COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Al Sharpton to Close down NYC. Obama Must Be Pleased.


The only thing worse for the Obama candidacy would be for Reverend Wright to use his pastoral skills to help Al Sharpton shut down New York. That ought to be good for another 5-7 point drop for Obama in the upcoming primaries. Sharpton has a keen sense of timing and knows just when to be diplomatic.

_________________________

Sharpton vows to 'close this city' after officer acquittals


Apr 26, 4:42 PM (ET)

By VERENA DOBNIK

NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to "close this city down" to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.

"We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell."

Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell - a black man - and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.

The rally at Sharpton's office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem's main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out "Kill the police!"

Fifty of the marchers carried white placards bearing big black numbers for each of the police bullets fired at Bell and his friends.

Sharpton urged people to return for a meeting this coming week "to plan the day that we will close this city down" with the kind of "massive civil disobedience" once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"They never accused Sean Bell of doing anything. Then why is he dead?" Sharpton asked, his voice roaring with anger. Authorities "have shown now that they will not hold police accountable. Well, guess what? If you won't, we will!"

"Shut it down! Shut it down!" the crowd chanted, standing up and applauding wildly.
Sharpton didn't say exactly how they would protest the acquittals of the officers who fired the 50 shots. He said Bell's supporters could demonstrate all over the city, from Wall Street to the home of Justice Arthur Cooperman, who on Friday acquitted the three detectives after a nonjury trial.

Sitting behind Sharpton as he spoke were Bell's parents, his sister and Nicole Paultre Bell, who took her fiance's name after his death.

"The justice system let me down," Paultre Bell told the crowd in a soft voice. "April 25, 2008: They killed Sean all over again. That's what it felt like to us."

It was her first public comment since she stormed out of a courtroom Friday after the NYPD detectives were cleared in Bell's killing as he left his bachelor party.
One of Bell's companions, Joseph Guzman, also spoke briefly on Saturday, saying: "We've got a long fight."


11 comments:

  1. You gotta love it. Since a Judge, after a presumably deliberative hearing, with lots of controversial and contradicted evidence and testimony, rules that the government hasn't proven it case "BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT" and against Sharpy's point of the view, the rational thing to do--in Sharpy's view--throw a put on fit, strut about and threaten to shut the city down!

    But actually it's situation like this that allow Shrapy to flourish, and continue to rattle the cup.

    And he loves it. It's his calling.

    I call it a mild form of terrorism.

    ReplyDelete
  2. al's becoming more like a palestinian every day...

    soon they will be shooting at the trucks bringing in food to their areas..

    then charge racism that they are in need of food.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, I think that is getting awfully close to some kind of felony, I'm not sure what exactly, but it doesn't sound like a peaceful march on Washington. It's a call to civil chaos. Someday I hope see Al get his, to be blunt.

    ReplyDelete
  4. So there he were, unamed, old Ike Clanton, right there in the empty lot next to Fry's Photos, nest to the OK Corral, in Tombstone, AZ.

    The town Marshalls, the Earp brothers, were accused of murder and tried. Found not guilty, the criminal retaliation by the ranchers left one Earp dead, one crippled and the other destined for fane.

    The more things change,
    the more they stay the same.

    ReplyDelete
  5. :)

    Al doesn't think BIG. Shut the whole nation down!

    There are plenty of situations, maybe the majority, where it's well nigh impossible to get whole truth, nothing but the truth. This is probably one of them.

    The judge said the testimony was so contradictory, etc...I believe that was probly so.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The rally at Sharpton's office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem's main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out "Kill the police!"

    Fifty of the marchers carried white placards bearing big black numbers for each of the police bullets fired at Bell and his friends.

    Sharpton urged people to return for a meeting this coming week "to plan the day that we will close this city down" with the kind of "massive civil disobedience" once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

    There's peaceful protest, then there's intimidation, property damage, riot, arson, chaos...murder...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Maybe instead of a Million Man Looting Spree, al-Sharpton can sit on a couch with Pat Robertson and they can hash this out the way they came together on Global Warming without trying to get a riot going.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Re-create 68"
    ---
    Recreate ‘68 threatens Democrat convention in Denver

    “When things blow up because the police have to enforce a permit that the Democrats got, don’t blame us for that.”

    Denver could face a “dangerous situation” on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, war protesters said Thursday, after losing a coveted permit for Civic Center to the convention host committee.

    “When things blow up because the police have to enforce a permit that the Democrats got, don’t blame us for that,” said Glenn Spagnuolo, an organizer for the Re-create 68 Alliance.

    Re-create 68 - which has promised demonstrations that will rival those at the bloody 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago - will be at Civic Center on Aug. 24, with or without a permit, he said.

    ReplyDelete
  9. (most insurance policies for businesses don't cover civil disorder)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Doug: Re-create 68 - which has promised demonstrations that will rival those at the bloody 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago - will be at Civic Center on Aug. 24, with or without a permit, he said.

    This is the "free speech" zone at the last Donk convention.

    ReplyDelete