New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's press conference - following a weekend shooting by police officers of a black man leaving his bachelor's party - illustrated the careful staging employed by the statists to help deflect criticism. Many in the black community saw possible racist implications in this man dying after at least fifty shots had been fired by "New York City's finest." At his press conference, some fifteen to twenty blacks were seen standing behind Mayor Bloomberg, ostensibly to lend support to his message that race has no role in police behavior. New York City, we may surmise, tyrannizes people equally, without regard to race or ethnicity! One television news channel had a black anchor reporting on these events, apparently to reinforce non-racist interpretations.
One sees the same staging techniques employed at the federal level. When President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld gave speeches defending their mania for war, they often had rows of enlisted military personnel standing behind them to allow for a subtle interpretation, by viewers, that soldiers - who were dying and being wounded by governmental policies - literally "stood behind" their leaders.
Such theater provides another example of the phenomenon explored in one of my earlier LRC articles titled "Politics and War As Entertainment." It is no coincidence that military invasions originate in "staging" areas. The statists understand, full well, the meaning of Shakespeare's observation that "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players." When needed to create the impression of popular support for state wrongdoing, the politicians and bureaucrats can count on the presence of "extras" waiting in the wings for their moment on stage.
