The city (and the nation) rises up upon news of a murdered police officer in Port Richmond.

The city (and the nation) its head after watching video of three men brutalized by Philadelphia Police.

The city (and the nation) conducts business as usual the other countless times a Philadelphian is murdered.

The city (and the nation) is happy to look the other way for the countless violent encounters provoked by Philadelphia or Camden Police, when not documented by a video camera.

The picture is grim. Our collective emotion– well managed most of the time–soars upon news of a murdered police. There is a nationwide manhunt. A 24-7 vigil takes place at the scene as local media cover the story indefinitely. This is the apropriate response to a murder. Any murder.

In a week, many of this will settle down and we’ll go back to 1-inch write ups for the other 400 residents murdered while living in this city. It’s not even hot out yet and we’re already trying to remember if there were 7 or 9 murders last weekend. It feels like blowback. A blow from the continuous cycle of state-sponsored violence that pervades our world. I think about how the Greeks thought a natural disaster was the wrath of the Gods. Events in the world show legitimate reason to believe a greater force is at work.

It is a struggle to face the truth: the value of a person’s life is regulated by the media. If they don’t report it, we don’t care. If we don’t care, they won’t report it. Mainstream journalism is now based on what’s cool, what’s emotional — and not necessarily the stories that are the most shameful. You will never see an in-depth report on what is at the root of our citywide murders, broken school system, and our bloating prison system, while considering the war in Iraq costs ### (thank you Iraq War Cost) and oil companies are making 12-figure profits annually (apparently Exxon Mobil’s recent profit of $10.9 billion this quarter alone was disappointing).

Our cities will die if we don’t use our collective resources to create jobs, working educational systems and affordable housing. We are cows heading to slaughter, placated by $600 checks and gas tax holidays. We are not in control of our country. How will we rise up to dramatically change directions?

Clearly our non-profit sector is keeping the machine humming, not overhauling it. I ponder NGO’s involvement in the overall plan to keep the rich richer and the poor poorer. If we managed to properly treat and rebuild away from our current system of poverty, what would happen to the job sector providing 25% of jobs in Philadelphia? The career-based approach to movement building is not a sustainable one.

I hope to explore this topic further in future posts throughout the summer.

Cost of 5 pot plants: Jobs, not house - Philadelphia Inquirer

What got him interested in indoor growing, he said, “was an interest in gardening, not an interest in drugs. … The true irony of this whole situation is that I really hadn’t been a regular user for about 15 years.”

On Feb. 29, Haver, now 47, pleaded guilty “to put an end to this thing,” he said yesterday. The same day, his wife, 38, began a 30-day probationary period in a program under which charges have already been dismissed.

The consequences, however, haven’t ended.

“I anticipate losing my employment, losing my health insurance, losing my educational benefits, nine credits away from getting an MBA,” Steve Haver said.

What an awful headline, and how great an example of mass media just touching the surface of an issue and walk away. It also shows the the implicit classism of such cases. What makes this case any much touching than a grower or distributor in Strawberry Mansion receiving the same consequences? The same criminalization and control of drugs ripping apart our inner cities is doing the same to our suburbs, everyone should be concerned.

It’s worth understanding where our law enforcement and especially our incarceration priorities are at, and how poorly they are treating the real terror of drug addiction and poverty in our country. In Philadelphia, there is extreme concern for gun violence, but abatement programs are centered around heavy police work, which generally means more incarceration into already overcrowded prisons. Advocacy work for the poor in Philadelphia is a good start, but it’s like bailing water with holes in the sides of your buckets. The type of systemic change needed to correct the momentum of this system is daunting, decriminalization is not a popular rally call for many activists, let alone NGO’s or the general public. The 3rd season of The Wire does a remarkable job of demonstrating what controlled decriminalization could do in a city like Baltimore. What was particularly interesting was how non-profit organizations were elated to have a concentrated population of drug users to offer services to. Would probably make for a beautiful end-of-the-year report with great “numbers-served” for their next run of grant applications.

Some statistics to ponder:

Priorities?

Impassioned momentum.

Unbelievable!

If you live in the North East, you should be awfully concerned.

Source:

Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice