Mayhem in Missouri Breaks Out

[ulli]

Posted by Jake (here)

Posted by ulli (here)

Posted by Jake (here)

Posted by marlowe (here)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9pr1oE34bIM

@ Jake///You have made up your mind & don't want to change it so you didn't bother to watch the video...No problem...Go ahead and believe the lying MSM..{.If that is what makes you feel better...}

But the truth will get out eventually ....It always does...

I haven't watched MSM in over a decade. Thank you for your permission to believe what I want. The truth that I see does not make me feel better... It hurts to see the truth... I hadn't made up my mind until I opened my eyes to the corruption that is in our neighborhoods... Those of us who choose to turn a blind eye to it have done what 'makes them feel better'...

I watched the vid twice,,, damn guys, if you want to take me to task, I have left the door open. please, at least challenge me without assuming things...

Awesome,,, one good cop.. allegedly... Do you guys want to play this game.. I can show you 10 bad cop vids to every good cop vid. That wouldn't get us anywhere. IMHO, this is a symptom of folks not realizing what has happened to their country, and its protectors...

It is easy for a cop to stand in front of a camera and say pretty things. The proof is in the putting.

Ulli, I am sorry... I don't trust them.. I have NO reason to. Have you ever been beaten by cops and left for dead in a ditch?? Have you ever watched them beat your dad?? Have you been terrorized by cops, covering up crimes against you?? These were all respected cops.

You can tell yourselves that I don't KNOW what I am talking about, if that makes you 'feel' better. I am going off of knowledge and personal experience...

For the record,,, OF COURSE THERE ARE AWESOME COPS THAT ARE WORTHY OF RESPECT...

Though,,, I have not met one..

Jake.

Jake, if I took your logic I would not even be writing to you, since you are a man,
and I had bad things done to me (in my younger years) by men.
To this day I don't quite trust men. I became known for being a "fag hag" because I felt safer around gay men.
And a male cop would be a Man on steroids.
But society is complex, and there aren't enough monasteries and convents left in which to go and hide,
and even they don't guarantee real security.
So what I'm saying is that we all need healing healing healing....
and when that is complete we can get back on our feet and move on,
ready to face a complex world without grudges, but always vigilant to do the right thing at the right moment.

Healing, yes, I agree. Broken bones, stitches etc... I have other experiences with cops,,, Had a cop break out a couple of teeth by smashing my face into the porcelain urinal while I was pissing... (no charges pressed btw... just a ****ty cop)
Had to do some healing then too!!

So you've been hurt by men. I am truly sorry for that.. I would stand to defend you if I had the opportunity. You bet yer ass I would!!

Not an accurate analogy, as police have chosen a path of authority, and a responsibility to protect and serve. A special privilege that has been bestowed upon them...

In my lifetime,, I have never met a cop who, even remotely, gives a **** about people!!! I've met manymany cops. I was in jail once over an unpaid ticket,, I was thrown in with rapists, murderers, and all sorts of thugs... Here is the game,,, if you have only a couple of days in jail,,, those who have years will do whatever they can to make you stay longer,, get into a fight, beat you up,, whatever,,, then you are in for longer,,,, then longer,,,,,,,,, then longer. Cops do that to you on purpose,, have you ever thought about that? There is a system that needs feeding here. It is not about the spirit of the law, it is about the letter of the law, and cops are trained to bypass the law in many/most situations.

'he was coming for my gun'. That is Cop BS 101!!!!


I had another cop stop me when I was on a bicycle because I was not wearing a helmet... He pulled out a couple of baggies of white powder and smiled and said, "Which on of you fellows wants to go to jail for possession of methamphetamine?" My friend who was with me started running,, they chased him down and beat him pretty good. I stood there helpless with this asshole cop grinning at me. My friend was arrested on resisting arrest and possession of methamphetamine. I was 'free' to go... Do you see how that works?

Shall I go on??

Many times, folks can recover from an abusive situation... What if the abuse doesn't stop?? I can get away from someone who is abusive. How do we get away from an abusive system.


I am happy for everyone who has had positive experiences with the police. I assure you,,, that is not the norm.

If I were speaking absurdity, I would have brought race into this... But I have not, because it is not about race. I do see it with open eyes.

Most folks cannot believe that a police officer is capable of this level of corruption... I cannot believe that... I have not been given that choice.. My direct experience is completely contrary...

I've gone down a path of forgiveness with police before,,, then was abused again! And Again,, and again..

Different cops, mind you. You cannot tell me that this behavior is not rampant. It can't be just me, Ulli. It simply can't be. When I see people getting choked out and killed, or shot in the streets, I know damn well that it will be me someday!! I hope you all are having different experiences with cops...

I would love for a police officer to be a part of Avalon,,, maybe I could learn from it... The type of person that has to live life with a badge, a gun, and authority over others, probably isn't the type of person to challenge themselves spiritually...

I will get over my anger/rage of cops as soon as I see the injustices come to and end...

I have jaywalked,, I have shoplifted... I am a criminal, right?? I guess nobody will give a damn if I am shot dead in the streets for it.. I asked for it right?

If I were just being absurd,,, I would have chosen a life of crime.. I have already been beat up and falsely arrested. I have done the time,,, why not do the crime... Fortunately, I do not think like this, and I did not choose a life of crime. I have an amazing family and lots of support. What is a young kid on the streets supposed to do??? No family or support,, angry, abused?? The people in Ferguson have every right to be angry...

As for the looting,,, why aren't they being arrested? Because they don't actually care about the crimes.. They are bullying protesters and reporters, creating situations that justify brutality and abuse. That is what they are best at.

I feel sorry for a good cop. He is in grave danger, being surrounded by his peers, as he is a gross minority.

I don't go around wearing this crap on my shirt sleeves. This discussion is about the mayhem in Ferguson. I happen to have experience with corruption and abuse regarding cops. My stance is with the people in Ferguson who are tired of the abuse by authorities.

For christs sake,, I was at hempfest this weekend in Seattle and was meditating in some grass. (no I wasn't stoned) But wouldn't ya know,,, 'what r u doing?' and 'move along', and 'sir? sir?' and 'you can't be here, you have to have a permit'. I was ignoring it because I didn't think he was talking to me,, but a dull/firm poke to my chest from a police baton made me open my eyes.. He was not kidding,,,, I had to move along. I had no idea what he meant by permit...


If you don't see it, then that is fine. I see it. Please don't fault me for it.

I would take a beating for any of you... I have learned how..

Love to you all
Jake.

PS Not long ago,, I was illegally kicked out of my home,, my stuff burned while I watched,, the police called on me,,, this cop actually unstrapped his gun and dared me to go for it... no charges pressed btw...

Cheers

Wow, what can I say, Jake? My first thought on reading the above was 'No wonder he became a master at OBEs.' Who wants that kind of a life?

Then my second thought was that perhaps your attitude, to take beatings on behalf of other people, was the cause of those events.

Perhaps some innocent people are safe, because of you?

[Jake]

Damnit... I am crying... Thank you. I will go now, and heal...

Love to you,
Jake.

[ulli]

Me too.Crying is healing.

[marlowe]

Police officer Darren Wilson suffered "orbital blowout fracture " during encounter with the "gentile giant" Michael Brown...

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014...th-mike-brown/


This is a shocker. I thought he was just cruising around looking for innocent black people to shoot. [ sarcasm emoticon goes here }

[panopticon]

I have not read any comments above. I don't know if they are about the video Marlow presented in this thread.

This post is going to be simple. I have spent the last 7 hours critiquing the Stefan Molyneux video line by line, inflection by inflection.

The fact that it was said to be something akin to definitive proof of Wilson's innocence and Brown's guilt not just once but repeatedly over the last 24 hours forced me to do a complete analysis. Unfortunately I did not watch it through first as I took Marlow's word that it was as stated and having heard some of Stefan's recordings a number of years ago he seemed a fairly rational anarcho-capitalist (or whatever the new trendy word is for them now).

Unfortunately I have completely wasted 7 hours going on 8 hours.

There is no definitive proof in that video. There is only conjecture and innuendo reliant on hearsay "evidence" and an audio recording that is almost inaudible.

Everything, and I mean everything, that was included in that video I have mentioned in this thread.

Some of it is useful, others not so.

None of it exonerates Wilson and no matter how many times and how many ways Stefan words his statements and changes inflection/emphasis that point remains the same.

Take the video footage of the alleged "robbery" committed by Brown. Stefan sped up the section I talk about so he could get to the pushing of the clerk. That's what he's after. African American thug threatening a poor defenceless shop clerk.

He might as well have done what the MSM did and edit that bit out all together...

From my notes:

I do not believe that there is conclusive evidence that Brown was stealing with intent. What I saw was a man at a counter who was talking to the clerk and got a box of something that he passed to his friend who was standing behind him. Then something may have been said (possibly “have you got some ID” but it could have been anything -- we wont know until/if the clerk is called to testify) that led Brown to reach across and grab another box or two of cigars. Then another verbal conversation occurs and Brown & Dorian both put at least one box each back on the counter. Brown had dropped a box and picked it up. It possible that at this stage the clerk said something “smart” (maybe something innocuous like "are you sure you can reach that" but it maybe something else all together) so Brown picks up the cigar box that had fallen on the floor and just starts to walk out. The clerk rushes around the counter realising he’s been a dick and Brown tells him to piss off. The clerk gets shoved and Brown leaves. Then someone inside the store (presumably a customer because it wasn't a staff member) called the police. The impression I got was that the store clerk wasn't going to bother about it until the police arrived at which time it may have appeared all too late.

Then there's the audio from the video Stefan uses. Luckily I back everything up because the video Stefan used for his analysis is a bit difficult to find now. Here is the audio Stefan is referring to:


From my notes:

So the audio says that Brown ran away from the police vehicle and the officer got out of the vehicle, ran after Brown and started shooting. There is no mention of a warning shout or warning shot(s). Then Brown turned back towards the officer who was chasing him. Now hold on a second here. Imagine you have just been accosted by a police officer. You are running for you life. You stop and turn with your arms raised and the officer continues to fire. What do you do? I don’t know because it’s never happened to me. I also don’t know if the person heard can be trusted as a witness. Is the person speaking saying what they hope others want to hear? I don’t know and I think Stefan is drawing too much from this single hard to hear audio fragment. I thought it before when others mentioned it a few days ago and I still do.

Why, after the shooting, is Wilson allegedly videoed walking up and down next to the body? I don’t get the entire police procedure here. It is all very strange.

Stefan spends an incredible amount of time in character assassination in this video. Almost 10% is saying what a bad person Brown is and that: "he was going off the rails"... How does he know that? Oh and: "he seemed to have posted a few days before he died about, [pause for dramatic effect] if I leave this world kind of thing. We have a young man going off the rails and he goes off the rails"...

Poppycock. We've got a teenager who watches videos that others his age in the area probably do and listen/writing music for the same reason.

Notes:

@11:30 we get to learn that Michael Brown had a potential career as a hip-hop artist. Cool. Nothing unusual given his environment. I'm sorry but that does not mean that he was not a gentle giant. It speaks more to Stefan’s problems than “Big Mikes”.

Truthfully, seeing a middle aged white guy vocalise gangster is a little unsettling. One of my step sons would have been rolling around laughing as he loves that style of music, a beer or twenty and used to have the occasional spliff (until they changed the testing). (Un)fortunately he’s off managing the mechanical shop @ a mine site in North West WA so I’ll have to send him an edit just of that part.
It’ll trip him and his mates.

Musical interlude to describe how ridiculous this is (it feels very Monty Python but I am sleep deprived):

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zAlNrtcPCLw

Notes:

Um, some of the videos I watch would get me classified by Stefan as what exactly? Judging someone on their leisure activities is just a bit pathetic there Stefan and so far nothing actually concrete that says “Wilson acted in self defence” (which is the only reason acceptable for at least 6 bullets being fired -- remember we don’t know how many missed)...

My brother in law (sisters husband) used to do street fighting for money. One of my step son’s (not the one I've already mentioned) does cage fighting for relaxation & exercise. They are both very gentle people out of the ring who are self confident. Neither have ever been in trouble with the law and both have children who they love deeply. My brother in law has never drunk alcohol in his life and rides a kick-arse bike and my step-son is a truck driver and Maori-Nyoongar. They know when it is appropriate to be violent and when it isn't. If attacked they would defend themselves. They would never fight an individual outside of these events unless they were being attacked (which has never happened).

Stefan is profiling from ignorance.

Notes:

“Now what could we say about Michael Brown's... I guess we could say friend... Dorian Johnson”...

"I guess we could say friend"?

I guess we could say, but I actually think that was up to them and all apparent evidence seems to point that way. Why say it like that? It casts aspersion and makes the listener’s subconscious mind think of alternatives to friend (“assistant”, “off-sider” or the classic “accomplice”). I posted Dorian’s original statement from the night of the shooting as soon as I came across it (post 6 in this thread) so the comments about the police statement hold little water. For those who may not be aware if being interviewed by police any attorney worth their salt will only direct their client to answer questions that directly relate to the event. Anything else is not relevant -- including that the clerk at a store was rude to them and they left without paying for $50 worth of cigars.

For those without a clue please see post 76 in this thread for information from 2 professionals as to why this is the case.

Notice how Stefan looks really pleased at saying that Dorian had been arrested 3 years prior for theft. He even emphasises the word “theft”. Was Dorian convicted for the theft of a back pack? Did the back pack contain anything? What is the story of the back pack that Stefan is so happy about? Let’s see if we find out… Nope. He was released. What does Stefan say? “So, not a good job Mr Police People” with a giant smug grin on his face…

So after all that preparation we now get a run down of the story again.

Will Stefan tell us our new truth?

Now we hear the story I related in a previous post about the friend of a friends testimony.

This is hearsay at best and inadmissible. To say that it is "supporting evidence" is a bit iffy there Stefan

There are so many other pearls in Stefan's Murdoch worthy tabloid like hatchet job that it starts to get a bit confusing where the information starts and his self promoting rhetoric begins:

He then goes on to say almost exactly what I've said about the “robbery” just without the alternative narrative. I wont draw a conclusion without evidence. Actual evidence. Not a story from someones friend of the neighbours dogs previous owners veterinarians sister… But hard cold facts.

Stefan knows he’s on thin ice which is why he keeps reminding people that he may be wrong…

At the 26:00 minute mark we’re going through the events again!!! Nothing like a bit of reinforcement… I've noticed how every time it gets retold there is more certainty in the telling. Not a huge surprise that the viewer at the end feels comfortable with this being “fact”. So, after Stefan had just finished saying that the robbery was not a violent act, now it is again. Startling. Then Stefan again tells us Brown was probably stoned (but we wont know for 6 weeks). He then says that "it’s hard to understand that his decision making could be that bad if he wasn't [on a substance]." Well I said above how it didn't look that different to any number of instances where a cocky shop assistant gets told to piss off. Why Stefan doesn't see that possibility I don't know. Maybe it just didn't occur to him.

Then Stefan goes on to say that Brown's judgement must have been impaired because only someone who has impaired judgement would be walking down the middle of the road after doing a robbery. Well, if he didn't view he’d done anything wrong he might well have been walking down the middle of the road. So, there are at least 2 options just there. Guess mine doesn't fit Stefan’s narrative though.

Next Stefan says “he assaulted the cop”.

Well according to a few witnesses (including the bloke who shot him) he did…
The story about the injuries needs to be confirmed. We don’t know there were.

Again, Stefan is gambling. He may be right but he is gambling never the less. From this he says “so, he assaulted the cop” he’s ignoring the eyewitnesses who said that Wilson tried to pull Brown into the vehicle. That would not be “assaulting a cop” would it? Defending yourself from assault by an agent of the State is suddenly assault?

What sort of anarchist are you Stefan? Seem like a fairly compliant one to me…

Finally this was the straw that really pissed me off.

I can not tell you how annoyed I was when I heard this rubbish:

He just said @32:00: ‘we can not rush to judgement as yet, innocent until proven guilty is a foundation of anglo-saxon law and blacks have been around Western culture long enough to really understand this’.

Nah, I was being polite, but that’s just plain bigotry.

His opinions mean less than nothing to me.

He is actually entering into a series of misinformed stereotypes that have very little basis in reality. His entire profiling and framing of this makes sense now.

There is a thing called oppression Stefan, obviously you didn't learn about while doing your European History MA. At least you make good use of your acting skills now.
[...]
There are a lot of studies into sub-cultures that include rap music as part of their research. Me thinks Stefan has not looked very hard, or maybe the studies haven’t fitted into his view of the world… Try ‘Rap On Trial’ (Kubrin & Nielsen 2014 DOI: 10.1177/2153368714525411). Because I'm an actual anarchist here's a copy to read.

No, rap does not lead to violence. There is no correlation. It is the culture that breeds the lyrics and reinforces the stereotypes that Stefan is spouting. That is why some rappers are trying to reverse that trend by trying to change the lyrics/stereotypes around misogyny (as a start) to alter the culture. Whether they will be successful is anybodies guess. Given the social/cultural capital within their social fields that these individuals have I reckon there is a reasonable chance.

Stefan is simplifying the complex for a sound bite. Running for parliament is he?

Oh look. A white man is now lecturing the black “community” on how to be better citizens. He’s lecturing people to have 2 parent families. He’s saying don’t spank your children. Now he’s saying get married so your kids aren't born out of wedlock.

Nation-State worship, that's all this is.

Now it’s the welfare states fault and that the places that are in decay the most are in the control of the left/progressives. It would be laughable if it wasn't so bloody twisted and nasty.

The decay of society is due to health care reform? Idgit.

Stefan’s rhetoric has changed a lot since I last heard him mumbling away years ago.

He’s lost touch with what an anarchist is and moved into some neoconservative fantasy land.

Happens periodically with some anarcho-capitalists.

It's the negotiation of decentralised organisations within a capitalist ideology. No matter how often it gets pointed out it just gets misunderstood. You can not have decentralised control. It is an oxymoron. To think there can be ignores everything we know about power relations within the social context. To direct people to marry is a travesty. It is their choice, how dare he put his opinions/values onto others. Some of the other points made me audibly groan.

So sad.

Well I'm not glad that I critiqued that "presentation".

Now I shall get some sleep and if it gets posted yet again in this thread or misrepresented as truth then I shall ignore it.

Stefan may be correct but he is gambling big because the podcast market is tight.

The more extravagant his claims the wider his potential audience and from that merchandise etc.

Marlow, if you comment on this please make sense and not a line of text so you can repost that video again.

This thread is about the after effect of the shooting of Brown by Wilson.

It is not about the shooting.

Stefan's hypothesis has nothing to do with this threads content as it is almost exclusively about the shooting itself.

