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Ferguson Follies, Part 2

Truth Gunner Uncategorized , , ,

I watched the events of Fergusson, Missouri tonight with the kind of morbid fascination one watches an oncoming tsunami or imminent train wreck.  I was ashamed that I was a junkie to the 24 hour news cycle, but somehow I couldn’t look away.  Like watching a Miley Cyrus video or listening to country music, I was not enjoying what I was seeing but I was more amazed that such a thing could happen in a civilized, seemingly intelligent society.  Greg Gutfeld described the situation in Ferguson quite aptly as a ‘bug lite’ that ‘demands spectacle’.  Indeed.

Start with the decision to hold a press conference of the grand jury findings at 21:00 local time, even though the decision was returned before noon on Monday.  What was the district attorney thinking?  The governor had already called in the National Guard in expectation of riotous behavior, so how can you pretend that lighting the fuse at 9:00 pm at night wouldn’t ignite public passions?  Witness the events in Los Angeles after the Kings won the Stanley Cup, or San Francisco after the Giants won the World Series.  Cars overturned, fires started, windows smashed… and that was to celebrate a sporting team’s victory!  How could you expect less after 3 months of race-fueled fomentation in Ferguson?

Yet that’s exactly what Saint Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in a Monday night interview.  “We weren’t prepared for what we encountered tonight”.  Golly, what were you prepared for, Chief – some harsh words?  “We decided to let it play out like a festival”, said the chief as we watched fires burn unattended in Ferguson.  OK, I understand not sending firemen into a hail of bullets to save a couple cars.  But the point should have been to anticipate the response and head it off before it gets out of control.

The Chief went on to explain that they were outnumbered and outgunned. “It doesn’t take very long to throw some gasoline on a building and set a fire”.  True.  First week on the job, Chief?  How about a curfew?  How about making those National Guard troops visible before the fires broke out? How about the DA announcing the verdict at 9:00 am instead of 9:00 pm, when at least some of the protesters have to be at jobs or school, or at least can’t benefit from a shroud of darkness?  Blatant incompetence comes to mind as a defense.

Some of the interviews inspired a strange combination of both incredulity and profundity.  I kept switching between CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC.  (In situations like this you need to triangulate to find objectivity.)  It was shocking to see so-called journalists discredit the grand jury process as a charade that was an ‘obvious miscarriage of justice’.  These weren’t uneducated, drunken, unemployed delinquents living under bridges, there were accredited journalists and pundits paid for their informed opinions.  I heard one say “this case should have been brought to a real jury”, an obvious dismissal of both the prosecutor’s office and the grand jury who spent months deliberating over the evidence.   I heard an interview with a cousin of Michael Brown (the deceased) in which he declared “There is no doubt in my mind that the officer reacted out of anger” when he shot and killed the young black man.  He had no more insight than any of us into the event, but he clearly had a narrative in his mind about how events unfolded last August, and nobody was going to convince him otherwise.

Then we had President Obama weighing in.  Why?  Was this really something that the office of the President of the United States needed to comment on?  Part of his comments included challenging the police in Ferguson to ‘exercise restraint’ and ‘work with the community, not against the community’.  He went on to rationalize the response in Ferguson with this tidbit:

“But what is also true is that there are still problems and communities of color aren’t just making these problems up. Separating that from this particular decision, there are issues in which the law too often feels as if it is being applied in a discriminatory fashion. I don’t think that’s the norm. I don’t think that’s true for the majority of communities or the vast majority of law enforcement officials.”

If we are ‘separating that from this particular decision’, why even bring it up?  The only reason for being on the air is to address the issues in Ferguson.  Obama could have pointed out that due process was followed in Ferguson, and that insufficient evidence was found to indict Officer Darren Wilson (who, BTW, now faces a lifetime of threats and hatred for defending himself in the line of duty).  But he didn’t.  Instead, he found a left-handed way to throw this officer to the wolves as if he got off on some kind of technicality rather than being acquitted of wrongdoing.

Is it really so hard to believe the officer’s story after watching the security camera footage of Michael Brown robbing a convenience store and intimidating the store clerk just moments before his encounter with Officer Wilson? Also disturbing was how ready white commentators were to jump on the bandwagon to throw support behind the outrage, without any defensible evidence to suggest why due process wasn’t followed.  Shelby Steele writes most eloquently about white guilt and how powerful it can be to motivate white people to cater to the sentiments of black outrage as if it will somehow ease their conscience about slavery, class warfare, or some other injustice that makes them feel they ‘owe’ something to non-whites.  I’ve not seen it displayed so blatantly since the Travon Martin case, but even then it wasn’t even a white-on-black case because George Zimmerman was Hispanic.

