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Rash Judgment and Detraction on Phatmass


Lilllabettt

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I have been a member of this community for 10 years. 1/3rd of my entire life has been spent with you, phatmass. And while I have often benefited from your support I like to think I have also contributed some high quality product.
 
No secret you are on a down slope right now. It happens. I have hung in there through all of them. This time I am losing patience waiting out the wave of prissy pricks. Because it's not Christian. It's prejudiced and its bigoted. 
 
If you "like" people's facebook posts saying "F the police," spread rumor and innuendo about the guilt of an innocent man, all because you have some axe to grind that is called prejudice. I do not care if you are pregnant and about to pop or you're a tired old white guy. You deserve to be called on it. When you can't tolerate being called out on your prejudice, that is called bigotry.
 
I want you all to think real hard, next time you're in bed asleep, with your little babies and your loved ones safe around you. Think real hard. 
 
When you go to sleep, my sweetie goes to work. He straps on a bullet proof vest and spends all night on the street in the pitch black piercing cold -- cleaning up assault, murder, and human excrement --- all so prissy pricks can  sleep warm and safe in their beds and wake up well-rested, ready to chant "F the police" the next day. It's sad, but my sweetie is in more danger working the south side of Chicago than he ever was in Iraq. So no good nights sleep for his mother -That's her only son. No good nights sleep for me - That's the only person I ever loved.  
 
But guess what. Recently my sweetie's Guard unit got called up, and he had to deploy. And I am HAPPY. Because it's worth not being able to see his face for 12 months just to get him away from the prejudiced, bigoted monsters in this country who are standing ready to try hanging him up a tree should he ever have to defend himself on the job.
 
I told him when he gets back, if he ever feels like he has to shoot somebody, go ahead and do it, don't hesitate for one blinking second, and don't forget to double tap. All the vultures, all the prejudiced, bigoted hyenas that will want to come after him without knowing all the facts, we can deal with them later. 
 
For anyone who does not know it, because exoneration is NEVER as sexy as accusation:  the Department of Justice cleared the cop in Ferguson, Missouri of wrong doing in the shooting death of Michael Brown. 
 
This is Eric Holder's DOJ - the AG who made prosecution of race-based civil rights violations the centerpiece of his administration. They found that every scrap of scientific evidence supported the cop's version of events. They found not one iota of evidence supporting the idea that the "hands up don't shoot" version of events ever happened. You can read the full report here. The report and its finding that the cop in this case acted in self defense has been covered by all mainstream media. Here's one I haven't put on phatmass yet, this one is from the LA Times. NYTimes, Wapo, Tribune, etc. all have similar stories:
 
 
Does everyone get that? if your "opinion" is different than the DOJ's, your "opinion" is based on bias and prejudice and contrary to all available science.
 
This truth is uncomfortable. This truth is embarrassing. If you participated in the virtual lynch mob - YOU SHOULD BE UNCOMFORTABLE. YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED. Use that discomfort and embarrassment for something good. Use it to remind yourself to stop next time you're tempted to rash judgment.
 
The cop in this case will never get his reputation back. His career is over. He will be lucky if he ever works again. And the whole time he was innocent of what he was being accused of. That is the consequence of rash judgment and gossip. 
 
What to do when you're not sure:

A woman was gossiping with a friend, judging rashly a man she hardly knew. And that night she had a dream. A great hand appeared over her and pointed down at her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession.

 

She got the old parish priest, Father O’Rourke, and she told him the whole thing. “Is gossiping a sin?” she asked the old man. “Was that the hand of God Almighty pointing a finger at me? 

“Yes!” Father O’Rourke answered her. “Yes, you ignorant, badly brought-up female! You have borne false witness against your neighbor, you have played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed!”

So the woman said she was sorry and asked for forgiveness. “Not so fast!” says O’Rourke. “I want you to go home, take a pillow up on your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me!”

So the woman went home, took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to the roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed. “Did you gut the pillow with the knife?” he says.”Yes, Father.” “And what was the result?” “Feathers,” she said. A world of feathers."

“Feathers?” he repeated. “Feathers everywhere, Father!”

“Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out on the wind!”

“Well,” she said, “it can’t be done. I don’t know where they went. The wind took them all over.”

”And that,” said Father O’Rourke,“is gossip!”

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Props.

But of course the prissy pricks will likely shut this thread down for its brazen dissent from their Acceptable Opinion on these matters.

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Nihil Obstat

 

i named no names. let the guilty convict themselves.

You could name names. Everything said here has been public.

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You could name names. Everything said here has been public.

so she could be specific.    What would be the point, other than arguing specifics with a few people.  Lots more than just two or three jumped on the bandwagon with blinders on.  Ferguson is a bad example to use as a rallying cry for a real problem.  It detracts from both real instances of police misbehavior as well as from the majority of well intentioned police trying to do their job.  A red herring for both sides of the issue.  

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Nihil Obstat

 

so she could be specific.    What would be the point, other than arguing specifics with a few people.  Lots more than just two or three jumped on the bandwagon with blinders on.  Ferguson is a bad example to use as a rallying cry for a real problem.  It detracts from both real instances of police misbehavior as well as from the majority of well intentioned police trying to do their job.  A red herring for both sides of the issue.  

I like avoiding vagueness whenever possible. If there are good reasons for the contrary then that is fine.

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the ignore button works wonders on saving one from the headaches one can develop from interacting with the internet armchair heros that are on here and other places, the sad thing is it only good for blocking regular users and not those soft Mediators of Meh who can not tolerate anything that even slightly gets under their skin and then they go on a power trip ....

The sad thing Lilllabettt; those you aimed your comment towards, just do not care; they don't care what the truth is, all they know and have been brain washed into believing is what the race baiting party tells them. They don't care because it is all a game and more over everything that they constantly scream about being unfair, etc /// is already addressed  time an again in the Gospel. But they can not get past their own problems and hate. It is easier to blame everyone else, but not their own political leaders for causing the mess, and it is easier to claim racial inequality ,or spread an idea that our police are in some kind of conspiracy to kill blacks all of this in the year 2015; than it is to look at their own problems in their own lives first and take the splinter out of their own eye before going after the beam in the other persons eye.

Then what is going to happen, someone is going to post a pile of statistics at you, and demand you  refute their claims to their satisfaction, but it will never be good enough because if the proof doesn't come from the same mouths that taught them how unjust and unfair America is, then you must be wrong. OR they will pat you on the back an go now now we don't mean to attack you personally, we know you are a good person and that your spouse is a good person, we are merely going after everyone else, and then they will expect you to sympathize with them for offering you an olive branch in this topic at hand.

But hey as long as people like Jeremiah Wright  can motivate and continue to preach their version of " love " what can you really expect / when Americans can't understand why we should support Israel....there is just no real surprise anymore why people act the way they do. 

 

 

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I don't live in Ferguson, but I work there - maybe three miles from the Canfield apartments and the now-gone QT. I live in a town contiguous to Ferguson. I shop in Ferguson. I eat at restaurants in Ferguson. I have friends in Ferguson. I go to church in Ferguson sometimes. I drive through Ferguson to get to Mass at the Newman Center often during the school year. 

In the QT that night of the riot, two people were working behind the counter - a man and a woman. I don't know either of them, but the woman is the sister of a colleague of mine. He told me what happened that night, as related to him by his sister. I have friends who live in Dellwood - which actually had more businesses destroyed than Ferguson, but nobody much knows that because the media don't report it and Dellwood doesn't have the same passion-inducing connotations as Ferguson. 

Three of my colleagues live in the Canfield apartments. I've talked to them about events that day and afterward.

One night during the height of the 2014 troubles, I was in a Starbucks about five miles from Ferguson, watching a guy film himself and post it to his blog - he passed himself off as a journalist "in the heart of Ferguson." He wouldn't know Ferguson if it bit him in the asphalt. Neither would the local television reporters, and neither would the local newspaper reporters. Because they all hang out in the fashionable parts of town and wouldn't be caught dead - literally or figuratively - in such an unfashionable place as an aging inner-ring suburb. And the national media don't even know where St. Louis is, much less Ferguson, because they'd never be caught dead - literally or figuratively - in such an unfashionable place as the vast and faceless Midwest. So a bunch of people who don't know nothing from nothing blathered on endlessly, repeating incorrect information that they heard from each other or from people with political agendas. It reminded of nothing so much as of September 11 - "We don't know anything, but we're going to stay on the air and keep repeating nothing because everybody else who knows nothing is on the air saying that they know nothing either. Now let's have an update from our man in the street on what he doesn't know."

My point is: I agree with Lillabett 100%. You cannot believe anything you hear on the television, on the radio, or read in the newspaper - the media are fashionistas, not reporters, these days. My friends who live in Dellwood? - the man is legally blind, has been all his life, and can't drive because of that, but he had the most accurate information on what was happening. Because he actually talked to actual people who wanted to know what actually happened so they could figure out what the problem was. The thing is, with social media these days, it's possible to get that kind of first hand information straight from the horse's mouth without having to go through the traditional media at all. 

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puellapaschalis

The Management Clique is the main engine behind Phatmass' (current) downturn. Well done @Lilllabettt on outing it - the downturn, that is. "Management Clique" is my word painting.

Edited by puellapaschalis
clarification
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That good priest got his idea from Saint Philip Neri…

 
What to do when you're not sure:

A woman was gossiping with a friend, judging rashly a man she hardly knew. And that night she had a dream. A great hand appeared over her and pointed down at her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession.

