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Mon 27 Apr, 2015 09:46 pm
Not till the last week has this popped into my head, but I wonder. This society has been storing up a lot of anger, and no one seems to be working very hard on fixing American.....especially not those Assholes Washington who spend all their time schmoozing with money and playing their juvenile political games. The hills have a lot of fuel just itching to burn, and there is no water in sight.
I am thinking that we are somewhere after 930pm on the doomsday clock.
What say you?
Seriously, the guys who have been saying for years that the cops have to be like the LAPD of old, strike hard and strike fast because the police are outnumbered and outgunned might have a point. Once the citizen no long fear the police can the state (all levels of government) keep order? You just know for instance beyond a shadow of a doubt that the drug runners for instance have mobilized to take advantage of situation. Gangs are now a very big problem.
Hang on folks, this is going to get interesting.
Quit murdering citizens and abusing your authority. Problem solved
There was a Yelp review here in Olympia the other day saying that because this business had a barista who was serving and friendly towards a cop that they would never go in again....they dont want to give their money to this kind of a scummy business.
That is heavy.
@blueveinedthrobber,
blueveinedthrobber wrote:
Quit murdering citizens and abusing your authority. Problem solved
in case you did not see one of the other half dozen times I have dealt with this argument, the problem is not the cops, it is their political bosses.
@hawkeye10,
I disagree. A cop who beats someone to death or shoots someone dead or uses deadly or excessive force when it's not called for is not accompanied by his/her political boss at the time it occurs. In addition, if the mere site of black youth on a side street puts the fear of death in the heart of a cop , that copisn't cut out for law enforcement work and needs a job elsewhere. I'm a scrawny 65 year old dj and I pass people on the street late at night all the time that could possibly be shady and I don't piss my pants and start shooting.
The militaristic "overwhelming force at the least sign of resistance" is a mentality that should be reserved for engaging foreign enemies, not domestic citizens, if domestic peace is the goal. The guys at the top need to recognize this and implement nuanced approaches to various situations. You know, like advanced countries do.
@FBM,
Agree. And when regular, middle class, more or less law abiding citizens begin to find a police presence to be upsetting, there will be fewer people going into law enforcement to "Protect and Serve". I think we may have entered into some sort of downward spiral.
There is a notion being repeated over and over that the rioters are "outside agitators," and that peace-loving citizens of Baltimore, Ferguson, New York etc have nothing to do with the looting and arson.
This is nonsense. While I'm sure there are, in fact, agitators who show up in these cities at times like these, they wouldn't have a very long career of agitating if they participated directly in the rioting. Agitators agitate, they don't do the dirty work.
The people involved in the rioting last night (and likely tonight too) were citizens of Baltimore - kids and adults. They were also criminal thugs, not revolutionaries. The victims of their crimes were the black members of the black communities in which the rioting occurred. People who lost jobs, cars and businesses. (BTW - if anyone has taken comfort in thinking these people will recover from insurance, don't. Almost all polices exclude damage due to rioting. These people have lost a lot or all). So what did the rioting accomplish?
Meanwhile there are irresponsible, liberal idiots writing in The Atlantic that "non-violence is compliance," tweeting that last night saw "Baltimore Rising," and sending out a message, on CNN, to the thugs that they should "riot strategically."
Oppression and mistreatment of African-Americans was far more widespread and insidious during the Jim Crow days and yet not only was non-violence good enough for MLK, it worked.
If Freddie Grey's parents were horrified by the violence and called for it to stop, who were these criminals to presume that they had a greater cause for anger?
Meanwhile there were great numbers of courageous, responsible members of the communities who were on the streets confronting rioters and attempting to restore order. They've gotten coverage on TV and in print, but nowhere near what the thugs got. Instead black citizens of black communities are suffering and working hard to clean up the mess, wondering if they have to go through another lawless night of pointless destruction. Meanwhile Baltimore gets a big black-eye and racism is fueled by film of a society breaking down at the hands of blacks, regardless of how unrepresentative of their community they were.
(Oh, and if you are thinking something like "Well racists are like that and everyone knows you can't blame all African-Americans for the actions of a few!" ask yourself if you are blaming all cops for the actions of a few?)
So well done you revolutionaries carrying Pringles and toilet paper out of CVS in righteous rebellion against The Man. Well done you drunken warriors in the fight against oppressive Whitey, driving stolen cars at breakneck speeds through city streets and then setting them on fire. As you hugged one another, framed in the glow of burning tires, a tear came to my eye...it was just like the 60's!
@Finn dAbuzz,
Good to see you posting again, Finn. Welcome back.
@Finn dAbuzz,
Quote:There is a notion being repeated over and over that the rioters are "outside agitators," and that peace-loving citizens of Baltimore, Ferguson, New York etc have nothing to do with the looting and arson.
This is nonsense
I dont know that this is nonsense. I live in Olympia Washington which is a very liberal town, and know of locals who traveled to Madison during the Walker recall and to ferguson to "be a part of something". They way I figure it if they were free and motivated to travel all that way then they likely are the types of people who would be willing to get violent, as I figure anger has to be a big part of the motivator...that and wanting to collect stories to tell.
Quote:Meanwhile there are irresponsible, liberal idiots writing in The Atlantic that "non-violence is compliance," tweeting that last night saw "Baltimore Rising," and sending out a message, on CNN, to the thugs that they should "riot strategically.
the apologists for violent criminals in "journalism" and politics are certainly getting on my nerves.
Quote:Well done you drunken warriors in the fight against oppressive Whitey, driving stolen cars at breakneck speeds through city streets and then setting them on fire
Lets remember that we suffered through a couple of months of idiots demonstrating for the brand "HANDS UP-DONT SHOOT" when it was clear within days that the few people in ferguson claiming to have seen Big Mike trying to surrender were mostly not even in a position to see what happened, and were countered by a lot of actual witnesses and then later the lab evidence. Fidelity to reality is clearly optional.
@Finn dAbuzz,
Welcome back, Finn. I've been wondering. . . .
@hawkeye10,
I would like to point out that the lefts embrace of violence is going to be a very big problem for the D's. Very few of the independents that the D's need to get elected swing that way, and most are deeply offended. If these people ever learned anything from MLK they have forgotten it all.
@hawkeye10,
Ferguson: In Defense of Rioting
Quote:That protest back in 1773 was meant to effect political and societal change, and while the destruction of property in that case may not have ended in loss of human life, the revolution that took place afterward certainly did. What separates a heralded victory in history from an attempt at societal change, a cry for help from the country’s trampled, today? The fact that we won.
In terms of riots being more common in black communities, that is true only when the riots are politically aimed.
The obvious example here is the L.A. Riots of 1992, after the Rodney King beating and verdict. I would put forth that peaceful protesting is a luxury of those already in mainstream culture, those who can be assured their voices will be heard without violence, those who can afford to wait for the change they want.
“I risk sounding racist but if this was a white kid there would be no riot,” another person wrote on the Tea Party page. “History shows us that blacks in this country are more apt to riot than any other population. They are stirred up by racist black people and set out to cause problems. End of story.”
Blacks in this country are more apt to riot because they are one of the populations here who still need to. In the case of the 1992 riots, 30 years of black people trying to talk about their struggles of racial profiling and muted, but still vastly unfair, treatment, came to a boil. Sometimes, enough is simply too much. And after that catalyst event, the landscape of southern California changed, and nationally, police forces took note.
And the racism they are fighting, the racism we are all fighting, is still alive and well throughout our nation. The modern racism may not culminate in separate water fountains and separate seating in the backs of buses, but its insidious nature is perhaps even more dangerous to the individuals who have to live under the shroud of stereotypical lies society foists upon them.
Instead of tearing down other human beings who are acting upon decades of pent-up anger at a system decidedly against them, a system that has told them they are less than human for years, we ought to be reaching out to help them regain the humanity they lost, not when a few set fire to the buildings in Ferguson, but when they were born the wrong color in the post-racial America.
http://time.com/3605606/ferguson-in-defense-of-rioting/
Typical "the ends justify the means" argument that we see constantly from the left now, and often from the Right as well (think about the selling of the invasion of Iraq).
@hawkeye10,
I am left and not violent nor a pusher of violence. I've been through a couple of riots, Watts - when I didn't know much but my later husband was playing baseball there that day while pale - and later when we had to leave and that night the place next to our studio was flamed, in the LA riots.
There are reasons for all this, and also specifics developing anger for good reasons. I generally agreed re the anger (I'm white). My ex's white parents used to live a block from where the scene developed in '92. Had been happy, needed to leave, had left already.
The angry young can mess things up big time. It is hard for me to yell at those of them who are serious, but even though I get it, it's a free for all for unuseful anger. I'd rather see useful anger, engagement with power.
@hawkeye10,
hawkeye10 wrote:What say you?
I don't know, but if you are right I hope the government starts gunning down rioters.
There is no reason why we should put up with this sort of nonsense.
@roger,
roger wrote:
Agree. And when regular, middle class, more or less law abiding citizens begin to find a police presence to be upsetting, there will be fewer people going into law enforcement to "Protect and Serve". I think we may have entered into some sort of downward spiral.
Does seem like a self-feeding loop, dunnit? Team A is violent, so Team B responds with more violence, causing Team A to up the ante, causing Team B to...
@FBM,
I think what he was saying is the first the political bosses dont properly manage the cops, then people lose respect for the cops and say so. then the cops get demoralized and wonder if this job is worth risking their lives for, then crime goes up, then the people really get scared and pissed because we have not seen major crime rates in decades and so we are not used to it (this is spite of the feminist babbling on about their imaginary rape culture)........then what?
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