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When will the media learn?


RelentlessMalice
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Copper's point is, unless I'm wrong, "Imagine how you'd feel if you were them". My point is "why imagine anything else?". I think these two points are sort of closely related but you obviously don't.

I can't speak for Copper. What I think Carrie is getting at here, correct me if I'm wrong, can be summed up as follows: It isn't necessarily bad to be an "ally" or stand in "solidarity" with this oppressed group or that provided that the true and honest aim of such actions is to genuinely improve the lot of such people. I don't think that's where the problem lies. The problem, and I've seen TONS of this with my leftist friends on facebook, is when the plight, real or imagined, of a member of a group that falls within the charmed circle of "oppressed" groups in accordance to the liberal canon, is highlighted for the true purposes of exalting oneself or shaming another for not being quite so "enlightened" as oneself - especially when this is done with an air of classist arrogance. The anti racist stance taken in a case like this is really a pretense. The real purpose, never openly expressed but tacit and implied - of crying "racist" against your less than enlightened fellow is to make oneself look smarter or more virtuous than another member of your own demographic. This conduct is especially duplicitous and hypocritical when it targets less educated and poorer members of your own demographic and is motivated by a smug, classist derisiveness and shame towards them.

 

I can't speak for Copper or anyone, and cannot say if anyone here is guilty of this. I do see a lot of this on social media. My own brother, who's a history prof, is horrible for it. He advocates NOTHING that would genuinely advance the well being of blacks and natives, he merely romanticizes them because that's what good progressives do. And of course he scowls at white racism and Christian fundamentalism NOT because prejudice and barbaric superstitions are in and of themselves bad, but because they implicitly shame him when done by fellow white males and remind him of his own privilege, being a college prof and all. A remarkable accomplishment, for sure. But ... do you see the problem here? Underlying this whole system of thought is an implicit belief in the white male supremacy he's otherwise so critical of. "WE expect that sort of thing from those downtrodden blacks, arabs and emotionally hysterical women - they can't help it, after all, being victims of colonialism, patriarchy and all that. But an educated western white male should be better than that." The racism and elitism implicit in such a world view is projected onto their conservative white male counterparts, who are probably not innocent of it themselves, but still ...

 

And my bro is not alone in this regard. A number of leftist friends of mine, otherwise good people, are just steeped in this. Western progressivism as a whole is. That's why I couldn't take it anymore and got out of it. It's the leftist equivalent to the conservative Christian's disregard for his own moral code on the grounds that he's been "saved" since "accepting Jesus as his Lord and Savior" and therefore any wrong he does is superfluous. And since "I'm a sinner anyway, I might as well go for the gusto here ..." and another televangelist or conservative politician implodes in a prostitution or infidelity scandal. The problem, at its core, is when virtue is adopted as a label to mark oneself in a moral or intellectual elite of some kind, while disregarding the actual spirit of the virtue in question and the sometimes challenging actions it would require one adopting it to take.

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So basically, we disagree on everything!

Yeah. We seem to. That being said, well, when you say this ...

 

I don't think cops -- who are way more likely to be in that kinda situation -- should be forced to rely less reliable methods of stoppage in order to make other people feel better.

I really think you might be wrong about this. First of all : cops are not more likely to face homicidal maniacs than other professions and we can see this (I think) from the fact that they don't die from homicide as much as most people assume they do (you can check that out in the Bureau of Labour & Statistics report on occupational homicides by selected characteristics 1997 - 2010 and compare the numbers on cops to other workers and then think about how many cops there are versus how many of other professions are - I may be wrong about this because I heard this and am using Google to reconstruct the reasoning here but it is also 5 in the morning). But, more importantly, I think that the highest duty of a cop can't be to merely protect his own life - that, as you put it, yes a cop should be forced to rely on other {so-called} less reliable methods of stoppage n order to make other people feel better.

 

Carrie - like I said at the beginning of this whole thing sometime in dinosaur times I have already changed my mind on this sort of thing once. I am open to a fundamentally different way at looking at the world and to changing my perspective on this and so many other things but in this time and in this place I doubt you have anything truly new to say on the subject that'll automatically reverse my craaaazy position that cops really shouldn't shoot most unarmed men and that cops shouldn't have shot this unarmed man and that the survival of storefronts & public order aren't more important than death & injustice and that the reactions of others to what happened is somehow not more important than the actions taken by the principals involved. And, yeah, I see you have a bee in your bonnet about this whole white knight thing but it should be obvious to anyone that the problem for me isn't who you're talking to but that you're the one talking and you're the one saying nonsense and that you're the one who really really kicked things off for me here in this thread. But, again, just so we're clear : KEEP TALKING NEVER STOP TALKING EVERY LITTLE THING YOU HAVE TO SAY HAS VALUE FOR ME.

 

Kurgan - sorry things are tough with your brother man but I see worse qualities in the actions of ones applauding or ignoring the shooting of a person than the ones who are being all left-y soft hearts by being willing to see the point of the people who are mad about the shooting. It's sad that nowhere in life on any side of any conflict is some perfect team of fully realized do-gooders whose motives we can totally know in all things but that's just the way things are.

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Wow what a read, it took a while but I got there in the end.

 

Seems no one can have an opinion that isn't derided by someone else no matter what the circumstance. No matter how smart you are there is always someone smarter than you.

 

Does anyone have a point of view that isn't flawed?

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Seems no one can have an opinion that isn't derided by someone else no matter what the circumstance. No matter how smart you are there is always someone smarter than you.

 

Does anyone have a point of view that isn't flawed?

I see worse qualities in the actions of ones applauding or ignoring the shooting of a person than the ones who are being all left-y soft hearts by being willing to see the point of the people who are mad about the shooting. It's sad that nowhere in life on any side of any conflict is some perfect team of fully realized do-gooders whose motives we can totally know in all things but that's just the way things are.

It's a case of opinions being "wrong" or "flawed" or of opting instead to favor bully cops and other oppressive figures and institutions. That misses the point.

 

What I, and I suspect Carrie are saying, points to a deeper rot in our political and social culture. Put it to you another way: Do you actually remember Rodney King and the L.A riots back in '92? I do. And this issue wasn't new even then. The Watts riots in L.A - back in 1965 were over essentially the same kinds of incidents. So the question becomes: why doesn't there seem to be any resolution to these kinds of long standing social issues? What I'm suggesting is that there's a falseness, a pretense in the politics of the western world and America in particular, that mitigates against substantial resolution of long standing issues. It is not the only factor to be sure, but it contributes.

 

This falseness, this pretense manifests itself as a kind of self righteousness among liberal activists. The stances they take - condemnation of police brutality and institutional racism are motivated as much be a desire to present oneself as an "enlightened" and "progressive" person as by a more natural outrage against the injustices. Their favored tactics are the shaming of fellow activists who are not as ideologically pure as themselves. Like I said, I've seen a ton of this on the left over the years. Feminists and anti-racists are especially bad for this. There's an undertone of sweeping accusation made against all white males, for example, made by cliques of holier than thou English majors accusing the white males who renovate their classrooms of "privilege." This sort of thing drives away potential sympathizers, who are then more easily swayed by reactionary forces. This kind of arrogant posturing is meant to substitute for the real hard work of actually reaching out to people, winning sympathizers and gradually changing the cultural climate. It does more to undermine rather than shore up the already precarious progress won by the civil rights movements of old.

 

R.CAllen, if you want to engage with either myself or with Carrie on this matter, I implore you to engage the wheels and actually try to grasp what I've been saying in the last two posts. I can't speak for Carrie, but let me make it clear that I do not defend the actions of Officer Wilson or racist and authoritarian cops or society in general. What I'm saying is that pretentiousness and posturing in hot button, sound bite politics hinders rather than helps the cause of progress.

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The problem, at its core, is when virtue is adopted as a label to mark oneself in a moral or intellectual elite of some kind, while disregarding the actual spirit of the virtue in question and the sometimes challenging actions it would require one adopting it to take.

 

Interesting observation.

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You seem to care deeply about this! I don't.

 

I see what you see out there, sometimes, but don't see it as something particular to any one side of any debate. Arrogant posturing, pretentiousness, hindering the cause of progress; these are all features of literally any political movement in any form. I'm sure you can come up with half a dozen parallels to what you think liberal activists are like from any number of times and places and in the same spirit I can see the same behaviors acted out by the ideological opponents of liberals. But what's less self-righteous : condemning something you have no immediate experience of or condoning something you have no immediate experience of? Put it another way; wanting to move two steps forward and then slide one step back just isn't the same as wanting to move one step forward and then take two steps back.

 

Also what's wrong with cliques of holier than thou English majors !1!!!!!

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That being said, well, when you say this ...

 

I don't think cops -- who are way more likely to be in that kinda situation -- should be forced to rely less reliable methods of stoppage in order to make other people feel better.

I really think you might be wrong about this. First of all : cops are not more likely to face homicidal maniacs than other professions and we can see this (I think) from the fact that they don't die from homicide as much as most people assume they do (you can check that out in the Bureau of Labour & Statistics report on occupational homicides by selected characteristics 1997 - 2010 and compare the numbers on cops to other workers and then think about how many cops there are versus how many of other professions are - I may be wrong about this because I heard this and am using Google to reconstruct the reasoning here but it is also 5 in the morning).

 

Statistically, you are correct. dailykos and several other sites posted this back in August, and it is true. There are many jobs that have a higher mortality rate than police officer (most of them involve outdoor working conditions and accidents). And police die more often in traffic accidents than from being attacked. I don't have time to check this atm, but I think they might even die more often from suicide!

 

Most "police work" is just paperwork and driving. But at the same time, I can't think of any other common job where you so regularly come in contact with people who don't want to deal with you, cooperate with you, or simply (justified or not) hate you. So -- less death by homicide? Sure, but simply by the nature of the work, I have a hard time swallowing the idea they are less likely than other professions to be in confrontations with aggressive nutballs. When you work in a bar and somebody begins acting aggressive/crazy and can't be convinced to leave, you don't force them to leave yourself (in fact, that is a good way to get fired): you do your best to keep them calm/occupied while somebody calls the cops, so they can deal with the ***hole.

 

But, more importantly, I think that the highest duty of a cop can't be to merely protect his own life - that, as you put it, yes a cop should be forced to rely on other {so-called} less reliable methods of stoppage n order to make other people feel better.

Agreeing to disagree, but I am not sure where you are getting the "highest duty" thing. I don't care if you are a cop, a janitor, homeless, or even a dumb old communist; if you are justified in believing your life is in danger from another person or animal, kill away. This goes for any human. I don't think there is anything high or dutiful about that, it's just survival.
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No. My point wasn't that most cop deaths aren't from homicide - because yes of course - but that the number of cop homicide victims is not out of all proportion higher than regular non-cop homicide victims. That the crucial difference between cop and regular non-cop person isn't in the dangers they face (because if cops were really facing an epidemic of Hulk Hogan superpowered homicidal maniacs the likes of which the public never encounters then I might be more inclined to just say, yeah, fire away) but in how they should respond to those dangers. You don't see this difference between cop and regular non-cop, I do. I agree, being a cop is a tough job, but I think we disagree on what cops are for.

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I got the proportion thing, I am just not convinced it is that significant (police also wear bulletproof vests while on the job, may be more alert than the average citizen to dangerous body language, etc. -- lotsa factors in play) or that non-cop people face as many dangers. Given that the job, by its very nature, can become confrontational at times, it just does not seem logical to me.

