I am the Law

And You Won't Fuck Around No More - I AM THE LAW
~ Anthrax, I am the Law, based on the Judge Dredd Series.

This NY Times blogpost by Sudhir Venkatesh is a very interesting read of how some senior (crusty) police officers view the legal system and the ways in which they would like to dispense justice.

From the interviews: You laugh, but the good cops never let problems get to judges. They are judge on-site, I like to say. And, I don’t mean just for stupid things like kids shoplifting... I mean for serious things.

What strikes me is the sense real justice is not to be found in the courtroom. I don't know if this is an unconscious feeling gained from watching too many Charles Bronson flicks. The comment section has insightful views from people.

If you agree we should have Police, which is a valid question, what do you want the Police to do? Well, that's a huge question, for which I'm unprepared to diverge into right now, I will state Police Officers usually do not like having to respond to inane calls from people about the wind breaking their tree branches.

But, in concert with the Venkatesh piece, there have been several recent high profile stories involving police forces and the Use of Force.

The dumping of a paraplegic man out of his wheelchair by a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputy in February 2008.

The April 2008 acquittal of three New York PD Detectives for shooting and killing Sean Bell.

An May 30, 2008 Chicago Police raid on a Hispanic club on 2514 W. Fullerton is now the basis for a $10 million dollar Federal Civil Rights Violation lawsuit. Here is the NBC 5's venerable Carol Marin covering of the story of the raid.

I mention these examples because they are perhaps** the most egregious recent instances. Additionally, with the ubiquitous nature of video cameras today (watch this example) police officers need to actually behave properly.

From Chicago Public Radio Eight Forty-Eight, here is an interview with Daniel P. Smith about his book, On the Job: Behind the Stars of the Chicago Police Department. (Greetings & Salutations to Queen of the Harpies for the link.)

Smith discusses one of the key points of distrust between Police Officers and the American populace the predilection to apply perfect hindsight to stressful split-second decision making situations.

However, this is not only a problem with American law enforcement but with the American Iraq War as well. The Hadithah incident, the shooting in Fallujah of a wounded enemy in a mosque and everyone one of the checkpoint shooting Americans don't ever hear about or just plain ignore are others. Young men (and women hurray equality!) are placed in high stress situations which they judge to be kill or be killed.

The oft quoted and perhaps trite maxim is summed up as, Better to be judged by Twelve, than carried by Six. Of course, what the Chicken Hawk, Warmongering Cowards who champion war at home while ensuring their pasty, flabby, blubbery white asses do not get besmircthed by a grain of sand never understand is those choices injure even when the soldier making them is never physically wounded.

And that's the difference. As Smith said in his Chicago Public Radio interview (at 04:17) he "will never criticize a Cop, myself, for instinctual reaction" so too will I not criticize my fellow warriors for their immediate reactions on the battlefield. But Vulgar pre-mediated displays of power (Shock & Awe) can not be defended.

And this is one of the chief evils of the Iraq War. But maybe it's just another system of control, perhaps understood by those in power or perhaps not understood but simply exploited by the Architects of War. A by-product of our evolutionary past and tribal beginnings in which our brains can focus and contemplate the deaths of a few of our fellow humans and can not grasp the horror of the hundreds of thousands dead as a result of our Invasion of Iraq.

**- There have been, thus far, 21 Chicago Police shootings (6 fatal) in 2008.

EOS

My alarm awoke me at Zero Dark and I realized the Corpse no longer has a hold on me. 8 long years over. Now if I can just figure out how to get my on-the-job training monies...

In better news we have a 2008 World Series Preview today as the Cubs and White Sox play.

Angst Rock

This post began as a discussion of the new album Viva La Vida by Colplay and of the band itself. I saw an online photo of the famous painting used as the backdrop and (without googling) my internal monologue told me the painting was Liberty Leading the Way by Eugene DelaCroix (1832) in praise of the 1830 Paris riots. The image having been implanted in my middlebrow brain when I visited the Louvre in 2000. Anyway I was ready to slam Coldplay for the cheesy use of such an iconic painting because their graffiti style title name covered the exposed bare bosom of Liberty. Whether the it does or not is now irrelavant to this post.

