Tensions High In Pandemic Isolation

Controlling authoritarians are everywhere in an empire society, power and control are the essence of the military economy.  Thanks to pandemic isolation, people are snapping at each other with increasing regularity. One friend of mine starved himself to death in the social isolation atmosphere.  This is a personal tale by a political activist I know that illustrates the problematic nature of mixing politics and personal grudges together in terms of increasingly authoritarian empire pandemic America, where national leaders downplay civil rights, masking, and social distancing among other things.  The militarized nature of the modern police force overemphasizes emptying the full seven shot revolver into defendants, too often unarmed, too often saving the last shot for the head to prevent victim testimony as in Ferguson 2014 and Madison 2015.  Too many with military service backgrounds treat their fellow Americans like they treat foreigners in our too many foreign wars and skirmishes, including many police and civilian bad apples.  "Going postal" amid the stress of the stagnation and rigidity of politics and empire, chronic underpaying of the middle class by those with wildly increasing riches, and rising weather disasters driving millions from their homes.  Postal service is 30% veterans.  How many with PTSD?  Police need better training in dispute resolution and de-escalating tense situations as road rage goes through the roof.  Justice?  Forget about it, "power and control" rules.

Authoritarianism Versus Democracy

Authoritarianism as practiced by Trump and the Police consists of tight control of information, and indirect information from direct sources packaged and presented to the public by authoritarian intermediaries.  Democracy thrives on open information available to all with the right to petition your government over grievances.  Asserting your rights, as in the civil rights movement march over the Edmond Pettus bridge lead by the late congressman John L Lewis of Georgia causes so-called "good trouble".  Lewis had his skull cracked in that event by Alabama policemen and barely survived.  Fighting for your rights often requires brash actions toward authoritarians, "good trouble" and can be upsetting to authoritarians.  Authoritarians think they alone can enjoy rights and not the public.  Authoritarians seek order at the expense of justice.  The authoritarian concept of "law and order" means they are the law, and you must obey their orders.  This is where Trump thinks he is above the law, making his constant lawlessness perfectly acceptable.  Police often practice authoritarianism and justify it by saying "tell it to the judge".  That phrase is never acceptable to compensate for an unequal and unfair evaluation process by an officer.  Good police training should always keep justice and fairness in mind and try to deescalate conflict nonviolently whenever possible.  Good police training should never be to empty your clip and save the last shot for a head shot as in Ferguson and Madison.  That may excessively guarantee safety for the officer but violates the sacred oath of "protect and serve", replacing that concept with "dominate and control."

Get There First with the Most

This is a basic principle of success in conflicts.  Usually the one who is first wins.  Why? Because they can frame the issue their way and when they manipulate the truth in their favor, the second-place person is at a great disadvantage regardless of the truth.  Propaganda repeated often enough begins to take on the appearance of the truth.  When the second person presents truths in conflict with the authoritarian's preconceived notions, that truth is easily dismissed.  The first person to call the police usually wins the day, rightly or wrongly.

Sacredness of the Mail

Stealing mail from a mailbox is a federal crime and the mail service is uniquely mentioned in the United States Constitution.  When Trump figured out that absentee and mail-in ballots would become a major strategy to protect citizens in the pandemic, he immediately attacked the process and encouraged his followers to vote in person on election day.  In the vote by mail process, an estimated 1% of votes were lost due to technicalities. Trump appointed De Joy to sabotage the mail and took out 671 high speed mail processing machines last summer, especially in large urban areas in toss-up states.  His purpose was to obstruct the vote by sabotaging the post office.  Many voted early but an estimated 300,000 votes were lost due to late mail delivery, despite a last-minute nationwide court order the day before the election ordering a postal sweep to find and send out all outstanding ballots that was not followed by the post office.

