Criminal behavior Criminal Assumptions

In 1979 I was trying to sell insurance. It was garbage insurance. I had just graduated College and had been told that this was the way to advance my degree and win fame and fortune. Unfortunately this insurance company wanted me going door to door and trying to convince farmers, cops, watermen and their friends to buy the insurance. It was a lousy product, I'm a lousy salesman, but I enjoyed meeting people. At least I'd sometimes get a meal from the salt of the earth types I was selling to. One experience I had while selling the garbage over in Calverton was that I met a woman after work in a bar, and she invited me to a police party. The police were throwing a party in the name of a man with a name similar to a famous actor. The man had been hurt in a car chase and was paralyzed waste down. The party was to raise funds to help him out. Sounded good to me. I was broke, and it would be cheaper than spending my little bit of money in a bar. So I went.

I don't remember much except I did drink a little more than I should (two beers is more than I should) and got sick. And the people. I met the hurt cop. Lots of Maryland State Troopers, the local volunteer firemen, and their groupies and relatives. They were doing all sorts of things I would never do at a party; Cocaine, smoking pot, drinking, not sure what else. And I was impressed by the notion that these were just regular people. Doing everything society as a whole was doing. And everything they were paid to arrest people for doing. I suspected they had their supplies from the evidence room. I quit my job soon after and the girl I took to the party broke up with me (I think) I know she stopped answering my phone calls. So I never went to another party where there were so many cops, except maybe a few given by one of my X's relatives. He was a retired cop.

But what I did learn is that we aren't fighting drugs by arresting people and throwing them in jail. I also went to NA meetings and AA meetings and there would be cops there. Cops get addicted too. I found out that the only thing that jail seems to do is to punish folks who get caught. It doesn't stop them from doing drugs or stop the pain. Most of the people I met at that time who were doing hard drugs like heroin, Methadone, or similar got addicted due to back pain. Some of them were cops injured in the line of duty. Cutting off those drugs sent them to the black market and all of them found their moral and legalized stressed by the difficulty of paying for such drugs. It is rare that a drug addict like Rush Limbaugh can support his habit legally. Most of them throw away vast sums of money that enrich both police chiefs and criminal syndicates alike. Drugs are a huge industry partly because our people are so sick, but also because they are illegal and the risk premium on their sales is so high the industry creates millionaires. They'll tell you "it's just business" -- and they mean it.

Prohibition is corrupting our country more than the drugs and alcohol do.

Parasitizing the Edges

Whenever there is a demonstration or event, there are people who are there for a multitude of reasons. And usually not all are the ones the organizers or primary event goers have in mind. The demonstrations in Ferguson are an example. All was swimming until less than a dozen thugs woke up and decided to loot another store. Those same thugs threw bottles and mouthed the usual revolutionary and violent nonsense. And some of them wore masks. The community of demonstrators tried to stop them, but as always with hard heads they weren't interested in being stopped. That is where police are supposed to make arrests.

WSFA

The incident reminded me of my own experiences. I was a member of WSFA, and am still mentally one. It's still around. Like the Ferguson demonstration we had meetings, we had people attending for all kinds of reasons. And we hosted an annual "DISCLAVE" convention in a hotel each year. Alternating with a "Balticon" because our memberships overlapped with the brother Baltimore based Science Fiction association. We were united by a love of Science fiction. But our members loved comics, Goth, Orthodox Jewry, Ayn Randian athieism, Orthodox Catholicism, Unitarianism, every other Protestant Church, Mormons, mainstream Atheism, New Age religions, Paganism, and just about a cross section of the educated of the two metropolitan areas. It was a lot of fun planning for the conventions and seeking to attract authors, vendors, and others. We rarely got the famous Hollywood types, but we had as much fun planning the conventions as having them. And our Baltimore club was the same, only better. They (we also) had a clubhouse in the Eastern Part of the City that used to be a theater.

One year we planned our DISCLAVE over at the Ramada Inn in Hyattsville. And it was a disaster. The event itself was fun. Was entirely peaceful, and enjoyed by everyone. But during one of the nights a couple enjoying kinky sex in their private room thought they could handcuff themselves to a sprinkler. The Sprinkler broke. The system went off all on that floor. And enough water came down to flood that floor and all the floors below it. I'm sleeping with my kids (who were just becoming teenagers) in my room when the alarms go off and we all had to go to our cars. The Power was off, and the place was ruined. This proved a blessing for the Hotel as they were due for rennovations anyway and our and their insurance paid for them. But we were banned from holding Sci-Fi conventions and ultimately had to rename DISCLAVE to something else. No more DISCLAVE. They call it CAPCLAVE instead. Works for me. I'm still an original nerdist.

