Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: August 2023

I know this question may sound absurd, but are police and local governments trying to protect the public and reduce crime? Or are they trying to sabotage real efforts to prevent the root causes of crime before they escalate, ensuring that crime actually gets worse?

Of course anyone defending the establishment would be outraged that such a question would even be asked; and no child who dreams of becoming a police officer when they grow ever says they want to become a cop so they can oppress poor people and cause crime to get worse; and as some of the following stories will show, some of the cops enforcing laws targeting the poor do so reluctantly, and one even said "it would be a PR nightmare." Unfortunately there are other stories where police find it amusing including one viral photo where police proudly showed a collection of signs taken from homeless people asking for donations with grins on their faces, and many other stories of police beating or even killing minorities.

If you get most of your media or educational material from traditional media you might get the impression that the causes of crime are inexplicable and few if anyone knows how to reduce it, with the possible exception of using punishment as a deterrent, which get's an enormous amount of media coverage, but clearly doesn't work alone. This is clearly false as many of my previous articles and academic sources show. Some of the leading causes of crime include poverty, income inequality, inadequate access to education or economic opportunities, child abuse and much more, that is reported in alternative media libraries, and academic journals, but is almost completely absent from traditional media or discussion by politicians.

There's also little or no discussion in traditional media of Machiavelli and his recommendations to control the masses, including his claim that "the state ought to be rich and the citizens poor," (Discourses Chapter XXXVII), and although Machiavelli never commented about keeping the masses uneducated, at a time where no one considered educating the masses, others that followed him did. There's an overwhelming amount of evidence, including a lot of studies I've cited in previous articles, showing that Machiavellian policies supported by the rich to keep the citizens poor and uneducated, in a rigged economy controlled by the rich for the benefit of the rich leads to much higher crime rates, that mostly impacts the poor the most. Some of these studies are confusing and you have to read them carefully, and some even try to confuse the issue to justify Machiavellian policies, often omitting or distorting obvious facts, but one study, Does Poverty Cause Crime? 12/16/2021, gets right to the point saying "In fact, poverty is the root cause of many crimes in the world such as theft, murder, trafficking, and the selling of contraband items," and I'll cite more below supporting this claim, including some of my own or traditional peer reviewed studies.

Scattered around the country there are some programs being implemented that have proven to be effective at solving social problems and reducing crime in some locations, while at other locations they're imposing Machiavellian policies that have clearly proven to do the opposite, often to criminalize activities by the poor or those helping the poor. These policies often make it illegal to panhandle, sleep in public places, or even help the poor by feeding them in public places. These stories have been going back decades, if not centuries, but they're usually only reported in a low profile manner, often only at the local level, unless Social Media picks up a story, or in research books that get almost no promotion in traditional press. One example which has been going on for months that has gotten no national media coverage from the highest profile sources, was reported by several local sources, as well as the Guardian, which often does a much better job reporting the news than Cable News, as reported in the following excerpts from an article:

Houston volunteers face thousands in fines for feeding homeless 08/04/2023

Police have issued 44 tickets in a crackdown on food sharing after the mayor vowed to ‘retake’ the downtown public library.

Volunteers with a group that has been feeding Houston’s unhoused population since 1994 are facing a potential $80,000 in fines after a crackdown by local police.

Food Not Bombs is currently disputing 44 tickets issued by Houston police department for giving food to homeless individuals outside of the Houston Public Library. If a jury finds them guilty, they can be fined the maximum penalty of $2,000 per fine, with the group noting they could owe over $80,000 in fines at this point.

The fines stem from a city ordinance passed in 2012 mandating that groups get permission from property owners, even if on public property, to distribute food to more than five people. The ordinance was never enforced, according to the group, until recently. A petition to rescind the law was signed by more than 75,000 people and submitted to the Houston city council in 2015.

Nick Cooper, a volunteer with Food Not Bombs, criticized the impact that the anti-food-sharing law has had on food-sharing services for the homeless and that the time and effort fighting the citations is having on volunteers.

“We’re just going into court sitting there all morning, and then they reschedule us, and then we come back, and they reschedule us, having to take days off of work. This is getting into 40 different jury trials that we’re trying to get, so it’s really taking up a lot of our time,” said Cooper. “The problem is that the law is such a bad law, because it has had a chilling effect on people sharing food, in general.”

He noted this anti-food-sharing law was just one of many laws enacted to criminalize homelessness.

“They can’t have a big box, they can’t have a tent, they can’t sleep here, they can’t be lying down between these hours. There are all kinds of anti-homeless laws,” added Cooper.

It’s the latest standoff between homeless advocates and a city over laws criminalizing homelessness. Complete article

Fortunately, in this case, some of the police seem somewhat sympathetic to the volunteers, and this is turning into another public relations nightmare for the politicians creating and enforcing these absurd laws. Some past stories about similar law enforcement efforts to prevent food sharing, panhandling or other activities outlawed in the undeclared "War on the poor" have had bad public relations or court orders declaring it unconstitutional to ban panhandling; however, other efforts have not been so successful, and when some activities can't be enforced due to court order, they often come up with other laws in the War against the poor. This isn't something new and the simple explanation for it is that rich people make laws for their own benefit and the rest of us pay the price for them, especially the poor. There are even dozens of good academic books that most people never heard of reporting on the research about this, including "Controlling the Dangerous Classes" by Randall Sheldon, which literally says the rich make the laws and the poor are the ones paying the price for it in the following excerpt:

Perhaps nowhere is this better illustrated on a daily basis--sometimes for all to see--than in our system of justice. Because those who create laws and those who interpret laws are drawn largely from the wealthiest class, it comes as no surprise that those brought into the criminal justice system will be those drawn largely from the lowest social classes. On any given day, in courtrooms all over the country, we have essentially one class passing judgment on another class. Our system is fundamentally a system influenced by class (and race). p.18-9

I included more excerpts from the third edition of this book in We Have A Lawless Oligarchy; Not A Democracy! which also explains more details in how our economic system is rigged and includes excerpts from other sources as well. As far as I can tell at least of the best excerpts from the third edition isn't in the first edition, but most of it is probably very similar and the first edition Randall Sheldon "Controlling the Dangerous Classes" 1st 2001 edition can be read free on the Internet Archive.

