Of all that has been said and written about Ferguson, I found this to be the most profound.

[dixiegrrrrl]

Am I the only one who is struck so deeply by this?

In Ferguson, Missouri, a festering truth about the entire United States has come to light.

What Ferguson has made clear, specifically, is that the social contract has been broken.
......we are seeing nothing less than the state proving itself illegitimate.

When the decisions of a justice system are so repugnant to a significant mass of people that the state apparatus expects and must contend with popular unrest, then this political system has lost the grounds on which political legitimacy is based.
When, on Monday, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency in Ferguson ahead of the grand jury decision,
I like to think the ghost of Jean Jacques Rousseau looked on and whispered through the icy Missouri air, "Rise up."

The social contract is broken, Rousseau stated, when a government does not represent the general will of the sovereign — the sovereign being the people, united — and when justice is not the expression of the general will of the people. And so, in Ferguson, where the National Guard must be called for fear that people will be moved to violence because of the decisions of our justice system, the social contract, it seems, is broken.

This, for Rousseau, would be grounds enough for revolution.

https://news.vice.com/article/fergusons-state-of-emergency-proves-americas-social-contract-has-been-broken

[TxVietVet]

1. The way Missouri pulled this off, it's like a set up.

They made the Jury's findings LATE in the day. I guess they want the cops to get some overtime. They deployed too few NG troops to cover the protests. I'm willing to be someone paid some conservanazi agitators to go to Ferguson to start a riot to make the PEOPLE look bad. Destroy the town. Trying to make Obama look bad.

[cantbeserious]

2. All Too Probable - Conservatives Angling To Start A Civil War

eom

[Bay Boy]

8. Not sure what the point

would be this late in the game.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

26. I think you're confusing the inning with the game.

[cpamomfromtexas]

12. You are correct sir.

[bemildred]

22. Incompetence is certainly possible too.

I mean the prosecutor did not exactly inspire confidence.

[notadmblnd]

3. There are no words that can be said that will effect the authorities of Ferguson Mo's conscience

for it appears they have none.

[byronius]

13. +100000.

[Scuba]

4. K&R Yes, it's broken.

[PDJane]

5. The floundering of white privilege......

[Mira]

6. In our lives we used to have the sad truths staring at us in private

that black people's lives aren't valued equally just about everywhere we went in the US of A.
And then, with Trayvon and Michael getting murdered in such public ways we all had to lift up our heads and shout.
Justice is a snail most of the time. I still believe that in general we are on a slow forward trajectory when it comes to improving race relations.
But honestly,
right now it is hard to hang on to this belief.
Very unfortunately many governmental actions, staunch and credible and supportive, are hindered by a lack of solid courage by our leaders and their representatives, or conversely a solid lack of intelligence and insight, and by the broken system of our government in general.
It is just miserable.
It also seems to me that the timing of the release of the information, and the lack of involvement by police to stem or put out the fires were all designed to bring about renewed civil unrest. Nobody is served, and all are diminished.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Most eloquently stated.

Again, from the article:
" To prepare for injustice is proof enough that it is already the status quo."

[truedelphi]

9. Mira I really really wish that I could say we are seeing a snail's movement on a road to Justice -

But every week, there are new insults. As for myself, I only see us going backwards.

A man who worked at one of the hotels some miles short of Ferguson uploaded photos of the Homeland Security Vehicles parked there, over the weekend.

Since then, he has been arrested for uploading these photos and there are claims he will be charged for breaching state secrets and for being a terrorist.

Youngsters who are in first and scond grade are not sent to the principal's office, but instead swaddled in toe to head gear, that confines them in isolation mode, with only the nostrils open for airways. No eye holes, mouth holes -- nothing. For disrupting class or stealing the equivalent of what used to be a dime's worth of candy.

A man was shot in a shady suburb outside of LA last year, for the crime of holding a garden hose. The police claim that in the dim and twilighty world of dusk, they thought that he was holding a gun. He died from SIX shotgun blasts to his body!

This all started with Nine Eleven and the PNAC crowd getting the Congress to vote in the Patriot Act. Our police and educators are now being taught by Homeland Security people as to who is and who is not a good citizen. And you' re never too young to be jailed. Or too disabled or hard of hearing (or too diabetic) to be shot.
####
Source of tale about man who uploaded photos regrding Homeland Security vehicles:
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2014/11/24/man-who-leaked-dhs-pictures-branded-a-terrorist-you-will-be-incarcerated/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pakalert+%28Pak+Alert+Press%29

[Mira]

11. Reading this could shred my clinging to hope.

I can't allow it though, or I would have to leave the county. I can only attempt to help bring change it in my microcosmic environment - when it is needed everywhere.
What you are saying about the school children is news to me and beyond horrific on many levels. Jumped to writing this before reading your link. Will do it now.
Thank you, but I am way more demoralized now!

[JimDandy]

16. He was not arrested per your link.

It was only the hotel's security that suggested to him that he could be arrested for taking the photos. Has he actually been arrested for doing so?

[truedelphi]

18. Good point.

I don't know if he has been arrested.

I suppose it depends on who at Homeland Security is in charge of such arrests.

In my horror at the developments regarding McCullough saying there wouldn't be an indictment of Wilson, I got carried away with my story and didn't tell it properly.

[JimDandy]

19. No problem. Wouldn't have known about

what happened to him without your post, so thanks for that.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Kind of late to the game, but she brings up some decent points...

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. She said it well.

Ferguson has been a definite catalyst, in many places across the country which are in their 2nd night of protests.

[libodem]

14. That is profoundly wise

Thank you for sharing it. Bookmarked.

[truth2power]

17. That is truly profound. I'm going to pass it along to some people..

who keep hollering about how blacks need to stop acting like hoodlums.

[world wide wally]

20. You're out!

Strike 1: A cop shoots an unarmed black youth for jaywalking (although he claims it was for the greater crime of swiping some cigarillos or whatever.
Strike 2: a grand jury determines that no trial is is needed because the "peace officer" is far too agelic and the victim appeared to be like a "demon" to him. This at the urging of a supposed "prosecutor" whose entire family happens to work for the police force in a case described as "unusual" to most legal experts.
Strike 3: the media focuses on the frustration of the people who have become used to seeing their children executed for the color of their skin in "the land of the free and home of the brave".

Do they really think nobody can see through this?... Or is this what they wanted?
All for a cop who killed a minor?

Can we call it "the Darren Wilson War"?

[bemildred]

21. Yes, I've been saying that since Selection 2000.

But some think the problem goes back to JFKs assassination, or earlier.

When your President (Eisenhower) leaves office with a whine about the "military industrial complex", instead of canning some people, you already are in trouble.

[bemildred]

23. NYT:

In this context, the police are justifiably seen as an alien, occupying force that is synonymous with state-sponsored abuse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/opinion/the-meaning-of-the-ferguson-riots.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=3

[KingCharlemagne]

24. Thank you for posting. Serious food for thought and shared with my

social network and Socialist and Communist comrades.

Quoting from the 1776 Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html (Emphasis added)

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. If this is not the time to remember the Declaration, I do not know when would be.

People are getting fed up, it is clear.

[Lodestar]

29. We need government. We just don't need the corruption and those behind it trying to BE government.

The powers that be would like nothing more than to drown our government. And while I' certainly think change is needed
at just about every level of our society I don't see any "founding fathers" who can be entrusted with making the changes.
How are we going to get money out of the equation in our government so that we get true representation back?

Corporations were behind the cry for greater "efficiency" in government and calls to run government more like a business.
Really? Is that what we need? Me thinks they have lost sight as to the true purpose of government. It is not a 'for profit' enterprise or an oligarchy.

[KingCharlemagne]

30. So you don't think the government in Ferguson and St. Louis County (and, arguably, the

state of Missouri) has yet become destructive of the ends of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' do you?

[bvar22]

27. DURec.

Much too angry for coherent text.

[Judi Lynn]

28. Rec. Thank you. n/t