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Showing Original Post only (View all)A sober warning (and one of the best essays I have read thus far about Ferguson): [View all]
Mr. McCulloch's America Can't Stand
~snip~
It's a dire evil to have any cultural, political, or institutional tolerance for lynching by badge. But you don't get to the point where you have a national crisis from that without some pretty highly placed enablers and gatekeepers in elite places. Malignant tumors benefit from a well-suppressed immune system, and a nation that has a nagging sickness in its body is no different. I find it a breathtaking compounding of injustice to have a man like Bob McCulloch at the wheel at the exact time that you fundamentally needed his opposite. At a point when our nation needed to cement the vitally important message to everyone in the land that, yes, you can have full faith in the rule of law. What this nation needed was clear. Here. Look. Justice is possible. The system works. But that is not the message that was sent out in this dark time.
On some deep and fundamental level a disaster like MucCulloch will always fail to grasp how institutionally and systemically malignant his pathetic performance has been for our nation. People are going to die because of this man. People are going to be hurt as a direct result of his willful and ignorant negligence and neglect. Because he had priorities other than justice. Worst of all? He's not alone. America's interests are truly threatened by "public servants" who serve a thin and very narrow slice of the public's good, and who do so in so smugly and so overtly a fashion. This was a dark day in this nation's history, mistaken by a fool for a triumph. His rambling, self-congratulatory babbling brings my blood to a boil whenever I think of it. He tried harder to put Twitter on trial than a murderer who gunned down an unarmed man.
No enemy of this nation has the ability to lay America low this way. From the inside. Hacking and chopping away at the foundation like it's repairing a crumbling road or bridge to do structural damage to it. Here. This. This is what you get. This is how things are versus how you might imagine or with things could or should be. Stop complaining. This is the deal. Suck it up. It is very possible that, someday, a cop is going to be shot and bleeding, and somebody who could help him, who once might have helped him, is just going to mind his or her own business and walk away. "Live by the sword, die by the sword". Like the cop and the drug dealer are just mirror sides of the same coin. That's what a performance like McCulloch's gets you as a nation over time. A nation where people who have to buy in, don't bother. They don't believe.
This is a force multiplier for really bad outcomes. This compounding of evil just cannot stand. Recently, an impatient driver plowed into a large crowd of protesters in Minnesota. Nothing came of it. Now, if you are a person who is already out in the streets over the free-pass murder of Michael Brown, do you have any good will towards the authorities to give out any benefit of the doubt here? Or. Does this compound what is already in your heart and mind and take you to an even darker place? Everything in context. Everything in the context of the moment. Certain people can kill a person of color whenever they claimed to feel threatened. Now? Some can even mow down a crowd of protesters for the sin of being inconvenienced. Everything just feeding negative energy into the great puke funnel that is drowning a dream.
~snip~
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/27/1347424/-Mr-McCulloch-s-America-Can-t-Stand
~snip~
It's a dire evil to have any cultural, political, or institutional tolerance for lynching by badge. But you don't get to the point where you have a national crisis from that without some pretty highly placed enablers and gatekeepers in elite places. Malignant tumors benefit from a well-suppressed immune system, and a nation that has a nagging sickness in its body is no different. I find it a breathtaking compounding of injustice to have a man like Bob McCulloch at the wheel at the exact time that you fundamentally needed his opposite. At a point when our nation needed to cement the vitally important message to everyone in the land that, yes, you can have full faith in the rule of law. What this nation needed was clear. Here. Look. Justice is possible. The system works. But that is not the message that was sent out in this dark time.
On some deep and fundamental level a disaster like MucCulloch will always fail to grasp how institutionally and systemically malignant his pathetic performance has been for our nation. People are going to die because of this man. People are going to be hurt as a direct result of his willful and ignorant negligence and neglect. Because he had priorities other than justice. Worst of all? He's not alone. America's interests are truly threatened by "public servants" who serve a thin and very narrow slice of the public's good, and who do so in so smugly and so overtly a fashion. This was a dark day in this nation's history, mistaken by a fool for a triumph. His rambling, self-congratulatory babbling brings my blood to a boil whenever I think of it. He tried harder to put Twitter on trial than a murderer who gunned down an unarmed man.
No enemy of this nation has the ability to lay America low this way. From the inside. Hacking and chopping away at the foundation like it's repairing a crumbling road or bridge to do structural damage to it. Here. This. This is what you get. This is how things are versus how you might imagine or with things could or should be. Stop complaining. This is the deal. Suck it up. It is very possible that, someday, a cop is going to be shot and bleeding, and somebody who could help him, who once might have helped him, is just going to mind his or her own business and walk away. "Live by the sword, die by the sword". Like the cop and the drug dealer are just mirror sides of the same coin. That's what a performance like McCulloch's gets you as a nation over time. A nation where people who have to buy in, don't bother. They don't believe.
This is a force multiplier for really bad outcomes. This compounding of evil just cannot stand. Recently, an impatient driver plowed into a large crowd of protesters in Minnesota. Nothing came of it. Now, if you are a person who is already out in the streets over the free-pass murder of Michael Brown, do you have any good will towards the authorities to give out any benefit of the doubt here? Or. Does this compound what is already in your heart and mind and take you to an even darker place? Everything in context. Everything in the context of the moment. Certain people can kill a person of color whenever they claimed to feel threatened. Now? Some can even mow down a crowd of protesters for the sin of being inconvenienced. Everything just feeding negative energy into the great puke funnel that is drowning a dream.
~snip~
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/27/1347424/-Mr-McCulloch-s-America-Can-t-Stand
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A sober warning (and one of the best essays I have read thus far about Ferguson): [View all]
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
OP
I was trying to explain to my wife why I can't simply paraphrase the tour-de-force
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#3
McCulloch is the elected DA of St. Louis County. He was most recently re-elected for
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#5
Bob Dylan said it best: "A hard rain's gonna fall." It will not be pretty and
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#9
I've heard tell that there are competing factions within the bourgeoisie (those who
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#23
".....yes, you can have full faith in the rule of law." Not since at least December 2000.
WinkyDink
Nov 2014
#12
I actually trace the beginning of the rot back to Iran-Contra. I'm sure others (like Octafish)
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#13
I'm just talking about the court system. For SURE "America" has been a fraud for decades!
WinkyDink
Nov 2014
#31
"It's a dire evil to have any cultural, political, or institutional tolerance for lynching by
Cha
Nov 2014
#15
On Monday night, as my wife and I stood vigil with about 30 other fellow
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#18
"I find it a breathtaking compounding of injustice to have a man like Bob McCulloch at the wheel at
Cha
Nov 2014
#19
A sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy are terrible, destructive partners
democrank
Nov 2014
#21
It's getting late out here in LA and I'm a little punch-drunk from all the
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#27
Wow, I'm very sorry to hear about your losing your job. This is a rough time
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#64
I felt I should honor the spirit of the stylebook for Late Breaking News, which says
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#24
I think the 4 para rule is universal on this board, not specific to LBN. You dun rite.
Jackpine Radical
Nov 2014
#48
Yeah, I figured as much, given the 'Fair Use Doctrine' and what-not. Glad to see
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#51
MO Governor Jay Nixon's lackluster response is certainly implicated in this, as is the
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#34
I use Firefox (with AdBlock), so I think I am spared a lot of the annoying pop-ups and
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#33
Some say there was nothing 'accidental' about it and that it was just the brutal
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#37
With all due respect and out of a persnickety desire to make sure we get the details
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#49
I am going to have to punt on the issue(s) around the Ferguson Market video, at least
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#58
These are excellent observations. Methinks I feel an OP forming by you around this
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#50