Of course, Gwyneth Paltrow, wife of Coldplay's lead singer, describes the album as "brillant".

Anyway...

In Jan 2003, I deployed to England, JAC Molesworth. Besides the fact England has some town names, which to an American ear, just have an odd ring to them (Catworth, Stow Longa, Thrapston, Alconbury, GODMANCHESTER) Coldplay was entering the bigtime with their second album release. I heard it and I liked it and I bought it. Due to a confluence of personal events, the intellectually stultifying and mentally depressing atmosphere of the Corpse itself I was not very happy during 2003 so I found myself listening to "Sad Rock" quite often.

As an aside I still wonder if mankind listens to sad and emotionally depressing music because they are already unhappy or if the music itself pushes one into a depressed mood. I think it's a combination and it varies from individual to individual. However, I think one can create and nourish "negative" brain pathways forming a happy or sad personality through repeated exposure.

Back to Coldplay. I liked the album but while I was in Danelaw I realized I've heard this music before back in the 90's! Radiohead. The Bends and OK Computer capitalized on the Angst ridden music scene of the 90's. Of course, it wasn't that Radiohead capitalized on the 90's genre by being cliche but due to their complex and impressive musical talents.

So, the question is why is Coldplay such a huge group today? I think it has something to due with Susan Jacoby's thesis from The Age of American Unreason. People have allowed themselves to become intellectually lazy and Coldplay resonates because they have the patina of a highly impressive band which the musically elite and those with a cultured ear would listen to.

When Johnny NEVER Comes Marching Home Again, Hurrah! Hurrah!

From the Ebullient Rachel Maddow.



"Do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?" Matt Lauer.

"No, but that's not too important," John McCain said. "What's important is casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea. Americans are in Japan. American troops are in Germany. That's all fine."

But, no the government isn't into the Imperial Empire Business. Because we don't keep territory. Nope! Never have! Never ever!

The lie that America isn't an Empire is one that continues to be sold to every generation. Read the disgusting comments by Marine General John Kelly,

"We as Americans can be proud of the kind of people we are as we have never retained a square foot of any country we have defeated. We possess no empire. No man or woman call us master, as we have never subjugated any society."

Yeah, tell it to the Marines.

Update:
HOT DAMN! I figured out why McCain doesn't want to leave Iraq ever! It comes from the Johnny Comes Marching Home lyrics:

And we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home

As we all know teh gay scares warmongering republicans more than Islamfascism.

The Scientific Legacy of Faith

I often speak with my smarter friends. Usually they just invite me over to move heavy things, then pat me on the head when I flex my pre-hominid brain and make observations on the world. During one recent conversation on Evolution my friend asked me if I recalled being taught anything about it during High School. I could only recall it being briefly mentioned in freshman biology. Today of course, we have the open assault on reason by the Library burning fanatics of religion but it seems my school quietly self-censored the teaching of science 20 years ago to head off the descent of wackos.

Of course, the enemies of reason never stand pat. Those hateful of science will never stop the stunting of man's mind and use every means at their disposal to tell other men what to think and what to shun. So, we stand at a divide in which we can proceed with rationality or we can fall back to lightning worship and the conclusions reached by bronze age desert nomads..

Anyway L. Sprague de Camp observed the Christian and Islamic worlds faced this choice over 800 years ago. As he wrote,

The pious and learned Saint Thomas (1225-74) spent much of his life arguing, at enormous length and in tiny illegible handwriting, that there was no conflict between science and religion; that all truth was one, and that therefore Aristotle's logic must fit the Christian faith. In fact, Saint Thomas promoted Aristotle to a kind of pre-Christian saint.

The pious and learned Ghazzali (1058-1111) also studied science and philosophy of the Greeks but came to different conclusions. After mature and searching consideration, he decided that these studies were harmful, because they shook men's faith in God and undermined religion; "they lead to loss of belief in the origin of the world and in the creator."

Europe followed Saint Thomas, while Islam followed Ghazzali. For example, in 1150 the Khalifah of the moment proved his piety by burning the books of the philosophical library of Baghdad. As a result of the diverging rends, science and technology flowered in Europe so richly and advaced so swiftly that the rest of the world is still breathlessly trying to catch up. On the other hand, science in Islam withered away.

