Most recent public comments by Jack Carlin https://nowcomment.com/users/28292 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735548 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735548 I agree with Charlotte in that The Wire does a great job of showing that Namond was extremely fortunate and that his path was not one often traveled by others given the same situation...just look at how the rest of the Fayette Street Mafia ended up. In that environment, under those systems, is it any surprise so many people don't get out of it? The success stories--those that make it are the ones most often heard but the ones least likely to be repeated. It's the myth of the American Dream and attaining that dream is made even harder when the odds are stacked disproportionately against you. Wed, 12 Apr 2017 14:37:48 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735543 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735543 There's a much lesser known (though much more controversial) speech of Martin Luther King Jr.'s that he gave in New York exactly one year before he would be assassinated. The speech is called Beyond Vietnam and captures King's anti-imperialist sentiment and relates it to the struggle of african-americans and the poor in America. The part I found most relevant and stirring was this: "We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor." Wed, 12 Apr 2017 14:32:13 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735526 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735526 This could just be because I'm currently reading The Orphan Master's Son (a great novel, set in North Korea, all about North Korea) but that language "slaves of the state" is eerily reminiscent of how they talk about the citizens of North Korea. Any disloyalty to the state results in you being "taken away" (which usually means being sent to a prison labor camp and worked until you died). As soon as someone was labeled disloyal or unpatriotic it was over for them, just how as soon as someone in America is labeled a criminal it is over for them. The state owns them now. They are property. Thu, 13 Apr 2017 10:19:44 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735520 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735520 I find this entire paragraph fascinating and also disgusting. First off, I'm wary of anything that can be described as "a system of social control" and especially wary when the qualifier "unparalleled in world history" is attached. And it's indisputable that the American penal system is both of those things. That the social control targets people based on their race makes it all the more dangerous but worst of all, in my opinion, is that we KNOW that prisons don't deter crime--"there is overwhelming evidence that these institutions create crime rather than prevent it"--but still justify their use based on that manipulation of the truth. And all the while nothing is done and nothing changes and more people's rights are stolen and lives ruined because they've been criminalized and put behind bars, sure to return if they even get out the first time. Mon, 17 Apr 2017 18:04:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735508 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735508 With no intention to get political or incite political arguments on NowComment, we're witnessing a master manipulator of media (particularly with his thumbs via Twitter). The man was fluctuating the stock market every time he made a judgment on a company (Failing! Sad!) and it does not take a particularly discerning eye to know that the creation of stories to disguise or draw attention away from more important ones was and is a strategy of the government. And it works. Dictating what people see, what they talk about, what they know... (at the risk of sounding dystopian) isn't that an ultimate form of control? Trust what you hear, but verify it. Better yet: mistrust what you hear, and verify it. Wed, 12 Apr 2017 13:52:14 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668211 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668211 What writer wouldn't give the hero of his story similar qualities/dispositions/traits as himself!! The article clearly indicates that Simon subscribes to a sort of 'my-way-or-the-highway' mindset, as does McNulty. If McNulty is the hero, then so is Simon! Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:57:01 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668210 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668210 Great point. Both the police and the gangs have similar hierarchical structures governing how the people involved act and how much power they have. In that scene when D'Angelo explains chess to Wallace and Bodie, you could relate those same rules to the police institutions and hierarchies of power. The police with boots on the ground are the pawns and the upper echelons sitting in their comfortable offices are the more important pieces (rooks, bishops, knights, etc.). Super interesting! Wed, 01 Feb 2017 17:23:02 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668194 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668194 Very revealing parallel here between these "white guys" who run the newspapers and the 'white guys' who run the police departments. As the newspaper men just care about winning prizes, Pulitzers, the upper echelons in the department just want to have the best numbers that they can submit in their yearly reports--they hardly care about the quality of the actual detective/police work, just as the newspaper heads hardly care about the quality of the journalism at The Sun. Feels safe to say that this is where Simon harnessed a lot of his anger for the institutional structures and bureaucracies he depicts in The Wire. Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:49:01 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668174 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668174 Although this sort of thing is often the case in cop/detective shows and movies, it still surprises and disappoints me--like it does McNulty. It makes you wonder how much would be accomplished in these police departments if the people, including the 'upper echelons', cared more about fixing the problems of the society rather than advancing their careers or submitting the best quarterly/yearly reports. Just another example from The Wire of institutional structures, led by self-centered, career-driven men, that have lost sight of their real purpose and function as public servants. Wed, 14 Apr 2021 22:07:59 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668173 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668173 I totally agree, especially in light of our classroom discussion on Tuesday. Professor Williams deemed The Wire one of the 'most humane' shows and this is exactly why: the characters are human. They behave as humans do, responding to external stimuli and the institutional structures in which they operate. Even the junkies & dealers have hearts; and even the lawmakers and peacekeepers have some bad in them--as we all, as humans, do. Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:31:15 -0500