BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?

Subject: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 05:11 PM

The protests in the US over the wrongful and unnecessary death of George Floyd have also sparked protests around the world, including
in Australia

Will these protests in the US and around the world finally be
the tipping point for real positive change?

I'm hoping and praying that they are, not just in the US but here in Australia too.

The black people in the US and our indigenous First Nations people here deserve to be given all rights and privileges in society, in education, in health, in equality, and these protests are empowering those discussions here too.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 05:43 PM

I hope and pray they are too Helen. Equality and mutual respect, fair treatment and lack of prejudice/racism are all very important to me.
I was always appalled at the apartheid in S Africa, and a terrible conversation with a white South African couple (we cleaned the house of their daughter, and they came to UK on a visit) showed me just how deeply-rooted these attitudes are. They seemed to view my black husband as a sort of lowly-paid underling. This was in Norfolk, where we've met with very little racism, if any.
Of course, when any group of people is downtrodden and badly treated, they will harbour their anger and resentment, then it will all burst out in violence and vengeful acts.
So the perpetrators will reap what they've sown.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:21 PM

Will these protests in the US and around the world finally be
the tipping point for real positive change?

Well, Helen, that's what we thought about the protests we participated in back in the 1960's...... and here we go 60 years later.

Deja vu all over again.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:30 PM

There are mission statements, policy, then there is the way things are done. I have personally seen the dozens of moving parts involved in allowing police to get away with murder. Start with the police car. I have found the 'throw down weapons' the police use when they kill an unarmed man, woman or child to establish provocation and self defense. It is ususlly a 6 inch knife. They do not always bother to put a victims fingerprint on it when it can be done later. Then there is the report - enough said. Then there is the police union and the DA...
The code of silence has a murder threat behind it. If you don't stay silent we will allow you to be killed or die if you ever need assistance. Lynching AND lynching by othermeans hasbeen part of the US for a 100 years. Hopes and prayers was what MLK was about. America is fed up with hopes and prayers and frankly don't want to hear them anymore. Only action, law and convictions are going to be heard

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:30 PM

There's alway an outcry after a shooting, and people agree "something must be done". Then things quiet down and everybody goes home, and it happens all over again.

But...

I think something's different this time. It's not only hurt black people marching, it's Americans (or British, or French, or the general population of whatever country). And the mayor of DC had it written, in huge yellow letters "Black Lives Matter", and changed the name of a street - just down the road from where the president lives.

I think the scales have tipped.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:35 PM

Don, I bet you meant to have some point to that.

Other things: the police marching with the protesters, and taking a knee, and the NFL acknowledging they were wrong to come down on people for kneeling during the anthem, the banning of choke holds, and getting rid of no-knock warrants. I really believe things are shifting, and I hope the momentum lasts for along time.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:43 PM

A Change is Gonna Come

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:46 PM

Such as local and global change is demanded Jeri?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:50 PM

Are you saying local and global change is NOT demanded?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 07:38 PM

I don't wish to sound simplistic, but you need to get rid of your president. And we have a similar issue this end. So nothing is going to change.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 07:58 PM

We thought we were positively changing things 40 years ago in the UK,
with the "Rock Against Racism" youth movement..

..and we did socially and culturally to some extent..

but not enough where it really mattered in old institutions of power and wealth...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 08:12 PM

One thing that politicians do is make a big show of asking for an in depth analysis of a situation, with recommendations for actions to create positive changes and achieve outcomes, and then make a big announcement that the report is ready, and then pat themselves on the back and shelve the report without implementing any of the recommendations. What they achieve is a bit of self-promotion, a massive handout to the consultants researching and compiling the report, and no progress in the areas which triggered the research and report in the first place.

I'm hoping this time the passion, the strength and the global spread of the protests coming right in the middle of the global pandemic might be just the tipping point needed, especially in view of the statistical evidence of social and financial and health and other disadvantages which black people live with every day.

black and minority patients are more likely to die from COVID-19

black and ethnic poverty compared with white people

social inequalities

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 08:36 PM

Well we've had days of hope before. We thought we could change the system in the 70s. 22,000 of us at my friend Blair Peach's funeral thought we could turn things round as we threw red carnations in his grave and sang the Internationale. We lay down on the tarmac at Greenham (well, Mrs Steve did anyway, I just delivered logs for the fires...) and the other US air bases in the early 80s. We People Marched For Jobs. I got photographed by the police from the roof of a building and had my phone tapped for manning a CND stall in Loughton. We held hands in big circles, millions of us, to protest against invading Iraq. I've been in so many bloody marches and protests and been threatened by brainless cops. We picketed outside schools and fire stations in the freezing cold at six in the morning. We honked for the NHS outside hospitals in the East End in the 80s. We fought the losing battle for the miners against Thatcher. You think there's a tipping point, eh? Think again. We have Johnson, Trump and Bolsinaro and all the other populist lackeys. We have a dictator for life in the biggest country in the world and a fake democracy that shits on minorities in the second biggest. There's no tipping point. We just have to keep fighting, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 09:18 PM

https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2020/jun/07/no-australia-is-not-the-us-our-shocking-racial-injustice-is-all-our-own
No, Australia is not the US. Our shocking racial injustice is all our own -
African Americans make up 12% of the adult population, but 33% of the US prison population; in Australia the ratio for Indigenous people is 3% of the population and 29% of the prisoners ... Indigenous women account for 36% of all women behind bars.
If we could just replicate the ratio of African Americans in prison for Indigenous people, total prison numbers in Australia would fall by around 22%
When things would so greatly improve by only being as bad as the US, you know things are in a woeful state.
If the rate of Indigenous men in prison was the same as that of non-Indigenous men, rather than having 11,682 Indigenous men in prison there would be just 760 – cutting the total male prison population by more than a third.

we've had over 400 deaths in custody since a Review/Royal Commission in 1991 & no-one has ever been charged.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 10:11 PM

I live in Charlottesville, where the cops just let people get beaten.

But more generally, I have real hopes that they'll stop killing people, any person, for being *suspected* of a crime. "They" includes some cops and all vigilantes.

And for those cops, "I was just following orders" hasn't been an excuse for generations.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 10:20 PM

one here was excused by his senior officer as "having a bad day"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 12:03 AM

I would love to sing a song called "The Tipping Point."

To me too, it seems different this time somehow. There are so many layers and facets of us calling for change. That seems new to me.

Not to take note of the fact that if we fail AGAIN, I think the consequences may be brutal.

Wouldn't it be nice if it turned out that t'Rump was of some use after all?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 12:31 AM

I agree, Ebbie, it does seem different.

This is how it seems to me. There are different aspects in life which seem to be converging on a pivotal point. Each of the different aspects have occurred before, but relatively isolated from other aspects, but in the present global situation and with certain people in power, what used to be familiar and taken for granted is being viewed from a new vantage point by a large number of people. This could be an opportunity to rethink a lot of aspects of life on earth, including racism and social inequality, but also including climate change and the way our economies are structured and a whole lot of other things.

The naysayers could say there is no point in taking action, it has all been done before, it made little to no difference then so it will make no difference now, so it's a WOFTAM*, just forget it.

*waste of effing time and money, (or in this case WOFTAE, where E = energy).

“There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” Victor Hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: mg
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:04 AM

well...i was pretty confident that things would change for the better when it was just climate change and covid...i am still optimistic. what has really set things back is not the massive protests, which would be better if it were not for the spread of virus...but the riots which may have outside involvement..which of course they do...

but police reform will come. some officers need to be gone. some need retraining. what they really need is more officers from whatever group of people is most interacting with them in terms of jail etc. we need to go after people of noncolor with the same vigor used on people of color...just watched a looting of gucci video.. lots of cute white girls. go after them first and foremost. let them know they have broken the law and there will be consequences..probably not jail because of covid...but they should be going back to school with ankle bracelets and drones flying over their heads.

there is a lot of information out about beating covid and we have to because it seems to be causing all these blood ailments, probably because so many are recovering. They have a good and inexpensive protocol that many countries are using and scientists are going after some false research that was put out recently. So reducing the impact of covid is urgent and will be set back by huge gatherings of people lately. But it will die down. America and other places will go back to work but many businesses are dead from the virus, the shutdown and the looting. Trump will most likely be defeated, Lindsey and Mitch will probably be defeated. I am making a monthly contribution to defeat Lindsey and urge others to join me.

We are on the verge of almost free energy, of solving the plastic problem, of having solar powered cars, of educating the planet at no cost, of providing clean water to people, of reforestation. We can produce 3d drawn houses in 48 hours or so. we could probably house all the homeless with refurbished fifth wheelers etc. we could put all sorts of people to work with good financial and housing incentives. i think we will have some sort of health care for all. hopefully we will have fewer hours to work spread out among more people.

Agriculture huge problem with climate change. Need more people in agriculture especially involving animals. Need to create more surplus food and provide it to low income people..we could have local greenhouses and dairies for food deserts.

One thing is that we will have a Black woman VP. Because I dont think Biden is the right candidate and approaching senility, I was hoping for Elizabeth Warren to be his backup. I think that is no longer possible but she can push legislation through. I am hoping mayor of atlanta is VP.

Things have changed. Riots will kill many minority owned businesses and places like target will perhaps just say we can't take this risk so we are gone. Well...that is what riots do. Change will not come probably without them.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:59 AM

The demos will fade. There's no revolution coming. Had Floyd been killed in midwinter far fewer people would be on the streets. Racial tensions resulting in street demos only happen in summer in Britain. The fight is not pointless and we have to keep going. I want to be wrong and in no way am I feeling defeatist. A black man is murdered by a policeman and you see great hopes. Hundreds have been mass murdered in schools and colleges and other public places by deranged gunmen for decades, but you've done nothing. Anthropogenic climate change science is settled yet atmospheric CO2 goes up and up. The biggest and most influential countries are doing almost nothing and the rain forests burn. You decide whether it's just me being bloody gloomy or whether it's you who's late in getting real.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mr Red
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:04 AM

It always is "different this time" - we have social media, Fake News, and Fakebook.

But history teaches us: a change will come. And it will probably be in small steps.
There is inertia in the system, push too hard and it rips, and you can't predict where. Well you can, but there are a million predictions and no person can hold all the permutations in their head and prepare for the ones that come true.

Mind you the most important lesson history teaches us is that we don't listen to history.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:07 AM

The longer this goes on the better I feel about the prospects of states and municipalities reforming their law enforcement institutions, something that is already happening in Minneapolis and other locales but I'm worried about the stress that the police must be under, I hope they can hold up. It's encouraging to have seen a number of incidents of cops expressing solidarity with the protestors, forming handshake, or elbow bump, lines and even marching with the protestors as they did in Newark last week, that's certainly something that's changed. You're always gonna have a percentage of bad ones out there and that's true in any profession.
As for Biden's VP pick, since mg brought it up, I guess a black woman is a likelihood at this point and I like Val Demmings, a Florida Rep and former Orlando Police Chief and social worker, she comes across as a confident, intelligent strait-talker who would be able to step into the job immediately and learn while doing it, something the incumbent president is in no way capable of. Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Atlanta Mayor has also emerged as an appealing choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:58 AM

"straight-talker"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:17 AM

You can live in hope that you will get decent, sane presidents and vice-presidents. But Obama couldn't change much. Like all your politicians (ours too, perhaps to a lesser extent), they are leaned on so heavily by powerful and unelected lobbies - the gun lobby, the pro-Israel lobby, oil companies, financial institutions, the big multinationals - that the significant changes that glaringly need to be made are impossible. You could start with your ridiculous electoral system, which would help to prevent dolts like Trump from being "elected," but that ain't happening either, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:38 AM

You're not going to win a battle with just hope but you're not going to win one without it either. I don't think any one here thinks you're going to throw a switch and things will change, protests like those that have been going on for the last 12 days nudge things forward, maybe just slightly, but they also get people talking and thinking, I've seen that here in my own conservative white bread community and that can be reflected at the polls as it was in the 2018 midterms. Or you can just give up.
I think we're witnessing the last stand of White male supremacy in this country and they're not going to go down easy.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:03 AM

Corporations donating to fight racial injustice and Trump martial law

Walmart 100 million
airbnb   50 million
Amazon    10 million
facebook    10 million
Coogle       12 million
There are over a hundred smaller corporations also on the list

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:20 AM

Supreme Court may take up 'qualified immunity' law that protected cops for 50 years

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 09:06 AM

I didn't think we'd get marriage equality either, so I have hopes. Ditto pot laws.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 09:39 AM

The whole business has got totally out of hand. When rent-a-mob breaks the law, what do they expect to happen? I feel for the poor animals.

ALL LIVES MATTER.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 09:57 AM

You talking about the President's militia thugs? The guy has gone full-on paranoid.

The rest of it's been pretty peaceful of late, however I was listening to BBC America last night, and they were talking about rioting and such. I wondered what the hell THEY'D been paying attention to.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 10:52 AM

Some glaring oversights may be changed, For example LYNCHING is NOT a Federal crime. Racist Practices may be untouched in certain local police departmnts including internal affairs.

Not to cause unneeded anger but I have noticed a few of our British cousins useing rhetoric that would have alarmed Americans if they expressed it on Wash.DC streets. In their defense - differnt country, history and intensity of the issue. There is more they don't know over here than they think.

Personally our 2 closest McDonalds have a history of murdering an innocent elderly black patron in the drive through and beating black kids. I've marched in funerals for black martyrs since I was 8. I visited DC by bus to attend the MLK I have a dream speech but I did not break quarantine due to Covid 19 this week.



Just now on FOX, Rudy Guilliani is quick to point out that police kill a miniscule number of black people than blacks killing blacks.
He said we need LAW and ORDER LAW and ORDER LAW and ORDER LAW and ORDER
He goes on to Blame Jane Fonda and Obama for the defund the police movement and that police racism is a hoax and MYTH

100 billion goes to the police each year - you be the judge

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 11:24 AM

BoneZoo is right, pets are people too. Why has he excluded black cats?
What is this FOX claim that black evil matters ;^{

There is sometimes a need for comedic relief

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 11:33 AM

Ever since I was a little lad going to football matches in Lancashire, I've been opposed to the use of police horses in crowds. Horses can be skittish and unpredictable and you can't always get away from them. I saw a few bad-tempered incidents in those times.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 12:33 PM

I just saw an actual Game of Thrones moment when Mayor Jacob of Mineapolis was asked about defunding police, he said "No". The crowd started chanting 'go home Jacob go home', he turned to leave and the chanting turned into "Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame. The young mayor walkednearly 2 blocks awy befor the chanting petered out.

Defunding should be a less funding with funding of education instead.imo

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 01:21 PM

The way this is lining up, with Trump's secret army, militia or whoever they are, and his raging paranoia, I wonder...
I'm pretty sure he'll lose the election, and what will happen when folks try to drag him out of the White House?
Black Lives Matter, and the murder of Floyd, have resulted in the tide turning. He has to deal with his inaction on Covid-19 killing thousands, and now, the focus on anti-racism, and generally Doing The Right Thing, just pile on him.
I'm afraid of what will happen in the future, but I'm stoked that so many people care about justice.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 01:25 PM

Oh good, the real Jeri has returned.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 01:31 PM

Can any of you people over yonder give us an idea of Trump's popularity rating over all this ?
We're getting mixed messages, the BBC is blanking it but an American commentator on Irish radio yesterday said he was plummeting
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 01:35 PM

Thank you mossback for your kind comment

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 01:45 PM

47% approve 53% disapprove overall

Then there are dozens of breakdown polls

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 03:08 PM

"BOOM !"...

Now that's a scenario for our creative imagination...

An assassination of a high security surrounded evil mad dictator would need to be an inside job..

Anything in public would be too spectacular taking out too many bystanders...

Though not a sensible solution, as the repercussions, would be diabolically bad
for a heavily privately armed divided nation...

Best it was made to look like natural causes..
though absolutely no guarantee mass deranged trigger happy supporters would believe this..

.. or that the replacement would be any better...

But day dreaming isn't a crime yet...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 03:41 PM

Just heard on the UK news that George Floyd funeral goers were not chanting Black Lives Matter but Black Power; it seems to me many people of African origin are themselves racist - it does NOT only go in one direction; my poem on "Land Rights"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 03:54 PM

Somebody's lying, Wav.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 03:56 PM

"Just heard on the UK news that George Floyd funeral goers were not chanting Black Lives Matter but Black Power; it seems to me many people of African origin are themselves racist - it does NOT only go in one direction; my poem on "Land Rights" "

Were they goers squire??

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:01 PM

Black and white, unite and fight crap crack-pot poetry...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:04 PM

Oh, the black Americans I've had to do with are, frequently and commonly, incredibly racist. In fact, there is a redefinition of racism going on where it it's against the upper class, it isn't racism. Sigh. I quote King a lot about not making skin-color-based judgments but waiting for content of character...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:06 PM

It's for a good cause though, some geezer they never knew in a different country who was killed by another geezer they never knew from that same country.......
And now they want to blame everyone that had absolutely nothing to do with it especially whites and police!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:24 PM

Bonz - all I know is that I am a white male who has benefited far less from the oppressive exploitation of other races,
than probably you and the privileged middle class you belong to...

Of course I'm not to blame for any historic and current race crimes..
but I'm aware they happened,
and would prefer they no longer continue..

Whichever colour the aggressors are...

Btw.. just watched two magpies beating up a predatory cat in my back yard..

What a brilliant natural symbolic image for Black and White unity...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:28 PM

Here's a tidbit. Two of the officers charged in George Floyd's death are rookies starting their 1st week. It was their training day with Chauvin in charge.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:10 PM

Back in the 1960s to 1980s it was the 'black power' movement now it has reared its ugly head again under 'black lives matter' It will not succeed any more than it did then. for many reasons....... my belief as a Christian 9s that All lives matter......Suggest a bit of research into how many Native Americans have died in Police custody in America in the last ten years... much more than black Americans. Check how many white people have been murdered in Africa... especially Zimbabwe in the last ten years and how many, including people we know, have been forced to flee for their lives from Zimbabwe. Check how many Aborigines have died in custody in Australia and how many white missionaries have died in the last ten years in different parts of the world. I'm sorry but as a Christian, I believe that ALL lives matter. Not just 'black lives' a movement which has carried on from the 'Black Power' movement of the 1960-80s All lives matter to me. I acknowledge that black lives are important but no more important than any other race which is being in any way persecuted including our own UK.... Lee Rigby, a young Army man and numerous other killed on London Bridge and environs.. Because a career criminal guilty in the past of many acts of violence which included the robbery at gunpoint of a heavily pregnant woman died at the hands of a police officer and large riots ensued...... all this has been blown out of proportion. He and others who were with him have been arrested and are being dealt with by the law......which is correct...... but a movement that is anarchic in nature and is destroying property, buildings and police cars also causing human suffering is not the right thing ....

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:14 PM

Jim Carroll,

I watch this Oz show every week and it has very good balanced coverage and commentary with statistics on various issues including how Trump and Biden are doing in the polls:

Planet America
and

Planet America Fireside Chat

They have also been including coverage of the protests.

I'm not sure whether you can access the iView from outside of Australia.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:19 PM

I know Bristol a little bit and I'm dead chuffed that Colston's statue was ripped down and dumped in the harbour, where his ships sailed from. I didn't even know that there was a statue of him in Bristol and I think that its presence was an abomination. Well done to the local police for taking a step back but yah boo to Priti Patel who could only spout the formulaic establishment line. Colston made his money via the slave trade and his philanthropy can't disguise that. I've been to the Colston Hall a few times and I'm over the moon that its name will soon be changed. There was a man who does not deserve any kind of glorification.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:25 PM

"Because a career criminal guilty in the past of many acts of violence which included the robbery at gunpoint of a heavily pregnant woman died at the hands of a police officer and large riots ensued...."

Blimey. If you believe in the rule of law that you really can't think this. No matter what he's alleged to have done in the past, he was entitled to the same due process as anyone else. I'll remind you that he was unarmed, that the policeman knelt on his neck for nine minutes and that, for most of that time at least, he was no threat to anybody. Think again.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:42 PM

Yo, Georgian:

EDUCATE YOURSELF

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:45 PM

Its the number of people who actually believe the garbage posted 07 Jun 20 - 05:10 PM that are the cause of the problem, and also the reason that Change Ain't Gonna Come.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:19 PM

Mossback, Forgive Georgian bozo walkaround, they know not what they do.
They are less evolved than Steve but education is a good 1st step.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:23 PM

I'm a Humanist, I also believe all lives matter...

including folks I don't particularly respect..

.. like for instance.. right wing christians...


btw.. big cheer for Bristol, the best place I ever lived..

For many obvious reasons, some now becoming apparent to the rest of the world...

Told you all before it's a radical progressive city..
.. well.. as much as it can be in tory owned great britain...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:31 PM

Georgiansilver, I think the key issue in Black Lives Matter is equality, justice and fairness for all.

If one ethnic or other identifiable group consistently outpaces another ethnic or other identifiable group in some key social measures over centuries not just years or decades, then there is a problem and that problem needs to be not only addressed ("we will commission a report and ignore the recommendations") but resolved satisfactorily for all people, not just for the benefit of one group.

The statistics tell the story. I posted some links to statistical pages on 06 Jun 20 - 08:12 PM.

You will notice from those statistical compilations that some of your statements are corroborated, however the statistics only form a basis for making decisions, formulating strategies and taking positive action. Different people interpret statistics and data differently, and it is important to view the research as objectively and fairly as possible, with minimal personal bias and aim for the best possible outcomes for all people, not just those with a privileged base or with their own agendas.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:50 PM

Should have typed mourners not goers, sorry - twitter character limitations and copy/pasting getting the better of me, I'm afraid; but, if you do a web-search, it seems Black Power rather than Black Lives Matter was chanted at the above-mentioned funeral.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:58 PM

No classifications of people deserve positive favoured privilege or negative discrimination,
more than any other..

Though, of course, we all have personal prejudices and bias
which tend to inline us to prefer some types over others..
We're only human, after all...

It's the powerful elites who sustain their entitled exceptionalism,
dominating the the rest of us,
by pitting us all against each other in constant pernicious fighting over entrenched differences...

Race is the most classic base nature conflict perpetuated by the rich and powerful'
as a vital tool of their divide and rule...

It was a pleasure to watch the symbolic theatricality of that despised statue being dumped in the river...

The reactionaries who despair at this 'vandalism' to a monument
they stubbornly rallied around,
should be glad the protesters are peacful,
and not coming next to drown them...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:01 PM

I don't know what some of you are trying to say. Seriously, Bonzo's geezer thing makes absolutely no sense. And the stuff about chanting "black power" is just stupid. No evidence, just "I heard".
There are so many non-black people out there in the streets, that I can't see why there would be black racists there. What news source do you have that wants to be Fox? Go look at photos from the various US cities.

For the record, of course all lives matter, but that means black lives matter, and police should stop ending those of unarmed people.
Have there been many that aren't black?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:02 PM

...a CEO in Japan earns about 10 times more than the lowest paid in a company; in Europe it is about 30 times more; and, in the USA, more than 300 times more. So why do so many around the world keep on Americanising? The American free-market way is NOT a good way for humanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:08 PM

Walkabout, prove it.
I think it's a lie, but proof should be easy to find.

