Aikido For Police and Schools

Of my three original instructors, the only one still alive, Bernie Lau is famous for having a crisis experience regarding the efficacy of aikido in real life.  The crisis involved an encounter trying to arrest a drunk lumberjack.  Lau Sensei felt his actions led to two police officers getting injured, plus the lumberjack winning a excessive force lawsuit against the city.  For a young cop that would be a crisis.

Lau Sensei is legendary for his many martial arts exploits, starting with being recruited into aikido off the beach in Hawaii in 1954 by aikido Chief Instructor Tohei Sensei himself.  He was physically formidable, and for someone in his 70s, still is.  When aikido did not work, he switched to his Goju Kai karate and began delivering punishing blows.  That doesn't work on a drunk lumberjack either.

The crisis story is much longer, but the point is aikido is not designed to be an aggressive, offensive art.  As Lau Sensei himself notes.

Here is an article on aikido gone wrong in application:

It appears the use of Aikido began around 2012 at Buechel after the principal hired Ron Boyd, the Richmond martial arts instructor, to train some staff members at the school, according to JCPS records. Boyd has told the CJ that when properly used, the Aikido method shouldn't result in injuries.
In February 2016, JCPS' director of security and investigations, Stan Mullen, suggested that another look at the use of Aikido Control Training in schools may be warranted.
Mullen pointed to the broken wrist at Buechel as well as the head injury and the broken collarbone at Breckinridge Metro as "three significant injuries directly connected to Aikido," saying the injuries may have been due to improper uses of the technique.

Ouch!

At least three Jefferson County Public School students suffered serious injuries in the last three years after staff reported using a method of physical restraint known as Aikido Control Training, a technique the state Department of Education banned last month from all public schools amid concerns about potential injuries.

You can google the aikido instructor behind the program. I've never met him, he seems a typical aikido instructor, so how could aikido application go so wrong?

In my time I have taught in K-12 schools, usually in inner city rough neighborhoods.  Indeed, in some schools we were given hazard pay.  Yes, most states allow kids to stay in K-12 schools until they are 21 (not sure anyone ever takes advantage of that opportunity) and I have met elementary kids bigger and stronger than I am.  High school kids can be Goliaths.  Lesson #1 in K-12 education: never get into a power struggle with a student.  You'll lose.  There are no exceptions to this rule.  Yes school districts have their own fully trained and armed cops, and yes, they will come in and handcuff a first grader and take him away, let alone a high school senior.  And I have also taught in Juvie, where the kids are already under arrest.  But when the cops have to be called, it is generally assumed an adult got into a power struggle with the kid, and failed to de-escalate.  (So even if the cops take the kid away, you lost. And the kid knows that too.  He knows he'll be back, you may not.)

Most school districts offer training on how to restrain a child who is about to commit serious property damage (is a student dropping your cell phone in the classroom fish tank serious property damage?) or physically harm another.  But that training is more to protect the school district from a lawsuit than protect the teacher. Most teachers will not intervene in a fight, they just let the students beat each other, mostly because the pugilists' friends end to break it up.  For my part I was able to simple step in between kids and they simply backed off.  Who knows what would happen if one of the kids came after me?

(An interesting lesson from the school self-defense training:  If you are restraining a kid, you are usually safe as long as the target of the kid is out of range.  The kids rage is focussed on his target.  Once the kids attention turns from the target of his rage, to your restraint, then you are in trouble. The kid will now fight you.  You can spot this transference when the kid starts looking at how you have him pinned, when he starts probing how to get away from you.  At this point the advice is ask the kid if it is ok to release him, and do so anyway after say 3 seconds.  This gives the kid power, and shows him respect, which might translate into working with you, instead of fighting.  To me a fascinating tidbit.)

Although many kids want to destroy teachers, a common tactic among teachers is if a kid is getting into it with one teacher, another teacher will walk up and take over as the first teacher simply turns and leaves. The first teacher will get a barrage of insults but if you cannot take that, then you do not belong in a school. What kids do is offer their best effort at all times.  If throwing things and cussing and stealing from you is what they are doing, that is simply their best effort, given their background.  You don't beat up a kid for doing his best.

Teachers do get cold-cocked, as well as administrators.  But given the amount of interaction between civilized teachers and yet-to-be civilized impoverished youth, the ratio of assault to interaction is near nil in schools.

