Hands Up, Don’t Loot

fergThe interior of the Ferguson Market and Liquor Store is littered with broken bottles and scattered snacks. Despite the plywood boards covering the windows and doors, looters with their faces covered in bandanas helped themselves to anything they could find as those who came to memorialize Michael Brown carried on his work.

The violence in Ferguson didn’t begin when a police officer shot Michael Brown. It began when a 300 lb thug robbed the Ferguson Market and abused a clerk. The release of the video showing the obese criminal assaulting the clerk led to a terrified statement from the store manager that he had not called the police and had nothing to do with the release of the video.

“They kill us if they think we are responsible,” he said.

That is what this conflict is about. The police exist so that Ferguson Market and a hundred other stores can do business without being robbed or murdered. Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown, was holding down the thin line that makes it possible for stores to stay open.

When the police pulled back, the rioting and looting began in earnest. Governor Nixon, a critic of the police was forced to turn to the National Guard. The police were never the problem. The looters and rioters were.

The photos of protesters with their hands in the air confronting police in riot gear told a very misleading story. But the real story was sitting in a video held by the Ferguson police and the Justice Department. It was the video of Michael Brown assaulting a clerk at Ferguson Market.

The Justice Department and Governor Nixon did not want the video released because it put the emphasis back where it should have been all along. This was not a conflict between Michael Brown and the police. It was a conflict between Michael Brown and a Ferguson Market worker.

We are all that worker.

Any of us can be targeted by a Michael Brown at any time. Every week delivers up fresh new victims of the knockout game. A pregnant woman. An elderly man. A child.

The police are the common defense we use to protect ourselves against the kind of society where store workers have to fear being killed. They are not perfect, but they are far better than the rule of the Michael Browns who take what they want and attack anyone who tries to stop them.

In Ferguson there was a choice between looters wandering around shouting “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and ordinary citizens crying out “Hands Up, Don’t Loot”. Shouting “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” at a police officer might work. Shouting “Hands Up, Don’t Loot” at a looter won’t.

And that is why we have police forces. As flawed as they are, they follow some rules. The looters follow no rules at all.

Despite all the talk about the militarization of the police, there is very little discussion of why. The police and the prisons are a societal immune response to an infection

Talking about the immune response as if it exists entirely apart from the infection is how we ended up with hysterical coverage of the unarmed teen shot in the back by a crazed racist officer. Not only was the media take on the story a lie, but it removed the context of the crime from the response to the crime. That was what made Brown’s shooting seem senseless and insane.

Stripping away the rioting and looting from the police in riot gear made the law enforcement response seem deranged and insane. It’s only when we see the rioting, the looting and the arson, the shots fired and Molotov cocktails thrown that the heavy gear suddenly has a context.

This is a trick that the left has been playing for a very long time. In Ferguson or Gaza, in Afghanistan or New York, it focuses on what soldiers and police do without the context of what they are responding to. Watch a few hours of media coverage from Gaza and you’ll conclude that Israel is fighting a war against crying children. Without footage of Hamas terrorists or Israeli children under fire, the Israelis seem like murderous lunatics.

And that is exactly what the media wants you to think.

If the United States continues bombing ISIS, the media will stop showing photos of crying Yazidi refugees and instead show us the crying Sunni Muslim children of the families in Mosul who support ISIS. And then the United States will be accused of murdering crying children for no reason at all.

This happens all the time.

The media gave us every detail of Clayton Lockett’s suffering after his botched execution. It didn’t tell us how he raped one teenage girl and shot her friend and buried her alive while she begged for her life. It didn’t even tell us that Lockett died horribly because opponents of the death penalty had been working overtime to cut off the supply of reliable lethal injection drugs.

Without that context, the justice system seemed monstrous for making a man suffer while the monster was passed off as the innocent victim of the senseless brutality of the system.

All systems and people are flawed, but our law enforcement and military are reactive. When we don’t talk about what they are reacting to, then there is nothing meaningful to say.

We have SWAT teams because of race riots and urban guerrilla warfare. Without Watts, the Black Panthers and the SLA, the police militarization would probably never have existed.

The militarization of the police was a response to left-wing violence and terror.

If the left hadn’t spent much of the last century inciting race riots and setting up terrorist groups, there wouldn’t be police officers armed for war.

If not for the left’s disastrous social experiments, the War on Drugs would never have been necessary.

Finally, if the left hadn’t shifted immigration over to the Third World while sympathizing with Islamic terrorists, September 11 and its law enforcement and military aftermath would never have been necessary.

This is why the left tears away the context from a crisis. If we began to genuinely discuss why there are police officers dressed like soldiers or TSA agents examining your shoes, the line would trace all the way back to the left.

Communists realized how useful race riots and the authoritarian backlash could be to their agenda. Terrorists don’t just aim for the target; they also exploit the fallout to polarize a society.

That is what the left has been doing for generations since.

From the Weathermen to September 11, the left polarized the response while removing the context. The left plants the bombs and then acts as if the security men running around are insane fascists.

Ferguson is more of the same. The left’s army of activists and reporters troop down to the city. The activists start the violence while the reporters dramatize it. The coverage polarizes Americans and gives the left another hook for hanging on to power long after its economic policies have been as thoroughly discredited as those of the Soviet Union.

The left isn’t just covering up for the rioters and the looters, the terrorists and the murderers. It is covering up its own role.

That is why its cultural apparatus snips away the context, reacting to the reaction as if it were the cause. The left keeps yammering about finding the root cause, but it is the root cause.

The root cause isn’t poverty. It’s not racism. It’s the left.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.  

Subscribe to Frontpage’s TV show, The Glazov Gang, and LIKE it on Facebook.

  • Frances John

    This is the subversion your reader Keliata commented upon (How to write about Israel, August 17, 2014). I watched some of the youtube videos she recommended of the ex KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov , and he explains that the left is behind all this stuff that is going on and it always has been. He explains how easy it is to bend people’s minds. The root cause isn’t poverty. It isn’t racism. It’s the left.
    When I was young in the sixties we used to laugh at the old people who called us communist dupes. We were communist dupes.

  • UCSPanther

    It was the same limp-wristed response of Jerome Cavanagh that was said to have allowed the Blind Pig Riot of 1968 to get to the city-block destroying intensity that it got to.

    That event caused a major wholesale exodus of working folk from Detroit, and marked the point where Detroit went into free fall into economic ruin.

