The Trayvon Martin Thing

From my somewhat legalist and jaundiced point of view, it would have been almost impossible for any jury following the law and their instructions from the court to convict George Zimmerman of murder. It would have been difficult to convict him of manslaughter. The point is that given exigent circumstances as presented at trial, while he was clearly guilty of homicide, he apparently was not guilty of breaking any law against it.

Unfortunate, but not unusual in our system of injustice often called "the best in the world."

All the other matters matter quite a bit less than the law and the court's instructions to the jury at trial in cases such as this.

Social and political issues are obvious. The way this case is being used so effectively to keep the rabble divided -- against their own interests -- is despicable, but it's working rather well. So long as it is seen purely as yet another example of racism in America, or the impunity of white folks, or what have you, people who should be on the same side against the oligarchs and plutocrats will be fighting it out with one another to prevail in the argument over this case.

We see the same phenomenon in the Snowden Thing, where prevailing in the argument -- whichever one is priority at the moment -- is far, far more important than actually doing anything about domestic surveillance.

It's shark season...

"Why Can't They Be Like We Were, Perfect In Every Way...

Oh, what's the matter with kids to-day?

Let Geraldo explain it all for you:



You know you're old (in spirit, no matter your age) when you reflexively blame the victim for their own suffering or in this case demise.

It's time-honored human nature.

As is imagining that there was ever a time when young people weren't somehow outraging their elders with their ridiculous dress or behavior.

"The hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was... you cannot rehabilitate the hoodie!"

(Go back to your room abuelito. Go back to your room before you hurt yourself. [Note to self: have to work on that snarky bidness, buster; want to be accused of being ageist and racist? Cripes!])

And it just gets worse. Geraldo on KABC radio as reported by Erik Wemple.

As a counter to that nonsense, here's a beautiful video from Occupy Romania -- in which many of those on camera are wearing hoodies. Of course, they're white. So that makes it OK. Right Geraldo?

On the Incidents in New York and at Union Square Yesterday

I've been dealing with other things most of the day, so I haven't checked on the continuing Crisis of Authority in New York since fairly early this morning. Some of what I post now may therefore be out of date.

But...

There was a huge rally at Union Square in New York City yesterday called "The Million Hoodie March" in honor of Trayvon Martin who was killed last week in Sanford, Florida -- for walking while black.

Unfortunately, this is still (partially) the United States of America where such demonstrations are necessary. I say "partially", because we've come a long way from where we were when I was his age, but progress on race issues has come at a tremendous cost. That cost has been the criminalization of entire cohorts of young men of color, and the assumption by public guardians -- whether they be the man who shot Trayvon Martin or established police forces -- that if a male is black or brown and within a certain age group he is likely a criminal, and that shooting or imprisoning him is of little or no social consequence.

What is the meaning of "equality" in such a context?

At any rate, there were thousands gathered at Union Square to honor the memory of Trayvon and hear from his mother, and to consider how widespread the condition of oppression is in this country. And how vulnerable young black men, especially, but not just them, are to arbitrary impositions of authority than can and do turn deadly too often.

After the rally, the people took to the streets, marching in solidarity to a destination that wasn't entirely clear... well, that's how these things go. From what I saw, there was a spontaneous decision to march to Washington Square and then return to Union Square. From what I can recall of my times in New York, that seemed quite reasonable given that the locations aren't that far from one another. Their symbolic nature is what seemed most important at the time and now.

So, off they went, accompanied by police who were flummoxed by the size of the crowd, its energy, its determination, and its spontaneity. Their attempts to control the march and confine the marchers to the sidewalks failed. And that, in case anyone was wondering, is the essence of the Crisis of Authority in New York.

It is not that no one pays any attention to the NYPD -- they are, after all, a violent group of gangsters and thugs -- but their authority is being eroded every day in almost too many ways to count. What happened yesterday was instructive.

Mass media -- and even New Media (talkin' 'bout you, Tim Pool) -- was at pains to diminish the size of the crowd that assembled and marched. From what I could see of Tim's coverage -- which was mostly very good, though the 4G service he uses for livestreaming was spotty at best -- the crowd filled the open space in Union Square completely and was spilling out onto the streets round about. My estimate of the crowd size, based on what I could see of it from Tim's video vantage point on what appeared to be a light post, was around ten thousand. Tim was saying... "hundreds." Sometimes "thousands." Sometimes "huge crowd." He seemed to settle on "about 2,000" after talking to numerous other people who estimated crowd size.

This is the open space in Union Square as imaged by Google:

It is quite large. It was packed solid:


And that's only about half the crowd, from Union Square E to just west of the statue of George Washington. The crowd continued at that density all the way to Broadway, and as you can see from the picture above, they spilled onto and actually were standing across 14th Street. It was a huge crowd, that was reported in some cases as "dozens". I kid you not.




When the march began, they headed west on 14th Street, decided eventually to go to Washington Square and then return to Union Square, a circuit of a little over two miles I would guess. The crowd, however, was so large, it split into three and thus the marches didn't seem quite so spectacular. All along the route, the police were futilely trying to wrangle and manage the marchers, who insisted on taking to the streets no matter how many times they were told to get back on the sidewalks or were herded by scooter cops.

When they returned to Union Square, the crowd had diminished in size somewhat, but it was still impressive. The failure of the police to wrangle them successfully was symbolized by the fact that barricades set up by the police were overturned:



As more and more police assembled, the crowd defied them with chants of "Whose streets? Our streets!"

Finally, around midnight, hundreds and hundreds of NYPD officers -- estimates were up to 500, the most on one operation since the eviction from Zuccotti/Liberty Park on November 15 -- were assembled at Union Square to control what by that time was no more than a couple of hundred demonstrators, and the sight was absurd. Which, by this time, even the police seemed to recognize. The smallish crowd did some spontaneous actions, including marching around the park -- accompanied by police who couldn't keep up when they ran, and then dispersed.

The police were left there, all dolled up with nothing to do.

This was a nearly textbook example of how authority is delegitimized. One of the things that demonstrators in New York especially, but throughout the Occupy Movement internationally as well, have made clear is that they are not afraid of the police. The demonstrators will comply when it suits them, they will defy when it suits them. They are setting the ground rules of confrontations, and that is partly what is causing discomfort among more traditionally oriented activists. The rules, as they understand them, are set by authority, not the other way around.

The practice of delegitimazation doesn't always work, and the methods are not always comprehended by those involved, but as the "American Spring" gets fully underway, we're likely to see more and more of these tactics employed.

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FURTHERMORE: I didn't know they'd gone to Wall Street and desecrated the Bull: (Oh. My! Not only that, they de-arrested one of their comrades who had mounted the Bull. Things fall apart...)