Reforming Police and Guns

By Dom Nozzi

I fully agree that we need to work toward less police violence. I’ve been writing and lobbying for that and less excessive police funding for a number of decades.

It is not at all clear to me, however, that any meaningful police “reform” will come out of the protesting that erupted throughout the nation in 2021.

Our society is awash in nearly unregulated gun ownership by citizens. How on earth can we train cops to be less aggressive, less militarist, and less hair-trigger given this state of affairs? If I’m a cop (or if any other person who wishes to see less cop violence was a cop), you can be sure I’ll be wanting to use a lot of aggression and be hair-trigger with my gun to keep myself alive.

Who wouldn’t?

It seems to me that gun ownership needs to go WAY down if we expect cop violence to go down. I don’t know how any cop can feel safe if he or she, for example, pulls over a car for a violation and then must interact with the driver about the violation. Seems to me that there will always be a high likelihood that the guy in the car has a gun, is angry about being pulled over, and is at least tempted to use his or her gun — particularly if that driver has a long rap sheet.

Those who want less police brutality should try walking in the shoes of a policeman working in a rough, low-income, drug- and crime-ridden downtown.

On the Toxicity of Hatfield and McCoy Politics

By Dom Nozzi

Much as many of us hate to admit it, the right wing sometimes “gets it” on transportation and land use. The right is often wrong on those topics, but in the rare instances when they are right, progressives must leverage such opportunities to achieve huge advances that have languished for too long.

Or perhaps this is unrealistic? Is bipartisanship dead, in other words? If so, our future is grim.

As Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Muslim turned atheist, and author of Infidel) said in a speech here in Boulder a few weeks ago, one of the most toxic, counterproductive, downwardly-spiraling habits of political factions (something she learned intensely in her native land of Somalia – what she called a “failed” society) is to harbor and celebrate the feeling of bitter resentment.

Resentment due to your belief that another political faction currently in power has long infringed on the rights of your tribe.

Too often, this resentment is carried into a future time in which your tribe is in power, and then uses the still simmering resentment to punish those who had formerly harmed your tribe when they were in power. It is the tragic downward spiral of the feuding Hatfields and McCoys. An eye for an eye. By definition, the “other side” is ALWAYS wrong – irredeemably. Thinking stops. Only mindless, endless violence and punishment must be pursued against those outside your tribe.

Another example is the Soviet regime, where the lower classes had such bitter hatred directed at the more wealthy class that many of the wealthy were treated with extreme, murderous brutality when the lower classes assumed power.

Ali noted that while the US does have a great many flaws, one of the most impressive things the US exhibits is that after only a few centuries of existence, we largely escaped that endless, feuding downward spiral.

But over the past 5-10 years, the US has been backsliding toward what many societies have been mired in for thousands of years. Intense, unthinking, anger-fueled tribalism. Much of this backsliding is being promoted by the so-called “social justice warriors,” who are called politically left-wing, yet have adopted a great many illiberal tactics such as character assassination, censorship of speech, intolerance of minor deviations in dogma (leading to purges), and violence.

It is of the greatest irony, then, that alleged “leftists” are leading the charge to drag the US into bloody, violent, intolerant authoritarianism.

Is It Fair to Refer to Motorists as “Carbarians”?

By Dom Nozzi

April 16, 2018

I recently had a guest opinion published in a local newspaper regarding street design. I was criticized by one reader, who noted that it is tactically unwise to refer to motorists as “carbarians,” as this reduces the persuasiveness of my essay.

On the one hand, I agreed, and regretted using that term. However, it is also true that a great many in my community who consider themselves “enlightened” about transportation are all too happy to defend car travel way more than is desirable.

It is also true that there are a great many reasons why motorists should appropriately be called “carbarians.”

I published a book called The Car is the Enemy of the City. That book describes a large number of reasons why excessive car dependence is barbarically deadly to the health of cities.

Healthy cities need slower speeds, human scale and agglomeration economies. Excessive car dependence powerfully and barbarically undermines each of those things.

Excessive car dependence obligates all levels of government to obligate barbarically high levels (and ever growing levels) of funding to car needs.

Excessive car dependence induces high levels of barbaric rage and fury and extreme entitlement on the part of motorists. The Folsom Street road diet project in Boulder, Colorado in the mid-2010s exemplifies that. Loss of seconds or minutes of time was an outrage, even though that seemed to many to be a trivial trade-off compared to the many serious and deadly crashes that could have been averted.

Excessive car dependence induces judges to rule that a slap on the wrist is adequate punishment for many instances where a motorist has killed a cyclist, pedestrian, or people in other cars.

Excessive car dependence barbarically assaults communities with high levels of air pollution, noise pollution, and water pollution. Costs that most motorists selfishly feel they don’t need to pay for (they feel entitled to be heavily subsidized — studies show that gas tax revenue covers less than 50% of motorist costs).

Excessive car dependence bankrupts households and makes housing much less affordable due to the high costs and extreme land use dispersal they impose.

Many motorists, even when they are otherwise “nice people,” tend to feel like angry bullies when they get behind the wheel of a car. Other motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians are outrageous obstacles in the mind of many motorists. “Road rage” is expressed at an astonishingly high level. Not particularly acceptable given the fact that motorists are operating a very heavy, high speed metal box that regularly ends up being a deadly weapon. Look up the “Goofy Motor Mania” YouTube video by Walt Disney, for example.

Finally, excessive car dependence leads to a very ugly community. Ugly roads, ugly strip commercial, ugly sign/billboard pollution, ugly parking lots, etc. It is barbaric how ugly car dependence has made our cities.

Vietnam Chickenhawks and the Sordid Century Unleashed by the United States

By Dom Nozzi

August 28, 2017

Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick have written an eye-opening, hair-raising book called The Untold History of the United States (2012). The book catalogs the sordid past century of actions by the United States. For those who naively believe that the US has been ethical, kind, generous, supportive of democracy and freedom, peace-loving, exceptional, and indispensable, this book will forever convince you that the opposite is true.

Indeed, a good case is made in the book that the United States has been the most cruel, barbaric, terroristic, militaristic, unethical, immoral, violent, destructive nation on earth over the past century. The US has been responsible for obliterating cities and nations, murder of countless civilians, crushing civil liberties by – in part — spying on hundreds of millions of US citizens, wanton rape and pillage, assassination of elected officials, several coups that installed dictators, using and continuing to threaten to use nuclear weapons, environmental destruction, extreme domestic income inequality, massive campaign finance corruption, massive financial/banker/Wall Street corruption, about 50 million Americans below the poverty line, genocide, terrorism, torture, providing weapons to extremists, exporting weapons to countless nations, and ethnic cleansing.

The US legacy worldwide for the past century has been to deliver to locations all over the world such insults as extreme destructiveness, desolation, and misery. It is no wonder that the US over the past century has been the most hated of any nation on earth. The United States is truly a Modern Roman Empire.

Yes, the US has been supportive and kind and generous, but not for populations. Instead, under the banner of freedom, democracy and rights, the US has mostly engaged in support for huge multinational corporations, who have needed the military might of the US to protect their access to overseas resources and markets.

One of the very many pieces of information that caught my eye in the book was a listing of “chickenhawks” – people who avoided fighting in wars and therefore have no real sense of the hellish and uselessness and cruelty of war, but have been more than happy to aggressively seek to send young men to their deaths to fight wars of aggression – mostly in support of US corporations. The following is a list of such chickenhawks. Each of them obtained deferments that allowed them to avoid having to fight in Vietnam.

Dick Cheney

George W. Bush

Newt Gingrich

John Bolton

Paul Wolfowitz

Scooter Libby

Peter Rodman

Richard Perle

Andrew Card

John Ashcroft

George Will

Rudolph Giuliani

Phil Graham

Dennis Hastert

Joe Lieberman

Mitch McConnell

Clarence Thomas

Trent Lott

Richard Armey

Don Nickles

John Ashcroft

Elliot Abrams

Kenneth Starr

Kenneth Adelman

Jack Kemp

Tom DeLay

Rush Limbaugh

What Are the Origins of America as a Violent Society?

By Dom Nozzi

July 26, 2012

In the wake of the awful shooting at the Aurora CO movie theatre in July of 2012, many in the United States are (again) asking why this nation is so violent, and what we can do to prevent such tragedies in the future.

In my view, our society will be condemned to having to live with gun deaths as long as we remain a violent society. Increasingly, police-state tactics will probably be employed in the US. For example, the government and its law enforcement agencies will increasingly be triggered to investigate citizens who engage in suspicious behavior or make suspicious purchases (of such things as guns or ammo). There will be more security officers at places where we currently do not have them. More background checks. More scanners and frisking (along the lines of what we now do at airports).

If we don’t reduce our societal tendency towards solving problems via violence, these police-state tactics will only worsen the problem. In part, the problem of violence will worsen because these police state tactics will induce even MORE anger against government (which breeds acts of violence by sociopaths), and divert resources from solving the fundamental causes of violence.

In the end, we would feel less secure as a result of ramped up police state “security” measures.

A common suggestion made by many in response to the Aurora shooting is to beef up the currently pathetic US gun laws. Many object by pointing out that violent people can find several non-gun ways to commit violence against others.

I agree that gun laws would not do much to reduce violence by violent people.

But in this hopefully interim time in which the US remains extremely violent, I agree that less guns in our society can be helpful.

I fully understand that most gun owners are responsible, law-abiding people. My big concern, however, is that the US (for many reasons) is a very violent nation, which means that guns are too often used to “solve” problems that should be solved in non-violent ways.

In addition, even good, responsible, law-abiding people make mistakes, or do crazy things when emotions run high. Many people have been shot and killed due to a mistake (not knowing the gun was loaded, mistaken identity, etc.). And many people have been shot and killed when someone with a gun became enraged about something (a “crime of passion”). Both of those common forms of gun deaths can be significantly reduced if our society had a lot less guns being carried or in homes. With all due respect, “firing back” is a Wild West fantasy induced by watching too many movies where the good guy guns down the gunslinger. If I’m in a theatre, I’m much more likely to be shot and killed by a nearby armed patron who gets enraged if I accidentally drop a Coke on his girlfriend in the seat next to mine (a gun he is carrying to “protect” himself from the one-in-a-million crazed gunman) than to be gunned down by a assault gun lunatic. I think nearly all of us would feel much safer, in other words, if we knew that few, if any, people sitting in our movie theatre were carrying guns — guns that are poised to be pulled out if someone pisses off that gun owner…

Why are we a relatively violent society? I think there are a number of possible reasons:

Religion

Too many of us, due largely to religion, are anti-pleasure and anti-sex puritans. Such an attitude breeds violence. See, for example, Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence. Religion also directly breeds violence, because an ideology that relies on faith instead of evidence/reason can only resort to violence to address disagreements. The gods of the religious also mostly rely on anger, violence and punishment (hell, for example, and “Acts of God”), which leads believers to engage in the same tactics for “solving” problems. The ignorance induced by religion, in addition, increases frustration and anger. (I agree with the adage that the more one knows, the more one forgives.)

Hysterical Fear

Citizens in the US are uniquely terrified of a great many things. We have helicopter moms who are scared to death of letting their child out of their sight. We are panicked by shark attacks. We worry about terrorism. About crime. About drugs. About teen sex. About pornography. Politicians know that leveraging fear by scaring voters about what would happen if the opposition is elected is an effective way to win votes.

Governmental Militarism

The US regularly initiates and engages in warfare throughout the world. Our military budget far exceeds that of any other nation on earth. leads many to believe that violence is useful.

Insufficient Social Services

A dysfunctional social service system that needs to cope with a huge number of dysfunctional people (such as vets and alcoholics).

Economic Woe

High levels of poverty and a sputtering economy.

“Sin” laws

Laws against drugs, gambling, sex, etc. Since such “sins” cannot be suppressed w/ laws, the inevitable result is the provision of such services by organized crime and other “sin entrepreneurs” who are relatively likely to resort to violence given the big money stakes that are induced by prohibition laws.

A Nation of Loners

For a number of reasons, including car-based travel and sprawl, we are a nation of loners. The “loner” psychology often results in anti-social violence.

 

The True Flag, by Stephen Kinzer. America is an Imperialist, Warrior Nation

 

By Dom Nozzi

April 18, 2017

The True Flag, by Stephen Kinzer, focuses on the lynchpin years of America’s fateful (and in my opinion, ruinous) decision to transition into an imperalist, interventionist, alleged “world policeman” nation starting about 1898 in the battles between the anti-imperialists (led by Mark Twain) and the imperialists (led by Teddy Roosevelt). Ever since then, those opposed to imperialistic intervention (the anti-imperialists) have been pejoratively labeled as naive, timid, weak isolationists.

I am quite proud to consider myself to be a non-interventionist. I believe it is criminal, inhumane, unrealistic, and unsustainable for the US to be a global policeman.

Most of the world now rightly looks upon the US as a Black Hat Bully. As Chomsky says, the US is, by far, the leading terrorist nation on earth. As such, the US is the leading creator of terrorist actions by others throughout the world.

As Derber so importantly points out in The Morality Wars, nearly all infamous Empires in world history (Rome, Nazi Germany, the Soviets, etc.) firmly believed and proclaimed that their violent military interventionism was to promote freedom, democracy, security, justice, morality, and civilization. In almost all cases, this was simply a cover for grabbing natural resources, obtaining cheap labor, or opening up markets for corporations. This method of using morality as a cover for conquest has been a US tactic in nearly all US wars in history up to the present day.

By the way, the US has been at peace for only 21 of our 241 years as a nation.

The following are excerpts from the last chapter of Kinzer’s book.

“For generations, makers of American foreign policy have made decisions based on three assumptions: the United States is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat and use of force. A host of subsidiary assumptions undergirds this catechism: the United States is inherently virtuous; its influence on the world is always benign; it must often intervene overseas because the risks of inaction are too high; its ideals are universal and can be exported; it welcomes support from other states but may act unilaterally when it chooses. Rather than see in the world a wide spectrum of forces, beliefs, cultures, and interests, Americans often see only good and evil. We rush to take the side of good. This usually brings trouble…

…we intervene because we see bad situations, not because we have a clear plan to improve them. At moments of crisis or decision, emotion overcomes sober reasoning – and emotion is always the enemy of wise statesmanship…

…History’s great counsel to the United States is that it should more carefully weigh the long-term effects of its foreign interventions…

…The United States has not discovered the magic formula that can produce happiness and prosperity everywhere…[Interventions]…are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear exit strategies. Many ultimately harm the target country while weakening the security of the United States.

Violent intervention always leaves a trail of ‘collateral damage’ in the form of families killed, towns destroyed, and lives ruined. Usually these consequences are called mistaken or unavoidable. That does nothing to reduce the damage – or the anger that survivors pass down through generations.

The argument that the United States intervenes to defend freedom rarely matches the facts on the ground. Many interventions have been designed to prop up predatory regimes. Their goal is to increase American power – often economic power – rather than to liberate the suffering…

…Interventions multiply our enemies. They lead people who once bore no ill will toward the United States to begin cursing its name…Americans are shocked and incensed when that passion leads to violent counterattacks. They should not be. The instinct to protect one’s own and to strike back against the attackers is older than humanity itself.

