the death of OJ...

[seeds]

...the brutal murder of those two, was perhaps the most shocking event in the 1990's...

No, Kropotkin, the most "shocking" thing of that trial is that OJ was acquitted.

what is justice? the OJ case brought us to a new understanding of what
is justice, that continues to this day... that wealthy, famous people can
get away with murder, actual murder...

Kropotkin

Is Kropotkin caught in some kind of "white-out" storm that has blinded him to history? Or, is he simply the victim of a severe case of tunnel vision?

Have you never heard of Emmit Till?

For it is clear that one doesn't need to be "wealthy" nor "famous" to get away with a brutal murder...



And here are his murderers after being found not guilty by a jury of their (all-white, all-male) Mississippi (good-ol'-boy) peers...



They even admitted to doing it later on, yet still no justice.

All because the 14-year-old child - Emmit Till - whistled at the white woman in the right-hand side of the above photo.

I can't help but imagine that the brazen injustice of the Emmit Till case (along with innumerable other cases like it) contributed to the reason why some black folks were glad OJ was found not guilty of killing some white folks.

All of which has helped fuel the growth of the necrotizing karma that is eating-away at the soul of America.
_______

K: the Emmit Till case was not shocking at the time and wasn't for
a long time after... it became shocking decades after the fact...
it was typical of the violence that whites engaged with....
it wasn't a new thing, and it didn't end there... his death was in
1955 and the white violence against the blacks continued into
the 1960's... it was seen as just more of the same...
this according to my mom, who was married to my father, who
owned a newspaper at the time...

I was born in 1959, I didn't hear about Emmit Till well into the
1980's... did his death help contribute the civil rights movement
of the 1960's, yes, yes, it did... but it certainly wasn't front and center
of the civil rights movement during the 60's...

the very fact there was no ''justice'' tells us the mindset of those
years... we are offended today about Emmit Till, but that
wasn't until years after the fact...

Kropotkin

Your reply had nothing to do with the point I was making.

You initially implied that if one is "wealthy and famous," one can get away with murder ("actual murder"), to which I simply supplied a clear example where murder can be gotten away with by non-wealthy and non-famous people.

In fact, our poor and obscure (non-famous) soldiers do it all the time, as they murder thousands of innocent people on our behalf.

You, of course, are probably not "shocked" by that because you probably don't recognize it as being "murder" (but it most certainly is murder).
_______

[Peter Kropotkin]

No, Kropotkin, the most "shocking" thing of that trial is that OJ was acquitted.


Is Kropotkin caught in some kind of "white-out" storm that has blinded him to history? Or, is he simply the victim of a severe case of tunnel vision?

Have you never heard of Emmit Till?

For it is clear that one doesn't need to be "wealthy" nor "famous" to get away with a brutal murder...



And here are his murderers after being found not guilty by a jury of their (all-white, all-male) Mississippi (good-ol'-boy) peers...



They even admitted to doing it later on, yet still no justice.

All because the 14-year-old child - Emmit Till - whistled at the white woman in the right-hand side of the above photo.

I can't help but imagine that the brazen injustice of the Emmit Till case (along with innumerable other cases like it) contributed to the reason why some black folks were glad OJ was found not guilty of killing some white folks.

All of which has helped fuel the growth of the necrotizing karma that is eating-away at the soul of America.
_______

K: the Emmit Till case was not shocking at the time and wasn't for
a long time after... it became shocking decades after the fact...
it was typical of the violence that whites engaged with....
it wasn't a new thing, and it didn't end there... his death was in
1955 and the white violence against the blacks continued into
the 1960's... it was seen as just more of the same...
this according to my mom, who was married to my father, who
owned a newspaper at the time...

I was born in 1959, I didn't hear about Emmit Till well into the
1980's... did his death help contribute the civil rights movement
of the 1960's, yes, yes, it did... but it certainly wasn't front and center
of the civil rights movement during the 60's...

the very fact there was no ''justice'' tells us the mindset of those
years... we are offended today about Emmit Till, but that
wasn't until years after the fact...

Kropotkin

Your reply had nothing to do with the point I was making.

You initially implied that if one is "wealthy and famous," one can get away with murder ("actual murder"), to which I simply supplied a clear example where murder can be gotten away with by non-wealthy and non-famous people.

In fact, our poor and obscure (non-famous) soldiers do it all the time, as they murder thousands of innocent people on our behalf.

You, of course, are probably not "shocked" by that because you probably don't recognize it as being "murder" (but it most certainly is murder).
_______

K: unlike you, I see the Till case as being part of history...
it is not shocking because it wasn't new... it had context,
being part of an age, that white violence against blacks
was an accepted part of life...it happened all the time...
thus we can understand why the not-guilty verdict came in...
no one, in white Mississippi anyway, would have seen that
violence as being unacceptable or different than what they
saw every single day...a good deal of white Mississippian's,
probably didn't even see why there was a trial...
he was black and thus deserved anything he got...
and whites should be able to dispense violence against
blacks, as they saw fit... it wasn't about being rich or famous,
but a mindset of the times... white could and should commit
violence to ''uppity'' blacks... that was the mindset of the times...
that, to their minds, was justice.... to keep ''darky'' in his/her place...
and that is why they were found innocent... it had nothing to do with
fame or fortune... you have to keep context when making
a reference such as yours...

Kropotkin

[seeds]

K: unlike you, I see the Till case as being part of history...
it is not shocking because it wasn't new... it had context,
being part of an age, that white violence against blacks
was an accepted part of life...it happened all the time...
thus we can understand why the not-guilty verdict came in...
no one, in white Mississippi anyway, would have seen that
violence as being unacceptable or different than what they
saw every single day...a good deal of white Mississippian's,
probably didn't even see why there was a trial...
he was black and thus deserved anything he got...
and whites should be able to dispense violence against
blacks, as they saw fit... it wasn't about being rich or famous,
but a mindset of the times... white could and should commit
violence to ''uppity'' blacks... that was the mindset of the times...
that, to their minds, was justice.... to keep ''darky'' in his/her place...
and that is why they were found innocent... it had nothing to do with
fame or fortune... you have to keep context when making
a reference such as yours...

Kropotkin

You seem to have a problem following the implications of your own narrative.

You stated the following...

...what is justice? the OJ case brought us to a new understanding of what is justice, that continues to this day... that wealthy, famous people can get away with murder, actual murder...

...with the central point being that...

...wealthy, famous people can get away with murder, actual murder...

To which I countered with cases in which non-wealthy/non-famous people have also gotten away with murder.

Even though your very thread is about the (30 years ago) "history" of the OJ trial, and that I was referring to something that occurred 40 years prior to that,...

...how about you forget about "History" and instead address the point I made about how, even now (today), our poor and non-famous soldiers get away with murdering thousands of men, women, and children all the time.

Indeed, how does that fit into your narrative that seems to imply that only the wealthy and famous can get away with murder?

Come on now, Kropotkin, isn't it "shocking" to you that we all help pay the salaries of soldiers who routinely murder thousands of innocent humans on our behalf, and not only do they get away with it, but are treated as heroes?
_______

[Dubious]

it was reported on the news today that OJ Simpson died...
and it give us pause to wonder about his legacy and ours...

Why should this be important and worth pausing for?

K: the OJ case brought us to a new understanding of what
is justice, that continues to this day... that wealthy, famous people can
get away with murder, actual murder...
our entire definition of the judicial system changed after OJ..

Kropotkin

Since when hasn't that been true in all history that the wealthy and famous can get away with acts that individuals not so endowed would never be exculpated from.

Consider the most famous modern version of such distinctions...Donald Trump. He's a vessel of every disgusting trait a person could have, a traitor to his country and constitution, a mercenary when it comes to defending the West...and yet possibly the next president.

The questions remains, what have we learned?

[Alexis Jacobi]

The questions remains, what have we learned?

I’ll bite.

::: clears throat :::

Answer: The startling degree to which our projections form and mold what we see and the interpretations that we make — and all while remaining unconscious of it.

[Dubious]

The questions remains, what have we learned?

I’ll bite.

::: clears throat :::

Answer: The startling degree to which our projections form and mold what we see and the interpretations that we make — and all while remaining unconscious of it.

Hardly, when it's projected directly from the horse's mouth...so to speak...a witness against himself. The projection comes from those who negate its reality.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The projection comes from those who negate its reality.

No one could, or should, negate the projections of those who are drawn to Trump.

But I think you negate the fact that •Trump• must be seen as a social and national phenomenon. He is just a man, and a strange one indeed, and yet he charged onto the national horizon inspiring a swath of people in — what is it really? — their opposition to a system that doesn’t serve them (dispossessed classes). How to explain this?

Trump will pass away, eventually, but what will be the legacy of those who •battle the Deep State?• I mean, entrenched power with other objectives and designs.

There are so many different levels to this phenomenon that you don’t seem to consider.

The Trump Phenomenon must be seen within a larger picture frame.

[Dubious]

The projection comes from those who negate its reality.

No one could, or should, negate the projections of those who are drawn to Trump.

But I think you negate the fact that •Trump• must be seen as a social and national phenomenon. He is just a man, and a strange one indeed, and yet he charged onto the national horizon inspiring a swath of people in — what is it really? — their opposition to a system that doesn’t serve them (dispossessed classes). How to explain this?

Trump will pass away, eventually, but what will be the legacy of those who •battle the Deep State?• I mean, entrenched power with other objectives and designs.

There are so many different levels to this phenomenon that you don’t seem to consider.

The Trump Phenomenon must be seen within a larger picture frame.

I look at Trump the way he really is, meaning the way he presents himself be it as president or farm handworker, Republican or Democrat, a miserable lying pathetic coward of a human. Do you seriously believe that he respects any of those who so overtly adore him? A hyper elitist such as he has no agenda to serve the dispossessed but certainly will use them to attain the highest position in the country. Speaking of projection, he himself duly noticed that he can say or do anything and his demented audiences will still regard him as wearing a halo.

What's your definition of mass insanity? As someone who would vote for such a deformed homunculus, that's a fair question!

[Iwannaplato]

Since when hasn't that been true in all history that the wealthy and famous can get away with acts that individuals not so endowed would never be exculpated from.

The last few decades in the US have seen a countertrend. To some degree there has been, over the longer haul, an evening out. It never got even, but the trend was towards equal treatment. Then it started to reverse. More and more courts considered rich people above the law, even ruling that it would be a shock for them to end up in prison - whereas a plumber would just find it unpleasant.

I just tried to find the book I read that catalogued this, without luck. The trend is far beyond the rich person's ability to hire better representation; it was a recent and systematic shift away from equal treatment.

[Dubious]

Since when hasn't that been true in all history that the wealthy and famous can get away with acts that individuals not so endowed would never be exculpated from.

The last few decades in the US have seen a countertrend. To some degree there has been, over the longer haul, an evening out. It never got even, but the trend was towards equal treatment. Then it started to reverse. More and more courts considered rich people above the law, even ruling that it would be a shock for them to end up in prison - whereas a plumber would just find it unpleasant.

I just tried to find the book I read that catalogued this, without luck. The trend is far beyond the rich person's ability to hire better representation; it was a recent and systematic shift away from equal treatment.

I have no doubt that such a catalog exists, more than one perhaps, depicting the trend, but the quandary persists; how can anyone believe that a hyper-elitist like Trump with a vocabulary of barely a hundred words is the man to reverse or, at least, diminish the differences based on law his attitude as president being L'État, c'est moi and if I screw up I need a whipping boy to take the blame!

Among the superpowers, the ones containing the greatest number of idiots is Russia and the U.S.