Tell us your gut reaction upon seeing this ad.
Back in June 2000 the ACLU ran this ad in the New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker to raise awareness regarding racial profiling. There was a psychological aspect to presenting the subject of racial profiling in this manner that involved getting the reader to read the small print and become sympathetic to the ACLU and hopefully contribute funds to that organization.
38 comments:
My gut reaction was I'm looking at two men from similar modest means who took entirely different paths in life and consistently so.
I also saw one who should still be alive today and another than should perhaps have been abducted by ET's and carted off to other places in the galaxy.
As for the profiling comments, I don't know where their figures come from but I've always felt it was more true in areas of known racial strife and less so in the US in general.
My gut reaction would be "Yep, that sounds about right".
Some would say that was down to my own confirmation bias...
but (given the emotionally-charged nature of this topic)
wouldn't ALL gut reactions?
My initial gut reaction - Sad, but probably true.
After thinking about it though...
Hippies, and especially Charlie are a bad example to make the point that this guy gets hassled by the cops more than the other guy because of his appearance. Charlie and other hippies were pre-judged and hassled by the cops all the time too for the way they looked.
I get the idea they are going after, but they picked a bad example in my estimation. Ted Bundy might have made a better choice for example. Nobody looked at him twice.
This is how we responded to this ad on Access Manson when it was originally published:
The ACLU Shows Its True Colors
Occasionally we get correspondence from people who wonder why we haven't approached the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) with what we perceive to be the legal injustices perpetrated against Charles Manson. The answer to that question can be found in a recent advertisement that the legal aid group has been running in several national magazines -- The New Yorker, for example.
The ad, part of the ACLU's campaign of protest against the injustice of minority drivers being pulled over by police for "DWB" (driving while black), reads, "The man on the left (Martin Luther King, Jr.) is 75 times more likely to stopped by the police while driving than the man on the right (Manson). It happens every day on America's highways. Police stop drivers based on their skin color rather than for the way they are driving.... These humiliating and illegal searches are violations of the Constitution and must be fought.... Help us defend your rights. Support the ACLU."
(The ad also contains the unbelievable assertion that only five percent of all drivers in the state of Florida are black or Hispanic.)
What is the ACLU? On its web site it presents itself as the "Guardian of Liberty" and says of its mission:
"In every era of American history, the government has tried to expand its authority at the expense of individual rights. The American Civil Liberties Union exists to make sure that doesn't happen, and to fight back when it does.
"The ACLU is not a public defender like Legal Services or Legal Aid. It does not handle criminal cases or civil disputes or choose sides according to financial criteria. Nor do we take political sides; we are neither liberal nor conservative, Republican nor Democratic. The ACLU is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 275,000-member public interest organization devoted exclusively to protecting the basic civil liberties of all Americans, and extending them to groups that have traditionally been denied them. In its almost seven decades in existence, the ACLU has become a national institution, and is widely recognized as the country's foremost advocate of individual rights.
"The ACLU is frequently asked 'Why did you defend that person or that group -- Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panthers?' The ACLU defends the right of people to express their views, not the views that they express. And historically, the people whose opinions are the most controversial or extreme are those whose rights are most often threatened. Believing that once the government is empowered to violate one person's rights it can use that power against everyone, the ACLU works to stop the erosion of civil liberties before it's too late.
"The ACLU cannot take on every worthy case. Instead, our lawyers select cases that will have the greatest impact, cases that will have the potential to break new ground and to establish new precedents that will strengthen the freedoms we all enjoy." (All emphasis added.)
(Continued in next comment….)
So, the ACLU is "devoted exclusively to protecting the basic civil liberties of all Americans," wants to help "the people whose opinions are the most controversial or extreme," and will only select court cases "that will have the greatest impact, cases that will have the potential to break new ground and to establish new precedents."
What a load! Maybe the ACLU doesn't mind defending Neo-Nazis and cop killers, but when it gets down to the real, it won't help Charles Manson. Instead, it would rather use Manson's image to perpetuate an inflammatory stereotype of him as evil incarnate (and certainly undeserving of any kind of legal help) in order to advertise for support (money).
