The Washington Post headline this morning was “Chaotic Minneapolis protests spread amid emotional calls for justice, peace”, and it’s illustrated with this photo:
I ask, where’s the chaos? I see a small group of calm people standing victorious before the ruins of a criminal enterprise. The people speaking for the community clearly see where the chaos was coming from.
“There are folks reacting to a violent system,” McDowell said. “You can replace property, you can replace businesses, you can replace material things, but you can’t replace a life. That man is gone forever because some cop felt like he had the right to take his life. A lot of folks are tired of that. They’re not going to take it anymore.”
That’s why, he said, “Minneapolis is burning.”
Chaos is when the people delegated to preserve the peace are murdering people in the street for non-violent offenses. Chaos is heavily armed cops oppressing the communities they’re supposed to safeguard. Chaos is the district attorney waffling over whether to charge a cop for murder when they have video of the man slowly throttling another to death in public. Chaos is the absence of justice.
This is Minneapolis, a pleasant city full of good people trying to get by. It’s not Gotham City, and it never needed a crew of Batman-wannabes to keep the peace.
When people have figured out the system is unjust, Minneapolis is what happens. Sad that a tragic event pushes these people over the top . Trump has ignited this and is happy it is happening, it gives him excuses to continue to attack people of color.
I think the Post means chaos/justice in terms of our legal system, which we all know is rigged. I disagree with their terminology but you’re completely Trumping the meaning of the word by calling the rule-based subjugation of the people by capitalists chaos. Fascism is not chaos. Well, you’re not Trumping it but you are but you kind of are. So Trumped.
While no one condones the looting, one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of repression . . . people who have had members of their family killed by that regime.
— Donald Rumsfeld, 2003
There’s no doubt, at this point, that rank racism has taken over and the police are acting little better than a Klan rally. It’s even extending to the press. Another Washington Post article reports on the arrest of a CNN reporter (live on the air at the time), who is black, and his crew while another CNN reporter (who is white) nearby was treated with respect and not arrested. This despite the fact that the black reporter can be heard on the video trying to be cooperative with the police and their orders. And people wonder why the protestors are so angry when even a black reporter for a major network who is literally on the air reporting at the time can’t escape being harassed and arrested for nothing.
The way to get this under control is to indict the officers who conspired to murder. That’s what the people are demanding. Then we need a jury that will convict. If there’s one positive trend, it’s that juries of late have been more willing to do that, not always but it used to be that they never would. And of course not all DAs will indict but again, more than before. I think video has a lot to do with this, although it didn’t help in the Rodney King case. When and if the message will affect police culture remains to be seen, however.
Someone I know on Discord pointed something out yesterday: when you have a system that blatantly puts more value on consumer goods than human lives, looting becomes the most logical form of protest.
Many female protesters in Mexico vandalized and painter with spray cans many monuments and buildings over the way women are treated and killed with impunity because of stanch machism and male privilege. People were outraged by that, even other women, never realizing that those monuments are supposed to represent liberty and justice. If you can not have those, then it is due time to start doing something in that regard. And, as many others have said: monuments and walls can be repaired, but one can not bring back to life a girl killed by a man just because he felt she rejected him.
Not Batman-wannabes. Punisher-wannabes.
@#5, cervantes:
Incidentally: the officer who actually did the killing was already implicated in two other murders, years ago. For the first one, he was one of the police officers Amy Klobuchar declined to prosecute.
Maybe things are getting worse all over the country in highly visible ways, but at least we can take comfort in knowing that none of those horrible, horrible purity tests ever excluded any of the people who were responsible, so that we could all keep voting for the lesser of two evils and the establishment could continue without apology or pause.
@drew
OK, fascist. It was a bit early to be dealing with that level of stupidity, but I think a good way to address your comment is to point out you’re confusing rules with order. These are not the same. Perhaps you are thinking rules necessarily bring about order. They do not. This should be fraking obvious. In our country, we have different rules based on one’s perceived “race.” But what happens when one is mixed race and isn’t clearly perceived as being of one particular race? Which rules apply? Or, as in this case, we have different rules depending on if one is a cop or not. As we’re seeing, we have people who are a bit ticked off that this is the case. Or what if you have multiple rules for the same situation and those rules contradict each other? What do you do? Rules =/= order. You’re really Trumping it.
ACAB so let’s burn down the neighborhood including low-income housing. Fcking brilliant
I can understand looting, it’s the arson that is intolerable.
@#11, laurian:
Until an undercover cop started smashing windows and the police set an Auto Zone on fire, everything was peaceful. But hey, I know you probably won’t read this — busy schedule, got lots of boots to lick.
laurian, #11
Yeah, I’m sure you’re genuinely concerned.
I think of it in terms of D&D character orientations. Are killer cops chaotic evil or lawful evil? Certainly evil; and they present themselves as lawful; but evil is deceptive. Nonetheless, “lawful evil” is my tentative assessment – for now.
Are the rioters chaotic good or chaotic evil? Certainly chaotic; and they present themselves as good; but there are such things as provocateurs and infiltrators. Nonetheless, “chaotic good” is my tentative assessment – for now.
The natural tendency is for all involved to move towards True Neutral.
The rioters showed their tactical precision by torching the precinct house, and the police showed their moral prudence by withdrawing from the scene.
“he was one of the police officers Amy Klobuchar declined to prosecute.””
Nope. The situations referred to are misleading.
– in one the actions he and the other officers took were judged to be justified (and he was not employed in the county where she was prosecutor)
– the second occurred in a county different than the one where she was prosecutor (and he was not employed in the county where she was prosecutor)
– she was elected to the Senate in 2006 and began serving in 2007: the other events happened in 2008 and later
@Lee Witt
He doesnt care. Hes just going to drum up some other lie to keep peddling his lesser of two evils bullshit in every thread that doesnt even warrent it. The sneakiest form of concern trolling is all he ever does.
@The Vicar, kindly show a reference on the police setting the AutoZone on fire. I can find no such reference at all.
It’s amazingly easy to do so accidentally, given the way they fired CS grenades around, as those are a fire or your money back kind of device, whether one wants it as a user of them or not. And frankly, I’ll not ascribe to conspiracy that which is far better explained by stupidity, as stupidity is about as common on this planet as hydrogen.
For those who are unacquainted with pyrotechnical devices like tear gas grenades, they’re glorified smoke grenades that burn a substance and smoke is emitted. Smoke grenades, emitting clouds of various colored smoke, tear gas grenades emitting a cloud of CS “gas”. The lot of them excel at starting unintentional fires, for police, the military and goofballs that play with smoke grenades.
@laurian Tone trolling rioters! This could be a first
To cervantes
That’s a good start to get the situation under control. However, based on other evidence, some discussed here, it seems that most of the cops of that department are irredeemable. What they really need to do is to fire the entire police department, and rely on state police for a while, and hire entirely new cops. Nothing short of that should be acceptable.
17.
Reportedly, an ex-fiancee recognized him in a picture, along with stuff of hers he used in it.