Radio Talk Show host Michael Savage expressed outrage over the just-announced Grand Jury decision not to indict the NY policemen who caused Eric Garners death. For the benefit of our non-American website visitors, Eric Garner was a Black man who was set upon by some 6 police officers on a NY street back in the early summer. Garner had been selling single cigarettes on the sidewalk, a ‘job’ that he did regularly, allegedly to feed his family of six children. That a man could make any sort of living selling single cigarettes on the sidewalk would have seemed in my youth like a story from Alice-in-Wonderland. New York today is Alice-in-Wonderland. Under the former rule of billionaire RINO Mayor Bloomberg and now the Communist Mayor De Blasio (husband of a lesbian) it is a high-tax Nanny State that is committed to preying on the pay packets of the productive and very selectively forcing healthy habits on the masses. Consequently a packet of cigarettes cost about $14 and poor nicotine addicts can only afford to purchase their smokes singly and illegally.
It is illegal to sell cigarettes on NY streets because it deprives the City’s Leftist politicians and bureaucrats of tax income. This is not a police-devised law but one concocted by politicians hell-bent on the pursuit of totalitarianism. Bloomberg and de Blasio are not committed only to banning smoking but many other things including gun ownership and a proof of identity when voting. Curiously, although both are concerned to save lives by official fiat, they are unequivocally in favor of rampant sodomy and other behaviors that are proven sources of disease and death. Let us set that aside however and simply point out that when police officers descended on poor Mr. Garner, they were doing so at the behest of Leftist politicians and bureaucrats. Garner was, let it be said, a repeat offender.
Michael Savage called attention to a video – available on the Internet – of Mr. Garner being overpowered by a pack of police officers, forced to the ground, put in a choke-hold and then, whilst pleading that he couldn’t breathe, having his face pressed into the sidewalk. Since the policemen ignored his pleas he quickly died. In the video there is no evidence that Garner was aggressive in intent, nor was a weapon flourished. There is no evidence that Garner was being a nuisance to passers-by or that his ‘trade’ was an immediate threat to public health. Indeed, one might ask why his petty offence could not have been dealt with by a summons delivered to his home and a Court date set. We must assume that orders came from higher up (politicians?) that these harmless cigarette vendors were to be swept from the streets since they were undercutting City tax revenues.
In any event it appears that the police were unnecessarily brutal and callous and that Garner’s death, whilst not deliberately caused, was the result of either a lack of professionalism or – worse – cruel indifference. Since the officers were under the supervision of a female Black superior and one of the officers was also Black it can hardly be alleged that poor Garner’s death was a result of White racism. At least a rational person or an honest person would think not! The Grand Jury, after months of deliberation, concluded that not only was his death not a result of racism, but was not even indictable.
Like Dr. Savage, I find it baffling that two of the police officers were not held criminally accountable, but then I haven’t seen and heard all the evidence and am not expert on the laws and rules that surround such police actions. However having monitored the rise of swat-style police teams in the UK being employed against citizens who have offended the Ruling Class or broken its laws in a petty way (see raids on the homes of BNP members), I am alarmed when such force is used here in non-violent contexts.
Also, as someone who was a UK Mental Welfare Officer many years ago and who had the authority to forcibly remove alleged mentally ill people to hospital (for the safety of themselves or others), I know something about facing unknown and potentially dangerous situations alone and frequently at night. The patients that I and my colleagues were empowered to confront and assess were not likely to be armed with guns but then neither were we armed and this was in the days before cell-phones. Dealing with angry or irrational people as a crisis is not easy, but six policemen should have been able to defuse the situation with Mr. Garner and take him peacefully into custody. Or so it would seem.
However, some things in mitigation of the police need to be acknowledged. The first is that the video reveals that Mr. Garner was a giant of a man and the police officers attempting to overpower him in order to get handcuffs on him look like Lilliputians attacked Gulliver. They could be compared in size to the little Indian shop-worker being attacked by Gentle Giant Michael Brown. Garner may have been sickly and truly a gentle giant but he was enormously big and powerful and seemingly unwilling to co-operate in his arrest.