There was no chanting "at the funeral". It was a FUNERAL, for pete's sake.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:20 PM

The problem with walky is, on rare occasions, he says something almost sensible enough
we can all agree with..

Then he throws away the goodwill, reverting to his usual highly dubious nonsense...

Same goes for bonz, who sometimes seems to be turning into a bit of a lefty pefty in his more mature years...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:20 PM

"and police should stop ending those of unarmed people" (Jeri)...from the footage I have seen, the manner of the arrest of George Floyd was disgustingly wrong; but attacking property because it is "owned by whites" (without knowing what such "whites" believe in), and chanting Black Power is also wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:26 PM

Before the private ceremony began Saturday afternoon, thousands of people from around the country had arrived by car, motorcycle or public transportation to attend a public viewing, NBC affiliate WRAL in Raleigh reported. As a hearse carrying Floyd’s coffin arrived, mourners chanted "black power" and "no justice, no peace" (NBC News)
.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:30 PM

walky - life's a bit unfair like that..

especially at times when peaceful society breaks down into angy mob disruption..

What if I wanted to seriously be a fanatical white supremacist thug,
but got my head kicked in on entering their club house
because they found out I was quarter jew...

life is so cruel...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:34 PM

Walky - this latest obsession of yours about shouts of "black power" in earshot of news camera crews...

If it actually happened, anyone, and I mean anyone
could have shouted that..

Don't be so naive...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:39 PM

Not sure which channel I was watching, PFR, but it was either our ITV or BBC news that reported the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 07:43 PM

No further replies to whackadoo posts.
PFR, there hasn't been any "angry mob disruption" since the first couple of nights, and from what I understand, that was most likely due to forces other than the Black Lives Matter protesters.

"Most of them appear to be white. They carry no signs and don't want to speak to reporters. Trailed by designated "medics" with red crosses taped to their clothes, these groups head straight for the front lines of the conflict"

From USA Today

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:00 PM

"PFR, there hasn't been any "angry mob disruption" since the first couple of nights, and from what I understand, that was most likely due to forces other than the Black Lives Matter protesters."


Jeri - Please understand some of us Brits
are as at least as sophisticated thinkers on these matters as you..

I AM cynical, verging on plausible conspiracy theorist, enough
to presume trumpist agent provocateurs at play in all mass gatherings..

When I'm being amicably sarcastic to reactionary numpties,
it's very likely I'll be talking in generalities to drive home points
they might understand...???...

It's even possible I may be referring to some things that are not even USAcentric...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:08 PM

I'm pretty troubled by this counter-statement "ALL lives matter." I'm thinking that this is likely an extreme racist stance. Those of you who are embracing this need to carefully consider your position. You have thinking to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:12 PM

Yes and I know you typed those words, pfr, but your context was everything...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:13 PM

PFR, I've never thought you were NOT a "sophisticated thinker". I respect you. When I said "whackadoo", I was referring to WAV, who doesn't seem to be posting about real things. He can't just make things up, and expect people to treat them as facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:19 PM

This post appeared not to take, so here 'tis again.

"I don't know what some of you are trying to say."

Well you could try just ditching your irrational anti-Brit stance and read the careful posts that folks like pfr and myself are sweating over and articulating as well as we can muster, unlike some of your own recent crudenesses. I note for example that you ditched your earlier FUCK/BOOM negativity (a facility denied to the rest of us, of course, which means that you think you can say what you like with impunity) and all the embarrassing (to you) responses you got to it. As ever, you will of course delete this and the associated crap, your routine modus operandi, because you can't bear to be embarrassingly called out, can you?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:33 PM

Jeri - Yeah.. me and you..
Us Liberal to lefty folks on either side of the Atlantic must try to stick together,
despite all the misunderstandings and negative forces trying to divide us, and set us against each other...


.. and.. walky exists in his own dimension..

I've known folks like him in real life,
we get a lot of weird 'creative people' here in south west England.
It's the Arthurian mystic legends and mushrooms that attracts them here..

We've learnt to try to tolerate them in our social groups..
unless they go full on sword and sorcery warrior 'master-racey' on us..

Even then, we'll probably still continue being sort of friendly despite all that..

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 08:50 PM

A lot of 'em come to folk clubs too...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 09:25 PM

I don't talk to my neighbors much. We're pretty spread out, and I normally don't want to bother them. The guy who mows my lawn, thought... I mistakenly got into a discussion about Covid-19, and he told me about how it was a virus that escaped from a lab in China, and everybody was overreacting, and the masks were silly, and I disagreed-but didn't feel like arguing. Then a neighbor came over to see if she could hire him, and more of the same paranoid shit. I realized I had some of those Fox viewers around here. I don't even want to hear about their opinions on Black Lives Matter. Nobody I know by choice feels like that.
But you can't change anyone else's opinion, and the only sanity-saving thing I can do is simply not engage.
And don't even get me started on the flat Earth guy I talked to at an art festival a few years ago. but he was actually nice.

But I really have been watching the news way too much.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 11:57 PM

I have to pace myself on the news. Rachel Maddow and usually one of the others, and when I can catch her, Christiane Amanpour (it plays at midnight here, so I've finally cranked up the PBS app that I've got with my regular PBS donation). More than that and I'm a little crazy by bedtime.

My children are bi-racial, and I've been careful not to press them one way or the other. My mother would have been a basket case and made me feel horrible if I'd done anything so dangerous as protesting back in the late 1960s, early 1970s. As it happened, proximity was more a factor than anything else (there wasn't much protesting going on in the places available to me). But in recent years I have marched. As it happens, we are all still so concerned about the COVID-19 that my and their protest activity is concentrated with donations to various causes.

Many of my elderly neighbors are GOP supporters (this is Texas, though urban areas are more liberal), but in the past when I've put up candidate signs in the yard people have stopped and quietly noted they also vote that way. During the last election there were Trump vandals attacking signs and houses if Clinton signs were put out. This time a Biden sign WILL go in the yard, and I'm at an intersection in the road so I can promote it in three different directions, not just to passers-by.

Politically I am aligned with the African American family across the street, and not with the Euramerican neighbors on either side of me, but we're civil, and simply put out yard signs and don't generally talk politics when we meet. We won't be changing each other's minds, but I do hope that they're extremely disappointed come November. I'm really tired of this Groundhog Day world we live in, and a cop in Minneapolis, showing off for his two trainees as he killed a black man, is the one who has finally pushed everyone too far. His misfortune that a 17-year-old girl stood her ground and got the entire thing on video, and that the world was in the COVID-19 suspended animation and had all of the time in the world to pay attention. Dismantle these petty armies of police in cities and train them to serve people, not antagonize them. It's going to be messy, but it needs to be done.

And we don't need any more saccharine poetry from WAV, but since it isn't kind to verbally duel with unarmed opponents, I just try to ignore his nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 12:24 AM

Well said, SRS!

I keep thinking that things could not get much worse in the US and it (he) ramps up another notch.

According to the presenters on Planet America, even some of the Republicans currently in power are starting to back pedal on some of Trump's outrageous behaviour.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:29 AM

I'm actually surprised that WAV's posts are able to make it through the shimmering veil that separates us from whatever alternative universe he lives in.
Let's say your house catches on fire, but when the fire department comes out, they start at the other end of the street doing home inspections, because, after all, all houses matter.
Donuel, you said "Defunding should be a less funding with funding of education instead.imo". There are actually two schools of thought on defunding. The more extreme view is a total defunding of departments but more defunders are asking for exactly what you describe. The Minneapolis city council, however, has voted to eliminate their police department entirely. The question becomes: To be replaced by what? There are still going to be people who rob, rape, kill and get into barfights on Saturday night. Will we see a new industry of private police forces available for hire, a disconcerting thought. Just look at the abuses in the privately owned prison industry.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:43 AM

I'm proud of the way this has broadened and spread to cover other groups here - the demonstrations in London and elsewhere back home are heartening epecially when you the Government spokesmen (women) desperately using the pandemic to urge people to forget human rights "until all this is over - my arse!)
Australia has taken to the streets - for the Aboriginal People
I'm hoping someone will take up the cudgels here in Ireland for the Travellers, and for the shameful way some towns are treatin the refugees
The double-speak of avoiding demonstrations for safety's sake, while at the same time getting people back to work and children back to school against medical advice is sickening - I heard a new word yesterday; "It's about time we started ignoring the advice of the MEDICRATS - from a business spokesman
Let's hope they can't foll all of the people all of the time, this time !
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 05:15 AM

Apparently S Korean police shoot rioters with purple dye and spend the next week rounding them up and arresting them.
Sounds like a plan for those who do not protest within the law and within lockdown rules.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 06:19 AM

How were you when it came to Saddam's statue being illegally hauled down, Bonzo? Just wondering...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 06:41 AM

The global reaction to George Floyds death was so unlikely, if there had even been sports, the slow motion murder would have faded into obscurity. To a degree sports is an opiate to the masses. Opiates have become the real opiates of society but my point is that by simple unlikely fate there were no distractions away from outrage and protest.
Sports was not the main factor of distraction. That would probably be the isolation and everyone being subject to the i phone video.

Dear Brits, over here the only type of people saying all lives matter are the most blatant racists. It a peculiarity I know but words and phrases differ.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 06:46 AM

Change on the way? Maybe some temporary change in the short term until the outrage dies down. But it would be a pretty safe bet that th elites will be doing everything to restore the status quo as soon as possible to appease their bigoted supporter base.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 06:50 AM

It has become indelible in a way that can not fade like the assasination of MLK or JFK

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 07:09 AM

How can there ever be change when the UK Home Secretary shows more outrage over the damage of a ****ing statue of a slave trader than the death of a black man at the hands of police? what's the point.... humanity is f****d.   Sorry for my profanity

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 07:25 AM

Jim Carroll, here's a site that tracks polls in the U.S. and allows you to view trends.

project five thirty eight

I don't think it includes a CNN poll that came out this morning that has Biden up by 14 points nationally. His anti-constitutional publicity stunt in Lafayette Square last Monday seems to have done considerable damage in most quarters. It's mobilized a number of well-respected former and current military higher ups against him, Colin Powell called him a liar, hardly news, yesterday on national TV and expressed support for Biden.
It's almost 5 months until the election but it's a good bet he'll become more crazy and desperate in the interim.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 07:26 AM

We were only one timely basketball game and beer away from ignoring this entire issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 07:37 AM

Yep, the constraints of social distancing have allowed casual trump supporters the time to assess his incompetency and derangement, qualities his die hard supporters probably find admirable.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 07:50 AM

In responding to Jim's request I seem to have gotten off track. Carry on.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 08:13 AM

Thanks Gilly
I dread to think what card he'll play next but you can bet it will be aimed at redneck populism
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 08:29 AM

No doubt Jim some demonstrators have sacrificed their lives in the demonstrations during this pandemic. It is that important. I am in a land where a quarter of all the infections in the world festers.
The trends and outcome lag by about 4 weeks.
Lies and slogans can fool the people in the short run.
We are all living in the long run now.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 08:56 AM

Steve Shaw - The statue shouldn't have been taken down in the way it was but it should have been removed from our streets a long time ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 09:24 AM

You sound like Starmer, Bonzo. Personally, I can't blame people for taking things into their own hands. Had they not torn down that detestable statue it might have stood there for years, for decades or forever. They've been arguing for years in Bristol about rewording the inscription on the plinth and done nothing. There's still impasse over renaming the Colston Hall. There are deluded people arguing that we shouldn't change these things "because you can't erase history." Bunkum. You won't learn much about the history in question by going to a gig at the Colston or walking by that statue. There are people defending him saying what a great bloke he was for founding schools and almshouses. They're not telling you that it was slave money that paid for those things. His slaving company overcrowded their ships with captives who had been branded on the chest with his company's initials and thrown overboard when they died, twenty thousand of them. Huffing and puffing about justifiably angry people throwing his statue into the harbour doesn't sit very well with me. All power to them. Either we quietly drop the "illegal" bit, as the police sensibly appeared to do, or we make the law an ass.

"Dear Brits, over here the only type of people saying all lives matter are the most blatant racists."

Bravo, Donuel.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 10:12 AM

From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:19 PM

I know Bristol a little bit and I'm dead chuffed that Colston's statue was ripped down and dumped in the harbour, where his ships sailed from. I didn't even know that there was a statue of him in Bristol and I think that its presence was an abomination. Well done to the local police for taking a step back but yah boo to Priti Patel who could only spout the formulaic establishment line. Colston made his money via the slave trade and his philanthropy can't disguise that. I've been to the Colston Hall a few times and I'm over the moon that its name will soon be changed. There was a man who does not deserve any kind of glorification.



From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 05:25 PM

"Because a career criminal guilty in the past of many acts of violence which included the robbery at gunpoint of a heavily pregnant woman died at the hands of a police officer and large riots ensued...."

Blimey. If you believe in the rule of law that you really can't think this. No matter what he's alleged to have done in the past, he was entitled to the same due process as anyone else. I'll remind you that he was unarmed, that the policeman knelt on his neck for nine minutes and that, for most of that time at least, he was no threat to anybody. Think again.

And, if you believe in the rule of law you wouldn't condone the police stepping back.
The two are in no way equivalent, but belief in the rule of law applies to both. You can't choose to only support it when it matches your own beliefs, that way lies anarchy.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 10:56 AM

You appear to be equating the removal of a hated statue which celebrated a slave trader whose company killed 20000 black people with the brutal killing of an unarmed, untried man by a policeman who thereby denied him due process. So I'll ask you what I asked Bonzo: how did you feel about the illegal toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussain? I only ask because, as far as I recall, I didn't hear much huffing and puffing from the white establishment over that...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 10:57 AM

There are many statues of people once admired but now, for one reason or another, despised or at least found "problematical". A statue of Churchill in London, it has been reported, now has some added information about his being a racist. Unlikely that it will be subject to more lasting alteration, of whatever kind. True, he might have commended an RAF officer called Harris for planning to "pacify" tribesmen in the Middle East by dropping poison gas from biplanes, and continued by opining that these methods might be employed against "the industrial cities of the North" [of Britain, that is], but he was an appropriately aggressive PM in wartime. That statue will slouch for a long time.

For a long time, in Scotland, people have raised concerns about a colossal statue of the Duke of Sutherland perched high on a massive pedestal set atop a hill above Dornoch and facing towards the sea; the traditional saying is, "he turned his back on the people". The Strathnavar Evictions provide one of the most notorious examples of the attitudes of the British ruling classes towards the Common People, an episode in a long process of dispossession commonly known as The Highland Clearances ( though not limited to the Highlands of Scotland). Some of my own ancestors were "cleared" in the name of Progress and the pursuit of wealth. It is incontestable that many died as a consequence of such actions. Down through the years there have been numerous attempts to remove this offensive landmark, this perpetual reminder that some are born to own the land, and some are born to work it for as long as they're permitted to by their "betters". So far, the legal route has met with the kind of attention to be expected; so far, the more direct methods have not, yet, succeeded. Perhaps now there will be widespread support for this laudable effort to remove a statue of someone who ought, now, to be regarded and identified specifically as one more powerful person from the Past whose actions caused immense human suffering and grief. Perhaps; but I ain't holding my breath.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 10:57 AM

Peaceful" in relation to these BLM scumbags just took a nosedive. This was anarchy, disrespect and anti-British and should be punished and the book thrown at the little toe rag who tried to set fire to the cenotaph flag. We, the British people, are SICK and TIRED of this CRAP!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:02 AM

Best if you just speak for yourself really. Most of the BLM demonstrators on British streets were, er....British....

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:03 AM

yes, bonzo, we are tired of this crap. we are not all bigots in britain and many people do try to have respect for peace and humanity

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:09 AM

I am not sure what is in 'the book' to be thrown for flag burning. Criminal damage, potentially. But I am uncertain what UK laws there are against anarchy and disrespect.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:11 AM

You appear to be equating the removal of a hated statue which celebrated a slave trader whose company killed 20000 black people with the brutal killing of an unarmed, untried man

I realise that you read selectively. But I clearly stated:
The two are in no way equivalent, but belief in the rule of law applies to both. You can't choose to only support it when it matches your own beliefs, that way lies anarchy.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:16 AM

I'm wondering if this should now be considered a British politics thread.
So goes everything on Mudcat these days.

We haven't had much violence in the USA protests recently. Tweet by @RoguePOTUSStaff:

Lafayette Square is closed to frustrate, deflect, and deter protesters, and to shield the President from exposure to them. No other reason. There are no riots. There is on security issue. It is solely an act suppress exercise of the first amendment.

I don't like that they've closed off the square, but I like that the protesters are getting to him.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:23 AM

I'm wondering if this should now be considered a British politics thread

I hope not, Jeri. It is being reported in the UK that

House speaker Nancy Pelosi reflected on the moment of silence that lawmakers observed for George Floyd in Emancipation Hall this morning.

Just before unveiling the Justice in Policing Act, congressional Democrats kneeled for eight minutes and 46 seconds, in observation of the length of time that a police officer had his knee on Floyd’s neck.

“My members will attest, it is a very long time,” Pelosi said.

The Democratic speaker said “the martyrdom of George Floyd” has sparked nationwide protests, which has now inspired this piece of legislation.

“This moment of national anguish is being transformed into a movement of national action,” Pelosi said.

After reading out the names of some of the people who have been killed in police custody, Pelosi said, “We cannot settle for anything less than transformative, structural change.”


That, and the bill, seem very significant to me, and I don't think it should get drowned out by the Bristol events.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:25 AM

Those people weren't there to support anything. They were there to riot.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:27 AM

Flag burning is legal in the US, though there are patriotic zealots who would suggest the flag is sacred. Your response, Bonzo, is exactly the kind of thing that is a problem; you appear to be more interested in the symbol or the real estate than in the human beings impacted by bad policies and bigotted governments and racist officials.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:30 AM

Yep, DMcG, it's all relevant. It just seem the thread was deteriorating into a fight about one particular statue being removed.
There's a Facebook Live news conference with Congressional Democrats at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:32 AM

"I'm wondering if this should now be considered a British politics thread.
So goes everything on Mudcat these days."
The 'Black lives' movement has become international Jeri - America can't always claim the best things for themselves

He's winding you up like the hall clock Maggie
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:36 AM

So you're clearly fine with laws that uphold injustices. The thing about the law, Nigel, as any judge will tell you, is that the law is there for the people. All of us. The law is never infallible. The law that permitted hanging, drawing and quartering was a bad law. A law that permits hands to be chopped off for minor transgressions is a bad law. A law that allows you to be imprisoned for kissing your girlfriend in the street is a bad law. A law that protects the right of existence of the hated, celebratory image of a slave trader whose company was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and for the misery of hundreds of thousands of others is....a bad law? Was the law that protected Saddam's statue a bad law? (You haven't answered). So what should we do about bad laws that the establishment, which laws are not supposed to be exclusively for, refuses to change? What about when People Power toppled the vicious Marcos dictatorship? Those "people" probably broke dozens of laws when they did that. Did you write a huffy letter to the Telegraph to complain?

By the way, the law that insists that Floyd, along with everyone else in the US, was entitled to due process in the judicial system is a good law. It doesn't matter how bad you think the chap was. Unlike Georgiansilver, I happen to think that even the worst people are entitled to that process. Like most people I was glad to see the back of Bin Laden. But the manner of his dispatch made me feel uncomfortable.   Just a few musings, y'know...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:36 AM

Perhaps, but that has been the response from a lot of GOP party members here also, so that argument is ongoing and is an impediment to finding solutions for people, not things. The economy does need to be restored, but in a way that doesn't just let the fat cats get fatter. As has already happened with the bills that have gone through Congress so far, in the wake of COVID-19.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:37 AM

My post was directed to Nigel.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:40 AM

The vast majority of people out on the streets this weekend were not "rioting," Bonzo, and you know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:47 AM

Yes - those people who were rioting! Of course I am not referring to the decent people who were there and you know it!!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:51 AM

It seems to me that the UK has so many CCTV cameras around that a decade ago or so when looters were part of a mix of rioters officials were able to tell them apart and make charges that stick.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 12:26 PM

BLM is a Marxist organisation that wants to overthrow all we hold dear. Don’t buy into this equalities and racism crap, it’s a cover.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 12:41 PM

Anybody mind if I swear NOW?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 01:10 PM

That's enough, Bonzo.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 01:39 PM

In around 1970, when the Australian government were actively seeking UK immigrants, I went to an official government presentation in Kent. The main feature was a film which depicted all the tempting attractions of the Aussie lifestyle - sunshine, beaches, surfing, sports, barbies and the like. I was ready to sign on the dotted line. Then the mood changed, and the film proudly showed a camp for aboriginal Australians. Behind the wire fences, the camera showed a clearly dispirited group of people.The men were propped up against the hut walls, and clutching beer bottles, while the children were playing aimlessly in the dust, but the main impression I retain after 50 years is of the flies settled round their eyes and mouths, with none even finding the energy to brush them away.
This was an official film promoting the country, remember, and the commentary made it quite clear that this was an achievement to be admired.

So, I didn’t sign up, and I can’t help wondering if less than one lifetime has been enough to eradicate this way of thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:36 PM

HERE

Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 03:30 PM

Racism is a multifaceted problem beyond who or what makes life matter.
It is also an INCREDIBLE amount of energy. E=MC2
America was built by black lives from the ground up especially in the south. When energy is restrained and constrained it will EXPLODE.
It doesn't take an Einstein or a genius to see white fear, fragility and domination at work. Doing the right thing has taken dozens if not thousands of years because we're not as smart as we think we are.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 06:23 PM

"BLM is a Marxist organisation that wants to overthrow all we hold dear. Don’t buy into this equalities and racism crap, it’s a cover."


Bonzo approved amendment to slogan - "Affluent Black Conservative Lives Matter"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 07:15 PM

I thought that Raheem Sterling was very impressive on Newsnight. A nice contrast with the horrendous smirker Priti-they-called-me-Paki-in-the-playground-so-I'll-take-no-lectures-from-you, you-black-woman-MP-Patel. Tens of thousands of nearly-all-peaceful demonstrators turned out this weekend. Both the detestable Patel and the even more detestable Johnson chose to come out and criticise the tiny minority whose frustrations came to the fore. Anything to divert from the shit that they've dropped on poorer communities for a decade, and which now exposes them for what they are as we see how much more vulnerable to Coronavirus black people are.

