All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[PwrdOn]

Look, I didn’t bring up the Boston Tea Party, so I don’t know why you dragged me into that. I was referencing the entire American revolution, where a lot of people died so white people in America could dominate. Versus now where if black people rebel it’s not okay.

I mean, it is funny that so much of our national identity is wrapped up in the American Revolution yet we are rarely ever taught what it was actually about. Forget all that nonsense about freedom from tyranny, in practice the government of the early United States was indistinguishable from the colonial administration, and indeed perhaps the greatest contribution of the revolution made to advancing the cause of liberty was to inspire the French to revolt with a far more radical stance which has had much farther ranging effects on politics the world over. The real reason the colonists revolted was because they were hungry for native land, after all most of them had only moved here in the first place because of the promise of vast tracts of open space just waiting to be settled, and with the British victory in the Seven Years' War and subsequent seizure of all French territory in North America, they believed that the gateway west was now wide open. However, the British insistence on maintaining the treaties the native tribes had signed with the French left the colonists bottled up near the coast, an intolerable situation as the vast majority of that land had already been claimed by a handful of wealthy plantation owners, and there were innumerable young men yearning to strike out into the frontier and stake their own claim, never mind all the people already living there. Admittedly, it is unlikely that the British could have maintained the borders as they were for long anyway, and there were certainly plenty of British investors who saw opportunities out west that they wanted to claim for themselves rather than allowing the colonists to get there first. But fundamentally, that's what the Revolutionary War was about, two groups of white men fighting over who had the right to take over native lands.

[Tendrin]

Sure.

That said, it doesn't really change the reality.

Lots of riots happen. There's a reason most folks will barely remember their names or why they happened versus the pretty calculated political move that the Boston Tea Party was.

It's important to get that difference.

Good god, dude. Not only do you 1) have less idea what you're talking about than you think you do 2) can't even take someone marginally following up a point you made without feeling the need to belittle or correct the person doing it.

Stop being so unbearable.

Riots in early America *were* frequently planned events. Food prices too high? We'll bring in a bunch of people to perform collective, corrective action on the market. This happened *all the time*, and it was a planned, orchestrated event frequently.

[Electricmastro]

White House Locked Down Due to George Floyd Protesters: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/l...otest/2316832/

[Tendrin]

From Ryan Grim, whom I otherwise despise:

According to the charging document, an officer checked #GeorgeFloyd’s pulse and said he couldn’t find one. Chauvin kept his knee on his neck for *another* 1:54.

[The no face guy]

The only reason slavery never took off in Canada was because your climate wasn't suitable for it, not because your people were any less racist or greedy. There's plenty of stories of slaves escaping to Canada via the underground railroad only to receive the exact same treatment they would have gotten at home. And besides, the only reason your country even exists was to supply cheap raw materials to the British Empire, which helped sustain it through centuries of genocide and exploitation around the globe.

For the sake of what is going down in your country right now, I shall not engage in debate, as this is not the appropriate time to do so. I will simply state you once again you make claims without empirical evidence, which you always do.

I am sorry if the video of the blatant murder of George Floyd sickened me to my stomach to point that I made slights against your country. I really must find a way to avoid watching American news, it's so depressing, but Canada is saturated with it. You are our beloved cousins, but when the borders reopen, I don't think I shall visit your country for a very long time, good day.

[PaulBullion]

Yes, certainly.



Yes, certainly.

EDIT: Sorry, I was being too flip with my original answer to the second question.

Yes, certainly I think we can trace a correlation between privilege and willingness to riot for no justifiable reason other than they thinking privilege hasn't gotten them what they want.

I say this as one of the privileged, under my own definition.

Also, privilege means that they can expect less negative outcomes from their rioting. No football fan who helps overturn a car expects to be murdered by police or go to jail for that.

[PaulBullion]

How would democracy make sure that this never happens?

By creating a better separation of powers and making sure there is better oversight of the police that ends the centuries of extrajudicial murder by the people who should supposedly protect us. It's not like there are other countries where police even pulling their guns and shooting are very rare exceptions. Stop pretending that the world ends at our beaches and that we are doomed to being the shithole country we are.

[chamber-music]

Why is it that cops are more afraid of a single unarmed Black man than they are of 100 white guys with guns?

There have actually been multiple studies that revealed black men are seen as being stronger and bigger than they actually are by people from other races.

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/13/h...rnd/index.html

[Electricmastro]

19-year-old killed in drive-by during Detroit police brutality protest: https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...st/5289629002/

[PaulBullion]

If that's true, then the question must be asked: why have they been so slow to charge police officers in these types of cases in the past?

They interviewed Erig Garner's widow on some news channel about this. She said at first she felt a sense of satisfaction that George Floyd's family did not have to wait for months like she had to. But they she felt angry that she would even have to feel satisfaction at what should be a given.

[Electricmastro]

There have actually been multiple studies that revealed black men are seen as being stronger and bigger than they actually are by people from other races.

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/13/h...rnd/index.html

There’s also the possibility I had been told in that Nixon’s War on Drugs ended up specifying on black people, as well as Mexican people, on the accusation of them being apart of criminal drug trade gangs, and even though Nixon has long since passed away, the antagonism built up from that War on Drugs is supposedly what has considerably fueled persecution towards black people and Mexican people in recent history, and has partially led to the police generally distrusting black people today because of that projected assumption, among others.

[PaulBullion]

Justice John Roberts joined the sane judges in keeping Governor Newsom's restrictions on church services in place.

[jetengine]

There’s also the possibility I had been told in that Nixon’s War on Drugs ended up specifying on black people, as well as Mexican people, on the accusation of them being apart of criminal drug trade gangs, and even though Nixon has long since passed away, the antagonism built up from that War on Drugs is supposedly what has considerably fueled persecution towards black people and Mexican people in recent history, and has partially led to the police generally distrusting black people today because of that projected assumption, among others.

Nixons War on Drugs WAS focused on Black people. Theres witness and audio evidence that they explicitly planted crack in the black community to mess with them. Which is...just insane. Like even in a "machivellian supervillain" kind of its still ridiculous. You gain nothing in material value out of it besides perhaps demonising blacks and black voters whom wont vote for you. Sure that seems like a reasonable (if horrendous) gain from it. But you could do the same with gerry mandering which is infinitely cheaper, less harmful to america as a whole and doesnt potentially lead back to you in a ridiculous scandal.

[PaulBullion]

Meanwhile Bolsonaro, aka the Southern Trump, is weaponizing the coronavirus by letting it run free and disproportionately killing black and brown people. Brazil now has more daily new infections than the US, the most in the world now.

[jetengine]

Meanwhile Bolsonaro, aka the Southern Trump, is weaponizing the coronavirus by letting it run free and disproportionately killing black and brown people. Brazil now has more daily new infections than the US, the most in the world now.

Its been pretty much stated that "If you have an incompetent populist wannabe strongman in charge then your attempts to deal with covid will be worse" and so far its stacking up with Boris, Trump and Southern Trump.

Oh and Cummings has refused to resign, so he flouted all the rules despite the police saying he broke them, lied frequently and now that track and trace as well as ecenomic talks are here has apparently gotten away with it.