After years, or decades even of taking a pounding from the Left, with only a few and far jabs given back in that same time, it seems the Right might have just taken an entire round without even having to swing. Thousands; millions even, rushed to judge a situation in Ferguson they knew nothing about, calling it an act of racism, excessive force, murder, police militarization, yada yada... On top of that, this might even seem to be a good argument for more relaxed gun laws, as surely now the left will want to make sure the Michael Browns of the world will have a means to protect themselves from the newly militarized racist police force of today. Is this a win win for the right? What are some of your thoughts?
. . . the right has been clutching its pearls about a resurgence of Black Panthers for some time, with Fox News leading the way with hours of scare stories over the past few years. Just last week, they were hyping a Facebook entry by someone who claimed the Black Panthers were moving into Ferguson: That didn’t happen, obviously. But 30 members of the open-carry group the Huey P. Newton gun club did march in the streets of Dallas earlier this week, armed with AR-15s, shotguns and rifles, chanting about Black Power. One of the marchers by the name of Drew X, with the New Black Panther Party, was quoted as saying, “If they don’t get these people under control with this police brutality and this abuse, this gonna be an international crisis.” And this has the right wing very confused. A quick look around the Internet finds some perfunctory commentary supporting the group’s right to bear arms, but eventually people are pointing out the fact that one cannot be a “felon” and own guns. Finally they get down and dirty with assertions that the demonstrators must be bloods and crips and start whining that African-Americans are racist for mentioning that people of color are particularly at risk from police abuse. And then there are the hilarious jokes like this one: “If black people could get some marksmanship training it would really cut down on the number of innocents killed by stray bullets in certain neighborhoods.” There’s a reason for this confusion and it goes to one of the fundamental reasons why these gun proliferation proponents are so passionate in their desire to be armed at all times. Let’s just say it isn’t fear of the federal government. In this Daily Beast piece Cliff Schecter points out that the NRA has been strangely silent on events in Ferguson the last couple of weeks. He speculated that it’s because the NRA has not traditionally been, shall we say, energized by urban protests. If you look at the speech NRA president Wayne LaPierre delivered to his convention a couple of months back, active resistance to the cops isn’t particularly high on their agenda. They see themselves as vigilante replacements for the police they apparently believe are too inept to keep them safe from certain elements: We don’t trust government, because government itself has proven unworthy of our trust. We trust ourselves and we trust what we know in our hearts to be right. We trust our freedom. In this uncertain world, surrounded by lies and corruption everywhere you look, there is no greater freedom than the right to survive and protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns, and handguns we want. We know in the world that surrounds us there are terrorists and there are home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, and rapers, and haters, and campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse our society that sustains us all. The descriptive language doesn’t leave much doubt about whom they’re so afraid of, does it? Let’s just say that very few of those killers are likely to be big Toby Keith fans. Indeed, the picture that paints is of armed civilians in communities all over the country shooting and killing a whole bunch of people they think the police are failing to protect us from. It’s possible they truly believe that this will result in fewer Michael Browns being shot down by police, although it’s hard to see how that would be true. But one thing we can be absolutely sure of is that there will be a lot more Trayvon Martins. Heather Digby Parton
FOXNews always keeps the candle lit at the shrine of Saint Atwater, the Patron Saint of Racial Anxiety.
Thanks for bringing this up. Huey Freeman's statement below seems to have a familiar ring that resounds on the right. http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metr...ub-leads-open-carry-rally-in-south-dallas.ece “We think that all black people have the right to self-defense and self-determination,” said Huey Freeman, a march organizer. “We believe that we can police ourselves and bring security to our own communities.” I wonder if the average nascar fan realizes how much they have in common with the Black power group? Perhaps if they combined their efforts, and had a "Panther Tea Party" so to speak, their efforts could have a much bigger impact than each party acting in segregation.