I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color.
– Assata Shakur
Despite being disproven as a strategy for reducing crime, the broken windows policing theory is still utilized in New York and throughout in the United States to crack down on disorder and nonviolent crime. To think that harsh enforcement of this type of “crime” would prevent serious crime like homicide and assault is patently absurd on its face.
The United States of America, the global policeman, is “changing its relationship with the people of Cuba”, as President Barack Obama put it. With this announcement of a resumption of diplomatic relations after John F. Kennedy severed them January 1, 1961 we need to evaluate what is behind it and what is positive and negative.
On December 10, International Human Rights Day, federal Magistrate Matt Whitworth sentenced me to three months in prison for having crossed the line at a military base that wages drone warfare. The punishment for our attempt to speak on behalf of trapped and desperate people, abroad, will be an opportunity to speak with people trapped by prisons and impoverishment here in the U.S.
America’s ruling elites are blatant in their intentions of maintaining “white privilege” at home and economic dominance by military means abroad.
One of this writer’s earliest articles was titled “The US Gulag Prison System: The Shame of the Nation and Crime Against Humanity”.
Around half of all inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. Half of those are drug related, mostly simple possession. Just societies call these offenses misdemeanors, punishable by warnings and/or small fines. Imprisonments are rare and never long term.
America’s gulag is world’s largest, one of its harshest. Blacks and Latinos suffer most. So do Muslims. Guilty of being in America at the wrong time. Scapegoated unjustly.
On November 9, 2014, Germany and its Western Allies, celebrated the ‘Fall of the Berlin Wall’ and the subsequent‘re-unification’of the ‘two Germanys’.
Why are so many young unarmed black men killed by the police? Obviously there is no easy answer to that question, but most evidence suggests it is race-related.
In addition, a whole divisive national culture of apartheid and inequality furnishes a fertile setting for angst and anger. In this setting, our media displays dual props of haves and have-nots, many of the latter, minorities. In a society of changing demographics, intent on winning white votes at any cost, conservative politicians set have-nots up as “whipping boys” for disgruntled whites with eroding wealth.
Raúl Castro, President of Cuba, said that he wants to start relations with the U.S., but first the U.S.
