Gangbusters
Two Democratic state representatives asked the Governor of Illinois to use the National Guard against Chicago’s criminals. John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford “said they want Quinn, Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis to allow guardsmen to patrol streets and help quell violence”. But Weis disagreed, saying it was unlikely the governor would act against Mayor Daley’s wishes; besides using the National Guard would lead to another Kent State incident.
What he envisions, Fritchey said, is a “heightened presence on the streets,” particularly on the roughly 9 percent of city blocks where most of the city’s violent crimes occur. … So far this year, 113 people have been killed across Chicago, the same number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined in the same period, Fritchey said.
“As we speak, National Guard members are working side-by-side with our troops to fight a war halfway around the world,” Fritchey said. “The unfortunate reality is that we have another war that is just as deadly taking place right in our backyard.”
Earlier this month ABC News described efforts by Chicago residents to persuade officials to let them arm themselves against the crime wave. They are going to the US Supreme Court to force the city to let exercise their Constitutional rights. “Otis McDonald, 76, is afraid for his life in his crime-saturated Chicago neighborhood and he is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his city’s strict ban on handguns in the home.”
“There’s more guns coming into this city than the police can take away from them. So if I’ve got a gun, and if others have guns in their homes to protect themselves, then that’s one thing that police would have to worry about less.”
For nearly 30 years, Chicago has banned possession of handguns and automatic weapons inside city limits, one of the most stringent gun laws in the country.
McDonald’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court comes a year and a half after the Court stunned gun-control advocates in another case, declaring for the first time that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to own a gun in his or her home.
Now according the AP, Illinois lawmakers say its time to call out the National Guard. In a single night last week seven persons died and 18 were wounded by gunfire alone in a city in which guns are banned. Marks Allen of Chicago Now met with Father Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest who has worked closely with Jeremiah Wright, Joseph Lowery, Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Cornel West, and Louis Farrakhan to discuss the crime wave. Allen and Pfleger concluded that the gangs had lost all fear of law enforcement and lawlessness had become a way of life. Both concluded that more had to be done to lift the communities from their economic and social morass.
Father Mike and I agreed on the facts that many young people and others have somehow lost their social consiousness, respect for life, and respect for law enforcement that has been clearly shown in the number of deadly confrontation between heavily armed street offenders and police with those in the street showing absolutely NO FEAR of facing death in their attacks on law enforcement who threaten their battle to survive economically through their various illegal street operations. With that Father Pfleger and I agreed that the presence of The National Guard would only increase the tensions with law enforcement and the streets and would only set the stage for even more potential deadly armed confrontations with our young people and innocent people being killed!
It is almost as if, despite decades of ‘community organizing’ efforts the communities themselves had dissolved under the impact of various political, social and economic influences. Allen, one of the first community organizers to work with Barack Obama, has the answer to the latest outbreak of violence. Green Jobs.
During the recent National Action Network Convention and 12 Month National Action Plan launched by Rev. Al Sharpton, Wallace “Gator” Bradley and I were lobbying Chicago’s Warren Ballentine, Jeff Johnson of B.E.T. and others on the significance of adopting community gardens in urban areas of the country that could deter our youth and others this summer from being drawn into the illegal street economies as their way to be employed and thus help save thousands of lives by the creation of these Green jobs! This week, in addition to Father Mike, I met on this Summer Green Jobs concept with Ronald Holt (father of Blair Holt) and others who are actively involved in crime intervention and prevention work, who all must recognize that the DESPERATE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS facing urban youth and families force good people into bad situations trying to survive, and our remedies to stop the violence has to be more than debating new Chicago Poilce and the potential of The National Guard, without dealing with the economic and social conscious issues!!
In other words, they wanted more money for the community leaders. State Representative Ford on the other hand, had a different approach in mind, one which sounded almost like counterinsurgency. The reason he wanted the National Guard was to use their expertise at winning hearts and minds learned against such groups as al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Chicago.
The two Chicago Democrats noted National Guard members are now working side-by-side with U.S. troops to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while another deadly war is taking place in Chicago neighborhoods. …
“U.S. troops have been winning the hearts and minds (of people) in Iraq,” Ford said. “They’ve stabilized those communities. They made those communities much better. Now those communities are safe. That’s what we want right here in Illinois, for the National Guard to come in and stabilize these communities.”
Maybe it isn’t so different after all. Michael Yon remarked described the combat in the Baghtu Valley and remarked, perhaps not altogether irrelevantly to the situation in Chicago that success in Afghanistan was going to be determined by political factors. “Much of the BfK [Battle for Kandahar] will take place not in Kandahar, or even Afghanistan, but in the mediasphere, and likey will affect U.S. elections this year. The implications are vast. This is a political war on nearly every level.” The same can be said of Chicago.
The Sun Times notes that 80% of the victims are black. “Fritchey and Ford noted that 80 percent of city homicide victims are black. Ford represents constituents in the West side communities of Austin, Lawndale and West Garfield, that have been hard hit by homicides and other crime. Fritchey represents constituents in the lower-crime North side communities of Bucktown, DePaul, Lincoln Park, Roscoe Village and Ravenswood.”
Another sign of how politics intersects with gunfire is the arrival of Jesse Jackson. Jackson may join other community leaders to ask the state government for stricter gun control. ABC Local reports that Jackson and Daley are asking for tougher laws against guns. Jackson acted after some members of his RainbowPUSH coalition were fired on at a basketball game.
Both Mayor Daley and Reverend Jackson echoed concern Saturday over the accessibility of guns and say that there should be a federal ban on all assault weapons. Some community leaders say they might be heading down to Springfield to lobby for more state gun control, although the city of Chicago already has some of the toughest gun control laws. Jackson visited the ABC7 studio Saturday to talk about what the Rainbow PUSH Coalition is doing to help Chicago address the gun violence.
Ask not what you can do for gun violence, ask rather what gun violence can do for you and Green Jobs. The question of when Federal government intervention is warranted or not recently hit the headlines this week when another community leader, the Reverend Al Sharpton, argued that Arizona had no right restrict the influx of illegal aliens into their state. Whereas in Chicago the enlightened argument is to let local government lead, in Arizona the call is for federal action, soon to take the form of Immigration Reform.
New York activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, compared Arizona’s new immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South – and vowed to shut it down with mass protests.
“We will bring Freedom Walkers to Arizona just like Freedom Riders went to the deep south 50 years ago,” Sharpton said yesterday.
Almost no argument is too absurd to make in these circumstances. Law professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame argued that Arizona could justify its efforts to control the borders by citing Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution citing invasion. “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
Were I representing Arizona, I’d argue that the federal government is in default on its “protection against invasion” responsibility, and that this empowers the state to resort to self-help. Not sure how that would play out, but it would make an interesting law review article. And a fun oral argument.
The fact that State Representatives are asking to call out the National Guard in Chicago and sane law professors are invoking invasion to justify what should be routine law enforcement underscores just how bizarre the situation has become. As if to underscore the point, Reynolds noted, not entirely in jest, that Arizona could also invoke language in Article 1, Section 10 for its peremptory action. “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
What can go wrong? What happens next? Will there soon be serious proposals to use unmanned surveillance technology in urban settings? Requests for intelligence support? Anyone who thinks this can’t happen should think again. The real price of fantasy public fixes like Green Jobs or gun control to stop drug gangs in Chicago or describing those who want to stop illegal immigration as Nazis is that, by making common sense impossible, they make the use of overwhelming stupidity inevitable. If the Republic dies it will have committed suicide. RIP, SOS. Rest in Peace, Stuck on Stupid.
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You’re telling me that Chicago’s tough stand on personal weapons didn’t work? Why not it works so well in D.C.. I think Chicago created the problem, let Chicago fix it. The crime in this area of Chicago is higher that Baghdad’s and that is something to brag about.
The Lords of the New Plantation, Sharpton and Jackson gain political value when their hordes are let loose to terrorize the innocent of any race. The laws effect has been to punish middle class people who now cower in fear of the burgeoning horde. But disbanding the horde now would not play to the goals of community organizers like SEIU and the rest of the Chicago political machine. You couldn’t repress the middle class from president to dog catcher in this state without an active insurgency of the needy whose needs trump the tax payers who they replace. It is the cost of racist politics which has only changed skin color in the past 150 years.
Washington DC actually did place the National Guard on the streets back in the late 80’s. It was never clear what they were supposed to do other than stand on the street corners where most of the drug dealing took place and occupy space that otherwise would have been taken up by dealers and customers. They damn sure were not supposed to actually shoot anyone.
It was in this era in which the DC Police Chief made his famous statement: “Crime is not that bad in DC unless you are involved in the drug trade.” And he was right. Most of the killings were drug related, and were black-on-black crime.
But it was in this same era in which a disturbing message came out of DC black culture. Drugs paid good money, far better money than flipping burgers or another “dead end job.” A black teenager could make a lot more money as a lookout for a drug dealer than he could at MickyD’s, and they would be happy to change jobs if flippin’ burgers paid $100 an hour. And it was in this same era in which I heard a black female DC DJ respond to an outraged caller complaining about the troops being sent to Desert Storm to oppress other people of color by saying she hoped the troops did their job well and came back to DC to use their newfound skills on dealing with the crime rate at home.
Back in the mdi-90’s Chicago did a remarkable thing. Convinced that their gang problem was guns being imported from outside, they took black police officers, dressed them in gang colors and sent them in to purchase guns in stores located out of the county. And they then screamed that they were indeed able to purchase the guns with no problems. Now think: a black man with no record, who has no problem passing the required background check, buys a gun without a problem – and black leaders complain that he was not denied a firearm on the basis that he was black and wearing certain colored clothing that has significance only in a very limited geographical area?
“Jackson may join other community leaders to ask the state government for stricter gun control.”
The politicians have FINALLY figured it out. We just don’t have ENOUGH LAWS!!! If we just make more laws, everything will be alright. The thugs and criminals will live peacefully with their brethren when they realize that their every movement and thought is subject to a controlling law. Peace in our time!!
Pathetic…………………
The typical leaden hand of Chicago politics. Chicago politics is a combination of statism, tyranny–if that is not an oxymoron–and graft. America’s problem is that it has mutated with strains of racial hatred and marxism into a Level 4 biohazard, escaped the lab and is laying waste to the general population. It’s even managed to breach the White House.
This. Is. Why. You. Don’t. Put. Liberals. In. Charge. Of. Anything!
Please don’t call Jackson a leader. Race pimp maybe, extortionist maybe, or maybe fear monger, but not leader.
Green jobs my f****** a**. These guys had any semblance of a work ethic bred out of them generations ago. As a child I lived in the once clean and peaceful Chicago neighborhood of Austin; our family and others fled when gangs of older “new kids” started beating the crap out of lone whites. Now whenever I have to do business in the area I get it done before 11 a.m. (before the bad guys get up) so I don’t get shot.
This is what you get when you pay poor people to drop out of school and have children out of wedlock. We should just issue weapons to everyone in Chicago and then seal the borders.
Where does the money come from in such poor areas?
Could it be that the life blood of this violent lifestyle is those well-intended welfare payments to single mothers (as long as they remain single mothers)? Maybe the violence in Chicago is just the symptom of yet another problem created by government regulation?
