Posted on 08/27/2014 9:41:00 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Conservative icon Rush Limbaugh declared during his radio show on Friday that the “mainstream media” was unable to transform “gentle giant” black teenager Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, into Rodney King -- the black man who became famous for a high-speed pursuit by the police and later asking “Can't we all get along?” 22 years ago -- because “alternative media,” including talk radio, has destroyed “the monopoly of the Drive-By Media.”
That claim was contradicted by Touré Neblett, a co-host of MSNBC's weekday The Cycle program, who charged in Sunday's edition of the Washington Post that black victims of crime become “thuggified” as negative incidents in their pasts are revealed to the public that diminish their standing in America’s “empathy gap.”
In a segment of his three-hour weekday program, Limbaugh said “the story of the alternative media” countered the press in its efforts to depict the 18-year-old African-American as a victim whom a white and racist police officer “executed” in cold blood while he was on his knees with his hands up and his back turned.
The difference between Brown's case and the race riots in Los Angeles that resulted from a video of Rodney King's treatment by the police in 1991 “is that there is an entire, very large media and otherwise apparatus that is aligned and empowered and in action, specifically aimed at denying the myth makers a free road, a free rein to write whatever story they want."
As a result, Limbaugh stated, the media "no longer get to dictate what is the news" and "no longer get to dictate what doesn't get reported or told."
He noted that the original story of “the gentle giant walking innocently down the street on the way to grandmother's house, eagerly thinking about the soon-to-commence college classes, shot in the back by a racist white St. Louis cop” is falling apart.
When the mainstream press tried to maintain the myth, surveillance video of Brown's strong-arm robbery was released, "and the gentle giant was no longer gentle,” Limbaugh stated.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
The conservative icon further described the teenager's actions just before the shooting:
He was a thief. Forty-four-dollar box of Swisher Sweets, and furthermore, he was abusive to the clerk, shoving him away as the clerk attempted to keep him from walking out of the store with the stolen cigars.
Then we learn from an autopsy conducted by the myth makers that the gentle giant was not shot from behind. And then we learned that the gentle giant actually did reach into the car and may have attempted to get the cop's gun.
“And so. then a number of witnesses came forward, but many of them are beginning to lose credibility,” Limbaugh said.
As a result, he stated, "the myth is getting a little harder to hold onto because if there was ever any real media scrutiny involved, the myth could not survive."
"Leftists really don't know what to do when the media turns on 'em, even for the smallest things, even for the briefest of moments,” the conservative host stated. "They're not prepared to deal with people calling them on lies. They're not prepared. They haven't been toughened up."
Taking a different perspective, MSNBC's Touré Neblett declared on Sunday: “In an information war, the news media is deployed as a weapon, our collective mind becomes a battlefield, and biases are land mines waiting to explode."
The liberal anchor continued that “when there’s a black victim involved, the information takes a different and predictable turn: The victim becomes thuggified. This is an easy leap for many minds, given the widespread expectation of black criminality.”
Neblett asserted: “It’s as if a black person must be a perfect victim to escape being thuggified, an angel with an unblemished history in order to warrant justice.”
He added:
If you become nervous when you see a young black male approaching on the street, it is not hard to convince you that a kid who was shot was not one of the “good ones,” that he was scary, and maybe did something to deserve it.
Information wars thrive on America’s empathy gap -- the way some people struggle to see any kinship or shared humanity with strangers who don’t look like them.
Meanwhile, Limbaugh stated that new media outlets must always be alert and never underestimate the “myth makers” in the mainstream media who want the country to believe “white cops shoot innocent black kids all the time,” even though that's not the case.
“The myth makers have not given up by any stretch,” he added.
I can still remember when we didn’t have Rush.
How depressing it was.
Nothing against the big guy, but Rodney King did not deserve the beat down he got....speaking from a legal standpoint. Was he a dirt bag? Yes? Was he due a butt kicking? Probably......but, that is not the duty of the cops. But, I digress.
Rush is absolutely correct when he says the alternative media kept the Ferguson story from becoming a wave of big lies. Guys like Rush, and others, keep the truth from getting buried. It’s still not certain what went on in Ferguson, but that’s sort of the point. No one knows, so why is the media acting like they do? Keep on their ass, Rush. Thanks for your hard work.
I say, he wasn't a dirt bag, and he wasn't due a butt kicking, but the cops, once again, were just doing what they were trained to do. The problem was, you see, RK kept trying to get up! He was supposed to cease "resisting", you see, and the cops were bound to keep hitting him until he did. Well, he wasn't about to lie still under such severe provocation, and we all saw the result. No doubt the doctrine was subsequently refined, but how, I don't know.
A friend of mine in law enforcement told me that it sometimes took 10 male officers just to "hold a guy (perp) down to get them under control when under the influence" of certain drugs.
I’ve heard these arguments. When I look at the tape, they just don’t ring true to me. Look, I know the cops have a tough job. I know King probably got arrested every other day for three years. I know King is a dirt bag. I’m just saying, punishment is the job of the courts...not the police. They should have jumped on him...and cuffed him.
How true.
And, as for me, I was living and working in Sacramento
when Rush came in ‘84 so I am among those who have four
more years of him than the rest. I can’t count the times
he would give voice to political thoughts I was thinking
almost simultaneously. That, and then some. When he
announced he was leaving for NYC to go national his large
Sacto audience knew that he would own the airwaves across
the country.
Especially once we've seen the video-tape of the man committing a strong-arm robbery.
I've heard people endlessly complaining that the tape was intended to "poison the jury pool". When, obviously, the 24 hour a day broadcasts calling the shooting a race murder are intended to do just that, poison the jury pool and make any investigation and any attempt at fairness impossible.
You’re likely referring to PCP. It doesn’t take much to get a person on PCP to snap, and when they do, God help you. It’s even more scary that wrestling with scizophrenics off their meds, which I have done and hope to never do again.
CC
Rodney King simply wouldn't get down. He kept charging at the cops. Betcha didn't see that part of the video. It's almost always edited out.
And King's accomplices in the car, what did they do?
They obeyed the officer's commands.
Did the cops tune them up?
No.
They had no reason to.
Lead police on a high speed chase while on some kind of drugs and refuse to simply get out of the car, then attack the cops?
Guess what happens?
You're treated like a King.
I wonder how things might have shaken out if the internet had existed 20 years earlier? Would it have made a difference? Would the left have perverted it to their own means and ends as the did the mainstream media?
Also meant to agree and say it’s gotta burn both the media and the government’s collective ass they don’t control all the information anymore. Everything was filtered by leftists in mainstream media to favor the government’s position, with rare exceptions even back in the time of Huntley, Brinkley and Cronkite.
The video that we were shown hundreds of times was the edited version. During the initial trial that cleared the officers, the jury had the original, unedited version. The parts that showed King repeatedly charging the officers was edited out.
Of course, what was so awful was that video clip of the officers striking him, ran over and over on that continuous loop that made the officers appear to beat and beat him unmercilously!
Obviously that did not happen or the jury that looked at all of the evidence would never have found the officers not guilty.
Ok.....well that’s a different story. I’ve never seen the an ‘unedited version.’
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