Bleeding Edge

Lawless police brutality is the issue of the day in America and the fact that black lives matter have got to be celebrated, and not ended, had finally cottoned on…

That must not mean lawlessness and disorder but rather that the killing of unarmed civilians by overzealous murderous police, must end.

The public lynching — Death by Asphyxiation, of Mr George Floyd who was strangled to death under the knee of a Minneapolis Cop, while handcuffed — was broadcast to a horrified nation, that adheres violence in all its horrific expressions.

And this public lynching that harkens back to dark days when hanging people from a tree without a trial and jury was commonplace — today we have what is the equivalent of that in broad daylight because of what the Minneapolis Police did to helpless Mr George Floyd.

And this is the catalyst that has sparked the most ferocious Civil Disobedience riots and unrest in our nation since the Vietnam era riots some fifty years ago.

Thankfully, this new revolt is caused by our all American and Civilized Christian intolerance towards lynching, coupled with the power of citizen journalism, and the internet, since the real time documentation and video dissemination of this naked murder and the venal abuse of power by Police officers performing this horrendous public lynching in Minneapolis, has caused a much needed catharsis through the public debate about the Citizenry’s reasonable demands for the justified de-escalation, demilitarization and defunding of the Police units across the whole of the country.

Like anything else up for public debate, the proposals for defunding the police forces are varied and need far more analysis, and yet the best logical movement for now, asks to demilitarize, de-escalate, partially defund and consequently pacify our Police Forces — all across the nation.

Because as we are continuing to boost the funding for more and better equipped police forces and as we give them more weapons of mass destruction and more situational authority to break the law — we are forgetting that we ned to train them to de-escalate violence and we also have given up own the notion that originally the Police were meant to keep the peace, the law and the Order in our communities.

At the same time that we ballon the payments to Police — we are  slashing the key bottom line spending on social services and community organizations, and that is the “big disconnect” between our aspirations for civil protections, for human contact and for alleviating civil unrest, and the unfitness of the Police for the role of being the Peace Makers in our Communities.

In my mind of course, defunding the police does not mean that we eliminate all cop jobs and just succumb to Zombie Apocalypse. It simply means that we throttle back the militarization of our police forces and the refashioning of the Peace Officers class of community response.

Because in my vision, the call of the Citizens for defining the new Police has got to be coupled with the creation of the new PEACE FORCE, so instead of moving away from a narrow conception of public safety that relies on policing and punishment — we are investing in a community’s ability to incorporate it’s best and brightest as PEACE OFFICERS in order to create a real safety net for all.

It is a finer mesh net, that supports things like neighborhood conflict resolution, stable housing, mental health services and community organizations that need to be funded alongside the new Peace Officers force, so that the current Police can compete for resources by simply doing a better job for the community and proving its worth, instead of being the only option available for Human Health, Safety and Security of the whole community.

And maybe now is the opportune time to create this new Peace force by allowing the good cops wha want to drop the automatic weapons, the belt guns, and the all the “tares” and illegal cop weaponry, and instead teach the young ones how to create the Police force of the future in earnest — by investing in the art of peaceful conflict resolution and the art and science of a humane approach to policing our communities.

De-escalate.

Demilitarize.

Defund.

Teach Peace.

Turn Police Officers into Community officers.

And add the new Peace Officers in the mix, in order to truly alleviate the tensions of this community and the country overall.

And of course, we must teach the current Police officers that peaceful coexistence with the Citizens, is the real Art of Policing, since Polis means City, and polite citywide policing is what truly keeps our Cities safe, functioning and happy…

Let that sink in, and please keep that in mind today.

