BattleCry and Teenage Brainwashing

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Tw never has answers -- he's incapable of being constructive, even if you gave him two hacks of two-by-four studs and a hammer.

His English is breaking down in his excitement, too. Outright is already an adverb -- it happens not to change from its adjectival form. The -ly is superfluous. His definition and usage of Satanism, capital S and all, will come as a surprise to the COS, from what I read in the very occasional newsletters of theirs I've seen. These show the ruminations of a creepy lot of low-end-terroristic bandits, with their "victimize outsiders else they'll victimize you" mindset. They don't show even any inclination to proselytize, let alone actual proselytizing. Nor, I think, do they show the nerve to take slaves.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I expect his lack of answers, it's an ongoing style. But responding with personal attacks and outright lies to fair and legitimate questions, will never go unanswered.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I expect his lack of answers, it's an ongoing style. But responding with personal attacks and outright lies to fair and legitimate questions, will never go unanswered.

Personal attacks of repeated profanity are posted by xoxoxoBruce. His personal insult - posts also devoid of facts - has become so routine that I ask again if xoxoxoBruce is OK.

Granted, the nation's emotional state - complete with schoolyard massacres that have become routine - is rather black and only becoming worse. This attitude was America when another president routinely lied, attacked sovereign nations "Pearl Harbor" style, violent crime increased, ignore what "Wise Men" said, act only for a poltical agenda and at the expense of America, and American soldiers were sacrficed so as to massacre the yellow man. Deja vue Nam. Some can become so emotionally downtrodden as to become profane. Is xoxoxoBruce alright? Intelligent and stable people do not post profanity repeatedly for personal insult.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

Personal attacks of repeated profanity are posted by xoxoxoBruce. His personal insult - posts also devoid of facts - has become so routine that I ask again if xoxoxoBruce is OK.

I post the way I speak and nobody is washing my mouth out with soap, so fuck you, tommy boy. You haven't a clue what personal attacks really are.

If you don't have the intelligence to answer a simple question about what you posted, I guess you must have just copied it out of a forum or magazine article. Otherwise you would know the thinking behind the the statements and be able to clarify them without just posting parroted crap.

Because you haven't a clue what your posting about you try to pull a, hey look a bird, diversion. Going off on tangents, belittling the poster that questions your posts, even if they are not disagreeing, but asking for clarification.

If the economist, that patriotic American... oh wait, that's a British publication, isn't it? Anyway, if it ceased publication, you would dry up and blow away. Even though most parrots live a long time, without feed they die, just as your online persona would without those Brits supplying your posts.
They'd find you in an alley babbling about MBAs and power supplies.

If you don't want to answer questions about your posts just footnote whoever made the original statement and we'll question them. That way you can just cruise along fat, dumb and happy, acting smug and superior, not knowing everyone is laughing at you.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I post the way I speak and nobody is washing my mouth out with soap, so fuck you, tommy boy. You haven't a clue what personal attacks really are.
....
If the economist, that patriotic American... oh wait, that's a British publication, isn't it? Anyway, if it ceased publication, you would dry up and blow away.

The Economist is anti-American because it is published by Brits. And more profanity. xoxoxoBruce now says he routinely used profanity. I doubt it. But it is now amusing how few short hair I need pull to set him off.

Bruce - did you notice some of these hairs are turning grey. Maybe you should start taking viagra?

Actually, violent crime is down in the US and decreasing. It is just being reported more.

[tw]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Actually, violent crime is down in the US and decreasing. It is just being reported more.

So that explains a murder a day in Philadelphia? Clearly daily murders were once common in Philly - when Philly had a larger population? No wonder there is so much gun play in one area that I frequently visit - and I have seen none. So that shootout right across the street that involved hundreds of rounds fired by the suspect - that really did not happen? Gun fire in many American cities is now so routine that kids in school can identify the weapons by sound. So that was true 20 and 30 years ago because violent crime was really just as high then?

Yes, numbers might be fudged. Mexico is probably more violent than the numbers say. But in Philly, gun numbers have increased, and violence has increased. Are you saying the number of schoolyard massacres is down? So pervasive is violence in Philly that recruiting cops who get paid more in Philly has become difficult. Clearly the increase in guns and gun trafficing has reduced vioent death numbers because Philly was killing more than one a day 20 years ago when crime in general was more frequent?

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Actually, violent crime is down in the US and decreasing. It is just being reported more.

Actually, RK, I would argue that in some areas violent crime is so high it isn't being reported at all.

%80 of the US live in or near cities. I cannot find the percentage who specifically live in cities, but I believe that many crimes in cities go unreported. We hear about the increase in the homicide rate, but for every homicide, how many other violent crimes are also on the rise?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Rich, you live close to two cities, are you afraid to go outside?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Actually, RK, I would argue that in some areas violent crime is so high it isn't being reported at all.

%80 of the US live in or near cities. I cannot find the percentage who specifically live in cities, but I believe that many crimes in cities go unreported. We hear about the increase in the homicide rate, but for every homicide, how many other violent crimes are also on the rise?

