Ferguson

I hate this.  A cop in Ferguson, Missouri, suburban St. Louis, shot and killed a teenager Saturday, in broad daylight, for the crime of looking suspicious, by being black.  He was walking with a friend, to his grandmother’s house. I hate that this is not a new, or even unusual thing.  I hate it that there seems to be no solution to this continuing problem.

Oh, I can think of solutions:  Don’t give the police guns.  Fire any cops who act like total jerks when they are dealing with people on the street.  Make it so the police are actually subject to the laws.  Just no solutions that are likely to be adopted.

They sure don’t look like the good guys, do they?

There have been protests over the last couple of days and it’s turned a bit violent a couple of times – how much of that was caused by police provocation is hard to tell.  Two sides to every story.  But when the police hit the streets in huge, armored vehicles carrying military style artillery, when they break up peaceful protests for no reason, when they flood the streets with tear gas, when they start targeting news crews and vehicles and arresting reporters, when they refuse to release the name of the officer who did the shooting (it’s unlikely that he’s even been suspended, because if he had been, they’d say so), it’s pretty easy to see who the real bad guys in this movie are.

American cops are looking very much like the cops in Hunger Games, or  Soylent Green.  They actually seem to be yearning for a bizarre, fascist dystopia with high tech weapons.  They are insane.

I don’t know how this is going to play out, but the power is definitely in the hands of the police, so it’s their move.  They can continue with their oppressive tactics, but their public support is eroding and things will only escalate.  This may end very badly for the police – they’ve got the guns but we’ve got the numbers, as the saying goes.  Or, they could try to de-escalate,  which might actually do a great deal of good.  Nobody wants a police v. people civil war.  Except for, perhaps, for those few who actually ARE yearning for a plice v. people civil war.

The usual people are saying the usual things.  Obama said it was ‘heart breaking’ but stopped short of saying “Out of line cops, gotta be stopped.”

One who has surprised me on this issue is Rand Paul.  He came out and said this is about race and anybody who can’t see it is a moron, and something needs to be done about it.  It’s a very impressive statement because it’s not likely to play well with the right wing of the Republican party, i.e. his base.

It’s either a moment of rare political courage or, he thinks the libertarian elements of his party will outweigh the racist elements.  I think that’s a gamble he will lose, but it’s still a sign of courage and, if he’s right, the payoff for him could be huge.

Has Hillary  Clinton weighed in on this issue yet?  If so, I haven’t heard about it.