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Old 12-22-2007, 05:10 AM   #57 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Okay, so this isn't just about DUI, so I guess this isn't just about New Jersey, either. So, is it about the Fourth Amendment, then?

This could be interesting. Let's focus on this pre-revolutionary amendment within the context of post-9/11 America. There is a lot to discuss here. So, we have a topic of privacy and government intervention via policing and court orders. In this case, it is DUI and the issue of forced blood samples.

But even before these recent cases, we also have the issue of suspended rights to privacy with illegal wiretaps in the context of counter terrorism. Personally, I'd be more afraid of wiretaps and other forms of tech-based government surveillance than I would be about blood samples if I were to be caught while driving impaired. (Think mobile technology, the Internet, and ways of tracking things such as retail patterns and library usage, etc.)

Mandatory blood tests on suspected drunkards doesn't concern me. If they start doing that to other groups, then we just might have a problem.
Contained in the following are 50 years old observations that there is no "left" in the US (1st quote box)

and, in the last quote box:
Quote:
....Although crime rates have been declining for 25 years, vast amounts of money pour into the criminal justice-industrial complex, diverting scarce resources from other social services such as education, social welfare, and health care. While in recent years downsizing has affected almost every segment of the public sector, the criminal justice bureaucracies have seen an unprecedented expansion.....
Quote:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=002...3E2.0.CO%3B2-6
Freedom is as Freedom Does; Civil Liberties Today. Corliss Lamont Horizon Press, 1956. 322 pp.

Lamont in this book, is obviously fighting a losing battle. Not only is the Civil Liberties Union in decline; freedom of speech and thougt have also lost ground....Whereained college and university libraries contain the classics of Socialist tradition (I might as
well have said pornography as an example), the material is usually too "hot" for the professors to touch. The result is freedom of speech and thought in form only.

<h3>Read in conjunction with C. Wright Mills</h3>, <i>Yhe Power Elite</i>, Lamont's book provides a concrete picture of the informal alliance existing in this country between the thought police and the military.

Radical opinions of any kind are no longer dismissed as merely infantile or pathological, they are considered a political, military, and industrial liability. The decline in cilil liberties, Lamont argues, is partly due to the increasing fear which individuals have of authority, and their increasing willingness to submit readily to it. In order to exist, freedom has to be exercised, and the average American is unwilling to defend either his own rights or those of others....
Quote:
"As the circle of those who decide is narrowed, as the means of decision are centralized and the consequences of decision become enormous, then the course of great events often rests upon the decisions of determinable circles" (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 21).

"There is nothing in 'the nature of history' in our epoch that rules out the pivotal function of small groups of decision-makers. On the contrary, the structure of the present is such as to make this not only a reasonable, but a rather compelling, view (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 27).

"There is nothing in 'the psychology of man,' or in the social manner by which men are shaped and selected for and by the command posts of modern society, that makes unreasonable the view that they do confront choices and that the choices they make--or their failure to confront them--are history-making in their consequences" (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 27).

"Accordingly, political men now have every reason to hold the American power elite accountable for a decisive range of the historical events that make up the history of the present" (The Power Elite, 1956, p. 27).
Authority in the US is sponsored (driven) by corporatism. In that sense, it is not OF AND BY THE PEOPLE.....It must be confronted, questioned and challenged at every turn, if we are to live in an "open society", with open government, the kind least likley to suffer from massive state sponsored corruption. IMO, that WON'T HAPPEN IF CENTRISTS and "LEFT LITE" are the "approved" political opposition to corporatism. THAT IS ALL I SEE EXPRESSED
on this thread, except by dksuddeth.
.
A treatise on C. Wright Mills:
Quote:
http://www.logosjournal.com/aronowitz.htm
A Mills Revival?

by Stanley Aronowitz

...Consigned to a kind of academic purgatory for the last three decades of the twentieth century, at a time when social theory had migrated from the social sciences obsessed with case studies and social “problems” to literature and philosophy where he was rarely discussed and almost never cited., C. Wright Mills was an absent presence..
...   click to show 
In short, following the muckraking tradition, but also international sociological discourse on power, The Power Elite uses the evidentiary method first perfected by the independent scholars such as Ferdinand Lundberg of tracing interlocking networks of social and cultural association as much as business relationship to establish the boundaries and contour of power. Moreover, in this work we can see the movement of individuals among the leading institutional orders that constitute the nexus of power, so that their difference tends to blur.

