July 11, 2016


PRESIDENT OBAMA REALLY TELLS IT LIKE IT IS


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-defends-black-lives-matter-movement-as-protests-heat-up/

Obama defends Black Lives Matter movement as protests heat up
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
July 10, 2016, 10:09 AM

Play VIDEO -- President Obama: U.S. still united despite recent shootings


During a visit to Spain early Sunday morning, President Obama defended the Black Lives Matter movement and the right of activists to demonstrate in cities across the United States, following a long night of ongoing protests over the highly public deaths last week of two black men at the hands of police.

"One of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power," Mr. Obama told reporters in Madrid. "And that is sometimes messy and controversial but because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America over time has gotten better. We've all benefited from that."

The president pointed to sometimes contentious demonstrations in American history -- spawned by abolitionists, suffragettes, civil rights activists, and others -- that faced criticisms similar to the Black Lives Matter movement.

"There were times when activists engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally counterproductive," Mr. Obama conceded, "but the point was to raise issues... I think what you're seeing now is part of that long standing tradition."

"I don't think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest site," he continued. "This week people felt hurt and angry and so some of this is just venting, but I think that the overwhelming majority of people who are involved in the Black Lives Matter movement -- what they really want to see is a better relationship between the police and the community so they can feel that it's serving them."

In the wake of the violent slayings of police officers in Dallas, however, the president also cautioned that if any BLM sympathizers attack law enforcement -- both in their rhetoric and in their actions -- they are "doing a disservice to the cause."

"Any violence to police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted," Mr. Obama said. "But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly and without racial bias, if our rhetoric does not recognize that, then we're going to lose allies in the reform cause."

"Maintaining a truthful and serious and respectful tone is going to help mobilize American society to bring about real change -- and that is our ultimate objective," he said.

While in Madrid, the president declined once more to comment on the recently closed Justice Department investigation into the private email server use of Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' presumptive White House nominee.

He lauded FBI Director James Comey for taking "the extraordinary step of explaining in methodical fashion how they arrived at their conclusion" not to prosecute Clinton and noted that it was "inappropriate" to second guess or comment extensively about the matter.

The president is expected to cut his trip to Europe short after the unrest in Dallas. He will return to Washington, D.C. Sunday evening.



Obama, like Trump, is known for “saying it like it is,” only with more eloquence, even when most “conservatives” hate the arguments that he makes, and many hate him for his skin color. They think that by championing the causes of the wealthy, they will manage to climb that social ladder and within their lifetime become one of the elite club. They think it’s because of the high tax burden that they are suffering, when it’s actually their lack of income and usually of education. If they were honest with themselves and more realistic they would know that they wouldn’t even be allowed into the houses of such high status people on a social basis.

I have to disagree with Obama on one thing, though. The police brutality issue is not about “a few bad apples,” but a dangerous and corrupt “police culture” which is caused by “groupthink” and basic human evil. I know, that’s a lot of buzzwords, but they quickly and accurately make the points that are involved. Having said that, I want to stress that, as Obama says here, a large number and probably/hopefully “most” of them are conscientious and fair-minded rather than racist and given to cruelty when they think their acts won’t be punished. The era of video-equipped cell phones is changing that situation, though, especially when the videos are posted on the Internet for all to see. Light defeats darkness.

As the Texas state Sen. Royce West said after the deadly police ambush just last week, when speaking at a vigil for the police dead, “… we can address this issue.” In other words, we are not helpless, but rather too blinded by the minutiae -- the daily grind, the macho talk at the corner bar, the large amount of alcohol and drugs with which we anesthetize ourselves, and our fondly held and nurtured personal biases, to take real action against police dysfunction. West wants to change that. That is wonderful. I emailed the mayor of Dallas yesterday, praising the effort that the city and the police force are taking, and I think they have probably had hundreds or thousands of such messages. Tonight’s TV news showed Dallas police cars in the department parking lot completely covered with bouquets of flowers. I think if the PD and city do follow through with the improvements they plan we will have a good result not only there but in many other PDs around the nation. If “most” police officers are in favor of actually working to heal the woes of this beloved society, and if most cities do imitate their actions to clean up the emotional pollution in the PD, we will see a great improvement. Maybe we will get these assault rifles made illegal, and even the White Supremacists will miraculously change their views, or at least stop yammering.

