Posted on 04/16/2012 4:16:18 AM PDT by expat1000
Andy Warhol predicted that in the future everyone would be world-famous for 15 minutes. What he neglected to mention was that they were just as likely to be infamous.
Zimmerman had decorated his flyers and website with the famous quotation attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing." His activities reveal a man who took those words to heart, who put his time, money and safety on the line to become one of those good men who do something. But the problem was that Zimmerman had been reading Burke, when he should have been reading Kafka.
"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested." That is the famous opening sentence to Kafka's novel, "The Trial", words that have far more to do with the way we live now.
George Zimmerman is not on trial because he shot a black teenager during a scuffle. It's not the facts of the case that brought him here. It's his name. Had his last name been Pereira, none of this would have gone anywhere. And it's not the name alone, it's that in this time and place lynching him will help make the political fortunes of everyone from the man in the White House to his cheerful smiling prosecutor who is already counting her campaign cash and book deals.
Zimmerman with his book of quotations from the great thinkers of history, a man who clearly believes in the old fashioned virtues, is particularly ill-equipped to understand what is being done to him and why. The quotation that he plastered on flyers while investigating the beating of a homeless black man and on his own website, is more apt than he realizes.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is indeed that good men do nothing, but as a corollary to it, those are exactly the sort of men that evil will go after. It does no good to read Burke quotations to a Kardashian society which makes its determinations not on truth or justice, but on its omnipresent need for entertainment. Trying to reason with it only makes it angrier. Talking about virtues and decency to people who have none either confuses them or infuriates those few who understand the concept in some distant way.
We aspire to behave the way that George Zimmerman did, to contribute to our communities, to defy the conventional wisdom and speak out when we see wrongdoing. We believe that all that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. And we are only a misstep away from being George Zimmerman, from doing the wrong thing, from intervening in the wrong fight, drawing the wrong cartoon or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, a heartbeat away from appearing at the bar of the kangaroo court of stage managed public opinion.
In our own way we are all George Zimmerman. We think that society should be moral and rational, and that people should do the right thing. But that's not what it is. It's an insane braying donkey's laugh as the thieves, large and small, rob the people blind and then muscle them into a lynch mob to go after some handy victim. It's George today, it will be someone else tomorrow. Maybe someone who even deserves it. But it won't be the people destroying the country, because they're the ones leading the mob.
George Zimmerman has been chosen to serve as a gladiator in the circus that distracts a bankrupt nation from the criminal folly of its leaders, large and small. He has been assigned white team colors, had an NRA badge pinned to his lapel, and is being shoved out into the stadium while the lunatic mob howls for blood. The Emperor of Hope and Change has already made the thumbs down gesture, the courtiers are rushing out to fix the match.
Like Kafka's protagonist, Zimmerman has been protesting all along that this is some sort of mistake. And he's right. It is a mistake. Had the engineers behind the lynch mob gotten a good look at his photo, they might have pulled back and looked for a better victim. Someone who more properly fit their bicoastal idea of a "cracker" to string up on the crooked scales of Lady Justice. But once a mob has gotten started, it's hard to shut it down. And there's no real need to stop.
In the past, a media organ that reported a blatant lie might have at least paused on getting caught, but we live in a post-fact society now. The only thing that happens is that the media shrugs and doubles down on the narrative. George Zimmerman isn't white? Just call him a white-hispanic. Insist that Latinos are really white even though your entire practice has been to loudly scream the opposite. Accuse anyone who points out that Zimmerman doesn't look much like Larry the Cable Guy of being a racist. Problem solved.
Zimmerman thinks it's a mistake because he's not guilty. But as Kafka might have told him, guilt or innocence has little to do with it. Zimmerman wasn't indicted on charges of shooting a man, but of being a racist, of being the living embodiment of American inequality, NRA lawmaking and a dozen other sins. These are not charges that he can ever shake, because they are not legal crimes, they are political crimes.
The true charges against Zimmerman are 'class charges', they indict him as the representative of a class, white racists, gun owners and the entire heteronormative patriarchal class of men who quote Edmund Burke, carry guns and feel entitled to trail troubled black teenagers in their community. Lynching Zimmerman is not about putting one man away, it is about putting everyone away. It is about the absolute triumph of the system and its ideology and about putting the individualist in his place, in a small cell and an orange jumpsuit.
The original title of "The Trial" was "The Process" and we are always in the middle of a process. The process begins before we are born and ends only when our bodies and estates are disposed of to the complete satisfaction of the system. The point of Kafka's book was not whether the defendant was innocent or guilty. The point of the process was the process. The purpose of the trial was the trial.
We are all on trial under the system. That is the nightmare that Kafka anticipated. It is a reality that was already taking hold in the Soviet Union even while he was writing. The purpose of the trial is the absolute power of the system and its ability to snatch up anyone, examine them and then dispose of them. The theater of the trial informs everyone who lives under the system that they are at its mercy.
The very randomness of choosing Zimmerman, the contempt for the basic facts of the case, has become part of the message. The message is the same. The facts don't matter. The decision making process doesn't matter. Leave your evidence and your Burke quotations at home and watch how the wheels spin, the gears grind and the blood flows. The message is that the system is absolute and there is no escape.
This is evil. It is the very essence of evil. It is an evil that Zimmerman could not have seen coming or understood when he was out patrolling his community. It's an evil that is all around us. We can catch glimpses of it on the evening news, in the sneers of anchormen, the practiced smiles of politicians, it's there in Angela Corey's helpless grin, it's there in the mountains of paperwork, the lines of tiny print, the lines of people waiting at bulletproof windows, the morality mobs forming up digitally for the next victim to string up, the next popular opinion to enforce, the next skull to crush.
The beast that is doing its best to swallow up Zimmerman knows no facts or truths, it has no virtues, only goals. It cares nothing for what he did or did not do. Its only goal is to swallow him whole. It has eyes made of cameras, teeth made of guns, network cables for guts, a mind made of slogans and a nervous system that always needs stimulation. The beast may fail in its task, but it will let out a brief howl and move on to the next victim.
For all that the beast seems terrible to Zimmerman now, it is no larger than Obama's water dog, it is one of a thousand such animals wandering through studios, courtrooms, legislative offices, chambers and all the corridors of power. If it should fail, it will break up into a thousand pieces, the reporters will go back home, the racial hucksters will head to the next trouble spot, the protesters will go back to hanging out on street corners, the cops will ride past them, the prosecutor will treat it as a learning experience, the lawyers will add it to their calling card, and the politicians will sniff the air waiting to see which way the wind blows.
In movies trials end in some larger conclusion, some lesson learned, some principle defended. That will not happen here. The people who run our system no longer believe in those things. They don't read Burke, they don't even hang Andy Warhol on their walls, he has become too structured for them. There are no more lessons except the lesson of power, the grand game of guilt and terror, the spectators crowding the bars to see the tigers roar, the blood flow and the knowledge that they could be down there.
White guilt. Entitlement. Patriarchy. Heteronormative. Critical race theory. All that empty gabble of words is a way of defining power and power rests with those who make their words into law. Those who use them to destroy meaning and feed those who believe that words have meaning to the lions.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for enough people who say things like that and mean it to be fed to lions. Not even on purpose, but because they stuck their head up at the wrong time, they caught the eye of the insect eyed Big Brother collective of critical racial theory thinkers and gender role debunkers, of sensitivity counselors and nightly news provocateurs, of politicians running on race and running away from race, of the rich playing class warfare against themselves and the poor who know that money comes from the government, and the uniformed and pantsuit clad minions who oversees the circus that keeps the system going a little longer.
We are all Zimmerman. One of us might be next. One of us will be next. The system is always hungry and the beasts must be fed.
Indeed! The entire piece is profound. I especially like this particular paragraph:
"George Zimmerman has been chosen to serve as a gladiator in the circus that distracts a bankrupt nation from the criminal folly of its leaders, large and small. He has been assigned white team colors, had an NRA badge pinned to his lapel, and is being shoved out into the stadium while the lunatic mob howls for blood. The Emperor of Hope and Change has already made the thumbs down gesture, the courtiers are rushing out to fix the match. "
expat1000, will you please add me to the Sultan Knish/Daniel Greenfield ping list?
This is absolutely first-rate.
Resist we much.
Zimmerman is a wannabe loser who bit off more than he could chew and had to kill to save his ass. You want to lionize him for that go right ahead. My standard for heroes is set quite a bit higher.
What annoys me most is the fact that he screamed for help, was heard, and seen, and yet no one left their house to help. It was a one on one situation and many cowered in their homes. This would not have happened if it was in certain areas of Bensonhurst Bklyn..
I don’t know what happened the night Trayvon Martin died. I only know that those who are screaming for Zimmerman’s lynching would be crying a different tune where they in his shoes. And those same people would instead be calling us level headed freedom loving Americans in direct conflict to their normal name calling of right wing nutjobs or tea baggers.
I don’t know what really happened the night Trayvon Martin was killed anymore than anyone else. The evidence will come out at tial for all to see. And I can’t speak for anyone else on this site, but my comments on Zimmerman are that he has lost what we as Americans hold dear: that one is innocent until proven guilty.
If you were in his shoes, you’d welcome all the support you could get in any way you could get it and so would any liberal now crying for his lynching.
There are other crimes occuring in this country that can be labled hate, where is the coverage on those crimes? Where are the voices screaming justice for the young Kansas City boy who was set on fire by two Africian American youths?
bttt
Zimmerman was also twice arrested for violence.
You cant charge murder in this case. Murder has the element of intent, of which there isn’t any in this case.
Charge isn’t going to stand scrutiny.
If Zimmerman should ever extricate himself from his predicament, I sincerely hope that he treasures the “white” part of his Media-appelation, White-Hispanic. Because it appears that this base is his only support. Not much from the Hispanic side by way of support, or even acknowlegement
Bottom line isn’t difficult to get to. Populations in fly-over states are doomed as long as they’re part of a Union with the coasts. Simple as that.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. We still don't know the full story. It's highly unlikely he walked up to Martin and just shot him. Did he say things to Martin? We don't know. I know if I'm a NWV like Zimmerman, and it happened like he said it did, Martin attacked him from behind and threatened to kill him, then he acted like anyone else would act if someone was beating their head against concrete. But let's wait and see if more evidence emerges.
Greenfield is exactly right: the masses no longer care for true justice anymore, only fake "social justice" which means Zimmerman is guilty of political crimes even if it was a good shoot.
When will good men rise to Zimmermans defense with ARMS? For that is the only recourse we have left.
Let me guess: you live in a state where your only recourse to crime is 1) piss your pants, 2) call 911, and 3) die.
Stay out of North Carolina. We have enough anti-self-defense jerks here already.
I agree. When does something get done about that? I'd like to help.
The doctrine of interposition would be a good start.
Well, I graduated from Law School many years ago and based upon my reading of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interposition
I’m afraid Interposition won’t work with these Federal courts.
Its been my considered opinion that it might just be possible that the best approach would be the election of a Republican President to the outrage and disgust of the Coasties which might prompt the Coasties to agree to a break up. This way, we could take advantage of their disgust and disdain for fly-over country.
As a start, I’ve read, but don’t have time to research right now for a link, that committies from several of the states, 17 I think, have met in recent years to discuss secession and how to best approach it. I live in Texas and hope to see it as a ballot proposition in the near future. So there is already a “movement” of sorts. There are various other “legal” theories for a break-up, but none of them are going to work in the Federal courts simply because.......they’re “Federal” courts.
Stangely enough, the Coastie Commies and their Gov’t media outlets have recently been tossing an idea which might well provide us and “out”, i.e., to re-do the Constitution and replace the current “Republic” with a Parliamentary form of gov’t, (they love all things Europe); I’d suggest we back that idea if they’ll agree that States not wishing to join could opt-out altogether.
Thanks. As usual, we lose and the Federal government wins. What else is new?
The message is that the system is absolute and there is no escape. This is evil. It is the very essence of evil.
Absolutely. I've been on to their game for some time now. I wish more people were paying attention. The beast was fully unmasked at Waco, yet the collective yawn of the masses was deafening.
Sorry son, it is exactly because I have been around that block more than once that I can see zimmerman for what he is. If you want him walking through your backyard at night and armed then I would have to question your judgement.
Question away. I am armed everywhere I go, and I would pop an attacking Trayvon just like Zimmerman did.
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