@Dave
In FTR 45 you spec­u­lat­ed Bill Cos­by’s son may have been killed by “C.A.U.S.E.” just hours after the end of MLK Day. After that a Ukrain­ian Immi­grant was con­vict­ed of the crime. I recall some accounts that he was racist too but his motive was sup­pos­ed­ly rob­bery. Now Bill Cos­by’s rep­u­ta­tion has gone the way of OJ and of Tiger Woods at the low of his scan­dal, because Mr. Cos­by is being accused of being a ser­i­al rapist. I respect your opin­ion and analy­sis, and I was won­der­ing what are your thoughts on the Cos­by sit­u­a­tion? Thanks for all your work.

Best,
GK

@GK–

I have more ques­tions than answers about Cos­by.

I note that–like OJ and Tiger Woods before him–he was an African-Amer­i­can who was rel­a­tive­ly well-accept­ed by white Amer­i­cans.

He was also from a gen­er­a­tion of black folk who were schooled that the pro­fes­sion­al deck was stacked against them, and that they must be extra care­ful to avoid any type of behav­ior or speech that could be dam­ag­ing.

One the one hand, the num­ber of accusers is quite large. One might be inclined to dis­miss the notion that such a large num­ber of accu­sa­tions could be with­out sub­stance.

One the oth­er hand, an intel­li­gence ser­vice (CIA head­quar­ters is named for prospec­tive GOP can­di­date Jeb Bush’s father) could eas­i­ly coor­di­nate such resources.

The ques­tion I have is: MIGHT there be a psy-op under­way to use the race card to boost GOP for­tunes?

Cer­tain­ly, with the only African-Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent in office, the “racial front” is cer­tain­ly heat­ing up.

In this inter­roga­to­ry con­text, don’t lose sight of the prin­ci­ple of stim­u­lus gen­er­al­iza­tion, a major fea­ture of psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare.

Peo­ple MIGHT be sub­ject to delib­er­ate media manip­u­la­tion, to gen­er­al­ize from a crim­i­nal like Brins­ley, who killed the cops in New York, to black folk in gen­er­al.

Again, this is high­ly spec­u­la­tive, but you asked for my thoughts.

Best,

Dave

Right before the alle­ga­tions of rape start­ed, Bill Cos­by had this to say about the mas­sive protests in Fer­gu­son.

EXCLUSIVE: Bill Cos­by weighs in on Fer­gu­son before Amar­il­lo show
Sept 15, 2014

“It’s a per­son who can’t be trust­ed to car­ry out the laws. It’s a per­son who will, in their men­tal ill­ness, react in an unsta­ble man­ner which gets every­body into trou­ble,” Cos­by said near the end of a half-hour tele­phone inter­view Sept. 4.

“That men­tal ill­ness can cause an awful lot of anger to sur­face unnec­es­sar­i­ly, and I think that col­or is not what we’re talk­ing about,” he con­tin­ued. “We have to vote and make sure that the per­son we’re vot­ing for is going to car­ry out that which a pub­lic ser­vant is sup­posed to do.

“There are peo­ple of all col­ors, all eth­nic­i­ties, who are hon­est. These are the peo­ple you have to find.”

“You ought to be able to put peo­ple in office who can behave in a man­ner that will be hon­est towards you,” Cos­by said, not­ing the dis­par­i­ty between the black major­i­ty pop­u­la­tion and the num­ber of white city offi­cials in the St. Louis sub­urb. “I think there’s where the slip­page is: They’re not vot­ing. They need to pay atten­tion to and make these pub­lic ser­vants hold up their end of what is sup­posed to be going on.”

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Cos­by is urg­ing peo­ple to vote in an area where vot­er turnout is low in the black com­mu­ni­ty.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/black-voters-in-st-louis-county-direct-their-anger-at-the-democratic-party/2014/10/14/e6957b8a-4f02-11e4-aa5e-7153e466a02d_story.html

Black res­i­dents make up about a quar­ter of the county’s pop­u­la­tion. But they typ­i­cal­ly account for only 10 to 15 per­cent of the vote, accord­ing to Ter­ry Jones, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri at St. Louis.

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The new movie “Sel­ma” shows a lit­tle bit of the extent which the polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment would go to stop peo­ple from vot­ing. Under that light, the tim­ing of the alle­ga­tions and who Cos­by is can be exam­ined with­in the con­text of pos­si­ble vot­er sup­pres­sion.