Many people claim that someone has Smashed, Trashed, Riptorn or otherwise implemented the E-Word-that-sounds-vicerate on someone metaphorically to describe a right good verbal bollicking, when nothing quite of the sort has actually occurred.
This time it did.
To wit via http://www.rawstory.com/....
Some excerpts:
As in a previous episode, Brand’s criticism took the form of a running commentary on Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, who began by saying that the death of Michael Brown “is now being investigated by state and local authorities, but that hasn’t stopped rioting and looting in the area.”
“I like that immediate implication,” Brand replied, then began imitating the police, “We’re investigating! You can stop rioting and looting!” He then switched back into his own voice and said, “the police shot and killed an unarmed teenager, what’s there’s to investigate?”
“The situation speaks for itself,” he continued. “He was a teenager, he was unarmed, there just isn’t a need for further inquiry — the inquiry itself is going to be sufficient,” before noting that Brown joins Trayvon Martin as an “emblem” of a “larger social unrest.”
Uh, yeah!
Let us investigate how and why the armed police officer, shot at the running teenager in the back - then when he stopped and turned and put his hands up continued shooting him in the chest and in the face until he fell to the ground and lay still, waited over 30 minutes for the ambulance to arrive, then left him laying there dead for the next four hours.
I'm certain that if the person with the gun didn't have a uniform on - there wouldn't be a whole lot of "investigating" to do.
Brand then cut back to O’Reilly, who had brought on Dr. Ben Carson, but before Carson can say anything, Brand cuts them off. “Obviously, you’re black, so we got that covered!”
Only on the outside Russell, only on the outside. In the case of Dr. Ben Carson - it really is only a "skin condition".
He then allowed O’Reilly to say, “we have a black attorney general, Eric Holder, who in this case I have 100 percent confidence in.”
Brand interrupted and began impersonating O’Reilly, saying “in this case — but I wouldn’t normally trust a black attorney general, not with my car keys, I wouldn’t let him feed my fish. I don’t like black people! Sorry!”
Maybe if he was parking my car, or perhaps bagging my groceries -
then - I might trust him, maybe.
Not that Eric Holder and the FBI have the ability to second guess the basic Murder case that is at hand, they can only act if they find there was specific racial malice at play much like they were only able to win the Rodney King case after the "Gorillas In the Mist" text messages from Officer Powell were discovered.
In this case we don't have to wait, the St. Louis County Police's internal Racism has already been revealed by a Whistle-Blower who faced personal retaliation when his name was revealed publicly after he had sent letters to Internal Affairs documented their practices of biased profiling.
O'Neil's anonymous letters, which began arriving in the chief's office in December, alleged that Hayes ordered officers to arrest blacks in and around the South County Shopping Center as well as a nearby Walmart. Both Hayes and O'Neil are white.
O'Neil said he waited months before coming forward through anonymous letters because Hayes often boasted of his connections to top commanders.
"I had no intention to take the police department down," O'Neil said. "But these things had to be stopped. When a black person can't go shopping at a mall, it's wrong. ... This isn't 50 years ago."
Other officers corroborated O'Neil's claims during the internal investigation, which determined Hayes violated department policies when using “inappropriate racial references” while issuing the orders. He was fired May 13. No officers followed racially-based orders, Fitch says.
...
The chief said the inquiry began after he and Lt. Col. Ken Gregory, who oversees patrol, received an anonymous letter dated Dec. 24 from a county officer. It alleged that a lieutenant in the Fourth Precinct had ordered officers under his command to focus on arresting blacks in the vicinity of the South County Center, at Lindbergh Boulevard and Lemay Ferry Road, and a Walmart at Telegraph Road and Interstate 255.
Police sources say the lieutenant told about 20 officers to check license plates of black drivers and arrest them if there were outstanding warrants.
It's not as if Lieutenant Hayes orders to target Black shoppers for Arrest was done in secret. 20 other Officers verified them, but after writing letters to call it to attention Sgt. O'Neill was harassed and driven from the Department.