Please read the thread if you want to talk about something, I do enjoy a chat about something I'm researching which is why I've done my usual work in a thread for a change. However, as you well know, simply reposting the same video over and over again is trolling and against the forum guidelines (which I am loathed to point out for obvious reasons however within all loose co-operative groups there are always guidelines of appropriate behaviour as dictated through collaboration by the individuals themselves -- of course the Moderators, Admins and our Host have judicial power which is agreed to by us on our acceptance of participation -- I love a good anarchist co-op me).

Sleep is good.

-- Pan

[RunningDeer]

Another Police Shooting Near Ferguson, Mo

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iAm7hOcxarg

Published on Aug 19, 2014

St. Louis police shot another African-American not too far from Ferguson, Mo. and there's no doubt police will use this to justify a stronger police state, as Kit Daniels reports.

Reports from a couple of sites:

St. Louis Cop Shooting: 1 Dead Near Ferguson, Missouri, In Police-Involved Incident

UPDATE 3:42 a.m. EDT: Dotson said more than one officer fired their guns at the suspect. He said the cops were placed on administrative duty "per department policy.”


Man shot and killed by St. Louis police near Ferguson

ST. LOUIS — St. Louis police shot and killed a young African-American man Tuesday after authorities say he brandished a knife.
The shooting took place not far from Ferguson, Missouri, where the death of black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer has touched off violent protests.

“The suspect, who right now is described as a 23-year-old African-American, was acting erratically — walking back and forth up and down the street,” St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson told reporters.

“As officers arrived, the suspect turned towards the officers and started to walk towards them clutching his waistband. He then pulled out a knife … and told the officers, ‘Shoot me now. Kill me now,'” the chief said.

Responding officers told the man, repeatedly, to stop and drop his knife, Dotson said. He continued to approach, coming within about four feet of one of the officers, Dotson said, adding that both officers then fired their weapons, striking the suspect.

According to the St. Louis police chief, the suspect was involved in an incident earlier in the day at a convenience store, where he is accused of walking out with two energy drinks and a package of pastries without paying.

Asked about whether he was concerned Tuesday’s shooting could inflame passions further in nearby Ferguson, Dotson talked about the importance of officer safety.

“If you’re the family of a police officer and somebody approaches you within three feet with a knife, I think you have the right to defend yourself and protect yourself. So I think it certainly is reasonable that an officer has an expectation to go home at the end of the night,” he said.

[jagman]

This is such a horrible tradgey. My heart goes out to the Brown family.
It just keeps getting worse by the day. The Race Hustlers are out in force.
The police using heavy handed tactics.Outside influences causing trouble.
IMO The peaceful protesters are caught in the middle!

I can already see where this is all going. Having spent 5 years of my life working
in Law Enforcement, Officer Darren Wilson Broke the rules of the Use of Force Contiuum.
Mike Brown was a big young man but he was not armed when he was shot. He was
actually 35 ft away from Officer Wilson when he began firing. The proper protocol
for this would have been for officer Wilson to use his Oc pepper spray and or baton
to gain control of this situation.
I really dont see a conviction coming in this case,Unless the charges are for manslaughter
because Darren Wilson attorney wil say that Mike Brown was such a large powerful young man
and he already tried to grab for the officers gun once and he had no other choice but to use
deadly force and they will use the Video of the robbery to back up their case.
I'm not saying that this is right.I'm just telling you all where this is going.
Riots from Coast to Coast.This is so sad IMO.

[Ahnung-quay]

On these shootings, whatever happened to shooting a suspect or someone advancing with a weapon, as in this case, in the leg to bring them down?

The second victim appears to have been at the end of his rope for some reason. Perhaps he was being mind-controlled? Jagman is right, it's not hard to see where this is going.

[Mark]

No it is not. All the pretty new toys law-enforcement has received from the military are on display and yes, Jag, the protesters are caught in the middle.

The underlying societal issues, this powder-keg, is the reason for the season, as ever.

When people's lives reach such a state of desperation that all they can do is cry out to others in any way possible, a tipping point has been reached. But it is one that has been coming for a long time.

http://www.truth-out.org/progressive...zed-forgetting

Discussing his new book, Henry A. Giroux argues that what unites racist killings, loss of privacy, the surveillance state's rise, the increasing corporatization of US institutions and growing poverty and inequality "is a growing threat of authoritarianism - or what might be otherwise called totalitarianism with elections."

Victoria Harper: Your new book has a very provocative and suggestive title: The Violence of Organized Forgetting. How does the title work as an organizing idea for the book?

Henry A. Giroux: We live in a historical moment when memory, if not critical thought itself, is either under attack or is being devalued and undermined by a number of forces in American society. Historical memory has become dangerous today because it offers the promise of lost legacies of resistance, moments in history when the social contract was taken seriously (however impaired), and when a variety of social movements emerged that called for a rethinking of what democracy meant and how it might be defined in the interest of economic and social justice.

Fear, privatization and depoliticization are the organizing principles of American society at the current moment.

Including violence and organized forgetting in the title was meant to signal how mainstream politics devalues reason, dissent and critique, and the formative culture and institutions that support these crucial moments of thinking, agency and collective struggle necessary for a democracy. It also registers how dominant regimes of power have resorted to a culture of fear, state repression and the militarization of large parts of the society in order to enforce a state of terror, conformity and privatization. Violence signals the state's complicity in creating a culture that is utterly commodified and privatized, one in which the obligations of citizenship are reduced to pursuing narrow individual interests and the demands of consumerism. How we define ourselves as Americans has a deeply historical character and to the degree that this history is impoverished, any viable notion of agency, justice, education and democracy is devalued.

Fear, privatization and depoliticization are the organizing principles of American society at the current moment and as such the defunding of critical public spheres such as schools is matched by forms of state repression that link education to purely instrumental interests, at least for most young people. The social and political cleansing of history, memory and thought itself is in essence a part of a larger attack on dissent, critical thinking, engaged agency and collective struggles. Purging dissent and public memory not only promotes among young people retreat from the public realm, it also empties out politics. As the public collapses into the private, injustices are viewed as a nuisance that interfere with private interests. Believing in a cause gives way to the quest to get ahead, while matters of social and civic responsibility disappear in a self-absorbed culture of narcissism, narrow individualism and privatization.

