Bharat Rakshak

Whites often don’t realize that slavery didn’t truly end until long after the Civil War. Douglas Blackmon won a Pulitzer Prize for his devastating history, “Slavery by Another Name,” that recounted how U.S. Steel and other American corporations used black slave labor well into the 20th century, through “convict leasing.” Blacks would be arrested for made-up offenses such as “vagrancy” and then would be leased to companies as slave laborers.

What the British historian Eric Hobsbawm called “the long 19th century” ended 100 years ago, in 1914, in Sarajevo, with the two pistol shots that sparked World War I. Another historian, Fritz Stern, described that war as “the first calamity of the 20th century … the calamity from which all other calamities sprang.” These disasters included the Great War itself, which claimed some 20 million lives, including victims of the new century’s first genocide, in Turkey; the October Revolution in St. Petersburg, which gave birth to an ideological empire that would kill tens of millions of people and imprison hundreds of millions more; the rise of Nazism out of Germany’s defeat; World War II, with another 60 million deaths, including genocide on an unprecedented scale; the upheavals and wars beyond the borders of Europe that followed the end of colonialism; and the division of the postwar world into two nuclear-armed camps, which fought each other through proxies in post-colonial lands.
It’s hard to say when the 20th century ended. The years that followed were characterized by rapid globalization in communications, technology, capital, and human migration. The world’s markets, institutions, and wars were presided over by the one superpower, the United States. This was the period of the new world order. In some ways, it was a continuation of the post-World War II decades, in which American power was preeminent if not undisputed. But it was also a transitional phase—and from the vantage point of the present, it’s pretty clear that the transition is over.
When did the 21st century begin? We’ve seen sectarian slaughter, Russian revanchism, and the ravages of a deadly epidemic before. What’s more, there has been no Sarajevo in 2014, no triggering event of transformation, no thunderbolt out of a blue sky.Nonetheless, it has been a year of shocks. They originated in unhappy places well outside the charmed circle of safety, comfort, and freedom, but their impact was deeply felt in the West, where the structures of power and principle that used to contain such disruptions no longer seem to exist. For Westerners, that collapse is the greatest shock of all.Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and subversion of Ukraine shocked Europe—above all the Germans, who believed that they were living on a continent that had learned well the lessons their country once inflicted on it, a continent of peace, unity, and inviolable borders. Putin is an autocrat of an old, familiar type: a strutting nationalist surrounded by rich cronies and ideological adventurers, snowing his people with ethnic-based propaganda and inflaming their sense of historical victimhood, while daring the world to stand up to him. (No wonder they love him in Belgrade.) To see such a figure stoking wars as the head of a resurgent power, in 2014, suddenly cast a strange light upon the map of Europe.
The Islamic State was a second shock—a very ugly one—with its takeover of at least one third of Iraq, its consolidation of land and resources in Syria, its obliteration of borders drawn by European imperialists during and after World War I, and its drive to exterminate or expel ancient minority populations from territory under its control. Much about the Islamic State isn’t new, beginning with its barbarism. Videotaped beheadings of civilians by jihadists date back to the murder of Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan in 2002, and Nick Berg, in Iraq in 2004. Yet it somehow took the Islamic State’s series of foretold and dramatized ritual decapitations (which seem doomed to continue) on a bleak stretch of desert to bring home to Westerners the reality of the violence that Syrians and Iraqis had already experienced firsthand. The group’s ideology, slogans, and ambitions are also familiar from its former sponsor, al Qaeda (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s “caliph,” was once a lieutenant of the original leader of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). What’s new and terrifying about the Islamic State is its success in imposing a semipermanent reality on the ground: the astonishingly rapid appearance of a self-anointed caliphate occupying a land mass more than twice the size of Jordan with millions of people, as well as oil fields, dams, and a large, well-equipped army, under its control.The Islamic State is the malignant spawn of two major events in the Middle East, one from the outside, one from the inside: the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the popular rebellions of the Arab Spring in 2011. Both of these events began with a promise of replacing dictatorship with democracy, but both have produced chaos and tragedy on a terrible scale. Much of the responsibility falls on the United States, which has meddled in the region for decades, supporting corrupt oil regimes, arming tyrants, and then launching an ill-advised war and botching the consequences beyond repair. But it’s a mistake to allow American solipsism—the notion that the United States is the source of all the world’s troubles, or the solution to them—to reinforce Middle Eastern victimism. Shiite-Sunni conflict is an indigenous phenomenon; so are jihadi terrorism and the dream of a restored caliphate; so is a social system that marginalizes women, stigmatizes minorities, and binds religion to force in everyday life. To think otherwise is to deny people in the region their own agency. “It’s the Iraqis who destroyed their country,” a man from Baghdad once told me, “with the help of the Americans, under the American eye.”