So the application of physical aikido to this setting makes no sense.  Of course tenkan and irimi, on the emotional level, is a constant event.  When a kid makes fun of your receding hairline, or worse, your shoes, he is just probing for a button to push.  If he gets near a button, you simply reply, "you are right to criticize me about my hairline" (tenkan).  Or "what would you recommend I buy when next I have enough money to buy shoes?" (Irimi).

Aikido as a physical event has no place in schools, for the threats do not warrant a martial art response.

As to aikido "not working in real life" the statement is odd. The funny thing is, as a student of Lau Sensei, we learned arrest techniques.  When Lau Sensei built his own dojo in his back yard, his students were mostly cops and military (plus some awesome visiting instructors.)

L to R Wally Jay, James Demile, John Spiers, Bernie Lau, at Lau Sensei's dojo.  Wally Jay taught Bruce Lee, James Demile was one of Bruce Lee's first ten students.

Arrest techniques were a common lesson, although I am no cop. But, having been so specifically and intensely trained,  I've personally made over a dozen arrests in my time,  what we call in the USA "citizen arrests."  It's tricky business as a legal matter, but even trickier as a practical matter.  A kidnapper, a rapist, a second story man?  (Also a chicken $#!+ dine and dasher, and other petty fools who just pissed me off).  The funny thing is, as someone ready, willing and able to mix it up hand to hand, people seem to be pacified once they are placed under arrest.   It's never happened that someone came back swinging at me when I arrested him, so who knows what would happen then?  I can think of maybe four instances of the dozen where I had to pin anyone.

But the fact is I cannot do anything to anyone who does not come at me, because if I am not attacked, aikido won't work.  I need the attacker's energy to fuel an aikido move.  On the other hand, police are obliged to initiate violence to effect an arrest.  You may say that statement is too strong, but today an arrest is an act of violence, with overwhelming force brought to an arrest event.  That is relatively new.  Back in the 1970s when I made arrests, my perpetrators tended to think I was a cop.  OK.  Now they know I am NOT a cop, because I am alone when I make an arrest.  Cops don't do that anymore.  The last two arrestees argued with me, denying my right to arrest them.  In both instances I simply said they were safer with the cops than me, and in those two instances, convincingly. The world has changed.  And again, who knows what would happen if my perpetrator comes up swinging.

Aikido works, if you are not doing police work.  Our trying to stop a kid from doing his very best in school. If "citizen's arrest" is not police work, then what is it?  I call it anarchy, escaping the chaos of failed government by being the government. Schools are chaotic, and they are a great place to practice anarchy.

If you are a martial artists, especially and aikidoist, you ought to be making arrests.

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A Splendid Essay on Anarchy

And nonviolent too.

Thus, were we to create a new government taking these ideas with us, we will simply make the same mistakes again. Why? Because one needs people that have abandoned the need to have a government that runs things and puts forth ideology and so forth. That is, once one has an ideology that needs a revolution, one has already lost that revolution. Because that ideology will become a government which then becomes a State and the State will then engage in the usual hypocrisies they all do. It is tempting to say if we only had thus-and-so take place, or this change of government, or this economic system, everything will become perfect. However, if one carefully investigates history, one can see it is littered with such utopian experiments that failed. We are living in one called the United States of America.

A good summary

Hopeless? Not so. He who frees his own mind first cannot be imprisoned by any government. They can slander him, criticize him, call him a “bad American”, or even un-American and he simply does not care. Why? Because he is no longer attached to any of those concepts. He has no ego-self invested in the State which defines itself as “American” and needs no approval from the State to feel whole or complete. The State has nothing to offer him and, therefore, nothing by which he can be ultimately controlled. If this were not so, the government would not invest vast sums in propaganda and state-sponsored peer pressure efforts to keep the illusion up and running. The State does not fear a revolution. They have enough tanks and men to put one down and enough propaganda to cause the majority to cheer the revolutionaries stood against a wall and shot. What the State fears is being ignored. That is one thing tanks cannot defeat.

But this I part company

Of course, one cannot ignore the State when they tax you. Yes, this is so. But what if you were to define value to what is not the government’s currency? Yes, create an Underground Economy with its own barter system or precious metal buy-and-sell method. This is a topic for another day. But the way to stop the government is to first excise it from your own mind. That must come first.