Because Police law enforcement’s history of enforcing laws in America was explicitly designed to subjugate black and other undesirable people, beginning with capturing escaped slaves, as well as the Jim Crow laws that enforced the awful failed policies of “segregation” after Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation and subsequent murder and now we need a new paradigm that allows for Community Policing through Peace Officers administering some TLC and a few band aids for our scrapped knees…

Because this method of over-criminalized policing, went on leading up to the War on Drugs, “broken windows” policing, “stop-and-frisk” policies, and the Clinton era’s “bring them to heel” policy, that disproportionately targeted black Americans, and all people of color. And let us keep in mind that it was the Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton — whose 1993 “New Cops” plan used federal money to pay for 100,000 new police officers, including those in Minneapolis who were involved in the horrendous public lynching of George Floyd in the middle of the street, a sunny day in Minneapolis, when the whole World witnessed four heavily armed Minneapolis Cops slowly and methodically executing a handcuffed human being by not allowing him to breathe…

And this national tragedy will go on being performed day and night because while the demonstrations are going on — we are continuing to boost funding for the various Police departments and the Law Enforcement Agencies and we keep on giving them more money, more authority, and less oversight, while we slash key spending on social services and resilient communities.

We need to reverse that and that means that in many communities, where the police units are the only ones left to handle almost any issue that people have, which is a real problem — we need to bring in a remedial force and that is the role of the PEACE OFFICERS.

Because we are asking the current police force to do far too much beyond their training and well beyond the remit of their job, & their tool set and capabilities, since we all know that if you only have a hammer — everything looks like a nail.

So taking some money away from a police department’s budget, and using it to create a new PEACE OFFICERS CORPS, along with building mini-houses for the homeless, and more affordable housing for the poor, and springing more money for funding mental health services, and community organizations that will increase the safety net for all the citizens and especially for the disadvantaged ones — we will create community wide safety services that are far better suited to respond to situations such as someone having a mental health crisis in public, rather than sending a heavily armed officer to subdue them and perhaps kill them.

And thus we will also create the space and time necessary for the police force to focus on the more serious crimes that require their specific skill set and the specialized tools of their trade union.

Thus, the “Defund the Police” concept is not that the role of the police force will significantly shrink, but it will allow them to carry on their protective duties rather than responding to the homeless, or to the mental health calls, or to the errant calls for arresting children in schools, or any other situation where the best solution is anything else, than someone showing up with a gun.

And in a nutshell, this is the whole idea behind the rallying cry of the people who ask to “defund the police now” and Dr Churchill’s call for the creation of a Peace Officer Force in America today.

And now is the right time to simply remove some of the hardware that the Police always carry with them, and thus unburden these People from the dehumanizing load of carrying too much ammunition, double guns, electric mace tazers, and all other non essential hardware, and allow the Police officers to be sprite and agile again.

Because by removing some lethal hardware from the Police officers’ belts and by asking them to stow away their permanently worn riot gear and military grade armor, so they can be far more accessible to the public and to the people as Police Officers and not as some kind of lethal Robo-Cops that cannot compute the ideas of Human Kindness and Compassion for the lives of fellow human beings, makes total sense to the police people too, and they have been asking for it for sometime now…

And maybe thanks to Mr George Floyd (RIP) whose premature and unjust death has given us this golden opportunity to improve our nation by demilitarizing all of the police forces by executive order, and by recalling all of the tactical gear and military equipment that the Defense Department and the swollen public budgets have given the Police and have turned them into a domestic permanent army that was never intended to exist neither by the Founders and the Constitution, and nor by the Citizens of the Democratic Republic of a federated nation.

And lastly, methinks that the path to Peaceful Cities is the Teach peace to all those that hope and want to keep the PEACE.

So here & now, is the proper time and place to get this done, creating a new corps of PEACE OFFICERS and also by training the Police Forces for Peace time restorative justice and steps towards proper policing.

Because only Peace education, is what it would take to turn the trigger happy current Police cops, into the next generation of better suited police and also to offer the opportunity for many POLICE officers to become the leaders of the unarmed new force of PEACE officers.

Think about it…

Think about it because there is always a silver lining in an ominous dark cloud of the currently unleashed violence and mayhem, all across the country.

And it is a good time to spend the money to recruit the best and the brightest for Community Peace officers, unarmed keepers of the peace and Conflict resolution activists, because unemployment is at an all time high and this will boost employment all across America, much like the Job Corps, and the Great Society project, this is money well spent today, because all employment (net) job gains since 2011 in the United States of America, have been wiped out, and we need plenty of new jobs, like in the time of the Great Depression.