    As for the SLA shootout, the LAPD SWAT team was faced with a pack of terrorists who had a slight advantage over them in the form of their modified M1 carbines, which they rigged up to operate in full auto (reportedly, it was done using a similar modification that the Cuban Communists did to “enhance” their M1 carbines’ firepower). The LAPD officers had to rely on semi-auto AR 15s and AR 18s, and had to scrounge up an M16 and an MP40 SMG to give them more even footing with those wannabe revolutionaries.

    After the SLA shootout, it became a common sight to see big city SWAT teams armed with M16s and Ruger AC556 carbines.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      And this is the context that people need to know. The militarization did not come out of thin air.

  • Godzilla Smash14

    I think this is one of the best articles to explain the rioting and the response. You deserve more views than you get frankley.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      thank you

      • Robert Allen Zimmerman

        This is my first time commenting here but I have been reading this site for a while and I would like to thank you for all the joy your articles have gave me.

        While I agree with a lot of what you wrote (on Yazidis, Lockett, and Gaza I thought you were spot on) and I now think the police presence is now much more justified. I also think the militarization has gone way overboard in certain parts, I mean places like Doraville, Georgia (population 8,500) have tanks and that SWAT teams are now sent for things as trivial as poker games.

        And I don’t you can be a true conservative and defend that type of big government bullish*t.

    • jfmoris110

      Really, Mr. Greenfield is the best

  • jude newman

    At gunpoint they should also be ordered to clean up and then hand over their dole and money from drugs to pay for the damage they have caused. Savages, who destroy and steal working people’s life and business.

  • truebearing

    Great piece, Daniel. I’m glad you’re staying on this. It needs to be completely exposed.

    The Left looking for a “root cause” is like Waldo asking: “Where’s Waldo?”

    The Left is always attacking what they see as “the white power structure.” They know most cops are white and those cops uphold laws that are based on a constitution and culture they want to overthrow, by any means possible.

    When the Left starts a fight with law enforcement, they do it to undermine the law. They wait for the police to arrest, beat, or sometimes shoot a black man, and immediately the demonization begins, like a well rehearsed fire drill. Now they declare the thesis: “Cops are racists, or jack-booted thugs. The culture is racist, Police brutality, etc.” Politicians and the media react predictably, with the politicians eagerly seeking peace at all costs, while the media searches for sensational footage. The voice of the antithesis — “We’re upholding the law” — is lost in the rush to quell the violence and get to the sociological cause. It all plays into the hands of the Left.

    The peace settlement negotiated by corrupt politicians, and the media coverage, always leave the police and the culture tarnished, but the people who started it end up with new youth centers, and money to throw at the standard social cause, poverty, which means oppression by the white majority. The money ends up in the pockets of race hustlers and politicians, or to indoctrinate more children with racial hatred.

    Thesis – “the police are racists.” Antithesis – “we’re upholding the law.” Synthesis – “mo’ funds” for the people who started it, negotiated by politicians who use the resolution money to buy more votes. The country moves further to the Left each time dialectical destruction is orchestrated by the Left. Entire cities have been rotted to the core with this process that has destroyed countless lives and squandered trillions…but it puts leftists in power. Now blacks, like Obama and Holder have learned to play the game, and they won’t stop until whites have no power.

    • The March Hare

      The Left looking for a “root cause” is like Waldo asking: “Where’s Waldo?”

      That’s like Limbaugh said several years ago, “This is like Col. Sanders saying: I’m going to find out whose been killing all them chickens.”

      • kasandra

        They aren’t really looking for a “root cause.” They already have their narrative. It’s that the U.S. is an irredeemably racist country. They just use events like Ferguson to further that narrative irrespective of the facts that have already been adduced. That’s why they continue to propagate the notion that this is all about the “police shooting of an unarmed youth” without more.

        • Sidney Dorsett

          Can you elaborate more on the true root cause?

          • kasandra

            No.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Will the KURATAS robot be next? It’s made by Suidobashi Heavy Industries (SHI) and is a mech-suit equipped with 6,000 round-per-minute Gatling guns allegedly triggered by a smile. Ferguson Police Department only needs $1.35 million to buy it. Is it not true that the root cause is something that occurred as far back as Reconstruction and the failure to give black slaves the means to survive. Like 40 acres and a mule.

          • kasandra

            I have no idea what you’re talking about re: the robot to which you refer. Are you claiming that the officer shot and killed Michael Brown because Brown smiled at him? Obviously, that’s ridiculous. If reconstruction was, indeed, the “root cause” why were black crime, illegitimacy rates, unemployment rates, etc. all lower in the 1950s (i.e., @80 years after reconstruction) than they are now (@145 years after reconstruction)?

          • Sidney Dorsett

            The population is larger today than 1950 is it not. Does that say anything?

          • kasandra

            No it doesn’t say anything because I’m talking percentages and you’re talking numbers. I didn’t leave out anything about reconstruction because you’re the one blaming things on reconstruction. I don’t. It’s not even relevant let alone a “root cause.” BTW, lots of people started off in the U.S. without means of gainful employment or money and most, within one generation, became productive citizens. Your type of thinking is what perpetuates the problems of the black community. You place no responsibility on the malefactors, excuse their misconduct, and perpetuate a sense of grievance and entitlement.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            I think I said that the events in Ferguson sadden. Against that you reply that my “type of thinking is what perpetuates the problems of the black community” and you also say I “place no responsibility on the malefactors, excuse their misconduct, and perpetuate a sense of grievance and entitlement.” Events in Ferguson sadden should tell you how wrong your accusation is.

          • kasandra

            You excuse the events in Ferguson as being the result of reconstruction. I disagree. No one in Ferguson experienced slavery, reconstruction or, for most, Jim Crow. I blame the behavior is the result of the rioters, themselves, fueled by an unlimited sense of grievance and entitlement. I’ll leave it to readers to decide who they agree with. Bye.

          • Carolina

            I did not say the above either. You need to respond to the property person. I do agree that the behavior is the result of the rioters. When you have the likes of Al Sharpton coming and “stirring the pot” so to speak you are going to have problems.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            I’m told St. Louis was settled as early as 1764 and some early residents were free black landowners and craftsmen. The United States assumed political control in 1804. Life allegedly changed for slaves who’d lived under the French and Spanish systems via “black laws” with far more restrictions on slaves. I’ve already mentioned how, on Emancipation, skilled slaves were ready for freedom but the majority who were field workers and unskilled beyond planting and clearing land were not and freedom for them was like receiving a bad cheque. Check your State history because it’ll confirm that “the majority of Missouri’s slaves were agricultural workers” owned by farmers along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Vision the mix: Some African-Americans were free, being seen by others who were enslaved. Several were among the wealthiest citizens of St. Louis. Ferguson attained City status around the ’50s so what I say must be taken in context. Also the interplay of the dynamics involved must be understood. It’ll take too much time to get into it all but what you’re witnessing is the result of age-old injustice.

