Good Cop, Bad Cop

I used to live next door to a police officer named Greeno. He was a decent guy, good family man, took his job seriously but not too much so, prided himself on the fact that he never shot (or shot at) anyone. He was the first cop I got to know well and it set a high bar. I expected cops to be good guys, nice guys, sensible people. Many of them are just that. More than you might expect, based on what you hear and read.

I also have any number of friends that distrust cops, dislike cops, some even hate hate hate cops. I sympathize. I’ve learned to distrust “cops” in the generic sense, in much the same way many of them distrust the public. I know at least a couple of people who believe that all cops are bad, that they are the unchecked enforcement arm of a corrupt government. An argument can be made for this point of view.

So, here’s the question: what is the alternative?

Is the alternative no cops? No government? Some fairy tale anarchy where everyone looks out for themselves – rugged individualism; survival of the fittest? Well, I certainly wouldn’t be a lawyer if I thought that, because implicit in the whole lawyer gig is the notion of the Rule of Law. And for the law to rule, there must be some general acquiescence to authority of the courts as an arm of government, and the police enforce that authority. Without that, you have two choices – Mad Max on one side; Steve Bannon on the other.

What is the alternative?

Police forces have many problems. Some they bring on themselves. Some not so much. Two examples of problems the police didn’t ask for but get to deal with anyway: mental health and drug addiction. We all know perfectly well that these have become police problems because of our own abysmal failure to provide even the minimum necessary social services required to deal with these issues. Oh, yeah and then there’s this – that simple-minded conviction, based on no historical evidence whatsoever – that families should be the front line against these horrors.

Well, we’ve been there. When schizophrenic Phil was his parents’ problem, they had a solution – lock ol’ Phil up for the rest of his natural life in some bug-infested warehouse for crazies, where well-meaning care givers gouged out part of his brain to make him compliant. But, see, as compassionate human beings (who were tired of footing the bill to feed the nutcases) we got rid of the “Mental Hospitals”. The plan was to replace them with community-based care centers. Thing is, that never happened. Now families let the mentally ill wander the streets, because they can’t stop them, and these disturbed individuals cause all kinds of police problems, large and small – from murder to mugging to pissing in the bushes, sleeping under bridges and begging on on-ramps.

As for drugs, again, history provides an insight. It turns out that the base rate for

addiction in the population is quite stable. Check out the chart (from TheAtlantic.com, October, 2012). The only thing that has changed is that we’ve turned the “War on Drugs” (begun in the Nixon years to combat black radicalism and the white anti-war movement) into a for-profit industry. High among those who profit are the police, and they would be loath to give up the fight. Nevertheless, it’s a battle they should not engage and one they cannot win.

So, part of the solution is to provide human services and decriminalize a lot of what passes as “crime” but is really “sickness”.

Then there’s the stuff cops and their government overlords DO bring on themselves.

Such as? Well, racism, and militarization, and their goddamned code of silence, the latter being the elephant in the room.

I’m not going to dwell on racism today. I’ve written about it elsewhere (here), and it is a fact of life in America beyond what cops bring to the table. I will say that there are certainly racist police, there are entire departments that openly engage in racial profiling, the Klan and white nationalists have infiltrated agencies to some extent – more than they should, less than they claim – in brief, racism is the great stain on our national honor. You’d think that increased diversity in hiring would solve the problem, but, no, not really. We’ll come back to that.

The United States today is at a low ebb, vis-à-vis the crime rate. Crime is at the lowest point (per capita) we’ve seen since the 1950s. Unfortunately, this fact does not fit with the narrative that the liar-in-chief and his lackeys need to sell to consolidate their positions. Thus, crime is rampant, lies are “alternative facts”, the police are the victims. Ergo, the sensible restrictions placed on the sale of military equipment to civilian forces have now been lifted, and all the boys (and girls) in blue get a tommy gun, or a tank, or a bazooka, or whatever. This is bad juju. When you combine a militarized police force holding a grudge with a gutted Posse Comitatus act, there’s no one left to protect the civilians. In case you didn’t notice.

Believe it or not, racism and militarization are not the biggest problems. There’s a contamination in the ranks, it is nearly universal among the police forces, and it infects much of what they do. Yep. The code.

It’s a simple rule. Thou shall not rat out a fellow officer. No matter what nasty, brutish, vicious and/or underhanded shit she did, keep your fucking mouth shut. It doesn’t matter if it’s murder, you cover it up. You don’t Want to Know what will happen if you don’t follow the code.

