Andrea Jenkins, VP of Minneapolis City Council has come out and said that Officer Derek Chauvin and George Floyd knew each other. They had worked at the same restaurant as bouncers, together, for seventeen years.
Reports of looters being shot by store owners in Minneapolis. Black store owners have been told by Black community leaders to put 'Black Owned' on their storefront windows so they don't get looted. Black owners are not taking chances with just a sign and are standing armed in front of their businesses.
Looking for links, this all is coming in from people I know in the area.
Wow lmao, they finally censored a Trump tweet, less than 24 hours after all this big talk about an executive order. I can't even share it here. have to admire the sheer audacity of such an impressive power move.
Oh, and the police department was taken over in Minneapolis and the state capitol in Ohio was ransacked. What an absolutely wild few hours.
There was plenty of reason to see this particular police officer as a problem, with over a dozen complaints and even a prior shooting, if what I'm hearing is correct. The entire justice system is a failure on every level so I can't even really blame anyone for rioting.
This all does have the potential to go sideways quick. Rioting and setting things on fire is one thing but attacking the cops or National Guard is going to get protesters a one way ticket to the morgue. If Trump calls open season on the rioters, look out.
The phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" did not originate with Trump. It originated with a southern sherriff in the '60s. Whatever happened to the property in the city of Minneapolis last night, it's pretty much undeniable that we cannot have the President suggesting the National Guard start mowing down citizens extrajudicially in the streets. Bobby Kennedy PREVENTED a riot in the city he spoke in after MLK was shot with his speech. We get this.
The mayor's office has been at odds with the Minneapolis police union for at least 3 or 4 separate Administrations now. There have been efforts by multiple mayors to reign them in, and they were basically in a cold war with the city government. Now it's a hot war. This officer has to be arrested. There doesn't even seem to be any actual counter-narrative to point to. The resisting arrest narrative isn't true based on any available video. Even if it was, it can't possibly justify what happened after he was handcuffed. You can't treat someone in custody this way. None of this happens if the DA (or it may be the city attorney) simply arrests, at a minimum, the officer who had his knee on Floyd's neck for, again, at a minimum, manslaughter.
This has also proven that people en masse have alot more power than they may have previously thought they did. The idea that an American police precinct could be taken over was unthinkable 12 hours ago. Though it may have been abandoned on direct orders of the mayor to prevent more loss of life on both sides.
In an early morning development, the Minneapolis police seem to have arrested........a CNN reporter and his entire camera crew live on air. But not any of the 4 officers. The fact is that American policing isn't really fixable in it's current state. It would have to be rooted out by the stem and reorganized from scratch to fix what is wrong with it, because the rot is so deep and entrenched that nothing else will make any lasting difference.
I'm just wondering if this is the revolution, if this is the big change event that will put America into a war for equality. Will all the twits, blue check marks, resistance, bloggers, organizations, movements and patriots get to ground zero and fight for change and the underprivileged or will they sit back and just continue to parrot and provocate from the comfort of their couches. It's time to put up or shut up.
They have stormed government buildings and police stations, we'll see if all the squawkers will join the fight for what they believe in. For what is right. For humanity.
I'm just wondering if this is the revolution, if this is the big change event that will put America into a war for equality. Will all the twits, blue check marks, resistance, bloggers, organizations, movements and patriots get to ground zero and fight for change and the underprivileged or will they sit back and just continue to parrot and provocate from the comfort of their couches. It's time to put up or shut up.
They have stormed government buildings and police stations, we'll see if all the squawkers will join the fight for what they believe in. For what is right. For humanity.
As is mentioned here, the Boston Tea Party was a supremely violent affair. The Boston Massacre occurred be one of the British soldiers believed her heard a threat in an angry, crowded protest.
It can't be overstated how much the technology of cell phones play into where we are this morning. This stuff has been taking place on the regular for decades, if not centuries. It's just that now even the poorest person in America will get handed a phone with a video camera in it as long as they sign up for a year of service to ATT or Verizon. And the thing is, people now realize after DOZENS of incidents like this that having video evidence STILL doesn't matter 9 times out 10. And the cops, who ALSO know everyone has the means to document their abuse, are full of so much chutzpah that they don't even care. Despite this new dynamic, and obviously being aware of it, they haven't altered their behavior in ANY way. That is how invincible and impervious to consequence they feel. To know that even if you get caught red-handed violating someone's rights, you have a great chance of walking away with nothing but Administrative leave and having to go work for a department a couple counties away. This cop knew an entire crowd of people were witnessing what he was doing. He knew at least someone was taping it. Would certainly be aware of local businesses having security cams. Would know he has a body cam he didn't bother to shut off like so many of them do. Did not phase him in the slightest.
It's hard to cheer this. I'm from Minnesota. It's a beautiful state and Minneapolis is certainly one of the most pleasant big cities to live in in this country. But I don't know what people expect. Eventually, a straw was going to break the camel's back. And amidst a 100,000+ dead, 25%+ unemployment, a lockdown that is being used to put people against one another, and the fact that we learned that billionaires have gotten billions of dollars richer in the last few months at the expense of everyone else, it was the knee on the neck of George Floyd that was that straw.
By the way, peaceful protest was tried. As many people are pointing out the last 48 hours, Colin Kapernick was ran out of the NFL was respectfully protesting this behavior from cops and turned into a pariah by at least half the country in the meantime. John F. Kennedy:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
It's saying that our expectations, given 100 years of advancement have changed. And I for one am fine holding us to that standard when compared to an era when children were working in sweatshops and there were no child labor laws for another 20 years. Not to mention the medical advancements and the fact that the speed of the travel of information gave us more of a heads up than the people facing the Spanish Flu could have possibly had. If the argument of the article is that people should abandon the expectations the last 100 years have hoisted upon them, that's as much magical thinking as the people who thought the virus was just going to "go away" in warmer weather.
We also aren't done with COVID-19. We are no longer at our peak, but we have traded it for what now seems like a perpetual 15,000-20,000 cases and 1000-1500 deaths a day. Assuming this continues (and I see no reason why it won't), we will easily reach at least half the death count of the Spanish Flu by September.
In an early morning development, the Minneapolis police seem to have arrested........a CNN reporter and his entire camera crew live on air.
An actual violation of the first amendment, it's worth noting.
The reporter was UNBELIEVABLY deferential and offered to move anywhere the officers told him to. Not surprisingly, he was black. A white reporter in the same vicinity was left alone. The reporter was released, and the Governor of Minnesota has personally apologized to CNN. But the Minneapolis Police Force is the problem here. By leaps and bounds, their power trip is the root cause of all this and needs to be reigned in.
And the point at the heart of the rioting is this: you are asking people to abide by the law while that same law is not being applied to the police. "Law and order" starts with the arrest of the kneeling officer. Until that happens, people no longer see any reason to play along with the double-standard. They now view the concept of the justice system as fundamentally illegitimate.
It's saying that our expectations, given 100 years of advancement have changed. And I for one am fine holding us to that standard when compared to an era when children were working in sweatshops and there were no child labor laws for another 20 years. Not to mention the medical advancements and the fact that the speed of the travel of information gave us more of a heads up than the people facing the Spanish Flu could have possibly had. If the argument of the article is that people should abandon the expectations the last 100 years have hoisted upon them, that's as much magical thinking as the people who thought the virus was just going to "go away" in warmer weather.
We also aren't done with COVID-19. We are no longer at our peak, but we have traded it for what now seems like a perpetual 15,000-20,000 cases and 1000-1500 deaths a day. Assuming this continues (and I see no reason why it won't), we will easily reach at least half the death count of the Spanish Flu by September.
The article makes no judgements though, which I thought was very refreshing. The only bad thing I wondered after reading it, is whether or not our society can handle any REAL adversity anymore. As bad as Covid-19 is, it could have been a Hell of a lot worse...
It's saying that our expectations, given 100 years of advancement have changed. And I for one am fine holding us to that standard when compared to an era when children were working in sweatshops and there were no child labor laws for another 20 years. Not to mention the medical advancements and the fact that the speed of the travel of information gave us more of a heads up than the people facing the Spanish Flu could have possibly had. If the argument of the article is that people should abandon the expectations the last 100 years have hoisted upon them, that's as much magical thinking as the people who thought the virus was just going to "go away" in warmer weather.
