A friend posted this song for me today, and it immediately occurred to me that Starr was right. War is good for absolutely nothing or rather it ain't good for nothing good.
Yesterday, in a fit of pique for which I'm hoping he will pay a high, high price, Bill Clinton struck out wildly at some Black Lives Matter protesters in Philadelphia. He contended, in response to their interruptions, that the BLM is supporting criminals who, according to him sent 13 year olds out to kill others. Apart from being factually just wrong, it is also fantastically telling.
"You are defending the lives of the people who kill the lives you say matter!" he shouted. "Tell the truth! Tell the truth!" So the question must be asked: what is the truth Brother Bill? What is the truth? Can you handle the truth my brother?
The truth, as we have recently learned from an old interview with a Nixon Administration official, is that the entire War on Drugs was a creation meant to demonize a particular population. Guess which one? We can choose whether we accept this information or we reject it, but there it is. Straight from the proverbial horse's mouth.
Another truth we must accept is the outcome of zealous application of Bill Clinton's Crime Bill (1994). To be clear, Bill didn't start this wave of mass incarcerations, but he sho' nuff didn't try to end it. Oh no indeed.
The consequences for families of color of these last thirty or so years, have been nothing short of disastrous. It would be one thing if that disaster were a one time thing: a perpetrator goes to jail, does his/her time and is released but that's not how this worked out. Punishments under the Crime Bill are of extended duration (thank you 'three strikes laws' courtesy the 1994 Crime Bill), rehabilitation is not the goal (it never was), those left behind are left in poverty, and those released are never again free. The whole thing is a rolling disaster of epic proportions: lost opportunities; destroyed families; grinding poverty and dysfunction, oh and untreated addiction. Each of those things continuing long after the period of incarceration comes to an end. Felony disenfranchisement and felony exclusion from receipt of federal benefits - including housing - are additional longterm effects. There truly is no end date to the suffering. There is no such thing as paying one's debt to society in full. Add to that list the fact that a felony conviction can get one excluded from many job opportunities, Bill's bill is the gift that keeps on giving.
For him to stand there on that Philadelphia stage yesterday (4/7/2016) and pretend first of all that there was nothing wrong with the Crime Bill is to spit in the face of reality. Second, to claim that BLM supports criminality is to stand proudly in the blissful ignorance White privilege so often confers upon the intellectually lazy.
To be clear Bill, BLM is a Right to Life movement. BLM's sole claim is that we have the RIGHT to LIVE through our interactions with the police, as Robert Dear Jr (PP Colorado killer) and Dylan Roof (Charleston Nine murderer) managed to do, but Tamir Rice, Ramarley Graham, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner and so very many others did not.Apples and oranges. No, this is not apples and oranges, this is apples and mountain bikes. The two ain't even in the same universe Brother Bill. You ought to know that much at least. If not, somebody ought to school you.
For years, we've been giving BC honorary Black man status, which....just no. Today, things have got so out of hand that Bro. Bill, your Black card is well and truly (and perma-frigging-nently) revoked. You are all kinds of wrong and all kinds of ignorant, entirely out of line and out of time. Good night Bill. Time to exeunt stage left.
What's worse than his apparent insistence that the bill was good law, is his willful conflation of issues and general wrongness on issues which, to people of color are life and death matters. Dude! No, no and no! There are plenty of voices (that's just one reputable source) saying that it was bad law and had all manner of negative long term consequence. For you to stand there behaving as though you ain't got no 'splainin' to do is just, hell if I have a word to describe that. What did Bro. Bill say at the DNC in 2012? Something about having big brass ones? Yeah. That works.
Look, I get that the nineties were the terrible dark days of crack addiction. I get that. But much the same as in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we needed clear heads to adequately assess the situation and take targeted action and instead got the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, so too in the 90's did we need clear heads, critical assessment and targeted action. We didn't get that. We got the toxic Crime Bill and twenty years later, we've got 2+ million men and women, most of them Black and brown, incarcerated for the crime of addiction. Worse still, at no point have we gone back, looked at the data, considered the disparate impacts or the downstream consequences and done a damn thing about it! No Bill, you all the way wrong here. All. The. Way. And your unwillingness to reflect and correct? Yeah. Problem.
All wars leave bodies in their wake. All wars leave wounds, deep wounds and fetid gashes that need to be cleansed and healed. The War on Drugs was no different. It was especially toxic to people of color though, born as it was, out of the usual contempt for Blackness and Black empowerment. Now we have a new nameless war, waged by agents of the state upon Black bodies and you say what? You say that Black Lives Matter supporters approve of drug-fueled criminality? Yeah. You need to back that up and roll on out. Out of line and out of time.
Don't bother to try to walk this back and tell me you were misunderstood or you misunderstood the protesters. Nope. I ain't buying none of it. I think that in the heat of the moment, you said what you said cuz that's what you meant, it's what you believe. You disdain the Black Lives Matter movement. Got it. You still believe in superpredators. Funny, I do too but I'm pretty sure you and me, we see different predators in our dreams. But that's neither here nor there.
Bill can use his power and his plenteous privilege to demand silence but I'm here to tell Bill in my own quiet way that the days for silence are done. Y'alls drug war ain't good for nothing. Your war on Blackness and brownness ain't good for nothing. Your war on the poor ain't good for nothing. Your war on the psyche of the oppressed ain't good for nothing.
