Quote: (12-03-2014 07:27 PM)Excelsior Wrote:
I wasn't convinced by the Ferguson situation. The lack of video evidence was a factor for me there.
This non-indictment, however, is quite a bit more troubling.
Quote: (12-03-2014 05:27 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:
Lotta folks want to blame Eric, they want to blame the cop, they want to blame the DA.
12 average NYer's saw that footage and didn't think that the prosecution had a case good enough to put in front of a judge and jury.
This happened in the most liberal and diverse city in America.
That's all I'm going to say.
WIA
That should tell you all you need to know about the state of race relations in the modern USA. Many naively concluded that the coming of Obama would signify some sort of magnificent transcendence for American race relations, a turning point at which the nation would truly move toward the creation of a more cohesive whole.
I said then that this was foolery, and I've been proven correct. Racial tensions have only increased under Obama. The distrust and animosity between different groups (particularly whites and blacks) is rising and will continue to do so. This society is becoming increasingly polarized along racial lines. We move further and further away from cohesion every day, and incidents like this serve as especially powerful catalysts for that movement.
Things are bad, and they are only going to get worse.
I don't think things are actually that bad.
Fact is if you simply go on wikipedia and look at list of racial riots in the U.S. you'll find that things have been a lot worse. What makes it so big is the influence of the 24 hrs news cycle and social media. However, that's not what's scaring me. I'm more frightened of the police state implications, that people are just passively ignoring for the sake of wedge issues.
It seems that on the right and the left, we are lacking so much in intellectual foresight that we are being led to a police state, no matter where you look. The left want a police state for the sake of social justice, and the right wants a police state to prevent anarchy and a repeat of the 60's and 70's movement. No one argues the rights of individual citizens: which is the principle in which the bill of rights was based on. As a citizen, Garner was murdered, and the worst thing is, there's yet to be any evidence that Eric Garner was actually selling any of the cigarettes that led to him losing his life.