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How about: if you are arrested for a violent offense (using or threatening violence) more than twice, you serve your full term with no possibility of probation or early parole?
I like the idea, but I'd say if you are CONVICTED of a violent offense, not simply arrested. Arrests are one thing, convictions are another altogether.
Though I'm speaking hypothetically, since not only have I never been arrested or convicted of anything, I don't think I've ever done anything that would result in a conviction for a violent crime.
That's one way I recommend avoiding police violence - don't commit violent crimes.
The US doesn't ship many construction and carpentry jobs overseas.
Between the Anglo and Hispanic populations there aren't enough construction and carpentry jobs to go around. EEO has all it can do to get some black men placed as construction flaggers. To make a serious dent in ghetto unemployment would require a complete overhaul of the status quo. Ain't gonna happen. You know it, I know it, why are we playing this game?
I like the idea, but I'd say if you are CONVICTED of a violent offense, not simply arrested. Arrests are one thing, convictions are another altogether.
Though I'm speaking hypothetically, since not only have I never been arrested or convicted of anything, I don't think I've ever done anything that would result in a conviction for a violent crime.
That's one way I recommend avoiding police violence - don't commit violent crimes.
Kathryn, are you seriously comparing yourself with a teen-age or twenty-something, black, male, life-long resident of an impoverished neighborhood?!
The trouble with these young looters is they don't get it. They are too short sighted to understand that they are tearing up their hood and hurting their own people.
Perhaps these 300 men can share their experience and show them the way to becoming a positive member of society.
THEIR hood (sic - an apparent attempt to be "current.") You mean that place where the homes are mostly deteriorating and the owners live out of state or in gated suburbia? Where, besides big-box national-chain pharmacies and fast food joints and convenience stores, there's little else besides hair/nail shops and predatory lenders? Where the employees of these businesses are typically immigrants and community residents are never considered for hiring? Where schools are chronically underfunded and the teachers have no clue how to relate to their pupils? Where streets are last on the list for repaving, vacant lots fill with trash, broken lights are never fixed - much less replaced with more durable ones, the few tiny parks are cluttered with drug dealers and hookers, and in general the underground economy flourishes? What exactly is there to be "torn up" anyway? It's already a disaster.
300 thousand people - not just men - aren't going to make the smallest dent in the defeatist and self-destructive mentality that can't help but prevail in "hoods." But forget about any kind of large-scale and tangible help from the government. Wing nuts immediately start screaming bloody murder about "my taxes going to assist those people" and politicians cave every time. Right-wingers love to degrade and disrespect ambitious programs like the New Deal and Great Society, as their representatives hack away at funding before the goals of such programs are anywhere near being realized. Educational institutions? Forget about them in this century. They're too busy throwing open wide their doors to immigrants who can pay full tuition - especially from Asia and the Middle East - while making noises about being "non-profit" and "equal opportunity."
THEIR hood (sic - an apparent attempt to be "current.") You mean that place where the homes are mostly deteriorating and the owners live out of state or in gated suburbia? Where, besides big-box national-chain pharmacies and fast food joints and convenience stores, there's little else besides hair/nail shops and predatory lenders? Where the employees of these businesses are typically immigrants and community residents are never considered for hiring? Where schools are chronically underfunded and the teachers have no clue how to relate to their pupils? Where streets are last on the list for repaving, vacant lots fill with trash, broken lights are never fixed - much less replaced with more durable ones, the few tiny parks are cluttered with drug dealers and hookers, and in general the underground economy flourishes? What exactly is there to be "torn up" anyway? It's already a disaster.
300 thousand people - not just men - aren't going to make the smallest dent in the defeatist and self-destructive mentality that can't help but prevail in "hoods." But forget about any kind of large-scale and tangible help from the government. Wing nuts immediately start screaming bloody murder about "my taxes going to assist those people" and politicians cave every time. Right-wingers love to degrade and disrespect ambitious programs like the New Deal and Great Society, as their representatives hack away at funding before the goals of such programs are anywhere near being realized. Educational institutions? Forget about them in this century. They're too busy throwing open wide their doors to immigrants who can pay full tuition - especially from Asia and the Middle East - while making noises about being "non-profit" and "equal opportunity."
I'd be throwing rocks and looting too.
Then you're part of the problem.
You've suggested no solutions whatsoever, other than to add more to the trillions of dollars already spent on New Deal and Great Society programs.
Clearly, if these programs haven't brought about more stable families, better education, better housing, and a stronger economy after all that time and money, then isn't that a little hint that maybe it's the wrong approach?
Big government doesn't solve problems; it just hides them until they fester and explode even worse than before.
The Blacks don't need free money and free housing. They need self-respect and self-reliance and economic opportunity. They need what every other American wants -- a dream of a better life. This dream is denied them for many reasons, chiefly that they've been told for decades that their poverty and backwardness is not their fault, it's not their responsibility to fix it, and anything they want, they should have immediately without having to save for it, work for it, and defer instant gratification.
Heck, lots of whites think that way, too. That's why our country is no longer the top business and manufacturing center in the world -- lack of work ethic, lack of drive to achieve.
Look at the Chinese -- they are gunning for the top of the mountain, and they're going to get there and knock us off our perch. They work so hard, and they defer gratification, and don't complain, and respect authority, and study super hard. I'm not saying China is perfect, but my God, compare them with some mediocre neighborhood in some over taxed, over regulated American city and it's night and day.