To the ACLU, Charles Manson's civil liberties don't matter. His opinions are too "controversial" and "extreme" for this spineless "non-partisan" group. But the truth is that if any case would ever have a great impact, break new ground, or establish new precedent it would be the case that would result in overturning Manson's murder convictions because of the illegal denial of his right to defend himself in court.
But the ACLU isn't really interested in that. It's interested in your "$upport." And if it contributes to the demonization and scapegoating of individual citizen Charles Manson in the process, that's okay with it.
With this solicitous advertisement the American Civil Liberties Union shows its true colors. In Charles Manson the ACLU has found a person it doesn't have to feel guilty about being prejudiced against and a person it can feel secure in using.
Considering this, it is unlikely that the ACLU will ever have enough honor (much less the testicular fortitude) to make any legal effort on behalf of Charles Manson.
The same goes for Amnesty International, California's Prison Law Office, and any of the other groups supposedly concerned about human rights. When it comes to helping Charles Manson, or any of his friends, these transparent phonies can't run away fast enough.
My FIRST reaction is that it's a typically disegenuous (sp.?) bullsh*t comparison, for several reasons. My intellectual reaction is that while it would be unfortunate that the heroic man on the left would be stopped; it would justly happen because men with his skin color, while a small percentage of the population, unfortunately FREELY CHOOSE to commit a disproportionately large percentage of certain crimes,including violent. So if the majority of carjackings in an area of the inner-city were committed by hot pink dolphins wearing hoodies, would it not make sense to profile hot pink dolphins wearing hoodies when looking for the perpetrators? When did this insane world decide lack of common sense was part of the p.c. spoonful of poison we've all been fed? You know: the whole fear of being tarred with the cries of "racist!" (imagine the villagers with torches in a horror movie) being used to brainwash us out of deductive reasoning/critical thinking skills?! The ACLU is as bogus as the NRA. And NO, I'm NOT a Repub nor a Trump voter (the next accusations that will predictably come from any villager sheep...).
Just the fact that we've been CONDITIONED to have a gut response to these photos is telling. We need more intellect, less "gut" in the world.
But the use of MLKjr and C. Manson to effect the comparison the ACLU was attempting is both disengenuous and a lie. Neither truly represents the group or subculture of the comparison the ACLU was going for. Just my 2 cents, obviously. (My irritation, evident here, is with the current idiotic state of our society. Definitely not anyone here.).
ACLU message: 'good' black guy gets more hassled than 'bad' white guy with long hair and beard ? Hm-m-m .... maybe perhaps but we got hassled all the time in the late 60's for long hair and facial hair not only by the cops but especially by 'select' members of the public and threatened often too.
George my good friend. I have no serious understanding of the ACLU at all, so will take you at your word as you seem to have a good understanding of what they do.
BUT lol :)
As far as blaming them for not supporting or helping Manson...
it seems lots of blame goes around for Charlie being in jail and not having his legal rights represented. How about some blame on Charlie for not really trying to do anything himself? does he even attend his parole hearings? Does he clean up and speak coherently? Did he make any effort in his trials to take Legal advice or allow his representation to formulate a legitimate defense?
Or did Charlie make a joke out of the whole thing and play by his own rules?
What could the ACLU do differently than anyone else tried to do for a guy who wont help himself even had they tried?
St. Circumstance said, "How about some blame on Charlie for not really trying to do anything himself?"
He did try to do something himself: he tried to defend himself at his trial. Once that fundamental right was taken away, there's been no reason to "play the game" anymore. (Look at Leslie. She's done everything "right" -- and she's still being treated unfairly.)
The LULU point is a very good one. But Charlie didn't directly participate in killing anyone those two nights and Leslie did. You are most likely right it wouldn't make a difference to be fair.
But still- if he had followed the rules, and made a real effort all these years to show some sorrow about what happened and to stay out of trouble and clean up his act (if not appearance) the " he is being kept locked up unfairly" argument would ring more sincere than it does when he constantly sticks his finger up at the system and then blames his troubles on it.
It sucks but when you want to get anywhere you have to play the game lol. When my dad used to force me to go get a job- I wore flops and shorts. When I got older and wanted a job to make money for beer and weed(and dates lol) I put on tie. I figured out at 14 you need to play along to get along in life. You can be a rebel if you want, and hell yeah thats cool- but you have to pay for your choices....
When Charlies life was on the line- he treated the whole thing like a big game. THAT is WHY he had the right to defend himself taken away. He preferred to be the class clown and big shot, instead of working hard to get the best possible outcome for himself.
He has to take a little of the blame for his situation no?
George if you would expand for me exactly what would you have the ACLU do?
You want them to make a case that Charlie was denied his fair right to represent himself- even though he was not denied that right at all?
We have been through this so many times lol He was granted the right and then had it taken away several months later when he abused it.
You are a very bright guy George. Do you really think he should have been allowed out to go anywhere he wished? Do you think Bugs should have been locked up as Charlie was? were those reasonable motions? How long do you let that go on at tax payer expense before you say ok enough is enough. This is turning our system and court into a joke and people lost heir lives here. He was given plenty of latitude and he blew it by acting a fool.
At what point is it no longer fair to the victims or jurors or taxpayers to let him go on and on with no ryme or reason? When would it have been fair for you?
Should he have been allowed to rant and rave about whatever he wanted as long as he wanted indefinatley? Is that "fair" ?
I wonder if there is any line at all??
I know I have said this before.
Manson simply did not have a constitutional right to represent himself in 1971. That right did not exist until Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975).
In Faretta the Supreme Court determined that the Sixth Amendment, in addition to guaranteeing the right to retained or appointed counsel, also guarantees a defendant the right to represent himself. However, it is a right (waiving counsel) the defendant must adopt knowingly and intelligently.
Under some circumstances the trial judge may deny the authority to exercise it, as when the defendant simply lacks the competence to make a knowing or intelligent waiver of counsel or when his self-representation is so disruptive of orderly procedures that the judge may curtail it.
But note the date: 1975.
And Manson did appeal the issue. He took his shot.
People Vs. Manson, 61 Cal App. 3d 102 (1976)
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“Right to Counsel
Only Manson contends on this appeal that he was erroneously denied the fundamental right to proceed pro se. However, all appellants early in the case applied to the trial court to so proceed. The ultimate decision of the lower court was that no appellant was capable of self representation. At the time counsel was appointed for each appellant, there "[was] no constitutional right to proceed pro se at trial." (People v. Sharp (1972). While this appeal was pending, Sharp was invalidated by the United States Supreme Court. (Faretta v. California (1975) However, our own Supreme Court has concluded that "the Faretta decision is not to be given retroactive application. ..." Consequently, Faretta has no application to this appeal. No other error is attributable to the fact that no appellant was permitted to proceed pro se. Manson's contention that he was prejudiced by not being permitted to represent himself is not supported by the record.”
The ACLU today and in 1971 would have had nothing to defend. When Manson was convicted he simply did not have the right to defend himself.
http://liesaboutcharlesmanson.blogspot.com/p/bittaker-v-enomoto-587-f2d-400-1978.html
I read that link and I am not arguing with either you George or an attorney (Dreath) about this being or not being a law or when it was a law.
I go back to my original question. HE WAS GIVEN THE RIGHT TO DEFEND HIMSELF. He had it taken away for abusing it. Those are the facts of this case regardless of anything else. I read the transcript of the trial and know what actually happened.
Charlies friends are really not making the case he was denied his right. They are saying that it is unfair that he had that right taken away from him. So back to my question....
How much would be enough? when would it have been fair to stop the game he was playing from dragging on?
Was it only fair to Charlie if he is allowed to say and do whatever he wanted in the court room for as long as he wanted?
I agree with you St. C -- when Charlie was given an opportunity to defend himself, he went off on trying to lecture the country about his sociopathic agendas. A nearly lifelong jailbird should have been smarter than that. Instead he and the three young women decided to 'X' themselves out of society and make a mockery of butchering all those people alive. I remember the whole country was livid with rage over this. Charlie thought he'd get off for being hands off (murders) and was perfectly willing to let Tex and the three young women take the fall.