Hopefully the suppression of food sharing in front of the Houston Library will backfire on them like it did at least partly, including one Arizona city a few years ago where the city backed down on threats to those feeding the poor due to bad publicity, but they forced them to feed them in an alley out of sight of the middle class, and other efforts to speak out against oppressive city ordinances haven't worked out so well, at least not yet, including the city of Los Angeles where L.A. Expands Homeless Crackdown 08/09/2022 just last year and the police forced protesters out of the town hall where they passed an ordinance against the poor anyway. Supposedly their new mayor, Karen Bass, is trying to improve things; but according to L.A.’s new homeless solution clears camps but struggles to house people 07/13/2023 she's having limited success. It could be worse though, Rick Coruso, a billionaire, worth four billion dollars, could have won, and it's highly unlikely that he would be concerned about the best interests of the poor. He claimed Karen Bass was an establishment politician, which is true, but she's better than most establishment politicians, and certainly better than the average billionaire, who didn't get so rich by respecting the rights of working class people. Caruso spent over a hundred million dollars, with about eighty million of his own money and the rest from donors that are probably also wealthy, on propaganda ads to convince us he wanted to look out for our best interests. Why would a billionaire spend so much money on a job that only pays two or three hundred thousand dollars a year? To help the poor? If he wanted to help the poor or middle class, he obviously could have spent that money on something much more effective, and possibly lobbied on their behalf; yet most if not all billionaires clearly seem to be doing the opposite!

As I said there is plenty of evidence showing that addressing social problems, including reducing poverty, housing the homeless, reducing income inequality, increasing access to education or economic opportunities and much, including a lot that I covered in previous articles, with good academic sources, and there's more below. One of my previous articles, We're Using Children For Research, Without Accepting The Benefits! cited research from both Lisbeth Schorr "Within Our Reach" 1988 and Stefan Kanfer "The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World," among other sources. Lisbeth Schorr is among the best sources, since she provides research on dozens of programs that were understood over thirty-five years ago that solve many social problems, including reduction of violence, and save much more money than they cost. Other sources I've cited that support her claims include James Garbarino, Robert John Zagar, and many more. Her book Lisbeth Schorr "Within Our Reach" 1988 and a follow up, Lisbeth Schorr "Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America" 1997, are both available free on the Internet Archive. Additional articles of mine are listed below along with other academic studies or sources; however, there are also dozens of academics who explain how the wealthy control the economic and legal system, which partly explains why they refuse to implement programs that save much more money than they cost, including Jeffrey H Reiman, author of "The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Prison." In addition to supporting Randall Sheldon's research showing the wealthy control the laws, while the poor are the ones accountable for the laws, he also supports research from Lisbeth Schorr and others showing it's less expensive to prevent the root causes of crime from escalating, and more effective at solving social problems, including crime, as indicated int the following excerpts from the tenth edition of this book (2013):

And a study, by the Rand Corporation Drug Policy Research Center, titled Controlling Cocaine: Supply verses Demand Programs, found that treatment is seven times more cost-effective than domestic drug enforcement in reducing cocaine use and 15 times more cost-effective in reducing the social costs of crime and lost productivity." 214 The study also concluded that "treatment is the most effective way to reduce violent crime. 215

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In short there is a growing body of knowledge showing that early childhood intervention, drug treatment, and numerous other programs can work to reduce crime. As Professor Blumstein observed, "If you intervene early, you not only save the cost of incarceration, you also save the costs of crime and gain the benefits of an individual who is a taxpaying contributor to the economy." 218 But, as Peter Greenwood, author of the Rand Corporation Study, Diverting Children From a Life of Crime, says "The big policy question is, who will act on this?" 219 p.46

Reiman then goes on to cite "Kai T. Erikson's suggestion in his book, Wayward Puritans, that societies derive benefit from the existence of crime, and there is a reason to believe that social institutions work to maintain rather than eliminate crime. Thus it will clarify our view if we compare it with Erikson's." (p.47) This may seem hard to believe to many people, but he goes on to cite Emile Durkheim to support this belief, and even though he doesn't cite Karl Meninger "Punishment as Crime," his work also supports this claim. This is almost certainly not intention for most people, and it certainly doesn't benefit most people; however, many people look to blame poor people without resources for their crimes, without recognizing that they're often forced into desperation, or that the rich are withholding solutions that actually work, and would reduce that crime. It's more likely, though, among the rich that are more concerned about controlling the poor or middle class than helping them, since it gives them the excuse to them, and once some people are convicted of crimes, to take their voting rights away, or make it harder for them to get employment, which helps drive down wages and increase profits for the rich, but leads to more crime for everyone else.

One common claim from some of these books exposing how the wealthy control the laws while the poor or middle class are much more likely to be in legal trouble is the claim that some laws prevent "both the rich and poor from sleeping under bridges or stealing bread equally," but, of course activities carried out by the poor are much more likely to be criminalized, and the rich are rarely held accountable for many white collar crimes that do much more damage to the public, including rigging the economy so that some poor people are forced to sleep under bridges or steal bread. Murder, is of course a crime punishable by law, but it's much less likely to be considered a crime when rich people do it, in a variety of ways. It was only about a hundred years ago when labor wars finally became less common and there were numerous cases where dozens, or in at least one case, possibly close to a hundred, people were killed, mostly working people defending their rights, by those working on behalf of business interests, and the killers were rarely held accountable.

The people killing workers were often private detectives working for business interests, or more common, either the police or military, working on behalf of business interests. In all fairness, there were of course some cases where some of the workers fought back, but in most cases, it was only after being oppressed, and even though people killing on behalf of business interests killed many more, many media outlets tried to portray the workers as the violent one. In many cases, even though workers were far less likely to kill during labor wars, or commit other crimes, unless you count petty crimes designed to make standing up for their rights a crime, they were far more likely to be charged with crimes, including murder. In some cases workers who were innocent were more likely to be found guilty than those killing workers who were guilty. Some of these examples can be found here Wikipedia: List of worker deaths in United States labor disputes or discussed in The Labor Wars: from the Molly Maguires to the sitdowns by Sidney Lens, 1973

As I said, they're far less likely to kill a large number of people with guns or traditional murder now, but negligent murder is still just as common, and with escalating environmental damage, it could potentially escalate to ecocide, assuming it hasn't already. Jeffrey Reiman pointed out in his book that tens of thousands of people die every year from pollutants, which is almost certainly much lower than the total; one of his sources is Robert Bullard, and several medical institutions providing studies, (p.98-9); but if you look through enough environmental books you may find they provide large numbers of people killed by certain types of pollution, but each researcher usually only covers a limited amount of the problem, since there's so much of it. In addition to pollution related deaths there are a variety of other preventable causes by negligent work safety, or many other forms of accidents which are more likely to kill poor or middle class people because rich people cut corners to increase profits. Another good source is "Democracy for the Few" by Michael Parenti 2011 (Read free online PDF) which points out that "If a company kills an employee through willful and deliberate endangerment, it is only a misdemeanor under federal law," (p.84), however, in practice, even this isn't always the case, there are many examples where it's a civil matter, not a criminal matter, and many other cases where there's no accountability at all, either in criminal courts or civil ones!

Jeffrey Reiman also points out that crimes committed by wealthy people are much less likely to be prosecuted, and when they are it's often civil litigation, but whether it's civil or criminal law, if it's prosecuted they get off much easier than poor people committing much more trivial offenses, as indicated in the following excerpt:

This economic bias is a two-edged sword. Not only are the poor arrested and charged out of proportion to their numbers for the kind of crimes poor people generally commit—burglary,robbery, assault, and so forth—but also, when we reach the kinds of crimes poor people almost never never have the opportunity to commit, such as anti-trust violations, industrial safety violations, embezzlement, and large-scale tax evasion, the criminal justice system shows an increasingly benign and merciful face. When it comes to crime in the streets, where the perpetrator is apt to be poor, he he or she is even more likely to be arrested and formally charged. When it comes to crime in the suites, where the offender is apt to be affluent, the system is more likely to deal with the crime non-criminally, that is by civil litigation or informal settlement. When it does choose to proceed criminally, as we will see in the section on sentencing, it rarely goes beyond a slap on the wrist. p.128

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You cited, Mr. Dennis, several examples in your testimony of successful convictions with stiff sentences, but the average sentence so far is about 2 years, compared to an average sentence of about 9 years for bank robbery. Why do we throw the book at people who rob a bank in broad daylight but we coddle people who ... rob the bank secretly? 113 ....

Under federal law, if ... you steal a car out of my driveway and you drive it across [the stateline] into Pennsylvania, ten years. Ten years, federal guideline. You take a pension by violating ERISA, the federal system to safeguard pensions, misdemeanor, maximum one year. The pension may be worth $1,800,000. My car may be worth $2,000. 114 p.137

The list of examples where the law is overwhelmingly rigged in favor of the wealthy that have much more control of the government than the poor or middle class goes much further than this, even if Reiman or any other researcher can't possibly cover it all. This includes wage theft compared to shoplifting, which according to, Want to be a criminal in America? Stealing billions is your best bet to go scot-free 12/07/2021, shoplifters are much more likely to be criminally prosecuted; and even though it cites a case against Walgreens where a settlement forced them to pay out $4.5 million, more than a third of that goes to attorney fees and other penalties, and it only represents “approximately 22% of the potential damages,” which essentially means that workers only got less than 15% of the wages that were allegedly stolen from them; and there's no way to know how many more examples of this there are, since it's much less likely to be prosecuted. Another example is the robo-signing of loans that took place at an epidemic level during the end of the Bush administration and continued well into the Obama administration, assuming it stopped.

