The death of George Floyd
- PrettyPantherposted 4 years ago
0The death of George Floyd has brought anger and heartbreak to America. Our nation is suffering, We have seen fighting and destruction but we have also seen heroic acts and acts of kindness and solidarity.
Where will we go from here? Will we, as a nation, finally come together and admit police violence against citizens, especially black citizens, is a systemic problem that must be addressed on a national level?
Portland, Oregon police taking a knee for George Floyd:
https://youtu.be/8WFqP_Yb3yII don't know, Panther. People's hearts need to change and the solution goes beyond just more laws and its application.
I am sure that there are many horrendous events that take place everyday such as this for every and anyone regardless of race. It could be more common than we would like to admit. But, today it is hard to avert from the glaring gaze of ubiquitous cell phone cameras.
It was the brazen nature of the cops involved, starkly applying excessive force on a man before an live audience, that stirs people up, such gall.
We have a President who the Mayor of Atlanta said is better when he just stops talking, fanning the flames rather than taking leadership toward a healing process.
These problems lie deep as part of the American psyche, and like hair dye on the skin, it has to 'wear off' not be forceably removed. I would not hazard a guess as to how long this will take, because it has been with us in various forms since the Founding of the republic.Hi credence, I agree there must be a seismic shift in the hearts of Americans but I also hope to see changes made to force accountability. Police must not be allowed to get away with brutality and murder. Zero tolerance, and a national database to prevent bad cops from simply getting a job in another city.
I certainly don't have the answers but I know we can do better.A relatively minor event in all that is going on, and it makes a point. Sometimes the "little things" can clarify the nature of the "big picture".
The white lady in Central Park that was called out for not leasing her dog by a AA bird watcher. Her threat in response to his request was to call the police emphasizing that a Black man was harassing her. Although she said that she voted for Obama etc., she knew how to wield a weapon that would get the cops out of the Dunkin Donuts and prepared to "go over the top" once at the scene.
But, recognizing that problems exist is the beginning of acknowledging need for solutions.Yes, I saw that and was embarrassed and ashamed that this happened.
Yet, there were people offended saying they saw nothing racist about it and that those who called racism are the real racists.
I watched this yesterday. So heavy and strong.
https://youtu.be/v4amCfVbA_cThanks for sharing. I agree with his point of view. But in spite of Martin Luther King's statement that riots is a form of communication from those that are ignored and unheard, I don't like the idea. As our enemies and adversaries use it to minimalize the event that was the cause and attempt to make some form of parity between the violence of the police and that of the protesters we lose our position of having the moral high ground.
The pen has always been mightier than the sword, and the ballot box is not too far behind.
Same question to you. How do you change the hearts and mind of people?
There was a time, no matter what race or religion a person was, they identified as American first and foremost (99% of the time) this is not the case today, a growing majority no longer identify as Americans, they belong first and foremost to whatever political ideal or race or sexual orientation they believe in.
In some places, like CA, you will find people waiving a foreign flag more often than a American one.
Society is no longer united, and its structures are no longer respected. Each person has their own platform(s) to speak on (FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube) and each believes their opinion is just as valid and righteous as anyone else’s opinion.
From the most ignorant individual to the most brilliant intellectual… if anything it is the intellectual that will question his belief and position on a matter, while the ignorant individual will happily bludgeon (verbally or otherwise) anyone that dare question the beliefs they “champion”.
These times are as chaotic and dangerous as the 60s but we are without great political minds of conviction and commitment, there are no intellectual political leaders than can articulate their message to inspire as the country had in the likes of Malcolm X, King and JFK.
Gone is the civility, the clarity of messaging.
We are left with the likes of Pelosi and Trump, their rants often seem either delusional or bereft of any real understanding of what the people are feeling, they are less than inspiring, often leaving people wondering how it is our Nation is still functioning with “leaders” that are so abhorrent to listen to most Americans would choose to be strapped in a dentist chair having their teeth worked on.
We are left with the sycophants willing to say and do whatever is expedient or “politically correct” in order to get people to vote for them, purely for the purposes of gaining position and power. I suppose that is the one thing Trump has going for him, he is too arrogant and full of himself to be anything other than himself.
Both sides of the aisle are filled with imbecilic personalities that are better suited to be cleaning out cages in a Zoo than leading our nation. Some are corrupt, some are sexual predators, some are so incomprehensibly ignorant they could not function successfully at anything else in life… and then there are a handful or rational competent persons thrown in the mix, that sooner or later will realize the futility and move on in life, leaving their position behind while the worst the country has to offer remains in DC.
Look at the stupidity we are dealing with.
There are 4 ex-cops that should have been arrested and charged, then the evidence and a jury could determine what their fates are. Yet three of them are still without any charges against them at all. Idiotic and cowardly leadership obviously runs throughout that State.
We have Governors continuing to lock down their states, when there is no justification at all to do so.
40+ million people out of work and we have Governors and Federal “leaders” that act as if it is no big deal, businesses going bankrupt, people unable to pay their bills, no problem… but if you dare ignore their orders and go lay out on that beach, you can bet your behind the cops will be there to bust you for it.
Idiocy or Insanity… take you pick.
Racial injustice? Righting wrongs of generations past?
We have problems so much deeper than that right now, this country is on the brink of economic and social collapse, and our “leaders” cannot even see it… or maybe they do, which is an even scarier thought.Thanks, Ken, for your contribution to the debate.
"There was a time, no matter what race or religion a person was, they identified as American first and foremost (99% of the time) this is not the case today, a growing majority no longer identify as Americans, they belong first and foremost to whatever political ideal or race or sexual orientation they believe in."
Outside of a geographical, point of origin reference that would not be true. I have not noted any of this kumbaya within my lifetime. Frustrations of a boiling cauldron about to blow over was the reality of the 50's in regards to grievances that had yet to be addressed and the 1960's and beyond speak for themselves. This unity you speak of existed during the Second World War when aggrieved segments of the population agreed to put their concerns on the back burner to focus on the defeat of the Axis Powers. But, that was a "one trick pony", short of an invasion the level of cohesiveness you speak of is not likely.
For the most part, this society has never really been united. Its institutions and the associated intergrity that has always been a given, has been exposed as a disappointment, falling short of our vaunted expectations. Technology has permitted voices previously muted to now speak. Cell phone cameras televise the truth that all is not Mayberry, regarding law enforcement, for example.
And I agree with you regarding the dearth of leadership for the 2020's relative to what we had in the 1960's.
Trump's arrogance is a threat to the Republic itself as he simply lacks the temperament required for the job, and my preferred choice is not on line to replace him.
I would probably have the say that the other 3 officers, standing around like the Three Stooges" should be, as a minimum, charged as accessories to the murder of this man.
I still say that we open, but Carefully, paying attention to where the virus is being spread while not strangling economic activity.
Racial injustice, the problem is that we are still righting wrongs from generations past that seem to continue into generations (present).
The "Twenties" is off to an ominous start, let's hope that what we have experience in the early month is not going to be the standard for remainder of the decade.True.
Times have changed as well, there may have once been a time when Mayberry was real in most parts of the country, but there are few such places like that today.
Back then America was the leader of the free world, today it is competing with China and other factions to remain relevant as a world leader.
And we are fighting amongst ourselves like never before... the President calls ANTIFA terrorists, and CNN labels them heroes. The President calls out for Order and CNN calls him a Russian puppet and Dictator.
The Democrats have tried repeatedly to Impeach him, to investigate him, and work to undermine the nation's best interests just to be rid of him.
And we are seeing the results, and we are by no means at the peak of how bad things are going to get. We have come to the point where we are going to have Martial Law, or we are going to have Anarchy.
States like CA, OR, IL, WA, MI, MN, NY are lacking the leadership required to maintain order. They think they can tell their people to stay on lockdown indefinitely, and the people are going to obey their dictatorial and unjustifiable lock-down orders.
Take away people's jobs, take away people's ability to live their lives freely, and this is what you will see... a devolvement of society into anarchy and survival.
The George Floyd murder was only the spark, much of the nation (these "progressive" states that remained on lock-down) was a powder keg waiting to explode.
Brought on by long ago wrongs, by an out of control media that stokes the flames with fabrications and bias, by extremist politcs... and most of all by loss of employment, income and freedoms.
The worst is yet to come.
So what is your solution? I like to hear it. This cannot go on each time an incident like this happens in America. Where is the protest when blacks are being shot and killed in the inner cities of Chicago? Does black lives really matter? or only when it happens by a white cop?
This bad cop was arrested and charged with murder.
What additional steps must take place in your opinion to stop this carnage?Nice to have you back, Jack
Let me explain, you know I believe the situation surrounding Amy at Central Park speaks more directly to the heart of this problem than the murder of Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis.
The cop responsible could just be some loathsome brute that could have easily responded in a violent manner toward anyone regardless of color. Such a man should have been properly screened and never allowed on any police force. This brute in Minneapolis was totally oblivious of the ramifications of what he was doing and disregarded the powder keg reaction that he instigated within black communities across the country. So, now we have a national uprising as the result.
However, "Amy" is more telling. This is about a young woman (progressive) or so she says, that when justifiably confronted about not having her dog on a leash, resorted to a weapon that she knew was always available to her at the touch of her cell phone, that would activate the powers of white privilege and supremacy against a black man who dared to even challenge her. Wrong or Right was irrelevant, she was "progressive" as long it remained trendy and convienient, but did not hesitate to use the weapon of oppression in her toolbox whenever she wanted. In other words, she failed to walk the talk.
What if she could have decided that she should have resolved the issue with this black man without resorting to her arsenal of white supremacist weapons? Could she have simply decided not to use her truncheon, today? We are not talking about forever, just today, one day at a time.
It is the little things that have a cumulative effect, if more of you left your truncheons on the shelf rather than reflexively resort to them, we would go down the proper path as a good start.
As for additional steps, submitting police recruits to psychological batteries and consistently holding officers to account for the use excessive force in subduing suspects helps.
The example in Louisville, KY was a good one, the mayor fired the Chief of Police for allowing officers to deactivate body cams. Body cams are a requirement in my view for all law enforcement officers. As they help to keep everybody honest.
It is like Sheriff Buford Pusser said in the film "Walking Tall", two things he insisted on was 1. That the law was to be applied equally and, 2. Those involved in corruption would have their heads knocked off.
The situation in Brunswick, Ga. comes to mind.
I have to remind you, Jack, that the inner city carnage among criminal elements is not excused, but I have every right to hold law enforcement officer that misbehave and kill as a result to a higher standard.Credence, well thought out statement and I agree with what you said. I wished more people would take the time to think this over before reacting with emotion.
I also wish the media would do a better job with analysis instead of fanning the flame.
I do hold Police to a higher standard and the facts do matter.
This one case was an anomaly.
Of all police incidences with the general public, in 2019 there was only 9 deaths involving white cop shooting blacks. While there were 19 deaths of whites by police. Out of the 28 total cases, all the shooting was ruled justified.
During this same time period, there were 7400 black deaths and 90% of those were committed by blacks on blacks. These includes the gang shootings and drug related violence in the inner cities.
Why are those blacks not matter?
The sad truths and irony is that if these "protesters" have their way and succeeds, it will lead to more deaths of blacks. When the police pull back and disengage, crime rate will go up and more people will die.
That is the main reason for having a police to maintain order. When that is compromised, the whole society suffers and unfortunately, innocent minorities will carry the bigger burden.Jack, people are angry, while I prefer to put my adversaries to shame with the pen, others have a more direct approach. I don't approve of rioting, but there has been unjustied attacks on groups of people protesting without violence or property damage.
Yes, Trump and his entourage attacked peaceful demonstrators so that he could get his phony photo-op. A despicable man all around, with nothing to redeem him.
Ask your President to stop fanning the flames with his threat of introducing armed forces and "looting and shooting" comments.
I am aware of Black on black crime and justifiable police use of lethal force. But where police are out of line, that needs to be reported and the media is doing its job, reporting what it sees in several urban centers across the country. How can they ignore all of this an do their job?
Sometimes people take risks to get their message across. Hasn't that been what has driven any and all uprisings? How much risk is society prepared to take with America's prestige tarnished by an out of control racism and a president that foments it on view over the entire inhabited globe? Many of us are willing to accept the burden to force "the man" to wake up and smell the coffee.... we all know and respect the police and the job they do. Nobody said anything about disengagement, but I do emphasize accountability for inappropriate behavior.Credence, So let's focus on this case in specific. This officer was fired and charged with 3rd degree murder. What else do you want to happen?
The riots are unjustified. Sorry to say, this will hurt blacks and it is being propped up by white liberal progressives. The white "karen" girl in central park is just the tip of the iceberg. The real racists, as Malcolm X said are the fox and not the wolf...
https://mobile.twitter.com/redfishstrea … 32?lang=enDon't you understand that the death of Floyd is just a part of the bigger picture? The bigger picture being racism. These protests are not unjustified. If the US was a happy country, there wouldn't have been protests.
You do not simply eradicate discrimination with a punishment of one policeman. This was the so-called drop that flooded the bucket..I don't understand it. Why are innocent people of all races and creed have to pay the price for the sin of a few bad cops?
Look at this another way, without the emotional undertone. Do you get upset when a white person is killed by police unjustly?
When that does happen, and it does, do you go out and protest and riot and loot...?
Even when OJ was acquitted of the murder of his wife and a white man, there were no riots in the street...
We demand justice, where ever it occurs, regardless of skin color. That was MLK's message. His whole movement of peaceful protest in the civil rights movement was the basis of that message.
We have not learned anything.
In fact, we are doing just the opposite. We make excuses for bad behavior saying these criminal acts are justified, and thereby embolden them to do more while police sit helpless on the side line.
If you really want change, don't make the same mistakes.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.If you don’t understand it, then you’re part of the problem.
I advise you to talk with black people and ask them how they experience racism on a day to day level. Listen to them and their stories. Learn from them.I have tried and got no where. You can't have an honest discussion on race in this country. I also could not get an answer from anyone as a solution.
Assuming all of you are right and we have a systemic race problem, then what is the solution. If there is a law we can pass, or anything legal, lets hear it. I will be the first one to work towards that. But currently, there is no solution.
What I am afraid is if we go down this path, and demonize all police and some even support "defund police" just like with the illegal immigration issue, where some wants to abolish ICE, those are deadly ideas that will hurt all innocent Americans black and white and brown...of all races.
The rule of law is what keep society functioning. Otherwise, you will see chaos. Already gun sales are reported up 80% and many of those are first time gun owners. why?
the answer is simple. If you see police standing around not-stopping crime being committed, why would anyone trust them to defend them and their families?
If it was your store being looted, what would you do?
If it was your family member being beat up for being white, what would you do?Peterstreep, just to give you a bit of history...this riots has happened before. The worst was probably in LA back in 1992, Rodney King incident.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots
I remember seeing images of Korean Americans standing on top of the roof of their stores with rifles. The police was helpless to stop the looting that was city wide. The only stores that were safe was the one where the owners took upon themselves to protect it.
Do you want a repeat of that now?
Just yesterday,
I saw Saks Store in NYC boarded up and covered with razor wires and private armed guards standing outside.
This is not the America I want to live in.
The mayor should resign in shame...IMHO.Checkout a recent case with Jessie Smollett, this could have gone very badly...all due to a hoax.
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wi … s-68947779
I have offered solutions, but being of the right wing mindset, many of you can be "hard headed". You don't want answers you rather just pour the castor oil down regardless of whether it is welcome.
But check this out this matter has gone internationally viral. I am totally elated.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/ge … d=70991689credence, with all due respect, you have no solution. Wishful thinking is not a solution. I wish the world would be a better place and all people just get along is not a solution.
How do you change the heart and mind of some people?
If someone is a bigot, can you make a law against that? can you make a law against stupidity? how about someone with no empathy?
Until someone act on those emotions, and break the law, there is little we can do.
When that happened, we have laws to deal with a crime.
That is what happened here with this case.
This rogue cop broke the law, committed murder, and is arrested and facing charges. What else do you want to happen?
what justify the carnage that ensued?
I am willing to bet if MLK was alive today, he would agree with me.You don't know much about Dr. King who recognized the structural inequity inherent in the system of which racial strife and the Vietnam war were just components.
As for what else we want to happen. A overhaul of all police department with compents that I mentioned in a earlier post. Capitalism in America is inherently racist in its construct, that need to be reformed.
I had a tangible answer through Elizabeth Warren, taking the country in the direction that is needed. But those that continue to resist want their cake and to eat it too, and in these times, that will no longer stand.
If you took the time to read earlier posts, I demonstrated how the tendency in this society toward bias in favor of whites is an inherent part of this society. I vote for candidates that will take down the physical barriers that are clearly identified as a start. Of course, the Rightwing does not want a solution yet still want a peaceful cohesive society. You can't have both.I drastically disagree that capitalism is racism. History is on my side. Just go study it if you choose to open your eyes. Capitalism lead to the greatest spread of wealth across all of society...wherever it was adopted.
The vast majority of benefactors were the poor and the underclass.Credence, if these people gets what they want, defund the police, the people who will be most hurt is not me, but the minority community where crime is higher. So, don't be so shortsighted. I want to help but apparently, I am of small minority who still has some remnant of common sense.
Nobody talking about defunding the police, Jack, more than talking about defanging it. What is it about police being accountable and doing its job without sadism and excessive force? You can't see that? Your values and attitude has a terrible crimson tint, making it questionable as to its credibility. You can help by actually putting yourself in the shoes of the people that you claim your have a solution for. You need to actual listen more to pick out the more subtle truths that are not always to be found under ones nose.
What is wrong with my solution? Isn't that what every parent including Eric Holder the Attorney General under Barack Obama taught his kids?
No one? what about this?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 … yd-budgetsAgain, Jack there is the story behind the story that you overlook, should social services be sacrificed to keep a rubust law enforcement budget?
Your point is well taken and supported, but from a minority standpoint we may not like the trade off from social services in favor of cops and prisons, solely.
I think our military budget is excessive, but that does not mean that I advocate for a military that cannot due its job. There are better places to spend money. Same with the cop issue.no one is trading off one for the other. We spent a big part of our budget on social programs...you don't deny that do you? In fact, we are going into debt each year to pay for all these programs...
BLM website calls to defund the police. I guess BLM is considered no one.
The utter stupidity of people wishing to cut funding to police everywhere, even as we look at thousands of lives lost to inner city violence is astounding.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 … yd-budgets
The statement from this site is typical: "Meanwhile, the striking visuals of enormous, militarized and at times violent police forces responding to peaceful protests have led some politicians to question whether police really need this much money and firepower."
One has to wonder just what kind of IQ can make such a statement while looking at the visuals of burned, gutted and looted cities. Reduce spending on police, reduce police tools and that is the result. Not fewer deaths but more, and it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.Oh, my. Are you sowing division, wilderness?
"The utter stupidity of people wishing to cut funding to police everywhere,...."
"One has to wonder just what kind of IQ can make such a statement...."
Just wondering.Personally, I believe that only a very tiny minority (far less than 1%) of people would ever look at ravaged cities, crime ridden inner cities and the death toll within those inner cities and say "We need fewer police!". Do you disagree? Do you think those people in crime ridden slums cry for less police protection after their toddler child was gunned down by gangs? Do you think those store owners that have lost their life's work want less police protection?
So "divisive" doesn't really apply. That handful of radical extremists aren't going to change their attitude no matter what.
Instead the comment is intended to throw doubt on whatever the writer of that article has to say for it was, IMO, an exceedingly stupid thing to say and indicates an almost completely removal from reality.
You are on record, many times, as claiming Trump is mentally ill (with only a single examination, one that said otherwise). While I did not say this writer is stupid the statement certainly was. There has to be a different reason than honesty such a statement was made.Just FYI, I advocated cutting the police budget in our small town before any of the recent events. Do we really need two German-trained police dogs for a town of 5500 people?
Must be my stupidity that makes me question such a thing.....I couldn't possibly say whether your town needs two police dogs. The "german-trained" has zero to do with it as far as I can see - is that thrown in to try and convince people that they are not necessary because the training was in Germany somehow?
But I might throw some questions your way, just for thought. What are they used for? Is your town on a highly used drug corridor? I used to live in a large gated community that was, and we had several drug dealers operating from the community - do you have a truck stop or something where there is lots of drugs being sold?.
Are they used in large part for search and rescue?
Are you in a forested area where criminals can escape on foot and the nose of the dogs is of real value? Or, I have the largest prison in the state less than 10 miles away - are they being used in connection with such a facility, to protect against escaped prisoners or even as a deterrent to escape?
Are they being used as a substitute for a second cop to accompany a first one? That might be a dollar savings. I don't know, but don't recall ever seeing a canine officer with a partner.
I guess what it comes down to is why they are there. Did you research that, questioning the "why" and understanding the reasons and uses or just decide that they aren't needed without ever understanding why someone thinks they are? Although not very flattering, that IS a very large reason behind objecting to costs, in my experience. In their ignorance people often decide that cutting costs are possible when there are very valid reasons for not doing it - they are just unaware of those reasons.Sigh...the "German-trained" has to do with cost.
As for the rest of your comments, rest assured I am aware of their reasons for wanting them and well informed about the pros and cons.Was it more expensive to bring dogs from Germany? Or cheaper? Did you check prices for dogs trained how they wanted.
That's great that you understood the reasons. It's also OK that you disagree with those reasons - we all have differing priorities. I did not mean to insult you over ignorance - I just mentioned it, as I said, because it is SO common for people to pop off about costs when they have zero idea of why they are being asked to contribute. I've been on the other end of the stick, and it was uncomfortable, to say the least, to hear people declaring it wasn't necessary to spend money when we had already hired a lawyer to explain the law to us and knew that the law said we HAD to spend. Or that they could have gotten the work done for a tenth the price after we'd done the leg work to collect multiple estimates. When the law says, for instance, that we either checked and tested the overflow system for a dam or tore the dam down (losing a lake in the process) but people cry out that it was unnecessary to test the valves, well, it is ignorance speaking, not knowledge or informed opinion.Remember, this topic arose because you referred to people who disagreed with your ideas about police funding as "low IQ." I was only wanting to make the point that you lecturing me about being divisive while making that type of comment shows a certain lack of self awareness.
I am really not interested in discussing the details of my town's police budget. I was merely using it as an example.There was also, right along with the low IQ wording, a reference to those that looked at burned out cities and say that police forces should be cut.
And that I will stand by, at least as long as we require our police to be the solution to everything. Read a very interesting article tonight - https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch … jo4K4i644o - and while I don't necessarily agree with many of his solutions I do agree with his comments that we are grossly overloading our police by requiring that they be the end-all of all problems.
Police are a military style organization, centered around the use of violence (from batons to tasers to guns, from warnings to arrests to killing) to solve the problems of society. Then we want them to fix homelessness, mental illness, stray animals, lost children and others, and so on and so on. It's like we asked the 82nd Airborne soldiers to provide day care for indigent children. They just are neither equipped nor trained for that - they are trained to kill people, using planes, guns bombs and such.
The authors point was that we need other solutions to problems that don't require violence, such as the mentally ill or homelessness. Take those tasks away from police and give them to someone that is trained and has the resources to solve them.
I agree with that concept. We require a great deal of training of our police in order to handle the violence that threatens us, from petty theft to murder. Then demand that they be mental health experts as well, in a wide range of illnesses. Then we demand they must be experts in child rearing and the elderly. Then we demand that they be experts in keeping the injured alive until EMT's get there. The list goes on and on and it just doesn't make sense; no one can be experts in everything we ask of our police. And it's a big reason, I think, that our police costs us so much and we are so upset at police when they fail at this myriad tasks we give them...without providing resources or training.
Take a read - it isn't long - and see what you think.I read the article and I agree we need to rethink what police are responsible for. That will, by necessity, require a redistribution of funding, as there is only so much money to go around.
Obviously, the current structure is causing unnecessary harm to many people. It is time for an overhaul.Agree to both the re-assignment of funding (though I would think additional funding is required as well) and that cops are required to do too much.
And that the current structure is causing harm to many people (I might debate the "unnecessary" part but only because we have made it necessary). I recall the shooting of an autistic man because he was playing with a toy gun (I think - it was some time ago) - that sort of thing is exactly what happens when we give social problems to a military organization and expect them to handle it. And wasn't there a child as well, in a different but similar case?
Our police are not omniscent and they are not perfect - there WILL be terrible mistakes when there are millions of interactions every day. But it can be cut, IMO.
*edit* No, the cop shot AT the autistic man and hit his caregiver. There had been a call about a man with a gun and the officer was responding to that, mistaking a toy truck for a weapon.I disagree with most of the ideas of the Mayor of Minneapolis but I must give him credit for not agreeing to defund the police. This is insanity to dismantle the police.
I would wish these people who call for defunding of the police, to use their mind instead of their heart. What would happen when you need to call 911 and no one respond? police does much more than just stop crimes...without a police, you will end up with the wild west where people will be arming themselves...Is that what you want?
If I was the police commissioner in these cities, I would just tell my department to stop responding to 911 calls for a day. They will be begging them to come back to work.
Credence, evidence does not support your claim. I worked at IBM for 28 years...we had a diverse community of engineers, programmers and scientists of all ethnic groups, including blacks and Indian and asians...
They had equal opportunity to advance and succeed based on individual merits.
That is capitalism at its best.Then you lived in a pretty sheltered environment. Big Blue, corporate IBM operated much like my government employer. You do your job and you could expect to move forward. Your experience example here is not truly. representative.
half of America works in the Corp. world. 10% in Government jobs...
the rest are small businesses and self employed.
I also worked for 7 years at a non-profit company that deals with people with disability before retiring in 2015. While at IBM, part of my job involved traveling all over the world... I think I have a pretty good world view of many cultures and countries. That said, I think we live in the best and freest country in the world. Too bad some of you can't see that?
why do people from other countries immigrate here and succeed, and yet Americans who are born here cannot?
Checkout this video - against Antifa...
https://710wor.iheart.com/featured/mark … terrorist/
I think before starting a discussion, you should listen. Listen to all the stories of people of colour.
I'm White, I'm a male, I had a good education and I live in Europe. In other words, I'm in a privileged position. I've never been discriminated against. Nobody ever made remarks about my skin colour. I live with this as a fact. Something I do not have to worry about.
But there are millions of black people living in a white male-dominated society. They can tell you stories. about people asking them why hey never clean there face because it looks so dirty brown. Or that they were told that they took the wrong entrance, "The cleaners rooms are downstairs..". thousands of such small prejudices. Right Boy...!!
Acknowledge that there is a huge problem. That's a start.
Acknowledge the history of your country. The Dutch and English slave trade, the mass shooting of "Indians", The lynching of negroes, The Apartheid system (most notorious Dutch word in the world!) that was still alive in the ´50s in the US. The KKK, etc. And these are the obvious systematic downgrading of the black society. There is much more, not that obvious...This is the history of the US, and I guess you as a US citizen will know many more examples.
The US politics and local authorities have to acknowledge this and act upon it. And I'm sure lots of people/schools/police departments/shops etc do.
It's a complicated problem, a deep wound that will burst open if it is not healed and dealt with properly. And apparently the problem has not been dealt with. Otherwise, you would not have had riots and demonstrations.
And if people do not acknowledge that there is a problem in the first place, it will not go away, and only grow.Peterstreep, you assume too much about me. I am Asian American and a Conservative. I do listen and I try to engage without success. I also watch with my own eyes and take my own experiences into account. I am 68 years old and have experienced almost none of the things you mentioned. Perhaps I lived in a sheltered community. I also have a keen mind and I analyze situations without letting my emotions get in the way.
This case, as horrendous as it is, is not the norm. Did you know in 2019, there were only 9 cases of blacks shot by police? During the same year, there were 19 whites shot by police. All 28 cases were ruled justified.
In that same time period, 7400 blacks were killed in total and 90% of those were killed by other blacks...gang shooting, drug related... and gang shootings...
So tell me, if Black lives matter, why would we not focus on the 7400 and put all our energy on 1 of George Floyd?
Assume I agree with you, and somewhere down the road, years from now when we become a non racist society.
Answer this hypothetical question for me.
Will it ever be OK for a white police to shoot a black man?
and if it does happen, what would be the result?
Think carefully before you answer.
I am trying to make an important point."So tell me, if Black lives matter, why would we not focus on the 7400 and put all our energy on 1 of George Floyd?"
Because those wishing to divide America (Russian, American or otherwise) find no value in attacking the problem of black killings but find great value in turning black folks in general against police and creating fear of the police?
Because no political "hay" can be made from saying blacks kill black people? Because instead of gaining votes, such a statement will likely cost a politician their job? Because media gains no readership from such a statement? Because those "earning" a living by complaining of white privilege (think the likes of Al Sharpton) and how awful things are for blacks would lose that nice living? Because activists are generally racists/bigots in today's world?
Could be a lot of reasons. None of them good.Sorry Jack, that I presumed you knew US history. I guess that was a mistake of mine.
Will it ever be OK for a white police to shoot a black man? -
No, not deadly, no. Because in the Netherlands the police don't shoot at people. As people do not have guns. Only high profile criminals in the Netherlands.
The US is a far more violent country. And that's one problem to tackle.
But the day to day racism is a different one. A problem that is huge and often not seen or recognized. If you are not discriminated against it does not mean it does not exist. Same with COVID. If you don't have it, nor does your neighbours or the street you are living in, it does not mean that it is a harmless disease. See no Evil, Ain't no Evil does not work.I am Asian but I assure you I know American history well. I am a student of history and moreover, I know our founding and our Constitution. I taught civics to some local high school students...as part of a League of Women function.
I know about race relations and the history of our racist past. However, the difference between you and me is I don't think this country is racist any more.
You replied to my question as I expected.
So, in your world, it is never OK to shoot and kill a black man.
There you have it. You just proofed that we can never have a resolution to the race problem.
In the real world, there are occasions when bad things happen. I can give you one example. A crime of passion. Some police found out his wife is having an affair and shoots and kills the man and he happens to be black.
In this scenario, it is clearly a crime, but it is not a racial crime.
In your world, when this happens, do you go out and protest and riot?
Just giving you one example of many that can happen and does happen.
We cannot allow emotions to rule the day...
The day when that happens, our society will be no more.So, in your world, it is never OK to shoot and kill a black man.
I live in a different world Jack. In a different society. With different rules towards guns. Different rules for policemen.
In the scenario that a policeman shoots the men, he finds with his spouse. The policemen would be sentenced straight away. Whatever the colour of that person. It is definitely not a racial crime. It is a crime full stop.
I was much more talking about racism in society, not per se, acts of violence. Just like sexisism is not directly a crime. But the fact that top jobs are of most part given to the old boys network. Machoism is not a crime. whistling to women on the street is not a crime, but as sure as hell painfull for the person on the other end. Calling somebody a nigger or boy is not a crime, but it is part of behaviour that is disrespectful.
And I can not understand that you can blandly say that the US is not a racist country anymore. Just a small example.. Have you never noticed that in most Hollywood films the guys that die or are the badies are dark-skinned, Chinese or Mexican? (except for Shaft...) That is part of the norm where minorities are shown as the bad ones.
Give me a movie with the protagonist a black person, and a white person as the bad one that is shot down or otherwise killed?
Yes, I am sure from the Netherlands you have a great view of what is wrong with America and how it must be fixed.
4 out of 5 people in the Netherlands are ethnic Dutch (80%), with sizable minorities of Germans, Turks, Moroccans, and others also having a visible presence in the country (over 90% identify as white).
So its very easy to deal with race issues in the Netherlands I am sure... because you have none. Its an easy issue to handle when 90% or more of the population identifies as one race.
America on the other hand went from being 90% white to 50% white in the span of less than 50 years.
So yeah, there are issues. Tens of millions are first or second generation Americans, the majority of which don't fully assimilate with American society or identify as white, so its a source of tension and friction.
You know, the same problems your neighbor nations like Sweden are learning about. Such a generous nation to take in millions of people that have no respect for Swedish culture or customs.
You live in a nation that has a smaller population than Florida, you live in a nation that has a history hundreds of years old, and a society and culture unified with one history, one language, one race.
That doesn't exist in America. America is as divided racially, religiously, and culturally as it has ever been. America has become tribal in the extreme.Ken, I would not short change America. We are great because we are diverse. We are the country of big tent. That is why immigrants from all over the world wants to immigrate here. They know they have the freedom to succeed here. We are not perfect but we are miles above the rest of the world in almost every aspect. Some of our problems like with China are self inflicted, We will correct that under Trump.
The people who espouse open borders like Germany are learning the hard lesson of allowing immigrants to go there too fast. It takes time for any group to assimilate.
The debate between capitalism and socialism is long over. Capitalism is the clear winner and unfortunately, some of our universities and youth are not getting the message or learning the right stuff. They will once they graduate and face the real world.Ken every country has race issues. It's just how you deal with them. The Netherlands has a large Suriname community and people from Indonesia. Both former colonies. And they both had to deal and still have to deal with racism. But I agree it's not comparable with the US.
Holland is well aware of its past in the slave trade and how it became one of the richest countries in the world in the 17th century.
The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries on earth, which causes tensions on it's own. It is incredibly difficult to get legal status. (My wife is asking for a Dutch passport because of the Brexit thing, so we experience the tight rule of law first hand)
I'm aware that I'm making comments from the outside. I don't know the daily life in Iowa or Florida. I base my opinion of what friends who lived in the US told me, what I experienced during two trips to New York, what I read in the newspaper, and see on the tele/internet. This is not the day to day life as someone living in Manhattan or the Bronx. As well I don't want to confuse politics with daily lives. If I did, all Americans would be like Donald Trump and all Jews like Benjamin Netanyahu.
That's one of the reasons why I like to read what you guys think here on this forum.
But my opinion (view) of the US is a valid one just from an outsider's position. Which is sometimes refreshing. Living now for 14 years in Spain, I've got a different perspective towards the Netherlands, then when I lived in Amsterdam.
- America has become tribal in the extreme. - Yes, that's a sad thing, The same is happening in Europe. Extremes are becoming more extreme. (both left and rightwing politics.) During the COVID period, a lot of Gypsies got there fair share of racism and old prejudices coming out of the closet. Here in Spain and Italy. (Don't know about the Balkan, but as they became more totalitarian and nationalistic, it would not surprise me.)I have to take issue with you here, Ken, and hopefully Peter will step in and lend a hand.
Sometimes it is best to be outside the fray to gain a better perspective of what is going on in objective sense.
While, I was in The Netherlands for a visit over 40 years ago, homogeneity of the population was not particularely noteworthy even then. Scandinavia may be different.
There were fewer if no race issues because of their attitude, not because they did not have ethnic diversity within their society. As Jack mentioned earlier, there is a difference between individual bigotry found as part of the human condition and the all encompassing, caste-like systemic racism that describes race relations in the U.S.
Visiting as a young man during my European tour, I had my antenna up with my carefully paying attention to what was new and different. I was astonished to realize that all the emotional and subconscious baggage Blacks in America carry around routinely, a healthy paranoia, was unnecessary as I was evaluated for how I treated others, how much respect I had for the languages and culture. When I took the effort, there was not a distinction made regarding me in any other way. After a while there, my American mode of thinking was as ridiculous as one wearing a space suit while exploring Waikiki beach, rather than the Sea of Storms.
The breath of "fresh air" was what enticed many black writers and artists to leave America and stay in Paris and Europe from the 1920-1960s, Josephine Baker, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, to mention a few.
It is not one language, people there are much more multilingual than we are. The unification that you refer to is not reality.
America has always been tribal, nothing new there.Credence & Peter
It was easy for the Netherlands to have that attitude towards other races, because the number of other races within their population was miniscule.
Why are there such racial issues in America where none exist in the Neatherlands?
First because of America's history of racism.
Second because it is a never ending issue that is agitated endlessly by political factions and media sources within America.
Third because there is a human element, especially in America today, where people do not want to take responsibility for themselves... its is much easier to blame others, or the system.
Speaking of the system, we have a majority of the higher education campuses where people are actually taught to be SJWs and that their problems are not their fault or their responsibility.
Imagine that, being privileged enough to be on a College Campus and receiving an education... and that education teaches you that you are oppressed, that the system is systemically racist, that Capitalism is the root of all evil, etc. etc.
Hundreds of thousands of young adults go to college to gain an education where they should be taught skills to better society and the world, through medicine, economics, STEM degrees... and instead more and more of them come out knowing little more than how to be SJWs.
One of the keys to my finding the small amount of economic success that I have, is when I stopped saying "that's not fair" and "that's not the way it should be" when it came to banking, business, credit, stocks and instead I took it upon myself to learn the rules, learn what needed to be done, so that I could stop living paycheck to paycheck.
It wasn't taught to me in school... nor in college and certainly not in the army. It wasn't taught by my grandparents or parents, they taught me about being honest, working hard, being dependable, etc. none of that gets you very far in this world if you rail against the inequalities inherent in the system rather than learning how to take advantage of them by learning what needs to be done to be successful.
Is it a White or Black issue... or is it a rich or poor one?
Or is more about a persons intelligence, drive, and common sense that really makes the difference.
If you have the time, this documentary elaborates on some of the points I am trying to make:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU"Or is more about a persons intelligence, drive, and common sense that really makes the difference. "
Never a more true sentiment.Not sure as I would include "common sense" as that derives from experience (and a young man or woman fresh out of college doesn't have any yet), but intelligence, drive and a willingness to set aside the victim mentality in favor of rational reasoning is a big part of it.
Every country has it's own problems. And The Netherlands has changed a lot. But it's an attitude that changed.
After the war, in the '50s a lot of Indonesian people came to the Netherlands. Although they had a different look and culture they integrated. My aunt married an Indonesian man, and my sister is half Indonesian. Although you always have xenophobes and racist, it was not a huge issue. As the main dish in the UK is Indian, so has the Indonesian cuisine influenced the Dutch.
In the '70s Surname became independent and lot's of Suranmese moved to the Netherlands to find a better life. There is a huge community especially in the bigger cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague. but all over the country. They integrated partly. The racism was more obvious, but the '70s were far more forgivable then today. And racism was never a huge issue either.
Perhaps because the Netherlands has a long history of assimilating foreigners. Before WWII many Jews lived in the Netherlands for generations. They had once fled Spain and other countries in Europe to find a safe place in the open society. The Netherlands is a place with an incredibly diverse mixture of religions too. This as well as it was for centuries open for different kinds of Christianity. (As long as you did it inside and not in the open all was fine. So there are for instance hidden churches, with ordinary facades like a house.) This attitude of tolerance towards religions is also the reason why the Netherlands is tolerant of soft drugs. The so-called "Coffeeshops" are there to control soft drugs. These shops can legally sell drugs, but there is a slight gray area where they get their drugs from. But because the police know where and who the stuff sells, they can control it. Drug crime is not really a problem here. (XTC and chemical drugs is a different story and a huge problem)
...back to the Issue.
I moved to Spain, partly for political reasons. In 2002 there was suddenly a new politician on the scene who started a political party (we have about 15 parties and a government is always a coalition.)
This new party's main issue. Emigration and closing borders etc. In short, all the blame for the problems was shoved into the shoes of the Moroccans living in the Netherlands. The party called Islam a backward culture and started a campaign against Islam and it's followers.
The head of the party Pim Fortuyn was on the brink of becoming Prime Minister. But he was shot a couple of days before election day in 2002.
After his death, there was hatred towards the Dutch Labour party. So much that I heard choirs singing "Death to the leader of Labour.."
The seed of xenophobia and discrimination was seeded. The open and tolerant side of the Netherlands was shut down.
Me and my wife decided to move to Spain. (With its own problems of discrimination against Gypsies, leftovers from Franco's dictatorship, domestic violence and it's Machoism)
What I wanted to say with this all is that all countries are perceptible to racism. But a government can fight it or develop a culture where it is tolerated.
The US in my eyes never really seriously tackled the problem. The US created a society (and other countries too) where the gap between rich and poor became bigger. Because of private schools and expensive education, there came also a gap in schooled people. The rich got good schooling and therefore better jobs and therefore better chances for their children. The poor were pulled deeper into the depts.
The poor against the rich is a huge problem. And the black against white is embedded in this problem.
Discrimination and sexism are still an issue.
If it was not an issue, you did not have a demonstration. Simple as that.
And it can be changed. But I'm afraid that the powers that be (White Male) are afraid to change it as it is not in their interest to change it. Divide and rule is a classic. (and then the white extreme religious side of the US..not even talking about the KKK...)
More can be said.. but enough for tonight.
thanks for the link, I will watch the video. looks interesting.Thanks, Peter, yes things have changed since the Seventies. The difference was that much of Europe has been terrorized by Islam and its failure to truly assimilate within societies having a Democratic disposition.
There was always a "reason", the Germans complained about the Turks, the British when I was there complained about the "Pakis". There were issues and problems here and there, but their basic rights and humanity was never questioned. Good times or bad, Blacks were always subject to the "caste" although they posed no threat to anyone physically or economically. This was far closer to how Hitler dealt with Jews within Germany during the Third Reich rather that ethnic and cultural conflicts expected within any diverse society.
Yes, it is not the Seventies, yet I learned more about myself and that I need not be this boogie man anywhere and everywhere, I saw that as a revelation at that time and it was profound.Because of Germans history, they have always been very strict on matters connected with xenophobia and racism.
It's only for the last 4 years that things have changed in Europe as a whole. Coincidence, nope. Stephen Bannon is traveling around Europe meeting up with extreme right-wing groups in Italy. Organizing them. The extreme rightwing groups are mimicking Trump. Here in Spain Nationalism is coming back. Franco supporters are coming out of the closet. I've been on a market organized by a pro-Catalunia organization. And suddenly there were 200 extreme rightwing people surrounding us. Giving the Hitler salute and singing old franco songs. Scarry and frightening.
These people feel encouraged by Trump and threatened by the second wave of feminism.
If you would show a conservative in the '70 what Trump is doing and saying today, they would say that he is an extremist. And rightly so.
The bigger picture of the rise of extremism is to break the European Union, as it is one of the biggest competitors with the US. And so nationalism in Europe is promoted by Russia and the US alike.
When I talk to black people on the streets or in the workplace I get a far, far different picture than is presented by the BLM wanting black people to be subject to different laws than everyone else, by politicians wanting to buy votes, by the "victim crowd" that places blame on everyone else for their own poor decisions.
Which one is right, do you think? The black man working a job or owning a small business or the BLM that builds riots?I believe the guy in the street. But.. the street in the village is not the same as the city. The “deep south” is not the same as San Fransisco.
I am satisfied when there are arrests, like I insisted upon for the Arbery case in Georgia. I think that rightwingrs infiltrate otherwise peaceful protests to give those protests a bad name.
I say no to riots but yes to continued PEACEFUL protests. Why are movements of our own initiative propped up by White liberal progressives?
That is what Southern racists used to say that "our negroes are good without all of those northern agitators coming down here and stirring them up".who is the rightwinger? don't you mean Antifa? they are left winger...aren't they?
So, are you saying you support fascism? Because that's literally who Antifa stands against.
LOL Antifa stands against law and order and that's about it.
No, just because you name your organization, does not make it so...
don't you agree?
Look up the actual organization of Antifa and watch what they do, where they get funded, and what are their goals?
They are a terrorist organization that wants to take down America by fermenting violence and hatred...and stir the racial pot.
Ask, why are they dropping off pallets of bricks in our cities?Do you know ANYTHING about Antifa and what it's done?
How on earth some in the southern and Midwestern states demand Black Americans pay taxes and then not be allowed a voice in the government they pay for is utterly disgusting.
I am so tired of the lying, the bullying and now we get a bunch of 20 to 40 somethings like the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois and the Real Three Percenters armed like Rambo on public streets ONLY to intimidate minorities.
The US Constitution is clear. Every citizen has the right to peaceable protest and "redress of government" under the 1st Amendment.
Intimidating the public is domestic terrorism.
The world saw that video of George Floyd and that little wise guy cop Derek Chauvin taunting and getting a thrill from the blue buddies in his audience.
How sick do people in these states need to get? When a man is down and begging for air, Chauvin ignores that?
If he was a NJ cop, he would be without a job and in prison. Where he belongs.I don't know of anyone who saw that video and felt any different than you. Please don't assume that there are many other police out there who support this criminal and evil act of murder.
He and others are the few exception not the rule. Yes, they need to be called out and eliminated from the police force.
The solution is not to defund the whole police.
In any other profession, when one person is found guilty of a crime, he is the only one chastised. It is unfair to paint a broad brush across the whole profession.
I believe that is what happening now and it will not end well for the very people most vulnerable. Is that what you want? I think not.I don't assume all cops are ignorant fools. In fact, I know that NJ and NY have the finest law enforcement in the world.
One of the reasons for that is the demand they be highly educated and trained. They have go be. 9/11 remember?
What I and the world saw in that video was the most ruthless, brazen subjugation of human and civil rights committed for the enjoyment of the good ole boys.
The south and Midwest need to stop using their state taxes to preach the Bible, go after women's rights and that of minority and start educating their white constituents.
So far this week, I heard Congressional reps on CSpan spouting brazen bigot remarks. One of them stated, "Black people get infected more because they don't wash their hands."
Oh gee sorry soap doesn't turn black skin white. Then you get that idiot female TX rep telling the public that George Floyd's death was "completely staged."
Doesn't anyone in these red states think before they speak? Or is there too much cow manure in their genes?I find you to be a mean lady, very forward and opinionated.
Our nation is going to go down the drain if we don't do something about Antifa and their protests. President Trump rightly suggested that a lot of this stuff is staged. Antifa is trying to get the police to react. That 75-year-old in Buffalo who claims he has a brain injury - just another Antifa member most likely. All of this is paid for by George Soros in an effort to destroy America.
If you love America, you'll join with us Trump supporters. If you hate America, you'll do something else.let's not go down that road and demonize people we may disagree with.
we are a better country when people from different backgrounds come together and agree to be governed. We are not North Korea where everyone is force to worship the President or face harsh punishment.
Diversity and civility and open discussion is good. Name calling and demonization and generalization is bad.The extreme right wing is just as fond of staging protests. The old man in Buffalo has no connection with the group you mentioned.
It's come down to this: lies, denials and now seeing things and being told what we saw isn't real. It's staged. How nuts does it get?
If I see an 800 lb. gorilla charging toward and I am told, "No No, it's just a gentle little lamb," I still run for my life.I've been trying to understand both the extreme right and left lately. Apparently, in a party that doesn't respect science (I'll let those who disagree thoroughly figure out which party that is):
belief=reason justifying any action as opposed to belief and reason must be carefully measured in order to determine logical action within a given legal and acceptable range.
So, if you think you are right, then any behavior is justifiable for the extreme right wing (and yes, sometimes other groups) because that idea originated from some perspective that says my thinking, beliefs, and behaviors can't be possibly wrong. All of those who oppose mustbe dealt with according to an interpretation based on my perfect view, according to this mentality.
Strange, arrogant, and divisive crap - that mindset truly is.Being right to me is not as important as being truthful and honest. You can be 1,000% right and dishonest as the decade is long. What good then is being right if what you are right about is a lie or in some way dishonest?
At this juncture in the US, either we fight for truth and honesty or those who believe they are right will be teaching our kids a new way of acceptance of lies and dishonesty just because they are seeing bad examples of "right."
I am MEAN when male genitals become the rulers of the world. There is no ANTIFA.
Men like you are so overloaded with testosterone that your brains cannot see what the rest of the world sees.
I am anti fascist. Why? Because I saw the video of some young snot nosed white male punk run down a WOMAN with his car in Charlottesville.
She was protesting bigotry YOU support.
Please don't ever DARE tell anyone in NJ or NY about the sleaziest bum Trump.
He is so corrupt and it is the fault of the US government for their double standard in punishing white collar criminals with slaps on the wrist.
Do you deny he laundered money in 1998 and again in 2014? Come on. Deny it I DARE you.
George Soros hands over 45% of his annual income to education and hospitals. If you are so low on the IQ, that you do not know Mr. Soros came to the US after being in a concentration camp and is a self made man who came to the US with 11 cents in his pocket, how sick a mind do you have?
You approve of Trump cheating charities by collecting donations he spent on himself and that daughter/wife of his? IN fact, you accept his incest with his daughter since she was 14?
I love my country and any time men like you lie. I call you what you LIARS. Now do me a favor and crawl back in your Neanderthal cave.
This is democracy. We pay Trump's salary. You don't get to silence any of us so you can play demi god.
Two thumps up for your passion and love for America. All cops are not idiots; you are so right. Democracy is not easy. Sometimes, we have to educate our brothers and sisters on inclusiveness and understanding we can make our nation better. I just saw a video of a White woman exclaiming to a Phillipino individual that she should get out of america because it rightly belongs to White people.
What I'm hearing is fear and resistance to change. We all are aware things can't continue as they are.
We have had a black chairman of the Join Chiefs, who probably cringed every time he had to walk into bases named after traitors, several Black and a Ltino individual on the Supreme Court, a president of color - change frightens some, but America is the greatest when we embrace those changes. It usually occurs after a bitter and painful exploration of our soul as a nation. In the meantime, we must remember these are fellow Americans. America has enough enemies, and we must encourage others to think.
Can someone tell me why we don't have statues of that king we fought against for our independence? Or why we don't name forts after those British generals?
It's easy: Our military wouldn't have it.- change frightens some, but America is the greatest when we embrace those changes. It usually occurs after a bitter and painful exploration of our soul as a nation. ...
True. This also counts for many other nations.
Without the protests of the '50s the US would not have had a black president.- And because of Obama, white conservatives felt threatened. Trump is the embodiment of this white conservatism. And on reaction to that you have the protests. These protests will change the US. How I do not know.
In Spain, we have a comparable flux going on. With feminism on the move, machoism feels threatened with the result of conservatives and extreme right on the move, as they see their world change and are frightened of it.I am sorry, but you bought into that lie about conservatives. We conservatives were against Obama not because he is black, but because of his progressive policies which hurt all Americans.
Sorry, Jack. I should not have generalized that much. I was speaking in broad terms. And surely you have a wide variety of conservatives. But the gist of the story is movement and contra movement.
in short. Black president => Racist president => Black movement.I accept that. As a conservative, I get criticized a lot and it is just a label.
Most conservatives are not monolithic. We do believe in some shared principles which I wrote about...
One of which is we are color blind. We believe in the rule of law and that it be applied to all equally. Blind justice...
One particular stereotype of conservative is we are racist and wants to keep our nation White..and because we support the Constitution...written by a group of old white men, that we are biased.
This is completely contrary to what we believe yet the left keep propagating that lie.
The truth is, we conservatives already live in a color blind society while it is the progressives that constantly bring up race and immigration as a wedge issue to divide us.
