How Can No One Be to Blame for Tamir Rice’s Death?

Published on Portside (https://portside.org)

How Can No One Be to Blame for Tamir Rice’s Death?

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-can-no-one-be-to-blame-for-tamir-rices-death/

December 29, 2015

Dani McClain

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

The Nation

  First, police killed the 12-year-old black boy at a park, barely bringing the car to a halt before jumping out to open fire. Then, minutes later, they pinned his 14-year-old sister to the ground after she ran up to see about her wounded sibling. Next, a media outlet dragged his parents’ [1] names through the mud [2], implying that their unrelated brushes with the law made them at least somewhat culpable for their child’s death. And on Monday, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office announced that Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who killed Tamir Rice last year, would face no state criminal charges.

   It is the end to—or at least a turning point in—a story that is both heartbreaking and stomach-turning: An onlooker calls 911 [3] to report that he sees someone pointing a gun at people in a park. Two critical caveats the caller passes on to 911—that the gun is probably a fake and that the person holding it is probably a juvenile—never make it [4] from the 911 call center to the police who rush onto the scene. (It was and he was.) A New York Times report [5] from early this year explains what happened next:

  Within two seconds of the car’s arrival, Officer Loehmann shot Tamir in the abdomen from point-blank range, raising doubts that he could have warned the boy three times to raise his hands, as the police later claimed. And when Tamir’s 14-year-old sister came running up minutes later, the officers, who are white, tackled her to the ground and put her in handcuffs, intensifying later public outrage about the boy’s death. When his distraught mother arrived, the officers also threatened to arrest her unless she calmed down, the mother, Samaria Rice, said.

   They shot the boy within two seconds of arriving. What could they have possibly surmised in those two seconds? What might actual police work have looked like, and what were the steps that would have allowed Rice, newly in possession of a toy gun, to have lived through this encounter?

   The grand jury system itself appears to be part of the problem.

   As we know from media reports [6] out of Cleveland, there was no reason to expect that Loemann would or could take appropriate action in that moment. In 2012, the police department that he worked for in Independence, Ohio, noted that he was “distracted” and “weepy” during firearms training. The deputy chief of police there reported that Loehmann “could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.” That same supervisor wrote, “I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies.” Loehmann resigned after six months on that force, but went on in March of 2014 to join the Cleveland Police Department, which did not review his file from Independence. He scored the new position after failing to secure a job [7] with police departments in Akron, Euclid, and Parma Heights or with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department.

Loehmann’s shortcomings bring to mind the Barney Fife fumblings of the McKinney, Texas, officer whom video showed to be clearly out of his depths—somersaulting needlessly outside a pool party and waving his gun at teenagers before sitting on a bikini-clad girl’s back. They bring to mind the cowardice of Officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina, who took aim at the back of a running Walter Scott.

Loehmann wasn’t the only officer present at the scene. He opened fire after stepping out of a car driven by Officer Frank Garmback, who was accused [8] of using excessive force against a 39-year-old black woman in 2010. 

Cleveland eventually paid the woman $100,000 to settle. According to The New York Times [5], after shooting Tamir Rice, the officers stood around for approximately four minutes. Neither of them checked his vital signs or gave him first aid.

They shot the boy within two seconds of arriving. What could they have possibly surmised in those two seconds?

How do people such as these get and keep their jobs? And what is to be done when, after the deaths of Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and Rice, evidence suggests that prosecutors can’t be trusted to hold police accountable? In Cleveland, concerns about Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty surfaced early and often. As of mid-October, nearly a year after Rice’s death, McGinty still had not begun presenting a case to the grand jury. In October, attorneys representing the Rice family sent a letter [9] to McGinty asking that he recuse himself so that a special prosecutor who might actually try to secure an indictment could be appointed. More than 200,000 people then signed a petition [10] circulated by the civil-rights organization ColorOfChange.org echoing the call for McGinty to step down.

Pressure came from within the establishment as well. Last summer, a municipal judge in Cleveland decided that there was probable cause to charge Loehmann and Garmback on multiple counts. The judge, responding to affidavits filed by members of the Cleveland community who sought charges against the officers, wrote an administrative order [11], advising that Loehmann be charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless homicide and that Garmback be charged with negligent homicide. The order was purely advisory and apparently did little to inform McGinty’s actions.