Rogue Mail Carrier                                              

My friend's arrogant young mail carrier went rogue last summer and took mail left to accumulate in the mailbox without leaving any note or other explanation.  My friend was left to wonder who did this, because some one with a grudge or political difference may have taken the mail.  When he asked the mailman about this, the postman admitted he had taken the mail and said my friend could get it back. When asked why, he said he thought the mail had been abandoned and the house was vacant.  That excuse was absurd, with my elderly friend and his wife there every day, especially in the pandemic.  The postman said the mail would be back in two days. When it was not there, my friend drove around to find the mailman a couple of days later and ask what was going on.  When asked if the carrier had reported this incident to his supervisor, he smugly assured my friend he had kept his supervisor completely informed.  My friend doubted this because of the tone of voice, he seemed desperate to avoid a customer talking directly to his supervisor.  These are the actions of a guilty person.  The fact that he did all this without leaving a note in the mailbox seemed an inappropriate detail he would have left out from his story about the incident and he would have characterized my friend as the problem instead of the postman.  Several days later, the old mail appeared.  The postman alleges that customers had no right to leave mail in the mailbox.  Several months later, he did it again, taking my friends mail and leaving no note.  He had just checked the mail around 3pm and it was gone by 3:30pm.  This was that mailman's first delivery day (Tuesday, another carrier delivered on Monday) after Joe Biden was declared president-elect.  He was probably enraged by the loss of his candidate and acted out as my friend had lots of peace and Biden signs including a no F-35 sign prominently on the path to the mailbox.  Taking mail with no good reason meant he acted guilty when my friend found him making the rounds a couple of blocks away.  That is why he avoided my friend when my friend got out of his car to talk to the postman.  The postman ran away then to avoid talking to my friend, so my friend hollered out to him "Are you going to give me my mail back?"  The postman clearly said one word, "no."  At that point, he came closer seeing that the customer meant him no harm.  Then he abused his power by calling the police.  He said that as a federal employee he had special protective status.  Then like Trump he doubled down and called the police.  The postman lied to the police on two key issues, claiming my friend chased him, and threatened to hurt him.  If that were true, then why approach the man first before calling police to say he was a threat?  The chase was in his imagination only, as he knew he had done wrong.  The threat that my friend would hurt him was also imaginary and a psychological projection of what he thought he deserved out of his guilt.  He thought he could scare my friend off by calling the police.  My friend said "go ahead" because he welcomed the police as mediators.  Unfortunately, he ran into the wrong kind of cop.  My friend's wife said the mail carrier had a look in his eyes like Timothy McVeigh.  Is this just another story of mice learning how to be rats?

Civil Rights Violations

While waiting for the supervisor at the mail station, my friend found the other clerks agreed with him that taking his mail without leaving a note was wrong.  Later a supervisor shared his dismay about no note being left behind.  With a note, the act is one of a postal worker, without it, it is the act of an abuse perpetrator.  My friend thought that he was observing his constitutional right to petition his government with his grievances.  Then the policepersons, a policeman and a trainee woman, stopped him from meeting with postal supervision in pursuit of his constitutional right to petition his government about grievances at the crucial time before issuing the ticket.  Remember, first contact always wins.  After a brief talk the policeman left him and his wife alone with the woman and went into another area and colluded with the mail thief perpetrator and his supervisor to continue framing him as the guilty party and not the real guilty mail carrier.  Because of this collusion exclusion, the key excluded detail was that no note was left in the mailbox about ten days to reclaim his mail.  This lack of a note shows intent to harm him and is a clear violation of normal mail procedures.  The policeman came back from that long meeting and patronizingly gave my friends mail back with the explanation he had ten days to pick up this mail.  How does returning stolen items exonerate the thief?  How does anyone know about this ten-day period without a note left in the mailbox?  This was incompetent policework, "assuming" the mail taking was appropriate and proper.  The policeman showed a complete inability to see any wrongdoing on the mail carrier's part, a complete inability to consider two sides of the dispute.  Questioning the intent of an accuser is good policework, completely absent in this policeman, who had the audacity to tell my friend "tell it to the judge".  This policeman then twice refused to give the carriers name, a denial of the constitutional right to confront accusers.  Then he tried to laugh off the request of the police report.  Justice delayed is justice denied, and my friend expects the name will be in the police report, but like the exclusion from seeing the supervisors, and the presumption of innocence, these three constitutional issues were denied by the police.  Because the mail carrier had reached the police before my friend reached the supervisor, the perpetrator was coddled by the authorities while the victim, my friend, was doubly victimized by the mail carrier perpetrator and the police and postal supervision.  Just another victim of a disgruntled Trump loser acting out.

Crime in the Empire Society:

https://www.academia.edu/4862977/CRIME_and_the_Military_1989_1999_3p_1999

Please cite this work as follows:  Reuschlein, Robert. (2020, November 16), "Controlling Authoritarians" Madison, WI, Real Economy Institute.  Retrieved from:  https://www.expertclick.com/NewsRelease/Controllng-Authoritarians,2020238595.aspx

Dr. Peace, Professor Robert Reuschlein, Real Economy Institute, Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2016-2020 with accelerating interest from the deciding Norwegians.  A consistently growing pattern shows intense interest in my work on my expertclick.com website, daily "hard looks" per year have gone from 2 to 3 to 48 to 128 to 200.

Contact: bobreuschlein@gmail.com  

Info: www.realeconomy.com