What we are discovering and what the book attempts to map out in a number of chapters is how the attack on history, witnessing and critique breeds anti-democratic horrors including what my colleague, David L. Clark, terms "the wars against thought, and the flirtations with irrationality that lie at the heart of the triumph of every-day aggression, the withering of political life, and the withdrawal into private obsessions." This may be one reason why we are seeing such an upsurge of violence against black youth, college protesters, and those who have been part of the now quiet Occupy movement. Young people have become the chief object of oppression and punitive social policies because they represent the most promising group for reclaiming memory as a central political issue and using elements of the past to rethink a future very different from the one we now occupy. This may be one reason the state is attempting to depoliticize young people through the onslaught of a consumer culture, the burden of extreme debt, and other social policies and survivalist pedagogies that lower their expectations while keeping them too busy to be able to address the political and social issues that underlie what it means to be young in a suspect society.

Victoria Harper: What do you mean by "Thinking Beyond America's Disimagination Machine," the subtitle of your book?

Henry A. Giroux: Borrowing from and modifying Georges Didi-Huberman's use of the term, "disimagination machine," I argue that the politics of disimagination refers to images, institutions, discourses and other modes of representation, that undermine the capacity of individuals to bear witness to a different and critical sense of remembering, agency, ethics and collective resistance. The "disimagination machine" is both a set of cultural apparatuses extending from schools and mainstream media to the new sites of screen culture and a public pedagogy that functions primarily to weaken the ability of individuals to think critically, imagine the unimaginable, and engage in thoughtful and critical dialogue. Put simply, for them to become critically informed citizens of the world.

At the same time, the cultural apparatuses of the mainstream media disavow critical issues by producing news and modes of popular culture that constitute an echo chamber for dominant class and financial interests along with the production of a celebrity culture and spectacles of violence that trivialize everything they touch.

The concept of the disimagination machine signals a new and powerful moment in how authority depoliticizes, privatizes and infantilizes Americans. It narrows the expanding circle of moral conscience, undercuts the radical imagination and imposes on society the regressive morality of neoliberalism. The machinery of disimagination does not constitute a new form of social control that relies on colonizing subjectivity through the use of education in various sites to shape the identities, desires, values, modes of identification and subjectivities of Americans in the interest of social control as much as it suggests more intensive and reconfigured attempts, aided by the new digital technologies, to generate a culture of mass forgetfulness, obedience and conformity.

As all aspects of American life are transformed into a war zone, the state employs the mechanics and practices of a disimagination machine coupled with state terrorism. For instance, public schools are being privatized and militarized while higher education is being turned into a training ground for all but the elite in order to service corporate interests and power.

At the same time, the cultural apparatuses of the mainstream media disavow critical issues by producing news and modes of popular culture that constitute an echo chamber for dominant class and financial interests along with the production of a celebrity culture and spectacles of violence that trivialize everything they touch.

Moreover, these structural and symbolic mechanisms function increasingly in a digital world in which communication exhibits little respect for contemplation, critical dialogue or informed judgment. Speed and an overabundance of information replace the time to think, just as being alone in privatized orbits of digitized technospheres constitutes a derailed notion of community.

The collective sense of ethical imagination and social responsibility towards those who are vulnerable or in need of care has been increasingly viewed as a scourge or pathology.

In the broader society, entertainment is the new mode of education with its delivery of instant stimulation, excitement, gratification, and escape from the world of social and political responsibility while broader notions of education harness peoples' subjectivities to the narrow values of a market-driven society. In school, pedagogies of repression wage war on the critical and imaginative capacities of students. Under such circumstances, the disimagination machine represents a constellation of symbolic and institutional forces that attempts to shut down the possibility of critical thought and social agency.

The disimagination machine combines Orwell's notion of state terror through a culture of fear, violence and surveillance with, as Bill Moyers put it, Huxley's notion of"people genetically designed to be regimented into total social conformity and subservient to the group think of the one percent [who] could easily have walked right out of Huxley and straight into Roger Ailes' Fox News playbook or Rush Limbaugh's studio." There is more at stake here than limited political horizons, as David Graeber has suggested. What is also put up for grabs is the notion of subjectivity in a neoliberal age along with its deracinated view of agency and struggle.

Victoria Harper: The concept of disposability plays a central role in your book. Can you explain what it means, why it is new, and how it tends to manifest itself?

Henry A. Giroux: Since the late 1970s, American society has been transformed in ways that point to the abandonment of liberal democracy and the welfare state while social policies have been promulgated that egregiously serve the interest of global markets. Within this period during which the liberal market gave way to a punitive form of casino capitalism or, as some call it, neoliberalism, the collective sense of ethical imagination and social responsibility towards those who are vulnerable or in need of care has been increasingly viewed as a scourge or pathology. One consequence is that within this new historical conjuncture, the practice of disposability expands to include more and more individuals and groups who have been considered redundant, consigned to zones of abandonment, surveillance and mass incarceration.

The discourse of disposability points to and makes visible expanding zones of exclusion and invisibility incorporating more and more individuals and groups that were once seen as crucial to sustaining public life.

Disposability is no longer the exception but the norm. As the reach of disposability has broadened to include a range of groups extending from college youth and poor minorities to the unemployed and members of the middle class who have lost their homes in the financial crisis of 2007, a shift in the radicalness and reach of the machinery of disposability constitutes, as I argue in the book, not only a new mode of authoritarian politics, but also demands a new political vocabulary for understanding how the social contract has virtually disappeared while the mechanisms of expulsion, disposability and state violence have become more integrated and menacing.
We live in a new era of neoliberal savagery. Life has become cheap, emptied of its integrity and worth and reduced to the metrics of profit and a ruthless form of market fundamentalism. America occupies a historical moment characterized by market genocide - a time in which entire populations are considered disposable, left on their own to barely survive or die. Refusing Medicaid expansion by right-wing politicians such as Rick Perry is only one example of the death march at the heart of the politics of disposability and the culture of cruelty.

Citizens are now reduced to data, potential terrorists, consumers and commodities and as such inhabit identities in which they become increasingly, as I say in the book, drawing on João Biehl words, "unknowables, with no human rights and with no one accountable for their condition." Within this machinery of social death, not only does moral blindness prevail on the part of the financial elite, but the inner worlds of the oppressed are constantly being remade under the force of economic pressures and a culture of fear, while their lives resemble the walking dead - discarded individuals who remain invisible and unaccounted for in the dominant discourse of politics, rights and civic morality. The discourse of disposability points to and makes visible expanding zones of exclusion and invisibility incorporating more and more individuals and groups that were once seen as crucial to sustaining public life.
What we are witnessing in the United States is the legacy of slavery and the criminalization of people of color reasserting itself in a society in which justice has been willingly and aggressively replaced by racial injustice.

