One of my favorite things to do during the weekends is to take walks with my wife at different parks in the SF Bay Area. We do have our favorite places, like Oakland's Lake Merritt, but we also like to discover new ones, and that task usually goes to her.
She gets on Google Maps and checks our different parks, and if something looks interesting, we'll give it a try...
This Saturday (Sept. 14th) we decided to check out a park and hiking trail in Dublin (about 35 miles East of San Francisco). The park is ensconced in a residential area which may be considered pretty well-off. I would not be surprised if the home prices averaged $900,000-plus.
After breakfast and reading the paper to catch up on the latest news, we put on our tennis shoes, got in the car, and off we went to check out this park in Dublin.
We got a little lost trying to find the park, and ended up driving around the neighborhood a bit, and I noticed all the very nice homes, the leafy streets, the expensive, immaculate cars. It's very serene, and peaceful, and beautiful.
We finally found the spot we were looking for, parked, and got on the walking trail. It was a beautiful day, with a perfect 70-degrees temperature, the wind blowing softly caressing the trees' leafs which seemed to sparkle.
We walked along the trail which paralleled a stream with beautiful trees along it. As we walked, we saw a bunch of wild turkeys at a meadow; there was this young lady with a pad taking notes. She went over a short fence, got really close to the turkeys (there must have been about 15 or so), took some photos, and then came back to the trail... We were standing a few feet from her watching the whole thing.
She started talking to us, and said that she was doing a school project where she needed to observe some kind of wild life for about an hour and take notes, and photos.
We talked to her for a few minutes; my wife asked her a few questions about the trail, we said goodbye to the young lady, and continue our walk.
As I walked in this nice neighborhood, and admired the beautiful homes, the nice cars, the peacefulness of it all, I got to thinking about a San Francisco Chronicle article I read during breakfast: "More in Oakland relying on private security."
I found the first two paragraphs kind of grating, and a little creepy, to tell you the truth:
The black squad car sits silent, its mere presence intended to be enough to scare off anyone mulling a run up Sequoyah Road to loot a house or bust a car window.
Although it looks the part, the Ford Crown Victoria isn't actually a police car, and the man behind the wheel is no cop. He's one of dozens of private security officers hired by residents across Oakland to supplement - if not replace - a depleted, overwhelmed police force.
The emphasis is mine
The irony didn't escape me... Here I was in this very nice, kind of affluent neighborhood, a place that's miles and miles away from my own, driving a car that although well-kept, clean, and in a good condition, is quite different than most of the cars in that neighborhood... I see a lot of Audis, Mercedes-Benzs, Porsches, BMWs, lots of expensive SUVs.
In the SF Chronicle article there is a photo of the private security officer walking around his "patrol" car, to "talk to a gardener in the Oakland hills."
And as I walked in this pristine neighborhood in Dublin, I though about that image, and I though, "Wow, what if this neighborhood had a bunch of 'private security officers' and as I drove looking for the park/trail, an earnest 'officer' noticed us and decided to stop us to start asking questions?"
How would that go? About if I say, "Who the fuck are you and why are you stopping me?" Now, granted, I'm ain't going to do that, but I've always been of the mind that although recognizing we are fast moving towards a fascistic totalitarian police state, I will insist on exercising every Constitutional right I (supposedly) have to the fullest.
In theory that means that I can walk and drive in whatever public street I want and unless I'm not burning donuts with my car tires in the middle of the street, or being a speed demon, or clearly violating a law or regulation, nobody has the right to stop me and ask me any question about where I'm going, what I'm doing there, etc.
And what happens if we're talking about another fellow; the one that's going to tell the private "security officer" to go fuck himself, especially if the "officer" comes in heavy-handed with an attitude?
If the "officer" is armed, and does't like the guy's attitude, which by the way, even with the "go fuck yourself" hasn't violated any law (to my understanding), would he then try to conduct an arrest?
The security companies are quick to say they aren't replacement cops - they're mostly there to scare thugs out of the neighborhood or to report suspicious activity.
But if pressed, Cook said, his officers - some of whom are armed - wouldn't hesitate to detain someone until police arrived. As private guards, they can't do more than make a citizen's arrest - something Cook said his officers have not yet done.
The emphasis is mine
Are these guys qualified? If they collect evidence, do they have to let the person they are arresting about their Miranda rights? If not, if they find some kind of evidence of a crime, can the regular police then use it against the person being arrested?
So they are there to "scare thugs out of the neighborhood?" They must have some kind of specialized psychic power, or something, to boot. Who is "thug?" What does a "thug" looks like? Does the "thug" has a particular ethnicity? About his skin color? Is he white, brown, black? How does a "thug" dresses like?
How does the private "security officer" ascertain whether somebody is acting suspicious, or may be casing a neighborhood? For example, as I took my lovely walk in this beautiful neighborhood in Dublin, I was taking pictures of the trail, and some of the streets... It's all public space.
What would happen if that neighborhood happen to be patrolled by one of these private "security" companies, and an "officer" decided to follow me around, and God-forbid even stopped me to start asking questions?
What happens if one of these "officers" decides to conduct a "citizen's" arrest of somebody who they think is acting suspicious, and that person resists? For example, I consider the act of somebody putting their hands on another human being in aggression one of the most outrageous rights violations.
As the increased brutality of the system continues to squeeze minority community in urban centers, and as the manufactured/induced conditions spreads desperation and hopelessness, crime itself starts to spread out... And how do our fellow Americans in wealthier neighborhood react? Well, they want to build fences, walls, put surveillance cameras in every corner to keep out the "thugs."
San Francisco Chronicle: "Cameras to guard Piedmont proposed."
Residents and police in Piedmont, troubled by a rash of home-invasion robberies and fed up with what they describe as the runoff from Oakland's high crime rate, want to install video cameras to record the license plate of every vehicle that crosses the city limits.
The emphasis is mine
As I read these articles, and I pay attention to the concerns of the people who live in these affluent neighborhoods, I can't seem to find anybody stating the obvious: we need to revamp our entire brutal, sadistic, and oppressive economic system which has turned into a rapacious predatory machine that's hallowing out the country one inner-city neighborhood at a time.
And as the brutality continues, and the fear spreads, people who should know better start throwing around words like "thugs" and "criminals" like it was nothing:
Police Chief Rikki Goede described the cameras as a tool that could help develop leads for crimes that occurred in Piedmont, but the technology would not be necessary right now if not for the town's location.
"We're going to know when criminals come in and when they leave," Goede told the committee. "There are probably a lot of criminals coming through Piedmont, given we are surrounded by Oakland."
Goede said suspects from Oakland, San Leandro and Hayward often drive through Piedmont to get to Highway 13.
This is the police chief saying that! I though that a "criminal" was someone who had been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt by a jury of his peers.
The Third Way folks, the ones pushing neo-liberal predatory policies that are destroying the fabric of this country better start re-thinking their approach.
As the oppression and brutality pushing down hard on "certain people" in "certain communities," and the desperation spreads and the crimes spreads, it gives an excuse to those worried about "thugs" and "criminals" coming to their neighborhoods, to keep deploying an ever expanding surveillance and police state infrastructure, to protect the "nice folks" from the obvious consequences of these neo-leberal/proto-fascist policies.
If the conditions get bad enough, desperate enough, eventually, there will be no amount of police state suppression capable of keeping the "undesirables' at bay.
People in these affluent neighborhoods should start thinking about these things, and perhaps start ordering their servants in the political class to ease up a bit with the fascistic oppression.
In the meantime, I highly recommend
these really nice day trips for young people in the inner cities... It's nice to change scenery once in a while. Do car-pools, and go visit these extremely rich and affluent neighborhoods; take a walk in their parks and trails.
It will also give you perspective about different cities... You'll see the opulence, the tranquility, everything just neat and perfect, and perhaps it will help you understand where all the wealth of the country is going to, and that in the final analysis, the poverty and despair that may be afflicting your own neighborhood is the result of policies specifically designed to bring about those conditions.
And once you understand this, you may want to become a social justice activist calling attention to these injustices.
Imagine that! You can get your exercise, change scenery a bit and experience the beauty of these places, and it may help you expand your understanding about what's going on... At least it does to me.
I can't wait for my next day-trip!
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