Eschew Obfuscation –
By Michael Douglass –

Virtually no one in America had ever witnessed such a horrific event live and free on television — until then.

Michael Wade Douglass

It was simultaneously more violent, more chaotic and more disturbing than maybe anything we’d ever seen.

A handful of burly peace officers bearing down in concert on a very large, black man who lacked the sense to merely stay on the ground.

Yes, Rodney King was high as a kite and it was incredibly hard to watch.

The digital age of instant information, gratification, persecution and judgement was ushered in by the video tape of those cops beating the living shit out of Rodney King. The flooding of our senses and sensibilities, the numbing of our brains, expectations and perceptions by a stream of profoundly disturbing sensory information like a continuous pyroclastic flow, had begun.

And they didn’t even kill him.

Every time it happens and there are no consequences, no indictment, no charges, no trial or no verdict, it all gets reset.

Even now, when we’re barely able to manage a breath until the next one. It’s not that things are actually occurring more often. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is how often it’s broadcast and just how anaesthetized and inured at least half of us have become.

So for the very latest, we are witness to an actual murder of an unarmed black man who had done nothing at all. Nothing. The whole thing on video. The coroner even ruled it homicide.

A grand jury still fails to indict anyone for any fucking thing at all.

And Peter King, a sitting congressman, is allowed to say it was Eric Garner’s fault for being overweight and out of shape without being pilloried, tarred and feathered and run out of town. I hate this prick.

Sean Hannity managed to somehow link the travesty to Benghazi while “technically” objecting to the term “chokehold” by virtue of his experience as a martial arts student. Idiot.

Giulani spared no decency in characterizing Mayor de Blasio’s unusually articulate and compassionate response to the grand jury finding as “racist”. Dumbass.

Rand Paul waltzed with the absurd in saying Eric Garner’s death was somehow the fault of an unfair tax. Dipshit.

This the modern, post racial GOP.

Tone deaf, stupid, bigoted motherfuckers.

“Get away [garbled] … for what? Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today. Why would you…? Everyone standing here will tell you I didn’t do nothing. I did not sell nothing. Because every time you see me, you want to harass me. You want to stop me (garbled) Selling cigarettes. I’m minding my business, officer, I’m minding my business. Please just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone. Please please, don’t touch me. Do not touch me.”

”I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”

Sheezus.

Seriously.

What the fuck?

With Trayvon Martin there was no video and and not any “credible” witnesses. Trial, but no conviction. He was a thug and George Zimmerman was a hero.

With Michael Brown there was no video and plenty of witnesses, but none of them “credible”. No indictment, no trial. Brown was a thug and officer Wilson did society a favor by getting rid of an animal who caused him to fear for his life even though he had no documented injuries and chose to exit his two ton vehicle to be better able to take aim and fire 10 more shots and gun him down from somewhere between 25 and a hundred plus feet away.

They never measured.

What the hell are they going to say 12 year old Tamir Rice did to deserve it?

Cliven Bundy faced down all kinds of local, state and federal authority with his very own “well regulated militia” and not a shot was fired. He committed actual crimes. He still owes the taxpayers more than seven figures.

A single white man, armed to the goddamn teeth, opens fire in a theater in Aurora Colorado, kills 12 and injures 70 and he is taken alive. No video, lots of witnesses and lots of innocent people dead, injured and otherwise emotionally scarred forever. He was taken alive and unharmed.

Afterwards the commentariat asks what happened to this fine young man? What went wrong?

Now these are hardly original thoughts on my part. They are on the lips of a lot of people. But so is the question, WHAT THE FUCK?

Tim Wise Pens Brilliant Editorial on Ferguson: Most White Americans are ‘Completely Oblivious’

Drinks for my friends.

Republished with permission from BrainSpank.Org.