[Diarist’s Note: This is the first post in a three-part series on articles of note that have appeared online over the past 48-72 hours. The stunning similarities between these three pieces speak for themselves. Part II is linked here: “New York City: Aggressive ‘Broken Windows’ Policing but Carte Blanche for Banksters,” Bill Black, New Economic Perspectives Blog (12/6/14). And, Part III is accessible here: "State Terrorism and Racist Violence in the Age of Disposability: From Emmett Till to Eric Garner," Henry A. Giroux, Truthout, (12/5/14).]
As Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi notes it in, “The Police in America Are Becoming Illegitimate,” (and as University of Missouri at Kansas City economics and law Professor Bill Black and McMaster University communications and cultural studies Professor Henry Giroux have also commented about it, this weekend) it took a century-and-a-half after the conclusion of America’s Civil War (and countless thousands of unreported and underreported murders of people of color by America’s status quo in the interim) and the local police murders of an 18-year-old kid walking down a street in suburban St. Louis and a guy selling “loosies” on the streets of Staten Island, among many other outrages, to shine the brightest of lights on the brutal, institutionalized realities of our three-track society, and of the overarching theme of institutionalized racism that runs rampant throughout it.
In this chapter, Matt Taibbi looks at the murder of Eric Garner and refers to his book, “The Divide,” much like economist Simon Johnson did back in 2009 and 2010, in his seminal essays on our country’s Quiet Coup, and our Two-Track Economy; and, like so many others, including Black and Giroux over this past weekend, all of them have written about our two-track justice system. All accurately observe that there’s the uber-wealthy, and then there’s everyone else. However, the reality—as the actions, underlined by the police-shootings and arrest statistics of most local, U.S. police departments will confirm it--is we live in an institutionally racist, three-track society: there’s the one percent, the upper-middle and lower-middle classes, and the poor (the majority of whom happen to be “conveniently” comprised of people of color).
As Giroux succinctly puts it:
…The larger reasons behind Eric Garner's execution seem to be missed by most commentators. The issue is not simply police misconduct, or racist acts of police brutality, however deadly, but the growing use of systemic terror of the sort we associate with Hannah Arendt's notion of totalitarianism that needs to be explored.
When fear and terror become the organizing principles of a society in which the tyranny of the state has been replaced by the despotism of an unaccountable market, violence becomes the only valid form of control. The system has not failed. As Jeffrey St. Clair has pointed out, it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, which is to punish those it considers dangerous or disposable - which increasingly includes more and more individuals and groups. Hannah Arendt was right in arguing that, "If lawfulness is the essence of non-tyrannical government and lawlessness is the essence of tyranny, then terror is the essence of totalitarian domination…" (1)
The Police in America Are Becoming Illegitimate
The crooked math that's going to crash American law enforcement if policies aren't changed
By Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
December 5, 2014
Nobody's willing to say it yet. But after Ferguson, and especially after the Eric Garner case that exploded in New York yesterday after yet another non-indictment following a minority death-in-custody, the police suddenly have a legitimacy problem in this country.
Black Lives Matter: 11 Police Killings With No Justice
Law-enforcement resources are now distributed so unevenly, and justice is being administered with such brazen inconsistency, that people everywhere are going to start questioning the basic political authority of law enforcement. And they're mostly going to be right to do it, and when they do, it's going to create problems that will make the post-Ferguson unrest seem minor.
The Garner case was a perfect symbol of everything that's wrong with the proactive police tactics that are now baseline policy in most inner cities…
Now, I’m NOT going to reiterate everything the guy’s written in his relatively brief essay over at RS, a couple of days ago, but I will say it’s a “must-read.”
Taibbi walks us through the moments that led up to Garner’s murder, but he goes light years beyond that as he references the systemic issues and failed policies throughout New York City policing and the pathetic court system that supports it.
He notes…
…the psychic impact of these policies on the massive pool of everyone else in the target neighborhoods is a rising sense of being seriously pissed off. They're tired of being manhandled and searched once a week or more for riding bikes the wrong way down the sidewalk (about 25,000 summonses a year here in New York), smoking in the wrong spot, selling loosies, or just "obstructing pedestrian traffic," a.k.a. walking while black.
This is exactly what you hear Eric Garner complaining about in the last moments of his life. "Every time you see me, you want to mess with me," he says. "It stops today!"
This is the part white Middle American news audiences aren't hearing about these stories…
…
… the real issue is almost always the hundreds of police interactions that take place before that single spotlight moment, the countless aggravations large and small that pump up the rage gland over time...
Meanwhile…
…A ferry ride away from Staten Island, on Wall Street, the pure unmolested freedom to fleece whoever you want is considered the sacred birthright of every rake with a briefcase.
If Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon had come up with the concept of selling loosies, they'd go to their graves defending it as free economic expression that "creates liquidity" and should never be regulated…
But, as you’ll realize it once you read his latest post, as far as his “money quotes” are concerned, Taibbi’s just getting warmed-up!
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