MSM misused the wrong woman.

[Fire Walk With Me]

Political Fail Blog ‏@PFailBlog

Fuck You CBS: This Oakland Mom Fights Back
http://politicalfailblog.com/archives/6588

(CBS take Bella's fear of police quote out of context, earn much ire)


On January 22, 2013 between 5pm and 3am the next morning over 400 Oakland residents showed up to a city council to speak against the contract proposing Bill Bratton (Mr. Stop & Frisk himself) be hired to help Oakland’s Police Department with a “short term solution” for the violence & crime in the city; all for the very low low price of $250,000. I was one of the very concerned speakers that night as Oakland is my home, and the things I have seen from my local government and police over the past few years are nothing short of disappointing and not deserving of my trust in their ability to run the city.

I know that claims of racial profiling go unheard, and that’s why I was pretty upset that I wasn’t able to play my video at the council meeting to show the types of things that happen and how OPD violates the rights of Black & Brown youth in the city using the excuse that they “fit the description”. Walking While Black (Video Link) shows an incident in July of 2012 where two young black men were stopped by officers with guns drawn. Had 3 members of Political Fail Blog not been present filming (2 others, including myself) after a rally for Alan Blueford, another young man killed unjustly by OPD after being racially profiled earlier,these young men may have been shot and most definitely would have been detained & booked not only wasting more tax dollars but violating the rights of citizens who were pulled over for being black and having a tshirt on. Coincidentally 5 days before the deadly shooting of Alan Blueford was the unjust targeting and excessive force used on Prince Hasheem Bason on May 1st (Video Link). There would be video footage added here of Bluefords murder but Miguel Masso (the officer who killed him & will not be remanded) turned of his camera so that there is no video to corroborate his testimony.

With several instances of racial profiling and excessive force, some captured on video and some not, how could I feel safe with a racist and abusive police department; especially when expecting a son? One who will definitely fit some description of Black male between 5’7″ and 6’2″while wearing a tshirt or a hoodie. This is enough to make him a possible criminal, one who deserves to have guns drawn on him and to possibly (and quite likely) be shot and killed by the very police who I am forced to pay their salaries and their lawsuits via my tax dollars to protect and serve me, not criminalize and arrest or kill me and the people on my community.

(More at the link.)

[DollarBillHines]

1. What the hell was the city of Oakland thinking?

I mean, damn, they have plenty of minority members on the Council.

What the hell were they thinking?

Oakland is a tinderbox, just waiting for a flame.

Did they not observe the past election?

Unfortunately, for $250K Oakland will implement some 'tactics' and 'results'.

This will not end up as planned.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Police departments made into DHS tentacles via the iWatch program,

I worry that DHS know full well that Oakland is a petri dish for much of what shall follow, activism-wise, and are pushing -just- to see what occurs (so they may prepare). Speculation, of course, but then again, DHS claimed to not have spied on Occupy from day one, and they had indeed done so, or worse.

[DollarBillHines]

3. It's not "Speculation", FWWM, it is cold reality.

The East Bay is crammed with up-armored vehicles and all kinds of cops-become-SWAT shit.

Oakland is the perfect proving-ground. There is no more fertile ground for some really incendiary action.

They will use this to crank down hard on any 'protest' action(s).

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. :( If they do, we'll have hard, clear proof of the encroaching police state.

THEN what to do?

[DollarBillHines]

5. It's done, FWWM...

All of these communities have spent their gvt-mandated money on up-armor.

There has been billions of dollars spent on community security.

I live in a town of less than 9K.

We've got them, fucking crazy trucks bearing death. And this in in an up-scale town.

This is bad business, FWWM.

[starroute]

6. This really messes up my head

It's like the powers that be have already decided to give up on bread and circuses in favor of naked repression.

Why? Do they know about bad things coming down the pike, about scarcities and uncontrolled environmental devastation?

Or have they simply gotten so greedy that they don't want to share any of it? It's all My Precious, and any shred that goes to someone else is their personal loss.

The repression of the late 60s was at least based on something tangible -- on massive demonstrations and riots and chaos in the streets. There's nothing approaching that now.

So what are they afraid of?

Something is very wrong.

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. They've been preparing against mass uprising for years, but mostly recently.

And that's a superb question: Have they factored the food crisis into their plans.

[starroute]

8. But do they really know something or are they fighting the last war?

The gun fetishists are also preparing for mass uprising -- either a race war, or starving masses fleeing the cities, or locust-like incursions of illegals, or they don't know what -- but that doesn't mean they're not deluding themselves.

So is the same true of the government and do they have the same kooky belief system, or is the official paranoia actually based on evidence?

Remember that the war on drugs goes back to Nixon and was one of the ways he tried to consolidate extra-judicial power. Our skyrocketing incarceration rates began under Reagan and were justified by the same law-and-order mentality. These things are not recent.

Moreover, the repression that is going on now seems to be tied less to old-fashioned fears of mass uprisings than it is to the desire of civic leaders to keep their cities safe for gentrification and the business interests of the 1%.

Meanwhile, the drug war is fading. The crime rates of a couple of decades ago are being blamed on a temporary wave of lead poisoning. And Occupy seems to have shifted to a strategy of avoiding direct confrontations and focusing on radical community organizing.

So the real question at this point might be one of who's fooling whom?