Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Militarization Of Our Police
The following is from the blog of progressive activist Jim Hightower:
Let's check our weaponry: 93,000 machine guns, 533 planes and helicopters, 180,000 magazine cartridges, and 432 mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles. Okay, let's roll!
Only, this is not the US military. It's your and my local police departments patrolling our cities. Remember "Officer Friendly," the beat cops who were known as "peace officers"? The friendlies have largely been transformed into militarized forces, literally armed with and garbed in war gear and indoctrinated in military psychology, rather than the ethic of community policing.
Twenty years ago, Congress created the military transfer program, providing federal grants so chiefs of police and sheriffs could buy surplus firepower from the Pentagon. In a stunningly short time, our local police forces have become macho-military units, possessing an armory of Pentagon freebies ranging from 30-ton tanks to rifle silencers. They've gone from peacekeeping beats to over-the-top SWAT team aggression, unleashed on the citizenry tens of thousands of times a year, mainly for ordinary police work. For example, a gung-ho Florida SWAT team raided area barbershops in 2010 to stop the horror of "barbering without a license." And masked police in Louisiana launched a military raid on a nightclub in order to perform a liquor law inspection.
Militarization is a dangerous and ultimately deadly perversion of the honorable purpose of policing – and it is literally out of control. The New York Times notes that 38 states have received silencers to use in surreptitious raids.
A sheriff in a North Dakota rural county with only 11,000 people told a Times reporter that he saw no need for silencers. When it was pointed out that his department had received 40 of them from the Pentagon, he was baffled, saying: "I don't recall approving them."
Mr. Hightower is exactly right. We are in the process of militarizing the police in the United States -- and it is not in just a few large communities. It is happening across the nation in both small and large communities.
As someone who has worked in various aspects of law enforcement most of my adult life, I am not opposed to keeping our police as safe as possible. Sometimes a SWAT team is necessary. But we have gone overboard in militarizing our police departments -- and when you provide this military hardware you can be sure it will be used. Unfortunately, many times it is misused -- used against innocent civilians, or criminals that really don't pose much danger to the police. We are turning our police into small armies, and then turning them loose on our citizenry, when we really should be going more to neighborhood policing.
It is time for American citizens to ask themselves if they want this. We already know that we have more people in prison (both as a whole and per capita) than any other nation, and now we are turning our police into military units (using weapons meant for war). Do you want to live in a police state (with a democratic facade)? Because that is what's happening in the United States.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
A Livable Minimum Wage Will NOT Cost Jobs
I have to admit that the graphic image above (from the Facebook page of Working America) makes a lot of sense to me. The same companies that whine about having to pay a higher minimum wage ($10.10 an hour, or about $21,000 a year) will happily pay their CEOs $10,000 an hour (and other executives nearly that much). They want us to believe exorbitant executive pay is necessary while paying workers a barely livable wage would be unmanageable.
Personally, I think that's a load of horse crap, and it's an immoral position to take. There is simply no way to justify paying a full-time worker a poverty wage. If it's a reliable and hard worker, then they should be paid a livable wage -- and if that worker is not reliable and hard-working, they should be replaced with someone who is.
The Republicans, on behalf of their big business buddies, are still trying to float the argument that raising the minimum wage to a livable level ($10.10 an hour at least) would cost jobs. They say it would force businesses to lay off workers. That's a false argument, and many studies have shown it is simply not true.
The truth is that businesses hire the amount of workers they need to provide adequate service to their customers. If they hire more workers than are needed, then they are just wasting money -- something no business wants to do. And if they hire less workers than necessary, the service will suffer and they will lose customers because of it. Those customers will go to a business that provides the service they need.
That means that any business that lays off workers because the minimum wage is raised is just cutting their own throat. They will lose business to their competitors (who kept enough workers to service their customers adequately). And the argument that they could no longer compete unless they laid off workers is ridiculous, since their competitors will be required to pay the same minimum wage.
Raising the minimum wage will not cause huge layoffs. It will not do it because businesses will keep the workers they need -- even if they have to slightly raise their prices. Customers will pay a slightly higher price as long as they receive the service they want. But they will not stay with a company that gives poor service (even to save a little money). Customers like to get a good price, but not at the expense of poor service.
This is just Business 101 folks -- and anyone who tells you different is lying to you.
Hillary Still Wins Head-To-Head Battles With GOP Hopefuls
The Republicans have done their best to smear Hillary Clinton in the last few months, but at least so far, it's just not working. Here are the latest numbers for Hillary against the top GOP hopefuls, and they look pretty good (for Hillary). The closest competitors are Rand Paul and Ben Carson, but both trail by 7 points (well above the poll's margin of error).
These numbers are from the Rasmussen Poll (in surveys taken of a random sample of 1,000 likely voters on June 14th and 15th, June 16th and 17th, and on June 20th and 21st -- with a margin of error of about 3 points).
Bill Maher On Why We Can't "Fix" Iraq
Now that Iraq is falling apart again, someone needs to drill it into the American psyche that broken nations are a lot like broken people — you can't fix them. Look at Afghanistan and the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. Look at Denise Richards and the lawless tribal areas of Charlie Sheen.
Lately, there's been so many calls for American intervention in Syria, Ukraine, north Africa, now Iraq again. Maybe America is the one that needs an intervention. Maybe America needs Dr. Phil to come by and ask us, "How's that nation building workin' for ya?"
Now I know we're Americans, which means that when this nation was founded by Jesus, he made us exceptional. But we're not miracle workers. We have to realize that some nations — much like Nick Nolte's pants — are never going to change. Some of them aren't even nations, they're just tribes that we threw together like reality show contestants on a sex boat. And when Presidents of both parties have dealt with them over the decades and got bad results, we always blame the President. But maybe it's not the President, maybe it's the place.
It's like how, you know sometimes there's one place on a street where every business that goes in there fails? You drive by, it's a Quiznos. You drive by again, it's a nail salon. Drive by again, it's a pawn shop. It's not failing because it hates freedom, it's just a shitty location.
I'm sorry, Iraq! Not to be mean, but you're a shitty location. Which is why it's so frustrating to now hear "if only we had stayed". This is the delusion that launched the war in the first place. Remember the plan? We were going to go into Iraq, we'd be greeted as liberators, then we'd install an American-style democracy that we'd then use as a model for the rest of the Middle East to become democratic. Then after lunch....
Don Rumsfeld once said we could fix Iraq in six months. "Fix" Iraq. America's like one of those women who always think she can "fix" the bad boy. And Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Pakistan, Somalia, these are all the bad boys we couldn't resist trying to fix.
We think, "You know, if they just got to know us, I know they'd straighten out. If I just spend time with him, he'll see how happy he is, and he won't want to drink and chase whores anymore!" "I'm going to smother him with love, that's what I'm gonna do! And then he'll realize what he really wants — to be a secular democracy."
I mean, sure, bad boys are exciting — the hot sex, the rug burns, the missing money from your checking account. What girl could resist that?
I mean, we've all seen how even big stars, beautiful, rich, successful women, women who could have anybody, chose to get with dirtbags!
Why? Because it's human nature to think you can change human nature. Remember in that movie As Good As It Gets when lifelong asshole Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt, "You make me want to be a better man"? Yeah, that happens never. Just like President Maliki isn't going to call Obama tomorrow and say, "You make us want to be a better country."
(The caricature of Bill Maher above is by DonkeyHotey.)
Monday, June 23, 2014
Soccer Thoughts
(This cartoon image of World Cup groups was found at joyreactor.com.)
I spent much of the time that I normally dedicate to research and blogging just watching the World Cup yesterday -- so I thought I'd just make my last post about soccer (football, as the rest of the world knows it).
Like many other Americans (at least those of us who love soccer), I was very disappointed when the group drawing were held for the World Cup. The United States wound up in an extremely tough group -- with Germany and Portugal (two of Europe's best teams) and Ghana (a very good team that had beaten the United States the last two times we played them). I honestly did not think the United States would be able to advance to the next round, since only two teams from each group gets to advance.
But I am very proud of how well the U.S. team has played in this very tough group. They started off by beating Ghana 2-1, and then yesterday they came back from a one goal deficit to tie Portugal 2-2 (and for a while it looked like the U.S. might even win that game). Now the U.S. and Germany both have 4 points, while Ghana and Portugal both have 1 point. That means that after two games the United States still has a good chance to advance past the first round.
We play Germany next, and if we beat Germany or tie with them, then we will advance. We will also advance if Ghana and Portugal tie (even if we lose to Germany). If we lose and either Portugal or Ghana wins their game, them it will go down to tiebreakers (since we would both have 4 points then). Whatever happens now, I am very proud of how well the U.S. team has played. They have represented this country very well.
And while I'm on the subject of soccer, I thought I'd bring you the results of a recent Rasmussen Poll on the subject. The survey (taken on June 17th and 18th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, with a 4 point margin of error) asked Americans if they thought soccer would become as popular in the United States as it is in the rest of the world in the next five years. A clear majority of 59% said no, while only 19% said yes.
That 19% are far too optimistic. I love soccer myself, and I truly believe it is gaining in popularity very fast in the U.S., but it is still far from being as popular here as it is in the rest of the world. It might one day become that popular here, but it's going to take a lot longer than five years. What do you think?
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