At the Bundy ranch, white anti-government militia wanna-bes pointed loaded firearms at federal employees and law enforcement officers in the support of a criminal, and nothing happened.
In Ferguson, MO, a young African American was killed by a police officer for jaywalking, and the city and county police have attacked the mostly African American citizens with baton rounds, tear gas, armored vehicles, and riot gear while threatening them with automatic rifles.
Where are all the 2nd Amendment open carry zealots to defend people who are actually under attack by an out of control government?
Yeah, I thought so.
I’ll just note that Ferguson PD and St. Louis County PD brought heavier gear to a civil protest than I had to fight the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents. My troops however, were better trained and disciplined. Most of the Vets that I’ve been tweeting with back and forth throughout the day and evening are shocked at the police tactics throughout the day. We were taught to diffuse tensions when dealing with agitated civilians and civil disturbance and the actions of local law enforcement in in the Ferguson area seem geared to inflame the situation.
Ryan J. Reilly, who was arrested and released earlier this evening reports that a peaceful protest is currently taking place across the street from the main police station in Ferguson.
Anyway, open thread.
UPDATE: Governor Jay Nixon (D-MO) has finally issued a statement.
Original Lee
I think you’ve summarized this so well that the rest of us are (temporarily) speechless. Thanks.
askew
Nixon has been mentioned on the shortlist for Hillary’s VP. I am sure he’s shitting himself right now that he has to get involved here. He’s pretty risk adverse.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
A question for you, Soonergrunt: Are you on the ground in Ferguson, or are you able to report and opine from lovely Oklahoma?
Hunter Gathers
It’s too easy to become a cop. The requirements should be much tougher, and every prospective officer needs to undergo a psych eval before they put on the uniform. The actions of these so-called officers of the peace reveal that a large percentage of them are unfit to be employed as police officers, and the men in charge of them are are quite possibly dangerous sociopaths.
Soonergrunt
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I can opine from anywhere, actually, (and on anything, come to that,) but I am at home in Oklahoma and will try to confine myself to things I understand or know about.
What’s up?
wmd
Reposted from previous thread:
I’ve been beating a drum about someone that should be speaking right now – Joseph McNamara. He started as a beat cop NYPD – Harlem. Along the arc of his career he got a PhD, was Chief of Police in Kansas City, then San Jose California where he successfully reformed a cowboy culture. He’s currently at the Hoover Institution.
He can be reached via his website. I contacted him after the flash bang grenade used by the Atlanta PD put a 2 year old in a coma and the ACLU sent an alert on demilitarizing police. He could use some respectful contacts urging him to cement his place in history as a cop that said “no more” and fought for stopping this BS. He walked the walk in this in San Jose and his country needs him now. He has the gravity and credentials to make a difference at a critical point in US history.
Hal
How many days into this now? 4 or 5 and the governor finally issues a statement. Amazing.
Comrade Luke
@askew:
Why does that not surprise me.
askew
@Comrade Luke:
He’s vanilla and conservative and until tonight a pretty safe pick. Now no one is going to go near him for the pick.
Since he is term limited, I hope he will do the right thing and get the racist cops to stand down. It’s upsetting that it took the arrest of national reporters to finally get him to make a response. He was meeting with 4H clubs and planning on going to the State Fair after Brown was shot in cold blood.
Dog On Porch
Three months ago, I had assumed Bundy would soon be busted by the Feds, at a no muss, no fuss time of their own choosing.
I wonder now if the thought of placing him under arrest has ever been contemplated.
Can it possibly be that the U.S. Department has been so corrupted as to fear his prosecution?*
*(to channel the late, great Cleavon Little: “Oh, it can be, it can be”).
askew
@Dog On Porch:
His son got picked up by the Feds. I’d hope that Bundy would be picked up soon, but he’s been getting away with this since the 1990s.
Comrade Luke
I’d rather not post anything here, but if you go check out the comments to the cnn article (not to mention the article itself, which says he was “backing away” when getting shot, as opposed to getting shot in the back), they’re almost all in support of the police. They focus on looting, and say “if you don’t obey the police you’re going to get shot”.
I’m not surprised to see that kind of stuff, but the sheer amount of those comments is shocking.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Soonergrunt:
Apparently, at least one writer- who happens to report regularly on the doings of the NSA from his home south of the Equator- is supposed to be given a pass on this because he hasn’t had the opportunity to make his way to metro St. Louis.
Dog On Porch
@Dog On Porch: “The U.S. Department of Justice”, that is.
Soonergrunt
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I have a lot of issues with Greenwald, like the fact that he and his source can’t keep their stories straight between them, but he can tweet about whatever strikes his fancy.
As with my own tweets and postings and anybody else’s, it’s up to the reader to determine what value that content has.
Dog On Porch
@askew: Bundy junior is small potatoes. But the feds prosecute, and make examples of people like Bundy senior year-in-and-out. Or at least they used to. Why not now? He is, after all, a poster child of Americans without a clue. It’s fair to assume that 25 years ago he would have been placed on trial soon after Leona Helmsely took her fall. But that hasn’t happened yet, has it?
That clown needed to be dealt with yesterday. Every day Bundy remains loose is a big “fuck you” to Johnny Law. It’s also another nail in the coffin of the already pathetically threadbare reputation of the United States Department of Justice circa 2014.
ruemara
I got no home in my birthland and now, I feel I have no home in the country that raised me. If people show up and vote in every election, starting now, it’s possible things will change. Far too many think that this is ok. Armed separatists with guns really trained on authorities are peaceful, unarmed minorities who finally can’t take being harassed, profiled and killed at random, those guys armed with rocks and some molotovs, those guys deserve riot gear & crackdowns. Jesus, fuck being black. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Soonergrunt:
Hey, I understand, and I appreciate your input on the issue, especially your insight into how the actual military deals with civilians in touchy situations. You’ve devoted more virtual ink to the topic in this post alone than Mr. Civil Liberties has, on his Twitter feed, dedicated to a whole lotta folks who have- inarguably– been deprived of their civil liberties.
hilts
Wow, Jay Nixon has finally decided to pull his head out of his ass. What a pathetic fucking excuse for a governor.
Alison
I could go dig something out of my cat’s litter box that’s worth more than that pathetic statement from Nixon. What a fucking embarrassment.
jl
Thanks for your perspective Soonergrunt,, and for communicating those of your fellow soldiers.
TPM blog and a commenter on an earlier thread linked to a St Louis Post-Dispatch editorial which said that somebody with authority needs to step in and get control of an outrageous mess, but Jay Nixon’s first instinct when trouble hit was to run. From his statement, looks like that was wrong, he figures if he just stands real still, no one will notice him.
This is an outrage. In essence, a multi-day police riot unfolds in front of the whole country, and if more people get hurt or die, the world, and nobody in the state of Missouri with authority to get control of the situation seems interested in doing anything.
So, I guess a place has to go Tulsa 1921 before most people think twice about whether the police should do as they damn well please no matter what or why or how, as long as they think it won’t happen to them.
jl
@hilts: Out of his ass and into the sand. Not much improvement when a city in your state is devolving into permanent riot,is it?
Mart
Nixon is surrounded by the worst of the tea party nuckle draggers and just like wimpy Claire always comments with repsct to the far right voters. Would think they would realize they are never going to get the right wing vote, but alas no they don’t.
He is a good man, trying to placate frothing nutballs. I do not know what to say, you gotta live here to see it,
Got into a hollering session with a winger co-worker over this today. Fox and friends will get a bloody disaster one of these days, just amp it up a little more, My co-worker is polishing his guns.
askew
Claire McCaskill has been working with DoJ and others on the situation on Ferguson. So, she seems to be doing something. Blunt and Nixon seem to be completely useless.
eyelessgame
What you said. I really want to ask a gun nut exactly what the 2nd Amendment is for, right now. Because they keep telling us this is what they were gearing up for.
Botsplainer
@ruemara:
I had a lengthy conversation yesterday with a guy in my office – a 40-something barber who is training to be a paralegal. He’s black, I’m white.
I asked him straight up how he even comes close to remaining nonviolent in the face of all this shit, and why he isn’t sniping at police and random white passers-by from the rooftops, because I sure in hell would be.
Like I said – long conversation.
rendioza
What does Rep Billy Long (Repuglican Mo) think about this tragedy? Is he fed up yet? Maybe he’s stuck at the poker table in Vegas again?
scav
I don’t have time or skills to do justice to this story, but I restumbled upon it a few weeks ago while doing some Lewis county KY research. Forgot to post it on the 9th as a dire sort of Happy Birthday remembrance in honor of Amelia Foster born August 9th, 1862. It resonated a few weeks ago because of the all that has changed since then and the shameful amount that hasn’t. Echoes loud tonight as well.
During the summer of 1865, Amelia’s family — parents, brother, blind grandmother — were attacked and killed by John Blyeu(Bilyieu)and George Kennard using a carpenters axe plus some other bladed tool. Amelia’s sister Laura was unharmed but Amelia was severely wounded about the head and carried the scars for the rest of her life. On the positive side, at least a posse was formed and the two man arrested and charged with murder. But, when it came to trial, it was illegal for Laura’s testimony to be admitted as in Kentucky at the time, African Americans could not give testimony against whites during criminal proceedings. Had to be tried before an all-white jury as well. No way I can understand the legal complexities at this point, but two years prior to the Foster Family murders, apparently the Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave jurisdiction to federal courts for all causes, civil and criminal fitting these circs, so Blyew and Kennard were actually tried, found guilty (!) sentenced to hang (!!) by a Federal court. I’m just going full quote here.
Still playing from the same deck there now, aren’t we?
And yup, the Supremes went 5-2 in reversing the convictions. (Best I can tell, neither the children that witnessed their parents murder nor the murdered themselves were sufficiently “affected” to have legal standing in the case. Insert majesty of the law here I guess.) Then it gets complicated and there are more trials and escapes, convictions and pardons by Kentucky governors.
Amelia lived until 1936. I hope she felt she saw some progress during her lifetime, although as someone born right at the very end of slavery, perhaps it was easier then to see the leap accomplished. Because damned if the appeals to state sovereignty to ignore national laws, principles and rights when deemed inconvenient to certain whites and self-appointed and self-proclaimed cultural / racial elites doesn’t make one feel like we’re in the same eternal rut. What a pious fraud of a nation large chunks of this place are. With luck, it will appear a little less dire tomorrow. cite here Blyew v. United States, 80 US 581 – Supreme Court 1872
Botsplainer
Maybe some libertarian billionaire could offer a large cash prize for the name of the shooter. Say 500K.
Kyle
@Comrade Luke:
And in the next breath they’ll proclaim how much they love the Constitution, with no irony whatsoever. The kind of NRA nutjobs who would be out there alongside the cops shooting at people if they could get away with it.
Scratch a teabagger, find an authoritarian follower. Their concept of “freedom” is strictly for their little tribe.
NotMax
The police are not the military, and vice versa. Gear, armaments and tactics for one ought not be considered nor perceived as fungible.
The chasm separating working to maitain order via policing and attempting to impose order via martial means is both vast and treacherous.
Debbie(aussie)
I don’t know what to say. Everything that is going on around the world has me wanting to scream. I want things to be different, damn it. The frustration sometimes makes my skin crawl.
Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty)
Ah. Nothing like five hours of D&D to take your mind off of things.
Friend’s still dead, but at least the village is finally free of the ogre menace.
gene108
@jl:
As long as people think something will not happen t them, they really are not going to be bothered about any damn issue.
Putting yourself in someone else shoes is hard.
We all do it to varying degrees.
Some of us do it, because if we did not, we would be overwhelmed by everyone else pain and suffering.
Others do it because they have no capacity for empathy whatsoever. The people, who do not have empathy are most likely to encourage the police state, because they really are not able to think beyond what happens to them.
Mustang Bobby
I think it was Steve Kornacki who asked “Why are the cops wearing camouflage? What are they trying to blend in with?”
I guess this all proves that “a good guy with a gun” is a white male; all the rest are thugs.
Keith G
FWIW, former front pager Imani Gandy (ABL) is mentioned in Washington Post Blog post.
Tommy
@Mustang Bobby: I often praise my small rural town. A town about 40 miles from Ferguson, MO. It is a long story to explain, but we have more money then we can spend. Our cops are decked out with equipment. But if you break the law there is about a 50% chance they will let you go with a warning. I’ve done a dumb thing or two and they let me go. I now wonder if that is because the cop is white and I am white. My town is 98.7% white. Again wondering if I wasn’t white if I’d get that pass.
Tommy
@Keith G: I can’t believe what folks did to that wonderful young lady. I mean I know how easy it is to troll folks online, but just cause you can do something doesn’t mean you should. This letter she wrote:
How can’t you just almost weep reading this and not want to hug her, not troll her. Makes me sick to be a human to be honest that we can do what was done to her.
Mustang Bobby
I know I shouldn’t watch Morning Joe because of my blood pressure, but I did and there’s Joe defending the cops for arresting the reporters and mocking them for asking the cops questions. Argh.
Here’s an idea. Let’s send the Ferguson PD to arrest Cliven Bundy.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: I think he’s going to pour a bucket of ice water over his head because, as he said, “that sonofabitch” Bobby Jindal challenged him.
cermet
@Mustang Bobby: What? Those cops know full well they’d be killed if they tried that- those cops are, with few exceptions, total cowards.
Tommy
I totally don’t get the “bucket of water” thing, but if it raises money for ALS then OK, I won’t argue with that. Look the videos are “fun” I guess but I think something else when I see them. I think how sad is it that we need a gimmick to raise money to conduct medical research. Then when I think of this for a few minutes it is even sadder we have to go to individual citizens to raise money in the first place. Where is my government? This is exactly the kind of thing I wish they did, and I don’t care if I pay a few bucks more, to make it happen.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby:
Hey, now there’s an idea, somebody needs to start a petition at the White House web site (we the people?).
Betty Cracker
Here’s an editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that calls on the governor to create an independent investigative committee. Worth a read.
PsiFighter37
@Tommy: It’s fucking idiotic, IMO. Yes, it’s great that it is raising more money for ALS now, but I guarantee you that cash will stop flowing once this craze passes, and all it will be is a minor blip that ends up in Google’s year-end video that sums up what the year is about.
Also, on another note – checking out images from whatever went down at Ferguson last night…saw some pictures of protesters trying to light Molotov cocktails? That’s the quickest way for me to lose sympathy…I’m totally fine with nonviolent, peaceful protest, but I’m not okay with that kind of shit at all. Even if the police are quite a bit in the wrong, you don’t start throwing homemade firebombs.
PurpleGirl
@Tommy: I’m not sure but I think it’s a play off of sports teams dumping water buckets on each other when they win a game. I also think it’s being done to call attention to ALS.
———————————————————————-
OT: I want to protest the current trip by Gov. Cuomo and legislative leaders to Israel and Cuomo’s comment that NYS will always support Israel. NYS has it’s own foreign policy? No, Gov.Cuomo, you better tell us what that support entails before you go promising any thing to any other country.
Tommy
I think every early AM I am going to say this. I am a total coffee geek/snob. Always looking for the best cup of coffee I can make. I went from a $500 drip coffee maker to a french press. Then a better french press. Next my Chemex. I still love the thing.
But I ordered a Aeropress (no I don’t work for them). Got it cause I read a story about the guy that made it. Longform. Short story he makes a lot of stuff in his garage and holds hundreds of patents. Mostly aerospace stuff I don’t understand. But he made the Super Disk. You know the Frisbee without the center. That was him.
He had this idea, the Aeropress. I’ve looked and spent a ton of money trying for the “best” cup of coffee. The Aeropress cost under $30, gives me a cup of coffee so amazing I didn’t realize it was possible for something to be this amazing.
Plus as moving to the Chemex and now the Aeropress, that you make a cup of coffee and you don’t just hit a button on a machine, well that seems to make the experience that much more enjoyable.
PurpleGirl
Tommy: I heard on the news this morning that Cisco Systems is going to be laying off some 6,000 people. I hope your brother isn’t caught in the layoff.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I won’t be holding my breath.
Betty Cracker
@PsiFighter37: We had at least one armchair warrior right here at Balloon Juice last night screeching about whacking cops. Calling for blood from the safety of his sofa, presumably.
The anger is certainly understandable, especially in people in that area who rightly feel threatened by what looks like an invading army. That’s why it was such a huge mistake for the cops to roll in dressed for battle. It seems like they escalated the situation with that display. But cooler heads damn sure need to prevail.
Tommy
@PurpleGirl: Nice you recall shit like that. That my brother does Cisco stuff. Why I love this place. People both think about stuff, remember, and care.
But he works for an second party. Not directly for Cisco. He does installs of their product(s). To be honest and I know this goes against what most of us hear, his small company would like to hire MORE people. Just not a lot of Cisco certified folks without a job these days :).
Suffern ACE
@Comrade Luke: yep. It doesn’t matter that what we are seeing here isn’t normal. Black people are rioting (like they are always about to, which is why police need all that military equipment). Remember. Every rally is a riot in waiting.
Victims of police brutality need to be better than angels. The police could be Beelzebub’s spawn and most people wouldn’t care as long as the victims aren’t pure of heart.
amk
@PsiFighter37: It was a non-violent protest at first, which the police escalated quickly with their macho bs and tear gas attacks. Easy to blame the victims sitting at your home.
