Permanent Goodbye to US (tags)
"Sometimes you get your best light from a burning bridge" - Don Henley, "My Thanksgiving" CARACAS - It was about a week before I left the United States forever that I watched Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tell Charlie Rose something all of us already know in our hearts. "Today," he said, "the United States is hated around the world far worse than it was at the height of the Vietnam War." I remember the Vietnam War. I will never forget it.
Watts: How the so-called war-on-gangs is stripping the rights of a whole community (tags)
Robocops patrol deserted, quiet streets. Young people walking to school are tense--they never know if they might be arrested for whistling, shouting, or talking to each other. Houses and apartments may be raided at any time, and unauthorized people arrested for being there. No one is hanging out. This is not U.S.-occupied Iraq. This is LAPD-occupied Watts. This is the reality Chief Bratton, Mayor Hahn, and the city authorities are bringing down on Nickerson Gardens.