Why Are We Repeating History?

Why Are We Repeating History?  

by C. A. Matthews 

 

Happy Black History Month!

Last year, we spent several weeks in the month of February discussing various topics that are of particular interest to African-Americans—reparations, critical race theory, and what it must be like to be considered only 3/5 of a human being (according to the US Constitution). We were still reeling from the deaths of George Floyd and many others. The Afghan War was winding down about that same time, but the upcoming proxy war in Ukraine was winding up. I held out still some hope the war hawk rhetoric would die down and the Minsk Agreements would keep things peaceful.

One year later, we find ourselves in a world of déjà vu. Critical race theory is under violent attack by right-wing pundits, reparations are still seen as an impossible (or at least a far-off) goal, and the police are killing an average of three ordinary Americans every day, many of them persons of color. (See last week’s blog about some of the latest police caused deaths, Targets On Our Backs.) Hundred of thousands have been left homeless or slaughtered in grueling, needless warfare in Ukraine thanks to a determined lack of diplomacy and billions of dollars of American military-industrial complex weaponry.

The rich got richer. The poor and POC got shot at and beaten up by thugs wearing cop uniforms. Endless warfare for control of fossil fuels continues. The more things change... 

It is said, “History repeats itself,” but that statement isn’t an imperative. We don’t have to keep repeating ourselves, especially when the event is destructive and immoral. So much of American history is just that—destructive and immoral. I don’t pull punches anymore. There’s no use lying about the filthy propaganda US government officials spew forth from their mouths like volcanoes full of molten shit. There’s no use lying about our blood-soaked history of killing our own and others across the globe simply for the sake of lining the pockets of capitalists who desire ever more blood money.

We don’t need militarized police forces or killer cops—we need social services and Medicare for All. We don’t need to pretend any longer we’re doing anything except money laundering for Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, etc., in a provoked proxy war in Ukraine to knock out Russia’s economy. And we certainly don’t need to pretend that we’re not gunning for another chance at starting World War III by antagonizing China this week over a lost weather balloon.

We’ve been here before. Déjà vu. History repeats itself. Things don’t change for the better for the vast majority of human beings.

I read a couple of articles this past week that opened my eyes and made me think of how history and the present are intertwined. The first article ran in the New Yorker online in July 2020. The Invention of the Police tells the story of what we understand as “police” from ancient times to the present day. We learn how the American system of policing is based upon military practices. The article is well worth the few minutes it takes to read (or listen to) to see how the destructive, immoral patterns we witness in our world today have their roots in a history not worth repeating. 

My argument in Targets On Our Backs about how the police in the US are based on the slave patrols is further buttressed with some interesting facts:

In eighteenth-century New York, a person held as a slave could not gather in a group of more than three; could not ride a horse; could not hold a funeral at night; could not be out an hour after sunset without a lantern; and could not sell “Indian corn, peaches, or any other fruit” in any street or market in the city. Stop and frisk, stop and whip, shoot to kill.

Then there were the slave patrols. Armed Spanish bands called hermandades had hunted runaways in Cuba beginning in the fifteen-thirties, a practice that was adopted by the English in Barbados a century later. It had a lot in common with England’s posse comitatus, a band of stout men that a county sheriff could summon to chase down an escaped criminal. South Carolina, founded by slave owners from Barbados, authorized its first slave patrol in 1702; Virginia followed in 1726, North Carolina in 1753. Slave patrols married the watch to the militia: serving on patrol was required of all able-bodied men (often, the patrol was mustered from the militia), and patrollers used the hue and cry to call for anyone within hearing distance to join the chase. Neither the watch nor the militia nor the patrols were “police,” who were French, and considered despotic. In North America, the French city of New Orleans was distinctive in having la police: armed City Guards, who wore military-style uniforms and received wages, an urban slave patrol. (…)

