Burn and Destroy

Last night the White Supremists AND the Anarchists were out in force. This happened in, as far as I can tell, just about every city int he United States! So, we had the folks who were upset about the murder by a policeman who should have been fired a very long time ago. I have no doubt that every march started with those upset about something that deserved to be upset about.

Its pretty much agreed, by the talking heads of TV, that when an opportunity to raise hell occurs the Supremists and Anarchists will be there in force. I can remember the good old days when those groups also brought their flags with them. (the Anarchist flag is black, the Supremists have many as they are a conglomerate of haters) Its gonna get interesting. You can count on videos being gone over and faces remembered by computer. The problem is that recognition software may, or may not, be able to do that when the person is wearing a mask. But, given the capacities of some of this software I suspect almost anything is possible.

The people who are actually marching, and not real interested in burning and destruction, don't do anything to stop the burning and destruction (other than taking videos). That is a shame. When the burning and destruction starts their message is lost and they have wasted their time. Along with that they are also being associated with them that would burn and destroy so they not only have lost chance to send a message but are now also being thought of as part of the burn and destroy folks. At the risk of offending I would add that burn and destroy actually hurts the cause of the march itself as well as those who do the marching. it would be easy to go a lot further about this but the point is made.

The Burn and Destroy folks are already, for the most part, known to the FBI and are considered to be seriously dangerous to the well being of the nation.

However, what if those who march partnered with the police (I know - unlikely). BUT, if they could do that, thereby giving the police a chance to deal with the burn and destroy folks, things might get different fast. The police, for instance, could mark the miscreants and then search them out (they could, for instance, attach a location pin to each one) later for attention. They could also join with the police to stop ANY burn and destroy that might occur. If the two could work together I think a LOT of good could come of it. What comes to mind, of course, is; "when pigs fly"........

I was going to put this into another posting but, on reflection, it probably deserves its own.

One last. Its often said that two extremes can tend to meet at the same place. White Supremists are Anarchists are a really good example of that one.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkyb9...a-new-civil-war

It all could have been stopped if they'd arrested him as soon as the videotape emerged.

It could have been prevented if they had fired him because of the other 18 complaints against him. Does he handle all routine stops like this?

Or is this an outright murder? Possibly a hate crime. He knew Douglas.
He worked with the man he killed.

Eh, if that were true, there would have been no riots after his arrest. Those are ongoing - I don't think, honestly, that the killing of Floyd is the main driver of the riots, though it is the immediate precipitating event of the protests.



I understand he's been charged with Murder 3rd Degree.

One does not follow the other.

The riots have their own inertia separate from the protests.

This could be very accurate.

Conservatives have long failed to recognize the underlying problems by either burying their collective heads in the sand or simply denying it exists. Liberals have never found an "easy" fix for the problem, and so fumble from one "solution" to another. When I was young I thought 3 generations would fix it. Man was I ever wrong. I see the fundamental problem as conservatives (and especially Trump supporters) believe there will always be a problem with blacks as long as they do not become white.

One thing I worry about is all the protesters AND police who are now infected with the virus. The usual police tactic of tackling and wrestling people to the ground may be a death sentence for either the protester or the cop. It's like protesters may be wearing suicide vests right now. You DO NOT want to be wrestling with them, much less touching them. Even if you are wearing a mask, they do more to protect others from you than protecting you. The worst thing you can do, health-wise, is to touch anybody or especially to tear off their mask.

I expect a big surge in hospital admissions in a week or two, and then the deaths in about a month.

Last night, and this morning, we watched the looting of downtown Seattle. This has never happened in the history of that city. We also watched the looting of Portland Oregon and a variety of different other cities. This morning my wife watched Sunday politics and I watched some of it.

The Seattle thing was absolutely amazing. We watched groups of police watch groups of looters loot whilst they stood by. TV folk told us that was because the police were outnumbered. This seemed to be true as they always seemed to do something if they outnumbered the looters. Basically, at least in Seattle, that them in charge watched this happen for two nights before. This was the 3rd night so they called out something like 200 national guard folk - unarmed. What obviously happened was two things. First, they basically ignored the looting of the first two nights and, second, they REALLY underestimated the criminal elements of the first two nights, ie. White Supremacists and Anarchists. Oh, I also suspect a little bit of; "they wouldn't dare!".

We also watch the looting, etc. of cities in Minnesota. After two night the governor of that state had had enough and turned out something like 16,000 national guard. I don't know what the result is but I have to assume that with 16,000 national guard, the state patrol, and the police they probably had stuff under control. If they didn't then they have a REALLY serious problem.

Anyway, the Sunday politics was very strange indeed. Major cities, in the United States, were looted last night. As far as I know this is the first time this has happened. Sunday politics, however, seemed to be ignoring that completely and were centered on bad police and a variety of black causes. Apparently, for our media the looting of cities is not so important as black causes. I am not saying black causes don't count but, again basically, our police got out manned, apparently out gunned, and seemed to just give up. I find this absolutely incredible. Let me say it again in a slightly different way. In the United States of America those public forces (police, national guard, FBI, etc) LOST! They lost, as far as I am concerned, to two organizations; White Supemacists and Anarchists. Our FBI has been telling us, for years, that those two are dangerous and need serious attention. Our response was to elect a president who not only likes those two operations but counts on them for his support. This tends to make me a little nervous, but, apparently, everything is dandy, or media, and the news, are kinda ignoring anything even happened!

I watched on Sunday show where they were congratulating the defeated for not shooting anybody as they were all, as far as I could see, saying that what happened was just a bunch of wayward teenagers on a lark. In Seattle Nordstrom's headquarters and flagship store was looted! The simple fact is that Seattle is no longer a safe city and it has a LOT of company in that regard. In spite of that our news seems to be ignoring that one.

I know, it all started because of the really bad behavior of 5 policemen, four of which have yet to be charged in spite of LOTS of video showing that they were supporting the murder of an unarmed, and docile black man. That is a real good reason to march but its not a good reason to, again basically, destroy the safety of major cities of the United States.

I only heard one person, on Sunday politics, even ask; "How could something like this happen?" and that was Donald Jackass Trump! Trump! What the hell? I think we are, right now, experiencing a complete breakdown of our national security. We don't have to fear Russia, or China, or anybody else, we are, led by our ignoramus president, going to do it all on our our with no help from anybody else. To this end we have now have had 3 nights of looting. Anybody who has seen the pictures are, I assume, getting some small humor out of the ongoing description of the problems as a "small group of bad people". There was NOT just a small group of people going in and out of Nordstrom (it was VERY strange. Whilst the store was being robbed Nordstrom had hired carpenters to go in and install plywood over all broken/busted windows. They actually showed this on TV! Oh, and the police were absent, the national guard was absent, the state patrol wasn't there, etc.

So, please don't tell me about these very few bad people. Hell, they said it, right on TV! The police are out manned and outgunned and is getting no help from anybody. There were a few people who tried to stop the looting. They got beat up for their efforts whilst our law enforcers looked on and probably quaking in their collective boots. Again, the FBI, for years has been warning us about White Supremacists and Anarchists (who, incidentally really work well together). Perhaps this might be a sign of something? Remember too, these folks seem to be Trump supporters and there are enough of them to go national given half a chance (which they have proven).

If Trump loses the election, and you wake up, look outside and there are strange men, on every street corner, with rifles looking serious, its gonna be too late to do something about the problem. We got something less than 6 months to fix this mess or wake up to something not real nice. In case I am not clear. I think what is going on is no longer just a little political problem cased by a small group of confused teenagers. It could easily be something entirely different and REALLY bad!

Black people have plenty to be outraged about, but I wonder how much of this is actually just anti-mask and anti-public health rules revolt. Everybody is frustrated, and a good chunk of the population has very poor impulse control. Is the average department store looter just somebody who is pissed-of in general and isn't going to take it any more?

That is correct, which, again, suggests that arresting the cop involved would not have stopped the riots, given that (again) we have arrested the cop involved... and it hasn't stopped (or even slowed) the riots.



a few points where I think we may not be in accord:

1. Painting all Trump supporters with a broad brush that (conveniently) pants your Other as Evil and You as Good generally isn't going to get you results any better than when anyone else does it (for example, a Trump supporter loudly talking about how "The problem with black people is...."). Some Trump supporters are racist, some viciously so. Approximately half of the voting public isn't.

