Saturday, July 25, 2009

Harvard plot thickens

by Smitty (via Memeorandum)

The Harvard plot thickens just a bit.

Dan Riehl has some excellent analysis of the seemingly-uncharitable charity the Inkwell Foundation, Inc. Possible motive for taking a reactionary stance towards a policeman?

Confederate Yankee has a snarky take:
It's too soon to know for sure if Gates has done anything illegal with the funds that his charity hasn't properly accounted for, but I was Gates, I wouldn't worry.
If Obama Justice Department will cover for the New Black Panthers, I'm sure they'll cover for a personal friend, even if he acted "stupidly."
Big Hollywood had an Amy Holmes post with some Harvard context, about non-students invading the Yard for nefarious reasons.

Carol at No Sheeples Here quotes the good POTUS about having the good fellas over to discuss the kerfluffle he helped build:
"So at the end of the conversation there was a discussion about—my conversation with Sergeant Crowley, there was discussion about he and I and Professor Gates having a beer here in the White House. He also did say he wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn. I informed him that I can't get the press off my lawn."
Carol offers
Mr. President, that’s NOT your lawn, it’s the people’s lawn and the White House is NOT your house it is the people’s house.
So, let's put this together. There was gross, rampant, institutionalized racism at one time in the United States. Since then, we've had plenty of people of all ethnic backgrounds arrive in academia and in society who are anointed to preach the evils of the path, and, purportedly, lead us into some shiny, post-racial future.

What Are The Entry Criteria For That Future?


When do we take the police report at face value, and just admit that somebody was disorderly? Because it looks more as though we've simply got a priesthood that is going to manufacture the occasional ritual to perpetuate itself, becoming the very thing it set out to despise.

8 comments:

  1. The Police report, are we going to get the complete unedited version of the TAPED police record? I speculate that the Obama Administration will block it from the public's release, because this is the new era of TRANSPARENCY!

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  2. Hmmm. A man is arrested inside his home for what at first was thought to be a breaking and entering situation. Turns out the "suspect" was said owner of the home, and ends up getting arrested anyway for"disorderly" conduct, a charge by the way that was later dropped.
    Yeah, why don't we admit that someone WAS disorderly and that disorder was perpetrated by arresting officer what's-his-face.

    The laugher of this so-called "kerfuffle" is the present Conservative narrative that Obama was the one that started this brewhaha by pointing out that the police acted stupidly. Of course for Obama to tell the truth about the police officers in this situation is an open call for Cons to accuse Obama of betraying his "post-racial presidency", as if "post-racial" meant turning a blind eye to any evidence of racially motivated injustice.
    It surprises me none that this would be the natural recourse for Conservatives, seeing as how their racial sensitivities are non-existent. If anything, it proves that Conservatism seeks to hold on to that subtle double-standard that they reserve for the "others" of our society.
    I only look forward to when that proverbial table is reversed to see what line of bullshit Republicans will employ in an effort to defend the indefensible....

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  3. @Y4E,
    No one has ever said that the origin of the kerfluffle was other than Professor Gates.

    If anything, it proves that Conservatism seeks to hold on to that subtle double-standard that they reserve for the "others" of our society.

    If you sincerely believe that, and are not simply trolling, then your faith is indeed religious, and no counter-evidence short of personal betrayal by a Gatesian figure near you can hope to trigger real reflection.

    Gates and the racial fauxtrage industry are the wholly indefensible characters in this charade.

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  4. "Gates and the racial fauxtrage industry are the wholly indefensible characters in this charade."