The police squad members are being condemned for bothering to deal with such a trivial crime but their responsibility almost certainly did not extend to choosing which crimes to attend. Their job was to take Garner- a habitual offender- into custody and the presence of six officers indicates that he was expected to resist and was known to be very big. Unless a superior officer was present (it seems she was) and ordered withdrawal, they were not entitled to back off. Perhaps the superior officer should have been held accountable for Mr. Garner’s accidental death. Did the DA or the Grand Jury have this option?
It is actually a very big stretch from this NY incident to the deaths of the violent robber (Gentle Giant) Michael Brown (who preyed on small Asian shopkeepers in Ferguson, MI) and the lurking and belligerent gang-member Trayvon Martin in Florida. For the record, neither of these killings was committed by White Racists either. Indeed both were committed by good citizens attempting to protect property and in the process were forced to defend themselves in life-threatening situations.
At this point we must set facts and common sense to one side and view all three deaths in the context of an America embroiled in a stealthy revolution that is being pursued and fomented by a Ruling Media Class whose main weapon is the MSM and whose allies are White Far Left malcontents, simpletons and thrill-seekers and the knee-jerk tribal element of African America. For all of these investors in revolution (the deconstruction of America and leveling it) truth, facts and common sense are potential enemies. Their ends justify any means they employ. The means include manufacturing and orchestrating Black grievances in order to put intimidating, rampaging, greedy mobs on the streets, fostering a public sense of continual crisis and dividing the USA against itself.
There are similarities between the Garner case and the others but they are not the ones falsely promoted by the MSM and its White Leftist and Black allies. They are similarities which cannot be mentioned in public without igniting Media and Leftist outrage. The giant, grossly over- weight Mr. Garner was surely incapable of any physical work, even assuming that he had the will or intellectual capacity to take gainful employment. His size, weight and resulting health problems, although not uncommon among Whites are extremely common among Blacks, especially Black women. Many Black women over 30 look physically incapable of travelling to any workplace. Such problems are extremely uncommon among Asian Americans and although Latino women often may be overweight they are surprisingly capable of work. Brown and Martin, fit and feral, were incapable of working either because of attitude, lack of intelligence or both and in this they were typical of contemporary urban Black youths. White and Asian youths attend school and college and take low-paid jobs for pocket-money. Very few loot and burn down property!
The inability or unwillingness to work seems to be widespread among African Americans. Even liberal statistics cannot hide this fact. I write this with sadness and some embarrassment for I have Black friends and acquaintances who are energetic, intelligent and very productive but they are exceptions. My Black friends do not join protest marches, riot or loot, nor do they cast themselves as victims of White oppression or ‘the capitalist system’. They are too busy working and being wholly integrated into the wider society. Unfortunately, any honest look at the evidence confirms that they are a minority of the minority.
As the Black and Leftist mobs, egged on by the MSM, ungratefully march, disrupt, threaten and rob the rest of society, surely many of the rest, not desiring revolution, will be asking this fundamental question. Despite 50 years and billions of dollars of the Great Society, endless new favorable laws, a thousand taxpayer and charity-funded initiatives for education, housing and job-training, quotas for everything, decades of Leftist Congresses and now 6 years of Black rule by edict from the White House — if despite all that the situation of African Americans has not improved-indeed has allegedly deteriorated- what is the point of continuing with indulgence? Glaringly visible is the progress made by almost every other racial minority who has arrived on America’s shores penniless and often with a history of oppression in their homeland. Clearly the fault is not with America’s system or its people. The integration, inter-marriage and employment success of so many speaks for itself. Are African people, as a race, simply not able to succeed, integrate and pull themselves up in Western society? Or is it that non-judgmental welfare, Leftist progressive indoctrination and now Media Class incitement is the problem?
On this website we regularly laud the technical and musical skills of Black musicians. This writer considers Charlie Parker to be the greatest and most inventive musician of all time and there were a host of Black musicians not far behind him in artistic accomplishment. They can favorably be compared to any Western musicians and composers. But they came from an era of intact Black families and social conservatism and that era seems gone for good. My friends who are successful are shunned by, or shun, Black society. Those Blacks who publicly attribute the blame for Black failure to Leftist policies and extol conservative social values are destroyed by the MSM, Leftists and the Black mob. It is the opinion of this website that the steady deterioration of the condition of urban Blacks has been caused by Leftist social and economic policies. The current unrest and violence can be laid at the door – not of Al Sharpton and other Race charlatans- but of the revolutionary Media Class operating through its MSM.
