KCBS Radio has reported that there was a fatal shooting near the Occupy Oakland encampment tonight over a marijuana dispute. I can already hear the Right Wing noise machine cheering for its good fortune. They will tell you that it was related to the protests. They will tell you that the protesters are dangerous. They will tell you that the camps are breeding grounds for drug use and rape and should be disbanded. They will tell you that it’s in the interest of public safety that the police need to crackdown on these lawless savages.
Don’t be an idiot. They’re lying to you.
According to this logic, ANY crime committed nearby is the fault of an Occupy protest. Did someone shoplift a soda? Occupy did it. Did someone spit gum on the ground? Occupy did it. A car blew a red light? Those damn hippies did it!
Are there bad people hiding in the crowds at the protests? Almost definitely. Are people dealing drugs in some locations? Yeah, probably.
So what? I could say the exact same thing about any concert or sporting event. Do you think nobody buys some weed at a Ted Nugent concert? Do you HONESTLY believe that no one has ever been mugged at a football game? Should we send in the police in riot gear every time the lights go out in a movie theater?
Ridiculous.
Add to this the fact that, as far as the OAKLAND police are concerned (you know, the ones that have taken ANY excuse to launch tear gas at the protesters or shoot a guy with a camera in one hand and a protest sign in the other with a bean bag) the murder was unrelated to the protests and just happened to be nearby. If the cops that keep putting protesters in the hospital say they don’t have any reason to believe there is a link then there sure as hell won’t be any reason for anyone else to draw that conclusion.
But they will. Oh, how they will!
As the frothing outrage from the Right builds, casually point out to anybody that supports them, that if blame can be assigned simply from being near a crime, Fox News is guilty of all the various muggings, traffic accidents, robberies and rapes that have taken place within a few blocks of their headquarters in Manhattan and we really should send in the SWAT team to clean up that nest of violent criminals.
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Interesting sentence, Danny Ray, Maybe someday we can all meet halfway to the middle. Does that mean we are still half way to meeting somewhere? Or is a covert way of saying “you come three-fourths of the way to where we can meet”? Sounds like the republican way of negotiating, which says “My way of the Hiway”.
Actually it is the chorus of an old bluegrass song. if we each go halfway to the middle we can at least see one another. But not much chance of a dialogue when half of us keep looking for hidden meanings in every statement,
Calling all CHRISTIAN PATRIOTS,..
There’s a lot of folks these days who want to ‘brandy’ the Bible, when they argue with me.
They call themselves CHRISTIANS.
Yet,.. the books they ‘thump me over the head with’ are invariably from the OLD TESTAMENT.
The books of the OLD TESTEMENT are indeed, in the Bible,..
They’re also in the Talmud, and the Koran. (almost unchanged)
This is the book of the Jews and the Muslims.
Lot’s of ‘fire and brimstone’,.. lots of ‘judgementalism’.
Great for ‘beating the shit out of somebody ‘verbally’.
But WE’RE CHRISTIANS.
We have a complete set of DIFFERENT books.
Mathew, Mark, Luke and John.
We’re BETTER than those folks,.. according to some)
So when you discuss the Bible with ME,… leave the Old Testament at home.
By doing this, I as a liberal, can take most of the ‘bullets’ out of your gun.
See, Jesus didn’t get upset with ANYBODY,..
Not even the Romans who put him to death.
He was all about Love, and generosity (charity), forgiveness, etc,etc,…
Oppps,… I’m wrong,..
I’ve made a mistake,…
HE DID get upset at somebody,..
Do YOU remember who?????
Yeah, a good Christian like yourself caught my error right away,..
Jesus was upset with the MONEYLENDERS.
He didn’t have much use for THEM.
Ya know,… I think he just might ‘take a stand’ on this OWS business.
And I don’t think he’d come down on the side of the banks.
Do you??????
How do YOU think he’d feel about the foreclosures?
Unfortunately John, Most of us on the right, like myself, would be far more comfortable following Joshua across the Jordan to slaughter the heathen than we would be following Christ to Jerusalem to heal the sick. I could soldier for Joshua or Gideon with a glad heart, healing lepers, well, not so much.
Danny Ray, I am sure glad that you stated Unfortunately! It is very unfortunate that right wingers such as yourself would rather fight than love. That is what your party is all about. At least you see the error of your ways. Jesus is love, not violence. Oh, by the way lableling the left wing heathens is not only ignorant, its just plain mean! God Bless
Mike, I don’t believe the Canaanites were left-wing, the Hittites and Jebusites might’ve been a little left-leaning but I don’t know. That wasn’t a dig at the left. Sorry if you took it that way.
Danny Ray,
I am sorry for you. You are the reason I no longer call myself a christian. You don’t understand your own religion and thus will inevitably miss out the beauty of life. I am referring to the beauty that comes not from the nice things your most likely have, but rather from being connected to the very people you are choosing to vilify and kill. We wage war on people dropping $400,000 bomb after $400,000 bomb, killing thousands upon thousands of civilians. Then a young man is left stricken with the loss of his innocent family, and when his hurt turns to hate and he decides he wants retribution for his pain, we decide he is eval and must die as well. We call him evil for the pain we caused him, and justify it through our god. You perpetuate the suffering. The world is sick and Jesus knew that love and forgiveness was the medicine of healing. Christians suck and you’re one of them.
Then you’re really a Christian, are you? We’ve been saying this for years but it’s nice that you’re admitting it.
Justin, sorry man I didn’t mean to hijack your thread and turn it into a religious discussion. I simply answered that guy John, because I’ve read his post before and his thoughts intrigued me I was just wanting to establish a dialogue. That’s all, I’m very far to the right as you notice but I’m just always willing to listen to people’s opinions if it can be done without name-calling or hatred. Maybe someday we can all meet halfway to the middle.