Also, as far as I know, nobody is suggesting that there is an epidemic of Hulk Hogan superpowered homicidal maniacs out there attacking cops. Not sure where you're getting that. I believe police officers face more nutty/aggressive/whatever people than the general public, yes, but I'd wager that vast majority of these people are pretty whacked out (i.e. drunk, high, medicated), not homicidal, and/or decidedly un-superpowered.

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One of the biggest problems going on here is the socio-economic issue in Ferguson. Because of the poverty level being high you have more crime. This means for a lot families living in the area have had one or more members of their family in trouble with the law,or people they know. I imagine if you look at the Brown family, Michael probably had seen a relative be arrested before, or a friend.

 

How many middle class white people can say "Ive seen a family member arrested or friend with my own two eyes.?" I can safely bet not nearly as many who live in Ferguson.

 

This translates to not liking the police because they take my friends away. They take my family members away. So they are raised to not trust police,respect police,call police. When someone gets killed by someone in their neighborhood, they want the person responsible to be killed. They are not interested in the person being arrested or put in prison. Take that mentality with the citizens seeing Michael Brown shot by the police and they want an eye for an eye. Notice they could care less about Brown committing a robbery,or mouthing off to Wilson,to pushing Wilsons door shut, to attacking Wilson, to not cooperating with Wilsons demands. They care less about all these mistakes Brown made because the people in the community were raised to act like that. Its a norm.

 

If Brown lived in a white trash community and was white and did the same thing the community would have just said "What a real dumbass. He didnt know no better. He fought the law and the law won.

 

But in a low income black area the mentality of always feeling victimized has not only caused them to fail to see the problem here but is why there is a lack of education,lack of social mobility opporutunities, and crime stays high.

 

The police are in a impossible situation here and will always be considered the enemy due to what the families in these communities teach generation after generation. Where I was raised to respect and trust law enforcement, Brown was raised the opposite.

 

I am all for cameras on officers, just like I am for them being in classrooms. Why? I was lucky to be in a room which was considered a computer lab so they put in cameras for security. It was the easiest teacher year I ever had because I told the kids on the first day " if you act like a fool and I have to write you up and call mom and dad I will have video proof of you being a fool. The adminstrators will have it. I will always be doing my job so what do I care. I think police officers would welcome the cameras because it could 100% assist them in avoiding BS situations like this.

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Pong

 

I'm getting that from the transcript of what the officer said in court. And if you don't see the significance or the logic, cool, that is entirely something I can live with from this day forward until the end of time.

I have read the transcripts and understand the significance. Still looking for the part where he says we live in a world where cops are facing an epidemic of Hulk Hogans. Because that would be an awesome read.

 

Unless you are arguing with somebody who believes there is a "war on cops" or that the police work in some kind of post-apocalyptic dystopia, when you say "if cops were really facing an epidemic of Hulk Hogan superpowered homicidal maniacs the likes of which the public never encounters then I might be more inclined to just say, yeah, fire away," you are arguing against a straw man. Nobody, as far as I know, is making such a claim.

 

I do not believe there is a "war on cops," or that they regularly come face-to-face with superstrong unarmed people who want to (and are able to) kill them.

 

I (apparently -- not sure?) differ from you, in that I believe police officers are more likely to have confrontations with aggressive/crazy people due to the nature of their work, and in that I am fine with a police officer (or anybody) using deadly force to stop somebody if they can demonstrate to reasonable people that the person posed an immediate threat to their life and/or the lives of others.

 

Super simple stuff. No need to bring Hulk Hogans into this.

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It doesn't matter if you understand or not.

 

I am, however, under the impression that your style of cute, colorful rhetoric serves to misrepresent issues and implicitly (or explicitly) put words and ideas and intents in to the mouths/minds of those who disagree with you. Because of that, I am attemping to be as plain and clear about where I am coming from as possible, reiterating when I deem things clouded/sidetracked. Not for your sake so much as my own and for others who may be reading this thread.

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Seems no one can have an opinion that isn't derided by someone else no matter what the circumstance. No matter how smart you are there is always someone smarter than you.

 

Does anyone have a point of view that isn't flawed?

I see worse qualities in the actions of ones applauding or ignoring the shooting of a person than the ones who are being all left-y soft hearts by being willing to see the point of the people who are mad about the shooting. It's sad that nowhere in life on any side of any conflict is some perfect team of fully realized do-gooders whose motives we can totally know in all things but that's just the way things are.

It's a case of opinions being "wrong" or "flawed" or of opting instead to favor bully cops and other oppressive figures and institutions. That misses the point.

 

What I, and I suspect Carrie are saying, points to a deeper rot in our political and social culture. Put it to you another way: Do you actually remember Rodney King and the L.A riots back in '92? I do. And this issue wasn't new even then. The Watts riots in L.A - back in 1965 were over essentially the same kinds of incidents. So the question becomes: why doesn't there seem to be any resolution to these kinds of long standing social issues? What I'm suggesting is that there's a falseness, a pretense in the politics of the western world and America in particular, that mitigates against substantial resolution of long standing issues. It is not the only factor to be sure, but it contributes.

 

This falseness, this pretense manifests itself as a kind of self righteousness among liberal activists. The stances they take - condemnation of police brutality and institutional racism are motivated as much be a desire to present oneself as an "enlightened" and "progressive" person as by a more natural outrage against the injustices. Their favored tactics are the shaming of fellow activists who are not as ideologically pure as themselves. Like I said, I've seen a ton of this on the left over the years. Feminists and anti-racists are especially bad for this. There's an undertone of sweeping accusation made against all white males, for example, made by cliques of holier than thou English majors accusing the white males who renovate their classrooms of "privilege." This sort of thing drives away potential sympathizers, who are then more easily swayed by reactionary forces. This kind of arrogant posturing is meant to substitute for the real hard work of actually reaching out to people, winning sympathizers and gradually changing the cultural climate. It does more to undermine rather than shore up the already precarious progress won by the civil rights movements of old.

 

R.CAllen, if you want to engage with either myself or with Carrie on this matter, I implore you to engage the wheels and actually try to grasp what I've been saying in the last two posts. I can't speak for Carrie, but let me make it clear that I do not defend the actions of Officer Wilson or racist and authoritarian cops or society in general. What I'm saying is that pretentiousness and posturing in hot button, sound bite politics hinders rather than helps the cause of progress.

 

To summarize;

 

(do you mean?)

 

Not 'solving' the issue of racial injustice allows posers to use it as a tool to look down at others with?

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One of the biggest problems going on here is the socio-economic issue in Ferguson. Because of the poverty level being high you have more crime. This means for a lot families living in the area have had one or more members of their family in trouble with the law,or people they know.

I think this very valid point is part of the problem. How do we determine racism from classism or should that even be a concern?

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That's nice. Because I feel like I understand what you have to say and am just constantly being asked to repeat myself so that you too can then repeat yourself. It's good to know you and these others reading this thread are getting something out of it!

I have directly asked you only two simple and, in my opinion, perfectly reasonable questions in this thread:

 

1) What would you consider "justice?"

2) How did you reach what you currently think you know?

 

You answered the first question with several vague words and "meteor justice," and did not bother responding to the second one at all.

 

On this last page, I pointed out the straw man you had built and that I tend to repeat myself when dealing with you, because of how your "cute, colorful rhetoric serves to misrepresent issues and implicitly (or explicitly) put words and ideas and intents in to the mouths/minds of those who disagree with you," but I did not ask you to repeat yourself. I am sorry you feel this way, but nobody is constantly asking you to repeat yourself.

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I'm not going to quote anyone because: ridiculous long thread. BUT. I do take offense to Carrie saying she knows whether or not I've cried about this or not (MY TEAR DUCTS DON'T WORK WAY TO REMIND ME AND MAKE ME FEEL DIFFERENT GAWD) and also pointing the terrible cliche of "you're a liberal and all you care about is caring" at me.

