Most Excellent August Book Promotion
Rather pleased to announce that Wild Shore Press, Grindlebone Art's in house publishing company, is running an August promotion on many of their Kindle titles, including most of my works and Ian Witcomb's excellent Memoir, "Letters from Lotusland", which I had a hand in editing. From Aug. 20-27, 2016, most of those titles will be a mere $.99 for Kindle downloads. Feel free to rush right out in a downloading frenzy.
Uncomfortable Truths for Americans
I rather hate to do this, but I feel I must.
We're not the good guys anymore.
There, I said it. We're not the good guys anymore. We were once. After WWII, we were the heroes of the world. We rebuilt Europe and Asia, we went into space, we cured polio, we were freaking fantastic.
But then came the cold war, and multinationals, then came Vietnam and Panama and waterboarding and endless corporate promotion of American interests, even at the expense of the culture or environment or economy of other countries, then came decades of blind support for increasingly right-wing and fanatical governments abroad, especially in Israel, where our massive military assistance is, even now, creating genocidal conditions for those living in the Palestine. We're not the good guys anymore.
This is not, of course, to say that Russia or China ARE the good guys. No, no, no, their human rights records, economic imperialism, and environmental destruction are generally even worse than ours.
At best, we are the same as they are: Wealthy corporate run oligarchies with little interest in anything that isn't profit or power.
The vaunted two party system of America is run by two degenerate and corrupt political organizations. One, the GOP, has, in the quest for power, turned it's back on conservatism as a philosophy to endorse racism, hatred of women, xenophobia, and jingoistic nationalism as a means to power. The other, the Democratic Party--once the bastion for the working man and woman--has embraced Wall Street, disasterous trade agreements, voter suppression, and fracking as a means to power. Both will do any amount of back room dealing, lies, voter suppression, vote rigging, even violence, to silence voices that object. Both will drop to their knees for whosoever writes the biggest check.
The two parties stay in power by being progressively worse than the other, using fear that the OTHER party might win to encourage votes, even if it is against the best interest of American citizens and their families and futures.
The American press, now owned mostly by only 6 gigantic corporations, is complicit in this. As exposed by recent Wikileaks revelations, they cooperate and coordinate with the two parties to suppress dissent, stifle criticism, and further their corporate aims.
You are not the good guys anymore.
Police in America, heavily armed, tattooed, and armored, routinely humiliate, beat, and even kill members of the public for no other real reason than that they can. Most of the victims are Black or Hispanic, and the line of racism in Policing runs deep in the U.S., but they also are certainly not above beating, framing, torturing, or killing those they deem "uppity." No penalty is ever paid, no justice ever offered to the victims. Police cruise through minority neighborhoods and target some poor slob who then turns up dead because the police felt "threatened." That's normal. Anyone striking back is a "terrorist."
American corporations, once welcomed abroad and adored, are now almost universally hated. Their coming in the third world means corruption, environmental devastation, economic extraction, and death. One of the DNC's most vaunted "pro labor" candidates received nearly $24m for making sure sweat shop workers in Haiti didn't get a raise to 61 CENTS an hour. Not a 61 cent RAISE, mind you, 61 CENTS AN HOUR. That would be, I should note, up from a minimum wage of $.21 an hour.
We drop bombs, we do drone strikes, we pay for death squads, whole families die, communities are wiped off the map, and yet we are told that "they hate us for our freedom". No, dumbf**k. They hate us because we killed their children.
We are not the good guys anymore.
But we could be.
We could be the good guys by disenfranchising the two corrupt parties that run America, by refusing to vote our fears and instead insisting on voting our morals and convictions. By voting FOR something rather than against a false and manipulated choice of boogeymen. We could be the good guys by standing FOR something for a change, rather than just profit or strategic position. The world would welcome us, and with the strength of all the world, we would triumph without even trying.
We could be the good guys by demanding our allies and correspondents and client states and trading partners play fair with their people--with ALL of their people-- or we will walk with all our considerable skills, resources, and astonishingly large market. We could do that.
We could be the good guys by making sure our people--AMERICAN people, American citizens--have good lives, healthcare, clean water, safe streets, safe food, and good educations. We could be the good guys by treating our own people as something other than corporate cannon fodder.
We could be the good guys, you know. We could be the people we've always been told we are. We could spend a few pennies of our fantastic wealth to clothe kids and give them clean water, to treat the sick and help people to find their own voices rather then insisting that ours be the only one heard.
Now you can feel free to tell me this isn't practical, that it isn't realistic or "the way the world works." That's fine, I guess.
But the world, ours and everyone else's, was better when we were heroes.
We could do that again. I still have the cape.
Really.
M
We're not the good guys anymore.
There, I said it. We're not the good guys anymore. We were once. After WWII, we were the heroes of the world. We rebuilt Europe and Asia, we went into space, we cured polio, we were freaking fantastic.
