Society's Child
Three in four Americans (75%) last year perceived corruption as widespread in the country's government. This figure is up from two in three in 2007 (67%) and 2009 (66%).
While the numbers have fluctuated slightly since 2007, the trend has been largely stable since 2010. However, the percentage of U.S. adults who see corruption as pervasive has never been less than a majority in the past decade, which has had no shortage of controversies from the U.S. Justice Department's firings of U.S. attorneys to the IRS scandal.
These figures are higher than some might expect, and while the lack of improvement is somewhat disconcerting, the positive takeaway is that Americans still feel fairly free to criticize their government. This is not the case in some parts of the world. Questions about corruption are so sensitive in some countries that even if Gallup is allowed to ask them, the results may reflect residents' reluctance to disparage their government. This is particularly true in countries where media freedom is restricted.
© occupypeace.us
Celente is an American trends forecaster, publisher of the Trends Journal, business consultant and author who makes predictions about the global financial markets.
"This peace movement is designed to create a platform to hold elected officials accountable for senselessly prompting war," Celente, head of the Trends Research Institute, said. "It will drive a nationwide initiative to put peace on the ballot."Celente explained his Institute would work "with peace-minded historians and other experts to create a program that provides the tools to make peace a driving force in the halls of government and in the living rooms of Americans."
He stated that Occupy Peace would promote five basic principles, including: no foreign entanglements; waging war only when imminent threats exist; and having zero tolerance for illegal wars.
The remaining two principles focus on rebuilding the United States and not on nation building in other countries, and letting the American people vote on whether to fund wars.
"Our future is being robbed from us by murderous thieves. Their dream of a never-ending War on Terror has created a living nightmare," Celente asserted. "These psychopaths hijacked our nation's wealth as our economy declines."
As Sadly minds his own business, he is approached by an Austin Police officer who tells him that he is being detained.
"Why am I being detained?" asks Sadly as he was clearly doing nothing illegal.
"Let's see, it's 2 o'clock in the morning. You're parked here by yourself in a high crime, high drug area," replies the officer.
Apparently sitting in your car by yourself is now reasonable articulable suspicion for a police officer to detain you.
Comment: The Police State, as summed up by Chris Hedges here:
The tyranny of law enforcement in poor communities is a window into our emerging police state. These thuggish tactics are now being used against activists and dissidents. And as the nation unravels, as social unrest spreads, the naked face of police repression will become commonplace. Totalitarian systems always seek license to engage in this kind of behavior by first targeting a demonized minority. Such systems demand that the police, to combat the "lawlessness" of the demonized minority, be, in essence, emancipated from the constraints of the law. The unrestricted and arbitrary subjugation of one despised group, stripped of equality before the law, conditions the police to employ these tactics against the wider society. "Laws that are not equal for all revert to rights and privileges, something contradictory to the very nature of nation-states," Hannah Arendt wrote in "The Origins of Totalitarianism""The clearer the proof of their inability to treat stateless people as legal persons and the greater the extension of arbitrary rule by police decree, the more difficult it is for states to resist the temptation to deprive all citizens of legal status and rule them with an omnipotent police."
- The path to tyranny: The Nazi Gestapo and the US police state
- Police brutality is nothing new, it's just militarized
- Death of American democracy - birth of a fascist state
And some countries like Costa Rica and Dominica don't even have a military. A government with the barest institutions run by a skeleton crew, would essentially consist of nothing more than the courts, the people who were elected to legislate the court's rules, and the police officers tasked with enforcing those rules. While most people would rather give the government more responsibilities and more staff, this is the government at its lowest common denominator.
So what happens if the government sucks at that job? What if they fill their prisons to the brim with nonviolent offenders, while losing the ability to catch real violent criminals? And worst of all, what if they're jailing an alarming number of innocent people?
Comment: The criminal justice system is a travesty. It preys on the poor and disenfranchised while the rich can buy their way out of trouble. Our so-called legal system is full of cases of wrongful imprisonment.
- Ghost of Christmas Past: 70 years after his execution, 14-year old black boy exonerated for double murder
- American Justice: NYC man wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years dies days before false imprisonment lawsuit begins
- Judge exonerates woman who spent 17 years in prison, says justice system failed
- Corrupt prosecutor faces 10 days in jail after sending innocent man to prison for 25 years
California is #1! U.S. police have killed more than 850 this year (and that's just what is reported)
© Reuters/Jim Bourg
In fact, 51 people have been killed by police in the month of September alone, according to the comprehensive database at killedbypolice.net, and there are still a dozen days left until October.
