Not One to Let an Opportunity Pass
All the stuff goin' on in the news,
it's just a trick to get your mind off the war.
That's all it is
--Chris Rock
I can cast a spell
With secrets you can't tell
Mix a special brew
Put fire inside of you
But anytime you feel
Danger or fear
Instantly I will appear
--I'm Every Woman, Chaka Khan
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
At ten thousand dollars a show
--The Cover of the Rolling Stone, Dr. Hook
_________________
it's just a trick to get your mind off the war.
That's all it is
--Chris Rock
I can cast a spell
With secrets you can't tell
Mix a special brew
Put fire inside of you
But anytime you feel
Danger or fear
Instantly I will appear
--I'm Every Woman, Chaka Khan
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
At ten thousand dollars a show
--The Cover of the Rolling Stone, Dr. Hook
_________________
More on TMZ (Travyon Martin / Zimmerman) as artifact of our culture and ourselves:
President Obama said in 2012 "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon". After Zimmerman's recent acquittal and subsequent liberal self-flagellation he told RollingStone.com,"Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago". Ranger has a suggestion for a final bravura installment: "George Zimmerman IS me!" as he meditates upon his drone killing of 16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki. It would be momentous. The truth shall set you free, Mr. Obama, and the humility may even effect a reconciliation with your mentor, Rev. Wright.
[Addendum for those who could not understand why the Obamat - Z nexus: They are both whitish-dark-skinned men who have killed a dark person; however, Obama's kill of Abdulrahmen was premeditated, while Z's was not.]
Alas, the press continues to spin its inanity and lies. National Public Radio this week reported on the small protest at Florida's capital against the state's "Stand your Ground" law, but ended the piece stating -- incorrectly -- the law was a significant factor in the acquittal of George Zimmerman. In fact, the law was not invoked in the case.
Next, the reliably unreliable William Saletan in his recent Slate feel-good piece "Rules for Racism", cloddishly slips in the following fabulation disguised as fact:
"Yes, Zimmerman is the one who pulled the trigger. Yes, white-on-black racism dwarfs black-on-white racism. ..."
Um, no, this is purely conjecture, and actual homicide data from FBI.gov would seem to contradict Saletan's supposition. It's a slicky boy one-two punch -- fact followed by a non-sequitur imaginary statement, but the latter gains credibility by proximity to the leading statement (ergo propter hoc).
"White-on-black racism" is an unquantifiable statistic. Racism is a felt emotion and as such, purely subjective. One could extrapolate racist intent from crime stats, but that would be pure conjecture; myriad other motives could explain the vastly larger number of violent crimes committed by blacks against whites, however, that statistic stands.
And today I note the liberals are chomping at the bit to diminish the public black-on-white murder of a white man by four blacks in an Atlanta suburb last week. The most egregious and non-sensical of the damage control articles was exemplified by this one, which blames the victim for his own situation, without any notice of the blatant hypocrisy of the title: "Joshua Chellew: Right Wing Propaganda Tool."
The rambling piece quotes Mr. Chellew's passenger as saying, "He was a good person, one of them funny, outgoing kind of people" -- just so you get the message: They were probably ignorant hicks (see the pronoun error?) and didn't know how to behave any better than getting four young black punks to kill him, no doubt as a result of their racial Sturm und Drang. He didn't know how to defuse a situation which took him from life to death in two minutes, but that'll show him for being an ignorant cracker.
So there you have it -- my disgust for the media and those who call themselves liberals, hawking their pet interests and points of view, entrenching their biases. They are worse than the neocons who at least do not deny their reactionary stance. There is nothing new or wholesome in the liberal message, just deaf, impotent rage and anger.
For all the gnashing of teeth, we are still a racist, sexist, ageist -- you name it -- bunch. We are guilty as sin, and a little penance feels good, even for the most godless among us; perhaps, by virtue of that fact. Oh, as long as they don't have to actually dirty their hands ... it is all done in the neat and tidy realm of the computer.
Believing in nothing or maintaining dissonant views, their rancor stews, running the lines of least resistance, seeking the easy fault line so it may erupt and discharge their passions for a moment. They love to slaver and congregate over their own pathos, but their rage belies their project.
The media is happily complicit with their disunity, starting little fires here and there as their denizens run hither and thither to squawk and gawk, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
[In justification for addressing TMZ @ RAW: the war within ourselves and our society is expressed also as the war without; it is inescapable.]
Labels: biased news, crime, liberal anger, liberal bias, lies in media, racism, trayvon martin george zimmerman, zimmerman trial
posted by Lisa at 4:00 PM
15 Comments:
Before I'll renew bombardment, I'll have to say these trenches of the war within have been silent... because I could not stop myself from watching more of Chris Rock on Youtube. Now that's talent.
That was a brilliant tactical maneuver. I liked it. I liked it a lot.
Myself? I don't follow Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and their trope. They were the power mongers that always tried to exploit the civil rights movement for themselves and are the power elite now; caring more about their own power than anything else.
If you'd like, thats the fate of whats left of the Communist Party of America today. Before the mass arrests in the 50s, a party of hundreds of thousands with major connections to the AFL-CIO. Now with the legacy of those selfish orders of Stalin, a simple department of the Democratic party.
I don't think long-time radical activists who've fought for Trayvon Martins killed long before that Florida night can be pigeonholed here though. And indeed, as far as extrajudicial killings of unarmed blacks far less morally dubious go; he was not the last.
With that I'd like to counter skit Chris Rock with Davey Chappele .
I think it goes without saying; white privilege runs deep.
(Interesting fact. Chris Rock repudiated the Black People vs. Niggers routine because whites were completely diverting and taking the wrong conclusions from his points.)
This is the fuller version.
Since I'm already writing a whole 'nother comment I've heard it asked what would of happened if Zimmerman would of just drove up to the kid and offered him a ride home?
Guess some kids are treated like human beings...
Depending on their color.
The media can be frivolous and ratings-seeking. No ones denying that. This time though, I don't think the media would of bothered had an alcoholic Zimmerman A). Been given a breathalyzer test or was at least arraigned... just like the shooter-accidental or otherwise-of practically every single young white victim this country has ever produced B.) Avoided a community petition and nationwide protests demanding justice and C). Forgot his badge. My previous stats support the last one to the letter.
NL,
I wonder why TM's father didn't give him a ride on a rainy nite.
Why would that devolve to Z.
Do parents not have obligations?
jim
NL,
Since u mention breathalizers.
I've seen with my own eyes a black man so drunk he couldn't stand up. He had empty booze bottles on the front seat of his car.
He had crashed into a white mans car head on.
THE FL HW PATROL did not test him and i asked why?
They said to me-what makes u think he's drunk.
OK - now weight my incredulity that u think things are normal down here in the swamp.
Things are not as they seem.
I can tell u stories all day long as i've been in no fl for 23 years.
jim
Nikolay asks,
"What would of happened if Zimmerman would of just drove up to the kid and offered him a ride home?"
That would be sort of like stalking, and we don't cotton to single men of a certain age who drive up and ask to transport us somewhere. As I wrote in the recent local tragedy of Cherish Periwinkle which got little press, getting into a car with a stranger is not a wise thing to do.
OTOH, why not ask, "Why did TN not answer Z. directly re. who he was?" Why did TM not say at which address he was staying, or that his father was visiting a woman there who lived in the community? Why did he not make some small effort to i.d. himself as non-enemy?
Further, this was his second visit to the neighborhood, so why did his father or his woman friend not tell TM that the neighborhood was dangerous, and that they had a neighborhood watch, and that he should identify himself if asked. That is, after all, why people live in gated communities ... to have some hope that there is some vigilance going on, and that people who do not "belong" are identified.
Only one side of this story is being looked at, and that's a great way to ensure no solution will be arrived at.
"There is nothing new or wholesome in the liberal message, just deaf, impotent rage and anger."
I woke up this morning thinking about all of this, having pissed off Chief again, and he, me.
Regarding white liberals:
I think the problem here is that liberals did a lot of good 50 years ago during the civil rights movement, but their dream did not come to full fruition. Somewhere along the way it stalled - maybe even backslid - for a lot of their target population. I don't believe this was for a lack of trying on the lib.'s part. Rather, it was due to an inflexible ideology.
They have mistaken inequality of opportunity (a real thing back in the day) for inequality of results in today's world.
When they see inequality of results today they assume inequality of opportunity and they propose to double, triple, quadruple down on what worked previously. But it's not working. Instead of changing ideology and admitting where they were wrong, adjusting approach, we get all sorts of propaganda and lies. This discharges liberal cognitive dissonance.
