Blacks see unarmed black men being killed by a hostile, occupying police force in the world of the inner city which is little more than a war zone and police state.
Whites see a police force which is doing an enormously difficult and dangerous job being under attack by fools, criminals, and race agitators.
Wow. Different realities.
My take is similar to David Simon's - the creator of "The Wire". The inner cities are war zones, the drug war. The inner cities are discarded places filled with people who are seen as not useful to the economy and thus are forgotten, neglected, disrespected, and held in contempt.
Simon makes the point that America, and capitalism, cannot function if either unfettered capitalism or unfettered socialism wins totally over the other. Unfettered socialism becomes the horror of communism, like the Soviet Union and North Korea. Total tyranny, and the abolition of freedom and caring.
He also makes the point that unfettered capitalism becomes the horror of plutocracy and oligarchy. Total tyranny, and the abolition of freedom and caring. The perfect example is how unfettered capitalism deals with the inner city drug war zones - they ignore them - the inner city people don't feed the capital, don't feed the corporations, don't feed the quarterly reports. Thus, they aren't thought about until there are riots.
What is needed is balance. Balance comes when neither side wins. The Soviets went out of balance and destroyed themselves by Communism. America is in danger of going out of balance and destroying itself by Plutocracy.
The United States was created to overthrow aristocracy. It wasn't England that our Founding Fathers rebelled against, it was rule by aristocracy. When the wealthiest of the wealthy can contribute billions of dollars to control our elections, we no longer have a democracy, and we are living in the tyranny of aristocracy. We are getting too close to that tyranny, to that loss of freedom.
The plutocracy has chosen the Republican Party and the "conservative movement" to rule the country for the sole purpose of creating unfettered capitalism and unlimited capital. All costs are to be reduced, including of course the cost of "labor" - the cost of you and me. They do this with the megaphone of talk radio, and ironically their attack on the middle class is done under the rubric of "freedom". The more extreme the right wing becomes the less power the middle class becomes and the more power the plutocracy has.
I have hopes that the American people will be able to walk back away from the blow torch of extremism, and will elect conservatives and liberals who are not crazy. The biggest danger to this is the enormous amounts of money that the Plutocracy is putting into the election process. I think they will lose.
