The Real News (updated)

Step 1) Find somebody who knows something
Step 2) Ask a few smart questions
Step 3) Shut up and let him talk

hat tip = FB buddy DR via truthdig

(And Uh-Oh.  My guy Martin O'Malley took a bit of a hit there (starting at about 3:45) when Mr Powers slags him for misunderstanding the Broken Windows approach to the point of total FUBAR.  I guess I need to figure out a way to ask him about that.)

So, wouldn't it be nice if we could take a hard look at the whole process?  Maybe we could start with: Coin-Operated Politicians getting elected partly on Big-Money donations from the Crime-&-Punishment Industries which eventually makes for a very tidy loop of criminalization and recidivism (Bust. Bargain. Jail. Repeat).  The cycle of Poverty, Ignorance and Crime isn't a bug in the system - it's a fucking feature.

And as a nice bonus, it gives our returning war heroes some occupational therapy so they can work out those PTSD issues that they don't have and that nobody ever needs to talk about because they couldn't possibly manifest themselves in the worst possible ways at the worst possible times - but like I said, let's not worry about any of that. Ever.

Anyway, concentrating your Zero-Tolerance approach on the "problem areas" almost ensures those problem areas will forever remain problem areas.  Which is, again, actually the point.  While it's being sold to us as Public Service, law enforcement is being administered as a Profit Center.  And the Revenue piece of any good business plan includes Recurring Revenue Opportunities - Returning Clientele, Customer Retention, Repeat Business, pick a buzz phrase, any buzz phrase.

BTW - the people filling our prisons aren't the "customers" of the Crime-&-Punishment Industries; the same as the patients filling our hospitals aren't the "customers" of our Healthcare Industries.  The main point there being that a healthy patient is a detriment to somebody's profitability the same as a law-abiding citizen walkin' around free isn't putting money into the pockets of an ever-widening system of interlocking "security" businesses.  

But weirdly - healthy patients and law-abiding citizens are very good for taxpayers and premium payers and business owners and families and and and.  So how come it seems like somebody doesn't want us to be particularly free or particularly healthy?  It's a wonderment, ain't it?

Prisoners (like Patients) are both the raw material and the product.  This is a strictly Business-to-Business proposition. The customer base consists of corporations which spend lots of time effort and money getting you and me to line up so we can volunteer to get scammed into believing we're buying ourselves a little law and order; some peace of mind; a feeling that we'll be allowed into the powdered wig salon just as soon as we've kissed all the right asses and stepped on all the right fingers - when actually, we're just identifying ourselves as resources for a system that eats people, extracts power and money, shits people back out; and then starts over again.

What, you weren't still thinking Law Enforcement's about enforcing the law, were ya?  You're so cute.  We live in USAmerica Inc, silly - America's business is business.  And business is fucking great.  

You're very important to us, so please stay in line - we'll get to you soon enough.

Today's Contextualizationing

There really was a time (quite a while ago) when Geraldo Rivera was thought to be a journalist.

The very well-practiced frozen smile on Rivera's face is a dead give-away that he suspects just how irrelevant he is; and that he's afraid that that irrelevancy is about to be shown to the world.  He desperately wants to be the gutsy plucky reporter he thinks he used to be as he's almost literally running away from that guy.

And the fact that he can't hold a candle to that guy's arguments is great tribute to the simple fact that whenever anybody working for the DumFux News crew ventures outside the bubble, reality short-circuits their closed-loop thinking and the whole program craters in on itself.

To be (kinda) fair, most of the other Press Poodles have run into similar buzz saws - it's just a little more satisfying when I get to watch some schmuck working for the GOP's PR Channel shit himself in public.

And now this:

Tweet Trend

Been seeing a lot of this one lately.

"Violence doesn't accomplish anything." That makes the US military budget an even bigger waste. Let's fund schools instead #BaltimoreRiots.

— Anonymous (@LatestAnonNews) April 29, 2015

Not Even Close

...IMHO.

Inside Amy Schumer
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Rockin' The Amplitude

Today's Molly

“Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for.”  --Molly Ivins

Larry Wilmore

Keith Last Nite

Coupla Things

I've got just 2 (main) points about the aftermath of the Freddie Gray thing in Baltimore.

First - when did we become so totally averse to and repulsed by violence in response to being pushed around - whether it's a real thing or only perception?  And in particular, what's with all the pearl-clutching and concern trolling coming in waves from "conservatives"?  When did the Right Radicals start being shocked by violence in response to any-fucking-thing at all?  Last I checked, most of the people who're all so utterly aghast at the prospect of protests turning to violent confrontation are the same bunch who cheered as a whole army of nutballs stormed into Nevada last year on the off chance they might get to shoot it out with the Federalés.  Selective Values Judgement much?

And that kinda leads to my second point, which is:  C'mon now, guys - this country was founded on armed rebellion in response to an uncaring, disinterested power structure that dealt with common folk in thoroughly hostile and brutalizing ways.  We've all been taught that good Americans stand up and fight for what they believe is right; and that there's nothing more noble that standing up to fight against the forces of oppression etc etc etc.  Why are we expecting anybody to not behave exactly the way they've been taught to behave from the time they were in 3rd or 4th grade?

And BTW: Looting? You fight your revolution and I'll fight mine. Comme ci, comme ça muthuhfuckuh.

So anyway, there's only one more question left to ask and it's about something we all know perfectly well (even tho' way too many of us are still too afraid to let the notion filter into our upper cortex), so I'll just say that there're some very real and very obvious differences between Baltimore and the Bundy ranch (eg) but they all boil down to one very real and very obvious aspect.  Simply stated, Freddie Gray can expect to be treated very differently by law enforcement than the way Cliven Bundy can expect to be treated by law enforcement, and it's really not so much that I think we're afraid to ask why - I'm pretty sure we know why; at least we can think we know when we contemplate it as an external thing - something to do with bad cops and the dumb way other people think blah blah blah.

But I'm afraid the real problem is that we're terrified something really bad will happen to us inside if we hear our own inner voice tell us the answer, because it just might be that we expect Freddie should be treated differently than Bundy.

And that grates on our soul.

Don't Look Now

First of all, Keith is again dancing perilously close to the edge of the abyss.  Implicit in the piece is a criticism of ESPN.  Big rich companies don't like it when you let "outsiders" peek behind the furniture.  And your colleagues don't like being called out for their willingness to devote way more time to their hair and their investment portfolios than they spend on actually doing their jobs as reporters.

Second - substitute "government agency" every time Keith refers to a sports figure or a team or a league.  And now we've got the typical (ie: huge fucking) problem of "reporters" acting in the capacity of PR flacks instead of telling us everything we need to know to make well-informed decisions on just about anything.

Wanna know what's killing off our little experiment in self-government?  Well, there aren't any simple answers to that, but we could start with this: Press Poodles.