          • kasandra

            Let me be clear. I don’t care. Got that? You know nothing about the hardships other people have faced either individually or as part of a mistreated group. And no one else acts like the people in Ferguson have been acting. They, and only they, are responsible for their actions.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Thanks for informing that you don’t care. I still disapprove anarchy, likewise murder and age-old injustice and unfairness generally.

          • Carolina

            I did not say any of the above. Of course the events in Ferguson sadden. I did not say that “my type of thinking is what perpetuates the problems of the black community” or the following sentence. You need to get your quotes back to the proper person. If you read a lot that is available about this situation you can ALSO read that his father was

          • Sidney Dorsett

            I think that was the other lady being unladylike.

          • Carolina

            Think of the thousands who have come to this country, not speaking English, who have been successful. Blacks must take responsibility for getting an education. That is the difference between success and failure. When young black boys call those who want to study and make good grades “Uncle Toms” they are only hurting their own race.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Have you concluded that the teen who was killed was not in process of taking responsibility for getting an education? Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought he was to begin college about a week before he was killed? You’re forgetting because you lazily resort to the age old tendency to always generalize when it comes to Blacks.

          • Carolina

            All we have is “someones” word that he was going to start college. Your statement “he was to begin college a week before he was killed” does not make sense. Did he, in fact, start college a week before he was killed?

          • Sidney Dorsett

            It’s published in “The Economist” so I don’t know if you place no reliance on their word. “MICHAEL BROWN was to start college this week. Instead, his parents are planning his funeral. On August 9th Mr Brown was shot several times and killed by a policeman in Ferguson, a suburb near St Louis, Missouri.” The point is this: was he taking responsibility or not? Yo are nit-picking. I’m over and out on this. I remain deeply saddened by events in Ferguson, the way trillions are spent maiming and injuring civilians and anarchy and nitpickers.

          • Debbie G

            There you have it. Michael Brown is not a field labourer. So what’s his excuse for robbery?

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Dd I “excuse” something, or try alerting the “root cause” may be deeper than your comments and better explained by sociologists who recognize that descendants of American slaves unlike those from other jurisdictions appear to suffer an illness still unaddressed? And point to a study that seems to say there is a known formula for the cure? And also point to a possibility that the officer’s dysfunctional background and Ferguson police force training failures may also explain, not excuse, his action?Can you prove Michael Brown is not “a descendant” of a field labourer and covered by the study?

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Naturally. And if the common field labourers were in larger numbers and hence more unskilled individuals were emancipated than skilled we’d expect them to be at the bottom of society. And their descendants for some period too.

          • kasandra

            Yes, I would, indeed, expect them and their descendants to be at the “bottom of society” if they didn’t do much with their freedom in the subsequent 150 years.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Or if they were prevented from achieving by rampant racialism over the subsequent 150 years is more like it.Your problem is that your type of thinking is what perpetuates the problem. As long as the cop is white he is right; overkill or not. He intended murder. Let him face the consequences of his act. If he did not intend murder but was negligent it’s second degree murder. But he’s black you see so let him go scot-free.

          • Debbie G

            Same old song and dance. When will blacks take individual responsibility instead of perpetuating this group-think theory of whites holding them down?
            I’m sure this situation will be fully investigated. But the in the meantime, the rioting continues for no good reason. For right now, why don’t you focus on Michael Brown’s crime?

          • Carolina

            Because until Lyndon Johnson’s “no more poverty in our time” came along the black family was a strong family unit with a man in the house. You did not have the illegitimacy rate that you have not. What is it, 75% of black children are born to a single woman? The white rate is rising also. It is a proven fact that a man in the house reduces many of the problems that occur in today’s homes.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            KURATAS is a killing machine ready to go into production. Russia has its version and I think China too. It’s on YouTube:http://youtu.be/29MD29ekoKI

          • kasandra

            I’ve changed my mind. I will elaborate. The true root cause is nearly fifty years of inculcating in the black population a sense of unlimited grievance and entitlement. There’s your root cause.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Will this be the next solution? Its called KURATAS, Made by Suidobashi Heavy Industries (SHI) AND it’s a mech-suit equipped with 6,000 round-per-minute Gatling guns allegedly triggered by a smile. Ferguson Police Department only needs $1.35 million to buy it. I honestly believe that the root cause occurred as far back as reconstruction and the failure to give black slaves the means to survive. Like 40 acres and a mule.

        • The March Hare

          Yep, that’s what we were talking about.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      Of course all the Federal SWAT teams are never jackbooted thugs.

      • truebearing

        No, of course not. The State is benign and looking out for our wellbeing.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          The cops have the bad SWAT teams, the EPA has the good ones that raid guitar factories.

    • Lightbringer

      Truebearing, your comments are always a pleasure to read. Thanks for your insight and intelligent analysis.

  • JR Kipling

    Yes, the Left exploits the situation. It may even allow the conditions to exist to exploit. But it doesn’t create things out of nothing. It has to have raw materials

    to work with.And the raw material in Ferguson Missouri is that it went from 71% white in 1991 to 71% black in 2014. But even 25 years ago the natural chain of events was unstoppable. After the thin wedge of black demographics say 15% black, starts pry apart a community, with say a few spectacular crimes or even the constant grinding down of petty theft, burglary, graffiti, loiterers..its really the forces of nature that take over. Whites leave. And one thing we do know with absolute certainty is that Ferguson Missouri is now finished forever. Its “post-recovery” will be 85% black..which is the same the exact demographic ratio of Detroit. . In one year the population in Ferguson will be less than 15% white. And those whites remaining will be too old or poor to escape. And after that, perfect blackness. Like Haiti or Zimbabwe. And lets not forget the biggest most reliable force the Left has on its side in all of this.You and me.. That the vast majority of whites who will stare right at this phenomenon and scream racist if anyone honestly describes it. Because, as we all know, individuals should be judged on their own merits, MLK told us that. But the laws of big numbers abide, a few exceptional black individuals may know better, but exceptions don’t decide elections in a mass democracy, or else we wouldn’t have Obama or the ruins of every American city. Ben Carson for President wont save us, but millions of whites are willing to give him a shot rather than admit the unalterable laws of racial demographics. So lets buck up, and put a hopeful face on this, The Left is smiling and relying on our optimism.

