Archive for November, 2014

Juxtaposition

What we do know for sure, is what.

As in, what exactly happened.

The shooting to death of an unarmed black man by a white policeman occurred on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson Missouri. The police officer was Darren Wilson. The unarmed man was named Michael Brown. On November 24, 2014 a county grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown until he was dead.

That is what happened.

We also know how it happened. I’m not here now to revisit or belabor that how.

I’ve already done that subjectively in my last writing.

You can read that here: http://www.brainspank.org/2014/11/shaft/

Of course, the conviction with which I expressed my opinion on the how of this matter engendered some anger.

That anger leads us to the why.  Up until now,  I really haven’t been able to understand the why.  My understanding of it is by no means complete but the anger aimed at me has provided a glimpse into it and maybe it will for anyone reading this.

This is why I’m sharing it here.

I received an email not long after I posted my opinion on the events in Ferguson from a man I’ve known since high school.  I don’t mind telling you that this man is a typical small town conservative who imagines himself a pillar of the community because he’s on the right side of guns, God and the constitution.   He absolutely believes we live in a post racial society.

In the past he’s written much worse.  Far more vitriolic and disturbing.  But this proves to be the most compelling view into a mindset that for me at least explains why such things are allowed to happen.

I thought about disclosing his identity but it really is beside the point.  We were once “friends” on social media but he blocked me long ago I’m sure because he was tired of me kicking his ass all over the place and making him cry in front of his friends.  I absolutely enjoyed calling him on his bullshit. I get bored and it was cathartic.

What I am doing now though, is issuing a challenge to this man.  Offering him an opportunity to own what he wrote to me and by all means defend it if he can, on my blog for everyone to see.

I do hope he will rise to the occasion.

This is why I write.

This is exactly why I bother.

Pay special attention to numbers 7 through 13 to get a real taste for the unhinged.

Good stuff.

What follows is his email to me verbatim in bold italics.

Ok Mike:

Here’s the facts that you can’t get through your thick irrational skull:

Regardless of what the police department did or does, it does not change the facts and especially the physical evidence

Fact 1.  Michael Brown did not shoplift, he robbed a store, the latter involving threat or use of force and that is a felony

Fact 2.  Regardless of why he was stopped he started a physical confrontation with a cop who was seated in his vehicle

Fact 3. The much smaller officer shot Mr. Brown as they fought over the weapon

Fact 4.  Mr. Brown then scurried away and failed to respond by the officer’s commands

Fact 5.  Mr. Brown then ran towards the officer in what eye witnesses describe as like a football player going in for a tackle

Fact 6.  The officer shot Mr. Brown dead.

Fact 7.  Friends of the deceased made up eye-witness accounts that portrayed Mr. Brown as non-violent, and being shot in the back while running away with his hands up

Fact 8.  The liberal media rags et al made up stories like the store owner nor anyone else called the cops (albeit a recorded 911 call to the contrary)

Fact 9.  Race baiters Holder, Sharpton, Jackson and the POTUS caused further division and incited the uninformed masses

Fact 10. Professional white communistic inciters flooded the cities to cause even more disruption

Fact 11.  The forensic evidence tells the story.

Fact 12.  If the FBI were to contrive with the police, the prosecution, the grand jury, the race baiting Holder and everyone else they would have likely indicted the officer on a charge, the officer would have reportedly committed suicide while in fact was placed into a WPP, or some other method of calming the tensions.  Then again, Holder loves to promote race wars, so perhaps it was all made up.

Most importantly is fact 13.  People just like you who have irrational thought patterns inspired by your biases and filled into your brain with your so-called credible sources are the reason why this country is so screwed.  You fall for all the garbage force fed to you by big brother.  You actually don’t believe it when the main person who designed Obamacare says it was written so stupid people would never understand the repercussions.  You actually believe them when they say amnesty of millions will somehow produce jobs and more money.  You believe them when they say there is not a smidgeon of corruption.  You believe them when they say the Constitution is antiquated and needs to be revamped.  It is true, liberalism like yours is certainly a mental disorder.  

It goes without saying that I did my level best.  I pointed out to him the actual definition of the word fact as opposed to opinion and conjecture.  I went as far as I could to address that difference.

He didn’t get it.

There was, in my estimation, just one fact in his email to me that began with “Here’s the facts that you can’t get through your thick irrational skull:” . Number 6, “The officer shot Mr. Brown dead”.

My response to him is really beside the point because his position is that Mr. Brown was a thug and Officer Wilson was fighting for his survival.  Things he can’t know.  Things he doesn’t know.  Things he has no way of knowing.  Things, ideas, concepts he got from an irresponsible media that led him to believe were facts.

So, the onus is on this man to to enlighten us further.

Understand reader, if you don’t talk to him here, he won’t see what you have to say.  It defeats the purpose of what I’m trying to do here if you comment elsewhere.

This is your glimpse into why.

So, to my old friend who wrote the above, show us what you got dude.

Please tell us about the “Professional white communistic inciters flooded the cities to cause even more disruption

Fair warning, any emails you send to me will be reprinted here as comments on this blog, anonymously of course.

