Here are things Zimmerman could have done, if he thought Martin was suspicious:

1. Stayed in his car and followed him, with the windows rolled up.

2. Got down and shouted at him from a distance that he was the neighborhood watch and he was armed. That would have alerted Martin not to get belligerent and get into a fight.

3. Even after the first punch, and even if Martin was the aggressor, he could have fired into the air or into the boy’s leg or arm, or could have just run away firing randomly. That would have alerted Martin and scared him off and it would have resulted in no one being seriously injured.

The idea that the only way he could have saved himself is by killing an unarmed person is simply misleading.

Killing a burglar who enters your home at night is one thing, although even there, if you know the other person doesn’t have a gun, aim for the leg or arm.

Avoiding confrontation is the smartest thing to do when no one is being directly threatened.

Vigilante posturing ends up harming someone, either the vigilante or his target.

The first law of any kind of activity is FIRST DO NO HARM.

We heard endlessly in the mainstream media about the use of the word  “nigga” in Trayvon Martin’s social media pages.  In the US, lily-white gifted teen girls use that word when they’re trying to ape their hip “rap” heroes, so this isn’t terribly convincing as proof that he deserved to be followed….(or, implicitly, blown away).

Meanwhile, did we hear about Zimmerman’s MySpace comments?

PoliticalBlindSpot.org

Huffington Post’s Gene Demby seems to have dug up an old MySpace page belonging to George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin and is charged with his murder, makes disparaging comments about Mexicans and details his response to a criminal case against him in 2005.

The page was first made public by the Miami Herald. Zimmerman’s lawyer, Mark O’Mara, confirmed that the page is George Zimmerman’s MySpace, but has been unused for years.

On Zimmerman’s legal defense fund website, his lawyers admit that the page “will cast Mr. Zimmerman in a less-than-favorable light especially considering the charges he faces.”

“In that regard, it is possible that the statements Mr. Zimmerman made could be used as part of the trial, and therefore it is our policy not to comment directly on items that could become evidence,” the site read. The statement also indicated that the social media accounts of “all the parties” involved might come under scrutiny, and may be introduced at the trial as evidence.

Photos on Zimmerman’s MySpace page show Zimmerman, who calls himself “Joe G.,” with groups of friends. In his biographical blurb, he discusses things he doesn’t miss about his former home in Manassas, Virginia:

I dont miss driving around scared to hit mexicans walkin on the side of the street, soft ass wanna be thugs messin with peoples cars when they aint around (what are you provin, that you can dent a car when no ones watchin) dont make you a man in my book. Workin 96 hours to get a decent pay check, gettin knifes pulled on you by every mexican you run into!”

Lila: OK, I sympathize with that, but it shows he generalizes vastly about Mexicans and sees them all as criminals.

“In an August 24, 2005 blog post, he boasts about his relief about the proceedings in a criminal case.

I’m still free! The ex hoe tried her hardest, but the judge saw through it! Big Mike, reppin the Dverse security makin me look a million bucks, broke her down! Thanks to everyone for checkin up on me! Stay tuned for the A.T.F. charges……

A few days later, he expresses happiness that the other charges against him were reduced to misdemeanors.”

Lila: As I blogged before, saying “nigga” is always more inflammatory than “ho”.

“2 felonies dropped to 1 misdemeanor!!!!!!!!!!! The man knows he was wrong but still got this hump, Thanks to everyone friends and fam, G baby you know your my rock!

In 2005, a 20-year-old Zimmerman was arrested and charged after an altercation with a police officer. The same year, his ex-fianceé filed a restraining order against him and accused him of domestic violence.

The 28-year-old Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, on the night of Feb. 26. The case has garnered international attention, as many have called the case an example of rampant racial profiling, and have called for a repeal of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” gun laws.

Social media has played a major role in the case so far. News about the case spread virally on sites like Facebook and Twitter before it was picked up by mainstream outlets, and Martin’s since-deleted tweets were made public by the Daily Caller, a conservative news website. One of Martin’s accounts, called “NO_LIMIT_NIGGA,” in which Martin is shown with gold fronts in his mouth and talking about drug use, was seen by many Zimmerman supporters as evidence that the slain teenager was a hoodlum.

“These were not protected tweets,” the site’s editor told The Huffington Post about the decision to run Martin’s tweets, which were from an account that was no longer active. “While he was alive, these were not outside of the public sphere in any shape or form.”

Comment:

Since the whole case was first inflamed via Twitter, should we put it in the same class as the CIA-manipulated revolutions in the Middle East?

I plugged my ears and refused to listen to it….so I really don’t know what happened and really shouldn’t be commenting.

Trayvon Martin wasn’t a role model for a young man, from his social media comments, but neither was George Zimmerman perfect.

To me it’s amazing that you can go to jail for years for traffic offenses where no life is lost, but when you provoke a confrontation and then kill someone (even if in self-defense), you not only walk, you become a hero.

You’re not a hero. You’re an ass.

Since I haven’t been following this overblown case which ought to have stayed on the evening news, I really can only ask this as a question –

We heard about the “lean” (a type of marijuana) that Martin might have been using….although there was shifting testimony about whether it was present in sufficient quantities to affect him siginificantly.

Did we hear equally about Zimmerman’s prescription drug use?

Boston.com:

“While the mainstream media made sure to report with exclamations and gasps that marijuana was found in Trayvon Martin‘s system on the night that he was killed, many outlets failed to also report that the level was well below what medical studies show cause “performance impairment.”

The same can not be said for George Zimmerman.

According to the paramedic report, the vigilante neighborhood watch captain was on the prescription drug Temazepam, reports MSNBC.com.

Temazepam, also known as Restoril, is known to cause insomnia and anxiety, reports MSNBC. But there are more important side effects that were not mentioned.

Newsone exclusively reports:

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the drug is also known to cause “aggressiveness” and “hallucinations,” among other problematic symptoms.

From Examiner.com:

MSNBC.com reports that, according to the paramedic incident report, Trayvon Martin’s shooter was on the prescription drug Temazepam which is known to cause insomnia and anxiety. Other side effects not mentioned in the MSNBC.com report are “aggressiveness,” “hallucinations,” and other serious symptoms. The U.S. National Library of Medicine cautions that, after taking Temazepam, patients should not be walking around trying to watch anything or anyone and that, if they do not sleep for at least 7-8 hours after taking the drug, they may experience memory loss.”

Zimmerman was also on the commonly prescribed drug Adderall, which is known to cause “worsening mental or mood problems (eg, aggression, anxiety, delusions, depression, hallucination, hostility),” according to Drugs.com. Adderall is prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or narcolepsy. Both Temazepam and Adderall are medications that can cause problematic side effects including agitation and mood swings.

Source: http://newsone.com/2016433/george-zimmerman-drugs/?omcamp=sf_N1TW

ORIGINAL PIECE

Bill Anderson at LRC asks the crucial question about the media’s role in creating a frenzy that probably had the opposite effect it was intended to have:

“Why did Corey even file second-degree murder charges when it was clear that the state could not meet that threshold of evidence? My belief is that the mainstream media made it more likely, as journalists of supposedly reputable organizations literally made things up out of whole cloth and then put the lies on the Internet and in the airwaves. The frenzy that the media worked up made it easier for Corey to look like a crusader for justice rather than the dishonest opportunist that she really is.

As I noted at the beginning of this article, I do not know what happened in that encounter, other than Trayvon Martin was shot dead. At some point, Martin and Zimmerman tangled and it looks as though Zimmerman was getting the worst of it, which led to the shooting. What I do know, however, is that Corey’s people did not come close to presenting evidence that matched their rhetoric and the poisonous rhetoric that American politicians and journalists have been spewing.”

Personally, I have avoided reading or thinking too much about this case because I saw it as an intentional provocation of the mass mind. However, by doing so, by over-charging in the first place, they ended up losing the case.

Oh dear. It gets better by the hour. Now there’s a Nobel nomination. Edward Snowden will join Henry Kissinger (mass-murderer or great diplomat, depending on your political position) and, of course, Barack”Drone-Killer” Obama, that noted proponent of world peace.

LRC (Travis Holte):

“Here we see a woman in Mission, Kansas first assailed, then threatened with having her children kidnapped, before being degraded even further with a public “cavity” search. What was her offense? Putting pebbles in a government mail slot. This act, which was likely carried out by one of her small children, set what is probably your average indolent “civil” “servant” into immediate action. Cue the armed enforcers.”

Another great Mencius Moldbug passage, which reminds us why we should quit saying America or US Government and call it WashGov…or, better yet, WashCorp.:

“But wait – as Americans, why should we mind if Washington conquers the world? Isn’t it awesome, always and everywhere, to rule?

Not at all. The doctrine of ultra vires exists for a reason. Every institution, private or public, is chartered to serve the interests and purposes of its beneficiaries. If it decides it has the right to trade off the interests of those beneficiaries, purportedly for the purpose of serving other beneficiaries to whom it is not contractually responsible, but has decided to love simply out of the goodness of its gigantic and perpetually hemorrhaging heart –

When USG decided it had the right not to serve the people of America, to whom it was exclusively responsible, it set the precedent that it could abuse American interests for any purpose it desired. And what other precedent could tyranny demand?

USG certainly was never responsible to any other party. Operating ultra vires as a world government, like any regime it worked assiduously to curry the favor of its foreign subjects. But how could it possibly be responsible to the mango farmers of Pakistan?

No – in its capacity as planetary benefactor, USG could only be utterly irresponsible and autocratic. In time it probably would have followed the example of Rome and extended the citizenship of the metropolis to the entire empire. Not that this would have given foreigners any more real authority over “their” government than Americans already enjoyed. But at least it would have fixed the optics.

And why? Why this amazing planetary empire? Ostensibly, we were told, the motive was the benefit of humanity. What a purpose! What benefit! The progressive global leadership that at home produced Clockwork Orange Detroit also gave us Clockwork Orange France, Clockwork Orange South Africa, Clockwork Orange Haiti, Clockwork Orange Syria, etc, etc, etc. Nor may we forget its earlier patronage of Clockwork Orange Russia and Clockwork Orange China. All told, the murders on USG’s tab run well into 9 figures. Hitler was an amateur and Mao was a cheap local punk.

No, there is a simpler reason. Washington loved it. It was not America that got to rule the world, but Washington. This amazing global empire was responsible neither to Americans, nor to foreigners; neither did it serve the interests of either. The interests it served were its own. How fortunate we are that this monster is at the bottom of a river! Happy the crabs that feast on its corse! May never drought undrown its bones! Roll on, great Potomack, roll.”

More  grown-up analysis of Edward Snowdon from the adult world, by Richard Cottrell at The Daily Sheeple:

“Points of detail are important.

Edward Snowden is not an NSA sub contractor. He worked for the ‘consultancy’ Booz Allen Hamilton which is a shop front for the CIA, not the NSA. First warning.

Second. None of the ‘secrets’ he revealed are even vaguely secret, since the information concerning NSA snooping on foreign powers was already in the public realm, many times over. The problem is that newspapers and journalists intoxicate themselves with spy stories and rarely bother to sift through all the parallel information. Takes too long.

Third. His hop, skip and jump activities were clearly well planned in advance. Who, exactly, set up the fake exit to Cuba story, which put a truckload of journalists on the wrong (teetotal) flight? Snowden? Pull the other one. He had that sort of power over Aeroflot? Who put the story around anyway? Snowden again? Hey this guy was wasted working for the CIA, he should have been in PR.

Fourth. He got on a plane to Russia without a visa. I have been to Russia many, many times and I can tell you that is an impossible feat without real inside connections.

Fifth. He slipped through the dragnet in Hong Kong because the US consulate gave him the wrong middle name on the charge sheet. Yes, that really is the tooth fairy at the foot of the bed. Pretty isn’t she, with that halo and her little purse.

Sixth. Is this star wars, CIA versus NSA? Very likely. The security services in the US are like pit bull terriers looking for other pit bull terriers’ throats. Again, ‘journalists’ (actually a non-existent race) covering this whodunit remind me of Enid Blyton and those who never saw through the real nature of the set up with Noddy and Big Ears under the toadstool.

Seventh. Snowden is a classic example of the Gladio-style (copyright: Yves Guerin Serac)  implant, just like the cops at Scotland Yard and all the dirty washing  concerning their undercover activities which is now being – selectively – exposed.

I suspect he is not quite right in the head, will be revealed as living a fantasy life in Hawaii, got profiled and selected for the mission of his life. There are countless examples of believing in the role, the multi-dimensional imposition of one set of unrealities on another. Happens all the time. That’s how the system works. The Manchurian Candidate rings a bell.

Eighth: Is he really in Moscow?  Is he actually holed up in the airport lodge? Or is he somewhere else altogether? Is he already an ex-melted down Snowden, so to speak? No habeas corpus necessary. We don’t have the corpse, honestly. It must be somewhere else. Of course. Does it matter anyway?  The actor is off the stage, his speaking role is finished and he leaves behind a gloriously unfinished story. You can see how clever it all is.

Ninth. The guy blows the kitchen sink and then gallops around the world like a headless chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tenth, why does Obama suddenly go live and say, hey this is no big deal, I’m not going to the bottom of the White House rose garden for this one. That’s not strange, it’s a dead (oops) giveaway. Especially with the genuine article, Corporal Bradley Manning, on trial for his life.

Eleventh. Who wants Snowden to be taken alive? Sorry, no blank space available for your suggestions. I think the Boston Bomber syndrome applies here. Or, alternatively, grateful thanks, nice thick wad of the green, and then disappear, like the lost explorer Colonel Fawcett up the Orinoco in the thirties.

We shall see, but this story does not carry a 100% money back guarantee. We must doubt that we are living in an age of any sort of reason when people run after bum steers like this one.”

Hear, hear, for some more intelligent and original analysis on this – following Scott Creighton, Jon Rappaport, and yours truly.