WHY FERGUSON MATTERS / MILITARIZATION OF POLICE STATE

Protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. (The News Commenter)

Fourteen teens have been killed by the police since Michael Brown was gunned down on August 9th and young African Americans are killed by cops 4.5 times more often than people of other races and ages. We are obviously watching our police shift their mission from saving lives to prosecuting drug wars, social injustice and an increasingly visible militarized police state: Allen L Roland, Ph.D

"As long as justice is postponed we always stand on the verge of these darker nights of social disruption." Martin Luther King Jr. in a speech on March 14, 1968, just three weeks before he was assassinated.

SWAT teams were created in the 1960s to combat hostage-takings, sniper shootings, and violent unrest. But today they're often used in more controversial police work and with an increased use of military weapons. As Thom Hartmann correctly states ~ "America's police forces have become like occupied armies, hyper-militarized for the benefit of our nation's military industrial complex. All across our country, local cops are kicking in doors, SWAT teams are carrying weapons of war, and warrants are becoming things of the past."

Here's an excellent 10 minute documentary video of this ominous mission creep ~ http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003097381/swat-mission-creep.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_fs_20140910&nl=video&nlid=65700837

Ferguson matters because we are finally witnessing the social injustice of our current War on Drugs and growing militarized police state ~ here are the facts:

Black people are arrested and incarcerated six times more often than whites.

• An African-American male is sentenced to a prison term that is, on average, 20 to 50 times longer than a white male convicted of the same drug crime.
• More than 2.3 million men in America are in prison, approximately half of them for drug-related crimes. Seventy percent of all men imprisoned are black or Hispanic. Thirty years ago, before the "War on Drugs" was launched, there were only 300,000 people in the American prison system.
• There are 2.7 million children whose fathers or mothers are in prison, on probation, or on parole.
• In many urban areas 80 percent of young men have prison records. These convictions will remain on their records permanently, limiting their voting rights and their ability to find employment. Currently, in all but two states, citizens with felony convictions are permanently or temporarily prohibited from voting. The United States is the only country that permits permanent disenfranchisement of felons even after completion of their sentences.
• The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, higher than Russia, China, and Iran.
• White households have six times the wealth of African-American households.

Ferguson matters because St. Louis County prosecutors may have misled the grand jury into believing that Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson was justified in shooting Brown merely because the unarmed black 18-year-old fled from the officer, according to a review of the grand jury documents by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell; "Before Wilson testified to the grand jury on September 16, prosecutors gave grand jurors an outdated statute that said police officers can shoot a suspect that's simply fleeing. This statute was deemed unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1985; the court ruled that a fleeing suspect must, at least in a police officer's reasonable view, pose a dangerous threat to someone or have committed a violent felony to justify a shooting." See article: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/27216-report-prosecutors-may-have-misled-the-ferguson-grand-jury-about-the-law-for-two-months

Ferguson matters because many black leaders like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, are rightfully troubled because the judicial system is obviously racially flawed ~ "The people of Ferguson, and across the country, are not protesting against white people or police officers, they are protesting against the kind of racism that is so embedded in various social institutions that it’s invisible to all except those it affects. They are protesting a blind faith in any institution when the facts don’t warrant that faith."  See article:  http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/27220-focus-white-people-feel-targeted-by-the-ferguson-protests-welcome-to-our-world

Ferguson finally matters because the rules are really different for blacks seeking justice and no one understood this better than Martin Luther King Jr whose words in his 1968 speech (The Other America) speaks to all Americans, regardless of their race; "It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard."

We have now reached the stage in our Republic where the unheard must be heard.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-ferguson-matters-militarization-of.html

 
Spiritual consultant Allen L Roland can be contacted at  allen@allenroland.com

Allen is also a lecturer and writer who shares a weekly political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com. He is also a featured columnist on Veterans Today and  guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

 

THE NINE STAGES OF CIVILIZATION ~ WE'RE ENTERING THE EIGHTH, DEPENDENCE

The United States is now firmly entering  the eighth stage of all civilizations ~ Dependence with only Bondage ahead of it. Apathy has allowed our constitution to be shredded in stage seven which led to our current state of Dependence on the state ~ but soon an IRS monitored Obamacare program of 'Shared responsibility, or else' will usher in the Orwellian ninth stage of militarized Bondage: Allen L Roland

Last year I wrote that the average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been two hundred years and that these nations have progressed through a nine stage sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacence to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/03/19/the-nine-stages-of-civilization-were-in-the-seventh-apathy/

As Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, once correctly said ~ ”We’re not a democracy. It’s a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we’re a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy.” 

