Here:
It’s kind of surreal, like a Coen Brothers meets Terry Gilliam kind of way- church music cranking, the crowd peacefully clapping and singing along, all while snipers or armored vehicles train weapons on the crowd. The stark contrast between the white officers and predominantly black crowd is telling.
There are rumors that reporters Ryan J. Reilly and Wesley Lowery have been detained by the Police.
*** Update ***
Police come into McD where me and @ryanjreilly working. Try to kick everyone out.
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 13, 2014
Was arrested
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Also Ryan Reilly of Huff Po. Assaulted and arrested
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Officers decided we weren't leaving McDonalds quickly enough, shouldn't have been taping them.
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
I guess if being black and unarmed warrants the death penalty, eating too slowly at McDonalds warrants a beating and arrest.
*** Update ***
Last update deleted. May not be verified and I don’t want to inflame shit.
*** Update ***
Remember a week or so ago when I said it looks like black people are getting the summer off. Anyone want to talk about something else less embarrassing? Maybe my two votes for Bush or my peak wingnut theory?
tybee
summer of ’68
Violet
It is fucking surreal. The SWAT team pointing guns at the peaceful protestors is insane.
aimai
You know what this country needs? A federal bill of rights w/r/t police actions.
1) No shooting fleeing suspects
2) No shooting people in the back
4) No stopping without cause
5) No policing protests with swat teams, guns, and dogs.
6) Some kind of maximum police brutality complaints before the entire force is put on probation.
7) External review of problematic cases.
8) Necessary adjustment of racial profile of the police force to match the racial profile of the community being policed.
9) Police should live within the community being policed.
YellowJournalism
This leads me to believe the police chief has no control over the situation, which scares the shit out of me.
Morley Bolero
Under what authority do the police have to arrest any peaceful protester in Ferguson? Has a state of emergency been declared? Asking as a Canadian.
Patricia Kayden
This is all part of The War on Whites, doncha know?
beltane
@Violet: Surreal in a neverending nightmare kind of way.
FREEDUMB!!
Keith G
@Violet: From a very well written essay today:
My emphasis.
AndoChronic
This is fucking awesome!… In a techno geek kind of way.
Mart
Watched a few days back, so soft on details; but it was telling to me that these kids are so sensitized to the cops that Brown’s friend was surprised to see a pistol barrel rather than a taser aimed at his buddy. I hate tasers, but sure would of been a whole lot easier for everyone if the cop had just used the poor judgement to taser the kid, instead of repeatedly blasting holes in his back.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
It looks like they’re hoping that at some point the protesters will do something so they, the cops, can justify (however tenuously) some use of force.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Wesley Lowery tweets he was arrested, and Ryan Reilly was assaulted and arrested, per Chris Hayes
raven
Chris Hayes says Ryan J. Reilly and Wesley Lowery just tweeted that they were assaulted and arrested.
PsiFighter37
I know people are saying that Nixon (the Democratic governor) has roped in the DoJ, but he’s be showing a little bit more courage / heart if he were to go and stand with the rest of the protesters. Of course, that would probably kill any chances he has of getting elected to another statewide office (he’s termed out, and he’s the best person we have lined up to potentially take out Roy Blunt in 2016), which is why he’s probably not doing anything else about it.
This is pretty atrocious, though.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Yea, the guy on the vehicle with his weapon on his lap looks like he’s ready to waste someone doesn’t he?
PaulW
Just keep praying this stays calm. Last thing we need is more blood in the streets.
Mart
PsiFighter37 – Nixon spoke yesterday at a nearby North County church. “”Like them and all of you I’ve done a lot of praying the last few days,” says Governor Nixon. “We stand together tonight reeling from what feels like an old wound that has been torn open afresh, a would that hadn’t quite healed right in the first place, and now the pain is just as searing as when the injury first occurred.”
He has been pretty much a stand-up guy in this looney tune republican legislated state.
lamh36
Hmmm, maybe now more members of the media won’t be so quick to follow the Ferguson PD, bullshit?
PaulW
the weird thing about this, half the crowd looks like they’re on smartphones tweeting the experience.
different-church-lady
Well, at least SWAT guys have their weapons across their laps now. But still pretty surreal to see them even there.
The whole thing seems like a huge civil rights intervention is about to come down on that force.
Isn’t this the kind of thing they’d make movies about in the 60s?
lamh36
Again, please read this article. I tweeted it earlier and it def needs to be read for and wide
Amir Khalid
@lamh36:
Which raises the question. Are those Ferguson police officers or county police watching the protests?
