Peace on Earth

An arms limitation treaty has just gone into force that forbids arms sales to countries that use arms against civilians to commit human rights abuses.

"Under the terms of the treaty, each state must assess if there is an overriding risk that a proposed arms export to another country will be used for or contribute to serious human rights abuses or organized crime; if so the deal cannot be authorized by the seller.

The treaty has widespread support; only three countries—North Korea, Syria, and Iran—voted against it at the United Nations. As of Wednesday, 130 countries had signed it, and 60 had ratified. The U.S. signed the Arms Trade Treaty in September 2013, but the Senate has not yet ratified it.

Human rights groups heralded the treaty going into force."

And now... to work on Good Will Toward Men. Starting in the Senate.

Strangler Cop Walks

This month we learned that Officer Daniel Panteleo of the New York City Police Department has not been indicted by a grand jury for strangling cigarette-seller Eric Garner. They just couldn't decide. Garner couldn't breathe, and Panteleo wouldn't let him.

Panteleo joins former officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson, Missouri, Police Department in being allowed to have killed. They head a long list of similarly un-indicted police killers.

Given the national outcry in both cases, police violence is now a national concern. The demonstrations are massive. Police killings of unarmed young black men keep happening - a 12-year old in Cleveland with a toy gun. A young man in a Walmart carrying a bb gun to the cash register.

The President wants every policeman to wear a body cam. "Community policing" is being further developed as a kind of policing that communities can support because it doesn't kill people unnecessarily.

It seems safe to say that local police no longer belong quite so much to the power structure. They are owned also by those who set their standards, and today it is more and more the community they serve that is saying how they should behave.

The governors of New York and Missouri can still appoint special prosecutors. The federal government can sue these killers for denying the victims their rights - the right to live, in both cases. The right not to be punished by the arresting officer, but by a judge using due legal process. A right we all think we have. We think.

The demonstrations are massive.

The war against violence has come home.

The New War On Violence

Has the war on terrorism just evolved into a war on violence?

Violence is cammable. Cams can capture it. YouTube it, and it's on the mainstream media.

Whether one is terrorized by the neighborhood beat cop or by the gang headquartered in the house across the street, terror is terror and violence from either - even a verbal threat of violence - is cammable. Bullying from either is cammable.

Very simply, cams rule. Where cams rule, violence is caught and fades.

I just got the cheapest phone on the market. It was free, part of a pay-as-you-go package. 1000 minutes for $25, phone is free. Even this little phone has a 1.3 megapixel cam that can capture video. Cameras now go where even the cheapest phones can go. Anyone can record police abuse for the cost of a $25.00 cellphone card. Cameras own the street.

America has discovered that it has a massive police abuse problem. Young black men in particular are being seen by police as threatening, causing fear in an officer which requires them to be killed. In the officer's mind, at least. Many of these deaths have gone unreported. The war on violence is in the discovery process regarding police violence. What has been can happen no more.

Already, the public is setting standards for what we, the people, have a right to expect from our police. A community owns its own police. Nationalizing the police with FBI info feeds and used military hardware didn't work. We still own them.


Nationally, the torture report has hit the stands. The CIA is on trial before the world. Bush claims innocence. Cheney and Rove both have come staunchly to the defense of torture. They're both saying that Bush was fully informed. Do I detect a certain fracture on the right?

Jeb Bush may, in the end, decide not to run for President. To run, he would need to disavow his brother. As the torture story unfolds, he may get tired of being asked again and again whether he supports rectal feeding. Inmates were having the food they rejected macerated and shoved up their butts. Not a real medical procedure. Jeb's brother approved of it. Does Jeb approve of his brother?

The CIA lied to Congress. The CIA lied to the President. The CIA lied when they said that torture was producing useful information, and they kept going, punping a dry well, uncaring of the agony they were producing. 

Who sees a problem with this? They are a rogue branch of government, breaking international treaties and US laws, funded by Congress but lying to their funders. Who sees a problem?

Suppose the EPA did this?

The 2016 election cycle has begun. If being Republican means you have to defend torture - and the rogue nature of the CIA - then not so much money may get put on candidates who try to defend this history. Because surely, they would lose the vote.

And if Bush, et al, are to be put on trial, that would depress Republican turnout as well. Their path to the courtroom may take the next two years, their trial left for the next administration to administer. Between now and the election, the Republican Party will be the 'party of Bush'.

This is an instance where the acts of a few bad apples - Bush, Cheney, & Rove - taint the many, in this case, the Republican Party. Whether the Republican Party disavows its bad apples or not may extend the split between Bush and Cheney-Rove into the party itself.

Cheney and Rove are even now testifying before the world in their own defense. They are on trial. Evidence has only begun to be revealed.

So two levels of government - the federal and the local - have now been caught being illegally abusive. Both, violent to the point of homicide. In violation of the law. How to deprive them of the ability to be violent, to compensate the victims, and to prevent further violence will be continuing questions before the electorate. How best to fight the war on overboard government violence?

Not questions Republicans will want to answer.