Kareem Abdul Jabbar Sums Up Ferguson. Not Kidding.

[Indy]

[The Dharma Bum]

I just read this too Jabbar is really telling the truth, which is what we need to get civil disobedience going again in this country.

Kent State and the killing of those students kind of was the beginning of the end of effective civil disobedience and the antiwar anti-MIC ethic, after this point the population began to become obsessed with idealistic yet still consumerism friendly "alternate lifestyles"

first with the hippies. this lead to the narcissistic 70s and "me generation" 80s, with the 90s being a rebirth of 1950s style conservatism/militarism culminating in the post 9/11 security state, which, not surprisely lead to general economic collapse.

thats what happens when commercial interests have an undue social influence. the rich (them) get richer at the expense of everything else.

If we lose our "superpower" status it's because of our own foolishness.

[Indy]

Well, how do you distract a poor white guy from knowing he's being screwed by the wealthiest people in this country?

You convince him that it's because of poor black people. Or at least you distract him by playing to his racial fears/biases so he's not thinking about who's keeping him poor.

That way, the poor black and white people never join causes, which is the point.

[The Dharma Bum]

thats just the tip of the iceberg

[Indy]

Well, to beat the analogy to death once more, a rich white guy can, with his cronies, destroy the economy and wipe out billions while taking money from you and me to not only restore his company but to give himself a bonus, and the response is non-existent.

Yet apparently some people think stealing a box of cigars merits the death penalty, literally.

The more this goes on the more I realize that race is so heavily intertwined in American culture I don't know if you can ever remove it. But, like with the left/right false choice, it's something consciously used by those who want to, to focus us on our alleged differences as opposed to the fact that we're all Americans.

And, since most of us aren't in the top one or 10%, unless we start fighting for our country it will be taken from us and administered to us.

[Philly]

[Indy]

Can you summarize that?

[Philly]

[Indy]

Hmmm.

What I'm saying is that regardless of that message, turning everything into a referendum on race distracts from what we should really be focused on: the evaporation of the middle class and more becoming poorer or the poor unable to ever get out of their situation.

Point being: I find it hard to believe if there were better opportunities these same people would be committing such crimes, stealing poundcake, stealing cigars, whatever.

If it were middle class or upper class people committing these same crimes, I'd be more inclined there's to think a racial element to it.

But instead we continue to stick it to the poor and middle class in this country and before anybody starts thinking to hard about that we make it about... race.

Because let's face it: when people in this country are afraid of black criminals, they buy guns. When the criminals are white CEOs, they ignore it.

[Philly]

But race is inherently involved. Even adjust for economic differences, a young black man is far more likely to be shot by a cop than a young white man. We can't get poor white people and poor black people on the same page because the inherent threat exists only to the black people.