    • American Patriot

      Actually, the racist radical left wouldn’t give Ben Carson a chance to become president because he is a black conservative and we all know that the left doesn’t like conservative minorities because they disprove the accepted lies about American society, democracy, politics and the economy. Look how the left treated Herman Cain during the pre-primary stage of the 2012 Republican presidential race. Actress Janeane Garofalo stated that Cain was “suffering from Stockholm Syndrome”, an insult not only to prominent, hard-working politicians like Cain and others, but also an insult to those who actually suffer from the very disorder. Yet, no one from the left made Garofalo a pariah for her racist and bigoted comments, nor denounced her. And Garofalo is a white leftist. Cain is a black conservative. Yet because Garofalo is a so-called “progressive” and Cain is not, the left and the MSM did not feel like condemning one of their own for something they would certainly condemn conservatives for, even if it were totally false. Other leftists, both black and white, have also said nasty things about Cain too with no criticism at all from the usual watchdogs. Then, when Cain was in the lead in the GOP presidential pre-primary race polls, the left decided to force him out of the race by creating the false allegations of “sexual harassment”. The left had the help of some women to help their smear case against Cain. One of those women, Karen Kraushaar, was a former official at the now-defunct INS who was instrumental in deporting young Elian Gonzalez to Communist Cuba, thus insulting both black Americans and Cuban Americans. The smear campaign against Cain worked, as it led to his exit from the presidential race and secured the Democrats’ dominance over black voters. The racism against conservative minorities exists and is tolerated by the left. Earlier this year, prominent Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted that much of the racist smear attacks against him came (and comes), not from Savannah, Georgia; but from northern “liberal” elites. Every day, conservative minorities are routinely denounced as “Uncle Toms” and race traitors. That is why the Democrats have such dominance over minority communities. It is time for conservatives and Republicans to fight back by exposing the left’s real agenda and how that agenda has harmed minority communities across the country. Long live the David Horowitz Freedom Center!

      • Lightbringer

        What really angered me was the use of sexual innuendo against both Cain and Thomas. Basically, the left has a pass to say, “Black men are unable to control their sexual appetites because they are more primitive than whites.” This tactic seems to have pretty much ended the political career of the capable Mr. Cain, who really doesn’t have to put up with such nonsense, and has embittered the life of the brilliant Justice Thomas. What a terrible way to use such talented men.

    • truebearing

      You make some good points, but don’t underestimate the Left’s culpability. They worked very hard to use welfare to create idleness in the black community, which in turn led to more use of drugs and alcohol. The Left used welfare to compete with Christian churches for hearts and minds. With the federal government, ie taxpayers, funneling money to fight the “War on Poverty,” the churches were outgunned and blacks went for the easy money. The rest is history…leftist history. They always start their divisiveness with those most vulnerable to their evil.

  • Lidlscanner

    The left can never be happy. Orwell told us so many years ago and they keep proving him right – the totalitarian left stamping a foot on the face of humanity till doomsday.

    • meanpeoplesuck

      A child was shot in the face for stealing a box of cigars. Who exactly are the totalitarians?

      • Andrew Nelson

        You…and your fellow mob of totalitariam idiots. “Shot in the face…”? A few days ago all you lying idiots said the thug (a ‘child’? get real) was shot six times in the back. Just go keep lying and looting…take by force what others have produced. Then sit there in the dark wondering why no sane person wants to know or live around your type.

      • truebearing

        A child just lied about an event because he is too weak to handle the truth.

        Of course you suck, junior…and you’ll be at the teat your entire worthless life. You want to be taken care of while you dedicate all of your waking hours to feeling sorry for yourself. Poor widdo guy.

      • camp7

        A young adult had the top of his head blown off because he was assaulting a police officer doing his job.

        “Who exactly are the totalitarians?” — your vile masters.

        • truebearing

          And to think, he was shot in the least used part of his body.

          • camp7

            so it seems.

      • UCSPanther

        “A child was shot in the face for stealing a box of cigars.”

        When someone is at the age of 18, they are no longer a child. In fact, when anyone is over the age of 14, they are directly responsible for their actions.

        ” Who exactly are the totalitarians?”

        Your comment feed tells the story. For everyone out there, this “thing’s” comment feed is all about silencing, disarming and suppressing Conservatives, gun owners and Israelis…

      • Daniel Greenfield

        Are you also a child?

      • Lightbringer

        A CHILD? You call an eighteen-year-old, six-foot-many, three-hundred-pound man a child? If an eighteen-year-old is responsible enough to vote, he’s old enough to be called a man. And he can be reasonably expected to behave like one.

  • Lanna

    Michael Brown pushed the Police officer down in the front seat of his vehicle, he had to react to this thug! Before that he was stealing cigars and was on something to act is such an aggressive manner! Dr. Michael Bodin said that Brown was NOT shot in the back, the wounds do not prove that Brown had his hands up! Ferguson has the anarchists invading at night to loot, burn, shoot at police, and cause chaos and people know exactly what is going on!

    • Sidney Dorsett

      What did the two forensic pathologists say about the wound on the right hand? It’s still possible he was struck from an angle. That wound may have been sustained while turning around to face the officer and while his hands were up; a mobile part of the body. True, no bullets were in his back. True, there is anarchy. Plainly that’s bad.

      • Debbie G

        Apparently, you tar all whites with the same brush. You can’t have it both ways.

        • Sidney Dorsett

          Do all whites insult a teenager walking on the road instead of the sidewalk with profane abuse?

  • cheechakos

    I could kiss you Daniel.
    I don’t live far from Ferguson so we have 24 hour local coverage. If i watch MSM the story is completely different from what is occurring.
    Ferguson is a small town of 21,000 that has been suffering from white flight/ghetto infiltration for several years. Crime has been escalating and democrat voters replaced the Conservatives.
    Michael Brown was a product of this.
    Michael was raised by his grandmother in Ferguson.His mother ,Leslie McFadden ,lives in St.Ann,MO – where Michael has a criminal record. His father was not in his life.

    What you aren’t seeing is many of the protesters are not from Ferguson.
    NAACP,NBPP,NOI,ACORN (called MORE in MO), Answers (Soros group) Communist Party of Chicago,Amnesty International,Sharpton,Jackson, Baptist Church Org,Scientologist and multiple muslim groups have descended on this little town. Over 60 media orgs are there including Info wars and Russians. People from CA,OK,TX,IL,KS,NY,CT,DC,FL and Nebraska are here.
    At times there are more of these people on the street than protesters.

