The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin

[caroljane]

BTW we have plenty of gangs here in Toronto. But the mayor has some real good connections with them and likely has a plan to clean them up.

When my Dad was in the NY State National Guard in the late 1930s, one member of his unit who wouldn't shower stank to high heaven. A bunch of guys grabbed him and hauled him down to the river, stripped him naked, threw him in, tossed him a bar of soap and told him he scubbed or would be scrubbed. He scrubbed.

Please forward this as a suggestion to your mayor.

--Brant

lol I will and I will mention your name. You will soon be recruited as his new Chief of Staff and your first assignment will be to horse-trade with lobbyists for free soap!

[caroljane]

And with him as your new boss, don't worry about that silly leave-your-guns-at-the border stuff. Rob's pals and their buds in Buffalo will fix you up fine.

[caroljane]

Carol,

Heh.

Why is it I never hear of Progressives bashing the thugs who take over their inner-city neighborhoods and keep people who are in misery more miserable, cannibalizing the very people they grew up around? They are vicious oppressors flaunting the money they steel off their victims even as they keep their boot on the necks of those they oppress. They are the 1% of their neighborhoods victimizing the 99% who live there.

I mean street gangs, of course.

Somehow I never hear that kind of rhetoric coming from Progressives about black on black or Hispanic on Hispanic crimes.

Why would that be, I wonder I wonder?

Michael

Heh yourself Michael. Possibly you do not hear things you are not listening for.

[caroljane]

As the token guilty-liberal, howling mob leader here, I can only tell you that if Zimmerman had been blacker than Martin (I am sure there are black neighbourhood watchers, even in Florida) I would have felt and said the same things about this case as I have done.

Carol,

Really?

Would you have said anything?

All I've heard so far is crickets chirping.

There's a butt-load of crimes--and add more on top of that--I can dig up if you are interested in pursuing these feelings.

All senseless vicious .crime outrages me as it does every normal person. I don't know about Chicago but the toll of black-on-black crime here is regularly highlighted and deplored in the media especially the Toronto Star, which is mandated progressive. If you want me to express my outrage everytime I hear of such crime and relay media reports, I will. But I would have to learn how to cut and paste or link, and I am not at that tech level yet.

[caroljane]

I think Zimmerman has a pretty good chance of getting off. Another Florida man, Lt Col Wald, was just acquitted of the same charge. He killed a man he found having sex with his wife.

Everbody involved was white!

[Selene]

I think Zimmerman has a pretty good chance of getting off. Another Florida man, Lt Col Wald, was just acquitted of the same charge. He killed a man he found having sex with his wife.

Everbody involved was white!

Wouldn't it have been more logical to shoot the wife?

[caroljane]

I think Zimmerman has a pretty good chance of getting off. Another Florida man, Lt Col Wald, was just acquitted of the same charge. He killed a man he found having sex with his wife.

Everbody involved was white!

Wouldn't it have been more logical to shoot the wife?

To my mind yes.

For the record, this verdict was outrageous.

[Ellen Stuttle]

For example, every weekend here in Chicago it's execution time in the ghettos.

Do you mean "execution time" as in shoot-outs, or do you mean formal executions? If the latter, who gets executed? Non-gang members who haven't paid protection money or something like that? Rival gang members? Persons who have infringed behavior rules within a gang? A sampling from two or all of these categories?

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

Shootouts. Shootings. Knife killings. Beatings. Other manners of lethal mayhem. Take your choice.

Look at the news on any given weekend.

It's normally tagged with something like "Chicagoland."

Here's a quick example from a liberal publication (chosen as the first liberal site from a Google search as opposed to TheBlaze, etc.):

7 Dead, 41 Wounded in Chicago's Father's Day Weekend Shootings

Slate

If you want more, just Google something like:

Chicago weekend killings

... or something like that.

You'll get details galore if you are really interested in this.

In answer to your questions, I would say, "Yes."

To all of them.

btw - Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in America. Not gang control laws. Gun control laws. The gangs don't seem to mind at all...

Michael

[Selene]

This one is from Toronto...

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2013/04/03/executionstyle_shooting_at_yorkdale_likely_gangrelated_police_say.html

The “execution-style” shooting death of one man and the wounding of another outside the Yorkdale Shopping Centre last weekend by at least two gunmen was likely gang-related, Toronto police say.

This one is from Chicago...

Two of the more than two dozen victims were fatally shot. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, 23-year-old Eugenio Solano was walking in the 1800 block of North Francisco with a 44-year-old man at 8:05 p.m. Friday when a group of three men approached them, asked for directions and opened fire. Solano was shot in the chest and died at the scene, while the other man suffered a non-fatal wound to his hand.

Solano -- whom his family described as funny, happy and "a people person" -- was gunned down the day before hosting a birthday party for his 4-year-old son, according to DNAinfo Chicago.

Police say they believe Solano's fatal shooting was gang-related.

In the weekend's other fatal shooting in Chicago, 19-year-old Akeem Manago was walking with a 23-year-old man in the 1300 block of West Hastings Street in the city's Little Italy neighborhood around 1:50 a.m. Sunday, when four males are believed to have approached them and opened fire, the Chicago Tribune reports. Manago was pronounced dead shortly thereafter at Stroger Hospital, while the other man was shot in the leg and last listed in good condition.

Six other men were shot within an hour of the Little Italy shooting, according to the Tribune.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/01/chicago-shootings-25-woun_n_2991974.html

Clearly, you need to stay away from 23 year olds in Chicago!

[Brant Gaede]

I think Zimmerman has a pretty good chance of getting off. Another Florida man, Lt Col Wald, was just acquitted of the same charge. He killed a man he found having sex with his wife.

Everbody involved was white!

Wouldn't it have been more logical to shoot the wife?

To my mind yes.

For the record, this verdict was outrageous.

Used to be legal in Texas--maybe still is.

--Brant

Bam! Bam! Thank you man!

[Brant Gaede]

Who, BTW, is trying to change whose mind (and for what)?

--Brant

why don't more people argue with me?

(I'm soo lonely)

[Ellen Stuttle]

Chicago seems like worlds from two different times all in the same "city boundaries." When Larry and I went to Chicago in May 2010 for a Heartland climate conferece, I was shocked by the developments in the downtown area since I'd last been there in the mid-60s. The "Miracle Mile" seemed truly like a miracle of architectural loveliness. Yet, not far distant, there's bloody tribal warfare. I suppose that every large city has this contrast, but it seems to me extremely stark in Chicago. Marsha Enright told me - we stayed with the Enrights for a few days after the conference - that Chicago is still the most segregated city in the US. I don't know why this is, assuming it's true, what's happened historically to produce the present inner-city demarcations. Whyever the situation is as it is, the prospects of improvement look dim.

Ellen

[Dglgmut]

No, the stress test just showed that he was telling the truth when they asked, "Were you afraid you were going to die?" "Yes."

When was this put in .evidence? I am only reading news reports of the trial, I haven't seen this. Did he take a polygraph also? Are voice stress tests more conclusive than polygraphs?

It doesn't prove anything, I'm just saying it is believable.

You find it hard to believe that this kid would brutally attack a stranger, I find it hard to believe Zimmerman would have murdered a guy for no reason.

Out of the two of them, who do you think was more worried about the legal ramifications of initiating violence?

[Dglgmut]

This says to me that he had already decided who and what Martin was. Again in the prosecution's words, he had profiled him.

This is so dishonest. Are you trying to suggest that if someone was creeping around your home you wouldn't think, "What are you doing here?"

It doesn't matter what color skin someone has, if they are posturing as "tough" then of course you are going to be suspicious.

If Zimmerman had been a woman she wouldn't have even needed to be attacked, Trayvon could have laid a finger on her and people would be satisfied that it was self-defense.

[dldelancey]

As the token guilty-liberal, howling mob leader here, I can only tell you that if Zimmerman had been blacker than Martin (I am sure there are black neighbourhood watchers, even in Florida) I would have felt and said the same things about this case as I have done. But why should you believe me - Progressives are all liars or at best, self-deceivers; there is no individuality of thought processes among them.

"If Zimmerman had been blacker than Martin" there may not have been a trial at all, and if there had been a trial, it would not have received ridiculous amounts of media attention. Had your what-if been the scenario, I do not believe you would have been howling, simply because you would never have known it happened. That's the crux of it.

[caroljane]

DDL, you are exactly right. Few people actively seek out things to be outraged about (somebody here called them Injustice Collectors, excellent term), the rest of us just react to what comes to our notice and strikes a chord. This case strikes several chords with many and the result is, of course, discordancy.

My chord is the corner store, the teenage boy in a strange neighbourhood. My own son was stopped in the same way, by the police - half a block from his own home - because he was wearing a basketball shirt identical to that of a youth who had been reported attempting to vandalize cars nearby. Although we found later that the vandal was an Asian or Filipino, about 16, 5'7 or 8 with dreadlocks, they arrested my 6'1 20-year-old white short-haired son, kept him in jail overnight and actually took the case right to trial, where they had to drop charges right before proceedings were to begin.

The police were mistaken about who he was. But he is still alive.

You have a son Deanna,and I have two. Most reading this thread have been young men themselves. They identify with the older man who felt threatened by the younger. But I imagine my boys in both positions.

[Brant Gaede]

Who was acting in self defense, Martin or Zimmerman? It seems obvious that at the end of the fight Zimmerman was, but before the fight or at its beginning? Was Martin defending himself after being attacked by Zimmerman? If so did he go too far, use too much force? If he did then Zimmerman acted in self defense. If he didn't then he didn't. Being found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt just isn't going to happen in this case, not if the defendant was on the ground getting his face pounded then pulled out his gun. Perfect knowledge and evidence could dress him out as guilty, guilty, guilty, but those things are not available to any jury. Like George said, this is a political trial. The prosecution knows it will likely fail and only wants to get this monkey off its back. As for Zimmerman, he strikes me as a cop wanna be who got in over his head. The ass at least deserves his trial if not a conviction.