2. Your "Main Problem" is one that conveniently reinforces your Othering of those who aren't like you. They would probably respond that the Main Problem was libtard weenies who refused to take responsibility for any of their actions, or something similarly reinforcing to their own preferred depiction of themselves as morally superior.

3. I don't know if I would say there is a "the problem" here. I think there are problems that interrelate and can overlap, often in ways that are difficult to distinguish.

Cops kill unarmed whites about twice as often as unarmed blacks, and minority Cops are just as likely as white Cops to use lethal force on minority citizenry but, available evidence suggests Police disproportionately use NON-lethal violence against blacks. So racism appears to play a role, but not the controlling one when it comes to violent-and-potentially-deadly interactions between minority communities and law enforcement.

Police officers often avoid accountability for abuses of citizen's rights due to public sector union agreements and the way that qualified immunity is structured, meaning that immediate over-dependence on coercion and force (which may seem efficacious to cops) has no counter incentive militating against it. Our current policing structure encourages police forces to use coercion, bullying, and force more than necessary and more than is wise. In addition to incentivizing regular cops to lean more heavily on coercive tactics, this structure also protects cops who are willful abusers of the citizenry

Police officers (especially in cities) live highly stressful lives, where they are under regular threat of physical harm, and the only people they can really depend upon is each other. This scenario creates intense tribalism and feeds a dark callousness to suffering (which is, to be fair, often a defensive mechanism – our minds will often try to cure horror with humor). I remember in Iraq a car swung around a corner and, ignoring our attempts to wave it off, charged one of our squads, who (in accordance with the ROE’s) proceeded to blast the driver apart. Turned out it was a guy not paying attention because he was yelling at his kids in the back seat. His kids were covered in bits of their dad. How did we deal with that? We made (bad) jokes, our hearts hardened, and we didn’t go insane. A friend of mine had a cop buddy call him the other day – that guy’s day had consisted of taking apart a scene in which a man had killed his daughter, his daughter’s friend, his granddaughter, and finally himself. It turned out the man was also the father of his granddaughter, and had raped all the bodies prior to suicide. That’s a scene and a story that he’s never going to get out of his mind, and, he and his buddies will probably go through a process similar to the one we did.


So, then you get a cop killing a black man by kneeling on his neck. Did he do it because he was racist? Did he do it because that’s how he’s always handled people he was arresting, how he was taught by other street cops, and how “everyone does it” because no one see’s much of a reason not to? Did he stay on the neck because civilians started complaining about it, making it funny, and F’ Them Anyway, because they are the Other? Was it a combination of two or all three or something else?

I don’t know. It’s not given to me to see into his heart. But it leads me to suspect strongly that there isn’t A Problem or even a The Problem, and certainly not a The Problem we are likely to change through simple slogans that feed sweeping changes, or the mere passage of time.

Again you gloss over this.

What you have done is assume blacks will riot regardless of what happened. What that means is you believe blacks would have rioted if he gotten a traffic citation i.e. the riots were looking for an excuse. I much rather suspect, had he been detained immediately, it would have deescalated the racist concerns and made it a matter for the judicial system. I rather suspect riots occur when nothing is done in the eyes of the aggrieved.


100% of Trump supporters in my neighborhood could easily be members of the KKK. They hate blacks and they hate Democrats because the party tries to do help blacks.

I have to wonder if you believe bigotry is a good thing. I think it is a bad thing, so in that sense yes I am painting myself as something good. So my characterization of Trump supporters as Bad has some validity ... unless you believe otherwise.

The thing about being white. I had never entertained the idea until I heard a rant by Glen Beck on Muslims. He went on for 15 minutes it seemed telling his audience how much he loves Muslims. But what he was saying was he loved them if they were like he was ... a Christian. Then I started hearing the same kind of language from other right wing commentators regarding blacks. So if the people who are molding the thoughts of right wingers are saying it perhaps I should conclude that is what the rank and file also think. Basically that is equivalent to what you typed ... the other. You have conflated two disparate notions i.e. a persons view of race and differences in political belief. The difference between political views is like a difference in which color one likes. The difference between my views on race and a Trump supporters views on race are a direct assault on the fundamental tenets of good and evil. Now if you disagree, please supply me with an argument I can forward to my great grand son for why he should be a bigot.

