A few...uh, "interesting" observations from our old pal, theocratic bigot and all-around extremist nutjob E.W. Jackson from his trip to Ferguson, Missouri.*"Don't let...Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world come in and turn it into something that the people of that community kind of lose control of, and...the New Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam they come in and stoke all of this violence and hatred..." *"If this police officer is not indicted...and convicted, you're going to see more violence in Ferguson...could spark violence across the country." *"I don't think anybody who...feels angry and that something unjust happened, I don't think they care what the facts are. I think they know two things. They know he (Michael brown) was shot six times and they know that he was unarmed. And they don't care about the rest, they don't care that it was a 6 foot 4 young man weighing 290 pounds coming up against about a 150-pound officer. They don't care that the police officer may have already been injured in a confrontation. They don't care that he might have been running at the police officer. In other words, it's not going to matter to these folks what facts come out; they know he was shot six times, they know he was unarmed, and as far as they are concerned, there is absolutely no justification for it and the police officer ought to go to jail. So you're not going to change those folks' minds by facts." *"When you stand up and you create the cry that's been created...'hands up, don't shoot'...This is supposed to be a depiction of what happenedbetween Michael Brown and Officer Wilson, that Michael Brown put his hands up and said 'don't shoot' and Officer Wilson just gunned him down in cold blood. So when you perpetrate that sort of picture of what took place, and then you say, as Al Sharpton said at the funeral, you know, 'America's got a problem'...'no justice no peace' [Jackson snickers/laughs], you know, we're not getting justice so there's not going to be peace. And you get the Nation of Islam in there - which we know has a reputation for being racially divisive, hateful, mean, horrible..." *"The reality is Ferguson has no military equipment; I mean, that was one of the myths that got debunked. The only think Ferguson has is two non-working helicopters [laughs] that were donated several years ago. Everything else they have is standard police equipment that the police department itself went out and bought..." *Al Sharpton "implied that millions were being spent to arm the police as if they were a Gestapo, and no money was being spent on education, which we know is also not true..." In sum, Jackson perpetuates the far-from-proven/heavily-biased Fox News/Rush Limbaugh narrative of what happened in Ferguson all the way (e.g., that Michael Brown was dangerous because he was a big guy, that he might have injured the much-smaller officer, etc.). He denigrates the residents of Ferguson, suggesting that they're not going to listen to any facts and are just riled up (in part, supposedly, by outside agitators like the "Nation of Islam" - natch). He mocks the "hands up don't shoot" chant by protestors. He also strangely claims that all the military equipment we saw with our own eyes on numerous news reports was apparently a figment of everyone's imagination. Of course, no interview with a right-wingnut like Jackson would be complete without a reference to the Gestapo. Anyway, just another day in the life of E.W. Jackson, who a year ago today was coming down the home stretch of his run for Lt. Governor of Virginia as - and this can't be emphasized enough or too often - the Republican Party of Virginia's freakin' nominee! Amazing. |