I think we just witnessed another moment of recognition perhaps of similar magnitude to the Duck Dynasty issue I blogged about late last year. This one has to do with the Eric Garner murder. His widow was invited onto Meet The Press, a long-running TV show with predominantly white audience. The host led with, "Your husband is now the face of bias in our law enforcement...how do you feel about that". I'm sorry but this is a totally leading question intended to send us all down the distraction of race relations and away from the real issue in his death which is American cops gone wild.
The woman's response was, in all ways, setting new herd leadership. First off, she avoided the stereotypical white view of black women who belong to the lower socioeconomic class. She was conservatively dressed. She did not raise her voice nor did she appear to struggle to keep it down. In her response to the question, she avoided the race thing as the first words out of her mouth and instead she spoke to the issue: the police murdered her husband. And then, to many white people's surprise, she sincerely and humbly offered that this was not a race thing. In other words, she did not try to vilify all white people for being white. She did not include hundreds of millions of innocent whites on the blame list for the death of her husband. White audience members will pick up on that and they will appreciate it and they will be more open to her message for it; they will empathize with her.
Additionally, Mrs. Garner did not try to deny that her husband's activities were not legal. In fact, she effectively used it as an indictment against the police for all this use of force. They knew who this guy was, they knew he was not dangerous and that he was just a petty street black marketer. They knew he was no menace to society yet they used an incredible amount of force on him just because they could. Because of their "zero tolerance to anything outside of police state rules" mantra, they didn't give two shits about his life. They didn't care that he didn't swing on anyone or even push anyone. They didn't care that he was gasping for breath. They made no effort to revive him after they noted they had stopped his breathing. This guy was breaking their little tax scam rules and so he was enemy number one, needed to be taught a lesson about their all powerful authority, etc. Mrs. Garner even acknowledged the truth that her husband was lazy. By doing so, she completely took these off the table as justifications for his murder.
Finally, you could see the sense of loss and hurt in her that is so often obscured in these cases by loud yelling and venomous words by people of her socioeconomic class who feel that the only way for the little guy to be heard is to be overly loud.
Mrs. Garner was, in that short interview, the herd whisperer. I'll lay odds that the lack of grand jury indictment of the NYC cops will not stand. Not after that public performance by Mrs. Garner. There is already a broad spread view that the prosecutors lead the grand jury to the decision they want them to reach.
If the NYC grand jury is overridden by higher authority then that will be a defining moment in the collapse of the liberal police state. It will be proof that the system cannot protect cops who cross the line and this message will burn across the herd like wildfire. Something like this better happen and soon or police are going to end up with an open season sign on their backs. I don't want it to happen and I hope it doesn't but history teaches us that there comes a point when those who are oppressed finally decide to do something about it and if the system doesn't support the need for change then change will find other ways of happening. Anyone who just thinks the herd is going to continue to accept this kind of attack from the LEOs is completely underestimating the power of the awakened herd.
I'll say it again for any cops who might be reading this: stop now. Stop your stupid "zero tolerance" act. People are not perfect. YOU are not perfect. We all know if we dug into your lives that there would be plenty of rules violations. Stop holding the people to a different standard than the blue team is held to. In fact, you have some bridges to build. Reach out to the people. Show them that you are not all steroid-doped control freaks. Finally, police your own. Those in your ranks who are doing criminal things must be exposed and dealt with under the law. Stop being a coward about this. Yes, trembling coward of peer pressure and that thin blue line. Start being a leader again.
Time is running short. Do the right thing.
Captn,
ReplyDeleteI think that you're overestimating the pace of change. The stakes are just too high for the status quo, of which the police is the praetorian guard and, ergo, member.
If the elite loses access to the largesse by being the status quo, as they have no marketable skills to earn an honest living, that'd mean living in total destitution for them. Indeed, they don't deserve anything less and it's inevitable, but only after much gnashing of teeth.
Instead of a painting a view that implies the steady and coordinated decline of the status quo, I prefer one that reflects the social currents in force.
The herd is asserting liberty. The herd is realizing that the calm of a benevolent tyranny is gone and is beginning to accept the tempest of liberty, especially when the tyrants are turning murderous to a degree beyond a supposedly acceptable breaking of eggs in the making of the social contract omelette. As any movement of the herd, it's likely to follow the fractal patterns of Elliott Waves: two or three steps forward, one or two steps backward, some more slowly, some more quickly.
The question is whether the movements towards liberty, though imperfectly, like the Tea Party, the Occupy Wall St, the protests against police violence, are trend or counter-trend to the movements towards tyranny, like the Patriot Act, the FACTA, the TARP, Obamacare, the presidential license to kill, etc. Methinks that, given these examples, it's very difficult to say which current is motive right now and only hindsight will shed clarity on this historical moment.
Eventually, liberty will win, but it may as well take one or two generations, or even after our lifetimes, to prevail.
Of course time will tell on this matter Augustine but look how rapid the change in Senate control was.
ReplyDeleteWhen the herd wants to move quickly, it can move very quickly indeed. Also, it is my strong belief, right or wrong, that the US is different in that the elite are not really in the control that they think they are (or that they want us to believe they are). There are too many rifles and too many blades of grass for that to be true in this country. A war of overt tyranny cannot be won in these (still) united states. It is possible that some of the more liberal states break away into nanny state colonies but many states are going back full on conservative and that means freedom and privacy.
Again, the lions and the water buffalo shows how everyone assumes the LEOs are invincible until the horns start swinging around for real. After that starts, there is little doubt who is the stronger of the two in a head to head battle. When the herd asserts its will, all other things wither before its hooves and horns.