Being able to make the trains run on time was laudable for any 20th century Fascist leader, Indian viceroy, tribal lord, or any other governmental figurehead. Given our current 21st century challenges, and chaos looming around every corner, merely being able to coordinate the logistics of trains would be a welcome respite.
What time is your train?
Things continue unspooling in the American empire. The bigger question might be—moving beyond the parochial—were things ever that simple in global flashpoints like Iraq, Gaza, Liberia, or places in our own country like Ferguson, Missouri (or Birmingham, Alabama)? Being white affords privileges that are hard to trivialize.
Traditionalists still believe that simply fixing train schedules is all that’s needed to bring back our former glory—that and a bit more ammo. Of course that’s based on the premise that the trains haven’t already left the station.
Oh no! Looks like you missed it!
Hey…writing existential blog posts with no answers is my job, man!
But seriously, the militarization of our police forces is unfortunate. I saw one of those big stealth armored police vehicles in Rye, New Hampshire, of all places. Why would they need one of those in Rye? Someone going to get out of control at the uber-white Abenaki Golf club? Author Dan Brown going to slap John Sununu on the 18th hole? It’s all a disgrace.
Ferguson (and many other places, like Rye, NH) are the recipients of billions in dollars in surplus military equipment and armaments. It began with the war on drugs. Then our “all-knowing” Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act in 1990, which allowed the Pentagon to give local law enforcement any surplus “personal property … including smalls arms and ammunition.” Twenty-five years later, the 1033 program, as it’s called, continues and has disbursed $4.3 billion worth of military equipment to state and local agencies, according to the website of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which administers the program within the Department of Defense.
“Consequently, police forces across the United States are starting to resemble small armies,” said Kara Dansky, senior counsel at the ACLU and the primary author of a militarization report, War Comes Homes: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsRxnWOOEVA This guy, right on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsRxnWOOEVA This guy, dead on.