And then he spent the rest of his life breaking the rules and either blowing off his parole hearings or using them to ramble on endlessly. No sense makes no sense when your trying to talk to straight old people in a parole hearing.
I just wonder what kind of case you could want the ALCU to make for him? He was allowed to be his own attorney and he abused it,so they decided to try something else. That makes everything else he never did to help himself irrelevant?
Its that rigged system argument again lol ;) When our guy just cant ever be wrong lol
George if he wanted out as badly as you want him out- he might be out. you are a great advocate for your friend and cause. He needed to meet you and take advice from people like you 20 years sooner and maybe he had a chance....
Really? Is that why Manson had a rap sheet a mile long and the police raided the Ranch multiple times? During the Spahn raid, they broke two of his ribs. But according to this, he was another "white privileged" male. Charles Manson had a great white life, ladies and gentlemen because of the color of his skin.
The topic of Manson's defense is a joke even when you take away the fact his right to represent himself is removed. The amount of pre-trial publicity was devastating.
Anti-white, liberal garbage. All anecdotal too. Cops aren't pulling over blacks simply because they are black, Crime statistics are something the left have a problem with. We except that there is "sex profiling" and that more men are pulled over than woman, because of crime rates. But when it comes to race we want to live in fantasy land.
He made it a joke himself. I don't think too many people outside the family were laughing back at the trial...
The only one who was acting a fool at that trial Was Charlie and his peeps. If he didn't want the world to think he was the "Boss" of those people you would never know it from the way he acted. Being the Boss was what Bugs needed Charlie to be. Charlie gave it to him.
Charlie's fault in my book, and nobody else could get through to him to help his own cause so I am not sure why anyone thinks the ALCU would either??
The judge made one decision I don't agree with, so I just completely stopped cooperating but they should let me out anyway cause its not fair I wasn't allowed to do whatever I wanted in the court room after two months of proving I had no idea what I was doing??
Is that the argument?
What struck me first about the images above is that I wasn’t sure a lot of people today would recognize both images the way the ACLU intended to use them.
So I ran a little experiment with this last night using my three sons ages 15, 20 and 24-not that this was a particularly scientific process nor that they represent a cross section of their generation. I pulled the jpeg off the blog and showed it to each one seperately. I asked who the two men were. The quotes below are as close as I can remember.
All three immediately identified Martin Luther King, piece of cake.
My 15 year old identified Charles Manson. I then asked if he could tell me who Charles Manson was in one sentence and the response was: ‘that crazy guy back in the 60’s who murdered a bunch of people.’
The 20 year old had no idea who the image was. I then told him it was Charles Manson and asked the same question. Answer: ‘Oh that creepy guy from that show we watched [He and I had watched one episode of Aquarius together] who killed all those people way back there.’
The 24 year old- ‘That’s that old Nazi dude who is in prison.’ I asked why he called him a Nazi: ‘he carved a swatika into his head [pointing at his forhead]’. I then told him it was Charles Manson and asked the same question (decribe Charles Manson in one sentence) and was told ‘That’s who I meant……He is like THE mass murderer from back in the 60’s.’
Only one of the three could ID the picture by name without help. One of those other two connected it to ‘a bad guy’ by memory (likely of some recent online image) but not who it was. But when I gave them the name ‘Charles Manson’ out came the ‘icon of evil’.
I am out of the 'didn't get to represent himself' discussion. Please look at the date of a court's opinion and ask: did the opinion exist in 1971?
´cause Manson has so handsome face I mean so you know...about first look
Tell us your gut reaction upon seeing this ad
My initial reaction to the ad is that both men had such striking faces.....
There are only a few actual faces from the 1960s that I actually recall from the 60s in a media sense, the guy that played Doctor Smith in "Lost in space," Allan Clarke of the Hollies {go figure !}, Marine boy, Bolton & Piper from "Marine boy" {I freaked my kids and their anime mad friends when I told them I'd watched the first ever anime !}, the Impossibles {especially Multi~man} and the genie from "Shazam" with the big ear ring. For some odd reason I also remember Rupert Ruffcut from "Wacky races." Perhaps the most striking one for me though, was Patrick Troughton, the second Dr from "Dr Who." His face takes me back to being 3 and 4 and fascinated by this strange world and weird, scary monsters that somehow enthralled me.