My friend Blair Peach was bludgeoned to death by a policeman forty-one years ago as he was making his way home from a demonstration opposing racism. Kevin Whately, a student from Warwick University, was bludgeoned to death on my birthday in 1974 in Red Lion Square during a protest against the fascist National Front. It was the first demo he'd ever been on. In neither case has anyone been brought to justice. The identity of Blair's killer has been known for decades. We're bloody sick of this stuff and I for one fully support and fully understand the protests about the murder by a policeman of George Floyd. I've hardly touched on this have I, with just those three examples. So I really don't want to hear the rank hypocrisy of the harrumphers who bemoan the abuse and the deserved, and long-overdue, demise of the cheap, shitty statue of a man who connived in the mass murder and the mass misery of black people.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 09:16 PM

If I might just be indulged for one more minute, here's the estimable John Crace in the Guardian:

"And yet you couldn’t miss the faint whiff of hypocrisy on both sides of the house. Almost all those who were appalled by Edward Colston being dumped in the river had cheered when the statue of Saddam Hussein had been torn down."

John did miss a trick, of course, by forgetting to put the word "appalled" in speech marks...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 09:26 PM

Will the death of George Floyd at the hands of white police officer Derek Chauvin mark a
turning point in the US?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 09:32 PM

Raheem Sterling made some useful points about the representation of BAME footballers in the hierarchy of football. But maybe those in those positions rose there through their ability to do the job.
You cannot justify having quotas in every job at every level.

Raheem Sterling: “There’s something like 500 players in the Premier League and a third of them are black and we have no representation of us in the hierarchy, no representation of us in the coaching staffs. There’s not a lot of faces that we can relate to and have conversations with.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 09:37 PM

It will become an eternal symbol in the issue of racism, police abuse and police reform. The hard work is ahead.
As you know I am a strong believer in lasting symbols.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 10:14 PM

https://www.motherjones.com/anti-racism-police-protest/2020/06/videos-show-cops-slashing-car-tires-at-protests-in-minneapolis/

Update, 6/8/20: The Star Tribune has identified the officers puncturing tires as state troopers and deputies from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. The officers strategically deflated the tires to “stop behaviors such as vehicles driving dangerously and at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement,” said Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon. The troopers reportedly targeted cars that “contained items used to cause harm during violent protests” such as rocks and concrete. The Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Andy Knotz said deputies were following directions from the state-led Multiagency Command Center.

After long nights of tear gas and rubber bullets, some protesters, news crews, and medics in Minneapolis last weekend found themselves stranded: The tires of their cars had been slashed.

In a city upended by protests about police brutality after the death of George Floyd, many assumed protesters were to blame. But videos reveal a different culprit: the police.

In the videos, officers puncture tires in a K-Mart parking lot on May 30 and a highway overpass on May 31. Both areas briefly turned into police staging grounds near protest hot spots.

The officers appear to be state troopers or county police, though it’s not clear from the videos. Neither the Minnesota State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests from Mother Jones. The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota National Guard denied involvement.

The gray car in the video above was the rental car of Luke Mogelson, a New Yorker writer who typically covers war zones and is now stationed in Minneapolis to write about the protests. As the protest on Sunday evening turned hairy, with law enforcement tear-gassing peaceful groups soon after curfew, Mogelson went to check on his car, showing his press pass to officers along the way. (Media were exempt from the curfew.) One officer took a picture of his press pass and said he would “radio it up the chain so everyone knew that car belonged to the press,” said Mogelson. When he came back later that evening to retrieve his car, officers informed him that the tires were punctured. “They were laughing,” Mogelson recalled. “They had grins on their faces.”

Mogelson was among many journalists who came back to flat tires after the protests.

Follow the link for the rest of the story.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:01 PM

I no longer know how to make links to Youtube videos because I can't find the URLs. So I strongly urge all here to go to Youtube and search: kimberly jones how can we win? It's over six minutes of history you weren't taught in schools and the last minute and a half are especially powerful. You will hear her using the F-word, but if that's the part that causes you offence, then your priorities are skewed.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:17 PM

Kimberly Jones How Can We Win?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:39 PM

+Here is the hard work I speak of. ONE

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 01:11 AM

On a YouTube video if you look under the video you'll find a place to click "share" and it will pop-up a box with the shortened URL.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 02:45 AM

Someone posted this on Facebook this morning - new to me, but it tends to underline what's taking place at present
Jim

Nate Morris
Shared with Public
Ninety-seven years ago today, the first bombs ever dropped on American soil were dropped on the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Ok.
Greenwood - the most preeminent Black community in the United States at the time - was home to 10,000 residents and contained scores of Black-owned businesses, hotels, restaurants, law offices, doctors offices, movie theaters and more. Following an incident between a young Black man and a white woman in a downtown elevator, many of the nearly 3,200 Klan members in Tulsa and countless more white vigilantes armed themselves with firearms and marched North to Greenwood.
They opened fire in the streets, set businesses and homes ablaze and dropped napalm-style bombs from fertilizer planes flying overhead.
With the help of the national guard and the local police force, they arrested nearly 6,000 black residents and forced them into temporary internment camps in the Brady Theater (now a popular Tulsa music venue) while their thriving community was systematically leveled. Many of those imprisoned were starved, beaten and killed in the same space the city hosts jubilant concerts in today.
In just a few short days, Greenwood was completely destroyed and nearly every single one of its 10,000 residents were left homeless. While the official death toll from the Americans Red Cross at the time caps the loss of life at 300, some researchers estimate that the true number could rival that of Pearl Harbor and the September 11th attacks.
The Tulsa Race Massacre (NOT “riot”) was one of the greatest terror attacks in the history of this country, and yet it is so frequently missing from the pages of our history books. When it is mentioned, it is given the false label of “riot” - implying that, somehow, the Black community of Greenwood was complicit in the attack.
This is what whitewashed history does - it allows us to choose not to face the true horrors of our past, thereby absolving us of responsibility to rectifying it.
If you live in Tulsa, I would encourage you to engage in the events happening tonight and tomorrow at Reconciliation park in downtown - and to attend the Police Accountability Forum from 9-2 on Saturday at the 36th St. North Events center.
Regardless of where you live - it’s incumbent upon us (especially white people - who benefit from the same system that allowed this attack to occur, protected its perpetrators from legal action, precluded it’s victims from receiving compensation, and swept it from view of the masses for generations) to seek out the stories that have been purposefully hidden or misrepresented in order to continue perpetuating false, placated narratives of our country’s true past.
Once we know - we need to act.
Share your knowledge of our past with others.
Learn about implicit biases and check your own consistently.
Look at current events through a lens of systemic racism and call it out.
Support Black owned businesses and businesses run by other communities of color - use your money as a tool to help right centuries of wrongdoings.
Support organizations like the Greenwood Cultural Center who fight to preserve this history and restore the community of Greenwood.
The story of Greenwood is not an isolated one.
We have so much work to do as a country to undo a history of violence and oppression against communities of color — and it all starts with knowing.
To learn more about Greenwood and Black Wall Street today, I would encourage you to follow The Black Wall Street Times on Facebook, Twitter (@BlackWallStTime), or online at www.theblackwallsttimes.com.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 04:19 AM

If Trump is reelected in November, things will only get worse. If Biden comes to office and there's a majority of Democrats in both houses, there's hope. But right now, we're in deep trouble and just trying to hold out until November. Whatever we do now, will push Trump to respond with a vengeance to please his "base." But if we do nothing, we'll let Trump do his dirty work AND lose the election. Our only hope is that election.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 08:37 AM

I am heartwarmed that this has blossomed into a global thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 11:58 AM

you
offer hearts and flowers Mrrzy?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 12:28 PM

This thread had the potential to discuss the forward-thinking government changes that will shift budgets away from police and toward community services, so police responding to a "disturbed person" call don't need to shoot him or her, instead, a social worker or psychiatric professional can respond and get them help (one example only). Youth-at-risk programs can be set up to give teens something interesting to do on those weekend late-nights (basketball, in particular) to keep them out of trouble. And so the arsenals of warfare equipment are sent back to the military and police learn neighborhood policing, walking through neighborhoods and getting to know the people they are protecting.

Those of you shouting from your soap boxes about decades-old "black power" movements and whatever the drivel is that WAV is spouting, are living in ignorance of what the last two weeks have been about, and apparently have no interest in acknowledging that while everyone was stuck in COVID-19 lockdown, they had the luxury to pay attention to the news of George Floyd's death and respond appropriately. With protest. Enough police violence is enough, and their over-response with the militaristic postures and tear gas and rubber bullets and flashbangs and more were illustrating WHY they should no longer be tolerated or trusted to "protect" the communities they putatively serve. A side issue are the white nationalist looters trying to turn it all into the mess that they in fact managed to create for a while, but their gig is up, they've been outed, and now they're probably back hiding at their cabins in the woods, surrounded by their AK-47s. (And it may occur to some of you that the white nationalists look an awful lot like many of those police. There's a reason for that.)

Get out of your comfort zone, read the news from reputable sources, turn off any of Rupert Murdoch's television or radio stations.

Trump is toast, and now what rational people need to fear is how he will strike out until he is actually escorted out of the White House. Why wait till January? I think they need to take him by surprise with the 25th Amendment because he is clearly unable and unwilling to do the job of President. He's the hotspot the racist political hurricane is feeding on right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 12:29 PM

The BlackLivesMatter slogan is borderline racist - all lives matter, including NATIVE Americans, who did not ask to be invaded by imperialists & their slaves, nor economic/CAPITALIST immigrants; my poem, from WalkaboutsVerse, on "Land Rights"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 12:35 PM

At this time, just about the most racist thing you can say is that "all lives matter." You really need to consider what you're typing before you post.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 12:43 PM

You know what I’m going say Steve, SRS, etc. “Don’t...”

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 12:46 PM

WAV, stop with the treacle. You're willfully ignoring the topic and are irrelevant to this conversation.

Protesters across US attacked by cars driven into crowds and men with guns.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 01:24 PM

Saying "black lives matter" is only objectionable to people who are afraid of black people.
It's about fear.
I don't mind "black lives matter", and I don't mind "black power", and those who do should go find a bunker to hide in...or at least stop advertising the fact they're cowards. We know. You can stop signalling it to us.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 01:28 PM

"At this time, just about the most racist thing you can say is that "all lives matter." You really need to consider what you're typing before you post." - Oh yeah - says who??? Absolute bollocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 01:52 PM

Trump is claiming that the incident which sent the old man sprawling was a 'set-up' staged for the cameras
Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him :-)
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 02:50 PM

Stilly consistantly says what I feel I should be saying. Instead I go for the tongue in cheek thought interspersed with a few no nonsense outraged rants. The truth is she can tell the truth better. If I were you I would listen most carefully since she is probably the only adult in the room in the most steadfast fashion.

Personal experiences are welcome and offer interesting insights but for the best overview, you know where to go.
By the way there are certain threads where thread drift is more offensive than others.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 04:07 PM

The words by Walkabouts Verse are by no means irrelevant, especially the lines about "outnumbered". Neither is it "racist" to state that "all lives matter", although I prefer "all lives matter equally", for several reasons. It is a truly "inclusive" statement. Oh - and all kinds of statues of people once praised and now denigrated should be part of this context ( especially all those who increased Human suffering ), since "direct action" has yoked these issues together.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 04:27 PM

To state "all lives matter" is to be totally tone deaf in the environment in which the POINT of saying "Black Lives Matter" is to stop treating African Americans as second class citizens. It's saying 'I matter and I want that to be perfectly clear,' when, if you're white, it has always been a given that you got preferential treatment in the "who matters" department.

So, when you say "all lives matter," you're really saying "I matter more" and you are supporting the status quo.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 04:32 PM

Exactly right. I second that.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 04:50 PM

And I third it.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 04:52 PM

A white Australian woman was shot by a police officer in 2017 who was charged in 2018 and convicted in 2019.

What's different to the George Floyd murder? The woman was white. The police officer was not white. There was an international uproar and the police officer was convicted.

Justine Damond

"On July 15, 2017, Justine Damond (née Ruszczyk) a 40-year-old Australian-American woman, was fatally shot by a 33-year-old Mohamed Noor, a Somali-American Minneapolis Police Department officer, after she had called 9-1-1 to report the possible assault of a woman in an alley behind her house. Occurring weeks after a high-profile manslaughter trial acquittal in the 2016 police shooting of Philando Castile, also in the Twin Cities metro area, the shooting exacerbated existing tensions and attracted national and international press.

"On March 20, 2018, Noor was charged with second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder. Prosecutors later upgraded the charges against Noor to second-degree intentional murder. In April 2019, Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and manslaughter, but acquitted of intentional second-degree murder. In June 2019, Noor was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison. Damond's family brought a civil lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis alleging violation of Damond's civil rights, which the city settled for $US20 million, one of the largest-ever settlements in a suit involving a police killing."

Also, I read one of the many articles on Oz's ABC News site - www.abc.net.au - and a comment stood out to me. An indigenous Australian was commenting on the number of white people who were involved in the peaceful protests and said that if police started looking threatening towards the black people, some of the white people would move in front of them because they were confident that the police would be less likely to go for them. That is a heroic thing to do, IMO, but also a sad indictment of the way the world works at present.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 05:04 PM

The conflation of Slavery and what is now termed "Race" is unfortunate, but lucky for some. Since it is well attested* that European traders were supplied with human beings by other people born in Africa, it's remarkable that so many otherwise perceptive people are - I assume sincerely - content to concentrate on the relevant matter of "Race", while at the same time being deaf to those who emphasise the real, fundamental issue, that of Power. While the Aboriginal peoples in other colonized lands are - or were, in some cases - of a different racial group from those wielding power, the instance I have given of oppression, exploitation and not-infrequent slaughter of Scottish people cannot conveniently be attributed to "Racism". There are, naturally, plenty other examples.

A useful question, "cui bono", is generally relevant. Who benefits from people arguing among themselves, or fighting like savages, about one aspect of Power Relationships, without ever looking more broadly at "The Big Picture"? Another useful wee Latin tag is, "divide et impera", which could usefully be contrasted with, "E pluribus unum". Wasn't there an American politician more than a century ago who said, or wrote, something about your Slavery question being a form of "unfinished business" from your War of Independence? Eight score and so years ago a sort of "second round" was fought.
There used to be a slogan here about "Black and White unite and fight". But why should one agenda - important though it be - allow the real issue (Power) to be concealed?
Look --- distraction!


* "Travels in ... Africa" by Mungo Park, c.1800, is a reliable and detailed source to start with, though in the current environment I know he could be termed a "dead white male" and his works dismissed accordingly (and conveniently, for some).

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 05:49 PM

And the first prize for totally irrelevant nonsense goes to:

An Buachaill Caol Dubh!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 05:50 PM

that European traders were supplied with human beings by other people born in Africa,

Ah - I see you like to play Blame the Victim.

It won't wash. Peddle it someplace else.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 05:54 PM

I couldn't find comprehensive statistics, but police killed over 100 black people in 2015. One white Australian woman is bad too, but really.

Racism isn't the only problem, but it is one huge problem. I think cops are less likely to murder white people and get away with it. Noor was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison. Many of the murderers of unarmed blacks don't even get prosecuted, let alone convicted.

Can we quit the "whataboutism" now?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 06:05 PM

What? Not blaming any victims, but pointing out that those human beings enslaved years ago in the continent of Africa were enslaved by people of their own race. Slave Traders and Slave Owners saw these human beings as disposable economic units to be exploited and replaced. The same could be said of those Slave Dealers who supplied them. Differences in skin colour seem less important than similarity of attitude. Concepts of racial inferiority are normally related to later justifications based on some peoples' use of early work on genetics. I do prefer to be consistent, and would no more "blame" the ancestors of many black people in America for being enslaved than I would "blame" the ancestors of many white people in Australia for their having been transported. It's the Power Relationships that matter, though I appreciate that a derisory parrotting of "Blame the victim!" is convenient, and certainly more attuned to the spirit of the age.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 06:14 PM

More irrelevancies.yet still, it probably deserves two - no wait!- THREE Confederate flags.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 06:21 PM

You're playing games and wasting your logical fallacies here, ABCD. To cut to the chase, you're pulling up shit excuses to try to diminish the circumstances as they are now, and like I said, blame the victim. Go away, if this is your position. You're not contributing to a discussion of what change is on the way. You're in the dark ages.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 06:25 PM

Saying All lives matter is being the child who insists on presents when it's someone else's birthday.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 06:38 PM

Jeri, if this was aimed at me then I think you may have missed my point:

"Can we quit the "whataboutism" now?"

What I was trying to point out was that so many black people are killed or assaulted or incarcerated by police and little or no action is taken against the police officers, however when the roles are reversed suddenly the full force of "justice" is brought into play and the black police officer is charged and convicted within two short years. The whataboutism is, what about all of those injured or killed or incarcerated black people whose lives mean nothing to the people in power?

And if some people are saying, "All lives matter equally" then it is time to level out the imbalance and that's why black lives matter at the present time because the inequality between black and white people is huge and all of the elements contributing to this inequality need to be resolved as a matter of urgency.

Bring all people to an equal footing in terms of education, social situations, justice, health, and all of the contributing factors.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 08:00 PM

Helen: "Jeri, if this was aimed at me then I think you may have missed my point"

I did- my apology.

When somebody follows "black lives matter" with "all lives matter", what I'm hearing is "F.U. I'm just as important as a black person whom I personally couldn't care less about because he was black, who was just murdered by a cop". Or in other words, "I don't care about THEM".

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 08:04 PM

"...that's why black lives matter at the present time..."

For the life of me I can't work out what this means...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 08:06 PM

Thanks Jeri. But I echo your comment: One white woman? Really?

To me as an Australian it is an embarrassment that one white Australian woman's life is valued more highly than all the non-white lives lost or destroyed over the decades and centuries. Not just in the US, but here as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 09:53 PM

A priority at the present time.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 10:31 PM

Any antagonist folks who right now are still so block headed ignorant,
they stubbornly willfully contest that "All lives matter"..

well.. nope.. their's don't...

In fact the world could be much better of without 'em...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 09 Jun 20 - 11:15 PM

Well, pfr, the statement itself, taken in isolation from the current context, is a good one. All lives matter. Yes, they do. If someone had said that to me two weeks ago I'd have thought it was a good empathetic statement with broadly beneficial intentions.

However, within the implied meanings attributed to the statement now there is a whole 'nother world of intentions, and I think those are the intentions which need to be outed and pulled apart and examined, and the people making the statement need to be held accountable for their intentions towards all other people sharing this planet.

In fact, I think - or in fact, I hope - that the people who spout this slogan may be "hoist by their own petard" because if someone started to reason with them (assuming that they can be reasoned with, which for some people I seriously doubt) then they may just have to admit that "all lives matter" also encompasses lives of people who are not white, not equal in society, not equal in financial status, not equal in educational or career opportunities, not equal in housing opportunities etc etc etc.


People who live their lives within that bubble of privileges that they take for granted could benefit from a wider world view.

I'm not holding my breath for that to happen to all of them, but it is a possibility for some people mindlessly spouting the slogan to open their minds to a new perspective on the world around them.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 05:27 AM

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue & street building has been renamed, every date has been altered & the process is continuing day by day & minute by minute. History has stopped."
GeorgeOrwell

This is what the left appear to want!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 06:25 AM

Here's the thing about statues, Bonzo. The people who are represented by statues in public places are people who we are supposed to celebrate, who are supposed to have achieved great things. But the people who decide who's worthy of the accolade are generally the establishment. So the statues are put up, often with a little plaque telling us of the great achievements. Any plaque accompanying any statue of Churchill will say what a great war leader he was. What it won't tell us is that he was also a racist, a little Englander and an arch-misogynist who was responsible for the Dardanelles fiasco that killed tens of thousands of our young men (including my great uncle Jimmy, so call me biased). The statue of Colston in Bristol had four plaques depicting various heroic scenes, but one of them bore the words "Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city". Well he founded schools and almshouses and was generally a fine philanthropist (so was Jimmy Savile, I should like to remind you). What the plaque doesn't tell you was that he made his money to pay for those things via his slaving company, an enterprise that enslaved at least 100,000 people into misery and killed around 20,000 of them who were unceremoniously pitched overboard when they died. For years there has been argument in Bristol as to how the plaque should be reworded, but nothing has happened. There has also been a petition signed by tens of thousands to have the statue removed. No response to that either. Frustrating, innit.

So to those people who bleat that tearing down statues is destroying history, etc., I'd say that real history is a damn sight more honest than those statues which are essentially saying that the good that men do lives after them but the evil is oft interred with their bones. You'd take your child out of any school that proudly insisted on teaching history in that extremely partial way. It's a thoroughly disingenuous claim propagated by mostly people on the right. I've repeatedly asked about what you thought of Saddam's statue being torn down. I wonder what you might have thought if those huge street portraits of Mao or Stalin, confronting you round every corner, had been vandalised or torn down by protesters. They would have needed to be a damn sight braver than the Bristol protesters. And that's something to contemplate as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 06:44 AM

the 75 year old Buffalo man who was pushed and injured is reported by TRUMP to be an Antifa provocateur. Who knew? A reporter at OAS J Rouse, ,former reporter for Sputnik, apparently knew this without evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 07:19 AM

It's a fair guess Orwell would be spinning [and puking] in his grave
every time a hard-line right winger misappropriates and cynically distorts the meaning
of his words...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 07:36 AM

SRS, thanks for the tip on the URLs. Thanks also for pointing out the role being played by right-wing extremists in much of the violence occurring at these protests. This has been very much underreported by the media. The aspect of the Republican response to the unrest that has been most puzzling and disturbing to me from the start has been how they keep blaming Antifa for looting and vandalism. It started with Trump saying he was going to have "ANTIFA" declared a terrorist organization. In the first place we don't even have a procedure for declaring any organization terrorist in this country. In the second place Antifa isn't even an organization, it is a philosophy. People who identify as Antifascist do not loot and vandalize. What they do do is fight Neo-nazis, KKK and other fascist groups, in the street if necessary. And that's pretty much all they do, yet Trump has laid nearly all violent protests at there door. Then Republican senators picked up the ball. One even proposed hunting them down and killing them.
None of the American news media has looked into this but Reuters investigated by checking the arrest records of every single person arrested by federal law enforcement since the protests begin. I'm sure they will eventually get to those arrested by local police, but for now they have not found one single suspect with any affiliation or self-identity with Antifa. (There was only one arrestee who even claimed anarchist beliefs but he had no affiliation with any left-wing groups.) So no Antifa, very little anarchist or other left-wing affiliation, but armed Boogaloo Boys have been arrested in at least 6 cities. Boogaloo Boys, some call themselves the Boogahedin, are an extreme right-wing organization calling for a second Civil War. There name actually comes from an early slogan, Civil War 2, Electric Boogaloo which was a mocking take-off on a break dancing movie from'82 called "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo". Three of them arrested in Las Vegas were caught in the act of instigating violence, shouting stuff like peaceful protest doesn't work, we need to tear this shit down. They got no takers from among the peaceful protesters. Police found gasoline bottles and rags in their car. Three more of this group were arrested for three separate acts of violence in Columbia SC.
As I said, this has been underreported, and the problem with Trumps scurrilous and entirely groundless accusations against Antifascists is that once it gets in the wind it spreads far and wide and people begin to accept it as fact without knowing the source. My own son, who is very much FOR Black Lives Matter and very much against Trump, said the other day that it was a shame Antifa was starting all this trouble that BLM was getting blamed for. I said "No, no, no, no, no!" and went on to explain everything I just stated here. He wasn't even aware that the canard originated in Trump's feverish imagination.
I'm not even sure what made Trump glom onto Antifascists as scapegoats. Is is a carryover from Charlotteville when they stood up to his White Nationalist friends or is it even more basic. After all, if you claim to be Anti-antifascist, doesn't that, logically, make you a fascist.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 09:26 AM

We give idiocy too much air, but whatever floats your boat.

