Dystopian Utopia

Juxtapositions

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anarcho-queer: NYPD Stalks, Harass And Monitors Youth To Dissuade Them From Committing Crimes It’s like Father Connoly’s attempts to keep kids on the straight and narrow, but with fake Facebook accounts of hot teen chicks. The New York Times reports on an innovative (and highly invasive) program to keep kids who’ve been arrested from committing robbery. The involuntary NYPD program called Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program (JRIP) targets youth (almost exclusively minorities living in housing) and subjects them to continual harassment at their school, home and in the streets and monitors their every move online with fake profiles: Officers not only make repeated drop-ins at homes and schools, but they also drive up to the teenagers in the streets, shouting out hellos, in front of their friends. The force’s Intelligence Division also deciphers each teenager’s street name and gang affiliation. Detectives compile a binder on each teenager that includes photos from Facebook and arrest photos of the teenager’s associates, not unlike the flow charts generated by law enforcement officials to track organized crime. Detectives spend hours, day and night, monitoring the Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of teenagers in the program, known as the Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program, or J-RIP, and of their criminal associates. To do so, detectives create a dummy Facebook page — perhaps employing a fake profile of an attractive teenage girl — and send out “friend requests” as bait to get beyond the social network’s privacy settings. Joanne Jaffe, the department’s Housing Bureau chief, commented on the program saying, “We are coming to find you and monitor every step you take”. “And we are going to learn about every bad friend you have. And you’re going to get alienated from those friends because we are going to be all over you.” Talk about creepy… The program was started in 2007 in Brownsville, known as the highest concentration of low income public housing development in the North America and the worst neighborhood in New York City. In 2009, the program was expanded to East Harlem, the second highest concentration of public housing in the nation, closely following Brownsville. Both Brownsville and East Harlem are largely black and Latino, making over 85% of the population in each neighborhood, meaning JRIP disproportionately targets minorities who live in public housing and subjects them to continual harassment by the NYPD who claim to be practicing tough love.

anarcho-queer:

NYPD Stalks, Harass And Monitors Youth To Dissuade Them From Committing Crimes

It’s like Father Connoly’s attempts to keep kids on the straight and narrow, but with fake Facebook accounts of hot teen chicks. The New York Times reports on an innovative (and highly invasive) program to keep kids who’ve been arrested from committing robbery.

The involuntary NYPD program called Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program (JRIP) targets youth (almost exclusively minorities living in housing) and subjects them to continual harassment at their school, home and in the streets and monitors their every move online with fake profiles:

Officers not only make repeated drop-ins at homes and schools, but they also drive up to the teenagers in the streets, shouting out hellos, in front of their friends. The force’s Intelligence Division also deciphers each teenager’s street name and gang affiliation. Detectives compile a binder on each teenager that includes photos from Facebook and arrest photos of the teenager’s associates, not unlike the flow charts generated by law enforcement officials to track organized crime.

Detectives spend hours, day and night, monitoring the Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of teenagers in the program, known as the Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program, or J-RIP, and of their criminal associates. To do so, detectives create a dummy Facebook page — perhaps employing a fake profile of an attractive teenage girl — and send out “friend requests” as bait to get beyond the social network’s privacy settings.

Joanne Jaffe, the department’s Housing Bureau chief, commented on the program saying, “We are coming to find you and monitor every step you take”. “And we are going to learn about every bad friend you have. And you’re going to get alienated from those friends because we are going to be all over you.” Talk about creepy…

The program was started in 2007 in Brownsville, known as the highest concentration of low income public housing development in the North America and the worst neighborhood in New York City. In 2009, the program was expanded to East Harlem, the second highest concentration of public housing in the nation, closely following Brownsville. Both Brownsville and East Harlem are largely black and Latino, making over 85% of the population in each neighborhood, meaning JRIP disproportionately targets minorities who live in public housing and subjects them to continual harassment by the NYPD who claim to be practicing tough love.

(via randomactsofchaos)

5,817 notes

thepoliticalfreakshow: d1am0ndt1ara: imhyperdearie: He is aware he just confirmed that he believes in forcing women to bear children against their will, right? Correct. They’re not even bothering to hide behind the fetal rights agenda anymore. Horrible lack of logic in the latest GOP representative to endorse forced impregnation, rape, sexual assault, rape culture, rape apologism, rape enablism, and all-out bullshittery, and he’s actually admitted it? The “The Handmaid’s Tale” reference is aptly appropriate. Misogynistic sexist asshole!

thepoliticalfreakshow:

d1am0ndt1ara:

imhyperdearie:

He is aware he just confirmed that he believes in forcing women to bear children against their will, right?

