BAW: Is Michael Vick being singled out ?

[jaysunb]

Commentary: Is It Me, or Has the Embattled Michael Vick Been Singled Out for Selective Prosecution?
Date: Thursday, August 16, 2007
By: Gregory Kane, BlackAmericaWeb.com

So how much do you think National Football League honchos are paying Deion Sanders to be their slave?

Sanders is an analyst for the NFL Network. I don’t know how much he makes in that job, but he may be the highest paid slave in history. The former All Pro defensive back also writes a weekly column for the News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida. On July 22, Prime Time had quite a bit to say about the Michael Vick case in his newspaper column.

“This is all the result of perspective,” Sanders wrote about the federal charges alleging Vick ran an illegal dog-fighting ring. “What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you or I … Some people kiss their dogs on the mouth. Some people let their dogs eat from their plate. Some people dress their dogs in suits more expensive than mine, if you can believe that.

“And some people enjoy proving they have the biggest, toughest dog on the street. You’re probably not going to believe this, but I bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest. Maybe he identified with them in some way. You can still choose to condemn him, but I’m trying to take you inside his mind so you can understand where he might be coming from.”

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/sayitloud/kane816

[SoCalDem]

1. Well , that was a disgusting little bit of rationalization, wasn't it.

When I heard about this story, I did not KNOW who the hell Michael Vick was..OR what color he was.. All I thought when I heard about it, was what a sick SOB he was to torture and/or kill dogs.

Even the most "bad-ass" dog in the world did not
start that way. They had to be trained to be vicious.. Dogs aim to please, and to "reward" that devotion by strangulation or drowning or just by training them to fight each other, is obscene.. and if he did it, I want him to go to jail.. I don;t care what race he is.

[TankLV]

24. Yep - it was disgusting and that idiot made the vic case WORSE by his idiotic comparison...

Vic is a prominent CURRENT celebrity.

That is why this is news.

If it was joe schmoe - it would barely have local mention...

And it is GOOD that this has received national attention - it is a dispicable practice that should be SEVERELY punished.

And yes, you idiots who would try to argue it - we can a DO pay attention to alot of other serious issues - we are completely able to monitor multiple outrages at the same time, unlike aparently "you" nameless cretins who would try to bring up this stupid rationalization...

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. I think he is being singled out...

In regards to the coverage, but that is the price of the fame he sought. As far as the legal ramifications? No, I see him being charged with a crime that, from what I have read, it is appropriate with which to charge him.

If he is convicted fairly and on weight of evidence, you have to wonder: WTF? Here was a guy who had the world by the nuts and in a firm grip. He was going to play for 10-15 years, make all the money in the world-$2, and be set for life and more. He would have a high-speed, low-drag career after football, doing things like opining on TV every week, for serious dough.

But he had to play at Thug Life. For what? Street Cred? He is a rare and wonderful thing: A really good Black Quarterback. The sky was the limit with what he could have done with, and after, a successful career.

If I had been given half his talent and half the shots he got...

[GaYellowDawg]

6. One point of disagreement:

Vick hasn't been a "really good black quarterback." He's been a mediocre black quarterback. You want to mention a really good black quarterback, try Warren Moon or Steve McNair or Donovan McNabb.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. Perhaps...

He wasn't reaching his potential due to too many distractions?

[Toasterlad]

12. Not to Get Sidetracked...

I'll grant you Warren Moon, but McNair and McNabb have made careers out of being hurt more than being "great".

[emilyg]

25. I live in Atlanta.

Agree with you 100%.

[LiberalFighter]

18. If there are others besides Vick and the 3 that have already confessed

and they don't get convicted then yes he was singled out.

I believe that with his celebrity status in that county there is no way that others in local law enforcement and the powers to be didn't know about his activities and possibly involved.

[idgiehkt]

29. wow that is an amazing point to make

very, very disenheartening and very true. Animal control in counties around here have been busted for animal fighting. I'm sure local law enforcement knows about this kind of stuff. Wow, just wow, how disconcerting.

[Possumpoint]

3. Thrills Come In Many Different Colors

People get their kicks in many different ways, dog fighting, cock fighting, horse racing, hunting, gambling, sex, booze, drugs, sporting events, etc. Each to their own but society only accepts some and outlaws or limits others. If you break the society norm you risk receiving punishment. Dog fighting and cock fighting are limited in their attendance and not accepted by the vast majority of the citizens of this country.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

7. Well, you threw "sex" into that mix. Is it really the same as hunting, cock fighting and dog

fighting?

:shrug: MKJ

[idgiehkt]

30. wonder why? (graphic photo)

Dog and cock-fighting are illegal which may have something to do with their non-acceptance. When it comes to this kind of cruelty I am not an 'each to their own' kind of person. I do not believe that even the supporters of these sports would defend them in terms of "thrill" because they know how ridiculous that sounds. I mean what kind of psycho could get a thrill out of watching this (below) happen to an animal...that is no one I want to know.

[angrycarpenter]

4. gag

the excuse that "he comes from A culture that accepts it as A good thing" is the same as "he doesn't know any better because he is retarded". maybe both apply.

[LiberalFighter]

19. The problem is that dog fighting is illegal in every state

And why is it considered a good thing? I bet possibly because of the betting involved and it doesn't involve doing the actual fighting where THEY could get hurt. Since they don't value dogs as important as themselves they don't feel it doesn't matter if dogs suffer and are abused.

[idgiehkt]

31. except that saying someone is 'retarded' isn't insulting to an entire culture

it isn't the same thing. It's a racist supposition to make that this is cultural, especially since dog-fighting is so prevalent in rural areas populated by whites.

[stirlingsliver]

5. Did He Also Love The Dogs He Electrocuted?

Michael Vick may have really loved those big bad dogs he had.

But what about the dogs that weren't so big and bad?

Reports were that those dogs were electrocuted.

All because they weren't big and bad.

I wonder how much Michael Vick loved those poor little dogs.

[karlrschneider]

8. Sanders is just another neanderthal.

Always has been.

[GaYellowDawg]

10. "but I bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest"

Yeah. Right up to the point where he hung, body-slammed, electrocuted, or drowned them. Oh, and by the way, calling Sanders a "slave" is complete and stupid bullshit.

[Toasterlad]

11. So...Michael Vick Isn't Guilty Because Everybody Does It?

That excuse doesn't even wash in traffic court. Send his ass to jail.

[GeorgeGist]

13. How about a nice game of Chess

Says WOPR.

[pretzel4gore]

14. bill frist was worse then Vick...

he took cats from animal shelters expressly to destroy them...as a repuklican, the pignews media skipped over that aspect of his career-and he has left the stage...if Vick was a white repuklican loudmouth, they would have hohummed the story, like they hohummed the jeff gannon story, or the plame story. that's a fact. the pigmedia is racist.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

28. What Frist did was wrong, but how is it WORSE?

Throwing TWO animals into a ring to brutally tear one another apart is not as bad as dissection of one? The fact that one of those dogs will be tortured to death afterwards if it angers it owner by not winning? The fact some will be left alive to suffer from god knows what infection and mental anguish?

Really, get some perspective......both assholes are wrong in their own way. Don't try to rationalize one as worse just because you don't like his politics as well.

[pretzel4gore]

you can't see it?

what pigmedia promotes, it airs, what it publishes, it promotes. The men who run the mass media care not about any of this cruelty stuff: what they concerned with is getting the public to THINK a certain way. Vick is an uppity black man who torments defenseless yada yada...frist is a doctor who, yes, made sacrifices honing his skills but he's a good amerkan etc...and why are you wasting time on Senator Frist?
i don't buy it anymore. racism is a constant in the pigmedia's reports, and they love to hide it using wording that allows the racists to claim, 'i never said that!' CNN, foxnews, cbs, Abc, pbs, reuters, the nytimes iow the mediawhores, are RACIST, because their individual careers prosper thereby while anti racist moyers and donahue etc gotta fight to get work:
snip>
Then, on November 27, the media landscape shifted - imperceptibly at first, but with a force that has since gathered momentum. It was on that day that the New York Observer published an interview with Al Gore in which the former vice-president told the truth about the media and their ideological loyalties. "The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party," Gore told the Observer, citing Fox, the Washington Times, and Rush Limbaugh's radio program. Gore described how conservative talking points come to be accepted as fact: "Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game, the Washington Times and others. And then they'll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they'll start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they've pushed into the Zeitgeist. And pretty soon the mainstream media goes out and disingenuously takes a so-called objective sampling, and lo and behold, these RNC talking points are woven into the fabric of the Zeitgeist."
more>
That docility was never more apparent than when racist Senate majority leader Trent Lott made a characteristically racist remark. The mainstream media, disinclined to go after conservatives, tried to give Lott a good leaving-alone - until they were shamed into action by bloggers on both the right (Andrew Sullivan) and the left (Josh Marshall). Soon, a conservative icon fell.
http://www.whatliberalmedia.com/rev-BosPhoe.htm


I know white people pooh pooh racism but IT'S THE FUEL IN THE GOPIG TANKS! and vick needs a good ass kicking, by his friends and neighbors, not by US!

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

40. Obviously we're talking two different subjects

I'm pissed about animal abuse, and you've got another agenda. Sorry if I don't see Michael Vick as the victim of racism. It's an insult to those who feel real racism while never doing anything wrong.

[pretzel4gore]

42. agreed...

i despise frist for his cruelty more then Mr Vick, who is paying dearly while frist is giggling all the way to the bank....

[Kagemusha]

15. Yes, he's being singled out for financing a dogfighting/ gambling operation.

I would hope that such people are singled out.

[GeorgeGist]

16. Distraction alert ... Distraction alert ... Distraction alert

Keep Your Eyes on Bush/Cheney

[sendero]

17. This idiot..

.... is not doing Vick any favors.

Hey moron - some people think it is OK to molest kids, but SOCIETY AT LARGE does not, and what the individual thinks is IRRELEVANT.

[LiberalFighter]

20. Gee I wonder if Deion bets on dog fighting and possibly owns dogs for illegal activities.

Someone should challenge him on that and see how he responds.

[rollin74]

21. Vick needs to be made an example of

to deter others from engaging in this type of sadistic criminal activity. That's why I'm hoping they send him to prison for a long time. No one should be under the illusion that dog fighting is acceptable.

[jaysunb]

26. But..what if, as a first time offender he was

given probation ? :shrug:

[rollin74]

27. not going to happen

the feds don't even really offer probation.

if convicted you can expect Vick to be sentenced to at least 1 year in prison, more if additional charges are added.

I don't believe there is even a federal probation system and you can bet they aren't going to let Vick off with simply a fine in a high-profile case like this.

[depakid]

22. Well, it IS interesting to try to understand the mindset

Not that is has anything to do with accountability- like any other criminal, if he's proven guilty, he needs to pay the same price anyone else would under the law.

[bridgit]

23. no...

[DU GrovelBot]

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[tomreedtoon]

33. Isn't this weird for black people to do this?

Animal fighting like this is disgusting. But I thought it was primarily done by two admittedly stereotypical groups; redneck whites in the backwoods, or dirt-poor Mexicans in the southwest. Yeah, like I said, stereotypes. But I've never seen any arrests in these animal fighting cases where rich Republicans in tuxedos and evening gowns are escorted out by the law.

Okay, but I never imagined black people would do it. Let alone a black quarterback, who supposedly got to the NFL through college play...meaning college. I might imagine black collegians, especially athletes, playing gangsta stuff, but not torturing dogs and pitting them against one another. Maybe I imagined that all those black protesters in the 1960's who had police dogs sicced upon them might have turned black people against that sort of cruelty and abuse.

Boy, was I deluded.

The only question is, will we start seeing a lot of "copycat" black animal torturers now? Will it become the latest mark of street cred?

Sorry if this doesn't hold to much of a coherent thread, but the whole concept of this is twisting my psyche something horrible.

[mitchum]

35. Dogfighting: It's Not Just For White Trash Anymore!

No, it has been going on in the Black community for quite awhile now. Hell, I had a mentally retarded student tell me 2 years ago that Vick fought dogs.

[H2O Man]

34. In our circle

of extended family & friends, there is one family that taught their children to blame everything on others this way. If they got caught doing something wrong in school, the parents lied to the kids, and said that the consequences for their wrong-doing was really a result of their being black. I could fucking puke. They did their kids (now young adults) a real disservice with that crap.

[cgrindley]

36. Deion Sanders is an assclown

Vicks deserves to have the full weight of RICO brought down on him.

[LTR]

37. Deion Sanders a SLAVE???

:wtf:

Now THAT'S reaching!

The guy has made a fortune in the NFL. Shit, his Cowboys contract was worth around $35 mil. That ain't slavery.

And I'm not sure what resources his current employer, NFL Network, has to pay him (likely a lot), but I doubt he's busting his ass in a cotton field. He sits in a studio a few times a week and spends the rest of his time making tons of money off endorsement deals. Slavery, that is not.

To call him a 'slave' is an insult to all the slaves who were brutalized in our nation's past.

And do I believe Vick is being made the fall guy for this? Yes, I do. Granted, what Vick allegedly did is beyond vile. I hope for the day the dogs get their revenge on him. But dogfighting is not a new phenomenon. There are fighting rings in just about every major city in America. I'd be surprised if there weren't other NFL players connected to underground dogfighting leagues. But as is often the case, there's always got to be an initial fall guy. And that fall guy is Vick. Perhaps Vick taking the fall for this will help discourage this nasty hobby from continuing. So something good could come of this.

I could go on about a multi-millionaire with a glorious future ahead of him, like Vick, who sees fit to involve himself in gutter-level things like dogfighting, but that would take too long. It was a pure dumbass move, much like Ricky Williams 'ganjing' his way out of professional football.

[BadgerLaw2010]

38. When you're a public figure, don't finance criminal operations.

In fact, don't finance criminal operations period. The Feds don't have much of a sense of humor on that one. Lots of non-famous people get very long sentences, whether or not their case actually makes headlines.

Interstate criminal operation is just not a good idea.

[Vinca]

39. What is so freaking wrong about not condoning the torture of animals?

It doesn't matter whether the person is an athlete or a nonathlete, a poor person or a multimillionaire, a black person or a white person. If you execute dogs you're an evil, bad person. If you "dress your dog in suits more expensive than mine" you're eccentric. Evil and eccentric are not the same. "I bet Vick loves dogs." Right, but only if they earn big bucks in the dog fighting ring.

[nini]

41. it's the nature of the crime in this case more than anything.

though I'm sure there are some knuckle draggers that have taken it another level because of his color.

Cruelty to animals is a very emotionally charged issue with most people which is why so many people are disgusted with this.

Sadly NFL wives/girlfriends can be beaten and that issue is practically ignored by the league - go figure.

[pretzel4gore]

44. a chief engineer told me once, back in '86

about a ship he was on how wild elephants were chained to the deck and that's how they were brought to america (Baltimore, if i remember correctly)...anyone who been across the ocean on a merchant ship knows that's no place for any living thing (except albotrosses, seagulls etc)...the cruelty of it was so hideous that even the hard hearted crew of that ship, under paid 3rd world sailors, tried to comfort the poor beasts (they hosed them down with warm water from circulating p/p's)...also, as someone who's worked in a slaughterhouse, and as chicken catcher, i can say ...if GOD watches and knows all, then WE HUMAN BEINGS are in for some real hell, cuz the truth is we do routine cruelty every day, every where and it is...beyond belief.
The Vick case should just be part of general drive to stop abuse of animals, who are the only important players, imo, in this type story

[DemGa]

43. Oh that's profound, Sanders; bravo!

So deep and insightful. You know, I never looked at it that way....:sarcasm: