Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Madison, London, San Francisco, Athens. All of these places have been the scene of public uprisings and social unrest during the last six months. All of the social unrest has one thing in common, something that most of those in power would like you to ignore. That is that in all of these cases, the leading cause of the unrest was the increasing and alarming disparity between the incomes of the wealthiest percentage of the populace and the vast majority of the common people.
In cases such as Tunisia, Egypt and Libya the unrest led to revolution and the unseating of the corrupt dictators that perpetuated a society in which the majority of the population was kept in both economic and political bondage for the benefit of the political leadership and its friends. In Athens and London the unrest led to mass rioting, violence and looting. In San Francisco and Madison, the protests were smaller and more peaceful, but both the cause and the State's impulse to quell the unrest were the same.
There was little attention paid to the role that economic disparity played in the "Arab Spring." However, much of the unrest that led to the uprisings against governments throughout the Arab world was led in great part by the unsustainable economic conditions which left many workers, especially workers who were young and educated, without any chance at a meaningful and prosperous future. This hopelessness combined with the unveiling of the abject corruption in the leadership of these nations exposed by the WikiLeaks document dumps, was the key cause of the uprisings causing (so far) the governments of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to fall.
In London, the government and media went out of their way to portray the youth rioting for several nights as mindless criminals and thugs out to have their fun destroying property and stealing. The leadership responded overwhelmingly by issuing harsh sentences for relatively petty crimes (one youth was sentenced to 6 months in prison for stealing a $10 bottle of wine) and suspended sentencing guidelines in order to allow judges to impose even stiffer penalties to these defendants than would normally be allowed by law in order to deal with this criminal element. Of course, they ignored or dismissed arguments that these riots had anything to do with the harsh austerity programs imposed by the Cameron government, or the high levels of youth unemployment, or the response to the corruption within the Cameron regime exposed by the hacking scandal of Rupert Murdoch which involves high level members of Cameron's government.
The fact is that the youth in London were acting no differently than the bankers in the institutions that were bailed out by Cameron and his cohorts throughout Europe and the United States. The only difference was in scale (the bankers looted trillions of dollars from investors and central banks who were all to glad to bail them out once the bottom fell out of the economy whereas the rioters took mainly small ticket items) and status (the highly connected, highly paid, highly educated bankers were portrayed very differently by the leadership and the media than the youth taking part in the rioting and looting).
The fact that social networking sites such as Facebook were used by rioters to communicate (as was the case in the uprisings throughout the Middle East) caused the Cameron government to look for ways to limit access to such sites including blocking internet access during the riots, a tactic that was widely criticized when used by governments in Egypt and Syria prior to these uprisings, and subsequently used by BART police to quell protests in San Francisco.
But the fact is, that it wasn't Facebook or the Internet that led to the uprisings or unrest. And denying access to such sites will not address the issues that led to the uprisings and unrest. What the Cameron government and the leadership in the U.S. is failing to see is that the unrest is being caused by a broken system wherein criminal activity by the rich and powerful is rewarded and even encouraged by the government who creates laws to make such criminal activity easier and reaps the benefits of it while at the same time making it harder and harder on those that make up the vast majority of society who are finding it more difficult every day just to keep their heads above water.
Don't think it can happen here? The United States reached the highest level of income disparity in its history in 2009 -- even higher than in the midst of the Great Depression, this according to the most recent Census results. The ratio of youth employment (the percentage of non-institutionalized persons between the ages of 16-24) last month reached its lowest point in history -- 44.8%. Congress and the President have passed spending cuts which will further disaffect millions of Americans as services and benefits on which they rely are reduced or cut off entirely. At the same time, the Obama Administration is seeking to push settlements with the TBTF banks which would amount to less than a slap on the wrist for all of the illegal and fraudulent activity in which these banks engaged leading to the economic collapse of 2008, while at the same time delaying the implementation of reforms and regulations required under the anemic Dodd-Frank Bill which would help to prevent future such abuses. Aided by Supreme Court decisions granting corporations First Amendment protection, political campaigns are being flooded with corporate donations dwarfing anything that could ever possibly come from common citizens all being made with the understanding that those politicians receiving the funds will do everything in their power to further enrich their corporate donors.
