America

Written By: - Date published: 6:52 am, July 11th, 2016 - 23 comments
Categories: the praiseworthy and the pitiful, us politics - Tags: , ,

america-cops-armour

Jonathan Bachman, Reuters photo from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

23 comments on “America ”

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  1. Gerald 1
    11 July 2016 at 7:32 am

    America, land of the Free!

  2. ianmac 2
    11 July 2016 at 8:40 am

    What are the Robocops doing to a woman standing still and upright? Claim that she is a threat?

    • Gangnam Style 2.1
      11 July 2016 at 9:25 am

      Dressed to kill. People are justifying the cops coz of sniper attack but those uniforms won’t stop a high powered bullet. Back to the drawing board for police work I think.

    • Wensleydale 2.2
      12 July 2016 at 3:49 am

      They obviously don’t get it. It doesn’t matter how much body armour you wear, or how many firearms you carry — you’re always going to be outnumbered by “the people”. And if those people gather in large enough numbers and are sufficiently motivated, you and all your “protect and serve” friends are fucked. It looks like America is going to have to learn this the hard way.

  3. jcuknz 3
    11 July 2016 at 8:48 am

    Looks like a still from some musical?

  4. Sabine 4
    11 July 2016 at 9:27 am

    US of A. Land of the fearful white minority.

  5. red-blooded 5
    11 July 2016 at 10:57 am

    …And of course, sitting there alongside the fear of the African American underclass, the refusal to address any of the issues that create and sustain that underclass (and the assumption that all African Americans belong to that underclass) is the (obscene, dreadful) idea that people need guns and that guns help to protect them. The sad fact is that both Philando Castille and the cop who shot him were carrying guns. Castille was licensed to carry one, he wasn’t doing anything wrong under US law and he certainly wasn’t a threat to the cop who shot him and then treated his partner so dreadfully, but the two guns (his and the cop’s) were there and they transformed an ugly moment (institutionalised racism) into a fatal one.

    I know it’s an obvious point, and it’s not easy to imagine how the US could make really significant change, with their various states having different laws, the NRA, the constitution written for a different era (also related to fear and conflict between the powerful and the oppressed) and the ways in which guns are embedded into their culture, but they’ve really got to start trying. They see their system spreading government between states, federal government, the lower house, senate, supreme court etc as checks and balances. Another way to see it is gridlock. And when you add the ridiculous costs of campaigning and the role of funders like the NRA into the mix the grid gets locked up pretty damn tight.

    A bit of a ramble, I know, but I think we (or rather, the citizens of the US) need to do more than just point the finger and say, “Bad cop.” That might be part of the truth, but it’s certainly not the whole truth and it’s not enough to stop the cycle. The protests about black lives are impassioned and necessary, but there are other issues that are also part of this mix.

  6. weka 6
    11 July 2016 at 12:04 pm

    Incredible photo.

    This is the US’s second Civil Right’s Movement. For those that think Black Lives Matter has failed consider that the first movement spanned more than a decade and didn’t achieve what it did in one upward trajectory that suited the Pākehā mind on what success looks like.

    Something else to consider. I read an analysis a while ago that suggested that during the first Civil Rights Movement the racists left the Democractic Party and joined the Republicans, consolidating that aspect of US politics there.

  7. Bill 7
    11 July 2016 at 12:13 pm

    Everybody form a circle
    Put your left foot in
    Your left foot out
    Your left foot in
    And shake it all about

    Oh. It’s not a caption thang?

  8. joe90 8
    11 July 2016 at 12:46 pm

    One in four employed to guard the 1%’s wealth and one police officer for every 265 citizens – something is rotten in the land of the free.

    /

    The numbers are staggering: 90 percent of all criminal defendants fall below the poverty line; incarceration rates have increased 800 percent in the last 30 years; and the statistics continue to pile up as the disparity between resources for public defense and prosecution widen. The ability for indigent defenders to find a state-provided defense, with the time and money to offer a thorough representation, has become increasingly rare.

    For example: Miami has exactly 200 public defenders working 850,000 cases a year, constituting a case-to-attorney ratio of 4,250:1. The problem of inadequate public defense only amplifies as the annual budget for public defenders levels off at $150,000, while the prosecution receives $4.3 million. In light of these findings, it is no wonder why the poor stand a dismal chance for putting up even the most basic defense.

    https://www.aclu.org/blog/speakeasy/innocent-until-proven-indigent

  9. TopHat 9
    11 July 2016 at 12:50 pm

    Is that image not a take on this?
    https://postimg.org/image/a587f0u6p/

  11. Draco T Bastard 11
    11 July 2016 at 3:09 pm

    America’s Real Foreign Policy: Global Corporatization by Force

    That causes problems. The U.S. somehow finds it difficult to appeal to the poor with its doctrine that the rich should plunder the poor.

    Yes, black USians are being the ones mostly being denigrated and oppressed but it’s all part of the same doctrine.

    It’s the same doctrine that our governments have instituted over the last 30 years.

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