Why are there gangbangers and a burgeoning prison population, etc, etc.? Well, we can't blame the "victim" or his culture (another artifact of the past) we must blame the traditional source. The traditional source (whites, of course) are beginning to react. We've done enough, stop blaming us, they say. It's not our fault any more.
At bottom, liberals are not as progressive in their thinking as they claim to be; i.e. they are stuck in the 1960s.
Why did TM not say at which address he was staying, or that his father was visiting a woman there who lived in the community? Why did he not make some small effort to i.d. himself as non-enemy?
Because Martin was under no legal obligation to identify or submit to Zimmerman.
But, of course, TM as "suspicious" the onus is on him to prove he isn't a criminal or a runaway...
Ranger. Per your previous post-besides the supposed burglary tools-he sounds like a typical redneck kid.
Only the redneck would be packing more heat.
Now being police, I think they played you. I bet they just had an open-and-shut case and weren't about to let everybody know.
Being the body-builder, gangbanging thug that Trayvon is portrayed as; the supposed meek, pencil-necked Zimmerman wouldn't have been threatening in comparison. All your required questions (if Zimmerman had cared for them) would have been concluded herein.
Grung has the idea. The law states that like any other teenager (most definitely a man as you propose) they have every right to walk a public street without being harassed; especially if they reside there.
Chasing them with a gun as Zimmerman did on the line with the dispatcher is not what I call "neighborhood watch" especially-as the coverage demonstrates-one whose self-proclaimed role was not universally understood in that community.
With that said, why is the reactionary media saying Zimmerman should have feared for his life? Could not have Trayvon?
I get it. We don't know everything. But if a black man had beat down a cop, he would not have been allowed to retain his conceal permit.
I wonder if-in response to this tragedy-the NRA will ever push gun ownership for blacks like it does for its mostly white audiences?
You'd think it would be logical next step?
Thing is, in a country where unarmed black teenagers can be shot in their cars, white convicts are twice as likely to get hired as blacks with zero record and a civil lawsuit-filed by a major government agency no less-can be held up by Wall Street for decades, what you have is institutionalized racism at the highest levels.
And I'm talking about defending discrimination including overtly hiring uneducated whites over black MBAs.
That last one I don't even remember the link for. Mostly because the audacity these capitalist parasites have to waste taxpayer money intentionally rather than renounce their open racism shocked even a cynical Marxist like me.
I think getting corporate welfare checks from the government would encourage a little equal opportunity, no?
As in the past there are avenues to push forth a movement to challenge this and worry not as the media will not cover it unless it becomes significant. The 50th anniversary for Martin Luther King's Jobs and Freedom march is just one of them. History shows uniting around such an underlying issue can be a catalyst for movements across the political spectrum.
But before I tar and feather Zimmerman (where do I find tar anyway?). Consider Gray Younge of the Gaurdian.
"Appeals for calm in the wake of such a verdict raise the question of what calm there can possibly be in a place where such a verdict is possible. Parents of Black boys are not likely to feel calm. Partners of Black men are not likely to feel calm. Children with Black fathers are not likely to feel calm. Those who now fear violent social disorder must ask themselves whose interests are served by a violent social order in which young Black men can be thus slain and discarded."
Thats the rub.
Gene,
You are right. TM had no need to submit.
I'll plug that into the equation.
Isn't he dead as a result?
Whether rightly or wrongly - he's dead.
What don't you get about that?
I have submitted to bullshit on a daily basis and i've lived to 67 years old.
UMMM!
jim
NL,
I'm NOT an NRA member.
To the best of my knowledge the NRA does not have a race block on their membership application.
At the gunshows they hand out apps to blacks as well as whites.
The federal YELLOWSHEET for buying a gun does require one to designate their race/ethnic group.
jim
Guys, this thing is so simple. T would be alive today if he had not attacked Z in a life threatening way.
Physically presenting a danger is a material line that can be drawn by the controlling legal entities and laws. Everything else - like Z's alleged "following" of T - is immaterial. We cannot have a society where blacks are given the right to attack whites just b/c they perceive some prejudice that annoys them.
Do people not understand that when they excuse T's behavior - the behavior that got him killed - they are opening the door for our society to be exactly the kind of wild west shoot 'em up disaster that they claim people like me support?
