That’s a valid point. So there may be a slightly better reason to suspect it’s a pattern of behaviour. If they were instructed to do so why didn’t we hear anything about other incidents? Without any evidence or a comparable incident its a big mistake to jump from vague possibility to “probably so”
Where do you get your information about them advocating violence or voter intimidation or anything like that.
Advocating for a minority you think is oppressed is not in itself racist.
You might be interested in knowing that according to the NBP site
They suspended the individual who brought the weapon because he deviated from party policy. Of course they are probably the liars in this case. Just look at em.
Although their platform is indeed racical and they do advocate defending themselves against racial violence aimed at them they do not advocate violence or voter intimidation.
http://web.archive.org/web/20071121193041/http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=6580
I appreciate the links. I can’t give much weight to articles from 10 years ago about a guy who died 9 years ago. THat doesn’t really tell me much about about what the NBP are promoting now. I liked the Philly weekly article. It seems clear that King is a radical angry racist man. That’s one individual. It said they had what 4 members in Philly?
I think elucidator has thier number. My guess is they imagined that by standing there in thier costimes they were defending a black neighborhood and maybe recruiting , rather than any intent in voter intimidation. The whole concept being promoted by Bartle Bull that somhow they’re enforcers for the legions of ACORN bogus voters seems to be like some crazy conspiricy theory except it’s a major network channel pushing the story as if it had merit.
Honest, I think the level of consistent dishonesty from Fox is a much more dangerous to our society than the panthers. Here they are becoming recruiters for the Panthers by fanning the racial fires. Then if recruitment is good they’ll gigle and point to them again and say “Told Ya So” It’s not only dishonest, it’s incredibly irresponsible, for profit.
No, Fox News, the Tea Party and Bartle Bull are doing their level best to make the New Black Panthers important. I hadn’t given the Black Panthers a thought in years. But since these “pundits” have attempted to make a mountain out a mole hill, it is worth commenting at this time on the hypocrisy of their cries about responsibility, just like it’s worth committing on the fact that public meetings called by any organization are theirs to control. If they choose to.
The guy who died 9 years ago was the one who founded the organization, and King Samir Shabazz is the current head of the Philadelphia branch of the organization and the one with the nightstick at the polling place. The head of the organization is Malik Zulu Shabazz, who was the one who led the call and response about how the Jews killed Nat Turner, controls the federal reserve and all that.
So, yes, these are just single individuals, but they’re single individuals that make up the leadership of the New Black Panthers. They aren’t just random members.
I have, because I keep an eye on anti-Semitic people and groups, especially Khalid Abdul Muhammad, who was a high muckamuck in and official spokesman of the Nation of Islam before getting involved with the New Panthers. This incident did probably bring the group to national attention, though.
I know I read em. It’s just that 10 year old events and attitudes have questionable relevence. As for King being leader of the Philly chapter, didn’t your own link say it had 4 members? How big a concern should that be?
Concerning this thread, still no evidence that the organiztion as a group knew and approved of his carrying a weapon to the pollong place. In fact their site says just the opposite. If anything they are usig all the negative attention they are getting to recruit. As far as who poses a bigger threat to the direction we are going in as a country, I’d say it’s a popular TV channel that poses as news as they spread lies to serve a political agenda. They don’t care if thier lies help with NBP recruiting as long as they can smear Holder and the Obama administration. We have serious problems in this country and that crap disgusts me. They are actually encouraging racism and fanning the fire. The point of the OP.
Seven years ago, it had four people,. And I don’t think that ten year old events and attitudes have questionable relevance if the people haven’t changed their views in the past ten years.
I haven’t been paying particular attention to Fox News, so I can’t tell you what they’re saying about this. But I think that the government needs to pay more attention to extremist organizations, and I think the way the government has handled this case has been a disgrace. Maybe there was nothing they could have done against the organization as a whole, although they must have thought they could when they included the group in the lawsuit, but they should have done something against the people who were actually carrying weapons.
I’ve found a timeline and cast of characters involved in the case. It was put together by somebody associated with the Heritage Foundation, so that’s obviously a right wing group, and is going to want to criticize the Obama administration, but as far as I know all the actual information is correct. Could you take a look at it and let me know if there are any inaccuracies?
If you don’t know what they are saying then how can you judge that the governments handling is a disgrace? Obviously you got enough information from somewhere to make an impression. What information is included, what is left out, and how is presented is part of the slant of presentation.
ftr I agree that militant groups like the NBPP should be kept track of, within reasonable limits and certainly within the law. Regardless of hatefully rhetoric and displays at gatherings they should be judged for their actions.
I’ll address the time line.
Is this on it’s face , completely unacceptable? We may argue that it’s no longer necessary but that doesn’t make it illegal and it seems their goal is voter protection rather than voter intimidation.
Of course it doesn’t give us any indication of how much of this was actually done, but it’s significant that out of all these numbers there was one incident of one guy carrying a stick. Does that seem like the NBPP knew and approved of his actions?
We have an example of one racial comment aimed at Bull and friend. Nothing in the video. In fact he seems calm and controlled and non threatening. Who were the other multiple witnesses? Fact is no voters lodged a single complaint. Even if the charge is ATTEMPTED voter intimidation doesn’t justice require that we have decent evidence? We’ve got the testimony of three GOP poll watchers and nothing else. I also find it significant that in the face of blatant voter intimidation these witnesses didn’t stay there very long. In this camera phone age why isn’t there any more evidence?
So what exactly happened. There was a complaint and the police arrive and make King Shabazz leave the area. The 2nd man who is a registered Dem poll watcher and never had a weapon, is allowed to stay.
Without any evidence that King had the direction from the NBPP the DOJ includes Malik in the suit. It’s also significant to note that the BUSH DOJ decided that there wasn’t enough real evidence to file a criminal suit and filed a civil one. That detail is left out of the time line.
This is interesting. I’ve heard from several sources that they didn’t show up, as if it was a court date in a courthouse. Apparently it wasn’t even that. Because it was a civil they were only required to file an answer which they missed. This says nothing about the amount of evidence the DOJ does or does not have.
It seems clear to me that there was no evidence at all against Malik. Can anybody who isn’t trying to score political points to make Holder and Obama look bad admit this simple fact. It also seems within the bounds of reason that there was no significant evidence that Jackson had committed an offense.
It was always only a civil case, so what exactly were terms drafted by the trial team. Here’s another misdirection. There were professional lawyers on both sides of this argument. Some thought it should be pursued and some disagreed as professionals often do. It’s not as if everyone involved thought they should be prosecuted and Holder stopped them from doing it. There was also desent on the Civil Rights Commission. Some wanted to pursue it and some didn’t.
If you really examine the details of the case I think the DOJ acted within the bounds of reason. They took action against the one man who carried a weapon. You may not agree it’s severe enough but keep in mind it was always only a civil case and this is more than other DOJ officials did in more severe cases. That means , though still imperfect, the Obama DOJ is an improvement.
Yo might want to go back and read the Media matters links earlier in the thread if you haven’t already done it.
It seems obvious to me from the tone of these links that they are implying that it’s a race thing and they got off easy because they were black. I don’t see that at all and I think those actively fanning the fires of this fear over and over and over again are political opportunist purposely appealing to the worst of human nature for their own selfish reasons. In my book that makes them as bad as Shabazz. It’s irresponsible and shows a disregard for the serious issues we face.