The campaign blows southwest - Utah, Arizona (#ArizonaElectionFraud?), Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii. Probably others but who can remember. What's going on out here? Not much. Silicon Coast Bubble: Sea-Tac-->PDX-->SF-->Silicon Valley-->Silicon Beach; a networked tinsel-techno-tinder culture bubble maybe curating American Pyscho 2.0 for these new times of Trump:
And sometimes I think that if I had written the book in the past decade, perhaps Bateman would have been working in Silicon Valley, living in Cupertino with excursions into San Francisco or down to Big Sur to the Post Ranch Inn and palling around with Zuckerberg and dining at the French Laundry, or lunching with Reed Hastings at Manresa in Los Gatos, wearing a Yeezy hoodie and teasing girls on Tinder. Certainly he could also just as easily be a hedge-funder in New York: Patrick Bateman begets Bill Ackman and Daniel Loeb.Local spelling bee champs at Alphabet (wiki), in quest to sequence learning, acquire and sell Boston Dynamics. Make bots. Swarms of GAI bots (Global Guerillas). Apple/FBI. San Bernardino. Gentrification and Mario Woods in San Francisco; unsolved mass murder in Fillmore (hugeupside). Decisive year for $15-30-45B water project (US News) for almond trees in the southern desert; the weather's weird. Golden State Warriors, Curry reign. King Kendrick, an LA first at the Grammys (Rolling Stone). The DEA Riverside wire ("vast...likely illegal") and Kern County - home to America's most lethal police (Guardian). Los Ganjales and quasi-legal marijuana. Kobe retirement. Good work Seattle Seahawks and Oregon Ducks. Pac 12 Pacific Coast. Three Little Birds. This is our reality.
The week saw the National Enquirer report of Ted Cruz's intimate life. No amount of satisfied hypocrisy justifies making consensual, adult sex, love, or marriage a political shame game. Gay, straight, wedlocked or not, we're all guilty and ashamed. At least a little. Clinton people - including members of elite media - awakened to the enormous magnitude of the Secretary's national security problem. The kookoo week also saw the sublime. Birdie Sanders. Portland. In this primal year, supra-natural intelligence signals become valid. Whatever the case, history fluttered forward. No let up of any kind whatsoever: Brussels, Baghdad, Lahore. A large number walked in Yemen. Some tweeted about it.
Chicago signal ramped in every geopolitical and international security storyline I follow. I think "legitimacy crisis" may be hyperbolic. But not much. To start, Mayor Emanuel nuked the security reform charade that - for a second time - covered up police murder of a young black boy during a Chicago election cycle.
The first case was a flagrant cover-up - for which reformers (eg, Assata's Daughters) voted out Cook County prosecutor, Anita Alvarez. Mayor Emanuel colluded with Alvarez to suppress videotape showing Officer Jason Van Dyke murder Lacquan McDonald. During his re-election campaign. City Hall released the tape under court order and after the election, which ended in a run-off. At the time, the NY Times wondered if the election would "humble" Emanuel (NYT). In hindsight, the election concealed gross civil rights violations by shooter Jason Van Dyke, officers on the scene that destroyed videotape, and the political class in City Hall. (Daily Beast) One wonders what Chicagoans in the White House knew. When they knew it.
December 2015, Obama got around to sending out the Department of Justice to do god knows what. To wit :
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced today that the Justice Department has opened a civil pattern or practice investigation into Chicago Police Department (CPD), pursuant to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The department’s investigation of CPD will seek to determine whether there are systemic violations of the Constitution or federal law by officers of CPD. The investigation will focus on CPD’s use of force, including racial, ethnic and other disparities in use of force, and its systems of accountability.That's the DoJ, December 2015 (DoJ). One wonders: has the Obama Administration ever been to Chicago? This is a city paying reparations to 57 torture victims (USA Today). It's paid $642 million to settle police brutality disputes 2004 - 2016 (Chicago Sun Times). The international media breaks coverage of "black sites" (Guardian). We debate whether labels "Chiraq", "war zone", "urban terrorism" hurt or help. Whatever the label, the geopolitical reality is remarkably repetitive:
From the mob to gangs, violence has percolated through the streets of Chicago for the past hundred years. The city has seen it all before; there’s nothing new under the sun. We just don’t remember. (Moore).Doing my best impersonation of a historian, that sounds a lot like the history of Iraq. The similarities and connective tissue between Chicago and Iraq might be "deeper than rap". Often necessity invents new words. From the Far West distance, "Chiraq Drillinois" sounds less like a celebration than a distress signal. Both the labels and the music itself.
Back to Mayor Emanuel covering up. In the second case, Mayor Emanuel staged an elaborate reform campaign concurrent with the Illinois Primary. Part of that reform campaign included a new Police Superintendent. The last one - Garry McCarthty - resiged as the extent of the Jason Van Dyke cover-up became evident and unavoidable. To replace McCarthy, who at last check failing up, the Chicago Police Board solicited 39 national reform applicants. By law, the Board presenting options to the mayor. Among the 3 recommended to him, Mayor Emanuel appointed an insider, a patrol chief that didn't apply for the position. The legality of which is hard to establish as the decision is "an unprecedented end run" (Chicago Sun Times).
Mayor Emanuel is not a marginal figure in Democratic Chicago. He was the key fundraiser for Clinton '92, wrote much of NAFTA 94, held a Illinois House seat, and ran Chief of Staff for Chicago's President Barack Obama. Experienced at winning. Hypothetically, the show of reform - without delivery - effectively calibrated support in Democratic influencer networks to protect Chicago for longtime partner Hillary Clinton - while balancing Kim Davis and Anita Alvarez. When the music stopped, Alvarez had no chair.
Already a violent town, Chicago is exhibits YoY ~doubling of shooting and murder: 616 murders since 2/28/2016, more than 3000 shot. The violence is such that suspects shoot police officers on the eve of nationally important elections with guns obtained from...other police officers. You read that correctly. In a botched drug raid, the suspect shot three Chicago police - after which an ATF trace led to former CPD officer and sheriff deputy. On Twitter, the ATF asked WTF (Twitter).
Hypersegregated, Chicago isn't coming apart. It is apart.
 |
| Chicago, the hyper segregated |
The Midwest bleeds SouthWest. Geopolitically, Sinaloa Mexico - and the well-organized drug war cartel of the same Sinaloa brand - link California, Chicago, and Sinaloa in the North American Drug Game. See that big white strip of depopulated territory running southwest from the city's south side? It's actually a commercial artery in the American circulation system.
 |
| American Heartland Circulatory System / US side of NAFTA (US DOT) |
 |
Con versos rápidos y poderosos, el rapero californiano The Game se atreve a rapear en español soltando palabras en castellano e, incluso a veces, rimas completas en un nuevo tema que ha llamado “El Chapo“, producido por Bangladesh y con colaboración de Skrillex. Source
In other words: "In strong, powerful verses, California rapper The Game dares to rap in Spanish, dropping Castilian words and even sometimes complete rhymes in a new anthem called "El Chapo" produced by Bangladesh and in collaboration with Skrillex."
Now is a good time to consider the significance of "cartels in Riverside". And their impact on law enforcement in that county. USA Today (February 2016):
“I definitely don’t apologize for using this tool to hit the cartels in Riverside County,” said Hestrin, who took office last year. “I think the reforms I put in place were necessary, but this is still a tool that I believe in. It needs to be used cautiously, but it should be available when necessary.”
The number of wiretaps authorized in Riverside County started to climb in 2010; it quadrupled by 2014, when the county court approved 624 wiretaps — three times as many as any other state or federal court. Most of the surveillance was conducted at the behest of
Consider the San Bernardino massacre context of this allocation of resources. Are we at war with the right people? Who are we at with?Earlier in "El Chapo", The Game (Los Angeles) names Donald Trump. And imagines "knock(ing) Trump out his toupee". Recently, Pusha T (Virginia) portrays himself in Mexico defying by name Trump's pledge. Rick Ross (Florida) invoked Eminem's artistic license when imagining himself "assassinate Trump like I'm Zimmerman" in "Free Enterprise". Chicago sees Trump Tower in their skyline. On the ground and below, Kanye West released spirituals under "The Life of Pablo". Chicago artist Lupe Fiasco teases "don't ruin us god said" in forthcoming DROGAS. "Drugs" in Spanish. Fiasco - a funny name - and answer to rhetorical questions on "Delivery" (2014/2015): The ghetto was a physical manifestation Of hate in a place where ethnicity determines your placement A place that defines your station Remind you niggas your place is the basement White people in the attic Niggas selling dope, White people is the addicts White folks act like they ain't show us how to traffic All that dope to China, you don't call that trappin'?   "There is nowhere to spend money legally except the corner store." DeRay McKesson
Trump's team of foreign policy advisers, led by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, consists of counter-terrorism expert Walid Phares (Google), energy consultant George Papadopoulos (Google), former Defense Department inspector general Joe Schmitz (Google), managing partner of Global Energy Capital Carter Page (Google) and former Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg (Google). NY Times ran the foreign policy test. Trump affirms his will to renegotiate security arrangements - without not having a crystal clear formula for what will transpire. Honestly, on scan, he does not sound clownish. Major exception: Ukraine. (3/26).
I don't have a Yeezy hoody. But I do have TDE. As a matter of supporting American security, I raise Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. I nominate them for your consideration. Here is one reason why:
More and more people get away with murder in the Bay Area. Especially when the dead are young black men. I nominate Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) to secure vulnerable Bay Area communities and promote public health.
The Bay Area is one of 28 US areas that the White House designated high intensity drug trafficking area (HIDTA) of the San Francisco Bay Area. In the fog of local and regional drug wars, police know surprisingly few of our Area's shooters and killers. In predominantly black Bay Area communities like Richmond or East Palo Alto, murders are solved 8% and 32% of the time, respectively. In January 2015, assassins killed four young black men on Laguna Street, walking distance to the Opera House and San Francisco City Hall. Four dead satisfies the FBI definition of mass murder. Today, the mass murderer(s) remain at large. The "who dunnit?" data suggest systemic injustice. Also, systemic Bay Area insecurity that literally kills human development.
Drug wars' combat ethos colors unrelated police encounters. Count the police shell casings around recent Bay Area hashtags from nationally reported officer-involved shootings: #MarioWoods (15) #AlexNieto (59) #AmilcarPerezLopez (4). Among the masses of Californians stopped, frisked, and arrested, mass incarceration has not induced mass sobriety. Nor mass "mental health". Nor slowed high intensity NAFTA scale drug trade. Geopolitically, "Alta California"' exposes Bay Area police to immigration law enforcement with families displaced from southern drug wars in "Baja California", Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Colombia. We ask police to be clinicians, warriors, peace officers, and immigration diplomats. That is not reasonable.
Symptoms of dysfunctional law enforcement have causes upstream in the lawmaking process. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition educates lawmakers, law enforcement, and the public nationally about the costs of drug prohibition. From violence in cross-border trade corridors to the national heroin epidemic. This year is especially critical as LEAP allies with the public health chorus influencing this April's Special Session of the UN General Assembly. I nominate Law Enforcement Against Prohibition for its superior public health campaign in the Bay Area and beyond.
 |
Comments
Post a Comment