As we have seen with the brutalizing racist killing of black youth, including the most recent death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, disposability targets specific individuals and social spaces as sites of danger, violence, humiliation and terror. This is most evident in the rise of a brutal punishing-incarceration state that imposes its racial and class-based power on the dispossessed, the emergence of a surveillance state that spies on and suppresses dissenters, the emergence of vast cultural apparatuses that colonize subjectivity in the interests of the market, and a political class that is uninterested in political concessions and appears immune from control by nation-states.

The politics of disposability is central to my book because it makes clear the mechanisms of a more brutal form of authoritarianism driven by what psychologist Robert Jay Lifton rightly calls a "death-saturated age" in which matters of violence, survival and trauma infuse everyday life. Discarded by the corporate state, dispossessed of social provisions, and deprived of the economic, political and social conditions that enable viable and critical modes of agency, expanding populations of Americans now find themselves inhabiting zones of abandonment. These zones of hardship and terminal exclusion constitute a hallmark signature and intensification of a neoliberal politics of disposability that is relentless in the material and symbolic violence it wages against the 99 percent for the benefit of the new financial elite. What has become clear is that capitalist expropriation, dispossession and disinvestment have reached a point where life has become completely unbearable for over half of the American public living in or near poverty. As I have said on the pages of Truthout, evidence of such zones can be seen in the war against immigrants, poor minorities, the homeless, young people living in debt, the long term unemployed, workers, the declining middle class, all of whom have been pushed into invisible communities of control, harassment, security, and the governing through punishment complex.

Victoria Harper: The drift toward authoritarianism is a central theme in your book. How would you describe the authoritarianism?

Henry A. Giroux: In my book, I focus on the ways in which the commanding institutions in the United States have been taken over by powerful corporate interests, the financial elite, and right-wing extremists whose strangulating control over politics renders democracy corrupt and dysfunctional - producing what might be called a neoliberal spectacle of misery and a culture of cruelty. Social Darwinism is the value system that drives casino capitalism in the United States. It is an ethic dominated by a war against all ethos which celebrates a radical individualism, extreme forms of competitiveness, engages in a culture of cruelty, and separates actions from moral considerations. It is a poisonous system of power, control and fear that views politics as an extension of war. In essence America has devolved into a society that not only violates civil liberties, wages a war against unions, school teachers, women, youth and social activists, but has inhabited a sphere of militarism that increasingly resembles a form of domestic terrorism. Again, this is amplified in the presence of a giant and wasteful war machine and in the ongoing militarization of local police forces who now assume the mantle of robo-SWAT teams, more willing to reduce policing to forms of high-powered assaults rather than dialogue, negotiation and thoughtful investigations. Not only has society become more militarized, but everyone is now treated as a criminal or potential terrorist. As I point out throughout the book, the contours of the authoritarian state become highly visible in the way in which, as Chase Madar observes, a wide range of behaviors are now criminalized and the way in which "police power has entered the DNA of social policy, turning just about every sphere of American life into a police matter."

The United States has dethroned any viable notion of politics committed to the promise of a sustainable democracy. We have given up on the notion of the common good, social justice and equality that has been replaced by the crude discourses of commerce and militarization.

The militarization of local police forces combined with the larger intensified barbaric expressions of racism, especially the rise of the mass incarceration state and the racist comments so freely uttered by right-wing politicians and right-wing media, fuel a deadly mix for black youth that normalizes the wanton killing of African-Americans and reinforces the impunity with which it is done. Nurtured by what Karen Garcia calls a "lifetime of consumption of violence-as-entertainment," images of expanding war zones come to life vividly in cities such as Ferguson, Missouri where surplus military weaponry is now used by the police against African-American youth and others marginalized by race and class in ways that make visible how the wars abroad have come home and how weapons of war when combined with a hyper-masculinity of brooding, resentful and confused white men leads to violence in the streets. It is hard to disagree with a growing consensus that what we are witnessing in the United States is the legacy of slavery and the criminalization of people of color reasserting itself in a society in which justice has been willingly and aggressively replaced by racial injustice. And it is precisely this militarization that informs my book about the growing dangers of authoritarianism in America. Racist killings, the loss of privacy, the rise of the surveillance state, the growing poverty and inequality, and the increasing corporatization of the commanding institutions of the United States point to something more than civil unrest, spying, racism and other specific anti-democratic issues. What is truly at work here and unites all of these disparate issues is a growing threat of authoritarianism - or what might be otherwise called totalitarianism with elections.

This new mode of authoritarianism mimics a form of terrorism because it abstracts economics from ethics and social costs, makes a mockery of democracy, works to dismantle the welfare state, thrives on violence, undermines any public sphere not governed by market values and transforms people into commodities. American society's rigid emphasis on unfettered individualism, competitiveness and flexibility displaces compassion, sharing and a concern for the welfare of others. In doing so, it dissolves crucial social bonds, weakens public trust and undermines the profound nature of social responsibility and its ensuing concern for others. In removing individuals from broader social obligations, it not only tears up social solidarities, it also promotes a kind of individual and collective psychosis that is pathological in its disdain for public goods, community, social provisions and public values. As Hannah Arendt argued, we live in a time of absolute meaninglessness, which is the foundation of absolute evil, all of which produces a monstrous form of politics. Of course, this monstrous politics is revealed not only in savage social policies and attacks on the poor, public servants, women and young people, but also in the inability of American society to react to the suffering of others. Put differently, the United States has dethroned any viable notion of politics committed to the promise of a sustainable democracy. We have given up on the notion of the common good, social justice and equality that has been replaced by the crude discourses of commerce and militarization.

