Couric & Co.
July 23, 2007 12:43 PM

Battleground: Philadelphia

(CBS)
Byron Pitts is National Correspondent for CBS News.
Is it a war?

That’s what Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson calls it. Community activist Mel Wells agrees, there is a war going on in parts of Philadelphia. Both men are lifetime residents of Philadelphia. Both love their city deeply. One has enforced the law for 43 years. The other has broken the law a few times in his youth, but has since turned his life around and leads a community service organization called One Day At A Time.

Honestly, I rolled my eyes a bit when they first compared the killings and violence in Philadelphia (406 murders in 2006, more than 200 so far in 2007) and in other American cities to a “war zone.” Too often people have thrown around phrases and words like “war zone” and “battlefield.” I’ve seen war up close and there is no mistaking what’s going on in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. War zones have a certain look. A certain feel. There’s even a smell to it.

After spending several days in Philadelphia, I must admit there are striking similarities.

Just like in Baghdad, there are law-abiding citizens who are afraid to go outside at night or even venture too far away from their front door in the daytime. Just like Baghdad, there are law-abiding citizens whom we met that keep a gun close by when they take their children to school, go to the grocery store and when they close their eyes at night in their own bed. In Philadelphia they’re not called "insurgents"; they’re drug dealers and thugs. Oddly enough the Police Commissioner says "Philadelphia does not have a gang problem.”

On the 2200 block of Percy Street in North Philadelphia, I met two mothers who’ve had a child murdered in some sort of drive-by shooting. In my 25 years as a journalist, I’ve never met two mothers on the same street who’ve had a child murdered. Eighteen-year-old Taheera Jones was preparing for her freshman year at Temple University. She worked for a local attorney over the summer to make money for school. She was the oldest child and the first in the family to go to college. She was walking home from work, a few steps from her door, when a shootout started up the street. As she fumbled for her door key, she was shot in the head. Dead. I asked her mother -- who still lives in the same house -- what she says to her younger children, "How do you keep them motivated? How do you keep them hopeful when their sister did everything right, but she was killed?”

“The first thing I teach them is how to be safe.”

What? Be safe? What’s that’s say about society when a mother’s primary lesson to her children is how to avoid being shot? How does a child dream in an environment like that?

On that same block, we found at least 10 houses that were abandoned and boarded up. You ever live on a street with condemned and boarded up houses?

Also in that neighborhood there are only three adult men of working age on a block with at least 40 families. Three men! Most homes are run by elderly grandparents or women. One of the men approached me: thick build, strong hands (like a brick mason). “We’re the only men here,” he told me. “Just the three of us,” he said. “We look after the women and children as best we can.” He said it with both a sense of pride and sadness.

Since 2001, there have been more than 10,000 gunshot victims in Philadelphia. Imagine that, 10,000 people? The Boston Garden can hold just over 19,000.

Many of the people we spoke with blamed the surge in shootings and death on illegal handguns. Commissioner Johnson made this observation: “Illegal guns are a big problem in Philadelphia and across the country. But guns are only a symptom of a deeper sickness.”

By all accounts, Commissioner Johnson is a “cop’s cop.” He started his career as a beat cop and worked his way up the ranks to commissioner. He’s familiar with every kind of crime imaginable. He says the real danger in Philadelphia is the rising unemployment and school drop-out rates, the collapse of families and the growing divide between the haves and the have-nots. “When people are frustrated they get angry, and anger leads to violence. Add in a gun and you a recipe for disaster.”

Commissioner Johnson isn’t alone in that view. We also spent time with Miami Police Chief John Timoney. Timoney’s the former Philadelphia police commissioner and he started his career in New York. Like a number of police chief’s across the country, Timoney is a harsh critic of the National Rifle Association and the NRA’s influence over the gun lobby in Congress. He points out the recent rise in the murder rate of police officers across the country. Not only are there more guns on the streets of America; there are more powerful guns. "I faced when I was a young cop somebody with a Saturday night special, probably held together by tape,” he told us. “Now we have these young kids going around with AK-47's with 30-round clips. They're spraying a (street) corner."

But Chief Timoney agrees with Commissioner Johnson the problem goes way beyond guns.

