Obama ban on police military gear falls short as critics say it’s a ‘publicity stunt’ – Tom McCarthy & Lauren Gambino

It has become an emblematic image of police militarization: a half-dozen heavily outfitted officers, assault rifles drawn, advancing on an African American man in a T-shirt with his hands way up. The police – photographed in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer – are wearing helmets and goggles and knee pads and gas masks. The man is wearing a cap from Cabela’s, the …

Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy – BRENDAN JAMES

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists. Asking “[w]ho really rules?” researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America’s political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power. Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from …

Why Do America’s Riots Mirror Each Other, Generation After Generation? – Frank Rich

As some 37,000 fans streamed into Camden Yards for the Orioles–Red Sox game on the last Saturday evening in April, things were getting out of hand in Baltimore. The peaceful protests of the day were spiraling into bitter confrontations. Outside the stadium and nearby, rocks were being hurled at police and through store windows. If you’d caught these fast-breaking developments …

Ask Beatty – Elizabeth Massey – 05.11.15

Beatty talked about having attended a Moral Monday breakfast at Union Theological Seminary in New York City with guest speaker Reverend Doctor William, Director of the North Carolina NAACP. As a society, despite different party lines, we need to all get in touch with our moral selves personally and politically and not just on Monday’s.  Her guest tonight was Elizabeth …

Even in a Drought, California Farms Have a Future—But They’ll Need Local Control to Succeed – Keith Harrington

Last month, for the first time in history, California enacted mandatory limits on how much water its residents can use. And yet, as a recent op-ed in The New York Times points out, the state is exporting 100 billion gallons of water a year in the form of cattle feed. That’s right: cattle feed. California’s thirstiest crop isn’t almonds or broccoli or …

Bringing the Crisis to a Head in Baltimore – Glen Ford

“The only thing that can work to fundamentally change the system for Black people – whether in the 21st century or the Sixties – is mass organization for popular empowerment.” It’s been nine months since the Black youth of Ferguson, Missouri, set history in motion with their demand for justice for Michael Brown, yet the “movement” has maintained its momentum while …

The Reasons for Urban Rioting – Lawrence Davidson

If one goes to Wikipedia under the subject of “mass racial violence in the United States,” one will find a “timeline of events” running from 1829 to 2015. There are so many race-related riots listed for these 186 years that, from a historical point of view, rioting appears almost normal. Prior to World War II, these outbreaks mostly involved ethnic, racial or …

The Uncivil War Raging Across America – Michael Payne

In America today we are witnessing what could be called an uncivil war; one in which a massive divide exists between elements of this government, the business sector and the people of America; where little to no common ground or compromise on key issues can be found and the opposing factions are aggressively battling each other. Within this government the …

White America’s Greatest Delusion: “They Do Not Know It and They Do Not Want to Know It” – Tim Wise

Though perhaps overused, there are few statements that so thoroughly burrow to the heart of the nation’s racial condition as the following, written fifty-three years ago by James Baldwin: …this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and …