I get it. Policing is sometimes (often?) a rotten job, wherein officers are confronted with situations that present no good choices. They are sometimes asked to make life-and-death judgment calls with little information or context. Given that, and given that a bad call can end a career (or worse), the solution is simple – police officers, by general agreement, simply do not make bad calls. They exist in an error-free zone, each hastening to protect the other from any allegation of poor judgment, misconduct, or malfeasance. And race plays no role – everyone follows the code.

The psychology of this code is almost insurmountable. For any officer to publicly go against another – regardless of how minor the disagreement – is a near-heroic act. The outspoken officer will be shunned, threatened, attacked, subjected to similar allegations, and – perhaps worst of all – given no support or backup, on the streets or off. Ratting out a fellow officer is at best a career-killer, at worse a death sentence. And why would you do that? You go along, you get along.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: There are, as I suggested above, many good, more-or-less honest, well-meaning police officers who genuinely care for the public they serve. But there are a few Rambos, because, hey, cop-gun-badge-power-priapism, and a few racists, and the odd whack job or two. Here’s the scenario – the good-guy cops are trying to handle the problem, trying to do the right thing, help the little-old-lady-crazy out, when Rambo wanders in, misjudges the situation, flies off the handle, and bingo! Dead lady, guilty Rambo, good guys sworn to silence. Maybe Rambo gets a pass. Maybe not, and the good guys lose their jobs, plus perhaps a little jail time for perjury, all because of The Code.

Alternative to this? There’s quite a bit to be done. Beef up internal affairs. Set standards for honesty and transparency at the highest levels of the force. Don’t assume the officer is always being honest. Give civilian review boards some actual authority (they are strikingly toothless groups, mostly). Extend protections and promotions and genuine support to officers who are willing to tell the truth about the deadwood and troublemakers in the organization. Make police misconduct files available to public inspection (they are generally considered “personnel records” and as such, not accessible). Require ethics training and re-training. Fire a few assholes, for starters.

Cops are not a “necessary evil.” They are in integral part of government, for good or ill. They are the enforcement arm. They serve and protect, in the case of a government that has the interests of the public at heart. They attack and harm and destroy on behalf of despotic and self-serving administrations. Despite all the awful things we hear about things the cops do, many of us been lucky up until now. Tomorrow they may come for me, or you. When they do, you better hope the rule of law is still on your side.

Lying Liars

So, you want to see how the misinformation machine works? Here’s a pretty little example:

You’ve no doubt heard by now that the CIA (among others) has 1) identified the Russians as having hacked into US servers and leaked various documents through that dipshit Julian Assange and Wikileaks AND 2) said leaks being part of an active effort to get the Orange Monkey elected to the Presidency.

In response to these revelations, a spokesperson for the Monkey’s transition team said, “(The CIA) are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.'" 

Okay? Okay. Three sentences, at least four lies.

Lie number one: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” Well, no, not so much. Actually, in July, 2003 — just prior to the invasion of Iraq by US forces — Joseph C. Wilson wrote an op-ed in the NY Times in which he dissented from the idea that Iraq was buying uranium through intermediaries in Niger. Wilson had gone to Niger to investigate this claim at the behest of — the CIA. Wilson was proposed for the assignment (reluctantly, it appears) by his wife. You may have heard of her. Valerie Plane? Robert Novak outing her as a CIA operative? Scooter Libby taking the fall for the G.W. Bush administration and going to jail? Ah, good times. 

It seems that the CIA was the one agency that got the WMD claim right, and probably could have saved us from that mess, if anyone had wanted to listen. But the Lying Liars shouted them down with false claims and misdirection.

Lies number two and three: “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history.” I hardly know where to start. “The election ended a long time ago…”. First of all, the election was held 32 days ago. That’s only a long time ago if you’re a fruit fly. Second, the election, technically, hasn’t ended at all. It hasn’t ended yet because the ELECTORAL COLLEGE HASN’T VOTED yet. The author of this bullshit is claiming victory based on something that has not yet occurred and is even predicting the numerical outcome. 

Just for argument’s sake, let’s say the final electoral college totals are what they are presumed to be; that all the electors sit quietly in their chairs and vote as expected. Here’s lie number three: There have been 58 presidential election cycles. If the electors vote along projected lines, the Monkey’s margin of victory puts him in 46th place. Not even close to “one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history.” (That would be G. Washington, who won twice by 100%).

Finally, it is “time to move on and Make America Great Again.” Newspeak, for those of you who haven’t recently read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, is a language designed to limit the range of thought. Among it’s various characteristics, things are often described as the opposite of what they actually are, for example, a bill to allow the pollution of rivers, lakes and streams might be called “The Clean Water Act.” You get my drift.

I promise not to spend too much time on the Orange Monkey and his administration, but you gotta keep the pressure on. Fascism Fatigue is how they win.