The real irony is Ghazzali was right and Saint Thomas wrong. Science does shake men's faith in God and undermine religion. It has been doing so for many years and shows every sign of continuing to do so.

~ The Ancient Engineers, p.g. 309-310.

Lobbyist of the People, the People being one Dennis Hastert

I wonder how Dennis Hastert's first week as a lobbyist for Dickstein Shapiro went?

Hastert, the infamous former Speaker of the House, who shielded Republican Pedophile Mark Foley, made millions when the federally funded Prairie Parkway 'happened' to pass through his real estate holdings near Plano, Illinois and was caught abandoning his Hydrogen powered photo op car for a 6MPG fully armored Chevy Suburbuan, is the latest to pass through the revolving door of Congress/Corporate Lobbyist...

Who could have known politicians use their positions and influence to enrich themselves?

But here again when children inherited this position of authority from their fathers, having no experience of misfortune and none at all of civil equality and liberty of speech, and having been brought up from the cradle amid the evidences of the power and high position of their fathers, they abandoned themselves some to greed of gain and unscrupulous money-making, others to indulgence in wine and the convivial excess which accompanies it, and others again to the violation of women and the rape of boys

Never Talk to the Police

- Professor James Duane of Regent Law School in Virginia Beach, Virginia.



- Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach Police

Flex Your Rights...

Update:
To be clear on my perspective. I agree with Professor Duane that if you are under investigation by the Police EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS.

But, let's not kid ourselves. The proponents of the Stop Snitchin' Movement are not Peaceful, Freedom Loving Anarcho-Libertarians seeking the end of the coercive abuse of power by Agents of the Nation-State. No they are criminals, (Thieves, Dug Dealers, Murderers) who manipulate their victims into believing both their interests are aligned or outright threaten people into silence.

Smooth and Soothing

A Day to Imbibe the unfiltered goodness.

The End of Wine & Roses (The Final Countdown)

I guess there is no one to blame
We're leaving ground
Will things ever be the same again?

It's the final countdown... ~ The Final Countdown, Europe

WBBM is reporting United Airlines is grounding 100 planes, while also eliminating an additional 1000 salaried positions after having previously planned to fire 500.

What's not mentioned in this story is United has made several failed merger attempts this year with Continental, Delta and US Airways in a move to provide some financial solvency.

Additionally, General Motors announced it is closing 4 North American car plants (including one in Mexico!) and may sell the Hummer line (to whom I do not know...)

Now, of course the Government is going to have to step in and protect the Corporate interests. Oh no not Socialism! Never fret, the thousands who are going to lose their jobs will get no help (They are Just A Number) except perhaps as the bailout monies trickle down to the few who save their untenable jobs making fuel inefficient cars.

Banks and Businesses believe in the "Free Market" as long as they are doing well, but when the vagaries of economics turn against them they run to the protective skirts of the government. Of course, Bush and his Merry Band of Miscreants will have to do something because while it's perfectly acceptable to let people lose their homes and jobs and make tough choices with food and fuel the US Government can not allow large corporations to suffer such ignominious demises.

Update 06/06/08:
The US Airline Industry is about to go under.

Unemployment rates in the US reach a 20 year high.

Indoctrinated

Is it the man come to take me away?
Why do they follow me?
It's not the future that I can see,
It's just my fantasy ~ Who Can It Be Now? Men At Work

Keith Olbermann's special comments and Gore Vidals' constant ridicule of the Insane Man of DC are fantastic. Vidal, of course, thinks the Republic is finished and I agree with him. But, it's great to hear Keith shout Shut! The Hell! Up! to Bush.

But, unfortunately there's an underlying problem. While emotionally unstable bloggers, rabid Warmongers and Freeper supporters of Bush will attack Keith, those high level persons controlling the Apparatus of Government don't really care.

Why? Because the Federal Government controls you utterly.

In Jan 2007 the former AG Alberto Gonzales stated the Constitution doesn't guarantee Habeus Corpus.

The Government dictates where and when you can march**, and what you can say at the March. And if your protest becomes a little too boisterous for the Rulers, they can always deploy the HMMWV mounted ADS Microwave Ray Gun to exert control.

The ADS Microwave Ray Gun as shown on the CBS 60 Minutes story was demonstrated on persons carrying Peace Signs. The story doesn't tell me it's going to be used in Iraq for dispersing snipers but in the US for Crowd Control.

And it doesn't matter what you or a Keith Olbermann say because the Government continues to get it's steady flow of money from the people. Taxes (or Protection Money), taken from you under threat of force keep the Empire solvent. As long as the government gets it's blood money it can do as it pleases. But, money represents only one of the pillars holding up the edifice of control. The other pillar is manpower.

The Government does nothing to stem the rising fuel prices, offers trifling aid to the poor or those who've suffered natural disasters, works to subvert help for those facing home foreclosures, treats drug users as criminals instead of sick persons, constantly imports the foreign poor to undercut the poor citizens of this nation, and has produced and nourished an education system which inculcates fervent Nationalism and a lack of critical thinking. What this accomplishes is a pool of Manpower ready to be exploited by the controllers of the Imperial Empire.

And even when a group rises up and gains some influence they are quickly co-opted and assimilated into the system. Becoming merely another special interest group attempting to gain control over the apparatus of Government and utilize it's awesome power. In reality as Gore Vidal correctly observes we have One Party in America the Party of Property.

And some of the saddest evidence involves those who have allowed themselves to believe Bush and His Merry Band of Miscreants represent or care about the interests of the American people, for example this post at Think Progress Watch is particularly depressing:

It’s obvious, Think Progress wants the US to lose and for troops to die. They have expressed support in the past for Iranian interests, the Mahdi Army and Al-Qaeda in Iraq. I’m calling them out on this. They support our enemies and their silence over our recent success speaks volumes.

This is a standard refrain. Peppered with the false dichotomies of "US" and "Them" which indoctrinated Americans have accepted because it's easier than thinking. They are Evil, We are Good. America is our Country... And they Love and Worship the Nation-State. And that Worship can be used to get Americans to do almost anything...

**- I was at the Chicago October 27 March and saw the Government's answer to peaceable assembly. Row after Row of state Troopers, equipped in Riot Gear with 3 Foot Long Riot Sticks prominently displayed along the route.

Cowardice and Using the Military are in the DNA of Republicans

Rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells

Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal ~ Bulls on Parade, RAtM

In pre-historical times, warfare was limited by the lack of logistics, weaponry, transportation, lack of ideological motivations. Warfare mainly consisted of tribal fights or raids on supplies or women.

During the battles, some men held back during the fighting knowing that if they contributed less than the more ferocious fighters they would have less chance of being injured or killed and consequently would have access to the spoils of war afterwards, i.e. food and women. Which would mean the cowardly types would have a better chance of passing along their cowardly genes to the next generation.

In some cases you can easily observe the out and out cowardice of Republicans, for instance Dick Cheney and his five deferments or Rush Limbaugh and his ass cyst, not serving a day in the military. Or peruse the list of these noted Chicken Hawks here.

However, often the cowards are craftier. Sometimes they'll serve but they will ensure they are thousands of miles away from combat or safely ensconced in a unit which has no fear of deploying to a forward area like the buffoonish liar occupying the white house.

And that partially explains Tipsy Canoe. Prescott Bush served honorably in World War I but of course he had to lie and claim to be highly decorated in battle. Now unfortunately, the honorable genes of Prescott didn't make it to his grandson but the genes for working with dictatorships and making money off of the Banking/Military Industrial Complex are replete in the DNA of The Commander Guy.

So in order to cover their cowardly demeanors and Republicans have always glommed onto and used the military for their purposes by "claiming" to honor and support service men and veterans, while exploiting the natural affinity the American people have to support their armed forces.

Of course, Bush and the other Chicken Hawk Warmongers know nothing of the problems, dangers, evils, hardships faced by those who have served in combat zone. Nor do they care. Suicides, PTSD, skyrocketing Divorce rates, lack of proper health care, multiple tours of duty, home foreclosures are no big deal it's not them or their families suffering these things. To The Schizophrenic Decider veterans and soldiers are props to make him look good and cheer his unintelligble speeches.

