Smart Cops Can Do Stupid Things

Smart Cops Can Do Stupid Things

Kenneth Hacker

July 24, 2009

Have President Obama address a case of racial profiling that puts an African-American man (Professor Gates) into a situation unlikely to happen to a "white" American and drug-crazed conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, nativists like Lou Dobbs, and overheated pubic relations staff for the Cambridge Police Department automatically cry injustice toward the white cop. Other white voices on radio and TV are lurching to the defense of the "white" cop. One can only wonder why the frantic defense is necessary for someone (the police officer) to defend himself while he may actually be guilty as charged in the first place. Why in the world would he have to doubt the word of Professor Gates that he was entering his own house when a) Gates showed him ID, b) the house records could be checked by computer, and c) there was no evidence of wrong-doing other than entry at a late hour into one's own home.

The cop may be a wonderful person and a smart man, but his actions reek of dumb judgment. There is no need for the President to apologize but he is doing so for political purposes, which is usually the protocol in phony crises like theses. But while the President is being gracious, other Americans ought to take the Cambridge Police Department to task and remind them that racism is real and should not be tolerated.

Another black professor, Michael Dyson puts this into the perspective of ongoing racism which is easy to deny but just as real as the raciism of the past. See the link above for his essay.

If anyone needs to apologize in this event, it is the police officer and his department. They need to apologize to Professor Gates and the American people. The officer needs more training in how to communicate with suspects. Clearly, he could have used a different manner of interacting with his suspect since all he needed was ID. He could have obtained it if he knew how to communicate effectively and the whole thing could have ended in a few minutes. Instead, he, the person with most force and authority in the moment, let the situation expand beyond any necessity.

Think of yourself being in Professor Gates' shoes. You come home late, you need to break into your own home because you cant get in, and then the police arrive and start implying that there might be a break-in in progress. You get mad and they get mad at you for being mad. You know it is your home and this is a free country where property rights and freedom are dearly valued. The cop decides you are out of control and you get arrested for disorderly conduct. The police officer needs some more education and needs to admit that he is wrong when he is wrong. Maybe then, the American people could respect him.

The officer does make a case that he did not know if Prof. Gates was the home owner or an intruder when he responded to a call regarding possible breaking and entering. Here is his own version of the event:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/24/officer.gates.arrest/index.html?iref=topnews#cnnSTCVideo


Much of what he asserts is his uncertainty of what was actually occurring. He tries to make Gates sound rational to make himself seem cool and intelligent, always doing the right thing. Back to school, SGT Crowley!

Political Insanity

POLITICAL INSANITY

by Kenneth Hacker

July 31, 2009

What happens when the political mind snaps?



Governor Terminator did not lose his mind but his knife opportunity was time well with the brain implosion of conservative talk show wing nut Glenn Beck. No bones about it, Beck has lost it. He is now in orbit and far from this planet.

Along with Beck cutting ties with reality, Rush Limbaugh is spewing out incoherent nonsense about President Obama in a crazy effort to offer some kind of counter-narrative to what the president the Democrats are saying about health care.

Limbaugh is oblivious to the fact that he has had his claims refuted over and over and over again in the past 10 years and no serious political analyst can take him seriously because he is not an authority in anything other than how to get rich acting nuts on the radio. This fat radio flatulator is calling President Obama a racist because he befriended Professor Louis Gates in the recent controversy over Gates breaking into his own home after a long trip to China and back. Of course, Beck was agreeing with this insane discourse about the president being a racist. The more they do this, of course, the more they draw attention to their own racism which is very easy to detect. Limbaugh can be seen in recent video footage jumping up and down at a podium like a wild man in need of tranquilizers.

This zoo of political entertainment might be innocent if there were not consequence to insane political communication, if there were not Timothy McVeighs, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other unhinged activists in the United States looking for a discourse with which to build a case for hatred and even violence. It might be innocent and deemed free political speech if it it did not contribute to the hate speech against America and its presidents of Al Qaeda and others who seek to instigate more terrorist strikes against our nation.

Before World War II, Father Coughlin talked against Jews by pointing out over and over again that Christ was killed by Jews or at least the Romans killed Him at their bidding. He moved into more insane anti-Jewish discourse and finally support for Hitler in Germany.

David Duke, former Klansman and now public speaker for white nationalism once said that the difference between him and Rush Limbaugh is that he admits his prejudice. Both rail against liberals, minority concerns, and challenges to European American and western heritage superiority.

Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly make mistakes all of the time, bad predictions, flaws in logic, name-calling tricks, etc. but seem to keep themselves from crossing over the line into the land of "Birthers" (those who claim that President Obama was not born in the U.S.), FEMA concentration camp conspiracies, and other assorted flights of schizophrenia. Hannity flirts with political insanity and then pulls himself back in an interesting manner, probably so he does not get the same mentally ill diagnosing one might assign to Anne Coulter and others like her who say that liberals are diseased, Native Americans were once cannibals, Arabs and Muslims need to have their cultures cleansed, and Jews need to become Christians. O"Reilly can actually be rational and while suffering occasional moments when it looks like his head is going to explode with anger, can talk about facts and even admit a fact that might not have been handed to him by his staff.

Sarah Palin incites crowds to new heights of in-group love and out-group hatred by incessantly referring to her followers as the good people and the real Americans and the ones who oppose her as something less than good and too otherlike to be trusted.

Her orientalizing of fellow Americans is sheer lunacy. She has nothing of value to contribute to American, nothing positive, nothing inspiring in terms of progress and civility. Instead, she gushes with invectives and crazy talk about who we can really trust among us.

Limbaugh will deny that his speech incites anything but critical thinking but he is out of touch with the fact that people all over the world can be radicalized with words, language, stories, and arguments. He does not seem to know that terrorism-supporting loudmouths in the Middle East provide the intellectual and rhetorical justification for mayhem committed by terrorism operatives.

No, that is not a picture of William Krystol, the neo-con. It is Mussolini, a master of nutty political discourse. But political insanity does not just occur on the right side of the political spectrum. Clearly, Jeremiah Wright was ranting and raving pure nonsense at times and that is why Obama had to get away from him. Insane political discourse is not limited to any one political party or ideology but it always reduces complicated issues down to good people vs. bad people, truth vs. falsehood (as in Karl Marx arguing about "false consciousness"), and emotional claims over factual ones. Limbaugh thinks that anyone who wants medical insurance can afford it and should just go out and purchase it. His anchor has dropped so far from reality, it is amazing that he can get hours on FOX TV to throw out his BS. He blathers and he blathers and the insanity of his discourse mesmerizes his fans. For those who can read, he is hardly convincing.

So why does political insanity become so popular and why are the politically insane making themselves incredibly wealthy with childlike thoughts and imbecilic behaviors? It is quite simply because we like to be entertained and even political clowns are entertaining. We like excitement and political fruit cakes can be exciting. The ancient Greeks may sent nuts like this into otracism, but today we make them rich and famous. Perhaps our democracy will become healthier when we learn to tell the political insane that we will no longer listen to their maddening venom. If we do not, we will continue to give aid and comfort to our enemies who will always be able to point at our nuts as examples of our society.