The issue at hand is bigger than one Ohio prosecutor failing to aggressively seek an indictment.

But the issue at hand is bigger than one Ohio prosecutor’s failing to aggressively seek an indictment. LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, a retired judge and independent police auditor, has consistently made the bold call for an abolition of the grand-jury system altogether. In these proceedings, which are closed to the public, the prosecutor runs the show, presenting evidence to jurors and instructing them on the law. With their outdated reasons for existing [12] and the inordinate power given to prosecutors, the grand jury system itself appears to be part of the problem in a case like Rice’s (and Bland’s and Garner’s and so many other deaths at or alleged to be at the hands of police). Writing late last year after it was determined that the officers who killed Brown and Garner would face no charges, Cordell explained [13]:

In high-profile, controversial cases, where officers use lethal force, prosecutors face a dilemma. If they don’t file charges against officers, they risk the wrath of the community; if they do file charges, they risk the wrath of the police and their powerful unions. By opting for secret grand jury proceedings, prosecutors pass the buck, using grand jurors as pawns for political cover. The Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases are examples of how prosecutors manipulate the grand jury process.…

We will never know why there was no indictment because what the prosecutors said, how they said it, what evidence they presented, and what they asked the witnesses will forever remain secret, unless the transcript is opened to the public by court order.

By convening grand juries, the prosecutors in Missouri and New York ensured that there would be no justice for Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Sadly, these two men are gone. But if we abolish criminal grand juries, at least their deaths will not have been in vain.

It’s difficult to imagine that any reform could make the family of 12-year-old Rice feel as though he did not die in vain. But perhaps a serious effort to abolish grand juries is an appropriate step toward ending this pattern of watching police walk free after needlessly killing those who are black and unarmed. One such effort is underway in California, where lawmakers this summer banned the use of secret grand juries [14] in police shootings.

Copyright c 2015 The Nation. [15] Reprinted with permission [16]. May not be reprinted without permission. Distributed by Agence Global.

Please support our journalism. Get a digital subscription [17] to The Nation for just $9.50!

Source URL: https://portside.org/2015-12-29/%EF%BB%BF-how-can-no-one-be-blame-tamir-rice%E2%80%99s-death

Links:

[1] http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/lawyer_representing_tamir_rice.html
[2] http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/tamir_rices_father_has_history.html
[3] http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-tamir-rice-911-call-20141126-htmlstory.html
[4] http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/tamir-rice-shooting-officers-were-not-told-the-gun-could-be-fake-or-that-suspect-was-juvenile
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/us/in-tamir-rice-shooting-in-cleveland-many-errors-by-police-then-a-fatal-one.html?_r=0
[6] http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/12/cleveland_police_officer_who_s.html
[7] http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/01/timothy_loehmann_the_cleveland.html
[8] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/officer-tamir-rice-beating-case
[9] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2461359/rice-letter-to-prosecutor-mcginty.pdf
[10] http://colorofchange.org/campaign/justice-tamir-rice/
[11] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/11/cleveland-judge-finds-probable-cause-for-murder-charge-in-tamir-rice-shooting/
[12] http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-12-04/england-abolished-grand-juries-decades-ago-because-they-didnt-work
[13] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/12/abolish_grand_juries_justice_for_eric_garner_and_michael_brown.html
[14] http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-brown-grand-juries-20150811-story.html
[15] http://thenation.com
[16] http://rights@agenceglobal
[17] https://subscribe.thenation.com/servlet/OrdersGateway?cds_mag_code=NAN&cds_page_id=122425&cds_response_key=I12SART1

- See more at: https://portside.org/print/node/10504#sthash.oAaK8w7H.dpuf

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

Special Report: Pentagon Thwarts Obama's Effort to Close Guantanamo

Published on Portside (https://portside.org)

Special Report: Pentagon Thwarts Obama's Effort to Close Guantanamo

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gitmo-release-special-report-idUSKBN0UB1B020151229

December 29, 2015

Charles Levinson and David Rohde

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Reuters

WASHINGTON 

In September, U.S. State Department officials invited a foreign delegation to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to persuade the group to take detainee Tariq Ba Odah to their country. If they succeeded, the transfer would mark a small step toward realizing President Barack Obama's goal of closing the prison before he leaves office.

