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George Floyd and the protests.


Ms. Spam
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I do like the Camden example (what little I know of it). They hit a giant reset on their entire force, fired everyone, and made them reapply. It's not a perfectly executed example, but it's been very effective nonetheless and worth studying. I wouldn't just keep a city or county with no law enforcement at all. And I highly doubt many people think that's a good idea.

 

I'm no expert on any of this, but I do generally favor the "tear it down and start over" course of action when things get too convoluted to even begin enacting change. The "good" cops might have to jump through a few hoops, but I'd be happy to have them back on the streets. (You're not on my FB, so you haven't seen my gushy love letters to the Houston Police Chief, Art Acevedo, but, as imperfect as he may be, I would clone him for other major cities. There's a reason that Houston, the home of George Floyd, 4th largest city in America, and a minority-majority city has not seen the level of rioting and destruction and anger as many other major cities this past week or so, and he's a large part of that reason.)

 

So, defunding isn't the same as disbanding, and it's likely to be better and easier for the larger cities. But the defunding I support would be a major redistribution of city budgets. As I said, police departments are bloated. Instead of supplying and outfitting local law enforcement to be a mini-military, we could give significant portions of their budgets to community and social programs that would effect actual crime prevention at its roots. Now, defunding would sting (as it does when schools, libraries, SNAP assistance, Medicare, etc. are all defunded...regularly no less), but seeing as how local police are currently expected to handle sooooooo much that is completely outside of the boundaries of "law enforcement" anyway, they have the room to cut back without seriously affecting their main objective and duty to the community. (Seriously, on our neighborhood FB page people were just whining that the cops here don't investigate or "go after" a lot of smaller crimes, e.g. identity theft, hit and runs, vehicle burglaries, etc., but do you know how many times they've run off and "cleaned up" the 2 homeless guys who live under the overpass a mile from here?? Earlier this year they demolished a small garden that the homeless guys planted! But they don't have time to investigate crimes where people were actually harmed?!) Much of what cops respond to would be better handled by social workers, specially trained mental health professionals, crisis interventionists, hell even good old fashioned paramedics!** It's like we've forgotten that other professions or organizations exist.

 

But then, and I'm really not qualified to speak on this much, I've seen a lot of people from impoverished black communities say that they largely "police" themselves with the help of community non-profits because they distrust the police so much. The way they tell it, they don't call the police on each other as much as they turn to local church groups, clergy, community leaders, etc. to help with things like domestic disputes, the crazy dude talking to the stop signs, rising teen addictions, and the like. A lot of this is just anecdotal that I've seen in various FB groups, and some it is also hearsay, but I completely understand why black communities would avoid calling police and how the local minister would be a safer-for-everyone choice when someone sees the neighbors fighting at a custody exchange.

 

 

 

 

**So literally yesterday an officer from my precinct saved a 2 year-old with CPR after being called to an emergency. People on the FB page were like "and who would have saved that baby if they were defunded?!" And I just want to say, "uhh...a paramedic?"

Good example with the Camden PD and very thoughtful post. Thank you for clarifying. :)

 

First, when it comes to dismantling the police. I think I took the term too literally. Seems more like the term I used in cleaning house, but same thing I suppose. I guess I misunderstood what was meant by dismantle. I took it to mean no police altogether. Semantics! I like your example with Camden PD. Something like that I had in mind in the case of PDs are beyond hope of fixing, like LAPD, NYPD Chicago, and other major cities (and minor ones in say in ultra rural areas that are bad).

 

I think I am understanding what is meant with defunding, now, too. Again maybe my interpretation was off, but I would favor the term re-prioritization. Again semantics. To make an analogy, for decades people have said they want defense spending cut in favor of social programs. From that perspective, it can be done at the local level for city and state budgets, but re-prioritize the amount of money the police get. Cut the military style equipment they get. Use that money to restructure the leadership and to train officers. To create civilian oversight boards. To redesign tactics used by the police, so that it is more in line of service to the community, and less of a force of oppression. In my examples, hire more unarmed police assistants, to take the load off the police officers, and to do actual community policing. I also agree that while black people might get the worst of it, I know Latinos and Latinas, Native Americans, Asians, and Middle-Eastern people get their ration of crap, too. We can't forget the the others who are also experiencing injustice and brutality.

 

*I am unqualified to talk about this too, but just sharing ideas. Take with a grain of salt.

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Camden is an example of what can be done. Not all change will be a one size fits all situation. I don't see what it would hurt to stop paying for things like tear gas (especially during a pandemic when the gas will make protestors susceptible to Covid-19) or doing away with rubber bullets and guns that fire them or even military vehicles.

 

Something posted at another message board resonates with me. A lot of people are pointing out how protesting is terrible and they always point to the people doing looting and rioting but at the same time they have blinders on concerning what four bad cops did to George Floyd. You can't have it both ways. For me it's the biggest issue I have with the current status quo. What's good for me isn't good for you. It really gets to my sense of justice and doing what's right.

