Safe?

ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,169 Posts
How are U.S. strutteurs doing? What's going in your cities/communities? Are your community members sufficiently upset about the state of affairs where you live?

When was the last time a US President had to hide in a bunker because of domestic affairs?


  Comments


  • ElectrodeElectrode Los Angeles 3,129 Posts
    I live in an area just outside of Los Angeles and here - can't speak for places like Van Nuys, Beverly Hills or Santa Monica where there has been some action - aside from boarded up store fronts out of caution, a loosely enforced "curfew" and the occasional sloppily attempted pharmacy break-ins, it's been crickets. The few protests I have seen while making mid-day work related errands have been peaceful. Nowhere as intense as 1992. I was only eight then but my dad had crazy stories when he was a real estate agent who worked downtown and his best friend on the LAPD homicide investigation squad.

  • SPlDEYSPlDEY Vegas 3,375 Posts
    I'm safe for now man. Las Vegas is angry AF, but we're not quite on fire jut yet. Let's just say the cops are not exactly joining the protesters, and taking a knee to say a prayer for Big Floyd. The old green eyed monster reared his ugly head again in this country. President Greed sure is a mean ugly nasty MF, and I guess deep down everybody gotta look inside of themselves to destroy the parts of ourselves that act like that. Let's just hope there's more compassionate people and less greedy, ignorant, racist people full of hate or else we're all gonna be in trouble. 

    PS: Terrorism -  the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
    https://impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org

    - Diego

  • From my non-US perspective, there was a big BLM protest in London - the news focused on the actor John Boyega making a really impassioned and emotional speech, but it's worth noting the cops did what they know how to do about protests in London - mass arrests. Nowhere near the unrest as the States, but just the same old London protest kettling.

    To keep up with what's going on in my home country, instead of the news (which seems obsessed with fucking property destruction, which I don't give a FUCK about and anyone who even brings it up, to me that's a big red flag that they don't give a fuck about Black people) I've watched some splitscreen live feeds from the ground - a guy on twitch, "Woke", is aggregating FB/insta live feeds each night from different cities. 

    Watch one of those and watch your sympathy for the maniacs in uniform evaporate. Every single god damn time things "turn violent" it's police inciting it, either through straight up unprovoked attacks on unarmed people or undercovers smashing stuff up - I saw a group of police IN UNIFORM wrecking a cruiser... countless people on their knees getting clubbed unprovoked, journalists being targeted, gassed, arrested, blinded by "non-lethal" rounds. I guess if you're paying attention I'm just saying what you already know.

    I also saw police apparently ignoring/sanctioning a roving militia of white racists with baseball bats patrolling Philly I think it was. Not a good precedent. If you think groups like this aren't going to be posted outside voting places to scare off non-racist-white voters in November...
    DuderonomySPlDEY

  • ketanketan Warmly booming riffs 3,169 Posts
    I was watching a random guy on FB live the other night walking through Minneapolis over the course of an hour or so, from relative calm to the frontline of protests with police on a bridge.  It was intense how much teargas and how many rubber bullets were being used by police, especially since the protests seemed relatively peaceful (apart from building some barricades). 

    Heartening to see so many people out there each night.  I hope the marches continue.  I know there's a lot of unemployment out there these days, so could be a really great opportunity for some camaraderie to develop and strengthen the movement. 

    There is also structural discrimination up here in Canada that disproportionately affects Indigenous and Black people; but politicians seem to have an easy time pointing at the US and suggesting that things aren't that bad here. But then, this was the solidarity march for BLM in my small Canadian city a couple off days ago: https://www.facebook.com/kyle.neverfailes/videos/10158203680302226/  - 20k on the ground and another 4k online.  
    Electrode

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
     ketan said:
    There is also structural discrimination up here in Canada that disproportionately affects Indigenous and Black people; but politicians seem to have an easy time pointing at the US and suggesting that things aren't that bad here.

    In terms of racism, the US of A is a get-out-of-jail-card for most countries. The combination of a recent history of slavery and armed police that routinely shoot & kill people is hard to top (hello Israel). The thing that bugs me about Kapernick taking a knee was that from what I read, no white players joined him, which really gives the impression that WASPs at least, just don't give a fuck about anything that doesn't affect them directly, even though you watch BLM marches and this is disproved. Football in England has problems with racism, but no problems finding famous players of any colour willing to speak out about it or show solidarity. Thinking about the Michael Jordan doc and his refusal to endorse a black Dem politician on the grounds that Republican voters buy sneakers too... think that pretty much sums up the problem. Racism is so central to the US that famous sportsmen are unwilling to make a commerical/financial risk alienating the richer white demographic over something that in other countries NOT speaking up about would tar their profile.

    Seriously, could you imagine Wayne Rooney saying "I'm not going to wear a Kick It Out armband" or some shit? Unthinkable. The reverse is true in USA: don't want to offend racists.

    Jimster

  • SPlDEYSPlDEY Vegas 3,375 Posts

    FUCK THE POLICE!

    - Diego
    Duderonomy

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    Just saw this...




  • So I ran into some barricades on my walk yesterday through London - cops were blocking off around Westminster for the protest - I was like, what protest? The BLM one (aka the big one) was called off. Turns out the right wingers, white supremacists, nazis and "statue defenders" couldn't get to their beloved statues because they'd already been boarded off and surrounded by cops protecting the shit from them. And with no protest to "counter-protest" they just attacked the cops. I mean, is that a step up from the States where the Nazis actively collaborate with the cops?

    Also Winston Churchill engineered the deaths of 4 million Indians by starvation and deserves no honor. He took joy in terrorizing the Irish, the Afghans, the Boers, was integral to the creation of apartheid, etc., etc. He basically agreed with Hitler on the racism shit and fought him out of pride for the British empire - he didn't like Hitler expanding his own empire. The whitewashing of him, in my view, is worse than that of the slaver in Bristol whose statue got dumped in the canal last week.
    Duderonomy

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts

    Yeah, the war guff about Churchill doesn’t really interest me, I just find it sad that such a witty guy full of memorable jokes also held reprehensible views and was just another imperialist elitist bastard.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,244 Posts
    protests have been relatively quiet here in Brazil, although a few groups have gone out to protest the fascist president's supporters. A big part of the antifas here come from football crews, who are used to fighting cops on a regular basis and know the cops here are friends of the nazis.

    Still, despite the tiny groups of antifa who showed up on a sunday afternoon, São Paulo cops are so convinced people want to tear down a hideous statue of one of the country's founding genocidal fathers that they've been guarding it 24/7 for over a week now:




    not that it shouldn't be torn down, but you would need at least a bulldozer or some dynamite to do it

    DuderonomyElectrode

  • ElectrodeElectrode Los Angeles 3,129 Posts
    That Borba Gato reminds me of one of those goofy roadside attractions in Minnesota.



    ppadilha

  • RhythmGJRhythmGJ Buffalo, NY 219 Posts
    Et Tu, Strutté?


    GJ
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