 

You could assume that my compassion is genuine and that my concern is real.

 

You could assume that I'm looking at the facts in a "sophisticated manner".

 

You could also assume the opposite, whatever. Carrie also doesn't know me. She doesn't know what I spend my time doing, or how I interact with the world politically. She doesn't know that I write my congressman AND my representative. She doesn't know that I am active in my union and that my union doesn't just focus our time on labor-based issues but also on social issues. She doesn't know that I'm a union steward and I represent workers to make sure my company treats everyone the same through the disciplinary process, and if they don't, we take it to arbitration. She doesn't know that I'm active in local politics because I feel like that is the best way to foster positive change in my community. She doesn't know how many hours I've read about the Ferguson grand jury and that I came to the conclusion that there was at least enough conflicting eye witness accounts of the events to warrant a trial where someone could actually cross-examine Wilson.

 

You know why this upsets me most? I live in the bay area, and nearly all my friends are having mixed race babies these days. After all this Ferguson **** all my friends are sitting down their older, darker children and having to explain to them what is going on. They have to tell them that because they look different, they have to be more careful about how they interact with the police. They have to tell their children that they need to be wary of the police, the people who are supposed to be protecting them. And it's breaking their hearts. It's not a conversation any parent should have to have with their kid, and it's not fair. So yeah, I care. Whether it's sophisticated or not doesn't ****ing matter.

 

Also, I'm a fan of meteor justice.

 

PPS: I like that post that Kurgan did up there towards the top of page 8.

 

edit: why weird font size change from nowhere, nightly?

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I'm not going to quote anyone because: ridiculous long thread. BUT. I do take offense to Carrie saying she knows whether or not I've cried about this or not (MY TEAR DUCTS DON'T WORK WAY TO REMIND ME AND MAKE ME FEEL DIFFERENT GAWD) and also pointing the terrible cliche of "you're a liberal and all you care about is caring" at me.

 

You could assume that my compassion is genuine and that my concern is real.

 

You could assume that I'm looking at the facts in a "sophisticated manner".

 

You could also assume the opposite, whatever. Carrie also doesn't know me. She doesn't know what I spend my time doing, or how I interact with the world politically. She doesn't know that I write my congressman AND my representative. She doesn't know that I am active in my union and that my union doesn't just focus our time on labor-based issues but also on social issues. She doesn't know that I'm a union steward and I represent workers to make sure my company treats everyone the same through the disciplinary process, and if they don't, we take it to arbitration. She doesn't know that I'm active in local politics because I feel like that is the best way to foster positive change in my community. She doesn't know how many hours I've read about the Ferguson grand jury and that I came to the conclusion that there was at least enough conflicting eye witness accounts of the events to warrant a trial where someone could actually cross-examine Wilson.

 

You know why this upsets me most? I live in the bay area, and nearly all my friends are having mixed race babies these days. After all this Ferguson **** all my friends are sitting down their older, darker children and having to explain to them what is going on. They have to tell them that because they look different, they have to be more careful about how they interact with the police. They have to tell their children that they need to be wary of the police, the people who are supposed to be protecting them. And it's breaking their hearts. It's not a conversation any parent should have to have with their kid, and it's not fair. So yeah, I care. Whether it's sophisticated or not doesn't ****ing matter.

 

Also, I'm a fan of meteor justice.

 

PPS: I like that post that Kurgan did up there towards the top of page 8.

 

edit: why weird font size change from nowhere, nightly?

Translation: "You don't know meh!!! blah blah blah blah I have sadz bcuz my friends with mixed race bebes are going to have to teach them to be careful not to attack officers and reach for their gunz after stealing from convenience stores. NO FAIR!!!"

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To summarize;

 

(do you mean?)

 

Not 'solving' the issue of racial injustice allows posers to use it as a tool to look down at others with?

In a way. It's more that these issues do not get solved in part because they are exploited by posers to use as a tool to look down on others with.

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