The Economic Devastation Fueling The Anger In Baltimore plus the drugs

The Economic Devastation Fueling The Anger In Baltimore



Last night, peaceful protests after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man killed in police custody, turned into more violent unrest when protesters were met with phalanxes of police.

The protesters’ anger was fueled, at least in large part, by the Baltimore police department’s long history of ugly violence against the city’s residents and a pattern of officers facing few, if any, repercussions. But the protests also take place in the context of a city that has been ravaged economically, most recently by the foreclosure crisis and predatory lending.

Freddie Gray grew up in a neighborhood particularly plagued by the problems that have long faced the city of Baltimore. In Sandtown-Winchester, more than half of the people between the ages of 16 and 64 are out of work and the unemployment rate is double that for the city at one in five. Median income is just $24,000, below the poverty line for a family of four, and nearly a third of families live in poverty. Meanwhile, somewhere between a quarter to a third of the buildings are vacant, compared to 5 percent in the city as a whole.





Each of these conditions — high unemployment, low incomes, and widespread foreclosure — has a long history in the city of Baltimore. It was once a thriving economy built on the steel industry. Bethlehem Steel set up shop in the early 1900s with the Sparrow Point mill, and the industry boomed during World War II, employing 35,000 workers at its peak in 1959, according to a 2004 report from the 1199E-DC union. But American manufacturing began its precipitous decline in the 1970s, and Sparrows Point laid off 3,000 workers in 1971, then another 7,000 in 1975. Just 8,000 people were employed at the mill by the 1980s. Overall, the city lost more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs between 1950 and 1995.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/28/3651951/baltimore-freddie-gray-economic/


Baltimore is the heroin capital of the United States.


which is another economic fact
that is ignored
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92699



Now where do these drugs come from and where ?


American Troops Are Protecting Afghan Opium. U.S. Occupation Leads to All-Time High Heroin Production


Common Dreams notes:

The cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan—a nation under the military control of US and NATO forces for more than twelve years—has risen to an all-time high, according to the 2013 Afghanistan Opium Survey released Wednesday by the United Nations.

According to the report, cultivation of poppy across the war-torn nation rose 36 per cent in 2013 and total opium production amounted to 5,500 tons, up by almost a half since 2012.




“This has never been witnessed before in the history of Afghanistan,” said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the outgoing leader of the Afghanistan office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which produced the report.





tons more photos of US troops guarding the fields



http://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-war-american-troops-are-protecting-afghan-opium-u-s-occupation-leads-to-all-time-high-heroin-production/5358053


This is an economic war and yes in is racial but economics and destabilization are its goals.

Now why destabilize the inner city?

Well you have to ask the question why the CIA did that with cocaine in the 90s
and how they flew CIA flights unnoticed into the states from south america back then and don't think they not flying air america now.......... cause there is even less oversight with the CIA now and heroin supplies a lot to black budgets that congress nor the president will ever know about.



Bank of America, Western Union, and JP Morgan, are among the institutions allegedly involved in the drug trade. Meanwhile, HSBC has admitted its laundering role, and evaded criminal prosecution by paying a fine of almost $2 billion. The lack of imprisonment of any bankers involved is indicative of the hypocritical nature of the drug war; an individual selling a few grams of drugs can face decades in prison, while a group of people that tacitly allow -- and profit from -- the trade of tons, escape incarceration.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/avinash-tharoor/banks-cartel-money-laundering_b_4619464.html


Not economic????? Are you fucking kidding me?

The inner city is just an easy target for their game.









Neo Liberals pose as 'democrats'