When will lack of training have consequences for the ones in charge?

[lighter]

I AM SO FRUSTRATED BY THE LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY WITH ALL THINGS JUSTICE/FAMILY COURT SYSTEM, CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES/DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, AND POLICE TRAINING right now, and I don't understand how the people in CHARGE OF TRAINING aren't ever ever ever seemintly ever held accountable for the cocked up actions of their officers
ALL
OVER
THE
BOARD!

HOW in the world do we prosecute a poorly trained police officer when they were obviously not trained properly, and likely unable to control their emotions well enough to be wielding a GUN in public, around children, and members of society that are obviously going to suffer bc of that poor training, and inability to control their emotions under stress.

And don't get me started on hiring bigots, bullies, and PD predators..... who's responsible for these hirings, and WHY AREN'T WE READING ABOUT THOSE FAILURES!!!????!!!

It's like watching one of the bank officers at my bank get fired for the failings of the guys who made a butt load of money off the strategies the instructed the scapegoat bank officers to carry out.

OK, it's the money, and corruption, and the broken system, but WTH?

WHY DON'T WE SEEM TO CARE ENOUGH TO BRING ATTENTION, and CHANGES?

Ya, we're all fighting our own dragons, BUT THESE ARE THE DRAGONS in every community.  THESE are THE PRIMARY INDICATING DRAGONS FOR HOW SICK A SOCIETY IS GOING TO GET, and we seem to keep getting sicker and sicker.

I don't understand why it's so damned difficult to identify the SOURCE of the problem or at least attempt to trace it back, and stop scapegoating and vivtimizing the symptoms..... the improperly trained, and supervised officers.  The officers going along to get along, idenitfied as the problem but a small cog in the broken SYSTEM.

It's rot from the top down, not the bottom up, IME.

I see heroes mixed in at every level, so I know there's HOPE.  I see people who care, and fight, and rage against the system.  I see them call attention, and spend their lives wading into KNOWNS.  They KNOW what's broken, and they're working within the system, and watching the suffering continue generation after generation, and I'm just so fucked off with it.

Today.

I AM FUCKED OFF WITH IT.

I think watching Trump leave the Kurdish fighters to be slaughtered.... and their children, and families..... is impossible to watch without being triggered for people who have souls and the ability to FEEL appropriate outrage.

THAT entitled sociopathic behavior is where the root of all the problems LIVE,  IMO.

ARRRRGGHH..... so fucked off with it. 

And shocked there's ZERO the system CAN DO to stop that spoiled out of touch maniac from giving orders in the world that everyone can SEE is insane.  Where are the Generals, and the systems to STOP that kind of ass-backward brutality?

Most of the Country seems to care that Trump has Putin's D*CK in his mouth, but nothing that can be done?  If it was a woman, she'd be in prison by now, begging for something... a lawyer... a fair trial, the ability to make bail without an ankle bracelet, and hours free to travel during that day that hampers her ability to put forth a defense.

OK, that was my father (sort of an Archie Bunker type) speaking up there, but it's outrageous, and I am disgusted by the silence of all the people who aren't abusing their spouses, children, and systems in place to supposedly protect us, but are instead....

::ending rant::.

::breathing deeply::.

::stepping off soap box::.

EMDR.....  I choose EMDR in this moment.

Lighter

[Hopalong]

You sound like someone with the passion to transform that frustration into political activity, Lighter.
Hope there's a local or national campaign you can volunteer for.

I understand every word you wrote, and hope you'll take that motivation IRL.

Hugs
Hops

[lighter]

And the education system!  I forgot to rage against the educations system, and Western medicine, and big Pharm.

::shaking head::.

Big Pharma.

Lighter

[Hopalong]

Hi Lighter--
This is the larger organization I support through its local actions.
It is humbling and satisfying to do. We see the results, in changes
made, lives impacted.

My community has huge income inequities and this is the most
effective local way to push back.

http://thedartcenter.org/

Hugs
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

I think we've all run into the same things, at one time or another Lighter. It's actually one reason I gave up the university job. I LIKED what I did most of the time, except for the people at the top who simply did NOT CARE how many people were hurt - one way or another - in the process of executing their personal "vision" of things. They refused to collaborate with the people who did the work; just wanted to give orders. They refused to learn.

What I do now is a defensive strategy, I realize. But it keeps me sane. I work with one person at a time and find ways I can be helpful to them. Untangling the dissonance they experience, or sorting out some of the life situations that have steamrolled them, and finding out which idea in their head was preventing them from choosing a different path... getting them back on their feet or not letting them fall thru cracks due to accidental events no one could control.

I can't change the world. But I can positively impact the people I come in contact with - one at a time. Sometimes it's just simple kindness. Or respect. Or even just noticing them.

[mudpuppy]

Intruding with a few facts that don't get through the bias-confirming prog-press people seem to watch and read exclusively some times.
Trump has been far harder on Putin than Obama or any other previous president. He reestablished tougher sanctions on Russia. He recommitted the US to installing missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic that Putin demanded canceled and Obama subsequently complied. He supplied Ukraine with Javelin anti tank missiles when Obama refused any lethal aid while eastern Ukraine was being swallowed up by Putin allies and Putin himself was swallowing the Crimea. He has sent our troops to eastern Syria to secure Syria's oil fields because part of Russia's deal with Syria was they would intervene and be paid in Syrian oil, which Trump has now cut off. The Kurds continue to be supplied and were given space to move back from the border prior to Turkey doing anything. Moreover the people complaining most loudly about his "insane" actions in pulling our troops back are pretty much the same ones who told us five ten and fifteen years ago the sending of troops into those countries was a horrible mistake and another Viet Nam and all the rest of the incessant anti war drumbeat. Trump then does just that, as he said he would, and all of a sudden the give-peace-a-chance crowd has their tomahawks out and war bonnets on. It's so bizarre it's kind of funny.

It was Obama and Hillary who sent tons of weapons from Libya to the lunatics in Syria some of who would eventually become ISIS and who turned a relatively small war into the conflagration that consumed the place without getting rid of Assad. It was during Obama's presidency in 2015 that Russia intervened militarily in Russia and Obama's feckless response was a bunch of redlines that Russia and Syria laughed at. It was the sainted Hillary Clinton who went to Russia with a big stupid red Reset button in order to play footsie with Medvedev and Putin. And it was Obama who told Medvedev when an errant mic picked it up, that after the 2012 election how much more flexible he could be without those pesky voters to worry about anymore. When Sarah Palin feared Russia would invade Ukraine years before it happened, she was laughed at. When Mitt Romney said Russia was a major threat Obama joked about how the 80s wanted their foreign policy back because we were so over worrying about Russia.
  Probably most damaging to Putin, Trump has reduced energy regulations which has increased our energy output and lowered the price of oil and deprived Russia of hundreds of billions of dollars as the price of oil has inevitably moderated with the new supply.
  Short of an actual war, Trump has done virtually everything he could in our interests, virtually none of which have been in Russia's interests, and virtually all of which reversed soft, pitiful and weak policies of Obama that Putin favored. If Trump's critics want him to start a war with Russia then why not just come out and say so? There doesn't seem to be anywhere the former peaceniks now don't want us to intervene, so why not Russia too, eh?

  If you get your information from only those people who tell you what you already believe there will be an entire world of events and motivations you have no clue about. CNN and the NYT have openly stated they are advocates for one view of the world. Do you think you will get a real view of the world if it is piped into your head by people who openly admit they are acting more as propaganda organs than a free press? If you only access information the producers of which have already acknowledged they serve it up through a funnel are you not simply volunteering to be a sheep led hither and yon by the propaganda purveyors? Do you ever read with an open mind any resources other than ones that tell what you already believe and want to hear?
What ever happened to skepticism and critical thinking and open mindedness and going out of ones way to hear, especially, the people you disagree with? Whatever happened to having a political philosophy that is rational and reasonable and humble enough to allow it's just possible it might be wrong once in awhile and the opposition are not werewolves with bloody fangs or drooling imbeciles as opposed to a political ideology that is close minded, intolerant of any idea not its own, that only sees in black and white and dehumanizes and yes tries to shout down and render voiceless its perceived enemies?
Here's an exercise worth considering. Compare Trump's policies to JFK's. If you're honest you'll find Trump's rather to the left of JFK's. And yet JFK is a Dem hero while Trump is literally Hitler. Here's another; compare the beast Trump's treatment of women to the sainted JFK's. You'll also find Trump a mere babe in the woods by comparison and yet JFK is still the sainted JFK and Trump is still Hitler. Why is that? Don't tell me the answer. I already know why. Tell it to yourself.
The saddest thing is Trump's most vehement critics don't even realize that their irrational hostility has them dancing on the end of Trump's strings like his own little puppets. Give this a try; look past the bombast and stop reacting to whatever Trump does with an automatic kneejerk. Go out of your way to look from and read different perspectives and then...dum ta da dum...think for yourself using your own critical and skeptical facilities to look at everything, but most specially the things you already believe. As Richard Feynman put it about science, but it applies to pretty much everything; "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
Have a good day.

mud

[CB123]

Wow, Mud.
Quite a blast and not a welcome one from my vantage point.
Sorry to see this.

