Guest Post by John W. Whitehead
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled: it will not hear the case of Young v. Borders.
Despite the fact that a 26-year-old man was gunned down by police who banged on the wrong door at 1:30 am, failed to identify themselves as police, and then repeatedly shot and killed the innocent homeowner who answered the door while holding a gun in self-defense, the justices of the high court refused to intervene to address police misconduct.
Although 26-year-old Andrew Scott committed no crime and never fired a single bullet or lifted his firearm against police, only to be gunned down by police who were investigating a speeding incident by engaging in a middle-of-the-night “knock and talk” in Scott’s apartment complex, the Supreme Court refused to balance the scales between justice and injustice.
Despite the fact that police shot and killed nearly 1,000 people nationwide for the third year in a row (many of whom were unarmed, mentally ill, minors or were shot merely because militarized police who were armed to the hilt “feared” for their safety), the Supreme Court will not act to right the wrongs being meted out by the American police state.
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Although “knock-and-talk” policing has become a thinly veiled, warrantless—lethal—exercise by which citizens are coerced and intimidated into “talking” with heavily armed police who “knock” on their doors in the middle of the night, the Supreme Court will not make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.
The lesson to be learned: the U.S. Supreme Court will not save us.
No one is coming to save us: not the courts, not the legislatures, and not the president.
According to journalist Michael Harriot:
More people died from police violence in 2017 than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in action around the globe (21). More people died at the hands of police in 2017 than the number of black people who were lynched in the worst year of Jim Crow (161 in 1892). Cops killed more Americans in 2017 than terrorists did (four). They killed more citizens than airplanes (13 deaths worldwide), mass shooters (428 deaths) and Chicago’s “top gang thugs” (675 Chicago homicides).
Americans are dying at the hands of the police, and the U.S. government doesn’t care.
Worse, the U.S. government is actively doing everything in its power to ensure that the killing spree continues.
Take Jeff Sessions, for example.
While the president’s conveniently-timed tweets distract the public and dominate the headlines, his attorney general continues to bulldoze over the Constitution, knocking down what scant protections remain between the citizenry and the hydra-headed police state.
Within his first year as attorney general, Jeff Sessions has made a concerted effort to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant.
What this means is more militarized police, more asset forfeiture, more private prisons, more SWAT team raids, more police shootings of unarmed citizens, and more wars waged by the government against the American people.
And while the crime rate may be falling, the death toll—casualties of the government’s war on the American people—is growing.
Even so, it’s not just the police shootings that are cause for concern.
We are inching ever closer to a constitutional crisis the likes of which we have never seen before, and “we the people” are woefully unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with a government that is corrupt, topsy turvy, unjust, immoral, illegal, brutal, violent, war-hungry, greedy, biased, imbalanced, unaccountable, non-transparent, fascist and as illegitimate as they come.
Where do we go from here?
We’ve been through troubled times before.
In fact, it was 50 years ago this year, in 1968, when the country was buffeted by assassinations, riots and protests: “The assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The riots that shook Washington, Chicago, Baltimore and other U.S. cities. Campus protests. Civil rights protests. Vietnam War protests. The Tet Offensive. The My Lai massacre. The rise of Richard Nixon and the retreat of Lyndon Johnson.”
Fifty years later, we’re no better off.
The nation is still being buffeted by economic instability, racial inequality, injustice, police brutality, government misconduct and a rising discontent on the part of the populace.
I can’t help but wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would have to say to about his dream of a world without racism, militarism and materialism: America has become a ticking time bomb of racial unrest and injustice, police militarization, surveillance, government corruption and ineptitude, the blowback from a battlefield mindset and endless wars abroad, and a growing economic inequality between the haves and have nots.
We cannot afford to wait until it is too late to act.
This is no time to stand silently on the sidelines. It’s a time for anger and reform. Most importantly, it’s a time for making ourselves heard. And there is no better time to act than the present.
As Robert F. Kennedy reminded his listeners in a speech delivered at the University of Cape Town in 1966, “Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men’s lives. Everything that makes man’s life worthwhile—family, work, education, a place to rear one’s children and a place to rest one’s head—all this depends on decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people.”
What can ordinary citizens do?