So it's not exactly like the killing of Michael Brown, and the use of excessive force and Tear Gas against an unarmed non-violent protest is this Police Departments first Racial Rodeo.
Brand went on O'Reilly in response to his complaint about "Riots" - which really should have been singular and only about the first night when the Quick Trip was burned down.
“It’s almost, Bill,” Brand replied, “as if you’re living in a really unequal, unfair society that hasn’t recovered from the massive wounds of slavery and the continued subjugation of the non-white population. Eventually, inevitably, there will be flare ups.”
“There’s going to be a lot more of this happening as society becomes more and more unequal,” Brand continued. Referring to the militarization of local police forces, Brand said “the question will become, ‘Should we have a more equal society?’ or ‘Should we bolster our means of oppressing people?’”
I would say we need more of the former please, but perhaps that's just me. Instead we see more of the
apparatus and mentality of oppression entrenched in to our law enforcement, even in suburban Missouri as they gird themselves for a war against speech, which is ultimately a war against freedom.
When O’Reilly accused the Reverend Al Sharpton of coming to Ferguson to “agitate the situation,” Brand said that “when the issue is injustice, agitation is what’s required. People on the right are saying, ‘Just leave things as they are, I’m OK, I’m on Fox, I’ve got a show, Fox is making record profits!’”
“Look at where all [O'Reilly's] energy is focused — on protecting the status quo,” he said. “Al Sharpton seems to be representing an underrepresented community, speaking for people who don’t have a voice.”
Uh, yeah. Sharpton has also been Agitating For Peace, and speaking out against the flare ups of violence that have occurred in the first few days of protests.
He then showed Carson saying, “we feel their pain, but what we have to remember is that police are individuals too, they have feelings, also.”
To which Brand replied, “I think it’s worth pointing out at this juncture that if an unarmed policeman was shot by a black teenager, I can’t imagine Fox News giving voice to someone to say, ‘You’ve got to remember, black teenagers are people too.’ They’d be all, ‘This is unacceptable! This is an indication of a society in decline!’”
He points out, correctly, that all of O'Reilly and Foxes "Compassion and Understanding" is for the poor downtrodden Police Officers who have to put up with these unruly teenagers and these uncouth needy "rioters". They have no time, no compassion, no understanding, for the dead teenager who has
shot while his hands were in the air.
They don't come close enough to it to get credit in a game of horseshoes.
There's a lot more that Brand says that is quite salient and even prescient about this situation over and above O'Reilly and his Blackish guest Carson.
Vyan
12:07 PM PT: And O'Reilly was at Again Last Night.
"Well the story makes me angry and that's why I'm taking time out of my vacation to be with you guys," O'Reilly explained. "I want the 'Factor' audience and everybody else it know that this is just bull, just bull."
That's right Billo is
angry now, because it's "just bull". What are you angry about Bill, could it be the killing of an teenager who was unarmed and surrendering?
Nope, not that.
O'Reilly complained that the media and some of the public have reached a forgone conclusion about the police killing of black, unarmed teenager Michael Brown, particularly in light of new revelations.
"Most people are upset and certainly they have a right to be upset and make a point that they don't want unarmed people shot for no reason — but there may have been a reason," he said. "There may have been a reason."
Let's lay this out for Billy because he seems to have a problem grasping this.
There. Is. No. Fucking. REASON. to shoot and KILL an Unarmed Person. 35 ft away with their hands in the Air. EVER.
That's a Murder. That's an Execution. There is no "reason", there is no excuse. It doesn't matter if he was flogging bats five minutes before - that doesn't justify the Officers actions, particularly when the current claim - this minute - is the Officer didn't even know what he might have been doing five or ten minutes earlier three blocks away.
Did the Officer notice the Cigarillos and try to grab them resulting in the tussle near the Car? Is that a rational justification for pulling his weapon? Does that justify firing it when the victim is surrendering?