In our present Plutocracy, we made the transition last year from complacency to national apathy ~ but with the passage and implementation of Obamacare, along with an increasingly militarized surveillance state, we have now entered stage eight, Dependence on the state ~ which will soon be followed with militarized Bondage by the state.

John Adams once correctly defined the perils of dependence ~ " The nature of the encroachment upon American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer; it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity and frugality become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole of society. "

Obamacare or 'shared-responsibility or else'  is the most visible evidence of the plutocracy's leveraged buyout of Democracy as we officially enter stage eight of our rapidly crumbling civilization or empire ~ and no one nails this truth better than Bill Moyers. 5 Minute video ~  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hZ5tj4cN9Jk

Obamacare is a blatant but sad joke played on an apathetic American public who are already becoming conditioned for dependence by the plutocracy. Here's the hypocrisy of Obamacare in a single sentence. 2 minute video ~ http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/health-and-medical-1/the-new-us-health-care-program.html

Part and parcel of this shift to Dependence is a growing surveillance and police state ~ as clearly evidenced in the recent lockdown of Boston. Henry Giroux noted this some point in his provocative recent article in AlterNet ~ Did the Authorities' lockdown of Boston Give us a Taste of The Police State Culture to Come?

Excerpt:  "Militarism thrives on the mass produced culture of fear and the spectacle of violence.  It abhors dissent and flourishes in an ever expanding web of secrecy. Both Bush and Obama have used the cult of secrecy and the threat of punishment to silence whistleblowers, allow those who have committed torture under the government direction to go free, and refused those who have been “interrogated” illegally to take their case to the courts."

Giroux correctly concludes that the American public at large is so immersed in fear and cruelty that they are more than willing to surrender their rights at the first whiff of danger ~ and that, I would add, is the most important step in the process of moving from Dependence to a militarized state of Bondage ~ the exploitation of fear and danger for the benefit of the state or plutocracy.

Are you aware that thousands of US police including the FBI director and NYC Chief of Police have been getting "law enforcement training" from Israel?

What are they learning from the very same thugs who brutalize Palestinians daily? Very simply, that "All civilians are probable criminals and should be treated that way."

Here is an 8 minute RT Video interview with Max Blumenthal in 2011 on the intentional militarization of the police force ~ which has now become painfully obvious in the recent Boston Bombings.

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/22707.html

Huxley correctly predicted in Brave New World that the truth would eventually be drowned in a sea of irrelevance ~ which is precisely the case now as we transition from Apathy to Dependence.

Truth talker Chris Hedges describes the symptoms of the rapidly approaching  last stage of Bondage ~ for it will indeed be marked by  The Death of Truth   "The world has been turned upside down. The pestilence of corporate totalitarianism is spreading rapidly over the earth. The criminals have seized power. It is not, in the end, simply Assange or Manning they want. It is all who dare to defy the official narrative, to expose the big lie of the global corporate state. The persecution of Assange and Manning is the harbinger of what is to come, the rise of a bitter world where criminals in Brooks Brothers suits and gangsters in beribboned military uniforms ~ propped up by a vast internal and external security apparatus, a compliant press and a morally bankrupt political elite ~ monitor and crush those who dissent. Writers, artists, actors, journalists, scientists, intellectuals and workers will be forced to obey or thrown into bondage. I fear for Julian Assange. I fear for Bradley Manning. I fear for us all"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34844.htm

As a civilization or empire collapses from within ~ all citizens eventually are seen as potential terrorists and the local police role changes from protecting the public to protecting the plutocracy.

Seen through clearer eyes ~ as Pepe Escobar explains ~ the recent Boston bombings police reaction was a prelude to Martial Law ~ 

 " What the day-long delay in Dzhokhar's arrest indeed made possible was to turn Watertown into a monster dry run for urban martial law - euphemized as ''lockdown'' - in a very near future. As total militarization of civilian life goes - featuring, for instance, Homeland Security running amok with hundreds of armored vehicles - this was a major success. Meanwhile, on the ''legal'' front, the White House and the Justice Department are firmly on track to finally suppress the Miranda warning; that went into effect already two years ago, when an Obama secret executive order ruled the Miranda warning would not apply to suspected terrorists." See article ~ http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-230413.html

The day is fast approaching when speaking the truth will be seen as an act of terrorism, and we will finally realize that we have become totally dependent on the state, that our cherished individual freedoms were trashed in that process and that it was all done in the glorious name of national security.

