The Real Crime Last Night…

…was the media’s performance.

Not only did the CNN “legal analysts”, Jeffrey Toobin and the loathsome Mark Garagos and some fashionably ethnic female talking-head-ette whose name eluded me but whose shrill tone and clotted inarticulateness unfortunately did not, all but begged the protesters to start throwing things (as one of the carefuly-placed cameras caught it all) practically beg people to start rioting (Garagos calling the justice system a “parody”, to talking-head-ette claiming that “all the grand jury needed was probable cause” (which is crap; they needed to tell the prosectutor there was enough evidence to get a conviction), to giving lavish coverage to mobs of people sacking stores (most of them owned by minorities), CNN in particular seemed to actively fan the flames.

That’s the American mainstream media: utterly useless for keeping government in check, but perfectly happy to use its power to burn cities to the ground.

Posted

November 25, 2014

Media

Mitch Berg

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11 responses to “The Real Crime Last Night…”

kel

November 25, 2014

“but perfectly happy to use its power to burn cities to the ground”

more abstractly:
perfectly happy to use its power to generate the necessary distractions
Emery

November 25, 2014

Yes, it’s a great day for cable news. And I’m using the term ‘news’ loosely.
Joe Doakes

November 25, 2014

Logic, reason and evidence are Ice People constructs used in the violent and cruel oppression of peaceful, compassionate Sun People. The reason nobody is talking about those factors is the law and evidence considered by the Grand Jury doesn’t matter; what matters is the emotion. So that’s all you’ll see on the news – screaming rioters, crying mothers, angry lawyers – the emotional scenery that draws viewers to put eyeballs on advertising. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Powhatan Mingo

November 25, 2014

The media doesn’t know what do to do about this because there is no liberal solution to problems that led to the events in Ferguson. They keep looking for one anyway. ‘Maybe if a jury would convict the white cop it would improve things’ is not a liberal solution. Liberals have not quite sunk so far as to call for a lynch mob, yet.
One of the bigest problems with race relations in the US is Black paranoia. You won’t hear about it on MSNBC or even on Fox, but most of those guys believe bizarre conspiracy theories. The FBI killed Martin Luther King. The CIA invented AIDS to kill black people. The Jews are trying to steal African mineral wealth. It’s crazy stuff. You can’t make peace with a person who believes that you are trying to kill or enslave them.
This is the beginning of Chas. Blow’slatest column:

Don’t let yourself get lost in the weeds. Don’t allow yourself to believe that opposition to President Obama’s executive actions on immigration is only about that issue, the president’s tactics, or his lack of obsequiousness to his detractors.

This hostility and animosity toward this president is, in fact, larger than this president. This is about systems of power and the power of symbols. Particularly, it is about preserving traditional power and destroying emerging symbols that threaten that power. This president is simply the embodiment of the threat, as far as his detractors are concerned, whether they are willing or able to articulate it as such.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/opinion/charles-blow-bigger-than-immigration.html?_r=0

This is insane rambling, the kind of thing you might expect to hear some homeless guy muttering to himself on the bus.
The closest I can come to this kind of hateful paranoia on the right is Michael Savage. Savage hates republicans almost as much as he hates democrats. Savage has been banned from a country (Britan), and most conservative pundits won’t mention his name. Out of contempt for him, not fear.
Charles Blow writes a twice weekly opinion column for the liberal paper of record, the New York times.
Joe

November 25, 2014

The way the media, as well as those with political power, greased the skid for the “protest” was unbelievable. The worst reprimand given by anyone in power to the “protesters” was mild disapproval washed down with a generous draught of understanding. The thing was so well choreographed by the authorities that the protesters had little choice but to cause mayhem — the implication being that they were not sympathetic to the cause of Michael Brown and his family if they didn’t.

To me at least, such behavior is among the worst types of prejudice. These microaggressions, called microassaults by some, include the presupposition that “they” (Blacks and their supporters) can only react with violence when faced with something disagreeable or that they see as wrong.

These low expectations only further such behaviors and when left unchecked by the authorities, tacitly validate them. They’ve now grown from mass protests by a minority group, such as the Watts riots of the ’60s, to the now-expected rampages and destruction resulting from a college team’s loss (or win). I blame “us” for part of it, too. By “us” I mean parents whose student offspring engage in, by their definition, college “hijinks” that are just part of the “college experience.” Bad decisions and bad choices, don’t dare say bad kids. We all probably know a few of them.

Comparatively, I consider the wanton destruction of private property by a group of plump, pampered, parasitic, Shakopee-born U of M students a far worse action than the misguided protesters who seem to be led into the wrong thing for the right reasons by a pandering press, pimpish government, and self-serving leaders, such as the reverends, the president, and criminal justice system.

“What were once vices are now habits” means more than just an album title …
Powhatan Mingo

November 25, 2014

Joe, about a decade ago I heard news reports of a NYC anti-war protest that became a riot. There were mass arrests of the rioters, who were mostly upper-middle-class college kids.
I remember the report mentioning that the crimes the kids were charged with were felonies.
If you are an upper-middle-class kid, a felony on your record can have severe conseqences. You can’t get a license to practice law or become an officer of the court. In many states you can’t get a medical license. You can’t be bonded, your opportunities in the business world are restricted. Basically your career is f*cked.
What do you the odds are that any of the trustafarians were convicted of a felony for their ‘college hijinx’?
Yossarian

November 25, 2014

The Media didn’t “fan the flames.” They WERE the flames. The kindling was the conjecture. The lighter fluid was the hours of build-up to the announcement. The flint strike was airing the grand jury decision itself (AT NIGHT). And the gasoline was Media talking heads second-guessing the evidence the GRAND JURY decided on. I think it’s clear the Media as it exists today has absolutely no understanding of the rule of law, or they simply hate the law when it doesn’t comport to their preconceptions. More ominously, they know perfectly well, but the lure of viewership and dollars usurps all else.
justplainangry

November 25, 2014

Law? What Law? We are witnessing a collapse of the longest lived First Republic. Constitution is no more. We are headed down the path so well known to the French.
jpmn

November 25, 2014

this all started with the Dorian Johnson lie, that the gentle giant Mike Brown was executed by a White Police Officer.
Powhatan Mingo

November 25, 2014

I think goes back at least as far as OJ. Most blacks will never admit that OJ was guilty. If OJ confessed (which he may do some day) they still wouldn’t believe it, even if they knew that it was not rational not to believe it.
Bill Cosby has been in the news lately. He is sometimes said to have gotten in trouble with Black ‘activists’ because of his message was that white liberals wouldn’t help black people.
Cosby didn’t quite say that. Cosby is a separatist. He does not think that it is possible for Blacks and Whites to coexist as equals. Black people therefore have to learn to do for themselves.
Joe

November 26, 2014

Don’t forget Tawana Brawley. She was the victim who was not victimized by White cops in 1987 but retained her victim status none the less. Perhaps the worst crime arising from the event was the ascension of the reverend Al Sharpton.