    The police you see aren’t Ferguson officers but a collection of 15 police departments. They were brought in because from day 1 the police have been under constant assault. Rocks,bricks,molotov cocktails,bottles,beer cans and bullets are endlessly launched at them.
    17 officers have been injured. 9 protesters have been shot by protesters.Assaults and robberies have escalated.

    The media and democrats have turned a simple protest into a headline grabbing “race riot” Residents lives and businesses are being destroyed. The elderly and disabled are basically trapped in their homes.
    While the MSM and liberal groups create a circus.

    • cheechakos

      Stats for Ferguson, Mo :
      Black – 13,753 (64.9%)
      White – 6,494 (30.6%)
      Population in 2012: 21,135 change since 2000: -5.7%
      Males: 9,279 (43.9%)
      Females: 11,856 (56.1%)
      Median resident age: 33.1 years
      Estimated median household income: $36,121

      In St. Louis, African-Americans are 49.2% of the population, but are responsible for 92% of homicide, 78% of rape, 93% of robbery,
      87% of aggravated assault, and 82% of burglaries.
      Source: Missouri State Highway Patrol Statistical Analysis Center

    • Daniel Greenfield

      I’m not surprised to hear about his fatherlessness. Good to have it confirmed.

      The problem with this kind of situation is that when an open wound is created, the parasites converge. The longer it goes on, the more of them spread.

      The media is really the source of much of the infection.

      • hopkins

        Don’t many black men have a narcissistic streak where they want everything to revolve around them? They seem to want to suck up all the oxygen in a way that is detrimental to other cultures. Or is this my imagination?

        • Uncle Whitey

          Yes, you are correct. ‘Tis but one of several definitions of N*ggerishness. Yes, I said N*ggerishness. It’s a word. I just made it up. And it fits.

    • Sidney Dorsett

      The situation in Ferguson is sad. Even Egypt is commenting and President Putin has taken to Facebook despite the miserable treatment of Black soccer players by Russians. But let’s not overlook the fact that whatever Michael Brown’s product, persons familiar with Officer Darren Wilson remain mortified that he even qualified to join the police force. It is possible that he was having a bad day, profanely abused the two men, reversed to assert authority and the cheekiness of his victim leaves the rest to history. This highlights a need for refresher-training on dealing with the public; and teenagers in particular. I understand that Officer Wilson’s mother is dead and I will not go into her background any further.

      • Carolina

        His mother lives in St. Ann, MO

        • Sidney Dorsett

          Sorry. The Guardian Online contacted one of her victims of fraud, a Sandra Finney. In an effort to recover money stolen from her she was given a run-around, encountered a stumbling block when his mother allegedly filed bankruptcy, and she was told that his mother died. She should be happy finding out her whereabouts if she reads The Frontpage Mag.

  • JVictor

    It certainly looks like the massive display of force by the militarized police in Ferguson was justified now that Gov. Nixon has had to call in the National Guard to try and enforce the peace. So much for the State Police walking the protest lines with the looters.

  • cheechakos

    (KMOV.com) – Misinformation about the events in Ferguson has been spreading around social media.
    The name of an officer who many thought shot Brown was circulated around social media, that name turned out to be the name of another officer; images that spread of police pepper spraying children actually originated in Brazil.

    Police Say Name Released By ‘Anonymous’ Is Not Officer In Controversial Shooting
    http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/08/14/anonymous-releases-alleged-name-of-officer-they-say-fatally-shot-michael-brown/

    Florissant Police family evacuated from home due to threats after ‘#Anonymous‘ wrongly ID him as the #Ferguson cop.
    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/08/anonymous-threatens-wife-children-of-st-louis-county-police-chief/

    ‘It Wasn’t Me:’ Wrong Man Named By Anonymous As Ferguson Cop Speaks Out
    http://www.insideedition.com/headlines/8764-it-wasnt-me-wrong-man-named-by-anonymous-as-ferguson-cop-speaks-out

  • Sidney Dorsett

    You really believe that police officers are “armed for war” because of “race riots and terrorist groups” set up by the left? Which Congress started the Iraq War with $45-Billion which today exceeds $3-trillion and the camouflage suits and armored vehicles being used by police are merely surplus from that war? Ferguson, Mo. is proof of a failing educational system that needed the same $3-trillion wasted on the Iraq war started by the right.

    • cheechakos

      An official with the U.S. Department of Defense told ABC News that last October, Ferguson police received “non-tactical” equipment under the “1033 program” that included two unarmored Humvees, a trailer and a generator.
      The armored vehicle used by Ferguson, and seen in many of the images, was not given to the town by the DoD, It is not a military vehicle.
      The weapons that Ferguson police are using are be non-military issue, the DoD official said, and their camouflage uniforms were likely commercially purchased.

      A complete list of the equipment provided to St. LOUIS COUNTY by the DoD shows the types of weapons being distributed: six .45-caliber pistols, 12 rifles, two sight reflexes, one explosive ordnance disposal robot, one helicopter, seven utility trucks, three trailers, one motorized cart, one pair of elbow pads, one pair of knee pads, one industrial strength face shield, two night-vision viewers, and computers.

      • Sidney Dorsett

        Kindly note that I beg to differ. It depends on how credible our sources are. For, I rely on David Mastio and Kelsey Rupp’s article headlined: “Department of Defense provided surplus military vehicles, rifles and pistols to local police departments” in the 14th August, 2014 edition of USA Today. They emphasized that it was “surplus military” equipment and I am saddened you’d think I pulled it out of the air arbitrarily like a magician doing a hat-trick. For myself, I think it’s better than sending it to Iraq and letting the Iraqui army turn tail and run leaving it for the Isis terrorists to use to wipe out unarmed civilians. You said nothing about anything else I mentioned. .

    • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

      The “failing educational system” you refer to was not starved for funds by the Iraq war; it was then and still is vastly overfunded. It is a disaster because it is run exclusively by your side – the political Left. The only places where public schools are somewhat acceptable are in conservative areas.

    • Drakken

      Just wait until the blacks move on to riot and loot in a white neighborhood, then it will get really interesting to say the least, and I just wonder how the left is going to spin that narrative.

  • Armed_Infidel

    Also, the left is desperate to maintain the fiction that interracial violent crime is white on black. Virtually all interracial violent crime in the US, including battery, murder and rape, is black on white; and almost all violent crime against blacks is caused by other blacks. Everyone knows it; how can’t they? It’s the Bonfire of the Vanities all over again — seeking the great white perp.