   The foreign officials told the administration they would first need to review Ba Odah's medical records, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode. The Yemeni has been on a hunger strike for seven years, dropping to 74 pounds from 148, and the foreign officials wanted to make sure they could care for him.

  For the next six weeks, Pentagon officials declined to release the records, citing patient privacy concerns, according to the U.S. officials. The delegation, from a country administration officials declined to identify, canceled its visit. After the administration promised to deliver the records, the delegation traveled to Guantanamo and appeared set to take the prisoner off U.S. hands, the officials said. The Pentagon again withheld Ba Odah's full medical file.

   Today, nearly 14 years since he was placed in the prison and five years since he was cleared for release by U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic officials, Ba Odah remains in Guantanamo.

   In interviews with multiple current and former administration officials involved in the effort to close Guantanamo, Reuters found that the struggle over Ba Odah's medical records was part of a pattern. Since Obama took office in 2009, these people said, Pentagon officials have been throwing up bureaucratic obstacles to thwart the president's plan to close Guantanamo.

    Negotiating prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like "punching a pillow," said James Dobbins, the State Department special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. Defense Department officials "would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument," he said. "And then nothing would happen."

   Pentagon delays, he said, resulted in four Afghan detainees spending an additional four years in Guantanamo after being approved for transfer.

In other cases, the transfers of six prisoners to Uruguay, five to Kazakhstan, one to Mauritania and one to Britain were delayed for months or years by Pentagon resistance or inaction, officials said.

   To slow prisoner transfers, Pentagon officials have refused to provide photographs, complete medical records and other basic documentation to foreign governments willing to take detainees, administration officials said. They have made it increasingly difficult for foreign delegations to visit Guantanamo, limited the time foreign officials can interview detainees and barred delegations from spending the night at Guantanamo.

    Partly as a result of the Pentagon's maneuvers, it is increasingly doubtful that Obama will fulfill a pledge he made in the 2008 presidential election: to close the detention center at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama criticized President George W. Bush for having set up the prison for foreigners seized in the "War on Terror" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., and then keeping them there for years without trial.

    When Obama took office, the prison held 242 detainees, down from a peak of about 680 in 2003. Today, with little more than a year remaining in his presidency, it still holds 107 detainees.

   Pentagon officials denied any intentional effort to slow transfers.

   "No foreign government or U.S. department has ever notified the Department of Defense that transfer negotiations collapsed due to a lack of information or access provided by the Department of Defense," said Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross, a U.S. Navy commander.

   Myles Caggins, a White House spokesman, denied discord with the Pentagon. "We're all committed to the same goal: safely and responsibly closing the detention facility," Caggins said.

   Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said in an interview that it was natural for the Pentagon to be cautious on transfers that could result in detainees rejoining the fight against U.S forces. "Look at where most of the casualties have come from -- it's the military," Hagel said.

   The Pentagon's slow pace in approving transfers was a factor in President Obama's decision to remove Hagel in February, former administration officials said. And in September, amid continuing Pentagon delays, President Obama upbraided Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in a one-on-one meeting, according to administration officials briefed on the encounter.

   Since then, the Pentagon has been more cooperative. Administration officials said they expect to begin transferring at least 17 detainees to foreign countries in January.

   Military officials, however, continue to make transfers more difficult and protracted than necessary, administration officials said. In particular, they cite General John F. Kelly, in charge of the U.S. Southern Command, which includes Guantanamo. They said that Kelly, whose son was killed fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, opposes the president's policy of closing Guantanamo, and that he and his command have created obstacles for visiting delegations.

  Kelly denied that he or his command has limited delegation visits. "Our staff works closely with the members of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay and Joint Task Force Guantanamo to support the visits of all foreign delegations," he said in a written statement, "and have never refused or curtailed one of these visits."

   Even if Obama manages to transfer all low-risk detainees to other countries, closing Guantanamo won't be easy. Several dozen prisoners considered too dangerous to release would have to be imprisoned in the U.S., a step Republicans in Congress adamantly oppose because, they say, it would endanger American lives.

   In a press conference earlier this month, Obama said he still hoped to strike a deal with Congress. He added, however, that he reserved the right to move the prisoners to the U.S. under his executive authority.

  The Bush administration faced no political opposition on transfers and was able to move 532 detainees out of Guantanamo over six years, 35 percent of whom returned to the fight, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. The Obama administration has been able to transfer 131 detainees over seven years, 10 percent of whom have returned to the fight.

