I met Sgt. Shamar Thomas at the rally against Police Brutality on 10/22/11 in Union Square, New York City. This was right after his famous rant against the NYPD had gone viral. Sgt. Thomas served 14 months in Iraq and the war has been going on so long both his parents served there as well but when he came home and saw how the police were treating United States citizens, well; let's just say he lost it.
"This is not a war zone. These are unarmed people. It doesn't make you tough to hurt these people. You want to fight? Go to Iraq and Afghanistan. Leave these people alone. They are U.S. citizens. Why are you doing this to our people? They don't have guns. How do you sleep at night? There is no honor in this, etc."
Across our nation our police forces have been turned into Para military units complete with tanks, tasers, riot gear, sound guns, machine guns, mace, etc. And they are using this force against unarmed, nonviolent protesters. I realize not all police are guilty of this but what does it say about a system of government that allows this violence to occur? What is the difference between Hitler's SS storm troopers and our militarized police forces? This unchecked violence will only escalate.
The amount of mace
blasting from their canisters looks like the fire hoses that were turned against
the Civil Rights protesters in the south in the 60's. However, in the 60's they had Robert Kennedy, the Attorney
General to deal with. Kennedy
demanded these racist actions be stopped and when the Governors, Mayors and
police chiefs ignored him he sent in the National Guard to stop the violence
Obama condemns the use of violence in Egypt while remaining mute here at home and allowing these types of actions to go on right here under his nose. By not speaking out against these atrocities, Obama, Bloomberg, Pisti Basile (UC Davis), Mayor Jean Quan (Oakland), whomever are complicit with these actions and like we said in the 60's, "If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem."
Do these recent violent
events reveal the true state of our country? Are we now a police state ruled by the oligarchy at the
expense of the many to protect the few? These oligarchs, the 1%, along with the
blessings of many of our bought off elected officials, as it turns out, have
systematically been hollowing out America from the inside for the past 50
years.
Both Democrats and Republicans it seems have been more than willing to sell America's future out from under us. Corporate welfare has spiraled out of control and many of our largest corporations do not pay taxes and in fact receive millions back from our government: GE, Bank of America, AIG, and Citicorp, to name a few.
Taxes for millionaires/billionaires
have diminished from 91% under Eisenhower, when America was at her zenith, to
70% under Nixon, to 50% under Reagan, to their current lowest point under Bush
and then Obama extended the tax cuts for the rich. Clinton sold American's NAFTA by assuring us this
would be great for creating jobs.
Unfortunately, he failed to mention those jobs would be created
overseas. Clinton also deregulated
Wall Street by killing the Glass-Steagall Act, which was put into place in 1933
after the stock mark crash to protect us from that ever happening again and
sure enough without these regulations the banks went about the business of
gambling with our money and caused the global meltdown of 2008, which we still
have not recovered from
The too big to fail banks are now larger than ever and the limp bank regulations have done absolutely nothing to change that or rein in their salacious behavior. It's all smoke and mirrors. So while hundreds of protesters are beaten, maced, and arrested the bankers go about business as usual. And then there's the proverbial icing on the cake, Citizen's United. Our Supreme Court anointed corporations personhood thus allowing unbridled and undisclosed amounts of cash to further bribe and corrupt already compromised politicians.
Let's be honest our
system is rotten to the core and our elected officials being only human are no
longer serving us: homes
foreclosed on or underwater, jobs sent overseas, students bridled with school
loan debt, pensions and savings stolen and now they're trying to kill Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
So out of sheer desperation, with no where else to turn, we've finally
taken to the streets to stand up against our incarceration and say enough is
enough.
The powers that be have no ideas. No answers. Their system is dead and only comes to search, seek and destroy. They are afraid and have decided to fight back with the only thing they know. Violence.
Obama is not a
president. I don't believe we've
had a real president since JFK and we all know what happened to him. Obama is a brand that was put in place
after the Bush brand collapsed. I
believe Obama is the Trojan horse put in office to do what no Republican could
have gotten away with and that is to take all our rights and social safety nets
away in the name of austerity and balanced budgets. But his "hope and change"
brand is collapsing around him.
They only thing keeping him afloat are fear of the crazy Republicans.
And as long as money is the name of the game and elections cost outrageous amounts of cash (Obama needs to raise $1 billion) a mere politician is left with no alternative but to serve his corporate puppet masters and when things get rough best to leave the country or beat the drums for war with Iran. Well, sure why not. It worked twice before. Why not again? The Occupy Wall Street movement isn't going away so the powers that be pull their trump card. War should distract us. No matter there's no evidence for it. It's WMD's all over again and the corporate media or propaganda machine is more then willing to pick up the lies and run with them. This way when American's aren't numbing out on "Dancing With the Stars" or some other mindless entertainment they can be afraid. Fear is how they control us. It's the oldest trick in the book. The Russians used it in the 50's and now the U.S. uses it.
Throughout history
all totalitarian regimes have eventually turned on their own citizens. The violence always comes home to roost
but like Gandhi said,
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win."
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