Civil Liberties Are Still Not a Big Concern

ACLU is still obsessed with civil liberties

Thank a cop for not killing you

The Sunday network news show featured some Movement guests today.

Missing is any mention of the First, Fourth and 14th Amendments, vestiges of the Constitutional republic launched in theory in the late 18th century.

Don't look for ACLU, National Lawyers Guild, or CCR attorneys dominating network guest lists in the coming weeks.

I've talked to and read these guys' work; they extol civil liberties with ready intelligence used to criticize police encroachments on humanity, never prepared to thank police for not killing them. [Ungrateful bastards are likely as not to reminize about the Kerner Commission.]

What you will find is any assembly of American citizens met with large police forces, with appropriate commentary from corporate 'journalism' reporting with no follow-through the number of people arrested, as though assembling in itself suggests likely criminality.

"[B]lack people can be killed with impunity since the police in the United States are rarely held accountable for such crimes," notes an insightful piece in CounterPunch this weekend.

That's a fact, CounterPunch.

On an up note, the spectacular, (as opposed to the banal), killing of black folks does provide openings for those steeped into the whole we-are-human-with-rights thing.

Vox has a must-read piece by ex-St. Louis cop, Redditt Hudson: "I worked with people like the president of my police academy class, who sent out an email after President Obama won the 2008 election that included the statement, 'I can't believe I live in a country full of nigger lovers!!!!!!!!' He patrolled the streets in St. Louis in a number of black communities with the authority to act under the color of law."

Hudson's former colleague is right about nigger lovers, they're everywhere, thankfully. On a given day, I can count on a friend's old friend to post daily links to 10s of civil liberties-loving, nigger-loving pieces. [Thanks Rebecca and your immediate family. Jackie and I will take you up some time on your standing invitation to northern Minnesota, and we really want meet some folks on the res, if your husband can help.]

Suggestions for Local Media

Local media in whatever city can do a human service by visiting a laundry mat or other social center in respective segregated communities and ask folks what they think.

In Madison, Wisconsin, I suggest the Meadowood laundry on the near west-south side. Ask the mostly black and brown folks what they think, with the assurance they won't bite and their dark complexions with black hair won't get you irretrievably dirty.  [Maybe take a gun just in case though and watch their hands, very quick these people.]

Ask local police forces and fusion centers what is the precise extent of local monitoring of the media, especially social media, and to what extent police surveil and harass writers for pro-civil liberties work. Answers may surprise.

Warnings

Watch for deceitful police unions and opportunistic politicians who trade on racist fears of the other.

From liberal and rightwing municipalities to a more crass racist like Wisconsin legislative Republicans and Scott Walker, the culture is ripe for exploitation.

Joe Robinson has a killer piece in the Wisconsin State Journal entitled "Why I won't bring my black sons to Madison.," Jesse Opoien in the Capital Times has a must-read on Wisconsin Republicans' newest taunt to black folks by the introduction of legislation, Blue Lives Matter.

Poor police forces, the recipients of public salary, health care, and pension, with a license to lie and kill without consequences. Even Scott Walker's anti-labor initiatives spared the police unions, as Walker knows better than to mess with the local police power centers.

Never forget

Amid the nonsensical, ahistorical twaddle about common ground, reconciliation and on and on, make it known in your community that your rights to life and liberty are not negotiable, not ever.