Correct. They’re not even bothering to hide behind the fetal rights agenda anymore.

Horrible lack of logic in the latest GOP representative to endorse forced impregnation, rape, sexual assault, rape culture, rape apologism, rape enablism, and all-out bullshittery, and he’s actually admitted it?

The “The Handmaid’s Tale” reference is aptly appropriate.

Misogynistic sexist asshole!

(Source: powertothepeoplerighton1, via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

48 notes

#MIGov: Rick Snyder imposes draconian emergency manager law on the city of Detroit

justinspoliticalcorner:

Citing runaway deficits and long-term debts Detroit could never repay on its own, Gov. Rick Snyder today pulled the trigger and announced he will appoint an emergency financial managerimage for the state’s largest city. Snyder said he has a top candidate in mind, and that person would be in charge for 18 months.

The decision means Motown will soon have someone new in charge of restructuring Detroit’s dire financial mess. That restructuring likely will include drastic cuts in public services and a top-down rethinking of the type of government a shrunken city with a dwindling tax base can afford.

In many ways, those questions have been nipping at Detroit for decades, but the issues came to a head over the last 18 months as increasingly dour economic forecasts found a city unable to address fundamental questions about its debt.

“I look at today as a sad day, a day I wish had never happened in the history of Detroit, but also a day of optimism and promise,” Snyder said.

He reiterated that Detroit, once among the most prosperous cities in the nation, “went from the top to the bottom over the last 50 years,” losing more than half its population.

Snyder told an invited audience for a broadcast discussion on his decision. The forum was moderated by Stephen Henderson and Nolan Finley, editorial page editors of the Free Press and the Detroit News, at Wayne State University.

Snyder said he will not name who the emergency manager will be right away.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said he “did not favor” an emergency manager.

“The Governor has made his decision, and it was his decision alone to make,” Bing said in a statement. “While I respect it, I have said all along that I do not favor an Emergency Manager for the City of Detroit. I will look at the impact of the Governor’s decision as well as other options, to determine my next course of action.

“I don’t support the appointment of an EFM as it eliminates democratically elected leadership in our city,” said Brown, a former deputy police chief. “However, the question is does Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council as-a-body going forward have the will to abandon the privatization ordinance, alter the City Charter to address roadblocks, and support state legislation to change the pension board? In my view, as-a-body City Council is not willing to make these changes. The only alternative is for the governor to appoint an EFM who has the will to implement the necessary reforms.” 

H/T: Detroit Free Press

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

154 notes

External Video Proves Officer Who Tackled OWS Protester Lied About Being Assaulted, Also Proves NYPD Had Their Own Footage Contradicting Their Claim

anarcho-queer:

An Occupy Wall Street activist was acquitted of assaulting a police officer and other charges on Thursday after jurors were presented with video evidence that directly contradicted the NYPD’s story.

Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges this week in regards to a case that stems from a December 17, 2011 Occupy Wall Street demonstration in Lower Manhattan. For over a year, prosecutors working on behalf of the New York Police Department have insisted that Premo, a known artist and activist, tackled an NYPD officer during a protest and in doing so inflicted enough damage to break a bone.

During court proceedings this week, Premo’s attorney presented a video that showed officers charging into the defendant unprovoked. The Village Voice reports that jurors deliberated for several hours on Thursday and then elected to find Premo not guilty on all counts, which included a felony charge of assaulting an officer of the law.

After being arrested, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office presented Premo with a deal that would have let him off the hook by pleading guilty to lesser charges. Maintaining his innocence, however, he was determined to fight the case in court.

Premo was “facing serious charges and potential substantial jail sentence, even though he never should have been arrested at all,” his supporters claimed in a post published on The Laundromat Project website.

Nick Pinto of the Village Voice says he was nearby during the December 2011 rally and recalls watching Premo’s arrest from a distance. In his report from court this week, Pinto explains how the details provided by the NYPD in this trial have been fabricated to such a degree that the allegations presented by the cops turned out to be literally the opposite of what occurred.

The footage obtained from Democracy Now showed that an NYPD officer was filming the arrest as well, but prosecutors told Premo’s attorney that no such footage existed.