We must overcome that prevalent social flaw of mindless and cruel racism, if our country is to survive in its’ present mold. We are dangerously close to the point of a political fracture that will destroy both parties. Even as we talk about this Rightist corruption on the local levels of government, those rapscallions continue to gain strength on the cultural scene under protective umbrella of Citizens United; and the Tea Party agitators of whom Trump is merely the most visible example, who are making new laws on all levels of government which are more and more unfair to the poorer elements and are downright ignorant, in my mind at least, are growing in strength. I grew up with the phrase from the days of Reconstruction, “The South will rise again” I do hope this isn’t what’s happening her. I personally think it’s just a time of mass mental instability, however, stemming from poverty and ennui among poor whites.

At times like these, people start to act like wolves. Let’s face it, wolves don’t stop and think very often. They just say to themselves, what a great chase, and then they eat the poor deer with menacing snarls at those among their brethren whose turn to have some venison hasn’t come yet. I wonder do they justify their actions by blaming the deer for his inadequacies as an animal? I don’t think so. That’s a human mental skill. To many among us who are NeoFascist thinkers, race war is just a sport with winners and losers, and they really want to be the winners. Of course wolves can’t think philosophically, so I don’t’ think of them as cruel. People do, though, and I believe that if there is a heaven and hell -- and yes a judgement day -- we will be held accountable for our attitudes and actions toward others, no matter what the skin color.

This statement about our dangerous and infectious social problems here in the US by Obama, and in another article today by Clinton and several others, is encouraging to me because it indicates a fairly broad public acknowledgment that a large and dangerous “police versus citizen” trend does exist; and that it will be deadly for our democracy. It’s the necessary first step forward, and there are already several cities around the country who are addressing a more effective hiring, training, and disciplinary police culture. I think, perhaps, it would help officers to be on their good behavior in the future if the Feds were to make a sweeping a new set of laws directed point blank at new regulations on this matter of very bad police behavior, complete with serious criminal penalties along with the administrative measures. Two weeks at home without pay might have a slight impression on that type of officer, especially if they followed it up with the threat of immediate firing or demotion if they get involved in another incident. They should also punish criminally those whose actions are egregious, possibly racially motivated, and taken on flimsy grounds. To me the RESULT of a broken taillight should never be getting shot, unless the driver does actually point a weapon at the officer. Police, though they don’t like to hear it, do have a basic role in our social services system, as much as ministers, educators, and the “financial social safety net” do. This news article addresses such matters: “http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/07/08/dallas-shooting-vigil/86875750.

About the good officers, I do want to say that most officers who have newly joined a police force are indeed young, idealistic, ethically and socially traditional and do really want to “help” the poor and downtrodden, rather than hurting those who are brown skinned, are exhibiting signs of mental illness, are believed to be on drugs, etc. Those mainly unfortunate individuals, whom many people in this country – police or otherwise -- secretly may disdain or even hate on a conscious or unconscious level, become harder for the officer to treat with respect as, through cynicism and loss of emotional control, they commit a deed which is both a sin and a crime, whoever does it and however we define those concepts.

The problems after that event occurs, however, are due to the fact that most “ordinary Joe” type humans are simply not given to introspection or intellectual effort of any kind, and so they don’t develop habits like feeling a little bit of human regard and respect for those who are in need or are “weaker.” In fact, they are too likely to harass and abuse them themselves. On such terrible case was in a news story just a few months ago. A school teacher (who clearly shouldn’t have been hired) actually made fun of students in front of the class about their cultural heritage, calling an Islamic student a “raghead,” supposedly as an example for class study on such abuse. I am happy to say that when that came to light she was quickly fired. “Bullies” get started in that path when their parents fail to punish them when they bedevil their little brothers and sisters, or refuse to take a turn at doing dishes. Later, the school systems are too often ineffective in dealing with internal emotional disorders like that also. Blindness to the pain of others is not a healthy and natural condition but the result of a lack of sensitization to the needs and pain of others.

