Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

I know it sounds nice, but you can't solve this by trying to win over your enemies with the power of friendship.

Not your "enemies", but everyone else. Maybe even your "enemies", but they are not the most important people you have to convince.

The fact is that police have shown for over a century they don't care about certain people and being a police officer tends to attract people who want power over others.

It's not just that, and the phenomenon is the same all over the world; but yes, in the US things can get ridiculously grim very quickly.

There's a reason that domestic violence among police is estimated to be four times the national average.

I bet there is more than one. The power trip many police officers experience is the effect, not the cause.

Police are also not held accountable, which is why in all my years working on domestic violence cases, I never once saw a police officer charged.

This is bad. You need support to change it.

What you are proposing sounds lovely, but it's a fantasy. It's been tried and it didn't work, so now people are angry -- and White people are joining in. Polls show that BLM has more support among white people than ever before, we can see that in the makeup of the protests. For the first time White and Black disenfranchised are working together.

The US risk severe rioting and unrest (not now, after the elections); you are happy for a foreseeable future of clashes and violence; maybe you are right and this is the only way, but it still is what it is.


This is stupid: I mostly agree with the general ideas of BLM in the fight against injustice. It does not mean I always agree with the methods and the specific solutions. I do not think I am alone.


Again. I too agree that "racism and discrimination [are] a “big problem”, " I perfectly understand "the anger behind the demonstrations" and I think it is "somewhat justified", I kno that "the police are more likely to use deadly force against African-Americans", and I agree that "there’s a lot of discrimination against black Americans in society". It's not exactly new.

Still, I do not think that the increment in violent protest is helping out that much.


I will quote the article to show something:

" Voters are more favorable to police in their community than police overall in Quinnipiac's poll, with 77% who approve of how the police in their communities are doing, compared to 49% who approve of how the police overall are doing their jobs. "

The US police has a very bad reputation, but when they do get to know them for real, the opinion is positive. How is that? Because the general opinion is always flooded with "the police who did bad", not with "the police who did good". Whatever you think, the police themselves feel this.

So yes, the US police needs reforms, but let's keep things rational.


Ok, then. Maybe I'll be shown wrong. I still disagree with the violent methods as a good way to get political consensus towards the next presidential election.


90% peaceful, and all everyone is talking about, because it's what hits everyone harder, is the 10% violent.

Can you see how much damage violence is bringing to the movement?[/quote]
 
I think you just proved my point.

No one is talking about the protests that aren't disruptive because they are easy to ignore. In order to make an impact, you have to upset people.
 
So I'm thinking it'll probably be the Germans who run the next world hegemony
I’d rather we had a more cooperative world than a new hegemony. It would end up being yet another “either with us or against us” situation for most people(s) and I don’t think that’s ever gone well.

Besides that, German nationalism and expansionism are best kept on a VERY short leash.
 
I’d rather we had a more cooperative world than a new hegemony.

This will inevitably tend towards hegemony. Also, some countries *gestures broadly around self* basically need to be frogmarched into working by a larger power. Throughout all of this, all I'm really thinking is that I want world politics to continue functioning in such a way that I don't end up starving to death. Not a large goal, but one that is surprisingly easy to fail at if you look at the state of the countries in my region.

Also, per your comment about German Nationalism, the other options I can see with the US suddenly deciding they do not want to be the referent by which countries are measure are China and Russia. So between those two I'll take Germany and then regret it 40 years down the line.
 
German nationalism is only a problem if you let an Austrian handle it.
 
I think you just proved my point.

No one is talking about the protests that aren't disruptive because they are easy to ignore. In order to make an impact, you have to upset people.

We've got back to the beginning:

The violent protests make me wanna get away from BLM, or from anyone who's acting violent, actually, and I don't think I am alone in this.

The support grows with the peaceful protests, it declines with the violent ones.
 
We've got back to the beginning:

The violent protests make me wanna get away from BLM, or from anyone who's acting violent, actually, and I don't think I am alone in this.

The support grows with the peaceful protests, it declines with the violent ones.

good luck on that. What protest in history stayed peaceful and the point was heard and things change?
 
good luck on that. What protest in history stayed peaceful and the point was heard and things change?
Berlin Wall, or more precisely the Monday demonstrations in the GDR

The Carnation Revolution in Portugal

If I’m not mistaken, the redemocratisation of Argentina, Brazil and Chile was peaceful as well.
 
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Wouldn't most of the other revolutions in 1989 count as well?
 
Berlin Wall, or more precisely the Monday demonstrations in the GDR

The Carnation Revolution in Portugal

If I’m not mistaken, the redemocratisation of Argentina, Brazil and Chile was peaceful as well.
I'm pretty sure the economic collapse of the USSR had more to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall than any protest.
 
I'm pretty sure the economic collapse of the USSR had more to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall than any protest.

It's never the protest alone that changes the situation. The protest is one factor among many others (usually much stronger than the protest itself).
 
So... the Martin Luther King Jr quote that got shared around social media for a bit after George Floyd was murdered - that a riot "is the language of the unheard" - in the full speech he gave, he was actually condemning riots... but the point he was making was that we need to condemn the conditions that lead to riots "as vigorously as we condemn the riots themselves".

Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

The thing is, these killings have been going on for many, many years now (infact they've been going on forever but that's another post)... and people did go out, they protested peacefully, and these weren't small protests whatsoever. But most people still ignored them.

So, the question you have to ask yourself is... why did people get desperate enough to resort to rioting in the first place? In a fair and equitable society, people would've paid attention much earlier on and nobody would've gotten to this point.

Riots and civil disobedience are what happens when ordinary civic institutions, like democracy and fair representation, have failed. The United States operates under a mantra of striving to be a "more perfect union", but throughout its history, the flaws of its democracy have led to these flashpoints many times. These flashpoints have resulted in the moments where the US has made the most progress towards becoming a "more perfect union", these are the reasons that the abolition of slavery, the end of segregation and the right to vote for black citizens ever happened.

And today, it's no different. Black people are targeted by voter suppression laws, they've been disenfranchised, they've been targeted by the government for decades and by the mainstream politics that they've been shut out from (I'm thinking Reagan's drug war and prison privatisation here), and their voice hasn't been heard by the media. Before people started filming them with their phones, these killings just didn't get reported straight. BLM has been going on for a long time, but... nothing. It's the lingering ghost of a country that used to not consider them citizens at all.

So yes, you can go ahead and be put off by riots, property damage, and the like, those things are wrong because innocent people get caught up in them... but you have to understand that it's like people who turn to crime out of extreme poverty. It comes from a place of deep desperation.

And if these things turn you off the (mostly peaceful) protests, they should turn you off the conditions that got us here as well. Because one's done far more damage, quite frankly.
 
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C3D84F8F-2A8C-4910-89AC-0648768B8EBA.jpeg
 
?

dude...
 
I was rather more concerned about the fact that someone took an event where 3000 people died and a military intervention which ended with a guy who literally sent orders to shoot the poor ruling Chile for a decade and mixed them to do a "HURR DURR US BAD" joke.

Now however, I kinda want to see where this thread will go :devilish:
 
You must be joking!
I think I may have gone too far by using the term left instead of socialist/communist, but I have encountered a number of American and European socialists who sympathize with him because he was deposed. I think that he would have been removed from office at some point later on had the coup not happened. Keep in mind that prior to the coup, Chile had gone through hyperinflation and Allende himself had survived a no confidence vote by something like 8 votes IIRC.
 
a "HURR DURR US BAD" joke
Uh... where is the joke? The CIA operations that created the various “banana republics” are historical facts. Remembering the Chilean coup on its anniversary is every bit as legitimate as remembering the 2001 terrorist attacks.

In Germany, the weird day is 9 November.
 
I think I may have gone too far by using the term left instead of socialist/communist, but I have encountered a number of American and European socialists who sympathize with him because he was deposed.
“The Global Left“ sounds like something straight out of the FOX “News” playbook, hence my comment.

While I certainly don’t think that Allende was a martyr, I can see why he is venerated by some: it’s not so much about what he achieved, it’s about the contrast between his (sometimes supposed) ideals and the reality that followed the coup.
 
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