Thinking people recognize that looting, burning and destroying property does not legitimize frustration over perceived racial inequalities.  But outrage still gets a nod of approval from those who are supposed to be society’s leaders, desperate to fill the shoes of Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks.  Problem is, this isn’t 1960 anymore.

Jonathan Gruber Unites Stupid Voters

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Talk radio and Fox News has been abuzz this week with quotes from Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor who consulted to craft Obama’s health care program. Some audio/video clips have emerged in which Gruber admitted that key success factors in getting Obamacare and other government-sponsored healthcare programs (like Mitt Romney’s in New Hampshire) passed is voter stupidity. Conservatives are making as much noise as possible about this, feeling this vindicates what they have been saying for years about socialized healthcare – that if people only knew the facts they would never support it.

Frankly, I’m having difficulty identifying the group of constituents who are supposed to be offended. Both conservatives and liberals are well aware that voter stupidity is the single-biggest factor that tilts elections. Conservatives can’t understand how voters could be stupid enough to elect a President – not once but twice – who has no relevant experience to manage the scope and complexity of affairs the job requires. There is good reason why qualified presidential candidates have experience running large corporations, state governments, or congressional districts. They learn valuable experience about how to effect change that affects thousands or millions of people. They learn that you have to work with opposing points of view. They learn that problems are often far more complex than they seem in a 30 second sound bite on the evening news. And yet 50 million people were duped into thinking those qualifications aren’t relevant for leading the free world.

But neither are liberals shocked to hear that voters are stupid. Every republican administration is labeled as stupid, from Richard Nixon, Ronald Regan (Bedtime for Bonzo), Dan Quayle, George W. Bush… the repetitive (and unoriginal) moniker for every conservative icon and their supporters is ‘stupidity’.
Whichever side you are on, declaring voters as ‘stupid’ is the denouement in the exchange of ideas – after all, you can’t reason with an idiot so you need not try.

So neither die-hard conservatives nor liberals are surprised to be labeled stupid, and they readily believe that their political opponents are stupid. So who is supposed to be offended? There are those in the mushy middle who seem to be swayed by the most alluring rhetoric of each election. More accurately, they are victims of binary thinking that leads them to believe every issue has a ‘good’ choice and a ‘bad’ choice, and if they aren’t happy with the current situation they easily swoon for a new idea. But they don’t think of themselves as stupid. Quite the contrary, they fancy themselves the most discerning of voters. They don’t blindly follow the party line, they think through the issues and make informed decisions that shape the body politic. So they don’t identify with a label of ‘stupid’; it can’t possibly apply to them. Can it?

But it’s exactly this group who looked at the data and made a conscious choice to believe the rhetoric. They believed that costs wouldn’t go up, that you can keep your doctor, that the required insurance exchanges would legally and magically appear, and that an administration with no experience running anything larger than a community organization could masterfully overhaul a behemoth one sixth the size of the largest economy in the world. Maybe naivety is a more accurate term, although this group will not self-identify with it any more readily.
Personally, I don’t think Obama tried to deceive the public any more than I believe George W Bush tried to lie about WMDs. They were just wrong.

In the case of WMDs, the evidence was strong enough to convince the overwhelming majority of congress- both Democrats and Republicans (despite their selective memories)- and the consequences serious enough to demand action. We are frequently reminded of the costs of those decisions, but the costs of inaction, although incalculable, could have been much higher.

In the Obamacare case, a strong section of the populous disagreed with the analysis, goals, legality and execution of the program. They have earned a big “I told you so”, and can pass out some dunce caps to those who wouldn’t listen. The Supreme Court will hear some challenges that are likely to strike down further provisions of Obamacare, and the newly elected Congress may defund it altogether.

Those drinking the Obama Kool Aid would have followed him over the cliff no matter what. Even modest success would have generated enough momentum to overcome dissenters. But it couldn’t have got off the ground without the self proclaimed informed supporters who bought into the promises.

Hey mushy-middle: Dr Gruber is pointing at you.

Oh the Dilemma to be an NFL Executive in 2014.

Truth Gunner Uncategorized , ,

Observe the Baltimore Ravens and the Ray Rice affair: Which is worse – to appear soft on domestic violence or to deny a black man the right to earn a living for his family? Quite the moral quagmire. The Minnesota Vikings weren’t any better with Adrian Peterson. First they suspend him for alleged child abuse, then they reinstate him, then they suspend him again after checking the wind direction. You can almost hear the waffling taking place:
“Do we give our players the benefit of the doubt (especially hall of fame players)? Aren’t they innocent until proven guilty?”

“But then again, we have a rare opportunity to be perceived as paragons of virtue, and we will need those chips given the rap sheets and paternity cases streaming from our personnel”.

The ambivalence is a telltale sign of a lack of moral clarity. People who know what they stand for realize situations can sometimes be challenging to disambiguate, but they stay true to their values.