Yes, bullies have an “emotional disorder” very similar to, or the same as, “sociopathy,” which will continue into their adulthood in the workplace and be expressed again as they find themselves (often by surprise) to be the parents of yet another generation of young people. In our competition-based society, many otherwise apparently decent people tend to consider such events in the lives of children as being “normal,” and those smaller and probably timid kids just have to “toughen up.” Pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. Teachers and Principals are too busy to pay much attention to such a case unless the parent “raises a stink” about it. More frequently than we want to think about, school administrators, like so many adults, outrightly favor “winners” over “losers,” having little regard themselves for the gentler rules of ethics in a good (fully civilized) human society. They also may have been societally trained to consider such abusive incidents to be innately “the victim’s fault.”

The “police culture” tends, unfortunately, to give those idealistic new recruits too many examples of bullying officers, whose actions, shamefully, are actually widely sanctioned on police forces, or at any rate they are protected from punishment. There are those among “the brass” and the “brothers in blue” alike, who are themselves violent for the sake of violence, and they cause the newer officers to be led in the wrong direction – an evil direction. It is an environment which gives them the freedom to be abusive to one degree or another – I think passing around a bunch of racist cartoons and jokes on their emails, as occurred in two police departments (since authorities began paying attention to such things) is the abusiveness of the coward, and is almost as harmful as physical abuse to the overall psychology of the group, usually called “group conscience.” Complete lack of supportiveness is very harmful to anyone, especially over something which is not their action, but their inherited racial characteristics.

Either way, for that new police recruit, it’s a matter of living in an environment of slow but potent intellectual, spiritual and emotional poison, from which emerges a vile social interaction that spills out onto the streets as murder. It’s a form of insanity to which humans are innately bent by our historic and prehistoric inheritance, but one which we are able to eradicate, or at any rate, to control and transmute into a new outlook, by adopting a more proper philosophy of life in which case “Everyone matters” would be a great guiding principle for such a “convert” to Civilization. We all have at least a few mental health symptoms, and hatred is one of the worst. As we put more hope, concern for others, and intellectual stimulation into our psyche we will have less virulent racial hatred or bullying tendencies lurking in there. Christians are often counseled to pray for those they can’t forgive, with the eventual result they actually have forgiven them. As for Blacks and Whites learning to get along together, one of the news scenes that has not left my memory is that of George Wallace’s request to Black Americans for their forgiveness, as he sat in his wheelchair among a group of them, singing a hymn. I was truly touched. If George Wallace can change his racial attitudes, so can a sane and hopefully intelligent police officer. It mainly requires the desire to change.

See the following excellent article on this moment in US history: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/sept98/wallace031795.htm. We must remember that there is hope as long as there is life, and that change may be slow and difficult, but it is worth the effort.

Mandatory group therapy for known physical abusers among the police forces, would really help, as well as voluntary work on the problem by other means. Volunteering to tutor black kids or help at a homeless shelter would be steps in the right direction. Judges sometimes give convicted drunk drivers the option to attend a required 30 days of AA meetings as a step to avoiding jail. Twice a young woman asked me in a meeting to sign her permission slip, which has to be handed in to the parole officer. that in regard to abusers of drugs and alcohol, along with probation. I personally believe that voluntary groups like 12 Step Groups which emphasize sincere self-evaluation and desire to change, participation in the discussions and active work to make changes, are the most deeply and permanently effective form of therapy. Perhaps the police departments will set up such a program for those who need or want to work on their acceptance and respect for all people.

Culturally acquired attitudes like racial hatred are actually mental and emotional habits that are based on ideas which hold power over the person’s thought processes. Sexual attraction to little girls or boys, for instance, or the tendency to behave violently and have no concern for others, are mental habits mainly rather than necessarily a full-blown brain illness like schizopherenia, and as such are very hard to root out. It’s like pulling dandelions. If you have tried that very much, you will know that the taproot is at least a foot long, and will require a shovel or even a pickaxe. Just because it’s hard, though, doesn’t mean it’s useless.

