Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: Barack Obama betrayed Police Veterans and Blacks

Barack Obama made a very good point during his speech in Dallas Texas when he said, "As a society, we choose to under-invest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs. We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book. And then we tell the police, 'You’re a social worker; you’re the parent; you’re the teacher; you’re the drug counselor.'”

The last part echoed a statement made by the Dallas Police Chief Brown's statement; however regrettably he didn't follow it up with any attempt to further explore the root causes that lead up to shootings both by police and of police, or how to prevent them.

One thing Barack Obama and the majority of the political establishment fail to mention is that it isn't our entire "society" that is involved in the decisions to "under-invest in decent schools," it is mostly the political establishment and the propagandists that give the public selective information to make their decisions, partly controlling those decisions.

There has been plenty of research to explain the leading root causes of violence and how it escalates for decades; however it is rarely mentioned in the media. On the few times they do mention it a little they quickly forget about it and return to the propaganda that counteracts it over and over again.This is one of those examples, where Barack Obama made a good point without acting on it or repeating it often.

When it comes to the issues that he really supports and wants to act on he repeats his efforts over and over again often without mentioning contradictory views that might raise doubts about his position like his support for TPP or many other issues.

With the constant portrayal of the problem of a conflict of Black Lives Matter and police it would be helpful to point out that the leading contributing causes to both the police and to poor people living in poverty are the same. Not surprisingly police face a greater threat where murder rates are higher than they do in states with lower murder rates. according to the Officer down Memorial page ten out of thirty-six officers that were killed by gunfire were killed in the ten states with the highest murder rates; only three were killed in the ten states with the lowest murder rates; five out of nine killed by vehicular assault were in the ten states with the highest murder rates; only two in the ten states ones with the lowest; the only accidental shooting was in one of the ten states with the highest murder rates. If you check past years the correlation is repeated often even stronger.

The root causes of violence have been thoroughly researched for decades and the best research is getting even better but this is rarely mentioned in the traditional press or considered by politicians including Barack Obama when making policies that might impact crime. Some of the best researchers have been reporting on this in lower profile books since at least the eighties if not much longer, perhaps including Benjamin Spock's first book in the forties; and I have been trying to report on this at least since 2011 when I first posted Unacknowledged Censorship in Arizona about Jared Loughner and followed it up with several more posts exploring many other contributing causes to escalating violence including a series of posts starting with Ignored evidence linking corporal punishment, poverty and crime grows and ending with Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit

As I've indicated in past posts, which provided much more evidence to prove cause and confirm it with correlations, the most important long term cause of escalating violence is almost certainly early abuse to children that leads to escalating violence later in life, including bullying, hazing, domestic violence and even murder. Other additional contributing causes of violence are increased poverty, income inequality, lack of education or economic opportunities, abandoned inner cities and several other additional contributing causes.

Unfortunately in most cases when the most effective ways to reduce crime contradict the best interests of corporations that support opposing views and donate to political campaigns the entire political establishment, including Barack Obama routinely favor corporate interests, unless there is overwhelming opposition, often only at the local level. This is why some of the areas where people are most active at the grassroots level often have the lowest crime rates, including murder. Vermont is one of the states with the most active grassroots movements often attending town halls holding their elected officials accountable and they've had nearly the lowest murder rates for years if not decades according to FBI reports listed at the Death Penalty Information Center. Richmond California has a much higher murder rate but they've proven, in the last ten years, or so, that with efforts at the grassroots level that murder rates can be brought down dramatically even in abandoned inner cities when local people act.

However they don't reduce violent crime by listening to the misleading propaganda coming from corporate media or the typical political establishment.

They keep violent crime down by doing much better research and addressing the root causes of violence before it escalates.

There have been numerous claims that murder is rising in many cities in the last few years however complete records are often slow to come from the FBI; but it appears as if it might only be partly true, but perhaps only in the cities that do the worst job addressing the root causes of violence including Milwaukee which has some of the most irrational politics from their leaders and had riots break out recently following a shooting by a cop.

