Police State Economics

What have we learned from the economic crisis? That we live in the the tightening web of a police state. That contingencies for this period have been put in place since the Clinton era. We kno that between Bill Maher, Arianna Huffington and Paul Krugman, the liberals continue to get it wrong. We kno that liberal politicians lack the resolve to put away the GOP, because that means liquidating their relationship to finance bankers who manipulated us into this crisis.

The liberal reactionary police state leaves us to ponder such philosophical questions as Eliot Spitzer. He was run out of office on ethics violations last year. So did the former governor and attorney general of New York spill the beans on the Federal Reserve because he got deposed or was he discredited in office to preempt his expose of the Fed? Spitzer recently said that the Federal Reserve is a “Ponzi scheme” that created “bubble after bubble” in the US economy and needs to be held accountable for its actions. Nobody can really say Spitzer is lying, but for millions of fence sitters, the ethics violations put him in a trick bag.

Another casualty of the financial crisis, hundreds of individual retirement accounts (IRAs) set up thru Fiserv lost over $1 billion from just three Ponzi schemes. One law professor said that tapping into IRAs “would be almost like running your Ponzi scheme through the police department.” Simple enuf, since the police remain busy arresting black Harvard professors for breaking into their own homes.

Police state, bitches. As in the arrest of  Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. As in the conviction and imprisonment of NPDUM organizer Ajamu Bandele. Or the execution of Oscar Grant on a BART platform. Police state, operating in a tightening web of economic foils and snags, designed to take down African people.

Some people shouldn’t even be able to own homes, let alone nice ones in blended communities. Because as the skyrocketing mortgage fraud pushes a new trend towards abandoned cities and homeless families the need for police increases. With only three percent of the world population and twenty-five percent of its prison population, the United States has anticipated the period of social turmoil headed our way.

Indeed, the Oreo prez blinks, wavers, swerves in a racist game of chicken, one gut check away from at least letting us think he thinks for himself. Skippy Gates, whose mission to “de-ghettoize black studies”, left himself as the only black scholar working on his project. But black folks kno why we came to his side when the pigs jumped him, and we will do it again. African people must no longer support neo-colonialism, yet we will always fight against racist, bloodsucking Imperialism.

Police state in the for-profit System. People get the opportunity to sue when it messes up your lives. That is supposed to provide a modicum of satisfaction. In a perfectly flawed System that eradicates our existence as social beings, suing cannot even be considered a form of reparative justice. You need to rise up. The ruling class knows that. You just aint copping to it. Wake up, people.

Gates Gate: Do 911 Tapes Ever Lie?

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Biased Media, Gates Gate, Henry Lousi Gates Jr, Racial Profiling

I’m filing this one under, someone seriously got it twisted! Dare one ask how this 911 call went from “…Umm, well there were two larger men, one looked kind of Hispanic, but I’m not really sure…” to being two Black males with backpacks. Seriously!

Is the media to blame for this most recent racially tense situation? Is it Gates handling of himself? Did the cop go to far? It’s really all a hot mess & partially embarrassing might I add!

Just in case you missed the 911 tape transcript, here’s the hotness via the Boston Globe:
—————————————————————————–

Dispatcher: Tell me exactly what happened

Caller: Umm, I don’t know what’s happening. I just have an elder woman, uh, standing here and she had noticed two gentlemen trying to get in a house at that number, 17 Ware St., and they kind of had to barge in. And they broke the screen door and they finally got in and when I had looked, I went further, closer to the house a little bit, after the gentlemen were already in the house, I noticed two suitcases So I’m not sure if these are two individuals who actually work there, I mean who live there.

Dispatcher: You think they might’ve been breaking…

Caller: I don’t know, ‘cause I have no idea, I just noticed…

Dispatcher: So you think the possibility might have been there or…? What do you mean by barged in? Did they kick the door in or…?

Caller: Umm, no they were pushing the door in, like uhhh, ummm, like the screen part of the front door was kind of like cut.

Dispatcher: How did they open the door itself, the lock?

Caller: I didn’t see a key or anything ‘cause I was a little bit away from the door but I did notice that they pushed their…

Dispatcher: And what did the suitcases have to do with anything?

Caller: I don’t know. I’m just saying that’s what I saw. I just [inaudible]

Dispatcher: Do you know what apartment they broke into?

Caller: No, just the first floor. I don’t even think that it’s an apartment. It’s 17 Ware St. It’s a house. It’s a yellow house. Number 17. I don’t know if they live there and they just had a hard time with their key, but I did notice that they had to use their shoulder to try to barge in and they got in. I don’t know if they had a key or not ‘cause I couldn’t see from my angle. But you know when I looked a little closely that’s when I saw…

Dispatcher: (inaudible) black or Hispanic? Are they still in the house?

Caller: They’re still in the house I believe, yeah.

Dispatcher: Are they white, black or Hispanic?

