If you want a glimpse of the near future of America, look no further than Samson, Alabama.
Last March, Michael McLendon, a disgruntled worker from Pilgrim's Pride, a chicken processing company, went on a killing rampage that left 11 people dead. While a horrible tragedy in itself, the event was marked by something more unusual - federal Army troops from nearby Fort Rucker were brought into Samson and other surrounding areas to patrol the streets. This fact was largely ignored by the major media.
The reason why the troops were manning traffic stops in the small Alabama town, in clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, was because the local sheriff asked for support from the military. The reason he couldn't handle the situation? Budget cuts in police enforcement.
What has this got to do with Michael McLendon and Pilgrim's Pride? In 2006, the giant chicken processor teamed up with Wall Street and borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to acquire a rival company. To pay for the buyout, and the executive bonuses that came with it, it cut the wages of its workers. Soon after it found it couldn't pay for the debt and declared bankruptcy. This led to massive layoffs and devastation of the tax base of the community.
So who put together the deal that bankrupted Pilgrim's Pride? Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. The Merrill banker who made the deal was recently hired by JP Morgan Chase. JP Morgan was behind the financial derivatives that has bankrupted Jefferson County, Alabama over a sewer project.
Because of the financial disaster regarding the sewer project, sewer charges were raised to more than double the national average. Poor, working residents are being forced to chose between water and heat. Cuts in the sheriff's office are so severe that plans are being made to call in the National Guard for any breakout in civil order.
If this sounds suspiciously like the scenario of a 3rd world nation in Latin America, it only means that you are paying attention.
"For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."
— George Orwell
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Posse Comitatus
The Posse Comitatus Act is alaw that does not allow the US military to act like police force in dealings with civilians. It is, in my opinion a very good thing. Enforcing laws is a very complicated specialized task and even though I suppose one might view a cop armed with a gun, dressed in a uniform, as only oen small step removed from a soldier, the two tasks entrusted to the two government employees are very different. Which makes this story I read on the Daily Kos rather interesting. It's by an author posting as gjohnsit and is available on their website in it's full length version. I just excerpted a couple of paragraphs for some food for thought:
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While it could be argued that Alabama was on the road to being a banana republic many years ago, the point is well-taken. If you saw Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 you might remember the part where he was talking to the Oregon state trooper, who told him there were exactly eight of his colleagues on duty between 6 pm and 6 am. Eight state troopers in a state with counties that are bigger than any northeastern state you could name. During the last serious recession, the State Police told the cities that the parts of major highways that ran through them were the responsibility of the cities, because the State Police lacked the manpower to deal with them. The Portland cops have more pressing things to do than write tickets on I-5 and I-205.
In spite of all this, Oregonians won't hear of anything that might jeopardize their piddly "kicker" checks...
__Orin
Scootin' Old Skool
Police and fire coverage in Key West isn't at all bad compared to some places. But you should hear the people bitch when I tell them they may have to wait an hour to report their bicycle stolen. It can be Monty Pythonic some nights in dispatch as I talk to some angry neighbor venting about noise down the street preventing them from sleeping while the ambulance crew is doing CPR on some crash victim with cops blocking the street and the rest of the cops on duty are struggling to keep drunken crowds from mixing it up on Duval at 2 in the morning and I have to listen to some half asleep jackass whining about the lack of police service in the city to deal with their noisy neighbors. "Yes ma'anm, no ma'am three bags full ma'am" and in the background we hear the sounds of bar stools breaking...
I don't think people have a clue how lucky we are down here with 8 or ten cops on duty per shift on a four mile by 2 mile island.
Dear Conch:
I was headed into Philadelphia yesterday to buy crack to take the place of the arthritis drugs I can no longer afford, when I met a small child crying his eyes out on a street corner.
"What's the matter, child," I asked in a kindly way.
"For years everyone told me my Daddy was a pimp," said the young boy. "But I just found out he's a Vice President for Goldman Sachs."
I thought that only the Governor of a state could call out the National Guard. The only other time I heard of the military being dragged into two other communities was during the Kennedy administration, when a paratroop division was sent into either Alabama or Mississippi on a racial issue, where they didn't think the national guard cound be trusted, and in Newark, around 1967.
They were not high points in American history.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
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