Kossack Onomastic published an eye-opening post here, earlier today, and it begs—actually, it screams out to us--many other inconvenient questions about what’s actually going down in Ferguson, Missouri right now. This reality becomes even more pronounced when one adds a few more, under-reported (by the MSM) facts into the mix.
The state of Missouri was the first state to implement Homeland Security infrastructure after 9/11, and it has an inordinate number of DHS facilities in it (including four of our country’s 78 Fusion Centers†), especially when compared to similar-sized states (population-wise) and taking into account the fact that it’s nowhere near our country’s borders.
Our country has distributed a “mere” $4.3 billion in surplus military weapons and related Department of Defense materiel to our nation’s local police organizations over the past few years; and countless people have attributed those actions to the dramatically increased militarization of our nation’s local law enforcement organizations.
Considering the reality that the U.S. is now home to no less than 17 federally-funded intelligence services and law enforcement organizations, along with thousands of state and local police entities, at a cost to taxpayers (and I’m definitely low-balling it here) of at least $150 to $200 billion per year, to posit that these Fusion Centers are not actively involved in what’s happening on the ground in Ferguson would be nothing less than propaganda, as well. (Readers: PLEASE make an effort to click on the links in this story, since they're--to say the least--quite illiuminating.)
Put another way, if less than $5 billion in military hardware could play a big part in transforming local police forces throughout this country into paramilitary units, imagine what more than $2 trillion dollars, spent by our state and federal governments since 9/11, did to our entire society?
(One need look no further than the documented, egregious, unconstitutional behavior of our surveillance state with regard to what our government did to suppress the Occupy movement, environmental activism, and a slew of activists supporting other political causes, to understand the validity of this question.)
Right now, many organizations and individuals would like to know the answer to this question: Behind the scenes, to what extent are the constitutional rights of Ferguson’s citizens’ rights to protest being compromised by our surveillance state?
A few citizens are working with website MuckRock, where they're expediting the submission of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, as far as getting a full answer to that question is concerned. Considering the reality that the Obama administration has been at the forefront of expanding our surveillance state, does the White House not know the answer to these questions, specifically as they relate to recent events in Ferguson, too?
In addition to being unaware that Missouri Governor Nixon called in the National Guard on Sunday, does the White House not know that an acknowledged expert in counterterrorism, superintendant of Missouri State Highway Patrol Colonel Ron Replogle, is the lead state law enforcement officer overseeing the situation in Ferguson?
A city where—despite this fact going unreported virtually everywhere--even then-31-year-old Mayor James Knowles III was employed by the Ferguson Police Department, immediately prior to taking office, just three years ago?
Then again, as matters in Ferguson have spiraled out of control over the past nine days, is the White House even aware, today, of how seriously the deck is stacked against African-Americans--not just in Ferguson--throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area?
An area where the Ku Klux Klan has been very active recruiting and propagandizing not just in the past few years, (please click HERE, as well) but elsewhere in the state over the past few months, and even the past week?
If, as Kossack Onomastic has just noted in this community, the President of the United States wasn’t even aware that the National Guard had been called in over the past 24 hours by Governor Nixon to police the City of Ferguson, what does that say about the administration’s knowledge (or lack thereof) of other current events on the ground there?
I hope Eric Holder gets to the bottom of this. But, to say I'm skeptical that a one-day visit, on Wednesday, from the U.S. Attorney General will undo countless generations of institutionalized racism fomented by both currently-active, local branches of the KKK and the St. Louis-based Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a/k/a the "uptown Klan," would be an understatement.
†=NOTE: the Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center, or "MOCIC," based in Springfield, MO, is considered a Fusion Center, although it's only classified as such on select federal lists regarding same.
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