Barack Obama the media and the rest of the political establishment could have done much more to educate the public about the most effective ways to reduce violence; unfortunately they're far more concerned with serving the political interests of the few than the best interests of the majority. However Milwaukee and relatively nearby Madison Wisconsin might be a good example of some very dramatic differences in the way they address escalating violence and policing; howsoever, the comparison may not be simple in some ways since Madison has less than 6% African American population and Milwaukee has more than 36%.

However there is a dramatic difference, for one reason or another in the Murder rates in Milwaukee Wisconsin which are typically three or four times the national average and there is little or no sign of improvement. The Murder rates in Madison Wisconsin are much lower typically a third of national average rates and sometimes as little as a fifth of the national average. For one reason or another there is a major difference here and it would be premature to jump to the conclusion that the reason for this difference is race without looking at other details. The differences between policing is dramatically different; in Milwaukee media coverage is often dominated by David Clarke who is among the most authoritarian conservative sheriff's in the country almost in complete denial about any potential problems with police.

In Madison some of their practices may have been developed by former police chief David Couper who takes a dramatically different approach and has been a major advocate for police reform for years. One of his articles, Hazing and Bullying in the Police Academy explains how hazing is used to indoctrinate police officers in the same manner that it is used to indoctrinate veterans to blindly obey orders and to use bullying tactics including violence to get others to obey. This is a major contributing cause to escalating violence that often begins earlier in life, as I explained previously in posts about how corporal punishment leads to escalating violence. Cadets, whether at the police or military academy learn how to escalate tensions instead of deescalating them in this manner. Many of the most authoritarian cadets that were raised in a similar manner may respond well to this, or at least they seem to, since they've often been through it before but this is part of an indoctrination process that teaches authoritarian thinking without developing critical thinking skills.

Children that are taught this way learn to obey orders without question and believe what they're told without fact checking, as I explained in previous posts about Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, Stanford Prison Experiment and Eli Roth’s Milgram/Obedience experiment much more extensive than most people realize research previously either financed or at least supported by the Office of Naval Research was done to find out why Nazi's blindly obeyed orders and became more violent, supposedly to avoid having it happen again. Unfortunately the military has been involved in boot camp training for decades if not hundreds of years to get their recruits to obey orders. One of the reasons they blindly obey orders is because that is what their leaders want and they've studies how to get obedience; and, even though they claimed they were trying to teach people to stand up to authorities in some of the reports about these research projects when they develop boot camp training tactics they don't do any such thing, and it is being used as part of a process to teach blind obedience, despite claims to the contrary.

The media typically reports both veteran shootings and police shootings as random events, and usually only at the local level, so the vast majority of the public probably doesn't even suspect how often they happen. It wasn't until grassroots organizations started compiling police shootings and dramatically increased their protest about them that the media increased coverage a little; however they still quickly forget most of them and make little effort to compile a list to report on how often they happen. Christopher Jordan Dorner, Manuel Pardo, Eulalio “Leo” Tordil and Tech. Sgt. Steven D. Bellino are just a handful of the police officers with military experience that went on killing sprees and there is some evidence to indicate that their boot camp training or hazing might have lead to arguments or obsessive behavior contributing to these shooting sprees. Both the shooters killing police in Dallas and Baton Rouge were also trained by the military and went through boot camp training and hazing to teach them to deal with their problems through violence or the threat of violence.

In Teach a soldier to kill and he just might and A Brief History of Cops Convicted of Murder I provided much longer lists of shooting sprees by veterans and police that have been trained to kill by our government. They include reports of how domestic violence is also higher among both groups and so is suicide. These happen much more often than the media reports. Instead of reporting on this they report an enormous amount of propaganda glorifying both police and veterans without mentioning the problems; which clearly provides misleading images to those who don't check facts.

