Ebony And Ivory Did Not Come Together In Perfect Criminality

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Ethics, Journalism, Media, Race

During their reporting on the Navy Yard shooting in the capital, today, media made frequent mention of a white culprit, who was supposed to have assisted shooter Aaron Alexis.

For one hopeful moment, mass media seemed to have held out hope that the dastardly deed, in which 12 people were killed, was a product of a collaboration between a black and a white man.

Via Policymic:

“…the deputy mayor for public safety stated that one previously identified person of interest, who was previously described as white male wearing a tan military uniform, is no longer a suspect.”

Misidentified hastily by the likes of NBC’s Chuck Todd, poor Navy lieutenant Rollie Chance was soon ruled out as a suspect.

The New York Magazine confirms, however, that “Police continue to seek a black male between 40 and 50 years old with gray sideburns for questioning.”

Alas, media hopes were dashed. Ebony and ivory did not come together in perfect criminality.

Another Case Of Workplace Violence In Military (Yeah, Right!)

Barack Obama, GUNS, Homeland Security, Military, Propaganda

Barack Obama calls the Navy Yard shooting in the capital, today, “another mass shooting … on a military installation in our nation’s capital. It’s a shooting that targeted our military and civilian personnel.” It goes without saying that all those who’re part of the massive welfare system that is the US military—entire families are “enlisted” on the country’s payroll—are, in the president’s words, “patriots,” “protecting all of us”:

They know the the dangers of serving abroad, but today they faced the unimaginable violence that they wouldn’t have expected here at home.

In reply to a gun-control question, this dreadful cur of a man found the presence of mind to quip: “[We will] be investigating thoroughly what happened—as we do so many of these shootings sadly that have happened and do everything we can to try to prevent them.”

Note that the “Silent Conspirators in the Case Of Major Nidal Malik Hasan” are still at large. (Hint: Look at the role played by policy makers as well as that of the top brass of the US military.)

Nothing is likely to change on that front.

Wanna Die? Get Real Animated In Public

Criminal Injustice, Fascism, Law, Liberty, Psychiatry, The State

Whatever you do, don’t gesture wildly in public, limp or act spastic. People around you could die. Those who swore to “To Protect and to Serve” all Americans—the halt and the lame too—may just take a potshot in your general direction. This is what happened to one New Yorker:

The 35-year-old man was behaving erratically, standing in the middle of a busy intersection and unsuccessfully weaving his way through the cars, when police confronted him around 9:30 p.m. Saturday night. “He tried to run and ended up getting hit by three different cars,” one witness told The New York Times. Or, perhaps, some think he was trying to be hit. “It appeared that he wanted to be struck by cars,” New York Police Department commissioner Ray Kelly said at a press conference early Sunday morning. There was some debate as to whether he had actually been hit by any cars. But there was little debate concerning his mental state. “He definitely looked like he was high on something or was mentally off. He couldn’t walk in a straight line. He was limping and jerking his legs around,” one witness told the New York Daily News.

“While officers were attempting to subdue him, [he] ‘reached into his pocket, took out his hand, and simulated as if he was shooting at them,’ Kelly told reporters. One officer fired a single shot and missed; another fired two rounds and missed.”

The militarized police force in action.

Our town has a “madman”; a young man who cannot stop waving his arms, gesturing frantically and praising the Lord loudly. Local businesses often harness his exuberance; they give him ad signs to hold up on street corners. He has boundless energy and enthusiasm, and is quite beautiful; his biblical-length locks tumbling down his shoulders. To think he may be imperiled. …

UPDATE II: The Proof Is In the Putin

Media, Middle East, Military, Propaganda, Republicans, Russia, The State, War

The punditocracy is shouting almost in unison that Russia and Syria have pulled one over us. The US, they say, has been weakened because someone halted the momentum of the American war juggernaut.

You see, the pundits and the pols cannot perceive of greatness outside the state because they are part of the state apparatus; and depend on it for status and income.

Individual Americas who have nothing to gain and only losses to sustain from a war are somehow mistakenly identifying with the state and its emissaries—politicians and pundits—who have everything to gain from the great theatre that is war. “In Syria (and all else), it’s ‘Us’ against ‘Them.'”

Think about it. Who benefits when America goes to war? Not you. Not ordinary Americans. Those who benefit “function within the nimbus of great power” in D.C. and around it—the media-military-congressional-industrial complex.

What happens to the bluster of Bill O’Reilly, his sidekick Dennis the Menace or Charles Krauthammer if the US is no longer dictating the terms of war (lots of it) and peace (too little of it) in the world? Their immense egos suffer. Maybe even their incomes, eventually. But not you, the ordinary American. Krauthammer, ridiculously, equates the failure to go to war against Syria with “Russia supplanting America as regional hegemon.”

But the proof is in the Putin, who stopped a war. Why is stopping a war tantamount to supplanting US power?

Rather, the Russians are replacing bully power with a balance of power. And this is good for Americans (if not for their overlords who art in D.C.)

He who saves you from war is better than he who sends you to war.

UPDATE I: Gerson, another neocon:

“This allows Moscow to supply proxies such as Syria and Iran with weapons while positioning itself as the defender of international law and peace.”

UPDATE II (9/15): Yet another Republican pundit (albeit one of the few talented ones) who depends on The Party for status and income. Here Ann Coulter praises Republican wars.

She promotes and profits from ’em; YOU fight ’em.