Mel Wells used to carry a gun. But the murder of a friend who died in his arms and time in jail changed his life. “God told me that could have been me, dead of a gunshot wound,” Wells said. So he went to work for his father, Rev. Mel Wells, founder of “One Day at a Time.” It’s a social service agency in Philadelphia that helps former convicts, drug addicts and others get their lives back on track. Today the younger Wells is president of ODAT. The agency helps more than 55,000 people every year.

Wells agrees illegal guns are a major problem, but when I asked him if he could rule the world for a day, what’s the first thing he’d do to end the gun violence in Philadelphia?

“I’d love the sinner,” he said. “I’m here because someone loved me.”

According to Wikipedia, “War is a prolonged state of violent, large scale conflict involving two or more groups."

The killings and gun play in American cities seems to meet at least part of that definition of war. We spent time with some of the young people engaged in that conflict in North Philadelphia. There were a few who seemed hard and cold and distant. Everyone I talked with agreed SOME of these kids should be in jail. I asked a 16-year-old boy who proudly displayed a tattoo of an AK-47 on his forearm and boasted of the knife wound that marked his other arm, what the future held for him. At first he seemed confused by the question. Then after some delay he said "just staying alive.” But the vast majority of the young men I spoke with seemed more scared than tough - more hopeless than hard. Once we got past the bravado, these young men talked about lost dreams, absent parents, limited education and few prospects for the future. We met one 19-year-old who’d been in jail for shooting another teenager four times. He was released from jail because the kid he shot refused to testify against him or "snitch." The expectation was they’d settle it on the street someday. This kid had a teardrop tattoo under his right eye. A blank tear symbolizes a friend or relative had been murdered. A colored-in tear drop, the tattoo worn by someone who’d actually committed murder.

When asked about his future, this teenager said "dead or in jail.”

Is it a war? To many of those involved, it sure feels that way.





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by aahpat July 23, 2007 7:03 PM PDT
Yes its a war. A war declared some three dozen years ago and escalating ever since. Its prohibition economics. And its just hitting critical mass in terms of world anarchy.

Guns are a tool. A means to an end.

In Philadelphia that end is a piece of the, according to U.N. estimates for 2003, $ 703,919,484 annual retail black market for drugs. In poverty oppressed communities the enticement of the money, drugs, bling and social acceptance all conspire to induce under-educated young people into crime, addiction and gangsterism.

Prohibition is anarchy. A complete lack of social control. Nationally a totally free market worth more than $ 144-billion a year.

Afghan expert New York Univ. Professor Barnett Rubin told the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Sept.

"The international drug control regime, which criminalizes narcotics, does not reduce drug use, but it does produce huge profits for criminals and the armed groups and corrupt officials who protect them. Our drug policy grants huge subsidies to our enemies."
Reply to this comment
by scurtis_3447 July 23, 2007 7:33 PM PDT
Its a lot easier for politicians and police officials to blame the guns than it is to accept accountability for the fact that the police department is making far too few arrests and the D.A.'s office is prosecuting too few cases.

Phoenix, AZ is the same size as Philly. Arizona has very lax gun laws, yet has significantly less crime than Philadelphia. We should also remember that there was virtually no gun control until the late 60's and crime was dramatically lower than it is now. Gun control does not equal crime control. Instead of disarming honest citizens, why not start arresting and incarcerating the criminals?
Reply to this comment
by kandry1 July 23, 2007 7:44 PM PDT
Although Mr. Pitts and Commissioner Johnson raised our awareness of the increased circulation of illegal guns -- they were also unfortunately demonstrating another disturbing (and I'm assuming illegal) trend of not wearing a seat belt. Per the NHTSA report in 2005, it was reported that 55% of all people killed in car accidents did not use a restraint.
Pennsylvania, a state with 1,616 vehicle fatalities in 2005, approx 889 of those people were not wearing a restraint. This compared to the 756 murders that took place during the same year.
While the rise of crime and illegal guns the cities is no doubt concerning, it was also disappointing to see the oversight of not wearing a seat belt on National TV.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 23, 2007 10:24 PM PDT
American policy is "Creating chaos and instability"

The 2004 non-partisan Congressional Research Service,'Illicit Drugs and the Terrorist Threat: Causal Links and Implications for Domestic Drug Control Policy' summarized the drug war this way;

"The international traffic in illicit drugs contributes to terrorist risk through at least five mechanisms: supplying cash, creating chaos and instability, supporting corruption, providing %u201Ccover%u201D and sustaining common infrastructures for illicit activity, and competing for law enforcement and intelligence attention. Of these, cash and chaos are likely to be the two most important."