Any killing of police, as many people say, is too much; however it could just as easily be said about everyone else including those killed by police and there is a routine by police and the media to make it seem like there is a much greater threat to the police than there is as I pointed out in The threat to police is greatly exaggerated where I cited police deaths that have been dropping for decades and reached a all time low in 2013. at the time they reached this all time low they were claiming it was getting worse for them, as they had a few years earlier in 2009 when the New York Post reported The war on cops is getting worse even though that year was less dangerous than any previous year and we now know that it went down even further before climbing back up. It's still to early to thoroughly review the statistics since it went up in the last couple years, especially this year sine the reports aren't complete; however it is still less dangerous than other trades as The War On Cops, Debunked 08/01/2016 indicates police are 14th most dangerous out of 17 trades, however the threat in other trades is less dramatic and rarely reported widely.

However clearly there still is a threat to police and this doesn't mean that it is justified to target them; but the most effective way to get the trend to continue going down isn't going into total denial like David Clarke and many other people from police unions or the political establishment. But if the people shooting them openly say they're retaliation for oppressive treatment by the police and there are enormous lists of incidents indicating that there are many examples where police are acting in brutal ways then total denial of any problem on the part of David Clarke or police union leaders won't do anything to help solve the problem. It doesn't take much to find just a handful of the thousands of incidents reported at local levels where police get out of line and in some cases even when there are no charges towns pay out massive amounts in lawsuits at tax payer expenses; or in the rare occasion where police are found guilty and sentenced it isn't nearly as long as a civilian would be.

North Miami Cop Who Shot Unarmed Man Charles Kinsey: 'I Did What I Had to Do' 07/22/2016

Texas police officer slams 112-pound black woman to the ground twice during arrest (WARNING — GRAPHIC VIDEO) 07/21/2016 “Ninety-nine percent of the time, when you hear about stuff like that, it is the black community that is being violent," Spradlin said. "That’s why a lot of the white people are afraid, and I don’t blame them. There are some guys I look at, and I know it is my job to deal with them, and I know it might go ugly, but that’s the way it goes.

Former Seabrook officer sentenced in brutality case Richardson to spend 21 days in jail 11/13/2016

Mass., N.H. troopers charged in beating video case 07/19/2016

Woman punched by Calif. cop settles for $1.5M 09/25/2014

Anyone that wants to find them can find a hundred times as many stories if they look through the cop watch sites now available on the internet. No doubt the police like David Clarke might dismiss this as "cop Haters" as they often do however even if some of these sites do resent cops more than is called for they provide long lists of examples which can be verified independently if anyone is worrying about bias. And it is important to keep in mind no matter how often the media or police say these police are here to "Protect" us many people in abandoned inner cities where the police often don't come at all when they're called or they treat residents all like criminals know this isn't always true, in some of the wurst cities they often feel as if it is never true.

When corporations ship their jobs overseas dump pollution in their back yards, suppress wages so they can't afford to function properly in a society do the police "Protect" them from corporate corruption.

Not likely however if they protest and get ignored by the entire political establishment which doesn't address legitimate concerns and keep on protesting until they get some action then the police jump to action.

Not to protect the citizens, though but to suppress protests without actually addressing concerns.

If those with political power had to put up with this they would be outraged. They might even understand why people herded into ghettos by the political establishment might riot when the only "hope" and "change" they get is broken political promises.

Tom Barrett also demonstrated ignorance of how violence escalated as a result of authoritarian child rearing tactics when he said, "If you love your son, if you love your daughter, text them, call them, pull them by their ears, get them home." Does he think this is the most effective way to educate children to obey orders? If this is a common attitude about how to raise children in that city perhaps it isn't surprising that they have such high murder rates. In addition to restoring the education and economic system with local jobs they clearly need to learn much more about proper educational methods.

If someone suggested that Tom Barrett's children should be controlled by "pulling them by their ears" would he be outraged? More important would his children be outraged and resent it eventually learning to respond to their problems with intimidating tactics? Are they more inclined to use these tactics or corporal punishment on black children?