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Seattle has a ton of problems with police brutality (the whole metro area, actually) . The cops have lost their ever-loving minds with these riots, but this isn't new. Now we do have the crazy socialist council member who no one can understand how she gets re-elected, but it seems like the mayor has lost control of the police force. She is trying to get everyone to calm the eff down, but it's like 2 screaming siblings who have finally just come unhinged and can't stop baiting each other.

 

I agree that it's not so much defunding police but a re-imagining or re-prioritization. Police have been asked to do too much community mental health work instead of actual law enforcement. How much could we back off on certain areas and have trained experts handle stuff like that? It may not be a bad idea to have an officer as backup during an intervention, but we don't need to send a whole squad. As is, everyone feels like the cops dont do anything because they're so busy dealing with the homeless and drug addicts that they don't have time for investigations or property crimes. Throwing addicts in jail is a forced detox, but that's not very safe and it's completely undone about 5 minutes after they get out. I would rather see us use our tax dollars for longer-term solutions rather than multiple short jail stints and a chance to reoffend and hurt someone again.

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Look at what's going on in Seattle right now and tell me this is has anything to do with George Floyd anymore.

IMHI, the rioters,looters, and Antifa never did. There are the peaceful protesters, and then there are the looters/rioters/antifa who co-opted or just are using this as a free for all.

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I've seen way, way too many videos of police assaulting peaceful protesters, forcing weapons into people's hands to justify attacking, committing assault, and what would be in any other circumstances attempted murder. My blood is ****ing boiling, constantly.

Man, I'm in the position of seeing this crap from one end of the country to the other, and it is a complete and utter myth that police are "forcing" weapons into the hands of the innumerable violent people destroying one city after another. What is not myth is what true black activists had warned the world long ago: white-led anarchist / terrorist groups (e.g., Antifa and their lackeys who fantasize that they are clones of Eldridge Cleaver) have hijacked the initial reaction to black protests of the recent past right up to the reaction to Floyd's death, traveling to towns & cities which would become a destructive, bloody hotspot to further their anarchist goals, then cry victim when they receive the expected response.

 

The problem is that most of the mainstream (read: Left Wing) media deliberately misinforms the public, selectively focusing on any police officer engaged with a rioting group, while completely ignoring the endless, innocent people who are being terrorized and having their livelihood stripped clean and/or burned to the ground. I was in Nashville yesterday to talk to several business owners who are among those who lost everything to armed mobs. Oh no...cannot show that, as it would expose this moment in time as one losing its original purpose of making racially-motivated police violence the true issue, and has moved on to the true aim--upending society,, and not for any legitimate support of black people. You won't hear that from the Left Wing media either (hence the reason true black activists who rail against the anarchists--people who have become parrots for their outlets--are never interviewed).

 

Its all so predictable that just weeks ago, this same Left Wing media attacked anyone protesting the lockdown as "dangerous" or "a threat to national security" by not adhering to the ever-shifting guidelines, yet say nothing about actual coast-to-coast violence (and social distancing going up in smoke) occurring right now. In fact, many of their mouthpieces are cheering them on as if they were reliving the early 70s all over again, watching the sickening exploits of Bernadine Dohrn, Jeffrey Jones, et al. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

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Look at what's going on in Seattle right now and tell me this is has anything to do with George Floyd anymore.

Obviously it does not have a thing to do with Floyd--any honest, rational mind knows this, but the would-be "revolutionaries" (and their romanticizing media boosters with lips firmly panted on anarchist asses) will use Floyd's name and his family's loss to push their moronic agenda, knowing they can count on certain politicians to gag and cuff themselves rather than calling this crap out for what it is.

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A little over a month ago, armed right wing protesters in Michigan marched on the state capitol, shut the city down and tried to force the governor to adopt a series of legislative demands.

 

Today, antifa is doing much the same thing in Seattle, to it's mayor and city council.

 

It isn't completely new. Antifa rioting in DC after Trump's win, rioting in Berkeley because of a speaker they didn't like. Cliven Bundy holds up in Nevada to stop the feds from impounding his cattle. It's been going on a while now.

 

It's cliche to say that what happened in ancient Rome is happening here too. But sometimes it's hard not to notice. It's never the strength of the rebellion, it's always the weakness of the empire.

 

Once the barbarians, and not just the barbarians but the legates in the imperial court and anyone else with the arms to do ot realized that they could simply blackmail the state to get what they wanted, it was all over.

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We are pretty damn weak right now with the useless tool that was elected to drain the swamp by a small minority. LOL. All I know is I just try to promote and underline Biden's best features so we can at least make Texas purple in November.

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I haven't gone downtown yet but I may later today. I've had to keep tabs on this to do traffic daily because of the street closures. I also have about 8 friends who live in and do TV reports in the area (CHAZ=Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) that I follow 24/7 so I can see as if I'm there. They've been instrumental in keeping people safe as they get pending inside info from the crowd. They were able to alert people to a planned 'storming' of the street by out-of-town Proud Boys and shut it down before it happened. I don't know how to post the pics here-I lost my Photobucket account and that's the method I used before, but I have cool images of the zone from almost every day. It's like a giant camp out now that the 'anarchists' from out of town have left. They show movies at night, people are walking through the crowds giving away and selling for cost food and essentials, they have bands that perform. SPD has abandoned their East Precinct office and there's a little graffiti on that and other buildings. FOX news and SPD are creating completely fake narratives of 'terrorists holding the entire city hostage!', bands of gangs roaming the streets committing extortion from business onwers-conversely that the "looters have shut down business in 6 city blocks!" (not sure how one could extort business owners who don't exist...) and ridiculous things like 'armed guards lining the streets to protect the criminals' I had FB conversations with people who live here but haven't even been downtown this year and are believing all the bullshit. It's sad.