*****That they say they eschew vigilantism on the one hand, but then advocate exactly the same by T on the other?*****
Given that he had a cell phone and could have called 911 and did not, given that he could have easily run home and did not, given that he could have simply engaged Z in conversation and did not, WHAT RIGHT DID T HAVE TO PHYSICALLY ASSAULT Z? HOW WOULD THAT RIGHT - IF YOU IDENTIFY ONE - BE DIFFERENT THAN Z'S RIGHT TO DEFEND HIMSELF? HOW DO LIBERALS JUSTIFY T HAVING A RIGHT TO ASSAULT Z IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES?
no one,
The last para of your previous comment says it all.
Also, this is well-said:
When [liberals] see inequality of results today they assume inequality of opportunity and they propose to double, triple, quadruple down on what worked previously. But it's not working
Correct -- they are not as progressive/flexible as the title would lead one to believe.
Ranger, I have technically been myself(in the past). I've also been subscribed to one of their magazines. It seems that lobbying for carry-conceal of mostly white passerbys is more important than lobbying for shotguns for home defense in the inner city. I find that odd.
The "attack" seems to be Zimmermans testimony only. My contention that he could have deescalated the situation by being a responsible neighborhood watchmen (he was not) and staying in his vehicle perhaps rolling up if that kid was lost (we'll never know now)would of saved a lot of trouble.
Whatever the case the issue here is the police didn't do their job. Whether it was keeping an alcoholic from a weapon or failing to collect evidence of a possible manslaughter(at the very least).
And thats why we don't know. Its also why (when they didn't have to) the police chief was axed because even the State of Florida was humiliated with his willful incompetence.
Really, the movements that mattered had been eviscerated after the 50s so its a miracle anything got together in the 1960s. There was a trajectory towards a civil rights movement moving to a peace, womens rights and gay rights movement. Thats the history.
I've gotta admit, those on the "left" (a reference I don't use since I always find the left-right paradigm misleading) have been earning my ire. Obama's approval ratings have finally been dropping but your Republicans,no one, have not had their fortunes rise either.
The fact of the matter is its something I almost wish they did. Now French isn't my second language. so pardon me when I wonder what fucking hogwash it was when something resembling resistance stood up during the Bush administration. I remember that time. There was a peace movement to be proud of and newfound wind at the backs of struggles nationwide. I remember a local radical had enough business to start an anti-war bookstore; you could even throw actual Communist parties, whose rowdiness attracted the attention of the police.
Then Obama came into power and boom. Gone. The rest is history. It turns out the only thing that rallied anyone was a Republican president (albeit radically-in the other direction-reactionary). Radicals know why. The peace movement went the wrong way. What ended up being the leadership decided that a Democratic victory was going to "end the war" when radicals insisted that the imperialist agenda was bi-partisan.
Now here we are.
I admit. You realize how far the radicals have fallen when they get stuck arguing identity politics and now you have the rollback of womens rights, minority rights (repeal of the 1965 Civil Rights act anyone) and of course workers rights.
I'm not sugarcoating anything. Especially after Occupy; save for the ruling class, the country is shiftless. Things might have to get worse (and they will) before a resistance can even hope to coalesce. My fear is that the resistance that emerges will be reactionary-populist if the radicals don't figure out a way forward, but late-stage empires... the Spanish, the Romans always end violently if the proverbial plebeians don't eventually rise up to take charge.
Thats where the U.S. is headed. Which path will it take?
I've been asked about a solution. Well, there is one. It happens to be in the most democratic country in the Americas today. A third party led the way to break their own respective two-party duopoly but it never would of come close to its historic victory if the poorest hadn't came together and fought for their class interests.
The Revolution Within the Revolution Will Continue
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
Maybe now that Americans have (took them awhile) rejected both parties there may be some hope. We'll see if it stays that way.
NL,
I AM NOT a republican party member, nor a democrat.
As for your cmts about the antiwar movement and O there is a historical reference for the silence of the opposition.
It's what the communists did world wide when Stalin signed his treaty with Hitler.
The commies went silent as do what we presently call democrats.
BTW the NRA doesn't monitor or violate the Bill of Rights.
jim
Nikolay,
Thoughtful comment.
However, the police did do their job. "The police chief was axed" not "because even the State of Florida was humiliated with his willful incompetence", but because that's how we deal with accusations of racism. It's all very knee-jerk.
We fire people down the line until the outrage stops -- it is our modern gesture of sacrifice. Nothing actually changes.
It's like when we raze buildings after bombings or school shootings -- it is entirely gestural.
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