Naming the power élite as the only “independent variable” in American society, Mills was obliged to revise his earlier estimation of the labor movement. Barely eight years after designating the labor leaders “new men of power” who had to choose whether to lead the entire society in the name of working people and other subordinate groups he designated them a “dependent variable” in the political economy. Accordingly, he lost hope that, in any possible practical eventuality, working people and their unions would enter the historical stage as autonomous actors, at least until a powerful new left of intellectuals and other oppressed groups emerged to push them.....
Quote:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesam...view_2006.html
"Mills's The Power Elite 50 Years Later."

...(Last paragraph) Finally, where do things stand in terms of Mills's major theoretical claims? At the most general level, the historical and cross-national evidence leaves me in agreement with Mills that the economic, political, and military sectors are potentially independent power bases, although I would add that power also can be generated from a religious organizational base, as seen in the civil rights movement, the rise of the Christian Right, and the Iranian Revolution. In terms of the United States, however, historical and sociological research leads me to place far more emphasis than Mills did on corporate capitalism and class conflict as the dominant factors in the power equation. Events and research in the United States since the 1960s also leave me with a belief that there are potential power bases for popular action that Mills overlooked, but with the proviso that these social movements are often in conflict with each other. Until organized labor, liberals, and leftists can forge a coalition of non-violent social movements and focus on Democratic Party primaries if and when they enter the electoral arena, </h3>the power elite will continue on its merry way whatever the consequences for everyone else....</h3>

The Society for the Study of Social Problems established the C. Wright Mills Award in 1964.
Quote:
http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/20
....Who should belong to the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP)?
SSSP members are an interdisciplinary community of scholars, practitioners, advocates, and students interested in the application of critical, scientific, and humanistic perspectives to the study of vital social problems. If you are involved in scholarship or action in pursuit of a just society nationally or internationally, you belong in the SSSP. You will meet others engaged in research to find the causes and consequences of social problems, as well as others seeking to apply existing scholarship to the formulation of social policies. Many members are social scientists by training. Many teach in colleges and universities. Increasing numbers work in applied research and policy settings. Membership is open to anyone who supports SSSP's goals.

What does the SSSP have to offer?
Founded in 1951, the Society for the Study of Social Problems promotes research on and serious examination of problems of social life. The SSSP works to solve these problems and to develop informed social policy. As a member, you will find peers and colleagues working together to develop and apply research which makes a difference.

http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/209

....William Chambliss of The George Washington University is organizing a workshop on "State Organized Crime" for the May session of the Onati Center for Socio-Legal Studies. Participants presenting papers at the Workshop includes Ray Michalowski, Ronald Kramer, Nancy Wonders and Jeff Chambliss.
(Posted 10-11-07).....
Quote:
http://www.apfn.net/Messageboard/02-...on.cgi.12.html
William J. Chambliss
State-Organized Crime Part 9
Sun Feb 20, 2005 00:19

....CONCLUSION

My concern here is to point out the importance of studying state-organized crime. Although I have suggested some theoretical notions that appear to me to be promising, the more important goal is to raise the issue for further study. The theoretical and empirical problems raised by advocating the study of state-organized crime are, however, formidable.

<h3>Data on contemporary examples of state-organized crime are difficult to obtain.</h3> The data I have been able to gather depend on sources that must be used cautiously. Government hearings, court trials, interviews, newspaper accounts, and historical documents are replete with problems of validity and reliability. In my view they are no more so than conventional research methods in the social sciences, but that does not alter the fact that there is room for error in interpreting the findings. It will require considerable imagination and diligence for others to pursue research on this topic and add to the empirical base from which theoretical propositions can be tested and elaborated.

We need to explore different political, economic, and social systems in varying historical periods to discover why some forms of social organization are more likely to produce state-organized crimes than others. We need to explore the possibility that some types of state agencies are more prone to engaging in criminality than others. It seems likely, for example, that state agencies whose activities can be hidden from scrutiny are more likely to engage in criminal acts than those whose record is public. This principle may also apply to whole nation-states: <h3>the more open the society, the less likely it is that state-organized crime will become institutionalized.</h3>

There are also important parallels between state-organized criminality and the criminality of police and law-enforcement agencies generally. <h3>Local police departments that find it more useful to cooperate with criminal syndicates than to combat them are responding to their own particular contradictions, conflicts, and dilemmas (Chambliss, 1988).</h3> An exploration of the theoretical implications of these similarities could yield some important findings.
Quote:
http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/wes...sbn=081333487X
Power, Politics And Crime
by William J Chambliss

