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EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY POLITICAL PODCAST

Fund the Peacemakers

6/26/2020

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For all its shortcomings as a long-term slogan, ‘Defund the Police’ has shattered the perception that police are indispensable. Americans have been forced to imagine a world without police, and regardless of where public opinion falls on the idea, the shift is astounding.

Still, the phrase does need a more positive counterpart – a flip side of the coin.

If we are to replace police with institutions better equipped to handle situations that don’t require an armed response, a slogan should reflect the need to build those institutions, not focus further attention on the police. They have their slogan (Defund) and don’t need a second one. Those who would replace them very much do.

Fund the Peacemakers.

Peace isn’t something that can be kept without first being made, and as we’re seeing clearly now, keeping marginalized people in line isn’t peace…it’s just keeping a lid on a powder keg. Rather than peacekeepers, we need peacemakers building conditions within communities for genuine peace.

Imagine a system where people who do stupid, harmful things are forced to make amends to their community, rather than serve a prison term that repairs nothing, heals nothing and makes redemption & rehabilitation more difficult than necessary. The first step?

Fund the Peacemakers.
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Photo by Steve Carrera on Unsplash
​Alternatives to the police are so poorly funded, a lot of people have trouble seeing them as a viable option. Nobody wants to replace police with social workers as currently constituted. However, imagine social workers with the resources they need to do their jobs properly, rather than being understaffed and over-worked in a hostile environment. Police could still provide support in dangerous situations, but under much stricter rules and protocols, thus creating a safer environment for everyone involved.

Police have a place in the system. There are absolutely situations which require an armed response from a well-trained police force. However, much of what police currently do has little to do with that mission. What would be the harm in cobbling together the best ideas on alternatives to traditional policing, creating and funding a pilot project in several cities across America, and seeing what happens?

Fund the Peacemakers.

Imagine community groups with the resources to actually improve the neighborhoods they live in, rather than attempting to do so on shoestring budgets. How much policing would really be needed? Police rarely stop crime anyway, so why not lay the groundwork for neighborhoods with less crime to begin with?

Everyone knows low-level property crime is rarely even investigated, much less solved. Police typically seize more property than they recover.

Why not give resources to groups willing to do the difficult legwork associated with helping people recover their stolen property and actually track down those responsible? Could it really be any worse than it is now?

Fund the Peacemakers.

At the end of the day, all ‘Reforming/Remaking/Rethinking/Reimagining/Reinventing the Police’ does is reinforce the idea that police are indispensable by continuing to put them at the heart of the solution. This would be an enormous mistake after the protests have done such a marvelous job of puncturing a hole in that idea.

A new slogan shouldn’t focus on the police…it should focus on getting money and resources to their replacements.
​
Fund the Peacemakers!
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Equality of Opportunity IS the American Dream

6/15/2020

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The American Dream - these words get said a lot, but what do they actually mean?

Is it every man for themselves…as some might have you believe?
No, but neither is it that anybody should get something for nothing.

In America, we take care of those who pay their dues and put in the work, and we don’t like freeloaders. This is true regardless of individual political party or beliefs.

What most Americans do like, what most of us do believe in, is that anyone should have the opportunity to achieve success no matter their station at birth. We believe people should succeed by virtue of their intelligence, their ingenuity and the sweat of their brow…not their family name or inherited wealth.

That is Equality of Opportunity.
​
And it is the American Dream.
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​Every day in America, across our airwaves and in print, a lot of powerful voices work tirelessly to convince people that Equality of Opportunity is alive and well, deriding any attempts to equalize opportunity as ‘picking winners and losers’.

What these people don’t tell their audience is that government already picks winners and losers…it’s just mostly based on campaign contributions and lobbying. Anyone who might actually need or deserve help always take a back seat to the political donor class.

This system is in no way based on America’s long-term interests or maximizing our potential, either individually or collectively, and our prospects have suffered as a result.

Americans are no longer guaranteed the unlimited opportunity that the American Dream once promised. For every anecdotal success story of a person rising up from humble beginnings, there are countless others unable to overcome the challenges of their circumstances and fall through the cracks, their potential wasted.

For most, chasing success these days feels like being a hamster on a wheel, watching as the rats hoard all the cheese.

People are desperate for a new paradigm; one which offers a way for shared prosperity without the unfair costs of the current system or which simply takes resources from one group just to give them to another.

The first step must be to challenge the notion that no better system than our current predatory one is even possible.