May I conclude that is an admission of institutionalized racism?

Unfortunately we do not know why one study would derive that conclusion. You or I could speculate on why and we would probably both be wrong. All I can say is yes that is possible as I could say almost anything is possible.

Yes. Should the police forces in the South been held accountable during the 50's and 60's there may not have been any police anywhere in the South. Yes

I haven't seen the evidence and so have no judgement. The only thing I can type with certainty is the man was in the custody of a PO and died.

I guess if you don't believe racism is a problem, then we certainly hold different views of humanity. So I'll ask again, please supply me with an argument (doesn't even have to be convincing) why bigotry and racism is good to tell my grandson and great grandson.

Last night we were again treated and honored to be able to watch more stores getting looted. This time in a place called Bellevue which is across a lake from Seattle. Anyway, it was very strange. Both the mayor and the chief of police were giving talks about how well they were doing against a lot of thugs. The problem was that we were being treated to a current video of looters casually walking off with the goods of Macy's whilst the Mayor and Police Chief were claiming victory. After stuff like that one can only wonder if we were getting the TV facts from two realities. The really strange thing is that, apparently, they were talking from approximately 1 block from the looting.

The thing of interest, I thought, was that the Chief of Police had abandoned the "just a small group of bad" to things like; "We had a large group of peaceful marchers, and then several other groups joined up. Then the entire large group began looting right in fron of us. He went on to point out that these looting were well planned and moved around a lot so they were having problems getting to a looting before it had moved on to another location, etc. He also said that they all seemed to be really well trained in what they were doing. He suggested that White Supemacists and Anarchists are into it up to their necks.

I will say it again. It seems that we are husbanding, and training, nationwide, large groups in how to destroy, loot, and burn.

This has now been going on for almost a week yet those who would govern doesn't seem to have a clue.

Kinda scary - we might go out and buy a few guns........... (I was told by somebody I know who sells them that he is VERY busy!)

Interesting that some people are very upset with the looting going on in these riots, while not a peep from them about the looting of the American economy that is being done by the billionaires. Both are wrong, but it seems I only hear one side of it from Trump supporters.

That is not what I believe and that is not what I have done. What I have pointed out is that it is clear that rioters are not, in fact, seeking "Justice For George", as the riots continued (and intensified) as and even after the Justice system began to do precisely that. It is probably also worth noting George's family and girlfriend came out and said that the rioters should stop, and that George would not have wanted this, and that appears not to have impacted the rioters a whit.



And, again, had that been the primary impetus behind the riots, then they would have subsided after something was done, rather than expanding and intensifying.

Instead, what actually finally caused riots to begin to subside is the arrival of overwhelming state security forces, suggesting that what - in fact - is the primary impetus of riots is the belief that they can be got away with.


100% of Trump supporters in my neighborhood could easily be members of the KKK. They hate blacks and they hate Democrats because the party tries to do help blacks.[/quote]

Uhuh. Is this the part where I say that 100% of the Democrats I know all hate America and hate Republicans because Republicans want what's good for America?

If the only possible reason you can think of why anyone looking at the 2016 election could possibly come to a different conclusion than you did is "racism", well... so much, I suppose, for the "intellectual" party of "empathy".



It depends on the bigotry. I am strongly in favor of bigotry against mosquitoes and against allowing used car salesmen to do their own car commercials. Racial bigotry quite the opposite.



I think it is foolish, arrogant, self-serving, and intellectually shallow to pretend to the notion that your side is "good" and the other all "bad" in domestic American politics. Most folks aren't trying to be evil, most folks actually believe they are pursuing moral good - the problem being that most folks disagree on what that means. Strongly Recommended Reading from another left-winger. He has a Ted Talk on the same subject, and a bunch of youtube stuff out there as well, if a book isn't your thing.



Beg the question much, or only when you have no basis for support?



Institutionalized Racism is racism that is institutionalized - that is, it is put into the rules and regulations of an institution that guides how it interacts with people. If you want to show me (for example) that the Minneapolis police department puts out rules that differentiate how cops should interact with the public based on the race of the member of the public they are interacting with, I will wholly agree that is an example of institutionalized racism. But I have not yet seen that.



It was multiple studies, but you carefully edited that part out in your reply.