We need to feed the beast only because you cannor complain about the beast of you do not feed it. Religion tells us the degree to which the beast harms us is edifying.  Living abundantly and paying nearly no taxes is legal in USA, so it's not really an issue.

The advice is to escape the idea of being "American." OK, but would it not be even better, more leverage to escape the idea of "landowner?"

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Invincible Ignorance

There is a sort of flip-side to conscientious objection, and that would be invincible ignorance.  This is the person who well knows "Thou Shalt Not Kill" but will kill if killing needs be.  You can spot them, for they have killed and it bothers them not in the least.  Usually they are ex-soldiers, definitely few in number, who have killed and would not know from PTS.

Just as there is no virtue in being a conscientious objector, there is no condemnation for those who are invincibly ignorant and kill.  "You know killing is wrong, correct?"  "Sure."  "Then how come you killed that man?"  "He needed killing."

The kills are always within the bounds of law, either as soldiers or civilians in a mortal situation...  coming upon a robbery, and enemy in the field, etc.

Now we live in a world in which there is much conflict and crime.  We have experimented in the last 120 years of so with attempting to limit violence to state actors, the cops.  It has not worked out very well.  And when it works as designed, then malefactors end up in jail.  Later they are released back into society, often to offend again.  These people need killing.

Now that may sound harsh from a conscientious objector, and a bit hypocritical since I won't do the killing.  But I didn't create the conscientious objector and the invincibly ignorant.  They just are.  What we have with the invincibly ignorant, if left alone, what violence is necessary and sufficient to keep society relatively safe.  That's right, I have no objection to the invincibly ignorant killing.

Well, who decides when a killing is ok?  Now it is a jury or 12, following arbitrary rules.  Better a jury of 3000 or so, all of the people affected by a killing.  To what degree will they have truck with the killer?  Will the killer find he has no friends anymore, and can't find a store that will sell him food for the killing?  Or does everyone buy him drinks for eliminating a bad actor?

What about vendettas?  It's a problem.  That is why Moses established the sanctuary cities.  If there is a killing, and someone wants revenge, the killer makes it to a sanctuary city. There is a trial at the gates, freedom within until it blows over.  The city protects the killer, it is a kind of exile.  Or of course the killer may disappear, a kind of exile.

What about a tough problem.  Under Mosaic law you needed two witnesses, no trials at night, and no executions until the next day, and the two witnesses must cast the first stones if the penalty is death.   Right there is a whole lotta cooling off time before a killing.

And with an eye for an eye, a whole lotta settlements before an execution or the loss of an eye.  it is actually a brilliant legal system.

But what about the child molester?  Often no witnesses, except what a kid says.  Kids are notorious liars, but what if they tell the truth?  Who tries the case, no two witnesses, and is the kid going to cast the first stone if execution is indicated?  Tough one.

Welcome back the invincibly ignorant, who does the killing on behalf of a kids he believes.  Back to what the community thinks about the killing, a pitch perfect sentence.

We have alternatives, and our sysem is not very good, so we ought to review these systems.

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War Corruption is No Secret

Wikileaks lays out how Hillary gets money from a French firm that funds and arms ISIS.

He went on to emphasize that “we are dealing with a criminal undertaking at a global level,” and that there is a war being led by the United States and its allies. He stated that “the global war on terrorism is fake . . . it’s based on fake premises” and it tells us that “somehow America and the Western world are going after a fictitious enemy, the Islamic State, when in fact the Islamic State is fully supported and financed by the Western military alliance and America’s allies in the Persian gulf.”

Now, Hillary was a young lawyer going after Nixon in the impeachment.  She learned much about corruption then married just such a man.  They knew how the world worked, and Hillary in particular wanted to pursue "more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating modes of living..." which necessarily means being a war-maker, not a soldier.

How did the world work?

Our president’s (Ed. Note: Bush II) grandfather saw no particular problem selling oil to the Nazisin spite of the fact we were at war with Germany. Where he got caught Congress would seize theassets. Five of the Bush family companies were seized by Congress in this manner. Congressinvoked the Trading with the Enemy Act and seized the Bush-Harriman-managed Thyssen entityHamburg-American Line, under Vesting Order No. 126. Thereafter, under Order No. 248, andthen Vesting Order No. 259, and ultimately Vesting Order No. 261 various other businesses were seized. None of this is secret, it is all in public records. There is evidence there were more going on, which were not caught.