But then came the cold war, and multinationals, then came Vietnam and Panama and waterboarding and endless corporate promotion of American interests, even at the expense of the culture or environment or economy of other countries, then came decades of blind support for increasingly right-wing and fanatical governments abroad, especially in Israel, where our massive military assistance is, even now, creating genocidal conditions for those living in the Palestine. We're not the good guys anymore.
This is not, of course, to say that Russia or China ARE the good guys. No, no, no, their human rights records, economic imperialism, and environmental destruction are generally even worse than ours.
At best, we are the same as they are: Wealthy corporate run oligarchies with little interest in anything that isn't profit or power.
The vaunted two party system of America is run by two degenerate and corrupt political organizations. One, the GOP, has, in the quest for power, turned it's back on conservatism as a philosophy to endorse racism, hatred of women, xenophobia, and jingoistic nationalism as a means to power. The other, the Democratic Party--once the bastion for the working man and woman--has embraced Wall Street, disasterous trade agreements, voter suppression, and fracking as a means to power. Both will do any amount of back room dealing, lies, voter suppression, vote rigging, even violence, to silence voices that object. Both will drop to their knees for whosoever writes the biggest check.
The two parties stay in power by being progressively worse than the other, using fear that the OTHER party might win to encourage votes, even if it is against the best interest of American citizens and their families and futures.
The American press, now owned mostly by only 6 gigantic corporations, is complicit in this. As exposed by recent Wikileaks revelations, they cooperate and coordinate with the two parties to suppress dissent, stifle criticism, and further their corporate aims.
You are not the good guys anymore.
Police in America, heavily armed, tattooed, and armored, routinely humiliate, beat, and even kill members of the public for no other real reason than that they can. Most of the victims are Black or Hispanic, and the line of racism in Policing runs deep in the U.S., but they also are certainly not above beating, framing, torturing, or killing those they deem "uppity." No penalty is ever paid, no justice ever offered to the victims. Police cruise through minority neighborhoods and target some poor slob who then turns up dead because the police felt "threatened." That's normal. Anyone striking back is a "terrorist."
American corporations, once welcomed abroad and adored, are now almost universally hated. Their coming in the third world means corruption, environmental devastation, economic extraction, and death. One of the DNC's most vaunted "pro labor" candidates received nearly $24m for making sure sweat shop workers in Haiti didn't get a raise to 61 CENTS an hour. Not a 61 cent RAISE, mind you, 61 CENTS AN HOUR. That would be, I should note, up from a minimum wage of $.21 an hour.
We drop bombs, we do drone strikes, we pay for death squads, whole families die, communities are wiped off the map, and yet we are told that "they hate us for our freedom". No, dumbf**k. They hate us because we killed their children.
We are not the good guys anymore.
But we could be.
We could be the good guys by disenfranchising the two corrupt parties that run America, by refusing to vote our fears and instead insisting on voting our morals and convictions. By voting FOR something rather than against a false and manipulated choice of boogeymen. We could be the good guys by standing FOR something for a change, rather than just profit or strategic position. The world would welcome us, and with the strength of all the world, we would triumph without even trying.
We could be the good guys by demanding our allies and correspondents and client states and trading partners play fair with their people--with ALL of their people-- or we will walk with all our considerable skills, resources, and astonishingly large market. We could do that.
We could be the good guys by making sure our people--AMERICAN people, American citizens--have good lives, healthcare, clean water, safe streets, safe food, and good educations. We could be the good guys by treating our own people as something other than corporate cannon fodder.
We could be the good guys, you know. We could be the people we've always been told we are. We could spend a few pennies of our fantastic wealth to clothe kids and give them clean water, to treat the sick and help people to find their own voices rather then insisting that ours be the only one heard.
Now you can feel free to tell me this isn't practical, that it isn't realistic or "the way the world works." That's fine, I guess.
But the world, ours and everyone else's, was better when we were heroes.
We could do that again. I still have the cape.
Really.
M
Hilary Clinton, and the existential threat
I have never seen, in my 6+ decades of life, an election season like this one, with all the utter disfunctionality of the last three decades on such awe-inspiring display. We have seen the GOP essentially self destruct, disintegrating into a party of madness, raciscm, and corporate greed, electing a carnival barker for a candidate. We are now watching the Democrats in the same process, drowning in quid pro quo payments, arrogance, and privilege. It seems that both parties are about to create a new first: fielding two candidates that are not merely disliked, but absolutely reviled by the American people.
One could see the GOP debacle coming: With the growing power since Reagan of the most angry, racist, discontent wing of the party, the GOP fielded in 2015 what had to have been the most spotted and weak field of candidates in the party's long history, only to devolve into picking the absolute worst of them: A reality TV show host with no governmental experience and the emotional control of a nine year old. Win or lose, Donald Trump is auguring the party in at a high velocity, and the fallout of that impact will go on for decades.
For their part, the Democrats are especially sad: This election was theirs to lose. After years of Republican intransigence, overt racism, and obstructionism, and riding a new populist wave on the left, this should have been a sweep for the Democratic party. Both houses of Congress and the Presidency should have been a cinch. Clinton, with the embrace of the new left, was to have ridden in glory into office. Now it is questionable if or in what form the party will even survive, and I look on in astonishment. Dirty tricks, back room deals, a corrupted and complicit mainstream media, and outright vote fraud have so poisoned the waters, so fouled the downy bed that the Dems hath made, that it is approaching lethal toxicity, and they have only themselves to blame.
