Protests following the killing of George Floyd

Pogue Mahone said:
Voting doesn’t lead to change? Seriously?! You don’t think Trump being voted in to power has changed anything? That’s a strange notion.
Click to expand...
Oh dude, you're not familiar with entropy's posts.

He thinks that the system is rotten to the core, and there is no difference between Trump and Biden (or Obama, or Clinton, or any other president). Just that Trump doesn't have the presidential facade. To be fair, it is a very extreme position but these protests have made me sympathize with his position. I don't necessarily agree (at least, not yet), but to some degree, it is a valid position to make. I am not sure what the solution might be though (and neither I think he and co. have some solution on mind).
 
'Thank you for your service.'
 
Wasn't exactly the West Wing.
 
Take it this was the big show of strength from Trump, that he won’t take no shit..
 
Revan said:
Oh dude, you're not familiar with entropy's posts.

He thinks that the system is rotten to the core, and there is no difference between Trump and Biden (or Obama, or Clinton, or any other president). Just that Trump doesn't have the presidential facade. To be fair, it is a very extreme position but these protests have made me sympathize with his position. I don't necessarily agree (at least, not yet), but to some degree, it is a valid position to make. I am not sure what the solution might be though (and neither I think he and co. have some solution on mind).
Click to expand...

It’s a stupid position. It was always a stupid position. And it’s peak stupidity to double down after Trump has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of black Americans due to his cack-handed response to the pandemic, then attempting to set the fecking army on to BLM protestors. But voting doesn’t matter. Genius.
 
Deery said:
Take it this was the big show of strength from Trump, that he won’t take no shit..
Click to expand...
He's taking shit from the entire world. From DC neighborhoods to Beverly Hills, to Tokyo, London to Moscow, the world is laughing at him. He's such a little scared shit that he threatens the military against teenagers asking not to be killed.
 
Trump should have just said "everyone should listen to the speech made by George Floyd's brother"
 
Abizzz said:
He's taking shit from the entire world. From DC neighborhoods to Beverly Hills, to Tokyo, London to Moscow, the world is laughing at him. He's such a little scared shit that he threatens the military against teenagers asking not to be killed.
Click to expand...
Abizzz said:
He's taking shit from the entire world. From DC neighborhoods to Beverly Hills, to Tokyo, London to Moscow, the world is laughing at him. He's such a little scared shit that he threatens the military against teenagers asking not to be killed.
Click to expand...
Oh most definitely a coward, but I would fear for protesters after that it’s sending out dangerous signals I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody was shot tonight.
 
TLW said:
It's all calculated - the intimidation tactics, the suppression of the press, the positioning of himself as the only person strong enough to keep order and make tough decisions like turning the nation's military on its own people.

It's all by design and invoking the 2nd amendment is right on brand.

This is fascism and it deserves to be called by its name.
Click to expand...
 
sport2793 said:
No he's also deploying active duty troops under the Insurrection Act of 1807. This is gonna get a lot worse.
Click to expand...
He can do that without invoking that act specifically in DC, which is what is happening. Though I was mistaken and did not realize it can overrule the Posse Comitatus Act, so it is still on the table.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
To be honest, I don’t even think the protests in the US will have any effect on the situation. We’ve seen it all before and let’s not forget that thousands upon thousands of those people protesting didn’t even use their vote to keep the orange racist out of the White House. WTF?!

But yes, I stand by my comments that the protests in Dublin today (or anywhere in Europe) will do sweet feck all to reverse systemic racism on the far side of the Atlantic.

I’m well aware of our history of fighting for civil rights and in any other year, at any other time, I’d be proud as punch to see our streets full of people supporting the BLM movement. Even if it changes nothing’s it’s good to show we care. Not now though. Feck that. We have to find a different way to express solidarity. A way that won’t reverse the hard yards we’ve all fought together to win against this virus. It can’t be all that difficult, surely?
Click to expand...

Kind of reluctantly seeing it this way to be honest. It’s great to see so many non black people taking a stand but the more I think about it, the more the cynical side of me thinks a massive amount of people are doing it just to sort of 'be there'.

I dunno, to me there needs to be action, more action from the white population backing this thing. And most of what has gone on before this doesn’t tell me this will happen.

Either one of two things are going on here.
one - the white people around the globe who back this protest (those we see marching/posting things on social media) are in the majority and have not done anywhere near enough to stop the continued institutional racism that is rank in the 'western world'.
two - the white people around the globe who back the protest are actually in the minority and have been doing their bit. However the dark reality is that the majority whilst not actively racist, do not care about racism. It can't be both and it can't be in between because we're seeing the same thing happen everywhere and the same minority of people saying the same things. You touched on this with America voting in Trump but it's not even just there.

I see protests in England yet in a majority white nation, the Prime Minister is a man with a history of racially abusive comments. Non white people in these nations are still repeatedly pointing to racism in their daily life, work and even just going out to shops or for a night out.
I see protests in Canada yet in a majority white nation, the Prime Minister is a man with a history of using black face. Again, non white people in Canada are still talking about widescale racism.
I see protests in Ireland yet in a majority white nation, politicians are actively using 'racist propaganda' to win votes. Again, immigrants are still talking about their racist experiences.
I see protests in New Zealand yet in a majority white nation, the Prime Minister said nothing for years as her close colleagues went on racist tirades. And once again the minority in this country are still saying racism is widespread.

It doesn't make sense, how can all the people protesting from all these countries be coming from countries where casual and open racism appears to be rewarded by you getting to run the whole fecking country. Something is not adding up here. How and why are these people getting into and staying in these positions? It should be noted that all of these politicians have also had their say on George Floyd.
As a white person at these marches, it's all well and good coming out now but when all of this is scaled back down to normal day to day life, the racism is going to continue and you need to follow through. Nobody has a problem criticising and calling out non-racist police officers for standing idle but when you go back to your normal life practice what you preach because if you don't you're just as bad as them.

Don't stay silent at your work drinks when your coked-up-middle-aged-six-figure-salary directors start racially abusing people and calling it 'banter'.
Don't stay silent when you're a white footballer and one of your team mates or opposition players is getting racially abused by the crowd. Walk off the pitch. And don't turn around and say they 'overreacted' in a post match press conference.
Don't stay silent when you're standing in a night club queue and the bouncer turns away a group of black guys in front of you because he saw them "causing problems around the corner", get out of that line, walk away.
Don't stay silent when you have a black partner and don't wanna upset your "traditional" parents by telling them about it.
Don't stay silent when you preach anti racism but allow Zenit St Petersburg to play in your football competitions (UEFA)
Don't stay silent when you're sat in your NHS management conference and look around the room and there are no black or Asian faces.
Don't stay silent when people from ethnic backgrounds have to send on average 60% more job applications than white people do just to get a call back and even have to lie about their name.
And also, for the love of god, stop calling the police on black men standing around doing normal things and describing it as 'suspicious' or 'drug dealing', stop it right now!
 
Abizzz said:
He's taking shit from the entire world. From DC neighborhoods to Beverly Hills, to Tokyo, London to Moscow, the world is laughing at him.
Click to expand...
In that speech he spoke about 'winning' and that 'We will be great again' despite covid19 and this protest debacle.

Does he actually believe what he says?

Are MAGA acolytes so easily sated just because he holds up a bible, on the day pictures of him as an incestuous father and court papers alleging he is a pedophile are all over social media?
 
Deery said:
Oh most definitely a coward, but I would fear for protesters after that it’s sending out dangerous signals I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody was shot tonight.
Click to expand...
Yes, I fear that too, but worth remembering that people were getting shot by the police every week, only that no cared. If someone gets shot now the entire world will know.
 
Abizzz said:
Yes, I fear that too, but worth remembering that people were getting shot by the police every week, only that no cared. If someone gets shot now the entire world will know.
Click to expand...
I don’t think he’d care
 
Organic Potatoes said:
He can do that without invoking that act specifically in DC, which is what is happening. Though I was mistaken and did not realize it can overrule the Posse Comitatus Act, so it is still on the table.
Click to expand...
It can overrule Posse Comitatus only if a state governor requests help. He specifically stated that he will overrule a governor who he doesn’t think is doing enough, which would violate the law he’s actually citing.
 
Leroy The Red said:
Kind of reluctantly seeing it this way to be honest. It’s great to see so many non black people taking a stand but the more I think about it, the more the cynical side of me thinks a massive amount of people are doing it just to sort of 'be there'.

I dunno, to me there needs to be action, more action from the white population backing this thing. And most of what has gone on before this doesn’t tell me this will happen.

Either one of two things are going on here.
one - the white people around the globe who back this protest (those we see marching/posting things on social media) are in the majority and have not done anywhere near enough to stop the continued institutional racism that is rank in the 'western world'.
two - the white people around the globe who back the protest are actually in the minority and have been doing their bit. However the dark reality is that the majority whilst not actively racist, do not care about racism. It can't be both and it can't be in between because we're seeing the same thing happen everywhere and the same minority of people saying the same things. You touched on this with America voting in Trump but it's not even just there.

I see protests in England yet in a majority white nation, the Prime Minister is a man with a history of racially abusive comments. Non white people in these nations are still repeatedly pointing to racism in their daily life, work and even just going out to shops or for a night out.
I see protests in Canada yet in a majority white nation, the Prime Minister is a man with a history of using black face. Again, non white people in Canada are still talking about widescale racism.
I see protests in Ireland yet in a majority white nation, politicians are actively using 'racist propaganda' to win votes. Again, immigrants are still talking about their racist experiences.
I see protests in New Zealand yet in a majority white nation, the Prime Minister said nothing for years as her close colleagues went on racist tirades. And once again the minority in this country are still saying racism is widespread.

It doesn't make sense, how can all the people protesting from all these countries be coming from countries where casual and open racism appears to be rewarded by you getting to run the whole fecking country. Something is not adding up here. How and why are these people getting into and staying in these positions? It should be noted that all of these politicians have also had their say on George Floyd.
As a white person at these marches, it's all well and good coming out now but when all of this is scaled back down to normal day to day life, the racism is going to continue and you need to follow through. Nobody has a problem criticising and calling out non-racist police officers for standing idle but when you go back to your normal life practice what you preach because if you don't you're just as bad as them.

Don't stay silent at your work drinks when your coked-up-middle-aged-six-figure-salary directors start racially abusing people and calling it 'banter'.
Don't stay silent when you're a white footballer and one of your team mates or opposition players is getting racially abused by the crowd. Walk off the pitch. And don't turn around and say they 'overreacted' in a post match press conference.
Don't stay silent when you're standing in a night club queue and the bouncer turns away a group of black guys in front of you because he saw them "causing problems around the corner", get out of that line, walk away.
Don't stay silent when you have a black partner and don't wanna upset your "traditional" parents by telling them about it.
Don't stay silent when you preach anti racism but allow Zenit St Petersburg to play in your football competitions (UEFA)
Don't stay silent when you're sat in your NHS management conference and look around the room and there are no black or Asian faces.
Don't stay silent when people from ethnic backgrounds have to send on average 60% more job applications than white people do just to get a call back and even have to lie about their name.
And also, for the love of god, stop calling the police on black men standing around doing normal things and describing it as 'suspicious' or 'drug dealing', stop it right now!
Click to expand...

<3
 
Immediately after what he said and did, I was expecting a ton of outrage from politicians - where is it?
------
Our pool of reporters and cameramen was just made to choke on the remnants of tear gas, while being manhandled and screamed at by WH staffers -- without knowing where they were going or why. An extremely volatile situation.
Click to expand...
Nazism.
 
I wish Erin Burnett would stop saying this is the first time this has been used since 1807. It was used in 1989 to stop looting after Hurricane Hugo and in 1992 in the LA riots - but at the request of the state Governors.
 
As many news crews, streamers and people recording on their phones need to be brave and keep recording everything that is going on there. The world is watching in horror. Come the end of all this, there will be a lot of martyrs I dare say.

And honestly, whilst of course you don’t want to see escalation, it would be an even bigger tragedy for Trumps bullying tactics to win, for the riots to be quelled by overwhelming military force, and for things to return to the way they have been.

Can I say hand on heart that I would be prepared to literally put my life on the line if I was over there? I don’t know. But I hope there are enough people there braver than me to force real action and change
 
You must log in or register to reply here.