Consider Dr. Douglas A. Kramer’s letter that appeared in the Monday, September 29, 2014 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Kramer questions whether compassion and thoughtfulness are part of the equation for NFL and all employers. He lists 9 separate actions that discourage Mr. and Mrs Ray Rice from getting the help they to build and maintain a happy, healthy relationship:
1. Terminate the husband’s employment
2. Repeatedly broadcast a humiliating video of the wife on television
3. Deprive the man of an activity crucial to his identity
4. Assume the woman has less personal power than the man
5. Define the couple by a single 10-second event
6. Disrupt the main social support system for both people
7. Forget the parents have a daughter who will someday see the video
8. Never even consider asking “how can we help?
9. Abandon our inherent thoughtfulness and compassion.
The good doctor makes some good points. One might fairly ask if the NFL is really interested in helping solve what they claim is a serious problem or if they are merely practicing CYA with some public speeches and gestures.
It’s almost comedic to see celebrities, the media, and the NFL brass rush to occupy the moral high ground only to find themselves in unfamiliar territory, as if they wonder whether they expected it to look and feel different.

The NFL’s PC Police: Thanks for that Redskins Thing

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Recent outrage over the disgusting, offensive, racist and bigoted name of the NFL’s Washington franchise has helped raise awareness of the insensitivity we foster under the guise professional competition.  We at the World Unified Sports Sensitivity Institute (WUSSI) have decided it’s time to end these harmful practices and demand more socially acceptable terms and images for team nicknames, logos and mascots.    We only hope a sudden and decisive turn from their exploitative ways will create a karma life-line for the souls of NFL franchise owners in the wake of their cruel and abusive history of insensitivity.  We have analyzed the team nicknames in the NFL and published our findings below:

Washington Redskins – obviously racist and insensitive.  This has been proven beyond all doubt by the media and a consensus of top university scientists around the world.  We have DNA evidence for heaven’s sake. Nothing more needs to be said.

Kansas City Chiefs –  See Washington Redskins above.  Chiefs are Indians, and Indians are exploited, abused, victims.  We might accept “Heroic Leaders of Victimized Indigenous Americans”, but only if 50% of the profits are donated to Native American reservations.

Dallas Cowboys – No groups is more responsible for the brutal, insensitive treatment “Redskins” and “Chiefs” than cowboys.  Why don’t we just bring our 6-shooters to the game and blast away at our opponents?  Surely we have evolved past these violent stereotypes by now.  We might accept “Trustees of Livestock Management”, but then there’s that whole animal rights problem.  We suggest avoiding the whole ‘wild west’ theme altogether.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Buccaneers were lawless pirates who preyed on Spanish traders in the 17th century. Needless to say, this is not the socially constructive image we want the NFL to convey.

Oakland Raiders – These are just Buccaneers without the cultural and historical reference.  Same shameless aggrandizement of disrespect for others property and rights.  Unacceptable.

Minnesota Vikings:  Vikings are infamous for looting and pillaging weaker, peace-loving artisans simply because they are burly, violent guys with catapults, swords and hats with horns on them.  Do we have to connect the dots to Adrian Peterson?  We also find the ‘fat-lady’ reference offensive to our plus-sized fans.  Time to bring it up to the 21st century.

New Orleans Saints:  While the term “Saint” is not offensive in itself, it’s an implicit endorsement of a specific religious status.  If you don’t nip this in the bud, we’ll have teams called “The Abusive Priests”,“The Infidels”,  “The Jihadists”… before long we have ritualistic beheadings during tailgate parties in the parking lot. Let’s take the religion out of our professional sports and put it back in the closet where it belongs.

New York Giants:  Nearly 100 cases of gigantism have been reported in the US.  You wouldn’t think of calling your team “The New York Mutants” would you?  I think we’ve made our point.

Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals:  Birds are our friends, not a class of animals to exploit for our amusement.  Just because they have feathers doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings. Who speaks for them?

Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cincinnati Bengals:  Its sad that so many of nature’s majestic creatures have been abducted from their homes and imprisoned in zoos  where we construct concrete and steel barriers to make us feel superior.   It’s time we returned all big cats and predators back into the wild and let them reclaim their deserved place at the top of the food chain.  Show some respect.

Miami Dolphins: Dolphins might be the smartest animals on earth.  Did you know they communicate with each other?  Someday we may evolve enough to learn their language and when we do, we’ll find out they’ve been saying “Please Stop Exploiting us”!

St Louis Rams:  What’s the first image that comes to mind when you think of a ram?  Right, a big, dominating male trying to head-butt everyone around him into submission. Do you want to explain to a weeping mother why her little kid is unconscious in the ER because some playground bully was trying to emulate his favorite team mascot???  We didn’t think so.

