Part 14--America, the best democracy money can buy.

Tokenism is behind much of our "Freedoms".

Of course, it is wonderful that I get to live in a country that does not band messages from being disseminated. It is often stated that we have retained the right to Free Speech and in many ways we have--in other ways we have not. 
When it comes to free speech and ideas on T.V. and radio,  the game is rigged. 
Though not directly through law, speech is definitely controlled, much of it outright censored, even condemned.  The Internet is still relatively free, at least for now, but it is currently under attack.  And due to this, I am continually on the phone with the offices of elected officials telling them to vote this way or reword that way, whatever bill has been, yet again, influenced by the world's media giants. Media giants like Comcast are continually trying to curtail our access to free information. The mass media is attacking our ability to access locally generated information and free speech.  It wants the market and since it cooperates with the politicians, the politicians cooperate with it. Both rather that we see their own idea of what we should hear, see and be taught. Within the mass media, taboos, illusions, and manufactured truths are created and perpetuated. Again, real free discourse is functionally forbidden. New and intellectual ideas of language, economics, race, democracy, war; ending government corruption and protecting justice, are left to a few public radio stations like  (www.kpfk.org)  KPFk.  Our current media system is not far in function from what existed in Nazi Germany.  Just as there, when dealing with those the state has targeted as criminals, the government's side is inevitably presented most favorably, only lip service is paid to the rest. When it comes to those seen as the “others”, facts are indeed given but, just as in Nazi Germany, the side of the police is the one made believable.

In truth, the real-life persistence of widespread corruption within the political and justice systems have been everywhere for centuries.  In general, the black and white (pun intended) between good and bad that we are shown is much more pervasive and gray than we are led to believe. The foggy gray is everywhere. It is there when things like Citizens United is protected by the supreme court e.g., money equals Free Speech, so billionaires can easily “speak” to politicians). It was there in true black and white when the Pentagon Papers were revealed and the revealers condemned.  It is also there when the patrol car breaks a traffic law.  It was there when we were teenagers watching a cop lie or threaten some form of violence and/or use excessive force while disrupting our social gatherings. It was there when they stopped you or a friend of yours and told a lie or showed up in traffic court lying to gain a guaranteed conviction. The judge acting as a puppet for the street cop.  The cops do not even have to make complete sense, but the judge still sides with them. It has been there as friends we know in law enforcement or fire continually break traffic laws but don't get ticketed--often even when their offense involved alcohol. And on those rare occasions that a cop is not let off, full-blown vendetta-like retribution is sparked. Ticketing wars between the two involved departments explode--evidence of a corrupt system is there too. Though with the proliferation of cameras and avenues to disseminate the images much of the corrupt policing has been reduced, they are none the fewer signs of the corruption of an unbiased law and benevolent government.

Also similar to Nazi Germany, proof makes it out in the form of a defecting officer who comes forward to expose that justices' worst nightmare is departmental policy. We have been told about a culture of lying, both to gain convictions of others and to protect other police from conviction. Though police openly attacking suspects has long since not been the norm in America, again dropping with the proliferation of video cameras, It's also there with those police beatings and murders that are videotaped by the wrong person and one way or another make it public. The police no longer can simply make their patrol car video get “lossed”. For decades, some Americans naively

Breaking Down lies

To believe that someone's past eternally defines them is a fallacy of reason

Who hasn't witnessed oneself or someone dear to them doing something morally wrong?  Done not because they are evil or should spend years in prison but because of a lapse in judgment.  The truth is all it takes are but a few random situational factors for most of us to be led to step outside of ourselves and for that isolated moment appear to be genuinely bad people.  Most of this happens at a young age and we learn that it is wrong and regretful.  Once the lesson is learned, we never forget it. Well, though degrees & factors vary, far from our media's messages, that was at one time the majority of people now in U.S. prisons. This includes many who have been struck out, and are stuck there for life. It could have been anybody.

In 3-strike states like California, you don't ever have to be accused – much less convicted – of ever hitting or physically hurting anyone to be doing life as a violent 3-striker. And though you may not believe it, many people that this has happened to could easily have been you, your family or a good friend of yours.  They are not criminally inflexible or unable to be fixed.

The results of Americas incarceration campaign are detrimental to the nation. As a country, we lose a tax paying potential worker. A family loses their 18+ year investment of love. A person loses their life and we lose as much as $50,000 each year for each individual. Money largely dedicated to paying guards whom for the rest of his life will punish him. What type of person would we do all this to?  Often we have done it to a person for stealing three separate pieces of material goods without inflicting even one blow of the fist--ever.

I myself can replace property, but I can't replace a damaged brain. Besides DUIs, assaults are more than five times as prevalent as any other violent crime. Why aren't the violence-prone instigators of high schools, bars, and clubs the ones portrayed on cop dramas, or doing life?   People with 3 DUIs have shown themselves to be a serious threat to everyone on the road, so why are not they similarly presented? It’s approximated that over a quarter of a million Americans suffer injuries from alcohol-related car accidents each year. That is a whopping 1/15th of the population, every year (your chances of being injured because of a DUI are one in twelve ③, and your chance of being a victim of a violent crime - other than assault are one in 750,000,000 ).

As for the detective portrayed in cop dramas, studies show that they also are portrayed very unrealistically.  Historically, the police are portrayed as highly effective, crime-fighting geniuses with unwavering ethics on justice. And at the end of the show they near always get their man (the lawful way). And as the T.V. shows usually go, the man in jail is assuredly guilty.

The fact remains that we live under a government that allowed its people to conquer countless Native nations only to then take the people's land as “Federal” or ensure that the bankers would eventually acquire it. We live in a nation that has a government that allowed 600,000 people to die in a civil war over a few thousand connected families in the south that owned the plantations.  All this juggling takes some pretty wonderful public relations presentations e.g., propaganda. One result of this has been that we live with an education and mass media system that promotes the idea that historically our government has acted more honorable and wise than its people. X-presidents, viewed as war criminals (yes, we have many) the world over are given luxurious libraries which ensure top-notch P.R. on their behalf for as long as the current system in the U.S. endures. On T.V., we are presented with elaborate, seemingly royal, ceremonies of people wearing badges honoring a dead police officer. While in the streets petty evaders are chased down with multiple helicopters while our dying citizens are picked up in ambulance vans.

One reason that this system is so prominent is because the highly influential advertisers paying the media's tab, along with all powers that be, won't ever be offended when it's only criminals and police who are continually portrayed, especially in a highly slanted and inaccurate fashion -- even though it's the cause of great injustice.

The good guy v. bad guy dichotomy is something that comes naturally to us,  It's the criminals whom already are labeled as “bad”. Therefore, those fighting against these types of average publicized criminals are naturally seen as good. This sort of dynamic is powerful. It was one of the tactics used by President Bush when he wanted the public to be in favor of invading Iraq-- a sovereign nation.  The only "defense" the public is given to these tactics are usually reactionary figureheads which only serve to divide a country further, thereby strengthening the true power players positions. We are presented not with Ralph Nader, Thom Hartmann, or Richard Wolff and the like, but with undereducated people. For instance, people like Al Sharpton, who seem obnoxious to outside observers and not intellectually sound enough to teach people the unbiased truth. Individuals that are distracting and divisive. So instead of building common ground and mutual understanding, strong counter-reactions cloud logic in the public at large. The truth is never presented and the side of those in the know are delegitimized by their purported spokes-persons. This only divides the public and thus strengthens the rule of its exploiters. To say it lightly the Sharpton-type figures seem to miss much. We end up pointing fingers at each other, the crimes of opportunity continue. We end up pointing fingers at each other, the crimes of opportunity continue. We end up pointing fingers at each other, the crimes of opportunity continue. Many of us seem to have become desensitized by all this good guy, bad guy suggestiveness we see in the media, the government, and our own lives. We take it as believable while frequently failing to connect the dots. We do not realize that in the “bad guys” eyes, he/she is the good guy. Far from reality, the distortion of reality that the media presents to us, considering its sway over viewer opinion borders on what could be called criminal negligence.

Part 12. The U.S."Meritocracy" v. Jews, Muslims, Gypsies, Germanic tribes, 2000 years of Italians, and gang bangers.

Regular people are found in prison guard jobs. Regular people are also found in gangs. It's the idea of gangs which has spread around America, not some criminal genetic mutation. But where it's the worst, as in inner-city California, it's more than an idea. Machismo-dominated culture and it's accompanying ignorance are all that's left when you take away a humans education -- like the Germanic tribes which conquered Rome. Far from the Greeks hundreds of years before, Romes conquerors ruled and lived in academic ignorance. It was the result of these people that,  by avenging themselves against brutal Rome, plunged Europe into the dark ages. These were largely German tribes-- it's not genetic, it's situational and cultural.  People are products of their environment. And governmental neglect leaves people without the tools to feel they can confirm and succeed to an ever-changing world. How can they succeed in a technologically advancing world when their parents couldn’t even make it in the analog days long past?  How do they believe in the face of their parents and their community's failure?

Yet, as it is today, the privileged powers that be have allowed a narrative to spread in our culture that our society is just.  That is, in fact, is filled with examples of equality, freedom, and fairness. Failures of family and race thus get laid--by both victim and victor-- at the poor's own doorstep.

If to understand all is to forgive all, then for the inner-city and working-class children, to understand America's social structure is to forgive themselves, their elders, and their race. But those historically in positions of influence have tended to make the teaching of America's class structure something that seems alien, untrue even pro-communist and/or un-American. So the divide between rich and poor grows largely unnoticed. Examples of it or its influence do are ignored by America's media.  Thus the outrage its existence might cause does not exist in the Americans mind. Even if it does, since we live in a “meritocracy”, it is unjust to get mad about. America is our hero.  Heroes are blameless.

As horrible as a property crime is when something is stolen from you it rarely makes your family members cry. But like death itself, one long prison sentence can make many citizens shed tears, especially on holidays, a time when Americans are expected to be celebrating and bonding. Tears flow year after year from Daughters, sons, mother's, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, best friends and anyone else the imprisoned affected positively. In cities like Los Angeles gangs become a part of the culture in its inner cities neighborhoods. Injustice and oppression cannot make a culture ascend nor disappear. In fact, cultures often become even more resolute and stubborn in their traditions. A larger dominating group defining and targeting a smaller weaker group often makes the smaller group further define itself as well as become more fervent towards what it feels is right as opposed to what its oppressors do.

Though all we can have are theories regarding culture, the gypsies, Muslims and Jews of Europe can be used as an example of this. Though the Muslims are really the most obvious example of American punishment not solving our issues, that story is packed with misinformation and its reputation is beyond the scope of this post.

The Romany people, known better as a subgroup of the people known collectively as Gypsies (Gypsy is actually a misnomer likely caused by the mistaken belief that they had originated from Egypt)  have been an oppressed minority in Europe for nearly a thousand years. What has resulted from the suppression? An impenetrable people that kept an unwritten language and culture alive and thriving privately amongst themselves.

The story with the Jewish people can be viewed much the same. Purely for instructive purposes, and nothing else, the Jews and gypsies can be viewed as our original, or “proto-gangs”. European oppression of them by the continents majority helped retain the resolution the Jews and Gypsies both needed in order to maintain a separate and unassimilated identity thus helping to honor themselves in the face of their haters. A less obvious but closer to home example comes from the early Italian-Americans (before they were considered white Americans), none assimilated with their oppressors, and instead shared a brotherhood with each other.

Whoever was to blame, it was these minority groups which embraced tradition and self-sufficiency over the health of outsiders. Luckily for the Jews, they retained a common written language, religion, and since the 1950s, a country. Today both the gypsies as a people, and Israel as a country fight to survive, nearly by any means. It is a lesson that was taught to them the hard way. Do we have outsiders amongst us that we want to remove or punish as did the Catholic church, Spain, Russia and the Nazi’s? Maybe a more important question is: would a ruling class want us to retain these scapegoats in order to distract us?

As for the people now hoping that prisons will reduce the frequency with which future criminal types have babies, would it not be ironic if us locking them up actually do the opposite?  Many inmates have been in the criminal justice system since they were children. They have been kept from the opposite sex and may want to rebound.  Their culture may also adapt to such needs by looking at certain activities like sexual promiscuity, as admirable.  This may lead to this influence then bleeding into the larger culture as a whole. There are several reasons why this may have actually already happened.  In prison, fathers are kept from paying child support and changing diapers.    Also, the human proclivity of viewing one's past trials and accomplishments--or lack thereof --favorably can increase the likelihood that the imprisoned will see the fact of having “survived” the punishment as an accomplishment. And actually, for many people,  prison is a place where one can tame his/her cumbersome drug habit (“get healthy”) and again, be released from the burden of bills like child support a (We front their bills). This protective mechanism may help to cement a criminal mentality as the final relevant developmental stage from what has avalanched from the smallest of

snowballs that began at the beginning of a lost childhood.

Most unsophisticated street criminals grew up in historically underprivileged areas where they witnessed an aggressive justice system bent on punishing them and their loved ones.  The community as a whole had all the reason to lose faith in the legitimacy of the system. No good people follow an illegitimate leader that is seen taking more than giving. Many crimes, including drunk driving, are committed by people who believe themselves to be good people--and by many measures they are. Sometimes reactions are unwise and have effects that the reactor would never have directly chosen. This goes for all classes of people who did something detrimental to another,  not just people labeled a detriment to society