The DNC, though their own mechanations, have now three utterly unenviable choices:
1) Elect Hilary Clinton: always the presumptive front runner, Clinton has proven a deeply flawed candidate, and, to be honest, person. Her acceptance (and the party's) of almost unbelievable amounts of money from some of the most venal of corporate sources, along with huge amounts flowing from foreign governments into Clinton Foundation coffers, have left her motives and veracity deeply suspect. Faced with a revolt from her left from what must be regarded as one of the only truly honest people in politics, Senator Sanders, the Clinton campaign responded with backroom deals, paid internet trolls, a cavalcade of dirty tricks and slurs, all accompanied with a patently deliberate mainstream media blackout on the Sander's campaign, voter suppression campaigns, suspicious vote tallys, and what I suspect will wind up being found to be deliberate vote rigging fraud. All of this has had the opposite effect on the Sanders' campaign from the one I suspect was intended: The Sanderistas became angry and energized. Originally mildly supporting Clinton at the beginning of the campaign season, the Sanders supporters--composed largely of the young, the well educated, and a huge number of independents who joined the party to support him--now hold her in such contempt that anything up to and including the possibility that witnesses against her have been murdered is now openly discussed. Somewhere between 40 and 90% of the Sander's supporters (depending on which polls you believe) say they will, under NO circumstances, support or vote for Hilary Clinton. As this comprises about half the Democrats and most of the left-leaning independents, this is a disaster for the DNC. And, as it includes a very large number of young, first time voters, it may continue to be a disaster for decades.
2) Bring in a "White Knight": Faced with such a wildly unpopular candidate, the DNC inner leadership could choose to broker the convention and bring in someone else, likely Joe Biden, to save the day. Biden would likely win. He's the kind of unoffensive and fairly competent party politician that parties love to run. He comes across as serious, vaguely working class, and relatively untarred by scandal. But his selection, with not a single vote being cast for him, would drive most of the Sander's supporters out of the party (if that hasn't happened already), leaving the Dems with the White House and Senate, but with no remaining party for future elections and with a Progressive Caucus that views the Dems as being as much an enemy as they view the GOP.
3) Nominate Bernie Sanders: This would seem a natural. If one removes the favoritism shown by the DNC toward Clinton, the dirty tricks, the voter suppression and the like, the likelihood is that Sanders actually won this primary. Indeed, as I write this, the California vote count edges him closer and closer to parity, and some 30 lawsuits across the country may result in significant changes to the vote tally. With the support of the young, easily half the party, and most independents and a career utterly untouched by scandal and huge corporate donations, Sanders would give the Democrats a generation of control in the government. But Sanders is a Social Democrat, despised and feared by those--especially large Banks and the fossil fuel industry-- who have written the DNC and the Clinton campaign HUGE checks in this election cycle, and foreign governments who have had such influence in US Politics, especially the Saudi's and Israel's powerful money funnel, AIPAC, appear to despise him, as much as he is beloved by most of the rest of the world. Regardless, this would seem a natural choice, but to party insiders, the choice would be impossible.
There will be winners, of course. The Green Party, long languishing as a "fringe" party in the press's eyes, has made a very smart move (largely due to Dr. Jill Stein, who is becoming more and more a force with which to be reckoned) in inviting the Sanders supporters (with whom they have much in common) to join, up to and including inviting Sanders, himself, to join their ticket. The Greens will likely, at minimum, have a showing this fall in the millions because of disgusted independents and the Sanders disaffected, and are likely to become a viable third party in the years to come, perhaps displacing the Democrats much as the GOP displaced the Whigs.
Trump, regardless of outcome, will make millions and will bask in the limelight. Sanders will rise in influence and respect in the Senate if not nominated, and will continue to affect US politics for a decade.
But the Clintons, even if they win, will never be trusted or respected again. The Democratic party, even if they win, will likely remain shattered, never trusted or respected again. No one has respected or trusted the Republicans for years. The losers, the big losers, will likely be the American people, who will have to deal with the outcome of this sorry mess.
One could see the GOP debacle coming: With the growing power since Reagan of the most angry, racist, discontent wing of the party, the GOP fielded in 2015 what had to have been the most spotted and weak field of candidates in the party's long history, only to devolve into picking the absolute worst of them: A reality TV show host with no governmental experience and the emotional control of a nine year old. Win or lose, Donald Trump is auguring the party in at a high velocity, and the fallout of that impact will go on for decades.