What would happen if Chicago stopped all welfare payments, and used the money instead for orphanages? Hired young men to guard the orphanages and help with bringing up those poor children? Basically, what would happen if government turned off the spigot pouring gasoline onto the fire they are trying to extinguish?
Allen and Pfleger concluded that the gangs had lost all fear of law enforcement and lawlessness had become a way of life.
Fritchey and Ford have no idea what the military can and cannot do. Peace just doesn’t happen – the military shows up with the implied threat of massive and directed violence.
The ROE the Guard would operate under would be … similar to what the cops have now. Except they wouldn’t be able to arrest anyone. And they wouldn’t be allowed to lock and load. Crew served weapons are right out.
Very quickly the guys who do not fear law enforcement would figure out the Guard is less worthy of respect than the cops.
“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” It is interesting that the people named are also the ones that can be relied on to scream and have been prominent in screaming “racism” over any law enforcement issue involving blacks. This obviously has resulted in what relatives of mine in law enforcement refer to as “No contact, no complaint.” The enforcement of laws in places like Chicago is not only physically dangerous but if performed opens the officer to career-ending charges or even threat of jail time. The fact that so much is done is a tribute to the police forces’ dedication.
If you can’t have a handgun in Chicago to defend your home, can you have a shotgun? I bet most thieves would high-tail it just at the sound of you pumping a shotgun.
The NYPD did something similiar to the Chicago police, when they sent teams of undercover agents to Virginia gun shows, loaded up with weapons illegal in NYC, then sued the Commonwealth of Virginia for it. I think that one is still going through the courts and it’s outrageous. You never know how the Mandarins on any given bench will rule.
Gun control groups in Virginia are enjoying a huge windfall after the shocking massacre at Virginia Tech a few years ago. Once again the fact that guns had been banned on campus before the shooting escapes them. If you’re old enough to remember Charles Whitman shooting everybody from the Texas Tower at the University of Texas at Austin, you’ll remember that a feature of that incident was citizen action. Texans on the ground got their guns, set up a defensive perimeter, and shot back. All this happened before the police could respond. Blacksburg, VA is a sleepy little southern town much like the Austin, TX of 1969, but no equivalent response emerged on the fatal day at Virginia Tech. The good guys had been disarmed.
It is almost as if, despite decades of ‘community organizing’ efforts the communities themselves had dissolved under the impact of various political, social and economic influences.
‘Community organizing’ has always had an subversive undercurrent beneath its pious public purpose of enabling the tormented masses to help themselves. Much of its direction from the 60s on was to establish its own power base, by demonizing police forces and getting its own placemen in positions of power over police methods. It was fighting the man, and simultaneously the man’s awkward concept of law and order, which were inconvenient to local Chicago street bosses who preferred other, nastier methods of ruling their own turf.
So we can expect such matrices of the nasty-brutish-and-short variety to go unstable from time to time, in the vacuum carved out in the structure of law and order. Community organizers can now help themselves to the resources of others by direct stimulus transfusions from Washington DC, while the boys from the Nasty, Brutish and Short gangs are left to shoot it out among themselves.
Send in the Guard to round up criminals? Then you’d have to replace every elected politician in the city. F
Send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over to negotiate a peace based on due regard for the legitimate interests of criminals.
Obama’s Chicago more violent than Bush’s Iraq. Does. Not. Fit. The. Narrative. Please move on.
It would be the simplest thing in the world to allow the good citizens of Chicago, and I have no doubt there are many, to arm themselves and end this violent scourge. Even a prominent politician announcing such a happy change in gun laws would reduce the violence, because criminals and thugs are essentially cowards and they would back off if there is a chance of getting hurt. Won’t happen, the Left could never tolerate poor black people being able to defend themselves, that is the Left’s job, however poorly they do it.
A somewhat related point, Country Charley Pride spent his entire career around the very people the media and our President villify as “gun toting racist rednecks”, somehow never got a scratch, and lives on in happy dotage. Yet rappers, who overwhelmingly reinforce Democrat narratives about black oppression and victimology in song and verse are constantly involved in deadly gun violence in “gun free” areas of their perverse ghetto culture.
Chicago and California – seedbeds of insanity for the rest of the country. Wretchard’s post and most of the comments made me laugh out loud. I especially liked “Almost no argument is too absurd to make in these circumstances.”, but maybe the “Almost” was unnecessary. The quote about “Green Jobs” made me think of James Taggart and his cronies.
And Kinuachdrach #9 – excellent point!
The enforcement of laws in places like Chicago is not only physically dangerous but if performed opens the officer to career-ending charges or even threat of jail time.
Exactly right. The same crowd of “activist” morons that are complaining about crime are the first to scream racism and police brutality any time a police officer tries to do his job. They demand action with one hand, and do everything possible to prevent it with the other.
I saw this farce play out over and over in New York. As crime was dropping dramatically under Giuliani, all you got from “the community” was ranting about Racist Giuliani and Adolph Giuliani (civility, anyone?) and police brutality and the “prison/industrial complex”. It never occurred to these folk that the biggest beneficiaries of the drop in crime was the black community. Thousands of lives were saved, and countless traumatic crimes did NOT happen to black people because of Giuliani. Much deserved “thank yous” are yet to come forth.
And….you know the “rules of engagement” will prohibit the military from responding in any case. They will be like a UN peace keeping force. If no criminal activities occur they will stand and watch, and if not they will write a memo to useless, hand-ringing politicians.
My best advice is to move to Baghdad.
Somewhat OT, but perhaps of interest to BC – a bit of political news from Wisconsin.
Last week the Wisc. legislature (both houses controlled by Dems) adjourned without passing Climate Change (formerly “Global Warming”) or Election Fraud Enabling legislation. Presumably, those Dem reps were feeling the hot breath of the voters on their necks.
I view this as a mini-version of what played out on the national level with ObamaCare. However, in this case the lame duck Dem governor did not have the same power to threaten & bribe that Obama/Pelosi brought to bear in D.C.
Well, as to what causes such degeneration, and as to how to fix it, I have few new ideas.
But I will throw in my own two hundred trillion cents, that when we send troops halfway around the world to do “nation building”, such ideas for what we should do at home, follow quite naturally.
The “green jobs” fantasy is a pretty much cure-all. But again, when you read about multi-billion dollars in bonuses at Goldman Sachs, you have to ask, hey why not.
The social and financial fantasies are on both extremes, I guess is what I’m saying.
Willard: Hey soldier, do you know whose in command here?
Soldier: Ain’t you?
This what happens after 50 years of victim pimping, bludgeoninig and guilt tripping white children, and demanding little from blacks, infusing them with a sense of entitlement, cultivating their hatred, and elevating some of them FAR beyond their merits.
We’re 20 clicks beyond the Do Lung bridge… the VC are everwhere, and the only officers seen are tripping on windowpane and drinking sterno…
For those interested, City Journal had a lengthy article on Chicago crime a few months ago.
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_chicago-crime.html
Father Michael Pfleger? Pfleger is quoted here? The inflammatory Father Pfleger of the 2008 campaign? Obama’s friend Father Mike? No mention of his association with our current President?
I don’t get it. Couldn’t we have some context on who this guy is and how awful he is? It is indeed an indictment of a once great city that the likes of Pfleger/Fleger (sp?) are so influential. He should have been defrocked ages ago.
Oh, on that Supreme Court decision that was brought by a Washington, DC citizen:
In a display of monumental bureaucratic insolence, the DC government shose to “comply” with the Court ruling by doing the following: Yeah, sure, you citizens can own handguns, but only if you keep them unloaded and disassembled, and with a trigger lock! Also, you are limited to a ten-rounds or less gun, for good measure.
Insolent, arrogant, sabotaging bastards. This is how the left and statists in general operate. This is the same mentality and tactic that defied a federal law mandating that civilian cockpit crews could be armed. The relevant authorities subjected the crew members who requested permission to carry — in compliance with that law — to onerous and absurd psychological evaluations that caused most of them to give up on their efforts to arm themselves.
We can have 2nd Amendment affirming judgements all we want, but as long as we have these armies of saboteurs blocking implementation of our own Constitution, we’re wasting our time.
peterike @ 23: excellent link.
I gather that there is rather less of the mindless violence out here in Los Angeles, than in Chicago. I don’t know if there’s that much difference in the single-parent family numbers. Or I could be totally wrong.
What also impresses me in the article is Obama’s tendency to “leap-frog” and talk about grand ideas, with no attention to the lack of foundations that make them impossible. He’s as dysfunctional as anyone in the article, and he’s president of the United States.
Josh 21:
I think that one reason that the Left is so opposed to the WOT is that they are terrified that as result of it people will figure out that:
1. All philosophies are not equally valid.
2. All cultures are not equally successful.
3. All lifestyles do not deserve success.
4. Due to items 1 through 3 above some people need to be killed.
Application of these same principles to the inner cites and ghettoes of the USA would destroy their entire power base.
I’m afraid everyone may be missing the point here. I think this is all to set the stage for Obama’s domestic police force (Homeland State Police), equal to the US military in size and strength (i.e. armed) to quell domestic violence. In the so-called stimulus bill Congress authorized a national service corps of 250,000. In Jan. Obama signed an executive order providing for the synchronization and “integration of State and Federal military activities” in the United States. He’s resurrected the COPS program, and the health care bill provided for a much-enhanced U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps–another domestic police force for use in “national emergencies.”
When we hear talk from the left about how the US has become “ungovernable,” about gang crime becoming unmangeable, when we start seeing “civil unrest” over unemployment and homelessness (fomented by SEIU goons), we’ll know the plan is being put into effect. I wish I were a conspiracy-theory nutcase, but I’m not (or never was before). I think we should be afraid, very afraid, of this kind of talk from the left.
“by making common sense impossible, they make the use of overwhelming stupidity inevitable” Seems to be the theme of this millenia. What follows the stupidity is what scares me.
I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit…
It’s the only way to be sure, right?
For more on Father Pflegler read Tom Roser’s blog and scroll back to older posts.
Obama’s home in Hyde Park/Kenwood was always safe because the community always had an extra dozen police on duty. Fourteen or so years ago I was a civilian employee of the University’s UCPD and we had 40 full time officers plus another forty mostly Chicago cops who worked overtime for us. The CPD assured me that while there was no way to legally get a handgun, cops offered to give me one but I declined, they encouraged everyone to get a shotgun.
About 30 years ago the City tried to hire MGEN Michael D Healy to design a security system for Cabrini Green based on the Strategic Hamlets policy in Vietnam. General Healy is a friend of mine. His wiki article is generally accurate. He quit the Chicago job when he realized he was being used.
At what point does illegal immigration, actively encouraged to achieve political goals, constitute an invasion? At what point does organized criminal activity rise to the point of rebellion? My proposal is for a “Civil Rebellion” statute that would allow a Federal or State Attorney General to petition subject to strict judicial oversight for a suspension of habeas corpus within a defined geographic area where there was reasonable cause to believe that a significant percentage (maybe over 15%) of the population were fugitives, illegal aliens, or parole violators. The question is whether the States can justify a resort to the Art. I sect. 10 language cited by Professor Reynolds by quoting Patrick Henry, “Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!”