The United States is ripe for severe social unrest. We are already seeing the first signs of this, not just in protests like in Madison and San Francisco, but in outbreaks of mass violence in Charlotte, Kansas City, Philadelphia and other major cities across the nation in the last few months. 2012 presents itself as the year in which the U.S. could see widespread and violent social unrest on a level we have not seen in decades, if ever. While our leaders ask "Why?" and seek to quell the spread of violence through the use of tougher laws, greater criminal sentences and the repression of social media, I will be sitting back and reminding them "It's the income disparity, stupid." Until that is addressed, we will continue to see the unraveling of our society economically, socially and morally.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Bill O'Reilly is a Sociopath
A sociopath is commonly defined as one who entirely lacks a sense of empathy.
Bill O'Reilly fits that description to a T.
After the self-described evangelical Christian Anders Breivik bombed the offices of the leading political party in Norway and then inexplicably murdered dozens of young boys and girls attending a summer camp sponsored by that same political party, O'Reilly went apoplectic even by his standards. What made O'Reilly upset was not Breivik's actions but the fact that the "media" kept reporting that Breivik was a Christian.
According to O'Reilly it was impossible that Breivik could be a Christian because a Christian would never commit mass murder. File this under the same O'Reilly philosophy that explained the proof of the existence of a Supreme Being as "tide goes in, tide goes out."
Never mind the undeniable fact that throughout the last 2000 years there have been multiple and repeated examples of Christians committing mass murder (just take for some of the not so controversial examples, the Conquistadors in what is now the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico, the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts and the Spanish Inquisition to name a few). The worst thing about O'Reilly's outrage isn't the logical and factual fallacy of his point of view, it is the fact that he would fail to see the obvious parallels of this radical evangelical's twisting of Christian teachings to his own violent ends and the same actions by radical evangelical Muslims who do the same with their religion.
Imagine that it is 2001. You are a Muslim man living in a quiet American neighborhood with a wife and kids, working hard at your job, being active in your community and doing your best to be a good American and a good Muslim. Suddenly because of the actions of a small group of radicals who claim to speak for your religion, you are demonized in your own community, treated with suspicion everywhere you go, your allegiance to your own nation is questioned and your religion is smeared night after night after night by people like Bill O'Reilly who do everything in their power to portray you and everyone who believes in your religion to be an enemy of the state. During the next 10 years, people in elected positions start questioning your right to be able to practice your religion openly, the simplest things such as building a place of worship in your community are met with vocal opposition and even violence, Congressional hearings are convened about the growing problem of American Muslims, you hear terms like Islamist, Islamo-fascist and Sharia law start to seep into the everyday language of our media. And of course those who are spreading this hysteria for their own political gains know absolutely nothing about your religion, but are simply passing on narrow negative stereotypes which bear little if any relation to reality.
How would you feel?
Perhaps the same way Bill O'Reilly felt when met with just the fact that this Norwegian terrorist had adopted a warped version of Christianity that reflected badly on O'Reilly's view of his religion?
Of course, if Bill O'Reilly had the least bit of empathy he might have used this as an opportunity to attempt to understand what millions of Muslims in the United States and across the world felt in response to the small percentage of their religion who would use it to spread violence and hate. If O'Reilly had one ounce of simple basic human understanding, he could perhaps take his argument about Breivik not representing the views and actions of the vast majority of Christians to the next logical step of seeing that Al Qaeda and the other radical Muslim terrorists did not represent the true teachings of Islam or the beliefs of the vast majority of Muslims across the planet. If Bill O'Reilly wasn't a sociopath, he might have used this as an opportunity to spread understanding instead of fear.
But, that's not Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly is a sociopath. Not only did O'Reilly castigate the media for portraying (accurately, mind you) Breivik as a radical evangelical Christian, but in turn used it to further attack Muslims. Of course he was only furthering the party line of Fox News and News Corp. in general. This could be seen by the media giant's take on the Norway attack from the get go. The Daily Mail's headline the day of the attack put in above the information about the bombing and shooting in Norway in quotation marks "Al Qaeda Attack". On Fox News Channel they would present stories about Congressional hearings on Homegrown Jihadists and use them to transition into stories about Norway's homegrown terrorist, giving the impression that he was somehow a Jihadist rather than someone who was inspired to his violence by his perception that Norway was becoming too accepting of Muslims and other non-Christians.
Of course, I have not heard a single person in the media or elsewhere claim that Anders Breivik in any way, shape or form represented the views or actions of mainstream Christianity or even a large group of Christians. It was obvious to everyone that Breivik was a very disturbed individual who represented a very small and very misguided group of Christianity that in no way represented what a vast, vast majority of Christians believe.
If only Bill O'Reilly would stop saying that Muslim terrorists represent the mainstream views of Islam.
Of course, that would mean that he wasn't a sociopath. And he truly is.
Bill O'Reilly fits that description to a T.
After the self-described evangelical Christian Anders Breivik bombed the offices of the leading political party in Norway and then inexplicably murdered dozens of young boys and girls attending a summer camp sponsored by that same political party, O'Reilly went apoplectic even by his standards. What made O'Reilly upset was not Breivik's actions but the fact that the "media" kept reporting that Breivik was a Christian.
According to O'Reilly it was impossible that Breivik could be a Christian because a Christian would never commit mass murder. File this under the same O'Reilly philosophy that explained the proof of the existence of a Supreme Being as "tide goes in, tide goes out."
Never mind the undeniable fact that throughout the last 2000 years there have been multiple and repeated examples of Christians committing mass murder (just take for some of the not so controversial examples, the Conquistadors in what is now the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico, the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts and the Spanish Inquisition to name a few). The worst thing about O'Reilly's outrage isn't the logical and factual fallacy of his point of view, it is the fact that he would fail to see the obvious parallels of this radical evangelical's twisting of Christian teachings to his own violent ends and the same actions by radical evangelical Muslims who do the same with their religion.
Imagine that it is 2001. You are a Muslim man living in a quiet American neighborhood with a wife and kids, working hard at your job, being active in your community and doing your best to be a good American and a good Muslim. Suddenly because of the actions of a small group of radicals who claim to speak for your religion, you are demonized in your own community, treated with suspicion everywhere you go, your allegiance to your own nation is questioned and your religion is smeared night after night after night by people like Bill O'Reilly who do everything in their power to portray you and everyone who believes in your religion to be an enemy of the state. During the next 10 years, people in elected positions start questioning your right to be able to practice your religion openly, the simplest things such as building a place of worship in your community are met with vocal opposition and even violence, Congressional hearings are convened about the growing problem of American Muslims, you hear terms like Islamist, Islamo-fascist and Sharia law start to seep into the everyday language of our media. And of course those who are spreading this hysteria for their own political gains know absolutely nothing about your religion, but are simply passing on narrow negative stereotypes which bear little if any relation to reality.
How would you feel?
Perhaps the same way Bill O'Reilly felt when met with just the fact that this Norwegian terrorist had adopted a warped version of Christianity that reflected badly on O'Reilly's view of his religion?
Of course, if Bill O'Reilly had the least bit of empathy he might have used this as an opportunity to attempt to understand what millions of Muslims in the United States and across the world felt in response to the small percentage of their religion who would use it to spread violence and hate. If O'Reilly had one ounce of simple basic human understanding, he could perhaps take his argument about Breivik not representing the views and actions of the vast majority of Christians to the next logical step of seeing that Al Qaeda and the other radical Muslim terrorists did not represent the true teachings of Islam or the beliefs of the vast majority of Muslims across the planet. If Bill O'Reilly wasn't a sociopath, he might have used this as an opportunity to spread understanding instead of fear.
But, that's not Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly is a sociopath. Not only did O'Reilly castigate the media for portraying (accurately, mind you) Breivik as a radical evangelical Christian, but in turn used it to further attack Muslims. Of course he was only furthering the party line of Fox News and News Corp. in general. This could be seen by the media giant's take on the Norway attack from the get go. The Daily Mail's headline the day of the attack put in above the information about the bombing and shooting in Norway in quotation marks "Al Qaeda Attack". On Fox News Channel they would present stories about Congressional hearings on Homegrown Jihadists and use them to transition into stories about Norway's homegrown terrorist, giving the impression that he was somehow a Jihadist rather than someone who was inspired to his violence by his perception that Norway was becoming too accepting of Muslims and other non-Christians.
Of course, I have not heard a single person in the media or elsewhere claim that Anders Breivik in any way, shape or form represented the views or actions of mainstream Christianity or even a large group of Christians. It was obvious to everyone that Breivik was a very disturbed individual who represented a very small and very misguided group of Christianity that in no way represented what a vast, vast majority of Christians believe.
If only Bill O'Reilly would stop saying that Muslim terrorists represent the mainstream views of Islam.