 

She got the old parish priest, Father O’Rourke, and she told him the whole thing. “Is gossiping a sin?” she asked the old man. “Was that the hand of God Almighty pointing a finger at me? 

“Yes!” Father O’Rourke answered her. “Yes, you ignorant, badly brought-up female! You have borne false witness against your neighbor, you have played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed!”

So the woman said she was sorry and asked for forgiveness. “Not so fast!” says O’Rourke. “I want you to go home, take a pillow up on your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me!”

So the woman went home, took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to the roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed. “Did you gut the pillow with the knife?” he says.”Yes, Father.” “And what was the result?” “Feathers,” she said. A world of feathers."

“Feathers?” he repeated. “Feathers everywhere, Father!”

“Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out on the wind!”

“Well,” she said, “it can’t be done. I don’t know where they went. The wind took them all over.”

”And that,” said Father O’Rourke,“is gossip!”

 Not sure, but I don't see how rash judgment on the part of people on PM lead to the indictment of officer Wilson. Still, I think you're right to say that many of us here have fallen into the spirit of rash judgment and detraction that afflicts the society in which we live…  in many threads and about many topics--- I'm unsure about this one though. On this topic, many of us have been going on what we hear in our society--- I don't think that those who went against officer Wilson here did so maliciously, because they are "prissy pricks."

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I like avoiding vagueness whenever possible. If there are good reasons for the contrary then that is fine.

Dude, we are well aware of your need to remedy "vagueness".

insert wry grin here ->

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My opinion of Ferguson came from the medical examiner. The hole in his shirt doesn't match the hole in his body with his hands in the air. Every time I see a protest march where people have their hands in the air, I have to laugh. 

LB, I'll pray for your soldier. 

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OK. I didn't comment in the other thread. But as I watched the situation in Ferguson unfold, I was reminded very strongly of the situation in Northern Ireland and my experiences there. How many Ulster Protestants still can't understand the Catholic suspicion of the police. The police force is mostly drawn from their number, and they are adamant that the police are only there to help and protect society, and they think that Irish Catholics who are wary with the police are just hanging onto conflict and trying to create trouble. But the Catholic population has had a vastly different experience with law enforcement, and even though the situation in NI is much better than it was, they aren't easily going to forget the humiliation of being stopped by B men or 'specials' (Protestant neighbours in uniform, given authority to treat them like croutons, who sometimes participated in revenge killings) and active police collusion with Protestant paramilitaries. This isn't ancient history, this is recent. Black American families also remember obvious and painful police collusion in violent acts of racism under segregation - and again, this isn't some old history that everyone would forget about if only political parties didn't talk about it. This is living memory. Structural racism didn't end with the Jim Crow era either. I doubt the use of lynching imagery in the opening post was an accident, and at risk of being called a prissy prick, I'm going to say that it was hugely inappropriate given this legacy. Darren Wilson isn't dead and a highly doubt that the opinion of Lil Red on Phatmass is going to concern him all that much or have a terrible effect on his life. The fact that he shot dead another person may do so - I've spoken with many ex-soldiers who have killed and it's not always easy to skip off back to normality after doing a thing like that, even if they believe 100% that they were in the right.

The police as an institution are not going to build trust as community guardians while people keep ending up dead. Even if you believe wholeheartedly in the ability of the state to investigate state officials with pure impartiality, the outcome of this investigation leaves a major question unanswered - why a policeman needs to shoot twelve bullets into an unarmed guy by way of defence. In the inner-city area where I live when in the UK, police deal with violence regularly (there is a gang problem there), most police aren't armed with guns, and they still manage to defend themselves without either killing people or getting killed themselves. There are non-lethal ways to subdue someone. It's not a stark choice between murdering a teenager and the police officer getting killed himself.

My brother is a soldier. It doesn't stop me from being highly critical of the army. The fact that I love him and value his safety does not mean that I am going to turn a blind eye to the safety and wellbeing of all the families whose lives that army helped to tear apart, as though it was either their lives or their life of my brother, and he had the right to turn killer just because I wanted him to be safe. It doesn't work like that.

Edited by beatitude
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James Baldwin said something important about the police:

"He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die."

The story of police and people is not a story of good guys / bad guys. There are a lot of good policemen, and there are a lot of good gang members who also have mothers and daughters and wives. So long as it's a story of good guys / bad guys, then everyone loses. The policeman may be a professional "doing his job," but so long as his job involves walking around with a gun, then he is going to be a figure of tension which is beyond his "professional" integrity.

Scapegoating has always been a way for masses to unite around a victim...but nobody would deny the need for a scapegoat, the fact that there is something beyond either the mass or the scapegoat that cannot be healed so long as the system of scapegoating continues. The police are just another social institution like scapegoating, a way to deal with the violence and division in the world, but that kind of institution will always be an alliance of power...the people have to be wary of the police, and vice versa.

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