Maybe that's where it started !
I remember names more than faces from then.
But I have no recollection of Martin Luther King or Charles Manson. I didn't come across Manson's name until 1977 and I can't even remember when I first came across King's.
St Circumstance said...
Hippies, and especially Charlie are a bad example to make the point that this guy gets hassled by the cops more than the other guy because of his appearance. Charlie and other hippies were pre-judged and hassled by the cops all the time too for the way they looked
There's a lot of truth to this. Even if you look at the two nights of murder, you have Charlie, having been stopped by the CHP the day before, requesting Linda bring her driving licence which makes one wonder why unless there was some chance of them being stopped and Tex instructing Linda what to do with the gun & knives "if the police stopped them." As an aside, it's interesting that Rudolph Weber later said that when he saw the death squad, he thought they may have committed a burglary {why ?} and his wife kind of got in their faces, because of their youth and appearance {according to Susan}. On the night the LaBiancas were killed , Linda said that as she, Charlie, Susan and Clem were walking by the beach, as they approached a side street, a police car pulled up and the officers asked them what they were doing.
True, they weren't driving, but it gives one an indication that there was a view that the great and the good and LE had about people to be suspicious of....and some of what it was based on.
The ad is even more out of kilter given when it came out, given that one was dead and one was not ever going to be stopped !
I was in the first grade when MLK was assassinated. We got regular updates over the intercom. We thought he'd live. I found out when I got home that he didn't make it, but being seven I really didn't fully understand. That weekend there was a silent march in our small town that my family participated in.
I had no clue who Manson was until about 1974 when I saw and bought Bug's novel.
The numbers that the ACLU used sounded highly skewed, ie. blacks and Hispanics only account for 5% of all drivers in Florida....ummmm not in Miami, pal. They must be factoring in all of the vacationers, snowbirds, retirees, seasonal workers, truckers, runaways from Ohio and Michigan, mestizos pretending to be white like George Zimmerman, off-shore oil workers, and visiting Hockey teams, to make the state appear that white.
I would also guess that when the police run a check on the vehicle and the driver/occupants, that blacks and Hispanics WITH a criminal record get their vehicles searched at a much higher rate than blacks and Hispanics WITHOUT a criminal record.
It's weird how that works. It's almost like the police are biased against criminals or something. Life is so unfair.
BTW - Manson Mythos Youtube channel has a lot of videos that people might be interested in. The full unedited Manson Hard Copy interview and Cappy talking to Bill Nelson are a couple of recent uploads.
A little off topic, but I would like to point out that both MLK's mother and brother also died under odd circumstances:
On July 21, 1969 Alfred Daniel Williams King(aka A. D. King), 38, allegedly drowned in his swimming pool at his home in Louisville, Kentucky. He was the younger brother of Martin Luther King, Jr., and was also a Baptist minister and a civil rights activist.
MLK, Sr.: "I had questions about A.D.'s death and I still have them now. He was a good swimmer. Why did he drown? I don't know – I don't know that we will ever know what happened." Naomi King, his widow, said, "There is no doubt in my mind that the system killed my husband."
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w...n-luther-king/
On July 20, 1969, 15 months after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, A.D. sat agitated in his home.
“They killed my brother. I’m gonna find out who did it,” he told someone on the phone, within hearing of his daughter Alveda. ....
His body was discovered the morning after that anguished phone call in the bottom of the family’s swimming pool. ,,,,
“Daddy was killed and put in the pool,” said Alveda. “When they pulled the body out, they began to pump his chest, but no water came out. One of the emergency people said he was dead when he hit the water.” Naomi flew back to Atlanta and, after identifying his body in the morgue, came to the same conclusion.
“Absolutely, he was murdered,” Naomi King said. “He was an excellent swimmer. There was no water in his lungs. He was in the fetal position. He had a bruised forehead. Rings around his neck. And he was in his underwear. He was murdered.”