If you know your American history, you would know that it was the Democratic party that was the racist party going back 150 years.Check this video out on the history of the Democratic Party -
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tawvPhuyfF0Common sense will prevail in the end. After the insanity of the Trump years, people of all persuasions will start to think again.
"The truth is, we conservatives already live in a color blind society while it is the progressives that constantly bring up race and immigration as a wedge issue to divide us."
Well said, and there is a lot truth in this. And you may know I don't often side with today's conservatives. The liberals are making EVERYTHING about race. I make it a point to not see color..see the person, this is really all I can do. It is what I've always known to be right. But, it's getting really hard these days not to see color if you read news, and any liberal social media. We should celebrate our differences, and fight for common causes as opposed to using them to cause more problems, and to divide us further. They excluded the race that gets killed by police the most, by volume, from having a voice for them in this "movement."
One of which is we are color blind. We believe in the rule of law and that it be applied to all equally. Blind justice...
If you are rich you get bailed out and walk free. If you are poor you go to jail. Justice is not applied equally. That’s a myth.
Tell me why are there so many blacks in prison compared to whites. What is the reason?peter, do you think every race is equal in all aspects? how do explain the majority of professional basketball players and football players are black?
just one example...why so many Asians are attending Ivory league schools? much more than the percent of Asian population, around 5% of US but 30% of Ivory league attendance.
There are many examples...
The question of blacks in prison is complex but I will give it a try. For one, we have a drug culture in this country and a higher percent of blacks are involved with drug use or drug sells...as such we have very strict laws and a majority of those blacks in prison are the result of 3 strikes law. If a person convicted of three crimes, the judge has no discretion but to send that person to jail even it it is a non violent offense.
In one of my previous post, I mentioned the importance of family. Blacks have a very high incidence of single unwed mothers with kids. These kids grow up without an adult male model...
The sad truth is this was not the case back in the 1950s. It was the creation of a social experiment of the Democrats called the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson. His admin. provided many benefits to the poor including free child care and housing to single mothers...it was good intention at the time but it lead to a higher incidence of couples not marrying when they have kids. To quality for those benefits, the mother has to be single...how crazy is that policy?
Yes, the legal system has its faults but then again which country does not favorite the rich and powerful?
So the legal argument does not explain the results.One more thing, one of the good thing the Trump administration had done last few years is prison reform legislation. This has allowed many low level non violent drug offenders out of jail early. Have you heard about this in the media? probably not. Between the boom economy and this law, Trump has helped more blacks than all previous administrations of both Democrats and Republicans.
Did they give him any credit? Yet, he is branded a racist by the media day in day out.peter, do you think every race is equal in all aspects?
No, I don't.. Physical conditions are clearly different. But how people are treated is different. Everybody should be treated equally. And not some more equal than others.
And that's plainly not the case. Every black person I personally know has a discrimination story to tell. Every white person I know hasn't.
The only time I was ever discriminated was because I was living in a poor neighborhood and that's why I could not get a second cellphone. And there you go. Another problem in the quotation. Discrimination against poor people.
To quality for those benefits, the mother has to be single...how crazy is that policy?.... !!! That's a very good policy. Because single mothers are hit hard. It's tough to be a single mum. And if you think that women are choosing a life alone with children because they will get some little bit of extra money, then you have never spoken about the tough life single mums.Good evening Mr. Streep, many people are poor because of UNINTELLIGENT life choices. Poor people are that way because they refuse to strategize, organize, & plan for their future. They prefer to live in the moment, believing in instant gratification. Many social programs have been implemented to help poor people but to little or no avail. Poor people have to learn to be accountable & take responsibilities for their own actions, instead of looking to outsiders to solve their problems.
The worst thing one can do for poor people is to give them money or any type of assistance. These things make poor people lazier & more dependent. The invention of welfare is THE WORST thing possible for poor people. Welfare made poor people lazier & lose incentive to improve themselves. What poor people need is TOUGH love- either they WORK & BE SELF-SUFFICIENT or they just......STARVE!!There are millions of people in the US who are just as smart as the president but will never ever be elected because they are born poor.
You are reciting a myth to justify your way of life that benefits the rich. It is pure fascism. The strong and intelligent are born to rule. The poor are stupid and useless, only a burden on society. Let them starve.
To blame the poor because they are stupid and it's their own fault that they are poor is a southing philosophy to push the blame on them and to clean your own conscience. Fuck empathy. Empathy is for the week. Empathy is for losers.
With this egoistic attitude, you can not maintain a society.
Let me tell you why I think you need a good social security system.
If people have more money, they spent more money. When people spent more money you have a better economy. (more products are sold and bought)
When people get benefits to study, more people will be educated, More jobs will be done better.
When people get financial help for the rent of flats, less stress will be put on the shoulders of families. Less stress, better life.
It's a myth that if you give people benefits that they don't want to work anymore. Most people want a job, and not just for the money, but for social contact and to feel useful.
If you give people more money they become more intelligent. That's a scientific fact.
So if you want a stupid society you keep people poor. If you want a smart society you aim for a big middle class.Mr. Streep, giving the poor money only makes them lazier. For example, my extended maternal family in South Carolina. Great aunts have helped them and as a result, they have a dependency & entitlement complex. They expect, even demand that other people give them a comfortable lifestyle w/o effort on their part. The poor need TOUGH love- either work or starve. Social programs should be decreased by 85% & that way people will learn that if they want something, they will have to EARN it. Social programs have created a society of dependents.
Grace and Peter, this debate is not about intelligence of people but about the proper role of government. We have experimented with this and the results are in. Conservatives have always believed in that individual self reliance is the best path to wealth and happiness. However, there is always going to be a small percent of people that needs help from the rest of society. These are people who may be disabled physically or mentally and cannot earn their own keep. As a compassionate society, we provide a safety net to help those who really cannot help themselves.
This is also the Christian way. We are insteucted by Christ to help the least of our brothers and sisters.
The problem with many modern progressives is that they want to extend this safety net to cover everyone. There are people who is healthy and able to work but choose not to because they can sit home and collect entitlement benefits that is the equivalent of more than their salary. Any sane person, whether intelligent or not, will do the same.
we can not make a person smarter or more intelligent, that is what we are born with. We can change a person's behavior by our social policies. Some may started out with good intentions but create a trap that enslave people into a generation of dependency. That is what happens in our "great society" experiment of the 1960s.Tell me something. Why does anyone need the crutch of ideology to be able to do for themselves? In this debate, demonizes those of minorities races, the handicapped and mentally ill, lies the foundation of judgmentalism that seems to come from narrow minded brains.
Christ also never did for others what HE knew they could and would do for themselves.
Your error in judgment of progressives comes to light when you consider if not for progressives, you'd still not have all of the modern conveniences some very progressive minds created.
And you have one other very seriously mistaken idea that our federal government is obligated to hand billionaires our tax dollars. No where in the US constitution does it state that we must keep businesses IN business.
Yet, you talk about individual who need help but overlook how many billions in tax cuts, tax subsidies and federal tax dollars go to corporate welfare.
Did the top 10 wealthiest in the US need 2 more tax cuts? They got 2 in 2000 to 2008 and one in 2009.
Where in the Constitution does it make us bail out banks?
If you make the decisions, YOU suffer the consequences. If you own a business, you make ALL the decision and then demand federal taxpayers bail you out?
That is NOT the Christian way when Trump got his Mazars Accounting firm to force NJ taxpayers to pay 6 of Trump's corporate bankruptcies so he could use his hotel and casino employees wages to pay a money laundering fine.
Where is the Christian way in that?
You are up against the likes of a super logical thinker if you think you can push that corporate victimhood vs. real Americans who need our help.
Sorry but our tax dollars are to be spent AS WE, the People demand from those we elect.
Prison industries, Big Oil, Big Agri Industries and endless for profit wars are not what our taxes are supposed to pay for. READ the US Constitution.
If a business goes belly up, it's the business owner's fault. It is his/'her responsibility to make sure it doesn't.I am sorry but you give progressive more meaning than it deserves. Modern technology has little to do with the "progressive party" ideology. It was capitalism and free enterprise that created most if not all the modern inventions.
The bailouts and spendings and wastes you speak of came from your party for the most part with the help of the GOP. If is not conservative policies for deficit spending year after year.
Who is demonizing the minorities or the poor or the handicapped?
Please reread my post and tell me how did you reach that conclusion.
Your beef is not with me but with your own distorted views of the political system.
The sooner you realize that both parties, Democrats and Republicans politicians feed on the same trough. They are not for the people. They are bought and paid for by the big donors and big corp.
Their outward disagreements are just a show.
It is a fact that they continue to spend more than we take in.
They do not want to control our borders even though the majority of the people want it.
They have no solutions for a host of our social ills.
What is the solution you ask?
Read the Constitution.
It is clear that a limited government was the intent of our fore fathers.
That is the conservative view from the beginning."Where in the Constitution does it make us bail out banks?"
Interesting comment. Can you point to where in the Constitution it makes us redistribute wealth to anyone, even the handicapped that are unable to support themselves? If not, what was the purpose of the comment? To complain when tax money is used to keep the entire national economy going rather than a single individual?These things come under the umbrella..."promote the general welfare..."
Of course it is open to interpretation what is covered.
The Constitution is a frame work for good government. It is not a cookbook.And yes this recipe has kept us one of the richest countries in the world, and served us very well. Sometimes the recipe calls for a little more of this or that to be successful. But to leave out the main ingredient our solvent banks would have really skrewed up the recipe.
Preamble: "Provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare .."
"Christ also never did for others what HE knew they could and would do for themselves."
We, mortals could not die for our own sins; Christ fed the multitude with loaves of bread and fish, no costs, Christ provided medical services, no cost. Christ would be considered a homeless socialist today and hated by many who haven't read carefully. Besides, we can't compare Him to average people. He was above and beyond anything we could possibly accomplish because of our shortcomings.
"If people have more money, they spent more money. When people spent more money you have a better economy."
I keep seeing this as a reason to take from one person to give to a different person. The problem is that when you take from one, they no longer have that money to spend - the economy suffers a bit. Giving it to another may bring the economy back to where it was, but no more. You cannot spend what is not there, and simply shifting wealth from one to another does NOT create more wealth to spend; it merely shifts the ability to spend from the person that earned it to one that did not.
"If you give people more money they become more intelligent. That's a scientific fact."
I'd be interested in a scientific, peer reviewed, study that shows giving money to a person makes them more intelligent. Not more knowledgeable (as in more educated), but more intelligent, for the two are NOT the same. Got a link?
"It's a myth that if you give people benefits that they don't want to work anymore."
And yet we are seeing just that in the US - we gave the unemployed as much or more money than they were earning and now businesses can't get them to go back to work. That doesn't seem to fit with the idea that people would rather work for a living than live off of someone else's work. I fit into that category myself; I am retired and living off of my social security rather than working - I have exactly zero desire to return to the workplace.Hi Wilderness,
Yes, sorry I should have included a link. It was a TED talk I saw a while back.
TED talk - Poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.It doesn't play for me.
Are you sure it indicated an increase in intelligence when people are given money to spend? That they become smarter, not just more knowledgeable about how things work?No it was an IQ test before and after the selling of the harvest of the year. Very weird indeed. People had an IQ rise after they sold the rice harvest. I guess having less stress is an explanation, but that's my interpretation. It's just like people who lack sleep have a drop of IQ.
Honestly, we know giving people more money doesn't make them spend more. (Supply-Side Economics). Intelligence is not tied to money, but access to influence and power is. Research has proven that.
Where do you get all this money from? And what do you do when they, (the answer to the first question— those people), don't have any more money to take?
Where do you get the money when 'those people' move out of your grasp, (many U.S. high-tax states are already facing this problem)?
I know it is trite and overused, and an over-simplification, but it is true; Sooner or later you are going to run out of other people's money.
GATo eradicate poverty is cheaper than you think. It will cost 1% of GDP - .175 billion)
I think the TED video is interesting to watch.
TED talk - Poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.I'm not following his reasoning. It will cost $175B (not .175) to end poverty in the US...but we're already spending far more than that to produce the levels we already see. How can that figure be anything but a small percentage of what is needed?
Sorry for the typo.
What he is saying is that indeed far more money is spent at the moment. But wrongly. It is spent in projects, and other well-meant stuff. He is saying that if to spend ~$175B on universal income and let people decide for themselves how to run their lives.
Or that's how I understood it.My point is that 175B is not "far more money". It is but a drop in the bucket of what is already being spent, and will not change anything at all. Give all the poor another TV or pair of Nike's, perhaps a clunker of a car, but not anything that will drastically change their lifestyle.
Uh oh, I am sticking my foot in it now . . .
I am not a supporter of a UBI now. It goes against the grain of all that I think, re. personal responsibility, et al. But, given the direction "work" is taking as our society, (U.S.), advances technologically, I can see the need for a UBI-type support mechanism in the not far-distant future—because we won't have any other humane choice.
But, the reason I jumped in is that the one thing that seemed clear in almost all of the analysis of past, (and current-Kenya), UBI experiments/studies contradicts the cynicism of your TV/Nikes/clunkers thought. It seems to repeatedly prove to be just that—a lifestyle changer.
Even so, there are too many ideological hurdles preventing me from supporting the concept.
GAAnd yet we have continually, for several decades, thrown more and more and more money at poverty. With the result that we have more people living "in poverty" than ever before. I just don't see that "lifestyle changer" in doing more of the same.
Wilderness, you are preaching to the choir. I totally concur. All these social programs is doing nothing but making poor people comfortable w/poverty. These social programs are making people LOSE INCENTIVE. When there were FEW social programs, poor people had to pull themselves by the bootstraps & make their way. We should return to that. Remember the late Dr. Hawkins stated that the WORST thing to do for poor people is to give them money- it makes them dependent. I concur- have poor people suffer & it they suffer enough, they will gain the incentive to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
You are right. We keep developing new programs or expanding existing ones. We keep changing the definition of the Poverty Level. We keep taxing producers to fund our 'War on Poverty' and still, we have more folks declared to be living in poverty.
Or do we? Consider what you and I might have considered poverty 55 years when Johnson declared war on it. And you know that I am talking about the condition of poverty—not a monetary number set by the government.
Anyway, my point was that even though the references were anecdotal, study after study, (or experiment), noted an effect of positive lifestyle changes. These were noted as things ranging from opportunities to expand individual business or work efforts, (small individual businesses and proprietors), to better health—both mental and physical, and better education—teens enrolling for grade 12 instead of going to work to support family, etc.
Not lifestyle changes of new sneakers, TVs, or cell phones. (but note the caveat below about where these experiments took place)
I am not blindly supporting those claims, I am just noting claimed results. However, skimming through several of the experiments, they do seem to be valid claims.
But there is a big, (in my mind), caveat. And that would be the experiment locations; Small communities like Dauphin Canada and small Kenyan villages, (a charity-driven experiment), and small nations like Finland, etc. etc.
My point being that I think those experiment's results cannot be extrapolated to large diversified areas or nations like the U.S. And to that point, a UBI experiment was tried in Ontario in 2017—a larger more diverse target, and was stopped after 17 months due to political change, lack of funding, (costs exceeded projections), and, poor results.
GAAbsolutely "free" money can help the poor...if it is used to help, not enslave. If those same poor continue efforts to improve their lot, if they continue to contribute to their society. If the help is temporary, as in a hand up not a hand out.
But in the US far too many take it as an "add on" to what they have and slowly lower their own expectations to the point that the "free money" is all they have. They have not been helped; they have been enslaved by the system that purportedly keeps them out of poverty but rather ensures they stay poor.
But there is another facet as well; when you simply give people what they need/want with requiring anything in return you create an "entitled" population, and we have been doing that for at least the last couple of generations. Whether spoiled rotten children or adults spoiled by a lifetime of welfare checks, we are creating the entitled society. And with that comes falling expectations for the ones footing the bill, for their hard work does not buy what it should; instead it buys for the non-producers.
I have said it several times, and still to; when half the nation - that's every other person in your family, neighborhood, etc. - is supposedly incapable of supporting themselves or contributing to the nation that feeds them the problem is not with the economic system or even the people; it is with the system handing out the freebies to anyone that wants them.
In a way it's better. It is cheaper than all those funding of good intentions combined. You get rid of these. And you let the people self decide what they do with the money. So no government control. You get a bigger middle class which is better for the economy. The investment of a litle bit of moeny will be paid back big time I think.
True - the alcohol manufacturers, cigarette manufacturers, movie theaters, etc. will likely get a raise in business.
But me - I'm not sure that I'm very willing to give up my very hard earned money so someone else can sit at home and drink beer, smoke cigarettes and watch cable TV.
Not sure how you get a bigger middle class, though, as the money comes from the middle class and is given to the poor. Once more, you cannot create wealth by taking from one to give another; wealth creation requires production of something whether it be cars, TV's, or stage plays.
Your entire premise is based on the poor not doing much, if any, production - someone else does it for them and then does not receive the benefits of their work. No increase, then, in the middle class as it is that middle class that is still doing the production, now without getting the benefits of it.so someone else can sit at home and drink beer, smoke cigarettes and watch cable TV.
Come on. That's prejudice. When people have more money, they have a healthier lifestyle in general.
You pay taxes if you want it or not. Those taxes can go to the anti-poverty programs that run today and cost millions, or the tax (a super small part of it) goes to a Universal Income.
By creating a bigger middle class, fewer people will need Universal income in the end. It's a start that pulls people out of poverty. When people are out of the poverty zone they will create opportunities for themselves and support in the end the people who need the Universal Income in their turn. It's a win-win situation. The government has to spend less money than today. (less of your taxes is being used for this cause.) and people are not guided by the government anymore with special projects and trajectories. It should actually be a conservative wing policy.
-- Once more, you cannot create wealth by taking from one to give another; wealth creation requires production of something whether it be cars, TV's, or stage plays. --
Well, that's the classic capitalism of yesterday. The modern version of capitalism is sadly different.. I'm flabbergasted by the fact that a company like Uber hasn't made a single dime of profit. Year after year it loses billions of dollars, but it is still not bankrupt. That's not capitalism anymore. That's a caricature of capitalism."You pay taxes if you want it or not. Those taxes can go to the anti-poverty programs that run today and cost millions, or the tax (a super small part of it) goes to a Universal Income."
True, even the poor pay taxes. A small portion of what they take, of course, but they pay. Your point? That a small bit of the free money they receive is taken back in taxes, so they are helping to support the country? I would disagree.
How do you figure a bigger middle class? Is it your contention that if the middle class shares what they have, decreasing their standard of living while bringing others into that lowered standard, it has increased the number now called middle class?
To watch as more and more Americans are declared "poor" in our country, with higher and higher taxes on the rest, means that government is spending less money just doesn't work.
I find it terribly difficult to believe that Uber, or at least the owners of Uber, aren't making money. Bookkeeping is not what it used to be is how I digest such reports. A company can be in the red for some time (years in the case if giant corporations) but eventually it will either make money or fail.
In the case of Uber, it very much sounds like a ponzi scheme - more and more investors are feeding in cash to support a failing operation. Is that what's happening?In the case of Uber
if you want to have a laugh. A Dutch comedy late night show is explaining it. (English subs)
Zondag met LubachThat's kind of what I said - a ponzi scheme (at least for the time being). And it works, too, in some cases.
A book recommendation to help in this race debate -
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZHBRSJV?ta … &psc=1
Written by a black conservative, Vince Ellison.I don't click Amazon links Jack. What's the title?
Here is title of his book - The Iron Triangle: Inside the Liberal Democrat Plan to Use Race to Divide Christians and America in their Quest for Power and How We Can Defeat Them
Thanks, I will look into it. But don't you think racism is something that happens in both parties. Or is this a party related thing in the US?
It looks as if this book is not only dividing America in black and white but also in Christian and non-Christian. Whereby non-Christians are marked as evil.
The party that uses identity politics is the Democratic party of today. They divide us by religion, by sex, by race, by sexual orientation...
The book, written by a black conservative is pointing that out and explain it clearly.What is your opinion with regard to Martin Luther King?
I don’t know much about Martin Luther King actually. Wasnt he a preacher originally? He had a dream and was shot. Thats it more or less.
He was a huge inspiration for many people. Like Mandela fighting against an Apartheid system.
Just watched “Da 5 bloods” by Spike Lee. An impressive film about the trauma of the blacks who survived and came back. A recommendation.
If you know your American history, you would know the party of Lincoln was Republican and the party of the racist KKK was Democrats....
Republicans were never racist. We just have a different approach to helping the poor. Instead of the massive spending on the great society and welfare and all kinds of social engineering that did not work...we rather help people to learn to fish...and improve public schools...
I TOTALLY AGREE. Teach people responsibility, accountability, & self-sufficiency. Government spending has made people more dependent & entitled. The VERY WORST thing to do for poor people is to give them money & programs- that makes them more dependent. Welfare programs have created GENERATIONAL welfare. Time to cut social programs by 85%-95%. Tough love is to be applied- either work or STARVE.
The sad fact is blacks keep voting Democrats by 90% as a group and elected mayors and governors in these blue States and yet their condition has not improved over the decades...
If it was me, I would have bailed long ago.
The good news is some blacks are becoming aware of this and a new generation of black conservatives like Candace Owen are getting their voices heard.
It was an interesting video to watch. Maybe this deserves another thread of its own.
I recall looking into this concept before, but I don't remember what I found. I will get back to you.
GAYes you are right we are getting a bit off topic.
take care.
Eliminating poverty is very simple.
(1) Get a substantial education w/a lucrative major.
(2) Don't get married until one's education is completed & one is established socioeconomically.
(3) Don't get married in one's teens.
(4) Have children when one is financially, emotionally, & psychologically prepared.
(5) Have SMALL families of 1-2 children. Don't have large families as large families are most likely to be impoverished.
(6) Act intelligently instead of instinctively.
Follow such steps & poverty is eliminated, thank you. For the most part in America, people are poor because THEY WANT TO BE.Sounds so simple Grace, Right from an Emily Post primer on "good manners"
Following the simple steps and poverty among people is eliminated?
Who is ever financial. Emotionally and psychological prepared for anything?
It takes money to start with to get into a position to stay in school and yet have to work simultaneously.So you propose free education for all. And eliminate private schools.
Not at all. Each tub must sit on its own bottom. People have to learn to be responsible & accountable. People must be self-sufficient or......STARVE, tough love here.
Then how do you get (1) a substantial education w/a lucrative major to eradicate poverty, if you have no money to pay it?
Either get a scholarship or work one's way through college. Simple.
Why not give an universal basic income and get rid of the scholarship. If you have no problem with government scholarship funding, why would you have trouble with an universal income?
If you study, you study. Working during study time is like having two jobs. It creates stress and you can't study to the max.Who will be forced to give up what they worked for to those that don't earn their own way? Where does that money come from?
There was a great system in NYC and it was called the Free Academy that started in 1847 and later became the CIty College of NY. It was free to all NYC residents that qualified. I was a benefactor of that system in the early 1970s along with a few hundred thousand graduates over the decades. Unfortunately, the system was destabilized by open enrollment when the people protested and demanded that all students be accepted irregardless of their academic performance. Over the next few years, the quality of the education went down, some professors left, the cost escalated to the point the City could not afford it and they went insolvent and the State had to step in and take them over. They also instituted tuition even though it is still much less than private colleges. Today, the CUNY colleges of NYC still exists but are at the bottom in ranking of colleges. So much for good intentions...
A great institution was lost due to poor administration and lack of standards.
That could apply to the entire nation just as easily.haha, yep.
A couple of years ago (2010 or something) Belgium had a huge problem of forming a coalition government. It took them about almost two years I believe. And in this period Belgium did just fine economically....
That's to bad.
In the Netherlands the government wanted bigger universities. As it was easier to manage...
In the end, my art school needed a certain amount of students. So the level of enrollment was lowered as well. They compensated this with a very tough exam to pass to the second year and third year. So the school had a huge first year, but a small final year.
A stupid system as for the dropouts could have spent the first year better.
Smart money follows smart money. Just consider if many removed their funds from 401K's, and decided to sit out 4 to 8 years due to not trusting the economy in the hands of a Government. Most people that accumulate money are not unintelligent, and watch their funds like hawks.
So, if we run out big business, and people just cringe and remove their cash from the market, and other funds. Who is left to support all the free stuff?
You are very correct to say when people have more money they spend more money as a rule... But people with money like to have the confidence that the economy is doing well, and is stronger before making expenditures. Hence the stock market, it's up when people have confidence, and fails without the people's confidence.
"If you give people more money they become more intelligent. That's a scientific fact."
In America, we have always encouraged one work to reach their goals. It's a system that we were built on, one that had attracted many people coming from other countries to share in this concept. So far so good... We have always had citizens that did not aspire to live by this concept. In my opinion, these are in the minority. In your words -- "Most people want a job, and not just for the money, but for social contact and to feel useful." This is very true. We need a solvent economy, businesses that provide jobs. If we go overboard with the concept of taxation many would go offshore. Leaving our tax coffers empty.It's complicated Sharlee. Money is magic. A matter of believing in it.
If we suddenly stopped believing money isn't worth anything, it isn't worth anything.
I don't get that stock market stuff. Pure magic...
We are getting a bit off-topic here. Sorry, my fault, but I think poverty is one of the subjects connected with discrimination, that's why I brought it up.
How the economy works and all. Uff, that's tough and not my expertise.
But I do think that an economy does not have to be based upon growth.
I bumped into an article a while back about the concept of the donut economy. An economy that is more looking for an equilibrium instead of expanding growth.
Tax is another subject...Poverty has nothing to do discrimination. There has been poverty through out the ages. It is a part of the human condition. Even in the Bible, Jesus said "the poor you will always have..."
Discrimination is a human trait. It has been around forever. It is a survival mechanism in the olden days. Birds of feather flock together...
In modern times, discrimination has been turned into a negative connotation.
What is bad about discrimination is to use someone's skin color, or religion or sexual orientation to solely judge that individual and hurt that person by denying a job or a rental house or some other form of injury, financial or otherwise. That is where our laws kick in to address those type of discrimination.
We all know there are many societal reasons for this, and I won't deny that racism plays a role. However, let's take a look at the study below, which finds that just over 19% of blacks serve longer sentences than their white counterparts. Notice how income is not even accounted for?!? This leaves me thinking that many of these almost 20% of whites getting off easier are likely wealthier and more well-connected than the other 80% of whites. Try being a poor white guy in an American prison. You have FEWER avenues to get justice when you are abused. In fact, people laugh when the poor white guy complains about his plight in any way. There is no way for you to know what is going on in the streets of America, without being in the streets of America. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/file … aphics.pdf
Try being a poor white guy in an American prison. You have FEWER avenues to get justice when you are abused. In fact, people laugh when the poor white guy complains about his plight in any way.
That's part of the discriminatory pattern, isn't it. A white guy is ok. so why should he complain? A black guy is always complaining...
-- There is no way for you to know what is going on in the streets of America, without being in the streets of America. --
Completely agree. It's a side of the US that people rather don't talk about. It's seldom on the tele or in the news. But many people living on the streets have a story to tell that is part of a country's culture.
Why is there more poverty under the black society than the white society Hard Sun? (Ok, I haven't looked this up, but it would be a pleasant surprise if it was not the case.)
-- To me, it's because the class system suits the white 20%. A class system where automatically the black population is pushed into the poor category. And so you don't have to talk about racism, you talk about income. More convenient, because then the myth of the self-made man comes into play. O, your poor, that's your own fault, the US is the land of opportunities, if you don't take them, you are stupid... But the racism is embedded into this rich vs poor system."That's part of the discriminatory pattern, isn't it. A white guy is ok. so why should he complain? A black guy is always complaining..."
I don't see anywhere where anyone said that "A black guy is always complaining." If that is your main take from what I said, then you are proving my point to a T!
"Why is there more poverty under the black society than the white society Hard Sun? (Ok, I haven't looked this up, but it would be a pleasant surprise if it was not the case.)"
I don't entirely disagree with what you are saying here. You see, I acknowledge racism and that racism contributes to black poverty. You are not addressing the issues I raised, but are instead falling back on racial division as an argument and cure all for our problems. What about the VAST majority of white families who were never part of that good old boy club either. I never state anything about being poor is only your own fault. I voted for Obama twice because I felt he would help poor people of all races! If we want to be "woke" we need to hone in on the individual circumstances of people and not attempt to explain EVERTYHING by skin color. I understand this is more difficult, but it's the right thing to do.
The anti police brutality movement was hijacked by BLM. This will do no good for any of us here in America. I've lived it. This fact is even being acknowledged by many minorities in criminal justice reform groups,I think Hard Sun, we misunderstand each other.
You did not say, "A white guy is ok. so why should he complain? A black guy is always complaining...".. This is a racist stand that "could be" the explanation for why a poor white guy has fewer avenues to get justice than a black poor guy in prison. "You are not supposed to be in prison as a white guy...so why should I help you....O, you are a black poor guy, of course, you are in prison, so we have facilities for you..."
I was not talking about a cure. The cure is pretty complicated. And I don't have a ready steady magic wand trick fot it. (get rid of poverty would help. cheaper education would help.. en lots of little things more...)
Hard Sun. The "Being poor is your own fault" is not something you say. It was not an attack on you, sorry that you felt it like that. It was an attack on the "American dream" myth. It's a very nasty thing.
If we want to be "woke" we need to home in on the individual circumstances of people and not attempt to explain EVERTYHING by skin color. I understand this is more difficult, but it's the right thing to do.
I think you are right there.
If I may add to this thought... the bigger culprits in "hijacking" this away from a police brutality movement... Antifa and Anarchists.
This is a BLM issue in that much of the reaction from Floyd's death was how it was perceived... a white man killing a black man... not a Policeman killing a helpless victim.
We have a nation on "lock down" especially the young... there is little available for the college and high school students to occupy themselves with... no school, no sports. no jobs... that's a large part of why this will continue like a forest fire that they can't put out in all places."If I may add to this thought... the bigger culprits in "hijacking" this away from a police brutality movement... Antifa and Anarchists."
Hmm..I honestly don't know what to think of Antifa. I've never known anyone to be a "member" of Antifa. Then again, I'm in a relatively small city in the Midwest. If you read Fox news, they are a real threat, if you read other MSM, they are not even really a cohesive group. I've been meaning to look into this some more. I did read a bit on George Soros funding BLM and these seems to be very true.
I agree with you on the perception of the Floyd killing. In a rural town not for from me a young white man, I think 20 years old, was having some mental issues, had gone to get help, was realeased...long story short, he had a kitchen knife which he cut himself with. He was never within arms reach of the police but was shot five times. Family says some in the back..idk. The state police found the shooting justified just about a week ago. They held a small and peaceful protest and could not get any of the news networks to even cover the protest. Sad.
You make a good point with COVID also. It needs to be taken seriously, but it's not turning out, so far, to be as deadly as it maybe could have been. It will take science some time to understand this virus thoroughly. In the meantime, people are going a bit stir crazy. Kids have to get back to their sports, and schooling come August!
White males are proving today how in order to maintain their Man's World power, some of them want sympathy for their awful, horrible, terrible, lives.
When 99% of the billionaires are men? When 90% of CEOs are men?
If they are getting killed in offshore oil rigs a dozen at a time, isn't that their own fault? After all, I can testify that in my nearly 25 years working with environmental engineers that there was never ONE female engineer.
In fact, when one female engineering designer showed up when a job was offered, I asked why she was automatically dropped as a possible hiree. "How is a woman in high heels going to climb a 100 foot tower?"
"How is a woman in a skirt going to work on a scaffold?" These are the answers I received and mind you, those answers came from MSMEs, MSChemEs and Phd from MIT.Yes exactly.
It's this protectionism. The world is ruled by man. Preferably white. And the powers that be want to keep it that way. The MeToo movement is scary for them. But this machismo (and there is a lot of machismo in my country Spain, especially the older generation) has to go.
This sexism, of seeing women only as a piece of meat (I grab them by the #### mentality) needs to be broken down. Just as racism. But many try to dodge the accusing finger. pretending there is no problem, even when thousands of people are marching on the streets. They talk about the "riots", and rotten apples, etc. instead of the reason why there are protests.
Its broken down quite a bit over the last 75 years in Western Civilization, which may be why the EU and North America are dealing with so much social unrest, lack of reproduction, economic decline, etc.
Soon we won't even have sexes anymore, they are being done away with, so I wouldn't worry about it. Non genderization is well on its way to being a reality in the West.
We are well on the road to cultural decline and decay:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news- … ing-itselfKen, are you really saying that women's equality is responsible for social unrest, lack of reproduction, economic decline, etc.?
If we learned anything from the last half of the 20th century, post Betty Friedan, is that women said that their lives were not meant solely to lived as incubating machines
You would have to believe the same thing about assertiveness by minorities over the last 75 years?
So making changes toward a more fair and equitable system is synonymous with decline of society in your eyes?
With that attitude, it is no wonder we fail to find ourselves on the same page. The old guard whose loss you seem to be lamenting had to go sometime and was simply unsustainable in the modern age.Because of the liberation, women are fighting for you think that "the EU and North America are dealing with so much social unrest, lack of reproduction, economic decline".
Because of the invention of the pill, the possibility for women to study and go into politics, have a vote. That's a bad thing according to you?
Am I reading this right?
You want to go back to the '50s?
We are well on the road to cultural decline and decay: -
O, my God, Sodom and Gomorrah...shut the windows, close the doors the atomic bomb of moral decay has fallen.
It is good to see you are so well versed in religious tenets and can understand why we are seeing so much chaos in the world today.Yes, I confess. It's because of such religious nutcases who are against abortion and contraception. The male is created to dominate and the women to bear children. That is their purpose on earth. God forbid the discotheque!
Religious nutcases? Are we talking those who espouse Sharia Law?
Are you saying you have issue with believers of Islam?
I consider that pretty racist and typical of a "western liberal mindset".
Are you offended by an entire region of the world from Persia to North Africa for their beliefs?
Lets consider the break down of Western Civilization and the deconstruction of the family model, shall we?
How many millions of children grow up with only one parent?
How many are dependant upon the state to support them?
What purpose is there for so many millions of men in our society today ?... they are not expected to be providers for a family, they are not expected to be father figures for children, they are not expected to be soldiers willing to defend their country, they have no role nor purpose...
This is especially the case for the poor, can't find a job, can't find meaning in family, we have an entire generation of young men growing up being told they are not needed and not wanted.
For what? So that women can be free to have "slut walks" and express their rights to do as they want, when they want, with whom they want, and have these rights protected and funded by the state?
So why do these "enlightened" societies collapse throughout history whenever they attain such grand equalities of status?
Because the men have no purpose, no reason to defend their nations, no reason to protect their societies... they have been abandoned, and in turn they will abandon those nations and societies to whatever befalls them.
We are seeing this play out in real time, in North America and the EU.
It most likely will take your entire lifetime to play out... but we are in decline, Asia, and to a lesser extent other regions are on the rise, and Western "enlightenment" and "liberties" will be replaced with something else much more authoritarian and restrictive in the not too distant future.
The more things change throughout history, the more they stay the same, the rise and fall of empires and entire cultures repeat the cycle over and over again... as if it were encoded in the dna and human nature itself.That's a lot....to take in!!!!
First. A woman is to decide to have a child yes or no. It's her belly, it's her life. Men can walk away anytime, a woman never. Hence the way Jews look at the bloodline, through the mother, not the father.
It's not upon men to decide how a women should live. Nor for a woman about a men. So if the subject is abortion, menstruation, pregnancy, maternity leave etc. The best thing to do is to let women make the law.
If I read you correctly you are saying that "enlightened" societies collapse because women are given to much freedom?
That's complete nonsense. Who did rule those "enlightened" societies? Men. To point the finger at the woman as a cause is unsubstantiated.
Men made the decisions. Rome did not burn because women were having "slut walks"...
The other reason for a higher rate of blacks in prison is proven by the states that take the most federal funding for their prison industries.
Back in 2012, a Pew study was done on this issue. In order to get MORE federal funding, these prison industry states have to have proof they are over the limit on being able to house prisoners.
Here are the facts from the US Federal Register on the cost to house prisoners: "The fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates was $34,704.12 ($94.82 per day) in FY 2016 and $36,299.25 ($99.45 per day) in FY 2017. The average annual cost to confine an inmate in a Residential Re-entry Center was $29,166.54 ($79.69 per day) for FY 2016 and $32,309.80 ($88.52 per day) for FY 2017."
Ref: https://www.federalregister.gov/documen … arceration
To prove what I posted about the cost of prison industries, this from the ed.gov site: "State and local spending on prisons and jails has increased at triple the rate of funding for public education for preschool through grade P-12 education in the last three decades, a new analysis by the U.S. Department of Education found"
Ref: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/ … -education
That report also states that, "per capita spending on corrections at more than double the rate of increases in per-pupil P-12 spending.
Seven states—Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia—increased their corrections budgets more than five times as fast as they did their allocations for P-12 public education."
This is what I have been posting. These are Republican states Here are the states with the highest incarceration rates:
Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arizona, Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, Missouri...all Republican states.
What lie? Is is not a fact that conseratives are the biggest moocher states who eat up 85% of every federal tax dollar?
Stop posting your opinion and start using facts and evidence. I shall do it for you.
Back in May 2013, the Rockefeller Institute for Government did a study on which states get the most from federal taxes and which get the least.
The study showed that there are 37 moocher states that get from $1.52 up to South Carolina's $7.87 for the $1 they pay in federal taxes. Proof you won't like
But the 13 donor states get back an average of 79 CENTS for that same $1 paid in federal taxes. All 13 of those donor states are Dem states.
So from now on, if you post, make sure you have facts and not your twisted personal opinion.
What are conservatives conserving when in just 3 years Trump jacked the deficit to $5 TRILLION when Obama had it down to $2 trillion in 2016?
When they allow Trump to spend $350 MILLION on golf weekends how is that conservatism?
Sure they are conservatives. CONserving Dem state tax dollars while they claim our states have the highest taxes. I guess so when we are supporting 37 moocher states.yes, you have a perverted view on conservatism and you are not the only one unfortunately. For your information, Trump is not a conservative. In fact, I would say many GOP leaders are not conservative. They are branded by the media and Democrats as conservative but they are not and as you pointed out in the case about deficit spending.
Your beef with conservatives are misplaced.
If you want to learn about conservatism, there are many good websites including the Heritage Foundation and Hillsdale College. They have free online courses to teach the Constitution and civics. You can start there...No Prevaricator, you have by posting your opinion and assuming it is fact.
I know who Trump is. You don't. That's YOUR problem. The Trump I know got 2 money laundering fines in 1998 and 2014 here in NJ. Deny it. Go ahead. I know I can prove it.
Those who call themselves conservatives today are NOT conservatives in the tradition of Adlai Stevenson, William F. Buckley or even Dwight D. Eisenhower.
They are radical power drunk extremists. Don't tell me what I already know. It insults your intelligence and mine.
I also know who and what Heritage Foundation is. I don't need YOU to teach me anything about US HIstory duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
In NJ, you don't graduate high school unless you complete 2 years of US History I and II. And for your information, US history I began with the first semester studies of the US Constitution.
There is nothing in the US Constitution anywhere that demands our taxes support corporate conservative billionaires.
There is nothing in the US Constitution that demands tax dollars hand out bailouts to banks who cannot abide by the constitutional rule of law.
Sorry but you are the one proving your ignorance. Oh and by the way? Long before I took US History, my Dad was an Italian immigrant who would call your conservatives FASCISTS.
He ought to know. That was why he had to flee Italy as a child. Men taking over and confiscating my grandfather's property and threatening to kill the eldest male so after they killed my grandfather, the eldest male couldn't inherit.
Conservatives are FASCISTS. That is MY opinion and I don't care what yours is.It is ignorance and arrogance that comes through in your remark and also bitterness and condescension. That is one thing I found dealing with progressives, they would accuse conservatives of the things they are actually thinking and doing. It is called projection.
I am a proud conservative and I am nothing like the "conservative" you speak of. So who is the clueless?
Your beef is with the GOP and they do not speak for conservatives.
Before you opine, make sure you know what you are talking about.Here is state by state breakdown of what is required teaching of History and civics...
https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multi … t-not.html
New Jersey did not fare well.If you can't stand a female who is smarter than you, I'd get out of the competitive Mr. Man act.
I don't care how much you try to bash NJ's educational standards, We are NO. TWO after Massachusetts so your ref link is BS.
Here is an accurate one: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states … /education
Note that it is titled BEST state rankings for education.
Wow , you really need professional mental help for that psycho control freak addiction.
Here is another story that indicate the sad state of US Education.
Only one state out of 50 can pass the basic citizenship test.
https://woodrow.org/news/one-state-pass … ship-exam/
Love Sinatra, Bon Jovi, and Cool and the Gang. Great music from N.J. These conservatives are not even in the vain of President Ronald R.
Maybe not fiscal conservatives. Yet, Trump is a social conservative.
My late ex's dear grandmother Lily Evans Whitaker was born in 1899 to a sharecropper family who worked the GA and FL plantations.
If I learn anything of great value, it is from those who LIVED it. Anyway Grandma Evans was half Irish (father) and half Seminole (mother) and as such was forever referred to as a "half breed: by those in the southern culture where she was raised.
"Those white boys hate that they have to do the work those black slaves did."
While she didn't seem to link the Civil War to the prejudiced she faced, she did tell me that white southerners "went out of their way to make the freed slaves know they weren't free so long as they stay south."
Here in NJ, we are one of the most multi cultural states like New York. No one acts as they do in the south and Midwest. We just get on with our lives. But then, 9/11 has made us realize it isn't just about "me" anymore, it is about "us.'
Our NJ Governor just appointed the first black female to the NJ Supreme Court, Fabiana Pierre-Louis. She is only the third black New Jerseyan appointed to the NJ Supreme Court.
So I am not only a fighter for my country but a big time lover of my state of NJ.
Your post is excellent. I learned so much from my 3 half brothers who served in the WWII and the Korean War and also from my nephews who served in Viet Nam and the Gulf Wars.
Here in NJ, you don't graduate high school unless you complete junior and senior year US History I and II. So, we leave school fully knowledgeable of the history of our country.
I was always sorry I didn't take the World History elective in high school, But, I was in the business classes at that time and my courses were full.
I am all for change. Just not the kind that uses my tax for everything I was taught was wrong.
There is one word in our Pledge of Allegiance some of these narrow minded people do not like, JUSTICE. They decide what justice is, Not what the purified definition of the word is.
All of us would love peace and quiet but these are Americans for whom gun fire is an addiction and part of their violent cultures. Here in NJ, who has the time for guns?
I grew up with Trump in our NJ media. The Trump family has been and always will be totally incapable of respecting the rule of law in this country.
In some bizarre mental focus, getting away with it is always first AFTER they knowingly violate the laws the rest of us respect and honor.I have friends from N.J., and I agree with your comment. Congratulations on your forward looking state. In N.C., we wouldn't have fought with the Confederacy, and was the last state to leave the Union, because we were surrounded by southern states and the rich plantation owners controlled the legislature. In fact, in the western part of the state, there has always been a strong support for the U.S., even during the Civil War. That's an important fact in our history. This is why N.C. played a major part in sit-ins in Greensboro; we understand change.
For example, just reading here, many forget the Democrats took on the cause of desegregation in the 1960s, pushing for Civil Rights. KKK and Nazis fled the party, finding a home in the extreme wings of the Republican Party. (For those who disagree, read what David Duke and Richard Spencer have said about supporting Republicans.) In addition, the Democrats put the first Black president in the White House. How can that be the party of racists? Many don't know their history.
Anyway, the only reason I'm reading this forum is to gauge where we are, and the fear is still high.It is a bit disappointing that your fear is still high Tim. I would have hoped that it was your optimism that was high.
That is not to say that I think there is no longer any reason for fear among the Black minority, but that I think that fear you speak of would have lessened over the years of the past few decades.
I understand that might be like saying a fear of torture should lessen because now one would only be beaten instead of brutalized and killed, but I have to continue my mantra that as bad as things may still be—they were worse.
When you read these forums to "gauge where we are," do you not see an advancement from where these forum comments of ten years ago would have placed us? I do.
GALol. My fear is low and practically nonexistent. It's the fear of those who are afraid of change which is high.
That's consistent with history though. Surely you read my post correctly and was poking fun. I don't see you as one of the people with that fear, GA.
Nope, I am an eternal optimist. From my perspective, I see great advancement. I must have misinterpreted your comment.
You are right about the historical perspective . . . and a current one too. The death of anything will produce the most extreme efforts to continue living.
We will always have bigots among us, but we are slowly taking away one of the things they can be bigoted about. Left-handed people better watch out. We are a right-handed world and those lefties better watch themselves.
GA
Well Hell Tim. I am relieved.
And I strongly agree with your thought. It's the dying throes of a lost battle for some.
GAAmen to that! I am at an age now where fear is a waste of time. Wisdom of the ages grants all of us the ability to know the difference between the things we cannot change and courage to change what we can.
I always remember Sister Margaret Mary in 6th grade telling us to choose our battles carefully, be humble winners and proud losers willing to try, try again.That is my favorite prayer, the Serenity Prayer. So much wisdom in just a few lines.
There is no heaven or utopia in our world. The sooner people recognize that, the less pain they will inflict on others.
The fact is, we cannot have a perfect society because humans are damaged and it started with the original sin.
We can improve our lot but perfection is illusive until the Second Coming.Truthfully, like our Founding Fathers, I see what a person can become, even beyond what a person or thing is currently. I think Christ took that course of action. It's the toughest road, and I agree with you.
Why do you assume someone is fearful? That is entirely YOUR opinion. Might doesn't make right. Bullies, whether emotional, physical or psychological are the most fearful. It's why they act out or feel they must "conquer" the world around them,.
Your posts are all full of instructions for how others should think, post and act. I wonder do you apply these same things to yourself or is your reflection in the mirror distorted by ego?Why do you presume it was an assumption? Or an opinion? Why do you presume to tell someone what their opinions are?
What you assumed was opinion was simply a misreading of Tim's statement:
"Anyway, the only reason I'm reading this forum is to gauge where we are, and the fear is still high." Read for yourself: https://hubpages.com/politics/forum/348 … ost4142993
I don't know where you got all that "bullies . . .etc. stuff. Maybe it was just a rant you couldn't contain. *shrug
And yes, I can look in the mirror and not see my ego involved in any of the standards I try to maintain in order to have civil discussions.
You should give it a try I think, by the content of your postings, that it is you that have that "reflection in the mirror distorted by ego" problem. Civility and courtesy don't seem to be your strengths.
GA.
I have relatives in NC who were born in NJ. One of them lives on what was formerly a NC tobacco plantation. Of course, today there are dozens of single family homes where that was located.
I cannot abide hateful people. Hate is such a waste of human energy. It's odd that those who are the most hateful never seem to realize that hate takes so much more energy out of a human than being loving and kind.
The truth is that growing up on a small very rural NJ farm as I did, we lived very close to a railroad track that was the dividing line between the black families and the rest of the township.
My first friend was a little black girl my age (7) who lived in a place known as Potter's Crossing.
The black families and my Dad who was an Italian immigrant shared the things they and my Dad grew. But, I got a very deep inside view of life in a black family.
While I groaned about being deadly poor, their families seemed to make the best of it and were always happy.
Later when out small rural town became more developed I was exposed to the new neighbors mostly from NY City, some of them were Jewish. I became school friends with the Jewish girl whose Dad owned the deli.
Every day we would stop at his deli and get a real treat: a pickle out of the barrel. Fond memories.
Thank you. I much prefer to evaluate a human on the basis of how they think than what they look like. Men who are thinkers and intellectuals always impress me.
I hope that'd be the case but I doubt it. I believe divisions are getting deeper and a fracture is inevitable.
I think there are lot of elements at play, more than meets the eye. Yes, black and brown population (also whites with empathy and conscience) are fed up. But I also think there are people with ulterior motives invested in provoking chaos. And I also suspect some in WH have a playbook out of House of Cards. What better way to rally up the troops months before an election?
Plus, coronavirus is out of the spotlight...Agree with every word, but I still hope for change.
Facebook said Tuesday that it had shut down pages and accounts associated with what it said was a hate group, whose members were discussing bringing weapons to the protests that are happening across the country.
The company said it had observed people associated with the group American Guard discussing such action.
The group says it is about American constitutional nationalism, but the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says American Guard "has a background with connections to anti-immigrant extremism, hatred, and violence. Indeed, before the American Guard was the American Guard, it was actually the Indiana chapter of a group called the Soldiers of Odin USA, a branch of an extreme anti-immigrant and anti-refugee group that originated in Finland in 2015 and has spread to many other countries."
On Monday, Twitter said a fake Antifa account calling for violence was run by white supremacists. The company removed the account.
The fake account, @ANTIFA_US, tweeted Sunday, "ALERT Tonight's the night, Comrades Tonight we say "F**k The City" and we move into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what's ours #BlacklivesMaters #F**kAmerica."
It's hard to think that we will see change in the near future, not when the response to a single man (or 3 that stand by and watch) that goes beyond anything reasonable is for hundreds or thousands to go on a rampage of destruction, destroying the lives of hundreds of completely innocent people that had absolutely nothing to do with the event.
As Credence said, there is something in the American psyche that permits or even glorifies extreme violence. We have a problem with a tiny minority of cops exhibiting the same kind of lack of care of others as those rioting and destroying in our cities, but all we respond to is the cop. The real problem is the acceptance of violence in our society as a whole, and there we not only allow but encourage it to happen.They tried kneeling and were told that was the wrong way to protest.
Also, the reporting shows that much of the violence has been instigated by both left- and right-wing agitators seeking to spark civil war.
I do not condone violence and looting hut that murderous act, already played out in similar form many times over the course of many years, is far worse. It us long past time to hold these criminal cops accountable.That's where we differ, for I see that murderous act as simply a tiny part of something that is infecting our nation. It is the one in the spotlight but it is only a tiny portion of the problem.
No matter how hard we try we will never have a perfect police force, and there will always be a few bad cops out there. But the thousands of rioters bent on destroying anything they can reach - that's the real problem. Get rid of what is behind that and you will have taken a really major step towards combating the violence in our country.
What causes people to wish to destroy others? What causes them to shoot people by the hundreds or thousands? Very likely, IMO, the same thing that causes such hatred in a cop to boil over into murder. But even if we could produce that perfect police force we would still be left with the same problem, and one that is a thousand times larger and more deadly than a handful of bad cops.Based on the many years of interaction here on these forums, I see no point in saying anything more than I think your view is simplistic, myopic, and very wrong. Some people will never "get" it.
No they won't. Instead of addressing the problem they address the symptoms in the forlorn hope it will fix the underlying problem.
