No, it really wasn't. I'm not sure how you even compare two fundamentally abusive regimes in terms of one being 'more just' than the other-- seems to me like an exercise in futility-- but for every way in which the USSR was an 'improvement' over the old Tsarist system there's a whole bunch of ways they managed to hone and perfect the Tsarist methods of cruelty and oppression, and come up with quite a few of their own.

The Soviet regime decimated entire peoples and cultures, killed tens of millions of people, and engineered the ethnic and political tensions that have since led to further slaughter and hampered the democratization and development of post-Soviet countries. At that point, trying to finagle over whether they were 'more just' than their predecessors is kind of like asking if it's better to have your eye gouged out or to have your right arm amputated at the elbow.

I'm sorry, I was agreeing with you until you said "anti-democratic non-compliance with Soviet law". Also "loyalty to their state and country"? Sounds like nationalist bullshit, tbh. What happened to the right to self-determination?

"there should be consequences in a democracy when folks refuse to abide by the will of the majority", OK cool, let me excuse the Tulsa riots for one sec because that was the will of the majority.

I think horseshoe theory is bullshit but these rampant power fantasies are the death of socialism.

Alright, that's enough discussing racism in capitalism vs. communism. There are other venues for it and we've lost a full page of this thread to it already. Drop the earlier convo and let's keep this thread about George Floyd, Minneapolis, protests and/or police brutality.

Some of those tankie talking points are insanely gross, and they are DERAILING the thread completely.


100%.

Anyone continuing along these lines is gonna meet the banhammer.

Not to mention the fact that it's the most boring discussion imaginable.

I went to a peaceful protest in Royal Oak, MI today.

I would say there were about 500 people, or so. Also, it was about 95% white, but oh well. I still felt like I was a part of something.

Banksy made a decent statement on that.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBFyA8iM15Y/

Shits also going down in Mexico now over police brutality. There's a clear domino effect, and one I like to see.

In case anyone is interested, a couple poeple are trying to collect all the videos of police responding to the police brutality protests with police brutality:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/ ... p3Svb_KZA#

ACAB

Were you expecting something else based on the demographics of that area?

We had demonstrations in Norway in Oslo and the other big cities. It was 100% peaceful and orderly as far as I could tell. It was mostly done in solidarity with the situation in America.

Now I'm hearing idiots say that anyone who protests the death of George Floyd is an idiot and a horrible person because supposedly he was a pretty bad criminal with a long rap sheet who once robbed a pregnant woman at gunpoint.

But even if that's true, what these idiots fail to see is that this isn't about whether or not he was a good person, and it's not about who he was in particular, it's about fighting back against police brutality in general, and against systemic racism in particular.

It doesn't even matter if he'd been a murderer, fact is, we don't get to play god and everyone is entitled to a fair trial and no one is legally allowed to murder a man in broad daylight, let alone THREE men on top of a hand cuffed man belly down.

Then you have people going on and on about how horrible the looters and rioters are, and while i don't really support that, they make up a relatively small number of the protesters, most of whom are peaceful, and to even spend more than a second discussing property damage instead of focussing on all the lives that have been taken in the name of racism and police brutality is just retarded.

Sure, mindless looting is uncool, but property can be repaired and lives can't.

Then I heard some stupid redneck southern pastor giving a little rant on someone's facebook page about "where is all our outrage at all the black people who have killed other black people?"

Talk about shifting the fucking goal posts lol. Why not talk about all the North Koreans who have killed South Koreans or all the Japanese who have killed Chinese while we're fucking at it?

Sure, black people kill black people, but that's not the particular issue at hand here, and to even mention it like that suggest this idiot was racist.

Then another facebook friend of mine who's a Trump supporter starts posting stats that more black people are killed by black people per year than whites, which IF it is even true, still doesn't say much.

What about all of the past 40 years? What about all the black people who get cops called on them for no reason? What about blacks getting longer prison sentences or being more quickly convicted of crimes than whites? What about black people being afraid to call the cops because of police brutality? What about all the black people who get tickets over white people when pulled over, or all the black people denied jobs that whites get or get suspicious looks or get pulled over even if not arrested?

There's so many nuanced factors to the systemic racism issue, and I'm not black, but hearing this shit pisses me off.

I don't really know what i'd say to anyone who tries to suggest that more blacks are killed by blacks per year than whites because I don't know if it's true, but i just don't get into these debates with anyone on facebook or in real life and will only make posts like this where my name is anonymous cause i don't want to start life long disputes with real life aquaintainces.

I would never have thought years ago that I'd know so many people who so completely disagree with me on basic issues concerning police brutality and racism, and it's downright disgusting.

It is due to grasping at straws here. The people unmoved by this situation are the same ones who rushed to point out that Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri a few years ago had just got done stealing Swisher Sweets from a local store and assaulting the store clerk in the process. Both of these actions there is video evidence of and the report follows that he had responded violently to the responding officer, even attempting to take his gun.

There is nothing wrong with pointing out every single thing that Michael Brown had done wrong on that day but leaving it there would be disrespectful and disgusting because the common sense conclusion was not reached. No matter what actions he took on that day the very millisecond that Brown had surrendered was when the cop should have been the more level headed person and behaved accordingly. The perp was already on his knees, just tell him to roll over and then one he is, cuff him and keep your gun drawn just in case. Does not seem all that complicated, especially for someone who is supposed to go know this before he is allowed to wear a badge. The one thing that the cop was NOT allowed to do was empty his gun into a surrendered perpetrator. I do not care what Michael Brown or George Floyd had been doing previously, they were not a threat when the cop had the chance to be an upstanding member of the police force or think he is Robocop.

The other reason it is stupid to mention that Floyd might have been a criminal or not is what about the other cases where the black victim was doing absolutely nothing wrong? Anyone remember Eric Garner? That man was simply selling cigarettes to others and if Garner is not allowed to sell cigarettes, why is the store he was in front of allowed to sell them? Because they have tax stamps?It very much is about his character. I bet you that if a white cop apprehended/killed a black man/woman who was in the process of drowning another person you would declare the cop a hero. Or how about the cop who shot Nathan Gale who had just murdered four people in cold blood and was holding a bunch of other people hostage? There is video footage of, I believe the Road Manager, telling the cop afterwards that the cop had to do it because the cop himself was shaken up. He had to receive professional help after that encounter.

Just because you are on the side of the victim does not mean someone is an idiot when they point out the behavior of the victim. If a person is breaking the law and gets killed in the process then blame can be spread around but what is that well worn, ironically urban, mantra? "Don't Start None, Won't Be None!"

Now in this case the victim was not breaking the law and that might have been all you cared about but it is not unfair to point out the character of somebody.How is pointing out the behavior of the victim at or before the time of their death 'playing God'? It is something you should want them to attract attention towards, it actually better strengthens your correct perspective here. George Floyd was not doing anything wrong and he therefore did not deserve to be murdered.This is the part that continues to aggravate me about this. Sure there will be some people who lack the ability to point out that their mentioning of the looting is thoughtful but it does not help when other people stupidly write things like, "Hey property can be repaired" or "to even spend more than a second discussing property damage instead of focussing on all the lives that have been taken in the name of racism and police brutality is just retarded."

NO! You know what is retarded? Watching a bunch of cops get away with murder and your answer to fixing that serious problem is to destroy a building that will likely cause a significant portion of the population to now be unemployed. Guess where they have to go to get assistance if they are unemployed? The government, you know, that evil entity that is refusing to police the police like they are supposed to. Furthermore these events do not end time as we know it, which means this situation will become nothing more than just a historical footnote in society but the damage you cause by destruction is not going to just go away. Burned down buildings are not going to suddenly become sentient and announce to the world, "Hey the protests against cops has subsided so I guess I will just build myself back up again. No thanks citizens I will not need your taxes to skyrocket so as to fix the infrastructure."

This is not a Weird Science scenario where the damage done is fixed by the flick of a computer button. Instead this is something that will have to devastating effects on the people who live in said cities. There is a financial disaster that comes with this destruction and the law abiding tax paying citizens are going to have to eat 100% of the costs it will take to rebuild. Like someone wrote that the looters are only a very small portion of the population, all of those who wish to protest effectively are going to lose simply because the dumbasses refuse to accept that the other side are always going to focus on your bad actions and use it against you.

I am very much against the looting but it is not because I care about the buildings or that I care about the capitalist aspects they represent, blah blah blah emotional knee jerking blah blah blah, I am instead talking about just how stupid and counterproductive the looting is.Between "retarded" and now "redneck" I guess stereotyping and offensive wording has been disregarded and if so, that works.

- As for the claim made by the pastor... it was a pastor. Why would you not expect something inclusive and without intelligence?
- As far as his claim that black people kill more blacks then white people do, if that is true it would be something a religious minded person would eat up. They enjoy taking numerical values (rather real or imagined) and broadcasting their numbers because they think it makes them look and sound smart. The reality is people with more active Melanocyte cells make up between only 12 - 14% of the worlds population. When your figures are that low then every variable you include is going to inflate that percentage.
- A black man could kill ten black men while a white man could kill ten white men and the black mans crimes will appear higher for the reason stated above. To your point however, it does not really matter since the discussion is not about that and is instead entirely about police officers getting away with murdering people.So I have a question here. You mentioned that you were not black so as someone whom is not black; if you were on the cusp of advancing in life, for which you have more than earned, but you had a stiff earned competitor who was vying for that same advancement. If you were passed over for this advancement simply on the grounds of you are not black and your competitor was, would that be racist?
- In the context of our current situation the mere mentioning of certain words can have one labeled as racist. Perhaps I am being too literal with the definition but it would seem that racism is anything that involves race. If I referred to you with a sneer no one would say anything but if I referred to someone black with the sane sneer and nothing added people would claim it was racially motivated. So at what point does it become racist? This is important because in the above question it would appear that the normally subjugated black man just received a VERY positive advancement, even if it was decided on simply due to his skin pigmentation.

Did you seriously just handwave away a litany of examples of systemic racism to JAQ off about how affirmative action is racist too?

No. I did not handwave away anything because while you think I am uneducated I am just educated enough to know the issue here is systemic racism. I guess I should have written that I agreed with him on these systemic issues before asking my one question.
I was not JAQ, I was JA 1 Q which I am sure you think makes me uneducated, but was certainly not insane. If I was insane I would respond rudely and make you ban me.

Yeah lots of black people kill black people in ghettos they're born into and can't escape because they're denied proper educational and job opportunities. Your Facebook friend is making a great case against systemic racism there...


Heh is that like a reverse ad hominem? Are those the new thing?

What even is the liberal prescription for ending the racism in an entire pillar of American society that was designed from the ground up to protect private infrastructure, with some pretty dubious origins? Many of the police "reforms" have made explicit racism less acceptable, so they instead shift to class signifiers (e.g., broken windows policing, cheap cars, "poor" parts of town etc.) which was intentionally designed to enforce the exact same racist system. So ever since Rodney King nearly lost his life, we increased black representation in the police force by almost 40% (including many black police chiefs and sheriffs and officer trainers), greatly decreased explicit racial profiling, turned many if not most official policies towards class signifiers and away from race... and yet police are still overwhelmingly killing black people. Maybe there's another variable buried in there somewhere? Just a thought.

And this is an anecdote but: my girlfriend, who is black, has had far worse interactions with black police officers than white ones. She's unsure if it's because there's more pressure on them from the high-ups to whip "their people" into shape or if it's because they're covered with the Race Card, so harassing PoC can't be racist and is a super fun power trip.

Going even further, FOX NEWS APOLOGISED for a massively insensitive and inappropriate infographic on the subject.

No, I was just giving a more detailed description of the area for people that aren't from around here.

The protest in Providence a couple days ago was the most beautiful mass of humanity I’ve ever been a part of. There were around 10,000 people there, and not one instance of protester violence occurred. The only aggression at any points in the day was caused by the cops near the end when they tried intimidating the protesters off the state house grounds before the governor came out and told the protesters they can continue to march peacefully past curfew. Out of 10,000 people, only 9 arrests happened.

10,000 people is unbelievable compared to the 500 I was with. And I felt like there were a lot of people there.

Literally 1% of the entire state of Rhode Island was in Providence for that protest. It was absolutely incredible, and then another big protest happened in Newport yesterday with several thousand marching peacefully.

It's lucky that coronavirus isn't a thing anymore.

Everyone at the rally had masks on, and everyone knew the risks of getting sick from being there, but honestly this is a way bigger issue than the pandemic. The coronavirus will eventually pass. Systemic racism and police brutality will keep going on forever unless something is done about it.

It will take police brutality decades or centuries to do the same amount of damage that the virus will do in months. So the coronavirus eventually passing is more of an argument to postpone this stuff than anything else. But it's kind of a pointless point to make, I realize. It's got the momentum going right now. Hopefully the health consequences won't be too terrible.

The pandemic wouldn't have even gotten this bad in the US if the president wasn't such a dipshit that he intentionally made things exponentially worse just so he didn't get bad PR, but that's besides the point. There are certain things that are infinitely bigger than anything else in the world. Right now, that certain thing is the unleashing of 400 years of pent up anger and rage on the part of black Americans and their allies against the treatment they've received ever since the first slaves were brought over from Africa. That unleashing of all that anger has spread out over the entire world, because, newsflash, BLACK PEOPLE HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN TREATED AS INFERIOR TO WHITE PEOPLE. It has been that way in every region of the world where white Europeans settled and colonized the land, subjugating the native people of those lands to brutality and enslavement. Then they started invading the shores of West Africa, stealing the native people from their homes, and shipping them off to America and the rest of Europe to be used as slaves, and once black slavery was abolished in the western world, the white powers that be continued to abuse and harass black people in a litany of terrible ways. This has gone on for so long that it's easy for the modern human mind to consider it in mostly abstract terms, but it's real, it's happened, it has kept on happening, and it will continue to happen until something is done about it. Everybody is fed the fuck up with systemic racism and the continued subjugation of black people and other people of color everywhere, and, as bad as it has been and most definitely will be going forward, the coronavirus is a microcosmic issue by comparison. Hell, the pandemic is mostly affecting people of color anyway! A black person is four times more likely to die from coronavirus than a white person. You want to know why that's the case? It's because the systemic injustices placed upon black people are more likely to keep them in dire poverty, and because poor people are more likely to die from coronavirus overall, it's killing more blacks than whites. Blacks are also more likely to be essential workers in this country, especially when it comes to low-wage service industry positions, which means they are also at a much greater risk of getting and dying from coronavirus.

Everything ties back to the fact that black people all over the world, and especially in the United States, have an incredible set of barriers placed in front of them by every system in place here on the local, state, and federal levels due to their skin color, and this has been the case for way longer than anyone reading this post can properly comprehend. Nothing will improve until we, the people, force change. As bad as the virus and pandemic has been, it will pass in time. This, however, will just keep on going on in perpetuity until we all fucking do something about it.

I agree the timing of mass protests during a highly infectious pandemic is shit, but it's very very important to remember that the protesters didn't choose the timing, Derek Chauvin did. So if the protests increase the infection rate, don't blame the protesters, blame Derek Chauvin. Same with the people complaining about rioting, blame Derek Chauvin. He's the one who made the choice for all of this to happen right now, nobody else. Nobody would be protesting against murders without murderers. So it's a simple equation if you don't want protests: Remove the murderers and you'll remove the murders and you'll remove the protests.

Exactly what drone said. The police are the reason any of this stuff is happening in the first place. If Derek Chauvin decided not to murder a man for no reason, and the other cops there didn't just stand around with their thumbs in their asses and actually pulled him off of George Floyd, these protests wouldn't be happening at all right now, and everyone would still be making fun of Karens that think CHY-NA created the virus to make Trump look bad and yell about wanting to sit inside of a McDonald's again.

I do wonder if the protests would've been less big had

1) Both the Ahmaud Arbery and NYC-Karen incident didn't take place around the exact same time
2) There was no pandemic to begin with.

If the MLB/NHL/NBA was still taking place, if bars/nightclubs/restaurants were open, and if people felt a little more employment security, I don't think things would've snapped as easily. But the culmination of everything that has happened due to quarantine has made people on edge, while simultaneously giving them more room in their day to pay attention to politics. The biggest systemic changes happen when young people actually pay attention to what's happening politically.

I think you're neglecting the most important piece of that relationship with the pandemic, Unorthodox, which is that there's fewer young people and visible minorities working as a result of restrictions on the service industry worldwide. The protests probably wouldn't have the turnout or the efficacy, or even the explosiveness they currently do, if people had jobs, felt that they had to work, and - as you said - felt a little more employment security, and even had anything to look forward to. It probably hasn't helped that the lockdowns have been physically, emotionally and mentally trying on most people, and it wouldn't - and didn't - take much to ignite the anger, frustration and stress people have had being on edge. These protests were a long time coming, and their scope and scale are most definitely tied to the pandemic.

Regarding the virus, though, it doesn't care who is to blame. We can rightfully blame the police for any subsequent outbreaks. We can rightfully blame the poor policies of politicians or the actions of states for making it worse. We can blame our neighbours or our own actions for foolishly spreading it. I think at this point, though, we've reached a point with the pandemic where the protests were really the final nail in the coffin of the public-at-large really caring about it. There's already been signs for months of people not following the rules, or taking their own risks. Most of us have probably done something we weren't supposed to do, like visit a family member, or have a friend over, or made one too many trips to the grocery store. I remember it wasn't too long ago that there were calls for the police to arrest small groups of people in parks; that most definitely is a thing of the past now. At least in the northern hemisphere, as the weather has gotten warmer, and the news normalized the virus and the sheer numbers of victims, I suspect most people have just had fatigue with it all. And now the news isn't really covering it as a front page headline story; for what it's worth it seems even news agencies are getting tired of reporting it as much as they had before. But the virus isn't going anywhere. And I see it as unlikely that lockdowns will be imposed again, or people will continue to follow social and physical distancing as requested and required.

Without a doubt these protests are so important and so needed. As far as the pandemic is concerned, though, we've moved on and it hasn't. The best you can hope for is that at least some people take precautions.

When the initial reaction to the viral outbreak was to ignore it until it exploded, we missed the only real chance at containment. That's out the window now and I think folks need to understand that, at this point, you're gonna get it, it's only a question of when. I don't think there are any steps we can take short of imposing a full isolation quarantine (not gonna happen) that will bring this under control without a vaccine.

I don't know how to multi-quote, so I'll address the points that make sense to address, but I feel like we probably agree on most things, unless i am confused, so I'm not quite sure why you wrote such a long response to me.

To your question at the end, which seems to be about affirmative action, while I'm not sure I entirely understand affirmative action, if it is what i think it is, which would be giving someone a job just because they are black even if they are less qualified than a white person, then no, even despite my hating all racism, i think a job should always go to the person who is the most qualified, and i do not believe that giving a job to a more qualified white, asian or latino person over a less qualified black person is racism, it is simply giving a job to a more qualified person.

Then when you go on saying "it is very much about his character", it sounds to me like you think I'm talking about the character OF THE COP AND NOT GEORGE FLOYD, WHEREAS I WAS TALKING ABOUT GEORGE FLOYD.

I was saying that it doesn't matter whether or not George Floyd was an overall good person in his life or committed certain immoral crimes, that he still did not deserve to be killed in cold blood, and that his having robbed a woman in no way lessons the necessity for the protests.

