#1050

I have been doing my best to keep things here running somewhat smoothly. If I’ve fallen short, I apologize; I’m not in an especially good head space–the few folks I care about truly, madly, deeply have spent a fair amount of time ghosting on me–and my profound terror w/r/t to abandonment has been wrecking havoc on my mental health.

Although, I can’t really blame my loved ones for their absence–shit is dark and nasty and bleak as fuck out there.

I’m not sure what we’re up to as far as police killing black men extra-judicially. There were two prominent instances: Baton Route PD executed Alton Sterling; several days later, Philando Castile was murdered by an officer in Minnesota during a ‘routine’ traffic stop.

Unpacking all this is extremely complicated and I can’t possibly hit all the most crucial points in a blog post but there are somethings I think it is important to keep in mind.

First, the standard response of most conservative white folks is that the reason black folks have six times as likely a chance of being killed by police as white folks–it’s actually 18 times when you account for the disparity between respective population densities–is that they don’t comply with the officer.

Remember? That’s what everyone on Faux News was screaming when the NYPD killed Eric Garner. I mean never mind that the officer used a choke hold that was expressly forbidden because it was deemed too dangerous.

The white narrative is that black folks don’t respect and comply with cops. Now, this is enormously problematic–with the existence of stop and frisk programs and the pretty much sterling example that although blacks make of 15% of the US’ population, they represent the focus for 45% of all law enforcement attention. (Yeah, I’m not gonna source that. You can start with incarceration statistics by race and then look at the numbers on stops by race in places like Ferguson, MO or Baton Route, LA and see that the figure I’m suggesting is actually on the low end.)

But what we’ve been seeing is the slow dismantling of that bullshit notion. Phllando Castile was a licensed gun-owner. He told this the officer and that there was a loaded gun in the car. He complied and the officer shot him four times when he tried to produce his ID–as requested.. He was in the car with his girlfriend and young daughter.

The notion that compliance is what is required is a fallacy. I’ve read several things racist shits posted on social media after Castile’s murder. About how they’d been pulled over by cops carrying and been fine because they told the cop and complied with orders. But I do notice something about these cases: these folks were asked where the gun was and then are requested to exit the care and surrender the gun to the officer. Interesting that Castile was asked to produce his ID and license to carry. Meaning–unfortunately–that like what we’ve seen with Freddie Grey’s murder, the officer is likely not to face charges because police fear as a justification for murder is pretty well enshrined in the law.

One of the only responses from either of these two shootings that I thought was appropriate was Officer Nakia Jones impassioned calling out of the Blue Wall of silence. Police are expected to stand by their own. And this demands that they stand shoulder to shoulder with racists shits who use the badge as a shield for lynching.

It was an especially interesting development to notice how the police reacted to protests in Baton Route after Sterling’s murder. You’re likely familiar with Jonathan Bachman’s image of a woman being arrested by cops in full riot gear. But there were also numerous examples of BRPD trampling peoples rights. One instance in particular involved police trying to trap people in the street so that they could arrest them and a home owner allowing protestors to stand on her property. The pigs took umbrage to this and came onto her property and started dragging people off into the street. (This is a blatant violation of the law.) Some accounts even have the cops rushing into the house and attacking the home owner.)

Now I do not support cop killing. However, I do have to point out that you cannot go around flagrantly flouting the law that you are supposed to uphold, composing yourself like fully militarized bullies in the street and not expect some sort of eventual retaliation.

And that thing about that retaliation that I think is interesting to note is that both the cop killer in Dallas and the killer in Baton Rouge were both former military and contrary to the right wing narrative… had nothing to do with Black Lives Matter. (With regard to the incidents in Dallas, the use of a robotic bomb by police should immediately remind you of Philadelphia PD’s bombing of a building occupied by members of a black liberation group called Move–this correlation should be deeply concerning to you.)

What was unbelievable to me in the aftermath of the police murders in Dallas and Baton Rouge was the resurgence of animosity towards Black Lives Matter. I saw all kinds of screams that All Lives Matter. (And here’s the thing: All Lives Matter has been so thoroughly co-opted by racists that if you aren’t a racist, don’t say it. And if that prescription bothers you, read this and if you still feel like we should be saying All Lives Matter, you are–in fact–a racist. Work on that shit.) But what’s worse is the people admonishing that All Lives Matter in the same breath they insist Blue Lives Matter. Pick one you fuck wit; by your own assertion it can’t be both and insisting that it is, only proves you a white supremacist piece of shit.