Bandaids do not prevent an infected cut from becoming gangrenous, and complaining about the handful of cops killing people will not fix the gaping wound of massive violence in our country. Stop all unwarranted killings by cops and we will save a half dozen lives per year, leaving thousands to still happen.what do you want to happen? this is the crucial question for all America. How would you end this? what laws can we enact that is not on the books today? can we end it? is it within our powers to end bigotry?
It is one thing to protest injustice. It is quite another to rob and loot and fire bomb just because the police is helpless...
These problems has always existed. Under many decades of Democratic controlled legislature, and mayors and governors...and even 8 years of a black President, Barack Obama. If this could have been resolved, wouldn't you think it would have happened by now?We will never eradicate bigotry. Period.
Be we have come a long way in just my lifetime towards that unattainable goal and I believe we can and will go further. We may always have a small population of bigots, but we are progressing, and will continue to progress, towards a smaller one.
If, that is, we will quit using race as a dividing force and quit blaming another race for our own failings. When we decide to stand on our own two feet rather than demanding special treatment because of the color of our skin we will progress. Until then, I think, we're going to remain stuck in the quagmire of racism and bigotry.That is why Dr. MLK has the right idea. He said "we should judge people by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin."
We have learned nothing in 50 years on that front. We are still dividing people by race, and gender and all kinds of identities...
We are all part of the human race.
It neither has to be one or the other. We can work on macro and micro causes of violence simultaneously. Yet, one man''s death can change a society; history says so. We must work on the issue from top-to-bottom and vice-versa.
These protests are bottled frustration from the graphic example of those that are supposed to uphold the law breaking it.
Racism is another more fundamental part and parcel of the America psyche, part of the DNA.
It is at least coequal with the violent tradition of American life. I visited London in the late 70's astonished how their bobbies protected large banks with only batons. While at home, I watched Harry Callahan shoot first and ask questions later with his .44 magnum as a form of catharsis for frustrated Americans. How would Harry fare in today's political climate?
I don't specifically blame the police as they are part of the American psyche, even if just subconsciously. Like the atmosphere, it envelopes all, but its existence is denied by so many as you cannot "grasp" it in a physical sense.
But, it exists, all the same. That psyche was a component of Amy's behavior at Central Park and reaches to the lofty offices of the President of the United States.Okay bud. Let me try to explain how wrong you are . . .
. . .
. . .
. . . nope, can't find anything wrong. Maybe next time. ;-)
GAYes... THat's a tough one.
...
...
...
Can't find anything either.
The difficult question is though....How to change it.
[Note; this comment was added to to correct a premature submission]
I am going to catch hell for this one . . .
I can feel the emotion in your OP PrettyPanther, and I agree that the Floyd incident is a tragedy, but, I think you are wrong in two respects.
First, you call it a "systemic problem," which I took as meaning it is a prevalent problem throughout the ranks of law enforcement. I disagree.
Just to present an overview:
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports, (2015 numbers), there were over 53 Million Police/Public contacts that year. 27+ million initiated by police, (mostly traffic stops), and 27+ million initiated by citizens, (mostly reporting a crime), (The Floyd incident was a citizen-initiated contact).
Just 2% of those numbers involved violence or threat of force. Meaning, 98% of police/public contacts were non-confrontational. I don't think that qualifies as "systemic."
Further, we have around 750,000 law enforcement officers. How many of them would have to act as the four in the Floyd tragedy did for it to really be a systemic problem?
Second, in a subsequent comment you said you know we can do better. To this, I say we are doing better. Week by week and year by year, (since 2011 in the report), tragedies like this one are decreasing in frequency.
I am not saying there are no bad cops—of course there are. And I am not saying there are not cops that just shouldn't be cops—because of course there are. And I am not saying there are no bad police precincts—it is obvious there are.
My only point is that I think it is wrong to let the police behavior in the Floyd contact be the picture painted of all cops—or even a "systemic-defined" portion of them.
As a side note: that link to that police kneeling . . . I was watching CNN's [snipped to start another thread]
GAYou dont disappoint.
Btw, I dont think that's the meaning of the word in this case, but I could be wrong.It's important we know what we are talking about for every American's sake. The topic of racism can be confusing and gets everyone upset because meanings can be misconstrued. That's o.k. Here's a link I hope will help:
http://www.aclrc.com/
I could come back with statistics to counter your statistics but what would be the point?
The systemic issue is with accountability. How often have police been convicted of a crime after killing an unarmed man, or brutalizing an innocent citizen?Since I just grabbed the BJS stats first. And since I understand they confirm what I already thought, I could be a victim of confirmation bias. I will keep an open mind and consider any contrary statistics.
Next, if I had understood your now clarified point about what was the systemic problem you were speaking of—I think I would have responded with agreement.
GAPlease get the statistics. Find out for yourself how rare it happens.
Deleted
Those four cops seemed to think their actions were acceptable, given that they did them surrounded by onlookers begging them to stop, videotaping the whole thing, while they ignored the cries of a dying man calling for his dead mother.
If you dont think the system that repeatedly allows cops to get away with murder created that comfort level, then I don't know what else to say.I have previously addressed the difference in the systemic problem I thought you were referring to, so maybe your final thought might be different.
Relative to you thought about the other cops, you might be right. I think there might also be another possible explanation, (or at lest an added one)—that they were just cowards. Either they just didn't care enough to get involved, or they thought that if they just stood back they wouldn't be a part of it. Either way, I condemn their lack of action just as strongly as you do. I think they should also face charges.
GA
Just in case anyone is interested in facts rather than their emotions or political preference....
[url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/[/url]It's interesting to note that as we approach a population of 50% white and 50% other, the death toll is very nearly equal between white and non-white; whether you are white or not you have just about the same chance of being killed by police.
I agree 1000%. There is no systemic racism in America in 2020, yet there will always be some bigots and bad actors in any professions, just like there are bad doctors, bad nurses, bad fireman, bad lawyers...in any group of profession. When it happens, we let the law and our justice system deal with it. That is how a civilized society works.
Hold on jackclee. I appreciate your agreement, but my point wasn't that there is no systemic racism in the United States. That thought is your own.
GA
Barack Obama--
"How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change"
"The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring."
Very inspiring article
https://medium.com/@BarackObama/how-to- … a209806067
Hi, P.P., They did the same in many cities, including Raleigh, N.C. Holding law enforcement officers accountable for wrongdoing is crucial and so is a data base, but I worry today about those I love of all colors simply being in the right place at the wrong time. I bring this up because the interesting claim the defense attorney is making: "Why didn't the people standing by intervene?" That should signal people were respecting the officers to act responsibly, and why would people seek to make a bad situation worse?
I think racism and fascism are not only the problems of American society, but also a global international problem since there are still identified cases of brutally killed people, particularly in Palestina and Syria. We have to combat against nationalism and any other kind of discrimination and hatred
With as many "white cop/black shootings" there have been in this country in the last several years, and the public's reactions to them, I simply cannot figure out how these cops thought they could get away with it. What were they thinking? I know some people may say that they weren't thinking. However, theoretically, these officers are trained to handle arrests without damaging the arrestee. All the training in the world may not stop a person's prejudice, but it should at least halt their destructive acting on that prejudice, especially when they know the consequences. I just don't get it.
Did these cops not exhibit behavior in the past that might have indicated that they were not fit for the job? I don't recall seeing any previous actions on their part or any reprimands on their records.
This whole thing makes me ill. A man lost his life; his family was devastated by the loss of a son and brother, and now our nation is in chaos.
The conspiracy theorists are hard at work as they always are. Could they be right for once? Could this cop and his cohorts be sacrificial lambs for something much bigger. The spotlight is certainly off Covid-19 while we divert and deflect to this heinous situation. Meanwhile, our President Nero cowered in his fraidy hole while cities burned and then came lashing out to call the nation's governors who were left to deal with the chaos "weak."It breaks my heart that people who wanted to have a peaceful protest and have their voices heard had this hijacked by thugs and criminals. Many of the cities where riots are occurring have discovered people from out of the city and out of the state have come in to conduct violence.
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/george … 7c292c6bdc
These riots were organized and funded by outside sources.
It makes me angry that those who want to engage in a peaceful protest have to have their message lost to thugs and criminals who want to do nothing more than loot and destroy.This isn't just about Floyd. In the last month, Arbery was gunned down in the street and Taylor murdered in her home. That's three high profile acts of deadly racism in a short amount of time.
Then you compound the different police responses between white people storming a state Capitol with guns and getting treated with kids gloves to protesters in Floyd getting pepper sprayed, tear gassed, and shot with rubber bullets, and you can understand the outrage.
All this before you factor in a president backing the white protesters while calling black ones thugs and saying they should be shot.His supporters on these forums are saying he has done all he could do. Perhaps they enjoy seeing him pour gasoline on a raging fire. They certainly don't speak out against it.
What action would you have had Trump take to stop the riots? Yes, many were there to protest peacefully, and these people should have been under the protection of their law enforcement agencies. They were not provided a forum to protest peacefully. The persons that looted and burned and killed were not there to protest peacefully. They were and apparently will continue to continue to do what they please. Break the law without consequences. And all due to the fact the local police in no way have the staff to enforce our laws. And the protester was given as many opportunities to protest until they started tossing all kinds of objects at the police. And when the crowd became violent they used teargas and rubber bullets. I don't expect the police to be disrespected and hurt for anyone to make a point protesting.
Trump did not offer gasoline he offers a solution to have the numbers to enforce our laws.
I must ask, and I doubt if you will answer. --- Do you feel protesters have the right to loot and burn and taking away citizen's livelihood, their businesses? These idiots are ruining people's lives, hurting people, yes even killing people. How the hell can you justify blaming Trump for any of this? He has been offering help from day one, he has been condemning the murder of Mr. Floyd, he has made it clear the Floyd case is to be handled with good speed.
His deeds as always speak for his total support of the American people. All the people. It's a shame you can realize this.
Can you link to a video of Trump calling peaceful black protesters (as opposed to rioters destroying property and/or people) "thugs"? Or was that just spin and gross exaggeration?
I didn't differentiate between the peaceful protesters and the rioters in my post. But apparently, intimidating people with guns is acceptable but destroying property makes you a thug. Got it.
Hard to link to a video when he made the statement via twitter since he's afraid to face the press and get videotaped.No, you didn't differentiate. Which would seem to mean you're claiming that Trump said peaceful protesters, as well as rioters (but only if black) are thugs.
As you didn't post a video clip of him saying that, should I assume that it wasn't true? Or are you claiming it IS true, but you can't post a link to a twitter post and therefore it must be accepted without proof?
As far as intimidating people with guns, I posted a link to a town of people that did just that...and produced a quiet, peaceful night of protesting without any damage in spite of reports that van loads of instigators were headed their way from a nearby city rampant with rioting and violence. Were they wrong to do so? Or is it only the President that should never produce highly desirable results with threats instead of violence?
Here; I'll post it again: https://www.khq.com/news/blm-protesters … 42a77.htmlHe said it in a tweet, the same one that Twitter flagged because it violated their rules against glorifying violence. You know, the one where he quoted a racist Miami police chief from the 1960s: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." A sentiment echoed by the racist governor George Wallace. But, surely you know this. It was all over the news. Did you not hear about it?
Of course, Trump has done everything he could do to quell the unrest, according to you and others. This surely helped, didn't it?Since when has looting been done by peaceful demonstrators? You're spinning it again, claiming that he threatened demonstrators rather than rioters. For shame.
Can you point to anything that has helped...outside of possibly curfews (doubtful) and violence (tear gas, rubber bullets, arrests, etc.)?
In any case, making a simple statement of fact ("when riots happen people get hurt) is hardly "glorifying violence" (more spin, right?). You're on record has decrying his easy stance and calming words over the pandemic; now you say he should have done exactly that rather than stating reality. Make up your mind! Either tell it like it is or soothe and calm the population - which one?
"intimidating people with guns is acceptable but destroying property makes you a thug."
Ah....yeah.
What I find interesting is that more white people are shot and killed by police than black people. That is a fact.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585 … e-by-race/
What's the difference? Media perception. When white people are killed by police, the media has a collective sigh. When a black person is killed...it's racist and time to riot. This is what the mainstream media likes to promote and too many people blindly believe it without thinking about the facts.
Remember the white woman who was trying to flag down a Minneapolis police officer and was shot and killed? Of course you don't. Funny how there were no riots. There were a lot of sighs.
Maybe that was also motivated by race as she was shot by a police officer who was a Somali.
https://apnews.com/fe76ba4e05fd408d85a621ba52f7b2e0
So, does this mean there is racial injustice against white people since more of them are shot and killed by police...or does it not matter because they are white?So, with a population of 197 million for white people to 42 million for black people, your statement that more white people are killed really doesn't mean much when you add that context.
In a similar study from the same people, black people are almost 3x more likely to be shot by police than white people. That one seems a little more relevant to this discussion and I'm surprised you didn't use it instead."In a similar study from the same people, black people are almost 3x more likely to be shot by police than white people."
I'd like to see that study.Thanks for sharing the link. It's interesting how headlines can be misleading. When you actually look at the numbers, the areas they talk about black deaths by police having the highest numbers..had the highest number of black residents. That makes sense. From the article you provided.
"Illinois, New York and Washington D.C. carrying some of the largest discrepancies by state. D.C., with a black population of nearly 50 percent, had 88 percent of all police killings be against black Americans"
So, from this it's obvious it is not the entire country. The most killings of black people happen where blacks have the highest populations. According to the data they provided, it is mostly three locations in the United States.
Now, I'm sure the argument could be made using these statistics that the areas with the highest number of white people being shot by police are places with the highest number of white residents.
I think the headline is very misleading.
"Then you compound the different police responses between white people storming a state Capitol with guns and getting treated with kids gloves to protesters in Floyd getting pepper sprayed, tear gassed, and shot with rubber bullets, and you can understand the outrage."
I assume you are referring to the protestors in Michigan protesting against what they feel are unreasonable requests by the Michigan governor. They di not rush the capitol, they peacefully walked into the people's building. There was no looting there was no violence what so ever. Yes, they carried guns, actually armed to the teeth. Not one person was threatened or shot. It was their right to carry guns, that's our law, that's anyone right. So, don't misinterpret what went down in my state.
Are you aware of the crimes that have been committed by these protestors this past week or do you just choose to ignore them?
President Trump has supported from day one the right to protest peacefully, he is not willing to support lawbreakers in the name of any form of protest. Do you ever actually hear what the president is saying without your though prosses kicking into skewing it into something negative.
I must point out a comment Obama made in an article he did in regard to the recent protests.here is a quote
"The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation "
Trump's notorious statement the media reported as racist. Read the article the reported conducted to put his statement into proper context.
"Reporter: "Mr. President, are you putting what you’re calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?"
Trump: "I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane. What I’m saying is this: You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs -- and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch.
"But there is another side. There was a group on this side. You can call them the left -- you just called them the left -- that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.
Reporter: (Inaudible) "… both sides, sir. You said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides. Are the --"
Trump: "Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. If you look at both sides -- I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say."
Reporter: "The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest --"
Trump: "Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves -- and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."
Reporter: "George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same."
Trump: "George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down -- excuse me, are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him?"
"Reporter: "I do love Thomas Jefferson."
Read the full article to discover the true context of the oh so notorious statement Trump has been bashed for from the moment the media snapped up those few words. --- There were good people
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019 … s-remarks/
You will see the context that matches Obama's statement on these recent riots. Yes, Obama said it more eloquently, but both statements were providing the same sentiment.'President Trump has supported from day one the right to protest peacefully, he is not willing to support lawbreakers in the name of any form of protest. Do you ever actually hear what the president is saying without your though prosses kicking into skewing it into something negative?'
No, Sorry, I couldn't hear the president over the sounds of tear gas and rubber bullets that were being used to clear peaceful protesters away from the church he went to for a photo op in the past few days. If that's your idea of support, again, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Google search - systematic racism. Will save GA from having to write a book on the topic.
Thanks. I was debating what type of short quip to respond with.
GAI know what it is. My question is where do they exist today? and how can we fix it? what laws can we implement? to change a person's heart?
The marching, protesting, looting, arson will mean nothing if these people don't use the right method of change which is to get out and vote. Talk is cheap and an expedient method to change anything is not available. Congress has been very silent in all this and that is because they don't embrace change because this is the ultimate goal of deflecting through divisive methods.
what good is voting? how voting Democrats or Republican can fix the problem we see happening this past week? Not a thing. Try again...
I realize civilians may not understand the significance of what happened at LaFayette Square - the president attacking peaceful protestors using the U.S military against our own citizens. But anyone who has ever raised their right hand and sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States understands.
Careful with your words. How did the president attack peaceful protesters in this park?
Sink your teeth into this, Conservatives
Courtesy Wikipedia
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), "most established civil rights organizations criticize antifa tactics as dangerous and counterproductive".[22] The ADL criticized antifa for its use of "unacceptable tactics" such as violence, and warned that such tactics provided a powerful propaganda and recruitment tool to right-wing extremists.[22] However, the ADL said that "it is important to reject attempts to claim equivalence between the antifa and the white supremacist groups they oppose", noting that right-wing extremist movements are much more violent and have been responsible for hundreds of murders in the United States while "there have not been any known antifa-related murders".[22]Individuals involved in the movement tend to hold anti-capitalist[20][32] and anti-government views,[20] and subscribe to a range of left-wing ideologies.[33] A majority of adherents are anarchists, communists and other socialists who describe themselves as revolutionaries,[40] although some social democrats and other leftists adhere to the antifa movement.[40] The movement is pan-leftist and non-hierarchical[40] and is united by opposition to perceived right-wing extremism and white supremacy[20][28] as well as opposition to a centralized state.[41] Antifa activists reject anti-fascist conservatives[42] as well as liberals.[28][42] The movement eschews mainstream liberal democracy[40] and electoral politics in favor of direct action.[20][28] Despite the movement's opposition to liberalism, right-wing commentators have accused antifa adherents of supporting liberalism and being aided by "liberal sympathizers".[43]
- also from wikipedia on Antifa."However, the ADL said that "it is important to reject attempts to claim equivalence between the antifa and the white supremacist groups they oppose", noting that right-wing extremist movements are much more violent and have been responsible for hundreds of murders in the United States while "there have not been any known antifa-related murders".[22]"
"The enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine"
Credence2I understand the viewpoint " enemy of my enemy"
It is misplaced.
These other factions are using the protests and have hijacked the good they could have done.
The focus should have been on police brutality, on states that were over-reaching their authority, and most importantly for many on systematic racism.
The Murder of Mr. Floyd impacted people across the globe, marches and protests arose in France, England, and elsewhere,
But the waves of good that could have come from this have been twisted by evil people who are using this movement, this tragedy, this clarifying act of brutality and murder.
They have taken the opportunity to murder police, to murder innocent people who tried to defend their property, to pillage, steal, burn, beat and maim.
If people come together and say "we've had enough" of the lockdown, of a unresponsive government that is corrupt and out of control, and they want to tear down the government to its foundations French Revolution style I'm fine with that, because that is the intention of the people... the government is supposed to represent the people's will... and a growing number of people, which is becoming a majority, no longer support it.
But when Anarchists, criminals and would-be revolutionaries (Antifa) hijack a movement (these protests), and use it as cover for their own purposes they need to be called out, they need to be identified for what they are and rejected.
The enemy of your enemy... may very well be your enemy too.Ken,
Yes, the focus should be on police brutality and systemic racism which we are certainly NOT going to get from Trump and his rightwinged droogies.
I support organized state reopening taking into consideration the virus and its effect on the resident populations. That is not government mandating control but paying attention to public safety which is also their responsibility. I don't buy this idea of rash and irresponsible opening without taking into consideration all factors involved, who would?
Riots are uncalled for, but protests are educational. I still believe the Right, by its very definition, will resist protests because it cannot tolerate dissent, just like Trump.
The idea of antifa hijacking this protest is another right wing fabrication. There is just much right to bring house down from the Left as you say may be warranted by the Right, as far as I am concerned. The "intention of the people" does not speak for us all.
It pretty easy to identify why white supremists and Nazis are my natural enemy which is part and parcel of the Right wing. If I have an enemy from the Left, I have yet to see it.
Droogles? But you are correct.
Oh, you certainly have enemies on the Left... but this being your perspective, I can see why you would consider the Right your enemy.
Not exactly a great choice... Anarchy, Antifa, out of control Progressivism that champions trans-races, trans-sexes, etc. VS. Police State, White Supremacy, and Nazis.
For sanity's sake, I can see why ignoring the worst the Left has to offer is prudent when one doesn't identify as Caucasian.
Whites are no better (or worse) off than blacks. We are all at the mercy of an out of control Federal Reserve, Wall St., and an International elite made up of billionaires and trillionaires.
The whole country could burn down... the same people that truly control things now, would still control things after the destruction.
Only the wiping out of civilization entirely, will bring down Chase Bank, ExxonMobil, or any of the international banks and corporations that have more wealth than most nations.
All the rioting, protesting, murdering and looting won't change that. Those inequalities are never going away... but blaming them on Whites helps them stay in power and keep the system in place.
What the rich have done is sacrificed Middle Class America on the alter of Social Justice and Progressivism, the top 1% get richer, and the rest of us point fingers and blame one another based on race, religion, politics.
credence, I have a simple question for all those who believe somehow this "protests" is justified.
What would you do if those people come to your house or your businesses?
What would Mayor DeBlasio do if those people ram-sack Gracie Mansion or his house in Brooklyn?
Would he instruct the police to stand down?
That is the crux of my argument.
Without the rule of law, everything else is meaningless.Jack, the reality is that conservatives do not want the protests, with or without riots. Well, the people are not satisfied and there should not be a problem as peaceful protests are not against the law.
I do not support criminal, extremists from either pole if they resort to violence and destruction of property.
The Mayor would be forced to restrain people if property damage became part of the protest, but I otherwise stand for the people's right to protest and continue to keep the Rightwinger in sleepless nights.You just made a statement that is untrue. Conservatives belief and support the Constitution. The first Amendment is clear.
The First Amendment text reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The keyword is peaceably.I don't agree with you on this one Credence. People on the right support people's right to protest. We know there is a difference between protests and anarchy that involves destroying property and looting. If there had been protests around the country that didn't involve looting and anarchy, many people from the right would have joined in with them. We know protesting is an essential part of living in a free society. It is a protected right. Once the burning, looting started, it went from being a protest to being a criminal activity.
peterstreep, I think you are confusing individual bigotry with systemic racism. There will always be some individual who holds racist views. That is the nature of a free society. We are not Communist China who just send millions of muslims to re-training camps to indoctrinate them.
However, systemic racism is different and it is something we have tried to deal with over the decades since the 1960s... with the civil rights acts...
Today, we have laws against discrimination, in hiring and in housing and all kinds of situations. People can sue in a court of law. We have hate crime legislation...
That is why, I asked in one of my posts here, is there any new laws we can pass to avoid what happened here? If there is, I will support it and work to get it passed.
One thing we can't change is human nature.
That is the original sin.Hello, Mike
It would help if many from the Right would participate regardless and contribute to a just cause and help to encourage the participants to keep the protest peaceful. Who knows, we could well end up not seeing so many of them as the ogres that they appear to be in regards to this crisis.
Just a bit of deflection and spin there, isn't it?
You know that inciting a riot can, and does lead to injury and death for people, yet the claim is that those inciting the riot are not responsible. It might or might not be legally termed "murder", but any deaths from Antifa-promoted rioting is on them.
You might swallow that bit of nonsense, but few others will. If Antifa promotes rioting (and it does) then responsibility for any harm, to property or person, is on them.And anybody who riots is clearly a member of Antifa in your mind. 'You people' shouldn't be rioting.
Might be in your mind, but I cannot agree with you. To think that all rioters are a member of Antifa isn't just silly; it's down right stupid as most of them are there just for the free "stuff" they can steal.
You might swallow that bit of nonsense, but few others will. If Antifa promotes rioting (and it does) then responsibility for any harm, to property or person, is on them.
Oh, but didn't you say multiple times that what Trump says, promotes, asks do not make him responsible for what crazies, idiots or fans do?Just the latest double standard...
Like, hey, Stay at home orders invade my freedom. But ya'll over there, you better follow that curfew.Have you heard Trump inciting people to riot? Is he stocking the streets with pallets of bricks and stones? Does he go to protests prepared with molotov cocktails and giant firecrackers?
Are you truly arguing that incitement to riot does not make a person responsible for the deaths and arson that occur, or just changing the topic and taking another cheap shot at the President again?I wasn't arguing about riots. Im was just following your logic. You have said multiple times that because someone says, promotes, asks other to do something, it doesnt make them responsible for what others do.
But to satisfy your curiosity. Whoever incites violence (or hate or even the use of clorox) it is also responsible if it happens, be it Antifa, white supremacists, Trump, your neighbor... But you can't say the same.
That's the difference. And that hypocrisy and double standard was what I pointed out.where have you been? the double standard has been around all my adult life. Only now, you complaint about it?
Do I know you? You seem to know me, right?
No, I don't know you but we have commented on these forums...in the past.
One thing that has not been discussed is a solution to the killing of blacks by police. I may not have a solution for the race relations in our country but I do have a solution for police killing of blacks.
In almost every case, the incidents starts by resisting of arrest and escalated to violence and death.
The solution is for all people to teach their children from a young age, that when stopped by a police, just comply. Any grievance can be addressed later in a court of law.
I was taught this when I first learned to drive at the age of 17. I have been stopped many times sadly to say for speeding in my youth. I just provided the documents, and thanked the officer for the ticket and pleaded not guilty and appear in front of the judge to explain...
That is how most of us was taught. When you resist arrest..., you are escalating the tension and the testosterone just goes through the roof.
Another glaring example of double standard just happened. Trump holding up the Bible in front of a church...is a violation of separation of church and state... But they were silent when President Bill Clinton did the same thing in front of the same church years a go... go figure.
It's not a double standard. A crowd of protesters that were in the area before curfew and weren't creating problems were tear gassed so that Trump could get to the church for his photo op. You left out vital information.
Please let me correct you the Sec Of Defence Esper gave a press interview yesterday to correct the misconception that the media has been reporting in regards to tear gas and rubber bullets being used Monday on peaceful protesters. He said no tear gas or rubber bullets were used at all. Smoke bombs were used to clear the crowd after the curfew was not met. I can't comment if the curfew was kept to provide President Trump a photo op. That would be an assumption, would it not? But to each their own...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCJyU_f-s0oThank you for sharing the video. I will watch it when I have the time.
According to multiple news reports from major sources (including the one below), President Trump made the trip to the church soon after protesters had been cleared from the area. In addition, the removal of the protesters is said to have begun before the curfew time.
Trump posed in front of a church sign while displaying a Bible to the camera. He chose (or was directed) where to stand and he chose (or was directed) to hold the Bible in the air and display it to the photographer. The photo wasn’t a candid shot.
You are correct about the use of tear gas. According to news reports that I have just read, including the one below that was updated to include the information, the U.S. Parks Police has denied the use of tear gas and has said that smoke canisters and pepper balls were used. However, pepper balls are irritating, so the event is still problematic.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nationa … d=71004151
no I didn't. That is a matter of opinion.
The criticism about Trump. if you listen to all the liberal press was he used the Bible as a prop and that somehow, it violated the Constitution...
They never said a peep about Clinton doing the exact same thing.
The issues with using the army to clear the park is a separate one. They also claim he did not have the authority to use the military for domestic purposes. He is the commander in chief.
From the destruction that went on in DC and elsewhere, I would have used whatever was in my disposal to save our buildings and lives.
That is just my simple mind.
Yes, we all have witnessed what a Christian Bill Clinton was and is.
". . . a violation of separation of church and state..."
C'mon jackclee, you know that isn't what the church and state thing is about.
GAI said that is what the media is accusing Trump of, not that I believe it is.
Where is the proof the antifa Is responsible for the riots outside the usual rightwing BS that seems to be standard boilerplate for conservatives?
Your proof is an opinion article by Jonathan Turley?
yes and no. There is no definitive proof but when you see bricks being handed out, across the cities and violence results, what are you to conclude?
these were just spur of the moment acts? or orchestrated and planned and funded?
you have a brain, you decide.Deleted
I don't get it? why the support for Antifa? and OWS and BLM? these are all groups that are aiming for the destruction of our system, capitalism and our way of life. Unfortunately, race has been injected into this debate as with many other issues like illegal immigration. Whenever, the left loose their moral grounds, they refer back to charge of racism... it works every-time and most people are too stupid to see it.
I use the OJ case as a prime example. This was not a race case. It was a crime of passion by a celebrity who happens to be black but it could have been anyone. All evidence points to him, yet he was acquitted of the murder of two people.The excuse was it was justified due to jury nullification...what? where is the rule of law, blind justice, and equal treatment under the law?". . . where is the rule of law, blind justice, and equal treatment under the law?"
In that praise-worthy but mythical Book of Good Intentions. Those are goals jackclee, not realities.
GAIf that is the case, then there is no hope. I am an optimist. I believe in the rule of law.
Of course there is still hope. We just aren't there yet.
GA
Did you seriously just post a link to the group that faked the Planned Parenthood videos as something we should legitimately consider? You undermine your own case with the sources you choose.
It was not fake. Planned Parenthood was caught on tape by undercover video. Do you think they would just announce to the public what they are doing with fetus parts?
Where do you get your news CNN, NYT? Project Veritas is doing the job of exposing corruption, one that used to be the role of the media but no more. The media is dead and just an extension of the DNC.
The old adage - you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
You have been served...You're going to stick to the story that those Planned Parenthood videos weren't doctored? Really?
And James O'Keefe wasn't that guy. I get my right-wing conspiracy sites all messed up since I don't follow that stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe
You are wrong, there is no connection. Covid-19 is a heath issue. Racism is human nature at its worse. In fact, I will go as much to say they are opposite. Covid-19 virus is colorblind and also indiscriminate with regard to your economic status. The only people hit harder is the elderly and infirmed which applies to many infectious diseases...
racism happen across the world.
The groups you so derisively speak of addresses necessary reforms. While you right wing buddies that so many of you cling talk take about racial separation and genocide, whose side do you think that I will find myself on?
YOUR system is not good enough.
In America, race is an intragal part of the issue, when has it not been?
For every OJ, there are hundreds of cases of black men being unjustly accused an imprisoned with racial bias certainly being more than just incidental in the outcome.That time is coming to an end and you know it, or you should.
Signs are everywhere that it is.
Obama was a sign. Oprah is a sign. Millions of others who are successful, be they pro-athlete or politician are signs.
These signs couldn't have been imagined 50 years ago.
But they are all true today.
You can choose to incite revolution... but that may result in the destruction of a Nation, in which all will suffer (except the truly rich, they will just move or stay sheltered behind their walled compounds)… at least we would all be equally miserable in our struggles to survive... but the pathways to a better life will have been destroyed for a generation.
Your concern over Whites being the majority and being in control will take care of itself over time. Whites will be in the minority soon enough, Hispanics will by far outnumber both Blacks and Whites, and what of Asians?
The world that was the 60s and 70s will soon not even be a memory... because those from that time will be gone... and so will the circumstances that allowed them... such as the country being 90% Whites.
By 2030 Whites will be a minority... and the politics and prejudices will reflect that at that time.Mark my words, racism will be worse under those groups. Just look to Mexico and Japan as two examples. Try going to those countries and get a job...
"That time is coming to an end and you know it, or you should."
Perhaps, but we are not there yet.
Oprah? Am I supposed to be impressed? There are 607 white millionaires in America, there are only 5 black billionaires. Statistically speaking that is less than 1 percent. Considering that Blacks make up 12 to 13 percent of the population, this number definitely extremely under representative, why is that? Statistically, it would not be unreasonable to expect more in a equal opportunity society such as this one. (Sarcasm).
Wow, why do I invite Revolution? I incite the desperate need for reform of the status quo. The Rightwinger has really been the ones who advocate violence to fight for the right to enslave others.
The rich won't be safe either as they were the target during the French Revolution (remarkable) which should serve as a warning to those that think that their money can insulate them. They would live in fear shuddering under their beds.
Ken, as I mentioned before it is not just the numbers, the white folks have most of the wealth and that will serve as a buffer against greater numbers for minorities, for a time. It may be well toward the end of the century, at the current rate, when the wealth goes through a similar change of hands.Credence, that is not the right way to think about quotas. Have you asked why are so many NFL or NBA players are blacks? why is that not racist?
by your logic, it must be.Not talking about quotas, Jack. I am taking about economic outcomes, do you really believe that the disparity is not a result of an inherent disadvantage that blacks have had in the competitive market.
White people are not so much smarter as they have had incredible head starts and economic featherbeds that others have had little to no access. This kind of wealth had to be accumulated over time and generations for the most part, while my forebears, 3 Generations back, couldn't be hired for much than a boot/black.
That is the "boot on the back of the neck" scenario that I continue to indict the current status quo of as being guilty.disparity is there but I don't believe it is due to race. It is a complex issue and one that needs to be discussed. That is why I believe adopting a conservative principle in ones life is the path to prosperity. I am not just talking about politics. Conservatism is a way of life.
Why do you suppose some immigrants who come here without a word of English and in a few short years are able to work or start a business and succeed...in America? what do they got that American born blacks do not have? most of the immigrants I am referring to are not white, some from Africa, Asia and Mexico and South America...
Can you answer that?Jack, people that immigrate tend to have an advantage of being prepared to make their mark in a new land. With the exception of Indiginous people and the African American experience, assimilation was far simpler for such people. None of them were subjected to virtual genocide or have had any chance of accumulation of wealth thwarted over generations of time. If immigrants knew in advance that they would face that they would have never left home.
Totally incorrect.
Do you know who owns the Federal Reserve?
You can tear the whole country down... you wont impact those people.
Rothschild & Co is a multinational investment bank and financial services company, and the flagship of the Rothschild banking group controlled by the French and British branches of the Rothschild family.
You won't be impacting them either.
This isn't a world where you have to try and escape with your life and wealth on a horse & buggy, like during the French Revolution.
This is a world made up of numbers in a computer, and jets that can circle the world in less than a day. You will never touch the people with real power.My opinion, Ken, is that as long as you are mortal, you are vulnerable.
Who is going to make sure that the slaves do not put poison in the master's dinner?That's wishful thinking.
The truth is these people are not accessible to the likes of you or me.
I doubt even the President could get within arm's reach of them, unless they wanted it.
They have more wealth than all but a handful of nations, in fact they may very well be in control of the wealth of nations.
I am sure that if the collective controllers of the Central Banks of America, the UK and the EU wanted to collapse the global economy or force another global war, they certainly could.
And if they stop the world on a dime, they have the power to keep it going as long as they like... we have seen this in action these last few months.
That was the message I got from the last 3 months... the world was stopped in its tracks... more than 40 million Americans alone out of work... and the system has survived just fine, the Stock Market has never been higher.
What the last 3 months made clear to me, is that us wage-slaves are going to fight amongst one another for the scraps when things get tight... pointing the finger, picking sides, choosing tribes...
I would have to say in their own literature and rhetoric. Or do you think they are lying?
I have heard many accounts of extremists from both poles of the political spectrum agitating for violence. There are plain criminals included in the mix. But that does not change the need for protest and directing attention to an inequitable and unjust system. You might not like that, be we carry on all the same. And as for how much more dirty rightwing extremists are in principle,(Nazis and white supremist types) I am not surprised. The body count from right wing extremists are clear and documented, so don't give me the "red herring" about the blood thirsty Antifa, please.
Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas.
Federal prosecutors say the three white men with U.S. military experience are accused of conspiring to carry out a plan that began in April in conjunction with protests to reopen businesses closed because of the coronavirus.
More recently, they sought to capitalize on protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving and pleading for air, prosecutors said.
The three men were arrested Saturday on the way to a protest in downtown Las Vegas after filling gas cans at a parking lot and making Molotov cocktails in glass bottles, according to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by The Associated Press.
The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Wednesday said they self-identified as part of the “boogaloo” movement, which U.S. prosecutors said in the document is “a term used by extremists to signify coming civil war and/or fall of civilization.”
LINKTry as I might I cannot find anything mentioning "right-wing extremists". Is that something you just threw in because you see it as an offensive label or did I miss something?
As far as a "movement" - as bad as this is it doesn't look like a "movement" to me. Just a handful or nut cases trying to become famous. Could work, though - there are a lot of people getting pretty tired of what they see as excessive government control, particularly in the COVID crises and the shut downs from it.
At the same time it seems that people are getting pretty fed up with violence and rioting, and that they are beginning, slowly, to recognize that the protests they organize and participate in are being hijacked on a regular basis to produce those riots. I posted an article the other day about a town in norther Idaho where the people turned out to patrol during a protest, armed to the teeth. Nor are they the only ones; as government fails to even try to protect the public I've seen that second amendment right being exercised more than a few times to protect what people have spent a lifetime building. People are recognizing that the "left wing extremists" denying the ability to police our streets are nuts themselves and that they will do it themselves if necessary.
Kayleigh McEnany explains it quite well: https://thehill.com/video/administratio … d-briefing
"She wasn’t ahead of her time. Everyone was behind."
https://youtu.be/f2z-ahJ4uws
I'll say still behind.Damn! I like Ms. Jane Elliot. I bet she would be a blast on these forums. ;-)
GAWhen she reads what some comment here, she'd be banned the first day.
Yes, she'd probably be accused of sowing division because she can see color. ;-)
She'd be banned before anyway could accuse her. Just reading the racist comments and ideas of some here.
I'll be banned soon.
I don't find too many of your ideas to be overtly racist.
Some are, but I can tell you are a caring individual that is working on such shortcomings.Thank you.
You're the guy that said is a Nazis and white supremacists sympathizer, right? Can't remember for sure.
Hmm . . . I liked her comment to someone who claimed to be color-blind. "I already knew that, otherwise you wouldn't wear that shirt with those pants." LOL
With wit like that she might not get banned as easily as you suspect.
GA
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo acknowledged on Tuesday that Floyd's death was "not an isolated instance." He continued:
It goes back to Rodney King and Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima and Eric Garner and cases just like it all across this country. And at one point, enough is enough and people say, "I can't believe this is still going on after all of this time." Rightful outrage, and by and large, the protesters have been peaceful. They're upset, they're angry, yes, but they have not been violent. They have been peaceful protests. And what do they want? They want overdue reforms. They want reforms that should have been done 30, 40, 50 years ago. They want America to be better.
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I cannot express the the more simply or eloquently than this......
Sorry, folks, I am on a roll, this morning
This inequity is something that the writer and activist James Baldwin so eloquently addressed in "The Fire Next Time," which he published at a critical moment for the civil rights movement in 1963. He argued that there is no possibility of real change in the status of African Americans without the most radical and far-reaching changes in the country's political and social structure. Baldwin originally wrote part of the book as an essay for his nephew to mark the 100th anniversary of the emancipation of enslaved Americans. Despite the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin argued, American society was rebuilt on a separate and unequal foundation. Progressive steps toward racial equality were often gestures of tokenism. They never fixed the flaws, the "hard problems," within our systems, so gaping disparities in areas like education and criminal justice persisted. By refusing to examine and confront those hard problems, the American dream had become a "nightmare," wrote Baldwin. He warned of a reckoning: "The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise to power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and ring down the curtain on the American dream."
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I want the "hard problems" fixed.......Well said. What can a person like me do to help?
"Well said. What can a person like me do to help?"
You already have. You have made it possible to see that my opinions and points of view are not just the ramblings and rants from an old black guy, stuck in a feedback loop from the past. These problems have contemporary relevance and others can see the issues and our side of things if they truly want to look.
That the ideals I speak of need not rip the America and its values asunder, and if they do perhaps we need to reevaluate and redefine who and what it is that we are.
How can anyone of us live in peace and security while our neighbor is being tormented?
I supported the candidacies of Sanders and Warren as the first tangible and practical step toward making the ideal a reality. It may be too far too fast, obviously. Yet, the very fact that such candidates have risen to the point that they have on the national scene may demonstrate that all is not lost.
In deference to the "other side" who say that we have "come a long way", this is true, but I reply to them, particularly in the light of this crisis, how much further we still need to go."How can anyone of us live in peace and security while our neighbor is being tormented?"
This is the heart of it all.oh gawdddd. . . . why can't we all just get along?
(yes, that was sarcasm)
GA
Really? I am sorry about how harsh that sounds, but you need to understand how condescending your comment sounds.
White folks; "What can I do to help?
How about getting off the condescending "I want to help you" racism train?
That is the last type of comment I would have expected. Geesh.
GASarcasm, GA,?
There are a lot of people (much of the Caucasian persuasion)world wide that through their participation are taking an attitude and spirit of "how can I help". Astute enough to realize that they are all making themselves heard that these disparities in law enforcement are not part and parcel of any world they want to live in.
People that LISTEN is the beginning of any chance of reform. Is it not exciting, this thing has gone global?I hope you will tell me if you feel I was condescending. I am not too old to learn....yet. lol
No, you are just among the many that have woken up and smelled the coffee, which in fact did not smell like coffee, but something else instead.
Yes you are. Science has proven that the brain's 'change' neurons are fossilized by age 56. Something to do with the electrical pathways through our 'Lizard' brain.
GA
Ha! I missed this. Who peed in your Cheerios today? I was interested in his thoughts. I certainly did not intend to be condescending and I certainly hope he didn't see it that way, but if he did, I hope he will say so.
This is a question I ask people when I would actually like to help. Just this morning, when I heard a friend of mine is running for City Council, I called and asked him what I could do to help.
Geez, who knew it was so offensive. lol
I am going to counter this perspective, again as I always do, because for anyone not trapped in a Black vs White mentality, I hope to offer them a glimpse of the true problems... rather than these made up ones.
What was the 60s was in the 60s... it is wrong to make people believe that we are still seeing the injustices of the 60s.
We are not.
The injustices we are seeing are NOT White on Black injustices.
They are Rich on Poor... they are Government on the People injustices.
Bringing Race into the discussion blurs the truth... it puts your arguments on a foundation of quicksand for which any movement or any progress is doomed to failure.
You cannot build a revolution on falsehoods and misconceptions... they will ultimately fail.
The SYSTEM which is the Laws, the Schools (especially higher education), the Government Programs ARE NOT biased against Blacks.
They ARE in fact biased in favor of minorities.
The SYSTEM is however biased against the Poor, the less educated, the working class.
Where is the proof that the SYSTEM is NOT biased against blacks?:
A system where racism was at the heart would not have had Obama.
It would not have allowed Oprah to become a billionaire.
It would not have allowed Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.
Between 2000 and 2014, African American undergraduate enrollment increased by 57% (from 1.5 million students to 2.4 million). That would not have occurred in a biased oppressive system.
72% of African American students received Pell Grants in 2015-16, compared with 34% of white students.
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I am not saying there aren't racial inequalities.
Asians do better in school and income than White or Black Americans... does that mean the SYSTEM is rigged in their favor?
Black Median Household income: $40,232
The average of all races is $60,336
Definitely unequal... but is it SYSTEMIC?
Our country has been betrayed by our politicians for decades now...
Focusing the problems that have arisen from these betrayals onto Black and White issues defeats any hope that we can address the real problems. Which is for sure what those with the real power want.
While we fight over black VS white... no one is addressing a government that just allowed 7 trillion dollars to be shifted over to Hedge Funds, Banks and International Corporations. That ALL us working class folk black or white are going to eventually pay for.
While our small businesses burn or go bankrupt, the likes of Walmart and Amazon grow richer and more powerful.
Police Brutality is a bad thing... and should be addressed.
Racism is a bad thing... and it is an issue inflamed by our media and upper education, an unending cycle of creating racism by focusing on it incessantly... its not likely to ever go away so long as people are willing to keep it alive.
An Associated Press poll from 2012 examined this issue.
The study looked at implicit bias in blacks and whites.
The results showed that 59% of non-Hispanic whites “expressed anti-black sentiments.”
47% of blacks expressed anti-white sentiments.
30% of whites displayed anti-white prejudice while 43% of blacks showed anti-black bias.
So a significant portion of both blacks and whites are racist against their own race!
The bottom line? We’re all a bunch of raging bigots.
And this doesn't even factor in Hispanics... what are we going to do when both Whites and Blacks are the minority?
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The point I am trying to make... the SYSTEM isn't biased against blacks.
Its biased against the poor.
Its biased in favor of the most intelligent of us, regardless of race.Most of this I fully agree with - the systemic bias isn't against a specific skin color (or for it either); it is against poverty. It is against those that will not make the effort to care for themselves, resulting in that poverty.
But your last sentence, that it is biased in favor of intelligence; isn't that true of nature itself? Would it even be possible to change that? If we could, would it be the "smart" (
) thing to do?---Its biased in favor of the most intelligent of us, regardless of race.---
Nope, in that case, you had a super-intelligent person as president. That's definitely not the case.
Intelligence and being rich is not the same.
With private education, you favour the rich, not necessarily the intelligent people.
If you want to favour the intelligent and stop the class system you have to get rid of all private education. Not a difficult thing to do, except for when you live in a broken capitalistic system ruled by the 1%.Your perceptions are entertaining.
In America we like to call that 'commentary from the cheap seats'.
Trump is far more intelligent than many give him credit for, he graduated Wharton with a BS in Economics and a concentration in finance.
He made himself a billionaire, lost billions and got others to take those losses in his place, and then made himself billions more. He knew exactly how to run a Presidential campaign with very little money, using the media to give him billions in free publicity.
If he is your example of an un-intelligent person its no wonder you cannot see more than a simplistic version of the problems that conflate the issues here in America.
And don't think I am defending Trump... just because I recognize that he is not the imbecile that he presents himself to be, or that people take him for, it doesn't mean I think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
That said, he's a heck of a lot smarter than what the Dems have decided to put out there for the alternative. Or maybe Americans are just getting the options in leadership they deserve.Sorry Ken, what I meant was if America favoured intelligence, your president would be a super smart guy. I did not say he was dumb. He simply is not super smart. His writing and grammar is terrible, his sentence constructions are terrible. He is not a guy with an IQ above 120.
He was born rich, and then you buy an exam in an old boys network university. (not literally)
There are tens of thousands of people just as smart as Tump who never make it because they come from a poor family.
The US does not favour the intelligent, most countries don’t. As you have to feed intelligence. The most important years of a live are the first 7 ones. If you are born poor in a neighbourhood full of violence and mothers who are 16, divorces and poor conditions, you will never ever be a president of the US. Regardless of your intelligence. Of course you have exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.
And intelligence is not the same as being good in making money.Trump is not even good at making money, if I had inherited as much as he did I would not have been so short sighted to lose so much money in a few bankruptcies, be embroiled in endless civil suits and have a sordid reputation of "stiffing" creditors. Dishonesty being his standard rather than the exception.
How can you be born with a platinum spoon in your mouth and still screw things up?
No, no, no Peterstreeop. There is no way you can support the thought that the "most 'intelligent' rises to the top, as in, the presidency.
And to your thought of abolishing all private education, it sounds as if you would favor a system of educating to the lowest common denominator.
What is wrong with private education other than it may not be available to all? Is that a thought of "If I can't have it you can't have it either?"]
GANo I don’t support the idea that the most intelligent rises to the top. That was Ken’s idea.
In the Netherlands private education doesn’t exists. So that why it’s not a strange idea to me. It is a system that works. The education definitely is not free, but if you don’t have the money you can get a loan.
Everybody in Holland speaks at least two languages. Their mother tongue and English, most speak a bit of German too. (Makes sense as nobody in this world speaks Dutch, and living in an international world it is a must to speak English).
Education in my view should not be something to be exploited. And as soon as you throw it into the free market, it is not education a school is after, but making profit.(or at least get even), the board of the school is busy with market systems instead of teaching. Privileges come into play. Something that is at a minimum in Holland. (I would lie if I said there was no an old schoolboys network either).
So yes, I think it would be better for education, teaching, and getting schooling if you abandoned the private schools.
I often compare the Netherlands with the UK, my wife’s country from origin. And as the UK’s society is based upon class, so the Dutch society is based upon religion. (A pillar system it was called). You voted on the Catholic party, went to a catholic school, read a catholic newspaper, watched the catholic broadcasting company, went to a catholic sports club, etc. If you were reformed, you voted on the reformed party, read a reformed newspaper, went to a reformed school etc. Same for socialists, communists , protestants, etc. Thats one of the reasons why Holland has so many parties. And always had a coalition government. (Perhaps the fact that there are so many minority groups made Holland more tolerant and careful to discriminate in the open)
And so you’ve got Catholic schools, protestant schools, non religious schools etc.
All these schools with slightly different flavours were still government schools and in the end all the schools had exactly the same exam test.
So there is enough choice of how to learn. I went to a catholic school for instance, because it was closest, not because of my religious belief. And I had religion as a subject. But religion is not an final exam subject. For your final exam it was obligatory to choose English. If you didn’t want to, you had to choose two other foreign languages. This was on all levels.
Well, I guess every country has a different system, and you get used to it. But that’s why I think a private system is not necessary.
True, the wealth thing is dynastic, like a the lineage of monarchs. It had nothing to with intelligence. You are born into it, how else do we explain Nero, and Donald Trump?
The rich always have an advantage and most of the time, it is unearned.
I am going to counter this perspective, again as I always do, because for anyone not trapped in a Black vs White mentality, I hope to offer them a glimpse of the true problems... rather than these made up ones.
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My opinion is that the struggle has always been between rich verses poor. Racism, misogyny is just a component of the whole. Those that are not of the 1 percent or corporate class are locked into a struggle to fight over the crumb that falls from the table of bounty. It is classic divide and conquer, a ruse that is a classic as any technique throughout the history of relations between labor and capital since the advent of the industrial revolution. It is just the "right" that are the biggest dupes in the ruse, who insist on playing into the hands of the CC. So, Ken, regardless of what you say, racism in America is a true problem and not made up. I am in a better to position to know that over yourself.
The injustices are different, once men and women were enslaved, then you replace that with legal and de facto segregation and terror. Just move the "pea" under another shell.
It is a delusion to say that "race" is not part of discussion. In America, race has always been and continues to be part of the discussion.
Tokenism is a component of the examples you provide. As long as the fundamental system protected to the death by Bloomberg and the Wall Street apparatchiks remain unchallenged, it does not matter what color the President is. The "system" no longer permits extralegal lynchings to take place either, does that mean that we reached racial harmony?
No one is saying that 'this society has not improved from the savagery of the not so distant past, just keep the nose to grindstone and eventually.....
I believe that any form of racial bias which exists here is a tool of the largest social-economic bias, the oligarchs determined to remain power with a system skewed to their advantage, using any method fair or foul toward that end.
