Mr. Peabody and the Case of Rodney King

Mr. Peabody: Sherman, let's set the Wayback Machine to the year 1991.

Sherman: What are we going to study today, Mr. Peabody?

Mr. Peabody: Well, Sherman, we're going to examine an instance of police officers using appalling excessive force in a case that captured the whole country's attention.

Sherman: You mean like in Ferguson, Missouri?

Mr. Peabody: Actually, Sherman, this particular case happened in Los Angeles, and instead of shooting a black man the white officers involved just kept bootstomping him long after he was helpless on the ground. Let's take a look:

(video of Rodney King being beaten to a pulp)

Sherman: Yikes! Mr. Peabody, that is horrible!

Mr. Peabody: Right you are Sherman. What made this case more shocking was that it represented the first time a blatant example of police abuse was caught by a bystander on video tape and shown on national television. Would you like to guess what happened next?

Sherman: The police officers were not convicted of any crime, just like in Ferguson?

Mr. Peabody: Good boy. That's exactly right--and then this happened:

(video of LA riots)

Sherman: Gee Whiz, Mr. Peabody, that looks like what we saw on teevee last night--only worse.

Mr. Peabody: Indeed, Sherman.

Sherman: But, but, but, is that the end of the story? Surely, SOMEBODY could have done SOMETHING.

Mr. Peabody: Well, Sherman, in those days America had an old white Republican man as president instead of a young black Democratic man. What do you suppose he did?

Sherman: Oh, ha, ha. You're funny, Mr. Peabody. He did nothing, of course.

Mr. Peabody: Ahhh...that's where you are wrong Sherman. Let's take a look, shall we:

(video of federal jury finding Rodney King beating police officers guilty)

Mr. Peabody: So you see, Sherman, the old white Republican man president launched what is called a federal civil rights investigation against those cops. And in federal court, which is not as susceptible to prejudice and corruption as state and local courts, those cops got what they deserved--years in prison.

Sherman: Wow, Mr. Peabody, that's great! So, do you suppose that our young black Democratic man president is going to do the same thing in Ferguson?

Mr. Peabody: (Sighs) Not bloody likely, Sherman.

Sherman: But why?

Mr. Peabody: Because sadly, Sherman, America is irreparably broken.


Bonus: Bill does Rodney King (except in retrospect he got Bush's response wrong)

Karl Denninger is Angry that the NRA Endorsed Romney

The prevailing mythical narrative that Americans still live in a representative democracy in which the choices at the ballot box actually matter is so pervasive that it continues to affect the thinking of even that small minority of the population who at least question the prevailing Holographic consensus. Case in point: economic blogger Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker, who on Friday was shocked, SHOCKED that the National Rifle Association would stoop to endorsing Willard Mitt Romney for president:

The National Rifle Association (NRA) endorsed Mitt Romney for president late Thursday.

NRA Executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and NRA Political Victory Fund chairman Chris Cox will formally announce the endorsement at a Romney rally in Virginia later Thursday evening. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will also be on hand.

“In this election, there is no debate,” LaPierre said in a statement. “There is only one choice – only one hope – to save our firearms freedom and our way of life.”

So what got ol' Karl all hot and bothered? I'll let him tell you himself:

Let me remind you what Mitt Romney actually believes when it comes to firearms, from Mitt Romney's own mouth.

"Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts", Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1 with legislators, sportsmen's groups and gun safety advocates. "These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people." - July 1st, 2004 -- Mitt Romney

If this is the only choice and only hope we may as well give up now.

Join JPFO (I have) and tell the NRA to stick their fundraising appeals up their ass.

I've said before that I have a soft spot for old Karl, even though he is wrong at least half the time. He at least understands that America's economy is horribly broken and that our fearless "leaders" are doing nothing whatsoever to fix it. The difference between Karl and me is that, as shown by the example above and in many of his other writings, he still seems to believe that the system is salvageable despite the obvious truth flashing right before his very own eyes.

Look, I don't care what your position is on the right to bear arms. It just amazes me that Karl, or any other gun owner or NRA member still believes that the likes of Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox actually give a flying fuck about the Second Amendment and the rights of gun owners. They don't. What those two power whore super lobbyists care about is keeping the dues of dimwitted NRA members flowing in so that they can keep their exorbitant salaries and benefits, fat expense accounts and access to all the perquisites that come from being deeply embedded within the Washington power structure. If tomorrow they were to realize that the political winds had suddenly changed and that they could only keep their positions by turning against the rights of gun owners, they would do it in a heartbeat. No doubt about it.

So how can I be so certain of that? Well, just look at the asinine and hysterical rhetoric in LaPierre's statement: “There is only one choice – only one hope – to save our firearms freedom and our way of life.” Not only is Wayne making that assertion on behalf of Romney despite, as Denninger points out, Willard's earlier anti-gun position, but he is making it to assist a campaign against an incumbent president who has not only not lifted a finger in favor of gun control, but is actually the gun lobby's most effective tool for keeping the progressive gun haters in his own base at bay and away from any chance to tighten America's gun laws. The gun control advocates had a perfect chance to advance their agenda after the public outcry in the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting, and what did Obama do to help them? Nothing. Do you really think LaPierre isn't smart enough to know this? If so, there's big phallic granite tower planted square in the middle of the Washington Mall with only minor earthquake damage that I'd like to sell you.

The fact is that the political landscape on gun control issues has been frozen in ice for at least the last decade. The Republican Party is owned by the gun lobby and the Democrats are so afraid of the NRA's power that they might as well be. But LaPierre cannot level with the NRA's membership and say that because then the organization's fundraising might dry up. It's a political con job...the same kind every other lobbying group in Washington pulls, from AARP to NOW. It is yet another way that the elites use the illusion of real democratic choice to con the masses and steal both their money and their votes.

I'm going to go ahead and expand my original rule about contributing to political campaigns to include contributing to lobbying groups...if you are not a millionaire or a billionaire and yet you give any of your hard earned money to lobbyists who care more about their own power and perks than they do about the issues that got you to contribute, you're an idiot. Really, you would be just as well off sending your money to me. I promise, I'll spend it on nothing more harmful to the cause than a few cases of good microbrews.


Bonus: "You well heeled big wheel...ha ha, charade you are"

There Are No Superheroes, Just a Decadent and Depraved Culture

Mass shootings have become so common in America in recent years that most of the time they no longer even generate screaming national headlines—instead often fading into the media background noise along with all of the other horrible shit happening these days. If you are an aspiring mass shooter, you’ve got to come up with something truly creative to really get noticed. Show us something we haven’t seen before, you know, like attacking a crowded theater during the midnight premiere of the latest $200 million mindless comic book movie.

Today’s mass shooting tragedy in Aurora, Colorado—incidentally located not too far from the scene of the horrific 1999 slaughter at Columbine High School—was spectacular enough to get our collective attention. Once again, grisly images of bloodied bodies, including children, being littered across a typical suburban landscape have been seared upon our collective conscience, momentarily shaking us out of our media-induced stupor, if only long enough to merely condemn the killer as an asocial monster. And once again, as soon as the initial shock has faded we will collectively go right back to sleep without asking any of the larger questions about just why it is that so many of our fellow citizens “suddenly” turn rabid and try to kill as many others possible.

No doubt that in the aftermath of the shootings, before the blood and gore has even been scrubbed from the crime scene and the bodies of the dead buried in their graves, we will hear the same tired old bromides from both sides of the political spectrum. Liberals will insinuate that we need more gun control, though few Democratic office holders will say so too openly out of fear of offending the gun lobby. Many conservatives, meanwhile, will trot out the even more ridiculous line that the shootings just show that everyone should be packing heat and ready to defend themselves, even though most people are so incompetent that if all of the patrons in that theater had opened fire at once they would likely ALL have ended up dead in the resulting melee.

I’m sorry to disappoint the members of my former political tribe, but easy access to guns really isn’t the problem. Owing to its frontier heritage, America has always been a gun culture, and yet the epidemic of mass shootings is a relatively recent phenomenon. What’s changed is not the available weaponry but a the emergence of a decadent and depraved culture that has left countless millions of people alienated and disaffected with little hope that their shitty lives will ever get any better.

