Just a few thoughts and comments on the events here of late.
The turmoil has been thankly brief and very limited in scope, if Baltimore has 100 neighborhoods then perhaps 5 were directly affected. Although all of the city felt sad over all of this.
I’m pretty pissed at the media, with their headlines of “Baltimore in Chaos” and the like. They really like to blow things out of proportion, a building burns and they show it over and over until you think it’s happening everywhere.
I’ve had friends calling in from all over the US and Europe asking me if I’m ok.
I’d be wondering that too from the media bs coverage. Yellow Journalism.
I drove through the city the day of the riot and the day after and aside from more cops I did’nt see any disturbances.
Now the national guard is here and mostly standing around chatting with passersby.
City Hall yesterday was crazy, Humvees, Armored vehicles, Cops, Guardsmen and women and news crews galore.
After the riot and the looted burned CVS store a lot of people from that neighborhood and others came to start cleaning up. Very heartening to see.
And there have been more marches and demonstrations in the following days with some arrests for disorderly conduct but mostly peaceful.
Theres a lot of debate going on here and across the country and I think thats a very healthy thing. We have a lot we have to change and work on in the US.
This has been a setback for my city but I’m also hopeful we can make some changes and that everything is not forgotten in 2 weeks.
The more hard-nosed and concerned they get about the all-important corporate bottom line and answering to stockholders, the more difficult it becomes for journalists to retain integrity and report in a balanced manner. Just be glad WR Hearst is no longer around.
Glad to hear that it’s not as bad as it’s made out to be in the international news. You know who’s got pretty unbiased reporting…Al Jazeera.
Thanks for the update. It’s good to hear that the nonsense we hear from the “fair and balanced” news agencies and the like is just that, nonsense. Like I always say, it is always better to get your information from someone who is there and sees what is actually happening than from some politician or news agency that is just trying to make another buck or spike their ratings/approvals for that week. I hope that you and your family and friends there in Baltimore remain safe.
Kenton, Hearst is long gone but sensationalistic “journalism” lives on.
IMHO
It’s an antiquated institution still focused on fires, scandals and war and crime.
Take the “Middle East Crisis” for example.
How can a “Crisis” go on for decades?
I like Slate for more balanced commentary.
I’ll try Al Jazeera
All good here Tom, gorgeous spring weekend here, watching the ballgame doing some chores. Just disappointed they canceled the downturn farmers market out of overblown safety concerns.
That market on Sunday morning brings people together from all walks of life to have a bite, purchase fresh food and crafts and just mingle together.
Ah well.
That is the image we are burdened with, it’s an easy joke to make but I love this city and of course the vast majority of it’s citizens are good people.
We have an extraordinary number of creative people here and skilled people.
And we also have a permanent underclass, which also exists across this entire nation.
No one wants to talk about that and what to do about it.
I know all about the underclass. I was a member of it for years.
The problem the poor have is Obama and the Federal Reserve. Let me explain. The rich have their wealth tied up in hard assets. So it matters not to them how many dollars you say their building is worth, because it is still a building. The purchasing power of the dollar is meaningless to the rich since their wealth isn’t stored in dollars. If their assets double in terms of dollars it means the opposite to them as when the price of bread doubles for the poor. The poor spend nearly all their income, and so what harms them is printing. Printing debases the currency and thus diminishes the purchasing power of the dollars the poor need to buy things like food. Since the poor spend their dollars on survival, a reduction in purchasing power of those dollars is a regressive tax on the poor…that is deadly! That’s what Obama did by running up a national debt equal to what all other presidents combined from George Washington to George “oops, I attacked the wrong country” Bush borrowed. Obama’s reckless, war-mongering spending and the Federal Reserve’s printing to keep up with his borrowing, has debased the U.S. currency (reduced the purchasing power of the few dollars the poor have to spend) That has the same effect as taxing the poor into oblivion.
It gets worse. Our American society under-rewards hard work and over-rewards cleverness. You can’t be clever without nutrition. Having been dirt poor, I can assure you that you can’t think if you are hungry or even eating cheap food. And the loss of purchasing power of the dollar is most evident when you are checking out at the Whole Foods Store.
Combine the two (Obama’s attack on the poor and a society that over-rewards cleverness)… and the poor are doomed.
My solution to this downward-spiraling problem relies on inner-city black folk. Somehow, they have to recognize what is being done to them, recognize that over-spending and borrowing is their real enemy, and join me and the Tea Party. The police will beat you, even kill some of you… but the national debt will eventually and slowly kill you all.
The last President who tried to do anything about this was Lyndon with his Great Society program.
None of the Republicans or Democrats since have tried anything serious to address this virtually intractable problem.
And thats because pretty much no one cares.
If this country cared then we’d already have done something about it.
This is the richest country in the history of the world.
90+ % of the wealth is held by 0.01%.
You think the 0.01% cares about the permanent underclass?
And I’m not just talking inner city blacks either.
There are a whole lot of dirt poor people in this country of
all colors and creeds.
The poor will always be with us, thats a given.
But the amount of poverty in this country is really unforgivable.
Oh and by the way, I don’t have an answer for it.
But it is at least being thought about right now
and that is a good thing.