--Brant

I know, he might not be an "ass"; he might be a male Mother Teresa

[Selene]

My chord is the corner store, the teenage boy in a strange neighborhood. My own son was stopped in the same way, by the police - half a block from his own home - because he was wearing a basketball shirt identical to that of a youth who had been reported attempting to vandalize cars nearby. Although we found later that the vandal was an Asian or Filipino, about 16, 5'7 or 8 with dreadlocks, they arrested my 6'1 20-year-old white short-haired son, kept him in jail overnight and actually took the case right to trial, where they had to drop charges right before proceedings were to begin.

The police were mistaken about who he was. But he is still alive.

Carol:

I just hate to intervene with your rush to hang Zimmerman by interjecting some undisputed facts, however, Trevon Martin was allegedly going from the neighborhood store to his father's apartment/coop/condo in the development. So, to a degree this was a "secondary" neighborhood.

Instead of walking in plain sight down the primary path in the development, he chose to walk in the shadows and was peering into windows. Additionally, he allegedly had "burglars" implements in his possession.

Your son did not attack the police. Therefore, he used good judgment and he is alive today.

I know you cannot "see" this, and I know you want to see Zimmerman, a man with African blood, hung because he defended himself. And I am sure that you subconsciously support the media drumbeat for "riots" when he is acquitted. However, the prosecution cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt what was in Zimmerman's mind.

In order to sustain the elements of the charged crime, they need to prove that he acted with intent and depraved indifference.

Not happening.

A...

[Darrell Hougen]

I think Zimmerman has a pretty good chance of getting off. Another Florida man, Lt Col Wald, was just acquitted of the same charge. He killed a man he found having sex with his wife.

Everbody involved was white!

Wouldn't it have been more logical to shoot the wife?

Hi Adam,

I'm not so sure.

Is it worse to cheat or to induce someone else to cheat or to aid and abet the cheating of someone else?

Is it worse to break a promise or induce someone else to break a promise or to actually help someone else break a promise?

To me, encouraging someone else to break a promise and helping that person to do so is just as bad as the breaking of the promise. Am I missing something?

Darrell

[Selene]

Am I missing something?

Taking the de minimus factual path, only one of the sexual couple knew that they were married, the wife.

The "man," and I am assuming the other party was male, would not necessarily know that the woman was married. She could have told him anything. I'm divorced, separated, single, etc.

I am reasonably sure that most men would not ask to see proof before they dropped their pants.

A...

[caroljane]

Adam,

"I am sure you subconsciously support the media drumbeats for riots..."

Really? You are sure about my subconscious? I am not sure about yours, although I think we know each other pretty well.

My conscious does not support such a thing. Frankly I find your presumption hurtful and insulting.

[Selene]

Adam,

"I am sure you subconsciously support the media drumbeats for riots..."

Really? You are sure about my subconscious? I am not sure about yours, although I think we know each other pretty well.

My conscious does not support such a thing. Frankly I find your presumption hurtful and insulting.

Good, it was a probe.

Are you aware that the media is fueling the fire for riots when he is acquitted?

A...

[Darrell Hougen]

My chord is the corner store, the teenage boy in a strange neighbourhood. My own son was stopped in the same way, by the police - half a block from his own home - because he was wearing a basketball shirt identical to that of a youth who had been reported attempting to vandalize cars nearby. Although we found later that the vandal was an Asian or Filipino, about 16, 5'7 or 8 with dreadlocks, they arrested my 6'1 20-year-old white short-haired son, kept him in jail overnight and actually took the case right to trial, where they had to drop charges right before proceedings were to begin.

Hi Carol,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. As a parent of three children including two sons who like to wear hoodies, I sympathize with your feelings. But, this isn't about feelings. It's about who did what to whom.

Darrell

[caroljane]

My chord is the corner store, the teenage boy in a strange neighbourhood. My own son was stopped in the same way, by the police - half a block from his own home - because he was wearing a basketball shirt identical to that of a youth who had been reported attempting to vandalize cars nearby. Although we found later that the vandal was an Asian or Filipino, about 16, 5'7 or 8 with dreadlocks, they arrested my 6'1 20-year-old white short-haired son, kept him in jail overnight and actually took the case right to trial, where they had to drop charges right before proceedings were to begin.

Hi Carol,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. As a parent of three children including two sons who like to wear hoodies, I sympathize with your feelings. But, this isn't about feelings. It's about who did what to whom.

Darrell

Thanks Darrell, of course it is about actions, but it is very much about feelings, Zimmerman's feelings. He needs to prove he felt deadly fear of Martin.