It used to take days or weeks to execute an innocent black man. Now it can be done in a few minutes.

Back in 1944, a young black male named George Stinney, Jr. was accused, tried, convicted and executed in a matter of days for a crime he almost certainly did not commit. By white people. White people who hated black people:

“It took less than a day for a jury to convict George Stinney Jr. and send him to the electric chair,” NPR’S Hansi Lo Wang reports. “He was convicted of the deaths of 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and 7-year-old Mary Emma Thames in deeply segregated Alcolu, S.C.”

Matt Burgess, an attorney for the Stinney family, tells Hansi, “There were no African-American people in that courthouse. It was a jury of 12 white men. Everyone in that courthouse was white.”

George Stinney Jr. was executed less than three months after the two girls were murdered. His trial lasted just one day. After the jury needed less than 10 minutes to declare him guilty, no appeals were filed on his behalf.

“His executioners noted the electric chair straps didn’t fit him, and an electrode was too big for his leg,” The State newspaper reports. The paper adds, “It took Mullen nearly four times as long to issue her ruling as it took in 1944 to go from arrest to execution.”

70 years later, in 2014, lots of black males were murdered by racist white government employees in Cleveland, Ferguson, Staten Island, and many other places across the country. The only difference? Time.

The 2014 cops didn’t even pretend to bother with courts or silly things like due process: no, they arrested, accused, tried, judged, and killed, all in a matter of minutes. Or seconds, in the Cleveland case.

Those who say we have “made progress” in terms of equality are correct. However, that progress is NOT in a good direction. It’s going backwards. Until we as a society admit that our institutions have been made into Ayn Randian, apartheid-esque, Teabagger havens for a load of Ted Nugent wannabees, things will only get worse.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Of COURSE People of Color Don’t Trust Cops. They Have no Reason to Trust Cops.

And lots of reasons not to. It isn’t a recent phenomenon that started with white officers killing black men in Ferguson, Staten Island or Cleveland: it goes back to the days of slavery, when the authorities enforced the laws by catching escaped slaves and forcibly returing them to the slave owners. It continued through the post-Civil-War era as police were used to enforce Jim Crow laws that kept people of color (POC) in another set of “chains”.

And did the Civil Rights laws of the 60’s fix things? Oh, Hell no. The cops were used to “keep order” among the minority population and protect the white folks from said minorities. Once again, the cops were and are the visible face of oppression, and the means used to oppress the non-white people of America.

Asians are likewise POC, and they deal with a lot of crap from cops as well: immigration, profiling, harassment, civil rights violations, etc. You think anybody in their communities have forgotten the World War Two internment camps? Here’s a hint, boyo: they haven’t. And who put them into the camps? Armed people in uniforms put them in those camps. Cops (and soldiers, in that case).

How about Latinos? POC they are as well, and they have likewise dealt with a history of abuse and marginalization. And yes, once again the cops were the instrument of that extra-constitutional mistreatment.

It didn’t start with Michael Brown, or even John Brown. It won’t end with a single grand jury indictment, or even several indictments. As the Prexy has said, the system can’t function if POC don’t trust that justice will be delivered in an impartial manner.

Speaking as a (formerly long-haired) hippie freak, this writer doesn’t place blind trust in the cops or those for whom they work. Comes from having been harassed, profiled, roughed up, shaken down, and driven to city boundaries with guns enforcing the officers’ orders to “Git, and never come back” on more than one occasion. Being “othered” while looking at the wrong end of a gun makes an indelible impression on a person.

But you know what made the Cranky life a lot easier? Baldness. Cops can no longer discern my political views by a glance. Indeed, a somewhat portly middle-aged white man is rarely targeted by the cops. But…

Black people can’t wash off their pigment. Nor can other people of color. They can never, ever be free of the institutionalized violence and abuse that is routinely heaped upon minorities. Their skin color makes them a target. They know it. Cops know it.