Amir Khalid
@PaulW:
It might be what’s keeping the police from coming at them.
raven
You better know that shit is real before you post it. The police chief’s name is Tom Jackson. Where is that on that Facebook page?
PaulW
I see a McDonalds sign in the distance, is that where the reporters were attacked?
EriktheRed
Nevermind
Violet
@Amir Khalid: Operation Smartphone Shield.
raven
@EriktheRed: Who the fuck is Nardi? The Ferguson police chiefs wife is Patricia Jackson.
KG
@Keith G: a lot of this is part of the post-9/11 freak out. My last law firm gig was at a small firm in Rancho Pales Verde, an incredibly wealthy suburb of LA on the ocean. I used to laugh everyday because my office was by city hall and they had a mobile terrorism headquarters thing. Basically a police mobile command center. I don’t think I have the words to fully explain how unnecessary this would be. I mean, we are talking about a town that the biggest concern is whether the horse trails have been clean and if the peacocks are attacking cars.
John Cole +0
@raven: I took it down. I am usually better than that. I think I have fallen for one hoax (not withstanding DougJ’s trollings) in all these years.
Violet
@raven: What are you talking about? Is this in relation to what Cole deleted?
lamh36
raven
@John Cole +0: Trust but verify.
raven
@Violet: Yea, it’s on “Anonymous'” twitter.
Karen in GA
America. Fuck yeah. Or something.
I got nothing. Really, unless I’m Thor and I show up aiming a shitload of hammers at these cops, I’m useless anyway.
Keith G
@Morley Bolero:
Remember, a peaceful protest is not the same thing as a Constitutionally protected protest. A government may legally place restrictions on the time, place and manner of a protest in order to meet a higher need, such as public safety.
A wise government in this case should be very flexible and would be ill advised to step in and assert those limits unless absolutely necessary. Hopefully the officials can see the good that can come from letting the community use this time to lean on each other and voice their feelings in public. But the fact that they are choosing to follow the “show of force” doctrine points to a lack of original thinking.
scav
Bundys disobeyed law for decades, attracting outside armed armed agitators with stated anti-government agenda.Go figure which event goes pear-shaped.
lamh36
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Ferguson is our Johannesburg.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid:
There are cops out there who are still pissed off that somebody managed to tape the Rodney King beating.
We need more drones, not fewer.
raven
Well Rachel is freaking out about Iraq, we could jump on that bandwagon.
shortstop
@PaulW: If one guy is recording, they smack his phone out of his hand and arrest him. If 200 are doing it, it’s a little tougher.
PhoenixRising
@lamh36: Not documenting police state=a favor. Just not a favor to the reporter. Who, let’s note, just happens to be…a ni-CLANG!
This is unbelievable, except for the part where we stopped for ice cream (frozen custard) in that one-horse town 14 months ago & my wife said, “You know, let’s make it ‘to-go’, because our kid just integrated the restroom.”
It was like that. We ate dinner at the takeout counter of the Whole Foods in Overland Park, for real.
This is America.
shortstop
Maybe a month or two has gone by since I’ve said this, so it’s time to say it again: One of the most admirable things about Cole is his easy, good-humored willingness to admit he’s made a mistake.
tc
Does anyone know if ABL or Elon are okay? They haven’t checked in on twitter in a few hours.
different-church-lady
@PhoenixRising: Sometimes I want to punch this country in the neck.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@aimai: oops, you made too much sense with that #8
we can’t have us vs them if “them” is “us”
besides, don’t you know that the government owes Irish those jobs, those are Irish Catholic jobs, and anybody else getting those jobs is reverse discrimination?
Tommy
Not that many years I would have headed down there. Only a hop, skip, and fall from where I live. I hate all of this.
St. Louis is a very segregated city. Period. I’ve thought that over and over again living here. Now learning I was right.
53 cops. 3 African Americans. One person on the city council is AA. Not a single person on the school board.
The TOWN IS 69% AA according to the 2010 Census. 90% of arrest in the town are of AA.
Stunning, the folks are pissed off when a kid is gunned down that is AA. Heck I wonder why?
