National Guard called into Minneapolis

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Thaluikhain

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We've seen sympathetic protests in Australia now. Don't know how I feel about that.

On one hand, yes, good, this is a serious issue. On the other, Australia has had serious issues with racism in its own police forces for as long as Australia has existed, and nobody much seems to care until people in the US start something. I'm worried that Australian protests will simply copy the US, rather than addressing the different issues we have locally.
 

Agema

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We've seen sympathetic protests in Australia now. Don't know how I feel about that.
I'm boradly against this sort of thing.

I think countries can do well to perhaps look abroad and be inspired, but I think they need to make their own movements addressing their own nation's situation. Racism exists in all countries, but it will have its own character and concerns in all different countries.
 

Eacaraxe

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I've been talking to an old friend from college recently. She was once the most Democratic Democrat I knew. In the last few days, she's scoffed at reform, denounced progress, and rationalized arson, all to stake her position against the evil capitalist system. Otherwise a perfectly kind person, but the communists are getting to her, and I'm very, very tired of the communists.
There are four books you should read to understand this current state of affairs, only one of which directly pertinent to this topic but all are highly illustrative. The first being The New Jim Crow, which I actually struggle to justify mentioning as it only provides an incomplete picture, historically, socially, or economically. The other three being Dying to Win: the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert A. Pape, Making Sense of the Troubles by David McVea, and Palestine: Peace not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter.

There's a fifth but I cannot remember the title, but it's about the Algerian War of Independence. I think it may be Algiers: France's Undeclared War by Evan Martins, but don't hold me to it.

The thing is, there is a massive hole in our current understanding of racial relations in the US between the Civil War and the civil rights movement, and Jim Crow alone does not fill it. Convict leasing, on the other hand, does. And it was not only widespread in the South but North, and was used not only by plantation owners to replace freed black slaves, but northern industrialists as well especially in the coal, steel, and rail industries especially for strikebreaking and union-busting purposes. Culminating in the Red Summer of 1919, which was greatly aggravated by the use of black scab labor by largely northern industrialists for the express intent of stoking racial tensions between labor and black Americans.

The sudden, strange rise of the war on drugs in the wake of the civil rights movement makes a hell of a lot more sense, when you realize black impressment, disenfranchisement, and forced labor never actually ended to begin with. But rather, found alternate means by which it may be justified to the masses, and in fact has been exploited by capital to set labor and civil rights against one another.

So, where do the books on Northern Ireland, Algeria, Palestine, and suicide terror enter the equation? Because civil rights movements, and asymmetrical wars for liberation, are best understood in economic terms. The United Kingdom and France didn't give up their territories willingly nor have they ever, nor did Spain or any other colonial power one might otherwise cite, and nor will Palestine. The expense of empire simply became prohibitive; the cost of military occupation and suppressing resistance, and manufacturing consent in the case of western liberal democracies, outweighed the benefit. Those countries' populations grew fatigued of bearing the cost in terms of lives, perception, materiel, and money, and popular consent for occupation weakened.

This is why rioting, looting, and property destruction aren't just the rational course of action, they're the most strategically logical in the face of a population among whom consent for neoslavery has been manufactured, and neoslavery idealized to the point of normalization. It drives the material, fiscal, social, and political cost of militarized policing to a point of unsustainability. The word "militarized" being key, because the current militarized state of police indicates one might consider the current civil rights movement parallel to a national liberation force resisting military occupation, granting further weight to that argument the strategic logic of national liberation applies as opposed to that of a political movement seeking to effect policy.
 
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Fieldy409

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We've seen sympathetic protests in Australia now. Don't know how I feel about that.

On one hand, yes, good, this is a serious issue. On the other, Australia has had serious issues with racism in its own police forces for as long as Australia has existed, and nobody much seems to care until people in the US start something. I'm worried that Australian protests will simply copy the US, rather than addressing the different issues we have locally.
I don't like it at all either. We've been getting close to the point where Covid-19 is totally eradicated in Australia. It's Really bad timing.
 

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This is a good start in my mind

Now how about we fire the 57 officers who resigned from the emergency team because those two cops were suspended. If you're resigning from the emergency team because you're going to be punished for cracking heads, you shouldn't be a security guard, let alone a cop...
The big problem to police reform would be having to hire private security firms to "police" the city while they recruit and train entire departments to replace them and simultaneously have to deal with forceful backlash and opposition from both the police themselves and the "pro police" supporters that have been enabling and empowering this behavior in the first place. This forces the situation of widespread unpoliced crime some of which will actually be caused by the police and their supporters themselves to " get their point across" , Police and their supporters will also be intentionally and massively interfering with the recruiting, hiring and retraining of new officers and intentionally sabotaging it and their efforts. There is no easy solution to the problem due to how badly this goes down when you try to do anything to resolve it.
 
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tstorm823

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There are four books you should read to understand this current state of affairs, only one of which directly pertinent to this topic but all are highly illustrative. The first being The New Jim Crow, which I actually struggle to justify mentioning as it only provides an incomplete picture, historically, socially, or economically. The other three being Dying to Win: the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert A. Pape, Making Sense of the Troubles by David McVea, and Palestine: Peace not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter.

There's a fifth but I cannot remember the title, but it's about the Algerian War of Independence. I think it may be Algiers: France's Undeclared War by Evan Martins, but don't hold me to it.

The thing is, there is a massive hole in our current understanding of racial relations in the US between the Civil War and the civil rights movement, and Jim Crow alone does not fill it. Convict leasing, on the other hand, does. And it was not only widespread in the South but North, and was used not only by plantation owners to replace freed black slaves, but northern industrialists as well especially in the coal, steel, and rail industries especially for strikebreaking and union-busting purposes. Culminating in the Red Summer of 1919, which was greatly aggravated by the use of black scab labor by largely northern industrialists for the express intent of stoking racial tensions between labor and black Americans.

The sudden, strange rise of the war on drugs in the wake of the civil rights movement makes a hell of a lot more sense, when you realize black impressment, disenfranchisement, and forced labor never actually ended to begin with. But rather, found alternate means by which it may be justified to the masses, and in fact has been exploited by capital to set labor and civil rights against one another.

So, where do the books on Northern Ireland, Algeria, Palestine, and suicide terror enter the equation? Because civil rights movements, and asymmetrical wars for liberation, are best understood in economic terms. The United Kingdom and France didn't give up their territories willingly nor have they ever, nor did Spain or any other colonial power one might otherwise cite, and nor will Palestine. The expense of empire simply became prohibitive; the cost of military occupation and suppressing resistance, and manufacturing consent in the case of western liberal democracies, outweighed the benefit. Those countries' populations grew fatigued of bearing the cost in terms of lives, perception, materiel, and money, and popular consent for occupation weakened.

This is why rioting, looting, and property destruction aren't just the rational course of action, they're the most strategically logical in the face of a population among whom consent for neoslavery has been manufactured, and neoslavery idealized to the point of normalization. It drives the material, fiscal, social, and political cost of militarized policing to a point of unsustainability. The word "militarized" being key, because the current militarized state of police indicates one might consider the current civil rights movement parallel to a national liberation force resisting military occupation, granting further weight to that argument the strategic logic of national liberation applies as opposed to that of a political movement seeking to effect policy.
If those books convinced you violence against civilians is justified, I'm not sure why you would recommend them to others. They've obviously done serious harm to your conscience.
 

Agema

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Now how about we fire the 57 officers who resigned from the emergency team because those two cops were suspended. If you're resigning from the emergency team because you're going to be punished for cracking heads, you shouldn't be a security guard, let alone a cop...
The dominant ethos of the US police seems to be that they need to aggressively assert dominance with heavy use of force to do their job. Reading quite a lot of comment from many US policemen and advocates says to me that they do not believe they can operate effectively without a licence to freely commit violence as they see fit. Implicitly, Floyd and that 75-year old who was pushed over are eggs needed to make an omelette.

If that attitude is so ingrained, reworking it is a task of massive institutional change.
 
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Tens of thousands of protesters in cities across the UK today. I'm not sure I see the logic in these mass Black Lives Matter protests where we're in the middle of an epidemic that disproportionately affects black people. It's almost like the protesters are putting black lives at risk. Still, at least they get to feel like they're fighting the good fight, so I guess it's alright.

One of the protesters threw a bicycle at a horse. It must have been a racist horse.
 

Sneed's SeednFeed

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Tens of thousands of protesters in cities across the UK today. I'm not sure I see the logic in these mass Black Lives Matter protests where we're in the middle of an epidemic that disproportionately affects black people. It's almost like the protesters are putting black lives at risk. Still, at least they get to feel like they're fighting the good fight, so I guess it's alright.

One of the protesters threw a bicycle at a horse. It must have been a racist horse.
Part of the reason it disproportionately affects black people is because of successive generations of systemic racism and impoverishment that means that black and south asian people end up forming a significant part of the UK's labour force, and that they're not in a position to have their wages furloughed, since often these include service sector jobs and work deemed essential by the government (also doctors are getting boned over it too so even a strike over better work conditions and more PPE is completely off the table in either case given the situation).

Admittedly it is a class issue, but class and the racial skew of the epidemic are factors in co production. It's also not like the UK hasn't profitted from generations of slavery or racial abuse and that people don't have a right to voice these issues. Greenfell is still a fresh memory as are the countless murders committed by the British police against its non-white community.
 

Eacaraxe

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If those books convinced you violence against civilians is justified, I'm not sure why you would recommend them to others. They've obviously done serious harm to your conscience.
Funny you think I'm justifying violence against civilians. Would you care to elaborate on my pointing out property destruction is strategically logical in a conflict best understood on economic terms, is equivalent in your mind to violence against civilians?

And, moreover, you would do exceptionally well to ask yourself who is performing what acts of violence against whom, not what.
 

Revnak

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Funny you think I'm justifying violence against civilians. Would you care to elaborate on my pointing out property destruction is strategically logical in a conflict best understood on economic terms, is equivalent in your mind to violence against civilians?

And, moreover, you would do exceptionally well to ask yourself who is performing what acts of violence against whom, not what.
Should be remembered that non-violent protesting has always been tactical and economically targeted, from general strikes to hunger strikes to sit-ins. Ghandi’s ideas worked because they made India ungovernable an unprofitable, not because the British had a change of heart. He did mountains of economic damage to the British, including property damage. The Civil Rights movement was the same. The cleansed history of these movements is also tactical, liberals don’t want you to know your power lies not in the sentimentality of elites, but the economic reality that they are utterly powerless within the economic framework of capitalism before a united front of workers.
 

tstorm823

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Funny you think I'm justifying violence against civilians. Would you care to elaborate on my pointing out property destruction is strategically logical in a conflict best understood on economic terms, is equivalent in your mind to violence against civilians?

And, moreover, you would do exceptionally well to ask yourself who is performing what acts of violence against whom, not what.
It's odd that I said violence against civilians, meaning people. Then you told me that it's property destruction. Then tried to make me consider whom, not what, as though I didn't specifically say whom in the first place.
 

tstorm823

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Should be remembered that non-violent protesting has always been tactical and economically targeted, from general strikes to hunger strikes to sit-ins. Ghandi’s ideas worked because they made India ungovernable an unprofitable, not because the British had a change of heart. He did mountains of economic damage to the British, including property damage. The Civil Rights movement was the same. The cleansed history of these movements is also tactical, liberals don’t want you to know your power lies not in the sentimentality of elites, but the economic reality that they are utterly powerless within the economic framework of capitalism before a united front of workers.
There is certainly value in economic protests towards effecting change, but that doesn't mean you can just state a cause and cause damage and it will make what you want happen. Burning down properties in inner cities where people are disproportionately racial minorities makes it economically untenable to... do retail in inner cities. In places that are already sometimes urban food deserts. In what way does that make racial inequality economically untenable?
 

Seanchaidh

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There is certainly value in economic protests towards effecting change, but that doesn't mean you can just state a cause and cause damage and it will make what you want happen. Burning down properties in inner cities where people are disproportionately racial minorities makes it economically untenable to... do retail in inner cities. In places that are already sometimes urban food deserts. In what way does that make racial inequality economically untenable?
Burning down properties in cities may or may not be necessary to make racial inequality economically untenable, but burning down those properties is not, in fact, sufficient to make racial inequality economically untenable. Riots by themselves aren't typically an ironclad political strategy.

Anyway, things that matter more:
 
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Revnak

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When a leftist says that “cops exist to protect private property” they don’t mean they exist to protect your private property, they mean the private property of the extremely wealthy. The rest of us can get fucked.
 
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Revnak

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And try not to forget NYPD are basically trying to do a coup.
 
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MrCalavera

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I'm boradly against this sort of thing.

I think countries can do well to perhaps look abroad and be inspired, but I think they need to make their own movements addressing their own nation's situation. Racism exists in all countries, but it will have its own character and concerns in all different countries.
It all depends on the angle, but... i don't see protests against the brutality of american police in other countries different, than let's say, palestinian diaspora's protests against IDF. Or, to reach more in the past, protests against Vietnam War, or human right abuses behind the Iron Curtain.
 
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