The Demonstrations in Minnesota (Update: Now Nationwide){Now International} (4 Viewers)

[superchuck500]

I would imagine that if the "80%" out of state arrestees have ties to white nationalist groups, or antifa, or Soros or whatever - hopefully we'll get more information about that.

My money is on the white nationalists but I really don't know. Could be all of the above (except the Soros thing, come on).

 

[James Spader]

Between this and the people capturing and crowdsourcing the cops identity that was jump starting the riots in Minneapolis at the Autozone, the photos of cops and right wingers blending into the protests to agitate, there is SOME good coming out of the social media era.

less than a decade ago these sorts of things would be relegated to conspiracy, and dismissed as fantasy just as quickly, and tbh, I would have likely been one of them. Thinking it more a case of people wanting to rationalize away negativity then a legitimate and diffuse plot that’s motives aren’t obviously clear, but it seems pretty forking clear from the evidence now in several states that this sort of accelerationism as a means to gaslight, manipulate the narrative, discredit them, and seemingly justify more aggressive tactics is very real and is not just a one off thing.

And tbh, if we had any sort of big budget functioning investigate media left in America, this would be something screaming for a deep investigation into this modern cointelpro operation.

Operation Mockingbird.

 

[bclemms]

No, it isn't a protest anymore. The lack of outrage over the rioting has become the protest.

Here's my take. I don't think a large majority of people care and just want to see chaos and not because they are bored and want entertainment. Like Trevor Noah said, it's a domino effect. I dont think it started with Amy Cooper either. It's been building for years. The political divide and hatred. The Republicans vs Democrats, the Fox News vs CNN. The separation of classes is being reflected in society. We've become a divided nation with no middle class and no middle ground. This isn't about racism, racism is just one of the ingredients. This is the bailing out of banks, the golden parachutes, the fleecing of the taxpayer with the PPP. The rich getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. The White House testing all the staff daily and having a mask requirement while telling the rest of America to go back to work without either. It's the constant lies and corruption at the political and legal level. It's the Billions of dollars being given out to friends of politicians with no bid contracts. It's our political leaders selling stock before a pandemic while telling the people there is nothing going on. It's the bots on Twitter and FB constantly manipulating society and creating this hatred and divide. Is racism a part of it? Hell yeah but it's bigger than that. Racism is just another symptom of the disease that we're seeing in a divided country. The fix is easy and obvious but it wont get fixed, the powerful society wont allow it to happen, after all, this isn't impacting them at all. We'll continue to focus on each symptom instead of treating the disease. Society will continue to be manipulated through hidden propaganda, nothing will change but it feels good acting like it will.

 

[superchuck500]

Eugene, Oregon.

I think we need to change the thread title.

 

[Krodwhodat]

Maybe you aren’t following my learning curve through this process but I’ve been pretty open and tried to be very genuine even with all the BS. My brother and I chose different paths in life based on wants and needs which means we see things differently and rely on each other regardless. So while I may be more selfish on my own life and family and he is a civil servant I’m learning and willing to take any and all criticism.

 

[superchuck500]

No, it isn't a protest anymore. The lack of outrage over the rioting has become the protest.

Here's my take. I don't think a large majority of people care and just want to see chaos and not because they are bored and want entertainment. Like Trevor Noah said, it's a domino effect. I dont think it started with Amy Cooper either. It's been building for years. The political divide and hatred. The Republicans vs Democrats, the Fox News vs CNN. The separation of classes is being reflected in society. We've become a divided nation with no middle class and no middle ground. This isn't about racism, racism is just one of the ingredients. This is the bailing out of banks, the golden parachutes, the fleecing of the taxpayer with the PPP. The rich getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. The White House testing all the staff daily and having a mask requirement while telling the rest of America to go back to work without either. It's the constant lies and corruption at the political and legal level. It's the Billions of dollars being given out to friends of politicians with no bid contracts. It's our political leaders selling stock before a pandemic while telling the people there is nothing going on. It's the bots on Twitter and FB constantly manipulating society and creating this hatred and divide. Is racism a part of it? Hell yeah but it's bigger than that. Racism is just another symptom of the disease that we're seeing in a divided country. The fix is easy and obvious but it wont get fixed, the powerful society wont allow it to happen, after all, this isn't impacting them at all. We'll continue to focus on each symptom instead of treating the disease. Society will continue to be manipulated through hidden propaganda, nothing will change but it feels good acting like it will.

You're so god-damned right

 

[CapitalCitySaint]

To add to your ongoing argument:

SPD Officer On Leave Following Controversial Social Media Post

A Shreveport police officer has been placed on administrative leave and is currently under investigation following a controversial Facebook post.

999ktdy.com

A misstep? For 10 minutes, the man begging for his life and bystanders literally shouting at him to get off his neck?

Nice touch adding that he "probably had toxins in his system" despite no report yet.

 

[gummbo70114]

Too bad he didn’t get a license plate number off that vehicle to find out who owns it, I would’ve taken pictures of the guys and the license plate

 

[N.O.Bronco]

I think there is corruption in the police departments nationwide and I agree they need to police their own but I’m not sure how easy that is. I’m not going to say that I know about every police department but I do know that what we see on tv is not what it’s like in NOLA. There aren’t 100s of cops walking the street, hanging out in bars and buildings full of police. NOPD is truly short handed. They lose as many cops as they hire. He may see one other cop on a 12 hour shift if he isn’t training new recruits. He has had multiple complaints field against him for issues that rather than fight it you just deal with. One complaint is he showed up at a domestic violence call, broke up a fight then the wife filed a complaint against him because he grabbed her husband to break it up. It’s more complicated than it seems. The hiring standard is low, it has to be because nobody wants to do the dangerous thankless job. I remember when my brother was going through the vetting process and they were doing a background check he was worried about having and article 15 in the military and he defaulted on a credit card. They called me as part of his background check and I struck up a conversation with the guy. I told him how nervous my brother was and asked him how things were looking. He laughed and said my brother was the golden boy and they were trying to push him through quickly because he was one of 3 out of 350 candidates that didn’t have a arrest or drug issue on their record. I’m all for raising the standards but you already have a short handed force with what you have. What do you do to entice a better quality of personal or do you put term limits even? I have no idea but it has to change.

I honestly think the BLM movement(that was always accused of not having a purpose or direction by those looking to delegitimize their grievances a few years ago) have a really good starting point, which, some of the key policies are as follows:

1.) Ending Broken Windows policing policies nationwide. We have had 30 years of evidence to look at for it’s effectiveness and the results are not only that they are ineffective, but counter-productive and serve to reinforce inequities and institutionalization.​

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2.) De-escalating the militarization of the police force. Which more and more looks toward the community you serve as an adversary and a threat as opposed to a service you are providing for the people in it. Incentivizing the wrong type of candidates and sending the wrong signals to the communities actually affected by them(typically meant to send signals to rich white communities that will never experience this type of policing, but creates a false sense of safety).​

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3.) Community oversight boards: Establish an all-civilian oversight structure with discipline power that includes a Police Commission and Civilian Complaints Office with the power to hold officers accountable. Including a permanent set of prosecutorial offices at the state level to investigate police misconduct. Including reviews of ALL cases involving civilian death from an officer.​

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4.) Focus on intra-community staffing and a focus on community interaction in day to day policing. Putting an emphasis on having people in a community police that community.​

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5.) Strengtheing healthcare and mental healthcare in communities. Policies that expand and provide the needed medical care so officers are less likely to be playing street doctor.​

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6.) Reforming training. Focusing on implicit bias training, procedural justice, positive community interaction, de-escalation focus and strategies, appropriate engagement protocols.​

I also think as you reform the police into an institution with less inherent friction with the communities they police, focusing less on petty crime and monetizing fees and violations as a department sustainability model, you rebuild relationships and likely make it a lot easier for people to create a much stronger bi-partisan consensus around funding police departments. Thus helping provide better salaries for what hopefully becomes increasingly safer and more rewarding work.

 

[Loose Cannon]

Maybe you aren’t following my learning curve through this process but I’ve been pretty open and tried to be very genuine even with all the BS. My brother and I chose different paths in life based on wants and needs which means we see things differently and rely on each other regardless. So while I may be more selfish on my own life and family and he is a civil servant I’m learning and willing to take any and all criticism.

Fair. The point is, that part of the problem and why it's so difficult to bridge the gap between white and black/brown is the notion that somehow we understand what they're going through. When we equivocate our experiences with theirs (that we have never felt on an emotional or human level and never will), we're doing a disservice to their plight.

Imagine if your house burned down, and someone came along and said "yeah, I know how you feel, I broke my leg last year". It's not that breaking your leg isn't painful and terrible, and it's not even that you're not empathetic to the person's house burning down. It's that trying to say that your experience is the same as theirs is wrong.

One of the most important things we need to do as a society is to stop equivocating what happens to whites with what happens to blacks. They aren't the same. That's not to say that you can't have something equally as terrible happen to you, but you'll never fully understand it through their eyes.

I get what you're saying about your brother and I appreciate you sharing.

We can empathize without actually understanding what people are going through. One thing I've been taught by some very smart people of color over the years is that it's far more important to empathize and stand behind them than to try to "understand" how they feel - because we never will.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

No, it isn't a protest anymore. The lack of outrage over the rioting has become the protest.

Here's my take. I don't think a large majority of people care and just want to see chaos and not because they are bored and want entertainment. Like Trevor Noah said, it's a domino effect. I dont think it started with Amy Cooper either. It's been building for years. The political divide and hatred. The Republicans vs Democrats, the Fox News vs CNN. The separation of classes is being reflected in society. We've become a divided nation with no middle class and no middle ground. This isn't about racism, racism is just one of the ingredients. This is the bailing out of banks, the golden parachutes, the fleecing of the taxpayer with the PPP. The rich getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. The White House testing all the staff daily and having a mask requirement while telling the rest of America to go back to work without either. It's the constant lies and corruption at the political and legal level. It's the Billions of dollars being given out to friends of politicians with no bid contracts. It's our political leaders selling stock before a pandemic while telling the people there is nothing going on. It's the bots on Twitter and FB constantly manipulating society and creating this hatred and divide. Is racism a part of it? Hell yeah but it's bigger than that. Racism is just another symptom of the disease that we're seeing in a divided country. The fix is easy and obvious but it wont get fixed, the powerful society wont allow it to happen, after all, this isn't impacting them at all. We'll continue to focus on each symptom instead of treating the disease. Society will continue to be manipulated through hidden propaganda, nothing will change but it feels good acting like it will.

What is that obvious disease?

That silver bullet fix?

I don’t think any of your observations are necessarily wrong, but I don‘t really see what is the obvious solution, either?

Racism has been America’s original sin, it strains my imagination to think there is one obvious and easy solution to it?

 

[Krodwhodat]

A misstep? For 10 minutes, the man begging for his life and bystanders literally shouting at him to get off his neck?

Nice touch adding that he "probably had toxins in his system" despite no report yet.

The guy can come back stoned or drunk it shouldn’t matter. Whom ever is handling the PR on this is failing big time and it’s helping to escalate the situation.

 

[mb504]

People keep saying that Bezos will be the first trillionaire while ignoring that George Soros has somehow paid more than that already to every single protester for the past 20 years and apparently will pay every new protester for the rest of our lives. Based on Facebook math this dude might already be a quadrillionaire.

 

[Loose Cannon]

Also, @Krodwhodat , props to you for standing in here and taking some punches and trying to have a productive, intellectually honest conversation.

 

[St. Widge]

No, it isn't a protest anymore. The lack of outrage over the rioting has become the protest.

Here's my take. I don't think a large majority of people care and just want to see chaos and not because they are bored and want entertainment. Like Trevor Noah said, it's a domino effect. I dont think it started with Amy Cooper either. It's been building for years. The political divide and hatred. The Republicans vs Democrats, the Fox News vs CNN. The separation of classes is being reflected in society. We've become a divided nation with no middle class and no middle ground. This isn't about racism, racism is just one of the ingredients. This is the bailing out of banks, the golden parachutes, the fleecing of the taxpayer with the PPP. The rich getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. The White House testing all the staff daily and having a mask requirement while telling the rest of America to go back to work without either. It's the constant lies and corruption at the political and legal level. It's the Billions of dollars being given out to friends of politicians with no bid contracts. It's our political leaders selling stock before a pandemic while telling the people there is nothing going on. It's the bots on Twitter and FB constantly manipulating society and creating this hatred and divide. Is racism a part of it? Hell yeah but it's bigger than that. Racism is just another symptom of the disease that we're seeing in a divided country. The fix is easy and obvious but it wont get fixed, the powerful society wont allow it to happen, after all, this isn't impacting them at all. We'll continue to focus on each symptom instead of treating the disease. Society will continue to be manipulated through hidden propaganda, nothing will change but it feels good acting like it will.

I agree that is what it has turned into but I don't think that's why the original protests started. I mean, as much as all you say about the state of this country is true, I try to remember that if you are black in this country, not only do you have to deal with all of the above, but you also have to deal with overt, systemic racism, and the fact that you can never feel safe when a Police Officer is around. I can't even pretend to understand what that would be like.