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, instead of sitting around and waiting for someone else to change things, take charge. Never discount the part that everyday citizens play in our nation’s future. You can change things, but there can be no action without education. Get educated about your rights and exercise them. Start by reading the Bill of Rights. You can do so online at www.rutherford.org. Or, if you want a copy to keep with you, email me at [email protected] and I’ll send you a free one.
Most important of all, just get out there and do your part to make sure that your government officials hear you. The best way to ensure that happens is by never giving up, never backing down, and never remaining silent. What matters is that you do your part.
It’s midnight in America right now. But the real question is, will there be a dawn?
That’s up to you and me. The future is in our hands.
“Most important of all, just get out there and do your part to make sure that your government officials hear you. “—This is not working too well ’cause they don’t give a shit what you think or say. Nations generally don’t last more than two or three centuries and the U.S. has reached expiration date.
If I hear “the main thing is to go home after your shift” one more time I’m going to vomit. Any LEO that subscribes to that line of thought is an abject fucking coward, has no business being an LEO and should find a job stocking shelves at Home Depot.
It won’t get any better. It will probably get worse. Here’s all you need to know.
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“Despite the fact that police shot and killed nearly 1,000 people nationwide for the third year in a row (many of whom were unarmed, mentally ill, minors or were shot merely because militarized police who were armed to the hilt “feared” for their safety) …..”
So how many of them fell into those categories and how many were actively trying to kill the police or someone else when they were shot?
“Many” is a pretty vague word, I prefer factual statistics.
89% (according to WaPo 2015 and 2016 summaries) were “armed” – some of whom with butter knives or pen knives. Police have a proven disinterest in de-escalating situations with the mentally ill. On the other hand some of the “unarmed” men killed by police were clearly dangerous. Mike Brown, for example, wasn’t armed – but he tried to grab Darren Wilson’s gun, as was proven by DNA and the fact that Brown was shot in the hand. I would ballpark that 60% to 2/3 of those shot by cops probably brought it on themselves. Most of the rest of the deaths could have been avoided if police gave a shit about those lives – if it were their own nephew, for example. And yes, if cops were a bit less likely to shoot first and ask questions later a couple more cops probably would have died, but cops have been taught that one cop life is worth a hundred civilians’ lives.
If any cop is killed as retribution for injustices, corruption or unjustified killings, do you think we would ever find out? How often does it happen?
Governments and corporations are the worst entities on the planet.
Not often enough
Like in Dallas?
I’m not familiar with that story. Want to provide a link?
I try to use the work “copfuk” as much as possible. Also, “heroes” is only said with the darkest sarcasm. Don’t call it a uniform. Call it a blue costume. It’s important to change people’s attitude toward cops from hero worship to skepticism. That being said, it’s also important to know the facts. Roughly half those killed by cops are white. Only 29% of those killed by cops were black (per 2015 Washington Post tally) – which is why BLM totally missed their opportunity to change attitudes about police brutality. 89% of those killed by cops were supposedly armed, although that sometimes meant a mentally ill person holding a screwdriver or a butter knife. If Chicago “hero” Jason Van Dyke doesn’t go to prison for murdering Laquan McDonald, there’s no hope.
Wouldn’t you just love to hear the defense Starfcker would put on for the popo if that video was posted?
Cliven Bundy’s charges were dismissed, so that gives me some hope in the Judicial system. Sure it took 4 years and cost the man who knows how much money to fight and who knows how long he was imprisoned while waiting for the verdict, but at least the correct result was obtained in the end.
Cops also “confiscated” more cash and property then criminals did.
In 2014 cops took $4.5 billion in cash and property through civil asset forfeiture laws.
I know not all cops are copfucks but between killing more of us and taking more of our shit then so called criminals, whatthefuck?
Then Sessions want to ramp up the civil asset forfeiture laws more?
“Civil asset forfeiture is a key tool that helps law enforcement help defund organized crime, prevents new crime from committed and weakens the criminals and cartels,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said
I have mentioned this somewhere,a vote for democrats has been a vote for immorality, a vote for Republicans always ramps up the police state. I observed this pattern years back. Little “o” militarizing the police forces was supposedly stopped until Trump picked it up and gave it some steroids. (Automatic weapons, tracked vehicles, and 50 caliber machine guns). It was either NDAA, or executive order.
Imagine a 30 or a 50 auto on a manufactured home.
The Samurai outlawed steel, so the peasants learned to fight with sticks.
The second amendment was to insure we were not inferior in firepower.