US Politics: Burning Down the Country

[ThinkerX]

Time to start a new thread.

Seems a great many of the violently inclined protesters, at least in the Saint Paul area, came from out of state.  At least some appear to have connections with white supremacist groups.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/05/30/every-person-arrested-in-saint-paul-last-night-was-from-out-of-state-mayor-says/?fbclid=IwAR1M5UxAQ7dOnvoWT3R7rB9ZP8ErvZopeQrOKGiO2CreczanR4sNYqR7il4#77f29ca8264d

 

“I want to be very, very clear: The people that are doing this are not Minneapolis residents,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey added. “They are coming in largely from outside of the city, from outside of the region, to prey on everything we have built over the last several decades.”

According to Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, every person arrested in the city last night was from out of state: “We don’t know these folks,” he reiterated.

Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington confirmed evidence of white supremacist groups trying to incite violence; Many posted messages online that encouraged people to go loot in Minneapolis and cause mayhem.

[Zorral]

 

 

[Zorral]

Harlem, right now.

 

[Week]

Was going to post this in Gallows humor but - eh - here ya go.

https://twitter.com/playazball/status/1266790115902439431

[Guest]

Does anyone else get the feeling we are living the beginning of Mad Max or The Road or Judge Dredd?

"It was the year 2020. First the pandemic hit, and hundreds of thousands died. Then came the great economic collapse, followed by the policing riots of the late spring and summer. In fall the pandemic struck even harder, killing hundreds of thousands more. And then, on the fateful eve of November 3rd...Trump won re-election..." cue desert apocalypse soundtrack...

[ThinkerX]

29 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Does anyone else get the feeling we are living the beginning of Mad Max or The Road or Judge Dredd?

"It was the year 2020. First the pandemic hit, and hundreds of thousands died. Then came the great economic collapse, followed by the policing riots of the late spring and summer. In fall the pandemic struck even harder, killing hundreds of thousands more. And then, on the fateful eve of November 3rd...Trump won re-election..." cue desert apocalypse soundtrack...

Quite a few people have been contemplating similar concepts.  Making the rounds on Facebook:

 

'2020: Written by Stephen King, directed by Quentin Tarantino.'

 

It does seem like we are living in the prequel or prologue of teenage future dystopian epic...not sure which one, though.   

[ThinkerX]

Meanwhile, in DC, protesters tear down some of the barricades about the White House.  Don't we have people here with front row seats to this demonstration?  Isn't DMC supposed to be directing part of this operation?  Most of the comments on the article are actually somewhat supportive.  Anyhow:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/protestors-knock-down-white-house-security-s-barricade-as-tensions-mount-over-floyd-s-death/ar-BB14ORuY?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR2enSI9WsX8qm4wW83aviFgSSr-zIvL3fQ04d8m3cUBMUDYfMJk4M9sAok

 

Protests broke out near the White House Saturday, with demonstrators pushing down multiple security barricades and some clashing with police, according to multiple reports.

 

[Bonnot OG]

 

[DMC]

21 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Meanwhile, in DC, protesters tear down some of the barricades about the White House.  Don't we have people here with front row seats to this demonstration?  Isn't DMC supposed to be directing part of this operation?  Most of the comments on the article are actually somewhat supportive.

I haven't lived in DC for 13 years.  In other news...

African-American congresswoman pepper-sprayed during racism protest

Quote

Beatty said she witnessed Columbus police pull a man from the crowd and slam him to the ground. She said she rushed over to the scene to try to deescalate the situation. Beatty, wearing a red face mask, was in the middle of the chaotic scene with officers, according to several videos of the incident.

“I just felt like maybe I could protect her,” Beatty said in a telephone interview, referring to the female protester. “I’m trying to push the bike away and get her into a safe space, and the next thing I know pepper spray is everywhere.”

Several officers used pepper spray on the protesters, including Beatty and Hardin, according to the video footage. The two can later be seen trying to recover. Referring to police, Beatty can be heard exclaiming, "They are wrong, they are wrong!”

 

[Darth Richard II]

@DMC you are from good old Rochester right? We have a curfew, all businesses are closed EVEN WEGMANS AND 7/11 and police have been approved to use live ammo. I guess things got ugly downtown and a bunch of cars were on fire. Mayor says it was outside agitators. Who the fuck knows. Just, Rochester man. WTF.

[Fez]

58 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Meanwhile, in DC, protesters tear down some of the barricades about the White House.  Don't we have people here with front row seats to this demonstration? 

I'm across the river in Virginia so I don't know firsthand what's going on. But if there's one place that protestors need to show restraint, it's there at the White House. No question at all that the Secret Service would start using lethal force if protestors get past the outer line of White House defenses (and I mean the real White House grounds, not just whatever temporary stuff might be up in Lafayette Park)

[Guy Kilmore]

24 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

@DMC you are from good old Rochester right? We have a curfew, all businesses are closed EVEN WEGMANS AND 7/11 and police have been approved to use live ammo. I guess things got ugly downtown and a bunch of cars were on fire. Mayor says it was outside agitators. Who the fuck knows. Just, Rochester man. WTF.

Shit is real if they closed Wegmans.

[HexMachina]

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Does anyone else get the feeling we are living the beginning of Mad Max or The Road or Judge Dredd?

"It was the year 2020. First the pandemic hit, and hundreds of thousands died. Then came the great economic collapse, followed by the policing riots of the late spring and summer. In fall the pandemic struck even harder, killing hundreds of thousands more. And then, on the fateful eve of November 3rd...Trump won re-election..." cue desert apocalypse soundtrack...

I was just thinking how long these last 5 months have felt. the year began with raging wildfires in Australia, scary ramping up of tensions with the U.S and Iran and a whole host of other stuff I’m probably forgetting. And that feels like a lifetime ago.

[DMC]

23 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

@DMC you are from good old Rochester right?

Born and raised.  Never been back after the rest of my family moved though.  Here in Pittsburgh they instituted a curfew a couple hours ago as well.  The police chief also made a statement blaming outsiders - which seems to be a cross-country LEO-coordinated line at this point - as well as "anarchists" and Antifa, although he did also seem to blame white males.  So...I guess that's something:

Quote

“I’m willing to bet my check that there’s a lot of people who are anarchists, who, they’re not here to protest what happened, they’re not here to protest what happened, they’re here to take advantage of situations and throw it their way and bring other people into the mix and cause damage and cause injury,” Cheif Schubert added. “There’s no doubt that that’s who’s doing it and a lot of things we’re seeing are white males, dressed in the anarchist, ANTIFA, they’re ones who are fueling a lot of this. It’s just a damn shame that they took advantage of the situation, for something, something happened in another state where somebody died who shouldn’t have died, and they hijacked that message for their own.”

 

[Fragile Bird]

I just can't get over the fact that Trump flew down to Florida not once but twice to catch a fucking space launch, not only during a pandemic but while the country is in utter turmoil. And he complained about Obama going golfing when there were two ebola cases.

He must be so happy that right now no one is talking about Covid fucking 19, right?

But the question is, how is the US going to get out of this? Right now, with 40 M unemployed, everybody has time on their hands, lots of time for protesting and burning shit down.

A resurgence of Covid-19 in two weeks?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Seems like curfews are in effect everywhere.

You can smell the burning. 

[mcbigski]

7 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Time to start a new thread.

Seems a great many of the violently inclined protesters, at least in the Saint Paul area, came from out of state.  At least some appear to have connections with white supremacist groups.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/05/30/every-person-arrested-in-saint-paul-last-night-was-from-out-of-state-mayor-says/?fbclid=IwAR1M5UxAQ7dOnvoWT3R7rB9ZP8ErvZopeQrOKGiO2CreczanR4sNYqR7il4#77f29ca8264d

 

 

 

OK, when I clicked on that link the headline was changed from the text in your hyper link.  Currently says "Mayor Walks Back Statement Saying Every Person Arrested In Minneapolis Protests Was From Out Of State"  Who knows what it will say tomorrow.

I took a screen shot of the updated headline, can't post the capture here,  If you can't replicate it from the previous link, hit me up.  At least Forbes made what looks like something phrased as a retraction instead of just trying memory hole it.

But hold on, white supremacists are rioting over this, but were fine when a minority cop shot up a white Canadian woman a couple years back in Minnesota without any justifiable cause?  That makes not a whole lot of sense.  Could someone explain why this would be a riot trigger for white supremacists?  (I guess if you think Putin wanted Trump over Hillary it makes perfect sense to follow that narrative, but it looks to me like stage 2 underpants gnome territory.)

Let's see what the story is a week and a month from now.

[Guest]

Hearing dozens have been arrested in OKC.

[dbergkvist]

10 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

But hold on, white supremacists are rioting over this, but were fine when a minority cop shot up a white Canadian woman a couple years back in Minnesota without any justifiable cause?  That makes not a whole lot of sense.  Could someone explain why this would be a riot trigger for white supremacists?  (I guess if you think Putin wanted Trump over Hillary it makes perfect sense to follow that narrative, but it looks to me like stage 2 underpants gnome territory.)

The conspiracy theory is that the white supremacists are infiltrating the legitimate protests in order to loot and burn so that they make black people look stupid.

This theory is held by lots of different people, but they each hypothesize about different groups as the infiltrators: cops, Antifa etc.

[Fez]

15 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

But the question is, how is the US going to get out of this? Right now, with 40 M unemployed, everybody has time on their hands, lots of time for protesting and burning shit down.

A resurgence of Covid-19 in two weeks?

Seems near certain that Covid-19 has a big jump in the next couple weeks. If not though, that's basically irrevocable proof that there's little danger in any outdoor activities at all. 

And on the bigger question, I honestly don't know. It's easy to get caught up in presentism; but having such widespread protests, with such a lack of national leadership, it really does feel kind of unprecedented. Kinda feels like the best case scenario is that they peter out in a week or two, especially if there's a surge in Covid-19 cases. But if there's not that surge, how can this end? It's not like Trump will ever implement the kinds of reforms needed, or even make the right-sounding statements, to get things to calm down.

Maybe the revolution/civil war really is here.