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Post by spaceneedle on May 30, 2020 8:09:04 GMT
Not wanting to sound sexist (although that may be impossible in this particular case), but where did Trump dig up that bimbo who is now his press secretary? She must be a Faux News factory reject.
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Post by spaceneedle on May 30, 2020 8:11:18 GMT
Multiple cities are on fire, with protests and some riots.
Protesters scuffled with Secret Service agents in front of the White House tonight.
Just when things can't seem to be worse, the madness continues.
There were protesters in Seattle also, breaking windows, etc. It's going to be a long weekend.
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Post by bjd on May 30, 2020 8:49:28 GMT
As one young woman interviewed in Minneapolis said yesterday, "We have been demonstrating with our signs for years and nothing ever changes. There are never any convictions." It's not surprising that things blow up every few years.
In the current instance, the fact that a lot more African-Americans, as a percentage of fatalities, have died from Covid19 probably adds fuel to the flames.
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Post by whatagain on May 30, 2020 13:22:43 GMT
Trump said if the thugs start looting there will be shooting.
Apparently thug is to be understood nowadsys as the new word for nigger... not sure myself not being able to catch these subtlelties... But shooting if looting is enough for me.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 30, 2020 13:49:33 GMT
Although we fine cultured people don't at all like the word nigger to the extent that many even hesitate to use the term "N-word" (Voldemort, anyone?), this has indeed spawned a new industry of alternate ambiguous terms that allow people to insult to their heart's content. The POTUS knows all of them.
I heard the word nigger during my entire childhood, along with dago, spic, jap, chink and many others. I find them useful to hear as a marker of ignorance, because when disgusting racists use the new fancy words, you can no longer gauge just how disgusting a racist they are, and they can even rise to a position of supreme power in their country. If they were allowed to talk they way they want to talk, it would be much easier to weed them out.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 30, 2020 16:31:12 GMT
Multiple cities are on fire, with protests and some riots. Protesters scuffled with Secret Service agents in front of the White House tonight. Just when things can't seem to be worse, the madness continues. There were protesters in Seattle also, breaking windows, etc. It's going to be a long weekend. Quoting Spaceneedle because her summation captures the breaking down of the US as no hand-wringing or editorializing can. I had to give up my usual leisurely reading through the news today, as it was just too painful and depressing.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 30, 2020 16:48:00 GMT
Governor Cuomo's assessment today of what New York has been through was spectacular.
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Post by Kimby on May 30, 2020 18:49:45 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on May 30, 2020 19:44:13 GMT
My favorite line from Merkel's response is this one. It's a brilliant put-down which Bluto will have to have explained to him: "She will of course continue to monitor the development of the pandemic." I also love that the whole response is in the third person -- so regal a one upmanship.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 30, 2020 19:51:08 GMT
I thought Kimby's name was Angela. Angela Kimby sounds quite nice.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 31, 2020 4:02:05 GMT
Watching the news. It looks like Donald Trump's chickens have come home to roost all across America.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 31, 2020 4:22:30 GMT
Watching the news. It looks like Donald Trump's chickens have come home to roost all across America. *standing applause* PERFECTLY put, Kerouac!
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Post by questa on May 31, 2020 4:52:13 GMT
Agreed !
And it is a fowl mess he has created (sorry, not really a joking matter but I couldn't resist it)
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Post by bjd on May 31, 2020 6:05:50 GMT
Watching the news. It looks like Donald Trump's chickens have come home to roost all across America. *standing applause* PERFECTLY put, Kerouac! I'm more cynical than you are. Another high level lawyer forced out of the Justice Dept after pressure from Fox news, independent auditors fired by Trump, instigation of violence and nasty tweets, trade wars with China, attempts to deflect attention from Trump's terrible handling of the Covid epidemic by trying to create an "Obamagate"... Those chickens are going to be shot on arrival by the same morons trying to break down the doors of Michigan's governor's office.
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Post by spaceneedle on May 31, 2020 8:09:33 GMT
It has been a long and exhausting day. All the civil unrest is very sad. The sad part is that most cities had peaceful protests early on. But what happened here and in other west coast cities is that the anarchists/black bloc/antifa showed up and started fires, and looted. The black bloc have been around a while. They are what I refer to as professional agitators. There is a big contingent of them in Eugene, Oregon and they travel, but they are pretty much all over. The spray paint graffiti on walls (ACAB or ACAD = all cops are b*stards/all cops are d*cks) as their calling cards. They are easy to spot in a crowd once you know what to look for. Primarily young, white dudes wearing all black with hoodies and bandannas on their faces. They carry backpacks which they reverse around to the front of their bodies to use to shield themselves from police batons.They carry molotov cocktail kits and also freeze water in bottles to hurl like rocks at the police. They also use chemicals in balloons that they carry and throw at the police. By no means am I defender of police, but numerous reports from all over the country tonight made mention of the fact that police officers in many cities had to be treated for chemical burns. This is a black bloc thing for sure. BB anarchists are also easy to spot because they angle their way to the front of peaceful protest crowds but do not carry signs or chant or seem otherwise engaged in what is going on. They are often looking around methodically scanning the crowds and surrounding area for plain clothed police and/or opportunities to wreak havoc. They have done this in multiple cities, and taken the opportunity to peacefully demonstrate away from people of color. In Seattle tonight, for example, the peaceful protesters were in the city most of the afternoon. As it began to get dark, those people left and the anarchists took over. At one point, they set fire to a Seattle police cruiser, and broke windows to steal two police rifles. One of the anarchists then started discharging the weapon near a crowd of people! Luckily a local news reporter on the scene had an armed bodyguard (who had a legal pistol permit) who saw a mass shooting was about to take place, and ran immediately to this punk and put his pistol in his face. It was caught on video and happened very quickly. The anarchist dropped the weapon and ran away, and the bodyguard was able to remove the clip and get it to the police. These people have also wreaked havoc in May day marches for years in Seattle which resulted in a lot of property damage. I am furious that they were successful in hijacking these events that were very much needed by our communities of color. A friend of mine who is African American has a business in the Fairfax district in Los Angeles. She is a fourth generation Los Angelino and is in the same business her family has been in for generations. Her store had a police car burned in front of it earlier today, and saw a lot of vandalism and burning of nearby buildings near the Grove/Fairfax area. Her and her brothers are literally camping out all night to make sure the building they own is not torched overnight by anarchists. Here is a photo of what they look like. An expose that was done of the group a while back in the local media here and uncovered that one of the leaders comes from a wealthy family and has a trust fund which pretty much finances his activities as a professional anarchist. I can't even imagine what the uptick in covid infections is going to look like as a result of all this either. Editing to add a BB photo.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 31, 2020 9:02:50 GMT
From a long distance away I suspected something like this was going on.
Thanks for that excellent report spaceneedle.
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Post by spaceneedle on May 31, 2020 9:06:50 GMT
From a long distance away I suspected something like this was going on. Thanks for that excellent report spaceneedle. I'm not sure it was so excellent, but more driven by anger and sadness. The BB/Anarchists are a huge problem that need to be dealt with. They've gotten away with pseudo terrorist activities for far too long, in my opinion. They single handedly destroyed the Occupy movement, which started out as a peaceful protest movement focused on economic inequality. They are thugs, bullies and misogynsts who care nothing for civil rights or for the struggles of the poor or people of color. Their goal is to wreak havoc and violence wherever they go. They did it all day today by provoking the police into confrontations with flash bangs and tear gas after they attacked police cars and started fires.
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Post by whatagain on May 31, 2020 9:30:10 GMT
Demonstrations are so needed but riots comfort the racists and cowards of the need to increase police forces.
Seen from here we cant understand how profoundly racist so many US citizens are... I guess it goes with the poor education the average guy gets there ?
Simply scandalous.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 31, 2020 9:38:37 GMT
We have plenty of black bloc enthusiasts all over Europe waiting to join just about any demonstaration. It's because of the black bloc that the yellow vest movement in France was closed down in a lot of cities (not necessarily a bad thing, because I was never a yellow vest fan). The police here seem to have become quite good these days at infiltrating the black bloc and keeping up with their darkweb social media communications, so in the last year, they have been intercepted very quickly. But they seem to be impossible to stamp out.
The black bloc also always have a change of clothes here so that they can become invisible again in just a few seconds.
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Post by questa on May 31, 2020 10:52:08 GMT
I have memories of the Watts Riots in Los Angeles in the northern summer of 1965. A neighbourhood of 35 square miles was reduced to rubble and over 30 people died.I couldn't believe a country could tear its own self apart.
This monster has spread to more cities with mobile phones, and smarter technology making it easier for the thugs. I hope the brothers and sisters of Anyport are keeping safe.
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Post by lagatta on May 31, 2020 14:08:49 GMT
Black bloc goons have also attacked trade union and popular activist demontrations here for many years, but they seem to be in decline. They have damaged the May Day demonstrations here for years, always showing up at the end, but some of the unions have some very tough marshalls of their own(guys who were building workers etc) and I think they got a bit of a taste of their own medicine. They utterly took over the annual demonstration against police brutality which was originally a peaceful protest welcoming people from racialised communities and other groups likely to be subjected to unfair treatment; when it became a pitched battle of course Black, Brown and Indigenous people stayed away. Trump seems nostalgic for the Old South governors and mayors who were keen to release vicious dogs on African-American Civil Rights marches. www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/30/1948869/-Trump-threatens-protesters-with-dogs-says-Secret-Service-eager-to-attack-calls-on-MAGA-supporters?utm_campaign=trendingAnd it is also very cruel to weaponise dogs in the first place.
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Post by lagatta on May 31, 2020 14:15:41 GMT
And as for Tropical Trump: www.pagina12.com.ar/269238-un-pozo-sin-fondo-llamado-brasil Un pozo sin fondo llamado Brasil (A bottomless pit named Brazil) from Argentina. Neighbouring South American countries are very afraid of that shitstorm - pandemic + possible return of fascist dictatorship. Bolsonaro's cabinet included a former functionary of the Pinochet régime in Chile!
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Post by fumobici on May 31, 2020 14:50:47 GMT
There are lots of good cops out there, but there are also lots of bad ones. And the job pointedly doesn't discriminate between the two. When it comes to the bad cops, bullies, virulent racists, sadists, murderers even, the profession operates more like a criminal gang than a public service. Loyalty is placed above the law, far above. It's exactly the same as how organized crime operates. The various layers of impunity from accountability—from fellow officers who will—must— lie, even under oath, to protect bad cops, even murderers—to prosecutors and DAs who are completely allied with these criminal police gangs under the guise of "law and order".
The cops in Minneapolis were never going to be treated according to law, the fact that the perp wasn't immediately arrested is clear proof of that. Nobody but a cop would be released unarrested and uncharged after a daylight public execution-style murder on the street. The way the system has been built, where cops can literally murder poor, brown people with near total impunity, means violent, racist young men with murderous and violent proclivities have a special place built just for them to operate. It also means there is no hope for justice within the legal system for the victims of these racist violent cops. The DAs and prosecutors won't do anything, they are as in league with the criminal gang as any mob lawyer. Finally, what it means is that if the people being terrorized and brutalized have no means of obtaining justice except through what lawyers might call self-help—doing justice themselves. Mob justice isn't a pretty or good thing, but it's probably better than no justice at all, or worse, justice being violently and systemically denied to victims of injustice.
As I watched the TV late Friday night, I was more behind the people torching that Third Precinct house than the cops who had abandoned it. The only way things will ever change is if the people in these communities make the lawless, corrupt status quo completely intolerable and protesting, rioting and looting are the only way they have to do that. The cops will never reform or change voluntarily, not any more than the Mafia will. The only way to stop them is to stop them, and the law and legal system are so rigged, so broken that it, tragically, cannot be done within the system.
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Post by fumobici on May 31, 2020 14:55:17 GMT
I think a portion of the Black Bloc will be undercover cops or right-wing instigators trying to discredit the cause of whatever protest they are targeting. It's a difficult thing to prove, but there is some evidence that it's a real thing. The guy seen in videos with the umbrella smashing the windows in Minneapolis looks like an obvious candidate.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 31, 2020 15:34:59 GMT
As I watched the TV late Friday night, I was more behind the people torching that Third Precinct house than the cops who had abandoned it. The only way things will ever change is if the people in these communities make the lawless, corrupt status quo completely intolerable and protesting, rioting and looting are the only way they have to do that. I tend to agree with that, even though I always find it a bit distressing to see municipal/governmental items destroyed since I know that taxpayers will have to pay for their replacement and that other things that should have been included in the budget will be abandoned. I also understand that the system is skewed in favour of cops, and I also understand the reason for that, since they work sometimes in ultra difficult conditions. But there should at least be a system where they are detained while an independent body reviews the evidence. If I am not mistaken, I believe that some of the police involved in the incident were wearing body cams, and what they recorded has not been released. Undercover cops in extremist groups of all kinds are a given (at least they are in France). I am less convinced that right wing instigators are involved until the day that we discover that a right wing billionaire is paying them. But I don't think that right wing billionaires bother with such things -- it is so much easier to pay politicians to do all of the dirty work.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 31, 2020 16:58:21 GMT
I believe that Huckle is closest to the truth here. There was too much rushing to blame outside agitators, etc. with of course Whore General Barr chiming in to blame "the left" -- the left in his mind being people not enrolled in the kkk.
Besides any political reasons for sowing chaos, there are always some just looking to loot.
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Post by bjd on May 31, 2020 18:07:05 GMT
There were also reports about those right-wing billionaires funding the anti-lockdown protests in Michigan and elsewhere a few weeks ago.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 31, 2020 18:52:54 GMT
I'll wait to see the proof. I am getting tired of conspiracy theories of all origins.
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Post by casimira on May 31, 2020 22:29:03 GMT
I'll wait to see the proof. I am getting tired of conspiracy theories of all origins. And, how will you know or, what will convince you that it's the truth ?
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Post by questa on Jun 1, 2020 1:28:57 GMT
Whatagain, It is not really the education system's fault. The education starts with the values that a baby grows up in...what the parents think and do or say. The kid gets approval for making racist/ sexist / homophobic remarks and has learnt that "this is the way my family thinks" before starting in the school environment. By the time the child is old enough to make sense of the news on television he/she is already taking sides according to the family's beliefs.
The differences between "Them" and "Us" are reinforced by foods they eat, the games they play, language differences, music and style of dress. If the child has been raised in a home that uses violence to deal with life, the School system can teach tolerance, the child may learn to behave in class, but the thinking and behaviour when the petrol bombs fly comes straight with the baby's first steps.
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