Agreed.
While I generally agree, I don't believe the riotous actions are a result of victim mentality.
[INFJ] This will make you rage
- Thread starter Roses In The Vineyard
- Start date
I don't have a clear opinion there are a lot of complicated reasons I'm sure. Why do you think they riot what emotions are in play?
I'm not the one to ask about that. I've not experienced anything like they do. I can say the peaceful, non-violent protesting of present and past has done nothing to change anything.
I searched for and watched the entire video of the most recent incident. The cop pressed his knee into Floyd's neck while he was not resisting and telling the cop he couldn't breathe and it hurts. He was not resisting. Bystanders were telling the cop to get off of him and he wasn't resisting. The cop stayed on his neck calmly for about 15 minutes while the guy died. This isn't an isolated instance. This kind of thing has been happening for decades and longer. Non-violent protesting has proven ineffective. I don't enjoy violence, but I'm of the opinion someone should've shot this cop to save this man's life. But then they'd just go to prison for life too. What to do? Accept it as normal life is not the answer.
It does seem that the murder of George Floyd was a breaking point. Mass protests on this scale haven't occurred in this country since the 60s. Being in a pandemic and people feeling more desperate may also contribute. Americans are a largely anesthetized people. So long as we can retreat into our creature comforts we have been content to let things slide. This may be the shift. And I hope it is. I don't like to see rioting and looting (and we see there are groups with their own agendas exploiting this) but I hope the mass protests and the demand for justice continues until these officers are convicted. Of course, police are charged all the time for killing people but the charges are either dropped or they are acquitted regardless of the evidence. It has always been justified and excused. We can't let that be any longer. Shouldn't have even gone this far. So how do you enact change in the nation's police force? There are good officers but evidently they aren't capable of effecting change. The police are not
centralized and all run independently. There is little if any accountability. Yet US police maintain a toxic culture. That is pervasive. The Blue Lives Matter and Respect The Blue Line campaigns are really ways of normalizing and pushing authoritarianism. Look how pervasive that is. Bumper stickers everywhere with it. Black and white flags in people's yards with a single blue line. That is a sight that should disturb everyone. Blue Lives Matter tee shirts. A great chunk of our country is begging for right wing authoritarian rule.
centralized and all run independently. There is little if any accountability. Yet US police maintain a toxic culture. That is pervasive. The Blue Lives Matter and Respect The Blue Line campaigns are really ways of normalizing and pushing authoritarianism. Look how pervasive that is. Bumper stickers everywhere with it. Black and white flags in people's yards with a single blue line. That is a sight that should disturb everyone. Blue Lives Matter tee shirts. A great chunk of our country is begging for right wing authoritarian rule.
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It certainly seems like everyone has an agenda based on their own compartmentalized ideology. My hope is that people can come to see the things that unite us. To bring back good will to one another so we can turn our eyes toward the real corruption. The over reaching power of the state.
Good hope. I think, at least with this particular issue, it starts with the thought, "no shit there are riots!" It's perfectly understandable. That doesn't mean burning shit down, shooting people, and looting is right. And it doesn't mean those actions make sense, but no shit things are at this point. Seriously, how can anyone genuinely expect anything different at this point. Nothing else has worked. Literally, nothing.
An officer can kneel on your neck until you are dead. It's unfortunate but it is just how the US works. Maybe if you keep asking nicely for another 60 years it will stop.. But how dare you flip a police car in response, you animal!? That's how anesthetized we are.
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Deleted member 16771
The American 'state' is probably too weak and dysfunctional, rather than the other way around.
The 'power' a state can exercise is the product of two axes, ala Michael Mann ('The Autonomous Power of the State'): infrastructural power and despotic power.
In simple terms, 'infrastructural power' is a state's 'reach' - how much it is able to get to people, &c., whereas 'despotic power' is what its allowed to do to those people once it gets to them.
The historical record shows an inversely proportional relationship between these two types of power, with states high in one low in the other. For instance, a high level of infrastructural power increases the certainty of arrest which decreases the need for deterrence like capital punishment (despotic power).
The United States is structurally set up to require much more despotic power than its other developed counterparts, because it does not possess as much infrastructural power.
The state is 'weak' in the wrong axis, and the result is that it has to rely upon much more despotism to enforce its will.
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Deleted member 16771
Good point but the over reach is real
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Deleted member 16771
Yes!
Lol Well, I don't have a gun. I guess that's a start. It's going to take some serious government action, and I mean actual physical action and war to remove the guns from people. There are people that have their homes full of guns and have caches buried in their yards 'just in case' the gov't tries to take the guns away. We'd have to do away with the influence of money in the political arena so organizations like the NRA can't influence our politicians to spread fear and increase the demand. Honestly, I don't see the US doing either of those things.
The IRS and the ability to print currency is the most over reaching catastrophic travesty for one. The amount of unnecessary government employees who run around policing the will of the state DEA. The list goes on and on.
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Deleted member 16771
Tracing back the causal sequence of how things got this way, it's very clearly much more to do with the availability of guns in the US (and the extremely dangerous policing environment it's created) and much less to do with 'institutional racism'. Even so, there are so many other structural flashpoints in American society that it's painful to list them all.
Guns are fun, I get it, but I'm not sure that existing at the tipping point of anarchy and living in constant fear is necessarily a very good trade for a shooting hobby.
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Deleted member 16771
Well it doesn't need to be like that - that's corporate interests again. The state could easily deduct taxes directly from paychecks like the rest of the world, but the US accounting industry is too lucrative.
Lol. Keep your bitcoins.
That ability alone allows for every symptom you're viewing. The state has no business interfering with economics. The reason the state could "easily do something" is proving the point. Just as the murder of a man can be easily accomplished from the backing of the state.
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Deleted member 16771
Are you aware of the irony of making this argument in reference to the United States?
More highly regulated states don't have these problems to nearly the same degree.
How is gun control coming up here?
The NRA were all for gun control in 67 when the Black Panthers entered the state capitol in California, armed. Black Panthers were also patrolling the streets armed due to police brutality. The state couldn't have that.
The NRA were all for gun control in 67 when the Black Panthers entered the state capitol in California, armed. Black Panthers were also patrolling the streets armed due to police brutality. The state couldn't have that.
I agree but the problem is people they can't be trusted in positions of power.