To understand Trayvon Martin, you first must understand Charles Manson.

A condensed summation from Pravda:

Charles Milles Manson (born November 12, 1934) is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction. … [And eventually convicted] … Manson believed in what he called “Helter Skelter,” a term he took from the song of the same name by The Beatles. Manson believed Helter Skelter to be an impending apocalyptic race war, which he described in his own version of the lyrics to the Beatles’ song. He believed his murders would help precipitate that war.

It takes a special sort of Lunatic to look forward to a race war: all the hordes of humanity hopped up on Sheer Hatred, murdering children with dull machetes… and in Manson’s case, it took a particularly Stupid Lunatic to think that murdering a handful of celebrities would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Genocide requires a coherent external factor; be it the starvation which kicked off Rawanda and the Holocaust, or an institutionalized power which profits off of misfortune. Manson had neither of these. Quite frankly, I fail to understand why people find him so interesting.

What I do find interesting, however, is how the interest in him manifested. A shot from the past, then – this is what the TV news used to look like:

Spare the 53 seconds, and watch all of it; the Press Secretary’s urgency is important.

Nixon’s faux pas was widely criticized by the media, and in fact it came back to bite his administration in the ass. Again from Pravda:

On August 4, despite precautions taken by the court, Manson flashed the jury a Los Angeles Times front page whose headline was “Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares.” This was a reference to a statement made the previous day when U.S. President Richard Nixon had decried what he saw as the media’s glamorization of Manson.

For journalists, the use of ‘alleged’ is a matter of personal integrity. For government agents, it’s a necessity of policy.

Ah, how times have changed. By which I mean our culture has declined.

(CBS News) President Obama spoke out for the first time on Friday about the fatal shooting of an unarmed 17-year-old African-American boy in Florida named Trayvon Martin, calling it a “tragedy.” “I can only imagine what these parents are going through,” Mr. Obama said from the White House Rose Garden, “and when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids, and I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together, federal, state and local, to figure out how this tragedy happened.”

This isn’t the first time Obama has done this.

Nixon, remember, was criticizing the media for it’s morbid obsession; his failure to use the word ‘alleged’ led to an immediate retraction by his Press Secretary, and harsh criticisms by said media. Obama, meanwhile, feels entitled to repeatedly comment on how the cops ought to be behaving, when he knows little or nothing about the event in question. It would seem that his only important Prior is the races involved; whenever a black person is victimized he demands that all the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men be tasked with making double-triple certain that it wasn’t white folk being rassist.

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That Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman have become household names is a symptom of our times. The story itself is even less interesting than Manson’s. Put simply, a 30 year old neighbourhood watch captain, patrolling his neighbourhood after a series of burglaries, confronted a 17 year old whom he thought looked suspicious. Violence ensued. Two witnesses heard Zimmerman yelling for help, and saw Martin punching him in the face. Neither deigned to help. Eventually Zimmerman pulled out a pistol, and shot Martin once, killing him.

The police arrived on the scene, took Zimmerman’s pistol into evidence, and brought him back to the station to interview him. Based upon his account, his injuries, the grass stains on his back, the eye witness testimonies, and the audio from an earlier 911 call, they decided not to press charges. The facts all lined up.

You’d think it was a non-event; page A8, with a followup in the Sunday paper. Especially when, this, this, and this happened during the same time frame. But there was one single factor which made this newsworthy:: Trayvon Martin was black, and the media mistook Zimmerman for being white. Local newspaper editors must have felt their first viagra-free erections in years.

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The blogosphere’s been doing a good job of hammering down the specific details – click here or here if you’re curious – the more information that comes out, the more Zimmerman looks like a victim, and Martin looks like a scumbag.

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The world’s in a Sad State when you have to rely on openly racist blogs to learn about systemic violence.

Mahogany Mobs is what they’re calling them (Flash Mobs is the term used by the media, but then we’d be lumping them in with pillow fights). Ghetto-youth, organizing over Twitter, showing up for Beat Whitey Night at festivals and rich neighbourhoods; vandalism, theft, and hospitalizations. All summer long, in city after city, while the MSM refuses to connect the dots – treating each incident as unique, and only reporting it locally.

Over on Stormfront they look on with glee, antipating the event which will trigger the race war. They ask the question: what will happen when a carry/conceal white defends himself with Lethal Force? That question is being answered

George Zimmerman may have been Hispanic, but his name is white enough; already the State Machinery is beginning to move, and the Black Panthers have put up a $10 000 bounty for Zimmerman’s ‘capture’. This isolated incident – this personal tragedy for the families and neighbourhood involved – is exactly the sort of traction the Race Baiters of the world were looking for. They Myth of Racism is a profitable one, you see, and those Advocates which promise you Cheese for Votes have never had your best interests at heart.

Feminism, Anti-racism, Housing Loans, Gay Rights, Anarcho-Tyranny, the Security State, take your pick – somewhere there’s a flavour of cheese for you, no matter how discerning your palette might be. As our cities crumble around us the Jackals work up the Anger of the Mob, skimming off the top and laughing on their way to the bank. Short-sighted and vicious, they break us apart, atomize us, and declare that Truth is derogatory. They lie and cheat and steal while we celebrate their Depravity.

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Charles Manson. If only he’d known how to play the game as well as They..