For their part, the Democrats are especially sad: This election was theirs to lose. After years of Republican intransigence, overt racism, and obstructionism, and riding a new populist wave on the left, this should have been a sweep for the Democratic party. Both houses of Congress and the Presidency should have been a cinch. Clinton, with the embrace of the new left, was to have ridden in glory into office. Now it is questionable if or in what form the party will even survive, and I look on in astonishment. Dirty tricks, back room deals, a corrupted and complicit mainstream media, and outright vote fraud have so poisoned the waters, so fouled the downy bed that the Dems hath made, that it is approaching lethal toxicity, and they have only themselves to blame.
The DNC, though their own mechanations, have now three utterly unenviable choices:
1) Elect Hilary Clinton: always the presumptive front runner, Clinton has proven a deeply flawed candidate, and, to be honest, person. Her acceptance (and the party's) of almost unbelievable amounts of money from some of the most venal of corporate sources, along with huge amounts flowing from foreign governments into Clinton Foundation coffers, have left her motives and veracity deeply suspect. Faced with a revolt from her left from what must be regarded as one of the only truly honest people in politics, Senator Sanders, the Clinton campaign responded with backroom deals, paid internet trolls, a cavalcade of dirty tricks and slurs, all accompanied with a patently deliberate mainstream media blackout on the Sander's campaign, voter suppression campaigns, suspicious vote tallys, and what I suspect will wind up being found to be deliberate vote rigging fraud. All of this has had the opposite effect on the Sanders' campaign from the one I suspect was intended: The Sanderistas became angry and energized. Originally mildly supporting Clinton at the beginning of the campaign season, the Sanders supporters--composed largely of the young, the well educated, and a huge number of independents who joined the party to support him--now hold her in such contempt that anything up to and including the possibility that witnesses against her have been murdered is now openly discussed. Somewhere between 40 and 90% of the Sander's supporters (depending on which polls you believe) say they will, under NO circumstances, support or vote for Hilary Clinton. As this comprises about half the Democrats and most of the left-leaning independents, this is a disaster for the DNC. And, as it includes a very large number of young, first time voters, it may continue to be a disaster for decades.
2) Bring in a "White Knight": Faced with such a wildly unpopular candidate, the DNC inner leadership could choose to broker the convention and bring in someone else, likely Joe Biden, to save the day. Biden would likely win. He's the kind of unoffensive and fairly competent party politician that parties love to run. He comes across as serious, vaguely working class, and relatively untarred by scandal. But his selection, with not a single vote being cast for him, would drive most of the Sander's supporters out of the party (if that hasn't happened already), leaving the Dems with the White House and Senate, but with no remaining party for future elections and with a Progressive Caucus that views the Dems as being as much an enemy as they view the GOP.
3) Nominate Bernie Sanders: This would seem a natural. If one removes the favoritism shown by the DNC toward Clinton, the dirty tricks, the voter suppression and the like, the likelihood is that Sanders actually won this primary. Indeed, as I write this, the California vote count edges him closer and closer to parity, and some 30 lawsuits across the country may result in significant changes to the vote tally. With the support of the young, easily half the party, and most independents and a career utterly untouched by scandal and huge corporate donations, Sanders would give the Democrats a generation of control in the government. But Sanders is a Social Democrat, despised and feared by those--especially large Banks and the fossil fuel industry-- who have written the DNC and the Clinton campaign HUGE checks in this election cycle, and foreign governments who have had such influence in US Politics, especially the Saudi's and Israel's powerful money funnel, AIPAC, appear to despise him, as much as he is beloved by most of the rest of the world. Regardless, this would seem a natural choice, but to party insiders, the choice would be impossible.
There will be winners, of course. The Green Party, long languishing as a "fringe" party in the press's eyes, has made a very smart move (largely due to Dr. Jill Stein, who is becoming more and more a force with which to be reckoned) in inviting the Sanders supporters (with whom they have much in common) to join, up to and including inviting Sanders, himself, to join their ticket. The Greens will likely, at minimum, have a showing this fall in the millions because of disgusted independents and the Sanders disaffected, and are likely to become a viable third party in the years to come, perhaps displacing the Democrats much as the GOP displaced the Whigs.
Trump, regardless of outcome, will make millions and will bask in the limelight. Sanders will rise in influence and respect in the Senate if not nominated, and will continue to affect US politics for a decade.
But the Clintons, even if they win, will never be trusted or respected again. The Democratic party, even if they win, will likely remain shattered, never trusted or respected again. No one has respected or trusted the Republicans for years. The losers, the big losers, will likely be the American people, who will have to deal with the outcome of this sorry mess.
NEW BOOK RELEASE
Well my newest novel is finally, FINALLY to press and available hardcopy and on Kindle.
It's a very different kind of Steampunk romance, featuring transdimensional travel, interspecies dating, Teddy Roosevelt, and mail order shopping.....no, really.
I'm very proud of this one. This and my earlier "The Ganymeade Protocol" are my two strongest works to date. Please go check them out. You can find "An Alien's Guide to Sears and Roebuck" here.
M
It's a very different kind of Steampunk romance, featuring transdimensional travel, interspecies dating, Teddy Roosevelt, and mail order shopping.....no, really.
I'm very proud of this one. This and my earlier "The Ganymeade Protocol" are my two strongest works to date. Please go check them out. You can find "An Alien's Guide to Sears and Roebuck" here.