Caller: Umm, well there were two larger men, one looked kind of Hispanic, but I’m not really sure. And the other one entered and I didn’t see what he looked like at all. I just saw it from a distance and this older woman was worried, thinking someone’s breaking in someone’s house, they’ve been barging in, and she interrupted me, and that’s when I had noticed. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, to be honest with you. So I was just calling ‘cause she was a concerned neighbor, I guess.

Queue music > Initiate media based lies > Point Fingers > Get Barack Obama involved > Cause national outrage on all fronts > Fade to black

Side note: I dont know about you but this case gave me a serious racial tension headache last week. I mean a serious one!

Video: Method Man Puts Kelis & Child Support Women on Blast

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Method Man

Found this at Necole Bitchie. The video is below of Method Man & Redman talking about Kelis receiving $55K a month from Nas.

Amongst other things, Method Man says:

50 grand a month for some pussy is some bullshit. Ladies for real all you did was fuck your man. that money right there. A kid doesn’t need that much to survive. You trying to maintain your life style. That’s fucked up.

$55,000 is £33,000! A month!

Method Man also said:

Not to mention that he has got to pay this stanking arse bitch that he don’t even fuck with no more to look good for some other n/gga. That shit is crazy. That shit is ridiculous. And any chick that is doing that shit, that shit is foul.

Well….What do you think?

sat’day riddimyz #17

I just realized that last Friday on July 17th , marked the 50 year anniversary of Bille Holiday’s death. Well it’s “better late than never” to recognize this musical icon whose words and voice touches that part of our soul where “the blues” resides.

To Lady Day:
Forever in our hearts and with undying love…  

The Audacity Of A Belligerent Black Man

Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested!  One of the most respected African scholars in America was arrested.  What prompted his arrest?  Mr. Gates was trying to break into his own home.  He was having trouble with his front door.  And like some people who get locked outside their own home, Mr. Gates decided to get in right then and there the best way he can.

According to the news report, somebody saw a black man trying to break into a house.  The police made a visit to the house.  By the time the police showed up Mr. Gates was inside the house.  He was asked to provide proof of his identity and proof that he lived there.  Mr. Gates produced a driver’s license and his university identification.  But then what happened dissolves into a case of his side, their side, and the truth.

The police say that Mr. Gates became belligerent.  Imagine that!  Mr. Gates arrives from an overseas trip from China, a pretty good distance and a very considerable amount of time away, only come home to find his front door stuck and he has to force himself into his own home.  Shortly thereafter, the police are knocking at his door asking him to prove he owns his house.  It isn’t hard to believe that he was upset.  Dude was probably tired.  Instead of the police recognizing an angry man in his own home, the police want the respect from a black man that they feel that they are due.  Since the police didn’t get their props from Mr. Gates, they felt it was in the best interest of the Cambridge community to pull Mr. Gates out of his house and book him on charges that amount to being angry.

The spokesperson for the Cambridge police says that mistakes were made on both sides of this issue.  As is the custom when confronting black people, the police made the mistake of following the standard procedure of throwing any and all forms of compassion out the window in favor of the heavy hand of law.  On the other hand, Mr. Gates made the mistake of being a black man and thinking he was entitled to be angry on his own property.  Both sides have made key mistakes.

Mr. Gates is only the latest black man to be hauled off to jail or harassed by police for being accused of having a bad attitude.  And contrary to what a lot of people would like to believe, this is far from being an isolated incident.  I was listening to people making their comments during a program on the radio and a lot of white people were recalling their stories with police.  How come when they were harassed by police it wasn’t racist but this case was?  What makes Mr. Gates’ arrest different?

Off the top of my head I would say that none of the stories told were about police coming into their homes and arresting people when no crime was committed.  I would say that the fact that Mr. Gates identified his self and had proven that he was entitled to be in his house.  After such a long trip, it’s pretty reasonable to think that Mr. Gates was cranky.  Add a stuck door to the picture and it’s easy to believe that he’d be pissed.  Put cops on top of that and I could see him being angry.  But Mr. Gates has no criminal record and has a history of being a good citizen.  The fifty eight year old man is an asset to the community.  But good behavior doesn’t buy much these days.

Unless he had threatened somebody the police should’ve simply walked away.  But instead of allowing good judgment to prevail, the police felt that whatever damage their egos suffered from Mr. Gates’ anger required compensation.  A black man needs to have more respect for the agents of law.

People are entitled to their anger.  As a social collective we are told that our children are entitled to be angry with their parents, we are told that spouses are entitled to be angry with their significant other, some of us believe that we are entitled to give god the middle finger if we are so moved.  But then on the flip side of these anger management coins, many of us think that the lines of anger that are so crossable in other areas of our lives must be held fast and strong lest black people lose their proper regard for law enforcers.

Instead of people seeing this incident as the latest manifestation of the collective disrespect for black people, people want to sweep it all under the rug as nothing more than an unfortunate misunderstanding between two parties who both contributed to a series of mistakes being made that resulted in the harassment of another black person.  This was just another one of those cases where cops are too quick to trample the rights of a high profile black citizen by mistaking him for the typical black person without the resources to call attention to their abuse, and a case of a black man forgetting his place in our social structure.

