Yesterday, Jenée Desmond-Harris at Vox wrote an excellent overview of the situation, The 6 Most Damning Findings From the DOJ’s Report on Racism in the City of Ferguson. I’m actually glad that we’ve gotten past discussion of Darren Wilson. There is no doubt in my mind that he, like more police officers than most Americans want to admit, is a villain who should never have been allowed to be a police officer. But I don’t think it is just to grab onto him as the ultimate problem. I’m sure that the Ferguson Police Department is filled with officers who would have behaved exactly the same way. So the focus is now where it should be — at least in one place.

The problem, of course, is that we are only looking at Ferguson because Michael Brown was gunned down by a pussy officer who clearly would have been better assigned to checking parking meters. How many other towns have similar problems? Well, certainly Ferguson seems to be an extreme example. Most towns don’t seem to be as bad. But it seems that this is a general problem. You may be aware of a cliche that security guards are particularly aggressive and unreasonable because of their inferiority complex with regard to not being “real” police officers. There is at least some truth to that. Well, I’ve begun to wonder if “real” police officers don’t suffer from something like this with regard to the military.

There was a lot of reporting regarding the militarization of local policing after 9/11. I don’t think the fact that they have tanks is the problem. But it feeds into a kind of fantasy world where the police are always under threat. It’s kind of like Bill O’Reilly claiming to be in war zones when he wasn’t. I’m sure in his mind, he was in war zones. And I’m sure that the police in Ferguson thought they were in a war zone. But there has always been an attitude in police forces that it is them against the rest of us. And clearly, when you have a large majority African American community policed by an overwhelmingly white police force, the situation is so much worse.

Ferguson Policing Was Racist

The specifics about what was (and I assume still is) going on are interesting. Let’s go through each of the six points. The first is, “In Ferguson, race had everything to do with who was stopped by police, and whom they used force against.” Much of the information here is probably stuff you’ve heard before, such as the fact that while 67% of the population was black, 85% of traffic stops were of African Americans. But a couple I hadn’t heard of, like the fact that every time a police dog bit someone, it was an African American. But this one really struck me:

This reminds me of how the police were known to cite and even arrest hippies in the 1960s for trivial things like spitting. It’s the same thing here. The police hated the hippies then and they hate the African American community now.

It Isn’t Because Blacks Commit More Crime

Just like with the huge discrepancy with cannabis charges between white and black, the report found that blacks were not committing more crime — at least not enough more to explain the racial citation and arrest differences. Here’s an example, “Between 2011 and 2013, African-American drivers got 72 percent of the speeding tickets when radars or laser verification were used, but when tickets were based on officers’ personal observations, they got 80 percent of the tickets.” Not that 72% is close enough to the 67% of the population — although still high. The 80% is not just a fluke.

Police and Municipal Figures Exchanged Racist Email

I guess this is the most salacious of the findings. German Lopez compiled, Here Are 7 Racist Jokes Ferguson Police and Court Officials Made Over Email. Check out this charmer:

In 2011, there was an email with President Obama depicted as a chimp. And as far as the investigators could determine, no one was ever even chastised about this. Indeed, many of these email messages were forwarded around the government employees.

Police Arrested People Trying to Help the Injured

This one shouldn’t surprise anyone. When Tamir Rice’s mother ran to him, the Cleveland police threatened to arrest her. In Ferguson, one of the examples involves a guy trying to help his bleeding girlfriend. Instead of helping the woman, the police arrested the man while they waited for an ambulance to arrive. It’s pretty clear that the general attitude is that the Ferguson police consider the community to be made up of a bunch of animals. They have it exactly backwards.

The Department Abused Its Power

This is what we see everywhere. Our constitutional rights really don’t mean anything when we are dealing with the police. If they ask to search you and you won’t let them, they will use this as probable cause and search your car. Or as in once case in Ferguson, just arrest you. Or check out this charming story that sums up a number of problems with the police force:

If you doubt that story for a moment, then you haven’t dealt much with the police. This is definitely not specific to Ferguson. The police believe they are above the law.

Follow the Money

As you probably have heard some reporting on before, the city basically used the poorest segment of their community to pay for the city functions via fines and other mechanisms. And this was not just something that happened. This was explicit policy. But what are you going to do? You can’t tax the rich!

This is not just about the death of one person. As Desmond-Harris noted, “Ferguson residents… saw Michael Brown’s death at the hands of Darren Wilson as just one example of the type of racially biased policing that made their city an unjust place for the 2/3 of its residents who are African-American and fueled their distrust of the police department.” Hopefully, this will improve things in Ferguson. But we have the same problems throughout the United States. And most people — white people — don’t want to admit that there is a problem. They just want to see it as this or that bad apple. No. The barrel is rotten and all the apples are poisoned.

John Adams once wrote, “A government of laws, and not of men.” That was what America was supposed to be. And I don’t mind it being aspirational. But it isn’t even that. It is just false. Take for example, David Petraeus. He’s the high level military and political hack who once had Washington swooning. But then he had an affair with his hagiographer. And then we found out that he gave her highly classified notebooks. One thing that’s clear about the whole thing is that Petraeus is not a whistleblower. He gave her the notebooks for his own personal gain — both in his sexual relationship and in getting out a book that painted him as a modern day Achilles.

Given that the Obama administration has been vicious in going after leakers, one would think that Petraeus would be deep trouble. After all, this administration sentences John Kiriakou to 30 months in jail for leaking one name (never published) to a reporter in his effort to get out the story of our torture program. Similarly, Stephen Kim got 13 months for discussing a classified report with a journalist. So what did the government do to the disgraced Petreus? Ten years? Twenty?! Well, no. Actually, he won’t spend a second in jail. He won’t even have a felony on his record:

Peter Maass at The Intercept reported, Petraeus Plea Deal Reveals Two-Tier Justice System for Leaks. He highlighted the difference in the way that top officials get off light. In some cases, like Alberto Gonzales, they get “admonished but not charged.” How Scooter Libby ever managed to get sentenced to any time is beyond me. Of course, his sentence was commuted, so he didn’t actually go to prison. The main thing is that “we” — the right kind of people — don’t go to prison. We only put the prols in cages!

It’s also the case that Petraeus is rich. He’s worth at least $2 million. But that rather small sum for the right kind of people, will expand now. He is a partner in a private equity firm. The power elite understand how leaking secrets is just one of those things that happens. The reporter is smoking hot and she’s willing to jump your sagging bag of bones. Who could resist that? Certainly not a “patriot” like David Petraeus.

Welcome to modern America. If you are poor — and especially if you’re black — just accept the fact that whether you live and die is a matter of dumb luck. If you are rich — if you have the right kind of friends — it doesn’t much matter what you do. Now that I mention it, Edward Snowden is crazy to consider coming back to the United States. If they gave John Kiriakou 30 months, Snowden is looking at something like the 35 years they gave Chelsea Manning. Snowden is very clearly not the “right” kind of leaker. Isn’t that obvious? He didn’t leak those documents to get laid or to puff up his already unbelievably puffed up reputation. What’s more, Snowden isn’t partner in a private equity firm. He’s the “wrong” kind of leaker. He’s screwed.