Efforts at national and local levels to transform public safety

Duluth City Council has just approved the allocation of $58 million federal dollars that arrived through the American Rescue Plan Act.  

A chunk will go for affordable housing, while the rest will be spent on such needs as upgraded broadband infrastructure, job training and public parks maintenance.  

More than $2 million is slated to jumpstart a community-led crisis response team that will be separate from law enforcement. This team of a medic and a behaviorally-trained professional will provide non-punitive, compassionate responses to mental health, housing, drug-related and other crises.

The Duluth NAACP, Twin Ports Democratic Socialists, Duluth Community Safety Initiative and Duluth Law Enforcement Accountability Network (LEAN) are already working with the city and with St. Louis County to bring this new service to fruition. 

At the federal level, U.S. Representative Cori Bush of Missouri has introduced the People’s Response Act, legislation that would invest in just such a health-centered approach to public safety. The legislation would establish a new agency within Health and Human Services, the Division of Community Safety.

In Cori Bush’s words, it would remodel public safety “into a system of care, not criminalization; healing, not incarceration; prevention, not policing.”

More than $2 billion would establish grants to fund state, local and tribal governments, in addition to community organizations, to hire and train licensed social workers, mental health and substance abuse counselors and peer support specialists as emergency first responders.

Billions more would go to state and local governments and community-based organizations to fund crisis response programs that would limit interactions with police and the courts.

Two U.S. Representatives from Minnesota are already co-sponsors, Ilhan Omar and Betty McCollum. 
Public support is needed for both the federal People’s Response Act and for Duluth’s own brand-new and similar efforts. 

Kristine Osbakken
Duluth, Minnesota

Two ways to lie

A friend of mine told me long ago there are too ways to lie: “commission” and “omission.” Commission is the outright, blatant lie; omission is the omitting of certain pertinent facts (telling half truths, for instance.) I see in the current Reader that Enbridge is now buying space to distribute their current set of lies and half-truths.

The intent behind most lies of these kinds, is almost always to control how people respond to this information.  With corporations, this is also known as P.R.

For a number of months, Enbridge has also been saturating the radio airwaves with a number of P.R. messages. As with the ad in the Reader, the underlying message in all cases is how much Enbridge “CARES” about the safety of the people and the well-being of this area. This is a lie of “omission.”  What Enbridge really cares about is the “bottom line; “making money.” They would NOT be willing to spend this much money on advertising if they weren’t damn certain they’d make it all back, and then some.

This is a form of “bait and switch,” meant to focus our attention on their “good intentions,” while they avoid mentioning the “consequences” of their priorities. Here’s some things they’re not saying.

The new pipeline would carry 915,000 barrels of tar sands crude (per day, I believe.) some of the Earth’s dirtiest oil. The economic benefit of the pipeline would be short-term benefit for a few people, but long-term for Enbridge. This propaganda ignores the long-term consequences of shipping and using tar sands oil, which is some of the dirtiest oil in the world, making it one of the costliest to ship, and transform into a usable source of energy. Worse yet, it’s another way to create more carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane, all of which increase global warming.

To anyone paying attention, the consequences are obvious. The extreme heat in the western US, leading to the drought and fires in California and the western states. (Minnesota as well.) The ever increasing number and severity of tornadoes and hurricanes affecting this country.  The rising and heating of the oceans, and the extinction of speies. Has anyone from Enbridge ever mentioned what it’s costing this country and the world to pay for the consequences of using fossil fuels?  Of course not; that’s not good P.R..

According to Natalie Shure, (“Science based politics,”) Enbridge, and other fossil fuel corporations, are part of a “deeply coordinated propaganda campaign bankrolled by right-wing owners of capital, whose interests would be threatened by any legitimate effort to curb emissions.” They use P.R. and half-truths to get us to ignore how bad fossil fuels are for us and the environment, so they can make more money, and control people.  When it comes to the bottom line, it’s really about their survival, not ours.  Because they have no shame, there’s, no reason to change.

Gary Burt