It is the Twenties, Ken, and they are going to "roar" more than its namesake a century ago.Well said, and I cannot argue with much of this. I will add this:
At one point does it become that not being able to say White Lives Matter, or All Lives Matter, really begin to mean that white lives don't matter...no matter the logic used to justify this notion? This is totally in regard to whites of lower socioeconomic class. But, isn't it at least a bit dangerous to not allow people to say all lives matter. Couldn't it lead to dehumanization if it goes on long enough.All lives DO matter, HS. BLM has it focus on police brutality and inequities in the legal system that seems to be suffered disproportionately by racial minorities over other groups.
I will not be so presumptuous to say that this does not happen to others.credence, what do you think of walter williams?
Here is one of his articles on race and police -
https://townhall.com/columnists/waltere … e-n2389488
In case you don't know who he is, he is a black conservative who is an economist, professor and commentator...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._WilliamsThanks, Jack, I am very aware of Walter Williams and his credentials as a black conservative. But, both you and he misses the point. I am a grown up and aware that use of deadly force is authorized and justified under certain circumstances.
It is the abuse of police authority that I rail against; police shooting a 13 year old kid brandishing a toy gun, shooting a man in the back several times while fleeing over some traffic violation. Let's not forget the flunkie Zimmerman, who stalked and shot a teenage boy to death over nothing. And the most recent affront, a man strangled to death by a officer with three associates while an entire community looks on.
Williams, like most conservatives like to point to the fact the crime rates are higher today than in the 1940s and 1950's. So what is it that hasn't changed over 70 to 80 years of time? Has Anglo crime rates gone up during that time?
Rather than ignoring dismal murder stats in our communities, we are interested in curbing those and apprehending the wrongdoers within the framework of the law. At the same time, I want body cams on all law enforcement officers to make sure that any and all interactions with the public are proper and whatever use of force applied is necessary and commensurate with the situation. Is that asking for so much, Jack? If Williams cannot discern these fine points and differences, than he is a bigger "Stephen Fetchit" than I previously thought.I support body cam on all police. that would be a positive step to address possible police miss -conduct.
As regard to BLM, what about David Dorm? Does his life matter?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/david … index.html
Who will attend his funeral? Rev. Sharpton? Joe Biden? Nancy Pelosi?
Thanks Credence. It does happen to others, and I understand that it happens disproportional to racial minorities. That fact matters, but it's not the whole story. People are having their family's lives threatened for daring to say All Lives Matter on some liberal sites and even on local news sites around here. This isn't going to help the cause of minorities. It isn't going to help people understand anything. It's counter-productive...I don't know if I can even vote blue in November right now as it has gotten so out of hand
Threats are not appropriate, but many of us see the reply of "All Lives Matter" blue lives matter", "unborn lives matter", as just another way to misdirect attention and taunt the BLM and its objectives.
I have no choice but to vote "blue" in the face of all that has happened in the last 3 years."Threats are not appropriate, but many of us see the reply of "All Lives Matter" blue lives matter", "unborn lives matter", as just another way to misdirect attention and taunt the BLM and its objectives."
I do understand this to a good extent. I'm not one to come into a conversation about BLM with an "All Lives matter" retort. However, I do think it takes some logic twisting to state that we simply cannot state that all lives matter, at any time, because of the BLM movement. If I make a separate post stating "All Lives Matter" and am disparaged for it, this is dehumanizing in my opinion. This is where my problem comes in. It's just too much for most of us poor white folk out here getting beaten up by police and the justice system everyday."It's just too much for most of us poor white folk out here getting beaten up by police and the justice system everyday."
Oh lordy, lordy, You are on a roll hard sun. To steal a slang phrase I have heard . . . True dat!
GA ;-)Thanks. Since the start of COVID, this has been a confusing time for me politically.I know I feel this when it has me wondering if I can vote against Trump. I may have to find a third party. I'm watching Biden closely. At least he didn't go along with the "defund police" nonsense.
I would vote for either party's nominee if I trusted them, but when I don't I write in the candidate of my choice.
However, many see that as 'wasting' my vote, or even worse, acquiescing to allowing a poor choice to win. (Trump?)
I can see the logic of both arguments, but I view my vote as a statement of positive choice so I will stick to my guns and only vote for a candidate—not against a candidate.
*shrug
GAYeah...I may be right there with you this year. Anyway, I'm in Indiana...Trump is going to win the Presidential delegates here. Greg Pence is our House Representative in Washington, and he isn't losing. There are no Indiana Senate seats even up for grabs in the state.
So...I don't think I could waste a vote in the 2020 federal elections! You just sealed it...but, I can only vote for a "certified write in candidate" in Indiana...that's a bunch of horse manure right there. Not sure if it's this way elsewhere but: "In Indiana, a write-in candidate for the presidency must file a declaration of intent with the secretary of state. The declaration of intent must be filed no earlier than 118 days before the primary and no later than noon on July 3 in the year of the election"
Understood, I guess it all depends on the context, as a statement of fact and not a denigrating retort.
Police brutality affects us all, some are more susceptible than others.
I cannot express the more simply or eloquently than this...... So, it seems plausible to assume you respect the words of James Baldwin.
First, Cuomo's words were that of a politician, as a rule, they know when to pull just the right words to keep the crowd happy or in this case placated. The truth in his statement ---"They want reforms that should have been done 30, 40, 50 years ago. They want America to be better." (Gov. Andrew Cuomo)
His words ring true... However, very little has been done to benefit black Americans, until now. And it seems you may not recognize it or don't want to. However, maybe you should realize the President that is so reviled has brought about some of what James Baldwin felt was needed ----
"Progressive steps toward racial equality were often gestures of tokenism. They never fixed the flaws, the "hard problems," within our systems, so gaping disparities in areas like education and criminal justice persisted"(James Baldwin)
Act, that the U.S. Congress passed in December. The legislation made permanent $255 million in annual STEM funding for minority-serving colleges, including roughly $85 million specifically allocated to HBCUs.
Trump in December 2018 signed into law. The First Step Act, among other changes, reforms federal prisons and sentencing laws in order to reduce recidivism, decrease the federal inmate population, and maintain public safety.
Both of these bills are positive and have been largely ignored.
Trump is working on behalf of all, American's. Not just giving offering words, but deeds.
I am not going to make a list of what he has done to help black American's, but I had to point out the two prominent changes Baldwin felt would help black American's.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/politics … index.htmlSharlee, Cuomo has been given kudos as to the way he has handled this crisis for the State of New York. There is one poster here who hails from there who has said this. I think that his recognition is more than "political".
Both parties have recognized the need for prison reform, I just wished that the Republicans would recognize the need for other things as well.
But, things have improved from say, 50 years ago. And what improvements have taken place is due to the activism on the left end of the political spectrum. I struggle from within the left end of the spectrum for the fundamental changes that I seek, for which there is not even an audience on the Right. I will take my chances with a dicey left over a Right determined to thwart any progress and turn back the clock on what progress has been made. The choice has always easy for me.I was not responding to Cuomo's handling of the COVID crisis. I too have praised him right here on HP for how he handled the crisis.
I was responding to the following statement you posted ---
"It goes back to Rodney King and Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima and Eric Garner and cases just like it all across this country. And at one point, enough is enough and people say, "I can't believe this is still going on after all of this time." Rightful outrage, and by and large, the protesters have been peaceful. They're upset, they're angry, yes, but they have not been violent. They have been peaceful protests. And what do they want? They want overdue reforms. They want reforms that should have been done 30, 40, 50 years ago. They want America to be better"
Just my view, but I found his statement very political. And yes the bill was supported by both parties.
I think its always wises to stay with whatever makes you comfortable in regards to political parties. And, you have answered my question in regard to your feelings about protests. Thank you.
Does this Trump fellow have no shame?
He uses the death of Floyd to tout his so called economic miracle. Saying that if George were to look down now he would be most pleased.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation-wo … y-for-him/I must ask, did you listen to the minutes before what he said leading up to the statement in regard to Mr. Floyd? I listened to the press conference in full, I can see where one could become upset with the statement if they did not listen to the many minutes that came before the statement. And as I checked some of the statements on youtube I found them dubbed from the video that had the conference in full.
I am sorry, his statement was hurtful to you.I guess that it was not hurtful, as nothing he does can shock me anymore.
This was not a time to associate any claims about his "economic miracle" with the extralegal death and subsequent mourning for Mr. Floyd. More evidence of his poor taste and judgement.
You do realize black people are not the only ones killed by police. White people are killed the most by the police. Why can't we say THEIR names?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585 … e-by-race/BLM is the group that are using fascist tactics to force everyone to agree with them and their definition of "black lives matter". Any dissenting or alternative opinion is not tolerated. Look to the example of football quarterback Drew Brees forced to apologize for his comments...and many others. This is what we are dealing with now. Either you must agree or you are the enemy... Why don't the 7400 blacks killed last year matter? most were killed by other blacks... where are the protests for those people?
show me where is the protest for those black people that are killed in Chicago everyday...gang shootings, drug dealers and innocent by standers... Where is BLM? where is the Rev, Al Sharpton? where is Antifa? If you can't see the double standard, I can't help you.
Answer one question, if police is defunded in those cities, guess who will be hurt more? which groups of people?
The fact that 7400 blacks killed last year is something BLM does not address. The sheer violence of black on black killing is shocking and BLM should make this their priority. That statistic is shocking.
In the 1990s, when Giuliani was mayor of NYC, he reduced crime rates in NYC and saved thousands of lives mostly blacks. His stop and frisk policy took many guns off the streets which lead to the reduction of crime rate. Here is one mayor who has done a great job on this front and yet, he was demonized. While these other liberal mayors across our country did just the opposite and look where we are today including NYC under Bill DeBlasio...homeless are back and sleeping in the subway and parks and sidewalks.
The US is a violent society. So what do you expect? It is the society that created the situation the US is in today. A society with I don't know how many baggers living on the street, homeless people.
Why is there so much poverty in one of the richest countries on earth?
Tell me why?
Why are there so many blacks in prison?
Why is there every day a mass shooting in the US?
Why are twice as many black people then white people dying of the Covid virus?
Why is it that Black Chicagoans COVID-19 death rate is 7x higher than other racial groups?
Why is there so much police violence?
Why are there so many guns around?
People are desperate and angry. Not because one man died under the knee of a policeman. This was the trigger, but not the deeper reason.
So tell me why.It is easy for you to criticize but the answer with guns is very simple. Read our Constitution.
You think we are violent?
Luck for you and the rest of Europe that we saved the world from Fascist Germany and Imperial Japan. What won the war?
checkout this - the greatest generation of Americans.
...
During the 3-1/2 years of World War II that started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and ended with the surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, "We the People of the U.S.A." produced the following:
22 aircraft carriers
8 battleships
48 cruisers
349 destroyers
420 destroyer escorts
203 submarines
34 million tons of merchant ships
100,000 fighter aircraft
98,000 bombers
24,000 transport aircraft
58,000 training aircraft
93,000 tanks
257,000 artillery pieces
105,000 mortars
3,000,000 machine guns and
2,500,000 military trucks
We put 16.1 million men in uniform in the various armed services, invaded Africa, invaded Sicily and Italy, won the battle for the Atlantic, planned and executed D-Day, marched across the Pacific and Europe, developed the atomic bomb and, ultimately, conquered Japan and Germany.
It’s amazing what America did in those days
Many of you already know the story, here is the update.
THE FINAL TOAST
The text below references the movie“Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.”
There is a second film made in 1944 that details the “show” trials of the 11 airmen that were captured & tortured by the Japanese titled“The Purple Heart.”
Three were executed as war criminals, a fourth died in captivity.
The FINAL TOAST! They bombed Tokyo 78 years ago.
They once were among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States .. There were 80 of the Raiders in April 1942, when they carried out one of the most courageous and heart-stirring military operations in this nation's history. The mere mention of their unit's name, in those years, would bring tears to the eyes of grateful Americans.
...So it's ok when it is in the constitution? Hitler had a constitution too.
That's not an argument.
I'm grateful of the liberation of WWII...
But I was talking about violence inside the country itself. Not about wars. or military spending. That's a different topic.
But compare the ammunition, guns, and artillery the police have with other countries, and it almost looks as if the US is a police state. But maybe I'm looking at too many military-sponsored Hollywood war movies.Well how do you think the US was in a position to defeat fascism and totalitarian? The 2nd Amendment is crucial to our country’s success and legacy. Those who don’t understand this will never understand America. we are unique in history. We will defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic...
Defeating fascism has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment.
We are unique in history.... every country is unique. That's a cliché. You can do better than that.
We will defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic...So somebody who does not agree with your view towards the 2nd Amendment is your enemy? You are either with us or against us..is that it?. That's pretty violent rhetoric to me.
The US has done and is doing great things. But the 2nd Amendment is highly disputable. It was made in a different time when it took a minute to load your gun. Now you should hundreds of bullets a second.
Laws change and are not set in stone. Perhaps the 2nd Amendment is not fit for 2020 and should be thought over.Please explain something to me.
I don't get people from other countries getting involved in our politics. It doesn't affect you. How is it any of your business?
When Brexit was a hot topic, I told people from England I don't know enough to form an opinion and I asked them questions. Why? I consider it not my business.
I don't get involved in the politics of other countries. If I'm interested I'll ask questions. But I won't voice an opinion. I certainly won't challenge the citizens in other countries about the politics of their country.
So, I don't get it.
If you are not an American, why would you worry about it? If you're not an American you really have no say so in our politics. Again, I ask...why worry about it?
I have relatives in the Ukraine and I speak with them. I don't even get involved with the politics there. I know their opinions and feelings. I wouldn't challenge anyone from the Ukraine who has an opinion different from a family member. I don't know enough. I don't live there and don't have to deal with the consequences of their politics.
Again...I just don't get these opinions from people outside the United States who are not citizens.
Help me to understand.Consider this perplexing issue like this Mike: You can call your mother ugly but will fight if I do.
That is the logic that seems applicable, to me, when I hear a negative comment about 'foreigners' talking about our nation. However, even as I think I understand that to be the case, I don't agree with it. I think it is wrong.
GAAnd I rear my head again to agree. If this type of talk doesn't at least set you back a bit, I question your loyalties. The foreign CEO of the company I work for had a great deal to say about race relations in the US and the US govt. After telling us he did not know what it was like to live "on the streets of America.!" I didn't like it at all.,
Hi Mike,
I guess the reason why so many people are interested (Because I'm not the only one) in American politics and its society is that the US has a huge influence over the rest of the world.
The elections in the US are not just something that is only followed by people inside the US. The choice of the president and its party has huge consequences for other countries and people living far beyond the borders of the US.
The world changed after 9/11. It wouldn't have changed that much if the same thing had happened in Pakistan.
As I explained in another comment. The politics in the US today had a following in other countries, who started there own Trumpian way of doing things.
I'm not interested in the Ukraine, as the country has hardly political influence over my country and my life.
But the western world is hugely influenced by American culture. Sometimes decisions made locally in Carlifornië have a world wide impact. As Silicon Valley is mapping our internet world.
McDonald's, Amazon, Uber, and thousands of US companies shape our world.
So yes, people from outside the borders of the US are interested in what's happening in the US. As it affects their world directly.
I hope this explains it a bit.Peter,
I have no problem with non US citizens wanting to comment on our system. In fact, I welcome it. Perhaps they can learn something...
However, I do think if you are one of those, please read up and study our history and our system before jumping in. We are a unique country in history. It was not an accident that we became the most powerful nation in the world is a short 156 years. We are not perfect and no other nations are perfect.
However, with all things considered, our system have created the most wealth and prosperity for the largest number of people. That is a fact. Capitalism has its faults but you cannot deny the success it has been throughout the modern era. Unfortunately, there is no perfect system. Income inequality comes hand in hand with private enterprise.
I have an article on American Civics 101 here on hubpages. It is the policy of Hubpages that we are not allowed to self promote. They have banned me temporarily in the past for including links. In this case, I think it would be wise for you to check it out. It is just a start but necessary for anyone who want s to understand our system. It is only a summary but it hits upon the important parts. I wrote it partly to teach our young folks who seems to not understand our own civics. This information was taught in school when I was growing up. Apparently it is no longer taught quite the same way and thus we have a new generation of illiterates when it comes to civics.
Please do comment after you have understood what our system is about. I look forward to your feedback.Hi Jack, thanks for the advise, I will have a look at the page.
Every country is unique, and so this statement doesn´t mean much. And no, of course, it wasn't an accident the US became one of the richest countries on earth. I recently read the book of Ian Morris, "Why the West Rules—For Now." An interesting read, he describes how the west (Europe and later the US) became the dominant culture on earth.
Don't get me wrong I prefer capitalism above communism.
But the capitalism we now have doesn't work either. It has become a monster. Consumerism is consuming the earth's resources. And with a climate crisis as a result. If we want to survive we have to restructure capitalism. The structure today is to buy new stuff as soon as possible. Lightbulbs are made to beak, som more can be sold etc. We should reuse stuff more. But well, this is a whole new discussion.
A except that every country has its own way of dealing with problems. And every country has its own set of problems. But to go back to the topic of the killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed. I think that it shows that the US has not dealt with the racism against afro Americans and the inequality good enough. Not good enough at all. Those demonstrations are not for nothing. They are not about dying blue whales, but a subject that is big and concerning millions of people. To ignore that is helping racism itself. To ignore the problem of racism or to play it down, is to let racism establish itself as a norm.Peter, I make the distinction between systemic racism and individual racism or bigotry. It is an important distinction, but often groups blur this fact in order to promote their agenda.
As a country, we had race issues going back to our founding, but over the years, we fought a civil war to free the slaves, and we passed legislation for civil rights and voting and all kinds of other laws and regulations to level the playing field.
We were well on our path to a color blind society that was the dream of MLK... until modern progressives and radical groups like Antifa and OWS and BLM got onto the scene. Every incident, whether justified or not became a power keg...
If we can't separate race from these other events or incidents, there can never be a solution.
I gave you one example of how a personal crime of passion, can be misconstrued as racial when it does not have to be, or should not be. Unfortunately, in this current environment, it still does and will be treated as such.
I am happy to discuss economic issues and our consumer mentality on a separate forum. Capitalism has its fault as I said but the solution is not to throw out the baby with the bath water like what some of these radical groups wants. The truth is, their solution will be much worse for all of us.I don't exactly know what people mean by systematic racism. I think this definition is open for interpretation. But day to day racism isn't.
I have not heard about Antifa or OWS. But I heard about Black Lives Matter.
Although "whities" and "negros" can sit on a bench together since the '50s, it does not mean that the racism problems are gone.
Racism is a worldwide problem too, and that's one of the reasons I started to comment here.
There is no excuse for racists, period. And you can not play it down. MLK had a political agenda too, is that a bad thing? Black Lives Matter is going politics because if you don't, nothing will change. Sorry to say this, but please don't complain about them using every incident to show their point. If they don't, racism will be accepted as normal behavior. Don't silence racist behavior. Don't silence bigotry. If you do, racism and bigotry will become the norm.peter, The distinction is systemic racism is something we can fix. For example, in the US in the 1960s, blacks were discriminated against by housing rental companies. They were not given opportunity to rent a house in a certain area of the city. That is wrong and we passed laws against discrimination based on race...
When someone violated this law, they can be prosecuted and face jail of steep fines.
That is what I was talking about systemic racism...on every level. We have done the work of rooting them out. Every federal and local agencies follow anti-discrimination laws and regulations.
Personal discrimination or bigotry is something we can't legislate away. As heinous as it is, there is no law against hatred. We are not China or North Korea. They actually send people to indoctrination camps...ie. Muslims.
Here in our country, we have freedom as a valued human right. If someone decides he hates a minority, it is not a crime. It does become a crime if he acts on that hate. We have hate crimes legislation. If someone commits violence against another, and it is proven race is a factor, the punishment is greater...
I like to use the act of murder as an extreme example.
A person may have hate in his heart.
As long as he does not act upon it, the law cannot touch him.
We can use social shaming to discourage him but that is the extent.
Once he commits a murder, our laws are clear and he is arrested, charged and if proven guilty will face incarceration or even the death penalty.
That is all we can hope for.
Let me ask you, do you think we can ever eliminate murder?
if not, why not?
Now ask the same of bigotry?
I hope I have explained this clear to your understanding.peter, The distinction is systemic racism is something we can fix. For example, in the US in the 1960s, blacks were discriminated against by housing rental companies. They were not given opportunity to rent a house in a certain area of the city. That is wrong and we passed laws against discrimination based on race...
When someone violated this law, they can be prosecuted and face jail of steep fines.
That is what I was talking about systemic racism...on every level. We have done the work of rooting them out. Every federal and local agencies follow anti-discrimination laws and regulations.
Personal discrimination or bigotry is something we can't legislate away. As heinous as it is, there is no law against hatred. We are not China or North Korea. They actually send people to indoctrination camps...ie. Muslims.
Here in our country, we have freedom as a valued human right. If someone decides he hates a minority, it is not a crime. It does become a crime if he acts on that hate. We have hate crimes legislation. If someone commits violence against another, and it is proven race is a factor, the punishment is greater...
I like to use the act of murder as an extreme example.
A person may have hate in his heart.
As long as he does not act upon it, the law cannot touch him.
We can use social shaming to discourage him but that is the extent.
Once he commits a murder, our laws are clear and he is arrested, charged and if proven guilty will face incarceration or even the death penalty.
That is all we can hope for.
I hope I have explained this clear to your understanding.Thank you for your explanation.
Systematic racism is indeed something you can fix. But is it really fixed in the US. Why all the demonstrations?
The official paperwork and the reality on the ground are two different worlds. Aren't there still black ghettos, although you tell me that rental companies are not allowed to discriminate?
Blacks living in poverty to whites is 22% to 9%. Why do you think is there such a big difference in this number?
source - Povery rateThat is capitalism. Our Constitution guaranteed equality of opportunity but not equal outcome. People are free to work hard, take a chance, start a business and improve themselves. This will lead to prosperity for those who deliver the best products and services. There is no guarantee of success. If you do like bill gates or steve jobs or elon musk or jeff bezos you can be very wealthy.
Our country is built on individual initiative and entrepreneur spirit...
As poor as some of our citizens, we also provide the social safety net for all kinds of benefits, like housing, and food assistance and healthcare...
Our people in poverty compared to some of the rest of the world are living much better.
If you want to see poverty, go to parts of rural China and India and elsewhere...they don't even have running water or sewers...
For a much better explanation of capitalism and why it is the best economic system, I recommend you read "Free to Choose" by the Nobel award winning economist Milton Freidman.
https://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Stat … amp;sr=1-2So you say that capitalism is the reason why 22% of the black pop. vs 9% of the white pop is living in poverty.
Is this not another way of saying blacks are lazy and whites are clever, because its your own fault if you don’t “make it”.
Could it not be that the capitalistic system in the US is favouring whites?No, I don't think so. For whatever the reason, there seems to be social economic connections. Blacks have a higher rate of having children out of wedlock. This puts the kids in a great disadvantage. Without education and support from the family, they tend to do poorly...
I will use immigrants to illustrate my point.
In America, we have a large number of both legal and illegal immigrants from all over the world. Many come here without a word of English, not much money but are able to find work, and improve their condition and in many cases succeed in the American dream and are able to send money back home, bring their family here and thrive...
If they can do it here, why don't we see the same results in our own population?
How do you explain it?In addition, the reason I don't think race plays a part, is if you look to the Asian community in America. They tend to do better among all immigrants groups, and in fact even surpass some whites.
The reason I attribute is their culture of a close family and the stress they place on education.
These are cultural differences that is not based on any racial bias.
Those numbers don't tell the whole tale.
A far higher percentage of Single Moms fall below the poverty level than Married Couples for instance.
What part does Welfare play in these numbers?
The United States shows striking racial and ethnic differences in marriage patterns. Compared to both white and Hispanic women, black women marry later in life, are less likely to marry at all, and have higher rates of marital instability.
Is this a capitalist or cultural issue?
Today’s racial and ethnic differences in children’s family experiences are striking. In 2014, 70 percent of non-Hispanic white children (ages 0–18) and roughly 59 percent of Hispanic children were living with both of their biological parents. The same was true for only a little more than one-third of black children.
To explain racial and ethnic variation in children’s families, we must better understand the differences in marriage patterns across groups.
The racial gap in marriage began to emerge in the late 1960s, and has grown since, due partly to broad changes in ideas about family that have made marriage optional.
As the imperative to marry has fallen, alongside other changes in the economy that have increased women’s economic freedoms, socioeconomic standing has become increasingly important for marriage.
As economic factors have become more relevant to marriage and marital stability, the racial gap in marriage has grown.
New waves of migration have added to the diversity of the United States, and blacks are no longer the largest minority group. Moreover, considering the family patterns of other minority groups, whether disadvantaged or comparatively well-off, shows that this remains a problem that disproportionately affects blacks more than any other race.
At all ages, black Americans display lower marriage rates than do other racial and ethnic groups. The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey for 2008–12 show that nearly nine out of 10 white and Asian/Pacific Islander women had been married by their early 40s, as had more than eight in 10 Hispanic women. Yet fewer than two-thirds of black women reported having ever been married by the same age.
Yep... systemic racism at its worst... all caused by white privilege."Yep... systemic racism at its worst... all caused by white privilege."
Tsk. Tsk. Your sarcasm is as bad as mine Ken.
But I do think you make a very important point about Black marriage and nuclear families.
It is my opinion that, regardless of race, a traditional nuclear family is a primary component in a life's success.
GAThanks for the additional info Ken.
