I don't know if I should write this

What to write? What to write? I spent all day yesterday trying to think of the right way to respond to the injustices of Ferguson. Anyone unfortunate enough to get within listening distance heard some pretty brutal words -- the kind of words which, if published, might have gotten me into trouble.

The following may seem intemperate. Those around me have heard worse.

While downtown Baltimore yesterday, I talked to an older black guy who derided the rioters in Ferguson. He recalled the riots of April 1968, which destroyed a sector of this city which has never been properly rebuilt. (One of those areas surrounds the cemetery where the fetid cadaver of Allen Dulles lies not far away from the corpse of John Wilkes Booth.) "Rioting never solves anything," he said. Maybe he was right, but I still didn't want to hear it.

Some thoughts:

1. White people -- on teevee and elsewhere -- keep repeating that Michael Brown "charged" the officer's car. McCulloch clearly stated that there was conflicting testimony on this score. The fact that so many white people use that term unthinkingly proves their racism.

I'm sorry, but the R word is justified in this instance. You cannot presume from the outset a point of questioned testimony that should have been determined at trial. Racists consider testimony "credible" only when it buttresses their preconcieved notions. We have to ask ourselves why some pundits don't want "their" witnesses to face cross-examination. What are they afraid of?

2. A man in a car (especially a man in a heavy vehicle like a police cruiser) never -- NEVER -- has anything to fear from a single unarmed individual. That's what the gas pedal is for.

Well, to be fair: If the car is out of gas or trapped between two other cars, the driver may have reason to fear. But Officer Wilson was not in that situation. He could have scooted out of the way and, if need be, called for back-up.

3. McCulloch kept repeating that the Grand Jury made its decision based on physical evidence. It is clear now that this decision was based primarily on Darren Wilson's testimony.

4. McCulloch could have gotten an indictment if he wanted one. As the commonly-heard saying has it, a DA can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. A grand jury was convened purely to allow McCulloch to blame others for his decision.

5. As a reader of this blog put it: "Differing accounts of what happened huh? That's USUALLY why they have trials." Those twelve words sum up this entire post. If we allowed trials to occur only when all witnesses agree, we'd have a lot fewer trials.

6. Wilson's testimony seems to have been a prime example of what the cops in L.A. call "testi-lying." See video above.

7. Why should we trust what the police call "physical evidence"? Why should we trust their testimony? The cops -- in that town and in other towns -- have been running a racket, using poor working people as a cash register. Check out the revealing words about forfeiture in Ferguson's budget (pdf)). And check out this piece. Even the NYT has published an uncharacteristically hip article.

At trial, a clever attorney could have reminded the jury of the many things the cops have done to earn the community's mistrust and hatred.

Frankly, that's the kind of spectacle I long to see.

I would love to see juries automatically presume that the cops are lying in every single case. Not one syllable cops say should be trusted. If a cop says "He wore a blue jacket," presume that the jacket was some other color -- even if you have a photo proving that the jacket was blue.

More than that. Jurors and other citizens should do everything possible to make the lives of cops miserable. A cop's kid should be spat on every single day he goes to school. Cops should wake up to see paint buckets emptied on their cars. Why? Here's why. And here's why.

Keep treating cops like garbage until cops stop acting like garbage. And a hearty FUCK YOU to any thuggish cop who boo-hoo-hoos about being hated by the very people he is trying to serve when he's out there every day putting his life on the line yada yada yada. Cops are hated for good reason, as you can see here.

For the average citizen, the police are worse than the mafia. Until the cops stop functioning as a hyper-mafia, they should be treated the same way the heroic Vietnamese treated French and American soldiers.

I used to have a great respect for policemen. Seriously. I was taught from an early age to revere those guys, and I would love nothing more than to return to that attitude. But damn it, there have been too many stories like this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one.

Cops need to be taught a lesson, and that lesson is this: Actions have consequences. If cops have become robbers -- as indeed they have -- well, they chose that course, and now they must take the consequences.

8. Let's not blame "outside agitators" for the Ferguson riot. Come on: Nobody takes the Revolutionary Communist Party seriously. They're clowns. Frankly, I've always thought that Bob Avakian worked for the feds. The RCP was Ronald Reagan's best recruiting tool on the UCLA campus, back when I was a student there. As for Al Sharpton: He definitely worked for Uncle.

The real "outside agitators" in Ferguson are the cops. The robbing, thieving, ultra-corrupt cops.

9. If a guy like McCulloch recommends peaceful protest -- well, what more evidence do you need? Obviously, peaceful protest is useless. Peaceful protest is what the Establishment wants you to do. (Yeah, I said it: The Establishment. Time for that useful term to come back into circulation.) The Establishment considers protest to be part of the system -- a way for the oppressed to blow off steam.

No.

Do not waste your time with protest. Rebel.

Each of you will have to work out the specifics of how to rebel, although the words written above may suggest an idea or two. But the following two pieces of advice may be of some help.

First, history tells us that the most effective forms of rebellion are planned events, done in cold blood.

Second, being a rebel is like being a boxer: You don't win if you hurt yourself. You have to hurt the other guy.

Added note: I'm getting a lot of hits from the Free Republic. Guess they hate me. Oddly enough, this is one of the few posts I've written containing links to sites run by Libertarians. In these strange times, the usual right/left dichotomy doesn't always tell the full story.