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On June 30, 1974. Mrs Alberta Williams King, 70, mother of MLK, Jr. and A.D. King, shot to death at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta by a madman who claimed he hated Christianity and that he was on a mission to kill black ministers. Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr., 23, the gunman, told the police that his mission was to kill the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., but he shot Mrs. King instead because she was close to him. A deacon in the church was also killed, and a parishioner was wounded.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...in-church-1974
Mrs King's grandson Derek, who said he helped to subdue the gunman as he tried to reload a pistol, added: "He was delirious. He appeared to be in a fever. He said over and over, 'The war did this to me. It's the war.'"
https://mindcontrolblackassassins.co...-ultra-victim/
When asked if he killed anyone, Chenault could not remember, he responded accepting responsibility for the homicides with unbelievable glee and joy. Smiling, he said, “I assume I did, I assume I shot someone.”
Let's put any Asian or Indian (Hindu) male next to Charlie and ask which is more likely to be pulled over. Isn't it odd Indians aren't filling up prisons, crying about poverty and racial profiling? I mean, if we accept that narrative that we live in a racist, white supremacist society where "black and brown" people are targeted. If it's true that the vast opinion is "if it's not white, it aint right", then where are all these Asians and Hindus screaming oppression?
Maybe it comes down to the fact African Americans just have a problem with crime. Although the 90s, the big rap stars were all posing with guns in promo pictures and they were on MTV in constant rotation. They made profit and a lifestyle out of the criminal, anti-authority image...yet it all circles back to that pale faced devil.
Matt said: "I was in the first grade when MLK was assassinated. ***** I had no clue who Manson was until about 1974 when I saw and bought Bug's novel."
I was seven when MLK was assassinated but my mom, being rather far to the left, had made him a presence in my life even before that young age- not that I understood.
Somehow my leftist mom, who was denied a teaching job in Detroit in 1954 because of the 'organizations' she had joined in college, married an old school, conservative, WWII vet, Republican. He'd be a libertarian today. Ended up disliking his own party due to the evangelical right.
I grew up about 30 minutes from Kent State in Ohio. In 1970 I saw my father put a loaded shotgun in the front hall closet. He told me it was because "the hippies were rioting and the governor had to call out the troops to put down the rebellion and that hippies in California were sneaking into people's homes at night and killing them". I went to my mom who explained it a bit differently and that is when I first heard of Charles Manson.
We had some rousing dinner conversations around election time.
Robert C said...
when Charlie was given an opportunity to defend himself, he went off on trying to lecture the country about his sociopathic agendas
At the start of his arraignment period, I don't think Charlie thought he'd go down for murder. When he persuaded Pat to return from Alabammy, persuaded Leslie to dump Marvin Part and persuaded Susan to not only fire Richard Caballero, but repudiate her GJ testimony, I think he felt at that point that he had his bases covered. His Rolling Stone interview and what he says about the bible and messages in Beatle songs is astounding in that regard.
I suspect that, having unwittingly found himself to be something of a media news spot, he was going to use part of the trial to address what he saw as some of the justice system's wrongs, evidenced by statements like when he said it was the court on trial not him. He did address some of the justice system's wrongs in his statement during his trial, interestingly, in regard to Black men. He referred to them as 'sons.'
I've long felt the judge should have given him a stiff warning about his motions and told him to get serious ~ the court's version of serious ~ but I can see why the judge {who stated he had discussed it with the two other judges that Charlie had appeared before} felt he was not competent to continue representing himself. To be honest, I find it to be something many legal people do almost as a reflex action. My sister is a judge and if I was in court and said I wanted to represent myself, it would be like me saying I wanted to jump off a tall building without a parachute. She was like that even as a barrister. Her husband, a solicitor, would react similarly. I don't know any people in the legal profession that would advocate a person representing themselves. Many of them would even think a lawyer or judge representing themselves would be a mistake.
Manson Mythos said...
The amount of pre-trial publicity was devastating
Some thought that about OJ and Michael Jackson and wondered how they could get a fair trial.
