Jesus Christ. Everyone could see he was choking the man to death. The cop knew what he was doing.

What video are you watching that has a cop in it? I saw a video of a cop choking a man with his knee. Do you mean you believe there was intent? And then there's the alleged citizen's arrest gone wrong in the case of Arbery but involving a former cop.

I'm just wondering because potentially this might be the first time we agree on something.

The Facebook video of the cop kneeling on a man’s neck. The bystanders could see what was going on. The man said he couldn’t breathe. He was already cuffed. So why kneel on his neck? It looks like murder to me.

:gasp: I agree.

Yeah. They ALWAYS do. They're "trained" to know what they're doing under duress. And yet ... :shade:

But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain't the time for your tears. — Bob Dylan

But we most strongly suspect from the most bitter experience that even with published video, even with clear identification, even with a public and international outcry, justice will not be done. And then it will be time for your tears, because without justice there is no nation and no law and no civilisation, and not to hate injustice is to hate the whole of mankind.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/chief-prosecutor-amy-klobuchar-dismissed-charges-cop-killed-george-floyd/267933/

"Klobuchar also called for a “complete and thorough outside investigation into what occurred, and those involved in this incident must be held accountable.” However, this is unlikely to occur, in no small part because of Klobuchar herself and the precedent she set while serving as the state’s chief prosecutor between 1999 and 2007. In that time, she declined to bring charges against more than two dozen officers who had killed citizens while on duty – including against Chauvin himself, who shot and killed Wayne Reyes in 2006 and would later go on to shoot more civilians while in uniform."

1) Fuck Amy Klobuchar (and the shithead who's vetting her for VP).

2) Of course that cop has murdered people before. No wonder he was so calm.

3) These issues go from top to bottom and back again - street cop to senator, the whole fucking system is broken.

Nothing but love and solidarity to the Minneapolis protesters

:100: :point:

But we most strongly suspect from the most bitter experience that even with published video, even with clear identification, even with a public and international outcry, justice will not be done. And then it will be time for your tears, because without justice there is no nation and no law and no civilisation, and not to hate injustice is to hate the whole of mankind. — unenlightened

Yes.

Klobuchar ... while serving as the state’s chief prosecutor between 1999 and 2007. — StreetlightX

No. Check your sources: from 1999 to 2007 Klobuchar was only the Hennepin County Attorney (prosecutor).

To the broader point - in the real messy world, SLX, so long as 'police killings' are not automatically remanded to the office of the relevant State Attorney General, as former New York State AG Eric Schneiderman had pointed out in 2014 in the wake of the Michael Brown murder, every local prosecutor is compromised by the conflict of interest of having to depend on local police to investigate crimes, provide forensic evidence and testimony to facilitate prosecutions as well as to protect prosecutors from retaliation by criminal defendants. It's naïve, at best, to expect any local prosecutor - whether male or not, white or not - to act otherwise under such compromising conditions. The problem - state governors, Obama & Eric Holder had ignored Schneiderman's diagnosis & proposal; and, still ignored, the problem metastasizes. Understanding the working conditions of current & former local prosecutors like Sen. Klobuchar & Sen. Harris (as San Fran DA, not as California AG) is not the same, however, as excusing their prosecutorial failings; context - I know you know, SLX - matters.

Fair enough. Thought I did my legwork, saw it posted as a meme somewhere and went to search for the news site myself. Grr. Thanks for the followup.

@frank :point: Tonight some inmates are trying to burn down the Minneapolis wing of this prison ... and maybe other city cellblocks too in the nights & days to come. Can't breathe ...

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963)

We can't breathe, frank. :fire:

Or is the most dangerous creation possibly an agent of the man who has a lot to gain? I'm just looking from afar, what say you?

I don't understand the question.

I think he means, what the fuck is a white dude doing at the protests, smashing windows at a store and then abruptly leaving without apparently participating in any form of protest? Was he paid to do that or just a crazy person?

Violence breeds violence until the end of time. I know.

Well paranoia suggests that the 'agent' in the video is provoking a riot and that people with nothing to lose are pawns in a game of 'look how dangerous black folks are - better buy some more guns' or some such. James Baldwin was the man, and I hesitate to contradict, but all round the world there are people with nothing to lose, and no one is afraid of them because they die really easily.

You don't really need agent provacateurs when the racist-in-chief is threatening to shoot protesters.

So your "suspicious white man" invalidates the uprising and what communities of color and communities of conscience are struggling for? The only 'provocation' that matters is the fact that the four lynchers have not been arrested and charged with George Floyd's murder yet despite many eye-witnesses and video recordings from several perspectives. Probable fuckin' cause easily established and the authorities still dither. "Suspicious white man"? IDGAF because I don't have the luxury or priviledge, unenlightened, to miss the forest fire for the wormwood trees.

From anyone whose nation became independent by enacting the phrase "Give me liberty or give me death!", admonishments against all violence ring hollow.

You don't get given political freedoms, you have to establish them. This was true in the slave colony revolts, true in America's civil war (to the extent it was about slavery), true in Malcolm X making the less radical policies of MLK acceptable to the establishment by comparison and it's true now. Let's hope their agitation is successful.

The real shame is that the troops and cops will show up to stop democracy at work, and POCs are absolutely civil when you compare that to the structural alienation from justice in which they live and have to cope with. Why, if more of those protesters were inspired by those "American patriots" the founders, they may've been much more violent in their insistence on their right to liberty.

Well, peacefully appealing to the moral sentiments of the ruling aristocracy who have made America a systematically racist shithole clearly isn't going to work. How to effectively apply other forms of pressure is an extremely difficult question. But I agree looters should be shot. Let's start with the political and financial establishment who loot the country daily both morally and materially.

So your "suspicious white man" invalidates the uprising and what communities of color and communities of conscience are struggling for? — 180 Proof

I'm asking, because for the moment I have the luxury. Of course it doesn't invalidate anyone's action. But protests get infiltrated and manipulated in this country and I doubt the US authorities have been slow to learn from the experts. I'm asking, because the original murder looks set to be lost in the media frenzy and state troopers and looting and burning hysteria. I'm asking because there are so many calls on my righteous indignation these days, I think I'm not seeing the genocide for the murders.

Peaceful protesting is helpful. I don't see how violence helps anything.

Peaceful protesting is helpful. I don't see how violence helps anything. — frank

Destroying the property of a multibillion dollar company that stole employee wages is hardly "violence"

Ok.

Peaceful protesting is helpful. I don't see how violence helps anything. — frank

And when "peaceful protesting" isn't helpful? - such as when police antagonize peaceful protesters? and a community's demands for justice are either completely ignored or bureaucratically slow-walked?

How does not violating the lives and livelihoods of those HAVES (and their agents) who exploit and violate the lives and livelihoods of the HAVE-NOTS "help anything"?

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. — Frederick Douglass

Gandhi, MLK Jr, Mandela et al taught that "peaceful" non-violence is only ever a tactic.

And when "peaceful protesting" isn't helpful? - such as when police antagonize peaceful protesters? and a community's demands for justice are either completely ignored or bureaucratically slow-walked?

How does not violating the lives and livelihoods of those HAVES (and their agents) who exploit and violate the lives and livelihoods of the HAVE-NOTS "help anything"? — 180 Proof

What kind of revolution are we talking about now? The HAVES are of every race. So are the HAVE-NOTS.

You focus on strategy: which is the most effective. I focus on what my actions turn me into. Your concerns are not more important than mine.

Gandhi, MLK Jr, Mandela et al taught that "peaceful" non-violence is only ever a tactic. — 180 Proof

Ok. What is it you want to see happen? I want to know.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/minneapolis-police-officer-who-knelt-on-george-floyd-arrested-20200530-p54xwj.html

Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer who is seen in mobile phone footage kneeling on George Floyd's neck before he died on Monday, has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter, Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman said on Friday afternoon (Saturday morning AEST).

May this fucker burn in hell, and all his cop buddies along with him.

Does seem like there is a bubble that is about to pop

More American fascism.

Fucking laughable. It's clearly 2nd degree if someone says "I can't breathe" and is clearly in distress and you continue to sit on him like that for 4 minutes, which gives more than enough time to reconsider, then we're talking intent.