It is also often said that modern American urban policing began in 1838, when the Massachusetts legislature authorized the hiring of police officers in Boston. This, too, ignores the role of slavery in the history of the police. In 1829, a Black abolitionist in Boston named David Walker published “An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,” calling for violent rebellion: “One good black man can put to death six white men.” Walker was found dead within the year, and Boston thereafter had a series of mob attacks against abolitionists, including an attempt to lynch William Lloyd Garrison, the publisher of The Liberator, in 1835. Walker’s words terrified Southern slave owners. The governor of North Carolina wrote to his state’s senators, “I beg you will lay this matter before the police of your town and invite their prompt attention to the necessity of arresting the circulation of the book.” By “police,” he meant slave patrols: in response to Walker’s “Appeal,” North Carolina formed a statewide “patrol committee.” —Jill Lepore, The Invention of the Police

Eye-opening and thought provoking, isn’t it? What we’ve tricked ourselves into believing—that all police officers are the handsome cops on Law and Order or diligent Detective Joe Friday in the TV series Dragnet—is completely false. We do have an excuse. We’ve been taught to believe these lies all our lives through the clever use of novels and television/movie dramas which paint the police in strictly heroic and positive terms. If there’s ever a racist cop or a crooked cop or a super-violent cop portrayed in fiction, they’re almost always seen as the exception, never the rule.

Jill Lepore’s article demonstrates how destructive this “copaganda” (cop propaganda) truly is. When an organization is based upon protecting the property (that is, enslaved persons) and tasked with maintaining the safety of the ruling elites (that is, to prevent slave uprisings), it will always be a corrupt and violent organization. Poor and powerless persons will undoubtedly suffer and die from this organization’s practices. It’s what our true masters—the super-rich oligarchs—demand of their policing agencies.

A corrupt, violent organization must hire and train only those who are willing to do the job they’ve been tasked with, which is to keep us the poor and struggling workers, persons of color, and unwanted immigrants in their proper place, planted firmly beneath the heels of the ruling capitalist elite.

Are you starting to see why history should never be allowed to repeat itself in regards to the police? The time of rounding up “property” in order to keep the capitalist class safe and wealthy is over. At least, it should be.

Even very recent history should never be repeated. This is noted well in Caitlin Johnstone’s article US Surrounds China With War Machinery While Freaking Out About Balloons:

So everyone's losing their minds over a balloon that in all probability would be mostly worthless for spying, even while everyone knows the US spies on China at every possible opportunity. US officials have complained to the press that American spies are having a much harder time conducting operations and recruiting assets in China than they used to because of measures the Chinese government has taken to thwart them, and in 2001 a US spy plane caused a major international incident when it collided with a Chinese military jet on China's coastline, killing the pilot.

The US considers it its sovereign right to spy on any nation it chooses, and the average American tends more or less to see it the same way. This is highlighted in controversies around domestic versus foreign surveillance, for example; Americans were outraged over the Edward Snowden revelations not because spy agencies were conducting surveillance, but because they were conducting surveillance on American citizens. It's just taken as a given that spying on foreigners is fine, so it's a bit silly to react melodramatically when foreigners return the favor.

But, of course, the US is acting melodramatically over a lost weather balloon. They are attempting to provoke the Chinese into a “shoot first” situation, such as they did to Russia in February 2022 when, under the auspices of the NATO, they completely forgot about the Minsk Agreements and armed Ukraine to fight a proxy war. Yet again we are all living under the imminent threat of nuclear war.

We’ve been here before. Déjà vu. History repeats itself. Things don’t change for the better for anybody.

Why are we repeating history like this on a yearly basis? Isn’t the military-industrial complex making enough money from armaments sales? Arms manufacturers' stock prices have skyrocketed on Wall Street. The idea that the US/NATO bloc can take on two nuclear powers at the same time is utterly insane. But here we are again, repeating history, attempting to provoke another super-power, while simultaneously riling up the American public’s emotions with over-the-top propaganda about a lost weather balloon. 