The new authoritarianism represents a mix of a widespread culture of fear, privatization and consumer fantasies, along with a systemic effort to dismantle the welfare state and increase the power of the corporate and financial elite. Ideologically, the new authoritarianism works hard to instrumentalize knowledge, disparage reason, thoughtfulness, complexity and critical dialogue - and in doing so, contributes to a culture of stupidity and cruelty in which the dominant ethic is organized around the discourse of war and a survival of the fittest mentality. Market sovereignty has replaced political sovereignty as the state is almost entirely corporatized - representing the antithesis of democracy. The consequences of anti-democratic tendencies are everywhere in American society. Deregulation, privatization, atomization and commodification now rule American institutions turning over the commanding heights of power to mega corporations, the defense industry and ideological fundamentalists. America is a hugely rich country marked by massive poverty, inequality in wealth and income, and a political system controlled by big money. Its cultural apparatuses are controlled by mega corporations and its political system is now largely controlled by the apostles of finance and militarism. One consequence is the coupling of a market-induced form of depoliticization with a deep-rooted cynicism. In this instance, the seeds of authoritarianism can be found in the disappearance of politics, that is, in the elimination of the conditions that create civic agents who are thoughtful, critical, ethically responsible and imbued with a spirit of civic courage. The latter are not conditions that are valued in a society in which a war is waged on women's reproductive rights, civil liberties, immigrants, voting rights and health care, along with the gleeful promotion of widening inequalities in wealth and income. As Slavoj Zizek points out, the link between capitalism and democracy is broken and in its place is the emergence of an America that is on the brink of a very dark historical period in which the winds of authoritarianism are posed to destroy all remnants of a claim to equality, justice and democracy.

Victoria Harper: The last chapter of your book deals with hope. Why is hope so central to your writings and the book itself?

Henry A. Giroux: Hope gets a bad rap across diverse ideological lines. This is especially true in an age of crippling cynicism, precarity, uncertainty and mass-produced fear. Yet, educated hope matters because it points to the possibility of rethinking not only politics, but matters of agency, struggle and the future itself. Hope is a crucial element for energizing the radical imagination, one that allows people to repudiate and see through the manufactured cynicism that so well serves the new authoritarianism with its myriad of political, religious and cultural fundamentalisms. Yet, hope must be tempered by the complex reality of the times and viewed as a project and condition for providing a sense of collective agency, opposition, political imagination and engaged participation. It must be rooted in acknowledging the reality and the power of the ideological and structural forces that provide the foundation for authoritarian regimes. Hope, in this instance, breaks through the normalization of common sense as well as those educative dimensions of dominant culture that are used to legitimate an oppressive society and the oppressive forces that shape everyday life.

Power is never completely on the side of domination and resistance is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Without hope, even in the most dire of times, there is no possibility for resistance, dissent and struggle. Furthermore, agency is the condition of struggle, and hope is the prerequisite of all modes of critically engaged agency. Hope expands the space of the possible, and becomes a way of recognizing and naming the incomplete nature of the present while providing the foundation for informed action. Throughout The Violence of Organized Forgetting, I connect the issue of educated hope to the need to imagine the public as a site of possibility, one that harbors a trace of what it means to both defend those public spaces where dissent can be produced, public values asserted, dialogue made meaningful, and opposition can be developed against the view that critical thought is an act of stupidity or irrelevant.As I have argued in my book and in Truthout, one cannot be on the side of democratic ideas, causes and movements and at the same time surrender to the normalization of a dystopian vision. Authoritarianism does not just breed conformity and cynicism; it relies on the death of hope to reproduce its dominant ideologies and practices while depoliticizing young people and others who should care about the fate of democracy. There is no room for romanticizing hope in Disney-like fashion. One has to demand the impossible in order to recognize the limits of what we are told is only possible. Hope as a form of anti-hope is connected not simply to inventing the future as a repeat of the present, but also normalizing the machineries of violence and oppression. This means that there is no room for a kind of romanticized utopianism. Instead, one has to be motivated by a faith in the willingness of young people principally and others to fight for a future in which dignity, equality and justice matter and at the same time recognize the forces that are preventing such a struggle from taking place. More specifically, hope has to be fed by the need for education and collective action.

As I have argued in the book, power is never completely on the side of domination and resistance is not a luxury, but a necessity. In the present historical moment, hope needs to be tied to a politics that takes education seriously - that is, a politics for which matters of consciousness and agency mutually inform each other as part of a broader struggle for justice, freedom and equality. This means that hope moves from an abstraction to creating the foundation for moving people to address the issue of economic inequality, the racist system and mass incarceration state, the sordid gap in equality of wealth and income and the politics of disposability - while building social movements that address the totality of power and oppression. This means taking seriously what it means to change the way people think while developing a comprehensive notion of politics, vision and struggle to match.

[marlowe]

Posted by jagman (here)
This is such a horrible tradgey. My heart goes out to the Brown family.
It just keeps getting worse by the day. The Race Hustlers are out in force.
The police using heavy handed tactics.Outside influences causing trouble.
IMO The peaceful protesters are caught in the middle!

I can already see where this is all going. Having spent 5 years of my life working
in Law Enforcement, Officer Darren Wilson Broke the rules of the Use of Force Contiuum.
Mike Brown was a big young man but he was not armed when he was shot. He was
actually 35 ft away from Officer Wilson when he began firing. The proper protocol
for this would have been for officer Wilson to use his O2 pepper spray and or baton
to gain control of this situation.
I really dont see a conviction coming in this case,Unless the charges are for manslaughter
because Darren Wilson attorney wil say that Mike Brown was such a large powerful young man
and he already tried to grab for the officers gun once and he had no other choice but to use
deadly force and they will use the Video of the robbery to back up their case.
I'm not saying that this is right.I'm just telling you all where this is going.
Riots from Coast to Coast.This is so sad IMO.

@ Jagman......So you are agreeing with what the MSM is saying?

I don't believe the MSM's story because I know how to weigh evidence....

So do you think Darren Wilson's eye socket fracture injury is fake ?

[jagman]

Posted by marlowe (here)

Posted by jagman (here)
This is such a horrible tradgey. My heart goes out to the Brown family.
It just keeps getting worse by the day. The Race Hustlers are out in force.
The police using heavy handed tactics.Outside influences causing trouble.
IMO The peaceful protesters are caught in the middle!

I can already see where this is all going. Having spent 5 years of my life working
in Law Enforcement, Officer Darren Wilson Broke the rules of the Use of Force Contiuum.
Mike Brown was a big young man but he was not armed when he was shot. He was
actually 35 ft away from Officer Wilson when he began firing. The proper protocol
for this would have been for officer Wilson to use his O2 pepper spray and or baton
to gain control of this situation.
I really dont see a conviction coming in this case,Unless the charges are for manslaughter
because Darren Wilson attorney wil say that Mike Brown was such a large powerful young man
and he already tried to grab for the officers gun once and he had no other choice but to use
deadly force and they will use the Video of the robbery to back up their case.
I'm not saying that this is right.I'm just telling you all where this is going.
Riots from Coast to Coast.This is so sad IMO.

