THE COP WHO DIDN'T SHOOT--A CANADIAN OF COURSE

The contrast couldn't be greater. When Canadian police officer Constable Ken Lam tracked down Alek Minassian, the suspect charged with running down multiple pedestrians in Toronto on April 23, Minassian did everything he could to provoke the officer into shooting him. Minassian held an object that looked like a gun in his hand and pointed it towards the officer. He twice reached towards his pocket, then quickly raised his hand as if he were pulling and pointing a gun.

Minassian tries to provoke Canadian police officer to shoot him

Credit: CBC.ca

"Kill me," Minassian demanded.

"No. Get down," the officer replied.

"I have a gun in my pocket."

"I don't care," said the officer. "Get down."

You can view the video here.

In it, the officer calmly turns off his car's siren, holsters his gun, advances towards the suspect with his baton raised, and arrests him. No shots fired. No violence. Absolute professionalism.

I can't help but compare this with the dozens of videos I've viewed of similar situations here in the United States. Videos in which far less threatening situations escalate in seconds and conclude in a barrage of shots and a dead body, often found to be unarmed. Here's an example, one of far too many.

The US has about ten times more citizens than Canada. Canadian police kill an average of 25 people a year. US police kill more than 1000 people every year. According to a recent study, that represents more than 50,000 years of life lost (YLL), most of it by the early deaths of young Black men. Clearly, something is very different about police-suspect relations in the US and Canada (and most other developed countries).

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You can read earlier posts about police killings in the US here and also here.

"GET ME ROGER STONE" -- A MUST-SEE DOCUMENTARY

“Get Me Roger Stone” Netflix documentary 2017

Those still attempting to make sense of how the country has reached its

current political impasse could hardly do better than viewing the new Netflix documentary,

“Get Me Roger Stone.”

 Roger Stone

Credit: Wikipedia

Stone, whose career closely tracks the Republican Party's evolutionary descent from Nixon to Reagan to Trump (sad) appears first as a ideologically driven Young Republican partisan in the 1970's, then a fervent Reagan campaign staffer and later big-time Washington consultant/lobbyist in the 1980's and 1990's, and most recently as a key strategic adviser to Trump's campaign team. With a history of lobbying for a variety of unsavory foreign governments, his name has currently appeared in a number of recent investigative reports and articles delving into the relationship between close Trump associates and Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

As his public profile has risen, so has his ego, which the documentary highlights in full graphic display-- to Stone's evident delight. Like Trump himself, one of Stone's acknowledged mentors in the darker arts of politics was the infamous Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel and hatchet man during the Senator's anti-Communist crusade in the 1950's. It was, in fact, Cohn who introduced Stone to Trump in the early 1980's; and Stone, who later in the decade began urging Trump to consider running for President.

Central to Stone's 'brand' has been a mastery of the techniques of negative campaigning, including character assassination, dirty tricks, disinformation and behind-the-scenes manipulation of groups, individuals and causes. In interviews, he is openly and aggressively unapologetic about his commitment to winning at all cost, using any weapons available. Unfortunately, his model seems to have been increasingly adopted by Republican leaders in Washington where policy and public interest concerns, along with any commitment to bipartisanship or shared governance have given way to the single-minded goal of defeating and demeaning the opposition. With no fixed ideology, available to the highest bidder, and certainly without shame, Stone is the perfect hired gun and exemplar of the new Trumpian world. 

The documentary's chief impact, however, is its shocking revelation of just how far and how fast we have come from a world in which at least the ideals and standards of acceptable political and personal behavior in a democracy were promoted and proclaimed –if not always followed. What we are experiencing is not a new normal, but what can best be described as a 'new abnormal' in which 'alternative facts', denial of evidence, blatant lies, deliberate distortions and a generous admixture of the politics of fear have effectively undermined a sense of shared reality and trust in national institutions.

In their effort to win at all cost, freely employing the politics of personal destruction while demeaning the very instruments of democracy, Trump, Stone and their enablers have brought the nation to its current debased level of national division and crisis. Joe McCarthy and his amanuensis, Roy Cohn, have very nearly triumphed. While perhaps not explaining fully the shape of the elephant in the room, “Get Me Roger Stone” is a timely examination of a significant portion the beast.

Les Adler

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Zerospinzone published the above piece in July, 2017. It now (January 25, 2019) appears that Stone may have pulled a few too many "dirty tricks." He was arrested early this morning at his home in Florida by heavily armed FBI agents and charged with one count of obstructing an official investigation (the House Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation), five counts of making false statements to Congress and one count of witness tampering. We'll see how Stone's notorious arrogance holds up in the face of Mueller's notorious diligence.

And today, 11/16/19, we learned that Stone has been found guilty on seven counts, including lying to Congress and witness tampering, and could spend up to twenty years in prison. Of course, it seems almost guaranteed that the man Stone mentored in the darkest political arts, Donald Trump, will pardon him.

Again, you can view the excellent Netflix documentary on Stone here.

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