Unleash Our Childish Brats, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #388 | @MDWorld
January 5, 2015 Mike Gold 4 Comments
Here are a couple of recent facts that trouble decent people.
1) Despite pleas from the police commissioner, union officials and even from their hallowed Rudy Giuliani, at today’s New York City police funeral some of New York’s finest once again turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio as he eulogized murdered officer Wenjian Liu.
2) It was disclosed that in the week following the beginning of protests against NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold slaying of Eric Garner – the one that was caught-on-video and seen by millions of people – arrests by the police plummeted 66% over the same week one year ago. Did somebody call up the criminals and malcontents and tell them to lay off work for a while because the cops are in a petulant frenzy? In fact, yes. A work slow-down was called for.
Utter childishness. Bill de Blasio is no saint, he’s mayor of the city of New York. Historically that is a job held by megalomaniacs, political hacks and grafters. It remains to be seen if de Blasio is any better than that; he has only been in office a year. But let us remember he was lawfully elected by a majority of voters in New York City, he was elected with the understanding that he would end the racist stop and frisk policy (which he did), and this pissed off those cops who don’t like it when their boss gives them lawful orders.
The police successfully linked the murder of two of their rank to Eric Garner’s death, saying, in effect, if nobody bitched about the NYPD’s right to commit summary execution these two guys, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, would be alive today. Of course that is nonsense: the killer, Ismaaiyl Abdulah Brinsley, drove some 200 miles to Bedford-Stuyvesant after shooting and wounding his girl friend in Baltimore County, Maryland. After killing the two policemen, he ran to a nearby subway kiosk and shot himself in the dead. This was quite considerate of him.
A search of Brinsley’s postings on Instagram shows what Commissioner Bratton called “a very strong bias against police officers.” Evidently. Bratton also said “They were, quite simply, assassinated, targeted for their uniform.” Probably – although one idly wonders why Brinsley didn’t chose two white cops.
So, once again, let us look at the facts. Brinsley shot his girl friend before he made the 200-mile drive to Brooklyn. He’s from Fulton County Georgia, and the sheriff’s office there says their records reveal Brinsley has been arrested nine times in the past ten years, for battery, criminal trespass, carrying a concealed weapon, obstruction of a law enforcement officer, shoplifting, possession of marijuana, and, oh yeah, making terrorist threats. So tell me again about how the deaths of Liu and Ramos are the fault of Bill de Blasio, and/or the protestors, and/or Commissioner Bratton, and/or Rev. Al Sharpton, who is always placed on such lists. If the finger must be pointed, point it at Officer Daniel Pantaleo and his political beard, Patrolman’s Benevolent Association chief Pat Lynch.
When people say “oh sure there’s a few bad apples, but the cops are out their risking their lives for a living.” Yep, they are. That doesn’t give them the right to get away with manslaughter, and that doesn’t give the, ah, good apples the right to act like petulant seven year-olds. It’s interesting that, even with a 66% decrease in arrests the people of New York City got along the same as they always do.
There’s a fix for all this, and I stated it in this space a couple weeks ago. Put the police back on the beat. Keep them responsible to their community – and keep their community responsible to justice.
A policeman responded to that column. He called me an asshole.
Given the circumstances, I wear that as a badge of honor.
Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com and on iNetRadio, www.iNetRadio.com as part of “Hit Oldies” every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check www.getthepointradio.com above for times and on-demand streaming information. Gold also joins MDW’s Michael Davis and Martha Thomases as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.
Neil C.
January 5, 2015 - 8:03 pm
That person is compiling an enemies list as long as Nixon. It started with Sharpton (who almost no one likes), then the Rams who held their hands up and LeBron James. Next came Obama (who he didn’t like already) and DeBlasio. Now it’s the Daily News. Pretty much has talked about everyone except the actual killer.
R. Maheras
January 6, 2015 - 7:23 am
Mike — De Blasio’s at fault because his rhetoric, and the rhetoric of others, fanned the flames of violence. In his position, he should be trying to do everything he can to ask for calm and order.
Brinsley was apparently a career criminal and a nut case, but he didn’t, in a vacuum, wake up one day and say, “Hmm. I guess I’ll drive to New York City and assassinate a couple of cops.” He was goaded into it vicariously by others. And the irony of it all is he randomly picked two minority cops to assassinate.
MLK had it right. Sharpton and morons like de Blasio got it wrong.
Neil C.
January 6, 2015 - 11:06 am
Using that logic, the Reagan family would never see a Jodie Foster movie again nor would Sharon Tate’s or Roman Polanski ever listen to a Beatles record. Russ, are you one of those who believed it was messages in heavy metal music that led kids to suicide in the 1980s? And the rhetoric wasn’t even that loud.
R. Maheras
January 6, 2015 - 12:17 pm
Weak or damaged minds CAN be directly influenced by the external input they receive — whether it’s a video game or a radical hate speech from the left or the right.
I love it when people try and have it both ways. Let’s take film, for example. There are film “experts” who pooh-pooh the idea that violent films cannot influence people to act in a violent manner. Yet often these same people fall over themselves lauding and giving awards to socially progressive films that evoke tears and grass-roots action for what they view is positive social change.
The bottom line is that a film can have both a positive and a negative influence on people, depending on their mental state. Most of us can discern fantasy from reality. But some cannot.
In that regards, while Wertham was wrong, for the most part, he was also absolutely right.
Rene
January 7, 2015 - 5:07 am
The big glaring flaw in this sort of logic is that it assumes that deviant minds do follow a logic that ordinary people can recognize.
Charles Manson managed to see a call for the apocalyptic destruction of black people in a racial war in the pretty harmless lyrics of HELTER SKELTER.
There are wackos out there that can manage to see stuff in a Popeye cartoon that tells them to rape people. Werthan was absolutely wrong and film experts that believe movies can hugely impact society positively are wrong too.
It’s mostly the other way around. Movies and songs and pop culture reflect what’s bubbling in society. They don’t make society.
R. Maheras
January 7, 2015 - 6:03 am
Rene — If you are right, than almost every film expert, producer, director, actor and other professional is wrong about the impact of film, and has been wrong since the dawn of film. No offense, but in this case I think it’s more likely your assumption is wrong.
Rene
January 7, 2015 - 4:22 pm
Of course those guys would support the interpretation that paints them as important movers and shakers in the human psyche. But I support that what they do more often than not is to hold a mirror or a lens to human psyche.
The Beatles would probably be successful musicians no matter when they’d start their careers, but the Beatles and other musicians didn’t quite make the Sixties, they reflected the Sixties. And I’m talking about the Beatles, who are likely the greatest thing ever in pop culture. If I’m charitable, I’d say the Beatles helped usher things that already were pretty much hungered for by audiences by that time. So their impact is huge, but it’s more like midwives helping a mother give birth.
Another example is Tolkien. The hippies saw LORD OF THE RINGS as tree-hugging hobbits and elves battling an menace that stood for industralism, militarism, and capitalism, because those were the things they hated most.
Fast-forward to the Bush years, and now LORD OF THE RINGS is about White Christianity’s last stand against the hordes of swarthy Muslims.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS is more like a mirror that allows every age to see its reflection.
Even obviously powerful propaganda, like the Nazi machine, operates under premisses that are already accepted deep down, if not admited to by everybody. Every hateful thing the Nazis stood for was already evident in the 19th century.
R. Maheras
January 7, 2015 - 5:40 pm
Rene — But that’s part of the reason such things can have so much emotional impact on people: It fans the flames of what people — even crazy people — already believe. I’d argue that weak, damaged minds would even be MORE influenced by such stimuli.
No, I think if you look at all of the accumulated evidence, there’s no way one can objectively deny that the power of suggestion — regardless of how it is received — can be enormously powerful.
All one has to do is turn on the TV today and see a perfect example of how popular culture imagery triggered a revenge- and ideological-driven act of brutal murder of four of France’s most popular contemporary cartoonists.
That’s why I get so pissed when a public servant like de Blasio acts so irresponsibly.