.  Why did Wilson pursue rather than wait for backup?  Even after he continued to confront, why did he repeatedly elevate to deadly force when he knew backup was on the way, and that, even if he somehow “lost” any close-in confrontation, that backup rescue would be along momentarily?

12 shots total were fired.  10 of those at a minimum distance of several feet; 6-7 shots to body.  Brown was without a gun, but kept coming at him the whole time?

At what point was the police officer’s life threatened?  He still had a billy club and mace.  He was trained how to bring down an attacker with both.  Except he didn’t try to do that, supposedly because Brown was allegedly reaching in his pants (implied: for a gun).  The same Brown who had not done that the entire confrontation, despite having been shot at, despite having been wounded.

Why were the bullet wounds mostly appearing to slope downwards?  It seems no one as large as Michael Brown would “charge” that crouched for that long.

DEFENDANT Becomes Star Witness For The Prosecution, With Primacy

McCulloch made much of the inconsistent witnesses.  Yet there were enough consistent witnesses.  But those witnesses weren’t telling the story Bob McCulloch wanted to tell.

16 witnesses said Brown’s hands were up.  2 said they weren’t.  They believed the 2.

So they took what the white officer said as absolutely true and what civilians said as absolutely untrue, in entirety, unless it fit perfectly with the white officer’s story.  One can maybe tilt toward the officer’s testimony—he is after all, a supposedly responsible officer of the law—when there are few opposing witnesses.  But 16?

“Can I legally shoot him?”  is what Wilson said he was thinking.   Note: Not, “should I?”  No one seemed to blink an eye at how fast Wilson was willing to elevate things to the deadly force level, for vaporous reasons. 

Wilson’s testimony is not very powerful, and to the skeptical (what investigators are supposed to be), would be quite unconvincing.  Why did Wilson attempt to apprehend Brown and put him (open the door, attempt to open the door, or move to open the door; the record is foggy) in the squad car?  For what great and urgent thing?  Why did he say he didn’t attempt to use his mace because it would be “ineffective”?  And if Brown was using one hand to cover his own face (to make any mace “ineffective,” one presumes) how did Brown see to be able to inflict such “heavy” blows on Wilson?  If he was using one hand to cover his face, and was outside the car, how was Wilson at so much of a disadvantage?  Why did Wilson think that his baton or flashlight—officers are trained to be quite effective with both—would be of no use, that only his gun was?

Veteran police officers have spoken up and said Wilson’s stated reasons for his actions (especially the escalations) don’t make sense, that what he risked wasn’t worth it.  That it almost certainly HAD to be anger and other emotion (and adrenalin) overriding both common sense and confrontation/arrest protocol.  And quite possibly a concocted story or partially concocted story to cover for that.  Even Nancy Grace, who has never NOT sided with a police officer, won’t side with his story.

A former Missouri police officer had this to say: At the time Wilson decides to escalate the situation, “Officer Wilson has no information that these two suspects are dangerous or a threat to the community.  If he stays in his vehicle, positioned in a forward location from the two men, and waits on backup patrol officers, the arrest will be conducted with more officers and more ‘use of force’ options.  Most suspects succumb to being outnumbered.  If the suspects run, they get pursued.  If they pull a weapon, they receive the use of force that is required to neutralize the threat.  Any police officer would tell you that you never take on a threat by yourself, if there are available options.  When Wilson backed his vehicle up to within feet of the suspects, he placed himself in an indefensible position.  He could have been shot at point blank range, in his vehicle, if the suspects had weapons.  Now the altercation ensues, which is also up for debate about who said what and did what first.  This confrontation did not need to happen.  It was instigated by Officer Wilson and it escalated on him in an instant.”

“Wilson did not know, upon first contact with Brown, if Brown was mentally handicapped, deaf, under the influence of drugs, diabetic or a multitude of other conditions that could affect the outcome.  When the struggle at the SUV began, Wilson should have driven away.  Break away and call for immediate backup officers.  Brown was not committing a felony until he assaulted a police officer.  Without the altercation in the vehicle, there is no self-defense by Wilson against being attacked by a felon.” 

Conclusions

An unarmed person being shot six times IS probable cause and a preponderance of evidence.  Although there may or may not have been enough to convict, there was certainly enough to indict.  The prosecution’s rush to judgment in the other direction was much in display.

We are, Ezra Klein says, supposed to believe Brown was a “rage filled lunatic attempting to commit suicide by cop.”  Because we all know that’s what cannabis (marijuana was found in Brown’s blood) does to a person, makes him a raging suicidal lunatic.  If you’re an ignoramus making some camp crap film in the 1930s maybe.

A cop can generally only shoot to immediately protect the lives of others or when his or her life is threatened at the very moment he has to shoot.  It’s unlikely that Michael Brown was a threat after being wounded.  It’s even more unlikely that he was a threat (and to whom?  A trained police officer who could have backed away until the bullets he had put into the rest of Brown—including his chest—had taken full effect?) on the very last shot fired.  If Brown was, maybe it was one of desperation against a maddened cop who was determined to kill him.

The plausible alternative of Johnson’s story, certainly in parts, should have given more credence to the need for cross-examination that comes in force at a trial.  But that option was shortcircuited by McCulloch. 

Since when did it become a capital offense to do petty theft or not be compliant with the demand (have you noticed how police officers these days can demand practically anything, with no recourse for citizens?  In another era, we would have called that fascist) of a police officer?  Or become a capital offense to slug a police officer who is assaulting you? And all with no peaceful confrontation from the officer.  No taser.  Not even a billy club.  What can be deemed in many respects death by summary execution.  One of the marks of  authoritarianism.

When did we stop presuming against the unlawful use, and excessive use, of force?

Are the police the servants of the public or not?  At what point do we start asking if power is corrupting?  When do we start questioning whether a culture of corruption (and perhaps also death and violence) has been created?   To paraphrase Juvenal, “who guards us from the guardians?”

What’s been presented above is what the prosecution could have developed to question Officer Wilson’s actions.  Of course, it’s not in the arcane forms necessary to be legally presented, nor even in the best way—that would be their job to do, as attorneys.

Is it possible that Wilson’s story in the general is correct, and off only in a few particulars?  While unlikely (for the reasons above), it is possible.  He could have had his time during a trial to try to prove his story.  That’s what trials are for, supposedly.

But that will almost certainly not happen.  Unless the heat ratchets up considerably, no such criminal case is ever likely to happen now.

Ezra Klein: “We might never get to the truth of what happened in those two minutes on August. But the point of a trial would have been to get us closer. We would have found out if everything we thought we knew about Brown was wrong, or if Wilson's story was flawed in important ways, or if key witnesses completely broke under pressure. We would have heard real cross-examination. We would have seen the strongest case that could be mounted by both the prosecution and the defense. But now we're not going to get that chance.”

A trial using the contradictory or inconclusive evidence as presented so far, and the standard prosecution team, would not have had high chance of convincing a trial jury that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Neither would a trial on federal violation of civil rights.

A civil case might get something.  It wouldn’t be justice, exactly, but it might get a measure of vindication.  Unfortunately not extremely strong there, either, according to various legal specialists. 

But a criminal trial using a special prosecutor and his or her team would have had a much better chance of conviction on some charge.  And even if they only got close, it would have strengthened things for the other trial or cases. 

Or imparted some measure of real justice, or at least laid the groundwork for real structural improvements, not only in Ferguson but across the country.   Instead, we might only get rug sweeping that, with harsh economic realities, as well as a host of other problems, further dilutes things and pushes the matter off our attention spans—until the next big incident.  Indeed, the focus begins to fade already, although a few days ago President Obama breathed some new life in it by promoting federal funding for policy body cameras, a vigorous community policing task force/commission, and a review of the practice of transferring military equipment to police departments.

These are real problems.  Let’s hope this time there is real will to address them.

POSTSCRIPT

Al-Jazeera America kept a light on non-transparent law enforcement and judicial processes.   They have been one of the voices that have joined the young in maybe, MAYBE starting a world-wide campaign (and demonstrations poorly covered by corporate media) for reform of police methods.

The real reporters—BBC, Al-Jazeera, etc.—have been unfortunately threatened and roughed up by both rioters and the police.  And the store that didn’t even report the initial petty theft was caught in the rioting and undeservedly got sacked.

The corporate media, and much of white America that wants to justify itself, have become fixated on riot porn and property destruction, which of course is the worst thing in the world when black people do it, but overlooked when crazed white football, hockey, or soccer fans or others do it.  Peaceful protesters on the ground in Ferguson have called for law enforcement to look into agitators.  Some of the protesters have even accused law enforcement of planting some of those agitators.  The fact that so many open criminality items—Molotov cocktails, etc.—have been in open view yet unseized by a very large and strong law enforcement presence makes one pause a moment from quick dismissal of the usual wild conspiracy theories.  And that so many places and things have been easily set on fire yet not even tried to be put out—including one in front of a fire station—throws further unneeded suspicion on things.  Incompetence?   Tactical resource application/withholding decision?  Or something more insidious?  Good explanations are rarely received.  In fact, government dissemination to the media appears very tightly controlled.  From a Ferguson and county power structure already highly suspect because of its past actions and general culture.

Many in and out of the African-American community have wearied of marches, feeling that a march or some other acceptable form of “benign indignation” would not address their political needs — and they’ve been proven correct.  Because few in power pay attention to marches anymore.  The disgruntled are therefore looking again at Martin Luther King’s methods.  MLK used nonviolent methods, including marches, to be sure, but he used disruptive and obstructing nonviolent civil disobedience as well—and was even more effective. 

What no one should underestimate is the difficulty for a minority to reach the hearts and minds of the other people—and the powerful.  In the past, white protesters and rioters have often had access to at least some institutional power, access which allowed some of their grievances to be legitimized and politically resolved.  For minorities with no (or quite limited) access, it’s much harder.

Regardless, what we probably shouldn’t be doing is telling people who have faced—are facing—oppression how they should feel.

Do we need international observers and evaluators?  Probably.  The matters of race and inequality—and the historical imprints thereof—are likely too much for us to overcome without unbiased appraisal and perhaps even arbitration.  We will first need to discard our haughty American notion that we only do the observing, not be the observed.

Should cops have a right to arrest for a misdemeanor?  Would just sending a bill work better?

Are police officers making good decisions about the severity of crime and cost/benefit determinations?  For instance, are they asking:  Is the crime, the potential damage to public safety, worth the chase?  And if one can only have recourse to deadly force, the question becomes ever more pointed.

There is a “use of force model,” a continuum that officers are trained on (or supposed to be) that is supposed to guide their actions during an interaction or confrontation.  Most of the early and middle phases/techniques of it have nothing to do with much force, and none at all with deadly force.

As one former Missouri police officer stated to me:  “My training emphasized basing our response on de-escalating the environment and reducing harm to myself, the suspects and innocent civilians.”

A number of police cultures are good ones.  Yet many, many police officers are good officers confined to a bad police culture.  Still others are pressured to “cover” for their fellows who show poor judgment or even cruelty, so that the “blue line” always stands united.  Indeed, the “we versus them” mentality is even deemed necessary by many police so that they have the unity of force to function in their jobs.

Police often have a hard job even where the culture is good.  Not sure about in towns of 21,000 people, but it’s generally not easy, and they labor, in this plutocratic economy, under the same economic squeezes that teachers and firefighters do.

Police have a right to defend themselves.  Against an unarmed person, however, the bar should be VERY high to justify a supposed necessity to use deadly force.  Good, conscientious police will want that bar to be high.

For the GJ to have indicted Wilson just on involuntary manslaughter, the least severe of the charges available, they would have had go against the prosecutor’s desires as well as been shown that the police officer did not believe his life was in danger. Despite all the various evidence—and their own common sense and reasoning—suggesting that Wilson’s life was not in real danger, the officer and prosecutor put together a picture to support the idea that he was, and with that, and being told by McCulloch’s assistant prosecutors time and again that they had to follow Missouri law and guidelines for justifiable actions (killing) by a police officer, Wilson was going to walk.

The evidence may or may not have convicted Darrin Wilson of even the most minor charge possible.  But we’ll probably never know now.  A racially charged case was pre-empted.  The system accommodated itself to shield one of its own.  And that is a slap in the face to all good police officers and prosecutors everywhere, who must live with the staining smear their fellows in another place have unfairly thrown on them.  And then, just today, we have the further disgrace of no indictment in the strangulation death, caught on video in broad daylight, of middle aged asthmatic Eric Garner by a white police officer while other officers joined in.  It looks like a snuff film, and hearing his voice that he couldn’t breathe was even more gruesome.  Yet even with that stark evidence, his completely undeserved, unwarranted death—what looks and sounds like murder by police—was not even worthy of an indictment so there could be a trial.  Such is the incestuousness of police, prosecutors, and the grand juries they lead.  Such is the devaluing of African-American lives.  Such is the shame to us all and white people in particular.  Missouri and New York are far apart.  Someone not very familiar with America could easily surmise that a fascist network has come into being.

The next day after the failure to indict Darrin Wilson, my 15 year old daughter refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, and got in some trouble.  I asked her why she refused to stand.

“I didn’t know how I felt about a country with a history of death to the natives and brutality to slaves.  But the thing that stopped me at that moment was thinking about those words.”

“What words?” I asked.

“With liberty and justice for all.”