Obviously it still works that way.  Movies showing American English teachers, retailers, bakers getting slaughtered on the beach at Normandy attacking German English teachers, retailers, bakers is popular and exciting especially to teenagers who think they are both lucky and bulletproof.

A movie about a Bush family making millions selling oil to the Nazis would be as interesting as a surveillance video of a WalMart check out aisle.

That war is a racket is no secret.  Major USA leaders were naming names of miscreants at the time.  The miscreants are in charge.  So nothing happens.  Watch your movie!

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USA Training the "Enemy"

Yet another "moderate Islamist" force trained and armed by the USA has defected to ISIS.

The Hazzm Movement, associated with the Free Syrian Army, is a secular Syrian insurgent group backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. It was one of the last of the non-jihadist opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria.
Its leadership has decided to join the Islamist coalition of the Levant Front fighting around the key Syrian city of Aleppo, according to Arab news sources, including NOW Lebanon.

Unmitigated madness.  Then Buchanan says this in passing:

While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.

Yes.  Where you send weapons, horrors.  Where you don't,  peaceful improvements.

If you google "moderate usa trained defect to isis" you'll see this has been going on for years.  Are we just stupid, or evil, meaning this is on purpose, to give Big War a steady income?

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Die to Defend Democracy

Except the warmakers know that democracy cannot deliver the will of the people.  This is what they learn in school:

Arrow's theorem says that if the decision-making body has at least two members and at least three options to decide among, then it is impossible to design a social welfare function that satisfies all these conditions at once.

This may be why the Catholic Church does not recognize democracy as a legitimate form of government.

Before you sign up to defend democracy, learn what majority rule voting obtains.

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Dorothy Day Anarchist

Anarchist Dorothy Day left no corporate structure for the Catholic Worker Movement she founded, all association is voluntary, so it really matters not at all when putative "followers" misrepresent Day for whatever reasons.  Let's hear Day:

Roosevelt will be elected on the platform of Cake and Circuses. During the depression years the relief checks flowed in, and now during the war years the government checks come regularly on the first of every month. The millions who are thus bought and paid for do not want any change. They are afraid of change. Mothers of six children cash their $180 stipend every month and go on a binge of department-store buying, movies, … candies, radio, and even sometimes a car. It’s amazing how much you can get in the way of luxury if you just do without the necessities. [Quoted in an article in the summer 1999 issue of the St. John’s Law Review.]

Ouch! Fairly standard anti-state, pro-freedom anarchist thought. Now let's hear from Tom Cornell, a writer for the Catholic Worker blog today:

No anarchist of sound mind holds either that government does not exist or ought not exist, etymology notwithstanding. Anarchists want more government, if that means the Department of Labor defending the right to organize, the Department of Agriculture helping to initiate producer cooperatives, sponsoring farm support and surplus food distribution programs, and much less government if it means the State Department, and the so-called Defense and Justice departments; more anti-trust legislation and enforcement, more environmental protection, more OSHA; immediate access to federal courts for every labor organizer punished for organizing. 

His blended definition of anarchist is wrong and right, an act of dishonest writing.    So any anarchist, such as Dorothy Day, cannot be of sound mind (unless they accept Cornell's crazy definition.)    Tom Cornell is flexible enough to say words do not mean what they mean (anarchy) and flexible enough to say "an entity with a monopoly on violence is OK as long as its policies reflect my personal preferences."  No wonder the Catholic worker movement has no appeal to people of good will.

There are plenty of people today who benefit personally saying "Well, when Jesus said this, what he really meant was..."

Cornell also has this to say in his essay:

Dorothy Day liked the shock value of the term "anarchist." 

You see, she was just a clown, going for cheap shock value.  A sort of Catholic Lenny Bruce.

I'd love to hear from Tom Cornell, on a particular topic.  Does he presently depend on government checks for his ... no check that, he is unlikely (from reading his writings) to be accurate...  does he receive any monetary compensation from the government?

And this is why we have no anti-war, pro-peace, pro-labor movement.  They've been bought off, just as Day described.

Happily there is no corporate "Catholic Worker Movement" so I am free to state without fear of contradiction that I am the Catholic Worker Movement in the USA, and the people associated with Tom Cornell and his website are not.  If you want real contemporary source of Catholic Worker thought and critique, grounded in the social teachings of the Catholic Church, I am the source.