When they were at their peak, there were claims that there were hundreds of arrests or action being taken to stop it, but that lead to few convictions, especially the people at the top. In many cases as soon as people stopped paying attention cases were quietly dropped or settled for a fraction of what they were worth, and, while few if any of the homeowners who lost everything were bailed out many large corporations were, and in many cases while accepting bailout money they were giving massive bonuses to those responsible for the financial meltdown. This epidemic level of fraud escalated under the George W Bush administration, and one of the progressive policies Barack Obama ran on in 2008 was the claim that he wouldn't fill his cabinet with lobbyists; but like many other campaign promises, once in office he showed he never meant them at all, and did just that. This included his appointment of Eric Holder to Attorney General. Before being appointed to Obama's cabinet Holder worked at a law firm that represented many of the corporations responsible for the 2009 financial meltdown, which they saw coming during the 2008 campaign. During the campaign Obama promised to hold Wall Street corporations accountable, but once Holder was confirmed as the Attorney General he refused to prosecute any of his former clients, then after leaving office in Obama's second term he went right back to the same law firm, representing the same clients he refused to prosecute, even though he had plenty of evidence of epidemic fraud and white collar criminal activity. There's no shortage of sources for these claims and many more, including Obama's Big Sellout: The President has Packed His Economic Team with Wall Street Insiders 12/13/2009 by Matt Taibbi; 218 reasons NOT to vote for Obama 03/15/2012 by Joshua Hedlund; and many more listed below; while articles like these often fall down the memory hole the establishment provides an enormous amount of propaganda they repeat over and over again, even though it's selective, often ignoring important facts, or making outright lies, that make establishment candidates seem much more progressive than they are.

This is similar to several other massive scams in the past including the Savings and Loans scandal during the Reagan administration where few people with the exception of Michael Milken and a couple others actually went to jail; and even then, when Michael Milkin was released he was still a billionaire, only paying a fraction of what he made in fraud, and his jail sentence was reduced to two years, and he was eventually pardoned by Donald Trump. He went on to found K-12, now known as Stride, Inc., a for profit education system that teaches online, and according to several sources like Diane Ravitch and the National Education Policy Center, it has been a disaster providing horrendous education, but making profits for investors. They collect tax payer money that should go for education and use it for advertising, lobbying, profits, and many other wasteful expenses, without providing adequate education; yet some sources try to portray Michael Milken as a philanthropist, presumably because he takes a small fraction of the money he steals with white collar crime and donates it to charity, and still has plenty of political connections from both parties, including every president from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden, all of whom he has met and been photographed.

Why are our leading politicians always posing for pictures with the biggest white collar criminals in history?

Are these white collar criminals constantly getting away with their crimes because of these political connections?

Jeffrey Reiman speculates about the possibility that this might be an intentional conspiracy theory in his book "The Rich Get Richer; and the Poor Get Prison," and, for the most part downplays this and indicates it's mostly ideology, while focusing mostly on credible sources that have been proven true showing a small percentage of people are in control of powerful institutions and use this control for their own benefit. A large portion of the best research doesn't involve Conspiracy Theories, since it comes from credible public sources, so, to a significant point, he's correct, and sine it's from public sources that makes his theories much more credible than many Conspiracy Theorists. Furthermore, when academics like him, and many others, including C. Wright Mills, who was one of the earlier researchers showing powerful institutions were overwhelmingly controlled by the wealthy in "The Power Elite" prove this, they also prove that a small number of people are in an ideal postion to rig things in their own favor in secret. Jeffrey Reiman even covers some of this in his book which discusses the 2009 meltdown in the 10th edition of his book in 2013 which shows that many people controlling these corporations acted in secret to carry out their fraud, which is by definition a conspiracy, which means that even though a large portion of the most important evidence implicating white collar criminals was never secret, there is still evidence that in addition to that real conspiracies are real.

However, in all fairness, while he's calling decisions based on ideology for the benefit of the rich, they could just as easily do the same to him and call him biased, in the other direction; which, no doubt they would do if they thought it would do them any good. However, both ideologies are based on a series of beliefs and facts which can be fact checked, and good researchers like Jeffrey Reiman, Randall Sheldon, Michael Parenti and many more, do a much better job fact checking and it's virtually impossible to refute some of their claims, like that rich people control powerful institutions and use this control to their advantage at the expense of the majority. For example, since when to poor people ever have the opportunity to go to college and become judges, prosecutors, or leading politicians? On the rare occasions where they do it only happens with the help of rich people in powerful places, and they only do this if the person rising to another class serves the interests of the rich. The closer you look at their work the more obvious it is that they do a much better job fact checking; however, the best researchers almost never get any recognition by traditional media, so most people are unaware of it, which enables the wealthy to repeat their ideology over and over again without it being challenged by evidence they can't refute. The reason they're able to do this, of course, is because only six corporations control over 90% of the national media, and many of the next biggest media companies, like the Washington Post, the Washington Times, Time Magazine, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and many other major news outlets are owned by billionaires; even the New York Times is controlled by a wealthy family, although they may not be billionaires, but they have major stockholders who are, and as several sources, including Carl Bernstein have shown they're at least partly controlled by the CIA.

Over forty years ago the fictional character Doctor Who, essentially describes this propaganda tactic, which is being done on a massive scale, when he said said "You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alters their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit the views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." Anyone that relies on traditional media for most, if not all of the information they use to make decisions might not be aware of it; but on any given subject, including the most effective way to prevent violence, protect the environment, sweatshop labor, wars based on lies, how badly the economy is rigged and much more, there's research much better than anything the media covers in libraries, academic journals, or alternative media, but this research isn't used to make important policy decisions.

