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All of a sudden I realized what kind of people voted for Bush. They were on the Rodney King jury.
Do you remember right after the verdict, the white wealthy Napa Valley jurors were so puzzled about the riots?
They were puzzled because
A) they were desensitized to the beating. they were shown the beating again and again and it was clipped and dissected by both legal teams to the point they didn't recognize a police beatdown even when it happened right in front of them
B) they had no sense of history. they didn't know why police beatings happened or who they happened to. they didn't know what the economics were or the opportunities were in those neighborhoods.
I see the same people giving the verdict to Bush.
A) They have been desensitized to the violence in Iraq. It's good violence because "freedom isn't free" and the bad people are terrorists. It's good violence because we have "smart bombs" and God. It's good violence because we don't see the damage, other than the occasional picture of a burned out vehicle.
B) They have no sense of history about Vietnam or other U.S. military over-assertions. They have no sense of military history about how impossible it is for a conquering army to brutally hold territory forever without support of the locals. They have no sense of history about U.S. involvement in Iraq, U.S. support of the Baathists, U.S. support of mujadeen, U.S. support of Saudi society that generated the bin Ladens and the Al Qaeda.
They've had poor teachers in the media, the statehouses and the churches. They are victims of their own ignorance.
There are other parallels too, about tampering and manipulation. But mostly I'm stuck with the image of ignorant jurors on national TV trying to explain why the police were innocent in the Rodney King trial, and those are the same people who voted for Bush.
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