Did this really just happen?

[_Gunnar]

I'm not sure you understood what I wrote. I was agreeing with you on that issue -- not Doc.

I know I was just throwing sarcasm out there.

I hoped that was the case. Thanks for confirming it, and please excuse me for needing that confirmation.

[_Res Ipsa]

[quote="Doctor CamNC4Me" post_id=1226865 time=1591153163 user_id=3779]
RI,

I don't think antifa is a narrowly defined thing. I think it's a catchall for what I described upthread. I linked a book I read which I thought did an excellent job at describing the movement. Whether a revolutionary Marxist movement names itself after a date, a color, a movement, or an idea is irrelevant. Groups or movements aren't static, and even if antifa is simply an anti-fascist movement a la 1930's Europe or a Marxist movement in 2020, the name itself isn't important. One of the biggest plays by Leftists, and especially hard-left movements, is to simply sow confusion about itself, to always dissemble about what it is or what it's doing in order to advance the overall cause of systemic shift away from a liberal democracy to one of a state planned, controlled, and executed economy. <- That's disaster and I see us taking a hard bend that way which is concerning.

That said, I know I come across as overly concerned with Leftist movements, but I think I've done a fairly good job at simply rejecting Right and hard-right movements. I think they're in fact incredibly dangerous and shift quickly to a sort of libertarian-right which then necessitates an authoritarian-right system to maintain their grip on resources. This is why I try to shoot for the middle because I do find incredibly valuable policies and ideas found in both sides of the spectrum.

What I find valuable in the current protest, and unfortunately with the associated looting and violence, is that it's really pushing the middle to accept a truly egalitarian view of American identity, one that is for everyone. I do believe in American idealism, the principles which we've been espousing for so long, which have been reserved primarily for Whites and Christians. I believe our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and various other systems that espouse some pretty lofty ideals to be worth fighting for and preserving. Where I run afoul of Leftists is that I don't believe people have a pass to be degenerates, criminals, and bigots -- and that goes both ways -- in particular with these looters and rioters. Perhaps I expect too much from all parties concerned metaview-wise because I don't condone blaming white people for every_goddamn_thing that's wrong on earth just as I believe *insert ethnic minority group* isn't accountable for their entire tribe. I believe in personal accountability, so if we can't blame this or that group for x-y-z I believe it's fair to give white people the same consideration in this conversation. I can tell you one thing for sure after having spent so much time on 4chan and having lurked A LOT on Leftist subreddits and discussion forums, we have a serious problem. The hard-right have created a Black Golem and the hard-left have created a White Golem, and we'll inevitably end up in an armed conflict if we don't get some leadership that understand the middle is where true social justice lies.

- Doc
[/quote]

Thanks, Doc. I don’t condone the vandalism and looting either. And I share your vision of idealism. I think my main disagreement is over how well the extreme left is organized.

[_EAllusion]

In my experience, the far right is filled with people who are willing to work toward a common cause to gain power despite each subculture being fully prepared to stab each other in the back once they take power. It's like a gang of thieves waiting to double-cross one another. The radical left, on the other hand, is constantly imposing purity tests on one another leading to sub factions within sub factions within subfactions that can't get it together. It's a crude generalization, but I think it's more or less correct in the big picture.

[_moksha]

Why isn't the quote feature working properly for some posters?

Why isn't the quote feature working properly for some posters?

[_Gunnar]

Has anyone else her yet seen this video about George Floyd's 6 year old daughter? It is both touching and heartbreaking.

[_honorentheos]

That seems to be a historical tendency, too. If one looks to the open war between the Communist/Antifa/Anarchist/Socialist left and Fascist/Royalist/Theocrat right in the Spanish Civil War, the Falange, Germans and Italians had their in fights. But the left waged a civil war within a civil war, including mass purges and turning Barcelona into an internal terrorscape while being under siege. It is somewhat baffling that the psychology of what drives a person to affiliate with the left seems to inhibit ones ability to compromise in the face of a greater threat. Once the end of the war was in sight, of course, factions within the Falange were manuevering and getting rid of competition, with Franco proving the most skilled at removing his competition to ensure he alone stood on top.

I suspect it has something to do with the idealism each represents. The conservative Right, including fascism, idealizes a fictional past that they are seeking to protect or restore. The hard left is inevitably seeking to impose a fantasized future, where the result is an imagined ideological utopian model. Thus, the purity tests and internal conflict.

[_moksha]

Turns out that the elderly man with a cane who was thrown to the ground by a Salt Lake City police also has leukemia. He says his knee is really bothering him and he has some pain in his shoulder.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

[quote="Res Ipsa" post_id=1226962 time=1591196456 user_id=16705]
Thanks, Doc. I don’t condone the vandalism and looting either. And I share your vision of idealism. I think my main disagreement is over how well the extreme left is organized.[/quote]

I keep saying they're a loose confederation of multiple leftist organizations (loosely organized), leftist ideologues, and anarchists. I don't think they're well organized outside of BLM (and that's kind of pushing it). Where their organization is manifested is through the Democratic party, which has been shifting pretty rapidly to the Left and can institute policies that are more agreeable to them. This fairly quick Democratic shift is incredibly alarming to a lot of folks, but mostly to center-Right to the hard-Right. And now we're getting very serious talk of civil war from both sides. The sheer hate and insanity* being tossed back and forth is manifesting by the overt destruction of private property, government buildings, and physical assaults is intolerable AND now we're at the brink of armed Right-wing death squads shooting Americans as a response.

*insanity - https://www.opindia.com/2020/05/woman-p ... -in-uttah/

If you read the link you'll realize fairly quickly that all those people laughing, applauding, and condoning her act isn't representative of a small group of drug addicts. They're political actors and she, a goddamn crazy person, most likely votes Democrat. Think about what means, and juxtapose it against loonytunes Rightists wanting to shoot those people and their support for a fascist. Not good.

If I'm genuinely concerned about the partisanship being displayed by both sides I don't think I'm overreacting. And I don't think anyone who votes Democrat should be sitting around tut tutting this violence or excusing it with 'yeah, but they were being heard' BS. I admit I don't know what the solution is to the cop issue because most municipalities have been becoming more militarized and it seems the only way they actually change is when this kind of thing goes down. However, here in SLC the SLCPD has been INCREDIBLY forward thinking, very transparent, and has actively sought out minorities to provide police oversight in addition to filling its ranks. And yet this still happened. Something is very wrong with that picture, and I'm simply not going to be ok with what happened in my city because the people here are ignorant of the city's outreach.

Anyway. I'm just talking. If you're reading this and responding I appreciate the interaction because your perspectives have shaped my over the years.

- Doc

[_Res Ipsa]

The scale of the protests still seems to be expanding. Understandably so, but man does that come with risks. Coronavirus spreads much more effectively in confined breathing spaces, but with the size of some of these and all the shouting and close contact, it's going to be a miracle if this doesn't drive a large wave of infections.

Yeah, yet another thing I've been obsessing about. When are we going to see the real impact? Another few days or so?

Cases have already more than doubled in our town in the last week, and we had been doing well for a long time. Reopening businesses isn't helping either.

There's going to be no way to tease out the effect of reopening from the effects of the protests. Sadly, arrests will put people in the best possible conditions to transmit the virus. I would expect to see a real spike in both arresting officers and arrested protestors. But I'm not sure we'll be able to ferret out those cases from others.

The soonest I would expect to see a rise in new cases from protests is two weeks. But that assumes aggressive testing of all symptomatic cases. The real impact would be seen in spiking deaths in about a month.

[_honorentheos]

My younger brother lives in SLC. He sent me some pics from Sunday just before curfew. He was saying that most of what he had been seeing from the trouble maker side were people looking for an excuse to break stuff. His pics included some obviously white young males decked out like ninjas with hockey sticks slung over their backs waiting at a crosswalk.

I keep coming back to the ideas in Eric Hofers The True Believer that the resistance to mass movements and social chaos is based on the proportion of society that feels if the dice are rolled they have a better than average chance of becoming better off. So long as most people feel society is working well enough that upending society will more than likely hurt them, then the simmer of discontent will be kept from boiling over.

What we do to reenfranchise people who feel disenfranchised to the point they are willing to risk the dice roll of social chaos is the essential political question of the time.