For example, my husband turned on ABC News Friday night. We rarely, if ever, watch mainstream media outlets, and he’d turned off the sound, but I noticed the first story was about the lost weather balloon. I went into the kitchen and a few minutes later I came back and noticed that the same video clip of the weather balloon was still plastered on the screen. I turned on the sound and heard nothing but hysterical “The Chinese are invading!” commentary. I promptly hit the mute button. Five minutes later, the weather balloon was still on the screen and “experts” were all screaming about how this lost weather balloon means war. ABC spent the entirety of its half hour newscast spewing inflammatory nonsense, probably at the behest of the Biden Administration. War propaganda bears repeating, apparently.

All Americans can learn something from celebrating Black History Month. That feeling of “We’ve been here before. Déjà vu. History repeats itself. Things don’t change for the better for the vast majority of human beings,” is real. It proves that our gut feeling is correct. The ruling elite will do whatever it takes to get the results they want. 

If the elite want to keep their enslaved workers from running away, they’ll equip and arm a slave patrol. If they want to corner the LNG market in Europe, make huge profits from selling arms, and destroy Russia’s and possibly China’s economies, they’ll rev up the propaganda machine of the mainstream media (90% of which are owned by just six corporations) to create the necessity for a war in order to do so.  

The US is still the only industrialized country on Earth without a single-payer (Medicare For All) health care system, free education pre-K through college, and a Universal Basic Income because these programs have been deemed unnecessary by our masters. We breath polluted air, drink water full of plastic particles, and eat cheap processed food infused with high fructose corn syrup because its all we can afford. If we should ever act out because of these injustices and protest, the elite's "slave patrols" stand ready to put us back into our place, swiftly and violently, if they deem necessary. 

Whatever the ruling capitalist elite want they will have it. They will have their way, and they won’t lose any sleep over how many are starved, killed, or maimed in the process. You can be sure about that, as history repeats itself.

Happy Black History Month, America. Our sordid history doesn't need to keep repeating itself. Abolitionist David Walker had the right idea for a rebellion, don’t you think? Watch out for those slave patrols.

 

Related Links:

Teach Black History--Don't Ban It https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/04/teach-black-history-dont-ban-it/ 

New Advanced Placement African American Studies Course is Watered Down Version of Itself  https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/03/new-advanced-placement-african-american-studies-course-is-watered-down-version-of-itself/

The Invention of the Police https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police

US Surrounds China with War Machinery While Freaking Out About Balloons  https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/03/caitlin-johnstone-us-surrounds-china-with-war-machinery-while-freaking-out-about-balloons/ 

The Pentagon's Balloon Floats On  https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/05/patrick-lawrence-the-pentagons-balloon-floats-on/ 

Chris Hedges: WikiLeaks Exposed the Extent of US Meddling Abroad and Corruption at Home. Why Have We Forgotten It? https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/04/chris-hedges-wikileaks-exposed-the-extent-of-us-meddling-abroad-and-corruption-at-home-why-have-we-forgotten-it/ 

 

Nuclear War Imminent? https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/03/nuclear-war-imminent/ 

 

More Evidence That The West Sabotaged Peace In Ukraine

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/more-evidence-that-the-west-sabotaged 

 

How the US Instigated the Ukraine Crisis https://popularresistance.org/how-the-us-instigated-the-ukraine-crisis/

 

Uncomfortable Truths: Critical Race Theory https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2022/02/uncomfortable-truths-critical-race.html

Why Not Reparations? https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2022/02/why-not-reparations.html

 

What's It Like to Be 3/5 of a Person? https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2022/02/whats-it-like-to-be-35-of-person.html

 

Targets On Our Backs https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/01/targets-on-our-backs.html

 

Do the Police Have an Obligation to Protect You? https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/do-the-police-have-an-obligation-to-protect-you/

 

Quote of the week:

Ask an empire apologist to show you how China is aggressing against the US and they'll start babbling about TikTok and balloons. --Caitlin Johnstone

 

 

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https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TRCblog 

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Thank you. Power to the People!

Why Do Rich White People Get Away With Crime?

 

Why Do Rich White People Get Away with Crime?

 by C.A. Matthews

Editor's note: The pronoun "they" is being used occasionally in this article to keep the gender of the "rich white person" anonymous. 