PRIORITY FROM THE START

    Two days after Obama was sworn in as president in 2009, he signed an executive order mandating an immediate review of all 242 detainees then held in Guantanamo and requiring the closure of the detention center. A year later, a task force that included the Defense Department and U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously concluded that 156 detainees were low enough security threats to be transferred to foreign countries.

     Members of Congress, meanwhile, seized on reports that transferred detainees had returned to the fight to demand that Guantanamo remain open.

To read the rest of the report go to Guantanamo Release [1]

Source URL: https://portside.org/2015-12-29/special-report-pentagon-thwarts-obamas-effort-close-guantanamo

Links:

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gitmo-release-special-report-idUSKBN0UB1B020151229

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

Report of the December 28th Holy Innocents Pentagon Witness

Tuesday, December 29, 2015 2:02 PM

Report of the December 28th Holy Innocents Pentagon Witness
by Art Laffin

Biblical Account

   In Matthew's account, magi from the east go to Judea in search of the newborn king of the Jews, having "seen his star in the east." The King, Herod the Great, directs them to Bethlehem, and asks them to let him know who this king is when they find him. They find Jesus and honor him, but an angel tells them not to alert Herod, and they return home by another way. The Massacre of the Innocents text is Matthew 2:16–18, although the preceding verses form the context:

When the Magi had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son." When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old or under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

Report of Witness

  On December 28th, 50 people from the Atlantic and Southern Life Communities held a nonviolent witness at the Pentagon to commemorate the feast of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents. The noon-time witness began with a procession in which participants carried banners and signs from Army-Navy Drive to the police designated "protest" area located near the Pentagon south metro entrance.  Recently, the Pentagon Police, citing security concerns, moved our vigil site down the sidewalk, away from the metro entrance and in the direction of the south parking lot.

Upon our arrival, we encountered a sizeable police presence who directed everyone to go into the fenced off designated protest area. Seven did not comply and remained along the building side of the sidewalk, directly across from the designated protest area, and held a large banner that said "Wage Peace--Practice Nonviolence." I also held a sign which said "The U.S. Bombing of A Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan is A War Crime--U.S. Out of Afghanistan Now!"  Unlike some recent Pentagon action arrests, police moved to arrest very quickly, taking only a few minutes. Joe Byrne led us in singing two verses of the "Coventry Carol" as the first and second arrest warnings were given. As police gave a final warning to leave, Patrick O'Neill then led us in the "Lord's Prayer," at which point, we were all arrested. I was able to offer an abbreviated version of the  song "A Voice Is Heard In Ramah," as I was being taken into custody.
 

As the police were moving in to make arrests, the community gathered in the designated protest area began the program part of the witness which lasted nearly an hour. During this time, a statement regarding who we are and the purpose for our action was made, the Gospel account of the massacre of the Holy Innocents was read, an excerpt from an Allen Ginsberg poem was shared, and songs and New Year's Resolutions for a nonviolent world were offered. Please see below the statement and some of the New Year's Resolutions that were offered. Also please see photos and short video clip taken by our wonderful stealth photographer! 

The seven of us who were arrested were taken to the Pentagon Police Center, which once upon a time served as a day care center, and charged with "Violation of Lawful Order."  All were released and are scheduled to appear for a February 4, 2016 court date at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA. 

Those Arrested:

Patrick O'Neill

Joan Wages

Janice Sevre-Duszynska

Chris Spicer

Elizabeth Naro

Joe Byrne

Art Laffin

 Statement and New Year's Resolutions

                                           THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS IS MAGNIFIED

    Today, Christian churches commemorate the Massacre of the Holy Innocents, recalling how Herod, as he sought to destroy the child Jesus, ordered the slaughter of boys under two years old in and around Bethlehem. Today, the lives of countless innocents, like those in Bethlehem, are endangered. Every hour of every day, the United States military magnifies destruction across the globe.  From overt wars to covert “dirty wars,” lives are destroyed, millions of families are torn apart, people are disappeared. On October 3, 2015, the U.S. bombed a Doctors Without Border Hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 42 people and injuring 30. A survivor of the attack described how patients in the hospital were literally burning to death in their intensive care unit beds. 