But logically, pre~trial publicity can only really be seen that way if the jury is swayed by what they've read and allowed their pre~ trial opinion to be formed by that. I was curious when reading William Zamora's book to see if the pre~trial stuff had gotten to the jury and from what he says, most of them weren't really interested. It wasn't really their world. A bit like the Nixon thing, there's this theory riding around that because tricky Dicky said Charlie was guilty, it swayed the jury, not allowing for the fact that not everyone on the jury was a Republican, not everyone respected the president regardless of what he might say and in particular, not everyone liked Nixon. Zamora certainly gives the impression that he didn't give a crap what Nixon may or may not think. I know it's only one man's view but Zamora provides an important window into the psyche of the jury and given that there was all kinds of squabbling and unhealthy cliques, he presents them as being essentially fair minded and eager to be just. It would've been easy to present only himself that way.
Ziggy said: BTW - "Manson Mythos Youtube channel has a lot of videos that people might be interested in ... "
Thanks for that.
Manson Mythos --- The US is currently in an era of extremism (left & right) with several generations now raised within that environment. What you propose is a conversation that America is not ready to have yet. As a lifelong historian and researcher, there's very little that Americans today know about domestic history that is accurate. It will be left for future generations and historians to revisit when the pendulum swings back toward the center, as it always eventually does in time.
Manson Mythos said...
Maybe it comes down to the fact African Americans just have a problem with crime
Trilby said...
while it would be unfortunate that the heroic man on the left would be stopped; it would justly happen because men with his skin color, while a small percentage of the population, unfortunately FREELY CHOOSE to commit a disproportionately large percentage of certain crimes,including violent
@Dennis, one of the major differences between what you've said and what Trilby said is that of blanketing; so for you, it's African Americans that have a problem with crime. For Trilby, it's some African Americans. I'm not by any stretch of the imagination saying that you are racist {I don't play that game} ~ but your statement sure as shit stinks is.
All through the 90s, the big rap stars were all posing with guns in promo pictures
Yeah, some of them were. Forgive my ignorance, but the gun has long been a potent American symbol. Speaking as someone who grew up in England and who was immersed in many things American, whether it was gangsters, farmers, rangers, citizens, stick up robbers, secret agents, cops, cowboys, Mafia hitmen, Yosemite Sam or the Lone ranger, posing with guns or seeing them in continual use was nothing new and nothing unusual. The 90s rappers learned from the best, I guess.
Hey, maybe Brenda had a point after all....
and they were on MTV in constant rotation
They didn't put themselves on MTV "in constant rotation."
They made profit and a lifestyle out of the criminal, anti-authority image
As did the Rolling Stones {well, Keith Richards}, a plethora of punk and other rock artists through the 60s and 70s and beyond. The 'bad boy' and 'bad girl' anti authority cat that walks on the wrong side of the law and/or "morality" sells and has done for longer than you and I have been on earth.
As an aside, not a justification, many of that rap generation that sprang up in the 90s and slightly beyond had parents and relatives who came through the changes of the 60s and felt that many of those who had tried to do things the right way and who stayed on the right side of the law still got shat upon from a great height and therefore surmised, if being honest gets you screwed and being embroiled in crime gets you screwed, might as well get embroiled in crime and take the risks in pursuit of making some cash. It's not a million miles removed from the conclusion Charles Manson came to. "You stick it to the man your way. We'll stick it to him our way."
Furthermore, and I can remember this well because it's ongoing, many of the fiercest critics and opponents of the entire rap schtick were Black people, even down to openly detesting use of the word 'nigger' which many said they'd spent 20~30 years fighting the use of by racists and those choosing to be demeaning.
St Circumstance said...
The LULU point is a very good one. But Charlie didn't directly participate in killing anyone those two nights and Leslie did. You are most likely right it wouldn't make a difference to be fair.
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That point is not valid in California. He was a co-conspirator and tied up the victims. Conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder and actually murdering someone are all capital offenses in California. Keep in mind that I'm not an attorney but I play one on TV.....
Grim -- what we have going on in the US is more of a clash of cultures and subcultures. The 'racial' or ethnicity part of it is secondary to me and has more to do with drawing up battle lines using skin tone to presumably identify where people stand although it's quite inaccurate to do so. Motives and perceived entitlements also play a role because the US government is comparatively so wealthy. Really, in my humble opinion, the root cause is money and free stuff for the lower economic classes and power and control for the upper economic classes. You don't see anywhere this level of ethnic strife in the Caribbean, Central and South America simply because there's no gain to be had.
Regarding gun culture America .... for a while now we've been getting roughly two types of UK TV programming feed into our public broadcasting TV channel --- period pieces and murder mysteries. The latter has become dominant to the extent young people watching this today in the US might get the impression people are dropping like flies in the UK and perhaps it might not be a safe place to visit ;-)
I don't think 'black rappers' have a monopoly on posing with guns to convey a certain persona. It is interesting to me that when 'white people' do so it is a second amendment right and they are portraying 'outlaws'- a class of historical murderers that we tend to 'hero worship'. But when 'black rappers' do it they are "made profit and lifestyle out of the criminal, anti-authority image." It took me about ten minutes to find images of the following 'white musicians' posing with guns or in videos with guns:
Toby Kieth
Madonna
Miranda Lambert
Johnny Cash
Waylon Jennings
Willie Nelson
Ted Nugent
Motorhead
Alice Cooper
And, of course the album Desperado by the Eagles
Took about two minutes to find these:
http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/worklife/campus/news/a30712/college-students-pose-guns-yearbook/
http://newsone.com/3112767/colorado-teens-pose-with-guns-confederate-flag-at-prom/
My first thought was that I'd love to be able to read ROBERT H's comments on this post :(
Me too Mrs. Matt....
Hello Doc.. you do a good job of playing one lol :)
Robert C said...
Regarding gun culture America
To probably most of us here in the UK {possibly Northern Ireland excepted}, America is gunculturesville, not in a negative or positive way, it just is because that is the only way it has ever been presented to us. That one is allowed under the constitution to carry a gun is what makes it a gun culture to many of us here. Whereas, we can't carry guns here. That doesn't mean that there are no guns. It's just not a common part of any of the cultures here although in quite a few subcultures it is and has been for decades, on and off.
for a while now we've been getting roughly two types of UK TV programming feed into our public broadcasting TV channel --- period pieces and murder mysteries. The latter has become dominant to the extent young people watching this today in the US might get the impression people are dropping like flies in the UK and perhaps it might not be a safe place to visit
Some years back, a place I was doing a delivery to had working for them that summer a lady from Harlem and we were talking one day about a newspaper headline that declared London to be more unsafe than New York in terms of murder. I was fascinated because I'd heard so much about Harlem but had never met anyone from there and she was curious about Black Londoners. Neither of us saw our respective cities as being in any way how the other had perceived it and we were both surprised that London and New York were seen that way by others even though we thought each others city was the more violent.
I have noticed since around 1998 that there is a much more frequent reportage of murder in the UK media. Like anywhere, it's fairly safe to visit ~ as long as you know where not to go. Recently, a Chinese airline was given a hard time for giving tourist advice to their people visiting here which basically said that there were some Black and Asian areas that one needed to be cautious of going to at night. I couldn't see what the fuss was about. Some Black and Asian areas can be dodgy to go into, especially if you come off as a tourist.
In most places there are parts that aren't safe. I think it is true though, murder mysteries notwithstanding, that among young people, there has been an increase in violent crime in the last 25 years, which often ends in death. But most violent crime here seems to be either gang related {or 'rival' schools} or domestic, between people that are familiar with one another.
Blacks do commit a higher percentage of certain kinds of street crime (the effects of which pale in comparison to the crimes of bankers, politicians, war criminals and environmental offenders, but that's another discussion).
The difference in crime rates between the races disappears when economic status and geographical residence is taken into account. That, too, is another discussion).
The truly germane ppint is that when police profile by race in making a traffic stop, they are not expecting to find burglars, armed robbers, or murderers. The main thing they are looking for, and what these stops statistically yield, are contraband such as drugs. And since statistics show that blacks and whites use drugs at roughly the same rate, profiling by race makes no sense from a law enforcement point of view. Its sole purpose is to reinforce white supremacy and institutional racism, the cornerstone of this evil and sick society from day one.
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