28. ricksamerican said: “When we hear talk from the left about how the US has become “ungovernable,” about gang crime becoming unmangeable, when we start seeing “civil unrest” over unemployment and homelessness (fomented by SEIU goons), we’ll know the plan is being put into effect. … I think we should be afraid, very afraid, of this kind of talk from the left.”
Excellent point. The Left has always projected this spectre onto their enemies, and catastrophically for us all and for too long, it’s been murderously effective agitprop.
LoTM – “My proposal is for a “Civil Rebellion” statute that would allow a Federal or State Attorney General to petition subject to strict judicial oversight for a suspension of habeas corpus within a defined geographic area where there was reasonable cause to believe that a significant percentage (maybe over 15%) of the population were fugitives, illegal aliens, or parole violators.”
Careful what you wish for, chances are they’ll strike out “fugitives, illegal aliens, or parole violators “and throw in Tea Partiers instead. In fact, why not just ink in circles around the protected areas and declare martial law everywhere else where all of the hated racists are.
More on the worthless renegade priest, Pfleger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP0j4SW2YTE
You’ll notice something common in the physiognomy of all these heretic priests like Pfleger, Shelby Spong, and Hans Kung. They all have “Sardo Numspa” syndrome when they get agitated. If you’ve ever seen that scene in The Golden Child when Charles Dance’s head explodes (which unaccountably is not on Youtube), you’ll know what I mean. I take it to be an evident sign of demonic possession.
In all seriousness, the National Guard is ill equipped to secure the mean streets of Chicago or any other U.S. city, unless the governor is willing to publicly declare an emergency and impose martial law.
We’re not to that point yet. Even during hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was never under martial law.
It would be a disaster with dead Guardsmen, dead civilians, and court cases up the wahzooo!
It’s a clear indication of how little these “community organizers” and “progressive” clergy understand the military, combat operations, and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that they would even suggest putting infantrymen, armor, and artillerymen to patrolling streets in a U.S. city.
Having said that, there are a number of ways the National Guard can help. Depending upon the states constitutions in question, National Guard members can be activated as state peace officers. In such a role they have full law enforcement authority.
They should not be used as Police on the beat with the possible exception of select Military Police soldiers and airmen who could be used to “ride along” with city police officers to act in a backup role. I know of very few policemen who wouldn’t rather respond to a call with decent armed, trained backup, even if that person were confined to watching the officers back, helping treat injured victims, and communicating with the station.
Military intelligence has recently become much more expert at understanding, tracking, mapping, and striking secretive bands of armed thugs intent on committing mayhem. Many of these skills, techniques and equipment could be applied to fighting organized crime, including drug traffickers.
And yes, the California Air National Guard has a Predator UAV squadron of it’s own, and intelligence analysts who could process the data for use by California law enforcement if they were activated as “peace officers”
http://www.ang.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123116062
I don’t advocate any of this. I just wish to point out that there are military police assets, as well as Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Intelligence assets that could be useful in fighting organized crime. The opportunities for abuse and stepping over the line into violations of U.S. citizens Constitutional rights makes the idea of using military intelligence assets and techniques a no go, unless the Predators are only used along the U.S. border to combat border crossings by illegal aliens, smugglers, and / or terrorists. Likewise, many other military intelligence assets and techniques might be usefully applied to drug cartels in Mexico with no violation of Posse Comitatus.
There could also be a use for National Guard aviation. National Guard Blackhawk helicopters are famous for performing aero-medical evacuation with very high quality care for trauma victims. Blackhawks could be used for observation, just as police helicopters are currently used. Again I don’t advocate any of this, but it would likely be helpful, at enormous expense,
Utilizing the National Guard, in any but support roles would be like using a 1000 horse power John Deere tractor to plow a 10ft x 15ft backyard garden that would be better turned using a hoe and spade, by hand.
Things the National Guard could do well in urban environments:
National Guard combat engineering assets could be used to clear blighted, hazardous buildings. Instead of it costing the city scarce money to demolish the buildings, let the combat engineers clear them as part of their training. They can practice using their armored combat earthmovers, and satchel charges.
Have National Guard medical units and medics provide free care street clinics on weekends. This would provide practice for the medical folks, and at least provide diagnoses and some basic treatment for slum dwellers. Many National Guard doctors, nurses and technicians have full time jobs as medical professionals. They may be able to refer indigent sufferers to providers of free or inexpensive care to treat their ailments.
Have National Guard military policemen receive additional training and work under direct police supervision only as auxiliary or reserve police officers. This wouldn’t increase the number of police units on the street, but should increase the effectiveness of units significantly.
Have National Guard support personnel provide logistical, clerical, and technical support in positions currently filled by sworn officers. There aren’t very many of these positions, but every sworn officer on the street should be helpful.
Altogether, it’s like squashing a cockroach with a 20-pound sledgehammer. The National Guard as the primary force on city streets is the wrong tool for the job.
None of this will make a lasting difference unless the attitudes of people in these blighted neighborhoods change. We’ve been throwing money at this particular problem for 45 years now. How ‘bout a change in strategy?
Legalize drugs. License and regulate it like alcohol. Penalize abuse and misuse, like alcohol. Tax it, like alcohol! Watch a great deal of organized crime worldwide slide directly into the crapper.
Or, we could lift off and nuke the site from orbit…. It’s the only way to be sure, right?
@34 Matt Beck
I’d be careful making such serious accusations. Pfleger might be forced to destroy you….SNAP!….just like that.
A topic or two back I mentioned that my wife and I knew someone who was lost in the recent rig accident in the Gulf, a drilling superintendent. He had a 5 yo daughter.
This morning, though she’s been told nothing, she said, “Mommy, Daddy’s in Heaven and that’s OK.”
Years ago I read a Doctor’s Prayer which in part said, “Let me practice my profession with the simple innocence of a child.”
We adults are never so smart that we can’t learn from the simple innocence of a child.
31 LOTM. About Cabrini Green. Wasnt’ the solution the dismantling of the section 8 housing and the “relocation” of the denizens to other areas around the state? Now in mid-state small cities such as Bloomington-Normal, for instance, there’s a delightful transplant culture that at least has made some ripples in the local real-estate pond and resulted in additional hours for law enforcement.
Armageddon Rex #35,
You are a little behind the times.
See:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htintel/articles/20100425.aspx
…Four years ago, the U.S. Army released “Police Intelligence Operations,” Field Manual 3-19.5. This was part of a trend that began back in 2003, when the army began changing its intelligence collecting methods, and behaving more like a police precinct. In the old days, troops collected useful intelligence information and passed it back to analysts, who studied it, and, if they found anything useful, passed that analyses back to the troops, who took action.
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Increasingly, army combat troops function more like a police operation. That is, the intelligence analysts get out in the field with the troops and act more like detectives, collecting their own evidence. Of course, detectives also depend on street police to provide information as well. Indeed, it’s the street cop that usually gets to the scene of a crime before the detectives. Police are trained to carefully examine a crime scene, preserving it for the detectives, while recording key information that is perishable.
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Military intelligence troops have found that the “detective” model is much more effective. It’s also more dangerous, putting intel people into combat situations. But the payoff has been enormous. Not only is more information collected, and analyzed, more quickly, but the troops have more confidence in the intel people, and are more willing to pass on what they see.
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The intel units have also been recruiting, and training, troops in the combat units to look for information, and get it back to the intel people as quickly as possible. To help this along, new intel “appliances” (software for laptops, or smart phones) are being provided to make it easier for the leaders of infantry patrols to instantly record useful information, and get it transmitted to an intelligence unit.
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Special intelligence units have also been set up that operate pretty much like a detective squad, living with the troops, and collecting and analyzing battlefield information in order to provide the combat guys with more useful, and immediate, information on what the enemy is up to, and where they are hanging out. Using these mobile teams, and better communications, military intelligence operations are changing more than they have for several generations.
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The new FM 2-15.5 is intended to help commanders in future pacification operations, and for any “force protection” (defending your own bases) situations. There were many changes to army and marine intel operations because of the Iraq and Afghanistan experience, and this Field Manual and HTS are just two of the many results.
So long as street gangs are embedded within their communities and enjoy greater social legitimacy than the police (which shouldn’t be difficult in Chicago), there is a limit to how much can be done against them. I think the National Guard would be ineffective in Chicago. The Marines know counterinsurgency, but counterinsurgency generally works where there is martial law – not SNAFUBAR.
This is one situation where the cure may actually be worse than the disease. Why? Imagine a new branch of the armed forces dedicated to pacifying the inner cities – a federally funded and armed force that would act like a militarized “Peace Corps”. The problem with such a force is that it would attract artists looking for adventure, gangsters looking for federal funding, and ideologically driven social workers who want to pack heat. And once the inner cities are pacified, this gendarmerie would be happy to pacify new neighborhoods, including ones that had hitherto had no problems with crime.
Similarly, one aspect about drug gangs based in the Southwest that is often forgotten is how thoroughly embedded they are within their communities. For example, when Salvadorans move into a new area, MS-13 tags along with them. So, not only do drug gangs generate revenue from smuggling illegal immigrants across the border, but they are also smuggling their own camouflage into the United States.
Illegal immigrants who work in the United States are professional criminals by definition, and so are their employers. America’s voracious appetite for illegal drugs creates a highway for illegal immigrants to come in with the drugs. Yet, nobody in the halls of power seems ready to tackle the pervasive and entrenched problem of America’s multi-billion dollar drug binge.
Against such a backdrop, illegal immigrants who informs on criminal syndicates ought to be rewarded with citizenship, for these informants have risked their lives to show loyalty to the United States. In contrast, Amnesty would selectively reward criminal behavior while punishing immigrants who obeyed our laws. Far from breaking the bond between communities of illegal immigrants and their street gangs, Amnesty would entrench those bonds and deepen them. Reagan’s amnesty not only didn’t work, but it made the problem worse.
Amnesty, also known as “comprehensive immigration reform” or “a pathway to citizenship”, must be opposed. Even an open door policy of letting all foreigners in on condition that they submit to biometric scanning would be preferable to Amnesty because we would be letting in millions of people who intend on obeying our laws rather than selectively rewarding those twelve million people who bring a legacy of criminality with them by being here illegally.
Illegal immigration is criminal behavior. It would be preferable to let in tens of millions of immigrants who obey our laws and at least try to speak English than to selectively reward twelve million people who disobey our laws and serve as a crowbar for Aztec imperialists who seek to reverse the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo.
Although I am not personally fond of an “open door policy”, I regard it to be preferable to selectively rewarding a class of professional criminals who call themselves “undocumented workers” but who are really illegal immigrants. We are talking about a moral hazard here. Once Amnesty becomes entrenched as a policy, we will get swamped by future generations of criminals who would be encouraged to move to the United States. With an “open door policy”, we would at least know who the immigrants are and refrain from rewarding criminal behavior.
Amnesty would be a capitulation to organized crime. It rewards gangs that “create facts” by smuggling millions of people into this country, creating entire neighborhoods of professional criminals that control entire sectors of local economies. An Open Door Policy wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be a vast improvement over selectively rewarding illegal immigrants over all other would be immigrants.
In Detroit, in 67, the Guard had to be supplemented with paratroopers.
That worked. One of the tactics was for the troopers to go for their morning runs–very early–in tee shirts with M14 at port arms, and a mag in the hip pocket.
The rhythmic slapping of the boots and the perfectly cadenced jody calls were intimidating. Plus they shot some people one time or another. That’s important.
