There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Two Brooklyn police officers, sitting peacefully in their patrol car, are suddenly shot to death where they sit, so fast neither had time to pull out his service revolver.
The shooter, from Baltimore, kills himself as police close in.
He claimed it was in retaliation for Eric Garner's death & the grand jury not indicting the policeman who held him in an illegal chokehold, who was filmed ignoring Mr. Garner's eleven cries of distress.
So, the conservative press are blaming Mayor Bill De Blasio, President Obama, and who knows how many other Democrats for the tragedy.
Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly weighed in with, "When the mayor (Bill De Blasio) made statements about how they had to train his son, who is biracial, to be careful when he’s dealing with the police, I think that set off this latest firestorm." Seriously? He does know that the shooter was from Baltimore, not Brooklyn, right? BALTIMORE. Not even in the same state. Scary.
As former Mayor Rudi Giuliana told Fox News, "We've had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police. I don't care how you want to describe it -- that's what those protests are all about."
My guess is that Mayor Giuliani faces a challenge troubling many of his fellow conservatives - they see issues in simplistic black & white terms. One reason the GOP has become so powerful is that they've culled moderates from their ranks, leaving a base that tends to see themselves as totally right, making others totally wrong. They take what President Obama says & turn it into a call for everyone to hate police. Where did Mayor Giuliani get such a notion? He doesn't say. He makes the inflammatory statement without any context. Amazing. It is stated on Fox, then reported around the networks & blogosphere. All emotion, no specifics.
One problem with people who are used to being fed "dog whistle" words/phrases is that they won't or can't believe others don't too. Please, anyone, show me where the president gave the message we should hate the police?
For Mayor Giuliani to say so, without context, is alarming shocking scary. He sees protest as prelude to anarchy.
The fault lies not in partisan politics, but in a morass of issues BEGGING to be discussed, not swept under the rug by people we should be looking to for leadership, who seem to prefer going berserk to giving actual guidance. We need people of vision, of integrity & intellect & the imagination to get us out of our Pit of Despair. What have we got?
No comments:
Post a Comment