  • ron44

    Well you can’t have redistribution of wealth or forced reparations with the man with the badge in the way. Progressivism at work..

    • Sidney Dorsett

      If $3-trillion was kept at home to improve technical and vocational training among youth BEFORE they were leaving High School the black and white Michael Browns would have been employed during the summer instead of doing negativity, perhaps? And the Pentagon would not be implementing “the 1033 Program” today as there’d be no surplus military equipment left over from the unnecessary Iraq War?

      • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

        No amount of money wasted on training would have employed anyone, because your zero-hero Barry Obama has gone out of his way to crush business enterprise. Businesses will not invest when they don’t know what the government will do next to hurt them, Sidney. The economy is in the toilet, and it’s all the fault of Obama.

        • Sidney Dorsett

          April 2014 statistics by Fact-check.Com show that Mr. Barack Obama met the economy “in the toilet” but has done some startling things and then on the hand some not so startling too. Their April update indicated corporations and shareholders were flourishing with prosperity “under his presidency, while the economy steadily adds more jobs and millions sign up for health insurance under Obama-care.” A concern was wages which remained stagnant for the employed and 3.7 million persons who were without jobs for 6 months or more. Also interesting is that while U.S. oil production is booming and dependence on oil imports is slowing, the national debt is now almost double and historically large deficits continue., among some other interesting things including a diagram chart.

      • http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey_Britain

        “Since the beginning of the War on Poverty (1964), government has spent $19.8 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars) on means-tested welfare.

        In comparison, the cost of ALL military wars in U.S. history
        from the Revolutionary War through the current war in Afghanistan has been $6.98 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars). The War on Poverty has cost three times as much as all other wars combined.”
        Stephen Daggett, “Costs of Major U.S. Wars,” Congressional
        Research Service, June 29, 2010.

        For the actual reasons WHY blacks in this country are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder read this: “The Five Critical Virtues. It’s the virtues a culture embraces, ‘stupid’.”
        http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/the-five-critical-virtues-its-the-virtues-a-culture-embraces-stupid/

        Then get back to us after you’ve read it.

        • truebearing

          Very well written piece.

          It all comes down to attitude. What a person wills in their life is what they will get. Scoff at virtue, ignore ethics and morals, thumb your nose at common sense, and strut around with pride that is wholly unmerited, and you will be poor in spirit and pocket. Blacks, as a group, evince excessive pride for no apparent reason. It hinders every possibility for them.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Don’t know what’s so well written about that since it’s pellucid falsehood. I believe your problem is that you tend to generalize about all Blacks, or all members of that group, based on what limited knowledge you have from dealing with just one or two. The only thing you got right is that attitude counts but that affects teenagers generally Black or White too. Otherwise this pride and the like leads to an erroneous conclusion.

        • Sidney Dorsett

          It depends on whom you believe and the Global Research Centre cites a 2013 Harvard University report estimating the US’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost as much as $6 trillion”. Kindly not its 3 years later than Mr. Stephen Daggett’s efforts on which you rely for the specious claim that military wars in U.S. history from the Revolutionary War to the War in Afghanistan has been $6.98 trillion. I should hardly rely on your efforts at research. The common rule is to find the latest, is it not? I should hardly need to read The Five Critical Virtues. You overlook I addressed my comments on all of the Michael Browns, both black and white; and being called stupid will not hide your attempted mendacity.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Obama’s war on the economy has already added 7 trillion to the national debt.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            Don’t disregard the fact that I liked your article too. But the “root cause”? I thing it goes way back.

      • truebearing

        Blame the Left for stripping things like home economics, shop, etc from school curriculums, but even if they were still included, a student has to be motivated to learn a skill and get a job. Once he has the job, he has to be willing to honor the implied labor contract he agreed to when he took the job. Too many blacks want a job, but not the work that goes with it.

        There have been many business owners over the years that have told me that they avoid hiring blacks because when they do, the majority of blacks will simply refuse to do certain jobs they feel are beneath them. They will refuse the task with the same words: “I ain’t doin that. I ain’t no ni**a.” So to fill minority quotas, they hire Hispanics, who are more than willing to work hard. Attitude is the biggest impediment to black employment, and attitude is taught at a young age. Blacks have a generational attitude problem.

        • Sidney Dorsett

          I never set out to attribute “the blame” to anyone but merely to say that; rather to ask in case you did not see the question mark, whether avoiding expensive wars and whether introducing trade and vocational training at high school level should find our teenagers more positively occupied when school vacation is on during the Summer holidays but that was too simple to grasp? What is all this what’s wrong with the majority of blacks stuff. It’s been my experience that a number of whites who rant about the blacks, like Hitler did about the Jews, actually are half black themselves. Hence their “attitude.”

          • Drakken

            Yes crackers should just ignore what is right in front of them because it hurts someone’s feelings. The stats don’t lie and where ever blacks start running things we suddenly get another Detroit. Wonderful, burn baby burn.

          • Sidney Dorsett

            I shouldn’t know how to address a “Cracker” but historically blacks were usually called in in mixed communities to get things fixed. Notably, when Bush messed everything up and put the economy in “the toilet” the nation looked for someone black. There’s a “thinking” problem affecting the young people and I mean globally.

  • http://www.clarespark.com/ Clare Spark

    We all feel DG’s frustration and fury. But no political faction has the complete answer regarding race relations. I laid out the competing positions here: http://clarespark.com/2014/08/17/improving-race-relations-left-right-and-middle/. “Improving race relations, left, right, and middle.” Comments solicited. Note that black rage has only increased owing to misguided leftist strategies. Has the Right come up with better solutions? Huh?

    • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

      Sure – here’s a solution: end the welfare state and “affirmative action” and hold blacks to the same standards as whites. Then they will have to sink or swim (I hope the latter). Recognizing the black subculture as the problem is the first step towards finding a solution. Now if by “right” you mean the Establishment-GOP, forget it – they have no ideas at all except for having fun while in office. If you want solutions, turn to us Conservatives.

      • Lightbringer

        The really sad thing is that until the late 1950′s and early 1960′s, when the Democrats suddenly decided that they were the black folks’ best friends, race relations were improving dramatically in this country, along with black income and educational attainments (without affirmative action). If things had been allowed to continue as they were, we would have a lot fewer problems.

        • Matt E

          You’re right. Race relations are tricky because we have to acknowledge some truths that are tough to deal with. The truth is that blacks are not going to match whites in achievement. Ever. It’s why white people built successful economies and African countries didn’t. That’s just the way it is. I think the average white American IQ is equal to something like the 90th percentile black IQ. That is important to recognize and if we quit lying to ourselves and to them that the groups will be equal – and we just acknowledged that they aren’t (just as we acknowledge that blacks are often faster than whites), both blacks and whites would be better off.

          It also speaks to the decline of white American behavior and morality. When American whites (ie. 90% of Americans pre-1965) were healthy and morally confident, they could keep black behavior in line. They could make sure that blacks were expected at a minimum to meet certain social and moral requirements. But when American whites lost confidence and started having out of wedlock births and crazy divorces and libertarian ‘do whatever you want,’ attitudes, well, blacks can’t handle that and they descend into chaos. Our ancestors understood this. We don’t. And both the black and white communities suffer because of it.

        • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

          That is a very good point that is too infrequently made. Not by coincidence, the Left took over the Democratic Party in the ’60′s, and since then they’ve done everything possible to poison race relations.

    • Race_Dissident

      Solution? Establish a penal colony in West Africa to which will be remanded all black felons in perpetuity.

      • Lightbringer

        What have you got against the West Africans?

  • Christopher Riddle

    Michael Brown’s WHOLE demeanor was dictated by whay He KNEW He Had Done!He assumed that the police officer ALSO knew!Who knows if this tragedy would have been averted had the policeman known of Mr. Brown’s latest escapade??Noetheless,it is a TRAGEDY but caused by WHO???Certainly NOT The Police!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey_Britain

      Officer Wilson DID know about the robbery and did see the Swisher Cigar boxes in Brown’s hand. There is NO tragedy when a policeman shoots a crazed criminal attacking him. Which is EXACTLY what happened.

      • Christopher Riddle

        I wasn’t”There”!Were you?

        • http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey_Britain

          I didn’t have to be there, the Ferguson Chief of Police stated that Officer Wilson had been notified of the robbery just minutes before he confronted Brown and his accomplice. That’s easily verifiable. Wilson has told friends that he saw the cigars in Brown’s hands. Given the video of Brown stealing the cigars (about 6 boxes) with no bag and being apprehended just minutes after the robbery, it’s entirely plausible that Officer Wilson is telling the truth of having seen them, when he initially told them to get out of the middle of the street..

          • Christopher Riddle

            I’m sorry!I had heard that the officer was unaware of the robbery.I just imagined that it was Brown’s”demeanor”that struck him as odd?

          • http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey_Britain

            Not a problem. There’s been a lot of contradictory info put out there by the press. The cop says as he slowly drove by Brown and his accomplice, he told them to get out of the middle of the street and caught the boxes in Brown’s hand out of the corner of his eyes. He stopped, backed up and started to get out of his car. Brown smashed the door forcing him back inside, then leaned through the window and started punching the cop and went for his gun. The cop managed to keep it away from Brown but in the struggle it went off but struck no one. Brown pulled back, turned and then started to run away. As he did, the cop got out of the car and yelled “freeze” pointing his gun at Brown. Brown stopped, turned around and started telling the cop that he wasn’t going to shoot him, taunting him. Then Brown started to bumrush the cop who fired in response. Brown kept coming in spite of being struck 4 times in the arm. The last two shots the cop fired struck Brown in the throat and head. He collapsed just feet away. An eyewitness to the whole thing basically confirms the cop’s story. The cop thinks Brown had to be on something because he just kept coming from about 35 feet away. Prior to all this just minutes before, Brown is clearly on video robbing a convenience store and violently pushing the owner away when he demanded Brown pay for the cigars. Brown was an 18 yr old adult, was 6’4″ tall and weighed about 290 lbs…

          • Christopher Riddle

            He had to be”On”something!Who would”BumRush”a cop with a gun;get shot in the arm and keep on coming??

  • Demo P. Seal; PouponMarks

    Treason, insurrection, and subversion are openly practiced today, from the President on down. How can you have George Soros declaring that the United States needs to have its sovereignty reduced so that it will become unexceptional and powerless, and to have him financing and fomenting its dissolution?

    A simple reading of the Constitution provides all the power to imprison and deport thousands like him. As Allen West has said, Obama’s actions are consistent with him being an Islamist, with the interests of the United States subservient.

    • Lightbringer

      Deport Soros? If we sent him back to his native Hungary they would declare it an act of war.

      • Drakken

        They would do to him what should have been done 65 years ago, hang him from a lamp post.

      • Debbie G

        They don’t want him. Nobody wants him. Except the good old USA, of course.

  • bob e

    dan .. takin’ it to ‘em with atomic punches .. ka-blamo !! more great stuff ..
    truly amazing out put of essays ..

  • Cappy1437

    Very insightful. Thank you Daniel Greenfield.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      thank you

  • http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey_Britain

    Brilliant.

  • Rick

    The events in Ferguson have caused so much:

    1. Less news of ISIS and the problems in Iraq
    2. Russia and Ukraine put on the back burner of the news
    3. Benghazi nearly forgotten
    4. BOKO Haram activities falling into a news media black hole
    5. Abuses of the IRS and other government agencies hardly mentioned
    6. Mexico Border flow of illegal’s forgotten
    7. And so many other Obama headaches overshadowed

    Now Eric Holder is on his way to Ferguson and the 3rd autopsy has been done, ordered by the DOJ. Does anyone think that the government appointed pathologist will report the same findings as the other two autopsies, i.e. 6 frontal shots fired, 5 nonfatal and one fatal ?

    These are very disturbing coincidences happening every time the POTUS or the left has a public image problem, drawing attention away from much more important issues. The incident itself was terrible, but the attention given does seem disproportionate when compared to that given to black on white or black on black crimes.

    Now I just saw that a Mo. State Senator, Jamilah Nasheed has stated that if the police officer isn’t charged with murder, then the riots we have seen will seem like a picnic compared to the havoc likely to follow (paraphrasing).
    Does anyone else see this statement as a threat aimed at the police and others?

    • physicsnut

      well, you see, the folks at Salon, Alternet, TheNation, theAtlantic, Huffpo etc
      really did not want to hear about illegals and ukraine and syria etc
      so they DISTRACT everybody with events in podunk,usa.

    • Malik Obama

      They haven’t covered anything on the central american invasion of the us in about a month.

  • liz

    Excellent article – totally nails the reality of the left’s never-ending campaign of agitating crises into existence and then using them as political weapons.

  • WhiskeyJunkie

    It’s the left? HA!
    Left, right, center, upside down, and inside out – who cares! The biggest elephant in the room that is not discussed by “supposed” conservatives, is race.

    The same old paradigms of right blaming the left, and left blaming right is a sham.
    They are one and the same. Two sides of the same coin.

    It’s not surprising that the left and right refuse to speak about racial dynamics, differences, and historical empirical evidence.

  • mtnhikerdude

    Making saints out of criminals is the way the Left justifies them. Ferguson is a re run of Saint Travon Martin . Three generations of welfare or more with no one ever having a job is the reason for these riots . Entitlement for sixty plus years is a Jones for life. My guess is Blubber Butt Brown had at least six to seven hundred dollars worth of body ink on his EBT butt. “The poor have been voting democratic 60 years and the are still poor”. Charles Barkley

  • James Foard

    It’s all a spontaneous protest because of a video, don’tcha know?

  • physicsnut

    exactly !
    Riots and urban warfare have consequences.

  • WeirOnlyHuman

    This article is the best one yet to state the reality of these situations. We have agitators like Sharpton and Jackson trying to develop street cred with thugs. We also have journalists looking for a chance to propel themselves into the spotlight by getting arrested in front of TV cameras on nationwide programs. We have television anchors giving their “Monday morning quarterback” opinions on how cops are handling the rioting, while not daring to opine about those violent thieves running out of ransacked stores with arms filled with merchandise. Hence, race-baiting blacks want to increase their reputation for rabble-rousing, reporters want publicity, anchors want ratings and thugs want to rob and pillage without interference. Meanwhile, the cops just want to do their job and go home safely. Nice country this has become.

    • American Patriot

      Hate mongers like Farrakhan and Wright also try to contribute to develop unrest.

  • Race_Dissident

    Simply put, this is the best column I’ve read on the Fiasco in Ferguson. Greenfield understands the AWR (Left) very well. He is a most worthy partner of David Horowitz.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      thank you

  • http://www.apolllospeaks.com/ ApolloSpeaks

    FOR NEWS ON DARREN WILSON’S EYE INJURY FROM BROWN’S BEATING

    click http://www.apollospeaks.com

    • Lightbringer

      Poor Officer Wilson. Those X-rays look horrible. Let’s hope he recovers soon.

  • Bob Sten

    This is one of the best articles I have read in years. Bravo Mr. Greenfield, excellent work!

    • Daniel Greenfield

      thank you

      • Bob Sten

        My pleasure buddy. Keep talking the truth and you will gain many followers.

        Your article should be in every big paper in america. Americans really need your reality check.

        I really appreciate your hard work and dedication to truth.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          If articles like this could appear in every big paper, they wouldn’t have to be written. So we’ve all got to keep up the good fight.

          • Bob Sten

            I couldn’t agree more ;)

  • Texas Patriot

    Keep up the good work, Daniel. There’s much more to this story. So far we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      indeed

  • Well Done

    I’ve been saying for decades, when there is a riot, all bets are off.
    So many otherwise intelligent people think they can stand around watching, and any policeman who orders them away is “violating their rights”. Riot means go home. You have no right to hang around. Yet, these creeps continue their whining “but I wasn’t rioting”. Stupid. No cure for it.

  • whenistheendalrady?

    Why I have to look hard for the articles like this?
    Thank you!

  • aspacia

    UN military equipment on U.S. soil is another major concern.

  • Sidney Dorsett
  • Harry Black

    As so often Greenfield begins with what has now become the big lie, in this instance a falsehood fabricated and spread by none other than the Ferguson police department; Contrary to Greenfield, Michael Brown and his friend did not rob the convenience store but paid for the cigars, as the store video shows and as the storekeeper testifies. The rest of Greenfield’s racist, fear-mongering rant is an excuse for the militarization of policing in general and, in particular, the maintenance of a police state in a town in which whites by a huge margin control the government and police force (50 to 3 white to black) although the population. is 63% black, 30.6% white.

    • Nick Cameron

      Nonsense! You say, “as the store video shows.” I saw the video and it shows nothing of the kind. It MIGHT show him paying, if you use your imagination and a lot of assumptions about what you see, but it does not support your statement in any way. Keep dreaming.

      • Harry Black

        Not nonsense at all. Both the video and the storekeeper say otherwise. Actually look at the video. It doesn’t look like a robbery in progress to me or to the bystander who casually walks through the scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maA1FUJqhew Moreover, EVEN IF Brown had robbed the store, that does not justify murder in cold blood. The Ferguson police force wanted to demonize the guy when it released the video with cuts. You seem to be buying the police version of events, or at least Greenfield’s, which follows what has become by now a standard racist script.

  • Giles Blyzzard

    Can’t disagree with anything you said, but I still have a problem with the militarization of the police and federal government agencies like NOAA and the USDA having their own SWAT teams. The more acceptable it becomes, the closer we get to a police state. Heck, we already have cameras at traffic lights, check points on highways (“papers please”) stopping people with no probable cause and cops who arrest people for filming them on duty. We’ve got drones in the sky spying on us. When does it stop? Never. Big brother is just going to keep on getting more and more pervasive.

    I remember after the Boston Marathon bombing, the cops were out in their military vehicles looking for TWO thugs while the rest of the town was cowering in fear behind closed doors. This in the same place where 239 years ago the citizens took on the world’s greatest army in order to keep their gun powder supplies from being confiscated. The cops looked like an invading army. It was ridiculous.

    I don’t see anything wrong with the police officer’s response in Ferguson. Brown was a thug and he is dead because of his own behavior. But the militarization of the police troubles me greatly. Is it solely a result of liberal sympathy for criminals or is it also partly the inexorable march toward totalitarianism?

  • Nick Cameron

    Hard to argue many of the points made here, However, it also misses the point that the police have a vested interest in power-mongering, militarization, brutality and intimidation. It makes their job easier when the general population is fearful and terrorized by the power of the armed state. The police has also become politicized as well as militarized. They frequently enforce the political aims of those in charge rather than respect the law and the Constitution. I just watched a Ferguson video of a armed and armored cop pointing his rifle at an unarmed member of the press and saying, “Get the fuck out of here or I’ll kill you.” This is not an officer in command of his fear. This is not a professional, highly trained policeman with the power of life and death over the citizenry in control of his emotions. The look on his face showed he was dead serious. He would have pulled the trigger with the tiniest bit of provocation. He should not be a cop; he should never again carry a gun; he should never again wield the power of life and death over any citizen. There are two sides to everything.