    Right Smitty. Because Gates was asking to be harassed in order to to further some imaginary agenda on the part of the "racial fauxtrage industry".
    Personally I am no fan of Mr. Gates.I have seen plenty of him on TV to consider him an unsavory character.
    Yet I would defend him, as I would defend you, if the same were to happen.
    Unless you are subscribing to a kind of police state mentality in which law enforcement can come into your home and arrest you on the flimsiest of charges, then I would have to assert that you don"t know what you are talking about.
    It is strange to me that proponents of an ideology who preach about government meddling( I don"t need to remind you that law enforcement is the strong arm of government) could so readily take the side of said government in this case.
    It simply does not add up.
    I leave it to mere sophistry on your part if you choose to carry on with your argument that Mr. Gates was in the wrong.
    Just as you would hold fire to the feet of any politician on the basis that we the people pay their salaries, so should we hold law enforcement to the same standards.
    Yet you would sit there trying to place blame on the victim in this case in order to justify what is no more than the cheap politics of race baiting.
    I maintain that Conservative reaction to this situation further shows that some double-standards are hard to give up.
    It isn't a matter of religious fervor on my part.
    I have a certain conviction about the abuse of power that applies to anybody no matter what race or religion.
    That you insist that Mr. Gates is somehow the originator of this kerfuffle is not only ludicrous,it is sad.
    When a man can get questioned on his own property by the police and still get arrested despite NOT having committed any crime then we are truly dealing with the very " Government Intervention" you and your ilk claim to fear...

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  5. @Y4E,
    Your attention is drawn to Jack Dunphy.

    I leave it to mere sophistry on your part if you choose to carry on with your argument that Mr. Gates was in the wrong.
    And I leave it to applied schizophrenia if you're going to argue that authority figures are both 100% in the wrong, i.e. lawless, and to be obeyed as proper authority figures.

    When a man can get questioned on his own property by the police and still get arrested despite NOT having committed any crime then we are truly dealing with the very " Government Intervention" you and your ilk claim to fear...
    Here is the Mass. statute in question.
    I think the only cure for you might be to put you in a position of responsibility and beset you with those like yourself.
    You'll quickly grasp that the benefit of the doubt, plus a wee jigger, needs to reside with whoever is stuck in the position of authority.
    Sgt. Crowley is like a teacher's assistant of a professor, with Gates as an unruly student. The TA does a great job, but the UR is causing a ruckus. If it's a judgment call, and you come down publically on the side of the UR, the professor slices his own throat. Somebody must have told the POTUS this Leadership 101 point, to judge by the frantic prying of the foot from the mouth.
    Gates should review that Chris Rock clip about dealing with the police.

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  6. By UR, I meant US, for Unruly Student. It's late.

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  7. "There was gross, rampant, institutionalized racism at one time in the United States. "

    Yeah, and where was it localized? Cambridge or primarily (all of it) in the South?

    I guess it helps the black hustlers mor eif they say racism was present everywhere, and was committed by every white person, everywhere, but not the Arabs, and only whites in the US.

    Sick bastards.

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  8. Smitty-
    "And I leave it to applied schizophrenia if you're going to argue that authority figures are both 100% in the wrong, i.e. lawless, and to be obeyed as proper authority figures."

    I don't peddle absolutes. So the idea that I think authority figures are 100% in the wrong is just...wrong.
    On the other hand, Conservatives like yourself would have us believe that authority figures are always in the right, despite years of evidence proving the contrary.It is this blind benefit of the doubt that I question, seeing as how that benefit of the doubt is never extended towards the persons on the other end. Your argument posits the idea that the "arrested" is ALWAYS in the wrong.

    "The TA does a great job, but the UR is causing a ruckus. "

    The TA did a great job once he verified that the US was the home owner. That was his task.
    The idea that "causing a ruckus" is an offense that warrants a perp walk is ludicrous. Right or wrong, Mr.Gates' agitated state was not a crime, and the strange attitude that insists that law enforcement can never be questioned is as dangerous as any "big government" meme Conservatives preach.

    As for Hollywood Wags, he's got bigger issues to resolve:

    "I guess it helps the black hustlers mor eif they say racism was present everywhere, and was committed by every white person, everywhere, but not the Arabs, and only whites in the US.
    Sick bastards."

    Sorry Smitty, but this is exactly the kind of Conservative attitude towards " others" I spoke of before...

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