                                        
Every second of every minute, the world’s addiction to oil, natural gas and nuclear power is the cause of environmental contamination that is threatening global devastation. The unrelenting violence of the U.S. power structure continues to crush the poor and target people of color. Fear and violence are pervasive everywhere. And always, the existence of nuclear weapons puts all life in utter peril.  We respond to these and other horrors with a resounding “No!” This is a time when we call for transformation and resolve to magnify God’s creation with joy. We, members of the Atlantic and Southern Life Communities and other peace groups, invite you to join us in making the following New Year’s Resolutions a reality as we strive to create the beloved community and a nonviolent world.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                      New Year's Resolutions for 2016  

Abolish All Nuclear and Conventional Weapons Now!

Halt All Research of Nuclear Weapons Now! 

Stop the U.S. Militarization of Space Now!                              

Pursue Climate Justice Now!                                                                                                                         

Abolish War Now!       

Repent for 24 Years of U.S. Warmaking in Iraq and Make Reparations to the Iraqi People Now!            Repent for 14 Years of U.S. Warmaking in Afghanistan and Make Reparations to the Afghan People Now!  

Make Peace with the Islamic State and Stop Bombing Them Now!

Stop All U.S. Drone Attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Make Reparations to All Victims of U.S. Drone Strikes Now!

End Islamophobia Now!

Close All U.S. Military Bases, including on Jeju Island and Okinawa Now! 

End the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and All U.S. Military Aid to Israel Now!

Close Guantanamo, the SOA/WHINSEC and All Military Torture Centers Now!

Free All Political Prisoners Now!

Tear Down the Border Wall and Welcome Immigrants Now!

Save the World's Children Dying From Poverty Now!

Eradicate Poverty Now! 

End Racism and All Forms of Discrimination Now!

That the U.S. Government Honor All Treaties With Indigenous Peoples and Make Reparations to Them Now!     

Money for Human Needs Not for Wall Street and the Pentagon Now!

Abolish The Death Penalty Now! 

Stop All Police and Vigilante Violence Against African Americans Now!

Money for Schools Not the Prison Industrial Complex Now!

Demand Universal Health Care and Affordable Housing Now! 

Respect All Life and Creation Now!

Live, Practice, and Teach Nonviolence Now!
 

		Faith & Resistance - Feast of the Innocents 2015 There are 19 photos in this folder. View in OneDrive

Special Note: On this very day, on December 29, 1890, the 7th Calvary Regiment slaughtered nearly 300 Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee Creek. God forgive US!!!

Vigil against JHU's killer drone research/Review: Michael Moore's 'Where to Invade Next'

Vigil to say "No Drone Research at JHU" each Tuesday at 33rd & North Charles Sts., Baltimore.  Join this ongoing vigil on Dec. 30  from 5:30 to 6:30  PM.  Email Max at mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34248-review-michael-moores-where-to-invade-next

Michael Moore. (photo: Where to Invade Next)

Review: Michael Moore's 'Where to Invade Next'

By Godfrey Cheshire, RogerEbert.com

25 December 15

  

 Michael Moore’s surprising and extraordinarily winning “Where to Invade Next” will almost surely cast his detractors at Fox News and similar sinkholes into consternation. They get lots of mileage out of painting Moore as a far-left provocateur who’s all about “running America down.” But his new film is all about building America up, in some amazingly novel and thought-provoking ways. In my view, it’s one of the most genuinely, and valuably, patriotic films any American has ever made.

   It comes billed not as a documentary but a comedy, and the first joke is its hilariously misleading title. You think it anticipates a stern, leftist denunciation of American foreign policy. Instead, Moore tells us the Joint Chiefs of Staff invited him to Washington, DC, to confess that all their wars since “the big one” have been disastrous and ask his advice. He responds by offering himself up as a one-man army who will “invade countries populated by Caucasians whose names I can mostly pronounce, take the things we need from them, and bring them back home to the United States of America.”

   So, wearing his trademark baseball cap and literally wrapped in the flag, he sets off across the Atlantic searching out peoples to conquer who have things America needs. Yes, he knows all of these countries have their own share of problems. But he’s come, he says, “to pick the flowers, not the weeds.” And what a bouquet he assembles.