M
Them Intertubes Process
The Interwebs Process:
On the posting of any idea, concept, or invention, the web reaction will be as follows:
1) There's no problem. There's no need for this. This is just the reaction of (insert group you hate here) trying to (insert nefarious intent here). You're an idiot for disagreeing with (insert group you respect here)
2) Okay, there is an issue, but it won't work. You don't understand the (science, cost, politics, mechanics, will of the divine) regarding this. Who's gonna pay for this? You're an idiot for disagreeing with (insert group you respect here). You don't have the (money, skills, education, credits, cajones) to do this. If this would have worked, someone else better than you would have already done it.
3) Okay, it might work, but They (the government, the corporations, the police, the illuminati, the bankers, the reptilians, the minorities, the people with hamsters taped to their foreheads) won't let you do it.
4) It'll work just fine. It's brilliant! I've always said so. You and me, buddy!
4) It'll work just fine. It's brilliant! I've always said so. You and me, buddy!
Mungo's Epistle to the Preppers
Okay, so this has been coming a long time. I apologize in advance, this is going to seem like an attack. It honestly isn't meant as one, but I think it's something that needs to be said.
The world has it's problems, I'll freely admit. Governments are corrupt or stupid, corporations are out of control, the climate is out of whack, the seas are polluted, everywhere, it seems, there is crime, want, violence, disease, and general weirdness. I get that.
Your response is entirely logical. You want to create a safe space for you and your family, fill it with food and medicine and guns and whatever else you think you'll need to deal with what is out there, and survive.
The question, in my opinion, that you don't seem to be asking is: And then what?
And then what?
Then do you crawl out of your shelter with your camouflage and assault rifle and eke out some miserable existence in what is left of the world? Do you see yourself, somehow, and the leader of some Mad Max future by virtue of having the foresight to "prep" for it? Have you thought about it at all, about what happens when the freeze dried food gives out and the Kero for the lanterns is gone? And then what?
Let me make a suggestion. You may not like it. It's not romantic, it's not macho, it's rather pedestrian and lame, but here it is. Why not use your capital, your considerable talents, and your inventiveness to help fix the world in which we're living, to help make it a better place? I know you probably won't be able to do it alone, but if you do and I do and a bunch of us do, then maybe, just maybe, we can avert the horrible future for which you are "prepping". Maybe we can image a world as we would like it, set our sights on that, and work toward it.
I know our visions would not match, but some parts of them surely would, and those are the ones most likely to come true. We could make a future, you and I and everyone else, for ourselves and our kids and the planet. We could do that.
Just a suggestion.
M
The world has it's problems, I'll freely admit. Governments are corrupt or stupid, corporations are out of control, the climate is out of whack, the seas are polluted, everywhere, it seems, there is crime, want, violence, disease, and general weirdness. I get that.
Your response is entirely logical. You want to create a safe space for you and your family, fill it with food and medicine and guns and whatever else you think you'll need to deal with what is out there, and survive.
The question, in my opinion, that you don't seem to be asking is: And then what?
And then what?
Then do you crawl out of your shelter with your camouflage and assault rifle and eke out some miserable existence in what is left of the world? Do you see yourself, somehow, and the leader of some Mad Max future by virtue of having the foresight to "prep" for it? Have you thought about it at all, about what happens when the freeze dried food gives out and the Kero for the lanterns is gone? And then what?
Let me make a suggestion. You may not like it. It's not romantic, it's not macho, it's rather pedestrian and lame, but here it is. Why not use your capital, your considerable talents, and your inventiveness to help fix the world in which we're living, to help make it a better place? I know you probably won't be able to do it alone, but if you do and I do and a bunch of us do, then maybe, just maybe, we can avert the horrible future for which you are "prepping". Maybe we can image a world as we would like it, set our sights on that, and work toward it.
I know our visions would not match, but some parts of them surely would, and those are the ones most likely to come true. We could make a future, you and I and everyone else, for ourselves and our kids and the planet. We could do that.
Just a suggestion.
M
Of a Trip to the Grocery, Lurking Police, Ferguson, Lord of the Rings, and the Ghost of Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel was one of the powerhouses of 19th Century England. He was Home Secretary, twice Prime Minister, legislator, and was all round hip deep in the issues of his age. I mention him because, among other things, he was responsible for the reform of the London police force and was the father of what is often called "Policing by Consent". If you've ever wondered about why London police are called "Bobbies" or "Peelers", he's your answer.
What brought Sir. Robert to mind at all was a walk this morning to my local grocery store. It's a walk I make a lot, down a couple of back streets, then down a busy highway. This time I noted, lurking behind a building some distance from the road, a patrol car, radar at the ready, laying in wait for speeders. They do this all the time along this strip, but today, something about it irked me, got under my skin, got me thinking about American Policing, about things like Ferguson Missouri, and about Robert Peel.