When everybody knows the system is rigged, nobody can believe in the system. We are living in a crumbling edifice, built upon a history of xenophobia and racist hatred. Unless we all get together and build a foundation that truly aligns with the notion that we are created equal, the whole American experiment will fall apart, ending in blood and ashes.

Trust is needed. Right now POC don’t trust the system. And lots of white people are deciding we don’t trust it either. Police of America, it’s time to decide who you work for, and to earn back the trust we need you to deserve.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Ferguson Officials haven’t learned Thing One since the Michael Brown murder.

From the racist , biased prosecutor and like-minded cops using armored vehicles and battlefield weapons intended to kill terrorists on civilians, to the heavy-handed tactics of the Nixon administration, police and politicos are just as malignantly clueless as they were the day an unarmed black kid was shot in the street by an out-of-control cop and his body was left to rot on the pavement for hours in the summer heat. And the stupidity was clearly visible in these remarks from the boss cop:

At a late news conference, as National Guardsmen watched from a distance, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said that as of midnight, police had arrested about 30 people related to the protests and tallied hundreds of gunshots.

The magnitude of the protests caught the police off guard, he said.

“As dynamic as August was, can you imagine a night like this?” he asked. “We didn’t have anything of this magnitude, so it was very difficult, I think, to telegraph exactly what we should have expected. I didn’t foresee anything like this.” He added that police did everything they could to prevent the chaos.

Such stupid, bigoted, willfully pig-ignorant f***wits. They think they can go on with the apartheid-lite approach that Ferguson (and many other such towns) have taken for decades. Even though it hasn’t worked in this case, even though people are not at all happy, even though buildings are burning and innocent people are suffering, local officials are convinced that they can just beat down people of color and everything will go back to “normal”.

Rich, powerful white people have been trying this idiotic approach for centuries. And it always looks like it will work, for a while at least. But history shows us that oppressors will fail, no matter how many times they try.

Stupid f***s.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

When a Nixon Called out the National Guard…

Back in the day, a bunch of protesters were, well, protesting, and a politician named Nixon had the National Guard called out (by a crony of his), loaded weapons and all. Here’s what happened:

Nobody needs automatic weapons pointed at them when they are exercising their First Amendment rights. No one deserves that. And no ethical politician should EVER make that their option of first resort.

” Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. ”

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Want to change things? Ferguson shows us the way: VOTE, God-F***ing-Dammit.

We won’t get change by rioting. Nor by shooting unarmed citizens. Those are both s***ty ideas. Instead let’s look at one of the first actions taken after the deplorable murder of Mr. Michael Brown: a voter-registration tent.

Yes, that is correct. The majority of Ferguson is black, but due to various disenfranchisement measures, only 12% of that community votes. On the other hand, lots and lots of white people vote, so guess who gets represented in city government? Yep, the people who vote.

That being the case, people are registering black voters (and anyone else too, of course) in order to use the ballot box to change how things are done in that town. If enough of the majority residents of Ferguson turn out and vote, they can get a government that actually represents, you know, the majority of the people. The way democracy is SUPPOSED to work.

The response to these voter registration efforts has been sadly predictable: racist Repubs hate it, and everybody else supports it. Repubs as a rule oppose increasing the voter pool, because they know it doesn’t work for them: higher turnout favors Dems.

We all need to do what people in Ferguson are doing: register to vote, and then vote. Use our power to get the government we want and deserve.

Register. Vote. Every election, every year.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Ferguson protesters are a lot like our Founding Fathers:

They are upset about oppression, a non-responsive and discriminatory government, and taxation without representation. Yes, that is correct. The good people of Ferguson we see out there picketing and marching may not be dressed like, say, George Washington, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson; but their complaints are eerily like the ones identified in the Declaration of Independence.