The drug war prohibition is producing the same chaos and instability that the alcohol prohibition created. And for the same economic reasons.
Reply to this comment
by usascottwright July 23, 2007 10:40 PM PDT
Crime is getting out of control in Milwaukee and Racine. Wisconsin and Illinois is the only two states that don't allow concealed weapons. We need the ability to protect our selves until police arrive.

We can bring a paraelle to this point as - Why would you have a fire extinguiser? It would help until the fire dept comes.

I have had a Florida Concealled weapons permit for over 10 years, I haven't went on any shooting spree all of a suden as alot of these opponents would have you beleive that honest people who would get a licence would all of a suden go on shooting sprees and kill all the children.

We need to get rid of Wisconsin Governor Doyle
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 9:03 AM PDT
Since the 1990's America has known that bin Laden is using heroin as a weapon targeting the children of the west.

Heroin In The Holy War
Dec 1998, Indian Times
The crop will be opium and the farmer will be Osama bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist in the world. Bin Laden, accused by the United States of bombing two of their embassies in East Africa this summer and a string of other attacks, sees heroin as a powerful new weapon in his war against the West, capable of wreaking social havoc while generating huge profits, according to sources in eastern Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
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by reel-crazy July 24, 2007 9:03 AM PDT

I see the NEGATIVE ATTITUDES daily as I go to an URBAN area of Kansas City to help addicts.

Same script, different town.

If you URBAN folks would bring your kids up RIGHT with teaching them responsibility enhanced with love, respect, and showing them what a POSITIVE ATTITUDE is, most of this nonsense would stop. You PARENTS are responsible for fueling most of it. YOU allow your kids to roam freely. YOU have no idea where your kids are, what they are doing, and whom they are with. They roam like a pack of wild dogs so it's no wonder they are going to find TROUBLE or CAUSE IT. They are wallowing in the filth and drowning in NEGATIVITY your upbringing has given them. They HATE it and VENT. They blame it on POOR ME while most of you pour yourself another and stare aimlessly at the TV. Try getting off the couch and take an interest in yourself as well as your kids and clean your yard WITH them, paint the house, trim the overgrowth and show some pride in the neighborhood for a change. Perhaps you could get off your lazy butts and help out showing them they don't need to continue living in this manner instead of the constant screaming at them I hear. Hate breeds hate... turn it around and reap the rewards.
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by aahpat July 24, 2007 9:13 AM PDT
As the WTC still smoldered Sen John Kerry put it this way:

"That's part of their revenge on the world," Kerry said. "Get as many people drugged out and screwed up as you can."

Newsweek even learned the name of the campaign; "silent jihad".

Flowers Of Destruction
July 2003, Newsweek
Some militants view opium as something more than a source of cash; they say it's a legitimate weapon in what they call a "silent jihad." Khurshid, a 20-year-old Nangarhar native, says drugs are Afghanistan's way of striking back at the West for sending "liquor, obsceneTV and pornographic films" into Afghanistan: "Immoral Western culture destroys the minds of our children, so it's only just that we export opium and heroin to destroy Western youths."
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 9:16 AM PDT
The DEA has quantified it.

"Of the 36 groups designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations, 14 (or 39 percent) are connected to drug activities, testified Steven W. Casteel, assistant administrator for intelligence of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
He said they range from Middle Eastern terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, the Shining Path in Peru and the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines."
21 May 2003, The Daily Herald

The anarchic $ 322-billion annual black market economy created and imposed by the drug war on us all is giving 'aid and comfort' to our enemies, both foreign and domestic. It fosters this increasingly violent gangsterism while it provides cash and resources to terrorist groups around the world.

Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 9:21 AM PDT
We cannot cure the high levels of addiction in the cities while the drug market economy puts two-three more dealers on the street for every one busted.

Under-educated and under-employed kids in poverty oppressed communities are easily enticed into drugs, crime, gangs and violence by the ever expanding economic opportunity presented by the $ 144-billion U.S. black market for drugs.

There's No Justice in the War on Drugs"
"STANFORD -- Twenty-five years ago, President Richard M. Nixon announced a "War on Drugs." I criticized the action on both moral and expediential grounds in my Newsweek column of May 1, 1972, "Prohibition and Drugs":"
Jan 11, 1998
New York Times
Milton Friedman, the Nobelist in economics
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 9:25 AM PDT
"It's Time To Give Up The War On Drugs"
"The high prices due to the war have provided huge profits for cartels and others who evade detection and punishment. Estimates place the world market value of illegal drugs at several hundred billions of dollars--in the same league as the markets for cigarettes and alcohol.
To protect their profits, criminals battle police and bribe officials all over the world.
Some cartels have become more powerful than the governments that oppose them. The economy of Colombia, the world's biggest exporter of cocaine and a major producer of heroin, has been wrecked by the conflict between drug cartels and government efforts, financed by the U.S., to eradicate production of cocaine and heroin."
17 Sep 2001
Business Week (US)
Gary S. Becker, Nobel Laureate economics
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 9:31 AM PDT
America's Jim Crow right-wing imposes thedrug war to create this high level of mass disenfranchising dysfunction. It is how Nixon, in collusion with the Dixie-crats of 1970, re-imposed Jim Crow just 5-yrs. after the Voting Rights Act was passed.

Drug Busts=Jim Crow
Ira Glasser
http://independentsofamerica.blogspot.com/2007/07/legalized-racial-discrimination-in.html

"The fact is, just as Jim Crow laws were a successor system to slavery, so drug prohibition has been a successor to Jim Crow laws in targeting blacks, removing them from civil society and then denying them the right to vote while using their bodies to enhance white political power. Drug prohibition is now the last significant instance of legalized racial discrimination in America."

Chaos and instability on our streets is the success of the drug war
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 9:48 AM PDT
Prohibition economics foster crime, addiction and violence.

"Horrified by the violence and corruption that alcohol prohibition fostered, lifelong Republican Pauline Morton Sabin told Congress in 1930, "...women played a large part in the enactment [of prohibition]... They are now realizing with heart burning and heart aching that if the spirit is not within, legislation can be of no avail. They thought they could make prohibition as strong as the Constitution, but instead have made the Constitution as weak as prohibition..." She went on to say that before prohibition, her children had no access to alcohol. During prohibition they could get it anywhere."
October, 1998
Brainstorm Magazine
Cascade Policy Institute
Reply to this comment
by ncc1701pm July 24, 2007 9:48 AM PDT
%u201CYoung black men killing other young black men and sometimes other people that happen to get in their way%u201D, This is what we are seeing in our inner cities. This is a Black culture problem and until we are willing to recognize this, it will never stop. To say that there are more young whites killed in gun violence to somehow let the blacks off the hook or to try to make them feel better about themselves, is a disservice to the blacks and is a totally false statement. If you include accidental gun deaths you may be right, but, this is something totally different than what we are seeing in our inner cities. Shooting a gang rival or killing someone during a robbery is not the same as being killed in an accidental shooting or even suicide. When you allow news stories like these to be aired you loose credibility with the majority of your audience. Anybody who lives in a city with a large black population knows the truth.
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by aahpat July 24, 2007 10:16 AM PDT
TO: ncc1701pm at 09:48 AM : Jul 24, 2007

"This is a Black culture problem and until we are willing to recognize this, it will never stop."

This is racist drivel.

The problem is the Jim Crow drug black market economy imposed on our ever growing poor communities.

America now has more than 16-million permanent criminals, many defined and discarded both socially and electorally by the drug war.

The drug war disenfranchises urban poor. Hauls them to rural prison districts where they are counted for apportionment. This facilitates gerrymandering of safe districts for conservative rural whites. It diminishes the electoral potential for urban poor communities.

Conservative whites will never reduce crime in the cities. This is how they control and subvert American democracy.
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by timejocky July 24, 2007 10:33 AM PDT
Hurricane Katrina did something that has never been done before in modern history. It took a majority black city and turned it white for at least five months. It allowed the world to see exactly what the blacks were doing to this wonderful old city. Even though it had been destroyed by the storm, it was in fact a much nicer and safer place to live.

You might consider asking the question, Why ? Why do blacks commit more senseless killings than any other race in this country? Is it because they either lack that little something in their brains or have too much of it, the little something that tells most people not to pull the trigger, not to plunge that knife into another persons gut. We all have thoughts of committing violent acts. We just don't do it. We control ourselves. That little something +/- in the Negro brain is also responsible for all of the other antisocial behaviors and other wild things most Negro's seem to do. You know that old saying "You can take the man out of the jungle, but, you can't take the jungle out of the man" well, it's true. The wildness in the Negro brain is there to stay. Nothing can be done to change or correct it. No amount of education or federal programs will fix this problem. I've been forced to live and work around this behavior for years and I'm sick to death of it. I can't wait to leave and find a place with less blacks to live out my life in safety and peace.

Reply to this comment
by ncc1701pm July 24, 2007 11:29 AM PDT
To: aahpat

I suggest that you visit the FBI%u2019s website and take a look at the crime statistics posted there and then you won%u2019t dismiss what I am about to say as the rantings of a white racist. First of all let me say that there are a hell of a lot more white people dealing and using drugs than there are other races doing the same. Drugs are a very large part of the crime problem, however, drugs can be found in most if not all of our cities. It is a nation wide problem which desperately needs to be dealt with, but, the question still needs to be asked, Why don%u2019t we see more violent crimes committed by drug dealers and users in the cities that have very low black populations ? The cities that have the highest violent crime rates are all cities with very large black populations, the lower the black population, the lower the murder rate. Arrest in larger cities which have low black populations are generally for nonviolent offences. Don%u2019t you think it%u2019s time we stopped dancing around this subject? Don%u2019t you think that in order to solve a problem we first need to identify it ? Why do blacks commit more senseless killings than any other race on the planet. In the civil war in Rwanda 300,000 people were killed and that war lasted 4 months and those people were killed with machetes. During the 12 years of the Vietnam war about 300,000 people lost their lives on both sides of the conflict and that war was fought with modern weapons.
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by aahpat July 24, 2007 11:31 AM PDT
Conservative economists tell us that over-regulation of free markets stifles growth and profits. Except for self-regulation with guns the 'illicit' drug markets have zero regulation. A perfect example of under-regulation.

The drug distribution markets are totally free anarchy on our streets and around the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars each year empowering addicts, gangsters, social predators and stateless terrorist armies alike.

If ever there were a market that needed to be stifled by the democratic institutions of regulation, licensing and taxation it is the $ 322 billion a year drug war enforced narcotics free markets.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 11:41 AM PDT
TO: ncc1701pm at 11:29 AM : Jul 24, 2007

You are confusing poverty for race. And ignoring generations of white Jim Crow motivated policing policy.

If some people adopt the contempt for human life philosophy that has been imposed on their community by hundreds of generations of racism I can understand it. It is fueled by the culture war's para-military arm, the drug war.

The drug war has NEVER had more than a 20-30% interdiction success rate. That is a 70-80% failure rate for three dozen years of ever more aggressive drug laws disproportionately directed at minority and poverty oppressed urban communities.

The drug war has turned our cities into concentration camps of poverty, disenfranchisement and disaffection. Gun violence merely is a symptom.
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by samualcolt July 24, 2007 11:58 AM PDT
The one constant in this report and all like it is the word "illegal" yet the usual and anticipated suggested solution is more restrictive laws. If laws mean nothing to criminals what good are more laws?

There is one time tested and proven way to reduce violent crime. Unified Crime Reports, FBI, CDC all show the only proven affective method to reduce crime that has been 100% affective everywhere it has been implemented to be Concealed Carry by law abiding citizens.

I'll be waiting to see it's introduction and promotion tonight in the solutions portion of this report.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 12:01 PM PDT
Unregulated drug sales on our city streets has cemented the cities in poverty and disease as education and social service resources have been systematically constricted by "whither on the vine" right-wingers in government.
Reply to this comment
by wings14fn July 24, 2007 12:03 PM PDT
The real problem here is Western civilization itself. AS soon as we stopped living tribally, put down roots and started banging out baby after baby, this was bound to happen. We aren't meant by God to live in concrete urban jungles. We're meant to live off the land, hunting and gathering. Numbers are kept low and resources are plentiful.

I realize this does us little good now that we've been "civilized" for the past 6,000 years, but what we could do is stop having so many babies. If we would get our numbers down, there would be more resources to go around and less crime.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 12:11 PM PDT
TO: SamualColt at 11:58 AM : Jul 24, 2007

I don't think we need more regulation of gun laws.

What we need is some regulation of the drug black market so that most of the profits stay in the community to repair and reduce the harms done by the simple act of drug use. Regulate the anarchy out of the black market. If the bulk of profits are controlled by society's regulated system then there will be a lot less money to support the gun toting criminal community. Under a regulation system the police will have a smaller poorer population of die-hard intransigent illicit drug dealers to police.

It is a responsibility of democratic government to protect the people from the natural excesses of free market predators. Americans today are suffering under the anarchy of absolute free markets for drugs and the guns that enable them.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 12:23 PM PDT
"Is it a war? To many of those involved, it sure feels that way"

Yes. An ever escalating drug war for the past three dozen years. A war with unachievable objectives and insincere Jim Crow motivations.

The criminal disenfranchisement outcomes of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections demonstrate the one and only real success of the drug war.

Old Jim Crow used poll access and morals laws to keep people oppressed. The drug war is the imposition of morals laws under the unsupportable assertion of public health. The fact is that the new Jim Crow drug war promotes distribution, use and abuse of drugs. The drug war spreads chronic and contagious diseases from drug war over-crowded prisons. Its Jim Crow political leadership in D.C. refuses to allow much real and honest science to prevail.
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by joycechoice2 July 24, 2007 12:35 PM PDT
ncc is right. I am an african american female and I do believe that the problem with violence in philadelphia is a "black" problem. However, I feel that the cause of this problem was not started by blacks. I feel that the white people who enslaved blacks a few centuries back are to blame. Africans were forced into this american culture, tortured and enslaved. After we were freed we were faced with unimaginable discrimination which proved to be the beginning of our self-alienation from others. Now we suffer from self-hatred because we are told by others that being black is a crime. I don't know what a possible solution to the violence can be. However, I don't see it ending until black people start to have more respect for each other and stop picking up weapons to solve minor problems.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 12:42 PM PDT
When the poverty oppressed of America, of all colors, havee the best possible education and economic opportunities they will not so easily be enticed into lives of crime and disrespect for basic human life. People who get nothing but grief from society will give society nothing but grief. Human nature. You get what you give in this world.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 12:57 PM PDT
The drug war = political disenfranchisement and social disaffection in America on an ever expanding basis. Heavy armed. Alienated from the Judeo-Christian social norm that inspired community stantards prior to 1970.

Pronouncing zero tolerance for and then turning citizens into life-long criminals on the basis of something that at its worst is a disease, addiction is inhumane and the kind of social violence that begets the kinds of violence that we see on our streets today. violence begets violence. Decades of culture war/drug war violence on communities has served only to breed generations of disaffected half-citizens. Where at least in prison they get to count as 3/5's of a person for rural conservative safe-district incumbencies.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 2:17 PM PDT
In a world of dwindling economic and educational opportunity hundreds of billions of dollars a year in 'illicit' economic opportunity are thrust into their midst. Regulated only by the most aggressive gun play.

The drug war black market economy is creating chaos and instability on our streets.

This gangster fostering and terrorist funding Jim Crow Drug War absolutely does NOT "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare", as promised in the preamble of the U.S. constitution. The violence on our streetts and in the world are the proof.
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by ncc1701pm July 24, 2007 3:16 PM PDT
To : aahpat

You just love to go on and on with your little %u201CJim Crow Drug War%u201D rant. Well nobody reading this is going to take anything you say seriously if you don%u2019t address some of the issues I brought up in my last posting. Like I said, people just love to dance around the real issue and go off on some unrelated tangent and the problem never gets solved. So, you just go on with your bad self and live in the state of denial and everything will remain the same which is exactly the way you like it.
Reply to this comment
by aahpat July 24, 2007 3:54 PM PDT
TO: ncc1701pm at 03:16 PM : Jul 24, 2007;

I did address it.

