karaddin

All good. It could easily have read as a response to me letting my admiration for our resident Fury show through and saying "nope, things aren't bad enough we have to admit to that shit yet" lol.

Not sure if you mean "what we really think of them" as the good things or the bad, was that in reply to me?

The cops sure aren't keeping anyone safe, members of the community looking out for each other is risky for the individuals but they're having concrete impacts all the same. There was a video yesterday of a guy in NY I think that jumped into a burning cop car to move it down the street and away from an apartment building - there's a decent chance he saved multiple lives by doing so. Kelli's mentioned they took a gas bottle from some provocateur that was likely going to torch a petrol station that's next to an apartment block. Yeah it's shitty that the communities are needing to protect themselves like this, but sticking together is also the best hope to get through it. And as much as we all hope she stays safe, I don't think Kelli could sit this out more than she is, she's too fucking strong, brave and cares about her community too much, and the risk of real harm if no one does this is too high. I'm pretty sure she's not going to risk herself for property though, by keeping the block safe see means the people. If I'm wrong, then I'm with James - fuck the property and keep yourselves safe.

You can be hard to follow sometimes, I don't think there's been any increase in that recently though. It's mostly when you're drunk rather than high though and it tends to come with being very... abrasive as well. This case it was just down to who the comment was directed at, and it's easy to confuse that from anyone at any time so I wouldn't think anything of this one.

It's not like there's a shortage of videos of police brutality at the moment, but this one of Seattle PD stealing an umbrella so they could use pepper spray into the crack and then carpet the protest area with flash bangs and tear gas manages to stun me all the same. There's absolutely no attempt to even justify the violence they're doling out now, they just decide the revoke free speech and the right to protest

Right, I follow now. Was thinking as I was replying that I was basically agreeing with what you said but I misread the focus of your point.

I think you're misunderstanding my point, which wasn't patting myself on the back - it was saying that Kal has certainly had his eyes open and saying "I told you so" to him is a bit of a weird move. I didn't foresee jack shit, I just accepted those who had studied the rise of authoritarian regimes as the best people to listen to, including Sarah Kendzior. Which leads into Yeah that was her. And if there's all these big things where you can appreciate the changes I'd bet there are plenty more small ones which fly under the radar still.

It seems a bit preaching to the preacher. I've been in the group insisting Trump is an existential threat to the system of democracy, that he's pursuing fascist policies etc since before the election and you (Kalbear) have been probably the most in agreement with those concerns of any US Politics regular/prolific poster. Your concern ebbs and flows but you've never been dismissive of concerns like mine as paranoia, so yeah... Having a hard time seeing how you could have been told so in such a fashion.

Stay safe. I know it's pretty meaningless words but they're heart felt.

I'm truly shocked to find that a potential source of information to corroborate or refute the police story in this incident was tampered with. Messing with your body cam needs to be treated as evidence of intent to break the rules.

Yeah looking though some more of what Trump said... It's going to be a miracle if we don't see multiple murders by cops in multiple states. And if it happens it's just going to escalate.

On another note of the complexity of everything going on and just how hard it is to stay on top of everything you need to know to parse these online movements spilling into the real world, you have the racist shits using super subtle signaling like this Fragile Bird - the logo you can barely make out is the logo of these "second civil war now" types, but they're also doing shit like adopting the camouflage pattern of a highly racist southern African state to signal their racism. We really need media outlets to have people that specialise in researching this stuff because what chance do regular people have of deciphering the layers of signals.

So this whole situation is already complicated and enough of a tinder box already, but the online misinformation wars are starting to heat up. I missed it but there was a big fuss with claims that DC had been cut off from social media, was on fire etc. It included images of explosion/fire in DC from Designated Survivor. If I'm following it right, it was largely K-pop stan accounts (yeah - Korean pop band fans) that were pushing this, so probably primarily bot accounts that are buried in that to look legit. I'm now seeing reports that the push back on those reports is itself filled with shady shit including real accounts that have been accessed to send tweets like this It's a whole new world for propaganda wars. If you use Twitter it's a good time to check the apps you've given permission to and your Twitter sessions to make sure it all looks legit. Maybe change your password if you don't have confidence in it.

I feel like any hope that anyone will see justice from the hundreds of clearly illegal acts that police are engaging in is being hopelessly naive. This whole thing got started because they refuse to accept consequences for murdering people on camera in public, these abuses won't result in jack shit unless something major changes

I don't agree with his sentiment either, fuck them I don't cry for them. But he was very clearly doing nothing but speaking and they don't just get to arrest people for annoying them.

This is as bullshit as the random violence. Arresting a guy for kneeling and calling for dialog and peace tells you all you need to fucking know about what these cops want ETA: And also how much these enforcers of the law actually care about the law. Or freedom of speech.

I love how they stick to passive language when it's very clear the person was killed by police shots. I'm also going to want to see compelling evidence to support them actually being shot at because they get zero benefit of the doubt after shooting a woman in her own bed.

There's plenty of ground around it that we don't share, but if your society decrees that shooting armed unidentified intruders that break into your house in the middle of the night is ok, then you're damn right that I agree this should apply to defending yourself against police raids that don't identify themselves. We absolutely have that common ground. My disagreement with you here is on the practicalities of how that would be enforced, not what the logical and fair application of your laws should dictate. These scenarios strike me as basically the raison d'etre of the 2nd amendment, not just an unconsidered side effect. ETA: missed a couple of words in that first sentence

I think it's pretty clear that the response to shooting back wouldn't work out in your favor, especially if you're a black person. I'm pretty sure there's someone being charged for shooting a cop when the cops broke in without identifying themselves at the moment, it's not like you get the same standard they get for themselves.

Moving to a multi party system without changing first past the post would make things worse, so if you really want to head in that direction make sure you change that too.

If all the incidents linked off this thread are any indication, the years of hostility to reporters from Trump are having the desired effect.

Oh absolutely, I was agreeing and just trying to emphasise how "off" he looked.

He looked as much like a robot or an alien trying to perform being a human as a cop pretending to be a protestor. So clearly not what he was pretending to be

It's a shortening for "civil war 2: electric bugaloo" and is the group I was describing - people that expect and desire a second civil war that is a race war and are agitating to start it. They're distinct from some of the other right wing types and I think they're anti Republicans and anti cop. The Trump allied klan and Nazis frequently are the cops. Sorry I didn't mean to spook you. I do have a different name and pic so you wouldn't know its me, I don't follow you - doing so just because I recognized you from here would be a bit creepy and I'd make no criticisms or complaints of anything I've seen you say. My only point was just that at least some of our feeds would have an overlap. For what it's worth I think it's mostly more on pop culture discussions that I've noticed you anyway. Which probably identifies the people we have in common lol.

I think it's complicated, I think the rioting and damage where done by the actual protestors is an inevitable and understandable response to injustice that is as old as the USA is, and the awareness of it has been shoved in everyone's faces with the proliferation of camera phones. However there are A LOT of groups that, as you say, want to delegitimize the protests or view them as an opportunity to kick off the violence they want and these groups are absolutely acting as agent provocateurs. And there are a lot of them. One of the clips I was seeing yesterday was showing a pile of bricks which had suddenly appeared and wasn't near any construction sites. I know we have some intersection of Twitter followers as I see you on there sometimes, but even if you already know about them I'm sure there's plenty of people in the thread that don't know of the bugaloo groups. They're a new faction of racist fucks that aren't necessarily aligned with Trump, but that see a second civil war (normally a race war) as inevitable and desirable and are trying to cause it. They pretty openly see the current situation as a perfect opportunity to incite the situation with their posts on 4chan etc. I think the biggest difference you can see in the violence is that most of what I've seen from the legit protestors is relatively targeted and avoids things like local business etc wherever possible, the white agent provocateurs smash up whatever shit they think will make protestors look bad. There was also a Nazi, goes by WarHippie, that had been posting suggestions that he was going to be doing a mass shooting in Texas yesterday, anti fascist researchers managed to identify who he is along with where he was and then followed him around filming him. Unclear if he would have actually gone through with it, but he didn't once he was being followed like that. If you've seen the video of the dipshit Nazi dramatically sitting on a wall and taking a sip of water through his mask only to have his mask fall off and expose his face... That's him.