American intervention overseas is hugely expensive. The United States spends more on its military than the next seven countries combined, including trillions of dollars to fight foreign wars. Meanwhile, American communities decay, infrastructure ages and withers, schoolchildren fall behind their counterparts in other countries, and millions go without housing, jobs, or health care. Even worse, at least symbolically, are the lifelong plagues that haunt many combat veterans. War brings ‘collateral damage’ to Americans as well as foreigners…

…The United States was once admired for its refusal to fight imperial wars or impose its will on distant nations. Today, many people around the world see it as a bully, recklessly invading foreign lands, blowing up entire societies, and leaving trails of destruction and conflict. They associate the name ‘United States’ with bombing, invasion, occupation, night raids, convert action, torture, kidnapping, and secret prisons…

…countries [battered] by foreign intervention find ways to take revenge. It comes in the forms from mass migration to terror attacks. These are bad results of assaults that we believed would have no bad results. We were foolish to presume that no matter how awful American or European interventions were, their effects would not reach the United States or Europe. The developed world – the invading world – is not an island or an impregnable fortress. Intervention takes a toll at home as well as abroad.”

“Preventive war is like committing suicide for fear of death.” — Bismark

Overthrow: A Review

By Dom Nozzi

I just finished reading a book written in 2006 called Overthrow, by Stephen Kinzer.

I highly recommend it.

How many of us know of the shameful, sordid history of our US government overthrowing leaders in Hawaii, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Vietnam, Iran, and Afghanistan? How in nearly all cases, we did so to secure access to resources, or were doing the bidding of multi-national corporations which desired continued easy access to such resources? How in each case, we cloaked our attack not on such exploitative reasons, but based on the false claim that we are doing so to “liberate oppressed people,” to “bring democracy and freedom,” to “stop a dangerous tyrant,” or to “help people who could not govern themselves”? How most all of the nations we overthrew became much worse off during and after our “regime change” actions?

Many of us, the author points out, believe such fairy tales of our “bringing democracy and freedom” because of the common belief in “exceptionalism,” where the US is seen to be inherently more moral, godly and just than all other nations, and therefore a country that can only do right and never do wrong.”

A friend responded to the above by saying, “Don’t we already know this?” To which I replied with the following…

In The New American Militarism, Andrew Bacevich notes the terrifying reality that America has now reached a political consensus: The vast majority of Republicans and Democrats are now flag-waving supporters of ramped up and never-ending US militarism, which clearly shows that the majority does NOT already know this (unless most of us are barbarians, and support such aggression even though it is in support of multi-national corporations rather than our security).

In Morality Wars, Charles Derber finds that cloaking barbaric “gunboat diplomacy” as bringing “democracy and freedom” has been in existence for many centuries for nearly all empires, and few, if any, societies were able to see through the hysteria and deception. I see no evidence, to this day, that the vast majority of Americans (including most Democrats) oppose wars of aggression by the US. The majority of Democrats and Republicans have cheered Obama adopting the largest military budgets in US history, as well as his many wars of aggression, and there seems to be a near political consensus that US aggression is justifiable.  Where, for example, is the outrage about Obama’s drone war, his on-going war of aggression in Afghanistan (which a HUGE number of liberals and feminists heartily support as a way to bring “democracy” and “women’s rights” to that ravaged nation), his saber rattling over the Ukraine, and his military action in Libya (which most Democrats supported)?

If “we” Americans already knew this, why did we re-elect one of the most warlike presidents in our history (Obama)?

Or maybe by “we” you mean you and me?

PS – I’m one of the most well-read people I know, and I knew only a tiny amount about the awful US history since 1898 of orchestrating regime change. I would say over 99 percent of Americans know nothing about that history. Most of the Overthrow book was news to me. Maybe I’m a moron, but maybe not. The book sickened me to the point where I am both utterly ashamed to be an American, and startled that educated citizens continue to vote for major party US presidential candidates, given how many wars of aggression presidents of both parties have called for over the past century.