2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

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clickie
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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#26 Post by clickie » Tue Jun 02, 2020 5:55 am

Is there anything more annoying than someone telling another person how to vote? It's like Hershel Walker said the other day speaking about Biden "Does he not understand that black and browned skinned people can think for themselves. You don't determine who we vote for."

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Tyler Durden
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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#27 Post by Tyler Durden » Tue Jun 02, 2020 7:48 am

Larry B. wrote:
Tue Jun 02, 2020 5:02 am
I don't think any real improvement for minority communities should be expected from politicians who aren't on the left side of the spectrum. Obama wasn't and Biden isn't, despite what Fox News say. They're only not as right-leaning as others. They are still stalwarts of the neo-liberal model, which demands keeping the current (and deeply unequal) state of affairs. The difference is that right extremists aim at going even further and deepening inequality. Which is why neo-liberal stalwarts such as Obama and Biden are still 'better' or 'more humane' than people like Trump or (the Chilean president) Piñera.

It matters that you vote. If you lean towards the right, you can vote for Biden and sleep easy knowing that he is faaar from being a Communist. He will keep everything as balanced as the capitalist model demands: people nearing despair, but living well enough, so you can keep taxes law and regulate almost nothing. If you lean towards the left, you can vote for Biden and do what you must: prevent fascism to keep destroying your country and killing your people.

Neither of them will significantly improve life for minorities. Your country and mine are at least one *real* leftist president away from that.
THIS! Seems the majority of Americans are too blind to see it though.

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#28 Post by clickie » Tue Jun 02, 2020 8:16 am

Dude, youre the guy that tried selling his Jane's sweatshirt then lied about it later

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mockbee
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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#29 Post by mockbee » Tue Jun 02, 2020 10:44 am

Larry B. wrote:
Tue Jun 02, 2020 5:02 am
I don't think any real improvement for minority communities should be expected from politicians who aren't on the left side of the spectrum. Obama wasn't and Biden isn't, despite what Fox News say. They're only not as right-leaning as others. They are still stalwarts of the neo-liberal model, which demands keeping the current (and deeply unequal) state of affairs. The difference is that right extremists aim at going even further and deepening inequality. Which is why neo-liberal stalwarts such as Obama and Biden are still 'better' or 'more humane' than people like Trump or (the Chilean president) Piñera.

It matters that you vote. If you lean towards the right, you can vote for Biden and sleep easy knowing that he is faaar from being a Communist. He will keep everything as balanced as the capitalist model demands: people nearing despair, but living well enough, so you can keep taxes law and regulate almost nothing. If you lean towards the left, you can vote for Biden and do what you must: prevent fascism to keep destroying your country and killing your people.

Neither of them will significantly improve life for minorities. Your country and mine are at least one *real* leftist president away from that.
Sage thinking from a citizen who has experienced the fallout from leftist and fascist tinkerings... :tiphat:

Unfortunately I think all sides (that can affect change via vote) here are well past the mood for moderation..... Sure, there are some middle class and rich moderate white folk who will argue your point, but my impressions are that the vast majority have either given up or are in a solidly Trump/authoritarian mood. The Bernie people evaporated, or were never there to begin with.... :hs:

We don't know real upheaval. The satiated/privileged are in for a big surprise. The rest are just going.....uuum...duuu-uuuh. :bored:

:noclue:

Thanks for the warning, but I think we will be going in a different direction.... :wink:..... :wavesad:.... :conf:

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Tyler Durden
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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#30 Post by Tyler Durden » Tue Jun 02, 2020 11:43 am

clickie wrote:
Tue Jun 02, 2020 8:16 am
Dude, youre the guy that tried selling his Jane's sweatshirt then lied about it later
Huh?

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#31 Post by blackcoffee » Tue Jun 02, 2020 12:46 pm

I was at/attended the first day of protests in Seattle. Early in the day, I saw a group of white kids--16-19 in age (I guess), throw a water bottle at bike cops as the sped by. They were gleeful (as I might have been at that age), but didn't recognize how they put black and brown people at more risk of police retaliation. A young black man even tried to dissuade them from their actions. They seemed more intent on flipping off the cops. They didn't appear to be interested in BLM. Same is true for all the people spray painting that I saw--all young and white. Many of those same people were, um, very performative about their experience with the teargas. My single, anecdotal experience is only that, but when I hear talk of of police breaking into stores, or starting this behavior, or when I hear about white supremacists starting it, I believe it. No doubt the news is also highlighting black people breaking windows, and the like, but that's no doubt to be expected I think in the big picture of life in the US for black people.

So for good measure: Black Lives Matter

And Fuck the Police.

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#32 Post by Pandemonium » Tue Jun 02, 2020 6:40 pm

Perhaps someone with better eyes than mine can identify the white supremacist actors in this clip from this weekend's fun at Long Beach.