Fewer than half of all those sent to early graves by police this year — 402 — reportedly had a gun, according to the searchable database project The Counted, created by The Guardian.
At least 211, or approximately 25% of those killed, were black, even though they make up only 12.6% of the United States population.
At least 14 of those that have fallen at the hands of cops this year were minors, some as young as 15 years old.
The North East appears to have the lowest rates of deadly police violence.
There has not been a single person reported killed by police in the state of Vermont. There have been one each in Rhode Island and Maine, three in Connecticut, and 10 in Massachusetts.
California leads the nation in police deaths, with 141 reported by September 18. Texas comes in second with 84.
Comment: Police killings are drastically under reported. Most of the reported cases are done so voluntarily. In one month: 103 people were killed by police in the U.S. in August, while 6 cops were killed in the line of duty
© Facebook
Western, and the nearby Waller-Williams Environmental School, have both been placed on lockdown.
Officials are saying the lockdown was a precaution, as they are trying to confirm the presence of a shooter. There have been no reported injuries yet.
There is a heavy police and firefighter presence at both schools, blocking the nearby roads. The authorities are saying they received a "phoned in threat" at Western High School. No shooter has been found so far.
© Neeta Lind/Flickr Creative Commons
The Utah second grader is of Seneca and Paiute heritage and chose the hairstyle because it is commonly worn by Seneca Nation members. But this week his mother received a call from Arrowhead Elementary officials in St. George, Utah, saying she needed to come pick the boy up. He was only allowed to return after a Seneca tribal representative sent the school a letter confirming the haircut is traditional.
Comment: It's none of the school's business.
"It is common for Seneca boys to wear a Mohawk because after years of discrimination and oppression, they are proud to share who they are," wrote William Canella, a Seneca Nation Tribal Councilor, in a letter obtained by WFAA. "It's disappointing that your school does not view diversity in a positive manner, and it is our hope that (the boy) does not suffer any discrimination by the school administration or faculty as a result of his hair cut."
The boy's father, Gary Sanden, told WFAA that he has two sons at the school, and the older one has chosen a non-Native hairstyle, prompting school officials to ask why they didn't cut the younger child's hair the same way. The parents offered to bring in a tribal card, but the school demanded a letter from a tribe official.
Comment: Forcing conformity on a 7- or 8-year-old in the heart of Mormon land.
See also:
- The Truth About Hair and Why Indians Would Keep Their Hair Long
- What is it about American society that is so depressing? What we are not being told about suicide and depression
The man who was arrested in connection with a spate of shootings along a major highway through Arizona was arraigned on Saturday on felony charges that include drive-by shooting and terrorism.
Wearing a gray and white striped prison uniform, Leslie Allen Merritt Jr., 21, said he was not the person responsible for the shootings. It was his first court appearance since being arrested Friday.
"All I have to say is that I'm the wrong guy. I tried telling the detective that," said Merritt, who said he has two children. "My gun's been in the pawn shop for the last two months. I haven't even had access to a weapon," Merritt said.
He is being held on a $1 million cash bond.
Merritt, of Glendale, Arizona, was charged with four counts each of drive-by shooting, intentional acts of terrorism, and aggravated assault involving a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, in addition to other charges.
Illlustration by Sam Caldwell
A Dickson County deputy was involved in a shooting north of Cumberland Furnace on Friday morning.
According to the Dickson County Sheriff's Office, Gregory Herrell's family called police asking deputies to conduct a welfare check on Herrell. Reportedly addicted to painkillers, Herrell appeared at his mother's house on Friday morning looking for money when he ended up arguing with his mom and daughter. Twenty minutes after receiving the call, two deputies arrived at his mother's residence at 10:50 a.m.
As one deputy went around the back of the house, the other deputy knocked on the front door and began speaking with Herrell's mother. While his mom tried to explain to the deputy that Herrell had a shotgun but that it was unloaded, the second deputy shot Herrell in front of his mother and daughter.
Comment: The police cannot be entrusted with our welfare under any circumstance.
- Family asks cops to check on 74-year-old vet after surgery, they break in and kill him
- Police state Amerika: Call the cops at your peril
Comment: Listen to Lew Rockwell's interview with Celente where he discusses how the U.S. got into this war mongering situation and what we can do about it here: Lew Rockwell interviews Gerald Celente: Psychopaths rule us