Things you should know about Philly are best summed up in this tweet by Wyatt:
And it continues. The murder count in #Philly is now at 273. #armyourselves
That was from Monday. One more day on the books means four more murders on the tally, according to the PD’s website. The number is now 277.
Anytime Philadelphia needs to make budget cuts, they look to public safety first. I mean who cares if a few more people die in fires each year? And that murder count doesn’t really matter since the Police Department’s leadership is cooking the books in terms of how they compare crime statistics anyway. Slashing these departments has been the favored policy of Democrats ever since I moved to the area. But now an independent candidate for Mayor wants to take it to a new extreme, as well as divide up the city’s services based on race.
Philadelphia voters who go to the polls next month will find an independent candidate on the ballot for mayor – Wali “Diop” Rahman, a 34-year-old activist pushing for a major shift in city spending priorities, taking dollars away from law enforcement to spend more on education and community development.
“Right now the city’s fundamental policy is that of police containment,” said Rahman, an organizer for the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, which promotes efforts by the African American community to control its own institutions, including schools, police, health care, and housing.
His platform doesn’t explain how much he will cut from police and court budgets, but it does include a few other gems like mandatory hiring for convicts. It’s not clear what force he will use for businesses to make the hires, but it will be mandatory. In theory, he could make it a stipulation of the taxpayer-funded handouts he’ll give to businesses based on the race of their owners, but he doesn’t actually tie the two policies together. He will also free “political prisoners” which just happen to be those who have killed police officers.
It will be interesting to see how many votes this guy gets on Election Day. Given that the city is headed towards one of the highest murder counts in years, will some voters really support someone who wants to cut back on police and release more murderers from prison?
You know, I was in favor of segregation before it was “cool”.
-Billy Ray Joe Bob
The black community (whatever the hell that is…) can have complete control over everything when they can figure out a way to fund everything without siphoning the productive capacity of the rest of us. Until that day comes, we all have to ride the same boat together.
There are so many stunning things in your post, I don’t even know where to begin. It reads like a work of fiction, though I know it isn’t. “Dystopian nightmare” might be an overused phrase, but it seems to describe your city to a T. My condolences for living so close to a mini-Apocalypse.