It's hard to know for certain without further research at the local level; however there are plenty of reports to indicate that in the states where they still do allow corporal punishment in schools they use it much more on black children. In "All God's Children" Fox Butterfield traces how violence was taught from one generation to another in the Bosket family tracing the methods back to their slave owners in the nineteenth century. These methods are often taught by those with the most political power to those with the least. However when child rearing tactics changed starting with "Baby and Child Care" by Benjamin Spock, along with other books from the same time by additional child rearing experts with similar methods, were almost certainly taught much more widely in middle class white America where they had much more success teaching ways to develop critical thinking skills. Not all black families stuck with strict authoritarian manners of raising their children but regardless of race these methods have proven ineffective and teach observance and to solve problems with intimidation tactics that lead to escalating violence.

By recommending the parents "pull their children by the ear" Tom Barrett is recommending more of the tactics that lead to escalating violence!

Tom Barrett is the candidate the Democrats ran for Governor against Scott Walker in both 2010 and the recall elections. It appears to be part of the common trend where neither candidate representing the major parties is truly standing up for the people based on the best research. In 2014 they ran a business women. For all practical purposes neither parties even consider social workers, human rights advocates, worker or consumer rights advocates.

Corporate America seems to own the government.

If they want to understand how to reduce violence in the most effective manner possible the most important thing is to teach children at a young age how to use other methods to solve their problems and provide adequate preschool education before they learn to strike out in anger after problems escalate as more modern child rearing expert like Barbara Coloroso author of Kids Are Worth It! could explain to people in abandoned inner cities including Tom Barrett and David Clarke. Although Barrett and Clarke might be reluctant to listen but if they lose all their followers they will be less relevant and the public can have much more success solving their problems by following methods used by cities that have had much more success reducing violence in previously abandoned inner cities like Richmond California as I explained in Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit

People in some of these abandoned inner cities like Baton Rouge know damn well that the police are less concerned about reforming the problems when they storm protesters on private property where they had permission to be there as demonstrated in a couple videos including Bill of Rights be damned, Baton Rouge police raid a protest being held on PRIVATE PROPERTY. and Baton Rouge home owner "very upset" after police storm her yard arresting protesters who had permission to be there.

They also demonstrate there is a serious problem when Sheriff Raids House to Find Anonymous Blogger and former Police Officer Who Called Him Corrupt. 08/04/2016 Even if they're not corrupt this clearly isn't the way to handle this complaint and there would still be a problem with the former police officer making false accusations in that case; however their response strongly indicates that isn't the case.

What did Barack Obama or the traditional media have to say about this?

Very little if they mention it at all.

In most cases they just repeat the same propaganda about how glorious our veterans are or the police who are "protecting" us without doing much if anything to correct the educational and economic conditions that lead to escalating violence.

If people aren't in total denial is it that hard to understand how Micah Xavier Johnson and Gavin Long who went through boot camp teaching them to obey orders and respond to problems through military means might get upset when they realize after coming home that they're not being treated with respect by the country they pledged to defend. The government lied to them when they said they were being sent overseas to protect our country based on lies and they lied when they said they would provide resources including mental health if necessary for them when they came back.

Not that I expect most reasonable people to agree with the extreme and counterproductive methods they used; however when the political establishment continues to suppress legitimate protests, ignore the best research about solving social problems rigging elections and conducting other activities that the majority of the public have to pay for then there are bound to be repercussions and they aren't always going to be rational.

Simply telling people to believe what they're told and obey police officers even when they're behaving irrational isn't going to solve the problem.

Both the murder rates and the rates of police being killed in the line of duty are near historic lows; however in the last couple years the rate of police being killed may have inched up a little, indicating a possible reversal of this trend.

There is enough research available to teach the public and the political establishment how to get those trends going back down; but they're not going to do that by glorifying violence and war without fixing epidemic levels of political corruption and election rigging or a media establishment that is far more concerned with increasing profits by relying more on violence for entertainment value than tehy do to educate the public about how to reduce it.