I will say these kind of opportunistic assholes who hijack what should and often start out as peaceful protests are a small minority but to say with a straight face they are all "white supremacists" is looking at this with rose colored glasses. This example is particularly ironic:

https://www.theblaze.com/news/antifa-ki ... wtCwWdwoeI

News June 02, 2020

'Antifa kid' who smashed a police car and incited riots in Pittsburgh is escorted into custody — by his mom and dad
Not so tough now


Phil Shiver

Brian Bartels, the 20-year-old man who police say turned a protest into a riot on Saturday in Pittsburgh, turned himself in to law enforcement Monday — escorted by his mom and dad.

He faces charges of institutional vandalism, rioting, and reckless endangerment of another person, according to police.

Law enforcement had been investigating the destruction of a police SUV over the weekend that had been spray-painted and then set on fire during the demonstrations. After receiving an anonymous tip from a co-worker identifying Bartels as the culprit, police executed a search warrant at his home. During the search they found two guns, six spray paint cans, gloves, and the sweatshirt that the suspect had been wearing during the protest, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. A video had also surfaced showing a young white male smashing the police SUV's windows and tagging it with spray paint. In the video, the suspect, believed to be Bartels, can be seen dressed in all-black Antifa-like gear.

A woman attempted to stop Bartels from causing damage to the SUV, but Bartels flipped her off in refusal and continued to smash that SUV's windows.

In the tweet of Bartels turning himself into police custody, Jason Howerton refers to him as an "Antifa kid" because his dress and actions were characteristic of the group's members. But an official link between Bartels and Antifa has not been established.
Pittsburgh Public Safety reported Sunday that 60 businesses and other properties were damaged and 44 arrests were made as a result of Saturday's protests. Police believe that Bartels' actions, which took place at around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, turned the protests into a violent riot. During a news conference, Pittsburgh Police Chief Scott Schubert called it a "damn shame" that Antifa-like rioters were taking advantage of the protests. "I am so angry at the fact that some segment hijacked this and then took some of the youth and brought them into the mix," Schubert said. "There's no doubt that that's who's doing it and a lot of things we're seeing are white males, dressed in the anarchist, ANTIFA, they're ones who are fueling a lot of this. It's just a damn shame that they took advantage of the situation, for something, something happened in another state where somebody died who shouldn't have died, and they hijacked that message for their own."

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#33 Post by mockbee » Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:54 am

The Atlantic
Why People Loot
Olga Khazan


For many Americans watching the country erupt in protests, the looting is the rub. Over the past week, thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities across the United States to denounce institutional racism and police violence after a Minneapolis man named George Floyd died when a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. But the breaking of windows, burning of property, and stealing of goods that has accompanied peaceful demonstrations make some people hesitant to throw their full support behind the protesters.

Police leaders generally agree that only a small percentage of the protesters are looting, but the practice is still undeniably widespread. Sunday night, a group of people cleaned out stores across Lower Manhattan, stuffing shoes and electronics into garbage bags. Earlier, looters destroyed a Minneapolis Target and swept designer jeans out of boutiques in Los Angeles.

Anytime large groups of angry people gather spontaneously, property damage is common. Most race scholars argue that unprovoked police violence against both black people and peaceful protesters is the larger societal problem, and no amount of stolen merchandise will ever equal the loss of even a single human life. Still, “the looting that takes place in these situations is usually interpreted as evidence of human depravity,” the sociologists Russell Dynes and E. L. Quarantelli wrote in their seminal study on looting in 1968, another year in which protests resulted in widespread property damage and death. The sentiment in some corners seems to be, If only they would just march peacefully, and not loot, we’d be fine with this.

Relying on a half-century-old study is less than ideal, but necessary: Few sociologists study looting specifically. But interviews with a half-dozen experts on protests and social movements provide some insights into looters’ motivations.

For one thing, looters and peaceful protesters aren’t typically the same people. Dana Fisher, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, has studied protests for 20 years, and she says it’s rare for peaceful protesters to start stealing and setting fires at random. People flock to the sites of protests with different motivations, and those who want peace tend to stay peaceful. “I’ve never seen somebody come in who’s peaceful and then it’s like, Hey, they just broke that window over there. I’m going to now start looting,” she told me.

Those in the looting group also have varied motivations. In their 1968 study, Dynes and Quarantelli note that vandalism during protests focuses on objects and buildings that are “symbolic of other values.” For example, people are more likely to attack symbols of authority—such as the CNN building or police cars—than apartment buildings.

In this way, some of the looting is a lashing-out against capitalism, the police, and other forces that are seen as perpetuating racism. “Widespread looting, then, may perhaps be interpreted as a kind of mass protest against our dominant conceptions of property,” Dynes and Quarantelli wrote. It is a “bid for the redistribution of property.”

This is part of what the sociologist Andrea S. Boyles found when she interviewed dozens of people during the Ferguson unrest for her book You Can’t Stop the Revolution. One of her interview subjects saw the looting of a QuikTrip convenience store as retribution for the economic exploitation of black communities. A man she calls “Ted” said he didn’t care about the looting of the store, especially if it had insurance. He had spent money at stores in his community, Ted told her, but when he himself was low on cash, he had no one to turn to. Looting, to him, resulted in only mild suffering for a store owner who did little to alleviate the suffering of the community.

This feeling might be especially pronounced among people who loot stores that don’t tend to serve low-income minority neighborhoods, such as Whole Foods. Boyles says looters tend to be poor, and some see it as a chance to balance the scales, to get the things they normally can’t. These communities face constant deprivation, Boyles told me, “and here they find themselves with an opportunity, be it legitimate or illegitimate, to benefit.” As one looter, Pamela Speaks, told the Miami Herald during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, “I don’t think it’s right, but it gets the frustrations out.”

During the current protests, the opportunist appeal of looting might be exacerbated by the fact that people across the country have been ordered to stay inside for months in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus. The protests might have seemed, to some, like a release valve.

Others, meanwhile, see looting as a form of empowerment—a way to reclaim dignity after decades of abuse at the hands of police and other authorities. “When you have the ability to gain some of that power back, people take the opportunity to do so,” Rashawn Ray, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, told me.


In cases where peaceful protests haven’t created change, protesters might feel that looting and vandalism are the only ways to make their voices heard. “In Baltimore, they’ve been saying for generations how bad the Baltimore Police Department was, but nobody listened,” Lorenzo Boyd, the director of the Center for Advanced Policing at the University of New Haven, told me. “And then Freddie Gray got killed, and nobody listened. And then they started protesting; nobody listened. But as soon as the CVS burned in Baltimore, the whole world watched.”


Some looters, meanwhile, aren’t affiliated with protesters’ causes at all. Instead, they seize the moment to cause chaos and destruction. This might be what’s happening in videos where white people can be seen knocking out windows and ransacking businesses. Though it’s not yet clear to what extent, radical-left and white-nationalist groups are said to have infiltrated some of the protests and to have been instigating some of the mayhem.

It’s not unheard-of for people to travel to different areas to loot, thereby sparing their own neighborhoods. At first, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz floated the idea that most of the protesters arrested in Minneapolis last week were from out of state, a notion soon debunked by a local TV station’s investigation into arrest records. But during the Ferguson unrest in 2014, “a large number” of the people arrested for looting had addresses in Illinois or Texas, The Washington Post reported.

In its recklessness, looting can seem inevitable. But the police, the media, and even protesters can sometimes inadvertently encourage looting.

The actions of police and protesters tend to mirror one another. When police use rubber bullets, flash bombs, and pepper spray on peaceful protesters, protesters are then also spurred to aggression—including, in some cases, inciting protesters to looting.

Boyd says police can try to reduce looting by taking a more “community policing”–style approach to daytime protests, which tend to be peaceful. Instead of intimidating nonviolent protesters, police could try being friendly. “To have a very large police presence with riot gear during the day is antithetical to what you want,” Boyd said. “That’s when you want the police on bicycles and on foot with the protesters.” At night, when vandalism and looting is more likely, police can take a tougher “enforcement” approach, he said.

One way to practice “enforcement” is by cracking down on looters, but not protesters. But while New York police drove their SUVs into protesters over the weekend, they seemed to take a hands-off approach to looters. In Manhattan, police “sat in their cars as looters, often in full view of police, brazenly walked in and out of stores,” The New York Times reported.

Journalists can also sometimes feed into looting by covering it excessively, or by interviewing looters instead of peaceful protesters. In response to this pattern, some protesters will throw something or break a window just to get attention from the media, Ray said.

The style and organization of a protest can also encourage—or discourage—vandalism. Fisher and Ray have found that protests that are preplanned and have coherent leadership tend to result in less vandalism than spontaneous protests that lack a central message. Without a formal structure or norms for behavior, protests can spin out, especially after dark. In fact, one way to prevent looting during a protest is just to call it a “vigil,” a word that connotes quiet and calm. Take the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C., as an example: The demonstration had a set agenda, speakers, and protest path, and was unusually peaceful. Today’s protests are more spontaneous, and the people involved have varying goals. “Some people want the three officers who haven’t been charged to be charged,” Ray said. “Some people want policing to just completely end, on the other end of the spectrum.”

Most of the experts I spoke with agreed that looting is a side effect of protests, which are a side effect of the conditions causing the protests. In this case, the root cause is yet another killing of a black man by a white police officer. To fully eliminate looting, you’d have to eliminate the conditions that make people upset enough to protest.

As Christian Davenport, a political-science professor at the University of Michigan, put it to me, “the best way to prevent looting is to provide individuals with a living wage, provide for their basic needs, treat them with human dignity, and facilitate a life that is about thriving.”

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#34 Post by Larry B. » Wed Jun 03, 2020 2:04 pm

I think it’s shameful to focus on the looting. Considering the dimension and seriousness of the issues at hand, driving the discussion towards looting is absolutely shameful.

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#35 Post by mockbee » Wed Jun 03, 2020 2:50 pm

It's in the States and Medias vital interest to promote/highlight looting to preserve the hegemony. :noclue:

Looting = reason why we have police.
Otherwise, people might question why we even have police in the first place.

(ironic though, because that's when we call in the National Guard......... :hs: )

Preservation of the stratification of property/wealth is the cornerstone of our culture.
Looting is a major breach of the system.... and primarily occurs because of the system.
Leviton: You’ve done ride-alongs with police officers on patrol, who you say tend to describe their shifts as “99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror.” What’s your experience of watching them do their jobs?

Vitale: Police work is very bureaucratic. There’s a lot of paperwork, report writing, and time management. Patrol officers are mostly involved in missing persons, noise complaints, illegally parked vehicles, and so on. They spend hardly any time dealing with serious crime. That’s left to the detectives. Most uniformed officers make a felony arrest once a year. If a patrol officer catches a robber in the act, he or she is “cop of the month” and gets on the nightly news.

https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/5 ... d-to-serve

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#36 Post by Tyler Durden » Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:13 pm


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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#37 Post by mockbee » Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:37 pm

Tyler Durden wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:13 pm

Yup.

Corporate hegemony that has it's foundation in capitalism/colonialism is the base problem.

The racial stratification that has its foundation in slavery and subsequent racism is the result.

Colonialism/capitalism is all about the acquisition and retention of wealth.
Racism is a critical tool to separate the classes and maintain the system.

Without acknowledging this as the basis of the conflict, we will never make progress.

MLK understood this well. He spoke often about class and capitalism as the underlying cause of racism.

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#38 Post by clickie » Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:22 pm

Larry B. wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 6:17 pm
“Trump” wrote:We’re going to clamp down very, very strong. The word is dominate. If you don’t dominate your city and your state, they’re going to walk away with you. And we’re doing it in Washington, in DC, we’re going to do something that people haven’t seen before... but we’re going to have total domination
This is so fucked up. Stay safe, my American buddies.
It doesn't really feel like a threatening situation. I mean there's all this rioting and maybe one cop shot an actual bullet. Lotsa tear gas though and that can't be good for anyone.

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#39 Post by clickie » Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:34 pm

I think my town had the only peaceful protests. Small town life :box:

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#40 Post by clickie » Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:49 pm

Anyone ever experienced tear gas? My Dad told me that was part of basic training when joining the navy. You had to run through a building filled with tear gas. He described it as all your snot comes pouring out your eyes and nose.

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#41 Post by kv » Thu Jun 04, 2020 1:29 am

clickie wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:34 pm
I think my town had the only peaceful protests. Small town life :box:
Not true at all...there have been tons....it's just peaceful doesn't equal ratings or an urgent need to be shown like live action between police and protestors or looters

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#42 Post by kv » Thu Jun 04, 2020 1:35 am

clickie wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:49 pm
Anyone ever experienced tear gas? My Dad told me that was part of basic training when joining the navy. You had to run through a building filled with tear gas. He described it as all your snot comes pouring out your eyes and nose.
Ya problem is once you know how to deal with it it becomes less of a problem for you....that's why they make military and police experience it before being in the field....soooo now how many Americans have learned this week? They will also be better prepared....

You don't have to go anywhere to learn this...just posting here and reading Larry's posts about how his people learned and adapted and formed groups of people to help wash people or contain and throw back tear gas...humans will adapt...American learned this week that the cops are only worth a shit when we stand with them...school has been in session...

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#43 Post by clickie » Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:15 am

What if I pull out the old pinball machine

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#44 Post by clickie » Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:16 am

Image

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#45 Post by clickie » Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:18 am

Image

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#46 Post by clickie » Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:23 am

Pinball machines are so cool

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#47 Post by clickie » Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:27 am

Whoa


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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#49 Post by kv » Thu Jun 04, 2020 8:48 am

:crazy:

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Re: 2020 US Racial/Political Protests and Riots

#50 Post by Larry B. » Thu Jun 04, 2020 2:33 pm

Quite obnoxious, and for so long. Worse than my short-lived side character Hyperbolic. And far less funny.

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