Keith G
@raven: Eh….Maybe we could send some Ferguson PD over there. They seem to have the really neat uniforms, goggles, and patches.
the Conster
@PaulW:
The revolution will be tweeted.
raven
@Keith G: The dudes with all the heat are county I think.
beltane
Sometimes I think this country is built on nothing more than white supremacism and lies. Then I remember the importance of greed in the American psyche and I feel even worse.
lamh36
EJW and the TWIB crew are in Ferguson. I don’t think ABL is one of the TWIB crew in Ferguson
lamh36
MomSense
@the Conster:
And thank FSM for twitter. Without it we wouldn’t know the horror that is being done to the people of Ferguson.
beltane
But the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court says that racism is merely a figment of liberals’ imagination. None of this is really happening, it’s all in our heads, unlike the religious discrimination corporations face on a daily basis.
tc
@lamh36: They haven’t tweeted or instagramed in two hours. I’m not trying to unnecessarily alarm people here, I just noticed that some of the higher profile people on black twitter are publicly wondering where they are.
ETA: Okay they’re back. False alarm and thank goodness.
Iowa Old Lady
Like politicians, cops don’t seem to have caught up to the reality that twitter and cells phones are everywhere.
lamh36
Keith G
@raven: Yeah, that makes sense.
MattR
@beltane:
Here is recent criticism from conservative groups about the new high school AP United States history exam.
raven
@MomSense: Yea, thank god for twitter where we get false alarms and phony facebook posts.
John Cole +0
@tc: I just talked to Imani and they are fine. Knowing Elon, he probably found an afternoon brunch special.
PaulW
Think livestream is down. Uh, there’s no violence going on right now is there?
Tommy
I am going to throw out some St. Louis history for folks here in a couple random posts…. my home town.
An old city. French fur traders. The Mississippi. Two golden things at the time.
Why when you head to downtown St. Louis you see many of the streets have French names and not English.
raven
@John Cole +0: Not a Mac’s I hope!
lamh36
@raven:
PhoenixRising
@beltane:
Which is why he & his wife went to a great deal of trouble and expense to adopt blond children.
I’m allowed to say that.
lamh36
shortstop
@Tommy: Nice to see you, Tommy.
lamh36
@tc:
shortstop
@PhoenixRising: Ha! I’m glad you did.
beltane
@MattR: Ah yes, the whole impetus behind conservatism is to return to the days when non-whites were airbrushed from history and were also absent from popular culture unless portrayed as servants or villains. As whites recede into minority status, and the lies they grew up believing are put under increasing assault by reality, we can expect the outcry to grow more shrill and violent by the day.
El Caganer
Christ, with all that firepower on display, the cops look ready to bring a taste of Gaza to the American heartland.
lamh36
MomSense
@raven:
Are you saying that they fuck up as badly as the New York Times? Intelligent people can figure out how to evaluate the information.
Origuy
@John Cole +0: I dunno about brunch, but he found a coffee shop that’s giving free coffee and wifi to journalists.
Sorry, should have known that would trigger moderation.
lamh36
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@beltane: It is built on white supremacism. The lies came later. Whatever did you think “Manifest Destiny” was supposed to mean?
beltane
@El Caganer: I was thinking the same thing. If the Ferguson PD was really smart they’d claim the protesters were digging terror tunnels and then call in the IDF to deliver “surgical strikes”.
skerry
Alderman Antonio French (Ferguson is his district and he has been on the ground with protestors) just tweeted that tear gas is being fired.
raven
@MomSense: “They” who. Twitter isn’t a “they”.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tommy:
You’ll find a surprising amount of French influence in Milwaukee as well. As long as you aren’t really familiar with the history of the continent.
Tommy
Soundtrack for this post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ1k_BrA8CI
Many years later the city was a powerhouse. Think the1904 Worlds Fair. It was the focus of the world. St. Louis has fallen out of being one of the top 50 cities in this nation, but at that time we were number 4. Segregation was terrible. Many affluent AA went across the river to East St. Louis.
From Chevy Chase and that darn movie the city is a joke and even to this day it is a place I wouldn’t drive through. But not that many years ago it was like the area around Howard University in DC. Fluent and educated AA.
MomSense
@raven:
Twitter is a bunch of people who use the service.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: It, they, her, him; let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who.There you go getting all pedantic. Probably because you weren’t sure Omnes or I would wander by for pedantry patrol.
Betty Cracker
@lamh36: I like AG, but that doesn’t seem fair. Maddow has covered the story. Iraq is an important story too. He should direct his snark at the big media douchebags who really are ignoring this story.
aangus
Conetta @BmoreConetta · 5m
Just got hit with tear gas, hard to see or breathe. #ferguson
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): You’re on duty tonight, right?
beltane
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): I am of the opinion that the lies were there from the beginning, from the initial English settlement of the colonies. The Spanish did not ever pretend their rape of the Americas was about anything but conquest and exploitation. It was the English colonists who committed genocide and enslavement under the cover of “liberty” and “freedom”. Nice words that used to conceal an ugly truth. Thanks to Hollywood, the original lies were perpetuated and made to infect the minds of generations of European immigrants who might otherwise not have been so thoroughly indoctrinated.
AndoChronic
I’m one of these white libtards with big fucking scary guns with shit tons of ammo living in a black hood in Mpls. I’m hesitant, but I’d like to see that shit happen up here and these posers, i.e. fascists, get off unscathed as they seemingly are down south there. Buy more guns repubes, the lefties are wising up to your game!
aangus
PzFeed Top News @PzFeed · 6m
RIGHT NOW: Tear gas deployed by riot police. Protesters throwing stones and bottles at police. People running and falling over each other.
El Caganer
@Tommy: The only famous person I know of who grew up in E. St. Louis was Miles Davis, and I recall reading that he was from a pretty well-off family.
Mandalay
@Keith G:
Exactamundo, This is so obvious, yet few seem to catch on. I don’t even mean it as a direct criticism of those specific SWAT guys with their combat boots and night goggles and camouflage pants. Anyone garbed up like that will inevitably change their behavior. And of course anyone who sees people garbed up like that will change their behavior as well.
Even when I was a kid I wondered why a cop who pulls a car over didn’t remove his dark glasses when he asked the driver for license and registration. I probably thought the cop lacked courtesy and manners. But of course the real reason is to intimidate: the cop can see your eyes but you can’t see his. Well we’ve come an awful long way since then, and I mean awful.
Some of the images from Ferguson over the past few days may win awards at the end of the year. But the scary prospect is that even worse images will come along in the meantime.
Mandalay
.
beltane
And none of us should ever forget that Reverend Wright was the most horrible person in the world.
Tommy
@Tommy: As the city grew laws were put into place that required AA to own land to buy a house. I mean recently. You know I can’t keep telling this story, to depressing.
Lets just say as I think if you have watched much media in the last few days St. Louis is one of the top five most segregated cities in the nation. If you were at my house in 30 minutes we could be in Ferguson.
Tommy
@El Caganer: The link I included was to Miles. Dad was a Dentist. East St. Louis at a time was a middle to upper middle class town.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
Thanks for the Miles! — and the history.
I took the train from Chicago to San Antonio when I was about five years old. We changed trains in St Louis and for some reason had a long enough time that the aunt I was traveling with took me out and all around the city. I was little and obviously don’t remember much about it, but I do remember having a really good impression of the city, to the point that for years afterwards I would talk about “the time I was in St Louis.”
Visited again (for a convention) about 60 years later, and I have to say it was not as agreeable. But you are right, in its day it was one of the great cities.
gelfling545
@tybee: Thats what I’ve been thinking of. “The whole world is watching. “
gelfling545
@tybee: Thats what I’ve been thinking of. “The whole world is watching. “
El Caganer
@Tommy: I kinda figured that’s why you chose it. Nice.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@MattR: Shit, talking about British sense of superiority (let’s be honest, English, that we’re all Britons kumbaya shit started waaaay the hell later) actually lets most of the other white ethnic groups or ethnic groups that became white because they didn’t all start out white off the hook. Let’s face it, Irish people who escaped genocide in Ireland under British rule didn’t magically all become social justice warriors. Consider the mouthbreathers who rioted over competing with Asian labor in San Francisco, and it didn’t exactly end with some sort of gentlemanly dispute over immigration quotas, no it was more on the order of break things and kill people. And the Southeastern settlers by whom and on whose behalf the Cherokee were dispossessed and decimated were not by any means solely of British descent. The French had an incredible stomach for brutality in their slave worked cane plantations, even if they didn’t share the American (English) horror of interracial relationships and children. I could keep going but it’s all pretty gross.
(Actually there were some German immigrants, Mennonites I guess, who were peaceful and anti-slavery, like the folks who got slaughtered by pro-slavery Texans, like ya do, but others, like MY family, brought all of their racial prejudices over from Germany and then eagerly learned new ones as well … it was a smorgasbord of hate, from Jews, to American Indians, to Blacks, to Italians, to the Dutch…)
PaulW
great. the cops are unleashing the tear gas. why can’t they just do the simple thing of 1) finding the leaders in the crowd, 2) asking them that time’s up, they gotta head home, and 3) they can always do this again next afternoon? without the violence and intimidation.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@beltane:
There’d be a lot less violence if the 1% would loosen the chokehold they have on the GNP and share the wealth.
Of course, ethnic violence is a feature for our owners, not a bug. They’ve been at it since, what, the 16th century?
beltane
@PaulW: But then they wouldn’t get to play with teargas. Where’s the fun in that?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@PaulW: You only do those things if you are interested in making things work smoothly. If your interests lie elsewhere, your actions are different.
MattR
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer):
I was just re-reading this line from the quote I posted earlier. There was so much to be aggravated by initially that it didn’t hit me that the conservatives are arguing that Manifest Destiny was based on the idea that “America had a mission to spread democracy” and it was not based on a a “sense of American cultural superiority”. Why exactly would Americans have a mission to spread democracy if they didn’t believe it was culturally superior to what already existed?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Hell’s bells – I thought you were. It’s about raven’s sign off hour, so this thread may go unpoliced. Which, given the topic, seems appropriate.
different-church-lady
@PaulW: Well, my guess is the force in Ferguson has no functional relationship to the community, nor any of the individuals living in it. This has the psychology of an occupation force, not a “normal” police force.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: That Miles link, well not what you might think. As I have read he was trying to branch jazz to a wider audience by working with Easy Mo Bee. I always use that link when I talk of Miles cause I hope somebody that thinks Jazz isn’t for them, isn’t hip, but get it is!
As for trains. Obama that Kenya radical, got us money were we are working on a super high speed rail line from St, Louis to Chicago. I got these ideas I can get to Chicago in under 7.5 hours. What it takes me now. I just drive.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@beltane: Welp, you got me, if you recount the Deer Island Massacre, that was all about lies. Yeah, guess you’re right.
It does occur to me that the lie is in a new phase, now the lie is that it’s not all about white supremacy. From early 19th thru early 20th century, WS was loud and proud. Of course WS itself is founded on lies, but never mind that.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@AndoChronic: You’re going to take on the cops?
IDK, I think the “lawyers” part of “lawyers, guns, and money” might be a tad more effective when we’re talking about police brutality, but that’s JMO.
beltane
@MattR: It’s hard to make the argument that “spreading democracy” was a motive when the people living on the land which was to be spread with democracy were not allowed to be part of the democratic process. Even the cultural superiority argument is far too generous a way to explain a phenomenon that amounted to nothing more than “free land for the white man.”
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@beltane: Nothing he said ever seemed that radical to me. It sounded like common sense. Michelle Obama was also savaged for speaking her mind. Now she doesn’t. She delivers tightly scripted narratives. I miss her being real. But I guess it was too much real for most of my co-pigmentists.
MattR
@beltane: Agree completely on all counts. I was just amazed to see them essentially say “Manifest Destiny was really about doing X, unlike those liberals who are trying to convince you it was actually about doing X”
Goblue72
@Violet: what was posted? Cuz seems pretty clear those 2 reporters were arrested, roughed up and only released b/c the cops realized they were reporters ( as opposed to other law abiding citizens who it’s ok to unlawfully detain)
Screw the police. Hunting season on the 5-0 when the sun goes down. See how long the crackers can hold onto their control when the citizenry truly rises up. Malcolm was right & Martin was wrong.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Tommy: Was that anything like Chicago where banks basically destroyed the South Side economically by locking African American homeowners into abusive and discriminatory mortgage contracts that could foreclose if you were late on a payment, stupid shit like that?
Somebody was talking just a week or so ago about South Side leaders “selling out” over some deposits in a community bank but if you look at how things got to that point….
Betty Cracker
@Goblue72: You first, tough guy.
AndoChronic
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): The many associations here will take on the cops without the many problems they seem to be having in MO. Albeit, it would never escalate to the same point here as it has there. The residents seem very unorganized down there.
El Caganer
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): German Quakers in the Philly area put out a letter denouncing slavery in 1688. Didn’t do much good.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): Even the WS itself was a response to, not the cause of, conquest and colonialism. For example, it is interesting to observe the devolution in the portrayal of Africans in Western art. Prior to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, African subjects were portrayed in a realistic manner. It wasn’t until the slave trade really took off that Africans were portrayed with grotesquely exaggerated features, etc. In order to justify a crime, it seems, it is necessary to dehumanize the victim.
JoyfulA
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): Mennonites held the first antislavery rally in the New World.
Keep in mind that Ben Franklin was alarmed by the swarms of German-speaking people arriving. They’d never fit in, their complexions, the way they walked, they didn’t even speak English! So he instituted ship’s lists of every German arriving at the port of Philadelphia just to keep track of them, for which genealogists are grateful.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): It is my hope that, even if it takes 20 years, Michelle will write her memoirs and tell us what she really thinks.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Tommy:
Oh Tommy, be patient. O’s got dis. http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/government-and-politics/next-phase-of-high-speed-rail-work-to-start-this/article_26b7dbe5-fd64-5826-96c3-38becfeadb88.html
Osage Bridge right outside STL just opened in December 2013. That was a really big bottleneck. Chicago could really use some more public money to improve the great chicago bottleneck of doom for rail passengers, also, too, but Congress is busy trying to defund rail entirely because they suck.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Goblue72: I’ve read Malcolm–more than I’ve read Martin, in fact–and sounds like you’re describing the cartoon versions of both.
Malcolm never advocated violence. He practiced what he preached which was telling people who they are to their face. When done with wit and courage it can be a lot more devastating than fighting the enemy with the weapons he’s already chosen for you (with a conclusion that is predetermined).
Goblue72
@Betty Cracker: screw the blue Betty. They deserve nothing but a bullet.
That may conflict with how you feel about things in Crackerlandia, but for Oaklanders – and people of color everywhere – there’s only one thing the blue represent – an occupying force to be resisted by any means necessary.
If there’s justice, a pig gets hogtied tonight.
Goblue72
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): Depends on which Malcolm & when. He mellowed out in his later years.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: My mom was (admittedly) harder on my than on my two sisters because she had the highest expectations for me. I imagine Al has much higher expectations for Rachel and Chris Hayes than most of the other talking heads. As well he should since there’s not always a lot of journalism on display.
But yeah, a person should be able to cover more than one story on the same night. I don’t watch Rachel anymore, so I don’t know whether she covered Iraq to the exclusion of this story.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Goblue72: Betty was right. You first.
El Caganer
@Goblue72: And then what?
MattR
@WaterGirl:
I would say my biggest problem with these 24 hour news channels is that each hour covers pretty much the exact same set of stories, only from slightly different angles. You really don’t learn much more if you watch 24 hours straight of cable news compared to the 6 o’clock network news
I’d say it was about 20 min of Iraq, about 15-20 of Ferguson, back to Iraq for 10 min then closed with Ferguson
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Goblue72: Revolutions are ugly and rarely go the way they originally were intended.
Mike in NC
I’m pretty sure if the Republicans don’t manage to impeach Obama in the next two years, they’ll try to stir up some serious resentment to motivate their racist base of scared elderly white people. Big body count killed by cops would be a feature, not a bug.
celticdragonchick
@John Cole +0: Loks like somebody pointed a sniper rifle at him not too long ago.
Goblue72
@El Caganer: then I cheer.
Betsy
@SiubhanDuinne: 60 years — just about the time frame that suburbia rose and the central city fell.
For one thing, St. Louis saw the majority of its downtown buildings removed for surface parking lots during about that time period — perhaps the largest percentage of any major city in North America, and it had some truly great architecture before that happened.
I can believe your account for sure.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Goblue72: From the sidelines? How very brave.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Goblue72: Even the Malcolm who went to prison for burglary wasn’t an advocate of violence, which isn’t to say he might not have done some cruel or violent things. Malcolm was a radical, always was a radical, he came from a family of radicals and his father was murdered for being a radical. The subset of radicals may include violent radicals but it doesn’t follow that all radicals are violent radicals. Malcolm X was a separatist, in a version of separatism that held it was possible to peacefully, even quietly, but definitely withdraw from the pervasive social/economic/political structure of white supremacy that dominated Black lives in America.
People said Malcolm X advocated violence because they weren’t listening to him. He broke down the situation into language even someone without 5 advanced degrees could understand and he straight up told the white power structure that they shouldn’t be surprised when they force a population into a corner and violence breaks out.
Betty Cracker
@Goblue72: Yeah, random cop killing. What could possibly go wrong?
suusan
@tc: ABL didn’t go to Ferguson. I’m not on twitter so I don’t know about Elon, but he was supposed to arrive mid-afternoon.
celticdragonchick
@Goblue72:
You know…I get the anger. I fucking feel it also. I have one hell of a collection of guns myself (and people here give me hell about it)
Shooting at the police is absolutely not the way to go. You will be killed, and people around you will be killed. You have no idea what kind of force the state can bring to bear if anybody tries to force the issue with weapons.
The police can and will escalate to win, and they can go farther in use of force than you can.
You can go off the grid and try guerilla tactics and then hope your companions don’t get caught and are forced to give you up…
Or you can go for non violent tactics and hope the police and their 1% masters can eventually be shamed.
MattR
@celticdragonchick: At this point, the police are almost begging the protesters to give them any excuse. It sounds like they used a single provocation tonight to justify overreacting with tear gas to further intimidate the crowd while forcing everyone to disperse. If a cop was killed, I fear at least one other officer would start shooting indiscriminately into the crowd.
El Caganer
@Goblue72: Sorry that I wasn’t clear. I meant, then what for the protesters in Ferguson? As you’ve no doubt noticed, they’re not the ones itching for a bloody confrontation. What do you suppose the cops’ reaction will be?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@MattR: Yes, IMO, the cops are pressing here and there, trying to provoke a reaction sufficient to justify going in hard.
lol chikinburd
We really don’t need dipshit cowboy vigilantes going after rogue police departments with force of arms. We need a nationalized Guard, and/or the U.S. Armed Forces, to do it. Be civilized.
(blah blah posse comitatus blah, I don’t care. St. Louis County, Missouri does not now have a police force. Rather, there is an armed criminal gang occupying that territory in violation of U.S. sovereignty. That sovereignty, and the rule of U.S. law, needs reestablished there.)
Goblue72
@celticdragonchick: or maybe the candy asses of balloon juice (not you), can get their cracker knickers out of a twist just because someone expressed a desire to see a pig get what he deserves.
Funny how its all easy peasy until the liberals are pushed outside their bourgeois comfort zones. Soon as the mere whiff of revolutionary thought is expressed, then it’s all simmer down, blood.
Welcome to the world where it’s normal to find a dead body (by gunshot) in the middle of the street when coming home from school as an 11 year old. Or to get woken up at 3 AM to a crackhead at your door – said crackhead being a cousin. Changes your perspective on what the system truly deserves if there were true justice.
And it involves blood for blood. Not electioneering and lawsuits.
celticdragonchick
@MattR: My sense exactly.
The police want somebody to do something. They have all these unbelievable sci fi looking weapons, and they are primed to use them.
celticdragonchick
Jesus. Live gunfire reported from a black escalade.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Goblue72: Send us your messages from the barricades. Otherwise, it sounds like cafe revolutionary bullshit. You’ll cheer when a cop, any cop, is killed? Well, la-di-dah. It sounds to me like you are asking people to risk very severe danger in order to satisfy you. I’ve seen what revolutions look like. They result in a lot of good people finding themselves dead. Is that really what you want?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@celticdragonchick: Fuck, if so, there is the provocation for the riot cops to go in hard.
Shortstop
@celticdragonchick: We don’t give you hell for having guns. We give you hell for saying stupid shit about them. The thread in which you hotly defended the guy who left his loaded gun in a movie seat for kids to find was a particularly special exchange, but there’ve been plenty of others.
celticdragonchick
@Shortstop: You mixed me up with someone else on that. I thought he was a dumbass.
Shortstop
@celticdragonchick: a dumbass who should suffer no legal repercussions. You felt pretty strongly about that, as I recall.
different-church-lady
@Goblue72:
Any one pig in particular, or just all of them?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@different-church-lady: I am not sure he or she cares as long as someone else draws the blood and takes the risk.
celticdragonchick
@Shortstop:
Um…if you say so…
*sideways glance*
You make a mistake like that, lose the ccw for good.
I don’t remember the particulars, and I think I argued that he should not face criminal penalties..but civil? hell yes.
EriktheRed
@MomSense: Well, I looked before I leapt, but I’ll bet plenty of other people assaulted that woman’s facebook page. Kinda makes me wonder if someone had a personal grudge against her and set this up.
Betty Cracker
@Goblue72: Lynch mobs of our very own, you mean. Dumb ass.
Elizabelle
@Tommy:
Hello bud. Welcome back.