Bazz,
Obama's 'war on coal' has been increasing energy prices.
This may be leading to less consumption as Americans are broke.
As I think you mentioned earlier their wages havent risen in 18years.

Poirot,
The black man who's neck was broken was Freddie Gray after allegations of 'Rough Ride' in the police van.
I also agree with you at some level on the topic of the militarisation of police.

o sung wu,
Sherrifs are elected and are accountable directly to the constitution of their state.

SteeleRedux,
I wouldn't go as far as saying that blacks don't have cause to be angry when confronted with videos of their race treated unfairly, murdered by police if you will; and I can see they don't really have anyone else to direct their anger at, if nothing changes.
I won't support police who do the wrong thing, but I also won't support killing innocent police for some percieved wrongdoing by another officer.
Also if you start attacking police you will destroy the very pillar of society that keeps things from descending into absolute choas and civil war, which is likely what Soros' intends.
Alex Jones made some really good points today about this; if you can put up with a few minutes of his rant it's worth listening to.
http://youtu.be/XGOJHW8yzPc?t=16m00s
Also former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani has some good statistics in a clip around the 24minute mark, if you can cope with Alex's style for that long.

What would I do diffently?
Not exactly sure, honestly.
America's problems are all intertwined into a huge mess.

Civil war in America is inevitable its just a matter of time.
Ive always thought so.

SteeleRedux
A tank might have saved the lives of those 6 policemen
They could have spun that tank gun around and took that sniper out easily

It will no doubt come to that eventually. Im not saying its right or
wrong, just that, thats the direction these things usually take when societies
start to disintergrate into civil war and violence.

History shows that multi tribal,ethnic, socities eventually decend into
civil wars even if it takes a couple of hundred years or more.

A couple of those police shootings of black men certainly need investigating,
That last one looked suspicious. Although he was a huge, black man, and he had a gun in his pocket, if he had managed to get his hand to his pocket he could certainly have shot straight through the material at the officer, we couldnt see where his hands were in that video.
It is blacks
who constantly kill other black men in drive by shootings and gang related
shootings. or just some innocent black kid on the street for fun.
No wonder the police are inclined to be over defensive when they have to
arrest them for something.

The Americans have faught two civil wars already, on their
home soil, thats why they dont like to be disarmed.
Also the farm lobby at one point in The US was very strong
and heavily armed.

It really doesn't matter what calibre or how many firearms and ammunition a law-abiding person has.

But in the hands of an offender just one rubbish gun and a bullet is too many. The same would be true of a knife, blunt instrument, fists or fuel (arson) for examples.

.5 calibre has been around for decades and in muskets for instance, where the bore can be larger still.

'Gun control' doesn't lay a glove on offenders and their illegally acquired, held and used guns. It isn't intended to 'control' or deter offenders, because 'gun control' is the euphemism for disarming the ordinary law-abiding citizens of democratic countries. Bans and compulsory confiscations form ordinary licensed owners. Regulation affecting persons is what is needed - evidence based laws.

Should be, "Bans and compulsory confiscations of lawfully acquired assets from ordinary licensed owners".

Thanks SteeleRedux and Poirot for your extremely constrictive input to this thread. It is good to read posting from a couple of intelligent forumites who actually know what they are talking about.

And thanks to o sung wu for sharing your first hand experiences with American policing, something I and others have no real knowledge of, other than from American TV cop shows LOL. The only firsthand experience I have had with American cops was in Honolulu Hawaii, late one night about 2am, the main boulevard blocked off with 4 or 5 squad cars, traffic stopped, policy on the sidewalk inside a shop. What had happened, seems someone had stole a pair of shoes from the shop (trades all night). The cops were great, my partner got some nice pics of her and the police, seems it was a quite night so they all responded to the call, as they do. Friendly guys, I couldn't believe it when "T" asked if she could get some photos with the officers and they said yes "that fine mom". It was more of a party atmosphere than a crime scene. If the thief had still been around there would have been more pics taken I'm sure. It was such a surreal experience, I couldn't imagine it happening in Sydney or Melbourne.

Peter Hartcher analyses America's predicament:

"In the aftermath, with anger and dismay across American society, a former police chief, Charles Ramsey, a black man, told the media that the country was sitting on an explosive:

"You can call it a powder keg. You can say that we're handling nitroglycerin. But obviously when you just look at what's going on, we're at a very critical point in the history of this country."

The ingredients of America's nitro have been becoming more potent and more volatile since Martin Luther King identified them in 1968.
It's well known that King's nonviolent protest movement led to greater legal equality for America's blacks. It's less known that he regarded this as just a beginning.

It was in 1968, the last year of his life, that the Nobel laureate identified the great struggle ahead. The US was suffering systematic "racism, poverty, militarism and materialism".

It's the first three of these that present America with its particular brand of danger today. The fourth, materialism, is present too, of course, yet it is a universal feature in the developed nations of the world, yet most of them have nothing of the American explosiveness. It's the first three that seem to combine with unique potency."

"Barack Obama two years ago described inequality as "the defining issue of our time".

After the Dallas shootings, Obama pointed squarely to entrenched racism as a contributing factor. The shootings, he said, were "symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system".

The President persisted, too, with his effort to draw attention to America's peculiar psychosis, its crazed embrace of ever-more deadly weapons. Guns were not the only cause, he said, but they were one cause. In the face of Congressional obstruction, Obama has proved largely impotent on all three issues.

Just as King feared – inequality, racism and militarisation, or at least, a country bristling with weapons of war – are the elements of the nitroglycerine of a potential American explosion"

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-cant-afford-to-be-smug-about-americas-great-unsolved-problems-20160711-gq35e7.html#ixzz4E8kC0ko