Why do rich white people get away with crime? Why do they only get a tiny slap on the wrist whenever they get caught in the act of committing a crime? Anyone else—especially the poor and people of color (or POC)--would get the book thrown at them for the same offense. It ruins POC's lives and livelihoods, but rich white people (RWP for short) are able to commit crimes and go back to business as usual. It makes no sense. It keeps me awake at night.

I've had the unfortunate experience to encounter just such a crime. I won't name names or give too many specifics here because I realize that I'm not a rich white person. (I'm far from rich, and I'm partially non-white.) RWP could use the current justice system against me for calling out their despicable behavior. So, instead I will give a general outline of the crime and how it has affected me and others. Then, I will give a call to action so we can all take steps to stop this sort of thing from ever happening again. 

One day a certain rich white person was given the authority to disburse money from several different state Medicaid grant funds in a public institution of higher learning in which they worked. At some point, this person decided to give some of the grant money to a relative's private non-profit without going through proper channels or disclosing their conflict of interest. 

Now, this non-secular non-profit, among other things, runs some social programs to help feed the area poor and help school kids, particularly students of color. One could argue this was a good place to use the grant money for the benefit of the community. There's no disputing that the non-profit's programming was worthy of financial support. However, apparently giving grant money to this non-profit was never okayed by the school. Possibly the grant money wasn't designated for these types of programs, or this decision was not one that should have been made solely by the rich white person.

You might think this is a "slap on the wrist" type of infraction at first, but it gets worse. This "misuse of funds" didn't happen once or in small amounts. The rich white person continued to take more and more money from the institution's Medicaid grant funds and to give it to their relative's non-profit over and over again over a period of several years. It added up—big time. 

 

The institution eventually caught on to what was happening and the state ran an audit. The amount of missing money is… Well, it's more than many of us could ever dream of making in over a decade working full-time at minimum wage or even at $15/hour. And not all of the stolen money went to the relative's non-profit programs—some of it went toward purchasing personal items, such as expensive fashion accessories. 

The rich white person was eventually fired from their lofty position at the school and charged with several felony counts of misappropriation of funds/theft in office. According to state law, each count could have landed this person in jail for many years and restitution more than likely would have been ordered.

To make a long story short, the rich white person went to court but did not go to jail. It's unclear at this time whether any of the grant money taken will be paid back/has been paid back or not. To add icing to the cake of white privilege, the rich white person did not lose their license to practice their esteemed profession in the state where these felonies were committed.

The judge did the defendant a further favor by making it so they won’t even have a criminal record if they promise they won't commit a similar crime again. It's a type of adjudication that's usually reserved for young adults who commit a serious crime but seem to have a promising future. Judges can use their discretion and apply this "diversion program" to help kids out so they can grow up without a permanent black mark on their record. (Suffice it to say, this rich white person is much older than eighteen, and it is rare for this program to be implemented for anyone other than young adults.)

I dare you now to go back and substitute "poor person of color" for "rich white person" in this story and tell me how you think the story would end. You and I both know it would end very differently! A poor person of color would be sentenced to jail time and definitely would have been forced to pay back all the money they'd stolen plus interest. Their criminal record would be made public, not expunged, and it would destroy their chances of finding decent employment ever again.

What really drives a stake into my heart is that this money was not stolen from an obscenely wealthy capitalist. It wasn't stolen from a corporation that treats its workers with contempt by not providing health insurance. No, this money came from We the People, the taxpayers, and it was stolen from a public institution that had been given it through a state Medicaid program. It was the public's money—not a private corporation's or individual's money. There were no "Robin Hood" antics going on here. 

I worked as a Medicaid caseworker, so I know how much Medicaid programs can help struggling families, especially poor families of color. The rich white person decided to steal from us, the taxpayers, via a grant funded by a government program that helps the poor. Stealing from a government program that helps the poor to "help" other poor people doesn't make sense, unless you think of how giving large sums of money to a private non-profit might make it appear "successful" in the eyes of others. A successful non-profit usually has an easier time raising more money from donors than a not-quite-as-successful-looking one.