   First stop is Italy, where he wonders why “Italians always look like they just had sex.” He finds some reasons for that happy glow in talking to a 30ish couple—he’s a cop, she works for a clothing company—who start enumerating all the paid vacation time they get. The basic portion, decreed by law, is four weeks, but when you add in government holidays and such, it comes closer to eight. They use all this time to vacation in places like Miami and Zanzibar, so there’s more than just sex (though we guess there’s plenty of that too) to explain their radiant tans and satisfied smiles.

    After hearing about these citizens’ five months paid maternity leave, Moore invades two Italian companies—one makes the famous Ducati motorcycles—where he expresses mock-disbelief that such largesse could be good for business. But the CEOs of both firms genially argue that it is. Workers getting such benefits—and being allowed two-hour lunches where they can have home-cooked meals—makes for a healthier, happier and more productive work force, they say. A union representative notes that these gains have been hard-won and still require struggle. But the picture of an industrial situation where all sides seem to define success as cooperation, health and la dolce vita leads Moore to plant the Stars and Stripes on one factory floor, claiming the idea for the U.S.A.

   Before considering the other countries he visits, it’s worth noting that all of this works so well not only because of the ideas presented but also because Moore is such a masterful comic storyteller and skilled polemicist. The film has a very definite point of view, of course; that’s what sets it apart from the bland pseudo-objectivity of our corporate news media. But Moore is clever enough to avoid preaching to the choir by also voicing the doubts and skepticism that Americans of other political persuasions would have.

   After Italy, several episodes focus on different aspects of education. In France, he visits a provincial elementary school where the students’ hour-long lunches look like they come from a top Parisian restaurant; this is not only cheaper than the crap American kids are fed, the chef tells him, it’s also educational since it teaches about food and healthy eating. In Finland, one of the film’s most startling segments, Moore learns that until a couple of decades ago, student performance was about as lame America’s still is. Then the Finns decided to revolutionize their educational system. The reforms included eliminating homework and standardized testing and giving students more autonomy and free time. The result: Finland is now number one in educational rankings.

   In Slovenia, Moore inspects a system where a college education is essentially free, even for Americans who have begun to flock there, unable to afford the exorbitant costs at home. In Germany, the filmmaker’s look at health care and benefits for middle-class citizens elides into the part of the film that’s most likely to draw the ire of American right-wingers, since it concerns how not just education but public policy in general decrees remembering and understanding the Holocaust. Moore says he comes from “a great country that was born in genocide and built on the backs of slaves,” and wonders whether such recognition of historical sins might actually benefit the U.S. too.

    Two other countries prompt questions of crime and punishment. In Norway, Moore investigates a prison system where rehabilitation rather than punishment is the goal, even maximum security lock-ups are tailored to that end, and the maximum sentence is 23 years (the country now has one of the world’s lowest murder rates). In Portugal, he hears that eliminating all penalties for drug use and treating it as a health-care issue instead has resulted in decreased use. He also listens as three Portuguese cops talk movingly about how concern for “human dignity” is the most important part of their training.

    Two underlying themes of the film, people power and women’s empowerment, converge in the film’s final two segments. In Tunisia (the only non-European and only Muslim country visited), he hears how, after the country’s 2011 revolution, the new Islamist government tried to keep a guarantee of equal rights for women out of the constitution, but bowed to include it after a massive popular uprising. And in Iceland, Moore learns that the only financial company that escaped the country’s massive financial meltdown was one founded and run by women, which leads into a discussion of the transformative benefits that have come with women gaining positions of power in government and business. Meanwhile, Iceland also differed from the U.S. in sending many of their financial bad boys to prison—an idea that the lead prosecutor says was modeled on America’s prosecution of malefactors in the savings and loan scandal.

That’s the kicker here. As he investigates one potentially useful idea after another, Moore keeps discovering that many originated in the U.S. Thus he’s not stealing from foreigners but reclaiming remedies that once belonged to us.

   Anyone who travels abroad a lot inevitably reflects that, due to many factors, Americans are very insular, knowing far less about other countries than they know about us. Better national media and education might mitigate this, but in the meantime, Michael Moore has done thinking Americans a great service by opening several fascinating windows on the world. One of his most accomplished and entertaining films, “Where to Invade Next” is rich in ideas that deserve to be discussed by liberals, conservatives and everyone else on the political spectrum in the upcoming election year. Optimistic and affirmative, it rests on one challenging but invaluable idea: we can do better.

C 2015 Reader Supported News

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs