A Chicken Is Not Pillage

The Subtle Dishonesty Of Good Honest (White) Folk

We see it in Facilebook memes.  It's evident in blog comments.  It permeates Faux News, CNN and even on MSNBC.  It's a simple dictum.  If only people would follow the law, they wouldn't be harassed,  profiled or shot.  "Can't we all just get along", a statement coming from a man beaten nearly to death, but mimicked as joke by all who think that following the law is some kind of protection against 'the bad'.  Think on that for half a second.  If only people would follow the law as dictated by the Cop who stops them, they wouldn't be guilty.  If only people who commit minor offenses would act guilty, they wouldn't be choked to death, or beaten into the morgue in a jail cell.  If only people wouldn't be afraid and run from a gun pointed at them, they would be alive.  If only they would be trustworthy, they wouldn't die.  If only ...

I'm not going to belabor the well established point that "they" are almost always black or Hispanic, or with vastly unreported frequency, Indigenous Americans.  They are not us, and they do not follow "our laws".  The implication of this stupid and offensive argument is clear.  They shouldn't misbehave and if they do, they deserve what's coming to them.    Not because of race, oh no.  They deserve it because "they" are them who misbehaved according to us who don't.  That is the fine racist candy shell surrounding the gooey shit center of the "obey the law as us un-racist people judge *you*" argument that they should obey the law and all will be well.  What the living hell is wrong with those who actually think that a good argument?  Walter Scott was shot dead by an asshole  cop because his taillights offended the asshole's sensibilities of working? 

I had an argument last week with a Godly man who thinks the law is the "The Law", and covers all equally.  In the most specious manner possible he is correct.  Words on paper are meant to apply to all as passed by our august legislatures.  Funny word that, "apply".  It doesn't surprise me one bit that a white man with a white god with a white following would hold the idea that the white god is always just in its decree.  But god doesn't have to apply judgment until we're dead, or at least it certainly doesn't appear so.  So our laws are applied by us, by people, and this is what proves the lie about 'following the law'.   It's application is obviously and horrifically different depending on the skin color of those questioned and  at what level we meekly agree that "The Law" gets applied.

Application of law is a process.  Contain and confine, trial by peers, judgment and sentence.   That is the heart of law, and it has been famously said that it is better that 10 guilty men go free than that one innocent man should suffer.   I seem to remember a certain 6th amendment that assures a trial and an 8th that protects against cruel and unusual punishment.  What we are seeing with increasing frequency is Judge Dredd, where cops are allowed to be unconstitutionally all of judge, jury and executioner.  Selling cigarettes becomes a death sentence.  Suspicion of smoking cannabis is cause for being beaten to death in a cell.   I could now go off on a diatribe about Black Lives Matter and all sorts of political complexity.  But that isn't what I'm ranting about here, because that doesn't matter to me half as much as the worshipful and subtle racism we see in defense of our new judicially activated enforcement of what should be law that covers all.

This is the sad union of racial and class bias.  Unless the person is homeless, obviously destitute or suffering the effect of massive drug abuse, cops don't shoot white people in the back for running away.  Cops don't shoot white people at routine traffic stops.  Cops don't beat white women to death for DUI.  They don't tackle white high-schoolers in bikinis and grind them painfully into the turf for disorderly conduct.  They most pointedly do to blacks and Latinos and Indigenous Americans.  That is the racial application of "The Law" that is so offensively defended with the subtle dishonesty of good honest folk.

Don't get me wrong, some of those who are most irritating in this manner are friends and even family.  Every time one points this sad fact out, we are reminded that most cops, MOST, are good people.  That is, even though they seem remarkably incapable or unwilling to do anything about the bad people who are cops.  They take an oath to uphold the Constitution, but when it comes to the authority of their fellows, they fail that oath and are defended by the subtle racist dishonesty that is inherent in the procedure of the application of law.  The great white defenders buy into the myth that a uniform, a badge, a gun, and a 'will to serve' confers the authority of Judge Dredd, if not the discernment.

I buy into what I see every day.   If broken taillights, mis-switched turn signals and/or arguing with cops was a death sentence, I heartily doubt Bozeman's population would last the year.

 

(For the record, I started writing this a week ago, but have been too busy to finish.  Sue me.)

The Washington Taterskins

One of my NFL following buddies at work, who lived in the DC area for some time, asked me why I've begun using the name 'The Washington Taterskins'.  My response to him was 'why not?'  He shares my growing disdain for the team's current name, and its current owner.  I did, however, feel like posting a  longer answer here.