@ Jagman......So you are agreeing with what the MSM is saying?

I don't believe the MSM's story because I know how to weigh evidence....

So do you think Darren Wilson's eye socket fracture injury is fake ?

I believe he punched officer Wilson but that still doesnt change the fact that
officer Wilson broke the rules in the Use of Force Continuum.
Mike Brown was unarmed. Although he was out matched physically officer
Wilson chose to go directly to Deadly force when he had other tools at his
disposal!Case closed. That has nothing to do with the MSM.All sides agree
with the fact that he chose deadly force when he had pepper spray and he
had a flashlight and probably a pr24 and he also had a radio which he should have used to call for back up. Mike Brown did have some copability but did
he deserve to die? IMO No he didnt! He was a young man that did something
really stupid but most of us have done really stupid things when we were kids.
Atleast I know I did.

Here is a pic of a PR24
It is a very effective weapon when used in trained hands.

[Ahnung-quay]

O.K., explain to me why nine or ten days after the shooting of Michael Brown, we are just being made aware that officer Wilson has an orbital blowout fracture? Would this not have been information that should have been read in an initial statement that should have been given by the county sheriff or the city mayor immediately following the incident?

How are we to know, nine or ten days later, that officer Wilson suffered this injury from this incident? Someone else could have beat him up afterward out of anger for improper use of force. It's not outside the realm of possibility. This thing gets more rotten by the minute.

[Referee]

This is where my thoughts are right now...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tJfvE74UPT0

[Snowflower]

Why does Marlowe continue to refer solely to MSM? It seems odd, given the venue - Avalon readers are certainly not known for watching MSM, eh?

If M. brown had indeed attacked D. Wilson badly enough to fracture an eye bone, that fact would have been headline news on Day 1. It wasn't, so I don't believe it. Manufactured evidence: something cops do quite well.

[Ahnung-quay]

Or, maybe officer Wilson got drunk and fell down his stairs, nine or ten days later....

[Ahnung-quay]

I heard a partial interview of this man today on public radio. He had a similar experience to what has been experienced by Michael Brown's family.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...on-110038.html


After police in Kenosha, Wis., shot my 21-year-old son to death outside his house ten years ago — and then immediately cleared themselves of all wrongdoing — an African-American man approached me and said: “If they can shoot a white boy like a dog, imagine what we’ve been going through.”

I could imagine it all too easily, just as the rest of the country has been seeing it all too clearly in the terrible images coming from Ferguson, Mo., in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown. On Friday, after a week of angry protests, the police in Ferguson finally identified the officer implicated in Brown's shooting, although the circumstances still remain unclear.

I have known the name of the policeman who killed my son, Michael, for ten years. And he is still working on the force in Kenosha.

Yes, there is good reason to think that many of these unjustifiable homicides by police across the country are racially motivated. But there is a lot more than that going on here. Our country is simply not paying enough attention to the terrible lack of accountability of police departments and the way it affects all of us—regardless of race or ethnicity. Because if a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy — that was my son, Michael — can be shot in the head under a street light with his hands cuffed behind his back, in front of five eyewitnesses (including his mother and sister), and his father was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew in three wars for his country — that’s me — and I still couldn’t get anything done about it, then Joe the plumber and Javier the roofer aren’t going to be able to do anything about it either.

Read more at link above.

[panopticon]

A moment of clarity from the MSM:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ygyjZZTqahA

-- Pan

Here's an interesting article from 18th in the Independent (tweets at bottom reference some of the things I was about police intimidation & racial profiling of media):
Michael Brown shooting: Amnesty International sends team within US for first time as National Guard deployed

[panopticon]

Posted by jagman (here)
This is such a horrible tradgey. My heart goes out to the Brown family.
It just keeps getting worse by the day. The Race Hustlers are out in force.
The police using heavy handed tactics.Outside influences causing trouble.
IMO The peaceful protesters are caught in the middle!

I can already see where this is all going. Having spent 5 years of my life working
in Law Enforcement, Officer Darren Wilson Broke the rules of the Use of Force Contiuum.
Mike Brown was a big young man but he was not armed when he was shot. He was
actually 35 ft away from Officer Wilson when he began firing. The proper protocol
for this would have been for officer Wilson to use his Oc pepper spray and or baton
to gain control of this situation.
I really dont see a conviction coming in this case,Unless the charges are for manslaughter
because Darren Wilson attorney wil say that Mike Brown was such a large powerful young man
and he already tried to grab for the officers gun once and he had no other choice but to use
deadly force and they will use the Video of the robbery to back up their case.
I'm not saying that this is right.I'm just telling you all where this is going.
Riots from Coast to Coast.This is so sad IMO.

G'day Jagman,

I agree and I think that only in hindsight will we be able to work out some of the reasons (there will be a lot of them) for this containment strategies rationale.

If you don't mind there are a couple of things I might ask you because I don't understand the US system very well.

How often would an officer be the only occupant of a vehicle while on duty?
I notice in the most recent shooting in St Louis with the knife wielding individual that there were 2 officers.

How hard would it be for someone to get an officers gun from them while they are in their vehicle as in this case and in that struggle move the safety (I know this is largely dependent on the situation but I'm interest in your input on that)?

Is there not extensive use of tasers in the US (or am I mistaken on that)?

Is there a legal obligation for police to display their name, badge etc while on duty and give that information upon request?

Just curious as an observer not familiar with the details of the US system.

-- Pan

BTW I just had a random thought about whether this was a prep for war. Don't know where that came from... My thoughts are also for the Foley family on their recent loss.

[Rich]

Friend told me a German policeman he knows fired a warning shot into the air cause there was a fight or something he got into so much trouble for it he had to change his job. This shows the difference in mentality.

[panopticon]

So this is supposed to be calming the situation down?

More like incitement (11:55 PM Tuesday 19th August):

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3AFia3Uo0TQ

I'm sensing some strange priorities here...

Protect McDonald's at all cost or is this a game of pass the burger?



Captain Johnson's press conference after last night:
Capt. Johnson holds early morning press conference in Ferguson