And so the reason i believe it is wrong to mention that George Floyd was a criminal, and specifically THE WAY IN WHICH THESE PEOPLE MENTIONED IT...is because they were trying to use his being a less than stellar person as reason to excuse the actions of the cops and Derek Chauvin specifically.

The one guy said "anyone who protests over the death of a man who robbed a pregnant women at gun point is lower than a snake's belly" and that is a bunch of shit.

It's bullshit because the protest is not specifically over only the death of George Floyd, although it also is about him because he didn't deserve to die, but about all cops who kill or mistreat black people, all systemic racism in general, and in my personal opinion, I think you could also make it extend to all police brutality towards people of any race as well.

This guy was acting like this was an isolated incident and not followed by decades of systemic racism and police brutality, and again, regardless of what he might have been like in his life, he was still a human being who deserved the right to live.

As for the looting an rioting, because I'm not black i don't feel i have the position to say whether or not how another race expresses it's anger towards unjust treatment is my place to say, and some will make the argument that some destruction of commerically owned buisnesses strengthens the protest, and i honestly don't know if that's true or not, but you are right IMO that I can't support privately owned mom and pop buisnesses being burned down and destroyed by people.

That said, my point was that many people have been focussing much more on the property destruction and much less on the life that was taken or on systemic racism in general.

I have a number of facebook "friends" who are acquaitances and not good friends of mine who i have, to my disgust, noticed are spending lots of time railing against the looting and property destruction while barely showing any anger at the death of George Floyd or the racism.

They spend all this time being so pissed off at the rioting but, in the words of one guy who was saying that more blacks kill blacks per year than whites, he said basically "So few blacks are killed by white cops per year, and it's unrealistic that this will never happen, so what do we really want the numbers to be? ZERO blacks killed by cops per year?"

I mean, that's fucked up to say because YES WE WANT ZERO BLACKS KILLED BY COPS PER YEAR!

To suggest that the goal is unrealistic and then go on to complain about property damage is totally messed up, and i could just as easily have retorted "well, i mean, there usually isn't THAT much property damage per year in protest and riots, so do we really expect ZERO property damage per year?! I mean, that's unrealistic man!!" LOL.

So, i think what i think should be pretty clear, and I'm going to assume you agree with most of it.

Again, I'm not sure why you wrote such a long response.

This is what leadership needed to be in this country a long time ago. Monumental.

The area where the murder took place is also now effectively an autonomous zone. We're seeing some truly revolutionary shit going down, friends.

Whoa, that's amazing, and probably unprecednented.

Has this kind of thing ever occurred before, in the U.S. or any other country?

The question I'd have then is: what exactly does a "community based public safety program" look like, how is it run, and how would this "program" work to effectively prevent serious crimes, particularly violent ones?

I mean, this sounds like we are talking about a city with no police right?

How does that even work?

Who makes sure no one kills, rapes, robs, speeds at 120mph, etc?

Cause if this really means there won't be cops in Minneapolis, then there needs to be some form of law and order, and how would these "programs" not inevitably either be less effective than police, or if somehow they are as effective at crime prevention as police, then what stops those who enforce the "program" from not abusing their power and becoming just like make-shift vigilante Charles Bronson-esque cop-thugs themselves?

And I wonder if any other cities will follow suite and disband police forces, cause while on one level it sounds impressive, on another, if they replace cops in my town with a "public safety program" and someone breaks into my house, then who do I call?

My prediction is it will effectively work as a giant reset button to the police force. Which is much needed. We'll see how it goes, it'll be interesting to watch.

Your neighbors, probably. Cops are often pretty damned useless in that situation anyway.

I don't trust my neighbors, they're ass holes to the max.

Even if they're assholes, I'd trust my neighbors over cops basically 100% of the time. If they have half a brain, then they'll realize that in a situation with no cops, people who don't necessarily get along still have to look out for one another. Maybe I'm too optimistic.

Also, a good deal of the work cops do can be covered by even vaguely competent social workers.