Is the descent into brutality our new American normal?

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.
==================================================================================================================================================================

Consider the brutality that President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, many other political leaders and right-wing media think is just fine:

The Most Gruesome Moments in the CIA ‘Torture Report’

Interrogations that lasted for days on end. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs, or go 180 hours in a row without sleep. A prison so cold, one suspect essentially froze to death.

The CIA also forced some detainees who had broken feet or legs to stand in stress-inducing positions, despite having earlier pledged that they wouldn’t subject those wounded individuals to treatment that might exacerbate their injuries.

Contrary to CIA’s description to the Department of Justice, the Senate report says that the waterboarding was physically harmful, leading to convulsions and vomiting.

The torture of prisoners debate has devolved to:

1. We never tortured. We just used “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
2. We did torture, but torture is O.K., because it worked.
3. We did torture, but I didn’t know about the torture.
4. We did torture, and it’s not O.K., so we don’t torture any more.

That America even needs to debate about the merits of torture, says much about American humanity and our moral standing in the world.

Then, consider police brutality:

These Moms Lost Kids to Police Brutality — Now They’re Fighting Back
By Matt Connolly

Ten women, united in loss that no one should have to bear, demanded that lawmakers take action on police brutality on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. They make up a delegation of mothers whose sons were killed by police, and they don’t want any more mothers to feel their pain.

The delegation, assembled by representatives from Mothers Against Police Brutality, Codepink, the National Congress of Black Women and the Hands Up DC Coalition made their case to Congress during a three-hour briefing followed by a candlelight vigil outside the Department of Justice that evening.

Tressa Sherrod told assembled legislators, staffers, media and members of the public. “The police have too much power. They are getting away with killing unarmed black men and children.”

“It’s been eight years for us, and we’re still in pain,” said Valerie Bell, whose son Sean Bell was killed on his wedding day when plainclothes police officers fired 50 shots into his car in New York thinking someone had a gun.

The officers, whose attorney argued that they confused their own shots ricocheting for bullets being fired back at them, were later acquitted.

Danette Chavis’ son Gregory Chavis wasn’t shot by law enforcement, but New York police allegedly prevented him from receiving medical treatment for his gunshot wound despite being a block away from a hospital.

Are we becoming immunized against brutality? Do we justify brutality, so that our response to all problems is more brutality?

Cop Writes Washington Post Op-Ed Defending Police Brutality

“Here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you.”

Police Department officer Sunil Dutta (wrote) “Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names. Don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge.”

In other words, shut up and take it, because even the slightest bit of intransigence is grounds for the cops to unleash a world of hurt.

“Later, you can ask for a supervisor, lodge a complaint or contact civil rights organizations if you believe your rights were violated.”

Or, wait for your complaint to get buried under mountains of paperwork and or dismissed outright. In DC, for instance, only 66 of the 358 complaints filed last year against Metropolitan Police Department officers were sustained, according to figures released this week.

Any resistance, even the most modest form of resistance, constitutes grounds for the police to kill you with a choke hold, bullets, beatings or some other means.

Have the police, the grand juries, the public in general and the politicians become immune to the horrors of brutality? Do torture and murder no longer shock us?

Poll Finds That More Americans Back Gun Rights Than Stronger Controls
By Timothy Williams, Dec. 11, 2014

Two years after the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn., a majority of Americans say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns than for the government to limit access to firearms, a Pew Research Center survey conducted this month found.

The center said that it was the first time in two decades of its surveys on attitudes about firearms that a majority of Americans had expressed more support for gun ownership rights than for gun control.

In a 2000 Pew survey, 29 percent chose gun rights over gun control, and in a 2013 survey conducted a month after the Newtown shooting, 45 percent favored gun rights.

When asked in 2012, 29 percent of African-Americans said guns offered people protection rather than exposed them to greater danger, but in this year’s survey, the number of African-Americans who viewed firearms as offering more personal safety nearly doubled to 54 percent.

Torture makes us safer. Police savagery makes us safer. Guns make us safer.

Brutality in America. Is it the new normal?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually. (Refer to this.)
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY