It's Watch!... Neighborhood Watch. Not shoot.

I hope Zimmerman's gated community has good insurance because I imagine that their will be a heck of a law suit against the homeowners association.

 

The gated community can't even manage to keep the gates shut a lot of the time, based on the number of 911 calls he made. So I'm sure the insurance isn't on par with that.

 

Of course the New Black Panthers are being discussed. Of course.

 

What do you mean? It sounds like he made one or two calls that night.

 

I'm not saying the "New Black Panthers" deserve a lot of attention. They probably are six people or less.

But, did some yahoo preacher who threatened to burn a Koran deserve worldwide attention? Do the Westboro folks deserve the attention?

Do PETA or the Center for Science in the Public Interest deserve the media attention they get? They're like two people with a fax machine and a good Rolodex.

Kooks get attention. Fuck, MSNBC game one of them -- Al Sharpton -- his own show.

So, to turn this into a FOX gives kooks too much attention is bs. They all do.

MSNBC is just as afraid of white supremacists and militia members as FOX is of the "New Black Panthers".

 

Where's Gomer when you need him?

 

I wonder if Spike Lee and the New Black Panthers will target Men's Wearhouse any time soon.

 

They'll love how they look.

 

Wearhouse.

 

Free flat screen TVs and Hennessy coming to a majority-minority neighborhood not near you.

 

Ack!! [/Bill the Cat]

 

The yahoo preacher didn't deserve the attention, but that was one of those stories that kind of takes on a life of its own once it drips out.

The Westboro clowns are a good comparison -- no, they absolutely don't deserve the attention they get. Anytime anyone famous dies they send out a press release announcing that they'll picket the funeral, news channel report it, it gets the requisite thread hear with all the keyboard Rambos fantasizing about what they'd do to the Westboro clowns... and they never, ever show up.

PETA figured out the game a long time ago: send out a silly press release and cable news will fall all over itself to give you publicity. It's a good gig once you have the name recognition.

The difference here, of course, is that PETA actually exists. It has members and a budget in the millions. The New Black Panthers is a few guys and an email address. As someone said, if it didn't exist Fox would need to invent it. Fox is keenly aware that there is a segment of the population on the far right that gets a mental picture of Eldridge Cleaver or Angela Davis and instantly shits its pants. If it weren't for Fox, no one would have ever heard of the New Black Panthers, and I would be they would not exist at all.

As for the "MSNBC does it too" stuff... I don't give a shit. I haven't seen MSNBC in years. This isn't about scoring political points for me. It's about pointing out that when this incident has morphed into a discussion of the New Black Panthers and Al Sharpton and Spike Lee, the bullshitters have won.