The St. Louis County Police Department has announced the suspension of an officer who was seen pointing a semi-automatic assault rifle at a Ferguson, Missouri, protester and threatening to kill him. The confrontation occurred during the protests and looting following the shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. [Warning: foul language]
The confrontation was caught on video, as shown below. The officer can be seen walking around with his assault rifle raised and pointing the weapon at protesters while saying “I’m going to fucking kill you. Get back. Get back.” When asked for his name, the officer is heard to say “Go fuck yourself.” He was later led away by another officer who appeared to get him to lower his weapon.
The police issued a statement that”The unified command strongly feel these actions are inappropriate, and not indicative of the officers who have worked daily to keep the peace.”
He has been “relieved of duty and suspended indefinitely”
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/20/us/missouri-police-officer-suspended/index.html?hpt=ju_c1
Meanwhile… this will be swept under the rug… charges dismissed,… officer reinstated to serve and kill another day.
Schulte, whatever school of thought one believes, Hitler became a raging anti-semite only after learning what had happened to Germany after the war, when international bankers bought up the country for pennies on the dollar. Not all of the bankers were Jewish, but Hitler did focus on the Jews as payback, eventually recovering all of Germany’s lost assets and more. It’s difficult for many to face these facts, but then denial has always been a good remedy to ease pain. Messengers of truth are labeled antisemitic because facing the music just hurts too much.
The operative word is “raging.”
samantha – if Hitler were raging, then he would not have been calm enough to plan the return of the assets lost. Hitler was very calculating. Some of the rages of his later years can be put down to the cocktail of drugs he was being given every day.
On the topic of Ferguson, and Hillary might be interested in this, Kevin Horrigan of the Post Dispatch newspaper wrote this article about Emerson Electric which is located in Ferguson. It is located just south of the burned out Quik Trip.
One of the great ironies of the continuing furor in Ferguson is that the burned-out QuikTrip, ground zero for the protests, is located less than a mile from the headquarters campus of Emerson Electric.
The macro-global-economy is cheek-by-jowl with the micro-local-economy. Winners and losers side by side. Talk about your accidents of geography.
Emerson is No. 121 on the Fortune 500 with 2013 revenues of $24.6 billion. Some 1,300 St. Louisans are employed at the Ferguson campus, most of them doing highly skilled financial and management work.
Emerson employs a lot of less-skilled people to make a lot of different stuff, but not in Ferguson. In Mexico, Central America, South America, Germany, France, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, China, India, Japan, the Philippines and other nations, in 230 manufacturing centers, Emerson employs 130,000 people, including 33,000 at 80 locations in the U.S. and Canada.
Emerson’s companies make familiar stuff, like garbage disposers, power tools and ceiling fans, as well as highly technical stuff that controls other highly technical stuff. They make electronic controls for industrial automation machines that displace human beings. They make climate control stuff for server farms that power the Internet and displace other human beings.
Creative destruction at its finest. It’s the knowledge economy, the way of the world, adapt or die.
Many people in Ferguson and the rest of St. Louis could really use basic manufacturing jobs. Too bad. Ask the people who used to work at Ford-Hazelwood or Chrysler-Fenton. It costs too much money to do basic manufacturing in the United States. The future is advanced manufacturing, the kind that requires technical expertise.
In 2009, David Farr, then as now Emerson’s chairman and CEO, told analysts in Chicago that President Barack Obama’s ideas for the environment, health care reform and labor could “destroy” U.S. manufacturing.
“What do you think I’m going to do?” Farr asked his audience. “I’m not going to hire anybody in the United States. I’m moving.”
For Farr’s bosses — Emerson’s board of directors and its shareholders — this was precisely the right attitude. Every dollar the company can save by employing foreign labor instead of American labor is a dollar that goes right to the bottom line.
Emerson has enjoyed 57 straight years of dividend increases. It creates dependable, if not spectacular, returns for investors. If it has done so in part by offshoring America jobs, well, welcome to the globalization NFL.
This is what makes the juxtaposition of the 8000 block of West Florissant Avenue (Emerson) with the 9400 block of West Florissant Avenue (the burned-out QuikTrip) a nice metaphor for modern America.
Last year, David Farr was paid $25.3 million, placing him No. 5 on Equilar’s list of America’s best-paid executives. About $3.8 million of this was cash compensation, the rest in stock and options based on performance. Farr doesn’t get performance options every year; Forbes figured his compensation for 2008-2012 at $84 million.
Even so, it’s a safe bet that he’s the best-paid guy in Ferguson. And worth every dime, at least by the standards that govern executive compensation today. He delivers the goods for the company.
Emerson is very, very good at what it does. The company has been in its location since before World War II, before most of the people in Ferguson were in Ferguson.
World War II was a turning point for Emerson. It made shell casings and armament for airplanes, weapons that helped win the war and may have saved Emerson, which had been struggling.
Emerson did so well during the war that in 1947, when the Army Air Corps turned into the U.S. Air Force, Emerson’s president, Stuart Symington, became the first secretary of the Air Force. Then he became a U.S. senator and briefly in 1960, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In 1954, Stu Symington’s old job was given to W.R. “Buck” Persons, who became wary of the uncertainties in the defense business. He began diversifying Emerson’s portfolio by buying up other companies and managing them strategically, a business model that his successors have followed. Persons was succeeded by Charles F. Knight, who expanded the company’s international footprint, broadened its portfolio and created a widely admired management culture.
In his spare time, Knight and his close friend, August A. Busch III, sat on each other’s boards and ran St. Louis’ business and civic communities for the last quarter of the 20th century. They weren’t particularly interested in social engineering — the city kept emptying out, businesses continued to flee — but they were very generous to charitable and civic institutions.
Institutions around town that don’t have an “Anheuser-Busch” something or an “Emerson” something usually have a “Busch” something or a “Knight” something. This summer I personally have benefited from both the Anheuser-Busch Eye Institute and the Charles F. Knight Emergency and Trauma Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Last year alone, Emerson’s charitable arm gave away $33 million to more than 1,800 organizations.
Which is great. Which is fabulous. Ferguson isn’t the only place around here that needs help. Love the Emerson Children’s Zoo. Love the Muny Opera. Love all the Emerson Charitable Trust projects.
But what a great story if Emerson, with all of its management talent, would reach out to its neighbors left behind by the globalization, automation and computerization that has enriched its shareholders and executives.
David Farr has said he sees great potential in high-end American manufacturing, the sort that requires refined technical skills.
Michael Brown was shot to death on Aug. 9. His family said he had plans to start tech school on Aug. 11. A lot of tech schools promise more than they deliver, and a lot of students don’t follow through. Emerson already invests in technical education. Maybe it could do more of it in Ferguson.
Copyright 2014 BarkinDog.com
Huh?
Nick Spinelli, “Karen, Superb point on the hypocrisy of the left. A rumor that Perry is gay is not met w/ vitriol or personal attacks against the person saying it. The reaction is normal. But, I say I think Hillary is gay and the feces hits the fan. We obviously have a much better grip on people being gay than the Hillary cultists.”
There is a difference. You made several outright statements about Hillary, with this being another. The other statement is that there was a rumor with a reward for anyone who could prove it. The reward wasn’t claimed. This suggests that the rumor was false. Two different assertions. You keep this up as it’s shameful or criminal or what? that someone is gay. It’s simply noyfb.
bettykath – are you intimating that if a reward was put out proving that Hillary was a lesbian, someone would be able to claim the money?
Paul:
What I’ve been curious is which came first, the megalomaniac or his power?
Was Hitler a small, prejudiced man in a prejudiced society with low character who became a psychopath after getting drunk on his own power, or was he a psychopath prior? Did he torture animals in his childhood? Was it absolute power with zero accountability which caused his character flaws to grow into serious antisocial behavior and immorality, or was he exactly the same both before and after his rise to power?
I don’t know much about Hitler. I just know I never want another one. And yet the leaders of Iran, Hamas, ISIS, and all of the other Middle Eastern nations all share the same rhetoric – annihilate Israel. And they all have absolute power with zero accountability on whatever scale they rule. Obviously Hamas has the least scope as they rule a movement, not a region. Even Saudi Arabia, where the royals push back to some degree against the Imams, forbids a Jew from ever setting foot in their country, and also calls for Israel’s destruction. We’re hearing the same rhetoric we did leading up to the Holocaust.
Sobering.
Karen – There is more current research being done on Hitler, but it is not easy. The OSS muddied the waters, as did the British secret service in an effort to vilify him during the war. A lot of that misinformation is still around. We know that he was a war hero and was gassed during WWI. He was recovering during the end of hostilities. We know that he did not get into the Art Academy probably because he could not draw the human body. We know that he joined a movement already in progress and then ended up as its leader. We know the movement was very successful when the German economy was bad, but a failure when the economy was good. We know that he attracted some people who he did not micromanage and allowed them to do their jobs. But psychologically we really do not know him because there are so many lies out there, it is hard to find the truth.
anon:
Taking out of context or ascribing meaning that is not there is not “distilling.”
Paul – thanks! I can’t remember if that’s her. I’ll have to look it up. I could never remember the spelling of her name. 🙂
anon2:
Are you saying it’s perfectly normal for anyone to wonder if the rumors are true that Perry is gay, but not Hillary?
Chuckling.
It’s human nature to wonder. What I have said is that I don’t judge anyone by their sexual orientation. I live in CA, and have been to the Halloween parade in Hollywood, watched the crowning of the Queen, gay clubs like the Abbey, spent time in San Francisco where openly gay couples are common, worked with gay people, and had gay friends. I’ve repeatedly said on this blog that staying in the closet is a complete waste of time. In fact, that’s what’s heartbreaking about when people stay in the closet – the terrible hurt that’s done to their wives and girlfriends who suddenly find out their relationship was a lie.
When one of my friends at work came out it was about as anticlimactic as possible because . . . wait for it . . . we had all wondered about his orientation already. And none of us judged him.
But how interesting that you make snide references to me when I specifically say it’s not a judgement. I’ll wait for you to make the same comments, for consistency, to the above posters on this thread who were curious if Perry is gay.