Instead they base decision on the fiscal ideology of the rich and convince as many people as they can that their ideology is mainstream even though polls have shown this isn't the case, as I pointed out previously in Conclusive Proof Showing Democracy In The USA Is A Lie! which shows two or three dozen polls, mostly at least partly involving ficscal issues, where large majorities of the public are all on the same side of the issues and wealthy campaign donors are on the other side, and even though the campaign donors only account for a small fraction of the public, politicians almost always take their side. In many cases there's also evidence showing that the views of the people are also backed up with research showing they solve many social problems, including reducing the causes of violence and ultimately all types of crime. As I pointed out in the article I just mentioned this shows our country isn't nearly as Democratic as we've been lead to believe and "Democracy for the Few" by Michael Parenti 2011 (Read free online PDF) adds to this evidence. He points out how our government has been controlled by the wealthy from the beginning and that we've only been given propaganda to convince us it's democratic. One point he makes is that even when laws or amendments, including the fourteenth amendment, are made to help the people they're often twisted around to defend the wealthy first, as the following excepts shows:

Federal judges and Supreme Court justices have been known to enjoy expensive gifts and lavish trips paid for by corporations and other affluent interests that seek to influence their judicial rulings. There are no rules to regulate these practices or to track any conflict of interest or personal links that judges might have to litigants. A GAO report found that judges improperly issued hundreds of decisions involving corporations in which they themselves owned stock. One judge threw out lawsuits against a medical center on whose board he sat. 4 Justice Antonin Scalia went on an all-expenses-paid duck-hunting trip with Vice President Dick Cheney in 2004, then two weeks later refused to recuse himself before deciding in Cheney’s favor in a case that was of keen personal and political interest to the vice president.5 p.250

The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868 ostensibly to establish full citizenship for Blacks, says in part, “No State shall .... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Once more conservative judicial activism reigned supreme as the Court decided that “person” included corporations and that the Fourteenth Amendment was really intended to protect business conglomerations from the “vexatious regulations” of the states.16 By 1920, conservative activists on federal courts had struck down roughly three hundred labor laws that had been passed by state legislatures to ease the inhumane conditions endured by working people. Between 1880 and 1931, the courts issued more than 1,800 injunctions against labor strikes. (An injunction is a court order prohibiting a party from taking a specific action.)

When Congress outlawed child labor, the Court’s conservative majority found it to be a usurpation of the reserved powers of the states under the Tenth Amendment, which reads: “The Powers not delegated to the United States by this Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.” But when the states passed social-welfare legislation, the Court’s conservative judicial activists found it in violation of “substantive due process” under the Fourteenth Amendment.17 Thus they used the Tenth Amendment to stop federal reforms initiated under the Fourteenth Amendment, and they used the Fourteenth to stop state reforms initiated under the Tenth. Juridically speaking, it is hard to get more brazenly activist than that.

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Convinced that they too were persons despite the treatment accorded them by a male-dominated society, women began to argue that the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments applied to them and that the voting restrictions imposed on them by state and federal governments should be abolished. The Fifth Amendment says, among other things, that no person shall be denied “due process of law.” (It applies to the federal government just as the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause applies to the states.) But in Minor v. Happersett (1875), the all-male conservative activist Court fashioned another tortured interpretation: women were citizens, true, but citizenship did not necessarily confer the right of suffrage. 18 The Court made up its mind that “privileges and immunities of citizens,” “due process,” and “equal protection of the laws” applied to such “persons” as business corporations, but neither to women nor to persons of African descent. p.254

Communists might sometimes be denied free speech, but not liquor and tobacco companies. The Court’s conservative judicial activists determined that Rhode Island’s ban on advertising liquor prices violated “commercial speech,” as did a Massachusetts law requiring tobacco ads in stores to be at least five feet high, out of children’s direct vision.22 The Court’s conservative activists ruled, in the words of Justice Lewis Powell, that corporate spending to influence votes during a referendum campaign “is a type of speech indispensable to decision-making in a democracy.” 23 In a dissenting opinion, Justices Byron White, William J. Brennan, and Thurgood Marshall argued that “corporations are artificial entities created by law for the purpose of furthering certain economic ends.” Their enormous economic power threatens “the very heart of our democracy, the election process.” p.256

Somehow the Supreme Court twisted the interpretation around of the Fourteenth Amendment to give more rights to corporations that either African Americans, who it was passed to protect, or woman, who still didn't have the right to vote at the time, and wouldn't gain it until thirty-four years later according to Wikipedia: Corporate personhood: Historical background in the United States. Furthermore, the epidemic levels of corruption by judges, including the Supreme Court continues to make the news even more in the past few years as shown in the news and some articles listed below.

Michael Parenti began writing the first edition of this book even before Howard Zinn wrote "A People's History of the United States," which is also a good source showing how undemocratic our country really is, compared to the propaganda implying otherwise, and while that may be a better and more thorough history book, "Democracy for the Few" does a better job showing how undemocratic our country really is, starting with the founding, and creation of the constitution which wasn't written by all the people at all, but only by a small percentage of white wealthy male land owners who created a Constitution primarily for their benefit. Parenti clearly indicates that our government was formed intentionally to benefit the wealthy and prevent a democratic control by the majority of poor people as indicated in the following excerpts from the beginning of his book, not to mention throughout the rest of it:

“The people who own the country ought to govern it,” declared John Jay. A permanent check over the populace should be exercised by “the rich and the well-born,” urged Alexander Hamilton. Unlike most theorists before him, Marx was one of the first in the modern era to see the existing relationship between wealth and power as undesirable and exploitative, and this was his unforgivable sin. The tendency to avoid critical analysis of corporate capitalism persists to this day among business people, journalists, and most academics.2 p.4

In twelve of the thirteen states (Pennsylvania excepted), only property-owning White males could vote, probably not more than 10 percent of the total adult population. Excluded were all Native Americans (“Indians”), persons of African descent, women, indentured servants, and White males lacking sufficient property. Property qualifications for holding office were so steep as to exclude even most of the White males who could vote. A member of the New Jersey legislature had to be worth at least £1,000. South Carolina state senators had to possess estates worth at least £7,000 clear of debt (equivalent to over a million dollars today). In Maryland, a candidate for governor had to own property worth at least £5,000. In addition, the absence of a secret ballot and of a real choice among candidates and programs led to widespread discouragement.3 p.5-6

Most troublesome to the framers of the Constitution was the insurgent spirit evidenced among the people. In 1787, a worried George Washington wrote to a former comrade-in-arms that a constitution was much needed “to contain the threat of the people rather than to embrace their participation and their competence,” lest “the anarchy of the propertyless would give way to despotism.”7 Even plutocrats like Gouverneur Morris, who shortly before the Constitutional Convention had opposed strong federation, now realized that an empowered national government would be the best safeguard for propertied interests. So Morris “gave up ‘state rights’ for ‘nationalism’ without hesitation.”8 p.6

In the United States of 1787, there existed poorhouses and a large debtor class. Small farmers were burdened by heavy rents, ruinous taxes, and low incomes. To survive, they frequently had to borrow money at high interest rates. To meet their debts, they mortgaged their future crops and went still deeper into debt. Interest rates on debts ranged from 25 to 40 percent, and taxes fell most heavily on those of modest means. No property was exempt from seizure, save the clothes on a debtor’s back.10

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The specter of Shays’s Rebellion hovered over the delegates who gathered in Philadelphia three months later, confirming their worst fears. They were determined that persons of birth and fortune should control the affairs of the nation and check the “leveling impulses” of the property-less multitude who composed “the majority faction” (majority class). “To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction,” wrote James Madison in Federalist No. 10, “and at the same time preserve the spirit and form of popular government is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.” Here Madison touched the heart of the matter: how to keep the “form” and appearance of popular government with only a minimum of the substance, how to construct a government that would win some popular support but would not tamper with the existing class structure, a government strong enough to service the growing needs of the entrepreneurial and landed classes while withstanding the egalitarian demands of the ordinary populace. p.7

The framers were of the opinion that democracy (rule by the common people) was “the worst of all political evils,” as Elbridge Gerry put it. For Edmund Randolph, the country’s problems were caused by “the turbulence and follies of democracy.” Roger Sherman concurred: “The people should have as little to do as may be about the Government.” According to Alexander Hamilton, “all communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and the wellborn, the other the mass of the people.… The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right.” He recommended a strong centralized state power to “check the imprudence of democracy.” And George Washington, the presiding officer at the Philadelphia Convention, urged the delegates not to produce a document merely to “please the people.”13 p.8

The property less majority, as Madison pointed out in Federalist No. 10, must not be allowed to concert in common cause against the propertied class and its established social order. The larger the nation, the greater the “variety of parties and interests” and the more difficult it would be for a mass majority to act in unison. As Madison argued, “A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other wicked project will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it.” An uprising of impoverished farmers might threaten Massachusetts at one time and Rhode Island at another, but a national government would be large enough to contain each of these and insulate the rest of the nation from the contamination of rebellion. p.10-1

Most of what he writes is almost forgotten history for the vast majority of the public who are routinely taught to worship our Founding Fathers instead of recognizing the fact that they were flawed men and rigged the economy in their own favor from the beginning; and to this day the political and economic system are both heavily rigged in favor of the wealthy, more concerned with controlling the masses, than teaching the most effective way to reduce crime or violence, which certainly doesn't involve rigging the economy in favor of the wealthy leaving a large segment of society destitute, partly to suppress wages and increase profits. Even George Washington indicated he didn't support Democracy and thought the wealthy should be in control. The fact that they refused to give voting rights to those that didn't own land, or women and minorities, whether they owned land or not. This, of course included a Constitution that promoted slavery, and depriving Native Americans of their rights and stealing their land. The Constitution was initially created to enslave the innocent and entrap the original owners of the country, among other things.

Another good source showing how heavily rigged our political and economic system is a study that came out about nine years ago by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens." 09/18/2014. The actual study may seem more confusing than perhaps it should, which is common among some academic researchers, sometimes with good reason, although I suspect they could have kept it simpler. One good summation was written at the time in this article Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy 04/17/2014 For many of us they just told us what we already know, that politicians are much more likely to spend more time with their campaign contributors and create policy that satisfies them, while giving the rest of us broken promises and propaganda to point the blame any place but the ones breaking the promises. Even though I recommend reading the full study, even if it may be more complicated than it has to be here are a few of what I consider the best excerpts from it, for those that want an abbreviated version:

The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. ....

These results suggest that reality is best captured by mixed theories in which both individual economic elites and organized interest groups (including corporations, largely owned and controlled by wealthy elites) play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence. .....

Thus when popular majorities favor the status quo, opposing a given policy change, they are likely to get their way; but when a majority—even a very large majority—of the public favors change, it is not likely to get what it wants. In our 1,779 policy cases, narrow pro-change majorities of the public got the policy changes they wanted only about 30 percent of the time. More strikingly, even overwhelmingly large pro-change majorities, with 80 percent of the public favoring a policy change, got that change only about 43 percent of the time.

In any case, normative advocates of populistic democracy may not be enthusiastic about democracy by coincidence, in which ordinary citizens get what they want from government only when they happen to agree with elites or interest groups that are really calling the shots. When push comes to shove, actual influence matters.

Economic Elites ........

Taken as a whole, then, our evidence strongly indicates that theories of Biased Pluralism are more descriptive of political reality than are theories of Majoritarian Pluralism. It is simply not the case that a host of diverse, broadly-based interest groups take policy stands—and bring about actual policies—that reflect what the general public wants. Interest groups as a whole do not seek the same policies as average citizens do. “Potential groups” do not fill the gap. Relatively few mass-based interest groups are active, they do not (in the aggregate) represent the public very well, and they have less collective impact on policy than do business-oriented groups—whose stands tend to be negatively related to the preferences of average citizens. These business groups are far more numerous and active; they spend much more money; and they tend to get their way.

.... When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it. .....

But we tend to doubt it. We believe instead that—collectively—ordinary citizens generally know their own values and interests pretty well, and that their expressed policy preferences are worthy of respect. Footnote 50 Moreover, we are not so sure about the informational advantages of elites. Yes, detailed policy knowledge tends to rise with income and status. Surely wealthy Americans and corporate executives tend to know a lot about tax and regulatory policies that directly affect them. But how much do they know about the human impact of Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, or unemployment insurance, none of which is likely to be crucial to their own well-being? Most important, we see no reason to think that informational expertise is always accompanied by an inclination to transcend one's own interests or a determination to work for the common good. .....

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policy-making is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

Personally I consider this study to be very credible, even though, at times, I think they made it more complicated than they had to, but not surprisingly it was followed by several sources trying to rais doubts about it, some that made their own more complicated arguments including Remember that study saying America is an oligarchy? 3 rebuttals say it's wrong. 05/09/2016 which was written by an author that thinks these rebuttals are right, which I obviously disagree with, but invite anyone who wants to hear both sides to read his article. Unfortunately the first study he cites is behind a pay-wall so I only read the abstract, the second to are much longer and, like the Gilens and Page study, more complicated than they had to be, which may make it easier to spin if they have something to hide. The third one is no longer on line, but you can read it on the Wayback Machine, When do the Rich Win? However, as I pointed out in a previous article, Conclusive Proof Showing Democracy In The USA Is A Lie! there are a listing of two or three dozen polls on fiscal issues, which get's to the point much faster than any of these studies showing large majorities of the public on almost all fiscal issues on one side of the issues, with the possible exception of infrastructure, and campaign donors on the other side of the issue, and the entire political establishment favors the views of their donors, not the people, although they may give the people propaganda to confuse the issue or distract them. Furthermore, it's not uncommon for wealthy people to finance propaganda or academic studies that suit their ideologies, which have often been exposed in alternative media outlets or books, including a few about medical or environmental research, David Michaels "Doubt Is Their Product" 2008, David Michaels "The Triumph of Doubt" and Merchants Of Doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway 2010, which is why I don't rule out a strong bias in these three studies, or any others, claiming the political establishment and economy isn't rigged heavily in favor of the rich.

Further more another study, It’s Official: America Is an Oligarchy 09/29/2022 John Nichols, confirms Gilens and Page's conclusions saying, "The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the rich exponentially increased their share of America’s wealth over the past 30 years," among other things. As I pointed out in previous articles there are plenty of studies showing that poverty, economic inequality, lack of education or economic opportunities, and many other fiscal issues related to a rigged economy, as well as early child abuse, including corporal punishment are all correlated with higher rates of violence, and evidence proves that most if not all of these problems are also contributing causes of violence.

The academic world spends an enormous amount of time arguing about the differences between correlations, risk factors, contributing causes or other similar terms. Some of this is justifiable; James Garbarino, one of the best researchers on the subject, often says "it depends" when asked about this, and he's right at least to a point. When a mass shooting happens if someone rushes to ask an academic what caused it before the research is done on that specific shooting there's no way a good researchers will know which contributing causes, or risk factors, lead to the mass shooting; however, the academic could explain what the leading causes of violence was in the past, and explain that not all contributing causes or risk factors caused all acts of violence, but some were very common in many of them, and that if we address the leading contributing causes or risk factors throughout society then we can reduce violence over all by a large percentage. Professor Garbarino hesitates to call things direct causes of violence in most cases, instead using the term risk factors, however if you read enough of his work it seems pretty clear that he considers early child abuse a major contributing cause of violence later in life; and he repeatedly says the more risk factors, like poverty, income inequality, lack of education, which I consider contributing causes as well, the more likely there is to be increased violence, clearly indicating that by reducing these risk factors, and more, we will definitely reduce violence overall, although it's virtually impossible to predict which specific incidences will be eliminated. For example, if we created a list of murders or other violent incidents over the past decade in a specific city and speculated about which ones would have been prevented if we increased funding for childcare, education and other programs that work, we wouldn't be able to tell. But if we look at another city where effective programs are in place we can easily see the rates of murder or other violence will be much lower.

In several previous articles I explained many of the most important contributing causes of violence including Educational Prevention Of Shootings Is Better Than Militarization, which also includes list of over 125 cities with double the murder rate and their medium income as well. There are also many cities, including Irvine Ca. with only 15% of the national rate or San Diego with half the national rate, even though it has well over a million people and large cities are almost always more violent than small ones, or even more rural communities that have much lower rates of violence, and there's at least three dozen or so countries with more than 80% less murder than our average, or over 90% lower murder rates than the 125 cities of ours at double the rate.

Why are some of these cities so much more violent than other cities or entire countries?

In most, if not all cases the explanation to that is available in libraries, academic journals or alternative media, but it's not available in traditional media, where they falsely act as if it's an inexplicable mystery, nor are political decisions made based on the best research, although academics often testify at hears; however, as I pointed out previously, in many cases, including a few times where James Garbarino testified before Congress, they read his statements into the record, many politicians are often absent and don't hear what he says, and they routinely ignore his testimony when it's time to make important decisions, assuming they ever read it at all, instead serving the interests of their campaign donors.