Here's the thing: Speeding is bad, and it happens a lot around here. If you don't drive on the East Coast, you may never have experienced this sort of mix of aggression and inattention we seem to have out here. Speeding is stupid, it's dangerous, it's a public safety concern. Where I grew up in Ft. Walton, Florida, in summer when the tourists were in, the city used to park a disused police car--I'm not even sure the thing ran--in the median strip with a dummy in the driver's seat. It worked. The touri took one look at it and dropped their speed before hitting the main drag of town. The public safety aspects were met, simply and inexpensively.
But this officer behind my grocer was far too far off the street for anyone to see. There was no deterrence. Instead, he was there to "catch" a speeder. To apprehend and ticket a law breaker. As opposed to preventing a law from being broken. One of Peel's "principles" (gleaned and collected from his writings by others, I should note) was: "that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them." In other words, a police department with a lot of fines, tickets, arrests, convictions. . . .that police department was one that had failed, because they had failed to prevent the crimes from happening in the first place. I realized that it had been YEARS since I'd seen an officer of the law parked in such a manner to deter speeding. All of them had been lurking like trolls under bridges and overpasses, just past the crests of hills or around bends, waiting to "catch" someone. Why?
Perhaps the term, "troll" I just used has some information here. Mythologically, a Troll was a powerful, dangerous, often stupid supernatural creature that lurked under bridges and the like and extracted fees for passage from the unwary, 'troll' and 'toll' sharing some of the same linguistic roots. That "fee" concept may lurk at the heart of this.
With the release of information from Ferguson, Missouri, a lot of people were shocked to discover that the second largest source of the City's budget was fines. That amount was high, but by no means remarkable in the area. The Police Department Emails from Ferguson made it clear that they were being pressured and judged on their ability to rake in funds.
To look for who is responsible for this, one only has to look at the current crop of chest thumping politicians who proudly proclaim that they will "never raise your taxes." They won't. Taxes tend to come from property holders, large businesses, and folks with large incomes. You know, the guys who write big checks to political campaigns come election time. What they WILL do is crank every usage fee, license fee, and fine on the books to make up for the shortfall. So the $25 fee to apply for a variance for your back yard fence is now $150. The $50 speeding ticket is now a $250 fine, plus $150 in court fees, plus a requirement that you take a privately offered traffic safety course for $500 (and the company that offers them is a major political contributor to the mayor, you can bet, as are companies who do now mandatory drug tests and background checks). This transforms every Policeman, Safety inspector, Code inspector, and Clerk from being a public servant seeking the public safety and public good into being a part of a shakedown squad, and these fees and fines fall disproportionately on the poor and middle class. The working poor are often ground up and spit out by this system, left with massive ongoing fees and payments, arrest records, and destroyed lives.
The second and equally pernicious problem is the increasingly macho and aggressive nature of policing. I'm reminded of the line in "Bladerunner"(or "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" for you literary types) in which the Chief tells an unwilling Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford in the film)"There's two kinds of people in this world: Police and Little People. Which do you want to be?" I lived in Los Angeles when Chief Darryl Gates (for my money one of the authors of this mess) declared LAPD to be "the biggest, best armed gang in the city," and ran things that way. The attitude is as diseased as it is contagious. In my distant youth, police looked like well groomed citizens in uniforms, very much along the lines of what Peel had in mind. They approached policing with an attitude that said "I'm here now, you're safe now, how can we help?" Now, shave-headed and tattooed, they more resemble a marine combat unit, and come swaggering in carrying enough firepower to take on the NAZI hoards and a "comply or die" attitude that says "mess with me and I'll kill every fu*king thing in this building." I should be noted that Peel even insisted that the London Police have special pockets in their uniforms for truncheons so they were not visible and threatening to the public. Ironically, armored and very heavily armed, the excuse used by most police when using deadly force was that "they felt threatened." Apparently, there is very little that doesn't threaten them lately, including unarmed, nonviolent offenders walking away.
It's a mess.
So here, dear reader, are my ideas on how to address this. How to clean up America's Police Forces and restore to them their good name and rightful place in society.
First of all: Robert Peel. Before we go any further, stop over and read about Peel's ideas of policing, particularly the "peelian principles" of policing. I'll post that list at the bottom of this, but if you have the time, drop over to Wikipedia and read the full entry. You may be amazed how far we have drifted from these ideals.
Then, in terms of practical legislation:
At the Federal Level:
1) Support legislation making it illegal for any municipality, county, or state to acquire more than 15% of it's income from fees, fines, and licenses. If you want community services, man up, tell the public how much it will cost, and what it will accordingly do to their taxes. You want lousy roads? Fine. Vote for them. This will give the public a far more accurate idea of the expense of civic projects and governance, a better idea of where the money comes from, and it will stop governments from using police as the equivalent of schoolyard bullies shaking kids down for their lunch money.
2) Direct the Department of Justice set forth a universal set of national standards for the use of physical restraint, pain compliance including tasers, and deadly force. Make the guidelines conservative and clear, and make it clear that violations will be investigated by DOJ at the Federal level and vigorously prosecuted.
3) Make sure that all Federal funding for local policing is responsible, including an emphasis on crime prevention and peace keeping; making sure the police departments are not too dissimilar in racial makeup from the public they serve and setting careful standards for programs for police training that have a component of taxpayer funding at the Federal Level.
4) Stop the unfettered transfer of military equipment from the Federal Government to Law Enforcement agencies, making such equipment available only to special units within law enforcement and including periodic review of the recipients to make sure the use is appropriate and controlled.
5) Require that instances of deadly force or complaints of violence against police be investigated by citizen panels independent of the Police Department, Prosecutor's Office, or Local Government. This assures confidence in the integrity of such investigations, and makes their findings far more palatable to the public at large. Make sure that the collection of accurate data on police use of force is possible and readily available, so that we will know when departments are developing problems.
On a local Level:
1) Insist that your local politicians hold Police--since they have a position of high public trust--to a higher standard of competence, honesty, and performance. Hold supervisors and office holders responsible for police with a history of violence and complaints remaining on the force.
2) Make sure that the police in your community LOOK like your community, and not just in racial makeup. Police should look like the people they serve, not like hired killers or shock troops. An effort should be made to recruit police from all walks of life, not just from the ranks of the military.
3) Develop non-policing alternatives as an adjunct to traditional law enforcement. New York's Guardian Angel movement or the Burning Man Festival's Black Rock City Rangers, (full disclosure, I was a Ranger for a time at Playa Del Fuego, one of the regional "burns") while not perfect, may serve as a model for a controllable, non intrusive way to increase public safety and security without further stressing already overstretched Police departments.
And on a Personal Level:
Step up. Film bad policing, call your mayor, the chief of police, the press. . . .refuse to tolerate bad police, bad police policy, and those who place our Law Enforcement officers in no-win positions where the honest performance of their duties are at odds with official policy, political convenience, or monied interests.
Police should be deserving of our respect and admiration, a trusted and reliable resource for the entire community. If we're willing to all get busy, raise our voices, and do the work necessary, we can restore them to their deserved and lofty place in the pantheon of those that make a civil society work.
M
 |
| Sir Robert Peel. If you don't know him, you should. |
What brought Sir. Robert to mind at all was a walk this morning to my local grocery store. It's a walk I make a lot, down a couple of back streets, then down a busy highway. This time I noted, lurking behind a building some distance from the road, a patrol car, radar at the ready, laying in wait for speeders. They do this all the time along this strip, but today, something about it irked me, got under my skin, got me thinking about American Policing, about things like Ferguson Missouri, and about Robert Peel.
Here's the thing: Speeding is bad, and it happens a lot around here. If you don't drive on the East Coast, you may never have experienced this sort of mix of aggression and inattention we seem to have out here. Speeding is stupid, it's dangerous, it's a public safety concern. Where I grew up in Ft. Walton, Florida, in summer when the tourists were in, the city used to park a disused police car--I'm not even sure the thing ran--in the median strip with a dummy in the driver's seat. It worked. The touri took one look at it and dropped their speed before hitting the main drag of town. The public safety aspects were met, simply and inexpensively.
But this officer behind my grocer was far too far off the street for anyone to see. There was no deterrence. Instead, he was there to "catch" a speeder. To apprehend and ticket a law breaker. As opposed to preventing a law from being broken. One of Peel's "principles" (gleaned and collected from his writings by others, I should note) was: "that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them." In other words, a police department with a lot of fines, tickets, arrests, convictions. . . .that police department was one that had failed, because they had failed to prevent the crimes from happening in the first place. I realized that it had been YEARS since I'd seen an officer of the law parked in such a manner to deter speeding. All of them had been lurking like trolls under bridges and overpasses, just past the crests of hills or around bends, waiting to "catch" someone. Why?
Perhaps the term, "troll" I just used has some information here. Mythologically, a Troll was a powerful, dangerous, often stupid supernatural creature that lurked under bridges and the like and extracted fees for passage from the unwary, 'troll' and 'toll' sharing some of the same linguistic roots. That "fee" concept may lurk at the heart of this.
With the release of information from Ferguson, Missouri, a lot of people were shocked to discover that the second largest source of the City's budget was fines. That amount was high, but by no means remarkable in the area. The Police Department Emails from Ferguson made it clear that they were being pressured and judged on their ability to rake in funds.
To look for who is responsible for this, one only has to look at the current crop of chest thumping politicians who proudly proclaim that they will "never raise your taxes." They won't. Taxes tend to come from property holders, large businesses, and folks with large incomes. You know, the guys who write big checks to political campaigns come election time. What they WILL do is crank every usage fee, license fee, and fine on the books to make up for the shortfall. So the $25 fee to apply for a variance for your back yard fence is now $150. The $50 speeding ticket is now a $250 fine, plus $150 in court fees, plus a requirement that you take a privately offered traffic safety course for $500 (and the company that offers them is a major political contributor to the mayor, you can bet, as are companies who do now mandatory drug tests and background checks). This transforms every Policeman, Safety inspector, Code inspector, and Clerk from being a public servant seeking the public safety and public good into being a part of a shakedown squad, and these fees and fines fall disproportionately on the poor and middle class. The working poor are often ground up and spit out by this system, left with massive ongoing fees and payments, arrest records, and destroyed lives.
