How can we Progressive/Populists Answer this...I have No Idea:

[KoKo]

Murder Their Constituents

by BAR Executive editor-- Glen Ford


“The Black Panther Party was right all along: in Black America, the police are an occupation army.”

In the wake of events in Ferguson, Missouri, the Obama administration has been exposed as the biggest supplier – more like “pusher” – of military equipment to local and state police departments in the nation’s history. The president’s operatives have displayed remarkable creativity in finding ways to shovel record quantities of weapons, vehicles and gear into the hands of cops, who seem increasingly anxious to prove their killing skills.

More than a year before Michael Brown was extrajudicially executed on the street at high noon, the Huffington Post’s Radley Balko described how Obama has left no rock unturned nor federal agency untapped in his quest to transform every police department into a military unit, ready in an instant to do battle with – whom?

We know whom: Black people, mainly young and male, America’s public enemy number one ever since the white settler nation began running out of natives to kill. No sooner had official apartheid ended, in the Sixties, than white society demanded the imposition of what Michelle Alexander calls the New Jim Crow – a mass Black Incarceration State capable of waging constant, preemptive counterinsurgency warfare against an entire people. The Black Panther Party was right all along: in Black America, the police are an occupation army. Obama, like his predecessors, has simply been taking care of the troops.

The same goes for the Congressional Black Caucus, the vast majority of whose members voted against an amendment that would have halted Pentagon military transfers to U.S. police departments, back in the early summer. Had the Black people of Ferguson not stood up – and stayed standing – demanding justice for Michael Brown, the June 19 vote on Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson’s amendment might have remained largely unnoted.

Instead, in the glare of popular outrage, four-fifths of the Caucus has been revealed as vile hypocrites and traitors who put battlefield weapons and human rights-suppressing equipment in the hands of local cops. These Treasonous 32 – 27 “Nay” votes and 5 abstentions, out of 40 – can never be forgiven, and should be denounced and shamed at every opportunity, starting with this month’s CBC Legislative Conference and celebrate-good-times-for-the-few party, in Washington.


“Four-fifths of the Caucus has been revealed as vile hypocrites and traitors who put battlefield weapons and human rights-suppressing equipment in the hands of local cops.”

Congressman Grayson, the white liberal, spoke with compelling insight and honesty, but failed to sway the 32 CBC miscreants. “These weapons are not being used to defeat terrorism on our streets,” he said. “Where is the terrorism on our streets? Instead, these weapons are being used to arrest barbers and to terrorize the general population. In fact, one may venture to say that the weapons are often used by a majority to terrorize a minority.”

Much More from "Black Agenda Report:"

http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14414?page=807

[sabrina 1]

1. How do we answer it? The way Grayson did imo. When something is true, unless you have some agenda,

the best thing to do is admit it.

I did not however, know about this, but assume it is true:

The same goes for the Congressional Black Caucus, the vast majority of whose members voted against an amendment that would have halted Pentagon military transfers to U.S. police departments, back in the early summer.

That is shameful. Is there there something in the water in DC that transforms elected officials into Corporate/MIC tools as soon as they get there?

Or is it just plain old money?

[woo me with science]

3. I think that's the answer.

Be explicit about the central role of corporate money in all of it.

It's simple, it's intuitive, it's evident, it's provable, and it's the truth.

And getting the corrupting influence of corporate money out has to be the very center of any platform. It's about returning representation to the people.

[sabrina 1]

4. Yes, I really don't see any point in 'beating around the bush' anymore.

Removing the corrupting influence of money from our political system should be at the top of the list of things to do.

However, it is probably the most difficult task to do considering how much of it is flowing into every campaign.

There has to be a way, there always is a solution.

I think the process has begun by voters themselves simply refusing to continue to 'buy' the process anymore.

But that is only half the solution.

Voters need candidates they can FOR also. Clearly in 2010 and 2014 they did not have a choice, they simply refused to again vote for those they believe do not represent them.

They did, however, vote for Progressive issues on local Ballots.

So, imo, there is move on the part of voters to 'say no' to Corporate Candidates. Their support for Progressive Issues seems to say that IF they had candidates who support those issues, locally, they would vote for them.

There is a vacuum that hasn't yet been filled.

Step one seems to be to stop donating to Corporate funded Candidates and their pacs, to political parties, and redirect that money to candidates the party will not support, who DO represent the people.

To some extent, people have been doing that but not enough people.

[L0oniX]

6. Got to be money. Buy MIC stocks and pay less income tax. It becomes obvious when they get there.

Control the tax rate for your own investments and push for the goals of your MIC buddies to see your stock value increase. Most everyone is in on it but they have to play good cop bad cop to distract us from what they mostly all are doing.

We are and have been voting for rich people who are backed and funded by more rich people. We know that money corrupts the majority of those who have way more than they need so they mostly all become greedy and play their games of power. After you get enough money it does turn into a game of power ...and I have been told that personally by a few rich people ...and I have seen it happen ...with my own ...mother.

[sabrina 1]

8. I wish it wasn't true, but the accumulation of money seems to become almost like a drug to some

people. And when they get into the billions of dollars range, it is probably a hopeless addiction by then for which they will do anything to get their fix, or hold on to their stash, regardless of who gets hurt.

[demwing]

2. Kicked & Rec'd /nt

[L0oniX]

5. K & R ..and a high 5 to Grayson.

[rhett o rick]

7. K&R Thanks for posting KoKo. nm