Possibly. Probably a regular drum beat of high profile cases would have caused others to change their behavior (incentives matter). However, that is neither here nor there in a discussion about whether or not Qualified Immunity (which the court invented in the 198Os) and current (that is, 2020) Public Sector Union agreements keep bad public officials from facing direct personal consequences for their poor performance, up to and including abuse of the people they are nominally supposed to serve.



The coroner's report seems fairly conclusive that he didn't die of a bee sting or gunshot wound.

I guess if you don't believe racism is a problem, then we certainly hold different views of humanity.[/quote]

And, again, if the only reason you can possibly imagine for why anyone would come to a different conclusion than yourself about a complex question is "obviously they are racist", well, your narrow-mindedness is your own problem.

Are you actually worth talking to, or is this:



the sort of foolishness I'm going to see any time I engage you? Because, if you have nothing to add other than narrow-minded bigotry and dishonesty.... I've got much better things I can and probably should be doing with my time.

There are differences between "does a fantastic job of serving tens or hundreds of millions of people with products and services that improve their quality of life" and "breaks and steals other people's stuff".

I think most forget the power of images have on ordinary Americans. The Kneeling cop on George Floyd neck was a powerful one. Which probably arose sympathy for him and in the minds of most, a desire to end police brutality.

Sadly, protests followed. The protests were followed by rioting, burning, looting, now killing, it's those images that now have a lasting effect. For quite a lot, the original image of the cop's knee on the neck has been long forgotten.

But that is the way it is for most of us. We go with the latest image/s. With the latest news and events that are happening, forgetting the previous nights news and events.

Sure, some will remember the original, most will not. Images are most powerful. What they portray seems to stick with most of us until something changes. Another image takes its place.

I remember reading an article about images. How images of starving Somalia children goated the U.S. to send troops their with food and supplies to help the hungry. Then there was a battle in which we lost some of our troops. Most forgot the starving hungry kids, the new images of the troops being killed now took center stage which led to their complete withdrawal leaving behind the starving masses. Never another word was said, printed or another picture, image shown of the starving, hungry kids. The latest and last image won over all previous images.

That's life and that's the way it is. It's called reality. We may not want it to be, we can come up with reasons and excuses hoping to return to the original cause, we can shout that until our faces turn blue. But it does no good. Until a new image appears to replace the one's about the riot, those images are ingrained into most folks minds. The ones that will be remembered by most. Not the original, which has been long forgotten.

Between those two things is something we call exploitation of labor.

Those wonderful people providing all those fabulous services are paying their workers sh*t. Giving them a minimum of hours so they don't get health insurance, not paying enough that they can afford their own, and not giving them sick days when they have health issues.

Exploitation.

Do we need to even delve into the racist exploitation of Blacks over the 400 years? That was exploitation of labor too.

Yup. And the Labor Theory of Value is such utter crap that even Lenin was eventually forced to de-facto abandon it.



Maybe - it depends on what the workers earn, which is generally a function of what they do. I don't see lots of folks out there upset because Zuckerberg is a billionaire and the average salary for product designers at his company is $148,347.00 a year. Meanwhile, someone who cleans wastebaskets for a thousandiare hasn't done an appreciably worse (or less valuable) service than someone who cleans wastebaskets for a millionaire.



Wait. The government made it hugely expensive to give people more than a certain number of hours a week, and the result was that people got fewer than that number of hours a week?

My goodness. Who could have predicted such a thing.



No - mutually beneficial trade. If you don't like your job, or your hours, or your benefits, go find something else you like better. It's no one's fault but your own if you agreed to a given compensation package in return for a particular kind of labor.



Oh yeah - slavery is absolutely theft. It's exploitation, it's looting, it's whatever you want to call it.

"Riots" and "Marches" are two different things. One of the police chiefs getting looted was telling about a March that was peaceful and no problem. Then it began to grow and then all the signs hit the ground and the riot started (along with the looting). He said the change came after one of the other groups joined up. He was, however, really startled when the entire group suddenly went from being peaceful to riot and looting.

Until the marchers get over their hatred of the police and invite them in the White Supremacists and Anarchists will be able to join up and get the chaos going. I suspect that is probably not going to happen. We have seen several instances but it never seems to last. My suspicion is that the marchers would rather be yelling at the police instead of working with them to stop the crime in the interest of being able to preach their message. The fact its not happening is worrisome and a shame as, now, they are getting painted with the same brush as are the looters themselves.

It seems to me that the marchers are mostly the not voting poor that get upset and then get angry and then things kinda come apart. At that point they are REALLY pissed off! Through history there are instances of this. The Russian revolution of 1917 was like that. That happens when they have a leader who is really good at organization AND leading! So far we haven't been gifted with that - yet. Unless gov gets itself together it could, however, happen. The forces to do it are there (White Supremacists and and Anarchists - enough to loot virtually every city in the United States at the same time!) they don't yet have a single leader but, again, it can happen! I think its pretty apparent that the Supremacists and and Anarchists have been very good at planning so far. They have out thought, and overwhelmed, gov each step of the way (which has not been exactly inspiring OR entertaining!) The more time it takes for Gov to get itself together and fix the problems the more likely we are going to have a LOT more problems to fix!

Every day this goes on the window of peace closes a little more. The only good thing I can think of is that we have 5 more months to survive before we can get rid of Trump. If we fail at that then I cannot imagine what happens next. The only real assurance is that whatever that might be its not gonna be good!

I live 25-30 miles south of Atlanta. A city that is approximately 60% black, black run, mayor black, police chief black, the majority of the police are black as is the Atlanta city council along with city and county judges. Trying to improve conditions of Atlanta has been an on going process. Community outreach etc.

Yet, Atlanta is one of the cities in riot, burning of police cars, looting and vandalism. Everyone within the city of Atlanta was completely innocent of the death of George Floyd. There's no way one can equate the riot in Atlanta to racism or white supremacy. Perhaps it is a rebellion against authority, any kind of authority where race, religion etc. doesn't apply or matter. If anyplace should have stayed calm, it was Atlanta.

In 2015 you had the Baltimore riots, another city totally black run. So perhaps that doesn't matter, it doesn't matter who the city leaders are and perhaps in extension since Obama was president, that doesn't matter either. I also read in the aftermath when the Baltimore city police tried their outreach program to the black community, they were told to leave. Then the black community complained nothing was being done in their community to combat crime. Go figure.

Is there an answer? Perhaps if there is, it has to come from the grass roots, not top down. Atlanta has a program where it does try to attract police officers from the various communities and have them patrol their community. But it has meet little success. No one wants to become a police office getting around 25,000 a year. Perhaps that is part of the problem. The pay isn't high enough to attract the best and brightest.

Just some observations and a lot of I just don't understand. Particularly, why Atlanta?

White privilege will never understands black solidarity.

That's because white privilege Trump supporters can afford to buy nice things.

What white privilege in Atlanta? It's a black fully run city. No whites in position of authority. What are they protesting in Atlanta, why the looting, riots etc in Atlanta. Protesting against the black mayor, protesting against the black police chief, against the majority black police force, against the local justice system which has a majority of black justices, against the majority black city council?

What white privilege in Atlanta? The only thing I can think of is the protest against all authority, authority wield by blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics, perhaps the race of those in charge means nothing.

You can't blame what is happening in Atlanta on racism, white privilege, there's no whites in charge of anything. Atlanta is a totally black run city.

It's not the folks in charge, Pero, don't much matter who they are or what color...it's the system. A system that keeps poor people of all colors and creeds poor, sick, and uneducated. A system that favors the wealthy and the powerful above everyone else in a nation where freedom and justice is promised to all.

Speaking of the system, here's a pretty nice article about the two very different versions of rights and social contract that lies at the root of these protests:

Trump Cannot Descalate

I tend to believe that them acting out are the poor. Regardless of who is in charge the poor continue to get screwed over. They don't vote and they are POOR! This, I think, has to do with the division of wealth and the poor don't get that much of the pie. Then there is our media that tends to display this division for all to see, every day. Even the poor have TV's

How does it go? Something like "the poor will will always be with us" or something like that. The 'poor' is also a moving target. During the depression there was a march on the Washington state capital. A group of traveling Russians attended and were shocked. They pointed out that everybody on the march must have been rich as everybody had a car. Apparently, in Russia only the rich had cars. The problem is that the poor know when they are at the bottom of the pile - in their pile. This being the case we have a society that is constantly showing how them not at the bottom of the pile get to live. Over time I think that probably is like being forced to have something in your shoe that irritates but, for some reason, never gets fixed. Same with the poor. So, we have the poor acting out and a pile of them that are not 'helping'.