I won’t reveal your identity.

The floor is yours.

Bring it.

Drinks for my friends.

Shaft

It was all over before the shouting when county prosecutor Robert McCulloch opted to actually try the case before a secret grand jury as opposed to simply and traditionally allowing the matter to be tried in a public court of law.  The fix was in from the start.  Not just a stage set, but the entire drama enacted beneath a proscenium already tainted with a protracted history of racial animus endorsed and facilitated by regional cabal.

McCullough made a conscious decision to forego the proverbial ham sandwich.

It doesn’t take a hundred days to determine whether to try a white cop for shooting an unarmed black teen to death six to ten times from well over a hundred feet away.  It does however, take that long to construct an elaborate trail of distortion and obfuscation to to justify the complete exoneration and immunity from any future criminal prosecution and consequence of a white cop who shot an unarmed black teen to death from well over a hundred feet away.

Robert McCulloch labored at least as much as an advocate for the defense of Darren Wilson as he did to discharge his statutory obligation as county prosecutor.  He did not charge, nor did he recommend.  He orchestrated behind closed doors.  He took it upon himself to prevent a legitimate trial for an undisputed homicide.  He eschewed transparency.  Was there even a whiff of justification for the use of deadly force? Was there anything at all exculpatory in terms of lethal threat or the absence thereof posed by Michael Brown?

None.

I can’t help but consider these concepts and ideals to be central, vital and thoroughly unimpeachable in the pursuit of justice in any case where a boy is left to die bleeding in the street.  Shot to death.  Unarmed.  From over a hundred feet away by a policeman who suffered a swollen cheek.  Where in McCulloch’s press conference was there any mention of these things?  I didn’t hear a goddamn word about them.

McCulloch was thorough, articulate and reprehensibly derelict.

I predicted this exact outcome months ago.

I watch the chaos and violence unfold tonight on my television and it’s hard.  Hard to reconcile my heart and my head.  It’s so senseless.  So useless.  These businesses burning have no dog in this hunt.  The destruction is being visited on the innocent once again.  That’s some irony right there.   Most people won’t understand this.  They’ll see it for the crazy that it is.  It breaks my heart.  It breaks my heart because there’s a part of me that genuinely understands.  There’s a part of me that just can’t bring myself to blame them.

What most people won’t understand, what so many Americans simply cannot relate to, is that this is not merely crazy.  It is desperation.  It is the realization of a hollow futility.  When hope and justice are revoked by institutions, when the people who are led to believe they can trust and rely on them see them end in vapor, a profound vacuum manifests in that wake.

It is this that we now bear witness to.

Michael Brown was executed for adolescent hubris while being black in a town where he was only guilty of not knowing better.

Drinks for my friends.

 

Three Strikes

So, we smoked a turd in hell with Satan himself while midterm fires raged all around us. We opted for that as opposed to showing up at the polls.  A Michele Bachmann bathroom stall door closed, a Joni Ernst toilet overflowed and fecal chocolate logs made their way like mindless carp across the lavatory tile.

Shame on us.

Democrats who took it upon themselves to campaign on the accomplishments of this administration fared well. The majority of those who chose to run from such saw the mortal coil of their political lives shuffle out of reach.  Turnout was historically low.  In the districts and states where it was high, democrats won.  Still, for the most part, the will of the people was not realized because the people chose not realize their will.

Here we are in the wake of that.

They say these things happen in threes.

About a third of us showed up.

That’s disgusting.

Maybe the trifecta is the house, the senate and finally the presidency falling under the neoconservative, teabilly shadow.  They are on a roll.

Maybe it’s a TPP,  Keystone Pipeline and compromise on medicare/social security capitulation on the tip of our president’s tongue.

Or.

Just now, postmortem.

Obama got a little resolute with the FCC, telling them to stop fucking around and make the internet a public utility.  No fast lanes.  No big money privilege. Then he goes off to China, sports some  Spock Tunic and reaches some epic deal on carbon emissions.  And just lately he’s been rumbling about Keystone.

Maybe the triplet here is immigration reform.  Obama is not a man who beats his chest.  He’s not kidding.  It’s a pretty ballsy piss up a rope to Boehner and McConnell.  They’re throwing up in their mouths a little already.

The next two years are gonna be interesting to say the least.

Here’s hoping the presidential pen proves mightier than the sword by way of veto and executive order.   Senate democrats should be getting their filibuster tuxes to the cleaners while the rest of us prepare to not go so quietly.

Two years.

I say damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead.  It’s time for democrats to show democrats that they have a fucking spine before it’s too late if it isn’t already.  Fuck ’em and feed ’em fish heads.  Stop feeding us the populist talk and start actually walking the walk.  See how I gave you three cliches there?

What if democrats were finally able to show the working poor who vote republican that they’re actually democrats?  Tall order.  Easier to fool a man than convince him he’s been fooled.  But what if?

Democrats need to get mean.  Stop being mad and start getting even.  Make republicans pay for every stupid thing they are about to do under the illusion that this election is a mandate.  When two thirds of the voters don’t show up and the uber filthy rich take their place, there is no goddamn mandate.  Show some guts, some balls for once.  Don’t flinch.  Don’t hesitate.  Call their bluff and make them show us their ass.

There’s a hell of a lot of people out here you’re gonna have to convince that you’re not all the same.  That you’re not all republicans in frilly democratic blouses.  I can’t stress this enough.  Not just because democrats were such candy asses in this election but because they have a well earned reputation for it.

And I think this might be your last chance for awhile.

Here’s the math.

1) Social liberalism is peaking.

2) Fiscal conservatism is less popular than ever and it’s deleterious effects are punching down on the middle class with unchecked abandon everyday while the wealthy offer nothing but cake.

3)  The obvious mandate from this election is the absence of one.  In it’s place is confusion and disillusion.

See?

I gave you three.

Hint. The right thing to do is often the hardest.  Don’t worry about it.  Do the right thing.  And then go to the media and fucking brag about it.  Be self righteous and unswerving.  Be pompous, obese and eat cactus.  Americans love that shit.  The first rule of leadership is to lead by example.

Drinks for my friends.

 

 

Asphalt Ballet

Gas is at three bucks a gallon.  Unemployment is under 6% and the stock market is through the roof.

Everything republicans say they want.  On paper at least.

But America has been very unhappy and with very good reason for a very long time.

Tonight, America threw a tantrum.

Tantrums are never effective.

Tantrums are always ill advised.

Children throw tantrums.

Adults don’t.

Or at least they shouldn’t.

And now I’m going to throw my own, against my better judgement.

But, before I do, I can’t help but ask. what role did racial animus play in tonight’s election results given the widely held belief by the commentariat that this was a referendum on our first African American president?

Remember that scene in American History X where Edward Norton forces a man to open his mouth and place it on the edge of a curb before he kicks the back of his skull?  It’s called “curbing”.  Norton was playing a white power skinhead and he performs the “curb stomp” on a black burglar.  It is typically performed as a hate crime.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=curbing

Well, that’s what America has just voted to do to itself.  Think about it.  Despite all the gerrymandering, voter suppression and big Koch brother money via Citizens United, America has just volunteered to place its collective open mouth on the curb and invited the conservatives to kick the shit out of the back of its head.

You know what?  We absolutely deserve it.  I’m not kidding.  Sheezus Kentucky, Mitch McConnell again?  Hey Iowa, Joni Ernst?  Really?  In the United States Senate?  Really?  Her message was about castrating the cloven hoofed.  And Wisconsin, Scott Walker again?  Really?  This guy has fucked you people nine ways to Sunday, from hell to breakfast and it wasn’t even close.  Aren’t you at all bothered by how close together his eyes are?

Jim Inhofe, who believes climate change is a hoax, will head the EPA and the Environment and Public Works Committee.  Ted Cruz will likely head the Subcommittee on Science and Space.  Ron Johnson will take control of Homeland Security and Governmental Reform Committee and Mike Enzi will head the Budget Committee.  McCain head of Armed Services.  Fuck me.

Republicans will now be able to attach any and all bullshit amendments to any bill and dare Obama to veto it even if the bill is called “The Not Murdering Babies and Senior Citizens To Preserve America From Communism and Terrorism Act”   See, amendments are not subject to filibuster.  And it’s entirely possible that the republican senate will change the rules for filibuster the first week of January anyway.  I guarantee you they will try.

Here’s what I genuinely want to see happen.  I want the American electorate to pay.  I want us to suffer.  I want to see the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.  I want all those states who’s governors wouldn’t play ball in the altruistic expansion of Medicare, I want them to actually witness the inevitable deaths that will occur.  I want poverty to continue to rise and I want to see the profound impact on American families when there is no action on an already unconscionable minimum wage.  I want to see income inequality widen further.

I want to see more wars in more countries.  I want us to actually start listening to John McCain again.

I want discrimination against women and minorities in the context of wage parity and voting opportunity to be sanctioned by law.  I want marriage equality and LGBT advances to be rolled back by the supreme court and maybe even by constitutional amendment.  I want every drunk douchenozzle in every bar in America to be allowed to carry a loaded gun.

I don’t want the American worker to earn overtime pay.  I want to see college education so exorbitant that only old money patriarchal clans can afford to educate their progeny and for the rest us to see America lose it’s ability to compete in global markets for generations, while the rich get richer and it becomes more convenient for the American worker to be exploited while we become a third world country and economy.

I am anxious and looking forward to just how goddamn bad it has to get before we wake the fuck up.  I want Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney for president in 2016 with a republican house and senate.  I want this.  You know why?  because the people who voted these assholes in tonight deserve it and the assholes who sat this one out deserve it more.  The only way things will ever change in this country is when the people in the red states who already suffer the most, who are so spectacularly dumb as to consistently vote against their own interests, endure an agony so thorough that actual survival literally becomes an imperative and I want lazy, elitist liberals to experience the same.

I want to see the American people ground down to stubs.  I can’t wait for us to reap what we have sown.

Joni fucking Ernst?  Really?

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires”  -John Steinbeck
America, you impressed me tonight.  I stand in awe.
Drinks for my friends.
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