Wasn't there an article here about how a rappers says reporting crime is considered breaking a social norm (no idea if it is true or not but I doubt it) here a week or so ago?

[9th Engineer]

As long as we allow portions of the population to carry that type of attitude we will have rampant violent crime. However, every time someone takes a serious stab at doing something about it it's portrayed as an assault on a minority culture or something.

Who's the real victim? - television coverage of violent crime -
Column USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), July, 1994 by Joe Saltzman

It has been an American tradition to admire the outlaw, the Western gunslinger, the young couple who rob banks, and the citizen vigilante. Today, television coverage of news events that eventually end up in court has created a new kind of hero for the 1990s - the abused victim who takes the law into his or her own hands in a quest for personal justice.

Juries, and a public fired up by massive courtroom TV coverage of sensational trials, have concluded that a woman who cut off her husband's penis or two brothers who murdered their parents had good reasons to do so. The victims of these criminal acts gradually come to be held responsible for being attacked, and the persons committing the crimes slowly emerge as victims themselves.

It is easy to see how this has happened. Television news usually is limited to covering an event after it has occurred. With rare exceptions, the coverage of a breaking news story consists of interviews with eyewitnesses and officials, pictures of the scene of the crime, and a reporter summing up what has happened and trying to figure out what will happen next.

In a murder, for instance, all that remains of the victim is a covered body and some old photographs. This material is supplemented with statements from survivors who knew and cared about the victim. The accused murderer occasionally is seen being arrested or, more often, either going to court, coming from it, or appearing in the courtroom. Statements about the alleged killer come from surprised friends, relatives, and neighbors.

Even if victims are alive and well, the focus shifts from them to the accused, who, if counseled properly, usually are apologetic for what has happened. Their lawyers, struggling to get their clients the best deal possible, often go into the attacker's personal history to paint a picture that consists of deprivation, abuse, and temporary insanity. Slowly, the original victim is forgotten and the accused - a human being crying out to be understood - becomes a more sympathetic victim trying to set things right.

This process happens daily in our judicial system, whether or not a camera is in the courtroom. Juries, listening to lengthy testimony about the individual accused of the crime, are persuaded to be sympathetic to that person's plight. A rape trial ends up being a horrible ordeal for most women, since attorneys try to create the impression that the criminal act of rape is just a misunderstanding. The victim, especially an attractive woman with no visible bruises, seldom finds justice in the American courts. She is painted as the seducer, someone with loose morals, someone who didn't say no. There is confusion over who is really the victim and who is the perpetrator.

Television magnifies the process by extending it to a mass electronic audience. When the news first was heard that two brothers shot their father dead, then reloaded to finish off their wounded mother, the reaction was immediate: horror and repulsion. Yet, as the details became more and more familiar, the acts themselves became less appalling in the public mind.

This is the first step in the rehabilitation of the accused's image. The crime becomes less repugnant. Slowly, the reasons for the crime and, if possible, contrition for the act itself take over. The parents' disfigured bodies, never shown on TV because of taste and censorship, fade into the background, replaced by their two sons' tearful faces. They are not confessed murderers. They are two boys who couldn't take it any more, two sons trying to do everything possible to prevent their parents from committing more acts of cruelty.

If television news and courtroom TV continue to cover such events, it would be helpful to emphasize the victim's side of the story with whatever it takes to graphically keep the accused from dominating the trial coverage. This happened in the Rodney King case when the videotape of police officers beating him into submission was played over and over, in slow motion, in freeze frames, and in an enhanced version. The audience watching never forgot what the police did and, no matter what was said in court, the images on that tape remained firm in the public consciousness. When the accused officers were acquitted, a public outcry resulted in a new trial and convictions.

What faded from view were the events that transpired before the video camera was turned on. Few were swayed by the police testimony that King had been under the influence of alcohol and had led the cops on a chase through city streets. The video tape of King being unmercifully beaten by public servants dominated the day. The accused received little public sympathy.

Most of the time, however, there is no videotape of the victim's pain and suffering - no collective memory of the sadistic attack, the knife or bullets ripping through flesh, the blood and gore, or the indelible images of the crime itself. The grisly aftermath of a murder is considered too gruesome for public consumption, so even the victim's last testimony of the crime itself is seldom seen by the viewers. In the abstract, the public cry is for vengeance and retribution. Three strikes and you are out of circulation. But, as we get to intimately know the accused, we slowly turn to look at them sympathetically. Instead of seeing the monster, we see another victim and are confused. And in that confusion, we are reluctant to punish the accused, even one who already has confessed to the most hideous of crimes.
Television didn't create this situation, but it has the power to turn almost any crime into this kind of public spectacle. The next time this happens, it would be helpful if the crime and the true victim weren't pushed into the background. To leave out the obscenity of the crime is to create a situation where accused killers are given more than the benefit of the doubt. They are given a chance to paint their own sympathetic public images at the expense of the victims they slaughtered.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Lots of black on black crime in the US... nothin' new.

tw, on what do you base that statement?