I know I’ll get accused of Godwin’s law here but the police have a vested interest in protecting the status quo. The status quo is rich, white, cismale and heterosexual. If you aren’t those things, the system does not serve you and you’re a fool to think it does simply because of having more than one point of similarity with the status quo. I do not support the police–partly because my political ideology tends to skew towards anarchism but also because I believe capitalism requires oppression and oppression needs some means of state sanctioned enforcement. Law enforcement is one of the implements. So my attitude has been for years and will remain: fuck the police.

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I can’t even go near the Republican National Convention and the DNC wasn’t must better.

What I want to touch on is the aftermath, this pervasive wave of people suggesting that when the vote is so clearly between a centrist and an actual fascist that if you won’t vote for the centrist then your liberalism is nothing more than narcissism.

I really have a problem with that. I was a Sander’s outlier. He was the closest candidate to demonstrating my ideology that I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m still pretty left of him but it was such a refreshing thing to see someone pulling hard left against the increasingly absurd rightward veer of the GOP.

I don’t identify with the Bernie or Bust crowd. And I think they conducted themselves at the convention on a level that would be shameful for an infant, not to mention grown ass adults.

But I really, fundamentally have a problem with HRC and even moreso with her ardent supporters. I’ve covered this before and I won’t belabor the point further but the problem I have is that similar to how Djingo Unhinged is not required to abide by the GOP platform, neither is HRC required to abide by the DNC platform–which a lot of people are using as ammunition against the Bernie or Bust-ers.

HRC is to the right of Obama. I’ve been saying for quite some time that she’ll get the nomination and then run to the right. Her pick of Tim Kaine as her VP only proves that point. Kaine is right of Clinton and there are some late 80s centrist Republicans that he’s right in line with ideologically.

My concern with HRC as president boil down to two key points. First, in an effort to get things done, HRC will continue rightward–which will allow the Tea Party, Evangelical right to pull even harder in an authoritarian, theocratic direction.

Secondly, HRC is the only candidate that there’s any chance the GOP will hate as much if not more than Obama. In effect, the DNC’s insistence on installing her as a candidate (and don’t get me started on DNC malfeasance), means they opted to run the weaker candidate against an actual fascist. So, if HRC loses, most folks are going to blame Sanders, instead of the DNC.

But what we’re seeing is HRC is the only candidate that unites the saner GOP elements with the racist, white supremacist, evangelical rest-of-the-party. So the DNC has given the GOP a candidate that if she wins, will unify the divided GOP base and we’re likely to see a right-wing candidate with broad support come 2020. How will HRC win, when she has basically said to the left-leaning half of her party that she doesn’t need them? She won’t and we will end up with Ted Cruz or worse as an unstoppable candidate. The DNC will have made it’s bed but instead of laying in it they’ll blame Sanders.

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Another reason I don’t trust HRC is like Obama, she’s anti-whistleblower.

Remember Chelsea Manning? A patriot and hero. Well, she attempted to commit suicide and now the government is trying to sentence her to 30 years in solitary. So it’s like, we’re disappointed you didn’t succeed and are gonna make sure you get it right.

And while we’re on the subject let’s loop back to what marriage equality without legal protection against discrimination and transgender folk openly serving in the military are empty measures. (Another thing I can’t accept re: HRC, it wasn’t okay with Obama was openly in favor of marriage equality as a senator and then in the interest of electoral expediency, backed off that only to embrace it again when the tide started to turn; recall that HRC wasn’t ever for LGBTQ+ folks until 2013. In other words, she doesn’t even have the lousy excuse of political expediency to justify that she ever support LGBTQ+ folk. Yet we see all these people who damn well should know better parading around her projecting their interests on to her.

This election is a choice between anti-democratic/pro-oligarchy and an actual fascist. And people are trying to package this like it represents a real and revelatory choice? Fucking spare me, please.

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So if I don’t seem like I’m doing so well, it’s because I’m really not doing so well.