Sunday, April 15, 2012

We Are All George Zimmerman

.........guilt or innocence has little to do with it........

Andy Warhol predicted that in the future everyone would be world-famous for 15 minutes. What he neglected to mention was that they were just as likely to be infamous.

Zimmerman had decorated his flyers and website with the famous quotation attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing." His activities reveal a man who took those words to heart, who put his time, money and safety on the line to become one of those good men who do something. But the problem was that Zimmerman had been reading Burke, when he should have been reading Kafka.

"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested." That is the famous opening sentence to Kafka's novel, "The Trial", words that have far more to do with the way we live now.

George Zimmerman is not on trial because he shot a black teenager during a scuffle. It's not the facts of the case that brought him here. It's his name. Had his last name been Pereira, none of this would have gone anywhere. And it's not the name alone, it's that in this time and place lynching him will help make the political fortunes of everyone from the man in the White House to his cheerful smiling prosecutor who is already counting her campaign cash and book deals.

Zimmerman with his book of quotations from the great thinkers of history, a man who clearly believes in the old fashioned virtues, is particularly ill-equipped to understand what is being done to him and why. The quotation that he plastered on flyers while investigating the beating of a homeless black man and on his own website, is more apt than he realizes.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is indeed that good men do nothing, but as a corollary to it, those are exactly the sort of men that evil will go after. It does no good to read Burke quotations to a Kardashian society which makes its determinations not on truth or justice, but on its omnipresent need for entertainment. Trying to reason with it only makes it angrier. Talking about virtues and decency to people who have none either confuses them or infuriates those few who understand the concept in some distant way.

We aspire to behave the way that George Zimmerman did, to contribute to our communities, to defy the conventional wisdom and speak out when we see wrongdoing. We believe that all that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. And we are only a misstep away from being George Zimmerman, from doing the wrong thing, from intervening in the wrong fight, drawing the wrong cartoon or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, a heartbeat away from appearing at the bar of the kangaroo court of stage managed public opinion.

In our own way we are all George Zimmerman. We think that society should be moral and rational, and that people should do the right thing. But that's not what it is. It's an insane braying donkey's laugh as the thieves, large and small, rob the people blind and then muscle them into a lynch mob to go after some handy victim. It's George today, it will be someone else tomorrow. Maybe someone who even deserves it. But it won't be the people destroying the country, because they're the ones leading the mob.

George Zimmerman has been chosen to serve as a gladiator in the circus that distracts a bankrupt nation from the criminal folly of its leaders, large and small. He has been assigned white team colors, had an NRA badge pinned to his lapel, and is being shoved out into the stadium while the lunatic mob howls for blood. The Emperor of Hope and Change has already made the thumbs down gesture, the courtiers are rushing out to fix the match.

Like Kafka's protagonist, Zimmerman has been protesting all along that this is some sort of mistake. And he's right. It is a mistake. Had the engineers behind the lynch mob gotten a good look at his photo, they might have pulled back and looked for a better victim. Someone who more properly fit their bicoastal idea of a "cracker" to string up on the crooked scales of Lady Justice. But once a mob has gotten started, it's hard to shut it down. And there's no real need to stop.

Hatch on Tea Party: 'I despise these people'

Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch is “doggone offended” by the activists and voters standing between him and re-election, describing them as “radical libertarians.”

Hatch was first elected to the Senate in 1976. This year, major conservative groups announced their intention of defeating Hatch — who they deemed too moderate. FreedomWorks has reportedly spent at least $670,000 attacking Hatch this cycle.

But the long-time senator isn’t sitting on his hands. Hatch told NPR’s Howard Berkes, “These people are not conservatives. They’re not Republicans.”

“They’re radical libertarians and I’m doggone offended by it,” he said.

Hatch’s most prominent Republican challenger, former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, appears to be underperforming expectations in local caucuses thus far. He lost his home caucus last month.

“I despise these people,”

Obama and Hillary: Defamation suit dropped against Larry Sinclair, other defendants

Very, very interesting, needless to say.

In 2008, when Sinclair first made his allegations about Obama's past homosexual activity known to the public, the Hillary Clinton campaign made contact with Sinclair during the primary seeking further details. WMR was told that a scenario of mutually-assured destruction was laid down by the Obama campaign to Clinton campaign senior staffers: if the Clinton people brought up the gay issue with Obama, they would respond with past lesbian accusations against Mrs. Clinton.

This year, the fact that Sinclair has managed to defeat one of Washington's most powerful and politically-connected law firms, Patton Boggs, by arguing his case pro se, means that the Romney campaign may have seen the festering allegations against Obama as a weak point to be exploited. The dismissal of the original complaint and appeals against Sinclair et al obviously has the White House hoping the "gay issue" with Obama will simply "go away."

Full article @ Opinion Maker

Michael "Flathead" Blanchard's Last Wishes:)

We had a lot in common. Too bad I didn't meet him.......:)
Brock, Tu Duc 1974, '52 Citrogen, wig, shades, my stomach pushed out, and a funny looking cigarette HERE.

Via Legal Insurrection

Blanchard, Michael "Flathead"
1944 ~ 2012

A Celebration of the life of Michael "Flathead" Blanchard will be held on April 14th, 3 pm 8160 Rosemary St, Commerce City. Weary of reading obituaries noting someone's courageous battle with death, Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors' orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died.

Mike was born July 1944 in Colorado to Clyde and Ethel Blanchard. A community activist, he is noted for saving the Dr. Justina Ford house from demolition and defending those who could not defend themselves. He was a Republican delegate, life member of the NRA, founder and President of the Dead Cats MC. He loved music.

Mike was preceded in death by Clyde and Ethel Blanchard, survived by his beloved sons Mike and Chopper, former wife Jane Transue, brother Stephen Blanchard (Susan), Uncle Don and Aunt Cynthia Blanchard(his favorite); Uncle Dill and Aunt Dot, cousins and nephews, Baba Yaga can kiss his butt. So many of his childhood friends that weren't killed in Vietnam went on to become criminals, prostitutes and/or Democrats. He asks that you stop by and re-tell the stories he can no longer tell. As the Celebration will contain Adult material we respectfully ask that no children under 18 attend.

‘Insane’ husband who stabbed wife 120 times in frenzied killing walks free from court less than a year later

A killer declared insane after stabbing his wife to death less than a year ago walked free after a court heard he has recovered.

Farrukh Malik knifed Sarwat, his partner of 37 years, more than 120 times during the frenzied attack at their north London home after suffering 'depressive psychosis' following the death of his mother.

But the 66-year-old accountant, who is now living with his brother in Slough, Berkshire, was set free after a judge ruled he had no power to detain him because of medical reports which state he is no longer a danger.

More @ Mail Online

Greece: 57 bags of Third Reich marks found


The Finance Ministry is setting up a committee to decide what the state should do with the 57 bags of German currency from the time of the 1941-44 occupation during World War II that it has in the Treasury. In the context of seeking any relevant documents regarding the requirement of war damages from Germany, the ministry - as daily Kathimerini reports - has decided to create a six-member committee to propose what should happen with the 14,334,000 Deutsche marks left over from the occupation and now held by the Bank of Greece.

More @ ANSA