Did the war save Jewish lives or cost Jewish lives? I don't think it is knowable; we only have the war happening, not the alternative. — unenlightened

Very few people ask that question of themselves. The evidence is, no, it didnt save many lives, nor did it really change history that much. All other conquerers like Hitler--Alexander the Great, Caesar, Khan, etc--- had their empires dissolve between warring generals almost instantly upon their deaths, after which, things usually returned to much as they would have been anyway. And frankly, I have been wondering for several years now how much better things would be if California and Texas had seceded already. But I dont think thats the objective of the current riots. Im not afraid to say, I dont beleive they are being governed by some super fantastic ideal of racial equity, it all sounds very pretty the first time, and after that, it just begins to sound exactly all the other bids for power by every other similar movement since forever.

What exactly about my questions is sleazy or dishonest?

I'm trying to establish whether we are even talking about the same historic facts and how to classify those. If people keep responding with hand waving and stuff they think implicitly answers those questions it invites miscommunication. If it is dishonest to demand explicit answers, then you really need to explain why, because I'm not seeing it.

So far I think I've been rather mellow about being called sleazy, a racist, dishonest, stupid and a moron. But yeah, YOU guys definitely have the moral high ground here.

Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about. I like to talk about simple issues. Crime, drugs, fatherlessness, investment opportunities for small businesses, landlord-tenant power relations, lack of social security, automation, increasingly expensive and necessary education demands and whatever else. Black people have to deal with being poor, in a country that doesn't much help the poor and then on top of that there's racism.

So when someone talks to me about white supremacy, imperialist expansion and capitalists manufacturing the political landscape for profits, I don't know how to respond.

I am an over privieleged white animal with a useless education from oxford who is too shallow to understand anything, thats all — ernestm

As interesting as your story of graduating from Oxford, then moving to a poor black neighbourhood and being victimized there before turning into a white animal is, it's not really relevant to the question of whether systemic racism exists (nor is it in any way verifiable), so, at the risk of being accused of totalitarianism, I would ask you to save your personal stories for your personal story thread in the lounge rather than post the same thing in every discussion regarding race.

But I dont think thats the objective of the current riots. Im not afraid to say, I dont beleive they are being governed by some super fantastic ideal of racial equity, it all sounds very pretty the first time, and after that, it just begins to sound exactly all the other bids for power by every other similar movement since forever. — ernestm

Yes. It reminds me most of the suffragettes. There was, and still probably is, a dispute between the peaceful, legal suffragists, and the militant property damaging suffragettes. My feeling is that nothing will change unless you make such a bloody nuisance of yourself that giving in becomes easier than resisting. Literally bloody, whether the blood of the demonstrator or of riot control.

This is difficult, and I urge you to caution. It was before my time that Britain declared war on Germany and plunged the world into a conflagration that cost millions of lives, mainly on the basis that "Jewish lives matter." — unenlightened

That's not the history I learned, not even remotely close; in fact terribly wrong. Kindly, support your claim with evidence.

Weren’t you just agreeing the other day that class-focused amelioration of poverty regardless of race is fine, since race correlates with class and so helping poor people in general automatically helps black people disproportionately more than whites, since blacks are disproportionately poor?

That's not the history I learned, not even remotely close; in fact terribly wrong.. Kindly, support your claim with evidence. — tim wood

Yes it is wrong, and I won't defend it. The morality was not that straightforward at the time, and the extermination camps became a justification after the event. But aside from the strict truth of the example, there is the principle that I sought to illustrate, and if that is acceptable, my poor history is relatively unimportant to this discussion.

Yeah I guess. What's your point?

Watch pls:

Weren’t you just agreeing the other day that class-focused amelioration of poverty regardless of race is fine, since race correlates with class and so helping poor people in general automatically helps black people disproportionately more than whites, since blacks are disproportionately poor? — Pfhorrest

We're both Bernie supporters. However, not all racial issues are corrected by class focus, since racism is not about class.

Did the war save Jewish lives or cost Jewish lives? I don't think it is knowable; we only have the war happening, not the alternative. Not to mention all the other lives.

The war certainly saved Jewish lives - not just Jewish lives, but also gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, etc. Without the war there would have been no limit to Hitler's regime - no counterforce. Hitler would have just continued unopposed into more and more countries and Europe's Jewish population would have been virtually wiped out.

Yeah all lives matter I dunno why you gotta bring the Jews into this specifically. WWII had nothing to do with the Jews. I mean yeah, sure, six million of them perished and there were gassing chambers and concentration camps and legislation enacted to separate them from the rest of society and murder them, but y'know, alot of other people got killed too so really we should just say that Hitler was very bad to everyone. Non-Jews also died in WWII. Don't know why anyone would single out Jews. It's so divisive! Just causes problems. It would be better if we stopped referring to Jews in WWII at all, that language just divides us.

I'm willing to accept the disproportionate murder or Jews but certainly not the systemic murder of Jews. Don't make everything about race.

I thought you were replying to Judaka's post about "economic redistribution based on race", the point of which was, I thought, that economic redistribution to make up for past injustices shouldn't be limited to any particular race (or anything else), just helping whoever needs help for whatever reasons.

Maybe I was mistaken.

I'm willing to accept the disproportionate murder or Jews but certainly not the systemic murder of Jews. Don't make everything about race.

The way Jews were treated in 1930s Germany is not remotely comparable to the way blacks are treated in the US currently.

The prosecutor will have a hard time proving intent to kill, considering Floyd's unknown condition.

Additionally, it transpires Floyd also had a substantial criminal history, with eight arrests, five times in jail, the last time for holding a gun to a woman's stomach while his friends plundered her house, after which, he turned his friends in for a plea bargain to reduce his prison sentence to five years. This information was almost impossible to find, as no US paper has reported it at all. The Daily Mail provided photos of all the records, remarking that the police wouldn't have known about it. However, that's not true, if they had his ID, which I don't actually know is true, then the police have been able to look up all records about any person from their squad cars for some time, as I learned in 2018 when they offered me to join a federal protection program while they nailed some murderers in a black gang just after they also tried to murder me. The Floyd criminal history was published in the UK here: — ernestm

Floyd's criminal history does not, and should not, play a role in whether Chauvin is convicted of murder. What's at stake is rather whether Chauvin's act meets any of the criteria specified in the Murder section of the Minnesota Penal Code. After taking a cursory glance at that section, I can say that a jury will have a difficult time convicting Chauvin of murder in any degree.

Murder in the second degree requires either, (1) intent to effect the death of a person without premeditation, or (2) causing the death of a person without intent, but while committing a felony offense in the first or second degree with force or violence.

The prosecution will probably contend that the criminal elements of 2 are met, because Chauvin was committing a felony assault in the first or second degree "with force or violence." Here first or second degree assault requires, respectively, 'great bodily harm' or 'substantial bodily harm.'

The coroner conducting the autopsy was unable to identify any "life-threatening injuries" other than minor bruising to the face, and trauma to the face, elbows, and hands, consistent with being handcuffed. The official cause of death was listed as "cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression." There were no signs of aphyxia in Floyd's body (*with that being said, the absence of any sign of asphyxia in the body does not license the further conclusion that there's no way Floyd could have died of asphyxiation).

At this point the defense will contend that Floyd's underlying conditions made the possibility of his death much more likely. The prosecution, in turn, will want to seek out additional autopsy reports that include "traumatic asphyxia due to neck compression and restraint due to law enforcement subdual," or something to that effect. I don't think anything the prosecution does will be enough to establish this charge though. This is because criminal convictions require not merely a preponderance of evidence, but guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I do not see the jurors being presented with much robust, non-speculative evidence from the prosecution; and speculation is not adequate to meet the aforesaid criteria. Thus it looks like an acquittal is in the cards (for murder in the second degree anyhow).

Of course there are many variables to consider in these kinds of cases, including who the judge and jury are, and how well each attorney makes her case. But bear in mind that the U.S. criminal justice system is set up such that letting a possibly innocent person go free is considered better than convicting a probably guilty person. Furthermore, bear in mind that a criminal jury consists of 12 jurors, and all 12 jurors must agree UNANIMOUSLY to successfully reach a guilty verdict.

The charge of second degree murder is meant mostly for show. It's a charge that is politically motivated, and prosecutors know gaining a conviction on this charge is very unlikely. That's why the initial charges of third degree murder and second degree manslaughter remain.

Actually, I don't think third-degree murder will be an easy conviction either, because prosecutors will need to establish that Chauvin acted from a "depraved mind." They will probably do this by looking into his personal history and scrutinizing his record as a police officer; for example, by bringing up the 18 complaints he had filed against him. None of this will likely be sufficient to establish depravity of mind. Btw, 18 complaints in 19 years is not extraordinary. That's a little less than one complaint per year, and when you keep in mind that anyone can file a complaint against an officer for virtually any reason, that makes those complaints look not so alarming.

