The Racial Mess in America

When it comes to the racial mess in America, a few things can be said.  First,  it depends on the location.  Many, if not most, places in America, do not have a race problem.  Second, the fact that an ethnic group is not adequetly represented on a particular police force does not have to result in the situation we see playing out in Ferguson, MO.  And, thirdly, we see in this situation a lot more people running around with lit matches than we see firemen.

As to the situation, we know little other than that a white policeman shot and killed a young black man.  Policemen, as we well know, do shoot and kill men -- both whites and blacks, and on occasion, I presume, women.  That's why they wear guns.  And, in most instances, the use of the policeman's gun is more than justified.

So what's going on in Ferguson?  This crime is just now being investigated, but the community has already reached the conclusion that the officer is guilty of unjustifiably killing a black youth.  They want "justice."  So what is justice?  Is it looting small businesses in downtown Ferguson?  Sure, not each and every black person participated in the looting.  But, where were the black voices trying to stop this looting?

I see black people on TV telling their children to be extra careful when being stopped by a patrolman.  As a kid I never had to be told this, and it wasn't because I'm white.  It was because I had observed my dad when he was stopped by a patrolman.  In that situation, a more subservient individual would have been hard to find.  This wasn't my dad's normal demeanor.  But, he knew not to get wise with a cop.  I think this is not so different from other ethnic groups.  Are blacks an exception?

There is every possibility that the policeman in this case was guilty of murder.  It's equally possible that he was not -- that he was acting in line with duty.  Apparently, blacks have no confidence in the American system despite America having put a black man into the Oval Office.  This does deserve examination.  In the meantime, I would suggest that Al Sharpton put his cigarette lighter back into his pocket.

America's Dumbest Department: Its State Department

The public doesn't hear much regarding its State Department other than pronouncements by its head; namely, John Kerry.  Let me lift the veil a bit.  The President has his attributes; namely, he's a darn good compaigner.  But, clearly, he lacked the necessary experience when he entered the Oval Office.  As for Kerry, he's a man whose overall score at Yale was even lower than that of George W. Bush.

So how do these individuals make decisions on America's foreign policy.  First, of course, they turn to what they know best; namely, politics -- what will play best in the next election.  But, that gets you only so far.  For more information and advice they turn to their "experts" -- the U.S. Dept. of State.

The Dept. of State is where we presumably find the smartest foreign affairs people in Washington.  And, yet, these brilliant people seem unaware that, overseas, among peoples who have never gotten far beyond an authoritarian form of government, democracy, as we know it, isn't something that comes within days, or months, or even years.  All such people know is who their buddies are, who's in their extended family, and who shares their religious beliefs.  And, it's there that they turn in uncertain times.

And, we have examples of that; a prime one being Yugoslavia.  Through brutal means, a dictator, Tito, tied it together and presented it as a single country.  But, when Tito died, it all came apart.  Croatia went its way,  Serbia, its way, and Bosnia, its way.  It took brutal fighting -- virtually genocidal -- to make it abundantly clear that these peoples would never work together as a single nation.

Czechoslovakia did it much better.  The Czechs and the Slovaks decided it would be best if each went its own way.  Was that the best thing for the people of the former Czechoslovakia?  Who knows?  But, that's what they wanted.  And they did it in a fairly peaceful way.

Had our State Department learned nothing from seeing how people of different ethnicities relate to one another?  What possessed them to think that a nation could be cobbled together from Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis?  Yes, Saddam Hussein, a man more brutal than Tito -- if you can imagine that -- did manage to force these people into a single nation, just as Tito had done with Yugoslavia.  But, when he died, it all came apart, just as happened in Yugoslavia.

Had these people -- the Kurds, the Shiites, and the Sunnis -- been allowed to  form their own countries, it is unlikely that we would have seen the emergence of ISIS.  Stupidity has a price, and now, in Iraq, we will have to pay for it.