It seems clear to me: The rich white person who took this grant money wasn't motivated to help poor people in particular. They were more interested in helping their relative's non-profit look successful. They might have even done it to elevate their own status in the larger community, by being seen as "savior" of sorts through their "generous donations." 

Now that the grant money gravy train is gone, will the lack of regular infusions of  stolen money cause the non-profit to eventually close its doors? What will happen to the social programs that the stolen money funded? Will donors who thought the non-profit was successful in its own right quit donating to it? Will these programs disappear? What happens to the people—the poor people, the people of color—who were helped out by those programs? Who knows? 

Will the public institution lose all access to federal and state grant monies in the future because an employee easily helped themselves to it? Will they be penalized by the government because of the theft? Will a lack of government grant monies in the future hurt funding programs to help students at this school? It's possible. 

The rich white person had a great lawyer and got off easy. They got to go back to their existence pretty much as it was before they decided to commit these felonies. Their future looks relatively rosy compared to the poor people who benefited from the non-profit's social programs. The rich white person won't be missing any meals or going without food tonight.

Why do RWP get away with crime? Because they can and they do.

I'm telling this story because I want you to know that this is not an isolated incident. RWP get off easy more often than not in court if and when they're even caught and charged with a crime in the first place. This wasn't a "victimless white-collar crime." Real social programs that helped real people are now at risk and a public higher learning institution has had its reputation tarnished--all because a person of means enjoyed playing around with the public's purse.

The American justice system doesn't need to be reformed--it needs to be totally obliterated. It's corrupt to its core. It's run by RWP for RWP who don't give a shit about the rest of us struggling to survive. It should be completely reworked until it's actually about delivering justice and not about letting rich white people have their way at the expense of others.

You might think I'm being unfair to this particular rich white person, that this person might have some sort of mental illness or an addiction that caused them to steal the grant money. I'm not unkind. I know there are many people who need mental health care and either cannot afford it or are too prideful to seek help. I've worked in drug rehab/psych wards and have encountered these individuals many times before.

But I also know that the law holds addicts and mentally ill persons accountable for their criminal actions—especially poor mentally ill people and addicts of color. If a poor drunk runs over and kills a person, that drunk goes to prison for vehicular manslaughter. The legal definition of sanity only considers if the person was able to understand what they did was wrong according to the law. I truly believe in this case this rich white person knew that taking the grant money was stealing, and that stealing is wrong, but they decided to do it anyway.

This is why we need to tear down and reconstruct our justice system from the ground up. We need to make it clear that no one gets a free "get out of jail card" simply because they belong to a privileged group. Your RWP connections do not grant you special privileges when it comes to crime sentencing, either. You are to be judged for your crimes the same as the poor and POC.

If anything, reparations should be made to the local POC community. For too long, RWP have enjoyed abusing the privileges of their high-status positions. They should pay double the restitution for all the monies and properties they've appropriated for their own use from the powerless. The rich white person in this story should pay double what they stole—once to the school they took the grant money from, and then again to the non-profit (under new management?) so that it can continue helping the poor uninterrupted and without the taint of stolen money.

I'm not the only American tired of rich white people getting away with crimes—just look at the huge outcry and numerous protests in the last year since George Floyd and other African-Americans have been brutally murdered. It's time arrogant rich assholes are forced to pay back what they took from the rest of us. It's time RWP tasted justice the same as the rest of us.

I will be hitting the law books hard this coming term, learning what I can do to help bring justice to asylum-seekers denied due process. Each of us has to get out of our comfort zone and do our part. We need to fight together to defeat the scourge of RWP justice once and for all. RWP justice must die so true justice can be reborn. Only then will freedom ring for all, not just a few.

***

I am overjoyed - this week, four families will be reunited years after they were ripped apart by the Trump administration’s cruel and sadistic child separation policy, including a toddler who was just three years old when he was taken away.

This is a historic milestone to unwinding the cruelty, hate and chaos the previous administration left behind, and to know that these parents will be able to hold their kids in their arms again after years of agonizing separation means everything.

These families should NEVER have been separated in the first place. It is our moral obligation to re-unite them, but the political reality is that these reunifications are the result of the tireless work of Immigrant Defenders, Las Americas, Al Otro Lado, CLINIC, and so many other fearless advocates, attorneys, and activists that makeup the Families Belong Together coalition.

The four families reuniting this week is and must only be the beginning. Hundreds of children remain separated. So much work remains to be done, not just for these families, but for the millions of families who live in fear of being separated by our broken immigration system.

Reunification is just the first step, the truth is that healing from this trauma will be a long journey. That's why we're calling on Congress to pass the Families Belong Together Act to make sure these families have the resources they need to heal.

Will you take two minutes to contact your Members of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor the Families Belong Together Act?

Our movement has fought so hard to get here, but we won't stop until every child is reunited. We'll continue our work with the Biden administration's Family Reunification Task Force, will keep supporting our partners, and will keep you posted on what I hope will be many more joyous reunifications to come.

With joy, determination and gratitude,

Paola Luisi, Director
Families Belong Together

***

From Roots Action:

The Israeli government is threatening mass evictions of non-Jews and brutalizing protesters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jersusalem. At least three U.S. senators have spoken out. All 100 U.S. senators should do so immediately. Click here to quickly email your senators.
Aryeh King, a settler leader and deputy mayor of Jerusalem, said, as reported by the New York Times, that the policy of evicting people from their homes of many years "is the way to secure the future of Jerusalem as a Jewish capital for the Jewish people." Videos of people losing their homes are fueling protests, and the Israeli militarized police are attacking protesters. On Friday, according to Haaretz, 205 Palestinians and 17 police officers were injured. On Saturday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, 64 Palestinians, including five childen and one infant, were wounded, many by sponge-tipped bullets and stun grenades. They added that Israeli police prevented ambulances from reaching the site. Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Chris Murphy have called on the Israeli government to cease eviction efforts. "The forced removal of long-time Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah is abhorrent and unacceptable," Warren tweeted, saying that the Biden administration must make clear to Israel that these evictions are illegal. "The United States must speak out strongly against the violence by government-allied Israeli extremists in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and make clear that the evictions of Palestinian families must not go forward," Sanders said. Click here to urge more senators to speak out. A memo by the National Lawyers Guild this week urged the Biden administration to take steps including: Relocate the U.S. Embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv; Reverse the Trump administration's repudiation of a 1978 State Department legal opinion declaring Israel's settler colonies in the occupied West Bank to be illegal; Rescind the previous administration's rule requiring "Made in Israel" labeling on goods produced in the unlawful settlements, as well as former President Donald Trump's formal recognition of Israel's illegal annexation of Syria's Golan Heights; Reinstate aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency; Call for an immediate end to Israel's 15-year closure and blockade of Gaza; Refrain from further interference in International Criminal Court proceedings and consider ratifying the Rome Statute; Reverse Trump's order falsely conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism; and Affirm that boycotts for human rights such as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement "are a form of highly protected speech under the U.S. Constitution." Senator Warren has proposed putting at least some conditions on the billions of dollars the U.S. Congress gives to the Israeli government for weapons every year. Click here to take action. After signing the petition, please use the tools on the next webpage to share it with your friends. This work is only possible with your financial support. Please chip in $3 now. -- The RootsAction.org Team Background: >> Haaretz: "Democrats Urge U.S. to Act Against Israel's 'Abhorrent' East Jerusalem Evictions" >> Common Dreams: "National Lawyers Guild Urges Biden to Align US Israel-Palestine Policy With International Law" >> Al Jazeera: "What Can Stop Palestinians Being Evicted from Sheikh Jarrah?" >> New York Times: "Evictions in Jerusalem Become Focus of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" >> The Intercept: "Elizabeth Warren Suggests U.S. Explore Conditional Aid to Israel"