Helen, whoever gets shot by police for no reason is a tragedy. With Black Lives Matter, it's about racism. Those people are black, so no one will care much. We won't get into trouble. It's how the wild west mentality plays out. Justin Damond's murder wasn't less tragic. I don't know what the cop's excuse was in her case.

What it all comes down to is that wild west mentality. To poor training, and to police not being held accountable for murdering people. When people here say "defund the police", I don't think that's a good idea. I think that all police ought to have the same training, which ought to be overseen by people who know what they're doing. That social programs ought to be funded, so cops didn't have to be social workers, or EMTs, or any of the other jobs that are foisted on them now. That all that military-style equipment be sold so maybe we could buy some food for people. And that cops with balls turn their backs on that blue line of ass-covering and prosecute the shit out of the bad ones.

So it's not ONLY racism, but the combination with bad-cop-ism.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 05:04 PM

so whitehouse and longford and all their censorious tut tutting victorian kind
were woke lefties...


.. well I never...!!!


Bonz - if you still want to use the old fashioned hilarius race related language from 1970s TV shows
like "Love Thy Neighbour"..

It's a free world..

Call black folks those humerous names, as much as you like, in public,
if it'll make you feel better...

You are free to do so..
The only person who can stop you, is yourself...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 06:41 PM

It is the End Times for sure ..........

NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 07:04 PM

Thanks Jeri. I totally agree with your comments.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 08:33 PM

Dats fur shur mossback butt da prez wants da millyterry basses named aftur confederate genrals.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 08:41 PM

Grand letter in the Guardian:

"We cheered when the Berlin Wall was torn down. We cheered when statues of Gaddafi were torn down. We cheered when statues of Saddam Hussein were torn down. We are called thugs when we tear down statues of slave traders."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 10:01 PM

Mono culture proves to be a disaster in society and agriculture.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 12:56 AM

I'm dead chuffed the UK is sharing BLM

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 01:19 AM

If you were unsure of Trump's motivations around racial tensions before, maybe this gives a clearer picture:

Donald Trump says campaign rallies will resume next week despite US coronavirus fears

"The first rally is likely to be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 19, despite fears over the spread of COVID-19 which has caused more than 115,000 deaths in the US."

......

"The projected rally's June 19 date is potentially racially charged.

"June 19 is known as Juneteenth, a day to commemorate the emancipation of the last slaves at the end of the American Civil War in 1865.

"The city of Tulsa is where black residents and businesses were attacked by whites in 1921 in what is known as the Tulsa Race Massacre.

"Kamau Marshall, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of Mr Trump's Democratic rival Joe Biden, condemned the choice of venue as "racist" on Twitter."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 04:10 AM

In my last post I cited a Reuters article that showed a scan of federal arrest records found no evidence of antifa involvement in the current unrest. Since then, police depts in several major cities including NYC & LA have made basically the same statement: the vast majority of looting is being done by previously known gangs opportunistically using protests as cover for criminal activity. So, surprise, the thieving is being done by career thieves. Let me be clear, these are criminal enterprises with NO political affiliation. No anarchists, no left-wingers and certainly no antifa. This won't keep the government from continuing to misplace the blame. The FBI director recently accused antifa of inciting violence, but when pressed, he couldn't even define antifa. Trump himself, with no evidence, made this claim about a 75 yr old man who was shoved to the ground by riot police and suffered a fractured skull: “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?". Me-heavy sigh. Mr Gugino is a devout Catholic and life-long peace advocate, scanning police equipment to cause a communication blackout is pure Sci-Fi and, really, how hard do two burly cops have shove a slight 75 yr old to cause him to fall over backwards. Twitter didn't block or flag this tweet, saying it was phrased as speculation. So, as long as you make a slimy insinuation instead of an outright accusation, it isn't libel. The problem with a specious claim like this is that it spreads and mutates, like Rashomon to the 100th power, until it gains traction and even people who aren't Trumpists start to believe it.
Helen, you are absolutely right about the campaign rally. As soon as I heard the date and site I didn't need the newsreaders to tell me this was racial provocation. Also, thank you for providing the Kimberly Jones link.
Here is another example of Trump's lack of empathy for black Americans. For three days the top leadership of our military have been discussing renaming military bases that honor Confederate generals, Ft Bragg, Ft Hood etc. Yesterday Trump said no way, we're not renaming anything. His convoluted logic was that because soldiers trained at these facilities for WWII, Korea, VN and our current wars, they can't have new names.
I apologize that my last couple posts have been a bit long-winded. I put it down to 10 weeks of self-quarantine, watching the news and reading stories on the net for hours a day and having only my wife and son to talk to.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 06:04 AM

"We cheered when the Berlin Wall was torn down"
Can we assume that those outraged at the removal of slave-owners statues are giving their support to the many who are demanding the re-establishment of the monuments to THEIR NATIONAL HERO
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 10:41 AM

I've been dating for *years* that if the press reported that cops had killed another *citizen* rather than another [insert color of skin here], the outrage would have started a lot sooner.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 11:46 AM

In response to Neil's post:

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/10/874339995/doj-cases-brought-over-protests-show-no-links-to-antifa-so-far

"Attorney General William Barr has blamed anti-fascist activists for violence during protests over George Floyd's death. But records show no sign of antifa links in Justice Department cases."

Quite the opposite, in fact. It's just more Trump and Barr lies.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 01:17 PM

There was good & bad (resorting to terrorism) in Mandela as well, so should his statues around the world also come down? My poem, from WalkaboutsVerse, on Masai land rights, "Out of Place"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 01:26 PM

No
They certainly shouldn't erect statues to people who believe they should
People who joined the resitance were Terrorists, as were those who fought for Israel, Ireland India..... and every country who ever gained independence from the British, German, French - even Roman Empire
Terrorism his a word big countries apply to anybody who opposes them
Like Antisemitism, it has been conveniently rendered meaningless
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 02:12 PM

"Deja vu all over again."
I tend to think things are somewhat different now Mossy "There comes a time in men's lives, as The Kingston Trio were fond of singing (MTA)
Hopefully, Covid will bring changes that the sinking of the Titanic did to the class nature of shipping and W.W I should have to many other things - if people lay their cards right, "this could be the start of something big" as somebody else sang
I'm hoping to see Travellers out on the streets demanding to be recognised as human beings - that was something suggested by The Lord Mayor of Dublin a couple of hours ago on the radio
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 02:54 PM

:This could be the start of something big:
written by Steve Allen for Eddie and Robert Goulet.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 02:55 PM

Here is what you sound like, WAV:


Imagine your child has died and you
are giving a eulogy explaining what your
own child meant to you and how special
your child was, and then someone (perhaps
WAV or Bonzo) grabs the mic and says,
"Actually, all children are special . . . "

That's what "all lives matter" sounds like.

Does this illustration help? Tone-deafness is treatable.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 03:20 PM

All this really sounds like a global 'We The People' momment while some politicians are mere statues of the old world like Apostles of Forgetfullness.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 02:00 AM

A word on the related issues of taking down Confederate monuments and renaming military bases named after Confederate generals. Trump is against both and today paraphrased the Santayana quote about those forgetting the past being doomed to repeat it, showing that he isn't literate enough to understand the quote. Nevertheless, let's review a bit of history. Those monuments were not erected in the aftermath of the Civil War. Some were erected in the aftermath of WWII when black soldiers coming home from Europe felt entitled to better treatment. Erecting Confederate statues was a subtle way of saying "guess again". The massacre in and destruction of the Greenwood district of Tulsa was less subtle. Many other Confederate monuments were erected in the fifties, clearly a white reaction to desegregation and voter registration drives. Similarly the naming of bases came during the World Wars after laws were passed allowing for the recruitment pf black soldiers. With a need for more bases because of the wars, many were built in the South because land was cheap. The government named them after local CSA generals as an appeasement to white southerners who were less than enthusiastic about "Yankee" bases being built in their backyards. Trump claims that they were named for leaders who have been admired by modern military leaders for their brilliance in battle. Actually many of them, Bragg, Pickens and Polk, are more remembered for their blunders.
To look at the issue in another perspective, there's a reason we would never allow Germans to build monuments to Hitler and Goebbels or name our bases there Fort Rommel and Airbase Goring. The idea of not giving modern day fascists and white nationalists rallying points is just as valid here as it is there.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 05:42 AM

Trump has grossly underestimated the thirst for another race based civil war and the BLM movement is the response. He will not have the support from the military and State based National Guards are in question. The only military parade he may have will be the one escorting him out of town to walk home from 120th st NYC.
The few militia morons willing to sacrifice their life for Donald will be dealt with quickly and decicisively.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 07:27 AM

Neil D, you have raised some worthwhile issues. Thanks.

I was just watching the latest episode of an Australian TV show called
Planet America's Fireside Chat and the presenters were saying much the same about confederate monuments and generals.

The show is related to Planet America

I don't know if the iView capability is available outside Australia so you may not be able to view it online.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 07:38 AM

I see the Boy Scouts have mounted a guard over Baden Powell's statue
The Tories, at the behest of Patel, have threatened fast- track justice or protesters - maybe the sentence will be to be hanged by the woggle till dead
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 09:13 AM

USA or UK..

Folks who are still openly racist white supremacists
are at least, in a perverse way, to be acknowledged for their honesty..

Then there's the petty sneaky snide folks constantly mocking BLM's attempts
at protest for long overdue justice;
who are perhaps even more contemptible for their insidious need to diminish and obstruct positive progress.
While maintaining a public pretense facade that they care about all races...???

Those smug conservative "I'm not a racist.. but..." folks...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 09:19 AM

Here is an interesting map of the monuments...

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2020/06/mapping-hundreds-confederate-statues-200610103154036.html

Blicky

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 09:36 AM

The people who are openly racist have been getting some positive strokes here in the US. Nothing happens in a society unless the majority of people want it to happen, and it seems like the tide has turned in many places. It seemed like that happened here when Obama was elected.
Twice
And then people weren't happy enough, so they didn't care about the slight inconvenience of having Trump as President. This is what apathy gets you. But perhaps, for big change to happen, we have to start from somewhere truly horrible. Most of the world seems to be coming together to make a stand about what's right.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 10:10 AM

Trump's new 'Klanlike' crusade on 'righting' history to show that America is historically white and blacks re "intruders" on that culture seem to have gone a step too far, even for the right
I listened to one of his supporters on Irish Radio this morning, first trying to justify it then throwing in the towel admitting that he was not only wrong, but is now losing the support of his party and those who voted them into office   
The interviewer's ability to reduce the Trumpeter to this made Carol Coleman's historical butchering of George W Bush at Dromoland a decade ago look like the blunderings of a cub reporter
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 11:12 AM

Excellent show Helen. I like watching foreign news programs like BBC America News, seeing our situation from a different vantage point. Before my wife switched cable services I also had access to a French news channel and Al Jazeera.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 11:41 AM

Trump flew to Dallas, Texas, yesterday to "discuss race issues" with locals. Yet he excluded the top three African American officials:

"The White House defended the snub of Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall, [Dallas County] Sheriff Marian Brown and [Dallas County] District Attorney John Creuzot, insisting the president would still hear a diversity of views." (from the Dallas Morning News) These are the people who were on the ground, making the decisions.

Police Chief Vernell Dooley of Glenn Heights, a town of about 13,000 south of Dallas, urged the president to support national standards on use of force by police, and databases on use of force and terminations, because “we need to be able to get those bad apples out of our industry, so what happened will never happen again."

The visit was built around a $10 million campaign dinner at the Preston Hollow mansion of billionaire Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer, which built the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline. Two dozen donors ponied up at least $580,600 per couple for a meal and souvenir photo with Trump.

And it came amid heightened tensions nationwide since the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black suspect pinned by the neck for nearly nine minutes under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer now facing a murder charge.

“What happened two weeks ago was a disgrace,” Trump said — immediately adding that protests and looting in the days that followed Floyd’s death also were a “disgrace” that would have been averted with a more forceful response. His vision, he said, is “force with compassion.”

Digging in on a stance that he acknowledged infuriates critics, he added that “we have to dominate the streets,” prompting applause from an audience curated by the White House.

Trump has demanded a military crackdown on protests, boasting again on Thursday morning about his stroll last week to a church near the White House, where he brandished a Bible as cameras clicked, after military and federal police used pepper gas and rubber pellets to clear protesters.

He's still working on branding, so he throws ideas against the wall to see what will stick. That "force with compassion" is the latest bullshit attempt.

Trump's real reason to be here was the campaign fundraiser, of course, he tacked on the "talks" to disguise that real reason. He spoke to a bunch of people in a prosperous area of town in a large church - churches are one of the main vectors for COVID-19, so maybe he'll finally get some first-hand experience with the novel coronavirus.

[Dallas] Mayor Eric Johnson declined an invitation from the White House. Other black officials in the area were not invited, including the three Democrats in Congress who represent parts of Dallas: Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson and Colin Allred of Dallas, and Veasey of Fort Worth.

Allred, whose district includes the Gateway campus that hosted Trump, noted that high rollers at the campaign dinner would get coronavirus tests from White House medical personnel that aren’t universally available at long-term care facilities or for business owners and customers.

“This is a slap in the face to Texans and people across the country who are still struggling because of our failure to have a national strategy," he said. . . .

Many prominent African American leaders in Dallas were not invited, despite the event being billed as a diverse gathering of faith leaders and law enforcement, among them the Rev. Frederick Douglass Haynes III, senior pastor at the influential Friendship-West Baptist Church.

Citing the scene at St. John’s Church last week, Haynes said he wouldn’t want to be part of a “dog and pony show."

The White House did ask David Wilson, a Dallas pastor and president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, if he was willing "to be vetted” to meet with the president. He declined.

“I just can’t do it,” he said. “I really don’t want to hear the lies or be used as a prop.”

Trump lives in a world of "haves" and visited a place where most people are "have-nots." The optics of that visit aren't lost on people. In Trump's world, the only lives that matter are his own and members of his family.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 12:26 PM

They probably couldn't afford the tickets anyway, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 03:40 PM

Right now that the latest trendy craze is statue toppling,
my old lefty mates in the historical rebel town of Bridgwater
have needed to issue a press story,
stating that their town statue is innocent..

.. and can righteous angry anti-racist protesters please not interfere with it..

https://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/18512976.dont-topple-blake-statue---right-side-history-claim-bridgwater-historians/

American mates - An anomaly of language in the UK,
is that facing due North,
the further left you travel from London,
the more right England becomes...

Bridgwater [further down the west lands from Bristol]
is a similarly defiant progressive red oasis
lost in the midst of a surrounding vast conservative blue desert...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 04:12 PM

pfr, I suspect that when you say left is red and blue is conservative our US friends might be a bit confused, however in the UK and Oz, red has always been associated with our Labor parties and blue with the conservative parties.

"Bridgwater [further down the west lands from Bristol]
is a similarly defiant progressive red oasis
lost in the midst of a surrounding vast conservative blue desert..."

In the US, the colours/colors are the other way around.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 04:38 PM

Helen - yes, I had to consider that particular American peculiarity...

.. and hoped I made it clear enough..????????

At the moment the UK is still the UK..

..not yet "UKA, the nation formerly known as the UK"...

Though it's not too far off that we get sold out to trump's mob,
and have to adopt all their deliberately contrary new world ways..

At least their racists and our racists are almost one and the same
since they took to the internet to co-ordinate trans Atlantic...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 04:43 PM

I reached the lowest of all low ebbs in Bridgwater in August 1990 one fine afternoon. I'd cycled to there in two and a half days from Bury. I'd had a bad morning, taking a wrong turn after I'd crossed the bridge from Chepstow and cycling for miles round bloody Avonmouth by mistake. I was confronted by a seriously terrible hot headwind over the Somerset Levels. Got to a park in Bridgwater, totally knackered, many miles from my day's objective, Exford on Exmoor. Phoned the missus (in those phone box times) in near-hysterics, saying I needed rescuing (it's only two and a bit hours from Bude). She demurred and told me to bloody man up. Bravely, I obeyed, ate two pork pies and made to it Exford in a ball of sweat. Thanks for letting me share...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 04:50 PM

I'm wondering if USA will soon be named DSA, i.e. Disunited States of America, or Dismantled or Disinformation or Disgruntled or Disappointed or ... or ... or ...?

Or in the case of the BLM protesters and supporters of a more equal, just and fair society, Determined or if they want to stick with the USA brand name then it could be Undeterred, Unfaltering, Unflinching, Unhesitating or Unwavering.

(In case you are wondering, I just looked up the thesaurus for inspiration.)

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 05:28 PM

Great idea from Tennessee!

Put Dolly Parton on a pedestal!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 08:55 PM

The Democratic party is the "blue" and Republican (GOP) is "red," so red states and blue states show what party is in power in their governments. Several that were considered red, including Texas, are close to purple, meaning the large cities are far more liberal than the rural parts of the rest of the state and are close to tipping the scale.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 01:43 AM

Downloaded an enhanced and denoised version of Gone with the Wind - 8gb file! We shall see what all the fuss is about, but looking forward to seeing the 1860s ladies!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 01:46 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jack Campin - PM
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 05:28 PM

Great idea from Tennessee!

Put Dolly Parton on a pedestal! quote jock campin
but the silicon might bust out

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 05:43 AM

It'll keep falling forward Dick
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 06:23 AM

Dolly should certainly be celebrated but there are other Tennesseans worthy of a statue like Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Chet Atkins, Carl Rowan (the late liberal columnist for the Washington Post and political commentator) and Elvis, though he was born in Mississippi he resided in Memphis for most of his life, though I don't know how you'd connect any of them to a Civil War battle site where I'd imagine some of that statuary would be replaced.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 07:14 AM

Deford Bailey, Carl Perkins, Sequoyah, Pat Summit, Oscar Robertson, W C Handy, Bettie Page, Bessie Smith

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 07:31 AM

and Little Milton, one of my favorites,Frank Stokes, Memphis Minnie and those great jug band musicians from Memphis like Gus Cannon, Will Shade, Noah Lewis, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 08:35 AM

Twit has moved his Tulsa rally to the 20th due to public outcry at the original Juneteenth date while Oklahoma is having a surge of COVID19 cases.
OKLA has largest single day number of COVID19 cases

They're going to pack in as many rednecks, sans masks no doubt, as they can but it's okay, because they have to agree not to sue trump or the venue if they get the virus.
btw, twit compared his advocacy for African Americans to that of Lincoln yesterday in a Fox News interview and Honest Abe came in second.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 08:41 AM

There are living statues and dead statues.
Living statues are of people we know.
Dead statues are unknown or of great antiquity.

To display Hitler, Stalin or confederates and rebels is up to the governments and citizens to decide. To kill living statues is up to them.

For the Taliban to destroy dead statues of great antiquity serves no will of the people or religious political motive imo.

America has no dead statues. That losers of the civil war had so many statues was to placate the people who suffered the loss at that time.
We don't have those people alive anymore except for the few who still want slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 09:01 AM

The reenactment of what happened on June 19th in TULSA OKLAHOMA is in the beggining of the movie 'Watchman'. A massacre of over 300 innocent black people by the KKK and others took place.
Come June 20th bodies laid in the streets and homes.
They say Covid 19 isn't political but this time there is an air of revenge in the air.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 10:20 AM

There is a wealthy collector in the North Dallas enclave of Highland Park who intentionally grabs up these often rejected statues. History abounds inside Harlan Crow’s home - actually, inside and out, because many of them are too large for indoors. My university library has an organized "Friends of the Library" group that toured there a few years ago. Stalin is outside and is huge. Collecting Despots, Assassins And Such. Both of these are from the Dallas Morning News, so there may be a paywall if you try to view more than just a couple of articles. Here's a Google search on images of his museum's statues.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 10:37 AM

"up to the governments and citizens to decide. "
Aye - there's the rub
What if the Government want to keep them and the citizens think they should go ?
Not sure I wouldn't be happy to keep the statues if the government went
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 11:35 AM

Jim I wouldn't expect you to ever be happy. You know too much.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 11:58 AM

Apart from any debatable historic and sentimental value,
what's an average statue worth as scrap metal...???

Some in the UK have been stolen by criminal scrap salvage gangs,
but, obviously not as many as we'd like to see gone...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 01:16 PM

We took Traveller MIkeen McCarthy to see the Cutty Sark one evening when we were recording hem
He gazed down at the keel of the ship in the dock and said, "Jeez, that copper's worth a fortune"
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 11:41 AM

If you have a black liver, it matters. Death is on the way.
But I'm not worried since I've been Faucinated. Thats where Dr. Fauci spits on his hand and shakes yours.
Its Trumps birthday and he wants a massacre at his Tulsa Rally. He would love to have 72 lives blown out, one for each year old

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 11:50 AM

Geesh, don't stop at your coat, get your luggage and passport as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 12:20 PM

Police officers in Georgia have killed another African American man, and residents in California question the death—suicide or murder—of a young man found hanging in a tree (hanged himself or drugged and lynched).

The man in Georgia, Rayshard Brooks, fought arrest and tried to flee. That shouldn't result in a death penalty. The man in California, Robert Fuller, was swiftly declared a suicide by officials, but toxicology tests may offer a different answer.

It feels safe to say that a broad swath of America, still in the confines of COVID-19 lock down on Memorial Day, was paying attention and awoke to the crisis of police officers murdering black men with impunity when George Floyd was murdered. They awoke to the fact that the punishment doesn't fit the perceived "crime" - it isn't about allegedly having a counterfeit $20 bill, or falling asleep in a drive-through line, it's about walking or driving while Black.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 10:14 AM

Things seemed to be going along peacefully in that Wendy's parking lot in Atlanta until the cops tried to cuff Rayshard Brooks, to a black man in Georgia, or anywhere else in the U.S. these days, that act may have seemed like a death sentence on it's own.
The Fulton County D.A. has the officer crying out "I got him" after the shooting which pretty much negates any self-defense plea.

dailymail.co.uk

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 10:27 AM

"Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back, according to a release by the Fulton County, Georgia, Medical Examiner's Office.

Brooks died from organ damage and blood loss from the two gunshot wounds, according to the office.
The autopsy, performed on Sunday, lists Brooks' cause of death as gunshot wounds to the back. The manner of death is listed as homicide.'

From CNN

Now, we wait to see if charges are filed.
Guilty of not driving drunk. Or being a pain in the ass in a parking lot. It was Bart Simson sort of stuff that, in no way, should have ended in someone's death. Opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 11:00 AM

Johnson has been forced into launching an enquiry into racial inequality in Britain
A start
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 11:45 AM

I am having high hopes here.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 12:52 PM

More hope with a slapdown of trump and his bible thumping constituents as the high court upholds LGBTQ rights under the law-

CNN

Off topic but so what.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 01:55 PM

There are policemen who have anger problems and will kill with impunity when provoked. There are even people who seek to become police so that they can become legal serial killers. I've mentioned it before but I knew a former DC cop, psychopath and serial killer of young black men/children. He loved to intimidate by retelling his murders by mentioning the sounds his victims would make.

Yes there is cultural allowance and protection for killers in the PD but there is also the mentally abhorently ill. The cop I knew was kicked off the force after 3 murders as his only punishment.
(3 'known' murders)

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 02:58 PM

Cartoon in "Punch", c. 1975, showed two American policemen, armed with handguns (one of which was smoking) and arguing over a body in the gutter:
"That's not fair; it was my turn to over-react."
Not off-topic.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 04:47 PM

My fav cartoon is of a ufo saucer jerkily bouncing off the road, trees,   and roofs.
captioned: Nooo Release the clutch s-l-o-w-l-y
off topic

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 03:05 PM

A Presidential order today to reform the police makes no mention of race in word or concept.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 04:42 PM

Mitch McConolL says of the House bill that legislates against red lining, no chokeholds and institutional racism, "WE WILL HAVE NONE OF THAT !"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 07:40 PM

Trump is trying to cover his ass with a tissue of "executive order" that is meaningless. His orders can only apply to federal officials or agencies, and his suggestions are half-baked. His followers are getting exactly what they want.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 03:40 PM

Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are down, and out.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 08:42 PM

And, apparently, Mrs. Butterworth is not far behind.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 12:01 AM

I'm hearing about various television fictional police procedurals being considered for cancellation, but so far I think it's just speculation. The "reality" program COPS was on the air for 30 years (and I never watched a single episode). It's toast.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 02:27 AM

British TV has a proud history of examining its forces of 'Law and Order' going back decades, from the early days of the ex- policeman, G F Newman's dramas, to the present 'Bancroft' and the terrifying 'Between the Lines'
'Dixon of Dock Green' and 'Z Cars' were somewhat quaintly bland, but the highly populer and long-running 'The Bill' took on corrupt and murderously psychopathic bobbies head on
Even our hospital soaps are now giving us killer doctors - what is the world coming to !!!!
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 08:02 AM

'Murderously Psychopathic' sounds terrible and dangerous'
Let me put this concept into one of normal and 'accepted' behavior:

Many white guys perform a ritual of going into the woods armed to the teeth to kill an animal, not for survival but for sport. If you ask me its not a fair fight. The hunters patiently track an animal after being alerted to its presence at long last. If the animal starts to run they may get off a shot or two and may only hit their prey in the back and exclaim "GOT HIM" . When the hunters come accross the carcass they may give it a kick to be sure it is dead and is not uncommon to even stand upon their prey. For a white guy who grew up hearing black people are animals and have that notion reinforced by others around him as well as incidents that further dehumanize black people in his eyes, the white guy actually comes to believe black people ARE animals. Is he murderously psychopathic? No he was culturally trained to kill.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 08:14 AM

" Is he murderously psychopathic? "
Several of the senior bobbies in both 'Between the Lines' and the eponymous 'Bancroft' were serial killers
Eat your heart out Norman Bates (or should that be Hannibal Lecter?)
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 08:30 AM

Yes I have personally known a serial killer cop

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 09:02 AM

Hannibal would eat someone else's heart out...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 09:38 AM

?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 09:48 AM

Don, people want to keep this thread going, but don't have anything to say. That's how I see it. More about who is posting than the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 10:40 AM

So, I am trying to establish that mental illness is seperate and apart from cultural racism. I do not excuse the learned hate but I do believe it is more curable than certain personality disorders.
Without a doubt we are taking one step forward with BLM.

The ideas about a few bad apples is quaint and false.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 11:37 AM

Boris Johnson does have a strategy on racism after all. It's called War on Woke

Ok, opinion piece but well reasoned. In my opinion. One snippet in there that I missed in the news. The arch-racist himself seems to have taken a pounding.

Nigel Farage, allegedly a teenage aficionado of the Hitler Youth, has lost his primetime broadcast platform after comparing the Black Lives Matter movement to the Taliban.

Definitely a step in the right direction.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 01:08 PM

"wokeness is one of those things that now only exists in the imagination"

well reasoned? Exactly what does not exist in imagination?
Competant leaders?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 03:15 PM

Start another thread please, guys. This one is about Black Lives Matter.

Donuel said, "So, I am trying to establish that mental illness is seperate and apart from cultural racism. I do not excuse the learned hate but I do believe it is more curable than certain personality disorders."

I tend to agree that personality disorders are ingrained and cultural racism is learned, but I also think that it would take a lot of major cultural and social shifts combined with a major educational push to change some people's views on some other people in society.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 03:51 PM

After WWII the US used to teach that America is a cultural and racial melting pot. We used to teach Social Studies. Its time to do the minimum again. Although I suggest the maximum.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 04:27 PM

History faded away in curriculum especially in subjects like the Civil War, or depending on what state wrote the textbooks, The war of Northern Aggression. Social studies changed as history classes faded and it was whatever the government decided what propoganda was of use.
More on this: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/summer-2019/what-changed-in-social-studies-educa

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 06:30 PM

Thank you for skipping past the Steve distraction while the rest of us are discussing actual means to implement BLM. He has engaged in that behavior for decades, particularly whenever I post.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 06:34 PM

I think you may have misunderstood my 04.32pm post, pfr. There was a full stop after "thanks" before I then told you that I enjoyed no privileges...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 06:43 PM

I know that footie doesn't appeal to everyone but I'm struck by the fact that all clubs and players for the first bunch of Premier League matches are unanimous in wearing Black Lives Matter shirts and are all, to a man, taking the knee at the start of games. We also have Raheem putting his head above the parapet to speak out against racism, and Marcus Rashford putting something back and forcing a Boris U-turn on meal vouchers for kids over summer. Good stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 10:31 PM

In the short term the flag of Mississippi is coming down, Louisiana is getting rid of Jefferson Davis Parkway with a name change. Its the route to the black college.
The long term changes are generational and are aimed at schools.

PS Helen they say early Alzheimers gets worse at the end of the day, while mornings can seem symptom free.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 10:39 PM

'Drama hidin' Biden is leaning toward Kamala for a VP pick.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 07:21 AM

Prez Bonespur has made Juneteenth "very famous" according to himself, which is not surprising since he's done more for blacks that Lincoln, also according to himself.

Rolling Stone


from the article:

Trump didn’t stop at bragging that he made Juneteenth famous. He then claimed that he polled people in his administration and no one had heard of the date that commemorates when a Union general told slaves in Galveston, Texas, that they were free — two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation became law. Then, according to the WSJ, Trump interrupted the interview and asked an aide who was present if she had ever heard of Juneteenth, and she informed the president that a White House statement commemorating the day had gone out each year of his presidency.To which Trump said: “Oh really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement? OK, OK. Good.”

Now he's got his redneck throngs converging on Tulsa for his rally that local officials are beseeching him not to hold in the interest of public health, with some coming from COVID19 hotspots in neighboring states.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 09:14 AM

Happy Juneteenth, celebrated as long as I've lived in Virginia which will be 35 years come August.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 09:36 AM

The police reform protests are having a real impact:


The Marshall Project

Municipalities are also introducing reforms and some have already implemented them.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 10:00 AM

Is there now also hope for team name changes (*cough* redskins)?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 10:06 AM

Gigantic geriatric aromatic autocratic Nazis
Hate democratic diplomatic hispanics and Faucis.
Hatreds aren't few like blacks Jews and flus
But include the huge human zoo.

is a new day dawning
like old racists crawling
to suckle human kindness?
only the young will find it

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 10:20 AM

Some wag suggested The Washington Ethnic Slurs for my "pre-Daniel Snyder" beloved Redskins.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 05:33 PM

Heh heh heh

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/business/racist-brands-aunt-jemima-chiquita/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 06:27 PM

OMG The bottom has dropped out of the antique black lawn jocky market.
Eric Trump is bound to lose millions.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 06:44 PM

Mrrzy, I didn't get your reference earlier to Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben but there was an article in Oz ABC News about the brand names. Now I get it.

What worries me is whether the marketing people will decide to not use African-American people at all in their ads, so the Black people will become even less present in advertising and risk becoming more invisible in perceptions of what is a "normal" social mix.

It's a social minefield, I think.

Australia has a long, long way to go in reaching equality and recognition of our First Nations people, so I know we are not beyond blame as a society, but there are some deeply embedded social expectations and protections in our society which appear to be sadly lacking in the U.S.

For a start, in Oz there are a whole host of laws against discrimination, and racial, ethnic or homophobic vilification, and there are stringent police procedures and protocols, etc etc. Yes, those protections are violated at times, much more than they should be, but the government takes proactive steps to safeguard these protections, and also although there are some media outlets which like stirring up trouble, our national broadcasting network is fair, balanced, and factual, and sometimes can determinedly and persistently push the politicians and people in power into very sticky corners if they are not doing the right thing.

So, there are rules and accepted processes but they are not just empty words on paper, stored on a dusty shelf - most of the time.

I know we can do better, and it's time we pulled out all the stops to sort out the constitution around First Nations peoples rights, but compared to how far the U.S. has to go, we're a bit further up the road to a balanced and fair society, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 06:52 PM

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention our health care system.

I read an article which said that a man in the U.S. has been hit with a hospital bill for $1.1 million after over 60 days of treatment for COVID 19.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 09:11 AM

Chattel slavery was never implemented in Australia and slavery was never legally sanctioned, so indeed the US has a longer road of oppression to correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 10:20 AM

the US has a longer road of oppression to correct.

Longer (1619 instead of 1788) but hardly worse.

At least Blacks weren't hunted for sport in the U.S. See Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 02:43 PM

Re health care in the U.S., one of trump's major initiatives has been to eliminate The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), which ironically proved to be very popular with much of his working class supporters as the ACA made it possible for many of them to afford decent health care. Now with the virus and extremely high unemployment they're going to need it more than ever. During the 2016 campaign trump promised to replace the ACA with something even better, so far bupkus, not even a nod in that direction. The funding was redirected to the wealthy in the form of massive tax cuts.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 02:51 PM

"At least Blacks weren't hunted for sport in the U.S"
Not for port maybe - doesn't mean the killers didn't enjoy it
CALIFORNIA GENOCIDE
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 03:50 PM

Cream of Wheat, too. I never even noticed that it had a person on the box, let alone that they were whoever they are. But I have also never purchased that inedible product. And I thought Mrs. Butterworth was just fat, not of a particular skin color. And fat.
There was a kid in my collège Mermoz when I was in Abidjan whose name was Dury. They called him Oncle Benz, but the reference had to be explained to me (Dury is pronounced like Du riz [some rice], and I had never heard of Uncle Ben's.
What's white and crawls up your leg? Uncle Ben's perverted rice.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 04:43 PM

Donuel, unfortunately this is not true: "Chattel slavery was never implemented in Australia and slavery was never legally sanctioned"

After our Prime Minister
Scott Morrison's 'no slavery' comment he was reminded about a practice known as blackbirding in Australia.

"As many as 62,500 South Sea Islanders were brought to Australia to work on farms from 1863 to 1904

"Their descendants are calling for the Prime Minister to learn more about the history of slavery"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 05:39 PM

Sugar Plantations around the world were slave enterprises from the Americas to French Guyana and even OZ. European sweet tooths were insatiable.

IMO slave wages like minimum wage is still with us.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 06:28 PM

"Slave wages" is a contradiction in terms, and one of the more annoying ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 20 - 10:27 PM

wage slaves...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 04:03 AM

"Slave wages"
Perfectly good term with a health pedigree, what's annoying about it ?
TRY HERE
OR HERE
HERE TOO
AND THE WEST BENEFITS
Perfect term, I think
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 09:59 AM

Perfectly good term with a health pedigree, what's annoying about it ?


Sigh.

By definition, slaves were not paid. They were property.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 11:47 AM

Terry Gross interviewed Rhiannon Giddens in 2017 and it was repeated on June 19, 2020.

Today's first guest is singer and songwriter Rhiannon Giddens, who has devoted much of her career to finding and interpreting music from the African American tradition. She grew up in the South in North Carolina. Her mother is African American. Her father is white. He sang classical music. Giddens studied opera at Oberlin, but she found her musical identity after graduation, when she started playing string-band music from the African-American tradition, songs from the 1920s and '30s. She co-founded the band The Carolina Chocolate Drops and also released several solo albums.

Her latest album, "There Is No Other," is a collaboration with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. It was released last year. Her solo album before that, "Freedom Highway," included songs she wrote based on slave narratives. That album from 2017 also included a song called "Better Get It Right The First Time," which sadly couldn't be more timely. She wrote it in respones to police shootings of young black men who weren't committing crimes.

Terry Gross interviewed Rhiannon Giddens when that album was released, and Giddens brought her banjo to the studio to accompany herself while singing some songs. But before we revisit their conversation, let's hear a track from "Freedom Highway." The song is called "Come Love Come" and was inspired by slave narratives.

I think it was in this interview that she discussed no longer using the term "slave," but instead using "enslaved persons."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 12:24 PM

"Enslaved person" is annoying and redundant, but it is common down here too.

Scrabble players are apparently trying to define the word jew as a slur. It can only be a slur if you consider being jewish as awful. Sigh.

Eskimo pies are also to be renamed. Anybody read Cheaper By The Dozen?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 01:48 PM

Annoying to you, perhaps, but important to an African American woman. Who gets a vote in this.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 02:35 PM

... that she discussed no longer using the term "slave," but instead using "enslaved persons."

How long before "enslaved person" is rejected in favour of "person of enslavement"?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Jun 20 - 08:14 AM

This inspired rant by Gary Chambers Jr. before the Baton Rouge school board regarding the renaming of Robert E. Lee High School is well worth a look, along with the accompanying story at CNN.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 07:27 AM

At the White House, Demonstrators tried to remove the Andrew Jackson Statue in LaFayette park. Police defended the statue but it now has been painted with the word killer.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 12:40 PM

Andrew Jackson should have been one of the first removed. And then if there are any around still of the first President Johnson (Abraham Lincoln's VP Andrew Johnson) he definitely needs to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 01:36 PM

The only thing Trump shares with Jackson is racism
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/donald-trump-andrew-jackson

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 01:48 PM

A typical trip made by Jackson was by horseback from Tennesee to Niagrara Falls. Trump wouldn't last 10 miles by horseback, but neither could the horse.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:19 PM

Yes, I remember what I learned about 'Old Hickory' Jackson,
and what I learned referenced American Indians
(an unavoidable component of African-American bloodlines).

There was a resolution or decision arrived at by either
the legislative or judicial branch regarding
the government's mistreatment of American Indians,
and when it came to President Jackson, he said something
to the effect of ,
Well, you're entitled to your opinion,
and you can decide what you want to decide --
now, let's see you ENFORCE it ...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:25 PM

So, just about forty years before your President Grant's "war of extermination" against the indigenous peoples?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:29 PM

Sorry? What shit are you trying to stir, ABCD?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:31 PM

To be exact, it was the Supreme Court --
the judicial branch --
in 1832: state of Georgia versus the Cherokee nation.
Gold had been found on Cherokee land, so Georgia wanted the land.

Chief Justice John Marshall did not have long to live when
this case came to the Supreme Court, and he ruled that
treaties were violated by the state of Georgia seizing the land.
It was then -- this is apocryphal, but much quoted --
that President Jackson said,
"John Marshall has made his decision,
now let him enforce it."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 04:39 PM

I just had post removed very similar to what Twitter and Facebook have accepted - could a moderator please let me know if it was removed by mistake and, if so, I shall re-post it here.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 04:44 PM

Straying into Indian Territory when this thread is about Black Lives Matter. And I'm not going anywhere WAV wants to try to misdirect.

Meanwhile, in the death of George Floyd, four weeks later the Minneapolis Police Union has finally spoken.

In an interview Monday with CNN, union officials said they are being unfairly vilified by critics of the Minneapolis police department, and blasted local elected officials who have called for major reform of the department, even as union representatives offered little by way of specific policing reforms they would be willing to support.

"We have become scapegoats in this," said Bob Kroll, police union president, adding, "the people to blame lays squarely (sic) on the shoulders of our political leadership."

Minneapolis became a flashpoint for criminal justice reform advocates after Floyd was killed during an encounter with at least four of the city's police officers. In eyewitness video footage of the incident, former officer Derek Chauvin was seen pressing his knee to the Black man's neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd lost consciousness.

Chauvin was charged by prosecutors with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three other officers were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder, and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
Asked by CNN about what went through his mind as he watched the video of Floyd being killed, police union representative Rich Walker said he was "horrified."

"I don't know what was going through Officer Chauvin's mind, but I can say that I don't agree with how it ended," said Walker. "And to this day I still believe that Mr. Floyd should still be here."
Those comments were echoed by Kroll; however, he stopped short of indicating what he thinks should happen to Chauvin -- instead insisting that he did not want to pass judgment on the former officer.

"There was a firefighter at the scene saying, you know, 'check him, check him'. The light should have went (sic) off to do that, but we're not going to pass judgment," Kroll said. "The justice system is going to prevail."

It sounds like a lot of squirming to point the finger at political leaders (who do have responsibility) and the fire fighter who said "check him" (should he have pushed the officer off and checked sooner?) - nevermind that the unions have things set up so responsible officers are rarely charged. I'm a big supporter of unions, but clearly these aren't in place just to negotiate salaries and health benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 06:02 PM

WAV, every post you try to put up in this thread about Black Lives Matter is trying to change the subject to the importance of white lives. You're the "All Lives Matter" response that doesn't understand what the conversation is about. The last one was to post a story about a "disgraceful" murder of whites by someone of "African Origin."

You are tone deaf on this subject and refuse to try to understand it. Your poems are dated and off topic and posting links here seems to be the only way to drive traffic to your site. No wonder Amos didn't give you any slack.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 08:50 PM

I couldn't agree more. Soft faces, hard cases...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 09:48 PM

Walkaround
The sign said "Go Slow"
And lord knows you tried to follow
Such a hard case with a soft face
You gave us a taste,
But a mistake's disgrace could grow
and your path to walk narrow.
Stop looking back and open your eyes

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: mg
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 11:51 PM

change on the way. i think we will have an acting president who is a Black woman...I am hoping Keisha Lance Bottoms with Kamala Harris for AG. I think Biden needs to name them immediately and not dawdle. I don't get too passionate about politicians but the few minutes I have observed for KLB especially during violence impressed me as very few have ever impressed me. I think she is presidential, which is really what we are talking about. This is just a gut reaction. I have done some reading etc. but not enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 12:17 AM

I don't know Bottoms, but I know Susan Rice has a lot of familiarity with federal government and how the White House is supposed to work. As does Harris, Warren, Duckworth - that office needs to be filled by someone who knows how to work with the federal system and what the rules and ethics are.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 09:40 AM

Rayshard Brooks' funeral was yesterday. If George Floyd's death was the period at the end of an all-too-long sentence about police brutality, Brooks' death was in that space before the next sentence begins.

Reverend Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of the late civil rights leader and CEO of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, also spoke at the service.

"We really should not be here today, this should not have happened to Rayshard," King said Tuesday. She called for police reform so that officers cannot "continue to hide behind badges" when using deadly force.

This is where cities and states need to step up into the space provided and enact legislation that shifts all of the dollars going to police into community programs intended to help people the police have never been equipped to work with. And to take away all of that militaristic hardware and firepower from the hands of an under-educated and under-trained group who, many of them, fancy themselves some kind of urban police warriors.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 11:20 AM

SRS, whilst I agree about disarming the police, it ain’t gonna happen until something is done about a draconian reduction of civilian gun-ownership. That surely is a self-evident truth?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 11:53 AM

Hmmm. Not sure I'm for *disarming* the cops, but de-*militarizing* yes. Cops should be civilians, guardians not warriors.

In fact I am really tired of war being the only metaphor... Fight drug abuse, war on terror[ism, anyway] etc. Where is Heal, or Cure? Where is Treat, or even Help?

I know murricans are all about violence being a first resort, but I am tiiired of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 12:03 PM

I am speaking of disarming the high capacity military stuff, the Humvees and such - the tactical military gear. There was a thing in the local news about some kind of bomb-proof tank vehicle given to the Fort Worth police in the last year.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mossback
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 12:06 PM

but I am tiiired of it.

So are ca. 70% of murricans.

Take it up with the Trump Cult (formerly the now defunct Republican Party).

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 03:26 PM

40 years ago Thomas Farmer said everyone is racist,
but only those who actually know why are innocent of abject deliberate life taking hate.
So this is why I introduce you to Karen who is white and will tell you she does not have a racist bone in her body but has trouble with thugs taking over her streets or taking away her Aunt Jemima Pancake flour. "Afterall Aunt Jemima was a slave who was freed and made a successful business". Karen has even been heard speaking about welfare people being takers.
Karen sympathized with Justice Thomas being lynched by the media as well as Bret Kavanaugh. Karen accepts it as normal that Hurricane Katrina killed and stranded mostly blacks because it hit their neihborhood. The same is true of the pandemic because of the jobs blacks choose. Karen says she cares and knows all about MLK.
Karen was never called a nigger or Aunt Jemima or lost her kids or husband to a policeman. Karen was never red lined, she doesn't even know what it is. There is alot Karen doesn't know. Just like everyone here there is alot you don't know about 400 years of oppression and racism. Who blames you? How can you possibly know what you don't know?

I don't know what or how my whiteness saved my life in this culture, but I know that still makes me a participant in racism as well as a racist without knowingly practicing racism. Thomas Farmer said 40 years ago "everyone is a racist". Yes even you.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 04:10 PM

Thomas wasn't lynched. Watch your rhetoric. Makes things worse, misusing inflammatory words

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 04:17 PM

Allow me to introduce George, a black man in his 60's, no not Floyd.
He knows exactly why he is racist and he knows why. Which makes him innocent of abject deliberate life taking hate. But he is angry.
He remembers every slur, look and beating. He knows why he was the only one to receive an 'all but dissertation'.
He went to his uncle's funeral who was shot by a policeman. Uncle Ben was sitting in his 18 year old Pontiac at a McDonald's drive thru under suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. The hamburgers for his grand children never made it home. He has trusted a white man or two but has been disappointed too many times to count. When white people talk he hears a language that whites do not hear themselves.
George expcts a little change to come his way but knows it will be clawed back later to some unknown degree. Just like Obama followed by Trump.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 05:05 PM

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-high-tech-lynching-how-kavanaugh-took-a-page-from-the-thomas-playbook/

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 11:17 PM

As an individual white anti racist, I believe the sensible thing for me to do
is offer support and solidarity as an ally of BLM.

To calmly confront antagonistic racism when I encounter it.

But otherwise keep my mouth shut, and not be one of those ego driven white liberals,
who push to the front taking over centre stage of protests
in a most patronising and paternalistic manner..