What had happened was a group into kinky and Sado-Masochistic sex was parasitising our conventions. Most of them didn't have overlapping interests, they were there to party and do something they couldn't get a Hotel as a group on their own to do. We had to change our bylaws to be more restrictive about such things. This occured in the late 90's, just before I started dating my wife. She wasn't too much into Sci Fi, and her interests were more hi brow so I couldn't attend WSFA after that and don't know how they came back, but I know they did fine. The point is I've seen this sort of thing with political groups, demonstrations, and it also occurs within organizations as folks take advantage of people to do their personal business on the sly. It happens, and blaming folks for the people who take advantage of them is unfair -- unless they let them continue to get away with it.

Saving Schumer

Woke up early having a dream. I had a big trash bin full of artifacts from the "composer Schumer" and i was under orders to trash it all. Loud voices were telling me to do so. So I went through the bin and saved the things that say who Schumer was, what his music was about, and it's words, preparation for play etc... anyway. Despite threats that they'd kill me and trash my stuff too. Last I save a pair of glasses and wake up. I realized my unconscious was talking about my Wife's legacy. She was no "Schumer" composing great music, but she was a great scholar, teacher, peace maker and thinker and a person who will be missed by the world. And this world treats most folks as so much trash to be dumped when they die. The glasses belonging to Schumer in my dream were the same as a pair I found the other day of my wife's glasses. Man I miss her. But mostly I wish the world did.

Time to bring the adults in the Room

I am an unabashed supporter of POTUS. Some of that is principle. Some of that is genuine admiration. Yes, the President is black. Barack Obama is a bit phlegmatic in his presentation. His humor is subtle. Yes he doesn't often directly address issues that I'm passionate about. Yes, he sometimes is on the "wrong side" of other issues I'm passionate about. Yes, the USA has been following bad strategy, tactics and policies on criminal, security and world policy fronts, and he's bought into some of it publicly. That doesn't make him weak, a tyrant, a bad president or mean it makes sense to impeach him or charge him as a war criminal. He's carrying out USA law. He reflects the zeitgeist that elected him. I believe he privately believes much the same as I do, and that shooting him in the back is counter-productive. Especially right now when we have a bully party that is driving all those policies we hate and that would do a coup against him at the first opportunity.

The Zeitgeist has shifted since he was elected. And he's responded to those shifts slowly. We were still in the grip of con conservative ideology in 2008. He'd have been shot by his own people if he hadn't supported the "war on terror" or talked too loudly and critically on the "war on drugs." Our establishment has been fighting the "war on terror" as a strategy for oppression and terror since Reagan used propaganda about the Russians supporting terror to justify his terrorism back in the 80's. I'm re-reading the book "Veil" in the light of material all about it this week. [Finally unpacked it from it's box] and Reagan discounted reports that contradicted his propaganda to make that case, just as the Bush Administration ignored reports that Al Qaeda was about to attack somewhere in the USA. Strategy is a moral game where folks often ignore morals on the grounds of the "ends justify the means." I would be naive to think that Obama doesn't have to consider strategy issues when plotting his own responses. Everything is timing. And Politicians are often in a no-win situation. If they move too early they lose and what they want to do loses. But if they wait too long it loses too.

Community Policing Strategy

But what is going on in Ferguson shows the value of strategy. I've been around the USA government enough so that I can detect the President's hand in what happened Wednesday. The current Governor of Missouri was responsible for intervening in that town when the city government decided to act like a third world country and repress demonstrators. It's obvious the Governor wasn't up to the task. But I think Holder and Obama hit him from behind the scenes, and he did the right thing. They sent in the adults. Not only are right wing policies bad for our economic, moral and social health. They are also obtuse, counter-productive, costly and stupid. The press has made a big deal about "getting things done" and the effectiveness of thugs like Giuliani or Bloomberg, but hard-ass policing (enforcing minor laws against "criminals") is ineffective and winds up labeling ordinary people (who might break the law) as criminals and alienating them. Community policing has demonstrated utility that dates to the invention of modern police forces. Police as occupying armies has been done before. It doesn't work. Going after "bad guys" gets difficult after a while as it is hard to tell bad guys from good guys. And when one is killing people without due process, that radicalizes their brothers and children. The tactics used in Ferguson last week were just an echo of the tactics used against groups like ISIS (by US) or Hamas (by Israel), but the response is as predictable as if it were an exegesis of the process of radicalization. Children will seek revenge for the unfairly killed. So if you want justice you have to distinguish between people who are breaking the law and those you might just be able to recruit to do the right thing.