San Franciso 49ers;  A reference to the gold rush of 1849, when prospectors uprooted their families from their loved ones and fled to California in search of riches. Multiple issues here:  Have you ever seen a prospector who looks like he takes care of himself?  And has good dental hygiene?  Not the model we want for our kids.  And it’s time we stopped romanticizing the blind greed of the gold rush era.  A few prospectors got rich, but most became destitute.  Greed, greed, greed.  It’s time we shift from this capitalistic blitzkrieg toward riches and take a kinder, gentler approach toward our financial future. We think “Government Dependents” finds the right tone as a suitable replacement name.

New York Jets – Since the Vietnam war, Jets have been the source of more bombings and destruction than all the wars before them.  Jets = death, destruction and senseless violence.  What’s wrong with “Peacekeepers”?  How about we start propping these up as our heroes instead of celebrating war machinery?  Sheesh!

Buffalo Bills: While we appreciate a good play on words, “Buffalo Bill” refers to William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who made himself famous by killing as many innocent American bison (aka buffalo) as he could.  Need we say more?

New England Patriots:  The NFL is trying hard to expand into Europe. We even played a couple games over in England to test the waters.  A constant reminder of how their redcoat ancestors got their asses kicked 200 years ago isn’t good for business relations. Fix it now so we can all make money.

Cleveland Browns:  We thought about colors for team names but ran into a couple problems.  First, it limits the number of teams we could have in the league, although our Crayola consultant tells us they would be willing to grant the league licenses for at least 64 unique names if we take Fuchsia, Mauve and Periwinkle.  But then some colors are just plan offensive-  Who gets to be the “White” team?  Then we have games where “Black” versus “Brown” and the whole thing gets ugly fast.  Best to avoid colors altogether.

Indianapolis Colts:  A colt is basically a child. We like the imagery of youthful exuberance, but we think children should be able to make their own choices instead of being shoved into a career path to fit society’s demands.  Besides, most horses end up in glue factories which is the seamy underbelly of this whole equine industry.  Nobody wants to pay a trillion dollars in damages because some YouTube clips surface of the team mascot being reduced to a bottle of rubber cement in Johnny’s classroom.  Let’s head this one off now.

Denver Broncos:  A Bronco is a wild, untamed horse of North America.  The obvious reference is to capture, cage and ‘break’ the last symbol of independence to conform to the self-serving goals of big business, much like Native Americans have been captured and relegated to reservations in the name of US Imperialism. Did the Redskins case not teach us anything?

Houston Texans: Nothing particularly offensive about this, but we can’t allow any one team to claim unique rights to their state’s name.  Isn’t Dallas also in Texas?  And we already explained why they need a new team name.  What if San Antonio or Austin wanted to add a franchise?  Sorry Houston, you can’t claim the whole state for yourself.

Tennessee Titans:  We couldn’t find anything wrong with the name “Titans”, other than the link to shady Greek Gods who frequently abused their power.  Is that what this is about?  The team owners of Mt Olympus deciding which of us mortals should have a future?  We can’t really toss it out, but we’re sure a lawsuit is in there somewhere.

Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers:  These are teams named after the respective  steel production and meat packing industries which were prevalent when the franchises were young.  While this probably started as a way to galvanize community support, it excludes the hard working proletariat that falls outside of a single, golden profession.  Surely Pittsburgh and Green Bay also have teachers, street sweepers, shop owners and dog catchers.  Where is their team?  And what about those not in the active workforce – on disability or a fixed pension/retirement income?  Should we exclude them?  Something along the lines of “Unified Supporters of Professional Football with Ties to the Larger Regional Area” might be more inclusive. We see the challenge getting that on a uniform, but we leave that to the graphic artists.

In summary, the NFL has a long way to go to show sensitivity to their fan base.  Names are usually chosen based on some bias with excludes, offends or exploits one or more individuals. As a solution, we suggest dropping names and logos altogether and identifying teams with numbers.  To avoid the argument over who should be “#1”, we will assign teams only consecutive prime numbers greater than 17.  Team’s slots in the assignment process will be chosen by lottery.  This is in the best interest of everyone and a great step forward for the professional sport we all love.

WUSSI is honored to have contributed to this NFL makeover.

Random Thoughts of September, 2014

Truth Gunner Uncategorized , , , , , , ,
  • ·Baltimore Raven’s running back Ray Rice just got cut by his team and suspended indefinitely from the NFL after a video was released showing him punching his then-fiancée Janay Palmer and knocking her out in an elevator last February.  Women’s advocates are racing to the nearest cameras and microphones to denounce Ray and strike a blow (pun intended) against domestic violence.  Not defending Ray Rice, but for those who really pretend to care about Janay Palmer, who is now Mrs. Ray Rice, I pose this question:  What do you think makes her life worse:  That her fiancée punched her in a fight 7 months ago, or that her family has been stripped of their livelihood for the rest of their lives so she can be the poster-girl for domestic violence crusades?   And did TMZ really do her a favor by releasing this video? Or were they just being the tabloid whore that will get airtime at any cost?
  • I’m not a big Obama defender, but I speak for a lot of Americans who are really tired of pundits throwing politicians under the bus for any and every problem in the world.  One can find enough actual problems tied directly to Obama’s presidency without resorting to demagoguery; it cheapens the legitimate points and turns off voters trying to sort through actual issues. I don’t know who will be president in 2046, but I’m pretty sure they will take a vacation sometime during their term, and I’m pretty sure somebody will say they are outraged that the President is [playing golf, fishing, biking, going to the beach, etc] while people are dying.  C’mon folks.  This isn’t helping us choose better leaders.
  • ·        Greg Lukianoff had an excellent piece in the WSJ yesterday (9/09/14) entitled “Free Speech at Berkeley—So Long as It’s ‘Civil’.  He scolds University of California Chancellor Nicholas Dirks for his message last week to UC Berkeley faculty called ‘Civility and Free Speech’

Mr. Dirks writes that “we can only exercise our right to free speech insofar as we feel safe and respected in doing so.” But a right to freedom of speech that ends whenever someone on campus claims not to feel “safe and respected” is a right to little more than polite chitchat. Speech that’s free-with-some-qualifications means that students and faculty are left unable to take on the big debates and questions in a way that should be expected in an academic setting.

And while students should certainly feel “safe,” it is important to recognize that these days the word has wandered far from its literal meaning. Feeling “safe” on college campuses means something closer to being completely comfortable, physically and intellectually.

 

Well said.  Free speech is not necessarily what the UC Berkeley Chancellor tells us it is.

  • Pre-spin thoughts in response to tonite’s presidential ‘s address on the ISIS terrorist threat:  Nice rhetoric:  I like the tone, “We will lead the charge to eliminate terrorism”.  Could have been a wimpier.  Now the proof is to see how much we will back it up.  Not a fan of a commitment to limited engagement of our military (clearly a bone tossed to his left wing base) – sends a mixed message.  Frankly, I don’t think our enemies believe Obama is willing to commit too many resources to the cause.  Expect political opponents on the right to criticize the President for too much equivocation. Expect the left wing to complain he is putting us back in the quagmire we just escaped.  I’ll wait to see actual results, which = dead terrorists.
  • Not to let a good rage go unrewarded, CNN announced exclusive new witness testimony today regarding the shooting in Ferguson, MO.  These new, unidentified witnesses who were “contacted by CNN” claim they saw Michael Brown with his hands up over his head.  The CNN website shows chilling video that shows police taping off a scene where a shooting had taken place, and – perhaps most incriminating – the witness (who remains unnamed)  saw a police officer draw his weapon after shots had been fired-at the scene!!!  Well this is – without question- definitive PROOF that Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, MO on August 9!!!!!!   (see a previous post on the Media’s Non Sequitur fest in Ferguson, MO). CNN didn’t bother to tell us why this CONCLUSIVE EYEWITNESS VIDEO EVIDENCE didn’t come forward until a month after the shooting.  They also didn’t mention that the unnamed eyewitness is black.  They are trying  hard to relight that match that flamed the media bonfire for 10 days last month.

The Irony of an All-Black Jackie Robinson Baseball Team

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On Saturday,  ABC broadcast a Little League World Series US Championship game between Nevada and Illinois.  But the Illinois team also goes by Chicago, Great Lakes Region, and the Jackie Robinson West Little League team. By the second inning, the broadcasters were already ginning up golf claps for the great accomplishments of Jackie Robinson, how his legacy is being carried on, and how special baseball is to this inner city region.

By the way, the 2014 Jackie Robinson All Stars from Chicago have no white players or coaches.  They consist entirely of ‘African Americans’.

Am I the only one who sees the irony of a Jackie Robinson Legacy team made up of a single race of players and coaches?   It begs the question, “What exactly is Jackie Robinson’s legacy”?  Is it about favoring one race to the exclusion of others;  e.g. providing a safe-haven for black kids who don’t have to compete with other 12 year old white, Latino, or Asian players for a spot on the team?  Or is it about overcoming racial bias in athletics and other endeavors?  Somebody please say it out loud.

I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but I’m pretty sure there are white/Latino/Asian kids in the Great Lakes region, white/Latino/Asian kids in Illinois, and maybe even white/Latino/Asian kids in Chicago.  But none of them made the Jackie Robinson West little league team.  Why?