You know that hustlers like Jackson and the pols are drooling for some Guardsman to shoot a black person. You just know it.
Richard at 41…Your post reminds me of the Sean Connery, Candice
Burgin film “The Wind and the Lion”, a hollywood version of the
Peticarius (sp?)affair.
In the film a company of marines double time through the town at
port arms; arrays themselves in parade ground order in front of the
objective; very deliberately fixes bayonets and charges. Great film
Very intimidating…now if you could stage that in front of embedded
TV cameras. LOL
1) National Guard on the streets to be targets and pseudocops with no law enforcement powers is a bad idea.
2) National Guard on the streets WITH law enforcement powers is a worse idea.
3) National Guard on the streets under the control of the regime is an appalling idea, albeit one we may see with wide application later this year.
4) I note the discussion of the indigenous problem children and their support base. Especially those deliberately scattered after Cabrini Green was deservedly destroyed. In reference to that, I repeat my comment #78 in the previous COLD TURKEY thread.
Subotai Bahadur
National Guard on the streets under the control of the regime is an appalling idea, albeit one we may see with wide application later this year.
Indeed. When military hating Dems suddenly start to preach the goodness of having armed Natn’l Guard on the streets of the Hood, then by the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes.
This kind of cognitive dissonance from the Left doesn’t jibe with me. There is a deeper game afoot. Where better than Chicago to launch the trial balloon and get folks used to the idea of armed men on the streets.
Mil-tech Bard @39:
FM 3-19.5 contains some good ideas and a bunch of gobbledygook. It was written by Army military policemen for military policemen to investigate “crime scenes”. The emphasis is not on gathering intelligence in a combat zone or insurgency. There are several documents published for USAF OSI that, in my biased opinion, do a much better job at laying out what technicians and analysts working for intelligence out in the field should be doing when they gather samples of explosives and IEDs, and samples from dead or detained suspected terrorists to verify their identities. They also have good guidance and strategies for figuring out the correct questions to ask, which is sometimes more difficult than understanding the answers that you get. Much of the actual work is done back in a COP or more usually a FOB in a “fusion cell” where bits and pieces of data are put together with databases of people, events, intercepts, and many other details.
Intel people have always gone out into the field in real world ops. They were there in WWII, and Korea, Greece, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the first gulf war.
A lot of folks in the military don’t know that intel troops get out to the field because we’re not generally chatty. We’re hardly ever kickin it with the troops during exercises, only when we’re really in the field. We’re not where the action is. If there is contact with the enemy and small arms fire (Safire), we’re back with the command element trying to stay low. Sure, we’ll fight to defend our comrades, and ourselves but we’re not there primarily as a trigger puller, all fantasy aside.
If there’s an intel briefing, we have folks who specialize in that who become the “face” of intel at a FOB or base. All the studies show that most military folks, being 80-90% male, pay closer attention to an attractive women than a balding bespectacled male, so they are often Shanghaied into those duties even if they are superlative analysts.
The intel officer is often the “supernumerary” who sits close to the translator and doesn’t say a word, and infantrymen wonder, who’s that idiot warrant officer / lieutenant / captain? Why’d he come along? He hasn’t done a damned thing! The officer in charge of the meeting who’s exchanged handshakes and hugs and tea and talk has already been briefed about what questions to ask back at the COP / FOB / or on the ride out.
The entire idea of needing a warrant for wiretapping or eavesdropping or searching a building or vehicle is insane to military intelligence. We have our orders, and we do it. If we need an excuse because the property in question belongs to the cousin / brother / friend of Iraqi General so and so, or of Abdul whomever is provincial governor of Paktika province this month, we invent it. If we’re interrogating some dirtbag and really need to break him quickly without causing any permanent or even visual damage, we can do all sorts of creative things with nasal cavities and hot sauce, and with tasers, and with catheters and food colored saline solution. It’s radioactive and causes impotency and sterility when injected into the bladder, don’t you know? Or for really hard cases, lidocaine mixed with dyed saline solution in the bladder. The penis and bladder go numb and the detainee is unable to control it for the next 4-6 hours. It’s the radiation taking effect…can’t you feel it. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life dribbling, you better answer up double quick so we can administer the antidote.
That’s why I’m so opposed to using military intelligence at all within the U.S. To be effectively utilized within our borders would shred our Constitution.
I’d rather see drugs legalized first, or take off and nuke the site from orbit…..
That’s sounding more appealing all the time!
You know, I just thought of something. It used to be the other way around.
Back in WWII the Mayor of Chicago asked the city’s, shall we call them Armed Businessmen, to contribute guns to the war effort. And they did.
No doubt some of them used the opportunity to get rid of a hot gat, but the guns they contributed were in fact collected and used to support the war. One such gangster gun, a Colt 380 automatic, ended up as the personal weapon of an OSS agent sent to France.
So now Chicago politicians are calling for the war effort to contribute something to the city. Things do change, don’t they? Once we fought fascism around the world but in the wonderful Post Civil Rights era America we have to fight them at home.
Dear Officer Krupke, I want you to know
I’ve given up killings for flowers to grow
I love these new green jobs, I find that they’re so
Rewarding for me and my hoe
My brothers all snicker and grin as they please
But wait till they see all my limas and peas
They’ve never seen pumpkins and squash such as these
The ladies they flirt and they tease
No need for to call out the National Guard
Just give us the tools and we’ll flower each yard
Giving up smack and the killing is hard
But it’s good times for me and my pard
We’ve given up wearing caps backward on head
For sensible headgear that looks good instead
My homeys are jealous, I’m making some bread
And maybe I’ll wind up not dead
I thank all the people who look after me
They give me so much, virtually all I can see
Without them I say I don’t know where I’d be
And it’s nice to know all of it’s free
Yes, Officer Krupke, I’ve learned how to sow
And tie pretty flowers up in a neat bow
These green jobs just give me a feeling of glow
So rewarding for me and my hoe
The Chicago problem is the perfect storm of race, machine politics, drugs, education failure, social welfare failure and even 2nd Amendment issues. Celebrity culture has made a cameo appearance through Jackson, Pfleger and Sharpton, if you like celebrities of that sort. There’s even a dynastic element to it. It so convoluted as to be grotesque. As such, the problem is probably insusceptible to any application of force, save for the “nuke from orbit” option.
Maybe the Chicago problem isn’t one as such, just a bellweather, the concentrated expression of all the dysfunctions of the age. It will go away only when the underlying problems go away, which probably implies that for the people trapped in that joint, the only options are to bust out and forget the place ever existed or stay and die with their sneakers on.
So maybe it’s the unions, corrupt city politics, the drug syndicates, the schools and the disintegration of the families that have to be figuratively zapped for this problem to have any chance of resolution some century soon. The good news is that the very same things that are killing the Chicago neighborhoods are probably the same things that are killing the country, only more slowly, because the other victims are in a better state of health. The invaluable service these poor devils perform is that of a proximate mirror. There, but for God’s grace, goes everything, and in a handbasket too. And therefore the neighborhoods of Chicago may be saved as a byproduct of the efforts of others to save themselves. Condemned by incident, saved by accident.
Armageddon Rex @ 35
Unfortunately what those skills will be used for is fighting patriotic American citizens who oppose Obama’s totalitarian takeover.
ahem @ 5
“Statist tyranny is not an “oxymoron”, you mean “redundancy”
I think George Orwell described the situation fairly well.
“The world view of the Party imposed its self most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm because it left no residue behind; just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird… Crimestop…includes the power of not grasping analogies; of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc (Socialist Principles of Oceania), and of being bored or rebelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop in short means protective stupidity.” George Orwell, 1984
’nuff said!
wretchard is correct about the complexity of this, and how the various causes are all so intertwined that there may be no proximate answer.
2 thoughts–
1. Kind of a medical metaphor–For about 40 years Chicago ran its public housing as an incubator of dysfunction, almost as an experiment to see how evil a strain of humanity it could produce if one destroyed the family structure and built in multiple incentives to bad behavior. The experiment was universally acknowledged to be a huge success, so the next step was to take the big projects down and spread the “infection” around the rest of the City, as if that would somehow cure them rather than infect others. Smart move.
2. NYC was deemed ungovernable before Giuliani. So as bad as Chicago looks, it could be that if everyone actually decided to try and save it, real progress could be made. A big “if,” but maybe possible?
following on previous post–
Real effort would of course mean stop pandering to the so-called leaders of the ethnic groups where most of the problem (and most of the victims) lie, and that runs contrary to every political instinct in Chicago politics. It would mean publicly and visibly telling people like Jackson and Gutierrez and Pfleger to go to hell and getting really serious about enforcing the law without favoritism, and seriously punishing the guilty rather than continuing to let those types run interference for them. The whole immigration issue is a huge part of all that.
So, while it’s possible, it’s an incredibly long shot.
Anybody remember the Republican Mayoral candidate for Gary Indiana asking Evan Bayh for the National Guard in 1995?
Mariner @48:
I think you’ll find a couple things about today’s military intel folks. Many are very patriotic. Some of the stuff we do is harsh. We don’t enjoy it. It is only done to save lives. We don’t do things that cause permanent damage or injury. Permanent harm is not necessary, and ruins our reputation. Even some bomb placers wind up getting out of prison and going back to their villages. In many cases they do it for money so their family won’t starve.
It’s really difficult to stay angry at men trying to earn a buck to feed their children, unless you catch them in the act… We used to capture a lot of them. These days we never have a chance to forgive them. They nearly always didn’t have useful information anyway. Never in my experience in fact.
More than a few folks get stressed out and all of us question why we’re doing what we’re doing, and who the Hell qualified us to make these decisions. The simple answers are that we’re doing it to save our comrades in the military and innocent villagers who don’t deserve to be pillaged, raped, mutilated or murdered by Taliban or Al Qaeda thugs. The broader answer is that the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence are the loadstones that justify what we do. There’s nothing really like them anywhere else. It’s a uniqueness worth saving. A lot of the troops in intelligence are fairly well read and have a great appreciation for our liberties and history.
The famous quote misattributed to Orwell was hanging over the doorway of the fusion cell when I arrived at the FOB. It was still there when I left.
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Who qualified us? The people and congress of the United States did. The military is their representative in Afghanistan and Iraq currently for better and worse. Mostly for the better according to many of the natives I spoke with and according to the supposedly unbiased reports about our “popularity” that I read. We’re not popular with the natives. We’re just more popular than the Mahdi militia, and Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, and the corrupt current governments.
I really think most military intel folks would refuse to use their equipment and techniques against U.S. citizens within the U.S. There are even special instructions forbidding such utilization that I won’t go into here.
Since we’re now all volunteers, and ASVAB testing doesn’t award points for PC considerations, about 95% of military intelligence is staffed by “red state” Americans, from rural and suburban America. Inner city high schools don’t prepare one for a successful career in intelligence unless the individual is extraordinary. I’ve been proud to serve with the extraordinary inner city folks of every ethnicity. The smart un-patriotic ones go to big name schools and become lawyers or community organizers. Only the patriotic ones risk their lives and ruin their finances by joining the military. In twenty years of service I believe I only ever encountered one analyst I wouldn’t trust to uphold our Constitution.
Don’t give up hope, but be prepared!
