Did this really just happen?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... protesters

College Football's HoF is looted:

"Protesters smashed the Hall of Fame's front windows and looted its gift shop during the demonstrations. It was immediately unclear whether the Hall of Fame's museum, which is the home of many of the sport's most notable artifacts and memorabilia, was damaged by looters."

So, popping in on Trump's Twitter feed and we get this:

https://Twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 3657205763

"Great job last night at the White House by the U.S. @SecretService

They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe. They let the “protesters” scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone.... got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard - didn’t know what hit them. The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would.... have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and.... good practice.” As you saw last night, they were very cool & very professional. Never let it get out of hand. Thank you! On the bad side, the D.C. Mayor, @MurielBowser, who is always looking for money & help, wouldn’t let the D.C. Police get involved. “Not their job.” Nice!"

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Huh. Here's Trump in 2017 telling cops to be a little more rough with suspects:

https://Twitter.com/paulcshipley/status ... 4746918914

So. Yeah. There it is.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uqOM94RJVc

Minneapolis riots - Muslim business owner watches helplessly as his store is looted in front of him

This poor man is imploring the rioters and looters to leave his store. He repeatedly cries, "I don't have insurance!" As people are exiting and falling down he's helping them up, and imploring them to leave. At the six minute mark you can see he's on the verge of tears. Toward the end you can hear the commenter state over and over again that his wife is pregnant.

:cry:

- Doc

[_MeDotOrg]

The cell phone has shed light on dark corners of police practices. If there was no cell phone video, if there were only eye witness testimony versus the police, the officers probably would have walked.

In Chicago at the 1968 Democratic Convention, protesters chanted "The Whole World is Watching!" when Chicago PD charged with batons. They knew the Television cameras would record the images for the world to see. The Rodney King beating was captured by a video camera from a balcony across the street. It was one of the first private videos of police brutality from an 'early adaptor' of video technology. Now everyone with a cell phone is a potential reporter. The clearest video of George Floyd's death was taken by a 17 year old girl.

What we need to realize is that this type of behavior has been endemic for a long time. The cell phone and the internet have merely revealed what was already there. Now that most Americans have a smartphone with a camera, we are all reporters that can communicate to one another instantly via the internet. As a society, we are in the process of growing new nerve endings to experience the visceral nature of racism. We experience pain and rage when seeing those images, but we must recognize that this is part of the history of this country. It is only 21st century technology that has revealed the common, everyday nature of police brutality, the vast majority seemingly racist.

It's important for white Americans to realize that our discovery of this horror is a discovery only for us. For black Americans, it is the ultimate cold hard visceral evidence of behavior that has been the black experience in America. And you can understand the pent up frustration. The decades of not being believed when bringing allegations of police brutality are over.

"Zero tolerance" means that we treat the symptom and not the disease. It has become a tacit "don't ask, don't tell". You don't cure a cold by telling someone not to sneeze. We have to look deeper than telling people that their symptoms are illegal. I'm not sure how this conversation with ourselves begins. Not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" shall enter the kingdom of heaven. We have to look beyond our actions and look inside our hearts.

[_Chap]

What we need to realize is that this type of behavior has been endemic for a long time. The cell phone and the internet have merely revealed what was already there. [...] It is only 21st century technology that has revealed the common, everyday nature of police brutality, the vast majority seemingly racist.

It's important for white Americans to realize that our discovery of this horror is a discovery only for us. For black Americans, it is the ultimate cold hard visceral evidence of behavior that has been the black experience in America. And you can understand the pent up frustration. The decades of not being believed when bringing allegations of police brutality are over.

Yup. No-one can possibly view that video of the life being squeezed out of Mr Floyd (who had at worst committed a petty fraud), or the video of the non-white CNN reporter being arrested by officers who, when asked politely why, gave him no reason for the arrest, without realising that the police don't treat 'others' the same way they treat white people.

The problem is that no-one much takes notice of black people who point this out politely for years on end. And when the streets fill with decent black people provoked past endurance, they are swiftly joined by other people whose main idea is not to protest peacefully against unjustified police violence, but to seize the chance to burn and loot while the police are overwhelmed by the crowds.

The only permanent solution is not to rant about 'shooting', and 'ominous weapons and fierce dogs', but to fix the situation that leaves (what I hope is a minority of) racist and hate-filled police officers feeling that they can kill or brutalise black people with impunity whenever they feel like it. Why is that (apparently) so hard to do?

[_ajax18]

The only permanent solution is not to rant about 'shooting', and 'ominous weapons and fierce dogs', but to fix the situation that leaves (what I hope is a minority of) racist and hate-filled police officers feeling that they can kill or brutalise black people with impunity whenever they feel like it. Why is that (apparently) so hard to do?

Do you think if we did secede from the Union and became a separate nation with completely independent laws places like Minnesota would be more free to enact the type of legislation you desire to fix this? Minnesota already has a Governor and Minneapolis a mayor chosen by the Democrat party. Somehow I suspect the north would find a way to continue to blame the antebellum south and the civil war for eons to come. Perhaps the root cause of this is not really about racism or politics but rather about underpaid policemen getting fed up with confrontational criminals. Yes, I know that's impossible. All things are racial and political. That's fine, but you people need to deal with this yourself and leave the rest of us out of it.

[_EAllusion]

Ajax simply cannot conceptualize that Democratic leadership has also created a problem of police impunity while also understanding that the Republican party is even worse in driving the problem. He has an ldsfaqs level understanding of good guys and bad guys, only unlike ldsfaqs, it didn't take much to convince him that the Nazis were the good guys.

That said, one of the biggest factors of police impunity are a series of court decisions driven primarily, though not exclusively, by conservative appointed judges and that's not going to change until the courts radically change. And because conservatives are much more adept at maintaining power over the courts, even when not winning elections, that's probably not going to change within the lifetime of anyone posting here.

In terms of what can be done, crushing police unions is probably the most practical thing. This is where you're politically in a bind, though, as Democrats are generically pro public sector Union and while Republicans are quite gung-ho at using every tool at their disposal to bust unions, they specifically leave police unions alone because police unions tend to support reactionary politics. Police unions are a significant factor in the gang-like behavior of police departments and the difficulty holding individual cops to account for illicit behavior. Hard to see much changing until they are reformed or destroyed.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Ajax is just a larping bundle of sticks, hoping a bunch of 'molon labe' tattooed men will carve out an ethnostate where white people and, perhaps, a few 'good' minorities will live in peace and harmony. I suspect he'd actually like a full-on civil war where all minorities are evicted from territories won through political and armed conflict, though. He thoroughly lacks any ability to think abstractly and instead of bettering his own lot in life lives in a sort of fantasy Stormfront/4chan world where an updated version of the Turner Diaries happens and he's able to raise beautiful white children in a world free from icky people.

Ironically, he's a Mormon and somehow doesn't see that being a problem at some point in the future when an ethnostate religion emerges.

- Doc

[_Chap]

The only permanent solution is not to rant about 'shooting', and 'ominous weapons and fierce dogs', but to fix the situation that leaves (what I hope is a minority of) racist and hate-filled police officers feeling that they can kill or brutalise black people with impunity whenever they feel like it. Why is that (apparently) so hard to do?

Do you think if we did secede from the Union and became a separate nation with completely independent laws places like Minnesota would be more free to enact the type of legislation you desire to fix this? Minnesota already has a Governor and Minneapolis a mayor chosen by the Democrat party.

Somehow I don't think that 'enacting legislation' at state level is more than a part of greatly reducing the incidence of policemen who think (all too often correctly) that they can get away with killing black people.

Somehow I suspect the north would find a way to continue to blame the antebellum south and the civil war for eons to come.

Not sure about the civil war, but the facts that the early 19th C. southern US based a large part of its economy and social structure on paying to have black people kidnapped from Africa, then brought to the US where they were treated as intelligent farm animals who could be bought and sold like cattle ... and that the descendants of those people are still being brutalised by white people today may be connected in some way. Don't you think?

Perhaps the root cause of this is not really about racism or politics but rather about underpaid policemen getting fed up with confrontational criminals. Yes, I know that's impossible. ...

No-one forces someone to join the police. And being 'underpaid' does not confer on you the right to brutalise members of the public. Remind me how Mr Floyd was being 'confrontatlonal' as he lay handcuffed and face down begging to be allowed to breathe.

[_EAllusion]

[quote="Doctor CamNC4Me" post_id=1226184 time=1590846332 user_id=3779]
"Great job last night at the White House by the U.S. @SecretService

They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe. They let the “protesters” scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone.... got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard - didn’t know what hit them. The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would.... have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and.... good practice.” As you saw last night, they were very cool & very professional. Never let it get out of hand. Thank you! On the bad side, the D.C. Mayor, @MurielBowser, who is always looking for money & help, wouldn’t let the D.C. Police get involved. “Not their job.” Nice!"

- Doc
[/quote]It's like the I have a Dream speech in tweet form.


I understand that rioters are primarily a mixture of people expressing inchoate rage, people looking for an opportunity to commit crimes without accountability, and anarchy tourists, but insofar as there are people there with ideological commitments, it'd make a hell of a lot more sense to riot at Trump's hotels than the Whitehouse. Those are physical locations of bribery and public theft. Of course, all of this is counter-productive and pure chaos, but if you're looking to smash the corrupt system, you probably should start at more clear points of corruption.