Comments on: God bless America, because someone needs to

By: Mephistopheles

Mephistopheles — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 03:07:29 +0000

On the Gates affair, let us start with a less usual cliché than the racism, obstinate or dumb cops or… ones. Try Town & Gown with its very long history. Consider especially that America is not at all egalitarian like Australia (or at least not in the Australian style except v. superficially: you call people Mr. and Sir as part of that courtesy which minimises the danger from concealed carry in the US) and that Harvard profs are widely seen as, in our terms, up themselves (and certainly used to deference), not least if they have fame outside Boston and Cambridge. It seems that the arresting sergeant has an impeccable record in race relations and there was another, black, sergeant with him who (of course) backs him. So, let us assume that Gates was arrogant and highly offensive, presuming, as no proper Yankee or other gentleman would, on his status and position’s privileges, as indeed seems to have been the case . So…..

Why are you so certain that “stupid” is the right word? Would it have been stupid to treat a white man exactly the same way in exactly the same circumstances? That surely depends a good deal on local police and law enforcement practice as well as the actual law applicable in Cambridge Massachusetts, as to which I expect you are no more expert than I.

Have you never come across a policeman (or even a police woman) in Australia reacting badly to your or a friend’s irritable response to, e.g. being refused the right to drive directly to your own home because of a football crowd, and have you not, on reflection had some sympathy for the police reaction to your egotistic assertion of your individuality rather than calling it “stupid”.

It would be really good to hear Gates make a charming little self-deprecatory speech to Cambridge police joking about having had a bad breakfast on the plane, having to break in and then treating the police like students who had presumed to be able to put his assignment in late. What do you think the chances are?

By: Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:13:45 +0000

As noted elsewhere West Wing tv series episode re feisty fictional character Roberto Mendoza, arrested for being Hispanic by white bread coppers. Later endorsed as lefty US Supreme Court judge.

Methinks the White House press folks, the real Matt Santos being Obama, and the good academic and police of Cambridge, ought to have that beer and recall real life is not a tv show, and write their own script. Indeed not follow mass media prescriptions and lazy templates as fate.

This life is not read through …. Red Hot Chilli Peppers said that.

And don’t you love the fact there is a president in the USA who can use the word “calibrate” and also make a timely admission of an error. What was that he said before ‘we are just keep on telling the truth until it stops working’.

Well some folks stopped telling the truth a long time ago - New York real estate fraudsters and kidney salesman and where did the profits go from that I wonder this last 10 years. Could it be that Israeli ‘fascist’ foreign minister via the Diaspora. Mmm. I wonder.

By: Mephistopheles

Mephistopheles — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:04:05 +0000

If you are rich in America or employed and insured you should be able to get the very good but very expensive health care available in America without going broke. Presumably the chances of getting really good medical or hospital care if you are old or poor and covered by Medicaid or Medicare (? terminology) is much chancier. The trouble is that such an expensive system in a country where there are such huge ethnic, religious and socio-economic divisions is going to elicit great unwillingness to pay extra taxes to pay for people you see as idle, wilfully obese and stupidly neglectful of their own welfare and have little in common with you when you can think of a hundred things you would rather have your money spent on. Of course your hypothetical prosperous middle class or richer taxpayer (probably white) who sees little reason to spend his marginal dollar on Mexican immigrants or African-Americans fresh out of gaol could be torn by the reality (if I am right) that the really hard cases are families gainfully employed but without adequate health insurance who can’t rely on free treatment under Medicaid etc. One of the many reasons for Australians to feel blessed is that our ethnic composition is not such as to produce a large underclass of non-and-never taxpayers who are resented and/or despised by the productive.

By: j-boy57

j-boy57 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:02:02 +0000

yes he can