Black lives, minority lives, poor lives do indeed matter and we ain't afraid to call you and your superpredator friends, in whatever industry or space we find them, out. Deal with it. You are out of line and you are definitely out of time. I'm so done with you.
Yesterday, in a fit of pique for which I'm hoping he will pay a high, high price, Bill Clinton struck out wildly at some Black Lives Matter protesters in Philadelphia. He contended, in response to their interruptions, that the BLM is supporting criminals who, according to him sent 13 year olds out to kill others. Apart from being factually just wrong, it is also fantastically telling.
"You are defending the lives of the people who kill the lives you say matter!" he shouted. "Tell the truth! Tell the truth!" So the question must be asked: what is the truth Brother Bill? What is the truth? Can you handle the truth my brother?
The truth, as we have recently learned from an old interview with a Nixon Administration official, is that the entire War on Drugs was a creation meant to demonize a particular population. Guess which one? We can choose whether we accept this information or we reject it, but there it is. Straight from the proverbial horse's mouth.
Another truth we must accept is the outcome of zealous application of Bill Clinton's Crime Bill (1994). To be clear, Bill didn't start this wave of mass incarcerations, but he sho' nuff didn't try to end it. Oh no indeed.
The consequences for families of color of these last thirty or so years, have been nothing short of disastrous. It would be one thing if that disaster were a one time thing: a perpetrator goes to jail, does his/her time and is released but that's not how this worked out. Punishments under the Crime Bill are of extended duration (thank you 'three strikes laws' courtesy the 1994 Crime Bill), rehabilitation is not the goal (it never was), those left behind are left in poverty, and those released are never again free. The whole thing is a rolling disaster of epic proportions: lost opportunities; destroyed families; grinding poverty and dysfunction, oh and untreated addiction. Each of those things continuing long after the period of incarceration comes to an end. Felony disenfranchisement and felony exclusion from receipt of federal benefits - including housing - are additional longterm effects. There truly is no end date to the suffering. There is no such thing as paying one's debt to society in full. Add to that list the fact that a felony conviction can get one excluded from many job opportunities, Bill's bill is the gift that keeps on giving.
For him to stand there on that Philadelphia stage yesterday (4/7/2016) and pretend first of all that there was nothing wrong with the Crime Bill is to spit in the face of reality. Second, to claim that BLM supports criminality is to stand proudly in the blissful ignorance White privilege so often confers upon the intellectually lazy.
To be clear Bill, BLM is a Right to Life movement. BLM's sole claim is that we have the RIGHT to LIVE through our interactions with the police, as Robert Dear Jr (PP Colorado killer) and Dylan Roof (Charleston Nine murderer) managed to do, but Tamir Rice, Ramarley Graham, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner and so very many others did not.
For years, we've been giving BC honorary Black man status, which....just no. Today, things have got so out of hand that Bro. Bill, your Black card is well and truly (and perma-frigging-nently) revoked. You are all kinds of wrong and all kinds of ignorant, entirely out of line and out of time. Good night Bill. Time to exeunt stage left.
What's worse than his apparent insistence that the bill was good law, is his willful conflation of issues and general wrongness on issues which, to people of color are life and death matters. Dude! No, no and no! There are plenty of voices (that's just one reputable source) saying that it was bad law and had all manner of negative long term consequence. For you to stand there behaving as though you ain't got no 'splainin' to do is just, hell if I have a word to describe that. What did Bro. Bill say at the DNC in 2012? Something about having big brass ones? Yeah. That works.
Look, I get that the nineties were the terrible dark days of crack addiction. I get that. But much the same as in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we needed clear heads to adequately assess the situation and take targeted action and instead got the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, so too in the 90's did we need clear heads, critical assessment and targeted action. We didn't get that. We got the toxic Crime Bill and twenty years later, we've got 2+ million men and women, most of them Black and brown, incarcerated for the crime of addiction. Worse still, at no point have we gone back, looked at the data, considered the disparate impacts or the downstream consequences and done a damn thing about it! No Bill, you all the way wrong here. All. The. Way. And your unwillingness to reflect and correct? Yeah. Problem.
All wars leave bodies in their wake. All wars leave wounds, deep wounds and fetid gashes that need to be cleansed and healed. The War on Drugs was no different. It was especially toxic to people of color though, born as it was, out of the usual contempt for Blackness and Black empowerment. Now we have a new nameless war, waged by agents of the state upon Black bodies and you say what? You say that Black Lives Matter supporters approve of drug-fueled criminality? Yeah. You need to back that up and roll on out. Out of line and out of time.
Don't bother to try to walk this back and tell me you were misunderstood or you misunderstood the protesters. Nope. I ain't buying none of it. I think that in the heat of the moment, you said what you said cuz that's what you meant, it's what you believe. You disdain the Black Lives Matter movement. Got it. You still believe in superpredators. Funny, I do too but I'm pretty sure you and me, we see different predators in our dreams. But that's neither here nor there.
Bill can use his power and his plenteous privilege to demand silence but I'm here to tell Bill in my own quiet way that the days for silence are done. Y'alls drug war ain't good for nothing. Your war on Blackness and brownness ain't good for nothing. Your war on the poor ain't good for nothing. Your war on the psyche of the oppressed ain't good for nothing.
Black lives, minority lives, poor lives do indeed matter and we ain't afraid to call you and your superpredator friends, in whatever industry or space we find them, out. Deal with it. You are out of line and you are definitely out of time. I'm so done with you.
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