Protect Yourself from Retaliation After the Riots

Looks like we’re in for a long and deadly summer, fractured and chaotic through Labor Day at least, with much destruction in the cities, the cities where so many have already died thanks to the virus and many more will become victims before this phase is over.

The National Guard has been activated but not deployed? What’s that all about? And our media seems to have given up on their usual defense of authority no matter what. In fact, authority is being subjected to public and media criticism like I don’t think I’ve seen for 50 years. Something is definitely afoot.

The riots are spreading as far as I can tell. A significant percentage of the rioters are white. Almost all are young or young-ish. More property and business owners seem to favor the rioters

I visit a number of sites. Some far removed from cops and riots. But what I sense on them all is a growing sense of nihilism. The game really is over and everyone on some level gets it. What comes next is the breakup of the US. How long that takes and how it plays out is the only question.

I’ve watched dozens of videos on YouTube of Minneapolis protestors speaking on camera maskless while buildings burned in the background. It makes me shake my head. I’m thinking the entire time, your life could be potentially ruined by this video footage. The police will be combing over videos to prosecute the protestors and looters. AG Barr has expressed his plans to prosecute the protestors under the federal Anti-Riot Act. I’m expecting hundreds of people to eventually be arrested and charged.

Even if some of those protestors aren’t arrested, they still may find it hard to get a job, or they could be fired if someone reports them to HR years from now once a video resurfaces of them insulting the police/government/establishment. Goodness knows how much worse this world is going to look like and how many more of our civil liberties will be stripped away in the near future.

I went to protests in DC at a time shortly before every little thing was filmed and uploaded onto Twitter/ YouTube/ Facebook/ Instagram. I preferred the anonymity and not having to worry that a video could mean the end of my career. Social media will be used by law enforcement and the right to go after left-wing protestors now and in the future. And it’s not just about being charged or being barred from employment. As you stated, I also believe that some of the protestors at Ferguson were later killed by the cops. Now that they have the Trump administration on their side, law enforcement will be even more emboldened to retaliate and kill again once everything comes to an end.

Unfortunately the darkness and the masks are allowing nefarious (mostly white) people to show up at the protests and cause trouble.

MofA has a post on the “Boogaloo Bois”, a mostly right-wing, pro-militia tribe. They don’t have a cohesive ideology but they seem to long for a civil war. Seriously.

There is a saying “a movement is defined by its demands.” OK, so what are the demands of the George Floyd protesters? I get the “no justice, no peace” and I get that cops who murder need to be sanctioned, but neither of those things is a tangible demand. Chauvin has been charged with Murder III, but it’s doubtful that a Murder III charge will hold up in court, especially given the medical examiners wishy-washy report. It looks to me that the prosecutor is deliberately “throwing” the case.

The George Floyd case may be a lost cause — and if Chauvin walks on Murder III it will be like pouring gasoline on a fire.

One demand should be tough restrictions on police use of force, and perhaps even take away their guns. No use of deadly force unless there is an immediate threat of serious bodily harm.

Another demand should be tax the rich and redistribute the wealth, because much of social tension has inequality at its root.

Meanwhile, I don’t see anything good coming out of these protests. I say that as someone who is generally supportive of protests including not-so-peaceful protests. The demands are unclear, the protests are being hijacked by shady groups, and the street violence plays into the hands of right wing politicians. If it were me I would call a time-out on the protests. A national strike linked to meaty demands might be more effective.

Amnesty International USA has had a campaign against police use of lethal force for several years now. Here’s the website: https://www.amnestyusa.org/issues/deadly-force-police-accountability/ Unfortunately, it’s milder than it used to be.

There are very specific things that protestors can ask for. Here’s from my talk to my city council last year (it’s very brief, because we get only 2 minutes)

In 2015 Amnesty International USA completed and published a study of police use of lethal force in the U.S. It found that the U.S. does not have a legal framework for police action that meets international standards contained in the treaties we have ratified. We are therefore advocating that all levels of government adopt appropriate standards.

The Amnesty study recommended that local police forces review and revise current policies to bring them into compliance with international standards, to review and revise policies and training related to race and policing diverse communities, and to publish regular statistics on persons injured and on internal disciplinary processes.

Of especial importance is limitation of the use of lethal force to a last resort effort necessary to prevent imminent harm to persons. Lethal force should not be used to stop a person who is fleeing unless that person poses a threat of death or serious injury to others, and only as a last resort.
-All uses of police force that result in injury or death should be investigated by an independent oversight board with necessary legal investigative powers.
-Police training should emphasize de-escalation of tense situations.