The second and equally pernicious problem is the increasingly macho and aggressive nature of policing. I'm reminded of the line in "Bladerunner"(or "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" for you literary types) in which the Chief tells an unwilling Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford in the film)"There's two kinds of people in this world: Police and Little People. Which do you want to be?" I lived in Los Angeles when Chief Darryl Gates (for my money one of the authors of this mess) declared LAPD to be "the biggest, best armed gang in the city," and ran things that way. The attitude is as diseased as it is contagious. In my distant youth, police looked like well groomed citizens in uniforms, very much along the lines of what Peel had in mind. They approached policing with an attitude that said "I'm here now, you're safe now, how can we help?" Now, shave-headed and tattooed, they more resemble a marine combat unit, and come swaggering in carrying enough firepower to take on the NAZI hoards and a "comply or die" attitude that says "mess with me and I'll kill every fu*king thing in this building." I should be noted that Peel even insisted that the London Police have special pockets in their uniforms for truncheons so they were not visible and threatening to the public. Ironically, armored and very heavily armed, the excuse used by most police when using deadly force was that "they felt threatened." Apparently, there is very little that doesn't threaten them lately, including unarmed, nonviolent offenders walking away.
It's a mess.
So here, dear reader, are my ideas on how to address this. How to clean up America's Police Forces and restore to them their good name and rightful place in society.
First of all: Robert Peel. Before we go any further, stop over and read about Peel's ideas of policing, particularly the "peelian principles" of policing. I'll post that list at the bottom of this, but if you have the time, drop over to Wikipedia and read the full entry. You may be amazed how far we have drifted from these ideals.
Then, in terms of practical legislation:
At the Federal Level:
1) Support legislation making it illegal for any municipality, county, or state to acquire more than 15% of it's income from fees, fines, and licenses. If you want community services, man up, tell the public how much it will cost, and what it will accordingly do to their taxes. You want lousy roads? Fine. Vote for them. This will give the public a far more accurate idea of the expense of civic projects and governance, a better idea of where the money comes from, and it will stop governments from using police as the equivalent of schoolyard bullies shaking kids down for their lunch money.
2) Direct the Department of Justice set forth a universal set of national standards for the use of physical restraint, pain compliance including tasers, and deadly force. Make the guidelines conservative and clear, and make it clear that violations will be investigated by DOJ at the Federal level and vigorously prosecuted.
3) Make sure that all Federal funding for local policing is responsible, including an emphasis on crime prevention and peace keeping; making sure the police departments are not too dissimilar in racial makeup from the public they serve and setting careful standards for programs for police training that have a component of taxpayer funding at the Federal Level.
4) Stop the unfettered transfer of military equipment from the Federal Government to Law Enforcement agencies, making such equipment available only to special units within law enforcement and including periodic review of the recipients to make sure the use is appropriate and controlled.
5) Require that instances of deadly force or complaints of violence against police be investigated by citizen panels independent of the Police Department, Prosecutor's Office, or Local Government. This assures confidence in the integrity of such investigations, and makes their findings far more palatable to the public at large. Make sure that the collection of accurate data on police use of force is possible and readily available, so that we will know when departments are developing problems.
On a local Level:
1) Insist that your local politicians hold Police--since they have a position of high public trust--to a higher standard of competence, honesty, and performance. Hold supervisors and office holders responsible for police with a history of violence and complaints remaining on the force.
2) Make sure that the police in your community LOOK like your community, and not just in racial makeup. Police should look like the people they serve, not like hired killers or shock troops. An effort should be made to recruit police from all walks of life, not just from the ranks of the military.
3) Develop non-policing alternatives as an adjunct to traditional law enforcement. New York's Guardian Angel movement or the Burning Man Festival's Black Rock City Rangers, (full disclosure, I was a Ranger for a time at Playa Del Fuego, one of the regional "burns") while not perfect, may serve as a model for a controllable, non intrusive way to increase public safety and security without further stressing already overstretched Police departments.
And on a Personal Level:
Step up. Film bad policing, call your mayor, the chief of police, the press. . . .refuse to tolerate bad police, bad police policy, and those who place our Law Enforcement officers in no-win positions where the honest performance of their duties are at odds with official policy, political convenience, or monied interests.
Police should be deserving of our respect and admiration, a trusted and reliable resource for the entire community. If we're willing to all get busy, raise our voices, and do the work necessary, we can restore them to their deserved and lofty place in the pantheon of those that make a civil society work.
M
The Peelian Principles
Nine Principles of Policing
The following nine principles of the role of police were set out in the 'General Instructions' issued to every new police officer in the London Metropolitan Police from 1829.- To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
- To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
- To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
- To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
- To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
- To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
- To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
- To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
- To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the
absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police
action in dealing with them.
