French revolution was misplaced because it destroyed order? US independence the same? — Benkei
the German revolution was terrible as well. — Marchesk
Canada and Australia didn't need to revolt, and they seemed to have done okay. — Marchesk
The consensus legitimises; by sweeping under the rug, as you're seeing live happening in your own thoughts; the institutionally sanctioned violence against these protesters (and now journalists!) by comparing it to their own community crime problems. The president's expressed wish for all of them to be shot isn't weighing heavily on people's minds, but a Target store being attacked is. It's been "a few bad eggs" forever, it's been "condemn violent protesters" forever; and the police keep killing and the things that keep the protesters' problems going are never addressed. — fdrake
The president's expressed wish for all of them to be shot isn't weighing heavily on people's minds, but a Target store being attacked is. — fdrake
No, because a lot of people will die, regardless of the outcome. — Marchesk
Do you hold the same opinion about the US military? — boethius
A lot of people died so that I enjoy freedoms in my country today; a lot of people died defending the freedoms you enjoy today — boethius
there's no use pretending there's some pacifist belief about all violence; it's just silly if you have no track record of radical pacifism. — boethius
The interesting question is why the US simply is unable to truly reform it's police? — ssu
"The explosive growth of the scope and intensity of punishment — in the United States over the past thirty years and in Western Europe on a smaller scale over the past dozen — fulfills three interrelated functions, each corresponding broadly to a “level” in the new class structure polarized by economic deregulation. At the lowest rung of the social ladder, incarceration serves to physically neutralize and warehouse the supernumerary fractions of the working class and in particular the dispossessed members of stigmatized groups who persist in entering into 'open rebellion against their social environment' - ”—to recall the provocative definition of crime proposed a century ago by W. E. B. Du Bois in The Philadelphia Negro.
One step higher, the rolling out of the police, judicial, and correctional net of the state fulfills the function, inseparably economic and moral, of imposing the discipline of desocialized wage work among the established fractions of the proletariat and the declining and insecure strata of the middle class, in particular by raising the cost of strategies of escape or resistance that drive young men from the lower class into the illegal sectors of the street economy. Lastly and above all, for the upper class as well as the society as a whole, the endless and boundless activism of the penal institution serves the symbolic mission of reaffirming the authority of the state and the newfound will of political elites to emphasize and enforce the sacred border between commendable citizens and deviant categories, the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor, those who merit being salvaged and “inserted” (through a mix of sanctions and incentives on both the welfare and crime fronts) into the circuit of unstable wage labor and those who must henceforth be durably blacklisted and banished" (Wacquant, Punishing the Poor).
Say no violence" the moment one needs to actually contemplate that privilege being taken away, is an not simply an empty platitude but completely absurd line of reasoning if one benefits from, much less, promotes the right of state violence. At least say "I like the current violence situation the way it is", — boethius
HELLO!
Is there a chance of a discussion about where this may lead the state of US politics in the near/far future?
It looks like the general public are doing as much as they can about this at the moment. What is the end goal? How do we get there? What steps/measures need to be put into place? — I like sushi
Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. ... But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. — Martin Luther King
The question was "when has rioting ever been effective?" Plenty examples throughout history of rioting achieving a political goal. Of course, the goal can change; that rioting was effective part of fighting a literal war of secession against the British today does not mean that fighting a war of secession against the British is the only available purpose of rioting. — boethius
The argument that it's preferable to provoke a military coup in the first place (if someone was motivated by political strategy, not just immediate anger, or hunger, or basic economic survival in a depression), and to risk a totalitarian military takeover instead of a benevolent one, is that, after centuries of oppression, you may as well flip that coin. — boethius
I'm not convinced we are in any position to critique tactics. As I mentioned way back in the fog of this thread, it's presumptuous to tell people who have tried every other avenue of protest that what they are doing does not meet some ideological purity test and 'doesn't seem to be very effective' - per the conversion that is happening right now around this post — StreetlightX
I'm not so sure it's just the rich, that seems a bit of an exacerbation. I think even poor people do want police to perform well.I think it's because the ideological discourse is so skewed. Cops protect scared rich white people from their worst nightmares. In return, scared rich white people make them virtually untouchable. — Baden
I'm not so sure it's just the rich, that seems a bit of an exacerbation. I think even poor people do want police to perform well. — ssu
So yes, the real reason is the discourse itself. It is poisoned far before the topic of actual police conduct and training is discussed. Far before that the opposing sides have retreated to their ideological castles and see each other in a worse light than before. And then ANY kind of understanding of the other sides view becomes a "surrender" of the values your side has taken itself to defend. — ssu
Thanks for a long interesting answer.Police terror is an economic-political strategy, not an accidental feature of current social reality. None of what has been happening can be understood in isolation of these factors. The last of the factors mentioned here - the need to separate the 'deserving' from the 'undeserving poor' is yet another reason to resist the bourgeois attempt to parse out 'rioters' from 'protesters'. Grievance comes as a package, and it affects not only 'deserving' grievers, but those - especially those - who have been so destitute that looting becomes a viable strategy of response.
Race, class, and institutional terror are inseparably bound. Those who want to package it up into little digestible pieces do nothing but help enforce injustice. — StreetlightX
Stupid. Quote me where I said I "encourage" looting liquor and TVs from stores or where my morals "demand" stealing from stores. Tired of people who can't read responding to my posts with caricatures and missing the substance. If you can't read, go away. If you can, try again. — Baden
Not only that, but your politicians are basically prisoners of this stated discourse. It truly strangles genuine discussion.The playing field isn't equal. There are media components that work against the interest of protesters, and it is always leftists who work against them. — fdrake
Worst of all is Trump, that only makes the public discourse become worse. — ssu
Not only that, but your politicians are basically prisoners of this stated discourse. It truly strangles genuine discussion. — ssu
So you encourage looting liquor and TVs from stores? But for the distance, you'd be in the streets burning cars? Why do you sit idly behind your computer when your morals demand throwing rocks at police and stealing from stores? — Hanover
Just to reiterate, we reject the framing that this is just a "bad apple" event or, if systemic, one that the authorities are willing and able without strong coercion to solve. We reject the framing that there is an equitable foundation of law on which to make neutral moral judgements concerning breaches of law. We reject the framing that legitimizes the use of force only for those who control the channels of visibility for grievances. So, if you want to argue with us, argue on the level of whether or not such rejections are justifiable not through the very framing we've already rejected. — Baden
objections to your nonsense — Hanover
I think it's very difficult to assess the value of the rioting if what followed was organised armed violence, i.e. war. Unless we're in a position where we intend to follow the rioting up with outright war, if necessary, the example has a flaw. — Echarmion
Murdoch, Koch Brothers or George Soros, there will be allways these rich men who get a micro-orgasm when the US president calls to them (or they can call him whenever they like).I think in terms of media influence Trump's a much smaller issue than Murdoch and the Koch Brothers. — fdrake
Norway!? Well, then you know first hand what Nordic socialism is like.Not actually living in America, I grew up in the UK and moved to Norway a few years ago. — fdrake
Yet it's telling that the country you live in and which was described by Michael Moore to be an utopia experienced one of the worst right wing terrorist attacks anywhere in the World with quite a deliberate agenda (attacking social democrat party youths). And Norway did (in my view) the correct thing: it prevented any messages or proclamations spreading in media from the lone terrorist (which prevented copy cats). The terrorist Breivik was given a special form of a prison sentence that can be extended indefinitely, so he is not walking out with the typical maximum sentence under Norwegian law.The UK's much closer to America than here, and has much the same issues, but the police are less militarised in the UK so there are less hospitalisations and deaths despite performing the same societal function. — fdrake
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