After World War Two, thanks greatly to the rise of television, America became the perfect consumer society just as it was also building soulless artificial suburban communities farther and farther from central cities. Whereas previously most people never strayed more than handful of miles from the place of their birth, meaning that they were always surrounded by a strong support network of friends and family members, suddenly in the pursuit of ever higher paying jobs in order to be able to afford the “good life” being sold to them on their television screens it became the norm to move hundreds or even thousands of miles away to places where they did not know anybody.

Instead of living in a modest homestead with maybe three generations under the same roof, they now occupy oversized McMansions on leafy cul-de-sacs where they barely even know the names of any of their neighbors. Burdened by ever higher levels of debt as they try to keep up with the Joneses despite stagnating salaries, they work ever longer hours with ever less vacation time to try to keep from falling off of a gigantic economic treadmill that seems to move a little bit faster every year.

Rather than having one parent stay home to raise the children, both have to work to afford their expensive lifestyles, meaning that the children get dumped off to day care, often before they are even old enough to walk. When the kids are old enough, instead of being sent to a small local schoolhouse they instead find themselves shipped every morning to gigantic education warehouses where the more socially awkward among them are relentlessly bullied by their peers. And when the kids do finally get to college they find themselves being buried under a gigantic mount of student loan debt before they even have a chance to get started in life. Oh, and just for shits and giggles (and Hollywood's profit margin) we'll make it so much of our popular culture consists of mindlessly hyperviolent movies, video games and teevee shows like The Dark Knight Rises, and get people so amped up to see them that they will stupidly rush out like lemmings to wait in long lines at the ridiculous hour of midnight to see the latest spectacle that will be available in their homes on Netflix within six months.

And now, in this age of permanent economic contraction, having completely bought in to an “American way of life” that has been sold to them relentlessly ever since they were little children, people are staring slackjawed as all of it is slowly being taken away from them by a greedy and predatory elite who have always felt that the rise of the middle class was only made possible in the first place by stealing what was rightfully theirs. At this point, the wonder is not that there are those who go off in a mindless rage and begin randomly killing everyone around them, but that it doesn’t actually happen more often.


Bonus: "Keep everyone afraid, and then they'll consume"

What A Shock: "Stand Your Ground" Apparently Only Applies To White People

You might want to sit down before you read this, but it turns out that apparently Florida's hideous "Stand Your Ground" law only applies to white (or half-Hispanic) people who shoot others in self defense. I know, I couldn't believe it either. Here is Atlantic Wire with the details:

What happened to Marissa Alexander sure sounds a lot like 'standing your ground': her abusive husband came after her, choked her, and when she finally broke free, she grabbed a gun fired a single warning shot into ceiling ... so why is she set to serve 20 years in jail? As Touré points out, her husband's deposition had a similar account, though he's providing a newer, conflicting report.

Well, we imagine her prosecutor Angela Corey (who's also charging George Zimmerman) and her team, have the unfulfilling answers. The Florida Times Union's Charles Broward reported on April 21, "A judge denied [Alexander] immunity in a Stand Your Ground hearing. And after a jury found her guilty, she faces a mandatory term of 20 years in prison." Yes, there's the rage-inducing fact that Zimmerman who allegedly pursued and (not allegedly) killed Trayvon Martin was allowed to walk free that night while Alexander is going to spend 20 years of her life in prison for a single warning shot while in her own home. But it's also complex in that, those seeking justice for Trayvon Martin may have to side with a prosecutor who denied Alexander's (and the NAACP's) plea for a "stand your ground" ruling, like the one that was initially afforded to Zimmerman.

"There's a double standard with stand your ground," says Isaiah Rumlin, president of the Jacksonville Chapter of the NAACP. "The law is applied differently between African-Americans and whites who are involved in these types of cases." As Time's Touré points out, "there is one last sliver of hope left for Alexander: the court will soon hear arguments for a retrial." Jacksonville's News 4 added yesterday, "Judge James Daniel set a post-trial motions hearing for 8:30 a.m. Thursday. Daniel said if the motions are denied, she could be sentenced as soon as next week."

What is really appalling about this case is that Alexander should have been acquitted on grounds of self defense regardless of Stand Your Ground. But rather than argue about whether the law is being applied in a discriminatory manner, how about we just go ahead and repeal it already?


Bonus: I think The Fixx was in in this case...Bada Boom!

The “Gun Nuts” Finally Went Too Far

Let me start off this post by reassuring my readers that I am neither a gun control advocate, nor do I hold any animosity towards people who feel they need a gun (or several) for their personal protection. Given that the main theme here at TDS is the likelihood of economic collapse, which by definition would include a collapse of law and order, it would be silly for me to advocate any attempt to restrict the rights of responsible, law abiding citizens to own guns. I’ve handled and fired about every type of firearm there is, from revolvers, Colt .45’s and 9mm semi-automatics to shotguns and even M16A1 rifles for the U.S. Army. To me, a gun is a tool that can be used for good or bad, but anyone who owns one has an obligation to train themselves to the point where they don’t become a danger to themselves or others while using it.

Having dispensed with the disclaimers, let me also define what I mean by the phrase, “gun nut.” A gun nut is not synonymous with someone who is lawfully allowed to own and carry firearms. A gun nut is instead an unbalanced individual who, rather than dispassionately looking at guns as a tool to be handled responsibly and carefully, loves them a little TOO much. I’ve had the unfortunate experience to be around people like that and frankly they scare me. They are the people for whom gun ownership is a fetish akin to a fundamentalist religion, and are also the ones who give gun owners in general a bad name among those who don’t like guns or would like to see them banned.

Obviously, I don’t know George Zimmerman and have never met him. Yet I think it is safe to say from the evidence released to date of how he took it upon himself to accost Trayvon Martin, who was doing nothing more sinister than walking alone along a public thoroughfare, and then shoot him down that Zimmerman had an extremely unhealthy attraction to the power that carrying a handgun seemingly bestowed upon him to uphold his twisted view of “law and order.” Yes, Zimmerman's lawyer now claims that the shooter was injured during his confrontation with Martin. Doesn't matter. Zimmerman was the aggressor, even after being told by a 911 operator to stand down, and the unarmed Martin is dead as a result.

But I’m not writing this post to rehash the facts of the case against Zimmerman, or to speculate whether the shooting was racially motivated. That is being done in plenty of other quarters. Instead, I’d like to point the finger of blame at those individuals, even though they may not have actually pulled trigger, who are at least partially responsible for creating the conditions that led to young Martin’s death: the gun nuts who pushed for passage of Florida’s insane “stand your ground” law.

Just for the record, the law states that any individual who is in a place where he/she has a legal right to be, and who is “not engaged in an unlawful activity...has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” It does sound reasonable at first glance, as many awful laws do when reduced down to legalese, but there’s a hole in there that you can drive truck through. Very simply, how in the hell can anyone determine whether a shooter acted properly if there are no eyewitnesses to what happened? Simply put, this is a license to commit cold blooded murder, just so long as you can ensure no one is around who can contradict your story. Heck, maybe you can even shoot the witnesses and claim they were attacking you was well.

The brilliant legislative minds who sponsored the Florida law are now backtracking by trying to claim that it does not in fact immunize George Zimmerman and that he should be prosecuted. To which I would very pointedly reply: bullshit. If Zimmerman is successfully prosecuted in this case, it will only be because there was enough evidence subsequently collected to demonstrate that he initiated the confrontation which ended in Trayvon Martin’s death. But the fact remains that the local police who responded to the shooting were so confident that Zimmerman was within his rights under the law that they did not even arrest him or initially make any attempt to verify his version of what happened. Had Zimmerman not had the “bad luck” to shoot a “good kid” instead of a gangbanger under the exact same circumstances, a kid whose family is now rightfully demanding that justice be served, this marauding thug would have literally gotten away with murder. Moreover, had the police not felt they were handcuffed by the law, instead arresting Zimmerman and conducting a thorough investigation, this likely would have remained a local (if still regrettable) story.

So who was responsible for lobbying to push through this hideous abomination of a law? Why, the National Rifle Association, of course. Specifically, it was NRA lobbyist Marion P. Hammer, whom you can read more about at this link. Hammer appears to be living proof an old saying of mine, which is that there is nothing worse than a zealot, even if you happen to agree with whatever it is they are zealous about. In fairness to Hammer, she is hardly the only one, and the NRA has been pushing for the passage of such laws all over the country.

Again, I’m not criticizing the NRA because it is pro-gun ownership. I’m criticizing it because it is yet another out-of-control lobbying group that uses scare tactics to raise money from its membership while pushing a radical, self-interested agenda greatly detrimental to the common good. Which is pretty much par for the course among lobbyists in Washington these days.

The NRA’s biggest problem is that it has been TOO successful. Except for a few minor setbacks such as the Brady Law and the assault weapons ban, the political climate in America these past 30 years has been squarely in favor of the gun lobby. You would think the NRA would acknowledge this fact and pop the cork on some expensive champagne in celebration. But no, that’s not what keeps those many millions of dollars in membership contributions coming in. Instead, you have to rile up your members, get them thinking that the evil, dark skinned socialist commie in White House is personally coming over to their house to confiscate their weapons cache despite the fact that Obama has scarcely lifted a finger to curtail gun ownership. We’ll fight Obama and his gun confiscating minions for you, just be sure to send in that nice, fat check.

But what can NRA lobbyists do when the politicians have become so cowed that there is no longer any realistic threat of serious gun control legislation being enacted? After all, they’ve grown accustomed to the cushy perks and expense accounts that come with their responsibility to wine and dine legislators. If there no longer is any realistic legislative threat to gun ownership anymore, they might just be out of a job. So instead they look around for ways to pass laws enhancing the rights of gun owners. And with each success, they become more emboldened and cocksure. Until before you know it they are pushing for extreme measures like the “stand your ground” law.

Only this time, it looks like the gun lobby finally went too far. Popular revulsion against the shooting of Trayvon Martin is mounting quickly, and may represent the NRA’s “Rush Limbaugh” moment, in which average citizens who don’t give a damn about guns laws one way or the other finally wake up recognize what a hideous, bullying, out-of-control beast the gun lobby has become. Responsible gun owners would be well advised to get out in front on this issue and support repeal of “stand your ground” laws wherever they have been enacted. It would be a great way to separate those law abiding citizens who own guns and respect the awful power they have from the gun nuts who give gun ownership a bad name.


Bonus: A song about a justifiable self-defense shooting that didn't need a stand your ground law.

See your reflection in the blue steel
and it's too late to run
The romance was gone with that first bruise
See cupid don't shoot arrows out the barrel of a gun
and love don't make the ten o'clock news

When the Police Run Out of Gas

From down in North Carolina, we have a new spin on the old storyline of cities and towns cutting back on municipal services:

SMITHFIELD --Police say they'll stop responding to some 911 calls and stop investigating misdemeanors if the town doesn't increase funding for gasoline - the latest episode in a standoff between the police chief and Town Council, which is trying to save money.

It's also the latest sign of how tight municipal budgets are impacting services throughout the Triangle.

On Tuesday, the Smithfield Police Department will present dire predictions of how an austere budget could leave police cars in park.

Those of us who are peak oil aware already realize, of course, that it is the underlying cause of the economic crisis that has left so many towns and cities are strapped for cash. But it is still unusual to see the fuel supply for a police department actually under threat. Here are some of the juicy details of what is happening in this unfortunate town:

Police Chief Michael Scott will ask the town council to let him use $30,000 of office supply and equipment repair money to pay for gas. He says his department has already cut patrols, halving the numbers of cars on the street at certain times.

Scott said three recent crimes might have been prevented with more patrols - the armed robbery of a convenience store, the theft of tires and rims from a car dealership and a major cocaine bust.

"Those things can all be directly related to patrol issues," he said, adding that he's gotten complaints about the reduced patrols. Some callers have asked if they should buy guns to protect themselves.

I'd have to say, yes, those callers probably should buy guns to protect themselves, with the caveat that they also get properly trained in how to use said guns. Because the last thing we need is a neighborhood shootout between a bunch of nervous, paranoid and woefully inept firearms-toting homeowners.

Lest you think this is merely a local story, the article continues:

Law enforcement agencies around the country have seen budget cuts this year. Here in North Carolina, the state Highway Patrol is coping with an $8 million reduction, and they've stopped training new cadets as part of a hiring freeze. The city of Raleigh recently delayed police and fire academies by six months.

The sad part here is that state and local governments as well as the citizenry they serve are treating these situations as if they are merely a temporary condition, when in fact they are a very early sign of much worse to come. So yes, go out and get yourself some form of personal protection if you don't already have it. But if you do please make sure you know how to properly use it. Your very life could depend on it.