In many western countries marriage patterns have changed. Along with families having less children.
The more education a women gets, the later she starts with a family.
The more education, the smaller the family becomes.
Also the contraception pill had a huge influence on society. It gave women more independence at possibilities to study and make a career.
I don’t know what the contraception pill costs in the US, here in Spain it’s $1.50 a month. So it’s available for everybody. And I don’t know how well people get educated in these things in the US.
Your a bit sarcastic in your last words. But I think systematic racism is interlocked with the capitalistic system that went off the rails and brought a bigger gap between the poor and the rich.
A problem like this is never easy to pinpoint. And the causes are coming from lots of different angles. That’s maybe why it’s so frustrating for many people. You can’t blame one thing. Its a lot of small things together.And on this I can agree.
Some of those other reasons I identified in another thread... like the flight of industrial jobs from America to overseas, the loss of those Blue Collar jobs hit hardest on cities and black communities.
Another was the focus on "illegal drugs" these two factors agitated the situation at the same time... as jobs left and drug use increased, the focus on drug arrests by many police departments increased.
As usual, Ken, I see that you have done your homework.
My point is that cultural differences and disparities do not explain the WHOLE story
https://truthout.org/articles/how-capit … ach-other/No, there is more involved. Research has demonstrated, for instance, minority children and White children perform about equally in math and science through the third and fourth grades. Afterwards, there is a gradual decline in the performance of minorities in these subjects over k-12. Retraining of teachers from fifth grade forward is the approach advocated for by educators. But one issue identified is many teachers tend to be White female, who tend to spend more time with White kids and ignore minority kids generally speaking. This points to a problem in more than policing, but a societal misunderstanding of the forces combining to create socioeconomic stressors.
"Could it not be that the Capitalist system in the US is favoring white"?
Very prescient, Peter. That thought has cross my mind more than just a few times.
Damn jackclee, one of us must be reading the other's mind, (at least on part of your comment about individual racism). See my comment to peterstreep and we will flip a coin as to who can claim 'firsties.'
GA
"To ignore the problem of racism or to play it down, is to let racism establish itself as a norm."
Those are true words Peterstreep.
But even so, and no matter how starkly the George Floyd tragedy highlights our remaining racism, my opinion is that the U.S. has made huge strides against overt racism that should be applauded, and that as a populace, we are also making huge strides in reducing the minority of folks that still embrace their racism—rather than actively try to combat it.
My view is that our problem with racism isn't something that can be fixed with laws or social programs, (although I think some social programs can be helpful), it is a problem that must be combated individually.
First the parent, then the child, first the teacher, then the student, first the leader, then the led. *(I know, I know, the campfire starts at dusk ;-)
GAAlthough I can’t look from the inside I do agree with you GA.
Since de ‘50s the US has come a long way and even had a black president. There is also a bigger black middle class then 70 years ago. So yes absolutely the US is improving on this issue.
I think social awareness helps. And this can be achieved by social programs and campaigns. People forget easily and so organisations like BLM and others have to be alert and keep people awake.
The social unrest of the 50s made the change happen. Apparently at times a society has to be shaken up. I think that the social unrest of today will also make a change. What kind of, I don’t know.
Yes first the parent and the child will follow. But sometimes you can better start with the child. As McDonalds knew. Focus on children as a customer and they will come back when the are parent themselves....
Children are open for new ideas. Educate them and you have won half a war.Speaking from my own experience I agree with your "children" thought. I can see the societal change in the generation of my own children.
Being the eternal optimist that I am, I think the generation of their children will be the one where a charge of "systemic" will generally be a reference to the past.
GAAnother thing though GA is that we see things always through a “white man”s eyes.we never ever experienced racism. Have you ever been in a situation that you were the only white person in the room?
I remember a rap concert I went to, I didn’t notice at first but suddenly I felt the strange thing of being one of the few white persons between hundreds of black persons. It wasn’t threatening, but you notice.
I think its good to try to imagine the other persons position.
As empathy goes a long way.
Whatever, At any rate, I am not about to answer all your questions. The subject of my comment was black on black crime, and that BLM doesn't care about it or address it.
I am pleased to see you appreciate your country, as I do mine. With all, it's problems we have kept many freedoms, so far...
I love to travel but am always pleased to return home.No, I understand that you're not answering all the questions. That's ok. They were more or less rhetorical.
But what I think is that all those questions are interlocked. Black on black crime is connected with poverty too and hopeless conditions, ghettos and inequality.
And therefore with discrimination and the position of the black population.in the US. Racism doesn't go away on itself. And if there wasn't a problem, you never had Malcolm X or MLK. You did not need BLM. You would not have the mass demonstration nor the riots.
During the 60's there were riots, the fact that there are riots and demonstrations again shows that during the last 60 years the situation of the black community is not where it should be.
Or do you think that all those protesters are spoiled brats, going for fun in times like these on to the streets, risking a Covid infection?All your questions are valid and hold truth. There is no denying that racism is alive and well in America. Some of our politicians have worked on the problems, but not many made true progress or really addressed some of the biggest problems blacks experience Actually Trump has worked for much-needed prison reform and is supporting black universities, his pre-pandemic economy provided record-breaking job growth for blacks. Politicians make many promises to garner the black vote, but they just don't keep them. I have no answers on how to fix discrimination or racism. I am one person, and I treat every human being as I would want to be treated, I brought up my children with those same values. Racism is a complex problem, one that America continues to work on. We have come a long way, but have a long way to go.
I don't feel protesters are spoiled brats. I don't think the protests accomplish anything. It may work to make the individual that joins in a protest feel good about themselves. But, in my view, I have seen very little change o for black people due to protesters. In fact much of the time the very people they were trying to help are left with the mess, the burned businesses, the deaths that as a rule occurs.
I realize my answer is cynical, but it is truly how I feel.Racism is simple, Sharlee, what is the need to treat one person differently from another without any real substantive basis?
That is the current debate for our country. is America still a racist country? After all the gains made in the civil rights movement...
I must say evidence does not support it. We elected a black President. we have blacks as police chiefs and policemen and all sorts of positions of power...we are talking about systemic racism. That did existed in our past but we have moved on...apparently, some will never move on. If they believe in the dream of MLK, why do they insist on looking at everything through a racial lens?
Why don't you start a protest, Jack, you seem very concerned.
I actually write about this and other related issues. I wrote about the Colin Kapernick taking the knee at a ball game and my solution.
There are good solutions to help the minority community...check out Peter Westbrook the Olympic Fencer and the foundation he started...and the book he wrote.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/18883 … bl_vppi_i0
I think because if a White, Oriental or Hispanic is killed by police...their death is ignored by the media. If you are not black and get killed by the police the media will ignore it ever happened. That's why people can't say their names.
Hi Mike. How can we ignore the majority of people who are abused and killed by the police while we are fighting against police brutality? ALL the numbers show that whites are victimized the most. I understand that minorities are disproportionately abused by police, but it's almost as though we are not allowed to mention that whites are ever victims at all. I'm a member of a few criminal justice reform groups on FB and this seems to be the predominant sentiment there. Millions of whites are caught up in our injustice system!!! Why can't we acknowledge this while also acknowledging that racism plays a role? I'd march along with them if it was about that...but it's not. They are hurting their own cause. This, and the "defund police" type of lunacy will hand the election to Trump if liberals are not careful. You know what I think of Trump, but if Biden falls into this type of thinking, how can I vote for him? This is insane.
Hi, hard su. holding police accountable for their crimes, as well as changing police culture from a war mentality to a service mentality, would help all people, wouldn't it?
To that I would say...change the mentality of criminals. Police are often out-gunned and overwhelmed by criminals. The standard issue weapons to police is no match to the weaponry of drug dealers and other criminal organizations. So, if we get the criminals to decrease their war mentality...they I think the police should follow.
That's a huge discussion there. We could start by ending our "once a criminal always a criminal mentality" which, all too often, serves to keep convicts from gainful employment or even a place to live.
Hmmm, are people protesting the deaths of armed criminals? No.
And the stat proves more "whites" are killed by the police, and very few Hispanics or oriental... But these facts go mostly unreported, and that's fine with some.
Are you serious? Didnt you hear about the guy that was fired for saying that yes, all lives matter?
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sport … t-after-al
Something many don't want to digest. Just gets in the way.
Come on --- You expect this to sink in with groupthink being so prevalent. Police all bad, we just don't need them... We don' have crime if they were not lurking around every corner to brutalize and arrest us.
Would you mind pointing out where anyone on these forums said all police are bad? Thank you.
Accountability simply means ensuring the bad ones, whether looters or bad cops, are held accountable for their actions. I always thought accountability was, at least in theory, a stalwart principle of conservatism and traditional American values.You are correct and we do want accountability. However, these protests and riots and looting is not the answer. Certainly, you will agree with me, defunding the police is also not the answer.
The police officer is charged with murder. That is partly accountability. Let's wait and see the evidence in a court of law and if convicted, his final sentence. That would be the accountability in a justice system. The three other officers who stood by are charged with accessory to murder. That is also accountability...
In the 1990s, with Rodney King, the riots only started after the verdict came back. Now we are having to deal with riots...before anything else happened. What changed? where is common sense of the common folks?I do not advocate defunding police, so I'm not sure why you are addressing it with me? However, my understanding of those who call for defunding is that they want to eliminate the current structure and replace it with a different model. I can understand that sentiment.
What model? that is just wishful thinking and reacting with emotions instead of clear thinking. It is very similar to the illegal immigration debate where some wanted to abolish ICE. Is that realistic? NO.
As I said, I do not favor defunding the police. I disagree that pushing for reform is wishful thinking. Nothing would ever change with that mindset.
If you want to know what model, do some reading. One thing we can start right away without a complete overhaul is simply convict police of their crimes.Deleted
my prediction going forward.
1. the police will stand down in future altercations with blacks.
2. crime in black communities will rise.
3. Some good people will resort to buying guns for self defense.
4. the US will be more divided between the races and the economic groups.
5. Antifa will cheer because they got the results they seek.
They do not want to fix any problems rather they want to tear down the existing system to be replaced with a socialist one.Bring chaos to our society is par for the course. Read up on Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.my prediction going forward.
1. the police will stand down in future altercations with blacks.
2. crime in black communities with rise.
3. Some good people will resort to buying guns for self defense.
4. the US will be more divided between the races and the economic groups.
5. Antifa will cheer because they got the results they seek.
They do not want to fix any problems rather they want to tear down the existing system to be replaced with a socialist one.Bring chaos to our society is par for the course. Read up on Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.
Lesson for the day - Be careful what you wish for...Minneapolis just announced they are disbanding the police department in favor of local community policing.
Good luck with that... Their problem is just starting and that is a thoughtless reaction and not a good sound decision. The mayor was over ruled by the city council.
In a democracy, people get the government they deserve.
my prediction going forward.
1. the police will stand down in future altercations with blacks.
2. crime in black communities with rise.
3. Some good people will resort buying guns for self defense.
4. the US will be more divided between the races and the economic groups.
5. Antifa will cheer because they got the results they seek.
They do not want to fix any problems rather they want to tear down the existing system to be replaced with a socialist one.Bring chaos to our society is par for the course. Read up on Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.
I think we must concentrate on issues and not color. A black was killed, that's bad but overall we must touch on police brutality..
Thanks so much for saying this. I think focusing on one race here is doing all races an injustice. I would never deny that racism plays a role in police brutality, but there are also millions of economically challenged whites who have very little recourse when they are abused by our police and our justice system. I cannot say this enough.
Im sorry, but all people concerned about that should start mobilizing people. Im sure they're going to get a lot of support.
I get your points and agree about police brutality in general. But this is not that.
You acknowledge there is racism. You acknowledge that it plays a role in police brutality.
They focus in race because that's what they are denouncing. Police brutality, in this case, is one manifestation of that.
Why question them? Why "you should not focus on your pain because I also have pain"? instead of "I'll support you because I recognize you and I also know pain?
(My response is a general response to people with similar concerns)
The discussion happening here remind me of this I read yesterday.
excellent examples. Perhaps this is just a case of misnomer. BLM is not who they present themselves to be. If all they are concerned with is bad cops killing innocent blacks then I would have no issues with that. Call it anti-police brutality and 100% of people will support it.
I don't support them because BLM make it clear they will not support the vast majority of Americans. They do not include us even when we speak of the same problems. Besides, why not Black Lives Matter Too? No mental gymnastics will ever make me think it is wrong to say All Lives Matter. Liberals are hurting their own cause..badly. If we are "woke" we should be all the way woke and understand individuals all have our own stories, our own struggles, and judge each other on individual merits not just skin color. CNN cannot do that, and many Americans are following.
So many stories of unarmed whites being killed...one here in our city recently. Sh..our privilege demands we stay quiet? Nope...maybe we will mobilize with a group that accepts our struggles.So you think all the people in the streets protesting are "BLM" as an organization?
We say Black lives matter because they do. Period. You need an "also", but where's the "only"?
You can scream, demand, mobilize about that. Why wait for others to move to then demand they scream for you too?
Hi PP. Maybe, but they should call it that then...not defunding the police. That's a gift for Trump. The entire justice system needs reformed for all Americans ans that's not what these protests are about. They could have been..but nope.
I agree, I've been hoping they would stop saying that. Most people will not take the time to understand the concept and yes, it is already being exploited by the right-wing echo machine.
Why are there so many blacks in prison? The real question is why so many Americans in general, but carry on.
You know that a disproportionate number of blacks are in jail for committing crimes against other blacks?
"homicide-victimization rates for black men were 3.9 times the national average and that 52 percent of all known homicide victims were black (2017 data). He might have added that the perpetrators of these crimes were overwhelmingly African Americans. In 2018, where the homicide victim was black, the suspected killer also was 88 percent of the time. And this is not an exceptional situation. From 1976 to 2005, 94 percent of black victims were killed by other African Americans."
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine … ack-crime/Hmm..first, I'll admit the article is not great at sourcing, but I don't think the numbers our out-of-step from what I've seen before.
If we were not to imprison those for committing black on black crime that would be said to be racist..and it seems rightfully so.
Ultimately this presents another set of data that backs up why our entire system needs reformed as it's not working. We obviously need to protect all Americans from all Americans, no matter their race.My question is if there is a system in another modern nation you believe is better? I was with a guy who got in trouble with the Italian law enforcement. It was unbelievable. When I was in Egypt, a guy I was traveling with got in trouble with Egyptian police and he was let go because he was a Muslim and promised to not return. It is really different depending on where you go. In Saudi Arabia, I saw a guy be put in jail for a few days and then sent back to the United States because he had a cross tattooed on his arm. It was unbelievable.
Great question. I had a long answer that I just somehow lost, lol. Anyway. First, I don't put ALL of this on the system as America has universal culture issues that need to be addressed.
I understand the Norwegian system is very good. But, honestly, I need to do more research. My main things are barriers to reintegration, making the prison environment one that doesn't almost ensure people spending five years in the joint won't come out worse, and ensuring we all get equal treatment in the courts, no matter our economic status or race. I think the first two could be done relatively easy with the will. The last, well, yeah..poor people been getting the shaft since the beginning. Ultimately, "justice" systems will never be perfect.
Why were there no riots after the death of Tony Timpa?
"You're gonna kill me!': Dallas police body cam footage reveals the final minutes of Tony Timpa's life
Timpa wailed and pleaded for help more than 30 times as officers pinned his shoulders, knees and neck to the ground in 2016.
As precious minutes passed, the officers laughed and joked about waking Timpa up for school and making him waffles for breakfast.
Body camera footage obtained Tuesday by The Dallas Morning News shows first responders waited at least four minutes after Timpa became unresponsive to begin CPR. His nose was buried in the grass while officers claimed to hear him snoring -- apparently unaware that the unarmed man was drawing his last breaths."
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investi … pa-s-life/I guess the individual races are solely responsible for the lack of outrage in these cases. This is what I've been told. I'd rather all races stand up to policy brutality no matter the race of the victim.
An unarmed college white male college student was killed by an officer in our city several years back. He "lunged" at the officer while he was so drunk could barely stand up. No outrage. ---There will be next time. I promise.
Just a thought --- Has anyone thought if you don't break the law, the police won't be called? Although it seems now the liberals have solved that problem, abolish the police. And the problem will be miraculously solved. No police to call, no chance of being arrested or killed. Just break the law and be on your way. Such a great simple plan.
Perhaps just cut the police's budgets. This works well too... Not enough policemen to show up. So, this could work out well for the police and the criminals too.
I have a wonderful friend that's in the Chicago police department, he solved the problem long ago of being caught up in any form of an altercation with someone that's breaking the law. He calls it "slow-rolling". How he explained it, just go for coffee before heading for a troubling call, and let all the sh-- hits the fan, and just show up to clean up the mess.
How he put it, the less chance for an altercation assure not being caught up in any problems of police brutality, plus he is alive to return home after his shift.
None of these problems solving methods would seem to help solve the problems of police brutality. However, this is what is being proposed. It makes one wonder.I don't think your story says anything good about your policeman friend. Maybe he should be in another line of work. *shrug
GA"Has anyone thought if you don't break the law, the police won't be called?"
I wish that was true, but it isn't:
In 2018, police across the United States have been urged to investigate black people for doing all kinds of daily, mundane, noncriminal activities.
This year alone, police have been called on African-Americans for:
Operating a lemonade store
Golfing too slowly
Waiting for a friend at Starbucks
Barbecuing at a park
Working out at a gym
Campaigning door to door
Moving into an apartment
Mowing the wrong lawn
Shopping for prom clothes
Napping in a university common room
Asking for directions
Not waving while leaving an Airbnb
Redeeming a coupon
Selling bottled water on a sidewalk
Eating lunch on a college campus
Riding in a car with a white grandmother
Babysitting two white children
Wearing a backpack that brushed against a woman
Working as a home inspector
Working as a firefighter
Helping a homeless man
Delivering newspapers
Swimming in a pool
Shopping while pregnant
Driving with leaves on a car
Trying to cash a paycheck
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/20/us/livin … index.htmlOh no, Panther, you are bringing out those talons again!!
Two questions to that CNN article:
How many of those same things happened to a white person?
How many of those calls were made by a non-white person?
If you didn't know this... people call the police for the most ignorant and idiotic of reasons. And I'm sure some of them are racially driven. And I'm sure some of them are just because the people making the calls are abundantly ignorant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tISZuDdD_uE
I agree that we cannot correct anything, unless it is first acknowledged. We, as a nation, finally need to come together and admit police violence against citizens, particularly black citizens, and it is a systemic problem that needs to be addressed in all states and on a national level too. This just can't continue! Tim, I also agree with your point. The people who were standing by shouldn't be brought into this crime as a way to mitigate the appropriate charges against these policemen. They did speak up but if they had actually intervened, I believe more people would have ended up being hurt or even killed especially considering these officer's behavior.
"Blacks living in poverty to whites is 22% to 9%. Why do you think is there such a big difference in this number?"
Many reasons. And please keep in mind that with those percentages...there are clearly way more whites in America living in poverty than black Americans. We don't like to talk about that though. Why?Can someone explain to me why the need to remove statues and rename army bases and now even calls to remove the Washington monument and Jefferson memorial in DC? When will the insanity stop?
You made your point, Jack. I acknowledged things have gone to an extreme, I don't need for these sorts of cosmetic changes to replace the more substantive ones that I want to see.
While I want major reforms as to how police departments operate in municipalities across the country that is not a call to dismantle them and defund them for its own sake.
I do believe that statues of heroes of the Confederacy in the South that are on Public property should be moved to a private property area for display.
No one is serious about changing the status of the Washington and Jefferson Memorials.Is the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi "no one"?
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/06/10/pel … m-capitol/I don't care about the fate of statues to those heroes of the Confederacy, where is the info about the Washington and Jefferson Memorials?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video … _down.html
The insanity got to stop. Black leaders must speak out, or our country is finished.1. Police cannot be defunded.
2. Statues and bases cannot be torn down or renamed or moved...
3. Reparation for slavery is not the answer.
A color blind society can only be reached if we all accept it. All of us must play a role.
It works both ways.
The Christian way is to forgive past wrongs and move on. It benefits the victim more.I dunno, Jack. Does our country really stand on whether or not these statues come down? Will our country really be "finished" because of it? Seems over dramatic to me. Isn't the issue that triggered the unrest in the first place more serious than whether or not we continue to publicly idolize ordinary men?
You are missing my point. I was not referring to the actual statues per se, but to the fact that people have lost all common sense...
Our country is finished if enough people buy into these non-sense and just react with emotions rather than think it through.
You can literally make a case for anything, building, statue, monument whatever and find something wrong or offensive to some groups or individuals...
That is not how society functions.You think people have "lost all common sense" because you don't agree with them.
No, not just agree with me. We can disagree on many things but somethings are just common sense...
I guess, that is another issue. There is no common sense to speak of any more. The subjects has been blurred beyond recognition.
"Does our country really stand on whether or not these statues come down?"
Probably not. Almost certainly not.
But does it stand on whether the underlying philosophy grows or dies? The philosophy that we should ignore or forget our past, both good and bad? The philosophy that we can change history if we but ignore it? The idea that if people from a different time don't agree with us they were all bad people?
Quite likely. Not just in the quaint idea that if we forget history all will be fine, but in the idea that if you don't agree with my opinions then you are nothing and to be ignored. The idea that we should pick and choose who among the famous people of the past are "good" and who are "bad"...while ignoring that they very often shared the same concepts. The idea that only MY feelings matter - you'rs are irrelevant if they don't match mine.
These things could well destroy the country; certainly they are causing great rifts and divisions today.exactly my point. We have reached a watershed moment. Here is my personal opinion and I could be wrong...
Over the last few decades, we have let the secular progressive dictate policy though the courts and elected officials.,
They have removed God out of the public schools.
They have dumb downed the schools so that they don't teach civics, or history or why we are a unique country...
They have replace common sense individual thinking with mob mentality.
The media has played a role to indoctrinate the masses with lies and half truths.
We are now at a point where we can't even have an open discussion any more.
People of different opinions are silenced for fear of being ostracized.
This is the tactics of fascists and communists.
They send people to retraining camps to teach them what to think.
Our Democracy is finished if we go down this path.exactly my point. We have reached a watershed moment. Here is my personal opinion and I could be wrong...
Over the last few decades, we have let the secular progressive dictate policy though the courts and elected officials.,
They have removed God out of the public schools.
They have dumb downed the schools so that they don't teach civics, or history or why we are a unique country...
They have replace common sense individual thinking with mob mentality.
The media has played a role to indoctrinate the masses with lies and half truths.
We are now at a point where we can't even have an open discussion any more.
People of different opinions are silenced for fear of being ostracized.
This is the tactics of fascists and communists.
They send people to retraining camps to teach them what to think.
Our Democracy is finished if we go down this path.
How do we stop this insanity?exactly my point. We have reached a watershed moment. Here is my personal opinion and I could be wrong...
Over the last few decades, we have let the secular progressive dictate policy though the courts and elected officials.,
They have removed God out of the public schools.
They have dumb downed the schools so that they don't teach civics, or history or why we are a unique country...
They have replace common sense individual thinking with mob mentality.
The media has played a role to indoctrinate the masses with lies and half truths.
We are now at a point where we can't even have an open discussion any more.
People of different opinions are silenced for fear of being ostracized.
This is the tactics of fascists and communists.
They send people to retraining camps to teach them what to think.
Our Democracy is finished if we go down this path.
All leading to aWere the people of Iraq fascists for toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein?
No, they were celebrating after being liberated from a dictator.
I hope you are smart enough to see the difference.
The Charlottesville incident in VA a few years ago is different.
They were attempting to remove a statue that was in that park of 100 years. The statue of Robert E. Lee was a celebrated general of the South during the civil war. If you know your history...
He was a decorated graduate of West Point Academy...
There is a building in West Point today named after him as well.
The war ended in 1865.
What was the point of tearing down that statue in 2017?Do you not understand how a statue idolizing a general who fought to keep people enslaved would be offensive? Why do you want it to remain? History will not be changed by its removal. Do you admire this man who fought for those who enslaved human beings for financial gain? Really?
I explained where I am coming from. I wrote a detailed article a few years ago...you can look it up. "when will the insanity stop?"
In it, I referenced there is a statue of Lenin in a public park in Seattle.
I said I would not support tearing that one down either.
I am consistent...
"But does it stand on whether the underlying philosophy grows or dies? The philosophy that we should ignore or forget our past, both good and bad? The philosophy that we can change history if we but ignore it? The idea that if people from a different time don't agree with us they were all bad people? "
I think this is a gross mischaracterization of what it means to have statues or not have them. Erecting a statue of an individual is, in my mind, a glorification of that person. Personally, I've never liked that concept, but that's beside the point. Removing or erecting a statue in no way alters history, it merely reflects who we admire or don't admire at the time.You just made my point.
History is not just one item...a person has many attributes...
They have to be judged based on what was accepted at that time period, not decades or hundred year later when things have changed.
Robert E. Lee was a good example.
You can read up on his accomplishments...
Again, you did not answer my question.
If we go down this path, how far should we go?
To our founding? them we would have to remove everything related to Washington and Jefferson...they were slave owners.
Then, who gets to decided what is acceptable in 2020?
You, or me, or the media? or the activist?
I hope you see the problem.
It is opening a can of worms...The difference between Washington and Jefferson verses Robert E. Lee.
The former were clearly among the Founding Fathers
They were not Party to a rebellion against the United States.
Would modern Germany have a statue to Erwin Rommel in a public square?