Nope, not a chance.
O'Reilly said the video released by police on Friday purporting to show Brown stealing cigarettes at a convenience store.
"Now we know he is not a regular guy," O'Reilly said. "We see it on tape. We saw what he did in that convenience store. He’s not a regular guy.”
So? What's that got to do with it? He couldn't shove the cop from 30 ft away now could he? No, he couldn't. What was Brown gonna do -
throw a Stolen Cigarillo at him?
The Fox host went on to dismiss concerns that releasing details of the robbery constituted a "smear" since the police have stated the officer who killed Brown had no knowledge Brown was a suspect in a robbery.
No, it is a smear when you don't release similar details about the facts of the case at the same time. It's tampering with the jury pool by deflating any compassion and sympathy for the victim. This is how the process is done in America. Demonize and Dehumanize the Dead Person, turn them into a perpetrator and a jury won't be able to justify putting a "good cop" with a "quiet demeanor" behind bars for Murder. Not this murder. Not this "not regular guy". No sir. And O'Reilly and his sycophants fall for it every time.
We've seen how this game is played. Time and time again.
12:48 PM PT: This is why what the St. Louis County Police did with the Video Release - while continuing to hide any and all relevant information about the actual shooting - matters.
This is a chart showing the racial breakdown of Defendants Executed in the U.S. since 1976, and the Racial Breakdown of the Victims in those cases. As you can see, despite what some O'Reilly inspired fans might want to bring up about "Black on Black" crime - there really isn't a huge number of Black Victims who have their Killers sent to Death Row compared to how often that happens to "Regular [White] Guys".
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/...
This is the result even though the FBI's yearly Murder Rate for Black and White Victims are somewhat upside down compared to who ends up on Death Row. [
Murder in 2012: 5,855 White Victims compared to
6,484 Black Victims ]
And here we see the ratio of persons executed for inter-racial murders - note how many times higher it occurs for Black Perp/White Victim than it does the other way around...
Although the actual rate of interracial murders according to the FBI
is not nearly that far apart
2012
Black Perp/White Victim Murders - 431
White Perp/Black Victim Murders - 193
So how exactly does a two-to-one ratio turn into a thirteen-to-one result on Death Row?
And we have to also note that the two-to-one ratio we start with here doesn't include all of the Interracial Killings, it only includes those that were deemed "Murder" - so Police Shootings or Stand Your Ground shootings that are deemed "Justified" aren't included in these figures. FBI Notes that in 2012 there were 410 "Justifiable" Homicides by Law Enforcement in 2012 - but they don't provide a racial breakdown on who exactly was killed or why, only which type of weapon was used. [409 of them were with firearms, for the record]
Others have argued, looking at the source FBI data, that the chances of a Black person killing a White person being deemed a "Murder" rather than "Justified" are about 225% higher - which is something that would completely eliminate that starting 2-to-1 ratio entirely, if not reverse it somewhat when you bring in stand you ground states that have a 350% ratio.
So today's lesson is that if you kill a black person, you're not likely to go to Death Row even if they bother to investigate and you get caught and convicted [never mind whether you did it since
317 people on Death Row have been Exonerated by DNA Evidence in the last 20 years], but if you're accused of killing a white person - go Directly to Jail. Then You Go Under the Jail.
And lastly here we see the racial breakdown of those who remain on death row, notice that the black proportion has grown considerably, somewhat beyond all the previous data on those sent to death row for harming black victims or even ratio of black perpetrators w/white victims would seem to naturally indicate. I wonder how that happened?
Then again, I think we know. They aren't "Regular Guys" are they Bill? Turning the Victim into the "Perp" is all according to the script. Once that happens juries are less likely to convict and judges are far less likely to hand down the
ultimate sentence - cuz y'now - the safety of
Cigarillos were at stake.
Not that we were ever likely to see Wilson on Death Row, it'll never happen now.