Clouds On The Horizon: Don't Say I Didn't Warn you.

“Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”— Malcolm X

When you see grey clouds gathering on the horizon you know that a storm is coming. Smart people take preventive measures to lessen the storm's impact. Of course there are always those who will say the storm may not develop or if it does it may not be catastrophic. Only fools ignore the gathering clouds altogether.

In my blog dated 8/27/17 entitled What Will You Do If They Come In The Morning? Protect and Defend by any Means Necessary! I noted that one of the indicators of the necessity to protect and defend is "[w]hen local police departments are increasingly armed with weapons and equipment previously reserved for the military and foreign deployment."

Today the Associated Press (AP) in an article entitled Trump prepares to lift limits on military gear for police reported that the Trump administration intends to restore to local police agencies “armored vehicles and other war-fighting gear” which can include such items as grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, as well as firearms and ammunition of .50-caliber or greater. Bayonets? Tank-like vehicles? Weaponized aircraft?

These articles of surplus military hardware were made available to local police agencies from 1990 to 2015 - by Act of Congress. After all the police needed to be militarized to help police – you guessed it – fight the war on drugs. Of course the war on drugs has only been waged in African American communities.

In 2015, after they had twenty-five years to stockpile such war-fighting gear President Obama cut off the flow of surplus military hardware to local police. He did so by executive order only after the Ferguson Missouri Police Department brought in armored vehicles and other war-fighting gear to confront protesters after the murder of Michael Brown. I guess the picture of armored vehicles and police officers carrying assault weapons descending on a black community was apparently a step too far.

The Trump Administration's resurrection of law and order apparently requires extra bayonets, tanks, and assault weapons to drive down violent crime. I wonder where such deadly equipment will be deployed? Beverly Hills? Mar-A-Lago?

National police organizations are in favor of the latest attempt to further militarize the police. No surprise there. After all the police must be protected. From whom? The Black Lives Matter movement?

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is against it. Maybe they know that "fighting drugs" is a euphemism for the undeclared war on African American communities.

The President, the Department of Justice, the Fraternal Order Police, The National Rifle Association the Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan are getting strapped up. Are we?

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Johnnie Cordero holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Doctorate in Jurisprudence. He is the author of Total Black Empowerment: A Guide to Critical Thinking in the Age of Trump.