The Ferguson Factor

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Are the Ferguson protests turning into a movement? Yes, according to one writer, who notes, "More than one person in the streets of Ferguson has compared what is happening here to the chaotic days of the Birmingham desegregation campaign in 1963. And, like that struggle, the local authorities, long immune to public sentiment, were incapable of understanding how their actions reverberated outside the hermetic world where they held sway—how they looked to the world": http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/movement-grows-ferguson
   This is not the first time I've posted something about the militarization of our police forces (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2012/11/hello-whos-there.html, http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/05/king-of-pain.html), and what's going on in Ferguson is focusing some people's attention on that aspect of the situation. Our president was asked about it and said that there's a big difference between our police and our military and that the line shouldn't be blurred. But it already has been, according to at least on Iraq vet. "... the police in Ferguson have better armor and
weaponry than my men and I did in the middle of a war," he writes. "And Ferguson isn't alone—police departments across the US are armed for war": http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/15/iraq-vet-small-town-cops-have-better-armor-and-weaponry-than-we-carried-in-a-combat/
   All of which can be viewed and discussed from a fascinatingly global, philosophical perspective as well (think Gaza, Islamic State, Crimea, Liberia ...): http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/04/move-over-megaplayers.html