Indeed, because the Covid-19 crisis has caused the unemployment rates to remain higher than they were at any point during the Great Recession of 2008, and also to remain high for the many millions of people who still have jobs but cannot secure enough hours to complete their paychecks — this is the time to hire peace Officers to compete with the Police Departments for funding and for offering Community Assistance to all and in order to maintain the Peace across all communities…

And what better time to hire Peace Officers for America, than when statistical analysis shows that unemployment and under-employment, are at an all time high?

The time for mending fences by crating a Peace Officers Corps all across America is now.

Let us stop building new fences and instead focus on mending our communities and repairing our race relations once again.

Let us not become like the White house that is barricading itself inside, with new fencing, which is more than twelve feet tall, and obscures views of the White House (The people’s house) from Lafayette park and the surrounding streets, where the new taller fencing started going up around the White House complex on June 1st after federal Police Officers using tear gas and batons forcibly cleared the area of peaceful protesters, shortly before President Donald Trump went on tour of the area on his way to a church that had suffered fire damage during rioting over the weekend, and he held up his bible in front of the boarded up church…

The new Wall and added Security measures were implemented after the newspaper New York Times reported, that the president had been taken to a secure bunker underneath the White house and the Executive Building, during the civil demonstrations of the previous Friday that burned the church at Lafayette park.

This new wall that separates the old White House perimeter from the public streets and the surrounding park, is admittedly a huge new perimeter wall that is both unsightly and unseemly for the ultimate People’s House in this country, because it resembles a bunker or a military installation and it harkens to the images of the Vietnam era White House and of Nixon past…

Yet for now the Citizens, the George Floyd & Black Lives Matter protesters, and all others who are practicing civil protest and even acts of civil disobedience — have turned this new wall into an artful political sloganeering all, and even into a well photographed memorial in its own right, by hanging numerous photographs, memorial signs on it, including images of Mr George Floyd and the far too many others who have died unjustly and prematurely from Police brutality and public executions, and with many signs that call for “police reform” and for the future to come…

So methinks that if we hire the actively aspiring people who aspire to change our country for the better, and who want to help us create a Community based PEACE OFFICER FORCE — we can succeed, because we have got both the economic resources (fiscal stimulus) and the vast ranks of unemployed and underemployed adult population along with the new young graduating classes to start fulfilling this very necessary program today.

Because when we add to the unemployment rolls the very many people who want to work, but have given up looking for a job, due to perpetual rejections they have received and the lack of employment in their sectors — the US Bureau of Labor Statistics makes clear that a quarter of all Americans who want to work, cannot find sufficient or adequate work.

Let that sink in now, because it is huge… and it presents an opportunity for the creation a PEACE OFFICERS CORPS for AMERICA.

Coupled with the fact today that more than two months after passage of the $2 trillion Cares Act, funding for some key programs to address the economic devastation from the Wuhan Coronavirus is moving suspiciously slow or not at all.

It is time to hire a Million Peace officers across America, because even after the United States added 2.5 million jobs last month, more than 20 million people remain out of work, as federal bureaucracies charged with processing and dispensing record sums of money in order to respond to this crisis are still struggling to share the wealth with the people most affected. So a Federal Jobs program in creating Peace Officers Corps across America is what is desperately needed to cause a significant uptick in employment today.

Let us turn the healthy minded people who lost their jobs during the coronavirus epidemic, into peace Officers, not only because we have a lot of unspent and yet Congress approved and unappropriated national wealth, but additionally we have the urgent need to save our Communities from the specter of violence, hate and division.

In another wrinkle of unspent spending — less than half the $16 billion Congress dedicated over four separate legislative bills, towards bulking up critical medical supplies in the Strategic National Stockpile has been spent, while a political fight has developed over how quickly to act on the next relief bill, that this crisis of unprecedented magnitude demands.

Apparently when preparing for, and responding to this pandemic, the dispensing bureaucracy’s actions have not been satisfactory, and there is clear evidence of mismanagement because the Trump administration’s failure to get these resources out the door and into our communities is not a sufficient reason for slow-walking the next, desperately needed emergency relief bill…

The independents say, that simply, the governmental agencies are struggling to handle the enormous new demands placed on them, especially with large portions of their workforce forced to work from home.

Same as the Treasury administration states that, when you have a great deal of funds to try to get out the door quickly without errors — the system just only has a certain amount of bandwidth about delivering these funds to the right places. It’s just a simple matter of, there’s only so much a system can do at one time.