Seems like there's been too many of them on the media and internet recently...

They make themselves look like useful idiot stereotypes the reactionaries can exploit for evil purposes,
and in so doing,
undermine the credibility of a far too serious cause.

Just the 'imho' of an insomniac...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 10:20 AM

Change is happening, indeed --
although it is always
a change too late,
that somebody has to pay the cost with their own life
for the rest of us to get on with the change,
that is the tragedy of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 11:49 AM

Mods - can you please put back Donuel's response to my post.

---

It's a non-sequitur when the original complaint was removed. A portion of it said pfr calmly described a type of liberal I too found pretentious if not detrimental to the cause. I encountered a few watching the Women's march. The rest can stay hidden, since it responded to a deleted post.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 11:52 AM

Lemme say this about that.

I participated in a trans/queer BLM thing yesterday. The tone was *radically* different from the BLM thing I tried to participate in back when the movement started... That one was angry, bleak, and threatening. This one was joyous, inclusive, and celebratory. I think we may, as Americans, have turned a corner towards unity. It was grand and glorious.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 11:52 AM

Forgot to mention, I'm in Charlottesville.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 12:40 PM

I've just found out a new Documentary was about to be released before lockdown difficulties,
examining the late 1970s UK Rock Against Racism movement..

This was the turning point in my own teenage life,
as with so many of my small town provincial teen contemporaries,
when we were made aware that we did not have to be culturally institutionalized racists by default...

WE could all shake off all the conditioning and progress positively out of that narrow mindset...

https://www.modernfilms.com/whiteriot

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 04:39 PM

pfr, I agree with what you said on 24 Jun 20 - 11:17 PM.

I just re-read an article from Oz ABC News:

How to learn from Indigenous people about the Black Lives Matter movement in Australia

I also remember hearing an African-American woman say on TV a few years ago that the white people who think they are not racist can be worse than the straight-out racists. I don't remember her exact words and I doubt whether I could find the reference, but from memory she was saying it is because their intentions are good but they don't necessarily question their own knowledge/understanding or actions enough.

Subject: RE: Juneteenth - another US Independence Day
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 04:44 PM

Here is the text of that article:

Could Joe Biden pick Barack Obama as his running mate? Yes. But.

It started, as so many things start, in the hazy college dorm room that is Twitter.

Could Joe Biden seek to goose his not-yet-existent presidential campaign by adding Barack Obama to the ticket? Or, along the same lines, could we see Hillary Clinton-Bill Clinton face off against Jeb Bush-George W. Bush? And, like, can you even imagine?

The answer seems to be pretty straightforward. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution states that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." And the 22nd Amendment, the political response to Franklin Roosevelt's impressive run of presidential victories, capped presidents to two terms. Ergo: No Clinton-Clinton or Bush-Bush. Or Biden-Obama, for that matter. Done and done, right?

The answer seems straightforward. But it is less straightforward than it appears.

Michael Dorf is a professor of constitutional law at Cornell University. In 2000, he argued that an Al Gore-Bill Clinton ticket could withstand legal scrutiny. And when we spoke by phone on Thursday, he said that he stood by that argument.

The rough outline of his argument is this: The 22nd Amendment doesn't say you can't be president for more than two terms. It says you can't be elected president twice. If a Biden-Obama ticket won (which we'll get to), and tragedy were to befall Joe Biden, Barack Obama could become president, according to the letter of the law (which we'll also get to), since he wasn't elected to the position. As such, Obama is not constitutionally ineligible to serve as president.

What's more, Dorf said, the case of Powell v. McCormack in 1968 established precedent for a narrow reading of what constitutes "eligibility." In that case, the House sought to prevent Adam Clayton Powell from being sworn in as a representative, arguing that the Constitution gave them the ability to "be the judge of ... qualifications" to sit in the House. The Supreme Court disagreed, deciding that the House couldn't add new qualifications (in Powell's case, that he faced legal problems) by which to deem someone eligible.

"I interpret the Powell case to mean that when the Constitution refers to 'qualifications,' or whether someone is 'qualified' for an office, that's a kind of term of art," Dorf said. "When we learn that the vice president has to have the qualifications for the office of the presidency, that is also a term of art. We look to the part of the Constitution that tells us what it takes to be qualified to be president, and not having served two prior terms is not among them."

"The 22nd Amendment, to my mind, is a sort of stand-alone provision," he continued. And that provision says "elected." "The drafters of this language knew the difference between getting elected to an office and holding an office. They could have just said 'no person may hold the office of president more than twice.' But they didn't."

Here's the interesting part, though: Dorf also notes the distinction between running for the vice presidency and becoming vice president. I asked him where a challenge would arise to a Biden-Obama candidacy, and his response was that it would come up at the Electoral College -- or once Congress was asked to certify the already-voted-upon results. There's a completely valid argument to be made that the country would never elect Barack Obama as vice president, of course, in part because is seems to violate the spirit of the 22nd amendment. But if we did, it wouldn't actually become a constitutional question until after Election Day. Remember: We don't elect the president and vice president; the Electoral College does.

Meaning that, in theory, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden could name anyone as their running mate. Hillary Clinton could run with Charlotte Mezvinsky, her infant granddaughter. The granddaughter couldn't serve, given that she doesn't meet the Constitutional standard for the presidency (being 35 years old) -- but she can run.

That's assuming that young Ms. Mezvinsky were allowed to be on the ballot in the necessary states. State electoral processes differ and the states are allowed to decide what qualifications are required to appear on their ballots. Not being potty-trained might end up being one.

If you're curious, as I was, it's a slightly different situation if, say, George W. Bush ran for the House and was elected House speaker and then the president and vice president died -- the line of succession that puts the speaker second-in-line to the presidency. But that's a statute, meaning that it can be more easily set aside as needed. (The same would hold if the speaker of the House were less than 35 years old -- the minimum age for a president -- which is possible.)

So, in short: Yes, Joe Biden can name Barack Obama as his running mate. It's even conceivable that, if they won, they could argue their case before Congress to be seated as president and vice president. (And Hillary Clinton could name Charlotte Mezvinsky as her running mate, though Charlotte couldn't be vice president. And Jeb Bush can unquestionably name George Bush as his running mate and not even have any constitutional question arise.

Meaning George H. W. Bush, of course, who was only elected president once.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 05:38 PM

All this GOOD NEWS including Charlotsville in the midst of these extraordinary circumstances makes my hair stand up. After so much bad news it was hard to imagine what good news feels like.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 05:36 PM

I do have to repeat how heartwarming it was.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Jun 20 - 12:04 PM

And Coca-Cola is stopping all ads on all social media for 30 days or till the stop being racist. Bully for Coke! I might have to go buy some even though I don't drink soda any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jun 20 - 01:16 PM

Several large corporations are trying to stick it to Facebook by pulling their ad dollars; 99.9% of their revenue comes from advertising, but if advertisers pull out because Facebook doesn't ditch the hate speech, FB might respond.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jun 20 - 01:48 PM

Corporations do not live by tax cuts alone. They also need sales.
Boycotts are being avoided by early action, but it still may be required. Especially for Facebook.

Racists - get back into the woodwork.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Jun 20 - 02:55 PM

When trump is posting on social media, is he officially there in formal capacity as President,
or just a nasty bigoted old man private citizen...???

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jun 20 - 04:14 PM

Alas, he is posting as President. It all goes into the National Archives when he finishes spewing that bile. They'd better make it a heavy duty bunker where they store his stuff so it doesn't contaminate everything else.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 07:08 AM

HATE SPEECH WARNING is how facbook will respond to BLM.
In the infinite wisdom and greed of Zuckerberg that is how he is responding to ad boycotts. That is like CHILD PORN&SNUFF WARNINGS
FB will keep all its perverts and criminals for the all mighty buck.
I hope it costs them more than ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: gillymor
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 09:12 AM

Prez Bonespur retweets "white power" exclamation from supporter.

Axios

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 09:14 AM

Aanndd the Archbishop of Canterbury has said (I will search for the blicky) that Jesus shouldn't be portrayed as white! Wow!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 09:18 AM

Blicky

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 09:21 AM

WiILL THIS DO MRZZY ?
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 11:16 AM

Watched a fascinating and extremely moving film last night; 'The Best of Enemies', about a developing friendship between a Black activist lady and a Klan Leader during the campaign to desegregate a Durham N.C. school
The most moving part was when the film finished and clips of the actual participants in the events explained what happened after the campaign was successful
Highly recommended
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 11:48 AM

"Would you trust a black mayor of DC to govern if DC became a State?"
Senator Tom Cotton R.
DC is bigger in population than Wyoming or Vermont and pays more taxes than 22 other States.
There may not be 63 million voting racists anymore but even our President is retweeting "the good people who chant White Power".

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 12:51 PM

https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/whitetoon02.jpg?w=720

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 01:57 PM

I did not know the police have the right to inject a massive dose of Ketamine, enough to cause death.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 09:35 PM

That was the emt's, I thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 09:39 PM

Blicky

Yeah, the kops I am sure ordered it but they didn't have it themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 11:12 PM

And Mississippi has voted to change ots flag. Bully for them!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jun 20 - 07:49 AM

We are already in the extreme silly season of an election.
I don't know which lies are more effective anymore but there are more extreme prevarications arriving more often. To even respond to them is a participation in the stagecraft of the absurd. Minds will be boggled but not changed at this point.
The power of real raw self interest of Democrats and Republicans will be the driving force from now on, and that outcome is up to you despite the dumpster fires and suppressions. Lines will be long and dangerous like the line for the complaint department in Hell. Be careful.
So I'm goin cat fishin with some yarn on a stick until Halloween.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 29 Jun 20 - 04:26 PM

Mississippi Flag change decision

"The bill establishes a commission to develop a new flag design without the Confederate emblem that includes the phrase "In God, We Trust." Mississippi state voters would then vote on the new design this November."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jun 20 - 06:08 PM

Hey Nigel, how about "Creation Science Only"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Jun 20 - 12:01 PM

Barf. One step forward, two steps back.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: mg
Date: 30 Jun 20 - 11:06 PM

there is a beautiful ssuggestion for a MS flag...magnolia in center with blue stars in a circe..prob a bow to confederate flag and it says hospitality state. it is quite pretty.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Jul 20 - 08:41 AM

Then there is this...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/us/mississippi-state-flag-confederacy-flag-trnd/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: leeneia
Date: 01 Jul 20 - 01:05 PM

If we want to avoid death's such as George Floyd's, then we have to do the hard work of changing police culture and police contracts. Instead, protesters are frittering energy away on statues, flags and fountains.

I fear that soon the excitement will be over, and the injustice will be forgotten.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jul 20 - 10:14 PM

Ooh and this

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/02/what-if-we-treated-confederate-symbols-the-way-we-treated-the-defeated-nazis

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 10:07 AM

DC says their football [US] team can't come back to DC under that name... But when did they stop being the Washington team?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 12:36 PM

So George Floyd was not s criminal thug now?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 12:59 PM

So, Bonzo, tell us then if you believe in summary death penalty by neck pressure without trial...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 01:39 PM

So by extension of Bonz's argument..

It should be even more ok to summarily execute crooked accountants
who's crimes
amount to substantially more than $20...

Fair enough...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 07:26 PM

Interesting article comparing the display of the Confederate battle flag and statues to the way Nazi imagery was banned in Germany after WWII Mrrzy. I've been seeing that comparison a lot lately and it's one I've been making for years. The Nazi swastika is also outlawed in most European countries and it is worth pointing out that white supremist groups in Europe have adopted an alternative banner to rally to, the Confederate battle flag.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 10:06 AM

Yeah, me too, NeilD. Why did the federal govt ever allow those statues in the first place?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 10:21 AM

I had to cut short my earlier post to deal with an emergency. What I was going to say that the police brutality that killed George Floyd was inexcusable and his murderer should suffer the full force of the law. However, I refuse to accept the narrative that this person is a martyr or should be lifted up in the black community. He has a rap sheet that is long, that is dangerous. He was an example of a violent criminal his entire life — up until the very last moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 11:07 AM

Bonzo, don't believe everything you read. All of that is out of the mouth of the head of the police union in Minneapolis and right wing politicians opposing the whole Black Lives Matter movement. Snopes sorted out the hyperbole from the facts:

According to court records in Harris County, which encompasses Floyd’s hometown of Houston, authorities arrested him on nine separate occasions between 1997 and 2007, mostly on drug and theft charges that resulted in months-long jail sentences.

My neighbor across the street has a similar rap sheet - it's a fact that once you're in the system, especially if you're from a dark race, it's easy to end up back in jail for things that white people would simply get a ticket for and go home.

And that whole fuss about the counterfeit $20 - there is fake money in circulation; every so often you hear about one being refused in a store. The move is generally to take it to a bank and hand it over so they can turn it over to the US Treasury for whatever research they do. $20 isn't enough for more than a petty crime, so the fact that a scared teen aged convenience store clerk called police means someone didn't get any training how how to deal with counterfeits. And having this kind of thing happen shouldn't result in the death penalty.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 03:14 PM

And it is the role of the police to bring people safely into the justice system so that they can be dealt with fairly, justly and with respect and dignity. It is not the role of the police officer to be judge, jury and executioner.

Innocent until proven guilty. Let the punishment fit the crime. Equality, justice and fairness for all.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 07:18 AM

SRS and Helen - perfectly put.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 03:16 PM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000khls A Point of View radio4
"We need to challenge how we historicise the past and give it a thorough spring clean," writes Bernardine Evaristo.
Bernardine discusses the UK's response to Black Lives Matter, "a necessary moment in our political history."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 03:27 PM

file on 4. racism in the police
With the words ‘I can’t breathe’ reverberating around the world, the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK has put the issue of racial justice at the top of the political agenda. Twenty-one years after the Macpherson inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence labelled the Metropolitan Police ‘institutionally racist’, File on 4 explores concerns black, Asian and ethnic minority officers still face discrimination in the service.

Police forces in England and Wales are in the middle of an unprecedented recruitment drive, to add 20,000 new officers by March 2023, providing an opportunity to improve diversity. There is work to do, as Home Office figures for 2019, seen for the first time by File on 4, reveal many specialist positions continue to be dominated by white officers. There were only two ethnic minority officers among 184 in the mounted police; 15 out of 734 dog handlers; and 11 among 426 detectives in special investigations teams.

File on 4 asks whether the way black and Asian officers are currently treated is likely to be a barrier to attracting suitable candidates and if the changes will affect representation at senior ranks, where there are very few ethnic minority officers. The programme reveals data, collected by the National Black Police Association, that ethnic minority officers represent 14% of all officers under misconduct investigation and over 20% of inquiries that had progressed to a misconduct meeting or gross misconduct hearing, despite representing less than 7% of all officers. File on 4 hears from ex police inspector Mark Dias who was put under surveillance illegally by Cleveland Police and found to be the victim of racial discrimination.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 05:17 AM

Today is the hundredth anniversary of a lynching in Texas when two brothers were burned at the stake, watched by a crowd of 3,000 - which suggests that everyone who lives in Paris, Texas, can ask their grandparents about watching this murder.
Race is a superstitious concept. We just have to wipe this nonsense out.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 10:04 PM

Oh great, Atlanta has called in the National Guard.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jul 20 - 06:25 AM

The irony that it took Nixon to open China or it took GWB to help elect Obama, it took Donald Trump to advance an end to racism.
Doubling and tripling down on Make Racism Great Again is making blowback even stronger.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jul 20 - 09:29 PM

Native Americans won a decision by the Supreme Court that a 1907 treaty makes half of Tulsa OK. part of the Cree Indian reservation, WHOO Boy this is good news for the Indian nation.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 12:11 AM

SRS said:
Bonzo, don't believe everything you read. All of that is out of the mouth of the head of the police union in Minneapolis and right wing politicians opposing the whole Black Lives Matter movement. Snopes sorted out the hyperbole from the facts:

According to court records in Harris County, which encompasses Floyd’s hometown of Houston, authorities arrested him on nine separate occasions between 1997 and 2007, mostly on drug and theft charges that resulted in months-long jail sentences.

It seems to me that a man who was arrested nine times before 2007 and not once since then, has truly turned his life around. After Floyd's last release from prison, he became more involved with Resurrection Houston, a Christian church and ministry, where he mentored young men. He helped his mother recuperate after a stroke. He delivered meals and assisted on other projects with Angel By Nature Foundation. Later he became involved with a ministry that brought men from the Third Ward to Minnesota in a church-work program with drug rehabilitation and job placement services.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 12:38 AM

And speaking of police unions, these aren't like other labor unions whose raison d'etre is advocating for better pay and healthier working conditions. Police unions are the number one enablers for bad cops. There are frustrated police chiefs all over the country who try to weed out bad actors only to be forced by the union to rehire them. When people talk about disbanding a police dept they aren't calling for a world without law enforcement. In places where it was done, like Camden, NJ, the dept was rebuilt from scratch, most of the original officers were rehired and they ended up with an even larger dept. You may ask what was the point. According to a NY Post article: Camden was wracking up a large murder tally and millions of dollars in policing debt amid widespread corruption when it dissolved its force and formed a new non-union one with a more “community-oriented” bent and anti-force stance seven years ago. The key word there is non-union. The move was incredibly successful with violent crime dropping by 42% and exceessive force complaints down 95%.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 03:55 PM

Bad boy Donald hired a professional painting crew to black out the word black on 5th Fifth Ave at Trump tower so it says LIVES MATTER.
Celebrities are volunteering to paint 'black' back. There is now a waiting list.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 08:51 PM

Black Like Me - Stan Grant (Australia)

Stan Grant journalist, television presenter - Wikipedia

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Jul 20 - 09:21 AM

I do credit the BLM movement with today's news, of the DC [American] football team changing their horribly racist name finally! New name not yet known.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 08:37 AM

And this: Wall of Moms protect Portland protesters

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/5470348002

Blicky

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 10:56 AM

Is anybody still seeing ongoing protests in their locality, not counting on the news? I do hope this has not flashed in the pan.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 03:22 PM

No sign of painters covering up "Black," but there have been incidents of vandalism. One puzzling protester, a black woman in NYC, has vandalized the one on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and the sign painted in Brooklyn.

Vandalism on road signs.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 04:03 PM

All rather pathetic

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 04:27 PM

Aaand... The Washington football team will be called just that. Betcha they hope this all goes away and they can just go back to the old name and keep pretending it's not racistAF.

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/5494337002

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Jul 20 - 02:55 AM

With Obama following Bush2 and then followed by Trump I kinda figured it in the nature of "3 steps forward 2 steps back. But those steps back have been spring loaded with resistance so I reckon a lot of Trump's negative actions have mainly stirred the pot. The big unknown is all those judges, but people in the business of appointing judges have been surprised before, not usually to their pleasure.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Jul 20 - 02:07 PM

Is racism a public health issue?

Does your answer differ for Murrica versus, say, Europe?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Jul 20 - 02:22 PM

Right now in England at the peak of BLM,
we have a Very right wing conservative Asian Politician
attacking a Black Rapper for being antisemitic..

That's a whole mess of agendas and power struggles in play,
in just this one suspiciously motivated and opportunist politicking situation...

The rapper will come off worst, and probably end up as an unemployable pariah...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jul 20 - 10:04 AM

Most racist wounds will ache for a lifetime. Some racist wounds can paralyze for a lifetime. I have always thought "Please don't murder me" equals "Black Lives Matter" and is a very very low bar for humanity to cross. Those blinded by the pain from racist wounds may not see their own "isms". It will take generations to forget racism as an existential threat. Forgive the Black rapper.

On the other hand ass holes who know the power of the big lie or reversal, will continue to sell their wares. Do not forgive your Asian conservative liar.

The only genetic specific weakness in black communities I know of is Sickle Cell Anemia. Everything else is simply exacerbated by poverty and racism.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jul 20 - 10:24 AM

Stilly just because a tree falls in the forest and you don't google it doesn't mean it didn't happen.https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/27/us/black-lives-matter-mural-manhattan-vandalized/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jul 20 - 10:50 AM

The difference, Don, is that you suggested Trump had a concerted effort to paint out the word "Black" when it fact it is (so far - but I'm sure they give him ideas) individuals making limited attacks on parts of the sign with other colors of paint.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jul 20 - 08:14 PM

If you don't think he is a suspect who asked 'can anyone rid me of this meddlesome message', at least he is a person of interest but fair enough I do not have conspiratorial proof.
I made a post about Q Anon and since then it has been amplified positively by FOX legitimizing it by mention on national TV. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fox-news-jesse-watters-touts-qanon-1034136/
These are the full goose bonker people. But be your own judge.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 28 Jul 20 - 09:21 PM

Regarding Sickle Cell Anemia there was a repeat on 60 Minutes (US) this past Sunday where it was shown that the single gene that creates sickle cell anemia has been found for some time but more recently in several cases individuals have been able to be cured by putting the correct gene in an HIV virus envelope and injecting it into bone marrow. It is a complicated procedure but has worked. It is like watching what kind of work, persistence, and resistance to pain is required to bring forth a miracle.

This is a concrete example of change on the way. So it is possible.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 12:56 PM

To bring forward something scientific that isn't miraculous, but hard-earned.

This just in: The easiest way to tell that Star Trek was written by white people is they say "where no one had gone before" but, like, 90% of the planets they go to are inhabited.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 03:26 PM

Robo that is interesting. They have succesfully inserted a gene via a measels virus to combat cancer but recovering from the side effects were challenging.
I wonder if a CRISPER technique will prove benificial.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 03:34 PM

This kind of genetic medicine reminds me of Star Trek

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 03:39 PM

I believe TR was either a racist or politically too savy to reignite the issue. Either way it is possible to be a great President and be immature to the issue of race.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 04:53 PM

Change on the way in Oz? Maybe this time, I hope.

This mutually negotiated initiative has been ramped up after the BLM protests, so let's hope it works and is not just shelved in a dusty corner somewhere.

Closing the Gap agreement

"For the first time, First Nations people will share decision-making with governments on Closing the Gap.

"If the priority reforms are implemented in full by governments … we should see changes over time to the lives and experiences of our people."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 06:18 PM

Change on the way? As a question it disturbs me because it is up to each of us to create the world we prefer, not anyone else.
It is hard work swimming against a tide but it can be done.
It is not the critic who counts or points out how the strong man stumbles, the activist knows that they could do it better. The arena of public opinion can mark your face with sweat, dust or blood. As long as you strive valiently in the little things, the big things grow lighter and managable. You will come up short again and again for where there is no effort wthout stumbling or error there is no striving. Great enthusiasms, great devotions, dedicated to spend time in a worthy cause is what counts. When you know the triumph of high achievment or simply fail, you at least failed while daring greatly. To create a preferred world is yours and not for the timid souls who do not know victory or defeat.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Jul 20 - 11:26 AM

I'm off quarantine tomorrow so hope to get back out agitating!

What manifestations are ongoing in your necks of the woods?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jul 20 - 04:55 PM

agitate agitate agitate

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 31 Jul 20 - 07:28 PM

Mrzzy sounds like you want to do somethin' that gets you right back into quarantine!

