Our political theater - a series

Zooey and Andria Green, who are seven and eight respectively, only look innocent. With their baby faces and cunning, they managed to lure patrons to their illicit enterprise: a lemonade stand outside their home in Overton, Texas.

The girls were in business for about an hour in June, selling popcorn and lemonade to raise money for a Father’s Day gift, before local police shut the operation down. Not only were they hawking without a $150 “peddler’s permit,” but also the state requires a formal kitchen inspection and a permit to sell anything that might spoil if stored at the wrong temperature.

As authorities are meant “to act to prevent an immediate and serious threat to human life or health,” the officers understandably had to move swiftly. -- The Economist

Is lemonade legal? Testing the limits of silliness in east Texas (The Economist)

I wonder

Do the oligarchs realize that, after the revolution, their militarized cops will be working for the people?

The story is not THAT citizens are in the streets. The question that needs to be addressed is WHY.

I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. -- Rev. Martin Luther King

The mainstream media is shocked -- shocked! -- by the damage caused by the protestors in Baltimore, but the real story is the grinding poverty and neglect wrought by capital and the powerlessness of citizens living under the thumb of oligarchy.

"Baltimore," Shawn Gude writes, "is like so many other cities with their own Freddie Grays: a place in which private capital has left enormous sections of the city to rot, where a chasm separates the life chances of black and white residents — and where cops brutally patrol a 'disposable' population."

(Photo: The Baltimore Sun)

Observers have long puzzled over the passivity of average Americans suffering impoverishment and disenfranchisement at the hands of a kleptocratic elite.

Is this the beginning of the American Spring?

The rest of the story: Why Baltimore Rebelled by Shawn Gude (Jacobin).
10,000 Strong Peacefully Protest In Downtown Baltimore, Media Only Reports The Violence & Arrest of Dozens by AJ Woodson (Black Westchester).
Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn't Start the Way You Think. Baltimore teachers and parents tell a different story from the one you've been reading in the media. By Sam Brodey and Jenna McLaughlin (Mother Jones)

Reading list: “A corrupt, unresponsive and plutocratic disaster”: How Mitch McConnell and the GOP remade Washington in their image. Now that the GOP's in control, Mitch McConnell is letting some things pass — and taking all the credit. By Elias Isquith (Salon).
Why So Many Americans Feel So Powerless by Robert Reich (robertreich.org).
American Political Passivity, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Building a Base by Bruce E. Levine (WarIsACrime).
Rise of the New Black Radicals by Chris Hedges (TruthDig).

'This is the Story of Power in this Country'

"The quiet militarization of police departments began in 1990, when Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, a provision of which — known as the 1033 program — allowed the Secretary of Defense to 'transfer to Federal and State agencies personal property of the Department of Defense, including small arms and ammunition.'

"In 1996, during the peak of the War on Drugs, Congress expanded the program and incentivized active use of the equipment, making it free for recipient agencies and simultaneously requiring them to use it within a year. The expansion of the 1033 program also required agencies to give preference to transferring equipment for 'counterdrug and counterterrorism activities.' And it hasn’t stopped there.

The rest of the story:
Ferguson, Institutionalized Racism and the Militarization of Police: 'They're willing to sacrifice the lives of the community members based on the actions of a few' by Nadia Prupis (Common Dreams)

War Toys On the Homefront

It's hard not to think the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has money to burn in light of its purchase of a "ray-gun" for its jail.

To the shock of absolutely no one, the ACLU hates the idea of blasting Los Angeles prisoners with an invisible heat ray. The civil liberties organization has sent a letter to L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca, begging him to not use the pain weapon, less than a week after its installation at the Pitchess Detention Center.

But both sides of this energy weapon fight seem a little, um, confused. The ACLU claims that the so-called “Assault Intervention Device” is a killer — and “robot-like,” to boot. (Not that the system has killed anyone, or can operate on its own.) The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is claiming the ray gun can’t cause lasting harm. (Well, if you ignore those test subjects with second degree burns.)

Wired happily notes that, so far, "the Active Denial System hasn’t actually killed anyone, after more than 10,000 test-blasts on human subjects."

Wait a minute. 10,000 test-blasts on human subjects! It's nice that the Pentagon wants to develop non-lethal weapons, but this can't be the only way to figure out whether or not a particular contraption is lethal. Not that anyone wants to get PETA fired up, but these are people we're talking about.

The rest of the story: ACLU Blasts Jailhouse Pain Ray, Condemns ‘Star Wars Tech’ by Noah Shachtman (Wired/Danger Room 2010-08-27).