All I have to do is glance at the European countries with much lower murder rates and I know the reason is they provide much better education, childcare, economic opportunities, less poverty, income inequality, and they do much more to teach how to prevent child abuse, even banning corporal punishment in all schools, and in most cases at home as well. In the United States there are still seventeen states still allowing it in schools, no longer counting Idaho or Colorado, which outlawed it earlier this year, the first two states to ban it in twelve years. States that still allow it in schools are also much more likely to use corporal punishment at home, and have higher child abuse rates, and these same states also have the highest murder rates.

I don't know nearly as much about Irvine or San Diego, but the fact that their murder rates are so much lower than similar cities of their size shows they must be doing something right, and a glance at their Wiki pages shows they have much higher medium income than other cities and lower rates of people in poverty. As I pointed out previously, the more than 125 cities with more than double the national murder rates are almost all much lower income, and the biggest exception, Washington D.C. is notable for the obvious reason why. Washington D.C. has a lot of lobbyists, politicians and other wealthy business people living in one part of town driving up the medium household income, and much poorer destitute people in the rest of the city. If we had a break down about the areas with the highest murder rates and lowest medium income there's little or no doubt that they would be the same neighborhoods.

If Congress wanted to know about research showing how to solve social problems before they escalate, and save money att he same time, whether it's from Lisbeth Schorr's book "Within Our Reach," research by James Garbarino, Robert John Zagar, or many other good researchers, they would; and they could implement these programs in their own back yard, up to twelve or thirteen miles from the Capitol or White House, and there's little doubt they could cut their murder rates in half or much more. But they choose not to, instead presumably they train police to keep poor people in their place so they don't endanger rich people, even though it's cheaper and more effective to prevent problems before they escalate.

WHY????

Any rational person that understands this research would surely see how insane this is, assuming they want to!

This isn't limited to research about reducing violence; it also applies to research about protecting the environment, research about wars based on lies, research about how medicare for all will save money and lives, and solutions to many other social problems. In one subject after another there's good research in libraries much better than what they cover in traditional media. What could explain this?

If the wealthy that control powerful institutions have a Machiavellian ideology designed to keep the masses poor and uneducated so it's easy to manipulate people then this makes perfect sense; if that's not the case, then I can't imagine any other explanation for this.

In at least two previous articles, Machiavellian Ideology Ignores Real Science and Machiavellian Assault On Science, The Poor & Democracy! I pointed out the fact that Finland had an enormous amount of success reducing homelessness and many related social problems and saved much more money than their housing first program costed; and that Portugal had similar successes solving drug addiction by treating it instead of criminalizing it, reducing deaths overdoses, and also saving more money than the programs cost by solving related social programs before they escalated. These articles also explained that some cities in the United States including, Fresno, Houston, San Diego, Denver, Columbus and Salt Lake City all tried Housing first programs, although not on nearly as large a scale as Finland, and three of those six, San Diego, Denver, Columbus and Salt Lake City, have significantly lower murder rates, which may be partly because of their success at Housing First, but, in all fairness, there are other contributing causes of violence, Fresno didn't do quite as well, compared to the national rate, but compared to other large cities, they did better than most.

Presumably other contributing factors may explain why Houston and Columbus aren't doing well at all, but these recent reports imply that one of the contributing causes is that their Housing First program wasn't as effectively as previously reported, otherwise they wouldn't have this conflict about feeding the homeless. San Antonio is one of the cities that had the programs promoted by Robert Marbut, which were outrageous, as I pointed out in the previous article about this, yet it's not quite as bad as Houston's murder rates, although it is above average, and worse than Fresno. Many of the other cities that Robert Marbut promoted his counterproductive program for the homeless have much higher murder rates and more other social problems, showing this is clearly a failure, especially when compared to Finland's programs which do a much better job solving problems than even the cities in the USA using smaller scale Housing First Programs. Some of the cities, including Salt Lake City and Fresno, that hired Marbut as a consultant eventually rejected his proposals and adopted smaller scale Housing First Programs, with better results than those that continued with his programs. One of the cities with absurd policies about feeding the poor, years ago, was Kansas City Missouri, where the police literally poured bleach on food they were giving to the poor to intentionally ruin it so they couldn't feed the poor, which is obviously destruction of private property, and they have among the highest murder rates in the country as well as many other social problems, showing this clearly diesn't work. By doing dumb things like this they actually do much more to make crime worse than to reduce it.

Recently according to Food Not Bombs volunteer found not guilty after citation for feeding homeless 07/31/2023 not only were they found not guilty but a judge also ruled found the "city’s feeding ordinance unconstitutional. Unfortunately another article says City of Houston plans to refile dismissed cases against 'Foods not Bombs' group feeding the homeless 08/03/2023. Successes are happening at the local level, but there are constant efforts to roll them back for ideological reasons and we don't have a high profile effort to educate the public about the most effective ways to solve social problems, including feeding the poor, reducing violence, and much more, because mainstream media refuses to report on the best research, but it is available in libraries, academic journals, or alternative media. When police blindly obey orders to enforce incredibly foolish ordinances like this they do more to increase crime than to reduce it. Fortunately they're reluctant to enforce it, and even though they did hand out tickets, as ordered to, part of the reason they were found not guilty is many of the police officers didn't show up for court, which helps, but if they refused to hand out the tickets at all city halls would be forced to rethink their policies especially since there's often strong public opposition to them.

Ideally, we need major reforms for mainstream media, which includes much more diverse media from many other sources, not controlled by the rich, including grassroots organizations or good educational researchers. But if that doesn't happen in the short term, we need as much effort at the grassroots level to teach people about this research, which will simultaneously show how incompetent or corrupt traditional media is.