Here are my closing arguments on the Ferguson phenomenon, as well as the media’s constant ideologically-driven themes. I agreed with Pokey’s assessment of Al Sharpton and I condemned MSNBC for its recent ideological spike on the Fox shit-o-meter. But not all wrongdoing across our nation can, nor should be pinned on our president. We also disagree on the basic premise of which political party will lead to our demise. To me, Benghazi and Ferguson are still feeble attempts by conservatives to pin the fail on the donkey.
I listened to many of Obama’s reactions to allegations of police brutality and his speeches have struck the right chord between police and black communities, who are not exactly feeling the love right now.
“I think most of the people protesting out there are doing it peacefully and most cops are just out there doing their jobs.”
—Barack Obama, mob inciter
…IMPEACH!
You claim to be a truth seeker, Pokey, yet you back a political party so denial-driven they couldn’t identify reality if it wrestled them to the ground in a chokehold. We live in a white privilege world, which has consequences for those subjected to trauma—cultural, socioeconomic, racial, or otherwise. Does that mean we should ignore the details of any case? I’ve never condoned that, thus your inability to find any real examples in my posts. And whereas I agree with you in some of your assessments of the media’s handling of these incidents, you continually ignore the massive failures on the right. Sorry, Fox News drew first flub. I’m not giving MSNBC a free pass, in fact, I’ve turned it off.
When those oppressed try to reach for some justice, it may not always be pretty, or precise. See: Woodstock. But sometimes we must embrace the naked, muddy hippies of freedom! You continue to conflate my views with that of Al Sharpton’s. Initially, I stayed out of Ferguson and trusted in the system, until the Cleveland and the Garner videos surfaced. If the black community got the Michael Brown premise wrong—which I’ve always felt—it changes nothing when the default of our system remains:
Guilty or Not Guilty = The Police Officer is Exonerated
The system is failing to protect its citizens. How many police officers get indicted for such wrong doing? That’s the issue. Meanwhile, your criticism of Obama in this matter is overinflated. When Obama said, “He (Trayvon Martin) could have been my son,” our president was a expressing a genuine human emotion, in real time (before the facts were even in).
“Showing feelings of an almost human nature. This will not do.”
—Pink Floyd
Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!!
Meanwhile, Republicans forever wax nostalgic for a world tilted clearly in their favor. They are hopeless romantics, who harken back to the ‘50s so they can beat their wives and their children and command so many servants that Mexican landscapers are superfluous.
We have made progress on race and inequality, but there’s much more to be done. Cultural or incident-specific-trauma has a real impact on the brain’s development as well as a given individual’s economic opportunities. Those traumatized, societal or individual, don’t always recall the facts perfectly—just as Jackie over at U of V can attest. This may not be the prettiest of movements, but one day it will yield justice.
Wanna hear a crazy conspiracy theory that actually makes sense?
“Bush’s answer to our educational failings was No Child Left Behind, which was all part of a plan to make us all so ill-informed we would one day elect his brother.”
—Mick Zano
Now that’s a valid conspiracy theory, at least comparatively. Shit isn’t fair and, within the growing disparity of super capitalism, even those in the middle class are finding fewer doors to prosperity. This is all part of the Republican’s plan to shift all of our country’s assets into the hands of a few well-deserving white folks (WDWF).
The juxtaposition:
On the VERY DAY of our email exchange we find out the CIA brutality tortured and lied about it and you harp on this—and on the wrong side of this. You even defend the CIA Torture Report as a “distraction.” I chose no sides on this rash of police incidents until the Garner video surfaced and, yet, in light of this you still deny any systemic issues? The only charges pressed in Garner’s death was the guy holding the camera. If that doesn’t piss you off, I don’t know what—oh, who am I kidding, BENGHAZI!! Speaking of distractions.
As for torture, many on the right (present debater excluded), don’t even understand why “drowning the towel heads” is an issue. Just as more folks on the right support “torturing for Jesus.” Yes, condoning such abuses is on the upswing, here. This moral decay on the right is the issue, not the left’s rally cry for equality. Torture is a trend even more disturbing when one considers 26 of those (some American citizens) were detained wrongly and yet we gained no actionable intelligence. Cheney keeps mentioning this L.A. threat as his only defense, which is another lie, here. This is not nuance, this is HUGE. But, again, sorry for that shop window Obama is partially responsible for in Ferguson. And a thousand pardons for that court testimony of Michael Brown’s friend, who had direct coaching from the Obama Administration, per the IRS’s missing emails smuggled over the border during Fast & Furious ….BENGHAZI!!!
I guess if you can’t find anything, dig deeper. Where there’s no smoke, there’s an embassy fire. When Bush stepped down and said history would likely equate him to Truman, I thought, what an astoundingly delusional statement. Similarly I know history will not judge Obama as harshly as you and your friend’s on the right would like, because hatred toward our president is primarily ideologically driven. When I see a guy who both avoided WWIII and saved the global economy during the onset of his tenor, I can still muster some scant gratitude.
Some of your points are valid—trivial and sad—but valid. Sorry, but not everyone who acts poorly in the face of inequality can be linked to Obama. Cheney will walk for his secret prisons, his torture, and his lying us into war but please indict that person who testified for Michael Brown as she was not, “Tell’n dat twooth to whitey.” It wasn’t Buckwheat, it was Spanky in the Observatory with Officer Mustard gas, aka cop a Clue, Alfalfa.
We officially live in two realities. Both sides paint two different pictures of any given event, issue, or policy. We are polarized, perhaps beyond repair. I predominantly blame Republicans for this reality and I assign this blame based on something I like to call facts. Obama isn’t fomenting this; he’s shown tremendous restraint in the face of ignorance. Liberal paintings, at least for the moment, still borrow some aspects from realism, while Republicans primarily draw their inspiration directly from some avant-garde, sniffing glue branch of surrealism.
Racial injustice needs to be addressed, I just encourage black communities and leaders to pick the right battles and the right champion for their cause—which is the heart of your argument. If you want to see real spin, turn on Fox News. There you will see how truth is being beaten, each and every news cycle, into submission. You have found a couple of narratives you don’t fully endorse while I maintain the entirety of Republicana is a farce.
More juxtaposition:
As Pokey paints this picture of a president intentionally seeding racial tensions—to which there is little proof—today my Senators in Arizona said, “We don’t need any more clean water. You want clean water buy a Brita” (paraphrased). Senator John McCain (R) and Senator Jeff Flake (R), TODAY, voted against the Clean Water Act, saying,
“There’s no peer-reviewed research to support this unwanted piece of government over-regulation.”
—Jeff Flake (R)
By none, of course, he means there’s over a thousand peer-reviewed studies (per NPR). That is an example of a lie, and a potentially consequential one at that. We are destroying our water supplies and our planet. Climate change is real and is impacted by man. Republicans are lying about this and get a free pass, but God forbid liberals address racial inequality in an imperfect manner. But Obama should fix that window in Ferguson. I could self-harm with those pointy shards.
These types of lies go on every day on the right and—the Torture Report and this clean water thingie are happening right now. The connection to these and Republican legislation is direct and damning, not hazy and conspiratorial. Obama’s atrocities are, for the most part, hyperbole and delusion wrapped in propaganda, per those IRS emails we never saw during that Benghazi testimony.
Even more juxtaposition:
Let’s revisit McDooris’s main beefs with Obama over his six year tenor, which he believes will eventually encroach on our freedoms:
Obamacare:
Pokey: “You can keep your doctor.”
Zano: Admittedly, this was Obama’s worst blunder to date, yet it still rang true for an estimated 96% of Americans, most of which we never tortured. Of course, the argument now is Obamacare a good law or a great one, here. Yea, accomplishing everything it set out to do is tragic.
Immigration Reform
Pokey: “It’s just for the hardworking immigrants who have been here for five years.”
Zano: …which it is (See: Law).
Clean Coal:
Pokey: “We’ll just regulate coal.”
Zano: True! Get honest, Obama! Coal needs to go NOW! Stop placating these bastards!
The 2nd Amendment
Pokey: “It will start as sensible background checks.”
Zano: Our 2nd Amendment rights will always exist in America, perhaps to a fault (See: Obama’s lack of balls in this area). Meanwhile, 90% of those polled agree with the idea of sensible background checks, but thankfully this is an aristocracy.
This is Pokey’s list of Obama’s worst deeds and yet the CIA Torture Report was released this week. As I attempted to review Bush’s actual atrocities during this rebuttal, Mr. Winslow warned me about the lack of available server space. Ultimately this torture logic is the best example. So the shit I was shouting about in pubs and coffee shops with you over a decade ago turned out to be true and, likewise, the radical decent of one of our political parties will also eventually be common knowledge. Yes, the blame will land on Republicans—where it belongs. As for the “common knowledge” you are endorsing: it may be common, but knowledge has nothing to do with it.
I shouted for investigations from the beginning on torture and we find out yesterday it was widespread, egregious, and yielded no actionable intelligence. Yet you got every investigatory committee you wanted for Christmas on Benghazi and…I want my friggin’ money back!
“Some things are ideologically driven on the left, but EVERYTHING is ideologically driven on the right and when I say Republican driven, I’m thinking Captain Ahab with ‘roid rage.”
—Mick Zano
When all is said done, Bush should hang and, sadly, when the next Republican president is elected we will look back to that asshole fondly. That is a prediction you can bank on. Oh, wait I’m being told those will collapse. Everything else you’re harping about seems to pale in comparison to the real issues of our time. We both agree on the danger of the expansion of executive power but there will always be these quantum executive power leaps under Republicans—well, if history is any judge. And, as violent crime stats plummet, we decided to turn our police stations into paramilitary operations, after the fact. This has only increased instances of police brutality and racial tension. Al Sharpton may not be the solution, but either is Ted Cruz. Maybe the whole system is to blame, but the origins of most wrongdoing always seem Republican in nature. They end up trashing the law that allows the abuse to occur in the first place. Then, on a rare occasion when a Dem tries to create a law to fix an existing abuse, Congress won’t even vote on it!
If you continue to drink the Republican Kool-Aid, you will always find yourself barking up the wrong scandal. Sorry, but our Republicans’ place in history is already reserved. Hint of the Day:
“History will forever place a crescent moon on the door of that shit-shack called The Grand Old Party.”
—Mick Zano
Sorry, I did not mean to offend. Please edit out Christmas and replace with Festivus. Thank you.