Manslaughter in the second degree requires that, through a person's culpable negligence, they "create an an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another."

This is the charge that Chauvin will be convicted of.

The way Jews were treated in 1930s Germany is not remotely comparable to the way blacks are treated in the US currently. — BitconnectCarlos

Yeah, no, absolutely, why in the world would I make that comparison? Not like they get lynched by state apparatuses on the street on a regular basis. That would be insane.

White men get lynched by state apparatuses on a regular basis as well. Cops must hate white people.

Yes! Just like Hitler hated lots of people! Equal opportunity murder! Nothing to do with Jews!

Are you familiar with the Wannsee conference? Are you familiar with the official racial policies of Nazi Germany? They didn't even try to hide it.

No I think you are just being divisive. Why are you trying to bring race into this?

Ok.

When the US has explicit policy forcing black people into ghettos or encourages the boycott or destruction of black owned businesses you let me know and I'll join up with you.

Oh no no it's OK, the wildly disproportionate murder of black people is just an accident, these things just kinda happen like magic. Nothing to see here.

So when someone talks to me about white supremacy, imperialist expansion and capitalists manufacturing the political landscape for profits, I don't know how to respond. — Judaka

Fair enough. I'll give you something of a worked example of how I see it. After emphasising common ground, I've tried to start somewhere concrete and domestic, and the end of the post is more abstract and international.

Some common ground we already have; systemic discrimination against non-whites. I think we imagine the same kind of thing by that. That's also a form of white supremacy; an interlocking series of incentives and disadvantages that simultaneously affords most whites relative advantages and some whites gigantic relative advantages. Prosaically, the chances of being in a position of economic, social and political opportunity depend heavily on whether one is white or not. That's a systemic effect; in this aspect white supremacy is a name for systemic racism that works against non-whites. It's well named, as it engenders socioeconomic power for whites relative to non-whites. In this sense, if you believe that an economy and a state discriminate against non-whites, then you believe that the state and economy are white supremacist; white supremacy as a practice rather than as a political opinion.

White supremacy as a political opinion was used to justify the continual deprivation of slaves and their descendants. It was also used against the Irish and the Greeks and the Italians, who were later welcomed into the white race when it became politically convenient. Who is and is not white was a matter of great political significance; non-whites who are most palatable to those so empowered were and are more likely to be more included.

That sense of palatability relates to the political issue of which crimes are pursued, which are punished, and how they are punished. A black kid selling weed on the streets to eat gets fucked up by the police, a white kid in a private school gets a slap on the wrist for the same. And even if they were both convicted of the crime, the sentences would be worse for the black kid. You may disagree with the specifics; but we both know this is a thing.

Notice; the crimes that police police are crimes that poor people do; like selling drugs to eat in a community with few legal job prospects. They are supposed to keep "neighbourhoods safe", but they don't prevent crimes in those neighbourhoods which are heavily policed (poor non-white) nor do they address the conditions that lead to those crimes being a thing there. Most of what they do is disproportionately imprison or brutalise people of colour for minor offences or nothing at all; a kind of forced eviction into prison labour.

The crimes which effect those communities every day are like wage theft, discriminatory housing policies, discriminating based on race for business start up loans. But that's not what the police do, if they "keep neighbourhoods safe"; they must do so in a way that disproportionately leads to brutality and conviction for minor offenses while doing nothing about the crimes that their denizens are subject to every day.

The power filter above being what it is, that's also a form of white supremacy; the crimes that prosecutors and investigators could work on to help those communities are not the crimes which are punished, and that's even before we start talking about the ludicrous police violence against POC's and that it's not punished, and that institutional reform was so distant it's taken a giganting uprising to force politicians into even considering it.

So then we gotta go to those politicians; they're not dumb, they know the majority of people live in a way more similar to the subordinate poor than their wealthy and educated fellow politicians. Why is it that it takes a gigantic uprising for institutional reform of the police to be on the bargaining table? But all it takes is someone to fact check the president on Twitter for his administration to force through an unconstitutional executive order. Why is it that politicians don't seem to care about the issues that effect most of their potential voters, but they intimately care about bullshit like that?

Why do they make it easier for vigilante debt collectors to intimidate and traumatise already struggling families of their own accord, but it takes an uprising to consider the obvious condition of oppression POCs find their way in?

So what decides what policies can be brought to the table? Well, "vote with your dollar", thing is a tiny minority of interests has the vast majority of the money; and they leverage it to buy influence - it's a threat. The same flavour of threat that most workers and unemployed face every day; behave adequately or lose what little livelihood you have. People respond to that on a gut level; don't do this or BIG else, "big else" for recipients of large corporate donation is "you lose loads of fucking money". There's another pressure put on; corporate doners will only fund those who are close to their interests; vote with your dollar. So it pays to be an advocate on political issues in favour of the corporate interests that have "voted" for you. Those with the money to fund politicians can shape the policy-advocacy landscape, and they do; a representative politics functioning as it should - those who are represented shape policy with their votes.

That institutionally cultivated indifference of politicians to the concerns of their voter base; that falls along race lines too, just like poverty. The issues that can practically be brought to the negotiating tables of policy are not the issues that need to be addressed for a more functional democracy and a more equal society.

That's all domestic though; and policy isn't just domestic, it's international. When a policy is adopted, it's going to be in a truly represented party's interests. Whose interests did the UK and US trained and sponsored coup of the democratically elected Mossadegh represent? Those who previously owned the oil or relevant company shares, which Mossadegh nationalised. Whose interests did the UK and US trained and sponsored coup of Allende serve? Those who owned the mines and agriculture and their company shares, which he nationalised. What of Lumumba, democratically elected to free Congo of the remnants of colonialism? US and Belgium sponsored the coup. Notice that the same adage about white supremacy being the flavour of our countries' systemic racism applies; the effected people are mostly POCs from the political south. The old power imbalances between colonial countries and colonised countries are still there; but the benefits are accrued through business, and the suppression of their national interest by our agents of corporate interest we call democracies.

If you look at locuses of power; who is truly represented in our "democracies" with their dollar voting regimes; it's corporate interest that shapes policy, both domestic and foreign, and it takes people burning shit down to get domestic reform out of those people.

People look at this stuff, like race separate from class, domestic separate from foreign, when the institutions that drive policy are international agents who use states as international vectors of subjugation and extraction; to the negligible benefit of those in the home territory, but mostly to the benefit of the interests they're payed to represent. If you're a member of the colonial power or its race in a business network of colonised countries; the difference between you and the subjugated is payed in interest on blood money.

And if you say "what about China", the CCP can go fuck itself too.

Disproportionate murder of black people by police or just in general? Blacks in the US disproportionately commit murder, and when they do murder they disproportionately murder other black people. If a given group commits a greater share of the crime in a country then you'd expect them to have disproportionate contact with the police.

We could still have a problem here - it's hard to get clean statistics - but we're leagues away from the holocaust unless you believe that there is a universal covert plan in police departments to just murder black people. Is this what you believe? Do police departments have secret plans to kill black men?

We could still have a problem here - it's hard to get clean statistics - but we're leagues away from the holocaust unless you believe that there is a universal covert plan in police departments to just murder black people. Is this what you believe? Do police departments have secret plans to kill black men? — BitconnectCarlos

There's no plan! It's all been a happy accident.

There's no plan! It's all been a happy accident.

Ok great, we're on the same page now. If there is such a plot then we live in a horribly disgusting racist state. Or maybe it's just the police department... or does the policy go higher? In any case you being able to recognize this plot indicates an enormous degree of insight that I just haven't attained yet.

Man I wish there was a thread here discussing systemic racism and how that comes about or something. :chin: That would be so rad.

This is kinda a sidenote, but do you think it's a problem that we apply the same term, e.g. white supremacy, to a worldview, a movement and a systemic effect? I get the feeling it causes negative gut reactions in a lot of people who might otherwise be sympathetic.

No. But I do agree it can make it a harder sell. In my experience, white people often get uncomfortable whenever whiteness is brought into view in any way, then treat it as someone else's problem.

Edit: ultimately I think it comes from inappropriately personalised guilt - I mean, I'm white, it's easy to start getting uncomfortable when people point out defects tied to my sense of compassion. But the "systemic" part means that, really, unless you're a member of the 1%, your actions are only going to be influential to the extent you can collectivise/organise them - we're so saturated with narratives about the individual, especially with regard to prejudice, that "oh god what if the entire history of colonialism and continued subjugation of the political south is on my shoulders because I'm white" seems more immediate and gripping than "Huh, I guess I've benefitted a lot from those injustices, but ultimately my compassion and my morality side with addressing them"