Q: We´re here with Oggy Bleacher, the Man in the Van. How you feel, Oggy? Still shitting the bed?
Oggy: My stomach felt like the spawn of Satan had been implanted in my intestines and was gestating. The things that came out of me could be villains in a low budget TMC movie. The toilet was begging to be euthanized.
Q: You do look horrible.
Oggy: Thanks. I am better now. Mostly.
Q: How much do you weigh?
Oggy: If Miley Cyrus ate a whole pizza. That is what I weigh.
Q: So, like, 100 pounds?
Oggy: Depends on the toppings.
Q: Any other news?
Oggy: The world is fucked up.
Q: Care to elaborate?
Oggy: Current events are fucking with my head. You got Tamir Rice, executed in a park by police while playing with an air pistol. If his mother took a belt to his ass to punish him for playing in the park with an air pistol then she would go to jail for child abuse. But the cops executed him for the same reason and no charges were filed. That is fucked up right?
Q: I don´t get involved in controversial issues. I just ask the questions.
Oggy: Well, I keep hearing how 99% of cops are good, and don´t execute kids playing alone in parks.
Q: And?
Oggy: And that is all backwards. The way I see it, 99% of citizens manage to say the right password to deescalate their encounters with police to avoid being executed. The police have a ´kill or be killed´ motto from the minute they put the uniform on. It is currently up to the citizens to say or do the exact mysterious correct thing in under 5 seconds to avoid being executed and right now most citizens have learned that they are dealing with lunatics shouting execution orders, so they have adjusted. The cops are determined to execute someone unless the citizen absolutely does the right thing to avoid being executed. But spin doctors are saying 99% of cops are good, as though the citizen had nothing to do with it. Can´t we agree the citizens are very much responsible for deescalating the situation by thinking fast enough and responding to execution commands in such a way to avoid being executed?
Q: Go on.
Oggy: Well, there is no manual or training on how to respond to a cop shouting execution commands. It is all a mystery carefully guarded by the law enforcement.
Q: For the record, what is an execution command?
Oggy: ´Get your hands where I can see them or I will put ten bullets in your chest!´
Q: You say that like you´ve heard it.
Oggy: Too many times.
Q: Maybe that is what you get for growing a beard and living in a van with a bumper sticker on the back door that says ¨Strangers Have the Best Candy.¨
Oggy: Careful with your mouth, smart guy.
Q: Please. Go on.
Oggy: So, if you respond fast enough then you avoid the ten bullets. Tamir Rice failed to respond fast enough. I guess it was 3 seconds he had to react correctly and he was too slow. Adults mostly learn to respond fast enough but it still seems some misread the situation and do as they are commanded and later realize, as the bullets are entering their chest, that the cop actually was testing them by shouting false commands. That was pretty sneaky but, as I said, the cops are mostly determined to execute someone and they will use any trick in the book to confuse you. See, they have a training manual to train them to kill in 3 seconds or less. They actually practice executing people as fast as possible. The ones who served in Iraq were actually expected to kill some civilians. But citizens don´t have a training manual to train us to avoid being executed in 3 seconds or less. So we learn from the mistakes of Tamir Rice and others like him. I take my shirt off and lay face down on the street when I see a police car because any other response has led me to kissing a windshield with my teeth as a cop massages my kidney. I defuse the situation by pro-actively subjugating my sovereignty. The cops still treat me with palpable disdain and contempt and condescension, but they don´t shoot me.
Q: Wow, you must do good in Scrabble.
Oggy: Not really. See, the suggestion that cops are mostly good because they all don´t execute people in the street is totally misreading the data with pro-cop bias. Most cops don´t execute people because most citizens have learned to respond to insane strangers waving guns and shouting execution orders in such a way that deescalates the situation so they don´t get executed. That is how a pro-citizen bias would analyze the data. Believe me, if everyone acted like Tamir Rice there would be many more executions. The reason I know that is because no cops turned in their badge when Rice got executed. They didn´t ask for the mandate to execute kids playing alone in a park, but they also didn´t refuse and reject that mandate. That detail is not overlooked by those who call themselves social analysts.
Q: So you think cops should quit in protest?
Oggy: Only those cops who don´t want to be associated with a group mandated to execute kids playing in parks.
Q: You realize the investigation did not call Tamir Rice´s death an execution. Why do you use that term?
Oggy: To be more precise it was an extra-judicial execution. I used to say it was a ´pre-trial´ execution, but I think extra-judicial execution sounds better.
Q: What does that mean? It is worth more points in the locker room?
Oggy: I have a check list that defines due process. Were charges filed? Were the suspect´s rights read? Was he arrested? Was there a judge, jury, transcript, lawyers, evidence, testimony? When a citizen is executed before any of that then it is extra-judicial. It happened outside the realm of defined justice. It falls more into the realm of hypothetical justice...meaning it could be justice, but no one will ever know since it is impossible to give a trial to a dead person, a dead person can´t be represented by a lawyer, he can´t defend himself. When a state authorizes and defends extra-judicial executions done by the state then the ghost of Stalin does a happy dance. Just to demonstrate how serious I am I will point out that during a protest in Dallas about extra-judicial executions by police officers, someone opened fire on the police, killed 5 of them.
Q: I saw that. Tragic. What is your point?
Oggy: Well, the night ended with another extra-judicial execution.
Q: They bombed the suspect. Is that what you mean?
Oggy: What I mean is that they bombed someone. I have no fucking idea if they bombed the right suspect. I have no idea if they bombed anyone involved with the shootings. You know why I don´t know?
Q: Why?
Oggy: BECAUSE THERE WAS NO FUCKING TRIAL AGAIN! The people were protesting extra-judicial executions...and on the same day as the protests, within yards of a protest about accountability...there was another fucking extra-judicial execution, committed by police who claim to sympathize with the protests against extra-judicial executions. Am I the only one who finds that ironic?
Q: I won´t answer that. The Dallas police chief says they killed the shooting suspect.
Oggy: Yeah, that is the kind of testimony that belongs in a court-room, and last I checked a CNN interview isn´t considered legal testimony. When the court-room, jail, jury, judge, lawyers and execution chamber all get bundled into a bombed parking garage you have something closer to Bosnia, not a country based on law and order. The public will never know if they killed the person responsible for those dead officers, because there were no charges ever filed and no trial ever happened. A suspect is innocent until proven guilty, and when suspects are executed before being proven guilty then we are really saying ´trials are only reserved for innocent suspects´, which is a quote from Stalin´s handbook. So, in the midst of the debate on extra-judicial executions we have another improvised execution, and in the midst of voicing our distrust in law enforcement we are asked to trust that law enforcement executed the guilty person. So, maybe they didn´t get it right in Baton Rouge or Cleveland or Baltimore, but they did get it right in Dallas? Why would I believe that? And the primary evidence is again from the very officers who executed someone before arresting them? Well, that is convenient.
Q: How the hell was law enforcement going to arrest a guy shooting at them with a machine gun?
Oggy: I don´t have all the answers but I know everyone is innocent until proven guilty and when you execute them before arresting them then we have to put our trust in Judge Dread.
Q: You would´ve tried to arrest the suspect?
Oggy: No, I would´ve filled him with so much lead they could only identify him by his DNA.
Q: How is that different from what the police did?
Oggy: I´m not a policeman. I didn´t take an oath to bring to people to justice. I´m just an asshole trying to save his own life. I thought the police were held to a higher standard but apparently their response and my response is identical, we both simply execute anyone we think might be a threat to us. I guess I wonder why we don´t just give everyone a Glock and an Ar-15, it would amount to the same thing minus the disdain and power trips.
Q: You don´t sound very sympathetic.
Oggy: I am frustrated and my sympathy reserves are pretty much depleted. The president again said he can´t understand this attack on police. Other say it is únfathomable´or ínconceivable. I guess they haven´t watched Die Hard III or Rocky IV, because revenge is a pretty basic human motive. Even The Bible and Koran have verses.
Q: I think The Bible and Rocky IV don´t quite see eye to eye on that topic. Romans 12:19. ´Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord´. The whole message is that Rocky should not try to avenge Apollo Creed´s death by fighting Drago in Russia. He should forgive. And Hans Gruber´s brother is wrong to target John Mclean for killing his brother back in the first Die Hard movie. So I´m not sure what your point is.
Oggy: My point is that there is no scenario where an extra-judicial execution does not damage the ideal of law and order. If a cop errs on the side of execution then he errs on the side of Stalin and should probably consider applying at Pizza Hut; they´re hiring too. Answer me this: Did Stalin execute some guilty people?
Q: Sorry, I left Stalin´s purge records back at the office.
Oggy: The answer is, ´Probably´.
Q: OK. That is all the time we have to confirm how crazy you are. You are like the Anti-Malcolm Gladwell. Hey, I notice you don´t mention Race, black and white, etc, in your rants. Why not? You racist or something?
Oggy: Do I look black to you? No, so the police must treat me like a close brother, right? Not even close. I am a marginalized person and the war is on marginalized people. The cops treat me like dirt and are looking for any excuse to execute me. Actually, they already feel justified in executing me, and they need to be defused with blatant passive gestures on my part. It is my job not to fail to give them a reason to not execute me.
Q: What? That is like a triple negative.
Oggy: It is my job to defuse any encounter I have with cops. Their guns are already locked and loaded. I have to learn the secret handshake and magic password in 3 seconds or less and I have no training manual and it changes for every police department and scenario. I am here today because I have done a good job so far in adapting to this insanity. Blacks are also marginalized and are required to learn the secret handshake. I don´t think the war is limited to targeting blacks, but it definitely includes them. Any marginalized black person doesn´t need to be told he is marginalized or he is black. He already knows this so I´ll not insult him by pointing it out. But if you visit Skid Row in L.A. you´ll see white crack addicts treated with equal disdain and abuse as the black crack addicts. Police abuse is an equal opportunity topic, but we can blame city attorneys for most of the problem.
Q: Jesus. I feel like that toilet you abused last week. Any parting thoughts to ensure the digital email bombs fill your inbox?
Oggy: CNN is pure poison. It is nothing but a shill service for cock drugs and adult diapers. Awful talking heads and sound bites and talking point bullshit. Don Lemon is wasting his talents there. He belongs on his own show like Tavis Smiley. I only watched it because I made the mistake of renting a room with a television and cable with one English channel.
Q: Since we´re on the topic of current events, what about the presidential race? Any thoughts?
Oggy: Firstly, there is no such thing as confidential documents in a true democracy. Secondly, Trump said he admires Saddam Hussein because that lunatic executed ´terrorists´ without trial. Then Trump says he is the ´law and order candidate´. My comment would be, you can have swift executions or slow justice, but you can´t have swift justice.
Q: But you can have slow executions.
Oggy: Also, I want to follow up on my comment that a civil war is currently happening in America.
Q: Make it fast. We have some cock drugs to sell in the next commercial break.
Oggy: I do not favor civil war. I favor a change in the economically unjust status quo. I believe the status quo will lead to civil war. The people who favor civil war are the people who defend the status quo. I denounce the status quo because these skirmishes in the current civil war are nothing compared to what will happen if 350 million people go to war with each other. Either the status quo changes voluntarily or we are all fucked. What keeps me up at night is the suspicion that the civil war will lead to a status quo that is no better than the one we have right now.
Q: Have you tried sleeping pills?
Oggy: Also, one more thing, law enforcement has deferred their free will to the city attorney and the attorney general. They are mindless pawns by choice so do not debate law enforcement officers. It is futile and we would all be in deep trouble if debating law enforcement on the street succeeded in changing their approach. The only people who can change anything, and the people who are routinely ignored in this debate, are city council members, mayors, city attorneys, attorney generals, district attorneys. These are the people who determine municipal codes and state reps determine state legislation, which eventually trickles down to law enforcement and changes their approach.
Q: Careful, you almost sound sane right now.
Oggy: Law enforcement will never change their approach voluntarily because that would imply free will, which they surrendered when they took an oath to obey the city attorney´s will. So, it is very frustrating to see this debate focus on the specific group who has no democratic power to change anything and the debate also blatantly ignores the very people who were elected to safeguard the power to change everything. The city attorney and the city council and mayor are the first people to talk to. Then the district attorney. Then the state attorney general, then the U.S. attorney general. It all goes in order and eventually ends in the supreme court judge, but it never overlaps into law enforcement. Law enforcement specifically is the branch that brings people to justice. They alone are not justice. They admit they are not justice. They are a branch on the way to justice and they carry guns because many people don´t want to be brought to justice and need to be compelled. This is why when this branch of local government executes people in parks or parking garages then we all need to be very alarmed because it is specifically not the branch of government designated to serve justice. It is the branch that gets people to the trial in which justice is served because it can be independently verified. When there is no trial there is definitely no justice. And a lot of the time a trial also fails to serve justice, but it is a hell of a lot closer to justice than a robot bomb in a parking garage.
Q: On that note, thank you for your time.
Oggy: Go fuck yourself.