Overall, about half of the more than $3 trillion approved by Congress over four separate coronavirus bills has been obligated or committed, according to calculations by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The slow movement on other aid funding cuts across the government, illustrating the sudden challenge to agencies that in some areas have dwindled in size under the Trump administration. Programs administrated by the Pentagon, the Agriculture Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Health and Human Services are among those that have been slow to get off the ground.

Agency spokespeople defended their responses, offering a variety of explanations for the status of funds and in several cases insisting they’re moving as quickly as they reasonably can. In a couple of cases they disputed the Democrats’ calculations. Trump administration officials and the president himself have vigorously defended their response to the pandemic overall, predicting an economic revival as the nation begins to reopen, especially with Friday’s unexpectedly positive jobs report.

“This shows that what we’ve been doing is right” President Trump said last Friday as he hailed the unexpected drop in unemployment.

Still many other parts of Congress’s relief legislation have moved more quickly, though an enormous $500 billion Treasury fund has also been slow to get off the ground.

Money in a new small-business loan program sped out the door after its creation in the Cares Act, despite a number of glitches. The Treasury Department moved quickly to get stimulus checks to more than 150 million American households. Some large grants to nursing homes, state governments and hospitals have been delivered, although questions have been raised about the sums and speed in those areas, too.

Defense Production Act spending, has dispensed only $180 million that has been obligated out of $1 billion Congress provided to increase the industrial capacity of U.S. manufacturers to produce supplies such as personal protective equipment, medical supplies and much needed life saving medicines.
“Lacking further information from the department on its plans for these funds, we are unable to answer simple questions such as whether the US government is doing everything in its power to address shortfalls in supplies which are not only needed at this moment, but also in preparation for a predicted second wave of coronavirus infections,” is what the overseeing senators wrote to the White House…

In a statement responding to the Senators’ letters, the public relations office for the secretary of defense said, that the Pentagon has been transparent about its use of funds by sending a spending plan to Congress late last week, ahead of a deadline set in the Cares Act: “The Department remains committed to legally and responsibly executing these funds on the highest priorities to protect our military and their families and safeguard our national security capabilities. As we have seen, this is an evolving and dynamic situation where priorities and requirements change, which is why it is so important that we remain faithful and accountable stewards of the taxpayer dollar. The Department continues to aggressively identify critical Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III investment opportunities to enhance capacity and throughput of our domestic industrial supply chain, enabling security and resiliency.”

The Housing and Urban Development department, which is responsible for Community Development Block Grants and Emergency Solutions Grants, said in a statement that HUD is in the process of reviewing and executing plans submitted by grantees “according to an unprecedented expedited process to speed up the time from action plan review to money-in-their-hands. This is the fastest the process has ever been.”

The agency said that it was “well within the allowable time frame” in executing the funds. It also said that it had reserved funding for the first wave of grants 39 days after the Cares Act was signed into law, which it said was “a record.”

The Strategic National Stockpile is administered by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at HHS, where a spokesperson said that while only $6.8 billion has been obligated to date — less than half of Congress’s $16 billion allocation — “the quantities of supplies purchased far exceeds what was or is currently available from manufacturers and distributors. There simply is not any more product to buy without taking supplies away from the healthcare delivery partners that need it most right now. ASPR is continuing to identify opportunities and award contracts for delivery of product over time to replenish the SNS, but to date, the limited supplies that have been produced and delivered to the SNS are being deployed to support states with immediate needs.”

HHS said it has been “transparent that more supplies are needed,” and said that planning is underway “to achieve a capacity to meet 90 days of need,” which will require a combination of actions to increase the supply of personal protective equipment. The administration has developed a plan to restructure the Strategic National Stockpile “implementing lessons learned from recent pandemics. Our next generation SNS will be improved.”

A mixed bag indeed…

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

The much needed application of resources in order to create the Nation’s first Peace Officers Corps, is now for this strategic plan to save our communities from strife and anguish as the chaos and devastation continues…

And perhaps in a reasonable person’s mind the need for a Peace Officers Force, is far greater than the need for a Space Force, but that is another ball of weak altogether.