There is one and only one way, IMHO, that this could work and that would be to formally declare martial law, put Chicago under military rule and give the National Guard shoot-to-kill orders. Otherwise, you will simply have uniformed targets for the various criminal elements. I can see the amusing aspect of using military assets on the war on crime, thereby making it a real war. The attractiveness of criminal careers will no doubt decline if predator drones are used to neutralize meth labs, M-1 tanks root out known gang bases, Apache gunships make pimps fear the night, and so on.
I do not think this will happen now, or even this year. However, if things continue to go on as they are, sooner or later people will demand that something be done, and the military solution will look more and more attractive. Perhaps in the not too distant future, when California, New York, and other states collapse and the military must be committed in force to prevent anarchy, we will yet see the rise of an American Cromwell, Pinochet, or Franco.
As much as I do not relish that situation, it would be preferable to anarchy. And I believe the American people will agree that they do not want to be a larger version of Somalia. The problem is, Wretchard, how do we prevent the rise of an American Mugabe or Stalin? Or is it too late to do so?
Related — Obama gave a speech for the 2010 Election promising to “reconnect” with Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, and Women. Notably absent from the list: WHITE MEN.
The reaction, on Ace of Spades and elsewhere, has been instructive.
Openly, related to Obama and Chicago, both, people are saying “what can you expect?” What can you expect of a Black President? [Or Michael Steele, once again being "a Race Man" and insisting in a speech on family unification before anything in illegal immigration "reform."] Of course “bait Whitey” will be the order of the day.
And Chicago being a Black majority city and for all intents and purposes, Black run, what else can you expect? This expression would never have been made two years ago.
White guilt, shame, and PC controls are rapidly eroding if not gone. Under a severe depression, Whitey-baiting Black President, La Raza triumphalism, and White fears of being a discriminated against minority in their own nation, quite rapidly, it is almost disappeared.
What then? Why symbolic (at first) measures like the Arizona law, mirroring the Swiss Minaret ban, and then if that is not heeded, other measures. Since the Constitution is currently meaningless, Congress being able to do anything, you have a battle of Republicans with RINOs like McCain replaced, largely subsumed by Independents and Tea Partiers, using Congress to fight Obama on racial spoils issues.
I.E. to hell with Chicago, what about say, Nevada or Missouri being over-run by illegal aliens? Few White male (or female for that matter) voters care about Chicago, run by the Black majority populace, and a total failure. Let Louis Farrakhan clean the place up, along with Jessie Jackson and Mayor Daley and Father Eminem. It’s their city.
how do we prevent the rise of an American Mugabe or Stalin? Or is it too late to do so?
The first thing is to build coalitions based on principle and political legitimacy. That’s why the elections of 2010 and 2012 are important.
Playing the race game instead of the legitimacy game is not a net win. Coalitions centered around race are a poisoned pawn; and leftist politics have proved it. Taking a page out Sharpton’s book is like stealing the roadmap to hell.
The problem is one of time. In Zimbabwe the opposition to Mugabe is now black; because come to it the worst sufferers of race politics, of open borders of all this crazy stuff that political correctness peddles are the very same people they purport to “help”. And this is eventually realized, but realized too late. The problem is to advance the “now”. The best way, I think, to bring on an awakening sooner is not to couch the message in racial or ethnic terms but to pitch according the values shared in common: the constitution, the rule of law, democracy.
This means that the solution is going to have be a political one with every sort of person participating. This is the challenge. And I think the Tea Parties, to their credit, have been inclusive, for precisely this reason. History has brought a whole bunch of people together on the North American continent. Their fates are now intertwined.
What you really have to do is send organizers (real ones) into the Belly of Their Beast and get people to think for themselves and instead of becoming cookie cutter ethnic leader “types”, to think for themselves. The object of real revolution isn’t teaching people what to think but teaching people to think. It’s an act of faith. You’re banking on the proposition that once you get people thinking clearly, then most clear thinking people will converge on a solution.
Can’t say it always works, but I believe it beats the Sharpton/Jackson/Daley/Pfleger horror show. If President Obama is making a frank racial political pitch that is probably a sign of weakness. That means he’s given up on or believes he is losing the original coalition on which he won.
Now the idea of his political advisers is to make promises to the most vulnerable. See who they can sell the Brooklyn Bridge too. Just like Madoff in his last days, selling to whoever hasn’t wised up yet. And that means selling a pig in a poke to poor blacks or desperate immigrants by offering them some unspecified pie in exchange for their vote, legal or illegal. Lookie here, you’ll get a temp job in the government! Sure. And for how long? They are going to get as much back from that crew as the guys in Chicago are getting from City Hall, which is diddly-squat.
But if you can take one part of the coalition away from the Obama convoy, why not another? After all the youth and the hispanics and the blacks have gotten the worst of it, so far as unemployment goes. And if you can get them to connect the dots they’ll get the picture. The till is empty. The goods in the warehouse have all been taken out the back. The “free” everything is all a pack of lies. Once they get the idea the anger will be enormous.
Armageddon Rex @ 54:
Thank you for your service, and thank you for the reassurance.
I hope what you say is true; I firmly believe before this is over you and your compatriots will be forced to choose between defending the government and defending the Constitution, and that those who choose the Constitution will not be much longer in this world.
When I made similar comments on another blog, I was pointed to the Oathkeeper website and was temporarily reassured. Then I found out that Oathkeepers has only six thousand members. I can only hope that a majority of military people agree with their creed, whether they join or not.
LFMayor @38
I’ve heard that some of the formerly wonderful areas around Ottawa, IL, have become crime-ridden pestholes. Is that what you’re referring to?
whiskey,
umm, Daley is not black; nor is the majority of Chicago.
National Guard, no. Modern version of the Untouchables, maybe. But just as in the original,
“What are you prepared to do?” Currently, not much.
RWE @ 27: 1. All philosophies are not equally valid.
2. All cultures are not equally successful.
3. All lifestyles do not deserve success.
4. Due to items 1 through 3 above some people need to be killed.
Well, the philosophies, cultures, and lifestyles that deserve a #4 rating are mostly those that blow up our citizens. Anyone who stays home can do whatever they want with the goats, as far as I’m concerned.
Mariner, I suspect there are many, many more who will stand with them (the oathkeepers) that do not
necessarily travel in that circle. When the balloon goes up people will choose a side.
#58 mariner
There are 6,000 who have registered as Oathkeepers. That is an act of courage, as becoming a member makes you an open target of the regime when the SHTF. The Oath has been a subject of conversation here, with all of our law enforcement types in my county. I have yet to encounter anyone who does not hold the Constitution above any orders that they may recieve from higher levels. That includes both the incumbent Sheriff, and his possible primary opponent who have publicly stated that they will obey the US and state Constitutions and if ordered otherwise by anyone they “will stand their ground”. Similarly, there are Oathkeepers in the services who for obvious reasons cannot make any public declarations.
I cannot emphasize enough. Our military are our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, spouses, nieces and nephews, and sometimes just the kids who grew up with our kids and spent as much time at our house as at home. Talk to them. Let them know that their families, their loved ones, the very people whose lives and freedoms they shield with their service; trust and expect them to make the Oath their first priority. Remind them that the UCMJ requires them NOT to obey orders that violate the Constitution. Words now may prevent both tyranny and bloodshed later.
Subotai Bahadur
56. Whiskey touched on it, but it bears repeating – even if Chicago’s black population is not in the majority – the manner in which Democrats govern/administer the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Washington DC and a slew of others is RACIST, RACIST, RACIST. Black-on-black crime is excused, justified, ignored and/or winked at. Blacks who live in those cities and accept the status quo have simply traded southern plantation living conditions for northern urban angst. They (we) apparently are not sophisticated – or motivated – enough to comprehend it.
It needs to be said over and over. The NDP is a RACIST organization. The NDP is a RACIST organization. The NDP is a RACIST organization.
(This didn’t appear until after I posted #68 below)
Wretchard @ 57: “the youth and the hispanics and the blacks have gotten the worst of it, so far as unemployment goes. … Once they get the idea the anger will be enormous.”
But how to get that anger focused constructively, not just turned into nihilistic rage?
The opportunity in front of the US is clear — re-industrialize, thereby creating jobs & tax revenue, at the same time as creating the conditions to fix the balance of trade deficit and the government budget deficit. Build the newest steel mills in the world, state-of-the-art shipyards, next generation chemical plants and chip manufacturing facilities. Export airplanes to France, instead of importing them. Export cars to Japan, instead of importing them.
But implementing that opportunity means goring a lot of sacred cows. Rolling back regulation. Cutting most opportunities for lawyers — except for sueing environmental groups for all the harm they have caused. Introducing many layers of bureaucrats to the unemployment line, starting from the top. Cutting back on government spending. Eliminating thousands of pages of the tax code. Building lots & lots of nuclear power plants, and eliminating subsidies for windmills & ethanol. The list goes on & on.
All of those actions will cause short-term pain, at least to limited groups, for years before the long-term benefits become obvious. It will be very difficult to focus the anger of the minorities that liberals have abused for years, and keep that anger focused for long enough to turn the system around. It is more likely we will see a horrible crunch, a lot of human suffering, followed eventually by a slow regrowth. And who knows what the Chinese, Russians, Islamists, & Iranians will do in the meantime?
Subotai @ 64:
I was once a commissioned officer of the U.S. Navy; I took that oath too. While I no longer have a legal obligation to uphold it, I feel a moral obligation to do so.
I am heartened by the viewpoints of the law enforcement officers in your county. We may get through this yet (though I don’t expect to).
One problem we will have is deciding at what point the S has HTF. Obama has seized executive control of the auto industry, the health care industry, and the financial industry. What’s left before we decide we’ve had enough? Where is that dotted line in the water?
Making a decision would be easy if a “balloon went up”. But Obama and the Dems realize that, and they’re working their evil largely under the table, behind closed doors and with the support of the media (so they certainly won’t warn us). If we wait for a balloon we will lose before getting into the fray.
Why is playing the race game a losing bet Wretchard?
Certainly Al Sharpton has won a lot, so has Barack Obama, in fact the Presidency and majority party in Congress by playing the race card and racial spoils politics. The PRESIDENT IS PLAYING IT. If you don’t play, you don’t win. In fact … you LOSE FOREVER. Your fate is to be an elderly, White victim of the predatory non-White majority, ala the many works about the “Rainbow Nation.” Or the reality in South Africa. One might argue this is mere justice for racial oppression, very real, in the past. It hardly helps those who receive the justice, and is not very appealing to those in the US who look forward to the same when they are rapidly in the minority.
The number of Hispanics and Blacks who will vote against the President is so low as to be meaningless. Blacks voted 98% for Obama, and will do so again. Hispanics won’t be far behind. THEY are playing to win. By making it a pure numbers game, non-Whites bloc voting to create an absolute majority by unfettered illegal immigration producing a permanent Left-Race-based majority, aiming to transfer the maximum wealth from the remaining Whites. Game. Set. Match.
Who cares if in Zimbabwe the opposition to Mugabe is Black? For Whites, they were cleansed out of Zimbabwe ages ago. Unlike them, I have no where else to go. I don’t have a Swiss, or New Zealand, or Australian passport. I’m stuck here, and stuck being White too. [I'd prefer, all things considered, to be Black. But God has not seen fit to make me Black. Or even Hispanic. Yes I am deadly serious about this. I would prefer to be non-White. I estimate being non-White would radically improve my wealth and social standing.]
Wretchard, with all due respect, as a mere guest on your blog, your prescription is doomed to be a noble, ineffectual, upper-class failure like John Anderson in 1980, or the Burmese lady who is a nice, but failed opposition leader. Blacks and Hispanics will ALWAYS vote for Sharptons, because that is where their interests lie (ethnic spoils divisions). I’d vote the same too if I was lucky enough to be born Black.
My way offers victory. By bloc voting as much as possible among the 66% or so who are White. Offering about a 52% victory. Not perfect but good enough. No its not morally correct. It does however stave off disaster for those not lucky enough to be non-White. Blacks and Hispanics would happily vote themselves permanent poverty if they can stick it to Whitey. They are not stupid, they know this. But racial hatred runs in people who are non-White too. Too strong to make voting against a Black President by non-Whites anything but a non-starter. Even more, enlightened self-interest by non-Whites implies bloc voting to divvy up the public goods, as more productive than anything else, since there is always a chance to be Jessie Jackson, rather than a boring cubicle drone. Need I mention Jackson’s many mistresses and women and illegitimate children and fame, versus the open contempt cubicle dwellers earn from women?
Far more profitable in numbers game is allying with White Women. Who are naturally more socialistic, and have great concerns over how health care, education, and other social policies get divided. Play upon rational concerns about quality and rationing (by race) and you have an electoral winner. For example, without illegal immigrants pushing up health care, we can afford without new taxes on middle class ladies, the best and most expensive breast cancer treatment.
The other solution is “Legal Fear and Terror” by simply exposing via the internet/web/blogs the ugly open secrets of the elites that can destroy them.
Who wants to bet there are many scandals around major Democratic figures that are known to all inside Washington, that if exposed could drive them from politics? Given what we know about human nature, power, and corruption? By simply providing proof of what the elites know, using the asymmetric nature of information warfare in the modern era, grassroots can fight back. I would imagine for starters that many figures in Chicago politics also would be vulnerable in this way, not the least of which is a supine press has led them to parade their secrets openly.
These I think are the ways to victory. They are not pretty, but neither do they have to be ugly either. A beat up pickup truck may not win prettiness awards but gets the job done.
How did Scott Brown win? By appealing to non-White voters? Please. He won by White racial bloc voting, carefully coded, but that is who voted for him. THAT is the model. Not John Anderson.
whiskey,
umm, Daley is not black; nor is the majority of Chicago.
Wouldn’t that depend upon how one defines “black”? Perhaps the majority of Chicago is “black” by whiskey’s standards.
I’m not so sure that whiskey would regard “white” people who voted for Harold Washington as “white”.
Cowboy #12
I was on the U.T. campus during the Whitman rampage and you are exactly right about citizens joining law enforcement to suppress his pot shooting at innocent targets. I saw civilians bring their deer rifles in to force Whitman to keep his crazy head down below the stone parapet because if he had put it up to shoot over the wall he would have been a dead man. Those folks had scopes on their hunting rifles and they could shoot. After that he had to do his shooting through the storm drains and the danger level dropped dramatically. As I recall, the police did nothing to discourage the help and seemed to appreciate it.
Best,
Richard
Richard #71
You were there? What a horrific experience that must have been. I, for one, would welcome your recollections of the incident.
33. Annoy Mouse
“Careful what you wish for, chances are they’ll strike out “fugitives, illegal aliens, or parole violators “and throw in Tea Partiers instead. In fact, why not just ink in circles around the protected areas and declare martial law everywhere else where all of the hated racists are.”
That is true more ways that are evident. For one example I have had conversations with legal Mexicans here and they are afraid of the same thing happening in Texas that was just implimited (or will be in July) in Arizona. Why should legal residents and/or legal citizens of Mexican decent be conserned you ask. Well already in Texas the LAW is pretty rough and tough as it is and more so if you happen to be a shade or so other than white. They are afraid if Texas goes the way of Arizona things on the street will get even worse than they are now. That is what they are saying in West Texas, no telling what they are saying in Houston or in the border cities and towns. It scares the hell out of them.
The illegals I have talked to – not so much. They already know how to fly under the radar so to speak and they already are hunted. It means little to them that they will be hunted harder or like one told me – “What more can they do to us, they already fine us, throw us in jail, or send us back to Mexico.”
I think in Texas and other states “Tea Partiers” will not only sue everybody in sight if they are arrested but maybe, no definitely, not go so peaceably into the cells. We will just have to wait and see.
35. Armageddon Rex
“In all seriousness, the National Guard is ill equipped to secure the mean streets of Chicago or any other U.S. city, unless the governor is willing to publicly declare an emergency and impose martial law.”
The above and the rest of your comment are true and I think that only a few democrat run cities would even think to ask for this, (unless put up to it) I can’t envision, short of total anarchy, 95% of American cities or towns even considering it. Especially in Texas. We take care of our own damn problems.
37. Gordon
God Bless Them.
A short story: In the early seventies one of my uncles was killed in a truck accident. He was hauling cross country in a big rig. His daughter woke up in the middle of the same night and ran and woke up her mother and told her “daddy wouldn’t be coming home” that he was “with the angels” and for her and her mom not to worry because “everything would be alright”. Of course when the phone call came the next morning everything was not alright. But to this day his daughter says that “daddy was right, everything has been alright”.
38. LFMayor
When half (it seemed) of New Orleans was transplanted to Texas, crime and civil unrest among the population around where this transplanted culture went sky high for years. One Houston friend told me it was like “every N.O. thug and hood wound up in his front yard.”
40 Alexis
“So long as street gangs are embedded within their communities and enjoy greater social legitimacy than the police (which shouldn’t be difficult in Chicago), there is a limit to how much can be done against them.”
I think it is even worse with Latinos (Mexicans) They have a really tight family and cultural heritage. According to my LEO friends it is almost impossible to get information from families, friends or even enemies when they are trying to locate someone.
43. Subotai Bahadur
Thanks for referencing the previous comment, I had missed it. Let me quote a little of it:
You said it, but nobody (or hardly anybody) is going to believe you.
44. peterike
“This kind of cognitive dissonance from the Left doesn’t jibe with me. There is a deeper game afoot.”
Others and I feel the same way. We hope we are just over reacting and just too worried, but as the weeks go by and more things happen or surface… the feeling just gets deeper instead of going away.
46. RWE
“Once we fought fascism around the world but in the wonderful Post Civil Rights era America we have to fight them at home.”
You got it, only the fight has not really started yet. Everybody better hurry with their Prep and don’t forget to get your money out of the banks into Credit Unions or under your porch…so to speak. I’m really lamenting my collection of old silver coins that was stolen back in the late eighty’s. I didn’t even have them insured. I must have had about a hundred lbs of (pre-sixty five) then. Yea, I was an idiot.
47. wretchard
“The Chicago problem is the perfect storm of race, machine politics, drugs, education failure, social welfare failure and even 2nd Amendment issues.”
Your also right it is not just Chicago, it is in every town and city to some extent. I believe that it is all traceable to the last fifty years of liberal American education and the liberal politicians who wanted to create a voting block just for themselves and figured that bribes worked on a small scale so they would work on a much much larger scale. I know that is simplified beyond reason – but you know what I mean. And yea, drugs. If we don’t make drugs legal soon I’m not sure what will happen. The Latinos from south of the border are already moving into every part of the U.S. and they are just getting started and they have literally millions of dollars to buy what ever and who ever they want. If it is not defeated, The U.S. will be not much different from Old Mexico in a very short time. Wars are already breaking out between the black drug lords and the encroaching Mexican cartels. The blacks don’t have a chance in hell.
53. Mary J
“Evan Bayh for the National Guard in 1995?”
Yea I remember a little. Didn’t he just get State Police to come in for a few months? I don’t remember if it did any good.
54. Armageddon Rex
“It’s really difficult to stay angry at men trying to earn a buck to feed their children”
Yea, I would guess. But it is even harder to stay angry at men and women who are fighting you because they were told if they didn’t the VC would kill not only them but their children and their grandmothers and grandfathers and burn their bodies and scatter their ashes.
56. whiskey
“What then? Why symbolic (at first) measures like the Arizona law, mirroring the Swiss Minaret ban, and then if that is not heeded, other measures. Since the Constitution is currently meaningless, Congress being able to do anything, you have a battle of Republicans with RINOs like McCain replaced, largely subsumed by Independents and Tea Partiers, using Congress to fight Obama on racial spoils issues.”
Well, I don’t know about other places in the U.S. but Texas plans on taking care of it’s citizens and taking care of business and can do so quite effectively without the help or hindrance of the U.S. Federal Government. I would hope other states would think and do the same.
57. wretchard
“This means that the solution is going to have be a political one with every sort of person participating. This is the challenge. And I think the Tea Parties, to their credit, have been inclusive, for precisely this reason. History has brought a whole bunch of people together on the North American continent. Their fates are now intertwined.”
True. But there are also other groups – some going years back that have been trying to defeat the democrats and enemies of this Republic. There are new groups like the one I belong to that formed up right after the Won was elected. Nothing more at the start but a group of close friends that were scattered all over the Lone Star State which gathered in the friends of the friends.
We are prepared to do what is necessary to protect our families and to help the State of Texas not only survive but prosper and to help the Republic of the United States in any manner that is needed or necessary.
Right now we have a massive effort to register all and any conservatives, moderates and anyone else who will vote to get the democrats and many republicans out of office not only nationally but locally and state wide. We also will help them get to the places they need to vote and back home if needed.
We don’t have “street money” like the democrats use, but we do have people power and the will to make a difference anyway we can.
I suggest and even beg everyone that reads this to do the same and enlist your friends and family to help.
And yes, like W says, the real revolution is getting people to pay attention, think and then act. It is hard and even harder now with the financial pressures families are under. But it can be done. Just try harder.
Well, got to go. The kids are up later than they should be but they had a disney movie they were watching and I caved. Need to get them ready for bed and in it.
Then to chores.
Papa Ray
whiskey,
With all due respect to our host, it’s all there in #57. What do you want him to do, copy’n'paste and post it again, so that this time you get it?
I have way more in common, in terms of interests, principles, beliefs, and ability to work toward real freedom, with folks like, for example, the Indian-American friend and business associate who I had breakfast with last week, than I could possibly have with John F’n Kerry. The former arrived in the US at the age of 21 on a student visa, did well, and managed to stay on and eventually become a citizen. He thinks, talks, acts, and votes very conservatively. J F’n K, on the other hand, as a young officer tried his best to betray the US Military, arguably consorted with the enemy in a possibly-treasonous manner, and much more that I needn’t bore us with here.
Now, come a possible American Civil War II, I’m supposed to feel more comfortable with Kerry covering my back than the other guy, just because Kerry’s white? GMAB.
John Fritchey’s analogy between Chicago and Afghanistan makes a sharp sound bite, but like most commentators on both, he omits some very important aspects. Maybe it’s politically dangerous to mention these, or maybe they are simply too painful to contemplate.