I've been listening to NPR radio. Apparently there is an English football (soccer) team called the Chiefs which is big on Native American antics and apparently causing some indignation. Is there change on the way?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 07:14 AM

Robo you may be right!

I think team names like Chiefs and Braves, while referring to a culture not their own, at least refer to content of character, unlike the DC American-football team, which refers to color of skin. Quite different, imnsho.

But I still bet that the DC team is planning to go back to their old name "once this nonsense blows over" and say the fans demanded it, à la New Coke, which I predicted at the time.

But this ain't nonsense and it ain't blowing over. Not this time. I fervently hope.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 08:47 AM

We can't lose this moment in history despite the vengeful sarcasm by Dan Snyder types.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 08:53 AM

hello robomatic - we don't have soccer teams in scotland or england - we have football teams . the team you are referring to are Exeter Chiefs - who play rugby! (which is like that daft american game but without the body armour, endless adverts and bewildering hordes of substitutes)

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 08:59 AM

heh heh.

As Bill Mahre points out there are extreme examples of a cancel culture going too far in matters of BLM that unfairly punishes an adult if their teenager posts somthing racist. Ignorance is the domain of most teenagers.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 10:13 AM

You know, Brits always react indignantly when Americans use the word soccer, but I remember a scene from a British kitchen sink drama from 1963 "This Sporting Life". Richard Harris is talking to some toff at a party who thinks he knows about sport but then he's obviously talking about association football to a rugby player. Richard Harris corrects him by saying "you're talking about soccer, I play rugby". So do the English call it football except when differentiating it from rugby?
Speaking of teams changing their racist names, the Cleveland Indians baseball franchise has said they are going to change theirs. They already retired the Chief Wahoo logo, a red-faced, hook-nosed caricature of a Native American that Natives compared to Little Black Sambo.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 01:57 PM

Need a reminder of why Edward Colston got dumped in the harbour?

Fara Dabhoiwala in the NY Review of Books

I didn't know a fraction of that. Slavery under the British in the Caribbean was unspeakably more horrific than it ever was in the American South.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 01 Aug 20 - 02:23 PM

Thanks peteglasgow: I saw a rundown of the origin of the terms and 'soccer' was originally a British term which changed over time, but got adopted in the States. I was simply trying to be clear, and turned out I was also in error. Rugby means the same thing on both sides of the pond.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Aug 20 - 08:43 AM

And then there's this ... Medical advice for things like breastfeeding and tear gas.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Aug 20 - 02:32 AM

My Liverpool brother-in-law has just sent me somewhat alarming news of the paramilitary-style FF (Forever Family) marching in London -
but also of "The Equiano Project" headed by Inaya Folarin Iman, which sounds promising - can any UK Catters elaborate???

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Aug 20 - 10:25 PM

How racist are some Americans?

Some white people are beggining to show a concern and compassion for black people that was normally reserved for animals.
Baby steps for sure but at least it is progress.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Aug 20 - 07:31 AM

Watchoo on about, Donuel?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Aug 20 - 07:51 AM

That quote is from a black comedian's joke but when you think about it...

Besides sickle cell the-
Risk of having a first stroke is nearly twice as high for blacks as for whites in the US and UK..

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Aug 20 - 03:59 PM

Sickle-cell is not environmental. The allele that causes it [when on both chromosomes] has been preserved in African populations because when only on one chromosome, it confers resistance to malaria.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Aug 20 - 08:53 AM

And thanks to cutting edge research in America there is real progress being made in a successful lifelong treatment for sickle-cell anemia. The 'cure' word was used on Sixty Minutes (US).

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Aug 20 - 09:46 AM

That will be great *as long as* said cure does not enter the germ cells. We need to keep malarial resistance around, but I am all for getting rid of sicklecell.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 08:16 AM

Meanwhile Charlottesville just had our 3rd anniversary of that horrible white supremacy disaster.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Aug 20 - 12:21 PM

Ah, Mrrzy,
The fellow who drove his car fatally into someone --
that was Charlottesville, wasn't it? --
was from Ohio, and from my native quadrant of Ohio at that.
I don't go back there.

My beloved, departed piano teacher
who prepared my audition for majoring in music at university,
also a native of Ohio, was African-American
and well acquainted with East Cleveland and its churches with their music directors and choirs,
significant population concentration of African-Americans there.

After raising his family, he got the heck out of Ohio
and never went back --
same with his brother, his cousins, and their families.
They headed for places like New Jersey instead.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Aug 20 - 03:43 PM

Yup.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 20 - 11:53 AM

A loophole in the 13th ammendmaent allows for college athlete slave labor. https://247sports.com/college/auburn/board/102332/Contents/College-Football-System-A-Form-Of-Modern-Slavery-71159540/

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Aug 20 - 08:13 AM

Nonsense. This is exactly the kind of Oh-slavery-wasn't-that-bad crap the BLM is trying to change. Not getting paid to *play a game* you could *quit anytime you wanted to* ain't slavery, bub.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 07:29 PM

of course old time slavery differs from modern slave owner tactics,
If you only knew the poverty and degradation of quitting for black athletes.

Since this thread last appeared 4 more police murders of blacks have been recorded and posted. The latest one was shot 7 times in the back but still clings to life. The policeman held the victim by the back of his T shirt as he fired all 7 shots.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 02:16 PM

Paralyzed from the waist down, that poor man.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 11:29 AM

The fact that you don't *want* to quit, even -or especially- for financial reasons, doesn't make the job you're *getting paid for* slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 03:05 PM

There's alot more to the story about unpaid college football and basktball players.

Meanwhile the 3 little kids who watched their father shot in the back are asking why.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 04:56 PM

All NBA play off games are postponed due to Kenosha Wisconsin shooting.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 05:06 PM

Bully for the NBA.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 20 - 06:13 PM

The NBA is 70% black. The decision took 2.5 hours
I lost my disc jocky bf Roger McCall to a shooting.
I had a boss that was an ex DC cop who killed three black kids.
This open season massacre of blacks must have touched your life too.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 04:34 AM

Now we have the first blck woman in space going aboard the Boeing miss
ion to the space station.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 05:50 AM

"Now we have the first black woman in space".
What about Mae Jemison who orbited the Earth in Endeavour back in 1992?
Mae Jemison

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:02 AM

Same woman Nigel.

Pense doubles down on war against BLM

Now some would call this misinformation but it is only a matter of rhetoric. https://www.axios.com/pence-black-lives-matter-protests-98d1432d-135c-4707-abf4-ca5c6c99ace4.html

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:14 AM

Sorry, Donuel. When you said "Now we have the first black woman in space". I assumed that the 'now' related to some news, not something that happened almost 30 years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:21 AM

DICKERSON: "So you won't say Black lives matter?"
PENCE: "John, I really believe that all lives matter. And that's where the heart of the American people lies."

Last night Pense played into the hands of the white nationalists who are instigating murder and arson blaming all violence on the blacks.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:40 AM

Thank you, to clear the confusion, https://people.com/human-interest/nasa-astronaut-jeanette-epps-become-first-black-woman-join-iss-crew/

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Penny S.
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 05:41 AM

There was a long piece on Channel 4 News last night about a July 4th incident in Indiana, showing videos taken by white people who had intervened to help a black man who had been attacked by a bunch of barely dressed inebriated tattoed white men who called him boy, repeatedly, told the white people to clear off and leave them to deal with him, and asked for a noose*. It took some time for the prime examples of supreme whites to be arrested, and they are now claiming that the black man started it, and was trespassing (apparently not) and ignoring the video evidence. The FBI is now involved.
When people have forgotten about lynching will be time for Pence to ignore the phrase "Black Lives Matter". He is only afraid of being attacked by a random woman who finds him irresistably attractive.
*Apparently they are exonerated by not having a noose, or even a rope only mentioning it. Comments under reports on line are sickening. But I am sure there are people over here just as bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 10:03 AM

Not in space but on the ISS.

Not the same woman, Donuel.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 10:28 AM

So it's pretty much changed from "holier than thou" to "more woke than thou". The smart people are doing more listening than talking.

And "all lives matter" should be amended to say "all live matter, including black lives", which is pretty much what "black lives matter" means, anyway.


But Pence is a future former jerk of a VP.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 11:58 AM

Trump poses as anti establishment, but will probably use the latest killing as an excuse to poses as a law and order candidate.
Jeri, is what i say clear to you, this could be the event that gets Trump re.elected, your calling pence a jerk will achieve very little.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 12:02 PM

Michael Moore cautioned about Trump winning last time and was really sorry to be right. He's making that same warning again in 2020.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 12:27 PM

book makers odds Biden 5/6. on Trump evens, Very Close

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 07:47 PM

Why did police handcuff a paralyzed Jacob Blake to his hospital bed?
https://abc7.com/jacob-blake-handcuffed-kenosha-hospital-bed/6393621/

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Aug 20 - 10:19 AM

Because he was under arrest. They released him when he made bail.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Sep 20 - 12:19 AM

Tomorrow is another "listening session" for Charlottesville City Council. People get on Zoom and have 3mn to say their piece with no response from the Council. Last time I got quoted in the paper. This time, though, our amazingly racist mayor is supposed to be there. Betcha she bails.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 20 - 04:40 AM

The President commented on Rittenhouse as being viciously attacked.
He also said he didn't like the visual of the Jacob Blake video

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 20 - 06:49 AM

Looking back for decades there were laws passed that would ban black women from welfare if they co habitated with a male who could
potentially work. This resulted in banning many fathers from the household and leaving children without fathers.
This is practically a norm now. The next step by racists is to limit children born by black women and incarerate as many black men as possible. This is an old Nazi template.
This strategy can be heard by Sheriffs accross the country.
Perfected racism

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 20 - 02:36 PM

Mrrzy said the paralyzed Jacob was handcuffed to the hospital bed because he was arrested and needed to pay bail. Bail for what?
I have since learned it was for a 3rd degree class G felony for sexual assault that doesn't involve penetration. Was this an accusation by a girlfriend? Past or present charges? Is this a legitimate charge or trumped up charges? Was he involved in any argument before being shot?
There are missing details on purpose?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Sep 20 - 09:07 AM

I don't know what the bail [arrest charge] was for.

Our mayor didn't bail [on our listening session] but she talked for over an hour, when she was supposed to be listening, so I (and most others) did not get a chance to ask anything. Plus the one question I did hear, she rebutted, which she wasn't supposed to do. Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Sep 20 - 05:04 PM

From: Donuel - PM
Date: 01 Sep 20 - 06:49 AM
Looking back for decades there were laws passed that would ban black women from welfare if they co habitated with a male who could
potentially work. This resulted in banning many fathers from the household and leaving children without fathers.

I don't know how it works in US, but in UK only one member of a 'household' can make a claim for that household. If there's a man living there then (historically) it was the man who made the claim. If a woman (with or without children) wants to claim benefits she needs to confirm that there is not a man capable of working living in the same household. And this would be the same irrespective of the colour of the woman. Isn't that also the case in the US?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Sep 20 - 04:28 PM

Yeah Nigel doesn't institutional racism suck?

By the way the nazi gun totting agents provocateur have a new name given them by media, 'Counter protester'.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Sep 20 - 11:57 AM

In the US the isurrection/cold civil war is at the minimal shooting stage in which we can still name the victims.
After the Trump loss, the real domestic terrorism is being hyped on right wing sites. The left is considered the target. I don't know if the National Guard is considered the target or if Black killings will have a open season. Like a White Nationalist Taliban most attacks will be cowardly. Left wing demonstrations will dry up and the radicalized militants may have to take aim at American Women marches or go home.

Some violent rhetoric is still on Facebook but there are other sites. I don't know how much is Russian propoganda and how much is the unwashed American right wing. While this is my personal speculation, I believe many gun nuts believe Trump in that its all rigged against their voice. Some people will let thier ever lovin guns do their talking. Then you will no longer know the all the names of victims.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Sep 20 - 12:29 PM

From: Donuel
Date: 05 Sep 20 - 04:28 PM
Yeah Nigel doesn't institutional racism suck?

I don't know what it was that you were incapable of understanding in my post:
I don't know how it works in US, but in UK only one member of a 'household' can make a claim for that household. If there's a man living there then (historically) it was the man who made the claim. If a woman (with or without children) wants to claim benefits she needs to confirm that there is not a man capable of working living in the same household. And this would be the same irrespective of the colour of the woman. Isn't that also the case in the US?
There is no 'institutional racism' either present, or implied, there.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Sep 20 - 03:58 PM

If you lived in America for a lifetime you would possibly understand but I daresay you may be blind to why people have to jump through devised hoops, be it the economy, welfare, voting rights or criminal justice injustices based on color. The reason for your tone is not to see eye to eye or learn a thing imo.

back to my supposition

How Joe Biden responds to right wing terrorism will have to be opposite that of Trumpian Federal responses. The FBI reports the "right wing domestic violence extremists" are the most persistant threat to America.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Sep 20 - 05:42 PM

The entire command staff, whatever that is, of the Rochester police department has now resigned.

Blicky.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Sep 20 - 05:53 PM

Its a thankless job being whitey's errand boy.
It is best to step aside than learn a new reality overnight.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 20 - 07:54 PM

Nigel and I have many a difference, but I must say that your response to him is extremely insulting.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Sep 20 - 08:16 AM

Yes it was a gutteral plain spoken response. I can only assume race relations in the UK are better than here and cannot be used comparitively with the US.
How much better, I honestly don't know.

More on a speculative right wing uprising over the election..
It will not be a full scale bloody insurrection but only a LOUDER right wing conspiratorial presence not just on the internet.
How loud? Probably louder than the Big Foot believers but if given enough rope they will eventually hang themselves with thier own nonsense and ammo.

The extreme right wing are currently reffered to as counter protestors but as time goes on there will be less respectful terms for them like 'terrorist'.

Remaking a national police force will drive the current racist elements underground but at least they won't have authorized 'star chambers' to use anymore.

Americans will again have to decide what kind of country we want and who we want to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Sep 20 - 10:30 AM

One confederate monument removed in Charlottesville.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Sep 20 - 05:05 PM

250 black women shot





Trump ties to KKK at Mt. Rushmore

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Sep 20 - 08:33 AM

I don't want RBG, COVID or the election to knock this issue off our mental front page, so, refresh.

Wish I had something new to add, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Sep 20 - 10:40 AM

The protest continues in Seattle.

Unfortunately, the news media has all gone after fresher red meat. Currently, they'll be reporting on RBG...


...24/7

Consider that in the USA, it's the news media who determine what we focus on, and their main purpose is ratings, which = $.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Sep 20 - 07:19 AM

The Breona killing was settled out of court for 12 milliom with no police being charged.

Rochester NY was the heart of women's equality and the Fredrick Douglas anti slavery movement. Not far from the Chautauqua which was an adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, showmen, preachers, and specialists of the day.

Rochester today is suffering their own miniature civil war. In response to civil war statue removal, the Frederick Douglas statue was thrown in the Genesee River. Police resignations, killings and BLM protests grow as civilization seems to reverse course.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Sep 20 - 08:06 AM

From: Donuel
Date: 22 Sep 20 - 07:19 AM

The Breona killing was settled out of court for 12 milliom with no police being charged.

Presumably this relates to the Breonna Taylor killing (New York Times)

The lack of any link, coupled with reducing the reference to a single, misspelt, forename doesn't help anyone understand what point you are trying to make.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Sep 20 - 08:13 AM

I think most people on this thread know what killing that referred to, Nigel Parsons.
And not charged *yet* - the grand jury is still out and a state of emergency has already been declared in case, I am assuming, they decide not to indict and the crowd goes wild.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Sep 20 - 08:32 AM

My UK acquaintences never take into account that in America your household names are seldom in our house. Your compatriots seldom write with American audiences in mind. I used to try to accomodate for the differences but with a tone like yours why should I.
Take care of those feet of yours. Try Metformin.

With racist xenophobic fascist rallies and celebrations of Trump we are repeating 1933 Germany and have bigger fish to fry than your Brexit.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Sep 20 - 05:42 PM

Oh, let's go
Steve walks warily down the street
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet
Police guns ready to go
Are you ready, hey, are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?
Through the car window the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat, yeah
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
How do you think I'm going to get along
Without you when you're gone?
They took me for everything that I had
And kicked me out on my own
Are you happy, are you satisfied?
How long can we stand the heat?
Through the car window the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Hey
Oh, take it
Bite the dust
Kinda dusky
Hey
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust, ow
Another one bites the dust, hey-hey
Another one bites the dust, eh-eh
Ooh, shout out
There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground
You can beat him, you can cheat him
You can treat him bad and then leave him when he's down
But I'm ready, yes, I'm ready for you
I'm standing on my own two fee
Through the car window the bullets rip
Repeating to the sound of the beat, oh, yeah
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust, yeah
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Ooh, shoot out
Hey-hey
All right

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 04:36 PM

Waiting for the verdict to be announced.

Floyd family 'calling for peace and tranquillity', says Biden, as
Chauvin jury reaches verdict

Subject: Derek Chauvin found guilty of all three charges
From: Helen
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 05:24 PM

Derek Chauvin found guilty of all three charges

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 05:44 PM

Well good

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 06:36 PM

And today is only Tuesday. They may have packed for a long stay in the sequester hotel, but the jury took care of business quickly.

Hopefully this is the end of it; no need for the national guard anywhere. Just over.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 07:12 PM

I'm bothered by the fact that the jury did not have to consider whether the killing was intentional. I have a feeling that if that had been on the charge sheet the jury might have had more difficulty. There's been much talk of forty years. I hope that that doesn't drive towards a sentence that is too severe. As first-degree murder was not considered, a too-severe sentence is entirely possible. Justice will be done not by putting a man away for forty years for a killing not proven to have been intentional. It will be served by a massive effort to rid your police of what looks, from this distance, to be its rotten culture.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 07:46 PM

It sounded like something changed while Chauvin's knee was on Floyds neck, and people (bystanders, and at least one cop) were telling him to stop, and Floyd said he couldn't breathe. I think he decided to push it until Floyd died. I think he KNEW he was killing Floyd. I think that when it was reported Floyd had no pulse, and Chauvin failed to do CPR on him as he was trained to do, he wanted Floyd to be dead. But my belief doesn't matter. I also think 40 years isn't too much. In my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 08:03 PM

Scroll down this page to see the following explanation of the three charges:

How the three charges work

"But basically, the charges all covered different legal definitions of what happened in the murder of George Floyd. They didn't work in an escalating way, like there were backups if the most serious ones failed. It was always possible that Chauvin could have been found guilty of all, some or none of the charges.

"As this CNN breakdown explains, , where the charges differed was how they interpreted Chauvin's state of mind at the time of the murder.

"The third-degree murder charge alleged that Chauvin had a "depraved mind, without regard for human life". The second-degree unintentional murder charge asked the jury to consider that Chauvin killed Floyd while trying to apply unlawful force to him (they didn't have to consider whether Chauvin intended to kill Floyd). And the second-degree manslaughter charge alleged that Chauvin caused Floyd's death through "culpable negligence", by not doing things like putting Floyd in the recovery position or providing medical care for Floyd before paramedics arrived."

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 08:06 PM

Well we can all have opinions about that horrid nine minutes, but I can only go from what the jury was asked to consider. First-degree murder was not on the charge sheet, and the strongest charge was unintentional second-degree murder. I worry that the talked-up expectation of forty years, if not met, will lead to unrest. Alternatively, that a too-severe sentence may be given under some pressure because of that talking-up.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 09:20 PM

He can rot in hell. There is every possibility that the sentence might be too light - I don't think one can be too long.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 12:30 AM

It's blatantly obvious this cop is at very least a sadist.

Karma = he'll need eyes in the back of his head in prison..

Even if white supremacist gang inmate fanboys, impressed by his celebrity notoriety,
rally round as his bodyguards...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


If he hadn't been a cop, but just a street bully thug armed with a gun:
would concerned bystanders have been legally justified to shoot him
in order to save Floyd's life...???

,, or at least rush from all sides and render him 'neutrakized'
with any improvised weapons at hand...???

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 05:47 AM

Meanwhile in Australia a (right wing) state Police Minister tells a TV show “We don’t have a race problem here in Australia” when there are stories about (Australian) Black Deaths in Custody all over the news & they have been there for decades.

30 years ago a Royal Commission concerning 99 Black Deaths in Custody made recommendations, most of these have not been acted on. Families, politicians say not enough has changed 30 years on 450 more people have died in custody across Australia since. Indigenous Australians are about 3% of the population & make up about 27% of prison populations. Many deaths come about because the prisoner didn't get medical help in time or at all.

Said Police Minister was objecting to "left-wing teachers out there acting racist themselves by saying white lives don’t matter" read on

What the George Floyd verdict means for Australia

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 07:18 AM

when somthing goes right I'ts bouund to confuse me its such an unusual sight.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 07:26 AM

Intentionality is part of what the jury had to decide on 2nd segree murder asI have been saying for weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 10:12 AM

Yes, it is. From an online article:

Here are the three charges Derek Chauvin was found guilty on and the maximum sentences for each :

• Second Degree Murder: 40 years in prison
  
• Third Degree Murder: 25 years in prison
  
• Second Degree Manslaughter: 10 years in prison

What happens next with sentencing? Who makes the final call?

Since the verdict has been read by Judge Cahill, it will now head to sentencing. Prosecutors with the state are asking for a longer sentence, known as an "upward sentencing departure" due to "aggravating factors".

Those factors include :

• Floyd was handcuffed and particularly vulnerable
  
• Floyd was treated with particular cruelty
  
• Derek Chauvin abused his authority
  
• Derek Chauvin committed a crime in a group and in front of children
  

Minnesota uses sentencing guidelines, which means that for someone with no prior convictions like Chauvin, the recommendation is only 12.5 years for each murder charge, as well as four years for manslaughter.

Even though Chauvin is convicted of more than one count, according to Minnesota law, he only serves a sentence for the most severe charge. If Judge Cahill follows the Minnesota state guidelines, Chauvin would serve just that 12.5-year sentence.

Prosecutors in the case are seeking a longer sentence than the 12.5 years, referencing those "aggravated factors" mentioned above. But it's up to Judge Cahill to decide if those factors exist, and if he will go above the state recommended guidelines.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 10:32 AM

You deleted my post which corrected an inaccuracy in a polite manner, then perpetuate the same inaccuracy yourself. This is not my opinion, so let me quote from Star Tribune:

Chauvin faces three charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Here's what you need to know about the charges and what prosecutors must prove in order to convict Chauvin.

What is second-degree unintentional murder?
For a conviction of second-degree unintentional murder, the state's prosecutors must show beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin caused Floyd's death while assaulting him. This is the most serious charge and carries a presumed sentence in this case of 12 1/2 years, according to state sentencing guidelines. However, prosecutors have said they plan to seek an aggravated sentence for Chauvin above recommended guidelines because of the "particular cruelty" shown to Floyd.

What will not be an issue: whether Chauvin intended to kill Floyd. None of the charges require prosecutors to prove the former officer was trying to kill him.

