Colonized Neighborhoods/Hedges

Police officers carry out random acts of legalized murder against poor people of color not because they are racist, although they may be, or even because they are rogue cops, but because impoverished urban communities have evolved into miniature police states.

Police can stop citizens at will, question and arrest them without probable cause, kick down doors in the middle of the night on the basis of warrants for nonviolent offenses, carry out wholesale surveillance, confiscate property and money and hold people—some of them innocent—in county jails for years before forcing them to accept plea agreements that send them to prison for decades. They can also, largely with impunity, murder them.--CH

I think this is an important piece, like much of what Hedges has to say. He lays out some fundamental aspects of inequality with his usual clarity and uncompromising principles.

Think about all the fire power this country employs in a multitude of ways.  What is its actual final justification, other than to suppress the majority of poor where they live?

A must read.


TS