Tommy
@Suffern ACE: I think it was 1997. The World Trade Organization came to DC. Huge protests. Not thousands of folks, nor tens of thousands, but maybe hundreds of thousands. I went there to protest and things went sideways. A lot of property damage and arrests. Clearly I am against both.
Being a DC resident I followed the follow-up the Washington Post did. It went on for months on the back pages.
What was found was clear to anybody that was at those protest. The police overreacted. 99.9% of the people were like myself. Just wanted our voices heard. We had no desire to cause violence nor throw a trash can through the window of a Starbucks.
But the police treated us all like the .1% that did want a full out riot. Wanted violence and terrible things to happen.
The city would end up spending millions to retrain officers to understand this. How to deal with it. I don’t have a lot positive to say about the DC government, but I do here. In future protests things were much better.
I am making no excuses for Ferguson. Heck I live a few miles from there. But clearly they have no idea, I mean NO IDEA how to deal with a public protest from their citizens. I am no expert on the topic but pretty sure when they think this action is a good idea, they should do the exact opposite and things would work out better.
gene108
@Tommy:
If you are into different ways to make coffee you can try the traditional South Indian coffee maker, which seems similar to the other two brands you listed, but it is stainless steel.
Tommy
@gene108: First off, I love World Market. Second, wow that is dirt cheap. Third, when I look at how folks make coffee it seems in India and to some extent much of the middle east, they make it this way. Or to a large extent different then the rest of the world. Or as different as you can get pouring hot water over coffee :).
This is going to sound so hippie liberal of me (and I am a hippie liberal BTW), but one of the things I really enjoy about coffee, as I look for the “perfect” cup is how much more “hands on” you have to be. Heck I am going to start roasting myself soon. For a decade plus my coffee came out of a plastic container. Not so much anymore ….
Carolinus
@PsiFighter37:
Then simply lose sympathy for the few bad actors in that single photo, and keep supporting the vast majority that are peaceably assembling. Easy right?
Matt McIrvin
@Botsplainer: Probably his parents had drilled into his head ever since he was a kid that that would be suicide. People want justice but they also generally want to survive.
I agree that it takes what seems like superhuman forbearance to be a black person in the United States and be functional.
tokyo expat
@gene108: @Tommy: I love coffee. I live in the land of green tea, which I enjoy, but it does not take the place of a good cup of coffee in the morning. Have you had Sudanese coffee? Some Sudanese women made it and added cinnamon. It was delicious. They said you needed Sudanese or Turkish coffee and all you had to do is add cinnamon. Recipes that are so easy never work out that way. I didn’t have Sudanese or Turkish coffee, so I added cinnamon to a cup of Peet’s House blend. Was that a bad idea. I ended up tossing the cup and making a regular cup of black.
Back on topic: Good point about training the police to deal with protestors. There must be a better way than to view all protesters as potential criminals.
BruceFromOhio
Yeah, no fucking kidding, Captain.
Tommy
@tokyo expat: Tea is something I’ve been trying to get into, but just can’t seem to get there. I’d love to be in Tokyo and have you take me out for some GOOD tea. With that said I have not had Sudanese coffee. And honestly, adding in cinnamon doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. But what do I know.
Where I feel I took coffee to the next level was (1) how I made it and (2) what I bought to actually make. Basically “single source” coffee from one farm/grower. What I am drinking now is from Haiti. When I ordered it I could see a photo of where the coffee came from. The guy and his family that grew it. I know that might not matter to many folks, but it does to me.
And it isn’t as expensive as you might think. This was $24 for a pound. Clearly not cheap. But then folks pay $4 for a bad cup of coffee at Starbucks and don’t blink an eye.
Bobby Thomson
jayboat
@Tommy:
Thanks for the tip about the Aeropress. Gonna get one. For me, that first cup in the morning is often the high point of my day.
Sad, I know…
D58826
I would add that in a Target in Texas a group of open carry types walked around with semi-automatic rifles over their shoulders and the police did not intervene. In Arorea Col. a white man spent the day waving his rifle at people just to show that he could. The police did not intervene. In another Target a black man holding a toy gun in the toy department was shot dead by the police.
Tommy
@jayboat: There are very few things I know for a fact. But I know without a doubt if you like a good cup of coffee, Aeropress will be the best thing you have ever done for yourself. You will track me down here and thank me. It is literally off the charts how amazing it is.
john b
@Tommy: My brother just got my wife an Aeropress for her birthday. Have yet to try it. Most definitely will this weekend, though. I’m excited!
NotMax
@tokyo expat
If you sprinkle a little cinnamon on top of the dry grounds before brewing, it works out much better. Been doing that for over 40 years when in the mood for it. Sometimes even use vanilla powder instead.
gene108
@Tommy:
Enjoy yourself.
I went through a phase of looking for great coffee, after I saw Pulp Fiction for the second or third time, in the theater, when it came out in 1994.*
I thought to myself, “why am I drinking this freeze dried shit?” and decided to start buying beans, get a coffee mill and grind the beans myself before every cup.
* Pulp Fiction was not a widely released film. I visited my brother during fall break, who was living in North Jersey, at the time, and we went to see it in NYC, at the Angelika Theater in Greenwich Village. I came back to Raleigh and a in a few weeks the film had blown up and was being shown everywhere, so friends wanted to see it, so I saw it a second time and then others wanted to see it, because it had finally gone to the second run $2 theater, so I saw it three times, in the theater, when it first came out.
different-church-lady
“Deeply troubling.” Yeah. Troubling. Deeply. Brows are furrowed, even.
Applejinx
@Botsplainer: Practice.
different-church-lady
@Tommy: Yup, less tech = better brewed coffee.
Espresso is a different matter, however (and sadly)…
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker: Thing is, they ARE facing an invading army. How can that even be clearer? Not only that: there have been invading armies that wouldn’t shoot you while you were surrendering, and then leave your body in the street for your family to gawk at for hours.
They are facing a BAD invading army, not a ‘good’ invading army. I would prefer for, say, the Feds to go in and forcibly stand down the invading army, but in the absence of the Feds my sympathies are wholly with the guys trying to improvise weapons, because they are being presented with a choice between surrender and martyrdom for the benefit of people who don’t have to live there.
Surrender was already tried. That started this. Can you seriously tell these people they’re morally obligated to martyrdom? For fuck’s sake, why? How much more clear cut does it have to be?
…and yeah, now that you mention it I’ve been looking at the Aeropress too. That good, is it? Might as well come back to earth for a cup of coffee ;P
Ruckus
@D58826:
Some site has been keeping a tally of the “accidental” shootings by gun idiots.
The same idea for police shootings/beatings of blacks might just be a good idea. Maybe a few people might just see a problem here if they actually had an idea. Racism is over. Like fuck it is. Of course it would be used by the racists to show they are “winning”. We have a new kid at work who is way, way into guns and custom knives, I’d bet which side of this issue he is on. Pretty sure I’d collect on that one.
One of the things I disrepair of is that it’s been 150 yrs since the civil war and what looks like about the same percentage of the people are still fighting it from the losing side and the same victims are getting killed. I’d have thought that humans have some capacity for learning. But I’ve been wrong before.
Ruckus
@Applejinx:
This.
Bowing down to the police does work.
Once in a great while and for a short period of time.
Then the cycle starts all over again. Either the federal government is going to have to do something or people are going to at least try to protect themselves. If you are white(as I am) put yourself in their place. At some point you will pick up or devise a weapon and use it. It may be futile and legally wrong but when your back is up against the wall, do you stand there and let them shoot you? For no valid reason? Do we live in a literal police state, with all that implies, or do we live in a country that is supposed to be for all of us, that is supposed to allow demonstrations and free speech? I’d answer that right now it’s a police state. Maybe it has never really been anything else. But I’d like to see the alternative tried at least.
Betty Cracker
@Applejinx: I don’t believe I advocated “martyrdom,” but I don’t think throwing rocks and bottles at cops in armored personnel carriers with machine guns is going to do anything but get more people killed.
There are some folks who want to see more deaths — one of them was ranting about randomly killing cops here last night. I think that’s nuts, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the situation needs to change, and drastically. I just prefer a peaceful solution, like the governor taking charge and demilitarizing the local cops.
AxelFoley
@PsiFighter37:
All it takes is the oppressed fighting back against the oppressors for you to “lose sympathy”?
Keep your sympathy, then.
AxelFoley
@Applejinx:
Thank you. Anyone losing sympathy for folks who’ve had enough of this bullshit can shove it up their asses.
Betty Cracker
@AxelFoley: I have lots of sympathy for folks who’ve had enough of this shit. I have zero patience for armchair warriors calling for random assassinations over the internet. In addition to the possibility of killing / injuring innocent people, there’s blowback to consider, and let’s take a wild guess who’ll suffer most if that crackpot strategy is pursued.