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After non-stop media
bombardment in the countdown and release of the Grand Jury decision regarding
the killing of Michael Brown, what is our 21st century lesson from what
happened?
This may take a little time.
Our first lesson, we know
bias and racism remain as underlining currents in America although anyone not knowing
this lives in a bubble.
The bias exists between races,
cultures, and even within races. There
is economic bias, class bias, opportunity bias, wealth bias, education bias,
language bias, and a host of other biases that have nothing to do with race or
color.
Then again, what can you
expect in a nation that serves as a melting pot for all people of the
world. No other country in the world
welcomes anyone and everyone like we do and when you get here, if you try to
preserve your national culture, you are most likely biased.
Bias is such a monumental
issue in America
our founders made special provision in the Constitution and Bill of Rights to
guarantee equal opportunity to everyone regardless of the prevailing
biases. They also made special provision
in the Constitution and Bill of Rights to protect every American from any abuse
resulting from such biases. Finally,
they established a system of justice to protect Americans abused because of bias.
On June 21, 1788, the
Constitution was ratified. We now have
over 226 years of experience in enforcing the Constitution and we still have
incidents of bias like the Ferguson,
Missouri tragedy.
No doubt, we have come a
long ways. Way back when, only White
landowners were citizens. Minorities were
not citizens, nor women regardless of color, nor all the immigrants we welcomed
from around the world. Not even the
Original Americans were citizens.
Thanks to the Dutch,
English and French, slaves came to America and they were not
citizens. When the Chinese came here to
build the railroads, they were not citizens.
Nor were the Mexicans brought to harvest the American crops.
Even when we opened our
doors to those fleeing desperate conditions, like the Irish potato famine,
wars, unrest in Europe or Asia, the so-called
Soviet crop failures, and the flight to escape Nazism, they received sanctuary yet
had to earn American citizenship.
I think bias may be a
permanent human condition dictated by our programming throughout life and the
culture in which we live. If only we
could learn to respect the biases of others perhaps, they could learn to
respect ours and we could all live in harmony and peace.
Our second lesson, the
media in America
has lost its prestige that gave it special mention in the Bill of Rights. Never was bias more apparent than in the
media coverage of the Ferguson affair and few times in our history has the
media led such an assault on our judicial system as the media reaction to the
Grand Jury decision saying there was no probable cause for indicting the police
officer, Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown.
For example, there is a
ratings race between MSNBC and CNN and both cable networks have decided they
have no chance to break the Fox News stranglehold on conservative and moderate America. For well over a decade, FOX has dominated
cable news with ratings two to ten times more than their competition.
That leaves the other two,
MSNBC and CNN, in a dogfight to prove which is most liberal to the left wing
extreme, so they have to out liberal each other. What a shame since the liberals have not won a
national election since, oh probably forever.
Lyndon Johnson and
Franklin Roosevelt were about the most liberal presidents of the 20th century
and they got us into the most devastating wars of our history, World War II and
Viet Nam. Indeed, they gave us the "New Deal"
and "Great Society," but we also had the worst riots and urban
warfare ever seen.
What is it about liberal
movements that results in so much hate, disruption, and polarization? Now that we have cable and national
television networks fighting it out for the liberal spoils of ratings, we are
right back in the midst of the discomfort zone.
Make no mistake; there are
great liberal programs, services, and philosophies that benefit all people. Yet just like with the conservatives, the
good liberal programs were often hijacked by the lunatic fringe of the movement
or were overshadowed by partisan polarization.
Social Security and
Medicare have saved our older generation, whether conservatives or liberals. Head Start is one of the few bright lights in
the dismal performance of our education system. Such liberal programs have distinguished America from
other nations.
Liberal activists like
Elizabeth Warren, when it comes to fighting Wall Street, are the only hope for ever
curbing the abuses of wealth and power. Yet,
in order to secure the backing of the liberal media and liberal politicians,
she and any other liberal must sell out many of the centrist principles of the
real America
to be part of the national debate.
Perhaps the greatest abuse
of bias is obvious from the failure of the liberal media, when attempting to
fan the ratings flames of the Ferguson
tragedy, to acknowledge the existence of the toxicology report on Michael Brown
on that fateful day.
A host of people and so-called
experts are paraded before the cameras to tell us how flawed the grand jury
system may be, or to discredit the testimony of the policeman regarding the
condition of the victim Michael Brown. When
people have predetermined the outcome of a legal action, facts and truth have
no role in the debate.
Well the fact is according
to the toxicology report Michael Brown was stoned to a level equal to being
drunk and incapable of driving. So
stoned on marijuana he walked into a store just before the incident, grabbed
some boxes of cigars, and stormed out without paying.
Then walked down the
middle of the street in broad daylight as if driving a car and not knowing
which lane he occupied. People do crazy
things when they are stoned. Charles
Manson killed people. Many others killed
themselves.
The fact Michael Brown had
a bag of pot in his possession indicated this was no first time use of drugs. Why does the media refuse to expose the fact
he may have been just another victim of drug abuse and when someone weighing
280 pounds is stoned, robbing stores, and walking down the middle of streets,
perhaps they really are possessed by demons.
America needs to hear the rest of the story now hidden by the
biased media. We deserve the truth. Then, we may be able to address the tragic
conditions in our society that allow young men like Michael Brown to fall under
the evil influence of drugs just like so many have fallen under the evil
influence of another addiction, alcohol.
The full toxicology report
story as contained in the Grand Jury documents is in the next CPT story about
the Ferguson tragedy.
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