Jan 11, 2001
Paperback

Description

In the United States today, we are on the verge of fulfilling a nightmare scenario. Parents are fearful of letting their children play in their own yards and elderly people are afraid to leave their homes. The bogeyman in this rampant panic about crime is the young black male, who, in the media and public image, is a “superpredator” lurking on every street corner ready to attack any prey that is vulnerable. But is crime in America really as bad as the public has been made to believe? Power, Politics, and Crime argues that the current panic over crime has been manufactured by the media, law enforcement bureaucracies, and the private prison industry. It shows how the definition of criminal behavior systematically singles out the inner-city African American. But urban minorities aren’t the only victims. Although crime rates have been declining for 25 years, vast amounts of money pour into the criminal justice-industrial complex, diverting scarce resources from other social services such as education, social welfare, and health care. While in recent years downsizing has affected almost every segment of the public sector, the criminal justice bureaucracies have seen an unprecedented expansion. Through ethnographic observations, analysis of census data, and historical research, William Chambliss describes what is happening, why it has come about, and what can be done about it. He explores the genesis of crime as a political issue, and the effect that crime policies have had on different segments of the population. The book is more than a statement about the politics of crime and punishment—it’s a powerful indictment of contemporary law enforcement practices in the United States. In addition to updating the data the author has added a discussion of the "declining crime rate." Contrary to presentations in the media and by law enforcement agencies, the rate has been declining for over 25 years and therefore cannot be attributed to any "get tough on crime" policies so dear to the hearts of prosecutors and politicians. Chapter Seven, "Crime Myths and Smokescreens" has been completely revised and updated. Updates include a discussion of the recent scandal in the Los Angeles Police Department which has resulted in criminal charges against police officers and the release of numerous convicted felons because of falsified evidence and testimony on the part of police officers. The attack on Louima in the police station in New York as well as the shooting of Diallo are discussed in some detail as well as other recent exposures of police brutality and corruption. The sections on white collar, corporate, and state crimes have been updated and recent examples added to the text.
Reviews

”…Chambliss offers a powerful critique of the consequences of contemporary penal practices.”
— Contemporary Sociology

”This concise, well-documented book systematically illustrates the development of the crime-control industrial process – that has led to the U.S. having the highest incarceration rate in the world.”
— SAGE Race Relations

“An excellent guide that provides various tools and methods for thinking about how crime is perceived, defined and punished in American society.”
— Southland Prison News

”[D]elineates how shaky the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports can be, especially for year-to-year comparisons.”
— Orange County Register

”In a sweeping indictment of over forty years of crime policy, Chambliss marshals evidence to show that America’s war on crime has been a costly failure with terrible side effects. The work documents how, starting with Barry Goldwater’s campaign, conservative politicians consciously sought to link crime problems to the civil rights movement. By the 1990s, this cynical and racist campaign has been so successful that even Democrats have enthusiastically embraced justice policies that have replaced a third of young African American males under correctional supervision. The war on drugs is a special target of Chambliss’ analysis: not only has this war been a spectacular failure, it has spawned corruption while creating a correctional industrial complex. Casualties of the war on drugs are easy to find, Chambliss documents, with higher education leading the list. The most dramatic result, however, is that America now shares with the newly created state of Russia, the world’s highest incarceration rate.”
— Meda Chesney-Lind, University of Hawaii at Manoa

”Chambliss's lucid, incisive, and highly informative study leaves the reader with little doubt that crime is a very serious problem in the United States, though not in the manner that the population has been induced to believe by intensive and politically-motivated indoctrination that has had a dire effect on the society, helping to forge a virtual war against the poor. One basic problem is the manipulated perception of crime, uncorrelated with its actual course. A second is the vast category of harmful and dangerous crime that goes largely unpunished because of the power and privilege of the perpetrators. This is a wake-up call that is badly needed, offering insight and guidelines for people who care about their society, its serious flaws, and what it could become if citizens were to take the real issues into their own hands.”
— Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

”William Chambliss is upset, and based on the data he amasses, the rest of us ought to be. The crime industry is every bit as wasteful and destructive of American values as the military industrial complex of a generation ago. Together with increasingly pliant and self-interested politicians and media, they take us into the new millennium strapped for cash and burdened by fear and prejudice.”
— David Kairys, Temple University School of Law; editor, The Politics of Law, Third Edition
I think that coments in the "Conclusion" in the second to last quote box above, contradict this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ustwo
If anything the government is under more scrutiny than in the past. With easy video and being able to post about anything on the internet things which wouldn't have made ink 30 years ago are now mainstream stories....

Last edited by host; 12-22-2007 at 08:20 AM..
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