Governor Who?

"Mr. Safe Bathrooms"

In light of recent events, Sandie reminded me of the regrettably short-lived Sports Night, that aired on ABC from 1998 to 2000. One of the most memorable scenes was when Jeremy tried to break up with Natalie (You can watch it here):

Jeremy: We need to stop seeing each other.

Natalie: No.

Jeremy: Wait! I break up with you!

Natalie: Not this time. No. I gotta go back to work.

Jeremy: This is unilateral! I don’t need you to sign off on this in order for it to be valid!

Natalie: Sweetie, if it makes you feel better to break up with me, that’s fine, but I don’t break up with you.

Jeremy: IT DOEN’T WORK LIKE THAT!

Natalie: It’s working like that right now.

Now, just imagine that Jermey is the voters of North Carolina, and Natalie is the current Governor.

Voters: We need to stop seeing each other.

McCrory: No.

I was trying to explain this yesterday to my eldest daughter, who has lived her entire life in California, mostly.

Me: So, we have a Republican Governor who refuses to leave office.

Kelly: What do you mean?

Me: Well, his Democratic opponent has won the election. The Democrat currently is leading by more than 10,000 votes, which means that there will be no automatic statewide recount - the Democrat’s the outright winner.

Kelly: And?

Me: And the current Governor refuses to concede. He’d dug in his heels and crossed his arms and pouted. He won’t leave.

Kelly: How can he do that?

Me: He claims, with not one scintilla of evidence, that there was widespread fraud. The boards of election have pretty much refused to submit the recounts he’s requested. He finally persuaded the state board (a Republican majority, as are they all) to force a recount in Durham. Because, Durham, 50% people of color, voted for every Democratic President since 1869, so, sure.

Kelly: So what if he doesn’t leave. Won’t someone force him to go?

Me: Who would do that?

Kelly: What about the legislature?

Me: They’re firmly Republican. All in his pocket.

I am frankly tickled by all of this. A barricaded suspect at the Governor’s Manse. Weeping and shrieking at the help, holding up his petticoats and running in small circles. Some hostage negotiator needs to get on the phone and find out his demands.

I get how he feels. Here he is, boss of a fully gerrymandered Red Southern State, a state that retained it’s do-nothing big business Republican Senator and voted for the Orange Monkey for President, and somehow, despite all that, McCrory managed to lose the Governor’s race. The fix was in, see, but somehow it didn’t work. Kelly wanted to know why.

“Because,” I told her. “McCrory backed some stupid legislation - you’ve heard of it: HB2, the so-called ‘bathroom bill.’ As usual, he had plenty of support. This state is rich with people who love their Jesus and hate their queers. Plus, we’ve got the KKK and a long history of Neo-fascism. The problem was, the bill had some unexpected consequences. In response to a conflict between HB2 and federal law, the NCAA threatened to pull their tournaments from North Carolina.

“Now, the unifying force, the one thing on which we all agree, the common ground that allows us to go on as a semi-civilized people, is our goddamned college basketball. You do not fuck with our basketball. When McCrory refused to back down from HB2 after the NCAA said they would pull their tournaments, he might as well have slit his wrists. There was a collective gasp of horror as the governor wedged his head firmly up his backside and let the NCAA leave.“ 

Well, that’s the news from North Carolina. Stay tuned on Monday, as Durham completes the required recount. Is there new chicanery afoot? Will Durham turn magically red? Will the Governor run to the bathroom and lock the door? Swoon with the vapors? Will the Bundy Militia arrive in time to save the day? We can hardly wait.

Connemara Farm

Visited the Carl Sandburg farm up in Flat Rock this weekend. I’d say that the Sandburg farm is the closest I’ve ever come to finding a perfect place to live. A big house but not ostentatious, comfortably mismatched furniture (currently in storage while a restoration project proceeds), tall wide windows, on a hilltop with terrific views, pleasantly and slightly overgrown natural landscaping (no manicured gardens or topiary or putting-green lawns, thank you), lots of open spaces. Probably the most striking thing about the house itself is that every wall in the place has bookshelves — a Sandburg renovation. At one point, the house contained 17,000 volumes.

View from Lillian's bedroom

The place is called “Connemara” after the name given it by its second owner, an Irish textile tycoon named Ellison Smyth. Smyth had acquired the 246 acres, house and outbuildings (including slave quarters) from Christopher Memminger, Secretary of the Confederate Treasury. Lilian Sandburg found the property while looking for a place to raise goats and a quiet spot where her husband could write and commune with nature. 

