Fortunately, the media is diligently keeping us up to the moment on all the Stop-the-Presses Ku Klux Klan news. From the National Journal, a 3,800 word article:
In Mississippi, the Mysterious Murder of a Gay, Black Politician
It’s tempting to think Marco McMillian was killed because of his race, his sexuality, or because he was running for mayor. By Ben Terris
Granted, the case isn't actually terribly "mysterious" at all, but who cares? It's "tempting."
And from the New York Times, a 2,600 word article, When Cold Cases Stay Cold, on how the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2006 just didn't give the FBI a big enough budget to satisfactorily resolve long ago cases of Southern white-on-black violence -- not just unsolved cases, but unsatisfactorily solved cases where juries acquitted white suspects (or even where coroners rightly reported no foul play, like the man who died of a heart attack at Lover's Lane). Who cares about the Constitutional provision against Double Jeopardy when what is at stake is keeping the public sufficiently riled up about an increasingly distant past?
"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."
ReplyDeleteRidiculous article.
The story people tell often says more about the teller than
the subject.
What irony. Describes the author quite well. Can we say, "Psychological projection"?
Clarksdale itself has adopted a phony narrative, one that co-opts its troubled past. Even
in downtown areas that have successfully revitalized, the buildings are
designed to look destitute. One structure may truly be abandoned and crumbling;
next to it may be a bustling blues club owned by actor Morgan Freeman that is
built to look like it’s abandoned and crumbling. One of the newest bars, called
Rust, has a sign that looks like it could give you tetanus. Inside, a hamburger
costs $13.
Once again, sheer projection. Like the image of the victim fading into the cotton fields and the Robert Johnson hoodoo mythology aren't phony?
It’s disturbing that it’s not charged as a hate crime,” he told me over the
phone. Besides speaking to the press about the case, Perry has penned various
opinion pieces, including two for The Huffington Post. While the circumstances surrounding his death are yet to be determined, it is hard not to imagine the mysterious events had something to do with him being an agent for change...
The search for the Great White Defendant continues, ala Bonfire of the Vanities. Yes, dear author, yes, Professor Perry, keep "imagining".
For many observers, here and across the country, the story is already complete.
I guess it is, isn't it? The "observers" (read: the MSM) have an ironclad narrative, and they aren't letting it go. It's almost funny watching a writer unconsciously lay himself out in this manner.
"Here is the case of Jasper Greenwood, whose decomposed body was found next to his car in Vicksburg, Miss. According to the F.B.I., it turned out that Mr. Greenwood was with a married woman in a “lover’s lane” when he suffered a fatal heart attack — and she fled the scene."
ReplyDeleteSeems some good has come from this FBI probe
While the war is on, one must demonize the opponent early and often.
ReplyDelete“”””Who cares about the Constitutional provision against Double Jeopardy when what is at stake is keeping the public sufficiently riled up about an increasingly distant past?”””
ReplyDeleteThe US got the idea of Double Jeopardy from England but since 2003 because a black named Stephen Lawrence (now diversity saint) was murdered the English have thrown out this law and now the State can retry someone even if found innocent. Once again diversity being used to get rid of laws and culture that have existed for a thousand years.
Granted, the case isn't actually terribly "mysterious" at all, but who cares? It's "tempting."
ReplyDeleteIt's almost funny watching a writer unconsciously lay himself out in this manner.
Yeah, it's amusing how often lefties torture the language, to the point that they often tell true lies (e.g., Bill and "I did not have sex with that woman," i.e., not the woman in the third row of the gallery, to whom I'm referring).
"Psst, pass it on but keep it quiet. It is obvious that the KKK, back a year after the Civil War, stumbling through the swamps after midnight down on some of those old Deep South jungle-rivers, barely able to see through their hoods (which surely made great mosquito nets for exploring the swamps), found the legendary city of El Dorado and its super-secret time machine (which is how the legend of the secret of eternal life in El Dorado got started). So now we're always going to have to worry about KKK Klansman dropping in from the past, kinda like terminators from the future. Stay alert. You can't be too careful."
ReplyDeleteI almost wish that some enterprising Klan guys would dig up Emmett Till's remains and lynch them in effigy. ............. If their FBI handlers would give them permission, that is.
ReplyDeletedanger! danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Your totally appropriate and insightful use of the most important Orwell quote conflicts with some of the core planks of the conservative subculture. Remember--both the conservative and democrat subcultures maintain that it is not power that is bad, but the OTHER side being in power that is bad. That orwell quote says otherwise.
ReplyDeleteIMHO - The past into which the political left reaches is largely a product of their imaginations.
ReplyDeleteGould was a big empty nothing - a credentialed nitwit. If he did indeed have a superior intellect, his career was a complete waste of it.