No one in his right mind would open a plant in the 'hood where he's likely to get shot walking to his car! He'll open it in China, and start making money. Unless we can provide an incentive, real financial motivations, to open that plant in the 'hood, and work with the police and the community to make that place work, to make it as good as a Chinese plant, or better.
Up above, I proposed several specific solutions that would go a long way, I believe, to uplifting the black and Hispanic communities and bringing them prosperity and stability. How about you suggest an idea or two?
THEIR hood (sic - an apparent attempt to be "current.") You mean that place where the homes are mostly deteriorating and the owners live out of state or in gated suburbia? Where, besides big-box national-chain pharmacies and fast food joints and convenience stores, there's little else besides hair/nail shops and predatory lenders?
Who in the hell else would want to move there, given the proclivity for theft, arson and pillaging at the slightest excuse? You think media coverage like this makes people say, "Hey, I know, let's put in a restaurant/bakery/pizzeria/Target/Krogers, etc. here!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by goyguy
Where the employees of these businesses are typically immigrants and community residents are never considered for hiring?
Do they apply? Or would that mess up their benefits? The excuse I always hear is that if someone with significant benefits gets a job, the benefits disappear -- they get more money for NOT working than working. There is no dignity in work. Work is for suckers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goyguy
Where schools are chronically underfunded and the teachers have no clue how to relate to their pupils? Where streets are last on the list for repaving, vacant lots fill with trash, broken lights are never fixed much less replaced with more durable ones, the few tiny parks are cluttered with drug dealers and hookers, and in general the underground economy flourishes? What exactly is there to be "torn up" anyway? It's already a disaster.
By "durable" I presume you mean "bulletproof"? How many lights need to be replaced in one park before a city finally gets the message that no one there WANTS lights there? And if arrests are made for drug dealing and prostitution -- well, damn, look at the racist cops hatin' on the bros.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goyguy
300 thousand people - not just men - aren't going to make the smallest dent in the defeatist and self-destructive mentality that can't help but prevail in "hoods." But forget about any kind of large-scale and tangible help from the government. Wing nuts immediately start screaming bloody murder about "my taxes going to assist those people" and politicians cave every time. Right-wingers love to degrade and disrespect ambitious programs like the New Deal and Great Society, as their representatives hack away at funding before the goals of such programs are anywhere near being realized. Educational institutions? Forget about them in this century. They're too busy throwing open wide their doors to immigrants who can pay full tuition - especially from Asia and the Middle East - while making noises about being "non-profit" and "equal opportunity."
I'd be throwing rocks and looting too.
If the help from the government was in the form of teaching people to fish rather than just throwing rotten fish at them and expecting gratitude and votes for the largess, then perhaps the programs would be better supported. The New Deal had a lot of banking reform after the Depression, and formation of housing and banking departments to oversee the building up of those industries after the 1929 crash. These were necessary reforms to prevent a similar occurance. There was also the WPA -- giving WORK to people. The Great Society, in conjuncton with the Civil Rights acts, was meant to be a helping hand, not a cradle-to-grave support system. It's been 50 years since the "Great Society", and we are deeper in welfare and medicare than we have ever dreamed of, and it is dragging down our economy. How do we turn it around?
Teach them construction, carpentry, mechanics, etc..
If we give a person a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a person to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.
Then the Police need to start having some form of community participation like a block party, a BBQ, a PAL, so that folks can see, not all police are brutal.
Trade programs are nothing new they rarely work because that would take work by the youths to actually apply themselves to learn something. It would also take some parental supervision and actual parenting by the parents to make sure the child is applying himself and to nurture and encourage said child.
I hear and so many people screaming that they have been left behind that they had no opportunity for an education and that my friends is 100% bull crapolla. The public school system works if the child that attending the school actually go, and when they do go actually apply themselves and learn something.
Once again we see everyone making excuses for uneducated poor people that were left behind by they'e own doing. I am so tired of hearing about it and this charge is lead by politicians and reaffirmed by the media because they don't want the story to end and it's easier to blame income equality and white people for poor black people's problems than it is to actually tell the truth of how and why they find themselves living the way that they do.
To add to this <bold> bring jobs that require these skills back to the U.S. instead of shipping 'em overseas.
Back in the early 70's we had something called Youth Employment Project that paid minimum wage to work alongside city workers. Kids worked in parks/streets/recreation departments for the summer. Taught some good skills, made the kids some money and kept 'em busy.
I got my first good paying job through the Urban league job program in 1978. There was a big demand for CNC operator in aerospace industry with all the post WWII machinist retiring. We where getting hired as CNC machinist, due to this government back program. It was 1979 our starting wage was $12.75 a hour.
I left the industry before Regan/cold war ending, started the slashing of the defense budget. With that the eventual collapse of the SoCal aerospace industrial empire. A lot of people loss very good jobs and they didn't go over seas, they don't even exist anymore.
"The Pomona Valley Training/Employment/Counseling Center was founded providing specialized training in electronics, machine tool technology and word processing to expand employment opportunities with Pomona Valley employers. They criticize Cater these days, but he did a lot to bring jobs to the urban communities in the 70's."
In the end its the results of the looting and arson that will change minds and turn to a backlash as always against groups that riot. Worse thing a group can have is no control over their movement by poor organization. leading to these type actions as a huge number more are effected with power to change political power. Results are candidates that run on law enforcement platform getting the votes.
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