I do not accept your racist interpretation of the statistics. The problem is not Black race culture or any of your supremacist theories of racial inferiority or difference. The entire premise of your note is disgusting. I tried to ignore it because it disgust me so much.

The problem in all poverty oppressed communities in America is the unregulated Jim Crow economic warfare being waged on people. Disproportionately minorities.

Make excuses to lock up large percentages of a given population, over generations, treating them like animals, then throw in their faces billions of dollars in opportunity that is best protected by illegal guns and you have a mix for the current reality.
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by adhowardmba July 24, 2007 5:05 PM PDT
5
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by adhowardmba July 24, 2007 5:11 PM PDT
ncc1701pm I see that you are a pseudo-historian. "Blacks commit more senseless killings than any other race on the planet?" More than who? Hitler's SS? Slave owners? If you look at the history of different races that make up this country, you'll find that all participated in illegal activities, i.e., the irish and italian mafias. Hmmm, I wonder if they commit "sensible" murders. Question, does being part black reduce your chances of committing a senseless murder? You're a joke. Poverty is the mother of crime.
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by ncc1701pm July 24, 2007 5:31 PM PDT
Finally, I hit a nerve. OK, now the challenge, if you can, name a major U.S. city with a large black population that does not have a high violent crime rate. I %u2018m talking Rape, and Murder or any other violent crime you can think of. You do that and I%u2019ll name the cities in contrast with very low violent crime rates, the same sized cities, but, without the large black population. Let%u2019s do this and see where it goes.
Reply to this comment
by phillyman701 July 24, 2007 7:02 PM PDT
Philadelphia is a wonderful city with so very much to offer. It could be one of the finest in the US. It's a shame that it is getting this kind of coverage due to a narrow, ignorant segment of it's population. Most neighborhoods are wonderful. A few bad apples spoil the whole barrel. It's very sad.
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by kilroy220 July 24, 2007 7:05 PM PDT
what will stop the violence in our cities, will be when we recognize that we need to look at each other as a family. A human family that needs to love one another and not hate one another. I personally live by two scriptures. They are "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength" and the second is like it, "Love your neighbor as yourself". If we would learn what it means to live by those two scriptures, the war on crime would end.
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by usastrong1 July 24, 2007 7:38 PM PDT
There are two types of criminals: those who are already criminals and those who become criminals. I will opine on those who are released from prison and continue to commit crimes. Dealing with (criminals) who continue to commit crimes is easier than stopping people from becoming criminals in the first place, but it must be done.
People like to blame the NRA because they mistakenly associate the NRA with gun crime. I%u2019m not crazy about the NRA or guns but blaming them is inaccurate because%u2026
Just today it was reported that two (white) males with long rap sheets burglarized a Connecticut home and murdered most of the occupants. Somewhere, a judge and defense attorney let these people out. Why?
I have heard different statistics about recidivism rates, etc. It seems that in most cases, they are high. Our legal system is more willing to let people out onto the streets than to put people who have clearly shown they are not going to follow the rules in jail forever. Mechanisms should be in place to prevent the miscarriage of justice, but in most cases, things to which I am referring are not close calls at all. Our leniency runs the gamut from folks who continue to drink and drive to those who continue to commit violent crimes.
Therefore, if you insist on blaming someone, blame defense lawyers and lenient judges. These are the folks who are letting people who continue to terrorize the rest of us out on the streets.
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by jsb1974 July 24, 2007 10:07 PM PDT
Where are the parents? Why aren't they keeping their kids out of gangs? We want to blame everyone else - the police, the schools, the teachers, the NRA, our state government - why are we not blaming the parents of these kids who are joining these gangs? Isn't it the responsibility of the parent to keep their kids out of trouble and to teach them to live respectful lives, to get an education, to not be a victim? Why do we always blame everyone else? Ask yourself, what would I do if I knew my child was involved with gang activity. Then ask yourself what are the parents of these kids doing. Maybe we should start there before we point fingers at everyone except those on the front lines of responsibility.
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by usastrong1 July 25, 2007 1:43 AM PDT
Just to follow up with what jsb1974 says; for what it's worth, I agree about the families having a lot to do with it. I believe a key element of strong family values is a two parent household. In the absence of abuse or other things, a two parent household is more stable than a single parent household. While two-parent households are not immune to having kids who commit crime, I believe their kids do so at a lower rate. Politicians must embrace this but probably will not do so, or at a lower level, because single parents are a strong voting bloc and if you slight them, you won't get their vote. This also ties into religion, which makes it all the more complicated, given the justified separation of church and state. It's a delicate act to be sure.

