Oakland In Pain

Below is a comment I made to this in the Los Angeles Times:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/bart-verdict-unrest-in-oakland-at-least-80-people-arrested.html

"I could not be more appalled at the blatant racism I read in some of these comments. I confess I do miss some of the years pre-Reagan, where racism was at least out of fashion enough that the haters would keep some of the vitriol to themselves.

And I love the way some of the "don't-tax-me-I-should-get-it-for-free" types are suddenly the buddies of cops, when cops have confrontations with African-American citizens.

You don't want to pay for anything anymore that would help kids who are born into our inner cities be safe enough, and healthy enough, and educated enough to be able to help turn things around in their communities as adults. Every good thing that was beginning to bud in blighted areas was hacked to death by budget cut after budget cut, year after year, in response to whiners who just yelled "cut, cut, cut!" instead of taking the time and effort to see WHAT should be cut. But these days, you don't even want to pay for your cops!

And you're going to get your wish, in a governor who has no experience in anything but amassing wealth for herself. As she privatizes everything, costing you far more while giving you far less that you would have got if you'd just stopped pissing on your own government instead of working to fix it, and her rich buddies profit from the privatization, enjoy your pricey rent-a-cops. If you can afford them.

Cities like Oakland need more, not less security to make their citizens safe from violence, whether locally-grown or imported. But how can they trust police who have the kind of racist attitudes which have been blasted on this board?

There needs to be a new kind of security for citizens which screens out idiots, racists, power-mad-on-testosterone types, and sadists. And people who can't tell the difference between a gun and a taser. If they are so similar ,than why doesn't someone make the feel of them very different? Make one have a bumpy surface or something. Not rocket science. Or are things so bad that the gun needs a voice which will activate and say "This is your gun. Do you really want me right now?"

Whatever happens, our country is losing our place in the world and many of the blessings we always took for granted at home. We have to start pulling together to make things better and that is not going to happen while we point fingers and hate based on race, class, politics, religion, or anything else.

Posted by: The Starving Economist | July 09, 2010 at 07:31 PM"