The United Nations, with its vanishing secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, is barely an afterthought. The Security Council is as blocked and broken as the U.S. Congress, with Russia and China playing the spoiler role of the Republican caucus. NATO seems increasingly like a relic of Harry Truman’s era, without the vision or will to play a role in keeping order along its own edges. The Baltic states, full-fledged members of the alliance, unlike Ukraine, seem less than fully convinced that their European allies will come to their defense under Article 5 in case Russian subversion spreads to Estonia—and there are early warning signs that this might occur. It’s possible to imagine Putin testing the integrity of NATO, hoping to find that it exists on paper only.
The collapse of global structures has opened the way for bad behavior on the part of elected and unelected regimes around the world. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has moved Turkey into the ranks of regional powers that are rising with the eclipse of Western influence. His rule is increasingly authoritarian, illiberal, and paranoid, using anti-American rhetoric to silence domestic critics and distract from allegations of corruption, while justifying support for some of Syria’s most brutal rebel groups. When the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, on the Syria-Turkey border, seemed poised to fall to the Islamic State and the specter of massacres loomed large, the U.N.’s special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, appealed to the world for help, and especially to Turkey, which had sealed its border against resupply of the besieged Kurds. “You remember Srebrenica?” de Mistura asked at a news conference, referencing the genocide of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia in 1995. “We never forgot, and probably we never forgave ourselves for that.”But Turkey didn’t want to remember Srebrenica. Even as it pursued a bid for a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council, Turkey ignored the U.N. envoy’s plea—it preferred to see the Islamic State crush a Syrian Kurdish group, the People’s Protection Units, that it considers an ally of its own separatist Kurdish party. Turkey’s actions have made this NATO member a de facto supporter of the Islamic State, which has declared its murderous intent toward citizens of every other member of the NATO alliance. Erdogan is following Putin’s lead—what Putin is to Greater Russia, Erdogan hopes to be to the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s a strange, and likely self-destructive, turn for a non-Arab, historically secular country that was created after World War I out of the ruins of the caliphate that the Islamic State claims to be restoring. But for now, the initiative is with Turkey, as it is with Russia and China.
The European Union is another debilitated institution—a collection of mostly stagnant economies joined together by an ailing currency and political dysfunction. Elections in May to the European Parliament in Brussels favored parties on the left and right that want to see the European Union weakened to the point of irrelevance.Above all, the year’s disruptions have revealed the waning of America’s ability to control events—not just its willingness and ability to project force, but the attractive power of liberal democracy as a counterweight to authoritarianism and extremism. President Barack Obama, along with the heads of most governments in Europe, is mired in domestic unpopularity and international confusion, while Putin, Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, and other anti-Western nationalists have an increasingly free hand.
Obama’s foreign policy in his second term has been hesitant, self-contradictory, at times even feckless—and American hawks blame the year’s violence squarely on him for tempting the world’s Putins and Baghdadis with displays of weakness. ” . the postwar international order was underpinned by American democracy in a period of functioning institutions, shared prosperity, and public optimism. The global disorder of this new century is both accompanied and enabled by a sharp deterioration within the United States itself. The U.S. economy, in recession or recovery, is more and more built on a profoundly unfair distribution of rewards; the political system, strangled by organized money and partisan extremism, has no answers to the country’s deepest problems; large numbers of Americans have lost faith in their children’s future. The United States is no longer in a condition to impose its will by asserting or demonstrating its values. Those days, always problematic, are now gone. But the liberal ideas that brought freedom, security, and hope to millions of people around the world in the last century remain essential in this one. America can promote them best if it restores its own democracy to health.

MLK wrote:"It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard."

ramana wrote:What about due process for the 'criminal'? Was he not entitled to court of law? And emptying 12 bullets into the 'criminal' is it not excessive force?

