Photo credit: Mickey Z.
Mickey Z. -- World News Trust
“What we accept, we teach.”
While scanning corporate media reportage (sic) of the June 7 shooting spree in Santa Monica, California, I was struck by some of the comments attributed to witnesses. For example, as one person who crossed paths with the shooter told the LA Times: "I thought he was police. He looked like he was wearing SWAT gear but with nothing written on it."
A second LA Times witness added: "I saw a guy wearing all black, holding a big gun. He looked very calm. I stared at him. I'm thinking maybe he's (in the) police force."
CNN told of another woman who said she saw “a dark-haired man in black combat boots who she initially thought was a police officer, but quickly realized was the shooter.”
Both of the above cited stories came accompanied by photos of law enforcement officers looking “calm” and holding “big guns.”
My friend Michael Parenti wasn’t quoted in any of these stories, but if he had been, he might have said something like this: "There are people who believe the function of police is to fight crime -- and that's not true. The function of police is social control and the protection of property."
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CNN did, however, quote a witness who was happy to share this tidbit: "(The shooter) just looked like he was standing there posing for the cover of an ammo magazine or something. It was bizarre."
Not quite as bizarre, I’d suggest, as a culture that publishes “ammo magazines” and a population that pays to read such magazines.
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The corporate media predictably used words like “rampage” and “carnage” to define one man killing five people. Meanwhile, from the New York Times, we learned that the shooting “took place about 10 minutes away from where President Obama was attending a private fund-raising lunch before heading to Palm Springs for a meeting with the president of China.”
Speaking of global war criminals, two of the Santa Monica shooting victims were taken to Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center.
What we accept, we teach…
#shifthappens
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Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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