On 6/7/2020 at 10:54 AM, ooqpoo said:

Is police brutality really so widespread? I mean I know it's a thing and all but the sheer size and amount of violence of the protests seems somehow disproportionate and counterproductive. Has it turned into a kind of general protest against whatever, for everyone and their mothers to partake in to vent various frustrations? 

In reality, the healthcare system is immeasurably more evil, but it's also easier for people to ignore because it isn't as public, and because it's keeping its addicts hooked.

Mostly, people are protesting so much because of quarantine boredom.  It wouldn't be as bad if they were able to go outside and do stuff like go to work.

  On 6/7/2020 at 10:54 AM, ooqpoo said:

 

  On 6/7/2020 at 6:05 PM, drillkicker said:

In reality, the healthcare system is immeasurably more evil, but it's also easier for people to ignore because it isn't as public, and because it's keeping its addicts hooked.

Dude ... what are you even talking about? The health care system keeping its addicts hooked? WTF?

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Mostly, people are protesting so much because of quarantine boredom.  It wouldn't be as bad if they were able to go outside and do stuff like go to work.

Maybe watch a few of those videos that go around. Or, you know, ask a black person. Sheesh ...

Yes, the healthcare system actually makes a massive amount of money from getting people hooked on benzodiazepines.  It's something that very rarely gets talked about because it would be bad for business if it did, but it's actually very common.  The reason why they choose benzodiazepines is because they are possibly the most strongly addictive substances currently known, and they also aren't lethal like opiates are.  It ruins people's lives in a very slow and invisible way that the victims rarely talk about because it's too embarrassing to admit or seek help (largely because medical professionals are viewed as infallible, and it would be seen as the patient's fault if he happens to get addicted to pills).  It's especially effective with older victims whose bodies can't handle the intense withdrawal period, but doctors aren't above prescribing it to anyone and everyone.  I've had a prescription offered to me for very minor neck pain and no signs of anything serious.

This thread has a specific purpose. And it is not about benzos or "quarantine boredom." The former is indeed a problem, but please, remember what we're talking about here.

Anyway, as most of us are aware, lots of people are being arrested for peacefully protesting and are held in situations that are particularly dangerous during the pandemic. If you want, you can help donate to bail funds for people who want to voice their concerns without being held in ridiculous pretrial detention facilities for simply exercising their first amendment rights. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd

Yeah, I know what you mean. I can't help but wonder to what degree Trump/corona frustration etc. is fuelling the fire of these protests.    

Lots of great ideas for pitching in here: https://www.thecut.com/article/george-floyd-protests-how-to-help-where-to-donate.html

  On 6/7/2020 at 7:17 PM, ooqpoo said:

Yeah, I know what you mean. I can't help but wonder to what degree Trump/corona frustration etc. is fuelling the fire of these protests.    

it could also be the over 1,000 people that got killed by cops in the US in 2019 alone

No doubt it is, but that number has not suddenly skyrocketed to where it is now, actually had been floating around the 1000 mark for the last few years at least. I don't think it's unrealistic to surmise that the coronavirus situation and the general worldwide malaise and confusion caused by Trump's escalating madness have had a large impact on the scale and spread of these riots. 

1098 in 2019. 
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org

What that site underscores is where you live matters. It also underscores the importance of participating in local elections to get people who will use policies to reduce use of force elected. http://useofforceproject.org
 

10K people die from drunk drivers every year in the US. But you didn’t “burn the bitch down”. You  instituted policies to reduce that number (it used to be much worse), make cars safer etc etc. 
 

Stop thinking you’re helpless and go out and participate in your democracy. Vote the change you want. 

The “defund the police” thing isn’t helping. It misses the point and gives Trump ammo. Also, I think just using the phrase “systemic racism”, like Biden just did a few times in his op-ed goes over more heads than you think. It’s a phrase a lot of people have been told to write off and they need it explained well. That’s why I think the war on drugs is the best thing to talk about when it comes to this because there are a lot of white people getting wiped out by OxyContin. People will be more inclined to listen. 

Get rid of the war on drugs, reinstate community policing, and send mental health professionals to domestic violence calls, with police along in case it gets rough. 
And stop with the gun fetishization. Please for the love of all that’s holy. 
 

Edit: oh and the paramilitary culture that exists in police forces needs to change as well. 

  On 6/8/2020 at 2:30 AM, chenGOD said:

Get rid of the war on drugs, reinstate community policing, and send mental health professionals to domestic violence calls, with police along in case it gets rough. 
And stop with the gun fetishization. Please for the love of all that’s holy. 
 

Edit: oh and the paramilitary culture that exists in police forces needs to change as well. 

How

  On 6/8/2020 at 4:49 AM, dingformung said:

How

To get rid of the war on drugs, stop cops tossing users in prison. Get rid of the three-strikes rule. Decriminalize possession and go after the people pumping poison like fentanyl onto the streets. 
To reinstate community policing, have cops start walking a beat again, as opposed to driving around. Get them engaged within the community through various outreach activities. 

Modernize management culture and implement more flat structures as opposed to rigid hierarchies. Improve mental health resources available to law enforcement. 
 

Invest some of the money previously spent on military equipment on mental health professionals with specialized de-escalation training for domestic calls (which make up so many of the calls cops face daily), as well as increase training for the “muscle” accompanying those mental health professionals. 
 

The gun fetishization one is huge and I don’t know how the US deals with it. So many problems there. 

  On 6/8/2020 at 2:30 AM, chenGOD said:

Get rid of the war on drugs, reinstate community policing, and send mental health professionals to domestic violence calls, with police along in case it gets rough. 
And stop with the gun fetishization. Please for the love of all that’s holy. 
 

Edit: oh and the paramilitary culture that exists in police forces needs to change as well. 

The TSA thinks they're cops. The cops think they're military. And the military thinks they're GI Joe.

  On 6/8/2020 at 5:10 AM, chenGOD said:

To get rid of the war on drugs, stop cops tossing users in prison. Get rid of the three-strikes rule. Decriminalize possession and go after the people pumping poison like fentanyl onto the streets. 
To reinstate community policing, have cops start walking a beat again, as opposed to driving around. Get them engaged within the community through various outreach activities. 

Modernize management culture and implement more flat structures as opposed to rigid hierarchies. Improve mental health resources available to law enforcement. 
 

Invest some of the money previously spent on military equipment on mental health professionals with specialized de-escalation training for domestic calls (which make up so many of the calls cops face daily), as well as increase training for the “muscle” accompanying those mental health professionals. 
 

The gun fetishization one is huge and I don’t know how the US deals with it. So many problems there. 

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But that's socialism!

What Happened to Crime in Camden?

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So what’s happening in this city, which for many years has been deemed among the dangerous in America? Thomson, who took the helm of the Camden police force in 2008, says the biggest factor may have been the change in structure of the department itself. In 2013, the Camden Police Department was disbanded, reimagined, and born again as the Camden County Police Department, with more officers at lower pay—and a strategic shift toward “community policing.”

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https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/what-happened-to-crime-in-camden/549542/?fbclid=IwAR2Icv3wGOcQ5OY_-74Bo-iaCKCLmqHw_d6pv8XyxykArFy90BpbuaGgGhg

^ this.

Even in the best of circumstances (Nordic countries, say) policemen are bullies. This is probably an inevitable effect of putting people in uniform and giving them power - you see it in airport security people, uniformed parking attendants and, heck, lifeguards, as well.

Completely doing away with people in positions of authority who wear uniforms is probably not such a good idea. So we have to do the next best thing, which is to mitigate the extent of the damage they can do. 

STATUE OF SLAVE TRADER TOPPLED IN BRISTOL

I do not agree with this.  You cannot erase history.  Our children should know how we got to be where we are today.  I certainly agree with the black lives matter campaign and have done a fair bit of reading up over the weekend.  But there are surely much better ways to make in impactful statement than going out, causing damage, attacking police officers, and putting yourself and others at risk to Covid. 

Plus: Covid gonna be rife again 2 weeks time.  There are better ways to protest right now. 

To me it feels like all of the lockdown sacrifices that the vast majority of the UK citizens have made have basically gone to waste.

  On 6/8/2020 at 10:03 AM, Soloman Tump said:

STATUE OF SLAVE TRADER TOPPLED IN BRISTOL

 

 

I do not agree with this.  You cannot erase history.  Our children should know how we got to be where we are today.  I certainly agree with the black lives matter campaign and have done a fair bit of reading up over the weekend.  But there are surely much better ways to make in impactful statement than going out, causing damage, attacking police officers, and putting yourself and others at risk to Covid. 

Plus: Covid gonna be rife again 2 weeks time.  There are better ways to protest right now. 

To me it feels like all of the lockdown sacrifices that the vast majority of the UK citizens have made have basically gone to waste.

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I used to agree with you, about the erasing history thing.

Then I did a little Godwin.

Some statues should be toppled. This one doesn't score a lot of Hitler points (but it does score *some*) but it has no business being anywhere but in a historical museum either.

The thing is: having a statue of someone in a public place celebrates that person. In 2020 we should probably no longer celebrate racists, slave traders and genocidal maniacs.

I can see why someone like Churchill (led the UK in the fight against Nazi Germany, callously let millions of Bengalis starve to death) might be problematic. This guy: not so much. Just move him to a museum.

  On 6/8/2020 at 10:03 AM, Soloman Tump said:

STATUE OF SLAVE TRADER TOPPLED IN BRISTOL

 

 

I do not agree with this.  You cannot erase history.  Our children should know how we got to be where we are today.  I certainly agree with the black lives matter campaign and have done a fair bit of reading up over the weekend.  But there are surely much better ways to make in impactful statement than going out, causing damage, attacking police officers, and putting yourself and others at risk to Covid. 

Plus: Covid gonna be rife again 2 weeks time.  There are better ways to protest right now. 

To me it feels like all of the lockdown sacrifices that the vast majority of the UK citizens have made have basically gone to waste.

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Hmmm, I have mixed feelings about the toppling of this statue.
The statue of a slave trader standing high on a pedestal in the middle of a public square might give a by-passer the impression that one should adore it ~ look up to it, which might have been the original intention of this statue, or not, who knows.
Anyway it gives that impression to a lot of people, as is apparent from the toppling.

However, it is still a work of art, having artistic value and historic value.
Thus, I feel, the statue might better belong in a museum, or be lifted from it's pedestal on the ground where people can look down on it and be accompanied with a text describing what the statue represents and why it was placed differently.

Throwing it in the river, never to be seen again, is -in my opinion- burying the past, without being able to learn from it.
I hope a local artist reuses the statue to make a smart statement on the things that are happening right now.

"He who controls the past controls the future; He who controls the present controls the past"

Interestingly in Bristol, it appears the police stood by and allowed the statue to be toppled. They went in with a low key approach ahead of the protests, were not sufficiently staffed to protect the statue, and so stood down. They realised how volatile the situation could have got if they had intervened. 

I like the idea of the statue being reclaimed and confined to a museum.

Bristol’s slave past is the only reason the city as it exists now is even possible. Lot of old slave emancipation insurance payouts expanded & consolidated the city’s infrastructure. It goes deeper than this one symbol.

That statue was an abomination. Given the age of the black community’s presence in the city, just like Cardiff’s Butetown, compounded by the current climate means it got shitcanned. It isn’t a lesson that needs to be re-contextualised in a museum or heritage center. It would’ve served better as scrap, recycled. Reminds me of Richmond VA & Stonewall Jackson.

A person drives up to the Seattle protest, armed, starts firing, and then is able to take refuge behind police lines.