Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Fareed Zacharia Quote: 558 killings by police missing from records (2007 to 2012)

This is a quote from Fareed Zacharia GPS on CNN on 12-7-14

Internal Agency Reports 1800
FBI reports                      1242
Missing killings                558

So, what appears to be happening (according to Fareed Zacharia) is that there are 558 killings by police that the public has never heard about and are even missing from police records entirely in some cases.

Young Black men were 21 times more likely to be shot dead than whites between 2010 and 2012.

1 out of every 3 black men can expect to go to prison at some time during their lifetime.

end quote.

My thought is that as smaller and smaller percentages of people control more and more vast resources (presently 10% of people in the U.S. control 90% of the resources) it is much easier to hide deaths.

I don't think this is necessarily the fault of individual policemen but rather the system has been corrupted by the money in too few people's hands. With a dying middle Class the Middle class can no longer protect the poor and the middle class people here. And the rich tend to protect their own.

However, this means often poor and middle class people will fall through the cracks of our criminal justice system the way things presently are caused by money in too few people's hands.

What happens in real time is that middle class and poor people are having to spend so many hours just to make ends meet that they don't have enough free time to fight for the rights of the poor and middle class. So, more and more poor and middle class people lose not only their rights but also the right to even live at all.

For example, the Civil Rights Bill passed partly because of President Johnson but also because the middle class and poor were the richest they had ever been (buying power wise) in the whole history of the U.S. during the 1960s.

Presently, I think you might have to go back all the way to the 1950s or 1940s to compare the buying power of the middle class and poor today of what they can and cannot afford for working during an 8 hour day.

What are the major reasons for this?

Union busting starting with Reagan.
Globalization ended the higher wages in countries like the U.S.
The coup De Grace came from the Great Recession which ended most middle class people investing
in the Stock market and most homes losing 50% to 75% of their value. This combination stole 50% to 75% of the middle class and poors life savings because most people's biggest investment is in their homes. So, 50% to 70% of the wealth of the poor and middle class left and might not ever come back.

And this series of actions directly relates to young black men dying in greater numbers at the hands of the police than White or Hispanic or Asian men.

In 1960 to 1965 a 17 year old white male could support 5 people easily and be married by being something like a garbage man or a carpenter or other tradesman. However, I wouldn't say that is still true today.

Today one person is lucky to be able to support himself or herself at all without a college education of some sort.


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