Much of the way our minds work is unconscious, and we must break through that barrier, which is a self-defense method that keeps us mentally comfortable while doing something that is obviously destructive to ourselves and others. As we walk around with that virus, we spread it to others. Thus the sin/malady is passed around to all who are vulnerable. Our intolerant and abusive thinking, words and outright violence breeds a pernicious cycle of the same things within the family and the society at large, and a whole group of initially good police recruits become literally “trained” by a toxic environment to be more, rather than less, violent and UNTHINKING. “Do as I say” is simply not as effective a teaching tool as “Do as I do.” A supervisor may harangue and demand less violence, but the group conscience will win out in many cases, producing yet another lawless law officer. Wolves running with a pack to bring down a deer are doing the same thing. Sheep will follow each other (it is said) over the edge of a cliff rather than thinking about what they are doing. Humans are much brighter than sheep and are able, with effort and help, to break terrible habits liked viciousness and bullying behavior if they do want to. If they DON’T WANT TO, they should simply be fired, or even charged with a crime rather than coddled. When a killing is by no means necessary, the officer should be faced with unpleasant consequences, and publically shamed.

Even more apropos to the issue of police abusiveness and violence, than are the drug/alcohol groups, there is a group for another form of violence, “Wife Beaters Anonymous,” whose website is https://www.facebook.com/Wife-Beaters-Anonymous-1628694310680609/. What the “bad cops” do is very much like the wife beating problem. It is ugly and very harmful. Such sensitivity therapy with group support has been used on sexual predators and members of hate groups as well, according to a great Discovery Channel show I taped on the subject. I think it would also be useful for the cases of “brain washing” which is always performed by cults of all kinds, which is what I think ISIS is.

In our society we tend to think in terms of “getting religion” and “punishment” instead of therapy or self-help groups to solve personal psychological problems and induce change. After all, we just don’t want to ADMIT that we have a psychological flaw. In most religions it is a concept expressed as sin or a taboo, but in my opinion, all those things are mental health issues. Why do we continue to do something that’s wrong when we hate ourselves for it? Inevitably, however, it is better to admit our insanities and seek out psychiatric counselling and medication if needed, than to continue our whole life in that mode.

Recidivism is a major problem in all of these illnesses of thought, especially within a negative group setting. I think also that any psychological tests on recruits that show an inherent bias against any minority should cause the PD to either fail to hire him/her or remove them from any public contact jobs. If they make significant progress through therapy they could perhaps be tried, but I don’t really think so unless a psychiatrist gives them a very good prognosis. They should go to college to get a degree in some field – accounting, perhaps -- that does not require excellent human relations skills like the police force does. That’s exactly the kind of thing that is ruining our peace officers and turning them into wannabe Storm Troopers.

That characteristic is simply too dangerous for a group whose function is to “serve and protect,” or to administer justice in any fashion. Unfortunately, our society has yet to face up to the issue that hate crimes are too insubstantial for a person of limited intellectual development and moral sensitivity to grasp. The purpose of sensitivity training is to show the recruit what his psychological tendencies are and intervene. If that doesn’t work, we must try to keep such an individual out of the ranks of those who are given personal discretion in their interactions with others. That includes not only the police, but the judges as well. Judges are highly respected in our society, but they are by no means truly “good” people, and as they say in AA, usually in wry tone of voice, “Some are sicker than others.”

Not unrelated is the fact that police and psychiatrists were both named in an article I saw some years ago on the subject of the professions which are most prone to suicide. Just as so many of them kill themselves, others become violent when angry or perturbed. It takes some real effort and skill to maintain equanimity, and I am not one of the most skilled in that way, so I do see it as a symptom of illness. I do believe that there is a higher incidence of violence and mayhem among depressed men than among women, though it also exists there. The unfortunate woman in the news several years ago who killed all five of her children due to an incurable case of Postpartum Depression sticks in my memory, mainly because it was so horrific an act, but because the newspaper showed her photograph when younger and happier side by side with her photograph after the event. I have never been able to forget the difference.

One of the articles on this most recent and terrible killing in Dallas mentions the need to require police to undergo drug testing and diagnostic psychiatric examination more frequently than merely when they are the perpetrator of an arrest that involves extreme violence or death (and as a result becomes another embarrassing incident) and when they are first hired. One officer on that subject was quoted as saying that the psychological test that he was given before hire wasn’t a rigorous exam at all, but more like a series of ethical questions on a single piece of paper. We really need to do better as a society.