I made it through all of last season, predictions and 17 weeks of picks, without using the name Redskins.  (Notice, I didn't have to worry about it once the playoffs came ...)  I either simply refered to them as Washington, or called them The Lower Potomac Indigenous Persons of Particularly Ruddy Hue.  Simply put, I'm tired of typing that.  There can be no doubt at all that 'Redskins' is a racist and derogatory term, and it simply shouldn't be the name of a football team.  Even the courts have agreed that it shouldn't be the name of a football team.  It seems that the only people who disagree are avowed racists defending their 'right' to be racist, traditionalists who have sympathy for the great history of the franchise and Dan Snyder, the NFL's Worst.Owner.Period.  The name was given to the team by George Marshall, a man who cannot be seen as anything other than a racist whose revulsion towards black players forced the intervention of the government.  It remains unclear about his feelings towards Indigenous Americans.  The only thing that is clear is that the term, the name, though a product of its time is clearly a denigration of a proud historic culture.

 

Nothing can be done about the racists.  The traditionalists have a great affection for the history of such an old and storied franchise.  I have deep sympathy for that because they should.  Look at the Hall of Fame.  Coaches George Allen and Joe Gibbs.  Players like slingin' Sammy Baugh, Sonny Jurgenson, Sam Huff, John Riggins, Art Monk, Bobby Mitchell and Darrell Green.  This is NFL history, powerful and moving.  All of these men were Washington Redskins, and they always will be.  That is their legacy, their history, who they were to us and who they will remain in the museum in Canton, Ohio.  It's right there in bronze relief, Washington Redskins.  No one is trying to erase that, or cheapen it or can even ignore it.  No one is trying to re-write history by acknowledging that the history of the Redskins remains.  That is the context of that horrible word.  History.

Really, that is what this 'debate', if it is such a thing, boils down to.  It's context.  Context surrounding words.  those more vociferous than I point out that 'we', whoever 'we are', wouldn't accept a team named 'The Niggers'.  They are right.  Did you flinch just a little when I actually wrote the word?  That's context.  The N word has fallen so out of favor that we almost fear its use, except for the racists who point out that blacks use it so they should be able to as well, a completely ignorant view of context.  Forget the racists, they are a lost cause.  It is a human super-power that we can take scratchy little symbols strung together, or sounds in cadence, and we turn them into contextual mind pictures.  Those pictures can change over time and in context.  And they certainly won't change for everybody at the same time or in the same way.  It has taken a long time for Nigger to have the shock context to it.  It might take a while for redskins to follow suit.  But as we pretend to be rational mammals, we can't ignore that regardless of context, the objective meaning of those words is still pretty much the same.  (Yes, I know that this is written for white folk by a white guy and I can't know the context of 'the others' feelings.  If you can give me the experiences of growing up black or being raised on a reservation, kindly do so.  You can't?  Didn't think so.  So let's run with what we have, okay?)

What we have in today's context is an NFL football team who's name is an offense.  So, it seems clear to me that we shouldn't be using it, now, in the world as we know it.  Changing the name of Washington's football team won't change it's history, but will put that history in proper context.  That was then, this is now.  If anything, it should make us more comfortable knowing that 'Redskins' is a museum piece, like the Confederate flag or the placards that festoon the slaughter of Native peoples.  It won't change the history, but it will provide context so that most won't shudder away from an open secret when Redskins finally becomes as reviled a word as some others, and others still that should make us cringe.  Which brings us to Dan Snyder.

I have a very good friend and my football watching BFF.  His favorite teams are the Dallas Cowboys and anyone who beats Philadelphia, Washington or the New York Football Giants.   He is a traditionalist and seems uncomfortable with my derision towards the name of DC's team.  However, he has suggested two things I simply can't argue with.  Dan Snyder, asshole that he is, won't give up the name because others want him to (megalomania much?), and that the 'Skins should change to the Warriors.  That's not a bad name, and wouldn't even require a logo change.    Washington sure doesn't have anything like 'Chief Wahoo'.  It would celebrate the heritage of Native peoples, as they valued their warriors and the logo image is the same as on our legacy money.  But Snyder has dug his heels in and will appeal his rights to a racist name all the way to the SCOTUS.  Foolish.  Stupid.  Wrong.  So, he needs to be shamed.  Fine, I say.  The Washington football team will be red of skin in my parlance.  It's just a potato.  They will, throughout the season, be the Washington Taterskins.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

I am much happier, now.  Here, have a picture of a puppy:

  Throughout my hiatus, there was one thing I really did miss, and that's railing against assholes who really really deserve it.  Not because 'they believe the wrong things'.  If I did that, I'd be writing at Cowgirl.  No, the ones who usually most deserve it are those who believe that only they and theirs believe the right things, and to them, everyone else commits bad think, and is an an asshole to be shunned, vilified and silenced.

There's a lot of folk out there who have believed for years that I am a 'good Democrat', often with derision, of course.   Certainly I'm thought of as a good democrat by the people who send me two to three emails a day, (often more) in support of cause X or petition Y, always with a request for money.  In truth, I am a good democrat, it's just that so many others keep using that word.  I don't think it means what they think it means. 

Way way on back, I spent a couple of weekends gathering signatures for the ERA.  (For any younguns reading this, that was a proposed Equal Rights Amendment which actually would have codified in our Constitution that all people are deserving of the same legal rights.  That right there should indicate to you that no, that wasn't in the Constitution, and still isn't today ...)    Over the years, I've thought a lot about that experience, pondering what I'd learned, or if there was anything from it to learn.  The message that came through the loudest is that people, Montana people at least,  don't like being told how to think.  That seems simple enough on the surface, that no one likes being told what they should think, but that isn't how I phrased it, or consider it to this day.  The simple (and erroneous) idea that offering competing ideas to people isn't problematic is probably correct.  Where the push-back starts is when you begin telling them how to think about something to arrive at the conclusion you want.  The mere threat that you want to change someone's thinking, not their conclusions but the very way they embrace their conclusions, sparks anger.  It is a threat to identity, it is a threat to basic authority over one's own reason.

Certainly most folk don't come to the right conclusions.  That's why we blog, right?  ~wink~  But when we step back and take a look, we find that they are coming to the right conclusions, for them.  They have reason, or at least what passes for it in the human animal.  They have experiences, biases, myopia and blind spots; we all do.   But we don't all consider them in the same ways.  Except at the basest electromechanical level, we don't all think alike.  We have different, sometimes wildly different, data sets which we call experiences and memories.  Some folk inspire imagination and connections between disparate ideas by reading fiction, others not.  Some read fact after fact after fact and draw rock solid conclusions (given there are no facts that they have failed to consider.) Some people just plain like having conclusions handed to them so they can process the minutia of the day.

Not one bit of this is new, obscure or revolutionary information.  And to me, that fact is what makes assholes really assholes.  The one conclusion that is wrong 100% of the time is that there is a right way to think and that others are doing it wrong, monstrously wrong.  I wrote the post "Monsters" 10 and half years ago.  I wrote  at the end of it  "If I can work up the give-a-shit, I'll write more on this later."  Now THAT, my friends is epic procrastination.  A lot has changed in those 10 years.  I'd love to say it's for the better, but that would be a bit of a lie, wouldn't it?  I certainly won't repeat the litany of everything that has gone wrong, but you won't have trouble finding that listicle if wish.  Others repeat it almost daily.  Still here's some things that should be on that list and aren't:  More Americans are disenchanted with our politics, though how in the hell that happened transitioning from a Bush Presidency to Obama should give everyone a bit of pause.  I suggest there is some wisdom to be found there. More Americans are convinced that the government is our enemy, whether by purchase of corporation or from a liberal Kenyon gay-agenda takeover.  There's empirical evidence for those opinions, but here's one that just seems a broad observation related to those.  In our social media connected information overload world, people seem far more concerned with identifying wrong thinkers and pointing out how monstrous they *really* are.

We've entered a great Ad Hominem phase of democracy, if you can even call it that anymore.  Here's what I've noticed about Democrats in Montana.  With ever more frequency, they apply the right-think test to people, and have lost ground in the legislature since I wrote Monsters 10 years ago.  A lot of ground.  I tried to point that out at another blog a number of years ago and was told I wasn't thinking right because Democrats held all five major positions in state government, the state Supreme Court (in a thoroughly non-partisan way, of course), and both Senate seats.  I'm stating the same here, and to any who wish to defend the stratagems and right thinking of Montana Democrats with the same argument?  Well come at me, bro'.  Tim Fox is our Attorney General.  Our legislature falls increasingly under the control of the worst elements of bat-crap crazy.  And about those Senate seats ...  Here's the real takeaway that tends to send me over the edge.  For ten years the argument has been made that people will tire of the Republican Monsters and then Utopia.  To those so thoroughly convinced that if we just boycott, silence and vilify anyone who doesn't think the right way, how's that plan working out for you?  Another website tried their level best to turn Art Wittich into a monster.  Yes, he's an awful human being and represents the worst of governance.  He also almost single handedly blocked the best job creation infrastructure bill the Montana leg has seen in quite some time.  The monster punked us all

I am a democrat because I am convinced that the only way we can have a functioning society that works for all is if all voices are heard and represented, even the wrong-thinking ones.  (Irony alert!)  Please don't think I'm putting on holy airs, here.  I'll argue til the cows go to slaughter, and I don't always observe social niceties.  It is fun to misbehave.  But I try very very hard to let people think for themselves, even if I think they are idiots.  You can't have a democracy where certain ideas themselves become an evil, and getting along becomes a greater goal than social justice and rule of law.

When You See It ...

Anyone who has been on the Internets for a while has seen those memes:  When you see it ... It's just a picture, but something is hidden in it, a face in an unexpected place, an optical illusion, or perhaps an inappropriate object in the background.  The point is, something isn't 'right' and when you see it, to quote another meme, you won't be able to unsee it.  At the risk of insulting some of you, I offer this.  If you are at all like me, and I'm convinced most of you are, the you encounter those strange incongruities in your real life, something isn't right, and when you see it ... By way of example, I offer my experience at Netroots Nation '11.  The first group of folks I met were the DFA scholarship winners.  You would be hard pressed to find a more economically, culturally and racially diverse group.  As the conference swung into full steam, I began to get the strangest sensation that something wasn't right.  I noticed this, with a few very notable exceptions, the attendees were overwhelmingly affluent and so very very white.  I include myself in that, though only recently have I even hoped to call myself moderately 'affluent', and most certainly not to the degree I was witnessing there.  My next statement is likely unfair to some, but I will write it anyway.  I left feeling that I had spent several days being told how money is corrupting our politics by very white people who've never suffered without money.

I have.  Ever since that event, and probably since before it (I was drawn to Marxist philosophy), I have considered class bias.  I even wrote a few of my musings during my hiatus from blogging.  Yet more recently, and with increasing fury, I continually encounter the us/other thinking that allows such bias voice.  I've been noticing too many times that incongruity of When You See It.  I noticed it before NN '11 when I watched Baratunde Thurston's pain that a black man had to prove his worth to a rich white asshole, even though that black man was the President of the United States.  (I've posted that video twice before.  If you haven't watched it yet, would you please for the love of all that is good, do so.)  I've noticed the incongruence that football players get treated differently only by the color of their skin.  A black man switching his son cost him a year of work, well more than a pretty white boy will pay for actually cheating to do the job they are payed to do.  I don't have the time or space to write an adequate litany of black men and boys killed for the crime of being out-of-control Negroes.  When you see it ...

The latest time I've had that strange feeling that something is not right with this picture has been this.  In the state of South Carolina, a terrorist murdered 9 people in a historic black church.  Folk noticed that the murderer, an obviously 'mentally disturbed young man', shrouded himself in the Confederate battle flag, same as was flown over the SC state house since 1962 to protest any civil rights movement favoring those 'others'.  That flag was a symbol of racism, and has since been removed and so good on us.   But something still isn't right here.  Ever since that killing, others have had the urge to remove any idea of the Confederate states of America as if the objects can be exorcised, purged of their unholy meaning and racism will pass into the dim past with a plague, or words, or destruction of those symbolic monuments.  Let's redefine what the Civil War was "about" and everything will be okay.  Still others demand that only black people should decide what should be done with these symbols, and that education is lacking because the plaques and historical acknowledgments aren't currently enough to 'solve' racism.  There might be some merit to that, at least the educational part of it.  Still, when you see it, you can't unsee it.

I don't know when I "saw" it.  But I can't unsee it.  We need to have a national discussion of race.  On Metafilter today, I've read one of the best 'sermons' ever.

But here is the irony, here’s the thing that all the angry Black people know, and no calmly debating White people want to admit: The entire discussion of race in America centers around the protection of White feelings.

Ask any Black person and they’ll tell you the same thing. The reality of thousands of innocent people raped, shot, imprisoned, and systematically disenfranchised are less important than the suggestion that a single White person might be complicit in a racist system.

This is the country we live in. Millions of Black lives are valued less than a single White person’s hurt feelings.

 

The problem is, white folk know this.  Class-wise, they/we have been playing the same game since the Roman Empire.  "If we show outrage", they cry, "there can be no doubt of our good intentions".  Oh yes there can.  It's those same intentions which have created the American class system, and it has the same results:  1)  the establishment that someone is better than us proves that we can be better than others.  2)  'they' an be placated with symbolic gestures, like electing a black President.  3)  How dare you impune my intentions when I have the right and authority to impune yours?  The kerfuffle over the Helena fountain doesn't and won't solve anything.  Writing the Civil War such that slavery is part of the American consciousness won't do anything, because it's already there.  An honest discussion of race won't accomplish anything when the white right to dictate blame remains in control.  Only equality, real equality serves a purpose.

I had a discussion with someone today, thankfully a very brief one due to their offense, concerning how we solve the 'racial' problem.  Real universal health care.   Single payer.  Enforcement of the Civil Rights act.  Demilitarize the police and quit coddling those who kill people.  Treat racist terrorism under the same acts (Patriots one and two as well as the MCA) that we treat Muslims.  Quit the war on drugs.  Open the fucking borders.  These are not that hard to accomplish.  Yet the Democrats seem to want an acknowledgment that they are the 'good guys' while failing at even the weakest attempts at these efforts of racial equality.  When you see it ...

We're Not Even Human To These F**ers Any more

I graduated from Montana State University in 1992 with a BS in Philosophy, Honors Highest Distinction.  This should not be an issue. 

Four times in the last three years I have been called a liar, a phony, because certainly a white trash rural product couldn't be that smart.  Three out of those four are Baby-Boomers, so much more intelligent than the rest of us that they can read the abilities of all around them.  Why not, it was those same people who couldn't understand that a Nigra could become President of these United States.

I'm tired of having my abilities questioned, so here it is.  I graduated college in 1992, the first of my surname to do so.  That's my diploma, and all you doubters can go fuck yourselves.  For four years I worked for a despicable alcoholic to pay for that schooling.  It cost me that respect of family and two wives.  That may not have been the greatest of life choices, but I still did it.  Listening to assholes online tell me I couldn't accomplish such a feat is so very infuriating, not because of anything I've done, but rather because the privileged think that a degree is philosophy is only the domain of their effort. 

I didn't have announcements made, so I can't scan those.  This is the graduation booklet proclaiming the graduating class of 1992.  Notice please right there.  That's my name.  Robert Lynn Kailey.  I have a few symbols after my name.  Here's what they mean:

University Honors, Honors Program highest distinction.  I wore the gold brocade as one of the happiest moments of my life.  When you grow up blue color, told by your father that "Our family doesn't go to college" and realize that you've done something special?  You feel a sense of pride.  You feel that you've done something well.

But no.  A couple of privileged assholes who don't have any idea what struggles you worked through are more than welcome to tell the world how you've lied about that accomplishment, so small and yet so important.  Fine.  I think that's the nature of the Intertubes anymore.  Anything that can be writ will be writ.  Of course it's true because people read it on the Internet.  What shocks me and saddens me the most is how so many 'good' liberal and progressive' folk are willing to attack with class bias such that if you don't agree with them you must be 'low brow', a 'mouth breather', a loser and a liar.  They will happily tell you how much we need to raise the minimum wage such that their waitress makes a living wage, but spew nothing but venom and lie at that waitress should she actually disagree with them on any particular point.  How dare someone of working background actually think themselves a human equal?  There is no competition for intellect.  You either have it or you don't, and neither is a moral failing.  The only fail is to think there is such a standard, a willful stupidity.  And sadly, it's on the left that this most prevalent.

 

A Neccesary Repost

I'd almost forgotten I'd written this.  But given that others have been so recently and terribly concerned about A Post About Rob Kailey, What Rob Kailey Did, How Rob Kailey Did It and Why Rob Kailey Did It,

It seems apropriate to point out that what the conspiracy theorists care about is every bit as deep and significant as what they accuse others of.  Climate denial seems based on the profit scientists can garner.  The killing of Osama Bin Laden seems based on what witnesses can garner.  To some, everybody's got an angle, except themselves.  Uhh, no.

Rob Kailey wrote this.  Rob Kailey stands behind this.  Rob Kailey thinks this the truth, or at least as close as most of us come to such a thing.  Believing in conspiracy theories doesn't make you important, or special.  It makes you the very thing you tend to revile:  human.

Dick Cheney Is The Smartest [email protected]#%*r In America

Read this.  Go ahead and read it.  It's the transcript from Meet the Press on Sunday, with *special guest star*, Dick Cheney.  Yes, it's about torture, specifically about the United States of America using torture, or not since "real torture" is talking to your kids before you die horribly (not an outcome guarenteed, except the death part) when you are an American attacked by ... THEM.  Waterboarding?  Not torture. Ramming a tube up somebody's ass, and pumping goo into their colon?  Not torture.  Forced sleep deprevation?  Not torture.  Chained by the wrists such that you can't stand or actually sit in a room at sub-50 degrees and forgotten for days until you die of hypothermia?  Not torture.  According to Cheney, REAL TORTURE is being an American afraid of the other.  Read it.  That is his very message.  In the Home of Brave, real torture is being afraid of those others.

As goofy as it sounds, that's a powerful message, and a complete fricking lie.  There have been many posts around the Intertubes on them nancy wimp librul sites, dissecting Dick's arguments, rating which are the worst, or attempting to generate horror at the obviously deranged and inhuman sociopath, the Beast that Came from Wyoming.   All of it, for the most part, is quality writing and instills the proper degree of horror.  But what struck me was the obvious:  Dick.don't.care.  He knows he's lying, and he knows that anyone paying attention will know he's lying.  He is reducing the most heinous abuses that can be perpetrated on a human being to just a lie told to an audience.  It's an offering, a taste of impotent superiority.  "I know that Dick is lying", we cry.  "We tortured and that's wrong", people will say.  "His arguments don't make sense", we will ponder and assert.

But I have to ask, why would a guy who is worth more than all readers here and Daily Kos and Pumadog Lake put together put himself in front of a camera to defend torture with obvious lies?  He has his millions, his retirement and he has thrown his 'boss' and compatriots under the bus already.  He has as much as admitted to war crimes, but isn't afraid of that at all (a lesson I fear he learned from Kissinger.)  That might be the very key.  Cheney is being honest with his lies.  Not honest about the US using torture or it's effectiveness, mind you.  He's being honest that we can't do one single thing to stop any of it.  That was his message.  Regardless of whether we are afraid of losing the moral high-ground, regardless of whether we are afraid of the Muslamic Terrists, we need to be afraid of each other because people like him run the show, and they can and will decide who gets tortured and how.

That's actually rather brilliant on his part.  People are distrusting the authority of the banks as they pass their liabilities onto us.  They don't trust the police who murder young black men for no reason other than that they will get away with it.  They certainly don't trust Congress or that 'man' in the White House (pick which side of the prism you wish to view that distortion from.)  We don't trust each other, at all.  Fear is all we have and Cheney is the sysmbol of that fear which doesn't fear us, or much of anything, the sociopath which brings order through obvious lies.  Dick didn't need to go on MTP to defend himself.  He needed to go on the network to prove that we can't do one singl;e thing to stop him, or even slow him and his down.  While defending a practice we find intolerable, he quite clearly made the statement that we will tolerate what 'they' tell us to tolerate and we can't do shit about it.  Admit it, that's kind of brilliant.

When In The Course Of Human Events ...

The lack of trial for Darren Wilson following his homicide of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. does not surprise me at all.  It does however break my heart just a little bit more.  Before any asshole comes bopping on in here to tell me the obvious, that Wilson is "innocent" of Homicide, no that shithead is not.  He has been exonerated from the legal charge of Homicide, but y'all had best brush up on the language.  Homicide is the deliberate killing of another human being, and that is to the very f'ing letter what Wilson did.  He drew his sidearm and shot an unarmed human to death, then calling for 'backup' with no thought to the human being he had just slaughtered on a street.  That's homicide.  A grand jury has now stated that he will not be held accountable for that shooting, but that does not change the fact that he killed a person, and other persons that he couldn't kill are now dealing with the loss of Michael Brown.  That is heart breaking.

What makes me angry and sick is that Wilson likened Brown to a "demon".  He looked like a DEMON, Wilson claimed.  This from a 'police officer', one who is supposed to protect us from crime, not from his fear fantasies.  A DEMON.  You don't have to be a genius to see that as code for a pissed off black man.  Why on Earth would anybody give a gun to such a chickenshit and charge him with protecting human beings when he has delusions of DEMONS?  Throughout this lengthy 'investigation' process, I have rationally tried to give Wilson the benefit of the doubt.  He was afraid for his well being.  He was threatened and attacked.  There is no doubt left.  Wilson was being a coward, terrifed of his DEMONS, and he shot a young man to death because he was a coward with a gun.  The portion of humanity not terrified of demonic dark skinned folk, or who really don't believe in 'demons' are left distinctly disastisfied with that bullshit ass-covering from a coward.

According to what is obviously the most corrupt 'prosecuting' attorney we know currently serving in the US (he was prosecuting the victim, not the demonologist who shot him), Wilson had "severe contusions" on his face, from the attack by Brown.  Severe.  Right ... Anybody who has a brain cell left can see that Ezra Klein is absolutely correct.  Wilson's story, and McCulloch's support of it, is unbelievable, improbable, utter bullshit.  Peytin Manning gets a worse "contusion" on his forehead from wearing a helmet every week than Wilson got from Brown.  Seriously, and with all temperence, is a fucking pathetic and light bruise a reason to shoot someone to death?  To the Grand Jury in Missouri, apparently so.

So, Ferguson blows up over night.  Rioting, looting, arson ... I would suggest revolting, as in revolution.  Chickenshit backwardsass 2nd amendment cowards who've been talking smack about using their violence against the Negro in the White House are now suddenly all about law and order, happily telling those dark-skinned folk how they *NEED* to accept the Grand Jury's verdict.  No, they really fucking don't.  For reasons that are sooo goddamned obvious, these people should be pissed off.  They've just been told that the country doesn't serve them, it serves white order, where terrified little pasty demon believers get to shoot young black men with impunity and claim that being bitch slapped less than most frat boys have been can be adequately responded to with homicide.

Aaron Flint posted the stupid tweet of the day (if not the decade):

 

#MTPol MT @TheElIIenShow: don't care what side you agreed w/ on Ferguson Trial...No American should act like this. pic.twitter.com/rOFTzjHS9Q

— Aaron Flint (@aaronflint) N

November 25, 2014

That's about the dumbest fricking thing ever written.  No "American" should act like that, except the people who dressed as 'injuns'  and threw tea in a harbor.  Or those who instigated a riot and caused the Boston Massacre.  Or those who have rebelled against oppresive rule since July 4 1776.  Dumbass 'journalists' like Flint don't get to tell the people how to behave.  They will behave as free people will, including burning upside down flags to show that our nation is in serious trouble when cowards are given lordship over us, and military might defends their ability to do so.   We have us a problem, people.  The US is becoming an oppresive police state that favors cowardice and pale skin.  I sympathize with Ferguson, tonight.  My heart is broken for their loss, and all of our own.

 

I Plagiarized This Post

No, of course I didn't.  It likely wouldn't matter if I had; seems that it would take 12 years and well-financed opposition research to figure it out.  WARNING:  extreme cynicism ahead, and possible forcast of 'bad language' and sarcasm.  If you are looking for proper tone and Strunk and White style spew and proper footnotes, you should defer to reading something submitted to the United States Army War College.  I understand their ability for discernment is impeccable.  And don't take this as a response in defense of Walsh.  I intend to respond to the response, hence the cynicism.

So, Senator/General John Walsh got caught plagiarizing a paper.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, please get out of your cave.  Color me pink with shock and surprise.  (Yes, that would be sarcasm.)  I would love to say that I am surprised, just as I would adore actually being surprised at the reactions I've read to this scandilous horror which undermines our ENTIRE FAITH IN POLITICS!  Being true to myself, I'm going to try and generate some surprise, just to see if I can find any.

When the story broke, the first thing that crossed my mind was this:  how convenient that the NY Times ran the story short days after the release of a poll that showed Daines vulnerable, narrowing the Senate election in Montana to 7 points.  Over on the Tweeters, Montana state Representative Ellie Hill noticed the same thing, with the same dry resolution I feel.  It's dirty politics as usual, plyed by dirty people for dirty reasons.  Which leads me to the first point of curiousity.

Mr. Mark Tokarski, never one to fail at defending the poor 'good' people, argues that they are politically, and often physically, assassinated by the ruling Illuminati who have all dirt against everyone.  He has strangely been silent about the timing of this revelation of horrors.  It's no mystery that Tokarski doesn't like Walsh, certainly doesn't think him a good person; but it is so curious that he doesn't comment on this obvious manipulation of the electorate.  Mark knows all things politics, so what did Walsh do that pissed the oligarchs off enough to conspire such a character assasination?  If our real struggle is against the foul and evil men who coerce our destiny, shouldn't we be supporting Walsh since they have deemed him 'dangerous'?  Every single thing in this paragraph is a logical question based on what Mark has put forth for the last eight years.  He has argued, well, I might add, that the only danger faced by politicians from the shadow government is that politician's ability to tell the truth and upset the order of shadow rule.  He has argued that Democrats are the "real" problem because the somnabulent people will follow Democrats to Republicant policy without question.  Yet, not once has Mark questioned the unbelievably coincidental timing of this 'scandel' which hurts a Democrat.  So I am left with the questions:  does Mark really believe what he spouts?  Does his caterwaul have "integrity"?  I'm certain, gentle reader, that you can understand my confusion.

Sheena Rice, on the Facilebook, wrote this:

On the latest political "scandal" this is all I have to say. While I was an undergrad TA at Montana State I graded many many papers, and the number of papers that included wrongly cited sources and/or outright plagiarized paragraphs were the majority. Maybe I'm jaded to it, but I honestly don't give a shit. Can we get back to talking about real issues that matter now? Like income inequality, the prison industrial complex, discrimination, global unrest, and the economy? Please? This so called "news" does absolutely nothing to get people interested in the political process and just provides opportunities for negative campaigning to those playing inside baseball.

 I could not agree with her more.  I spent two years working as a TA in Philosophy, and have spent 18 since working with students in the technological age.  I would likely be retired now if I had charged good money to every person who has asked for or intimated that they would like a place to download papers to fulfill school work.  (Hint:  that would be plagiarism.)  Like Sheena, I'm jaded to it.  I do not consider plagiarism to be a high crime deserving casting of ash, woeful wail, and demand for public flogging.  In truth, I consider it the very least of crimes that a sitting Congress-person could have committed.  More than half the bills these assholes take credit for are submitted by other entities.  All one has to do is follow the Tweeters and one will see more plagiarism in a day than Walsh has committed in his lifetime.  I defy anyone reading this post to claim that they have never taken credit for another's thoughts, efforts or ideas.  (If anyone does respond to that challenge, I will call them a liar, and the burden of proof lies with them.)  The over-reaction to this scurrilous behavior is comedic, yet I find myself not laughing very much.

The over-reaction that does have me laughing comes from Bob Brigham.  The camps have set their tents, and the lines have been drawn.  Pogie is just a 'Walsh Denialist/Defender' and the good folk at 4 & 20 are rationally slamming Walsh as a pretender.  But Brigham ... he is tearing up the Tweeters with the claim that anyone who sees Walsh as anything other than scum shares in that man's corruption; they have no "integrity".  He has used the hashtag "cultureofcorruption" so many times that it is becoming meaningless.    I like Bob Brigham; I've defended him at several websites.  But let's be clear.  He is bought and payed for.  For him to be judging the "integrity" of anyone is a joke.  The 'Culture of Corruption' refers to moneyed powers buying the democratic process, just like Bob is bought and payed for.  He's being a fucking hypocrite.  Not once has he bothered to question how the New York Times got the information they published.  (Did they get it from him?)  Not once has he bothered to publically question the timing of the release of this information.  Nope, Bob is acting like a good little soldier for the candidate he was payed to support, and ignoring the fact that the 'culture of corruption' is really about hidden powers buying elections.  Daines has more money than the God who he believes created the world 6,000 years ago (as long as it is politically expedient.)  Much of that money comes from the "culture of corruption", but you won't find Bob bitching about that.  He focuses on the candidate that beat the guy he was payed to get elected, and tells us all that if we do not turn that horrific moral pariah into the wilderness, than we are as corrupt as the Judas Walsh.  Tell me that isn't funny.

The Copper Kids (no intention of linking) are all about how TERRIBLE a crime Walsh committed.  Lizard (again, no intention of linking) has stated his peace that Walsh's crime is horrific but it's hard to pay attention to that given that we all must be concerned about what's happening in the Gaza.  DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT"S REALLY IMPORTANT, YOU ASSHOLES!!!  (I told you I was going to be sarcastic, so sue me.)  JC's comments are the familiar flavor of 'This is how it affects me and you should think so too."  The most rational and forthright post on the topic I've read so far is, of course, from James Conner at the Flathead Memo.  He is patient and considerate. I encourage you to read this brief post and consider your own response before camping with any of the partisans, left, extremist left, disenchanted Democrat, right or extreme right.

 

I'm Not Seeing It

DISCLAIMER:  This is the one and only time you will find a single reference tangentally related to Justin Beiber on this website.

Folks, I need your help.  There are many things I find myself ignorant of, so I need you to help me see through my blind spots.  It's been almost a week since Richard Sherman exploded in his 'interview' with Erin Andrews.  Despite all dire warnings, there really doesn't seem to have been any storyline develope out of that.  I was breathing a sigh of relief, and yet today the following image pops up in my Facilebook timeline:

Here is the point of my ignorance.  With the exception of a few disappointed 49er fans on Twitter the day after the game, I haven't seen anyone seriously refering to Richard Sherman as a 'thug'.  Since Monday, I haven't encountered a single article referencing his 'lack of class'.  In fact, the football punditry seems to be universally praising his talent, intelligence and skill.  Their reporting has focused on his ability to cover the 8 headed Hydra of the Bronco passing attack.  The most disparaging 'dog whistle' I can currently find is the frequent reference to him being "outspoken".  The sidebar of NFL.com sometimes still features the block of stories referencing the articles from Monday about Sherman's outburst and fued with Crabtree.  But here's the thing; I'm not seeing anyone calling him a "THUG".  The only things I can find are those Facebook updates and Tweets lamenting that Sherman is being called a thug, but I remain universally ignorant of who is calling him that.

This is where I need your help, folks.  I'm ignorant of this blatent hue and cry about thuggery.  So help me out and tell me who are making these wild accusations.  Brenda at work around the coffee pot?  Fred at the gym?  Sylvia at the park?  Rush Limbaugh?  It ain't comin' from the Broncos.  It isn't a story for the sports media.  I'm really not seeing anything of the sort develope.  I really would like to know.  I just think that if we are to believe a tale about the hypocrisy of society which defends moral value of white Justin Bieber over black Richard Sherman, there should be some evidence, shouldn't there?

I would never argue that there isn't/won't be storylines surrounding the spec-a-ti-cal of the Super Bowl that aren't tinged with racial fears.  I've seen it before, and we will likely all see it again.  But I'm curious as to why it so important to create a story of racial tension where there really isn't one that has legs, from those who most decry racial tension.  (Slightly to the side like, but not really, Jackie Robinson is in the Baseball Hall of Fame because he was a terrific ball player.  But no one hides from the fact that he was also the first black major leaguer and should be celebrated for the boundaries he broke.  Doug Williams was the first black quarterback to make it to the Super Bowl, win it, and he was FREAKING AWESOME in doing that.  Yes, it was against my beloved Broncos and thanks for noticing.  Shouldn't he be recognized for breaking that barrier with an HoF nod?  Yet it was somehow significant when Lovee Smith and Tony Dungy were the first two black coaches to face off in the Super Bowl, and talking about that 24-7 was perfectly okay if not encouraged ...)

Racism is a real thing, still, and it surrounds and (excuse the expression) colors our view of sports.  But a racist story line that I certainly wanted to avoid, and many along with me, is being painted as a 'real thing' by those who want so much for an end to racism.  So, help me see what I'm missing.  Are the stories of Sherman attempting to cover White Eric Decker going to be different than when he covers Black Demarius Thomas.  White Wes Welker or Black Julius Thomas?  When is Sherman going to be a 'THUG' and when isn't he?  When I wrote before about the Richard Sherman brouhaha, my advice was "Please just let it go."  I'm certain that all those thinking themselves as anti-racist were convinced that advice was meant for others.  Uhhh, nope.  It was meant for everybody.  If you want to look for thugs in Football, look no further than White Bill Romanowski, Black Ndamukhan Suh, or any other color in the rainbow that has nothing to do with the actions of the player on the field.  If you want to see race, you will.  If you want to see competition and love the sport, you likely won't.  The story line of the Southern Gentleman v. the Compton Thug just isn't developing, unless those who feel the desperate need to defend the skin color of Sherman make it happen.  Stop doing that, please.  Just let it go.