Summer of 2020---The Civil Unrest Thread--Read OP Before Posting (in memory of George Floyd)

[RansomthePasserby]

1 hour ago, Llevron said:

Never been to a protest b4. Yall think bringing a cooler full of ice water would be a good idea so I can share it with folks? I can pull it that wont really be an issue for me. 

A first aid kit and Advil/Tylenol is probably a good idea in case you or someone else needs to be patched up. 

[Bacon]

I've decided to cut some subscriptions out of my online budget to make room for monthly donations to organizations that improve black lives in LA. It's not a huge move on my part, but it's a necessary one. I stress that it needs to be monthly because we can't forget and we can't let anyone else forget.

 

Here in SoCal, if you want to be a mentor to black and brown kids in the area, we have an organization called Peace4Kids. My wife has been going over to Compton for years to work with kids. They read, do music and crafts, ball on the playground, organize community cleanup, etc. They ask a lot of you, but if you're real about it, it's something you can do.

 

I'm in education, and I could tell you all the horror stories I've heard and experienced over the years of being an IA and student teaching, all the kids sleeping at school, all the times we barely had enough food for the lunches we set out, the crappy playground equipment, etc. Even a small defunding of law enforcement and a redirection to education would make a huge difference for kids.

 

Everyone needs a purpose. I would recommend anyone watch Hoop Dreams because it shows you what a goal can do for kids and young adults who have basically no opportunities afforded to them by American society. Their lives are brutally hard but they keep it together because they AREN'T thugs. They are people with lives and dreams and they deserve as much of an opportunity as people like me with two ****ing degrees and a teaching credential. It's about damn time that we give them that opportunity.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Bacon

[spjunkies]

1 minute ago, RansomthePasserby said:

A first aid kit and Advil/Tylenol is probably a good idea in case you or someone else needs to be patched up. 

 

Imagine saying something like this 2 weeks ago 😑

[RichmondRedskin88]

Anyone just feel like **** is gonna hit the fan this weekend for some reason?  I feel like something gonna go down in Richmond. Maybe it’s because of last weekend but it’s just a weird feeling.

Edited June 4, 2020 by RichmondRedskin88

[tshile]

1 hour ago, Llevron said:

Never been to a protest b4. Yall think bringing a cooler full of ice water would be a good idea so I can share it with folks? I can pull it that wont really be an issue for me. 

Backpack

its so hot out you don’t need the ice and a cooler to deal with

 

[bcl05]

Trump was asked about trust for police among POC.  This is the transcript of his response.  I am now dumber for having read this.  I would love to hear anyone defend this madness, just for the sheer audacity and denial of reality.  

 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by bcl05

[gbear]

Al Sharpton is still a good speaker.  I still like his response to being told he just seeks publicity, "They're right!  People don't call me to keep secrets."

[RemoveSnyder]

Some more macro clarity for the suburban facebook empathy affluent whites.

 

 

Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist, Presbyterian minister, and visiting Princeton University lecturer.

[spjunkies]

23 minutes ago, RichmondRedskin88 said:

Anyone just feel like **** is gonna hit the fan this weekend for some reason?  I feel like something gonna go down in Richmond. Maybe it’s because of last weekend but it’s just a weird feeling.

 

I don't think so. Things will probably start to settle more and more starting tonight, voices have been heard so now it's time to start moving on to the next stages of healing. 

 

 

[gbear]

I don't know.  It may be quiet this weekend, but I will be curious to see the reaction for the next call for a march on Washington in August.

[Dan T.]

1 hour ago, bcl05 said:

Trump was asked about trust for police among POC.  This is the transcript of his response.  I am now dumber for having read this.  I would love to hear anyone defend this madness, just for the sheer audacity and denial of reality.  

 

 

 

Every response turns immediately into talking about Donald Trump.  And there is ZERO thought into the issue at hand. Canned campaign rhetoric is all he can muster during the most fraught time in the last 80 to 100 years of our nation's history. 

 

It is maddeningly inarticulate, narcissistic, and empty.  He is an empty shell of a man, a dolt who is supremely ill-equipped intellectually or emotionally to be in any position of leadership in any capacity outside of his grifting family business.

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by Dan T.

[China]

 

[UKskins]

20 hours ago, The Sisko said:

Thanks so much @UKskins. You have no idea how uplifting and encouraging it is to see people around the world show up to support not only our struggle, but for the rights of their own marginalized communities as well. The Syrian tribute was especially touching given everything they’ve endured. Nothing can bring George Floyd back, but the **** that murdered him immortalized him

I missed this one in the news, but Paris, a few days ago... This protest was BANNED by the authorities but the people stood up and made their voices heard anyway.

 

 

 

 

Lots more protests in the UK scheduled for this weekend all over the country.

 

Sunday's protests will see us take a knee for 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silent remembrance and reflection.

 

UK's second largest city (Birmingham) today had thousands on the street and a number of smaller protests in smaller towns and cities were well attended. Several radio stations simultaneously played Jimmy Cliff's "The harder they come" at 7pm in solidarity tonight.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-52920826

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by UKskins

[The Evil Genius]

Apologize if this is a repost..I wish I had that swagger.

