Back   OpEd News
Font
PageWidth
Original Content at
https://www.opednews.com/articles/My-Experience-Living-In-A-by-Rob-Kall-Dept-Of-Justice-DoJ_Eric-Holder_Joe-Arpaio_Police-Abuse-Of-Power-140326-11.html
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

March 26, 2014

My Experience Living In A Police State-- Eroding Integrity of America's Police

By Rob Kall

Last week, my son and I drove from the Philly area to New England. We stopped in a rural New York town-- I don't even remember the name of the town-- and I was on uneasy, on edge. Yes, on edge, in other words, a little bit scared.

::::::::

Last week, my son and I drove from the Philly area to New England.


We stopped in a rural New York town-- I don't even remember the name of the town and it doesn't matter-- and I was on uneasy, on edge. Yes, on edge, in other words, a little bit scared. 

cops
cops
(Image by Thairms)   Details   DMCA


I've read enough about small town police horror stories-- speeding ticket ripoffs that pay most of a small town's expenses, out of control cops who abuse their power and sometimes even shoot and kill people. 

There's Arizona monster, Sherriff Joe Arpaio, who proudly harasses latinos. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of stop-and-frisk encounters, usually subjected upon victims of color. I'm a grey haired, clean cut caucasian. My son was also clean cut-- more than usual (he's in the arts and sometimes gets a bit shaggy.)  I can't image how much more uncomfortable it must be for Latinos or or other people of color, be they African American or Muslim.  

I'd just read a few days before how cops in Alabama were issuing tickets, then arresting people, and, if they didn't have the money, putting them in what amounted to debtors' prisons. 

It was just a small, actually, idyllic town. There's probably nothing at all wrong with the town. It's not the town, it's the erosion of integrity among American police. 

Of course, there are many, many police who function with the highest integrity. But the system seems to be broken. When cops do wrong-- when they kill, when they beat up people, the police SYSTEM protects them and fails to police its own. In small towns in particular, even the local judges seem to be in local conspiracies to abuse police powers. 

The justice system, the DOJ, is run by the worst Attorney General in US History-- Eric Holder-- the man who has chosen to allow criminal bankers and other corporate felons to continue free from prosecution. Note that I do not say that Holder "failed" to prosecute. That's too passive an indictment of the man. No. Holder chooses to not prosecute, chooses to allow scores or hundreds of criminals to continue engage in criminal activities. 

It adds up to a USA that is far less safe to travel in. 

It is time for the Federal Government step up, step in and make it clear that police chiefs who fail to take serious action to investigate and prosecute police who abuse their powers are guilty of cover-ups and collusion. All the way up the line of command, police leaders should be held accountable when they protect bad cops.  And bad cops should be given the worst punishment possible. If a cop kills, the penalty should be severe. If a cop violates an law, as a supposed defender of the law, the cop should do time, no pardons, no probation, no reduced sentencing or plea-bargains. Bad cops are a particularly malignant kind of poison in the system. Of course, the same also applies to regulators-- people who are supposed to insure that legislated regulations are enforced. 

The end of the story is that we stopped at a pizza place, ordered some food, stopped at a store for some snacks for the road, and got back on the turnpike. Nothing happened. No problem. But there WAS a difference. I'd never driven in a small town and felt that way before. Now I know how so many millions of others have been feeling. 





Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.


Check out his platform at RobKall.com


He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity


He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com


more detailed bio:


Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.


Rob Kall Wikipedia Page


Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel


Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel


Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.


Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.


To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.


For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.


Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..


To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.


Follow Rob on Twitter & Facebook.


His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.


Join the conversation:


On facebook at Rob Kall's Bottom-up The Connection Revolution


and at Google Groups listserve Bottom-up Top-down conversation





Back