ReplyDeleteWhen the histor of science in the 20th century is compiled, he will not be in it.
Meh, death throes of the Age of Race-Arson, in its purest form anyway. We're now into the 2nd generation of Americans who not only have no firsthand cultural memory of the active KKK, but also probably weren't paying attention too closely during the school curricula that rehashed it incessantly. The modern incarnation of the Puritan elite is trying re-educate them on the flames of hell. This either will or won't work in various cases.
ReplyDeleteHow about time-traveling Klansmen, who also use social media... It's "Terminator" meets "Mississippi Burning"--your standard triumph-of-the-human-spirit/will story. What were the numbers on "Django," $150 million? Can we get Rian Johnson to direct
ReplyDeleteThat article has comments section. It's telling. Evidently, we live in the equivalent of the early 1980s USSR: everyone understands what's going on but almost no one is saying it aloud.
ReplyDeleteThat was not a white on black killing but adult on youth killing. And youth committed an act of sexual harassment.
ReplyDeleteIs it just me? Or does the increasingly irrational paranoia of the Left mean the lid is finally about to blow off the pot?
ReplyDeleteDaily Beast:
ReplyDelete"Since when do rapists get all the sympathy?!"
http://thebea.st/YCL2fc
The real issue is not 'rapist' but 'ATHLETE' and 'CELEBRITY'. In our culture, athletes are often top celebrities, and high school athletes are treated like local royalty. Many colleges routinely recruit 'student-athletes' with poor academic records and even criminal records. But all of that is overlooked because great athletes are supposed to sports stars and heroes. So, thousands and even millions--watching TV--cheer for those athletes and believe in the fantasy that they are wonderful role models. This issue is also racially significant. Due to racial tensions and black dominance in sports, there's long been the liberal hope that if black athletes are put on the pedestal, they'll clean up their act and inspire black kids across the nation.
In reality, athletes are just that: athletes. Some are nice guys, some are thugs, some have conscience, some are narcissistic and selfish. They may be good at sports and fun to watch, but as human beings, they have to be judged as individuals. OJ was a great ball player adored by the entire nation, but he was always nothing but a murderous thug.
But given the large number of black athletes and due to the element of what is commonly called 'white guilt', white liberals in the media have pushed the narrative of black athletes as being heroes and larger-than-life success stories regardless of their true character.
It is this very narrative that must be challenged. If the kids charged and convicted in this particular case had not been athletes--and if some of the accused weren't black--, no one would have been talking of 'promising futures'. When the Duke Lacrosse Team was falsely accused of raping a black woman, no one in the media used lofty terms or showed any sympathy. But when over 20 black thugs raped an 11 yr old Hispanic girl in Texas, NY Times wrote in a sympathetic mode. So, it's somewhat disingenuous for the media to complaining about CNN talking like this. CNN was only playing by the dominant narrative and template. Time for liberal media to look in the mirror than pretending to be shocked, JUST SHOCKED, by what CNN did.
ReplyDeletePaul Mendez said...
"Is it just me? Or does the increasingly irrational paranoia of the Left mean the lid is finally about to blow off the pot?"
Wishful thinking that's reminiscent of Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds' frequent declarations that the mainstream media's increasingly naked and over the top partisanship is evidence of their imminent implosion.
But Reynolds has been making that argument for the last 10 years, and the only people who are currently on the verge of imploding are the very conservatives who Reynolds had expected to emerge victorious from the media's supposedly pending collapse.
And what's been one of the biggest catalysts for the demise of conservatives?
The very mainstream media (whose unrelenting false Narrative of conservative Simon Legrees causing all the world's problems has become the conventional wisdom of our age) that Reynolds has been calling an endangered species for the past decade.
The people who are responsible for pushing The Narrative know that most news consumers only read an article's headline and first couple of paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteAnd that tendency has only become more pronounced in the last couple of years, as so many people now read online news sources on their iPads/tablets.
That's why you see headlines and and intros like:
In Mississippi, the Mysterious Murder of a Gay, Black Politician
It’s tempting to think Marco McMillian was killed because of his race, his sexuality, or because he was running for mayor.
By Ben Terris"
In the minds of most news consumers, the carefully crafted line "It's tempting to think" is quickly forgotten (if it even enters the the consciousness in the first place), but the "pay dirt" line "Marco McMillian was killed because of his race, his sexuality sticks.
Thus, the typical news consumer comes away from his/her brief exposure to the story with the distinct impression that Marco McMillian was killed because of his race and sexuality. After all, everybody knows that red states like Mississippi are overrun with rednecks in white hoods who rove the countryside looking for black men to lynch.
Hell, Klansmen are even wreaking havoc at otherwise liberal and evolved places like Oberlin College. So its only logical that they're still ubiquitous and powerful in Mississippi.
That's why the article was written the way it was.