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I see "Defund the Police" as a catchphrase. If you get lawmakers willing to put their name on it then I might take it seriously.

 

Minneapolis let's see what you got?

It's not a catchphrase-it actually is s great idea-do some research! The premise is that local police forces have had every societal issue placed at their feet-crime, vandallism, community relations, domestic disputes, cats in trees...and they're stretched too thin and end up in situations they have no training in. The idea is to re-frame everything, bring in resources to deal with civic issues and de-fund the police department to help pay for it. The police would them get their own money and their to-do list would shrink. Their training would be more targeted to their duties and the other departments, theirs. I think this is brilliant! The basic model of local police hasn't changed much since their initial duty of being slave-catchers. I LOVE this idea and really hope it can be implemented

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'the crazy socialist council member' You know, Kshama Sawant is serving as a reminder for me that not all ideas that may look OK on paper should be enacted. I used to think "what real harm would it do?" to have one member represent a somewhat radical idea on a local panel?" I consider this an experiment and the conclusion is NEVER AGAIN. That woman is nuts. She wants CHAZ turned into a Community Center. I don't even understand how that would work physically.

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Chaz. Chazville. Chazekstan. The People's Republic of Chaz. Where they are complaining that the homeless have eaten all the food and are asking people on the outside to send vegan meat. Where they are policing the people in Chaz in ways that was suppose to be the problem I'm the first place. All in the name of George Floyd?

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Jesus Tami THERE IS A MULTIQUOTE BUTTON

 

Here's the Seattle situation as I know it:

 

The President says domestic terrorists have taken over the city.

 

My conservative family members, some of whom live in Washington, say that ANTIFA has seized Capitol Hill.

 

My oldest friend, who lived on Capitol Hill and is so punk rock she hates any form of politics or establishment, says that a bunch of woke white Vegans are having a sit in on a few blocks, have an inflatable movie screen, and are basically just having a small scale Burning Man.

 

If you're not familiar with Seattle, Capitol Hill is just the name for a part of town, nothing actually political about it. In the 80s it was trendy yuppie, in the 90s and early 2000s it was where most opening gay-run establishments were based, and in the last 10 years or so has been super gentrified by condos that only software bros can afford and a lot of sports bars have taken hold. Make of that what ye will.

 

But to Met's point-- what does any of this have to do with George Floyd? I think what started as a legit BLM protest devolved into a big party for woke white folks who, thanks to Covid, don't have to go to work, so they can virtue signal more directly as opposed to just posting a black square on instagram.

 

And I say this as a self-described woke white liberal leaning person.

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We are pretty damn weak right now with the useless tool that was elected to drain the swamp by a small minority. LOL. All I know is I just try to promote and underline Biden's best features so we can at least make Texas purple in November.

Biden's best features? Try his decades of aggressively working against black people, from his statements on how "they" might threaten his family in some phantom criminal encounter, to his "articulate" / "clean" comment about Obama, the 1994 crime bill, his fighting against desegregation in schools--all as an elected official. That's how he served the public. As civil rights attorney Leo Terrell recently observed, "Joe Biden has not earned the black vote. He has insulted the black vote." So, for all of those desperate while liberals out there who are all behind Biden, you're letting black America know your various agendas are more important than refusing to support a man who made a career out of legislating against them. Biden's best features.

 

Revealing as always.

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Jesus Tami THERE IS A MULTIQUOTE BUTTON

 

Here's the Seattle situation as I know it:

 

The President says domestic terrorists have taken over the city.

 

My conservative family members, some of whom live in Washington, say that ANTIFA has seized Capitol Hill.

 

Lol ANTIFA. Try all the Proud Boys in Snohomish protecting their downtown with guns, beer, and Confederate flags.

 

My oldest friend, who lived on Capitol Hill and is so punk rock she hates any form of politics or establishment, says that a bunch of woke white Vegans are having a sit in on a few blocks, have an inflatable movie screen, and are basically just having a small scale Burning Man.

 

If you're not familiar with Seattle, Capitol Hill is just the name for a part of town, nothing actually political about it. In the 80s it was trendy yuppie, in the 90s and early 2000s it was where most opening gay-run establishments were based, and in the last 10 years or so has been super gentrified by condos that only software bros can afford and a lot of sports bars have taken hold. Make of that what ye will.

 

But to Met's point-- what does any of this have to do with George Floyd? I think what started as a legit BLM protest devolved into a big party for woke white folks who, thanks to Covid, don't have to go to work, so they can virtue signal more directly as opposed to just posting a black square on instagram.

 

And I say this as a self-described woke white liberal leaning person.

All of this is super accurate. Also the idea that Chazakistan is anything dangerous is absolutely hilarious.

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