The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[alfred russel]

So all Trump has to do to win is threaten military force every day, have stupid photo ops, and wait for things to slow down? Because it seems like Trump will make stupid threats and take stupid pictures every day--that is kind of what he does.

[HisMajestyBOB]

So all Trump has to do to win is threaten military force every day, have stupid photo ops, and wait for things to slow down? Because it seems like Trump will make stupid threats and take stupid pictures every day--that is kind of what he does.

[fromtia]

In the case of BLM, their goal is to stop the police killing black people, for the police to face consequences when they do and for the cover-ups - such as that first coroner's report - to stop. What better way to get change in that area than to protest non-violently which, in this situation, invites police power and reveals the truth of that power, the coercive fate of the state as experienced by the protesters and the people they're representing? As I say I think it's why I find the videos of, say the people on their knees with their hands up so extraordinary.

Yes. I think most Americans understand what the aim of the protests is, can anyone really say, honestly, that they don't understand the aims of the protesting? Police around the country are coming out of this looking terrible to many people, more terrible than they did before the protests started. It's no longer a strategy with traction to talk about "Black Lives Matter Thugs" for Republicans because of the way so many protestors have conducted themselves.

Yes, looting and destruction of property, attacks on police are bad and terrible. I wish they would stop, but theres no directing command and control sytem to make that happen. Especially not if one assumes they are the actions of agitators and criminals taking advantage of the protests rather than protestors themselves trying to end an injustice.

[fromtia]

And to DGullers point that some well intentioned protests actions by people on the left are a gift to the right, yes I agree in some cases,( say for instance antifa vegans fist fighting alt righters for their own self aggrandizement creating a fantastic Republican boogey man),I don't think it's true in this case because the hardcore BLM's are doing a fantastic job of protesting, looking much better than the cops who are looking like a rabble.

I mean you can make the argument that we should not have elected a US President who was a black man because it energized Republican racists to an extraordinary extent and begat Trump.

[garbon]

I mean you can make the argument that we should not have elected a US President who was a black man because it energized Republican racists to an extraordinary extent and begat Trump.

Indeed and in that way lies madness.

[Sheilbh]

I disagree that riots/unrest are a gift to the right, I don't know if it's clear. But it seems as likely to me that they will harm incumbents and, perhaps, especially "law and order" incumbents who are in charge while order collapses.

And, I have rarely thought Democrats are blessed with Biden, but Trump's tweets linking "sleepy Joe" with a hard-left anarchist plot are laughable. And like obviously laughable - it's not like "crooked Hilary". There is no-one alive who thinks that in Joe Biden secretly beats the heart of a steely eyed class war radical.

[alfred russel]

There is no-one alive who thinks that in Joe Biden secretly beats the heart of a steely eyed class war radical.

Sounds like you aren't on facebook.

[DGuller]

There are tens of millions of people alive, at least in some sense, who will think whatever they are told to think, plausibility be damned.

[Sheilbh]

And you'll never reach them. "Crooked" Hilary and that narrative is plausible enough that it works with all sorts - you know, people like me, people who dislike both candidates, people in the centre, people who don't care etc.

It is tough to pivot from "sleepy Joe" who is barely sentient, to who him being a hard-left anarchist sympathiser. It needs a base level of plausibility to cut-through beyond the true believers.

[FunkMonk]

Also I think there were two points with Gandhi and MLK - that's why I mentioned satyagraha because that was Gandhi's theory of passive resistance in itself.

So it operates on two levels. There's the ends: Indian independence, civil rights. And then there is the means: passive resistance. The point of passive resistance is relatively simple - you invite the coercive power of the state to attack you because you resist a law or a social condition. Then you see who can live with that, you basically show the world the force of the state that lies beneath the rhetoric of a "democratic nation" or a "civilising empire" or whatever else. You provoke the force by putting your own body on the line to reveal the oppression. The purpose of Gandhi's protests was never really Indian independence it was to invite violence or brute force in his language and reveal the truth of Indian non-indepdendence - that it relied on violence whatever the imperialists say. By revealing that he can then make his political argument which is for Indian independence and turn the question back on itself as non-indepdendence is reliant on this violence and this force. The purpose of the protest and passive resistance is to reveal the truth and see if people are still comfortable once they're complicit and can't turn away.

And for Gandhi, and I think MLK, means and ends are profoundly linked because the means always contaminate the means. So if you use violence to achieve your end, that end will always be contaminated by violence. Same with my local heroes John Hume and Seamus Mallon of the Norther Irish civil rights movement - who never stopped their campaigning or protests because of actual terrorist campaigns. And it makes sense here too - it's difficult to end a system of violence through violence.

In the case of BLM, their goal is to stop the police killing black people, for the police to face consequences when they do and for the cover-ups - such as that first coroner's report - to stop. What better way to get change in that area than to protest non-violently which, in this situation, invites police power and reveals the truth of that power, the coercive fate of the state as experienced by the protesters and the people they're representing? As I say I think it's why I find the videos of, say the people on their knees with their hands up so extraordinary.

Gonna need you to also talk about Thomas Hobbes before you finish your podcast review. 

[fromtia]

And you'll never reach them. "Crooked" Hilary and that narrative is plausible enough that it works with all sorts - you know, people like me, people who dislike both candidates, people in the centre, people who don't care etc.

It is tough to pivot from "sleepy Joe" who is barely sentient, to who him being a hard-left anarchist sympathiser. It needs a base level of plausibility to cut-through beyond the true believers.

Among the rational you are completely correct. I think about 60 million or so adult Americans voted for Trump, all Republicans obviously, and it's hard to put an exact number on it but the majority of them are inside an exclusively conservative media environment that has been engineered to deliver a certain narrative. A really significant portion of that number are locked into a counter factual mythological fantasy and can likely not be appealed to by any force.

[grumbler]

There are tens of millions of people alive, at least in some sense, who will think whatever they are told to think, plausibility be damned.

I don't think even they actually believe the Joe Biden is some kind of anarchist conspirator, though they will lie and say they do in order to avoid standing out from the herd.

[Sheilbh]

Gonna need you to also talk about Thomas Hobbes before you finish your podcast review. 

As I say - literally any interesting opinion I have at the minute is from that podcast 

[DGuller]

I just read the story, in NY Post of all places, about protesters forming human chains to protect the local Target store against looters.  This sounds like a win-win tactic to adopt widely for them in so many dimensions:  they clearly separate themselves from the looters, they actually give themselves something to do besides goading cops with no end game, and maybe they'll win the PR war against cops that way who have seemed to largely hunker down and let looters do their thing.

[DGuller]

There are tens of millions of people alive, at least in some sense, who will think whatever they are told to think, plausibility be damned.

I don't think even they actually believe the Joe Biden is some kind of anarchist conspirator, though they will lie and say they do in order to avoid standing out from the herd.

I guess there is no way to know for sure, but I personally gave up on the certainty of belief that there is some kind of a truth fundamental from which you can only deviate so much before the dissonance starts causing issues.  I think some people, upon entering a deep enough trance, can earnestly believe all sorts of contradictory ideas and rapidly switch between them without ever flirting with come-to-Jesus moment.  I could be wrong, I sure hope I am.