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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: joma89

They’re mostly not “the least” anyway, in the sense of being being weak, defenseless, or vulnerable. The worst scammers and parasites are predators, on their “own” and on society.


41 posted on 03/12/2019 6:15:13 AM PDT by mrsmel (I wonÂ’t be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: reaganaut1
Like so many cities, the original fault lies with the right wing and not the left. Take Baltimore, it was a hard working seaport industrial city with steel mills and ship yards. Now retail and the inner harbor is the main employer. What a joke. The right off shored our industry and left nothing in it's place. The left just took advantage of the depressed economic situation.

Shame on Free Traitors™.

42 posted on 03/12/2019 6:15:18 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: wny

Every crime-ridden, drug infested inner city shithole in the US was created when the greedy globalist right wing off shored industry. That was the original sin.


43 posted on 03/12/2019 6:16:46 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Jimmy Valentine

“Baltimore was a great and beautiful city. Unfortunately the last series of Mayors and City Council were nothing but corrupt incompetent slackers and imho racists.”

Gee, I thought that the PROGENITORS of Nancy cured all ills of Baltimore decades ago...You know, like the KLINTOONS cured Haiti’s problems long ago when Hill’s bro got mining concessions and their ‘buddy billionaire’ got the phone service franchise for the whole country..

JUST SAYING....


44 posted on 03/12/2019 6:17:09 AM PDT by litehaus (A memory toooo long.............)
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To: central_va

or, the industry fled the corruption

(which is what happened)


45 posted on 03/12/2019 6:18:09 AM PDT by bert ( (KE. N.P. N.C. +12) Honduras must be invaded to protect America from invasion)
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To: reaganaut1
Detroit!

Baltimore!

What's next?

46 posted on 03/12/2019 6:18:32 AM PDT by Savage Beast (The Trump Revolution is the Resistance to the Decadence of Western Civilization.)
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To: ohioman

They only got that way when the globalists and the right wing off shored industry and left poverty in its place. High tariffs and re industrialization will cure 90% of the nations woes.


47 posted on 03/12/2019 6:19:27 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: reaganaut1
Obviously, if the Trump Revolution fails, it will be the crackup of the entire USA!

That's what's at stake.

48 posted on 03/12/2019 6:19:50 AM PDT by Savage Beast (The Trump Revolution is the Resistance to the Decadence of Western Civilization.)
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To: bert
or, the industry fled the corruption

That's not what happened, greed is what happened. And stone headed Conservatives blame the victim. At least Trump (and I) gets it.

49 posted on 03/12/2019 6:21:52 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Savage Beast

Gary ?

Detroit!

Baltimore!

Chicago ?


50 posted on 03/12/2019 6:30:34 AM PDT by litehaus (A memory toooo long.............)
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To: reaganaut1

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.

The hood did not want the police to interrupt their criminal activities, the rats and media set them up as the bad guys and the thugs as the victims.
The rat rot is essential to their control


51 posted on 03/12/2019 6:33:24 AM PDT by ronnie raygun (nic dip.com)
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To: reaganaut1

I grew up in South Baltimore, Brooklyn. Back in the late 50’s and early to mid 60’s it was a poor yet civil neighborhood. Caght buses to attend O’s games on 33rd Street. In the 70’ spent time in Section 34 with Wild Bill Hagy. Violence and murder were not an issue. In the 80’s and 90’s went to many restaurants at the Inner Habor....good times. Not anymore. I won’t even spend an evening to catch a show or baseball/football game.


52 posted on 03/12/2019 6:46:23 AM PDT by gathersnomoss (Grace and Dignity Will Win The Day.)
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To: central_va

It sounds like you are calling for more Nationalism and less globalization. If so, I agree 100%.


53 posted on 03/12/2019 6:57:35 AM PDT by ohioman (uestion)
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To: wny

The situation is Baltimore is not unexpected. As soon as the police realized that they now were the “criminals” and the thugs were the “good guys” there was no incentive for them to do their jobs. In fact, there was an incentive not to do their jobs, since that was the only way to avoid the fate that befell the officers involved with Freddy Gray. Even though those officers either were acquitted or had the charges dismissed, the message was clear - do your job at your peril. Once the police decided to stand down, the “good guys” were free to terrorize the city. So predictable and so tragic for the people who simply want to live unafraid.


54 posted on 03/12/2019 7:11:30 AM PDT by JGPhila
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To: gathersnomoss

Got some family in suburban Maryland. They call it Balti-Mordor.


55 posted on 03/12/2019 7:18:12 AM PDT by KC Burke (If all the world is a stage, I would like to request my lighting be adjusted.)
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To: central_va
You're oversimplifying Baltimore's history.

Baltimore's heyday as a commercial center was relatively short compared to other neighboring cities. During colonial times it was overshadowed by Annapolis as a port city. This only changed in the 19th century as larger ships were built and Baltimore's deeper channel made it a more attractive port. The city always lagged behind Boston, New York and Philadelphia in almost every respect except agricultural exports.

It really only became an industrial hub during World War II. The flood of government money into the city brought political pressure for major companies in the steel and shipbuilding industries to unionize, and the city began to fade quickly after that. I believe it saw its peak population in the 1950 census.

The Freddie Gray riots in 2015 were the defining incident of modern Baltimore. What made this riot different than any other urban unrest over the last 50+ years is that you had tens of thousands of Baltimore Orioles fans detained in Camden Yards after a baseball game for their safety. The Orioles postponed one game due to the riots, then decided to play their next game in an empty stadium to avoid problems for their fans. In 21st century America, you might as well burn a city to the ground if one of its professional sports teams has to go through an embarrassing spectacle like that.

56 posted on 03/12/2019 7:18:26 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.")
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To: HotHunt
Once they found out they had to work for their "free" green beans, they high-tailed it off the farm and back to their la-la land, wherever that was.

And that is why Bernie Sanders got kicked out of the commune. An embarrassment to and a parasite upon the honest hippies, who at least thought it was authentic to get their hands dirty at honest labor. Bernie has a higher consciousness that doesn't involve work, which is why he thinks he is qualified to run the country.

57 posted on 03/12/2019 7:20:21 AM PDT by sphinx
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To: JGPhila
The situation is Baltimore is not unexpected. As soon as the police realized that they now were the “criminals” and the thugs were the “good guys” there was no incentive for them to do their jobs.


Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint

58 posted on 03/12/2019 7:20:49 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Alberta's Child
De-Industrialization killed many many cities including Baltimore. I know it, you know it and you know I know you know it to be true.

Trying to blame unions is a joke, like you.

59 posted on 03/12/2019 7:23:53 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Alberta's Child
Sparrows Point, Maryland

Sparrow's Point remained largely rural until 1887, when an engineer named Frederick Wood realized that the marshy inlet would make an excellent deep-water port for the Pennsylvania Steel Company.[3] The Fitzells were reluctant to part with their peach orchards but were eventually persuaded to sell.[1]

The Sparrow's Point Shipyard site was a major center for shipbuilding and ship repair. Maryland Steel Company established the Sparrow's Point yard in 1889, and it delivered its first ship in 1891. Bethlehem Steel Corporation acquired the Sparrow's Point shipyard in 1917. During the mid-twentieth century, Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding (BethShip)'s Sparrow's Point yard was one of the most active shipbuilders in the United States, delivering 116 ships in the seven-year period between 1939 and 1946.

60 posted on 03/12/2019 7:27:54 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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