“There is no justice in the American justice system, but you can sometimes find it in a jury,” Premo tweeted after he was acquitted this week.

(via proletarianinstinct)

345 notes

obey: Wal-Mart is now the second-largest corporation on the planet, taking in almost half a trillion dollars last year at more than 10,000 stores worldwide. Wal-Mart captures one of every four dollars Americans spend on groceries. Wal-Mart’s explosive growth has gutted two key pillars of the American middle class: small businesses and well-paying manufacturing jobs. Wal-Mart’s history is the story of what has gone wrong in the American economy. Wages have stagnated. The middle class has shrunk. The ranks of the working poor have swelled. Whatever we may have saved shopping at Wal-Mart, we’ve more than paid for it in diminished opportunities and declining income. READ MORE  At over $446 billion per year, Walmart is the third highest revenue grossing corporation in the world. Walmart earns over $15 billion per year in pure profit and pays its executives handsomely. In 2011, Walmart CEO Mike Duke – already a millionaire a dozen times over – received an $18.1 million compensation package. The Walton family controlling over 48 percent of the corporation through stock ownership does even better. Together, members of the Walton family are worth in excess of $102 billion – which makes them one of the richest families in the world. What is shameful is that CEO Mike Duke makes more money in one hour, than his employees earn in an entire year. To make matters worse, these abusive Walmart policies have increased employee reliance on government assistance and the need for a government funded social safety net. In fact, Walmart has become the number one driver behind the growing use of food stamps in the United States with “as many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores using food stamps.” Wal-Mart’s poverty wages force employees to rely on $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. In state after state, Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of Medicaid. As many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores use food stamps. Walmart’s employees receive $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. They are also the top recipients of Medicaid in numerous states. Why does this occur? Walmart fails to provide a livable wage and decent healthcare benefits, costing U.S. taxpayers an annual average of $1.02 billion in healthcare costs. This direct public subsidy is being given to offset the failures of an international corporate giant who shouldn’t be shifting part of its labor costs onto the American taxpayers. Wal-Mart workers’ reliance on public assistance due to substandard wages and benefits has become a form of indirect public subsidy to the company. In effect, Wal-Mart is shifting part of its labor costs onto the public. READ MORE

obey:

Wal-Mart is now the second-largest corporation on the planet, taking in almost half a trillion dollars last year at more than 10,000 stores worldwide. Wal-Mart captures one of every four dollars Americans spend on groceries. Wal-Mart’s explosive growth has gutted two key pillars of the American middle class: small businesses and well-paying manufacturing jobs. Wal-Mart’s history is the story of what has gone wrong in the American economy. Wages have stagnated. The middle class has shrunk. The ranks of the working poor have swelled. Whatever we may have saved shopping at Wal-Mart, we’ve more than paid for it in diminished opportunities and declining income. READ MORE 

At over $446 billion per year, Walmart is the third highest revenue grossing corporation in the world. Walmart earns over $15 billion per year in pure profit and pays its executives handsomely. In 2011, Walmart CEO Mike Duke – already a millionaire a dozen times over – received an $18.1 million compensation package. The Walton family controlling over 48 percent of the corporation through stock ownership does even better. Together, members of the Walton family are worth in excess of $102 billion – which makes them one of the richest families in the world. What is shameful is that CEO Mike Duke makes more money in one hour, than his employees earn in an entire year.

To make matters worse, these abusive Walmart policies have increased employee reliance on government assistance and the need for a government funded social safety net. In fact, Walmart has become the number one driver behind the growing use of food stamps in the United States with “as many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores using food stamps.”

Wal-Mart’s poverty wages force employees to rely on $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. In state after state, Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of Medicaid. As many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores use food stamps.

Walmart’s employees receive $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. They are also the top recipients of Medicaid in numerous states. Why does this occur? Walmart fails to provide a livable wage and decent healthcare benefits, costing U.S. taxpayers an annual average of $1.02 billion in healthcare costs. This direct public subsidy is being given to offset the failures of an international corporate giant who shouldn’t be shifting part of its labor costs onto the American taxpayers.

Wal-Mart workers’ reliance on public assistance due to substandard wages and benefits has become a form of indirect public subsidy to the company. In effect, Wal-Mart is shifting part of its labor costs onto the public.

READ MORE

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)