On The Leading Edge

The American Workers Party is the organized will of the American Worker.

WTF does that mean? It means simply that the Party reflects the wants and needs of the American Worker. It goes out to the people, listens to them, takes notes, investigates, publishes reports, prioritizes steps and sets goals, engineers ways to achieve goals in the most efficient manner, and works to make progress toward the accomplishment of these goals.

It may sound 'cosmic' but it is really very simple. First things first: when your house is on fire you don't worry about mowing the lawn. Your first priority should be the safety and well-being of your family. Your next priority is putting out the fire. In order to survive and make progress toward our goals we need to get organized, set priorities and take positive action. It doesn't take a 'rocket scientist' to figure out the obvious.

What's the biggest threat to the United States? International terrorism? Illegal immigration? War with China? Homosexual marriage? National healthcare? The collapse of the economic system? The greed and cruelty of the 1% who own and control our nation? The coming corporate capitalist police-state? The errosion of our rights and freedoms? War with Iran? The decline in altruism? Patriotism? Morality? - Where is the fire?

They used to say, "It's the economy, stupid..." Do you agree or disagree?

Before we can come to any conclusions we must have all the facts...

The 'War on Terror' 

Wars fought by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have cost the nation more than $1 trillion, making the "war on terrorism" second only to World War II, according to a congressional report.

The "Cost of Major U.S. Wars" analysis by the Congressional Research Service found that in the nearly nine years since the twin towers fell, the nation has spent an estimated $1.15 trillion on combat overseas, CNN reported. 

By comparison, World War II cost $4.1 trillion when adjusted for inflation. But WW II consumed a massive 36 percent of America's gross domestic product, compared to about one percent for the post-9/11 conflicts, CNN said.

Illegal Immigration

$11 billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.

Illegal households only pay about one-third the amount of federal taxes that non-illegal households pay.

Illegal households create a net fiscal deficit at the federal level of more than $10 billion a year. If given amnesty, this number could grow to more than $29 billion.

$1.9 billion dollars a year is spent on food-assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

$1.6 billion is spent on the federal prison and court system for illegal aliens.

$2.5 billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

About 21 percent of the population of U.S. prisons is classified as “noncitizens” from Mexico, Colombia, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. About 5 percent is listed as “unknown.”

The Military

Budget breakdown for 2012

Defense-related expenditure 2012 Budget request & Mandatory spending Calculation:

DOD spending $707.5 billion Base budget + "Overseas Contingency Operations"

FBI counter-terrorism $2.7 billion At least one-third FBI budget.

International Affairs $5.6–$63.0 billion At minimum, foreign arms sales. At most, entire State budget

Energy Department, defense-related $21.8 billion

Veterans Affairs $70.0 billion

Homeland Security $46.9 billion

NASA, satellites $3.5–$8.7 billion Between 20% and 50% of NASA's total budget

Veterans pensions $54.6 billion

Other defense-related mandatory spending $8.2 billion

Interest on debt incurred in past wars $109.1–$431.5 billion Between 23% and 91% of total interest

Total Spending $1.030–$1.415 trillion

Homosexuality

Each citizen subsidizes gays’ pleasure by ‘contributing’ $112/year toward the costs of gay HIV infection. We give $33/year toward the HIV costs of drug shooters’ fun.

“These are voluntary activities,” said Dr. Paul Cameron, Chairman of the Family Research Institute, a conservative think-tank. “We already have to pay plenty for those who get pleasure from voluntarily engaging in homosexual sex or shooting drugs. Gay civil unions would cost us even more.

“Research shows partnered gays are more apt to acquire HIV. Giving them civil unions so gays can pay fewer taxes, get more disease, and thereby cost us more is nuts. We give the married tax breaks because we need them to have and raise children – no kids equals no future. We don’t need and should not encourage the homosexually compulsive to get together. We already ‘donate’ billions every year toward the HIV consequence of gays’ amusement. American taxpayers should say ‘no’ to further gay mooching.

“Gays are more apt to engage in criminality, get STDs, abuse substances, and have accidents. These contribute toward making our total ‘gay tax’ double or triple the gay AIDS tax. Government should not spend money to encourage gays to further injure society and thereby raise our tax burden.”

CDC estimates for 2002 were based on 40,000 new cases of HIV infection/year1– $6.7B in direct and $29.7B in productivity loss (other morbidity costs were not included). The CDC now estimates 56,000 cases/year, and gays are contributing an ever larger share of new infections.2 As 55%+ of new HIV infections are among gays, adjusted for inflation (~3%/year), the estimated cost for gay’s HIV infections in 2010 was $24.9B/yr. or about $208/yr/household at 40,000 cases, $291/yr at 56,000 cases. In comparison, every year the US spends about $500B on K-12 education, and about $40B on the ‘war on drugs.’

Unemployed, Out-Of-School Youth 

A sizable minority of America's youth aren't in school or attached to the labor force. And it's costing taxpayers big.

About 17 percent of America's young people are "opportunity youth" -- or people ages 16-24 who aren't attached to the labor force -- according to a report prepared by researchers for the Corporation for National and Community Service and the White House Council for Community Solutions (h/t Think Progress). Each one of these 6.7 million young people is costing taxpayers $13,900 per year and it doesn't stop there. After 25 years old, they'll cost taxpayers $170,740 over their lifetime, the report found.

That means that in total, those currently classified as so-called opportunity youth will cost taxpayers $1.56 trillion in present value terms over their whole lifetime.

"Both taxpayers and society lose out when the potential of these youth is not realized," the report said.

The Cost of Israel to US Taxpayers

For many years the American media said that “Israel receives $1.8 billion in military aid” or that “Israel receives $1.2 billion in economic aid.” Both statements were true, but since they were never combined to give us the complete total of annual U.S. aid to Israel, they also were inaccurate.

Recently Americans have begun to read and hear that “Israel receives $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid.” That's true. But it's still not accurate. The problem is that in fiscal 1997 alone, Israel received from a variety of other U.S. federal budgets at least $525.8 million above and beyond its $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was almost six billion (USD)...

We could go on forever, but, hopefully, you get the point... Nobody even discusses the less obvious problems. (Maybe its not 'politically correct'?)

Where's the fire?

The world economy (of which we are a part) is collapsing. The American worker is working harder - if he has a job - than he was in the 1970s and 1980s and making less. The top 1% is rolling in clover... making money hand-over-fist... Corporate Capitalism controls our government and politicians... The fire is that the American worker (and the environment, and our children, and our veterans, and our senior citizens) are getting butt-raped by the System almost constantly... and without respite.

If you had a car that wouldn't start in the morning, kept breaking down and costing you more and more money on repairs, wasn't a reliable means to get you where you wanted to go, and was dangerous to the safety of you and your family - what would you do?

You'd get rid of it and get another one! If that wasn't possible, you'd find some other means of transportation!

It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that the System is junk and we need to replace it...

And, that's the Truth!

Without a Clue

Advanced, intermediate, and backward... These are the three main categories of the American people.

Of course, it goes without saying, that you can divide the great mass of Americans any way you like, and come to almost any conclusion that you want to. But your survival as a political leader depends on whether or not your analysis is correct. Because, like Abe Lincoln so eloquently put it, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

The advanced dwell in the future, the intermediate dwell in the present, and the backward dwell in the past.

To add another facet, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Obviously, our corporate masters want to ensure that the majority of Americans remain backward in their thinking, and completely dependent on the corrupt capitalist system - if not materially then, at least, psychologically. That way they will continue to be obedient 'herd animals' who can be counted upon to serve their 'betters'. Therefore, the success of their 'management' lies in keeping the greater number of American workers in the 'backward' category.

On the other hand, the success of American Socialism depends on whether or not we can move the majority of American workers into the 'advanced' category. In other words, our task is to wake people up... The task of the corporate capitalist system is to put them to sleep.

In view of the current 'brain dead' political dialog, I think most people would agree that the system has been more effective putting Americans to sleep than we have been waking them up.

That's OK - we are just starting.

Beginning and becoming is a beautiful thing... a blank sheet of paper, ready for something magnificent to be written on it...

Are you ready to write?

Come on, if you haven't been 'laid off' yet it's only a matter of time... You are over-qualified. They can hire some eager young kid to take your place at the minimum wage. With no benefits. That's what has been happening in the workplace... down-sizing, out-sourcing, cutting hours, one worker doing three jobs for the price of one - and making less money than you did in the 70's and 80's. Yet everything has gone up since then...

Do you still believe in the 'American Dream'?

The 1% still believe in it! They're making so much money nowadays... and getting subsidized by the government... and not even paying any taxes!

Let's face it, this isn't the same America as the one you grew up in.

What will the future be like? Do you believe that things are getting better? Or, that all of our problems will go away by themselves?

99% of the American people are getting screwed by the system - the advanced, the intermediate, and the backward.

What do you think we should do about it? 

How Should An American Socialist Dress?

"It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law." ~ Louis Sullivan 

To Sullivan, "function" didn't mean merely "utility" or "pragmatic use." Instead, it meant something like "life force." His "form follows function" dictum expressed a kind of essentialist vitalism. The "essence" of a thing in nature (an eagle, a cloud, a river) is its life force. This life force results in the outward form of that thing. In Sullivan's own words, "Unceasingly the essence of things is taking shape in the matter of things."

"Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies in a twinkling."

Every Force Evolves a Form

One problem with "form follows function" is that it is tautological - it presupposes that every form in the natural world exists as it does because of functional requirements. We start with the end result (the form), look backward toward its origins, and assume that the results were inevitable. But there are any number of reasons why something might have a particular form (chance, malevolence, whim, purposeful design, play, folly, and numerous combinations thereof).

A better, less tautological mantra comes from Mother Ann Lee (1736–84), founder of the Shaker movement in America: "Every force evolves a form." From this perspective, form doesn't simply, dutifully follow a set of functional requirements. Instead, dynamic forces gradually forge resultant forms. These forces aren't simply functional; they can also be communal or spiritual, as was the case with the Shakers.

For working designers, "every force evolves a form" is a more useful rule. The design process actually begins with something that doesn't yet exist but needs to exist, and it moves forward toward a formal result. Function alone doesn't drive the resultant form. The form evolves from the holistic forces of the project—audience needs, client desires, ethical obligations, aesthetic inclinations, material properties, cultural presuppositions, and yes, functional requirements. "Function" is rightly seen as a single, isolated, quantifiable aspect of the overall "force" driving the form.

True, the Shakers did esteem utility. They found it beautiful. According to one of their slogans, "That which in itself has the highest use, possesses the greatest beauty." But more forces were bearing on the form of Shaker furniture than mere utility. The teachers of the Bauhaus also esteemed utility, but the forms of their furniture are far from identical to the forms of Shaker furniture because a host of other historical, philosophical, and material forces in addition to mere utility were affecting and evolving both forms.

What is the Function of Clothing?

The primary function of clothing is to improve the comfort of the wearer. In hot climates, clothing provides protection from sunburn or wind damage, while in cold climates its thermal insulation properties are generally more important. Shelter usually reduces the functional need for clothing. For example, coats, hats, gloves, shoes, socks, and other superficial layers are normally removed when entering a warm home, particularly if one is residing or sleeping there. Similarly, clothing has seasonal and regional aspects, so that thinner materials and fewer layers of clothing are generally worn in warmer seasons and regions than in colder ones.

Clothing protects people against many things that might injure the uncovered human body. Clothes act as protection from the elements, including rain, snow and wind and other weather conditions, as well as from the sun. However, if clothing is too sheer, thin, small, tight, etc., the protection effect is minimized. Clothes also reduce the level of risk during activity, such as work or sport. Clothing at times is worn as protection from specific environmental hazards, such as insects, noxious chemicals, weapons, and contact with abrasive substances. Conversely, clothing may protect the environment from the clothing wearer, as with doctors wearing medical scrubs.

Humans have shown extreme inventiveness in devising clothing solutions to environmental hazards. Some examples include: space suits, air conditioned clothing, armor, diving suits, swimsuits, bee-keeper gear, motorcycle leathers, high-visibility clothing, and other pieces of protective clothing. Meanwhile, the distinction between clothing and protective equipment is not always clear-cut, since clothes designed to be fashionable often have protective value and clothes designed for function often consider fashion in their design.

The wearing of clothes also has social implications. They are worn to cover those parts of the body which social norms require to be covered, and act as a form of adornment, as well as other social purposes.

Cultural Aspects

Gender differentiation: To promote sexual equality, socialist men and women should dress the same.

Social status: Socialists, whose goal is a classless society, should avoid the wearing of the western business suit and necktie.

Ethnic and cultural heritage: People may wear ethnic or national dress on special occasions or in certain roles or occupations.

Future trends

The world of clothing is always changing, as new cultural influences meet technological innovations. Researchers in scientific labs have been developing prototypes for fabrics that can serve functional purposes well beyond their traditional roles, for example, clothes that can automatically adjust their temperature, repel bullets, project images, and generate electricity. Some practical advances already available to consumers are bullet-resistant garments made with kevlar and stain-resistant fabrics that are coated with chemical mixtures that reduce the absorption of liquids.

Does American Socialism Have a Dress Code?

1. The 'dress code' of American Socialism is common sense. Recycled or surplus clothing is always a good choice. 
2. Throw on loose fitting jeans or cargo pants. You're a Socialist now, you don't have the inclination to buy pants that are tight fitting. Just as long as they cover you up they're doing their job just fine.
3. Wear a plain, solid colored, button-down work shirt, or polo shirt. Black or dark blue are good color choices.
4. Don boots. They should look like you haven't cleaned them up since you bought them years ago. For summer wear, sandals are appropriate.
5. Sport a plain, beat-up looking overcoat. It should be warm and practical, and not all that easy on the eyes. (Army surplus field jackets are always good.)
6. Formal wear: Sun Yat-sen Tunic
7. Everyday wear: Classic Mao Jacket
8. Casual Wear: Vintage Vietnam Fatigue Jacket
9. Head-wear:  The Che Beret
10. Foot-wear: Classic 'Communist' Sandals

That should give you some food for thought....

Communal Housing Is Coming Of Age

Seniors are beginning to see the advantages of shared living complexes.

GRASS VALLEY, CALIF. — Suzanne Marriott's brave drive into the future started with a traffic jam, which gave her a lot of time to think about what she was getting herself into -- and out of.

Newly widowed and recently retired, the lanky 64-year-old was making her way to the Sierra foothills to meet a group of complete strangers that she might just spend the rest of her life with.

Left behind in the rearview mirror was a sprawling ranch house in Castro Valley, near Oakland, that managed to be full and empty all at once, jammed with the stuff of a long, happy marriage but drained of life since the death of her husband, Michael, from multiple sclerosis six months before.

For decades, the couple, avid backpackers and mountain bikers, had wandered the world together. Now she was striking out on her own, placing big bets on the rest of her life and on a nascent movement called senior cohousing.

Marriott was betting that she could join a group of like-minded people -- all relatively healthy and not that old -- and together they could build a community that would be something between commune and condo complex.

She was wagering that they could all live there to the end without burdening family members or enduring life in an institution picked by somebody else. And she hoped they would have fun in the process.

So as Marriott navigated Interstate 80 toward her fellow pioneers in late-life living, she was more curious than terrified.

"I wanted to see if there was a way to make more meaning in my life now that Michael was gone," she said. "We'd been together 30 years. I thought I was being led to something that would be meaningful and be a way to move forward."

In the 18 months since she hit the highway, Marriott and her future neighbors have done something only a few groups of forward-thinking seniors in America have accomplished.

Along with the architects who imported the idea of cohousing from Denmark 20 years ago, they have designed their 30-unit complex from the ground up, complete with an elaborate common house where they plan to dine together several nights each week.

They've attended scores of meetings, made thousands of decisions -- all by consensus -- buried one beloved member and welcomed others. They have pledged to "support each other through rough times, whether physical, emotional and/or spiritual." They have learned how to listen and how to disagree.

And if all goes according to the meticulous planning of the 16 women and four men who have so far signed on, Wolf Creek Lodge will break ground in spring here in the heart of Gold Country. It will be California's second elder cohousing community and only the fourth such project nationwide; a dozen or so others are in the works.

"Many people don't have an extended family, or it's an extended dysfunctional family," Marriott said. "We'll have this close community for, well, the rest of our lives."

Poor By the Numbers

A household must earn $37,105 a year to afford the national average two-bedroom fair-market rent of $928 a month. A full-time worker would have to make $17.84 an hour to afford the average 2 bedroom if no more than the recommended guideline of 30 percent of income is spent on housing. 

The average American family of four spends 20% of their income on food and drink. (Roughly $8,000 per year.)

Clothing accounts for another $2000... Transportation another $8000... Entertainment (to keep your mind off of how poor you are) another $2500...

Hey, we're at $32260 - and we haven't even thought about medical insurance, or a host of other things people spend their hard-earned money on! That's $15.50 an hour! If you make less than that you are poor, and, without medical coverage, that poverty will lead to an early death!

A moral economy for our own time would certainly take on the unbridled accumulation of wealth at the expense of the majority (and the planet). It would also single out for special condemnation the creation of an ever-larger stratum of people we call "the poor" who struggle to survive in the shadow of the over consumption and waste of that top one per cent.

Some facts: early in 2011, the US Census Bureau reported that 14.3 per cent of the population, or 47m people - one in six Americans - were living below the official poverty threshold, currently set at $22,400 annually for a family of four. Some 19m people are living in what is called extreme poverty, which means that their household income falls in the bottom half of those considered to be below the poverty line. More than a third of those extremely poor people are children. Indeed, more than half of all children younger than six living with a single mother are poor. Extrapolating from this data, Emily Monea and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution estimate that further sharp increases in both poverty and child poverty rates lie in our American future. 

Some experts dispute these numbers on the grounds that they neither take account of the assistance that the poor still receive, mainly through the food stamp programme, nor of regional variations in the cost of living. In fact, bad as they are, the official numbers don't tell the full story. The situation of the poor is actually considerably worse. The official poverty line is calculated as simply three times the minimal food budget first introduced in 1959 and then adjusted for inflation in food costs. In other words, the US poverty threshold takes no account of the cost of housing or fuel or transportation or health care costs, all of which are rising more rapidly than the cost of basic foods. So the poverty measure grossly understates the real cost of subsistence.

Moreover, in 2006, interest payments on consumer debt had already put more than four million people, not officially in poverty, below the line, making them "debt poor". Similarly, if childcare costs, estimated at $5,750 a year in 2006, were deducted from gross income, many more people would be counted as officially poor.

Nor are these catastrophic levels of poverty merely a temporary response to rising unemployment rates or reductions in take-home pay resulting from the great economic meltdown of 2008. The numbers tell the story and it's clear enough: poverty was on the rise before the Great Recession hit. Between 2001 and 2007, poverty actually increased for the first time on record during an economic recovery. It rose from 11.7 per cent in 2001 to 12.5 per cent in 2007. Poverty rates for single mothers in 2007 were 49 per cent higher in the US than in 15 other high-income countries. Similarly, black employment rates and income were declining before the recession struck.

In part, all of this was the inevitable fallout from a decades-long business mobilisation to reduce labour costs by weakening unions and changing public policies that protected workers and those same unions.  As a result, National Labour Board decisions became far less favourable to both workers and unions, workplace regulations were not enforced and the minimum wage lagged far behind inflation.

Inevitably, the overall impact of the campaign to reduce labour's share of national earnings meant that a growing number of Americans couldn't earn even a poverty-level livelihood - and even that's not the whole of it. The poor and the programmes that assisted them were the objects of a full-bore campaign directed specifically at them.

Corporate Capitalism would have every American worker living like a slave, the minimum wage as the norm, living in a cardboard box, eating one meal a day at MacDonald's, poorly educated, and without adequate medical treatment... That's the trend. That's where this country is headed...

Is this the life that you want for your children? Your family? Your self?

If not, you had better wake up. 

And, that's the Truth!

US Wages War Against the Poor

Widespread poverty and further welfare cuts have created a need for revolution in America.

We've been at war for decades now - not just in Afghanistan or Iraq, but right here at home. Domestically, it's been a war against the poor, but if you hadn't noticed, that's not surprising. You wouldn't often have found the casualty figures from this particular conflict in your local newspaper or on the nightly TV news. Devastating as it's been, the war against the poor has gone largely unnoticed - until now.

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has already made the concentration of wealth at the top of this society a central issue in US politics. Now, it promises to do something similar when it comes to the realities of poverty in this country.

By making Wall Street its symbolic target and branding itself as a movement of the 99 per cent, OWS has redirected public attention to the issue of extreme inequality, which it has recast as, essentially, a moral problem. Only a short time ago, the "morals" issue in politics meant the propriety of sexual preferences, reproductive behaviour or the personal behaviour of presidents. Economic policy, including tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and government protection for insurance and pharmaceutical companies and financial deregulation, was shrouded in clouds of propaganda or simply considered too complex for ordinary Americans to grasp.

Now, in what seems like no time at all, the fog has lifted and the topic on the table everywhere seems to be the morality of contemporary financial capitalism. The protesters have accomplished this mainly through the symbolic power of their actions: by naming Wall Street, the heartland of financial capitalism, as the enemy, and by welcoming the homeless and the down-and-out to their occupation sites. And of course, the slogan "We are the 99 per cent" reiterated the message that almost all of us are suffering from the reckless profiteering of a tiny handful. (In fact, they aren't far off: the increase in income of the top one per cent over the past three decades about equals the losses of the bottom 80 per cent)

The movement's moral call is reminiscent of earlier historical moments when popular uprisings invoked ideas of a "moral economy" to justify demands for bread or grain or wages - for, that is, a measure of economic justice. Historians usually attribute popular ideas of a moral economy to custom and tradition, as when the British historian EP Thompson traced the idea of a "just price" for basic foodstuffs invoked by 18th century English food rioters to then already centuries-old Elizabethan statutes. But the rebellious poor have never simply been traditionalists. In the face of violations of what they considered to be their customary rights, they did not wait for the magistrates to act, but often took it upon themselves to enforce what they considered to be the foundation of a just, moral economy.

Rampant poverty and further welfare cuts have created a need to move towards a moral economy of the many, not the few. Now more than ever, we need socialism in America. Not just 'welfare socialism' where the politicians can systematically cut the people's benefits as they please - but a real militant socialism that will establish a people's democracy and redistribute the nation's wealth.

And, that's the Truth!

Fight Police Brutality!

When unarmed peaceful civilians are killed or brutalized by the police, they are being killed by agents of the government that is supposed to represent them. It is this failure of government that must be addressed.

Here are 5 Ways To Stop Police Brutality:

1. Protests

Police stations, city hall and other government venues must be protested against and marched on after every incident of police brutality.

2. Record the Police

We must use our cameras every time police harass us to catch them in the act. Then we can use the Internet and the viral media to expose these actions worldwide. In their heyday, the Black Panthers would do this.  They had a police watch and would follow the police with a camera and record their actions.  Now that cameras are so cheap and people have cameras on their phones, it is a lot easier to hold the police accountable for their actions.

3. Vote Out Politicians Who Condone Police Brutality

Politicians who do not address issues like police brutality must be voted out of office. Rappers should be spending a lot less time glamorizing black on black crime and dissing each other, and more time documenting police brutality. African American entertainers and activists have a strong voice in America and they must also use that voice to fight the problems in our community.

4. Engage in Dialogue With the Cops

We must use moderate police organizations to work with the police to stop police brutality. Groups like '100 Blacks in Law Enforcement' have done a lot to combat police brutality and people should work with them as an intermediary to deal with community issues with the police.

5. Take Legal Action Against Police

We need to take legal action as well. The best way to hurt police brutality is by hitting them in the pocket. If the police keep on getting sued for brutality they’ll be forced to deal with the issue. Every incident of police brutality should be reported to both the government and the media.

The people pay taxes and therefore they also pay police salaries. Police should be in the communities to serve and protect not to harass and arrest. The war on drugs is really a war on minorities. Americans are treated like insurgents in occupied territory and not citizens in need of protection. We need to end so-called 'wars' waged by our government on American citizens.

And, that's the Truth!