We also aren't done with COVID-19. We are no longer at our peak, but we have traded it for what now seems like a perpetual 15,000-20,000 cases and 1000-1500 deaths a day. Assuming this continues (and I see no reason why it won't), we will easily reach at least half the death count of the Spanish Flu by September.
The article makes no judgements though, which I thought was very refreshing. The only bad thing I wondered after reading it, is whether or not our society can handle any REAL adversity anymore. As bad as Covid-19 is, it could have been a Hell of a lot worse...
Yeah, but the adversity was essentially being asked to sit at home and collect unemployment with an extra $600 bonus for two months and forgo haircuts and happy hour for the same duration. And alot of people started to crack after about 28 days.
It's saying that our expectations, given 100 years of advancement have changed. And I for one am fine holding us to that standard when compared to an era when children were working in sweatshops and there were no child labor laws for another 20 years. Not to mention the medical advancements and the fact that the speed of the travel of information gave us more of a heads up than the people facing the Spanish Flu could have possibly had. If the argument of the article is that people should abandon the expectations the last 100 years have hoisted upon them, that's as much magical thinking as the people who thought the virus was just going to "go away" in warmer weather.
We also aren't done with COVID-19. We are no longer at our peak, but we have traded it for what now seems like a perpetual 15,000-20,000 cases and 1000-1500 deaths a day. Assuming this continues (and I see no reason why it won't), we will easily reach at least half the death count of the Spanish Flu by September.
The article makes no judgements though, which I thought was very refreshing. The only bad thing I wondered after reading it, is whether or not our society can handle any REAL adversity anymore. As bad as Covid-19 is, it could have been a Hell of a lot worse...
Yeah, but the adversity was essentially being asked to sit at home and collect unemployment with an extra $600 bonus for two months and forgo haircuts and happy hour for the same duration. And alot of people started to crack after about 28 days.
It's not as pleasant as that for many in this country though. As the article points out.
We shut down the entire country for 3 months just for the Boomers. Most catered to generation in the history of the planet. How's your pension plan? Mine doesn't exist. Just like nearly everybody that wasn't born between 1945 and 1964. It's not even their fault really. It's the Goddamned politicians on both sides that bought votes with promises that couldn't be kept. The State of Michigan is twisting around in the wind like a contortionist trying to keep their pension plans funded through this debacle. Won't have to worry about that anymore when my generation retires. They won't owe us a fucking thing...
Derek Chauvin has been taken into custody. If this had been done 24 hours earlier everything that happened last night could have been avoided. As far as I know absolutely no material facts about the situation have changed other than that parts of Minneapolis had to burn down for it to happen.
I saw it in L.A. after Rodney King in 1992.
I saw it in Cincinnati after Timothy Thomas in 2001.
I saw it in The Bay area California after Oscar Grant in 2009.
I saw it during Black Lives Matter.
Nothing is going to change after this. The protesters will still be vilified. The police will still be praised through PR stunts and there will be promises of reform to pander to hand wringers on the sideline.
I guess the only difference is that due to the pandemic, many people don't have jobs to go back to so they can continue rioting and protesting. I'd still give it a week or two and we'll be back to normal.
The arrest of the CNN crew was the kind of stupidity that only comes from unjustified arrogance in what you are and represent. I've been watching the series "Generation Kill" on HBO, which is a pretty damn spot-on dramatization of the Marines in the vanguard of the invasion of Iraq (it's quite popular among vets themselves). And while there is NO shortage dehumanizing talk among the Marines about the Iraqis, when push comes to shove, when certain squad members fuck up and kill civilians or do something stupid that is completely detrimental to the mission, their fellow Marines do not let it slide. Indeed, these people are viewed a pariahs in the unit they wish weren't there at all. I sense no such internal accountability in police forces.
My point being that at least the military makes a good faith attempt to police their own, even for things that may have been totally out of the control of the guilty party. There is a culture of accountability. The only culture I see among police unions nationwide is never crossing the thin blue line.
Sometimes I wonder what the White House is really thinking (*) Sure, shooting down violent armed criminals is what the taxpayers keep the police around for. But instead of trying to put the fire down, it just pours more oil onto it... Seriously. That's exactly what openly mocking your opponents in public media amounts to, the same kind of bs leftist radicals have been doing lately. I mean, I get the idea of fighting enemy with their own methods, but a president is supposed to be above the idiots, not letting himself be dragged down to their level.
Sometimes I wonder what the White House is really thinking (*) Sure, shooting down violent armed criminals is what the taxpayers keep the police around for. But instead of trying to put the fire down, it just pours more oil onto it... Seriously. That's exactly what openly mocking your opponents in public media amounts to, the same kind of bs leftist radicals have been doing lately. I mean, I get the idea of fighting enemy with their own methods, but a president is supposed to be above the idiots, not letting himself be dragged down to their level.
(*) That was a rhetorical question
There is a at least semi-plausible rumor circulating on social media that one of the first people who actually engaged in destruction of property is actually an undercover cop who was identified by his ex-wife. I can't sign onto this yet until we get some actual verification. But at the very least this individual does seems to be acting in a solitary manner not with any crowd, and is acting VERY calm, collected, and methodical about his window breaking. We'll see what comes of it. Personally, it's hard for me to buy into, as it would indicate a level of malevolence that is almost unfathomable.
"Law and order" starts with the arrest of the kneeling officer. Until that happens, people no longer see any reason to play along with the double-standard. They now view the concept of the justice system as fundamentally illegitimate.
Completely correct, and they very well should see it as illegitimate. The entire justice system, from the prisons to the selective prosecutions and two-tier justice system, is an abomination. Even if you don't get killed by a police officer, people who can't afford a lawyer get railroaded and treated like garbage a hundred other ways. I even have some stories of my own.
If justice isn't applied equally across the board, it simply doesn't exist.
Sometimes I wonder what the White House is really thinking (*) Sure, shooting down violent armed criminals is what the taxpayers keep the police around for. But instead of trying to put the fire down, it just pours more oil onto it... Seriously. That's exactly what openly mocking your opponents in public media amounts to, the same kind of bs leftist radicals have been doing lately. I mean, I get the idea of fighting enemy with their own methods, but a president is supposed to be above the idiots, not letting himself be dragged down to their level.
(*) That was a rhetorical question
There is a at least semi-plausible rumor circulating on social media that one of the first people who actually engaged in destruction of property is actually an undercover cop who was identified by his ex-wife. I can't sign onto this yet until we get some actual verification. But at the very least this individual does seems to be acting in a solitary manner not with any crowd, and is acting VERY calm, collected, and methodical about his window breaking. We'll see what comes of it. Personally, it's hard for me to buy into, as it would indicate a level of malevolence that is almost unfathomable.
My personal hypothesis is that the guy might be from Unicorn Riot. They have an oddly impressive track record of being at the right place at the right time. This is all speculation though.
Ya, that breaking window scene is surreal as well. To the guy dressed in all black, methodically breaking the windows while carrying a umbrella on a sunny day (probably to prevent security cameras from capturing him doing it) to the petite woman holding a pizza box running up to stop him. He stood out completely and it was surprising the cops (if there were any in the area, probably why he chose that area to begin with) didn’t stop and question him before hand and confiscate the hammer.
Regardless of who the guy is, he wasn’t there to protest, he was there to vandalize. He was taking advantage of the situation so that the protesters would be blamed for the damage. Obviously that isn’t right. It goes back to villainizing the protesters and blaming them for something they weren’t apart of.
However, the protesters were part of burning down the police station - you know a symbol of what they are protesting against.
But that’s what always makes me think. Why is a business that has nothing to do with the protests in the first place being targeted? Is it a crime of opportunity? or is it more, like a way to villainize, or even insurance fraud? I always question crap like that living in a capital city who has seen its fair share of protests over the years.
Governments have been using these tactics since before Christ. Using on scene provocateurs to change the nature and narrative of a protest. I'm glad that a lot more people are being awakened to this tactic. Know your enemy.
My thoughts are that once a mob gets going, it's impossible to stop because a herd mentality takes over. And no one really expects any consequences because EVERYONE around them (hundreds of people) are doing the same thing. I mean, it's impossible to explain why people overturn cars after their team wins a sports championship too. If I remember correctly, there was once a riot in Montreal because Axl Rose bailed on a Guns n' Roses concert after one song.
My thoughts are that once a mob gets going, it's impossible to stop because a herd mentality takes over. And no one really expects any consequences because EVERYONE around them (hundreds of people) are doing the same thing. I mean, it's impossible to explain why people overturn cars after their team wins a sports championship too. If I remember correctly, there was once a riot in Montreal because Axl Rose bailed on a Guns n' Roses concert after one song.
That’s Montreal. They riot for the weirdest things. It started with the Richard Riots (look those up if you are not a hockey fan) and what people got away with there and continued long after.
However the Metallica/Guns and Roses concert was a train wreck starting with a Metallica member being burned by the pyrotechnics having to cancel their part of the show.
My thoughts are that once a mob gets going, it's impossible to stop because a herd mentality takes over. And no one really expects any consequences because EVERYONE around them (hundreds of people) are doing the same thing. I mean, it's impossible to explain why people overturn cars after their team wins a sports championship too. If I remember correctly, there was once a riot in Montreal because Axl Rose bailed on a Guns n' Roses concert after one song.
Pretty much this. I think the "undercover cops started the riot" thing is not particularly different from most conspiracy theories, and I wont give them any weight until evidence starts to surface. The being maybe identified by an Ex isnt enough for me to get on that train yet.
My thoughts are that once a mob gets going, it's impossible to stop because a herd mentality takes over. And no one really expects any consequences because EVERYONE around them (hundreds of people) are doing the same thing. I mean, it's impossible to explain why people overturn cars after their team wins a sports championship too. If I remember correctly, there was once a riot in Montreal because Axl Rose bailed on a Guns n' Roses concert after one song.
Pretty much this. I think the "undercover cops started the riot" thing is not particularly different from most conspiracy theories, and I wont give them any weight until evidence starts to surface. The being maybe identified by an Ex isnt enough for me to get on that train yet.
I think this is the correct attitude. Far more likely is that some subset of protesters engaged in these acts, and that's typically what's been proven to be the case in the past. Always important to remember that a small subset doesn't represent what most protesters want or do.
I participated at the G-20 protests in Toronto. I saw first hand the tactics used by the government. I also participated at the Wetʼsuwetʼen railway protest and saw how they tried, along with the media, to take over and change the narrative of the protests.
In my experience those who scream conspiracy are the ones we should be worried about, inadvertently they are helping those who are acting to undermine organized protest.
@MaleficentOne you may be getting your revolution. Minneapolis may be relatively quiet tonight if the curfew is effective, but the rest of the country is now lighting up as well. In New York, a bus was being used to transport arrested protesters. The driver left the bus and refused to drive it. In Atlanta, there seems to be an attempt as I'm typing this to storm the lobby of the headquarters of CNN. The country is basically this close to coming apart at the seems. It's a mixture of events new (COVID-19) and old (racism, police violence, and economic inequality) that are stirring. Even if you don't like Chris Hayes, it's hard to argue with this:
Comments
Looking for links, this all is coming in from people I know in the area.
*National guard has been deployed.
Oh, and the police department was taken over in Minneapolis and the state capitol in Ohio was ransacked. What an absolutely wild few hours.
There was plenty of reason to see this particular police officer as a problem, with over a dozen complaints and even a prior shooting, if what I'm hearing is correct. The entire justice system is a failure on every level so I can't even really blame anyone for rioting.
The mayor's office has been at odds with the Minneapolis police union for at least 3 or 4 separate Administrations now. There have been efforts by multiple mayors to reign them in, and they were basically in a cold war with the city government. Now it's a hot war. This officer has to be arrested. There doesn't even seem to be any actual counter-narrative to point to. The resisting arrest narrative isn't true based on any available video. Even if it was, it can't possibly justify what happened after he was handcuffed. You can't treat someone in custody this way. None of this happens if the DA (or it may be the city attorney) simply arrests, at a minimum, the officer who had his knee on Floyd's neck for, again, at a minimum, manslaughter.
This has also proven that people en masse have alot more power than they may have previously thought they did. The idea that an American police precinct could be taken over was unthinkable 12 hours ago. Though it may have been abandoned on direct orders of the mayor to prevent more loss of life on both sides.
In an early morning development, the Minneapolis police seem to have arrested........a CNN reporter and his entire camera crew live on air. But not any of the 4 officers. The fact is that American policing isn't really fixable in it's current state. It would have to be rooted out by the stem and reorganized from scratch to fix what is wrong with it, because the rot is so deep and entrenched that nothing else will make any lasting difference.
They have stormed government buildings and police stations, we'll see if all the squawkers will join the fight for what they believe in. For what is right. For humanity.
As is mentioned here, the Boston Tea Party was a supremely violent affair. The Boston Massacre occurred be one of the British soldiers believed her heard a threat in an angry, crowded protest.
It can't be overstated how much the technology of cell phones play into where we are this morning. This stuff has been taking place on the regular for decades, if not centuries. It's just that now even the poorest person in America will get handed a phone with a video camera in it as long as they sign up for a year of service to ATT or Verizon. And the thing is, people now realize after DOZENS of incidents like this that having video evidence STILL doesn't matter 9 times out 10. And the cops, who ALSO know everyone has the means to document their abuse, are full of so much chutzpah that they don't even care. Despite this new dynamic, and obviously being aware of it, they haven't altered their behavior in ANY way. That is how invincible and impervious to consequence they feel. To know that even if you get caught red-handed violating someone's rights, you have a great chance of walking away with nothing but Administrative leave and having to go work for a department a couple counties away. This cop knew an entire crowd of people were witnessing what he was doing. He knew at least someone was taping it. Would certainly be aware of local businesses having security cams. Would know he has a body cam he didn't bother to shut off like so many of them do. Did not phase him in the slightest.
It's hard to cheer this. I'm from Minnesota. It's a beautiful state and Minneapolis is certainly one of the most pleasant big cities to live in in this country. But I don't know what people expect. Eventually, a straw was going to break the camel's back. And amidst a 100,000+ dead, 25%+ unemployment, a lockdown that is being used to put people against one another, and the fact that we learned that billionaires have gotten billions of dollars richer in the last few months at the expense of everyone else, it was the knee on the neck of George Floyd that was that straw.
By the way, peaceful protest was tried. As many people are pointing out the last 48 hours, Colin Kapernick was ran out of the NFL was respectfully protesting this behavior from cops and turned into a pariah by at least half the country in the meantime. John F. Kennedy:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-05-28/spanish-flu-didnt-wreck-global-economy
It's saying that our expectations, given 100 years of advancement have changed. And I for one am fine holding us to that standard when compared to an era when children were working in sweatshops and there were no child labor laws for another 20 years. Not to mention the medical advancements and the fact that the speed of the travel of information gave us more of a heads up than the people facing the Spanish Flu could have possibly had. If the argument of the article is that people should abandon the expectations the last 100 years have hoisted upon them, that's as much magical thinking as the people who thought the virus was just going to "go away" in warmer weather.
We also aren't done with COVID-19. We are no longer at our peak, but we have traded it for what now seems like a perpetual 15,000-20,000 cases and 1000-1500 deaths a day. Assuming this continues (and I see no reason why it won't), we will easily reach at least half the death count of the Spanish Flu by September.
An actual violation of the first amendment, it's worth noting.
The reporter was UNBELIEVABLY deferential and offered to move anywhere the officers told him to. Not surprisingly, he was black. A white reporter in the same vicinity was left alone. The reporter was released, and the Governor of Minnesota has personally apologized to CNN. But the Minneapolis Police Force is the problem here. By leaps and bounds, their power trip is the root cause of all this and needs to be reigned in.
And the point at the heart of the rioting is this: you are asking people to abide by the law while that same law is not being applied to the police. "Law and order" starts with the arrest of the kneeling officer. Until that happens, people no longer see any reason to play along with the double-standard. They now view the concept of the justice system as fundamentally illegitimate.
The article makes no judgements though, which I thought was very refreshing. The only bad thing I wondered after reading it, is whether or not our society can handle any REAL adversity anymore. As bad as Covid-19 is, it could have been a Hell of a lot worse...
Yeah, but the adversity was essentially being asked to sit at home and collect unemployment with an extra $600 bonus for two months and forgo haircuts and happy hour for the same duration. And alot of people started to crack after about 28 days.
It's not as pleasant as that for many in this country though. As the article points out.
We shut down the entire country for 3 months just for the Boomers. Most catered to generation in the history of the planet. How's your pension plan? Mine doesn't exist. Just like nearly everybody that wasn't born between 1945 and 1964. It's not even their fault really. It's the Goddamned politicians on both sides that bought votes with promises that couldn't be kept. The State of Michigan is twisting around in the wind like a contortionist trying to keep their pension plans funded through this debacle. Won't have to worry about that anymore when my generation retires. They won't owe us a fucking thing...
I saw it in L.A. after Rodney King in 1992.
I saw it in Cincinnati after Timothy Thomas in 2001.
I saw it in The Bay area California after Oscar Grant in 2009.
I saw it during Black Lives Matter.
Nothing is going to change after this. The protesters will still be vilified. The police will still be praised through PR stunts and there will be promises of reform to pander to hand wringers on the sideline.
I guess the only difference is that due to the pandemic, many people don't have jobs to go back to so they can continue rioting and protesting. I'd still give it a week or two and we'll be back to normal.
That CNN live stream though. Surreal.
The fear in the voice of the cameraman at the end... CNN loves it. That's eyeballs. Not a surprise there was an ad at the beginning of it.
My point being that at least the military makes a good faith attempt to police their own, even for things that may have been totally out of the control of the guilty party. There is a culture of accountability. The only culture I see among police unions nationwide is never crossing the thin blue line.
(*) That was a rhetorical question
There is a at least semi-plausible rumor circulating on social media that one of the first people who actually engaged in destruction of property is actually an undercover cop who was identified by his ex-wife. I can't sign onto this yet until we get some actual verification. But at the very least this individual does seems to be acting in a solitary manner not with any crowd, and is acting VERY calm, collected, and methodical about his window breaking. We'll see what comes of it. Personally, it's hard for me to buy into, as it would indicate a level of malevolence that is almost unfathomable.
Completely correct, and they very well should see it as illegitimate. The entire justice system, from the prisons to the selective prosecutions and two-tier justice system, is an abomination. Even if you don't get killed by a police officer, people who can't afford a lawyer get railroaded and treated like garbage a hundred other ways. I even have some stories of my own.
If justice isn't applied equally across the board, it simply doesn't exist.
My personal hypothesis is that the guy might be from Unicorn Riot. They have an oddly impressive track record of being at the right place at the right time. This is all speculation though.
Regardless of who the guy is, he wasn’t there to protest, he was there to vandalize. He was taking advantage of the situation so that the protesters would be blamed for the damage. Obviously that isn’t right. It goes back to villainizing the protesters and blaming them for something they weren’t apart of.
However, the protesters were part of burning down the police station - you know a symbol of what they are protesting against.
But that’s what always makes me think. Why is a business that has nothing to do with the protests in the first place being targeted? Is it a crime of opportunity? or is it more, like a way to villainize, or even insurance fraud? I always question crap like that living in a capital city who has seen its fair share of protests over the years.
That’s Montreal. They riot for the weirdest things. It started with the Richard Riots (look those up if you are not a hockey fan) and what people got away with there and continued long after.
However the Metallica/Guns and Roses concert was a train wreck starting with a Metallica member being burned by the pyrotechnics having to cancel their part of the show.
Pretty much this. I think the "undercover cops started the riot" thing is not particularly different from most conspiracy theories, and I wont give them any weight until evidence starts to surface. The being maybe identified by an Ex isnt enough for me to get on that train yet.
I think this is the correct attitude. Far more likely is that some subset of protesters engaged in these acts, and that's typically what's been proven to be the case in the past. Always important to remember that a small subset doesn't represent what most protesters want or do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/undercover-cops-tried-to-incite-violence-in-montebello-union-leader-1.646775
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-police-admit-they-went-undercover-at-montebello-protest-1.656171
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/may/10/g20-policing-agent-provacateurs
I participated at the G-20 protests in Toronto. I saw first hand the tactics used by the government. I also participated at the Wetʼsuwetʼen railway protest and saw how they tried, along with the media, to take over and change the narrative of the protests.
In my experience those who scream conspiracy are the ones we should be worried about, inadvertently they are helping those who are acting to undermine organized protest.
For these protesters to target CNN.... they know whats up.