Scott McClellan

Boy, Old Scotty sure hit a nerve. And of course, the attacks on Scott McClellan must now begin. How dare he be so disloyal as to state "the Iraq War was not necessary" and Busch relied on "propaganda" to sell the war. As everyone knows absolute loyalty is all president Cult of Personality Busch requires.

Karl Rove proclaims McClellan sounds like a "left wing blogger".

And the Heroes at Free Republic consider it their duty to kill McClellan for his traitorous deeds!

Dana Perino, who claimed the job in the hopes her speeches would not be analyzed because the male reporters would not have enough blood in their brains to comprehend her ignorant innanities stated, "Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew."

Lost in their vitriol is the truth Busch is a liar who used propaganda and was aided in his efforts by the Media to lead the nation into a disastrous war in Iraq for control of the region and for the transfer of American wealth into the hands of the those who profit off of death and destruction.

Memorial Day

Update 06/03/08:

Here is an article by Edward G. Lengel on the last remaining World War One veteran, belatedly included. It's an excellent disassemblation of the American prediclition to ignore veterans. From the article:

But there are some stories that Americans would rather not hear. If war tales aren't thrilling, readers and armchair Napoleons aren't interested. The Civil War and World War II seem to lend themselves to good storytelling, as long as one avoids the ugly, depressing bits. They appear to have clear beginnings and endings, with dramatic heroes and villains. They move. World War I, by contrast, with its images of trench warfare and mustard gas, is not so easy to manipulate in a marketable manner. Popular historians consequently avoid it. As one trade publisher recently told me, World War I has "poor entertainment value." Attempts to discuss it, even with avid students of military history, often end with the same comments that veterans heard back in 1919: "It's all too dreadful," and so on.

We should step back and think for a moment about what this says about Americans as people. Do we honor our veterans for all their sacrifices, or do we care only if they can tell us a good story? And who, then, is guilty of ingratitude?

Einstein's Letter

I had planned a post on the handwritten 1954 letter by Albert Einstein containing his views on religion which surfaced and was auctioned off two weeks ago but, because of the constraints of life and time I didn't get around to it. So here is what I can throw together now.

In the letter Einstein writes:

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.

It's not that Einstein's word on god carries more weight than most, it's that the religious blatherskites Dinesh Dsouza, Schmuley Boteach and Laura Ingraham always trot out the tired canard of: Great Scientist X (usually Galileo Galiei, Isaac Newton or Einstein) was religious who are you to think you know more than them.

Of course, ancient, medieval and enlightenment scientists who did not profess faith in god(s) are never mentioned nor is Aristotle. Aristotle's writings on science and philosophy dominated European thought (and islamic). Aristotle had the longest reign over mankind's thinking. Until the time of Nicholas Copernicus, Giordano Bruno and Galileo who questioned Aristotle's conclusions. Copernicus, of course hid his conclusions until after his death, Galileo was forced to recant his error by the Church and Bruno was burned at the stake.

Well, it's to be expected. The hundreds (or millions) of religions no longer hold the best explanation of the world from the movements of the stars to the twitches of the human nervous system. But, the religious zealots know they hold the truth (cause their imam, rabbi, preacher, sufi says so) and feel they must use every means available to them to convince the rest of us.

Iraq and September 11

Is it a fact that we went into Iraq to punish those responsible for September 11 as His Fraudulency reminds us once again:

Some of our fellow citizens wonder whether the mission in Iraq is worth the cost. I strongly believe it is. And here is why: The enemy has made clear that Iraq is the central battleground of the great ideological struggle of our time. This is a struggle between those who murder the innocent to advance their hateful objectives and those of us who love liberty and long for peace. We saw that these enemies -- what these enemies intend for our country on September the 11th, 2001 -- and we must do everything in our power to stop the enemy from attacking us again.

Of course, The Commander Guy continues to deliver his rousing speeches to military audiences, this time to the 82nd Airborne. RockRichard has an on the ground SITREP of the pomp and circumstance over at Vetvoice. I wonder if Ole Tipsy Canoe had to recuse himself from the "latrines" at the infamous Ft. Bragg barracks.

Meanwhile, pay no attention to the 15 Billion the Pentagon can not account for, merely the latest in the disappearance of money down the MIC Hole.