"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men" : Voltaire.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-nine-stages-of-civilization-were.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations (allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

OWS MEETS POLICE STATE / THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN

Click picture to enlarge

This dramatic photo of a young woman getting a blast of pepper spray on her face during a peaceful Occupy protest in Portland has become an enduring image of the national occupy movement

The global elite see themselves as the deciders and a militarized fascist police force protecting their interests but never underestimate the power of the people, armed with the truth, demanding the change that was never delivered and willing to shut down the machinery of government in the process: Allen L Roland

The more the Occupy Wall Street movement grows , the more apparent becomes the police state that has emerged from the Patriot Act ~ and the more obvious becomes the real reason for its formation ~ to protect the global elite from the people armed with the truth.

As Steve Bhaerman writes ~“ For the past ten years since the oxymoronically-titled "Patriot Act" was passed, we've been seeing "soft fascism," the kind that quietly installs the machinery of the police state just in case our collective awareness breaks through the carefully-crafted illusion of freedom. It is a disease process that has been robbing us of our heart, our soul, and our spirit - until now.”

Soft fascism would become true fascism when civil protestors are arrested, interned and sent to the scores of FEMA camps ~ that were originally built to detain illegal immigrants but were eventually meant for civil dissidents and enemies of the state. This would coincide with shutting down the internet which is the main catalyst and provider of information for the OWS movement. See HR 645 report ~

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/hr-645-us-preparing-for-civil-unrest.html

Once a person is arrested and interned in a FEMA camp located on a military base, that person would in all likelihood, under a national emergency, fall under the de facto jurisdiction of the Military: civilian justice and law enforcement including habeas corpus would no longer apply.

This photo of a defiant young woman being blatantly pepper sprayed by a heavily armed police squad says it all ~ WE REPRESENT THE DECIDERS AND YOU WILL BEND TO OUR WILL!

Think of the OWS movement as essentially a demand for truth and transparency ~ without which no true change can occur.

Arthur Schopenhauer identified the three stages the truth must pass through before it is acknowledged as being self-evident and we can most certainly apply those to the Occupy Wall Street movement;

1. It is ridiculed; As the OWS movement was initially mocked by the corporate owned main stream press.

2. It is violently opposed; Once its presence has been established or acknowledged it is violently opposed by the police state ~ which increasingly sees and reacts to the occupiers as terrorists. This is when the real revolution begins because the people begin to see and experience the soft fascism that has permeated the state and slowly eroded their freedom and liberty ~ and all in the name of the War on Terror. See video of police brutality http://therealnews.com/t2/component/seyret/?task=videodirectlink&id=11398

Please note that a well-known DC lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program 'Up w/ Chris Hayes.' The memo proposes to pay the firm to conduct 'opposition research' on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct 'negative narratives' about the protests and allied politicians.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/8500-focus--memo-dc-lobbying-firm-spells-out-plan-to-undermine-ows

This is the stage where the revolution really begins for the people fully realize that the real aim of the Patriot Act was not to protect Americans from foreign terrorists but instead to protect the financial elite from the people armed with the truth ~ starting with the 9/11 cover up.

Here’s the OWS anthem ~

I am not just a Consumer. I am a Citizen.

I will no longer be labeled Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Demopublican or Republocrat.

I will no longer follow Puppets labeled Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Demopublican or Republocrat.

I am the People. And I am coming for the Puppet masters.

I am part of the 99 Percent. And I demand the following:

1. End Fed Reserve secrecy and monetary manipulation

2. Reverse Citizens United.

3. Repeal PATRIOT Act.

4. Expose 9/11 Truth.

5. End Profit Wars.

6. Refund Taxpayer Trillions.

7. Imprison the Kleptocrats.

8. Single Term Limits.

Or, if these demands are not addressed promptly: Regime Change.

This leads eventually to stage three ~ where the demands of the OWS movement are accepted as self evident, become political demands and true change occurs. This will not happen painlessly as most certainly was the case in our original American revolution 235 years ago. This is bottom up change whereas;

Top down change is fueled by a selfish corporate state whose primary focus is profit and eventually leads to greed, deception and corporate fascism.

Bottom up change is fueled by an empowered people whose primary demand is truth, fairness and justice which will eventually lead to social cooperation, altruism and true democracy.

The tables have essentially turned ~ for the OWS movement is spreading like wildfire and Regime Change is inevitable for nothing can stop an outraged citizenry, armed with the truth, and prepared to stop the machinery of a morally failed and corrupt government system in the process.

Bill Moyers agrees that Democracy only works when we claim it as our own as he slams the rule by the Plutocracy or 1% in this three minute video ~ http://www.nationofchange.org/must-see-video-bill-moyers-slams-rule-1-plutocracy-and-democracy-don-t-mix-1321809065

Mario Savio offers the solution “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious ~ makes you so sick at heart ~ that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

Live coverage: Occupy World Wide http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/7468-occupy-wall-street-take-the-bull-by-the-horns

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/ows-meets-police-state-revolution-has.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net