Oh, that story was told me by a philosophy professor at the University of Washington. Interesting guy. He lost his job because he used to be a Communist and McCarthy came along. He quit the party after understanding that the stock market allows everybody to take part in the wealth of the nation.

Just saying..............

The comment was directed towards YOU.

Considering who's in charge, I see none.

Now this I understand. It's not a black/white issue as so many portray. There's many who say I have led a sheltered life. By that I mean 21 years active duty in the Army, another 26 working for the army as a civilian. Race, religion, I don't think many ever thought of that. No one ever turned around to the one who had your back covered and asked what race are you or what religion. We were a team, family. We were comrades in arms, brothers and sisters in uniform.

I never understood the mentality of civilians, the emphasis some put on race and religion. Now the military has it flaws, not perfect. But the military has the advantage that it can discharge its trouble makers, it racist if you will, the non-conformist. For the most you rise to the rank you deserve based on your skills and merits. Not on race or religion.

People of white privilege never do, is my point.

My impression is that the army of the US, more than any other service, may be a special case. They have been integrated for a LONG time. And it's not just lip service. There are Black, Hispanic, and Asian people throughout the ranks.

I think that's pretty much universal in our military.

What I don't understand are the guards that have appeared in DC that nobody knows or even where they come from. The TV keeps referring to them that way as well. These are, apparently, not the prison guards from Texas or the national guard.

One can only wonder, White nationalists, Supremacists?

Given how the military is reacting to all this stuff one can only REALLY wonder! What comes to mind is that Trump is actually going to make a move?

AFAIK, the guard unit in DC is from Utah.

Yeah, the army was integrated back in 1948, a year behind baseball. I'd say two organizations where merit abounds, race, religion, background, rich, poor, means nothing.

I think one must be dedicated, willing to trying to improve oneself and be a very good team player.

The DC National Guard wear a DC Flag patch on their left breast. Those guys in Black with no markings are Prison Riot Squads/Guards - according to an article I read on MSNBC or MSN a few days ago.

What is very disturbing is if they are contractors...

I’ve long said that the military is organized much along the lines of progressive socialism.

Heard last night that they're prison guards.

No idea if that's true.

I've seen it reported that the "unidentified" uniformed guards are federal corrections officers. The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents (Politico). That makes sense, as they fall under the jurisdiction of Hermann Göring's Gestapo William Barr's Department of Injustice. Barr is Trump's Göring/Himmler. He views it as his responsibility to support every whim of his führer, because he genuinely believes the presidency is a dictatorship. Attorney General Barr ordered authorities to clear protesters near White House, DOJ official says (CNN). Barr is a true believer in American Autocracy. He wants to empower the President to act as a dictator, and that's not an exaggeration. He wants to reorganize the DoJ as the State arm of the party. The irony is, he doesn't hide it. In his view, possession of the authority of the office means he can do what he wants, which includes using that authority to pursue autocratic policies for political ends. Why Bill Barr Is So Dangerous (Atlantic, subscription). He is a very, very dangerous man.

Bill Barr has an army of over 132,000 federal law officers at his fingertips to snuff out protests

I wonder how Bill is going to like his stay in Federal prison. Or will he go down in the bunker and shoot himself on January 19th?

I have found that they are, basically, taking any security people from any Federal Agency that has security people. Seems that a LOT of federal agencies have a lot of security people! Barr considers them to be all his to order around at will.

Strange times............

When it comes to protecting the President of the United States from violent revolutionaries I don't think it matters where the troops come from.
Imagine, if you will, that these were armed right wing boogaloo boys and they were storming a White House occupied by a Democrat.

Remember...they think that we think like they think. We don't.

The majority of the violence being reported has been attacks on protesters by police.

Millions of people worldwide have publicly and peacefully stood in solidarity with black Americans, and are protesting racism in their own nations at the same time. The USA has always pretended to hold the high ground and loudly protested against police brutality elsewhere. But every year our law enforcement becomes more militarized and more brutal.