I couldn’t find any definitive statements that the Jackie Robinson West team does not allow non-black players.  I’m willing to accept the possibility that the team had open tryouts, picked the best qualified players, and they all happened to be black.   After watching the game, one has to admit that they are a very skilled group of young athletes.  Should one of them have to miss their chance at the Little League World Series so the team could look more racially diverse?

If broadcasters and sports writers are going to pretend to care about race in sports – “Why are there not more black managers/owners/coaches in the [insert sport here]”-  they should at least be intellectually honest enough to admit  that sometimes the most qualified candidates happen to be of the same ethnicity.

Or they should admit that racial bias is acceptable as long as as the ends justify the means.

Either way, please pick a position and defend it. Consistently.

The Ferguson, Missouri’s Media Non Sequitur-Fest

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Webster defines a non sequitur as” a statement that is not connected in a logical or clear way to anything said before it”.  Witness just about any statement coming out of Ferguson, Missouri over the past week.

A young black man, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by a Ferguson, MO police officer on August 9.  Angry black mob leaders have been rushing to the nearest cameras and microphones to declare this a cold-blooded execution, premeditated criminal act, murder, and any other vile act they can pile on.

Certainly an investigation is in order, but the prevailing mob mentality is to forgo this formality and hang the white officer (and most of the rest of the Ferguson police force) from a flag pole in the town square.  It’s amazing to witness the media frenzy in action.  They hope for violence and chaos, which is really good for ratings.  They sprinkle in ‘experts’ for commentary, as if they can somehow rationalize the looting of local minimarts as class warfare or the racial frustrations of otherwise really good citizens that are representative of the US populace.

Today’s show included press conferences from a medical examiner who conducted an independent autopsy of Michael Brown and concluded (spoiler alert) – Michael Brown died of a gunshot wound to the head.

Well that clinches it!!  Now we have proof that he was executed in cold blood by a racist, power-abusing, neo-Nazi storm trooper who hates black people and children!   Oh, wait, we already knew that Michel Brown was killed by a bullet.  And we already knew who pulled the trigger.  So what, exactly did this autopsy reveal?  The only thing I can see is that of the 6 wounds, some were caused by the same bullet reentering multiple times.  And yet, the headlines of all the media websites flash that “Independent Autopsy reveals that Michael Brown was shot at least 6 times”.  No, actually the examiner said there were multiple wounds caused by the same bullet, and that the fatal bullet entered in the top of his head. Lost in all the loaded questions was one that asked if any of the findings were inconsistent with the explanation of self-defense by the police officer. (Thanks for pouring cold water on that flaming press conference, pal!) Declaring “the victim was shot at least 6 times” has more of the wink-and-a-nudge flavor of excess that we need to keep this thing going.  Maybe this is enough to get something burned down or blown up tonight!  The networks can only hope.

The press conference was championed by a phalanx of  black attorneys and ‘anger translators’ who promptly concluded that this was conclusive proof that Michael Brown was executed in cold blood, completely innocent, and the officer involved should immediately be arrested.  Enter the blizzard of ‘Non Sequiturs.  CNN followed the press conference with a panel discussion of ‘experts’.  A well dressed, well-spoken black woman was re-offered the softball setup question that came out during the autopsy conference “Do we have enough evidence to make an arrest”?

“OF COURSE WE HAVE ENOUGH EVIDENCE!! She snorted indignantly.  “WE HAD ENOUGH EVIDENCE ON DAY ONE!  WHEN SOMEONE GETS SHOT, WE MAKE AN ARREST AND HOLD THOSE PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE. THAT’S HOW OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM WORKS IN THIS COUNTRY!!”

A surprisingly calm medical examiner corrected her and pointed out that this is actually not how things work, police are not arrested for discharging the weapons they are obligated to carry.  We have investigations, we gather facts, and then we make determinations.

BUT WE HAVE AN INDEPENDENT AUTOPSY FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE!! Any day now, we will get DNA EVIDENCE that PROVES, BEYOND ALL DOUBT, that the person who was shot was Michael Brown.  That should slam the door for good!!!  Perhaps if we pile up enough non sequiturs we get a relevant fact?  Wishful thinking.

This is sad evidence of a public that has grown fat on a diet of TV Crime investigation shows.  CSI, NCIS, The Closer, Rizzoli and Isles, Forensic Files…  not that those shows aren’t entertaining, but the common climax of all shows is the clang of the steel-trap of scientific evidence slamming shut on the guilty and eliminating off all possible alternatives.  In a Hollywood script, that satisfying closure can be created for the ending viewers crave.  In the real world, medical examiners and lab results don’t always tell us what happened, and we need to follow well established procedures that include a presumption of innocence. If the mob and the mob leaders believe that law enforcement AND the criminal justice system are both corrupt and cannot be trusted, then they are really advocating revolution.  A responsible media would do some diligence to determine if corruption is really rampant and whether the appropriate corrective action has been taken.