In addition, mental health is widely known to degenerate under greatly stressful situations, and police work on the streets, especially, is intensely stressful. There’s a certain element of “selling our souls to the devil” in it. To be successful on the force – unless they do have great emotional and intellectual strength – seems to require doing just that. Personally I believe that we can be toughminded and strong in a competitive situation without degenerating totally as a human. If PDs would stop training their recruits to shoot a lot more than they think, we’d be so much better off as a society, and yet John Q Public remains numb to the issue. I hope to see change after this Dallas shooting. I went to the Net to see what the rate of fatal police shootings there was there, and found a study placing Dallas as third from the top of a list of large American cities with many police shootings. That’s very bad, even if some were deemed “necessary.” Given that, I’m surprised there have been so few murderous attacks like this one. We have had one clear case of an ambush by an unknown attacker in Jacksonville this year in which two officers were shot. I’m not saying that I condone even for a moment such a mass murder, but simply that effect follows cause predictably in type and measure. When those first news videos of the events in Ferguson hit the news, especially their bringing out tank and personnel carriers full of heavily armed policemen against a mainly peaceful protest march, I and many thousands of Americans felt shock and horror. When the law becomes the lawbreakers it’s unthinkable in a democracy. This isn’t a Third World country with a military dictatorship. It isn’t so much that most of our officers are bad people as that most police forces have for years been badly managed in a way that induces corrupt environments. I hate to say this, but until Ferguson and the several years before, police forces were allowed to get away with continuing to doing the same old things, and now the overall climate in the US has radically changed. The pot has begun to boil.

The decreasing honesty and empathy for others found in too many city police forces today is also a direct reaction to the increasing “conservatism” and racism in our society today. An officer who really doesn’t believe that ALL LIFE is worthwhile is much more likely to kill a young boy of color who rudely and arrogantly “mouths off” at him. Any of them would probably feel anger, as most people I know would, but killing or brutally beating someone is a step farther than anger or even hatred. It’s a lapse of sanity. Those ultraconservative citizens in our society who praise unchristian, unethical and downright immoral attitudes and behavior are largely to blame for our attitudes today.

Lynch mobs are the way things traditionally were done here – even as late as the 1970s -- and injustice is the emotionally satisfying quicko solution to a complex problem. People tend to forget that “law and order” includes law, at least in our basic social structure, as it is outlined in our Constitution and rules of due process. That’s what makes us a Great Country, rather than dropping an atomic bomb. The ultraconservative mind wants to see, instead, the “law and order” of a populace armed to the teeth, and even with weapons of war. I am referring to the AK47 and AR 15s and whatever other weapons of that type there are, that are allowed on the streets in the hands of citizens whose goal is to “protect themselves,” and “control” Blacks and the very poor in general, such as unfair real estate manipulation that concentrates Blacks, Hispanics, halfway houses, Government subsidized housing, etc., into the same usually very poor communities – “NIMBY,” you know.

I am so happy to see that as popular as Donald Trump is, he’s not as popular as Bernie Sanders, and that Sanders’ insistent, strongly stated, stubborn, courageous and persistent push against the seemingly corrupted DNC has caused the platform for 2016 to be more liberal, though still not perfect. Clinton, however, has already spoken strongly against this police culture of violence and in favor of strong reforms and federally mandated changes in how the police – and hopefully the courts – perform their functions. It isn’t that she is not actually a “Liberal” as I have sometimes believed, but that she’s the kind of politician who just has to know where the POWER is before she takes a stand, and then she takes the stand that seems inevitable.

I’m referring here to the power of THE PEOPLE. Martin Luther King and Sanders have two things in common. They speak the unsavory and personally dangerous truth; they have the intention to initiate real change and the visible power to back that up. Black Lives Matter and, as important, the massive attendance at both of their speeches and rallies, are a clear indication of the turn of mind that many in our culture hold today. They really don’t want the status quo, and they are a large and influential group. The ultra-rich are not all-powerful, and in times like this of increasing privation among the poor, their hold on the public mind is increasingly tenuous.

This leftward push is due to the obscene economic gap and the resulting class-based perks in the legislature, Wall Street, the legal system, the financial action by BIG BUSINESS of all stamps, and the dangerous joblessness championed by the economically privileged groups. In a recent article Trump was quoted as claiming the Minimum Wage is TOO HIGH. Yes, I include the highest range of the Middle Class in this privileged segment, which goes up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual income that the Upper Middle Class still make. Lawyers, doctors, business owners, legislators and others. It should not be surprising that most of them are Republicans, and all want to keep their money and power. This pervasive trend against the 99% is causing deep anger that is directly involved with the situation in Black communities. The sometimes brutal and very frequently disrespectful approaches by police officers on patrol aren’t helping this overall discontent, but providing the fire to light the bomb.