To say that the police department and the city council are resistant is a screaming understatement. We’ve seen every defanged pretense at meeting our requests by setting up another level of apologists for whatever the police do. I hope the protests tonight help move the needle.

I say that disbanding police forces that are this prone to murder and violence — MPD has been notorious for many years — is the necessary action by public officials, but it’s almost impossible to accomplish through any normal process. Too many institutional constraints. And the overclass needs its paramilitaries too much.

One of the potential demands in Minneapolis is defunding the police. Cut them no checks. Then they go on strike, right? And then? Maybe they get fired for striking. Interesting.

Direct confrontation with police forces generally doesn’t work. But keeping them engaged in suppressing protests is effective in preventing some of their other actions. There are only so many cops, and a restive citizenry that refuses to go home and shut up keeps them very busy.

The question of who is actually rioting has been raised. As has been noted, many of the supposed protesters and rioters are white. Some I’d say are genuine allies. Others, nah. It’s not that hard to sort out who is who.

In the meantime, power is trembling.

Remember too that there was an element of the Occupy Movement that got radicalized by the Obama Administration’s federally coordinated crackdown, which he’s never had to answer a question about from the media as far as I know.

Some of those protestors, who were for the most part peacefully protesting, got themselves felony convictions from it so their future prospects are already tainted and they’ve been taught that they’re going to get roughed up regardless. Think they ain’t got a grudge to bear?

I saw video of some dude knocking out a Oakland cop today. Oakland was one of the places that the cops most aggressively cracked down on Occupy. The dude walked up to the cop, there were cops on either side of the cop too, bumped fists with the cop, the cop aggressively pointed him away, and the dude sucker punched him and took off on foot with his skateboard and it looked like he got away, and it looked calculated on his behalf, like that was his plan all along.

Z

If Biden had any brains, and he obviously has less now, but never had much to begin with, he’s always just been a doped up, self-delusional, grifting showman living on his smile, but if he did he’d drop out of the race.

He is absolutely NOT the man for this moment.

Z

anon wrote: “Even if some of those protesters aren’t arrested, they still may find it hard to get a job, or they could be fired if someone reports them to HR years from now once a video resurfaces of them insulting the police/government/establishment. ”

Come on. What kind of jobs under what kind of conditions would they be headed to anyway with how the U.S. has been looted out by elites? There’s at least as many whites as blacks and browns out there, and they — we — all know that much.

“I can’t breathe.” Indeed. Here on this site plenty of posters were saying that Washington DC pols and elites were out of their tiny little minds in thinking that given the massive unemployment from COVID19 they were just going to feed billions more to the rich while letting the mass of the populace go under, and that there’d be riots at the summer’s end.

Well, they kicked off early, thanks to one (among the many) sociopaths employed in police departments across the U.S.

Bruce Wilder wrote: “…tonight in LA’s Fairfax district, it was hardly necessary to consult CNN. The scale of this riot must be enormous.”

It’s most major U.S. cities. It’s worth looking at the pictures and videos that — and I almost hate to concede this — the DAILY MAIL is putting up, because being in the U.K. they’re showing things that the U.S. MSM wouldn’t and you get an idea of the scale of it.

The American people finally grew a pair. I thought it’d never happen.

I don’t know if it goes without saying, but please do your damndest to stay out of covid-19 incubation pens like jails.

Mark – most would not be headed to elite jobs but there are college students in those crowds who might want one of the few decent paying jobs left someday. Having a criminal record can bar you from blue collar work too. I’ve seen people with a criminal background who could not get a job at a supermarket or were later fired after it was revealed they had done something criminal years ago.. A criminal record or just one incriminating video can destroy your life and prevent you from getting a minimum wage job.

“Outside agitators”? So Democrats and MSNBC pundits are now using segregationist-speak?

Finally, Black and Occupy protestors have figured out how to protest, riot and loot properly. You do NOT protest, riot and loot in your own neighborhoods or another poor ethnic neighborhood.

You go to RICH WHITE NEIGHBORHOODS, like Beverly Hills and the Fairfax district (i.e., “Melrose Place”,) and you protest, riot and loot THERE.

The people who have power, they do not care if you protest, riot and loot elsewhere: “Whatever, it’s not my problem.”

However, when you go to their neighborhood to protest, riot and loot, you set their businesses, shops and arses on fire, and you tell them that you want to eat them and hang them, that the French Revolution and Reign of Terror is coming for them, terrorize them a bit, that is when you give them the incentive to change and fix thing.

Well if the states go broke, wiping out pensions for public employees, in addition to laying off many of them, I wonder if that will impact the police? Would they spare the police those depredations while they inflict them on everybody else working for the government?