The script for the rest of this investigation is likely already set.  Any evidence that exonerates the shooting officer will be branded as contrived, falsified, and the police protecting their own.   Even the release of photos from the surveillance camera that showed Michael Brown apparently strong-arming another much smaller person is being met with angry accusations of character assassination.

CNN also showed EXCLUSIVE EYEWITNESS CELLPHONE VIDEO (capital letters to convey breathless shouting, accompanied with heavy disclaimers of viewer discretion just to get our attention) that showed nothing other than Michel Brown lying in the street.  It showed absolutely nothing that we didn’t already know, but the media is trying fiercely to flame the passions to keep this in the spotlight as long as possible.  And it appears to be working, because now we are seeing camera time for figure heads like Al Sharpton, Malik Shabazz (national chairman of the New Black Panther Party and founder of Black Lawyers for Justice, just to distinguish them from all the white lawyers who don’t want justice), Trayvon Martin’s civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, Martin Luther King III, and hoards of other civil rights wannabe’s.

The facts of the case in the tragic shooting of Michael Brown have become a minor detail; a footnote in ‘serving a larger purpose’.

Google Tawana Brawley.

Or the Duke Lacrosse team rape case.

Conclusions are already being made, looting and violence are characterized as just passionate responses from victims of systematic oppression.  Any verdict short of emphatic guilt and public execution for a heinous act of racially motivated cruelty will not satisfy the bloodthirsty mob that the media has so irresponsibly whipped into their frenzy.  Little do they care that their incessant coverage will make impossible for Officer Darren Wilson to live a normal life, much less continue his career in law enforcement, should he be found guilty of doing nothing more than defending himself.  But hey, this way they can create another news frenzy any time he applies for a security job, gets a hunting license, has a fender bender (was it a black driver he hit???), or- god forbid- has any kind of domestic dispute with his family or neighbors.

Convenient to create your own ratings makers. All you need is a faux naivete for your power to incite civil unrest, a callous disregard for destroying innocent lives, an an opportunistic greed that fuels an irresponsible mob mentality that refuses to accept the consequences of their own choices. In the infamous words of TV’s J.R Ewing: “One you lose your integrity, the rest is easy”.

The Magic Words ‘Racism’ and ‘Hate’

Truth Gunner Uncategorized , , , , , ,

I got my fill of the annual Martin Luther King guilt trip speeches again this year. The president’s comments (or any politician’s comments for that matter) are always predictable. “We have made some gains in our fight against racism, but we still have a long way to go”. Ironic that these comments have come from a black president for the past 6 years. “Racism” and “Hate” are magic labels. If you can slap them on a person, organization or class of people, they become instantly stripped of social and human rights. You are free to vent your all your pent up hostility – justified or not – at the condemned. And while most people won’t admit it, they find it refreshingly liberating to throw off, guilt-free, the restraints of civility and return to the visceral, base passions that feverishly fueled public executions in past days. “Haters” are fair game, no holds barred.

And the bar for ‘hate’ is not just low, it’s invisible. If, like Phil from A&E’s Duck Dynasty, you dare to paraphrase the Bible, you are presumptuously filled with hate and deserve to be publicly lynched in the town square. No trial is necessary, no analysis, no parsing of the quotes… you are a wretched barbarian that is harmful to society and should be exiled from all public life.

Shelby Steele wrote another brilliant piece in the Wall Street Journal after the outcry over the Trayvon Martin case in which a black teen was killed by a neighborhood watchman. Even though Zimmerman was Hispanic (not white), and the jury found him innocent due to self-defense, race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson didn’t let facts get in the way of a good crusade against the oppressive white society. Mr. Steele made the provocative observation that Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson desperately want the US to be perpetually stuck in the 60s, when oppression was real and the rallying call of equal rights was justified. The movement had substance back then. Black leaders could articulate an agenda: voting rights, end to segregation, no whites-only restaurants and drinking fountains, equal access to loans and jobs regardless of skin color. Sharpton and his ilk see themselves as that inspirational figure delivering the “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington DC. They want to be heroes, to have kids memorize their speeches, to have the whole country celebrate their birthdays as a national holidays. If the country isn’t infested with white trash racists, they have no oppression to champion. So they have a vested interest in keeping that image alive, even if they have to create it one pixel at a time.