Some other old goats

Apparently the goats liked it just fine; the herd eventually grew to 250 animals and Connemara Farm Goat Milk was stocked on many North Carolina store shelves. Lilian made a name for herself in goat breeding and the farm was often visited by other farmers seeking to learn her methods. Descendants of the original herd still live at Connemara — the world’s most pampered tribe of goats.

The Sandburgs moved to the hills of Western Carolina in 1945. Carl was 67 years old. Over the following 22 years he went on to produce one-third of his total literary output. He was a socialist (at least for a time, in his 30s) and a defender of civil rights, becoming the first white man to win the NAACP’s Silver Plaque Award. In addition to poetry, he wrote the definitive work on Lincoln (in six volumes), an anthology of American folk music and a couple of children’s books. Sandburg won three Pulitzers, a Grammy (!), and the Robert Frost Medal. He appears to be the only poet ever to address a joint session of Congress.

In every room . . .

Of course, he was so much more than a paragraph describes, or even a full biography. His early days — he left school in the 8th grade, worked, bummed around, tried on this job and that — he did go back to college although he never earned a degree (but, 17,000 books) — his enlistment during the Spanish-American war — all of that served his ultimate accomplishment: Poet of the people. He got into the skin of servants and porters and bricklayers and steel men and secretaries. He understood the American Dream and the people it served and the people it failed. 

There have not been many men like him — maybe Twain, Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, a handful of others. Pete Seeger. Can’t think of any who are still alive today. I have a hunch that the great American folk artists/writers/poets of the 21st century are going to be women. But that's a topic for a different day (and probably for someone else).

Post-Mortem

To say I’m disappointed would be a vast understatement. But don’t be misled; I’m mainly disappointed in myself.

I got sucked in. Many of us did. We surrounded ourselves with like-minded souls and jabbered at one another like gibbons about how we were going to keep the White House and take over Congress and rainbows and cake and a new car in every garage.

Facebook. The New York Times. Stephen and Samantha and Trevor, oh my! We fed each other the poison of a false (or, at least, incomplete) narrative, repeating and sharing and reinforcing the fiction, back and forth at a feverish pace. We ignored all the signs — including the ones planted in every field and pasture we passed. We dismissed out of hand the long-standing hard basic truths of American politics. Everything and everyone who was a sure-fire predictor of reality was tarred with the same brush — this time it will be different. Only it wasn’t.

And now we have excuses galore for our failure, conspiracies and regrets and “what ifs?” This, despite the fact that the blueprints were drawn for anyone to see, the bulldozers were in place, and the landscape shifted exactly as could be expected from ’08 to ’12 to now. “This country,” my friend Kern calmly notes, “has always had a fascist streak.”

There’s this thing called the “Overton Window.” You should know what that is; your conservative neighbors certainly do. Look it up on Wikipedia. Various right-wing thinkers — Bill Buckley, Glenn Beck (“thinkers”) have written novels invoking the Overton Window. It explains how public opinion can be manipulated. It explains how someone endorsed by the KKK can wind up in the White House. It may be too little, too late, but look it up anyway.

So, what’s my point? Simply this: When it comes to politics, if you’re a reasonably smart person, it is probably better to be uniformed than misinformed. Or, put another way, you can only trust your own wisdom if it is uncluttered by opinions and half-truths masquerading as facts. Now, I’m not talking here about the lies the Alt-Right tossed to their junkyard dogs, or the rationalizations the Priests in their pulpits stage-whispered to the faithful to gin up sympathy for the devil. Those matters are topics for a different day.

I’m talking about the worse kind of deception — self-deception. Of all my failings great and small, this is the one that has caused me the most pain, year in and year out.

I have to move on, though, and so must you. Jim Wright — a fairly clear-eyed guy, kind of a sonofabitch but in a good way, retired military, you can find his stuff here — Jim Wright exhorts us to gear up and get ready for the battle. He may be right, but maybe not.

I’m probably not going to spend much time on Facebook anymore. I’m going to forego the hour every day I used to spend pouring over the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times. I may go back to the Daily Show and Late Night and Full Frontal but not for a while. I’m going to try to use that time thinking as rationally as possible about the implications of what has happened in this moment in history, and how to respond. 

I may gear up. I’ve been wasting my time and talents these past few months. The criminal justice system is swirling in the tank and if at all possible we need to stop it from sliding into the sewer. Of course, that’s just a small part of what lies ahead.

I may leave. It’s probably going to get bad fast and I’m not sure I’m nimble enough anymore to stay out in front of the carnage. I’ve allowed my common sense to be clouded (obviously) and I worry that I may get sucked in again. The next time could be worse — much worse. We all have a similar decision to make. Which brings me back to my point: Don’t let me or anyone substitute our opinion for your own judgment. You have to think about this carefully and call your own play. Good luck.