 

 

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by The Evil Genius

[mistertim]

32 minutes ago, Dan T. said:

 

Every response turns immediately into talking about Donald Trump.  And there is ZERO thought into the issue at hand. Canned campaign rhetoric is all he can muster during the most fraught time in the last 70 years of our nation's history. 

 

It is maddeningly inarticulate, narcissistic, and empty.  He is an empty shell of a man, a dolt who is supremely ill-equipped intellectually or emotionally to be in any position of leadership in any capacity outside of his grifting family business.

 

 

I think even this is a little too kind. Even when talking about himself, Trump can hardly form a coherent sentence without interrupting his own train of thought and going off on some tangent. It makes me think of a schizophrenic person who only takes their medications once in a while instead of every day. And MAGAs call Biden "Dementia Joe" because he's had some gaffes and talks funny sometimes because of a longtime speech impediment. They truly have no sense of irony.

[gbear]

Watching the service, I am struck again by how long 8 min and 45 seconds really is.  Wow. I can't imagine they never thought "what am I doing?" in all that time.

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[China]

Australia wants the US to investigate a police attack on 2 Australian reporters

 

When federal law enforcement shot tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful American protesters outside the White House on Monday, little did they know they’d start an international incident with one of the country’s closest allies.

 

Foreign reporters Amelia Brace and Tim Myers with Australia’s 7NEWS were in the crowd covering the demonstration live on air when officers suddenly began to violently disperse the protesters to make room for President Donald Trump’s photo op in front of a nearby church.

 

In the live video footage of the scene, Brace, standing off-camera, tells her anchors back home that she and her camera operator Tim Myers had just been shot at with rubber bullets while trying to flee from the approaching officers, and that Myers had been hit. As she’s saying this, the crowd starts to run again: “Here we go, they’re moving through again!” she says, as officers in riot gear rush at the protesters.

 

As she’s describing the scene, an officer appears right in front of the camera, and seems to punch Myers in the face with his fist as Brace shouts “Media!” The camera drops to the ground and goes black for a few seconds as the anchors back in Australia shout, “Whoa!”

 

“Amelia, can you hear us?” one of the anchors asks. “Are you okay? Or your cameraman?” Neither Brace nor Myers respond, but the camera resumes filming the scene. “It looks like a policeman just punched our cameraman,” an anchor says.

 

Brace then appears back on screen. “You heard us yelling that we were media, but they don’t care,” Brace tells the anchors. “They’re being indiscriminate at the moment. They chased us down that street.”

 

“You really saw the way they dealt with my cameraman Tim there — quite violent. They don’t really care who they’re targeting at the moment,” Brace continues.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[Dan T.]

28 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

 

 

Please Internet do your job and ID this man.

[visionary]

 

[spjunkies]

Soooo refreshing to see there are still people remaining with sense!

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[China]

Police Blinded Me in One Eye. I Can Still See Why My Country’s on Fire.

 

I have been weeping since Friday night, because that is the night I was shot in the face. I have, since then, begun to piece together what happened to me: It wasn’t a rubber bullet, it was a foam bullet. I was standing near Minneapolis’s Third Police Precinct. I will not regain sight in my left eye. I will need more surgeries. But I have not been crying for my lost vision; rather, it feels as though my body is reacting to what is happening to my country.

 

 

This has been coming for years; anyone with wisdom has felt it in their bones. You cannot elevate to leadership the most base elements of humanity, the most amoral and reckless and cruel, and think that things will go well for the nation. Back in 2016, a week or so before the presidential election, I wrote a piece about how Donald Trump’s campaign speeches were openly fascist, how they spiked fear in those parts of my soul that remember being raised as a nativist. Back then, you couldn’t say Trumpism was a form of fascism—it was considered a bit hysterical.

 

That remained true in mainstream consensus throughout 2017 and 2018. Sometime last year, more people started to realize that the norms were shattering, and they weren’t reassembling by way of any magnetic properties of self-healing constitutionalism. It was after we put migrant kids in camps and after the president started encouraging people to batter the press and after impeachment, but before the current stage of authoritarian collapse, which has us gassing clergy and desecrating churches for photo ops. Fascism is always a slow slide into routinized mayhem, noticeable to most people only in retrospect.

 

Since I was shot, I have been worldwide front-page news: China is using my bloodied face as propaganda, for instance. Hundreds, if not thousands, of interview requests have flooded in. All anyone wants to talk about is freedom of the press, if I am angry, what I will do next. I think that I am angry—but no more than I was this time last week, when I was watching America burn for the pleasure of our vainglorious leader. I lost an eye; George Floyd lost his life. What right do I have to rage on my own behalf?

 

Click on the link for the rest

 

 

[Dan T.]

It strikes me that the demonstrations in major cities in Europe and elsewhere seem to dwarf those in the U.S.  It is heartening.  But let's step it up U.S.

 

I'm going on a bike ride with a couple friends this weekend.  Any word on marches or other activities for downtown DC this weekend?  We will plan a route to join whatever is planned.