In an earlier post about MLK, I pointed out that his original vision was that of unity, when we stop caring about skin color and think of each other as people. Dr. King actually painted a very clear picture of his dream in which blacks and whites joined together in activities and society without stopping to think or ask about skin pigmentation level. Suppose Dr. King could have captured a snapshot of America in 2014, with a black President, black Supreme Court justices, black entertainment moguls, black lawyers, black millionaires, blacks and whites riding the same public transit, eating in the same restaurants, going to the same schools, shopping in the same stores, living in the same neighborhoods and worshiping in the same churches. Would he be proud of the way black society has advanced in 50 years? Would he still think racism is the biggest problem they face? Or would he make note of the statistics of black on black violent crime, teen pregnancies, school dropouts, single parent households and the disproportionate number of blacks in jails and prisons? Is the abuse of white power to blame for all of this? Or have we found white guilt a convenient gravy train to load up with all black suffering?

We have become accustomed to politicians saying anything and everything that makes their voters feel championed. But the guilt trips have spread beyond political figures and have crept into our churches, probably because the pulpit is the universally recognized hydrant from which guilt is dispensed. Ministers can make you feel bad about anything, even if it has only tenuous religious roots. If you don’t embrace the gay agenda, you must be a hater and you should feel guilty. If you don’t support your political leaders, you must be a hater and should confess. How many times over MLK weekend were variations of this phrase proclaimed to congregations: “We need to repent for the sins of racism and slavery!”?

Strangely enough, slavery is never portrayed in the bible as a sin. And it’s not because slavery didn’t exist in the old or new testament. In fact, slaves were discussed in many passages. In Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, aka the Torah, several rules are issued for the buying, selling and treatment of slaves including this pearl in Exodus 21: 20-21 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.” Wow. The New Testament frees Christians of Old Testament law, but it not silent on the topic of slavery. Colossians 4:1: “Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.” Paul made a point of delivering a specific message to Christian slave masters, and if he wanted to tell them slavery was a sin this would have certainly been the right opportunity. The whole book of Philemon is in reference to a slave, Onesimus, who Paul is sending back to his master. It’s a short letter, but nowhere does Paul call Philemon a sinner for owning Onesimus.

Seems like there should be a verse somewhere that says “Masters, free your slaves just as Christ has freed you”. Sure sounds biblical, doesn’t it? But it’s not there, not anywhere. How could something as vile and wicked as slavery escape the attention of Jesus? And how was it not mentioned as one of the deadliest deadly sins? Could it be that Jesus didn’t think slavery was a sin? (Did I really just make that sentence?) One couldn’t claim with a straight face that the bible encourages slavery, or that reinstating it in 21st century America could be done with a clear conscience. But we need to be careful about drawing lines where God didn’t see fit to draw them; putting ourselves in his seat of justice is not only arrogant, it’s downright blasphemous. Maybe we have demonized slavery because the only images forced upon our minds are the inhuman treatment and oppression of blacks, beatings, rapes, unsanitary conditions and the like. Those were sins, but not because one person was ‘property’ of another. And maybe we only recall the worst of slavery because we are socially forbidden to imagine it in any other way. For example, a person would surely be worthy of public beating and indelible ‘racist’ branding if they were to point out that black activists, who are quick to claim their African heritage, are far better off in every way than their distant African cousins who weren’t ever brought to America. Heresy. How dare I?

But think about it: Can you list any country in the whole world where blacks have more opportunity for health and prosperity than in the United States? What about the countries in Africa that have not been ‘spoiled’ by whites – which of those blossomed into the utopian society that blacks enjoy today? Uganda? Rwanda? Somalia? Anybody wish they lived there instead of the USA? Many there still don’t have clean water to drink. As bad as AIDS is in America, it’s far worse in Africa. Hunger, pestilence, poverty, literacy, infant mortality, health care… does an African country top the US in any category?

It’s one of those dialogs we are forbidden to have in public discourse, like the blatantly racist policy that allows blacks to use the ‘n-word’ freely but can never be uttered if you are white. Let’s just admit it: OJ was acquitted of murder largely because his attorneys found that sometime in the history of his life, Mark Fuhrman uttered the ‘n-word’. That’s all it takes to discredit and condemn a white witness. Whites can’t even discuss the evidence of the OJ trial, because that might require you to say ‘the n-word’.

But the fact that racism is an institution that Jackson and Sharpton depend on for their living is merely a disappointment, not a surprise. What bothers me more is that ministers in otherwise fundamental churches are so easily co-opted to cultivate guilt among white people in the name of spiritual righteousness. Although conviction and repentance is necessary to Christianity, simply ginning up those symptoms for a spiritually counterfeit agenda is reprehensible. But alas, an intellectually honest dialog on the topic is beyond elusive, it’s forbidden.

Here is an example of an honest but incendiary statement that cannot be made in public discourse: I feel no guiltier about a slavery 200 years ago than I feel entitled to gratitude for bringing blacks out of Africa for a life of opportunity in the greatest nation on earth. If I’m indebted for one, shouldn’t I get credit for the other? How about neither?

MLKs dream was that we reach a day when we stop trying to keep score and just see each other as Americans.

I’m ready. Are you?