Today Louisiana goes to the polls. We have to hope that the voters crush Obama’s stooge and resoundingly register rejection of his revolution. A Republican victory will not light any fires in the bellies of Boehner and McConnell but it will be a morale booster to conservative realists everywhere. The mere fact that the MSM will seek to explain it away is proof that it matters.
Let us also wish the best for Martha McSally over in AZ. Back in November she beat the Far Left’s Ron Barber by 161 votes for a House seat and this now goes to a recount. The Far Left Democrat Party is marshalling all its expensive lawyers to try to steal this election. McSally is a genuine war veteran, a patriot, a wife and mother (i.e.normal) and the undercurrents in this election are gun rights and border control. Her ultimate victory will be a defeat for billionaires Bloomberg and Gill and for Obama.
One of the most active agitators in Ferguson and similar places is a hardened 53 year old lesbian called Lisa Fithian-Barrett. Born in Austin Texas, this White un-feminine and un-natural Leftist travels from riot to riot. She claims to be teaching non-violent protest. Is there a professional agitator who really believes that non-violence will result from Leftist protests, or who wishes for it? It appears that Lesbian Lisa’s only revealed income is payment from Unions but it is baffling how Leftist agitators live and travel without real work. Her home address is given as 1405 Hillmont St, Austin. She has been a full-time agitator since she left school. I am grateful to the website ‘Moonbattery’ for the description of such agitators as suffering from ‘malignant narcissism’.
The MSM is busy not mentioning the murder on 1st December of 32 year old (White) Bosnian immigrant Zemir Begic who was murdered on the streets of St Louis last week. His killer was a Black man who allegedly screamed “Kill the White people!” The police claim not to know the motive yet are sure it was not racist. What nionsense!
Global Warming Watch
The latest news from the UK is not of rising sea levels but seasonal cold. Here in middle California the drought has ended with substantial rainfall all across the State. What has not ended and will not without weeks and weeks of continual rain is the water shortage. That is caused by over-population and urbanization!
Music Choice
The Woody Herman Big Band (often referred to as Herman’s Herd) was, with the exception of Stan Kenton’s bands, perhaps the most artistically successful of the Big Bands after the Swing Era ended along with the Second World War. Highly disciplined with outstanding musicians, Herman’s bands were ambitious and exciting and featured top soloists like Stan Getz and Zoot Sims. It was, with a few exceptions a White Band, not that Herman cared about race.
In 1951, the alto-saxophone genius Charlie Parker, already in very poor health as a result of drugs and alcohol abuse, sat in with the Herman Herd for a recording session. I have failed to find out how this session came about for Parker was already famously unreliable by this time, and his small group music and style were far apart from Herman’s.
Parker however, until his last breath, was a musical giant without a peer and was able to transcend any setting. Throughout this 1951 recording session he is simply astounding and sets the Herman Band on fire. The CD I possess opens with the wonderful ballad “You Go To My Head”. Parker who had not had much experience with Big Bands in his short career dwarfs every great soloist who ever graced the Herman Herds. The improvised phrases of his solo intervals swoop and soar, incorporating beauty, drama, tenderness and excitement. He is technically awe-inspiring with daring time-keeping. Alternatively plaintive and majestic, he towers over the band. Sadly his genius is too demanding for Americans now befuddled by decades of cultural trash.
Mr. Garner resisted arrest, and that is why the grand jury exonerated the police. Everything that happens have you resist arrest is ipso facto assumed to be your fault, and juries will rarely convict policemen if they are convinced this is what caused injury. Mr. Garner’s health condition was unfortunate, but again, not the fault of anyone but himself. Also, there was no choke hold, rather, a head hold. Had the police used a choke hold, Garner would not have been repeating “I can’t breathe.” He would barely have been able to utter anything audible. He died because he resisted arrest and was in poor health. Call it suicide by policeman…again.