Brown's friend Dorian Johnson, who was with him when the shooting occurred, gave this account to MSNBC: Johnson said that he and Brown had been walking in the middle of the street when a police officer approached and told them to use the sidewalk. They complied, and the officer began to drive away, but then threw his car into reverse and came back alongside the teens, nearly hitting them. Johnson heard Wilson say something like "What'd you say?", before trying to open his car door, slamming it into Brown. Then the officer reached out and grabbed Brown by the neck with his left hand. The two men struggled briefly, and then Wilson, still in his car, shot Brown once.

Johnson said that he and Brown both attempted to flee, but Brown was shot a second time. After the second shot, Brown turned around and surrendered, putting his hands in the air and saying, "I don't have a gun. Stop shooting!" Johnson said that Wilson then approached Brown and fired several more shots, killing him.

Shalav wrote:A fleeing suspect once he has assaulted anyone is shot in the US - it happens to every race.

The store owner, speaking through their attorney, even dispute the claim that they or an employee called 911. They explain that a customer inside the store made the call, and that is how police even got word of a crime, or a perpetrator who “fit the description” of Brown. The fact of the matter is that if there were an actual “robbery,” we can be certain that the store owner would have called the police.

In addition to clarifying that the store owners never said they believed, nor identified the suspect as being Michael Brown, they further claimed that the St. Louis County issued the warrants to confiscate the hard drive of surveillance video Friday. The warrants were issued based on the police claim that Brown “fit the description” of the person in the video. Remember, this was the person who the owners and employees of the store did not even see fit to call the police on due to the pettiness of the crime. The owner clarifies that neither the management of the shop, nor any employee has ever identified Mike Brown as the suspect recorded in the surveillance video.

The claim that the video recorded Brown “robbing” the convenience store is an assertion made by the police alone. The real question is why the mainstream, corporate media has been uncritically taking the word of the police on this matter, even over the eye witness testimonies of the store employees and owners?

LokeshC wrote:

Shalav wrote:A fleeing suspect once he has assaulted anyone is shot in the US - it happens to every race.

That is rather harsh. I would want the suspect to be brought to justice, not killed. Even if I was the victim of that assault.

Shalav wrote: We know he was not on the ground when the kill shot was made. That kill shot angle is possible when someone is rushing the opponent with his head down. We know this was a kill shot because all witnesses stated he fell to the ground AFTER being shot through the head.

shiv wrote:I saw that autopsy report and for me it is perfectly possible to say that the injuries are consistent with a man who has his right arm up and head down trying to protect his head from being hit by something. All shots, if they were fired in quick succession, the bloke may not have had time to fall or even be "dead" in terms of heart not beating any more.

Did not read the report in detail but it is possible that one or two of the arm/hand shots could have entered his head after passing through the hand/forearm.

LokeshC wrote:LOL!
Right! Showing anger and frustration while getting arrested is == instant death and completely justified.

I just hope that none of our kids turn out to be hot headed, coz you know Angry Young Men end up getting shot by cops.

And ofcourse the Jury is final, justice has been served. Case is closed. Another day in paradise.

shiv wrote:

Shalav wrote: We know he was not on the ground when the kill shot was made. That kill shot angle is possible when someone is rushing the opponent with his head down. We know this was a kill shot because all witnesses stated he fell to the ground AFTER being shot through the head.

I saw that autopsy report and for me it is perfectly possible to say that the injuries are consistent with a man who has his right arm up and head down trying to protect his head from being hit by something. All shots, if they were fired in quick succession, the bloke may not have had time to fall or even be "dead" in terms of heart not beating any more.

Did not read the report in detail but it is possible that one or two of the arm/hand shots could have entered his head after passing through the hand/forearm.

Shalav wrote: So would I - however in this case I feel its a waste to spend my sympathy and outrage on an alleged thief and bully who made stupid moves in front of an armed policeman.

Shalav wrote:Shreeman

Me - I don't have a dog in this fight, just this feeling that MB is not the innocent victim as some want to make him out to be. He made stupid moves after allegedly committing a robbery, he died for it.

I probably be leaving soon too. Other things to do, but I did want to point out that our sympathy and outrage should be spent on someone more deserving.

This unusually strong outrage over MB is like hearing people being outraged by PB as a victim of racial discrimination. Its like hearing outraged members say - so what if PB was unfair to Devyani, he did not get nominated for the AG so the American system is biased!