And now, my first really cheerful post for the year: (addition)

But Chicago isn’t under martial law or military occupation, is it? Nor is it an apartheid state, with apartheid enforced by domestic martial law and military force, is it? To a normal civilian-oriented mind, one would think it is not under military occupation or martial law.

Yet, under Mayor Emanuel, a former civilian volunteer on an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) base, and Garry McCarthy, the now former Chicago Police Superintendent (Emanuel fired him Dec. 1), it seems that parts of Chicago were treated as if they were occupied territory under police or paramilitary rule.
...
This collaboration between Israel and U.S. police agencies, including Chicago, emerged after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. Since then, by one count, at least 300 high-ranking sheriffs and police from cities both large and small have received counter-terrorism training in Israel. For instance, in January 2003, 33 senior U.S. law enforcement officials from Chicago and other major American cities flew to Israel for sessions on “Law Enforcement in the Era of Global Terror.”
...
Why this matters is that Israel doesn’t have a domestic civilian policing model but instead applies a counter-insurgency policing model intended for a population under military occupation, or otherwise considered as hostile under martial law.
Lots more at the link, and it does seem to explain some things.

Including(worse in some places) cops treating the average citizen as 'the enemy'.  Not just because "I work a beat in a bloody awful neighborhood" but because they may have been trained to do that.  And the long-term consequences of that...

The only solution I can see is nasty.  You've got a couple- in some places more- generations that've been trained in "The Man owes us": welfare, food stamps, unemployment.  You've got a couple or more generations that've been passed through school not because they could pass the tests to move up a grade, but because "It would be harmful to their self-esteem to be held back, and that's more troublesome than graduating kids who can't read or write or know history(REAL history, not the PC bullshit that passes for such in too many places).  And the only way to fix it, barring Jeannie popping up and doing the nod, is to stop it.  "From now on, no child is passed to the next grade until they actually meet the qualifications.  No exceptions.  And we will be using the same qualifications used in the 1950's."  That would also mean firing teachers who don't teach and don't want to, and telling parents "From now on, if your kid disturbs the class, they go to the office.  They do it too much, they'll be expelled.  No exceptions." 

Can you imagine the screaming?  The RWPPs would be out in force calling this racist, the Democrats(mostly) would be screaming "The (whoever is doing it, no matter what party they do or do not belong to, would be lumped in 'Republican' for ease of demonization) hate the poor!  They hate your children!"  Because getting people to vote for them is far more important than actually trying to fix the problems.

So we've got lots of people who think they shouldn't have to work, who think they're owed, who think the response to any demand that they act like civilized beings is to scream "RACIST!!"; a lot of them HAVE little or no job skills, and unless they decide they want them, it would be a waste to put resources in on them.  Only fix I can see that might actually work would be "Ok, here's the deal: your kids will be held to standards that your great-grandparents would approve of.  They go to school, they meet standards, when they graduate they'll actually be able to go out and do something.

You, for the rest of your life, can get your welfare payments and such.  IF you behave.  Start rioting and burning, they'll be cut off.  Period.  And we don't care if you starve."

It'd be painful as hell.  Standards in most schools have slipped horribly, which is why so many colleges- in fields that actually demand you have the basic skills, at least- have to send new students to classes to get them up to speed on things they should've been ready for before they left high school. 

And yeah, the worst effect in all this would be on blacks in inner-city areas.  They've been the ones most shit-on by the 'Self-esteem above all else' crap and- the worst- the "Because of slavery/Jim Crow/all kinds of crap that doesn't exist anymore, your children can't be expected to meet the same standards as white and (now)Asian kids, so we need to make it easier for them" garbage.  I swear, the people who actually believe in and push this have done more damage to blacks than the KKK could ever have dreamed of.  Add in the destruction of the family, and they're screwed.  The soft bigotry of low expectations.

I have to wonder how the teachers and principals and parents of black kids in the 50's would react to that?  Being told their kids weren't able to make it without things being made easier, "YOUR kids should have lower standards because (fill it in)."  I think most of them would've gone off like a BLEVY in a propane storage yard.  Dealing with real legal racism, segregation, Jim Crow laws and all, an average black kid who got through high school then got a better education than a lot(maybe most, the way things are) of kids in general get now.  But you tell people "Your kids should have special considerations, your kids shouldn't be held to the same standards because they can't cut it" long enough, enough people will start to believe it.  I swear, I think some of these "We want to help you" morons really did think blacks inferior and wanted to prove it by making them fail.

Also part of the solution: start holding cops and prosecutors accountable.  Take away that qualified immunity, so one who deliberately does something illegal and/or unethical no longer gets away with it.  Prosecutors proven to have withheld exculpatory evidence?  Who knowingly prosecuted someone innocent of the crime?  Who lied under oath?  Disbarred and prosecuted.
Cops who lie on the stand?  Who fake or destroy or plant evidence?  Prosecuted.  You're caught on camera acting illegally, even killing people?  Arrested and prosecuted by someone who isn't their good friend who wants them to get off.
You use the SWAT team when you shouldn't have?  You don't make damn sure you have the right place/right person?  You shoot the family dog right next to a kid because Procedure?  NO immunity.  You get sued, you lose, the damages come out of YOUR pocket.  And you get, depending on circumstances, either demoted or fired.  Screw the union.
Because if you don't give people reason to trust the cops, that part of this is going completely to hell everywhere.

Added: The idea behind qualified immunity is good.  The problem is it too often is treated as if it were something in the Constitution that cannot be changed.  It's not.  Yet even when faced with prosecutors and cops who commit flatly illegal and unethical actions, the judges won't yank it.  That's bullshit.  Which adds into the category of "People things need to be done about" judges who misuse/abuse their powers and the law.

So now we've got cops in a lot of cities treating- trained to- large parts of the population(and if you think it doesn't bleed over to everyone else, dream on) as the enemy in a low-level war zone, and RWPPs who I think actually like that, because it makes it easier to keep people stirred up.  Throw in the Only Black Lives Matter insurgents.  Add a dollop of Calypso Louie and his "We need a few thousand black men to go out and start killing whites."  Season with far too many police departments who protect and defend officers who should be fired or in prison for what they do.  Layer that on an underclass that's been trained to consider dependency their right.

You have an easier solution?  If you do, I'd really like to hear it.


More here.