Gangsterism is the default human behavior. It is the power structure that ensues when legitimate power fails. Gangs, from Al Qaeda down to common criminal street gangs, are primarily in competition with each other. As Lee Harris wrote in “Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology” (Policy Review No. 114, August 2002), the aim is not to destroy the United States, but to destroy, or more likely engulf and assimilate, their more immediate competition. They do this by demonstrating that they are the Strong Horse. A very effective way to do that is to do conspicuous damage to some large fortress widely perceived as impregnable. That would be the United States. This choice of object has little or nothing to do with Western ideology or offense to Mohammed; we are merely a prop in their drama, chosen for the same reason Hillary chose Everest.
The situation is not greately different in any town beset by gangs. Their adveraries are not mainstream society, law enforcement, or any of the things most commentators either hold dear (conservative) or despise (liberal). Their adversaries are each other. This should be self-evident as soon as it is said.
And there is a lot to compete for: sheer prestige is probably as important as money, weapons, drugs, rackets–the list is well known. This explains two phenomena that consistently baffle the people who write books and editorials: (1) it’s not about economic povery, for there is no lack of money on the street; the street is awash in cash, and (2) most of the victims of Moslem terror are Moslem, as most of the victims of black urban violence are black.
As our host has written several times, at least one major key to success in their war against each other is a convincing demonstration of ruthlessness. Creating a “crime wave,” writing about this as a menace to powerful outsiders, hands such people just the thing they want.
Along come nice people like those who write sociology text books and newspaper editorials, and get elected to Congress. They know that their support, money and votes come from other nice people, not from gang memebers. They play to the fantasies nice people have. Gardening will reform the hardest heats. The unreality of this is obvious, except to those to whom it is not obvious; and those are the ones who pay for their fantasies in cold cash, campaign contributions or more corrupt kinds of payment. The payors are short sighted. They are destroying themselves (and the rest of us at the same time) but they cannot see it.
Those professors and columnists ought to ride the bus to work for a couple of weeks. They would soon see that there is a whole culture going on around them (and it isn’t all black by any stretch, though maybe it mostly is in Chicago). The bus is a rolling seminar on how this culture operates. Just sit there with your eyes closed and pretend you’re not listening. I promise you’ll get an education no Pell Grant can buy.
wretchard:
Playing the race game instead of the legitimacy game is not a net win. Coalitions centered around race are a poisoned pawn; and leftist politics have proved it. Taking a page out Sharpton’s book is like stealing the roadmap to hell.
I don’t agree with you all the time, but I heartily agree with you on this one. Imitation is the sincerest form a flattery, and there is no reason for the Opposition to flatter Barack Obama by becoming as racist as he is.
Racists love to point out how racist Barack Obama and his associates have been and continue to be. Fair enough. If National Security Advisor Jim Jones makes racist jokes, he should be condemned for that, not imitated. Yet, racists throughout America are heartened by the election of Barack Obama because they see him as the perfect foil for a race war they have been planning for generations. If racists can take over the Opposition, both the Government and the Opposition would controlled by racists. Hence, racists would win.
The Tea Party has the potential to take the mantle of the old civil rights movement. The Tea Party has the potential to set the tone of American culture for the next generation. Yet, the more irresponsible the Government is, the more responsible the Opposition must be to prevent the United States of America from repeating the horrors of Yugoslavia. Some people look upon a possible civil war with delight. I don’t. The first civil war was horrible and a second civil war would likely be even worse.
The Opposition can defeat the present Government by taking the high road. We can win against the Obama administration, not only electorally but also and more importantly ideologically. I could think of many books I would rather read than De Imitatione Obami (The Imitation of Obama). Barack Obama and his allies do not give us a good example to follow.
Encouraging: Drudge tags Obama no-white-males video as “OBAMA PLAYS RACE CARD: RALLIES BLACKS, LATINOS FOR ’10 UPSET…”
Discouraging: Obama plays race card, rallies Blacks, Latinos for ’10 Upset.
Encouraging: over past six months, New York Times sales down 8.47% to 951,063.
Discouraging: 951,063 copies of NY Times still sold.
“Jackson may join other community leaders to ask the state government for stricter gun control.”
Typical 4th world response. It isn’t working so lets do it some more. Why is there always a deadline for things that work but things that don’t work can go on forever? I never understood that.
A deadline for pulling troops out but no deadline for negotiations that won’t accomplish anything even if they are ever finished? That is in5an3.
@ Whiskey (69): “Blacks and Hispanics will ALWAYS vote for Sharptons, because that is where their interests lie (ethnic spoils divisions).”
Sharpton last ran for president in 2004. In no state did he get more than 10% (SC). He got less than 1% of the vote in 8 states (IA, WA, NH, AZ, ND, ME, HA, ID), around 1% in three states (MN, MA, OK), between 2-4% in nine states (TX, FL, MD, CT, CA, WI, VI, TN, MO) and 5-8% in four states (MS, NY, GA, MI, DE).
In the first five primaries Sharpton was dead last. And when he wasn’t finishing dead last, the only candidate he consistently defeated was Dennis Kucinich.
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/candidates/1773/index.html
He got his most votes in DC with 20%–the only place that he finished ahead of John Edwards–but still was a distant second to Kerry. If ever there was a place where there should have been big black support for Sharpton, it should have been DC. But it didn’t happen in there or anywhere else. Shartpon didn’t get a majority of black or hispanic votes anywhere. I can’t speak for hispanics but I can tell you that outside of NYC, blacks voters don’t take sharpton even remotely seriously.
@ Whiskey (56): “Openly, related to Obama and Chicago, both, people are saying “what can you expect?” What can you expect of a Black President?
Perhaps the answer is “pretty much what you’d expect from a black mayor.” In short that means more gubmint jobs. Here’s the abstract from a recent paper I linked to on my twitter page by three economists from the George Mason University Econ department. The title is “Do Black Mayors Improve Employment Outcomes? Evidence from Large U.S. Cities.”
“To what extent do politicians reward voters who are members of their own ethnic or racial group? Using data from large cities in the United States, we study how black employment outcomes are affected by changes in the race of the cities’ mayors between 1971 and 2003. We find that black employment and labor force participation rise, and the black unemployment rate falls, during the tenure of black mayors both in absolute terms and relative to whites. Black employment gains in municipal government jobs are particularly large, which suggests that our results capture the causal effects of black mayors. We also find that the effect of black mayors on black employment outcomes is stronger in cities that have a large black community. This suggests that electoral incentives may be an important determinant of racial favoritism. Finally, we also find that, corresponding to increases in employment, black income is higher after black mayors take office. Again, this effect is pronounced in cities with a large black population.”
http://twitter.com/starlingdavid/status/12889876606
@ Whiskey (69): “[I'd prefer, all things considered, to be Black. But God has not seen fit to make me Black. Or even Hispanic. Yes I am deadly serious about this. I would prefer to be non-White. I estimate being non-White would radically improve my wealth and social standing.]”
The Lord does work in mysterious ways. But had He saw fit, I hope you’d have found what I’ve found, i.e. that despite all claims to the contrary, the white majority in this country is possessed of enormous goodwill, is incredibly fair-minded, and will go to extraordinary lengths to help minorities succeed. Provided you recognized this and were prepared to trust across racial lines–something most blacks are less willing to do (http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/8/7/5/5/pages87553/p87553-1.php)–you might in fact amass more social and financial capital.
US Census has Chicago at 74% White, 12.3% Black, and 15% Hispanic. However, Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Wright and Jessie Jackson sure seem to run South Side. It seems an open secret that the Nation of Islam “policed” the area around Farrakhan’s mansion. Not letting the riff-raff in.
Why indeed is that the problem for the rest of America? National Guard to South Side, but not the Arizona Border? Why can’t Farrakhan handle it? After all, he knows us White devils better than anyone. Presumably his Nation of Islam can if given a free hand, shape things up.
Yes, everyone is now a racist. How droll.
Kirk Parker — You do not have much in common with your Indian-American friend when it comes to spoils because racial spoils cut different ways for the two of you. Your Indian friend is blessed by not being a White male. Kerry of course is part of the elite. You have nothing in common with him. But you have far more with a Tea Partier than your Indian friend.
For example, in Government contracting, your Indian friend has preference over you. Because you are White, last in line. Another example is hiring. EEOC regulations make hiring a White guy a royal pain, while no one was sued for discrimination by hiring a non-White person. Meanwhile empire building by ethnic nepotism hiring is common in places like Microsoft, where folks like this are pretty rare.
It would be nice if “evil racism” were confined to White people alone, but sadly they are not.
No, elites of any shape will not be your friend. But the interests of your Indian friend are not aligned with yours. John Kerry will not cover your back. But it would be foolish and inconceivable that your Indian friend (and more importantly, Black and Hispanic folks who make up about 34% of the electorate) will have the same general interests as yourself when it comes to:
1. Health Care spending and resource allocation.
2. Income transfers from White middle class to non-White “tribunes.”
3. Hiring preferences (i.e. non-Whites first, White men last).
4. Contracting preferences with the Government (White guys need not apply).
5. Education spending and who gets to go where, at what expense. Joe Average White guy need not apply to the best schools, that provide lifetime alumni networks.
6. Loans and financing, from personal to corporate. Controlled by the Government.
All of these would be trivial if government was what it was in 1912. But it is not. That’s the genius and gift of Obama — every scrap of human existence is a massive racial spoils fight in America that never ends. Because Government picks winners and losers in all aspects of life.
Think Blacks, Hispanics, or your Indian friend will give up Affirmative Action? Preferences in hiring and contracting? Decisions on who will go last (lets face it, SOMEONE is going last) in government social spending such as now, Health Care?
Highly unlikely. That does not make them evil. Goldman Sachs is not evil. They just are not on the client’s side, only their own. [Moreover, higher diversity encourages more selfish and distrustful action even among ethnic groups as Robert Putnam, "Bowling Alone" found.] People looking after their own interests are not evil. It’s not evil for Blacks to vote Obama by 98%.
And its not evil for Whites to do the same bloc voting. This is an area where I think White voters have much to learn from Black and Hispanic voters.
Whiskey, “Father Eminem”, touche! I couldn’t think of a better name for that clown. The way Phleger tries to talk in black singsong dialect makes him kind of the Stephen Fetchit of his world; a liberal cleric so demented he tries to ape how he thinks a black person should carry himself even though he’s white. Maybe it’s his way of compensating for his inner pedophile.
Phleger and his community activist homie talk about these bloody little gangstas “losing their social consciousness” whatever that means. A better description is given by Paul in his First Letter to Timothy where he says in modern times ,men would have “their consciences seared with a hot iron”. Three or four generations of illegitimacy, violence, squalor and indolence will breed civilization out of young men and turn them into monsters.
whiskey,
What on earth makes you think my friend is not himself a Tea Partier?
Peterike@44–
“This kind of cognitive dissonance from the Left doesn’t jibe with me. There is a deeper game afoot. Where better than Chicago to launch the trial balloon and get folks used to the idea of armed men on the streets.?”
I fear you are right, but pray you are wrong.
Jackson calls for more gun control. That’ll sure help. Then, when the Police start stopping people and frisking them, and charging them with gun violations (the ONLY way guns could be removed from the streets preemptively), he’ll be at the head of the demonstration protesting brutal, racist cops, frisking people for “walking while black”. A win-win for him, but a big lose for everyone who lives in these neighborhoods who would like to be able to step outside their home without putting their lives at risk. The fact that he would undoubtedly be able to pull this off explains a lot about why the situation exists in the first place.
This call for the Guard has one bright side: it puts the situation in the spotlight, and provides a further demonstration of “making common sense impossible, thus making the use of overwhelming stupidity inevitable” to paraphrase Wretched. This is a thing that more people have to recognize, so anything that puts a spotlight on it is a good thing. It’s just too bad that the regular people in Chicago (and elsewhere) have to be the subjects in this delusional experiment.
Regarding Guliani in NYC, yeah, there were a lot of complaints. But I’m willing to bet that many of the people in the neighborhoods, while silent, or maybe even condemning G, were happy that things had calmed down a bit.
Whether it’s crime, terrible schools, or whatever other pathology these Big City dems foist on their constituents, it’s good that everyone else get a peek so their total incompetance and lack of concern for the people is repeatedly illustrated. Maybe eventually some of those who bear the brunt will actually put two and two together and start electing people who will do something about the problem. Until then, they’ll be the victims of their own lack of insight. A shame.
We, as a nation, must get rid of affirmative action. Absolutely, positively, undoubtedly must get rid of it. It is literally killing us. If we are ever to have a hope at having a decent society again, we have to be able to call out the criminals among us and make them objects of derision and ridicule without any excuses for their skin color, societal conditions, or any other supposedly mitigating circumstances. As someone who was raised in a very poor rural white community, one of the things I learned very early was that dignity was not conferred by the amount of money one had and that soap and water were cheap enough for anyone to have them. Where I grew up there were no excuses for criminal behavior and people were expected to take responsibility for their actions. That particularly went for one’s decisions with regard to human reproduction. Most of America has now lost that sense of responsibility. We either regain it or we collapse into either authoritarianism or anarchy. There is no more true statement than that a community of self-governing people needs few laws, while there can never be enough laws written for governing a community of undisciplined people. November 2010 is incredibly critical. Fail there and we’ll not have any other choice than the ammo box.
Whiskey,
Never had a serious problem with your analysis, but your conclusions are a water for the progressives’ mill. It is fascinating — you are their “best friend” and yet you don’t see it. Or to put it more bluntly, replace “best friend” with a “tool”.
Of course liberals are using the racial card. That is until they achieve complete victory. There won’t be any racial spoils. The society would stratify into 2 classes. The ruling elite and the rest, the serfs. At that point, the “race” would become almost a meaningless concept. I say almost, because the Planned Parenthood would then kick into high gears — the Novus Ordo would start eliminating “riff-raff” in earnest.
If your interests are racial, then you may be on the wrong side.
#75 TD Agree with your comments. imho the military will be use in our cities when the mexican and other foreign gangs begin to take over our cities. Our military are working hard on developing non-lethal weapons for use in urban areas. One system consist of a C-130 that can fire a wave into a building and put down anyone inside long enough to disarm them. There have been many papers published by govt agencies including the military concerning the issue of foreign gangs and their threat to our cities.
This is what might be expected of a city that between 1862-1865 starved thousands of Confederate POW’s, while the citizens of the city ate heartily. More than 6,000 southern men died in Camp Douglas just beyond Chicago’s city limits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Douglas_%28Chicago%29
59 Promethea
Not sure about Ottawa (but I did attend an appleseed shoot there 2 years ago!). BN, Decatur… as if it wasn’t bad enough, Champaign, even the smaller towns like Clinton and Farmer City are some of the diaspora sites I know of for sure. I’ve also heard it explained that the smaller county health and human services divisions are much “easier” to get benefits like housing assistance and WIC from, so they’re being utilized by out of towners shacking up with local tax eaters.
The end game:
Elite class: 10 million
Serf class: 500 million
(e.g. 1 “elitee” to 50 “serfs” ratio)
4 regions with outward antagonistic policies, but in reality coordinating — Americas, East Asia, West Asia/Europe, Oceania.
Africa entirely depopulated, serving as a natural reserve (a nice safari preserve for elites entertainment).
Phase 1:
Problems: USA and Western democracies, standing in the way of the agenda.
Solutions: Introducing a hostile element into population, to demoralize the societies and break their traditional bonds.
Other Means: Using “socialism” to eliminate self-reliance and establish dependency.
Phase 2:
Concentrating capital and means of production in the hands of reliable “cadres”.
Eliminating middle class.
Phase 3:
Global war to start the process of population reduction. Estimated reduction 3.5 billion. 3 billion remainder.
Concentrating communications in elite’s hands so additional phases are prevented from being a public knowledge.
Judicious use of biological agents to depopulate areas desired as natural preserves: Africa, Amazonia, Indonesian archipelago belt. Estimated reduction 2 billion. Remainder: 1 billion.
Creating conditions for famine in selected areas to decrease the population to desired level. The remainder: 550 million.
Introduce policies that would cull any remainder of undesirable populations and establish reproduction policies that would keep a stable population within the preset parameters.
Phase 4:
Utopia. Rainbow colored unicorns frolic with buccolic peasants and industrial workers that are never older than 45 and happy to relinquish 60 % of their proceeds as a voluntary donation to their better ones that so graciously take a care of them.
—
I wish I were kidding.
The Venezuelan middle class has looked pretty pasty faced and weak in their resistance to Chavez as he runs that country into the ground.
12. Cowboy: My daughter is finishing her freshman year at Virginia Tech. They are still proud of being a ‘gun-free’ zone. Their response to 21 dead was to introduce a campus-wide email alert system. Retards.
Charles,
The Venezuelan Middle Class: “This can’t be happening! They can’t do that!”
Chavez: “Yes, we can!”
The difference between US and Venezuela is the speed of the “can”. Larger geographical area, larger population–takes longer.
I can tell you why it would be bad to send in the National Guard: in two words: Kent State.
Even the esteemed Mayor Rizzo of Philadelphia refused to ask for the NG during the riots in the 1960′s, saying that our cops were used to be cursed at, and have things thrown at them without shooting back…and Rizzo, an ex police chief, was as close to being a fascist as anyone.
The part about the NG using their skills learned in Iraq is clueless: actually, it was the cops that knew how to work with gangs and criminals who were in the NG who revolutionized the fight against the insurgency.
Finally, although all NG are trained to work in emergencies as peacekeepers, not all are trained as cops/counterinsurgency. My old NG unit trained in tanks; yes, they could keep the peace and help in the Johnstown floods of the 1980′s, but one doubts they could patrol a hostile population as cops.
Dack Thrombosis
During most of the horror at the UT massacre I was on the third floor of the Student Library (adjacent to the Tower) obliviously reading Hardy’s long poem Dynasts. I kept hearing a pinging that resembled the sound a metal cable hitting the side of the building and took no note of it. But when I went downstairs to exit, the glassed in foyer was packed with people who were agitated and conspicuously NOT exiting, and I soon learned from some folks from radios what was going on. I didn’t see many of the details, which are in any case available on the net in great detail, but I do remember one sight that will stay with me always.
After the impromptu strike team had stormed the tower parapet and come at Whitman from two sides with heavy fire, including a shotgun blast or two (they blew him to kingdom come–which was plan A, B, and C), they began to bring the bodies out of the Tower. Whitman had taken a footlocker of firearms and ammunition up the elevator, but to get to the tower door he had to go through a kind of reception room–I think there was a clerk at desk and some sightseers in the room. He shot his way through that and there was carnage. After the dust settled, team after team of bearers brought the draped bodies on stretchers out of the ground floor door in my clear sight. It was inexpressably sad and I will never forget it. In war, this is a day at the office, but on a college campus, this was still a horrible novelty.
Some people had been struck down in the early shooting and lay out in the open, dead or immobilized and in some cases bleeding to death. At least one or two would be rescuers were shot trying to drag the casualties to shelter. A few terrified souls spent the entire ordeal cowering behind a bush or stone bench, pinned down by the sporadic but deadly sniper fire. It was pure chance that I was not one of those killed or pinned down since I had walked innocently accross that pebble-concrete quad to get to the library a short time before hell erupted in Texas.
Sincerely,
Richard
My father tells of his time spent in Milwaukee during the riots. He just returned from Summer Camp and had a computer torn apart in the basement of a Green Bay bank. He got a call informing him his unit was called up for riot duty in Milwaukee. A dusk to dawn curfew was put on the city. He got there, and they were given M1s and one round and strict orders not to shoot unless fired upon. Guardsmen in Chicago would probably be given 2 rounds.
Speaking of Milwaukee I have noticed the same thing. You have ordinary folks begging for more law enforcement but when it happens shouts of bloody murder arise. One (former) MKE councilmember even paid for “Don’t snitch” billboards, well someone eventually snitched on him and he is currently in prison.
I remember watching some real life crime drama. Actual imagery of ants streaming in and out of a victim’s nose not pretty. Police begged for help in apprehending the murderer (yeah, BonB) but no one was snitching, and it wasn’t all out of fear.
73. Papa Ray
re: When half (it seemed) of New Orleans was transplanted to Texas, crime and civil unrest among the population around where this transplanted culture went sky high for years. One Houston friend told me it was like “every N.O. thug and hood wound up in his front yard.”
It was only like that for about six months. Gov. Perry sent in the DPS and Texas Rangers to Houston. The DPS took over the “mundane” things like patrolling the freeways and such so HPD/Harris County Sheriffs could concentrate on the NOLA thugs and the Texas Rangers did what Texas Rangers do, ifyouknowwhatImean. The NOLA thugs soon learned that HPD, Harris County Sheriffs and The Rangers would not look the other way while they pulled their crap like the NOLA cops did. They also learned that Texas and the citizens of Harris County in particular take a very dim view of criminals and murderers-we arrest them, prosecute them and then send them to prison; if they committed murder we send them to death row and if we catch them trying to break into our houses or property we shoot the bastards and then call 911 so they can come collect the garbage. We don’t give a crap about “root causes” like the NOLA Corruptocrat owned and operated “legal system” does.
Within a month of Perry sending in the “troops” (so to speak) Greyhound had to triple their buses on the Houston-Baton Rouge route to accommodate all the NOLA thugs who were self deporting back to Louisiana. Within three months the problem was pretty much over with. Unfortunately the problem Houston has now is thanks in large part to Bill White turning Houston into a “sanctuary city”-we have MS13 and other Mexican gangs running a very lucrative and brisk trade in smuggling drugs and illegal aliens here.
#97 Nahanni
Not the whole story, but close. NOLA was/is so dysfunctional that a huge swathe of the “yout’s” from that less than fair city were and are hopelessly sociopathic long before they reached the age to be held accountable for their many crimes as adults. This is part of the inevitable sequalae of any city run by Leftist TWANLOC’s for any length of time; and we have plenty of empirical data for that assertion. Harris County ended up having to create a special unit for these technically “Juvie” predators who could not be safely placed in the normal Juvenile system because of their danger to both staff and other inmates. A friend of mine who was a co-worker in my former Department went home to Texas to work in that unit. I get stories.
Not all have self-deported [albeit it was a good response by Texas and a good start], and Texas will be dealing with the aftermath of Katrina’s human debris that washed up alongside the normal, decent people for at least a generation.
Of course, the whole country is dealing with the TWANLOC’s now, and will be for at least as long.
Subotai Bahadur