Of course, that would mean that he wasn't a sociopath. And he truly is.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Dreams Deferred
I'm going to do something a little unusual in this post. I'm going to talk just a little bit about my job as a prosecutor. Specifically about the thing that bothers me the most in my job. It's not what you think. You would think that it would be seeing hardened criminals beat their charges or the destruction that victims of crime suffer in their lives as a result of the crimes perpetrated against them, but it's not. The worst part of my job is seeing young men and women constantly come through the court system throwing away any chance they had at a successful life all for what is in the best case a fleeting benefit.
Most of those we see come through the court system fit into a pretty common pattern. Most of them drop out of school usually around the 10th grade. Almost all of them have single parent homes, if that. Many of them have parents and other family members who have been to prison. It is not surprising that most of these young people end up wearing an orange jumpsuit, sometimes it seems they are almost destined for it.
However, today I was struck by two young men -- boys really -- both of whom had thrown their futures away for some short term gratification. Unlike most of those that we see, both of these young men had been given a clear path out of the dead end future facing so many of our youth in our impoverished locale. One had graduated from high school where he had excelled in football, earning a scholarship to North Carolina A&T, where he dropped out after one year to return to the same streets from which he had escaped and now had been caught selling drugs. The other had been a good student at his high school, earning honor roll awards and had been a member of his school's ROTC program. Instead of taking advantage of the path to success that all of those combined had, he instead broke into an occupied home late at night earning him a first degree burglary charge and an almost certain trip to a long prison sentence.
I once heard that the only thing awaiting young high school graduates in rural Southern towns were the three "M's" -- marriage, military or mill. Now the mills are all closed, the military is becoming more and more selective the worse the economy gets and it seems that nobody gets married these days. The three M's have been replaced by the three "P's" -- prison, pregnancy and pharmaceuticals. We are slashing spending on education on both the Federal and State levels. Class sizes are growing. Good teachers are being laid off and many who dreamed of going into the profession are finding the school doors closed to them as there are no jobs for them.
When you look at everything that is wrong with our educational system, you can almost understand why selling drugs are burglarizing residences may seem like a reasonable career move for young people. We cannot continue this trend.
I don't come here with answers, only questions. What can we do to provide a brighter future for our youth? What can we do to get these young people to realize that there is more for them than prison, than crime, than dead ends? All of our children are worth better than what we are giving them.
I'm tired of seeing kids who once had a future being sent off to prison because they can't see their own worth or their own path to success. Let's as a community do more to help them before they are standing on the opposite side of the courtroom from me.
Most of those we see come through the court system fit into a pretty common pattern. Most of them drop out of school usually around the 10th grade. Almost all of them have single parent homes, if that. Many of them have parents and other family members who have been to prison. It is not surprising that most of these young people end up wearing an orange jumpsuit, sometimes it seems they are almost destined for it.
However, today I was struck by two young men -- boys really -- both of whom had thrown their futures away for some short term gratification. Unlike most of those that we see, both of these young men had been given a clear path out of the dead end future facing so many of our youth in our impoverished locale. One had graduated from high school where he had excelled in football, earning a scholarship to North Carolina A&T, where he dropped out after one year to return to the same streets from which he had escaped and now had been caught selling drugs. The other had been a good student at his high school, earning honor roll awards and had been a member of his school's ROTC program. Instead of taking advantage of the path to success that all of those combined had, he instead broke into an occupied home late at night earning him a first degree burglary charge and an almost certain trip to a long prison sentence.
I once heard that the only thing awaiting young high school graduates in rural Southern towns were the three "M's" -- marriage, military or mill. Now the mills are all closed, the military is becoming more and more selective the worse the economy gets and it seems that nobody gets married these days. The three M's have been replaced by the three "P's" -- prison, pregnancy and pharmaceuticals. We are slashing spending on education on both the Federal and State levels. Class sizes are growing. Good teachers are being laid off and many who dreamed of going into the profession are finding the school doors closed to them as there are no jobs for them.
When you look at everything that is wrong with our educational system, you can almost understand why selling drugs are burglarizing residences may seem like a reasonable career move for young people. We cannot continue this trend.
I don't come here with answers, only questions. What can we do to provide a brighter future for our youth? What can we do to get these young people to realize that there is more for them than prison, than crime, than dead ends? All of our children are worth better than what we are giving them.
I'm tired of seeing kids who once had a future being sent off to prison because they can't see their own worth or their own path to success. Let's as a community do more to help them before they are standing on the opposite side of the courtroom from me.
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