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The Tragedy of Baltimore: Inside the crackup of an American city.
New York Times ^ | March 12, 2019 | Alec MacGillis

Posted on 03/12/2019 3:46:20 AM PDT by reaganaut1

...

In Baltimore, you can tell a lot about the politics of the person you’re talking with by the word he or she uses to describe the events of April 27, 2015. Some people, and most media outlets, call them the “riots”; some the “unrest.” Guy was among those who always referred to them as the “uprising,” a word that connoted something justifiable and positive: the first step, however tumultuous, toward a freer and fairer city. Policing in Baltimore, Guy and many other residents believed, was broken, with officers serving as an occupying army in enemy territory — harassing African-American residents without cause, breeding distrust and hostility.

In 2016, the United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division concurred, releasing a report accusing the city’s Police Department of racial discrimination and excessive force. The city agreed to a “consent decree” with the federal government, a set of policing reforms that would be enforced by a federal judge. When an independent monitoring team was selected to oversee the decree, Guy was hired as its community liaison. This was where she wanted to be: at the forefront of the effort to make her city a better place.

But in the years that followed, Baltimore, by most standards, became a worse place. In 2017, it recorded 342 murders — its highest per-capita rate ever, more than double Chicago’s, far higher than any other city of 500,000 or more residents and, astonishingly, a larger absolute number of killings than in New York, a city 14 times as populous. Other elected officials, from the governor to the mayor to the state’s attorney, struggled to respond to the rise in disorder, leaving residents with the unsettling feeling that there was no one in charge.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: baltimore; blacklivesmatter; bluezones; murders; urban
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Let's see, since I wasn't born yesterday I remember a few things about the USA. I don't agree with your statement about pricing out customers. Before 1980 the USA was virtually self sufficient in durable goods and there was a lot to go around. So your supposition is erroneous.

As for tariffs I would like to see an across the board 2% import tariff to start.

101 posted on 03/12/2019 11:03:47 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The price of a new car has gone to the moon, thanks to over-regulation. Why should anybody sane buy one nowadays?

I know LOL, the best pick-up Ram 1500, only about $70,000. Don't know many people who want a $1,000 monthly car payment for 6 years.

102 posted on 03/12/2019 11:07:34 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: Alberta's Child
Yes, the UAW is a problem but now the average wage is way down. Google it.

Those factories could have been sold to foreign makers but there was no motivation to do so. Just shutter them and throw all the workers out on the street. So now they, and their descendants, riot and burn CVSs.

103 posted on 03/12/2019 11:07:49 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The price of a new car has gone to the moon, thanks to over-regulation. Why should anybody sane buy one nowadays?

I drive a 2004 so don't ask me.

104 posted on 03/12/2019 11:08:36 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

20% not 2%


105 posted on 03/12/2019 11:15:47 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: reaganaut1
Well now, all hope is not gone. Baltimore just hired Harrison, New Orleans former Chief of Police! Everyone knows how crime free and safe New Orleans is-he traded up with Baltimore AND he gets to keep lifetime pension here in the Big Sleazy!

Meanwhile N.O. elected a Mayor from Compton!

Look-it's demographics. Statistically there ARE no successful,safe, poor, black cities. Nor can there be. When poor, black or white, welfare recipients are the MAJORITY the minority tax-payers are sucked dry or run out. It's over. There's money and power in pretending it's not; but unless the population changes-it's over.
106 posted on 03/12/2019 11:17:01 AM PDT by ClearBlueSky (ISLAM is the problem. ISLAM is the enemy of civilization.)
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To: ClearBlueSky

These cities can be fixed, IMO, but like with Venezuela, the remedy will be drastic. Cut local property taxes most of the way. The city government becomes all-volunteer, except for the police, who should be compensated for what they do. Abolish all local gun control laws. Let organizations like the Salvation Army run the social services — they will be much more efficient, and they’re mostly volunteer. Privatize the school system, preferably non-profit, so that poor parents can still send their kids there, with their own money or state vouchers.

And for Pete’s Sake, get rid of the race hustlers and come down hard on all the crooks, including those in the government.

In the middle of the 20th Century, Black people, in spite all of their hurdles and handicaps (segregation, etc.), were the most competitive people in the country. The way has only been downward ever since. Time to reverse that.


107 posted on 03/12/2019 12:41:02 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Modern feminism: ALL MEN BAD!!!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

What these cities need is INDUSTRY. Everything else is BS.


108 posted on 03/12/2019 12:43:52 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: reaganaut1; All


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109 posted on 03/12/2019 12:44:34 PM PDT by musicman (The future is just a collection of successive nows.)
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To: cdcdawg

You’re right. Baltimore is just another symptom of the real problem. It isn’t spirituality. It isn’t income inequality. It isn’t lack of education. It’s racial pandering.


110 posted on 03/12/2019 1:50:20 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2

Once industrialized cities are now economic deserts. That is the real problem.


111 posted on 03/12/2019 1:51:56 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: central_va

Driving companies out of business and out of the country through over-regulation, high taxes, and unions certainly had its day. I hope Trumpism can last beyond Trump.


112 posted on 03/12/2019 2:22:19 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2
Unions are a tiny part of the workforce - 7%.

Manufacturers weren't driven out they left to seek cheaper labor knowing they could import product back into USA duty free because congress and both parties are corrupt and have sold out the American worker. This is what you Republican Free Traitors™ wanted so quit blaming the victims. You got your cheap coolie made toaster ovens now pay up, pay the taxes and support these cities and shut up about it. You're lucky this crazed drug addled horde doesn't hunt you down like the vermin you globalists really are.

113 posted on 03/12/2019 2:30:10 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: central_va

Somehow I knew exactly what you were going to post.
You did not disappoint.


114 posted on 03/12/2019 2:39:27 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: reaganaut1

Around 2006 I attended a DNC fundraiser, as my wife was in the lobbying business and went to these things for both and all sides. I always had to promise my wife that I’d behave and mostly shut up, but we got into a conversation with an O’Malley aide, at that time Mayor of Baltimore and then running for governor.

I couldn’t help it, but having lived in central Baltimore in the early 90s and then visiting the city around that time, I was appalled at its deterioration, I asked this kid why things had gotten so bad. I meant it as an honest question.

He went off on me. My wife smiled and pulled me away before I could swing back.

It was very clear that under O’Malley Baltimore went the way of NYC under Dinkins or Big Bird today, and it’s tragic. This douchebag was only thinking about his political career and couldn’t give a damn for the residents of that once great city. I lived near the war-zone of North Ave, and while not great, there were businesses, vibrant city interactions and a feeling of safety. By 2006, I wouldn’t get out of a car on those streets I had lived on. I can’t even imagine what it’s like today.

Thank you douchebag leftists.


115 posted on 03/12/2019 5:06:35 PM PDT by nicollo (I said no!)
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