In cities and towns across the country, opportunity-enhancing programs to serve and benefit those communities are already being successfully implemented. Unfortunately, we never hear enough about these successes, because the complicit media cannot pull its attention away from the latest spectacle or tragedy long enough to bother.

Perhaps they don’t want to demonstrate there is a new, different way forward because they are too married to the narrow left-right paradigm they have spent so much time & energy cultivating? Regardless…

Innovative local programs & initiatives are the laboratories of American democracy. It is high time we started paying attention to them.

Every success story offers a template for other communities to use. Failures, while unfortunate, are still instructive. Getting democracy right is always a moving target, and our federal government is too calcified and entrenched in failed systems to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

That certainly needs to be addressed, but we must first lay the foundation before attempting to install the roof.
​
The first step to remaking our federal government is to empower local communities to do the dirty work of figuring out what works and what doesn’t. What we discover could provide a strong foundation for a new system prioritizing the collective good over the good of a privileged few.
In other words…
Actual Equality of Opportunity
Presidential elections are important, but if people devoted even a quarter of the energy they expend on national politics to local issues, we would have a lot of strong, functional cities and towns. These successes could then be replicated in other localities and across all levels of government.

Doing that would make America great for all, rather than just a select few.
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Defund the Police is a Horrible Slogan…Except It’s Not Actually a Slogan

6/10/2020

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​#BlackLivesMatter is a fantastic moniker because it is so easily understood. Any confusion usually indicates an issue with the person doing the questioning, not with the slogan or idea it represents.
​
Defund the Police is almost the exact opposite – it needs too much explaining and opens the door for the defenders of the status quo to portray protesters as lawless thugs. It is a horrible slogan.
But what it it’s not a slogan at all?
The protests have made clear that we really do have a police issue that many have been (color)blind to up until now. 
​

If things followed the normal script, the next step would be to introduce a slogan/motto that articulates how movement leaders plan to turn the power gained via the protests into political action.
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​(Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)
​Though these protests have felt very different from the beginning, a lot of us still assumed we were following the same rough script, which meant ‘Defund the Police’ had to be a slogan.

Immediately, plenty of people (myself included) began pointing out all its obvious shortcomings, fearful of the damage it might cause. Plenty more defended it, though they too were operating under the faulty assumption that ‘Defund’ is a slogan.
​I am now convinced it is not.
A few years back, I went to see Tech N9ne when he came to town. One of the opening acts that night spent roughly 45 minutes singing/shouting the words, “Fuck the Police” to various beats. It seemed a little excessive at the time, but I get it now.

That band was saying that even though everyone there may have paid the price of admission, if hearing ‘fuck the police’ for that long didn’t fire you up and make you want to rage for the next two hours, you haven’t experienced the injustice most people in that room have had to endure.

They were basically saying people like me haven’t really paid the price of admission
...so get the fuck out.
​
Fair enough. I still haven’t paid that price. Most white people never will.
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(Photo by Stephen Maturen/GettyImages)
​White America witnessed the last couple weeks unfold and thought the point had been made, now it’s time to make some reforms and get on with our lives. That is the normal script.
That script hasn’t worked for black people, so why would they follow it now?
By saying ‘Defund the Police’, protesters are drawing a line and baiting the police to come over it.

It has been two weeks and there are already hundreds of videos of police violence.

There are 21 more weeks until the election.
​

White allies thought the last couple weeks made clear to everyone what black people have been enduring at the hands of the cops – the violence, the lack of accountability – but I think we’re about to discover we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.
Imagine another 21 weeks of black people & their allies standing in front of the police, telling them they aren’t leaving until those cops are put out of business.
               Imagine how pissed off that would likely make those cops, especially the ones who
               actually are racists.
                              Imagine how hard it would be for them to keep their cool.
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​(Photo by Jose Luis Magana via Getty Images)
​‘Defund the Police’ isn’t a slogan, it’s a bet against the police being able to control themselves for months on end in the face of protesters actively trying to take their jobs away.
​

Movement leaders will take political victories, but they aren't the goal. They know any which can be won at this point probably aren’t worth winning anyway.
‘Defund’ isn’t a slogan, it's a promise that protesters will spend the next 5 months finding new & creative ways of saying, ‘Fuck the Police’ right to their faces...​
​Daring them not to show their true colors.
We’re 2 weeks in.
​
Buckle up.
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    Jeremy Peters
      ~ Father, Veteran, Writer, 
         
    Teacher, Concerned Human

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