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I hear the talk all the time about how our civil liberties are slowly being eroded. This is happening because we are letting it happen. The people in charge don't want us to have any power or question their actions at all. This is why a cop at UC Davis gets away with pepper spraying a whole line of peaceful protestors. This is why a cop in Oakland gets away with spraying a tear gas canister into a crowd and almost kill someone. But the column I read today in the New York Times about an innocent, pregnant woman named Malaika Brooks trying to drive her kid to school takes the cake for the worst act of abuse of power I have ever heard.
This poor woman was doing nothing but driving her kid to school when she was pulled over for speeding. She was doing 32 in a 20 mph zone. I would say she deserved a ticket. But that was far from all that happened to her.
She was given a speeding ticket but refused to sign it, mistakenly believing that doing so was an admission of guilt. She was told that refusal to sign the ticket would result in her arrest but she would not change her mind. A sergeant arrived at the scene and instructed the officers to arrest Ms. Brooks. She refused to get out of the car. She told the officers she was pregnant and had to go to the bathroom. They asked her how pregnant she was. As if that makes a difference.
Her son had by now left the car and walked to the school. This spared the young child from having to witness the atrocity that was then committed against his mother. The police tasered her three times in less than a minute, first in her thigh, then in her arm and then in her neck, causing her intense pain, leaving permanent scars and finally rendering her unconscious.
Thank God she gave birth to a healthy baby. The officers were admonished for excessive use of force, but it has been ruled that no action can be taken against them because the law written to regulate the use of Tasers was not written clearly to cover such an incident. The woman is seeking damages in civil court.
There shouldn't need to be a law. Common sense should tell you that tasering a pregnant woman is cruel and unnecessary. Any judge that says differently should be immediately removed from the bench.
But the deeper question is, what are we becoming? When a helpless woman with an unborn child who poses no threat can be abused in such fashion, the time has come for some serious soul searching. This is supposed to be a democracy, government of the people by the people. Policeman have sworn to protect and serve. How did these officers protect and serve in this case? Suppose the woman had died, which has happened before. Would these officers still face no charges because the law is unclear?
What is clear is that these officers wanted to use their high tech toy to hurt someone. They acted without any conscience whatsoever and, to add insult to injury, they are seeking to have even their admonishment overturned because they are so sure that they have the right to inflict their cruelty upon anyone they choose.
This is becoming a consistent pattern. Public servants who inflict pain upon the innocent public. A new system has to be developed to screen out the psychopaths who want to become police officers. We need public servants who actually place serving the public before their own ego. We cannot call ourselves a civil society when we allow such injustices to go unpunished. This is the kind of hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy that fuels the hatred of terrorists. Wake up people, your America is vanishing before your eyes.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
We Still Haven't Learned
The disclosure the other day that JP Morgan experienced a two billion dollar loss in its trading portfolio came as no surprise. We gave the banks nothing more than a slap on the wrist after they created the last crisis. No one went to jail or was even prosecuted. Practices that ruined the lives of thousands of Americans went unpunished. So why should we expect the banks to learn any lesson from their past misdeeds?
What did we do? We bailed them out. We had to do that. But we should have put conditions in place to make sure crises like the one we still haven't recovered from can't happen again. We have tried. Laws were passed. But the banks were successful in lobbying to make sure the laws were so watered down as to be ineffective.
So I say we haven't learned. Why do I say we? It can be seen that the banks have learned nothing. They are content to take their unnecessary risks and don't care if they create another crisis. They'll get bailed out again if need be. But what is more important is that we haven't learned. We, the people. We have allowed our lawmakers to water down the laws and listen when the banks say they can handle the risks. We are complacent. We are content to let our lawmakers do nothing. But of course when the next crisis happens we will raise our voices in protest and ask how our lawmakers let this happen again. But it won't be their fault exclusively. It will be the fault of every American citizen who sits back and lets Congress do nothing and be unduly influenced by the institutions they are in charge of regulating.
Most disturbing is the silence from Occupy Wall St. I look at their website this morning and I see no mention of any planned protests in the wake of JP Morgan's revelation. If I was the leader of the movement I would have issued an immediate call for a massive protest. Instead of some nebulous agenda, which the movement has often been accused of, here would have been the chance to scream about something real, something that we can all relate to, another misdeed that an overpaid executive perpetrated by not properly considering the risks he was taking. By staging a protest with a solid agenda, the movement could have legitimized itself and set itself on a course towards wider acceptance.
But, of course, what has happened is that this important event has passed without being exploited for the opportunity it presents. Sure, they will be looked at and a report will be made, but in the end, the banks will water this story down as well and Congress will excuse this so called "aberration" and let the banks go on taking unnecessary risks.
We can all sit back and be more concerned with Mariano Rivera's torn ACL and Amar'e Stoudamire's lack of self control. And when our standard of living has deteriorated to the point where major services have to be eliminated and 25 to 30% of the population lives in poverty, then we will all scream for Congress to act. And when they fail to act, it won't be there fault, it will be ours. All 300 million of us who fail to hold our elected officials accountable. And in our wonderful American way, it will be spun into something else by the mainstream media so we can point our fingers and evade our responsibility.
What did we do? We bailed them out. We had to do that. But we should have put conditions in place to make sure crises like the one we still haven't recovered from can't happen again. We have tried. Laws were passed. But the banks were successful in lobbying to make sure the laws were so watered down as to be ineffective.
So I say we haven't learned. Why do I say we? It can be seen that the banks have learned nothing. They are content to take their unnecessary risks and don't care if they create another crisis. They'll get bailed out again if need be. But what is more important is that we haven't learned. We, the people. We have allowed our lawmakers to water down the laws and listen when the banks say they can handle the risks. We are complacent. We are content to let our lawmakers do nothing. But of course when the next crisis happens we will raise our voices in protest and ask how our lawmakers let this happen again. But it won't be their fault exclusively. It will be the fault of every American citizen who sits back and lets Congress do nothing and be unduly influenced by the institutions they are in charge of regulating.
Most disturbing is the silence from Occupy Wall St. I look at their website this morning and I see no mention of any planned protests in the wake of JP Morgan's revelation. If I was the leader of the movement I would have issued an immediate call for a massive protest. Instead of some nebulous agenda, which the movement has often been accused of, here would have been the chance to scream about something real, something that we can all relate to, another misdeed that an overpaid executive perpetrated by not properly considering the risks he was taking. By staging a protest with a solid agenda, the movement could have legitimized itself and set itself on a course towards wider acceptance.
But, of course, what has happened is that this important event has passed without being exploited for the opportunity it presents. Sure, they will be looked at and a report will be made, but in the end, the banks will water this story down as well and Congress will excuse this so called "aberration" and let the banks go on taking unnecessary risks.
We can all sit back and be more concerned with Mariano Rivera's torn ACL and Amar'e Stoudamire's lack of self control. And when our standard of living has deteriorated to the point where major services have to be eliminated and 25 to 30% of the population lives in poverty, then we will all scream for Congress to act. And when they fail to act, it won't be there fault, it will be ours. All 300 million of us who fail to hold our elected officials accountable. And in our wonderful American way, it will be spun into something else by the mainstream media so we can point our fingers and evade our responsibility.
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