Even with divorce being commonplace and relatively easy to obtain, it is still easier for people who live together to separate than if they were married. It will be interesting to see if there is an effect on crime from all the people who are living together and raising families but have not married.
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by adhowardmba July 25, 2007 8:50 AM PDT
ncc1701pm I'm surprised. you don't seem like a racist at all. but looks may be deceiving. to answer your question. there is no big city without big city problems. do blacks commit a disproportionately large percentage of violent crimes? i don't know. but blacks are disproportionately convicted of violent crimes. since you represent the book of knowledge for african americans, tell me this, if blacks and whites both earn middle class incomes, how do they behave relative to each other? Who has the fewest children? if you are wondering, this is a question regarding sociology.
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by ncc1701pm July 25, 2007 8:56 AM PDT
Come on people, don't drop the ball, give me the name of a major U.S. city with a large black population that does not have a high violent crime rate. Can't do it, can you ? I didn't think so.

Come on, let's ID the ones that make us afraid to walk the streets at night. Lets ID the people that are destroying our cities. Let's ID the perpetrators. Lets drag it into the light of day. Lets hang it out there for the world to see.

We know who they are and they know that we know, so, don't be afraid to say it. No more excuses. Fix your broken families, fix the cities you've destroyed. Take control of your culture and be proud of who you are. You are better than crack cocaine. You are better than the gang bangers you allow to control your neighborhoods. You are better than the Hip Hop culture you embrace.

No one other than you can fix this mess you've made. So, get on with it, the rest of us can't wait forever.
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by ncc1701pm July 25, 2007 9:07 AM PDT
To: adhowardmba

There are several major U.S. cities with very small black populations; Salt Lake City, UT is one of them. Salt Lake City has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the country. There are many other cities like Salt Lake City. Just look to the west.

Middle class blacks and whites are similar in many respects. In my city we live together without any problems. Middle class black family size is very close when compared to middle class white families. It's the lower class blacks that have large families, if you can call them families.
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by adhowardmba July 25, 2007 1:38 PM PDT
ncc1701pm I can even agree with you on some respects. But it seems that if it is left to you, you would put a fence around the ghetto and let them all starve. The brush that you are painting with is too broad. Whites come from broken families, and single parent homes also. Do you consider them to be families?
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by adhowardmba July 25, 2007 1:42 PM PDT
ncc1701pm so are you biased against people who are considered to be lower class, whites included?
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by ncc1701pm July 26, 2007 10:58 AM PDT
To: adhowardmba

Don't you have any comments on the major Cities with low black populations and their low violent crime rate ? Do a little research on your own. Don't just talk the same trash as your ignorant friends. Take your head out of the sand and you'll find the truth. I want to see these problems solved and if it means making some people uncomfortable with themselves, them so be it.

I should tell you now that I am a successful black man living a middle class life in the greater New Orleans area and I certainly know what I am talking about.
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by adhowardmba July 26, 2007 12:18 PM PDT
I'm thoroughly surprised; and confused. You? Black? Actually though, your tone does remind me of Bill Cosby. But to some extent, it seems that you have hatred for your own race. If we could speak in a frank manner, did you grow up in a mostly white neighborhood? Do you have black friends? What is your profession? To answer your question, you're right in the sense that if there is a large black population in an urban area, there is a high level of violent crime.
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by adhowardmba July 26, 2007 12:29 PM PDT
To ncc1701pm

The knowledge that you claim to have, is it firsthand knowledge? Did you grow up in an urban area? I did, and I can tell you, the vast majority of things that occur in the ghetto are not positive, but some things are. I was born and raised in a very violent neighborhood. But I left and pursued an education. I don't have a criminal history, which should not be anything to brag about, but if you live in certain neighborhoods,it is.
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