next time you get wee-wee'd up over racial unrest....

[callmeslick]

This was over a freaking BASKETBALL game.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaabk/ ... ar-AAarXJW

[Will Robinson]

Not sure what your point is. If it is to imply that looting because Michael Brown *wasn't* really murdered is somehow less offensive and ridiculous then I'd have to disagree.
At least the idiots in Kentucky are correct in their perception that their team lost.

[Spidey]

Yawn…sure and this will last how long, and do what damage to the society?

[Vander]

Rioting is an outlet for frustration. The spark of a riot is not necessarily the cause of a riot. Example: fans of a winning team riot.

[Tunnelcat]

Don't quite a few fans riot at every big loss? I seem to remember it's been a constant and universal worldwide problem. Too much testosterone and no place to burn it off, except to participate in a full blown riot. Somebody's got to pay.

http://www.sodahead.com/living/why-do-p ... n-1889829/

[callmeslick]

wellllll.....we've had more than one person here infer that black unrest was the direct cause of the government or outside agitators. Seems to me that the reasoning above(note, Vander for succinctly putting it)points up that pent-up frustration leads to rioting. I'd agree, and feel that the same applies to black citizens rioting as it does to frustrated basketball fans after a losing game. Which group has the more serious reason for frustration?

[Will Robinson]

Neither group had a legitimate reason to break the law in my two examples...so a "serious reason"?...seriously wrong is what it was.

The ferguson bunch has had decades of living in the 'unfair' conditions but only after a concentration of agitation did they go overboard and attempt to 'burn the mutha down'

And that agitation was *clearly* using a non event as the spark.
A murder that was never committed. It was a fabricated out of pure lies, a 'hands-up-dont-shoot' execution that never happened.

So if you want to be objective you should consider just how much of that level of frustration is artificially stirred up? how much of it is cultivated and sustained as a useful narrative tool for the self proclaimed leaders of the cause...who happen to profit greatly from their seat at the wheel of vehicle that depends on frustration to fuel it's engine?
How many generations of young people are being raised to believe the white man hates them as a default mindset?

A serious problem that creates frustration? Yes.
In that particular case a serious reason to riot? No. A really bad excuse to riot at best...
Otherwise it would have happened before a thug got himself shot and people fanned the flames by saying he was 'just a sweet kid getting ready to start college when a white cop executed him in the middle of the street...like they do all the time'.

In both instances it was a complete lack of just cause.

[Spidey]

How was losing that basketball game “pent up” frustration, that team was a perpetual winner?

That was no pent up anything, that was trigger activated.

Sure pent up frustration can lead to rioting, but that sure is a bad example.

[callmeslick]

How was losing that basketball game “pent up” frustration, that team was a perpetual winner?

it wasn't so much pent up for long term, but evidence of human reaction to ANY frustration, coupled with a large group of similarly frustrated humans.
As I tried to point out back in the Ferguson examples and others, what you see is GROUP behavior, which has no need for any outside persons to be exemplfied.

[Will Robinson]

You will also see an outsider is often the one to get the group 'organized'. (not in the basketball example but in Ferguson and Sanford)
In fact there are professionals who profit greatly from doing it. I think you know this very well but have a partisan/ideological need to downplay the effect those efforts have on people/groups.

[Vander]

I think blaming outside instigators is a bit of deflection. They may be co-opting frustration, but it has to be there to begin with.

[Will Robinson]

I think blaming outside instigators is a bit of deflection. They may be co-opting frustration, but it has to be there to begin with.

I dont deny there are conditions worthy of protest, frustration, etc. but the outsiders that coopted the frustration aren't otherwise disconnected. Them showing up just before the boil over isn't the beginning of their impact on the situation.
They are also responsible for a constant stoking of the fires. Making sure 'what was there to begin with' is burning hot....making sure new generations are brought up believing they are destined for unjust conditions. So a good bit of that frustration that was coopted was artificially seeded prior to the incident...prior to the birth even of most of the protestors.... and that is constantly cultivated to bear much fruit.

The relationship between some of the most powerful/effective 'activists' and the protestors/rioters is like the one between the big oil companies and the global warming deniers.

[Tunnelcat]

Testosterone, plain and simple. As a team keeps on winning, there's a corresponding rise in the levels of testosterone in that team's fans. If a team loses after a long winning streak, something's gotta give and it's usually displayed as frustration.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9811365

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/199804 ... _sys.shtml

[Vander]

The relationship between some of the most powerful/effective 'activists' and the protestors/rioters is like the one between the big oil companies and the global warming deniers.

I understand your point, but don't hate the playa, hate the game. How does one who feels strongly against oppression to the point of making it their lifes work, sustain themself in a capitalist society in such a way that their motives and incentives remain unquestionable? How can motives and incentives remain unquestionable? It's impossible. Nobody is pure as the driven snow, least of all someone getting their hands dirty.

The simple fact is that there would be no industrial activism without the very real frustration/oppression that creates the customers.

[Will Robinson]

Without a high enough collective level of integrity among citizens at large...and/or a press/media with a similar journalistic integrity many of the 'players' aren't in it for the goal at all any more. They are in it for the paycheck.
There are too many factions deeply invested in exploiting the 'game' far beyond being able to fit their actions under the veil of justification offered to genuine advocates caught up in trying to fund their civil rights 'advocacy'.

The polarization of the general population by our current political/electoral paradigm has created the market for an industry of excuse makers.
People are too lazy and willfully ignorant to tackle the issues, instead they tell themselves they are backing the right team...whichever team it happens to be...because the validation for their choice is in the media...somewhere.
So our whole culture is now a marketing test bed for tactics employed by selfish rival divisions of 'The Company' we sold out to.
We are in the wind morally and intellectually.

[Vander]

But at least we have the most powerful military in the world. America. ★■◆● yeah.

[Will Robinson]

But at least we have the most powerful military in the world. America. **** yeah.

I feel your exasperation at the realization...

But since the world is going to be a dysfunctional place full of liars and violence for some time to come, and we are just like them ourselves, then having the most powerful military is actually a really good thing. Someone is going to have it.

If we could get all the countries and factions to vote the Finnish to be in charge of the world it would be different but short of some fantasy miracle like that I think we need to maintain that big stick we carry for now.

[callmeslick]

carrying a big stick and maintaining an empire is two different things. We are currently doing the latter.

[Will Robinson]

carrying a big stick and maintaining an empire is two different things. We are currently doing the latter.

I think you are confused at the definition of 'empire'. Or you want others to be....

[Tunnelcat]

But at least we have the most powerful military in the world. America. **** yeah.

It's how that military is used that's important, and America typically fails at using it properly and sparingly.

[callmeslick]

carrying a big stick and maintaining an empire is two different things. We are currently doing the latter.

I think you are confused at the definition of 'empire'. Or you want others to be....

um, a military budget equal to the entire rest of the planet, and bases in 40 nations resembles an empire.........

[Will Robinson]

carrying a big stick and maintaining an empire is two different things. We are currently doing the latter.

I think you are confused at the definition of 'empire'. Or you want others to be....

um, a military budget equal to the entire rest of the planet, and bases in 40 nations resembles an empire.........

I think a budget is totally irrelevant to the definition of an empire. So throw that out.
Then tell me which bases in which countries that are enforcing our government as a supreme authority over those citizens. And if you have a couple still on the list we can look into the possibility that we are imperialists.

If not then what have is more slick talk.

[Vander]

I think we have an empire, but it is different from past incarnations, which were mostly controlled by monarchs. We buy stuff. If you don't want to sell to us at the right price, well, that's a nice country you got there, it's a shame if something should happen to it.

We don't install our own government, because that would require representation in our own capital. Who the hell wants to talk to the junior Senator from the great state of Nicaragua? So we fund and train people who do what we want, or who are against the people who won't.

We're the world police because we don't want anyone else to do it. Someone else might have interests that conflict with ours. What is our interest? To make the world safe for our capitalists.

[Will Robinson]

I think we have an empire, but it is different from past incarnations, which were mostly controlled by monarchs. We buy stuff. If you don't want to sell to us at the right price, well, that's a nice country you got there, it's a shame if something should happen to it.

....

It sounds like something so different from an empire the description doesn't fit at all.

Can you give an example of bad things that we caused to happen to a country because they wouldn't sell product cheap enough to us?

I know recently we facilitated bad things happening to Egypt, Libya and Syria. Was that actually us building our empire?

Is WalMart full of cheap Chinese product because they feared we might do something bad?

I think you are trying too hard to protect the hyperbole.

Making an ally of foreign governments because they have a desirable business relationship with our country is not building an empire. The fact they are an autonomous entity proves that regardless of the business dealings.

If someone can't describe what is wrong with that practice without having to exagerate the negative aspect then what are they building?

[Vander]

Can you give an example of bad things that we caused to happen to a country because they wouldn't sell product cheap enough to us?

Iran - 1953
Guatemala - 1954
Cuba - 1960
Iraq - 1963
Congo - 1965
Brazil - 1964
Chile - 1973
Nicaragua - 1980's

This is an incomplete list of Coup's we funded or took part in during the cold war. Basically any country that might've been a hair left of center right, or were looking at nationalizing certain industries to benefit their people. It's obviously not cut and dried, but by and large it was the fight between capitalists and communists.

What is the difference between conquering a country and manipulating a country to serve your interests? It's not about freedom and democracy. Most of those countries were democracies! We backed authoritarians! Death squads! It was about making the world safe for private ownership. How is that not an empire? Because our government didn't own it? Who owns our government?

If it's not an empire, what is the huge military spread around the world for exactly?

This may strike more of a nerve for me as someone a bit to the left, because if I were in one of these countries back then, I could probably count on the US government looking to kill me.

Is WalMart full of cheap Chinese product because they feared we might do something bad?

We bought China. Or they bought us. They supposedly play the long game, so the jury's still out.

[Will Robinson]

I don't see a single name on that list that supports the empire tag.

I can think of two, Texas and Hawaii.

I think you prefer the negative connotation of the word 'imperialism' because there is no ambiguity to the nature of it compared to the concepts and practices you would have to spin to give what you are really describing an equally negative and readily accepted inference.

I guess people who are ideologically predisposed to want your narrative to be a worthy indictment or those too lazy or stupid to care about the details will embrace it without question.
I don't buy it. I know what imperialism looked like and your list is altogether something very different.

Of course if you now want to embark on demanding I defend against Iran Contra or some such then you may toss that red herring into the road....but you won't be talking about Americas imperialism. Imperialism is what happens when diplomacy / the-business-of-politics fail to secure a consensual relationship.

Remember that veil of having-to-get-dirty-to-fund-x,&z' that you were so eager to invoke:

How does one who feels strongly against oppression to the point of making it their lifes work, sustain themself in a capitalist society in such a way that their motives and incentives remain unquestionable?

Isn't that the same principle at work behind the names on your list?

If Jesse Jackson was leading armed invaders into the Coca Cola board room, killing family members of the chief executive officers, etc to force a permanent take over of the company he would be the 'imperialist' civil rights leader.
But he didn't, he just threatened them with bad publicity and boycotts until they gave him the 'donations' he wanted....until they 'agreed to his price'.

Why do you want to hate some playas and defend the others?

[Vander]

I know what imperialism looked like and your list is altogether something very different.

Imperialism is what happens when diplomacy / the-business-of-politics fail to secure a consensual relationship.

You mean like aiding the overthrow of governments? Or does that only count if we declare war and send our own troops?

Of course if you now want to embark on demanding I defend against Iran Contra or some such then you may toss that red herring into the road....but you won't be talking about Americas imperialism.

Nah. It's only the funding and training of the Contras that's applicable, not where the money came from. Though, arming both sides of a war, and complicity in cocaine trafficking while lengthening drug sentences makes for a good 'whats more evil' coin flip. Just don't tell woodchip we deal with terrorists.

Isn't that the same principle at work behind the names on your list?

I see. We were just getting our hands dirty because we were so strongly against communist oppression. Global capitalism was just a lucky bonus? It's what we were fighting for.

If Jesse Jackson was leading armed invaders into the Coca Cola board room, killing family members of the chief executive officers, etc to force a permanent take over of the company he would be the 'imperialist' civil rights leader.

What if Jesse Jackson just paid and trained others to do so? Still an imperialist?

Why do you want to hate some playas and defend the others?

I couldn't give two sh!ts about Jesse Jackson. If he's a whore, he's a whore. My question was purely rhetorical, not some assertion that his motives are pure. I was geniunly curious as to how someone in our society can get a taste of fame or success and have their motives remain pure. Not just their motives, but the appearance of their motives. You can always say someone successful is only in it for the money and have it stick.

Jesse Jackson did not create oppression and frustration. He is a problem, not the problem.

[Will Robinson]

I had already conceded there was a legitimate problem in Ferguson, and by extension society at large, so don't try to imply I was suggesting the 'only' problem was the pimps and playas.

I was suggesting the boiling point that brought it to riot level is in part because of the self serving methods of agitators.
And I'm saying the narrative that makes it so easy to maintain the frustration generation after generation is not just some side effect of the problem. It is a very weighty problem in itself with just as much cultural support and wilful execution as running slave plantations had.

I went to school in South Carolina where a black friend told me he could never be president because he is black. I told him he was wrong and he needed to loose that attitude if he wanted to achieve a goal like that.
30+ years later I'm back in South Carolina voting for a black man in a presidential primary.
I hope he isn't wearing a 'Hands Up Don't Shoot' T shirt today, I hope instead he has rejected the narrative and is living life with a positive outlook, seeing people for who they are on an individual basis instead of seeing the bogeyman the pimps are telling the children about.

I hear a lot of talk about our black president but it is hardly ever to celebrate the extreme change in our culture that made his rise to power possible. It is always in the context of an attempt to say that Jim Crow is the 'dog that ate his homework'.

We need to lose that attitude if we are going to achieve the goal. We need to face the reality that there are too many powerful players that depend on racial strife for their power. We need to reject their narrative.
That doesn't mean situations around the country like the Ferguson Police/City administrators won't be dealt with. The opposite in fact because it will bring more people to the fight, it will unite us.

A narrative that is positive makes us all on the same team. The current game plan is to keep us divided.

The real problem you are talking about is the reason OJ Simpson got away with murder via jury nullification. It's hard to fault them.

The other problem that I'm talking about is the reason the cops who killed Eric Gardner had a jury nullify their indictment. It was blowback from watching the ridiculous 'Hands Up Don't Shoot' scenario play out. I do fault them for it but I would be a fool to ignore the frustration they had.

[Vander]

I'm a middle aged white guy who grew up on the fairly diverse mean streets of the silicon valley suburbs. My parents are not overtly racist, but I view a soft bigotry of low expectations that was probably more class related that tended to play out along racial and cultural lines. I have friends who I consider racist more by culture and upbringing than by any direct experience. I consider myself prejudicial, though not overly so. I try to give those I interact with the respect I want to receive myself, but there are those I don't interact with, by circumstance or by choice.

In short, my life has not been lived on the front lines of racial tensions. I do not know what it is like to grow up with overtly racist parents who have imparted that worldview to me. I do not know what it is like for my kin to be systematically discriminated against for their culture or race. When I empathize with the sides in a conflict, I tend to sympathize with the less powerful. Does that produce bias when viewing the actions of some in context with the actions of others? Absolutely. Does that produce more of that soft bigotry by lowering my expectations? Most likely. Does this show a lack of integrity on my part? Maybe.

When I look at our history, there is a systemic bias that, while greater in the past, is still very much with us today. A misguided response to this bias does perpetuate it, but it is still a response. When I weigh the systemic bias and a misguided response in my head, the bias draws more derision, and therefore more attention as the root problem.

I whole-heartedly agree that this is not a one sided issue, and it will take all sides to elevate past it.

[callmeslick]

I hear a lot of talk about our black president but it is hardly ever to celebrate the extreme change in our culture that made his rise to power possible. It is always in the context of an attempt to say that Jim Crow is the 'dog that ate his homework'.

apparently, you don't get out much, or don't talk to a very diverse crowd. I spent a very pleasant day several years ago among a few hundred thousand people celebrating that very fact, and hear constant reminders that Obama's election was another milepost along the way. Sadly, far too many folks have used his very presence to justify their latent hatreds, but it is hardly Obama's fault, nor his supporters......

[callmeslick]

When I look at our history, there is a systemic bias that, while greater in the past, is still very much with us today. A misguided response to this bias does perpetuate it, but it is still a response. When I weigh the systemic bias and a misguided response in my head, the bias draws more derision, and therefore more attention as the root problem.

I whole-heartedly agree that this is not a one sided issue, and it will take all sides to elevate past it.

d

well put, and I'd agree wholeheartedly. As a child of the south(Virginia), I grew up with both strict, legally enforced segregation and overt racism. One is gone altogether, the other diminished noticeably. I view the more recent issues as holdovers of a dying mentality, coupled with a panic setting in from the gradual loss of privilege accelerating in speed.

[Ferno]

When I empathize with the sides in a conflict, I tend to sympathize with the less powerful. Does that produce bias when viewing the actions of some in context with the actions of others?

I believe that's actually your sense of justice kicking in. You see a balance that's overtly one-sided and to you, and that triggers a sense of injustice. Honorable trait to have.

[callmeslick]

and now, we have a 50 year old man shot 8 times by a white cop for the heinous offense of a tail-light failure and MAYBE back child support. Everyone wants to point out that the South Carolina locals did arrest him and fire him, but it took several days and a clearcut video of the event to keep it from being a total whitewash and every soul I know in Charleston(and I know a few) believes that to be the case.

[Will Robinson]

and now, we have a 50 year old man shot 8 times by a white cop for the heinous offense of a tail-light failure and MAYBE back child support. Everyone wants to point out that the South Carolina locals did arrest him and fire him, but it took several days and a clearcut video of the event to keep it from being a total whitewash and every soul I know in Charleston(and I know a few) believes that to be the case.

One, so far the race of the murderer and the victim don't seem to be a factor so citing it in this discussion is irresponsible.
Second, suggesting it was going to be whitewashed is presumptive on your part. It might have been a case where he got away with it but it looks like there were other cops on the scene, at least one of them black, so would it have likely been a blue thing not a black/white thing if it happened.

Third, it was 2nd degree murder unless the video is fake or the guy was known to be an escaping violent felon. No reason to shoot a fleeing suspect otherwise.
I'll go out on what appears to be a very sturdy safe limb and say the cop lost control and murdered the man.
I won't say race had anything to do with it until there is some evidence. I wish for everyone's sake that everyone would follow suit.

[Spidey]

In short, my life has not been lived on the front lines of racial tensions. I do not know what it is like to grow up with overtly racist parents who have imparted that worldview to me. I do not know what it is like for my kin to be systematically discriminated against for their culture or race. When I empathize with the sides in a conflict, I tend to sympathize with the less powerful. Does that produce bias when viewing the actions of some in context with the actions of others? Absolutely. Does that produce more of that soft bigotry by lowering my expectations? Most likely. Does this show a lack of integrity on my part? Maybe.

When I see two sides in conflict I do my best to figure out which side is right, if there is no clear cut right and wrong, I will usually take a neutral position.

[Tunnelcat]

and now, we have a 50 year old man shot 8 times by a white cop for the heinous offense of a tail-light failure and MAYBE back child support. Everyone wants to point out that the South Carolina locals did arrest him and fire him, but it took several days and a clearcut video of the event to keep it from being a total whitewash and every soul I know in Charleston(and I know a few) believes that to be the case.

One, so far the race of the murderer and the victim don't seem to be a factor so citing it in this discussion is irresponsible.
Second, suggesting it was going to be whitewashed is presumptive on your part. It might have been a case where he got away with it but it looks like there were other cops on the scene, at least one of them black, so would it have likely been a blue thing not a black/white thing if it happened.

Third, it was 2nd degree murder unless the video is fake or the guy was known to be an escaping violent felon. No reason to shoot a fleeing suspect otherwise.
I'll go out on what appears to be a very sturdy safe limb and say the cop lost control and murdered the man.
I won't say race had anything to do with it until there is some evidence. I wish for everyone's sake that everyone would follow suit.

The cop has been charged with murder in this case, even though race has came up, as usual, since the cop was white and the victim was black. Personally, I think a different code was violated in this case, an old western code. A person isn't being a man if he shots another man in the back, especially if that man is running away. Even if that video hadn't been taken, I'd think any pathology report would show that the victim was clearly shot in the back while fleeing.

[callmeslick]

yes, race was a factor. No way that cop would've shot a white guy fleeing a traffic stop for a tail-light. Second, the video clearly shows him planting evidence, and all signs were that the North Charleston authorities were accepting his story(the guy went for my taser), until the video showed up. Sort of late for claiming the moral high ground. Bottom line, any wonder why there is pent-up anger and frustration within Black Americans?

[Will Robinson]

yes, race was a factor. No way that cop would've shot a white guy fleeing a traffic stop for a tail-light. ...

.... Bottom line, any wonder why there is pent-up anger and frustration within Black Americans?

Good grief!
No, there is no wonder at all with so many people like you who think just because they are trying to side against injustice the injustice they themselves create is excused.

And for those like you that are smart enough to understand the distinction it is exceptionally dispicable to do it anyway because it helps you sustain a narrative that your ideology depends on.

You have no evidence that he wouldn't have shot a white suspect in that moment!
And you know that to, instead, promote that narrative as a forgone conclusion is the absolute antithesis to healing racial division.

Thanks for doing your part. Your terrible and destructive part. I'm sure you make someone very proud that you set aside integrity and good faith as a sacrifice to the cause of exploiting division in perpetuity.

I take back what I said, if Mars attacks you are on your own. No Slim Whitman records for you.

[Spidey]

An honest answer for me would have to be that race may have played a part, but drawing absolute conclusions is definitely crossing a line.

[Will Robinson]

An honest answer for me would have to be that race may have played a part, but drawing absolute conclusions is definitely crossing a line.

You must be mistaken...he 'militantly rejects absolutes'.