Police don't just kill black people. They kill f*ck tons of white people too. But white people don't care.

White people don't care.

If you f*cked up so thoroughly that you got your ass killed by a cop then you probably deserved it. If it was a case of wrong time wrong place, then you probably shouldn't have been there.

We don't care. Nobody even films a white guy getting kicked to death.
We see s*** like that going on we turn and walk the other way. Likely a meth head. Getting what he deserved.

That's white privilege.

George Floyd represented a convergence.

Racism
Police brutality
Party politics
Economic inequality
Social injustice
Pandemic

Donald Trump has been holding a magnifying glass on a stick of dynamite.

It finally exploded.

Except when the police come to the wrong address and burst in with no knock and shoot you dead, sitting in your easy chair watching TV. There are just a lot of police officers who I wouldn't trust to tie their own shoes. What we need is not no cops, we need much smarter and more ethical cops. Is that possible?

And above all else, we need some sort of cost for individual cops who do something wrong. They kill innocent folks, their family sues, and the taxpayers pay out. Nothing happens to the bad cop, except maybe paid vacation. How about pay cuts? You screw up and get $500 less every month. Screw up again, another $500. Arrest a journalist: $500. Push a senior down who is approaching to ask a question: $500.

This would actually get rid of the bad cops because they would seek another job that paid more.

There is a lot of folks talking as if what Trump is trying to do with the military is something new to Trump. That would be an error. I heard one of the Generals talking about it and he said there have been over 20 instances where the government has used troops to deal with citizen problems. I remember, once, when they sent tanks into Washington, DC to put down a riot during the Vietnam war. I had a friend who watched that one and was also a veteran of that war. He said that there was a line of tanks, running down the highway, on its way to take care of problems in Washington, DC. He also said that the tanks had their guns leveled. This is when they don't have their guns pointed up to the sky but are level are ready to go. (that REALLY pissed him off!)

At least Trump hasn't tried to order tanks in - YET.......

The last time regular troops were used in Washington DC was 1932.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/07/us-army-demonstrations-washington-305913

Perhaps what you saw were national guardsmen?

Not really, take a look at 1968. Federal troops were deployed in DC and to other Federal buildings during several of the Anti-War protests and Race Riots in the late 60s. Agreed it was to Federal Property, but Federal Troops were deployed. Federal troops were on city streets for the riots.

In 1970, while stationed at Ft. Meade, MD., I underwent training for riot and crowd control along with a couple of thousand or so additional troops stationed at Ft. Meade. Though never deployed the destination was to be Wash D.C. I do mean active duty federal troops, active duty Army, the war fighting Army, not National Guard.

I didn't see it, a friend did and he may have been involved. I do know he was pretty upset and said all the guys driving them had just returned from Vietnam. He also had photos of the tanks on the highway.

Modern tanks destroy highways and city roads. That was the main reason DC said no to Trump's big military parade a couple of years ago. There are some pretty big troop carriers with tires that would be okay. But not the treaded vehicles. I think some helicopter pilots are going to get in trouble over low hovering in DC for crowd control. Illegal flight height as well as violation of the Geneva Conventions for using a red cross-marked helicopter in one case.

Federal troops on federal land or facilities is a different issue (hell, the Marines and Army have troops at the white house and a few other places as a standard measure).

I thought we were talking about the use of federal troops in municipal areas of DC.

Years ago My son and his friend were admiring a tank that the national guard had parked across the alley in a parking lot for citizens to admire and sign up. The two guys had driven it from the national guard place across town. The treads seemed to be heavy rubber. Anyway, the two guys who brought it were spiffy in their uniforms and dealing with admiring high school girls. My son, and his friend, climbed into the tank, turned it on, and started to push and pull things. The tank duly started moving. The kids (I think they were 10 or less at the time) were utterly clueless but happy as clams. The two guys, I was told, just about had heart attacks but they got in and got it stopped.

Neither my wife, nor myself, could bring ourselves to even yell at the boys - we always thought they just did what boys do when given a chance. The police were the ones that called us and asked us to pickup our kids and explained what happened. Nobody got hurt and that was, pretty much where it ended. We also apologized to the national guard guys for our kids getting them into trouble.

I have to idea why I am putting this here but it seems somehow pertinent and I have absolutely no idea why <G>