The Fascist State & Henry Louis Gates

I should tell you, so that you don't waste your time... You can not make me angry. ~ The Operative from the classic film Serenity.

The Harvard Gates Incident (Gates-gate?) has highlighted a strange dissonance. I'll comment briefly on the actual incident, first.

The officers who responded to a Suspicious Person or possible Res Burg in Progress call, here is the Police version from the Smoking Gun. It ended with Gates ridiculously being arrested for Disorderly Conduct. I am not going to take sides with who is right and who is wrong. Half of the problem (with humanity in general and this incident specifically) is that men are unwilling to walk that mile in another's moccasins.

I work in a smaller suburb of Chicago so seeing a Sgt respond is unusual to me. But, Sgt Crowley did pretty much what I would have done; ask the gentlemen just to see his ID, explain the situation that I was responding to a neighbor's call of a possible Residential Burglary in progress. However, I don't think I would have entered the home (besides standing on the front porch) and I would have had my mic on to record the conversation.

After positively identifying Gates, I would have left no matter what "tumultuous" (good word!) behavior was being exhibited. Also, in Illinois I can not be the victim of a Disorderly Conduct complainant.

But... for the Right this has become a cause. Another avenue of attack onto Obama when he offered his opinion. However, it is a position which undercuts the entire Right Wing Extremist Attack Everything Obama Machine led by She Who Shall Not Be Named 2 screeching about the encroaching Obama-ACORN- Islamo Police State. The Right has been banging the Drum about Obama's Cops breaking into your home and stealing your guns. However, the Gates incident occurs.

So what does it show? It seems the Republicans and their brainwashed Zealots are only afraid of the Police and the Nazi-Obammunist encroaching Power of the State, unless... that power is being used to arrest a Black Man. Of course, the outright Racist Bigots, who flock to the Republican banner, will cheer the arrest of any black man at any time for any reason. But to the Toxic Commentators who propagandize for the Republicans this is another issue to try and wedge apart the 99% of American society it's another tool of division

That is why the Right Wing Extremists are in fits declaring the Police inviolate and the "Official" Police Report Sacrosanct (unless an "Official" Report warns about Right Wing Extremist Terrorism) and yet at the same time they want their teabagging people (Real Americans) to be in mortal fear of the Nazi-Obammunist Police State. This is because to the Right everything is to be used as a political tactic.

But the Republicans don't give a shit about Cops, they care for them the same way they care for the wounded Veterans at Walter Reed.

But, the Republicans Way of War is to say they care, to say they Support the Troops, to say they want freedom and Democracy. As if saying and doing are the same fucking thing.

So, they declare their solidarity with Police Officers everywhere when to Republicans all the Police are, are gatekeepers and warriors ensuring the riff-raff, the American people do not interfere with the Republican control of the Nation and the use of the Government to transfer of Billions of dollars to their cronies and their accounts in Switzerland.

"I suspect some of the police may actually even be fans of Rage Against the Machine. I suspect some of the police come from working class and middle class backgrounds like we do and like you do. I suspect the Cops here today have much more in common with this band, with you people than with the people of the RNC." - Tom Morello addressing the People protesting the RNC on 09/02/08.

Update:
National Guardsman and Boston Police Officer Justin Barrett didn't mean to use the phrase 'banana eating jungle monkey' about Henry Louis Gates "in a racist way."