I feel like those wacko citizens in the movie Network, leaning out their apartment windows and yelling, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” I didn’t see that, and when I saw the trailer of that scene I was very sorry that I didn’t. I simply don’t watch movies as much as I used to, and I miss some good ones. For the Youtube video of the news commentator who “gets mad” on the air with hilarious results, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qgVn-Op7Q. I didn’t see that, and when I saw the trailer of that scene I was very sorry that I didn’t. I simply don’t watch movies as I used to, and I miss some good ones.

Okay, so I’m not ready to start a revolution, but I am ready to switch parties if the Dems don’t go back to their Progressive platforms of the 60s and 70s, and continue to focus on police brutality as long as it continues to exist. I have a No Tolerance policy on that subject. Yesterday the leader of the Green Party issued an invitation to Bernie Sanders to come on over and join them, and take her place as the presidential candidate for 2016. I don’t think he will, after all he promised not to do that in the beginning, and he’s a man of his word, but it tells me how significant a political figure has become and where our citizens want to take our country from here.

Having come from that class of citizens who have to work for their money, and without disparaging any form of honest work – lower level office workers, restaurant workers, menial labor such as cleaning hotel rooms, production of goods to be sold by their upper class employers with no tangible benefit to the workers – I believe that all forms of recompense and protection to the working class should be increasingly improved. I was lucky enough to get a (small) pension plan from one of my jobs and decent pay and benefits from several – the Calvert Group in Bethesda, MD, the Unite Mine Workers of America and the National Bank of Washington which was owned by the General Contractors of America. I do love unions and the overall improvements they have made in the working world.

I will wind up by saying that it takes courage for anyone in an elected public office to stand up for unpopular changes such as closer examination and control over what the police are allowed to do without being punished or fired. That’s almost an UnAmerican policy to the Tea Partiers. I hope to see real change about this issue, after the horrific bloodshed on both sides that I’ve seen during my lifetime. If people are to be treated equally before the law, the changes must begin at the bottom level and be carried upward all the way to the Supreme Court; and the Legislative bodies must write better laws rather than being prevented by a smallminded and greedy group, mainly made up of Republicans. We have “a ways to go” as rural Southerners tend to say, but I see the beginning of progress.

The far right and the left agree on one point, that we need some Constitutional refurbishing. Unfortunately, the right and the left don’t agree on what to change, how to do it, or why. It needs to be more about people than about money, and until that changes our country won’t change. I do want to see a strong Federal statement on how the police do their sacred duty as the protectors of our people from dishonesty and all forms of abuse. When a couple of policemen are called to an apartment because their family member is having a mental breakdown and the family mistakenly called the police rather than the Rescue Squad, our officers should voluntarily call the hospital emergency room for an ambulance equipped with a straitjacket and some heavy injectable tranquilizers, rather than simply shooting the man. Yes, I saw two stories like that. One of the main ways our cops have problems is when they have to deal with some situation that requires finesse or compassion. I believe most cops really know better than to do that, but they just don’t care; and they know they probably won’t be prosecuted and almost certainly won’t be convicted. Can it also be that they are only faking their Christianity, and don’t fear hell either?

Police everywhere need much stronger and wiser oversight, but promotions and bonuses for having a clean record on violence would be helpful, as well as for doing community volunteer work such as tutoring kids or adults who can’t read or pass schoolwork. “The Brass” at the top tends to back violent officers and rapidly cover up those unfortunate news items that do so excite Black people. They don’t need that “bad press,” one Police Chief was quoted as saying in the great public oversight that has sprung up strongly and spontaneously since Ferguson. Some departments have shown that they understand the problem, though, and are pursuing things like the wearable cameras and open community discussions on policing and justice, with or without the intervention by the DOJ. Until a group like BLM comes onto the scene, the worst examples of humanity are generally the loudest, but we’re getting more savvy and perhaps more ethical as a people, now, and I’m encouraged.