Rat City: Crime's undeclared war against us all

The other evening, I was walking home around 10 p.m. along Philadelphia's much ballyhooed Avenue of the Arts, a pricey cultural corridor formerly known in its less glitzy days as South Broad Street, when a guy turns to me, incredulous. "I just slid on a dead rat," he proclaims, pointing to the icky deceased rodent at his feet. This is on a well-lit stretch of prime downtown real estate a few short blocks from City Hall. Yes, indeedy, the bloody, mangled corpse of a rat on the sidewalk, not far from the gleaming curved brass balustrade at the front entrance to the stuffy, members-only, hoity-toity red brick Union League.

Perfecto!

This, in turn, is four blocks from where a much-beloved 30-something Starbucks manager was just surrounded, attacked and beaten to death, a day after the rat's demise, by a quartet of hooky-playing high school students. "Well, cities are dangerous places in the dark. You know I don't like you walking around at night," says my fond friend, "Freddy from Fresno," not his real name, doing his level best to be protective. Except, I point out to "Freddy," this unfortunate murder didn't happen at night. It occurred in the middle of a weekday afternoon, broad daylight in a major American metropolis, a block from City Hall.

Not only that, this killing came right at the time local headlines were crowing – prematurely, as it turns out – about how national coverage of the upcoming Pennsylvania primary is eclipsing Philly's murder-a-day reputation as "Killadelphia."

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Fat chance.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. There's an unacknowledged guerrilla war currently being fought and waged on the streets of the United States. Call it what you will, theorize on the whys and wherefores all you wish, but it's here and it's happening and it's ugly. We are terrorized. We are terrified. And some of us are traumatized. But we don't want them to triumph. Is this outright class warfare? I don't know. I do know poverty, deprivation, drugs and similar circumstances can be multipliers in these unfortunate situations. Meanwhile, I've felt safer at night on the streets of Guatemala than I do at home.

So far, 4,000-plus American soldiers have been killed fighting in Iraq, and that's a shame, 4,000 unnecessary deaths in a senseless war built on Bush-Wah administration lies and distortions upon Bush-Wah administration lies and distortions. But, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime statistics,"Nationwide in 2005, there were an estimated 1,390,695 violent crimes reported." By violent crimes, they mean "murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault as well as the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson."

More than a decade ago, minister/pundit Kerby Anderson cited these statistics for crime in America, and most likely they've increased: "In America, the crime clock continues to click: one murder every 22 minutes, one rape every five minutes, one robbery every 49 seconds, and one burglary every 10 seconds. And the cost of crime continues to mount: $78 billion for the criminal justice system, $64 billion for private protection, $202 billion in loss of life and work, $120 billion in crimes against business, $60 billion in stolen goods and fraud, $40 billion from drug abuse, and $110 billion from drunk driving. When you add up all the costs, crime costs Americans a stunning $675 billion each year."

Shouldn't a viable presidential candidate ALSO be mindful of ameliorating the ongoing skirmishes and ambushes and firefights happening day after day right here on our own domestic battlegrounds in the USA? We don't hear much mention of making our country a safer place any more, not in this sense. Sure, we're fed crap about Homeland Security up the wazoo, but that's not what I'm talking about.

As Ben Best's perversely fascinating death by murder website declares, "A Scientific American article (June 1999) accounts for the high murder rates in the South on the grounds of a 'culture of honor.' A white man living in a small county in the South is four times more likely to kill than one living in a small county in the Midwest. Southerners showed higher levels of cortisol and testosterone in response to an insult. Murder rates due to arguments are higher in the South and Southwest, but murder rates associated with felony (robbery or burglary) are lower. ..."

And here's the "duh" moment: "Two-thirds of all ... U.S. murders," he claims, "were accomplished with firearms."

'Nuff said.

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