Yes. We absolutely need that realm what Popper is talking about to make sense of the World that we have created ourselves (and created for ourselves).

Reductionist scientism isn't going to answer questions about it. The only consequence is that journalists trying to ponder about the "deep roots" and "real underlying issues" will ask a quantum physicist or a cosmologist about issues totally outside their realm of study. Not very helpful.

Our current president is so uniquely offensive that, judging from some of the recent headlines indicating that certain generals find him appalling, can it be possible we may join the group of nations which have experienced a military coup d'etat? — Ciceronianus the White

Not happening. Not at least as how an ordinary coup d'etat happens in the American continent.

(I commented on the response of the military earlier here on another thread)

The only thing I can imagine is that Trump does something unbelievably stupid (and somehow is let do such disastrous moves), like postpones the elections because of the corona pandemic, and then when this is met by larger than life demonstrations, demands the country to go to martial law and the armed forces to clamp down the protests. In this situation it's likely that the military wouldn't follow Trump's orders. It would look at the situation and basically be tolerant of the demonstrators and desperately try to get the politicians to solve it. Someone could argue (and likely Trump would argue) that not following the orders of Trump would be equivalent to a military coup d'etat. It actually isn't. So it's wouldn't be like the Chilean Junta overthrowing Salvador Allende, not even like the Carnation Revolution of 1974 in Portugal, but something more closer to the events of the Arab Spring in 2011 in Egypt, what is called the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.

Notice that then the Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak would resign as president and would be turning power over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The military then did actually go through with democratic elections and Egypt got the Muslim Brotherhood in power .

So not like this:


Not even like this;


Perhaps this below, if Trump postpones the elections. Yes, that is an American Abrams tank similar that the US Army has. Note the lack of hostility from the crowd as the military isn't against the people as the military has abandoned Mubarack when the picture was taken. Also note the Egyptian flags:

In fact that's actually what knowledge is I think, abstracting away from the world of particulars, to be able to make more general predictions.... or put in another way, we loose information at the level of detail, to gain knowledge on larger scales, i.e. to have a more holistic view. — ChatteringMonkey

Or basically that reductionist view simply doesn't give us any information. Let's think about for example historical events and how we explain them:

As history is focused on what happens with people, you could argue that you would get a better historical explanation if you somehow recorded and wrote down every action that every human being does at some time. Think about it as like a holistic-reductionist mix. Like "The history of 1939 - 1945 of every person, their every action and interaction between other humans during this time". And if that isn't detailed enough, then how about "the position and movement of every atom during the period of 1939 - 1945 in our solar system".

The fact is, that this finite (but very large) set of data simply wouldn't give us much if any useful data if we wouldn't use conventional history. The fact is, we would have to interpret the data. It wouldn't be useful as just raw data. Even on the level of one person that lived during 1939-1945, the thing is the life of a Malian farmer in Colonial French West Africa wouldn't be as informative to historians as let's say the life (every word he utters and every interaction) that the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had 1939-1945. The question we pose define what is important, so I guess for a sociologist studying colonial Mali naturally the farmer would be more important than Stalin, but he or she has a different set of questions from the usual. Some events simply just tell us more than others. And why something is more important than other things is exactly because of our social constructs in our mind like nations etc. that simply aren't reduced to atom level interaction.

You've nailed it. Far better said than I did.

I just don't know why this explanation isn't used.

And if the answer would be that "we have to be more holistic, take into consideration larger amount of interactions", then that wouldn't be reductionistic, would it?

I'll try to give an example.

If the Third Reich used a cyanide-based pesticide to kill for them unwanted people in an efficient way, the "reductionist" correct view is that these specific humans died because breathing this pesticide. You can go all the way to molecular chemistry and biology to show just why this happens. But if someone asks "Why did these people die?", this answer relying on the chemistry and biology really doesn't cut it. Yes, it's correct, but no, it doesn't answer much anything.

Where does additional information come in then? — ChatteringMonkey

From the questions themselves. Questions define what kind of information we look for. We create these complex things in order to explain complex phenomena. We can see a causal relationship from some specific vantage point going, but the questions aren't anymore answerable.

Just think about economics. There's no such thing as "Gross Domestic Product" or an "Economic Depression" or a "Speculative Bubble" in the material World. But to view our society by using these kind of definitions makes us understand complex phenomena in our economy. And do they effect our behaviour, which by aggregate determines them? Sure. If I read that the GDP is going to fall of a cliff, I change my behaviour with my investment portfolio.

Or to think about in the sphere of natural sciences, when does a cloud that rains turn into a hurricane? Can you explain everything that happens in a hurricane from observing a tiny cloud in an area where hurricanes don't exist?

I agree that for obvious practical reasons this kind of reductionism is not feasable, but why do you think that it would be impossible in principle? — ChatteringMonkey

Because you lack the information needed to understand the question that needs more than the part.

The typical false argument for extreme reductionism is that then you are implying anti reductionism, the idea that advocates that not all properties of a system can be explained in terms of its constituent parts and their interactions. Hence there has to something like the "spirit". I think this is false: it actually doesn't have to go like this.

What you easily lose is the ability to answering questions, observing phenomena, that aren't present at all in the constituents parts. There being a causal relation and there being interesting question about phenomena and events don't go hand in hand.

An aircraft is made up of bolts and metal, but a metallurgist cannot say anything about the performance of the aircraft simply looking at the pieces of metal that the aircraft is made up. Question that can be answered about aerodynamics or aircraft engineering cannot be answered by looking at just the parts. But it doesn't apply that those parts wouldn't be what interact together and give the construction the ability to fly. There is just no way you can answer important questions about the whole (how well an aircraft flies) just by looking at the parts.

Hence in my view the problem with reductionism is that it makes false arguments on WHAT QUESTIONS can be answered from parts. Or otherwise quantum physicists could answer questions about cultural history.

In fact, social sciences is a perfect example by itself of how absolutely ridiculous is reductionism taken to it's extreme is. Because societies are made of human beings, why wouldn't all social sciences be answered by a smart biologist / psychologist / neuroscientist? Because group of people that makes up a society doesn't behave as a one human being and even differs from a few people put together.

Unfortunately this isn't understood and there is this idea at least at a unconscious level that reductionism is possible, if we just have better computers, better theories, better data. This thinking simply doesn't understand that there can surely be a causal relationship, but that doesn't mean that every question important to us can be answered going down the causal relationship to smaller parts. Above all, this doesn't mean that something physically is missing from the equation.

Sleepy Joe isn't a progressive anyway. — Marchesk

Progressive enough for a lot of Republicans! Or at least they (the Republicans) are fearful of the people that then flock the seats of power along with him. But some may start be fed up with Trump.

From 1831 to 2003, Georgia never had an elected Republican Governor. During all of that history Georgia was overwhelmingly Democrat, both at the state and federal level. — Hanover

The Democrat Party was a bit different back then too, you know.

And notice I was talking about the Presidential elections. Sleepy Joe might get votes from Republicans, but don't think this means that they will go then all progressive. Likely the Democrats will quickly change things to normal with their arrogance, if Trump loses.

the elections haven't done much at all. — fdrake

There's our champion of the Republic.

So I don't understand if you're criticising me or not, we agree on pretty much everything substantive. What part of our agreement is in the culture war again?

Seriously though. Really? You're willing to brand huge protests being blunted because they're part of a "culture war", that they're ultimately symbolic, and you're not wondering why their state isn't listening to them? — fdrake

The issue is that they are made part of a culture war. Nobody is protesting for the release of the Minneapolis policemen (perhaps a police union, I don't know). But people can be against vandalizing the statues of Churchill and Gandhi. You have start from something, you know. Just look at how Fox News is depicting the events. There's an objective there.

Are we in a democracy if "merely symbolic" huge protest doesn't do anything? If it isn't already enough? — fdrake

In a representative democracy it's the elections that count. Demonstrations can influence elections. Demonstrations can make someone resign, but who is elected or appointed afterwards is the real change. Demonstrations just show that a lot of people are against something or for something. But those feelings can change if the objectives of a movement change.

Tell me whether police reform is more likely now or before the uprising. — fdrake

I think there is a great opportunity to reform the police and it can have positive long term effects.

But one ought to focus on that. Not to get distracted into the ruinous "culture wars".

What cynicism about the effectiveness of these protests shows, in the background, is that these people are taking to the streets because they know, like you know, they have no other voice; what political issues they care about cannot and will not be brought to the table. — fdrake

Democracy works. If there is a will, there is a way. The real thing is about the will.

Personally? I don't give a damn if the statues stay up or not — fdrake

You wouldn't give a damn if MLK monument would be vandalized? Historico-political symbolism, you know.

How do you expect the start of a mostly peaceful protest movement to make a targeted change regarding the systemic colonialism-racism of the global economy. — fdrake

Like starting from a bit of realism and humility and have reachable goals: "systemic colonialism-racism" or "tthe global economy" won't change in a heartbeat, but what you can do is to demand and have better policing and end the militarization of the police.

That could work. But then again, you can go to fight against "the global economy". You see, I think that I and you can agree on some things, but we won't agree on everything. That's how people are. Capitalize (sorry, bad wording), utilize moments of consensus.

I think you will be accompanied by many Republicans that never have voted for a Democrat Presidential candidate before.

If we care about the rightward shift of the Overton window, we should care about things that shift it left too. — fdrake

If you want to move the Overton window any way or to do something to correct social injustices or problems, I think the way isn't to go full forward to a situation where idiotic culture wars discourse prevails. This is the way how to lose focus, how start eroding that consensus that would exist in condemning excessive use of force. To Put this in a different way, in order to erode the consensus of outrage and keep the status quo, anything that will divide people to the old lines we've seen will do the trick.

So is the best way to attack and vandalize a statue of Churchill in the UK? The talk shows will get the usual annoying people to bicker about the issue without any agreement. You know the lines.

Or how about those racist WW1 veterans:



Or I don't know, attack perhaps racist Mahatma Gandhi? Both in Washington DC and in London the racist got what he obviously deserves:



What should be done is to avoid the old patterns and the usual pitfalls. Basically keep things simple, have a simply reasonable goal and not think we are on a cusp of the World changing totally. Or then this is forgotten just like the Occupy Movement.

Young John Cleese has had enough of BLM. On with the culture wars...

↪ernestm Data across counties for a single year doesn’t help, we need data over time, for anywhere besides the US, or for the world globally.

The point of all of this is that there is already a well-known explanation for violent crime dropping (in principle anywhere, but definitely in the US) since 1990, one independent of anything to do with police or guns. That is a counterpoint to your claim that it went down in that time period because of increased police in that period.

You claimed that is hasn’t gone down elsewhere. (Which it should, if it is all about atmosphere lead). I can’t find any data on trends over time elsewhere. You presumably have some, if you’re making a claim about it. I’d just like to see it. — Pfhorrest

In Latin America you have the out of control violence where the murder rates have gone way up. Honduras is a prime example. It has dealt with a huge political crisis and basically the state is losing it's ability to function. One outcome has been that people from these countries do seek shelter in the US. If I've said that Mexico is far worse than the US, then some Central American countries are even worse than Mexico.





And interestingly, there's an exception in Central America with homicide rates far lower than with the countries above: Costa Rica.



Their solution? For starters, Costa Rica doesn't have a military... :smirk:

Back to the US, a good question is what New York has done correct and where Chicago has failed?

I agree that retired generals primarily carried this message to avoid a formally "rogue" military. Possibly unprecedented, would be interesting to know if there are any parallels. — boethius

There is one parallel I remember. During the height of "War on Terror" when a lot of troops were fighting the war both in Iraq and in Afghanistan and at the fulcrum of the neocon power, there was an outcry from old dinosaur politicians and retired generals not to invade Iran and that the White House was planning to invade also Iran and this would be absolutely devastating. Only the talented Seymour Hersh reported then of rift between White House and CENTCOM. Later the CENTCOM commander did abruptly retire later, so Hersh might been on to something. Bush didn't invade Iran. (And let's remember: The US only attacked Iranian personnel under Trump. And when Iran responded, a huge effort was made to declare that no US personnel had been killed...and to stop the escalation.)

But I think it is clear that the armed forces does voice it's concerns and disagreement through old retired generals who otherwise aren't giving their opinions to the public.

And Denmark is at 0.34 deaths per million while Sweden is at 0.3. — NOS4A2

This is utterly false.

Sweden has 465 deaths per 1 million where Denmark has only 102 as of now.

I think you have to check your stats.

so I’m not sure why we’d limit the comparison to Norway, Finland and Denmark. — NOS4A2

Same kind of places and all were in a very similar situation. They aren't the tourist hotspots like Northern Italy or New York. Just to give some reasons.

I wager there would be no such recession had everyone went the Swedish route. — NOS4A2

I would call that wager! Just that people likely will not now go to Northern Italy and other tourist placed would mean a lot just by itself. Just the slowdown in China would have effected dramatically the global economy even if the US and Europe would have avoided the pandemic.

Just look at the economic forecasts Sweden has got for this year. And remember that this is a country that didn't shut it restaurants, shops, etc. A GDP growth of -6% is utterly horrible.

The criticism of Trump of many retired generals is actually notable. I think the reason was that the military really didn't want to have Trump ruin the quite positive image of the armed forces among people by following his "Law & Order" whims. Invoking the Insurrection Act and possibly deploying tanks or military vehicles would have been an absolute and utter disaster, hence when Trump started to ask about such measures they obviously got really nervous. Naturally the military cannot say publicly no to the Commander-in-Chief (especially Trump) as that would itself lead to a very precarious situation. Hence a large group of retired generals, including two former from Trump's administration, voiced their concern. I assume that this was a somewhat veiled criticism to the administration about how things were handled by the White House.

Also this kind of notification to the forces from the top echelon of the US armed forces is quite rare. (And note that it has been unclassified too). General Milley is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking general in the armed forces:



Rarely the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has to say that the armed forces upholds the Constitution.

Trump (or someone) did finally get the message. Trump tries to paint things the typical way as he does...

All that social distancing....for what? — NOS4A2

I think that now you start to see the differences with in the numbers, like here in the Nordic countries:

...............Deaths due to COVID-19
Norway: 239(Lock-down)
Finland: 323 (Lock-down)
Denmark: 593 (Lock-down)
SWEDEN: 4694 (No lock-down, just social distancing)

Hence this alteration in policy meant for Sweden multiple times more deaths. And "herd-immunity"? Likely in the Stockholm area well less than 10% have had the epidemic and in other places it's even more rare, hence no herd immunity. (And no, Sweden is only twice as big as Finland / Norway, hence there's really a statistical difference!)

Besides, lock-down or not, all countries in an economic recession. Welcome to the hard economic times:

The global economy is expected to shrink by about 5.2% in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, making it one of the four most severe downturns in 150 years, the World Bank said Monday.

Never before have so many countries entered a recession at once, even during three more severe episodes—the Great Depression and the downturns following the two world wars, the bank said.

Well, the objective is to dominate the issue by stopping the discussion. Here I don't think so.

On a Philosophy forum people read what you write for longer than a sentence before making up their mind just what you had to say. Yeah, not allways :roll: but at least usually they will admit it directly if they do so.

Every time some issue gets popular support, it usually comes as a total surprise for the career activists. Yet the otherwise passive majority can come together and be active and surprise everybody. Unfortunately the extremists always try to snatch the control or the limelight of the movement to themselves and think everybody is on their side. And this typically undermines the consensus of majority and the mass movement dies out.

The professional activists, who don't have to be the extremists at all (I should add) usually are so high on their success that they aren't humble enough and understand that only for a fleeing moment the people can show unity. The improvements, if they happen, can look small and the World doesn't change (huge dissappointment for the activists), but historically the changes can be important.

And to what you said above, people know what vandalism is.

Of course there have been many terrible communist systems in the past and some that continue into he present. But if we can try to ignore those for a moment, is communism not an excellent form of government — TheDarkElf

If you would say the same thing about national socialism, you would be banned.

In this scenario human error and greed is removed. — TheDarkElf

Oh, so take out humans out of the picture? For whom are you making this thought experiment? If we talk about other species, there are a lot of obstacles there in portraying politics into their behavior.

Communism doesn't work. Theoretically and in reality. It genuinely isn't just a mere coincidence that all the various communist revolutions have ended in violence and despotism. The authoritarianism and violence is inherent to communism. The lack of safety valves in power is the obvious problem. That makes it so evil, if a political ideology is evil.

Socialism is different. Even if I'm not a great fan of socialism either, at least socialism can be debated.

A mob defacing statues is not the sign of a debate but of the perverted and illiberal use of violence and force to assert political expression. — NOS4A2

Indeed. Yet toppling statues don't change or topple usually the institutions that put them up.

Oh, I didn't know that threads could be put into the Lounge and then not be shown at first page.

Well it doesn't matter, I'm just an over-privileged white animal with a despicable education at a useless shithole called Oxford, where I was taught, according to Rousseau's theory of truth by consensus, it must all be true. I dont really have anything more constructive to offer than that currently. — ernestm

Is somebody here saying that to you?

(Besides, this is just the typical way how to shut people: "You cannot say anything because you are X and you aren't Y, so you cannot know how it is". Wonderful way to stop interaction, btw.)

I just hope this time it wouldn't go with the same old lines as before: a new generation thinks it's on a cusp of change, but then again, as this time it's different, nobody looks just why things didn't change the last time.

Ernestm, I gave one response to another thread, but seems that thread is nowhere to be found. As the subject is quite close to this, I'll respond here. (Sorry to hear about your rough time and of the typical tone deaf response you get. Guess you haven't lived in the nicest neighborhoods.)

Why is this so difficult?

"The race issue", "systematic racism" and the discourse around the subject usually doesn't go anywhere in the US as the whole discourse falls into a repeating circle where basically nothing will improve. I should add this isn't something just limited to the US, this is a more of a general phenomenon of how societies are unable to approach the problems they have. The public debate follows a vicious circle that leaves basically people on opposing sides. Many think the problems are inherently about people themselves, not factors like poverty or that the society is broken. Many of those who oppose racism still think that that it is all because of some group of people that are racists that all the problems exist. So they are looking for certain culprits, not looking at how complex the issues actually are.

A big problem is when the discourse turns into a pseudo-religious sermon: that there's a correct way to talk about the problem in the society and there's the correct response to be given, just like when the priest says something and the congregation answers. The event isn't meant to be a discussion. Anything other and you are defined to be a bad person. There's no genuine effort to improve things as in the end the debate just falls into the category that people want to blame someone. What I'm basically trying to say that we fall in the end usually to the traditional left-right juxtaposition or a similar divide and fume in our hatred of the stupidity of the other side without any will to listen.

Hence if you tell about incidents with people belonging to group X, people will at first think your a bigot or a bad person (etc.) as some racist/xenophobic populist is telling how bad group X is. That you don't share at all the view of the populist that group X are inherently inferior to others doesn't matter, people just notice that you are speaking about same kind of incidents.

If you live in a "rough neighborhood" with poverty, poor economy and social problems with presence of gangs, these issues what happened to you can happen totally without the American racial factor. You will also get similar hostility when telling about your reality, I can assure you that. You will get similar responses. Of course people can deny this and say that the skin color issue is totally different from everything else, which means that they aren't seeing the larger underlying structure of the problem.

It should be obvious that this isn't just confined to race. Don't think the the division, distrust and hate wouldn't be there even without race being a factor as being white doesn't create social cohesion itself. Humans can be always look with suspicion and hatred at others, be it the nationality, ethnicity, religion or simply class. You don't need skin color for that. Especially ludicrous in Europe is this idea of "Caucasian" meaning something. Looking at history you can easily see just how evil people can be to each other. Just look at North Ireland, the Balkans etc. Poverty, problems in the distribution of wealth and other social problems or unresolved historical tensions are the real underlying factors.

And that is not the least criticism I hear. the most common criticisms are

(1) I am a white privileged motherfucker who is no better than an animal and deserves to suffer (66%) and

(2) I made it all up because I hate black people (20%) — ernestm

Sorry to hear about your rough time and of the typical tone deaf response you get. Guess you haven't lived in the nicest neighborhoods.

Yet this shows perfectly just why "the race issue" isn't going anywhere in the US as the whole discourse falls into a repeating circle where basically nothing will improve. I should add this isn't something just limited to the US, this is a more of a general phenomenon of how societies are unable to approach the problems they have. Many think the problems are inherently about people themselves, not factors like poverty or that the society is broken. Many of those who oppose racism still think that that it is all because of some group of people that are racists that all the problems exist. So they are looking for certain culprits, not looking at how complex the issues actually are.

A big problem is when the discourse turns into a pseudo-religious sermon: that there's a correct way to talk about the problem in the society and there's the correct response to be given, just like when the priest says something and the congregation answers. Anything other and you are defined to be a bad person. There's no genuine effort to improve things as in the end the debate just falls into the category that people want to blame someone. What I'm basically trying to say that we fall in the end usually to the traditional left-right juxtaposition or a similar divide and fume in our hatred of the stupidity of the other side without any will to listen.

Hence if you tell about incidents with people belonging to social group X, people will at first think your a bigot or a bad person (etc.) as some racist/xenophobic populist is telling how bad social group X is. That you don't share at all the view of the populist that group X are inherently inferior to others doesn't matter, people just notice that you are speaking about same kind of incidents.

If you live in a "rough neighborhood" with poverty, poor economy and social problems with presence of gangs, these issues what happened to you can happen totally without the American racial factor. You will also get similar hostility when telling about your reality, I can assure you that. You will get similar responses. Of course people can deny this and say that the skin color issue is totally different from everything else, which means that they aren't seeing the larger underlying structure of the problem.

It should be obvious that this isn't just confined to race. Don't think the the division, distrust and hate wouldn't be there even without race being a factor as being white doesn't create social cohesion itself. Humans can be always look with suspicion and hatred at others, be it the nationality, ethnicity, religion or simply class. You don't need skin color for that. Especially ludicrous in Europe is this idea of "Caucasian" meaning something. Looking at history you can easily see just how evil people can be to each other. Just look at North Ireland, the Balkans etc. Poverty, problems in the distribution of wealth and other social problems or unresolved historical tensions are the real underlying factors.

Aside from the vicious cycle of poverty, driven by capitalism, what real factors are there? The most obvious seem to be: slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, housing policy. Policies that kept wealth out of the hands of black people, imposed on the basis of race. — Echarmion

Perhaps the inability to engage in the racial problems of the present and having a discourse that goes in circles?

People ought to understand that nothing will change if people are successfully divided.

The idea that the police are institutionally a separate race, with a particular history of trauma is particularly interesting and relevant to current affairs. — unenlightened

I hope that this is a 'figure of speech' and not an idea taken literally that the police is a separate race. That would sound as sinister racism to me.

Mattis is also a war criminal who is trying to brand himself as a resistance Republican — Maw

His warcrime, apart being part of commander in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and ending up commanding the whole lot, was that there was a case of collateral damage? Right. Lots of war criminals then starting from all the US Presidents, Clinton and Obama included.

I don't think Mattis isn't Republican, he surely likely is a conservative, but likely he is an apolitical old school officer. Mattis retired from the position of commander of Central Command, and so is this the argument to say that he is a "resistance Republican":

In his memoirs, Leon Panetta – Obama’s defence secretary between 2011 and 2013 – states that Mattis and the Obama administration didn’t always see eye-to-eye, especially when it came to Mattis wanting to increase the US presence in Syria.

Of course, Syria was the thing that lead to him to resign from the Trump administration. But perhaps in the highly polarized situation it's normal to depict everybody as having an underlying party political reasons for every action they make. And anyway, now people argue that he has come to criticize Trump far too late. Well, from the generals Trump took into his administration (Mattis, Kelly, McMaster) only McMaster didn't have an option (other to outright resign) as he was in service.

What is also clear is that Trump wants this conflict between the people and the state, and, even if there is a lull in the conflict today, it is likely the president of the United States can get what he wants.

And there is still the pandemic happening. — boethius

This is the scary part.

I'd advise people really to look at the way Fox News etc. are covering the events, just to get a feel where Trump is going. It's all about him securing his base. He does have a plan. General Mattis does speak the truth in my view when he said that this President has for three years divided the country.

Yet we should ask ourselves, as this isn't anything new, will history just repeat itself or CAN anything really new come out of this?

I remember well seeing with my own eyes, as a young child, the huge smoke clouds of a race riots in Miami in 1980, that me and my family accidentally witnessed. The riots then were a similar consequence of a black man, then Arthur McDuffie, slain by the police. (The officers were tried and acquitted for manslaughter and evidence tampering, among other charges.) Are we waiting for people just to loose focus and get interested in the next "media frenzy"? Or is Trump and Fox News etc. just hoping for a "Reginald Denny-beating" to surface that then instills outrage so and fear much that the parroted line will be "We condemn what happened to George Floyd, but enough with the rioting" and have the calls for peace, calls for getting along and calls for moving along?

And how then are the things forgotten? Only until next time as with mass shootings? Could things turn different this time?

But I was asking how China deals with recessions, or are they like Australia and they've never actually had one? — frank

Never had one?

Australia suffered badly during the period of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. As in other nations, Australia suffered years of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement.

The Australian economy and foreign policy largely rested upon its place as a primary producer within the British Empire, and Australia's important export industries, particularly primary products such as wool and wheat, suffered significantly from the collapse in international demand. Unemployment reached a record high of around 30% in 1932, and gross domestic product declined by 10% between 1929 and 1931. There were also incidents of civil unrest, particularly in Australia's largest city, Sydney.

China knows that the real objective for it is to be like the US: have a huge domestic market and those +1 billion citizens to be as great consumers as Americans and Europeans are. But of course the Chinese in general are far poorer, hence it has had to rely on being an export oriented economy. And if you are an export oriented economy, Global recessions will hit you hard.

Chinese leaders aren't delusional, not it's only a game not to tank even more:

China is scrapping its annual economic growth targets for the first time since 1990, when it started announcing such economic figures, as its leaders grapple with the economic fallout of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In China's centrally planned economy, Beijing's GDP target serves as an all-important touchstone on which local governments and state enterprises fix their annual policies and investments.

China's economy shrank 6.8% in the first quarter this year, the first recorded contraction in more than 40 years. Official unemployment figures have risen to 6.2%, though independent analysts estimate the actual rate to hover around 20%. About 460,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, according to the South China Morning Post.

So this year, leaders are stressing economic stability and poverty alleviation rather than growth.

(See article China Abandons Economic Growth Targets Amid Pandemic)

(If you believe Chinese statistics....)

Seems that you either don't get my point or have some bone to pick.

And I've said multiple times that the whole culture has to change, or that whole departments simply have to be totally shut down. No single changes like some hours of training will do the change. Changing a culture is a huge thing, not a thing a small reform will do. Let's hope that something better can come out of this, that it's not brushed aside as one of "those riots" in a long history of riots. Not to refer to "riots" would be one start, actually

And for your question, "Why is there not universal denunciation, from police departments all across the US, and promises to do better?" the simple fact is that there isn't anybody to give that. Except perhaps Trump :roll: .

I hear ya, but there is a turning back. We can simply cut out the tribalism and superiority poses etc. Again, I'm not making a moral point, but a tactical one. It's not in our interest to play Trump's game with him. Here's the bumper sticker slogan. :-)

Ignore Trump, and embrace his base. — Nuke

Hear hear.

Populism is inherently divisive at it's core, be it right-wing or left-wing. Being against Trump is one thing, but being against the supporters of Trump is totally another. Then you are actually against what democracy is about and what a republic is based on.

In a way Trump supporters are like supporters of Hugo Chavez... and those that support the present Venezuelan government still.

What got them to vote for the guy, who tried several times a coup but then got elected in 1998, was their disappointment in the earlier government. It had left many lower middle class people falling in hard times. Afterwards Venezuela has been a trainwreck, but why then do they still support their "revolution"?

The real success has been what Trump is trying to do in the US: division and polarization at such level that there's no turning back. Chavez was a master in this. Populism was the basic ingredient of Chavez: every failure was because of the evil imperialists and their evil henchmen inside the country. And some people believe it. That absolutely catastrophic socialist experiment and totally reckless policies don't matter. The supporters have alienated themselves so much that they have as their only option to support the government (or if matters are inbearable, move away). But admitting the policy failure isn't something they are willing to do.

I completely agree. But saying it over and over and over again is unlikely to accomplish anything. The fact that we already know that, and keep doing it anyway, illustrates where Trump is smart. He knows we're not serious people, even if we don't. Trump is a realist, that's his gift. — Nuke

Let's see how the elections will go. Biden has a lead.

Well, Trump isn't an existential threat to the US or it's constitution, he likely won't go get into a catastrophic war with China or do something really disastrous. The outcome is just that the executive branch doesn't work at it's best, the US is a bit more polarized and the US has lost a huge ground in international relations. How many thousands more of Americans died because of Trump lagged in the pandemic response, who knows. Questions like those cannot be answered.

The world is getting to be basically more multipolar and the Pax Americana after the Cold War is over. Trump is just increasing the tempo of the US withdrawal from the Superpower status. You can see for example from the Libyan civil war that allies of the US are backing up different sides. That would be totally unthinkable during the Cold War, but the doesn't care about it's alliances or that's it's basically starting to resemble pre-20th Century politics. Now many American's argue that is a great thing. Well, one Superpower leaving it's place creates a vacuum. And this we are seeing all around.

Nobody has said that Trump is incapable of getting himself into the media limelight. Where his inability lies in having the ability to lead a myriad of people and organizations that compromise the federal state. The position is not the tweeter-in-chief, but the chief of the executive branch.

Showmen can be OK Presidents. Reagan was an actor, but then again, he did have been a governor of the largest state in the US, and before that had been the President of the Screen Actors Guild. Trump had a rich dad and many bankruptcies and nothing similar abilities to lead. Sure, he's the teflon entrepreneur that bounces back from failure after failure, but that really doesn't say anything about his leadership skills.

Which he hasn't got any.

The real damage that he does is making the government not to react properly. Trump cannot control his White House, it's chaos there, and surely he cannot just roll over the federal state. He is incapable of doing that. Trump isn't a dictator who's absurd policies someone tries to put in practice only to save his or her life. The real havoc he creates is the void which this little tweeting self-centered man does.

Of course when what should be reacted are things like a global pandemic, then it does have an effect.

Trump kills.

Why is there not universal denunciation, from police departments all across the US, and promises to do better? Why are police seemingly not holding themselves to high standards? If these are bad cops - where are the good cops? Why are they not speaking? — StreetlightX

There are those too, you know.

Mansfield Police Chief Ron Sellon released a statement denouncing the actions of the Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of George Floyd as he assured town residents that his department is "commitment to the fair and equal treatment for every person."

Four days after the death of George Floyd, Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams issued a statement denouncing the events which led to the man’s death in Minneapolis police custody. “This tragic incident, committed under the color of authority, is a violation of what we stand for,” Williams said in a statement released Friday night. “We acknowledge that communities nationally and locally are angry, and we are emphatic to how communities may feel about these devastating events.”

Indianapolis police Chief Randal Taylor on Thursday denounced the actions of the Minneapolis officer shown on video kneeling on the neck of George Floyd before Floyd died in their custody. "As a 30-year law enforcement veteran, I cannot understand or justify the actions captured on video in Minneapolis," Taylor said on Twitter Thursday night. "Police officers swear an oath to protect the lives of our community members — including those in our custody."

And the list goes on, StreetlightX, that is just on glimpse of google search on the subject.

And the reason why there isn't an universal denunciation? Well, there isn't a universal organization of police departments in the US. Nobody can say "on behalf of all policemen..."