Here is a good article on the matter. Ferguson is making up for revenue shortfalls by levying burdensome taxes and fees upon the populace; said charges not having the consent of the governed:

Traffic fines are the St. Louis suburb’s second-largest source of revenue and just about the only one that is growing appreciably. Municipal court fines, most of which arise from motor vehicle violations, accounted for 21 percent of general fund revenue and at $2.63 million last year, were the equivalent of more than 81 percent of police salaries before overtime.

And the fees are applied in a discriminatory manner, much like what King George did back in the 1770’s:

“If you’re black, they’re going to stop you,” the study quoted one traffic defendant as saying.

In 2013, 86 percent of all Ferguson police traffic stops involved black drivers, the largest share since the Missouri Attorney General’s Office began tracking the data in 2000. According to 2010 U.S. Census data, the city is 63 percent black and 34 percent white.

Got it? The local government is a minority oppressing the majority, and doing so via corrupt, discriminatory and violent means. Just like what sparked the American Revolution. The differences are minor when compared with the similarities.

And just like the American colonists, the people of Ferguson aren’t asking for anything unreasonable: to be treated fairly, have their rights respected, and to have a voice in how they are taxed by the government. Unfortunately, the local administration is likewise resembling its historical counterpart and therefore refusing to change its corrupt and mendacious ways. No way this is gonna end well.

If you repeat the mistakes of the past, you’ll repeat the consequences of those past mistakes. There may not be many powdered wigs to be seen on the streets of Ferguson: but then, when s*** was getting real back in 1776, not many of the American Revolutionaries were wearing them out in the streets, either.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky (whose ancestors were here before the revolution in 1776)

It’s all good if you are a white, Christian male. Otherwise, you deserve whatever is done to you.

That seems to be how America operates: women, people of color, and non-Christians are pretty much here on sufferance, and any injury done to “those people” is no big deal. But nononono, don’t mess with the right-wing honkey dudes, nononono. They are deserving of doubt’s benefit, due process, tolerance, and understanding, yupyupyup. A short list of examples follows :

Number A: Michael Brown, yet another black man executed without due process by a racist white cop. But let’s not rush to judgment, the white cop deserves a fair trial and all the benefits of our legal system. Pity the black man didn’t get any of those things, but hey, it’s his own fault for picking African-American parents, right?

Letter 2: Let’s just read this headline: “Hedy Epstein, 90-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor, Arrested During Michael Brown Protest”. Yes, you read that correctly. This Jewish female had the nerve to suggest that the Christian male cops were out of line for murdering black citizens, so they grabbed her and threw her a** in jail. No references to the Nazis are allowed, nononono, that might be offensive to the St. Louis police, right?

Thirdly: Don’t  report on the evil being done by white Christian males, or you will be arrested. If you are lucky, that is: they might threaten to kill you, instead, for betraying your fellow male oppressors. Nothing worse than a traitor, amirite?

Fourth: the best way to explain away the heinous actions of White Christian Males is to employ the services of a bunch of smiling white people. Because these sweet young white ladies are just doing their jobs, and it would be ungentlemanly to ask them any uncomfortable questions. And be nice to the clean-cut young white Christian men, too, because, well, you know, white people.

Finally: even if a man is a convicted, registered sex offender, white Christian males can use their discretion to allow him into school buildings and onto a varsity football team, because, hey, the girl shouldn’t have put herself in that position, right? The poor widdle wapist deserves a chance to get his life back. And it is wrong to shame him, because he only did what any other man has a right to do, right? Those women have it coming, acting that way, right?

One might say that this writer and other white men should be  deeply ashamed of many members of our  gender, ethnicity, and faith. One would be right. All that privilege went to their heads and turned into a gargantuan sense of entitlement: to the extent that we see the majority of the world’s population being oppressed and abused by a minority (us).

But hey, next time, pick the right parents and chromosome set before you get born like we did, okey-dokey?  Otherwise, don’t complain about being oppressed, killed, raped and abused, because it’s your own damned fault for not being white, Christian and male. Winners keep, losers weep. Quitcherbitchin, loser scum.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky