Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Righteous, Pretentious and Dangerous

I often do a thorough job of exposing the media and its ratings-fueled buy-me-a-sponsor sensationalist broadcasts. The entertainment news outlets rarely fact-check, promote divisive opinions and rarely provide an objective journalistic perspective that Edward Murrow or Walter Cronkite would approve. Having said that, it is important to note the types of individuals these news outlets serve - those who feel their efforts and opinions are righteous, but in the end are just pretentious lemmings who try to ride the coat-tails of what they believe will be the next great revolution of consciousness.

While there is a great deal of people who actually know that there is more to a story than the headline, these people are highly analytic calm individuals who will not jump in Al Sharptonian fashion on a platform of Racial Divide and 'Great Injustice'. As a result, we are left with the bottom-of-the-barrel knee-jerk reactionaries who are willing to perpetuate uninformed feelings-based divisive opinions to wave their flag of righteousness. Not many actions can be more pretentious than to carry forward the ignorant opinion of others in the name of outrage and/or seeking justice.

Which is why my column is a bit delayed, respective of the events it addresses. I take pride in my due diligence of research before any analysis is performed... plus I have a day job. I try to provide an objective analysis, and express my feelings in the form of question(s) at the end. That way I am not predisposing my readers to any conclusion. I am not saying that I am completely impartial, but I always try to reach that mark and constantly improve my approach to reach this goal.

But there is a higher level of responsibility that exists, beyond the bloggers, beyond the news outlets. It is the responsibility of Publicly Elected Officials to protect the people they serve. A large part of that responsibility falls into what such an official says and doesn't say. With respect to the Eric Garner death, where the Police Officer (Daniel Pantaleo) used an illegal tactic to subdue the suspect, there was clear misconduct on the part of the officer. There is no question that he is responsible for the suspect's death and I wrote about this incident in my December 10th column (Real Crime). Regrettably, the mayor of New York City, Bill De Blasio, decided to dive into the racially divisive outrage head-first and fuel the fire further by sharing his feelings, instead of doing his job - isolating the incident as an improper action by a police officer and attempting calm the situation to a peaceful end.

This kind of commentary by the city's leader validates the reactionary sensationalist vigilante feelings of a mob of people. These people were already on edge and now they have the city leader's validation of their feelings. These feelings of vigilante justice manifested themselves in the 'Dead Cops' protesters in New York City. Eventually, such validation reached the mentally unstable youth, Ismaayil Brinsley, who wound up ambushing and executing two NYPD Officers this past weekend.

While Mayor De Blasio has the right to share his feelings as a citizen of New York, he has a higher obligation that trumps that right as the Mayor of New York. And this month he has proven unwilling or incapable to fulfill his obligation as Mayor. Being a leader means you have to do and say things that are in the best interest of the people who elected you, which don't necessarily reflect your own feelings or agenda. Bill De Blasio - you failed the people who elected you.

There are columnists who consider themselves righteous and try to protect the right to hateful speech of the 'Dead Cops' protesters. Fact is, those rights have not been infringed upon by anyone - the group was allowed to carry on, demanding the indiscriminate death of Police Officers unopposed as they marched down the streets of New York. But as advocates of hate speech, these same columnists validated the broad target of the vigilante mob outrage, which has been irresponsibly placed on the heads of the men and women who protect your sorry asses.

Furthermore, these same columnists are pretentious enough to point out the comments of the PBA president (who was furious at Mayor De Blasio for his actions) are meant to incite reprisals by police. This conclusion is so pretentious, so far-fetched and ridiculous, that I am actually angry that I have to teach the ABCs of reason and rationale to people who claim to be intelligent. The Police department is trained to serve and protect. They arrest and imprison criminals, including vigilantes. They possess a professional tolerance that prevents them from seeking out "vengeance". They will protect you, regardless of your pretentious and dangerous rhetoric that incites and validates those who do harm to others.

While I disagree with some of the comments made by the PBA president Patrick Lynch, for the most part he was looking out for the welfare of the police force. I will strike down the 'blood on the hands of mayor' inference, but it is at the very least irresponsible to fan the flames of racial divide as the Mayor before any fact of racism is even confirmed with respect to the Eric Garner case. But to say that the PBA president incited police vigilantes is an ignorant statement in itself. The PBA president has a responsibility to his police officers, while the Mayor has a responsibility to the entire population of New York City. PBA president has been locked in a battle with the Mayor regarding the treatment of officers for some time now - attempting to protect his officers.

The excuse being used by advocates who badly want to see a vindication and rightfulness of protesters here is that - "it was just a couple of dozen protesters who chanted Dead Cops Now, the rest did not promote violence". A question to those advocates - Did you witness the rest of the protests in New York City to make that statement or are you pulling another ignorant opinion from your blooming ass?

Carefully crated words that evoke strong feelings disseminated through media in the modern world can be powerful - they can start movements and bring governments to their knees. And there are people who believe they are pursuing a just cause, because it "feels right", writing opinions that fuel the racial divide using history and presumption of guilt. However, remaining ignorant of factual evidence and drawing far-fetched parallels to suit their narrative, they are simply pretentious and, in the case of the two slain police officers, dangerous.

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