Obama and the rest of us pushed on Governor Jay Nixon to do the right thing. And he almost literally "sent in the cavalry" and replaced the keystone cops handling Ferguson Demonstrators as an enemy with adults. Captain Johnson is a professional and did what was required, which was the right thing. And that also happens to be respectful, "community policing". Community Policing was invented by Sir Robert Peel in the 1830's:

"The history of modern law enforcement began 166 years ago with the formation of the London Metropolitan Police District in 1829. By creating a new police force, the British Parliament hoped to address the soaring crime rate in and around the nation's capital, attributed at the time to rapid urban growth, unchecked immigration, poverty, alcoholism, radical political groups, poor infrastructure, unsupervised juveniles, and lenient judges. The principles adopted by Sir Robert Peel, the first chief of the London Metropolitan Police, for his new "bobbies" have served as the traditional model for all British and American police forces ever since. These principles include the use of crime rates to determine the effectiveness of the police; the importance of a centrally located, publicly accessible police headquarters; and the value of proper recruitment, selection, and training."[http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cjs07.htm]

We need adults in the room in our other conflicts too. ISIS is really a collection of grown men living out fantasies of restoring the Caliphate style government that once ruled much of the Middle East. They are living a delusional ideal, but they are opposed by folks with no clear strategy, doctrine, or idea of an alternative. Yet there are basic principles that work and are not so harsh or violent, that we the people of this world need to start adopting. Yes, not all doctrines of community policing work in isolation. Yet the principles derive from Sir Robert Peel and community policing aren't just a strategy they are also requirements for a civil society. [Read more: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/commp.pdf] Kudos to Captain Johnson for showing how it's done.

Peace Making requires local democracy and power sharing

The USA constitution has a passage that says:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

I believe that "guarantee[ing]" states a republican form of government is a requirement that republican forms and democratic attributes be replicated down to the community. The adults are needed in the room. And the way you guarantee that is to ensure that people are engaged in local government as well as national government. And you do that by sharing power and collaboration in the legislative, regulative and requirement arena. If the USA would concentrate on empowering local people with local government. This limits the power of central governments. Central governments should have supervisory, oversight, and system ownership powers. But the members of the system are the local governments and an intelligent application of the principle of subsidiarity requires that they have republican forms of government and a say in the operation of those central systems. When you have that sort of robust local power, then it is harder for dictators to dictate and easier to create commonwealth. Representation reduces conflict and makes it easier to depose bad leaders, while making leaders respond to representatives makes them better leaders. If Israel really wants peace with Gaza it needs to help locals throughout it's area of control govern themselves. Every country needs adults in the room. Including ours, as demonstrated by the mess in Ferguson. The root cause of the problems in Ferguson are local governments with responsibilities but no control over revenues except those from local courts. Looking for revenue sources they take advantage of racism and prejudice. We need to reconstitute our country, and we probably don't even need an amendment.

Further reading:

https://time.com/3117241/ron-johnson/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/police-captain-walks-ferguson-protesters

http://www.pitch.com/FastPitch/archives/2014/08/14/jay-nixon-finally-clears-up-his-schedule-to-tend-to-the-crisis-in-ferguson-but-only-after-getting-a-bunch-of-crap-about-it

http://online.wsj.com/articles/police-name-darren-wilson-as-officer-in-ferguson-missouri-michael-brown-shooting-1408108371

The Grown men game

I see grown men playing Cowboys and Indians,

with grown man toys, like little boys.

I see them go "bang bang your dead" and put a bullet in the head,

and it makes me weep.

Pushing forward with tunnel visioned hate, tools of the state,

they go to their fate;

Fighting Indians who don't exist, with bullets that insist

on blowing brains out of people's heads

they don't see a human being until he's dead.

 

I am there. I am the Indian.

It is my legs that can't move. My terror that fills my heart.

That big boy toy is pointed at me.

I see the projectile come, come at me free.

I feel the pain. I feel the shame.

I feel the life slipping from me.

 

And I am the boy, playing with a man's toy

who is so caught up in the game I can't see Me.

Bombs seem like fireworks. Shooting like an arcade play.

The bombs rain on innocent women and children,

Intended for bad guys, they are just in the way.

For the shooters, can't let anything get in the way.

 

And in the minds of Cowboys and Indians

there is no good Injin except a dead Injin.

The engine of war has only enemies.

"Kill them anyway, children will grow up to be enemies."

"They aren't children, just miniature Indians."

In games the people playing Indians are having fun.

But for children playing with grown men toys, the dead have none.

 

Oh the parents will tell you;

the "indians" are liars.

"all they want to do is kill."

"or take over the world"

"or take all our land."

... and they'll never understand.

 

But it's a lie

who is a cowboy and who is an Indian

is entirely arbitrary.

One moment the cowboy is on one side.

The next the other side is playing cowboy.

All combatants see themselves as cowboys

And their enemies as dead Indians.

 

And I see someone's brains splattered on the ground!

And I weep for both Cowboys and Indians

playing the grown men game

 

Christopher H. Holte, 8/15/2014

This one is meant to be read loud and didactic!

Children of Amalek -- Introduction

One day when soon after I married my wife I was reading the bible in Hebrew at the synagogue with my wife, and it was the beginning of the Jewish year, when we start out reading Bereshit Genesis chapter 2 Chapter one either starts out with the second letter, or was edited out 4000 years ago. And an alternative version of the story of genesis and then the story of Isaac's near execution occurred to me. I started writing the story, but it started in East Jerusalem just outside the Jews Sacred Gate that leads to the Wailing wall. My vision was of an alternative version of that story and the people who didn't want to see it published. I finished the chapter but there was a lot of detail and characterization missing. Later I got to see that site and it looked very similar to my vision, and indeed an even bigger vision of a sapper war operating behind the over war between Hamas and Likud started opening up. I came home from my trip to Israel and updated the story. Then my wife died and all my personal effects were boxed and I can't find the draft. Especially the part where I told of him translating the alternative text. I felt in a similar to the position of the main character Avi, who'd taken the place of a fellow medical technician and driven the ambulance that morning.... He lives just long enough to send a letter to Israels Antiquities Institution. A letter intercepted by me.

Then yesterday I heard of the atrocities directed against an ancient Kurdish tribe living in Syria. And in the notes about them I heard of the Angels they believe in and their beliefs. And that sparked my imagination once again. Just now I had a vision of another chapter of the story. I was a CIA agent working on a department of the top secret drone program. Only this one is one [I have no idea if this is in fact true -- it's just a dream/vision after all] has the ability to spy on Israeli and other remote control drones and surreptuously watch their deeds. The Drone is shooting at people in the street at a level of resolution that lets me see the people like little cartoons running down the street. The people are running with clay bottles from a building. The bullets are shooting at the people and those clay bottles. One of the bottles contains a text. The text is the version of the bible written by Amalek 4000 years ago. The tribe of Amalek is alive and well, but you would never know it.

My vision is of the real reason that Hamas tunnels under Israel. Not just in Gaza, but in Jerusalem. And there they fight and sometimes join with archeologists and ostensible foreigners, Jihadis and moderates, likud and Labor, English, Germans, Socialists and Frenchmen. Anti-Jews and religious Jews, Descendants of crusaders and descendants of Caliphs alike. All secret descendants of Amalek by birth or secret ceremony. A membership enforced by enforcers so stern that none of us are even allowed to know the first word about them. And they infiltrate both Nazis and Rabbinate, Czars and Communists. For them death and destruction is just "mowing the grass." And the first word of their story is in the second chapter of Genesis that it shares commonality with, "Bereshit"; "With Creation God Created the World."

Sources for future speculative fictional narration:

http://t.co/GcJ1pcbtmu

http://t.co/V3jYeeaJSG

Kali Marching in Palestine

After the angry men played their video games from far away.

After they launched their bombs and took lives away.

After they paused from the adrenaline highs to look at what they wrought

Do the ghosts of the children slain haunt them?

Do they sleep well at night dreaming of the children they killed?

Do wives and grandchildren come to visit to chide them in their sleep?

Do they tell their loved ones, they killed vermin spawn before they could grow up?

Or do they realize they did an evil thing for evil masters?

If they don't have nightmares, I have nightmares enough, myself.

The source for zombie movies, lies in the dread from the visits of the dead, that come to me in my sleep.

They don't speak Arabic or Hebrew, they talk to me in my dreams.

And I try to comfort them in their dying. Because I can hear eternal screams.

They don't suffer as much. Comes one touch of peace, and they smile and go back to keep.

The pain for them is over, in this world's eternal wakeless sleep

It's their families and killers who wake up, sweating in the night.

And the only thing that will put the dead to peace, is when the living put things to right!

Kali is marching, marching in her glee!

Goddess or demoness, four arms, maniacle smile and swords in each hand.

She lives in these so called monotheists, and leads them to their slaughter.

Her face maniacal with joy, at the insanity of stupid humans.

You can't tell me these men are anything, but destined for their doom.

If there is a loving God, he's turning his other eye.

The mood of awful disaster, the sword that smites friend and foe.

Men who visit pain and hatred, are destined to fall below.

One day peace will come. Sweet, and quiet and calm.

That is outside human control, one way or another.

Peace can look like a garden, or it can look like an empty wasteland.

It can involve children smiling, stepping into the light.

Or millions of unburied corpses, rotting in the night.

Christopher H. Holte