We've had several visceral reactions in this thread to the horror perpetrated by Chauvin. It could be that I share those reactions myself but I have simply stated what the court's remit was - and what it wasn't. There are plenty of sources which will corroborate my assertion that the intention to kill was not tested in the court, not even apropos of the most serious of the three charges. Please check them out.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 12:03 PM

I've not been following the intricacies of the was it or was it not intentional debate,
Even if it legally mattered in securing conviction.

What my eyes and humanity tells me,
is that cop looked for all practical purposes
like a sadistic bully.

Almost like a great white hunter proudly dispatching his fatally wounded magnificent powerful big game trophy animal..

My subjective analysis is he continued restraining and tormenting Floyd
just to spite the concerned and distress onlookers.
The more they pleaded, the longer he continued brutalising his victim.
Just to show the audience he was the boss in control.
He has all the power they have none.

Turns out he got that badly wrong...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: meself
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 12:16 PM

12.5 years in prison is not 40 years - but it's not a slap on the wrist, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 12:19 PM

I think you’re right on the button, pfr. The word for his behaviour and entire demeanour during the fatal nine minutes is ‘Showboating’.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 12:43 PM

It sounds like you're describing brutal, first-degree murder. I'm not saying you're wrong. I was as revolted as you were by what I saw. But that wasn't on the charge sheet. Either wiser heads thought that it wasn't that, or it wasn't the charge because it was considered that jury members might well have had an issue with it. We can continue to speculate as to whether the policeman wanted to kill him or whether he was blinded by his own adrenalin and anger and lost control, etc. It was discussed in court, of course it was. But it wasn't going to come to a conclusion because it wasn't the remit of the court to decide whether he intended to kill him.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 02:09 PM

The real problem is they're all armed to the teeth.

I think given what's happened, Biden should explain to us how he would arrest a six foot seven ex- armed robber, ex-drug dealer who had just flagrantly passed a counterfeit currency. yes I know - could happen to anyone....

i'm not sure I'd get it right. I don't know why all these other people have such confidence in their abilities that they could accomplish the task without bloodshed.

Per haps Biden should tell us how much he reckoned he should be paid for the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 02:23 PM

Why don't you explain WHY you would arrest someone for an event that normally would simply result in the confiscation of the false bill and that is the end of it?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 02:45 PM

Since January I've been staying away from home comforts and computers,
too preocupied with house sitting and clearing out a family mansion [ok, big council house]..

So not had much time for the details of this case.

Did I hear right many weeks ago,
that the cop and his victim knew and had prior personal antagonisms with each other...???

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 04:22 PM

Yes. But it doesn't seem to have featured in the prosecution.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 04:33 PM

pfr, Chauvin moonlighted by having done security for cup foods. Supposedly George also had a security position at cup foods but how often either worked or if they knew each other is unknown to me.
Incontravertable evidence is best. Prosecution avoided all irrelevant speculation it could not prove.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 04:52 PM

I don't think you're right. From all the police procedurals, I think at very least they would question the suspect in the back of the police car. if I get stopped for a driving infringement - that always happens.

And with something where a known felon was passing dud money - I think they they would be bound to search the car - only sensible, in case he had a couple of million more false bills in the back.

I think everybody in this country wanted Biden to win the election. i'm sure I did. I don't approve of politicians showboating by commenting on law and order. I hope Biden doesn't disappoint. America needs a break.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: ripov
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 05:59 PM

Senoufou-regarding judgements people make based on colour- my youngest son metand married a lovely lady from Kenya, during a visit to her home town,they went to the local market, where after an altercation my daughter-in -law replied to the trader(Ithink she probaably translated outof decency "he's not a white man he's my husband!"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 07:30 PM

Big Al, you watch too much TV.

The Congresswoman who made those remarks is a black woman who has been very active in social justice issues. "Showboating" is subject to opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 08:45 PM

The thing is SRS - everybody is making those remarks.

I think there's a sort of unanimity which is a bit scary.

all I'm saying is I wouldn't have wanted that cop's job that day, and I don't hear many people who understand what its like making an arrest. My Dad was a cop. Sometimes things can go very wrong, when they do - its a tough spot to be in - you have to make decisions. Sometimes you get it very wrong, but it often hinges on a decision you make in a very fraught situation. Mostly no one dies but sometimes they do. Even in merrie England.

what I am certain of is that those decisions but must ten times more difficult when all members of the public have access to fire arms.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: meself
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 09:35 PM

This one, though, was not one of those split-second decisions in a stressful situation - and there were no firearms involved explicitly. Did you watch the video, Al? I didn't intend to, but caught up in the trial, and finally did ....

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Apr 21 - 11:32 PM

Al - the prosecution presented a timeline of video evidence, from many different sources and angles, leading up to the arrest and death.

That was one part of the trial I did watch,
because I'd knocked off clearing out the attic for a 10-minute tea and hot pastie break, but then got engrossed in the live news coverage for an hour or more.

Last summer, like many folk I also started off with the the cynical opinion that Floyd was probably a bad 'un,
who was violently resisting arrest and caused his own death by hard-working stressed cop.

But it soon enough became apparent that although in his life he was no angel,
on that fateful day
Floyd was hardly the nasty villain our right wing British press were falsely depicting him as;
in order to undermine the progressive principles of the BLM cause.

In the videos he came over as a dopey big lump.
Happily stoned and as affable as could be.

You've gigged in enough pubs to recognise the difference between a gentle giant happy friendly drunk,
and smaller aggressive 'little Napoleon complex' arseholes,
throwing their weight around starting fights trying to prove they are the big men to be feared.

That's what any reasonable witness would, and did, make of all those phone cam, body camera, and CCTV video clips..

We are not talking about a friendly village Bobby on the beat,
overwhelmed by trying to arrest a big city
criminal
'county-lines' violent drug dealing knife man.

Which has sadly become more of a reality in provincial West country towns like we live in.
Increasingly violent drug gang stabbings the mail and express thrive on for headlines..

My personal default position is to respect our British police.
Because when they occasionally knock on our town centre front door asking for witness statements
regarding violent crimes on our street,
I don't know if they are good or bad cop.
Whichever, they are just doing a difficult job;
and there's no harm being polite to them..

So Al, please don't think that reacting in favour of Floyd's callous cold killer getting banged up for life,
necessitates being anti police in general...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Neil D
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 12:11 AM

fpr, you asked: Did I hear right many weeks ago,
that the cop and his victim knew and had prior personal antagonisms with each other...???

The two both worked security at a club and a day or two after the Floyd killing, a third person who worked at the same club came out with the story of them having a beef with each other. However, this man quickly recanted the story, saying he had confused Chauvin with another employee. There is actually no evidence that they ever interacted on that job.
Someone from management did say that Chauvin was not very good at security. He did not know how to de-escalate situations, which is always the first thing any bouncer should attempt. It was said that he often seemed nervous and quick to call for assistance, especially when dealing with people of color.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 05:48 AM

Prison sentences in the US are grotesquely higher than in other countries, and so is the rate of incarceration. The Constitution talks of "cruel and unusual" punishments being forbidden, but, as with capital punishment, this appears to be ignored in practice. Or rather interpreted as meaning "unusual" within the bounds of the United States, rather than within the civilised (and for that matter the less civilised) world.

The worrying thing in relation to this is that if the sentence given to Chauvin is less than the maximum possible, 40 years, this is likely to be seen by many people as him not getting what his crime deserved. And yet in any other country in the world 40 years in prison would be viewed as excessive.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 05:59 AM

Those are my thoughts too. Talking up the 40-years thing looks very unwise to me. If he gets 40 years, we'll never know now whether it was imposed after taking all the factors into account in the measured pursuit of real justice or whether it was imposed for fear of a backlash if he got any less.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 07:04 AM

It occurs to me that a crucial, and pretty well unique, aspect of this case, and one which ensured a rapid guilty verdict, was that the existence of the video record meant that the jury were in effect eye witnesses of what happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 07:38 AM

My wife is one of those sweet innocent mature ladies,
who is obsessed with murders..

Think of a notorious murder case and she's probably read the the books
and watched the documentaries and TV dramatisations..

This means I've watched enough documentaries with her,
to be well aware of how arbitrarily unfair and brutal American prison sentencing is..

Plea bargaining deals can seem almost incomprehensible to us Brits.

Exerting extreme pressure on apparently innocent defendants to plead guilty and go to jail,
just to avoid even harsher punishments if they go to trial in front of unsympathetic juries.

I could go as far as suggesting how class biased and racist USA juries seem to British eyes.

Yet this is the accepted norm in America..

Cops without guns shouldn't be the only thing us Brits are grateful for...

There's one long-running series which shows in-court video highlights
of attempted prisoner escapes, fights,
and appallingly behaved petty childish lawyers and judges..

Occasionally the worst of 'em get sacked..

.. by comparison, it makes a lot of our stereotype old-fashioned bigoted bastard provincial magistrates look like kind hearted angels..

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 08:07 AM

Humans have long practiced human sacrifice, only the motivations have changed. How many other species do this I don't know. Today the state provides a license to kill provisionally. Split second murder decisions do not even allow for the forebrain to have a conscious say. But a murder that takes over nine minutes in front of a nine year old is more than most civilized people can accept as justified. Such deliberate action with forethought is a definition of murder. *So is war* but the state can declare such murder to be legal.

Law has made allowances for self defense. Some of you have experienced having to choose to use lethal force in self defense or not. Lets hope you chose correctly.
The subject of murder defines a culture imo.
In the US for example, lynching is not a federal crime.
Murder is both a state and personal decision. I hope we choose wisely.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 12:06 PM

Its one of those jobs. You're meeting folks at their worst and frequently their lowest point in their lives. My Dad wasn't a village bobby - he was CID. Ex St helens ruby payer, ex Irish Guardsman tank driver - he was as tough as I'm soft.

He never spoke much about the job, but my Mum told me he always thought he'd got it wrong and killed someone. He was arresting a paedophile and spoke harsh words to him. The guy drowned himself.

I tell you a weird story.

I wqas never really posh enough for folk clubs. I splashed about in the shallows of showbiz - and that's how I met the comedian Tich Cooper, a Grantham lad - he's still gigging 12 months a year in Teneriffe.

Tich had been ambulance driver -picking up the bodies off the M1 near Nottingham. Great comedian - very employable.

One day he told me - Al - you know the weirdest thing about this job is that it doesn't matter. If you're a crap comedian and can't make people laugh, it doesn't matter. it really doesn't. No ones any poorer , any the worse...and yet. People will get SO angry if you're a crap comedian. I've seen people physically attacked because they bombed on stage.
Whereas when I was an ambulance man, I saw people who killed the people they were supposed to be caring for - by being too stupid, incompetent, or lazy to do their job. And afterwards , almost inevitably the relations of the deceased would come up and thank them for their work. That's a job where it matters what you do, and how you do it.

And the thing is.... I dunno. I 'm not sure there is a point....except moral superiority over people who do these jobs stinks.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 03:14 PM

Big Al, points well taken.

The government has always been pretty sensitive about passing bad currency, particularly in a day and age where a kid can use a color scanner/printer and one of his friends can attempt to pass a century note at McDonald's! This happened to someone I know and I drove by their house to see at least three police vehicles parked around it. That involved more than just a sit-down in a cruiser. Color of kid was irrelevant (white in this case).

I believe that the initial police report of Floyd's death covered up the actual events and it was the video taken by a young onlooker, who was threatened by the policeman with his knee on the neck, that exposed the actual events. Obviously something had to be done.

It is very tough to be a good cop, and it seems to me to be a natural instinct to look out for your fellow cop because of shared dangers and exposure to the anger of anybody who is reprimanded or worse. And in the U.S., the cops have guns because, well, everybody's got guns. It's in the Constitution!


As for change, the French have a saying that starts Plus ca change...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 04:20 PM

Having a bad note is a misdemeanor. Making them is a felony. Yet neither offense carries the death penalty. The point with cops is the Culture that treats races differently. I suspect robo's friend was white and was not harmed.

Having an expired license plate does not carry the death penalty by cop unless you're black.
Having a cracked tail light or lane changing does not carry a death penalty....etc.etc.
I saw a black senior citizen shot to death in a McDonalds drive through line. The cop said he suspected a stolen car, an old Pontiac?
Even black cops are prone to shoot to kill a black suspect out of training and culture. Its gotten bad these last several hundred years.
Its time for a change regarding peoples who were historicly slaves to be given back full human rights. doncha think?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 05:12 PM

Okay DonTrumpuel you have combined classic misreading of posts with a virtuosity rant. I know you wait for these at bats. Guess you can tick that box for this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 06:10 PM

Don't you think all the people carrying firearms must make it very scary for cops trying to effect an arrest?

Being a cops wife means that you accept your husband that your husband may get killed on his shift.

For the husband - theres a sort of unwritten agreement that you will do your best not to leave her a widow.

In this case I heard that the cop approached the car . shoved a gun through the window and started calling the shots. If there wasn't an odds on possibility that that someone in the party was armed this was a real escalation from where things would have been in England.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 07:41 PM

I think that where your argument falls down, Al, is that this was no spur-of-the-moment killing, no panicky misjudgement. That would have been bad enough in a trained police officer, but this guy spent nine whole minutes on Floyd's neck before deciding to back off. It must have been pretty clear to him that his victim had been made safe after just a minute or two. In fact, the longer he persisted, the greater the risk that someone in the crowd would react violently and adversely. Making an arrest knowing that a lot of people could have been armed must be scary, as you say. But your man didn't exactly make it snappy, did he?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Apr 21 - 08:41 PM

Surely presenting a forged note for a purchase isn't even a misdemeanour, or any kind of offence in any country, unless there are good reasons to show that you knew it was a fake? Any of us might have quite innocently handed over a forgery sometime. Lots of checkouts routinely test any note just in case.

If a shop accepts a forged note, that is a good indication that it was a convincing enough forgery to mean it would be reasonable for the person passing it to claim they believed it was genuine.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Apr 21 - 12:08 PM

I'm not sure I have an argument Steve. Just an uneasiness about what's just happened. Perhaps I am totally wrong in everything I'm saying.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Apr 21 - 03:37 PM

I think there is considerable emotional undercurrent that is occurring here and that is what I pick up from big Al's posts, and not only his posts.

As for me, I've lived long enough that I feel I've seen all this before. Not only the initial disgusting events, but the considerable amount of posturing and self-righteousness that goes with it, on all sides.

If you pick one event and stick to the facts, you can be accused of blindness to the social ills.

If you opine on the general poor state of society you can be accused of ignoring the specific injustices that have occurred.

If you really want to coax or kick society into improving, you generally get accused of everything by everybody.

This is going through my mind not only on the racial issues being discussed in this thread, but equally to the repetitive gun violence in the United States, captured in The Onion headline:
‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 23 Apr 21 - 03:51 PM

Donuel, I agree with all you said in this post Date: 22 Apr 21 - 04:20 PM but especially this bit:

"Its time for a change regarding peoples who were historicly slaves to be given back full human rights. doncha think?"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Apr 21 - 04:22 PM

That's a very Libertarian view, robomatic. Everyone has it wrong.

Right now we're in a period of heightened political correctness that puts some previous episodes to shame. Opinions expressed publicly that don't completely align with thought leaders are to be shamed and that person driven out of their job and out of existence. Despite this practice, the term "cancel culture" has been adopted by several political groups and is therefore meaningless.

This is a drastic case of what Derrida described as the margins writing back to the center. Colonized voices are speaking back to the colonizers. Non-mainstream groups are lecturing the mainstream for being blind and obtuse. White populations are fish being asked to see the water they swim in (and to share it).

It's a difficult process and there is overkill, but it needs to happen. I've heard authors interviewed on my local NPR station who discuss the problems of shaming and cancel culture; I meant to pick up one of the books mentioned but have lost track of that note to myself.

Political correctness is an issue for White people who are trying to position themselves alongside Black Lives Matter in a way that isn't tone deaf to the issues at hand. In the process we're all throwing stones at each other's glass houses, so people are bound to get hurt.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Apr 21 - 10:06 PM

Well said. This goes along with a phrase I've used regarding my own musings: "The futility of insight."

It's probably related to over-analyzing too much and acting too little for some of us, while many of us are all too willing to take action on literally any kind of information at all.

It's never wrong to act with decency and I think most of us have a good idea of what that is.

Mark Twain wrote a good example of it when Huck Finn is on the Mississippi sharing a raft with Jim; has an opportunity to turn Jim in as he meets a couple of mounted riders searching for an escaped slave. Everything he's been taught tells him that it is wrong to hide Jim and right to turn him in. But he does not turn him in and he reasons it out for himself. It is a great lesson in morality.

The current incarnation of the internet where we are all reacting all the time is putting a social pressure on everything as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 12:03 AM

Well I can't speak for anybody else..

But I believe I have a strong consistently rational sense of personal integrity and morality.
I trust my own independent judgement when it comes to balancing objectivity and subjectivity..

That cop done it, we saw him do it, he deserves heavy punishment..

It don't need to be any more complicated than that..

He may be a rare bad apple.
Or he is representative of a wider pernicious behavioural culture in his department.
That's for official enquiries to determine

My personal subjective opinionated observation
of his videoed crime,
is he looked like the kind of policeman
who would have enjoyed collaborating with N@zi occupiers in Eastern Europe..

That is pure, though fairly well informed, intuitive speculation on my part,
stemming from over 40 years of personal conjecture on the nature and actions of humanity gone bad...

Perhaps it's the quarter Jew in my DNA,
some kind of bio radar,
which makes me sensitive to identifying such people...???

USA sentence inside more than it's fair share of the bastards

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 12:07 AM

Fukkit, accidentally clumsily posted too soon.
Before correcting Google dictate errors.

Final sentence should be..

"The USA certainly seems to have more than it's fair share of the bastards...!!!"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 12:19 AM

Google speach recognition can do more effectively in seconds,
what decades and centuries
of oral transmission can do to bugger up folk song lyrics...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 08:29 AM

In NJ some cities have tried police reforms and had a full year of no police killings
At the same time some States are going to enact and explore police reform

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 09:29 AM

Steve Jobs is still changing America. Look at a dollar bill, you will see the all seeing eye atop the pyramid.
Cameras are our new memory aid to remember and testify for justice.

Next we should have cameras in the Supream Court.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 12:54 PM

Eeny Meany Miney Moe when did you learn about racism??

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 04:43 PM

That's a key question, Donuel.

As far as schooling and higher education goes, I can't really remember discussions about racism or the real, mostly hidden history of the invasion of Australia and the suppression or massacres of our First Nation people.

Although when I was studying psychology for a couple of years at Uni I remember one of our class tutors leading an in-depth discussion about whether there is systemic prejudice in IQ tests. His initial question was something along the lines of asking us whether we thought black people were less intelligent than white people. That question shocked me to the core.

After letting us think about it for a while and then toss ideas around, his comments were about the difference in education that people receive and the assumptions built in to the tests that everyone could be measured by test questions based on mathematical calculations or puzzles which assumed a previous knowledge of how to solve them or questions based on a presumed common language where for some people it was their second language. This is a similar systemic prejudice to the tests that Black people in the U.S. were expected to do to qualify for voting rights, although as I understand it, the bias was deliberately built in to the tests.

Basically I don't remember seeing racism in my young life, but given my improved understanding now it would have been there but I didn't recognise it. Also there were very few people of colour in my small town at that stage.

But one thing that I remember very clearly is what my Mother said to my sister and I when were young, in our first year of two of school. She asked us what we would do if we had an Aboriginal classmate. With hardly any time to think about it, I said I would want to be his or her friend.

I remember in early school we used to recite the Eeny Meany Miney Moe rhyme with absolutely no idea what the n-word meant or that it is racially abusive. It's interesting that a few decades ago the "catch an n-word" part was officially changed in schools to "catch a tiger". I think that was about the time I was studying to be a teacher.

We also used to read a book called Little Black Sambo. I never really saw the point of the story.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 24 Apr 21 - 04:53 PM

I just read this article by Stan Grant on the Oz ABC News site:

Does Derek Chauvin's conviction for George Floyd's murder
offer hope, or is it just an illusion?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Apr 21 - 04:49 PM

Racism is taught very early. I think some people pretend they don't remember.
With 1,000 US deadly police shootings of black people per year there will be ample opportunities to see change.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Apr 21 - 10:27 PM

What you think of Tyler Perry films is your affair,
and chacun a son gout and all that.

Tyler Perry's acceptance speech made me proud to be from this country,
at his honorary humanitarian award from
the Academy of Motion Pictures last night.

His "Refuse Hate" theme
is a distillation of so many of the lyrics
of the songs championed by the Mudcat Forum.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Apr 21 - 12:02 AM

His acceptance was first rate and the award was well-deserved.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 27 Apr 21 - 03:26 AM

I remember what I was taught in school here in Australia. It was very much biased towards the white colonial narrative, starting with Captain Cook's supposed "discovery" of Australia, white colonisation and then the arrival of the white convicts, and then later the free settlers and even later the immigrants from other countries. Any mention of Aboriginal people who were here at the time of the invasion was usually passed over, or there were images of (white people's) paintings showing them standing peacefully and giving an impression of acceptance of the white arrivals.

I never heard about the declaration of the land being "terra nullius", i.e. "land that is legally deemed to be unoccupied or uninhabited" (and therefore available to be claimed by the white invaders) until maybe the late '90'sor even early noughties. It wasn't in the interest of the white colonials to bring this detail up in discussions.

To clarify, I will say that I didn't study modern history at school or uni so maybe there was more complexity of discussion in those subjects.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Apr 21 - 02:57 PM

I heard a horror story about the clearance of Tasmania being outright extermination.

By contrast, the English takeover of New Zealand was rather remarkable in that the original colonizers gave the indigenous Polynesians, the Maoris, citizenship and honored their land claims, initially. This did not last. In another Mudcat above the line thread mention is made of Governor Robert Fitzroy, who once captained the Beagle and shared quarters with the young Charles Darwin. As Governor of New Zealand, Fitzroy attempted to protect Maori rights and was roundly rejected by the English settlers.

I think I learned about the concept of racism in nutshell form from one of the great broadway songs of all time, "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught". IMHO it's on a par with "Strange Fruit".

I once posted the words of that 1 minute song into an online chat that was going sideways and I was promptly dropped from the chat!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Apr 21 - 06:00 PM

A friend was in the process of establishing a whale watching business based in New Zealand near some prime whale activity areas north of Kaikoura was scuttled because of a land dispute in which the Maori were able to make the case that the property had cultural significance and took it over. My friend was disappointed, but I think it's a risk we all run when we live on colonized land, especially the important ceremonial spots like what they were trying to buy.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: Helen
Date: 27 Apr 21 - 06:26 PM

robomatic, the song I think of was sung by Louis Armstrong and some others, "(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue?"

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Apr 21 - 06:39 PM

I'll look for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Lives Matter - change on the way?
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Apr 21 - 07:37 PM

I believe Fats Waller recorded that song.