I wonder if Dorothy Day would disagree with me?

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Better Times

It is important to the powers that be to murder leaders because they are an effective check as a moral conscience on their followers.  If King lived, he would be criticizing the vast left wing sellout to the right that occurred over the last 50 years.

Here at UCBerkeley in May 1967 was a real rally with a real person, Dr. King,  speaking accurately about the USA foreign policy, and its violence and crime.  Less than a year later USA soldiers were caught in one atrocity, My Lai, covered up for a while by Colin Powell.

It is a safe bet, without the guidance of Dr. King, probably every single person in that crowd is now enjoying a sinecure of some sort rooted in the violence of the USA state.  Like Colin Powell, American murder as foreign policy works for progressives, as long as the progressives get their booty from the violent state.  They do.  When USA borrows 46 cents out of every dollar, the lenders must be convinced they will be paid back.  USA military presence in 120 plus countries makes that credible.  There is enough for the left and right wing, hence their cooperation.


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The USS Ronald Reagan & Fukushima

The Aircraft Carrier USS Ronald Reagan deployed for a humanitarian mission off Fukushima and the results are horrifying:

“We joked about it: ‘Hey, it’s radioactive snow!’ ” Cooper recalled. “I took pictures and video.”
But now “my thyroid is so out of whack that I can lose 60 to 70 pounds in one month and then gain it back the next,” said Cooper, fighting tears. “My menstrual cycle lasts for six months at a time, and I cannot get pregnant. It’s ruined me.”
The fallout of those four days spent off the Fukushima coast has been tragic to many of the 5,000 sailors who were there.

Compounded ironies: a nuclear power plant fails and a nuclear powered aircraft carrier with nuclear bombs sails to the rescue where no one thought to turn on the radiation detection systems.

Well, another Achille's heel has just been demonstrated on aircraft carriers, and that is the ocean water uptake systems for the on-board de-salinization systems.

1. Get the state out of nuclear power.  They exempt operators from liability, which means they are operated in dangerous ways.  "Cheap" is not the only factor in cost.

2. We have aircraft carriers in the Pacific to protect our markets for nuclear power in places such as Japan.  Bring all our forces home and we'd have a better economic balance.

3. End the poverty draft.  Return to where the wealthy pay for an army they themselves raise.

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The Anarchist's Cook Book

I recall this title from my youth and giving it a once-over.  Something of a comic book.

Kings took their fear of the peace and prosperity inherent in having no king and attributed all violence to these people called anarchists.  To this day the idea of anarchists being violent is still prevalent.

One thing you must understand: if ever anyone in a group advocates violence, you can be sure that person is on the payroll of the state.

And the 19 year old who wanted to overthrow the system with violence, why today...:

But for William Powell, it’s also an opportunity, a chance to make the two chapters of his life into one. In the 40-plus years since he wrote "The Anarchist Cookbook," he has reinvented himself as an educator on the international stage, running a series of elite schools abroad, before settling in Malaysia. There he owns a teacher training center and writes books on pedagogy for the State Department.

Just so.

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Cop Impersonates Man, Rapes 19 Year Old

A police officer in uniform, on duty, rapes a 19 year old and gets a paid vacation.  The equipment in his car that would have caught him on tape was malfunctioning which often happens if filming police wrongdoing.

The police chief pretends to be outraged, when in fact this is selective firing.  It must be that this fellow is so odious that event he police don't want him.

Until every police department has an independent civilian review with the power to imprison wrongdoers, none of us are safe.   Cops will always claim a "few bad apples" but odd, it took them eleven years to notice a problem?

Without civilian review with the power to prosecute, it is a rotten core with a few bad apples to dress up the regime.

And what we are always told, just cooperate with the police, and you have nothing to fear.  If you are innocent, you have everything to fear from the police.  if you are guilty, you'll be protected.

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Sir, I Only Loaded the Jews on the Train

And as a good German, it is not up to me to ever question anyone else, or have curiosity about why we are a loading all of the Jews on trains.



The questions is not whether Obama is another Hitler, but whether any given American is any different than any given German.  The answer of course is no different.

The problem is allowing Governments to have power, because they will ALWAYS abuse it.

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How the Seattle Police Work

Here is a news report from last December.

On December 17, 2012 @ 10:12 pm -

A Seattle Police Department spokesman said a citizen reported a collision just after midnight Monday in the 5300 block of 1st Avenue South. The witness told police a woman was driving a Nissan Altima when she struck a light pole. She stopped the car and switched seats with a male passenger, who then drove off.
Police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said officers did an area check and found the Altima a few blocks away with noticeable front-end damage. It was parked two to three feet from the curb with the engine still running.
According to a police report, there was a strong smell of intoxicants coming from the vehicle.
Officers questioned the male occupant... When asked at the scene if he "felt buzzed," (he) replied "maybe." When asked if he should have been behind the wheel, he said "Probably not."
A breathalyzer test placed his blood alcohol level at .161, more than double the legal limit of .08.
The female occupant was also arrested for DUI/hit and run. Once in handcuffs, according to the report, she unleashed a curse-filled tirade that included several mentions of male genitalia. She repeatedly told officers she was "going to pee her pants."... had a blood alcohol level of .247.

Pretty routine:  stone cold drunk pair, serial hit and run, switch seats to fool the cops, combative when arrested, and so on.    This is why we have cops, to keep drunk drivers, hit and runners, off the streets.

O...  I left one thing out.  These two serial, lying combative hit and run drunk drivers are veteran police officers.  So while you would go to jail, if not executed for putting up a fight, they get a paid vacation.  They were taken to the quiet North Precinct 15 miles away, and not to the filthy downtown station two miles away.  Nonetheless, one cop remained combative, but she was not so much as handcuffed at the precinct.

Two veteran Seattle police officers are on paid administrative leave after being arrested on suspicion of a hit-and-run and driving under the influence early Monday morning.

No, you think they will go to jail, lose their jobs?

Officer Marie Gochnour pleaded guilty to reckless driving last Friday, The Seattle Times reports. 

...

The city would not normally offer a reduced charge for this type of case, according to Kimberly Mills, spokeswoman for the City Attorney’s Office. However, the city had significant proof problems, including not being able to locate the 911 caller for trial.

Odd that...  a concerned citizen who calls in a report of drunk drivers... disappears? Aha, so just disappear the witness, and all is well.  One thing is sure, when that witness learned it was cops he witnessed, time to disappear.

And release the story when everyone is out of town.

Seattle Police know they can gun down people with impunity, or more important, immunity, and do.  The first thing they hear after doing so is “You did the right thing.”

The Police have announced there will be DUI emphasis patrols this weekend.  If you are not a police officer, expect to be subject to the law.  Mouth off and see what happens to you.

Watch these cowards in action... there is a gunned down man dying on the sidewalk, and the one police officer asks the other police officer if the police officer is ok.  Here again, the police officer walks.





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Duplicity

Once there is a state, there are policies.  The policies necessarily advantage one group and disadvantage another.  We all love a system that works for us.  It is all too easy to view those for whom the policies are necessarily a disadvantage and object as somehow wrong.  "Why it works for me, what is wrong with you?"  Any explanation of what is wrong argues for elimination of privilege.  Such pleadings land on deaf ears.

We hear people praise the opportunity and freedom in USA.  Yes, if you are 21, white and free.  And you like capitalism.  If you do not care for capitalism, being 21, white and free does you no good.

There are people inside and outside of the USA who are on the losing end of policy.  Most people just live and let live, work around it, or accept that there has never been a time in history when there was not some injustice to bear.  Some people get violent about it, and only make matters worse.  The most common reason it gets worse is the violent people do not want change, they only want to be in charge.

States exploit other state policies by fomenting and financing minority resistance.  And here a wicked pattern plays out.  Before USA invaded Iraq, we encouraged the Southern Arabs and Kurds in the North to rise up against Saddam, promising aid from USA.  We did not provide it.  The strongest best opposition to Saddam was wiped out.  Later, when we invaded Iraq again, the strongest best opposition to oppression was wiped out. Invasion was easier for us.  This pattern plays out again and again.

When the nazis were on the ropes, the Soviets encouraged the Poles to rise up against the nazis in Warsaw and elsewhere.  The soviets promised to support the uprising.  The cream of Poland's youth rose up.  The Soviets withheld support.  The cream of Poland's youth was wiped out by the Nazis.  When the Soviets later rolled in, there was little to resist the move.

The damage being done around the world by the wars the USA started in the Middle East over a decade ago, and the new ones popping up, are not problems for me to solve.  Fixing the problem belongs to those who created the problem, brought the problem into existence, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz, the Bushes, etc, and now that they are out of the picture, their assigns.

Now we can say it is up to those who foment such damage to sort it out, make it right, that such wickedness is not down to us.  Not quite right, since the policies benefit us, in the forms of rare materials we mulct from the Congo for our cell phones, the oil, the creativity of mexican genius we draw out of Mexico, etc.  We all benefit so we cannot quite escape complicity.

We need to restructure the polity so there is not the leverage for so few to bring all 350 million Americans along for the ride.  Step one is to eliminate the standing army.  We had no such thing until after the Civil War.  We would do well to rid ourselves of it again.



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Why We Need No Police

In theory, practice and history we see there is no reason to have police.  Less common is an explanation of the alternatives.  Here is one of very many:


Detroit makes an interesting contrast to Washington, DC.  Detroit has a murder rate (2011) or 48 per 100,000, Washington DC 21 per 100,000.  They have similar gun laws, so what is the difference?  Gentrification.  If the peninsula upon which Detroit resides becomes a free market polity, under a "one country, two systems" regime, then gentrification can come to the city with its attendant benefits.

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We Are All African American Now

Last night at SFO, where all lines feed through the Rapescan, I as I have done before say I loudly and clearly, " I will not go through that machine"

"Male opt out!"  and  "Please stand there."

"I will not stand there because I cannot see my bags."

"umm...ok...stand where you can see your bags."

The from behind me, "I will not go through that machine..."

"Umm... ok  "Male opt on two."

And then another... "I will not go through that machine..."

"Make opt out on three!"

I got a triple!

Anyway, my ticket to where I want to go in TSA is in relation to my bags.

"Those bags are not leaving my sight!"

"Um... ok..."

TSA folds when you demand to keep your bags in sight.  Remember what Alinsky pointed out, just follow their rules.  Assiduously.

AS I am being "stopped and frisked" I assume the attitude of ennui I saw in so many people of some African heritage over the years on the streets of USA, who were being harassed for no reason whatsoever.    I never said anything then, so what goes around comes around.  We are all of African heritage now in USA.

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Conscientious Objection and Cheese

I bought a $10 4 oz chunk of goat cheese at a San Mateo farmers market Saturday.  I asked if was raw milk cheese, and she said no way, not in California, it is pasteurized.  Sigh.  Even Washington state lets Goats milk go by raw.  She said "well, we could, but... regs, licensing, inspections..." and I don't doubt that.

I also do not doubt that last thing she would allow is any of her customers to get sick.  A friend pointed out that all of these e coli and other disasters come from big houses which cannot control, for sheer volume, for these things.  To do so effectively, the farm has to be small.

I have no science to back this up, but my sense is I eat better nutritionally, although consume less product, when I pay the extra for the better food.  Now, I read recently the science is the benefit claims of "organic" are bogus.  I don't doubt that, but the problem is the definition of "organic" not in the benefit of better food.

I too want to see small farms thrive.  But as Earl Butz said, the ag policy of USA is "get big or get out." And so it seems.  What to do?  States back off in the face of conscientious objection.  it is the state policies that are holding small ag back.  Wouldn't a conscientious objection movement in ag advance food freedom?

We Are Different

When Germany occupied the Channel Islands in WWII, the British behaved like occupied peoples everywhere.  They obeyed orders and got rid of all of the Jews.





The legacy of the occupation is a tourist draw on the islands, and many people have fond memories to share.

We are not like them.  Are we?

Gates Foundation Monitors Vaccination Objectors

One problem with capitalism is it protects a personal accumulation of assets out of proportion to effort.  Once this massive accumulation takes place, the putatively wealthy can pursue private agendas.  For Bill Gates, it is involuntary medicine.

What soap box doctors fail to mention is disease outbreak is associated with war.  Diseases jump up when the general population's immunity system is compromised given the privations of war.

If we got rid of war, there would be no need for immunizations, vaccinations, inoculations.

Of course we will not end war, so should we have immunizations, vaccinations, inoculations?  Absolutely, but never, ever trust the state to guard your health.  Let there be a free market in immunizations, vaccinations, inoculations, and we will have the right amount at the right place at the right time.  Don't be a Tuskegee victim, never trust any public health officer.

A Gaffe - Accidentally Telling the Truth

Biden

Obama