Don’t Forget Emmett Till

Emmett Till’s birthday is tomorrow this Saturday. He would have been 68 years old had he survived.

He died at only 14 years of age after being brutally murdered. I cannot begin to describe the horrific picture of how he looked after his murder. It is so grotesque that it doesn’t even seem real.

We have to keep struggling and never take anything for granted.

A beautiful young black man whose life was never fulfilled.

“Reparations/Unity over Obama” by Brotha Pruitt

Greetings Brothas and Sistas,

This is an extremely important message. There is no way on earth African-Americans should continue to admire, appreciate or have faith in Obama for change. As intelligent people who have pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps to outgrow physical dynamics of slavery and segregation. It is time for blacks all over Africa, Haiti and America to evaluate what this nigga has done.

Obama has caused great harm to blacks by following orders from those who hate blacks, including avoiding the Racism Conference, dissing Black Farmers and his latest F-up telling blacks to stop blaming slavery and colonialism for our demise. If you are mad at me for writing this message my mission is accomplished. We can not afford to let Obama continue to treat us as though he is some master appointed, under cover skull and bones slave driver, without confronting his madness. If you don’t believe me please check his decisions and policies towards blacks for his first 100-200 days. No one can  argue these points. The BS is clear in his stimulus packages. Now he wants to give Indians a stimulus package and blacks the middle finger.

It is truly time for African-Americans to take the lead against racism and moving towards a black united front including a power base to pursue reparations. Obama and the current administration have proven they do not care about the on-going atrocities following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the alarming high death rates due to Aids and the growing problem of drugs in our communities. These are just a few cases that deserve immediate attention! African-Americans need to embrace a plan that will enable us to form a power base to let Obama know we do not appreciate him abusing us like past presidents, and to address crucial issues and fight for reparations!!

Standing for Truth and Reconciliation,
Brotha Pruitt
Reparations Leader and Chairman
Committee for African-American Reparations (CAAR) CA
Reparations Union Lobbying Association (RULA) NC

http://www.divineblacktruth.org/   

Op-ed submission: “Special Treatment and Sotomayor” by Deneen Borelli

In a recent 5-to-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected race-based employment practices. In Ricci v. DeStefano, all Americans are put on equal footing regardless of race. But some don’t like this situation. 

The Ricci case revolves around a 2003 exam that was given to firefighters seeking promotion in New Haven, Connecticut. After the tests were scored, only two Hispanics and no blacks scored high enough to qualify for promotion. After black and Hispanic activists pushed to have the test results thrown out, the city’s Civil Service Commission effectively did so by deadlocking 2-2 on the decision to certify the exam. As a result, no firefighter received a promotion. 

Because the exam results were set aside by the city for no other reason but race, 20 New Haven firefighters, one Hispanic and 19 white, sued based on the claim of reverse discrimination. The city was granted summary judgment at the district court level, and a panel of judges that included current U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, sided with the lower court. An eight-sentence opinion called the previous ruling allowing the city to throw out the test scores based on racial grounds “thorough, thoughtful and well-reasoned.”

After all of the significant strides that have been made for equal opportunity over the years, one would think that winners and losers today would no longer be decided based on skin color. For a good portion of the 20th century, blacks were denied equal rights when it came to housing, education, employment opportunities and access to business and school admissions. Government mandates were rightly implemented at the time to rectify these inequalities.

But America changed.

From the White House to the worlds of sports, entertainment and corporate America, most blacks have moved on and are taking advantage of opportunities and leading successful, productive lives. Times and attitudes are now different. The petty racism of the past truly is a thing of the past.  Fortunately, the Court’s ruling on the Ricci case won’t allow the clock to continually be turned backward. But based on comments made by the nominee, Sonya Sotomayor could reinvigorate racial preferences. This disturbing possibility puts change at a crossroads.
 
In light of the Court’s ruling in the Ricci case, Sotomayor’s opinions should be closely scrutinized to determine her judicial philosophy. Sotomayor sided with preferential treatment instead of equal opportunity in the Ricci case, yet, decisions based on race and not the law have no place in today’s society.
 
Preferential treatment based on skin color, race, ethnicity, sex or national origin is immoral, and such characteristics should not claim superiority above the law. Special treatment for one group of individuals at the expense of another is discriminatory for all and further incites feelings of resentment and racism. To deny individuals an opportunity because of skin color, no matter how good the intentions are, is just plain wrong and is not a belief held by most Americans.
 
One can only hope the Court’s ruling in Ricci, against race-based employment practices, will play a significant role in changing the hearts and minds of those who still believe preferential treatment is necessary.
 
As for Sotomayor, it is the duty of senators to ensure this progress is not negated by a nominee out of the mainstream.

A New Visions Commentary paper by The National Center for Public Policy Research. Deneen Borelli is a fellow for the Project 21 black leadership network.