CB

[lighter]

Hi, Mud:

Do you consider Ben Shapiro and Fox News part of the give-peace-a-chance crowd advocating for only the Dems?  If so, then ya....I get my news only from biased Dem media outlets.  I know you're frustrated, but do you really feel these irrational partisan issues? 

We left our Kurdish allies....abandoned them.   

Trump's history of sexual assault is something Trump brags about.  The hot mike incident was shocking.  Were you shocked?  I was appalled.  The first thought I had wasn't....JFK got away with it....Trump should too.  Take a breath, Brother Mud.

Perhaps consider how the news media you consume affects your critical thinking skills.

I hope you're doing OK. Mud.
Lighter

[sKePTiKal]

Meh. ALL so-called news & social media are selling an agenda these days. I refuse to give them my eyeballs or a place on my screen, more & more & more these days. I scan headlines only, until I see something that MIGHT have a nugget of useful information; I won't read/keep reading if it doesn't, or it's got manipulative emotional devices embedded in the language, or worse - "othering" whole groups of people based on only one or two non-personal characteristics. (That's stereotyping; identity politics; and honestly - it's really how the Nazi's did what they did, and got away with it. And that's historical fact; not opinion.)

I've been a media student since the 60s. So what I'm finding the most alarming (albeit fascinating too) is that the information overload isn't so much data, actual information, or anything "new" - people are beating the same old dead horses, exaggerating & magnifying one tiny piece of data (often without context) into a "confirmation validation" of an opinion. My rational mind tells me there has to way more "news" that is being crowded out of the public media sources. I've turned to trade journals, scientific journal and even fiction - looking for information about what is really going on in the world. And finally, only having what I can verify in my own world, being the "final word".

It is an evil in life, that from time to time, politics consumes all the air in a room... and people choose to make a political stand a life or death matter (in many different hyperbolic ways). What a waste of the limited moments allotted in finite quantity to each of us.

:shakes head and retreats to studio to make something functional, useful, that will put a smile on a certain someone's face:

[Hopalong]

Brother Mud,

What I think matters more than excoriating those "on the other side of the aisle" or raging at them is to remember who we are.

We are all human, we are all influenced by family upbringing, education, media, life experience, region, trust or suspicion, critical thinking or lack thereof, faith or belief, community or its lack, experience of other cultures, health and personal histories, on and on....

Given all of those ways to diverge, for me the primary answers, although politics matter to me profoundly, are compassion, goodwill and vigilant self-scrutiny.

Something I read/saw years ago made a big impact on me. It was a scientific long-term study of what causes divorce. The researchers videotaped couples while interviewing them, and focused on multiple factors, including either physical/facial or verbal expressions of contempt. They followed these subjects for years, and the eventual results shocked them. In every single case, those couples within which one (or both) displayed clear contempt for the partner, wound up divorced. It was the single most striking factor. Contempt is the relationship killer.

America is going through this. Since I can't out-argue those with appetite for conflict, I've decided my position has to be respect and compassion. While I'll defend what I'm called to, I won't sneer or use sarcasm to convince anyone else. That's it.

I have thought of you often, Mud. I hope your health is good, your business is going well, your family is fine, your faith is comforting, and most of all, that you've found love.

Peace,
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

I think there's something very valuable in that understanding Hops; that contempt (or conversely, that one knows best what others' should be/do) is exactly the mechanism of "division".

I've been a lot more liberal at other times in my life, than I am now. But the interesting thing is that as my basic values matured... I don't really see the continuum or range of beliefs I've held as being mutually exclusive anymore.

The other thing that is informing my perspective of the political landscape is all we've talked about here over the years - about PD people and their traits, and how we've been impacted - and even cooperated or participated in continuing those bad relationships hoping that things would change. The parallels are striking to me but it's so complex to try to expound, and I don't have the energy right now to write a treatise on politics and how the current situation is part passive-aggressive, part N, part co-dependent... LOL.

I'm just trying to sail my own little boat through all the troubled waters to whatever is on the other side.

The problem with being attached to a status quo (or the way things have always been) is that the only constant in life is CHANGE. Sometimes it's a negative change; sometimes it's positive. And I think we all know what happens if we strongly attach to a specific outcome. So, the only thing that seems useful to me is to shift the spot where my butt is rooted and judging/discerning/analyzing what's going on. And not take things personally.

[Hopalong]

Well put, Amber. Very well put.

I'm glad we mostly avoid specific politics here.

Hugs
Hops