I read the news today (oh boy) - Current world events | Page 161 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

meanmistermustard said
I could not tell you who the Labour leader is as they are a complete irrelevance at the moment. Show me a picture of Keir Starmer and I would have had no idea he was or what he did. Truth be told I had completely forgotten they had changed leader and that I hadn’t heard anything about them for a good while. 

Precisely what I’m getting at, he’s never going to be a successful opposition leader if all he does is humbly bow at Boris’ feet and not take the government to task for its ineptitude. 

To fill you in though, he’s an MP since 2015, who previously served as head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008 to 2014. Under Corbyn he served as shadow Brexit secretary, so he was responsible for the second referendum policy which did not turn out well for the party, so I’m hoping that doesn’t drag him down too much in support. 

Well, polling does show that the number one reason voters abandoned the party was Corbyn’s leadership… Number two of course being the party’s Brexit policy, but that’ll probably become less significant as time goes on. 

Now, have great sympathy for those whose livelihoods have been damaged in the rioting, such as that firefighter. Uprisings of this kind are undoubtedly horrible and destructive, and those whose lives have been damaged as a result deserve support and help. That being said, I find it particularly odious that this is the news story Tim Pool is choosing to cover, particularly after having made 20+ minute videos discussing how Ahmed Arbery – another black man whose murder was caught on camera – … entered a construction site… in what is, in my opinion, a very unsubtle way to justify his killing, or at least get people to overlook it. It’s the “well, the guy was no saint” thing that they pull out every time a black person gets murdered – they immediately jump to trawling through the victim’s personal victory in the hopes of finding some transgression, and then point this out as publicly as possible, as if trespassing on a construction site warrants a death sentence.

In George Floyd’s case, the heinous crime he committed that led to his death was… writing a forged cheque… which he didn’t actually do, the store worker made a mistake. Let’s not forget that George Floyd and the cop who killed him, who coincidentally murdered another black guy in 2006 and had 18 prior complaints of brutality against him, were ex-colleagues, which makes me wonder whether this was actually to some extent premeditated, and not just another psycho racist abusing their power. It’s absolutely sickening – for one, the fact that extrajudicial executions happen at all in a civilised country is mind boggling (if someone commits a crime, then they should GO ON TRIAL), and for people to bend over backwards to find a reason why it could be justified is even more so. Even if we assumed that every single one of the murdered were hardened, truly evil criminals, they should all still have had the rights to a fair trial just like anyone else. If a suspect has a history of offences etc in the past, then that stuff is important, but it should be important to a judge and a jury who can then decide a fair punishment following a fair trial! To me, even if it’s not outright stated that those behind such videos believe that these killings are justified (and even if they don’t believe that, or don’t realise they do), their real world impact is the normalisation of cruel and barbaric extrajudicial execution over fair trial and proportionate punishment, and furthermore the normalisation of the idea that having anything less than a perfect, spotless personal record means that if you happen to find yourself under a cop’s knee or in the path of a bullet, well, you’re not perfect either. 

@Pablo Ramon I’m not denying the oppression black people have to deal with on a daily basis but that’s no excuse to burn down random buildings. At least if they had done something like stormed the county jail and freed all the prisoners, they’d at least be targeting a place related to the murder but instead, they went after random businesses (including some owned by POC) that had absolutely nothing to do with the crime.

But i don’t get why these people are going for random businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with the murder. All it does is give white supremacists and people who believe the police can do no harm a leg to stand on.

Dark Overlord said

Thanks for pointing that out but as nice as it would be, the idea that people will react so violently that the RNC/DNC will give in to their wishes is extremely naive and even if it did happen, you still have all these broken buildings to deal with and while i have little sympathy for big corporations, any local business that was raided will suffer so massively that it might have to shut down permanently.

It’s still very much up in the air what happens, I’m hoping that the state crackdown won’t be too harsh. I don’t think Trump will budge, but I hope that governors and mayors will take action to rein in cops by enforcing stronger rules for police officers, such as making sure they are prosecuted, and having automatic independent investigations into any instances of extrajudicial killing that happen during an arrest, with it being made clear to officers that they will be prosecuted for second degree murder if this happens again. 

But non-violent protests did great for Martin Luther King Jr. back in the 1960’s and more recently, the LGBT+ community. Sure, it may be tempting to lash out your frustrations by looting Target and burning AutoZone to the ground in hopes that the RNC/DNC will cave in out of fear but you don’t need destruction to cause change, you just need massive crowds of people and a good message to spread across the world.

Sure, and non violent protests are preferable, but that doesn’t mean that violent protests haven’t also played an important part in the history of these movements. For example, the modern gay rights movement started as a riot, with Stonewall in 1969. Violent protest has played a huge role in Civil Rights, women’s suffrage, LGBT+ acceptance, worker’s rights like the weekend and the 40 hour work week. Would those movements have seen as much success if they’d been entirely non violent? I’m doubtful.

Here’s Cornel West speaking truth to power as usual on CNN last night.

"It is a lynching at the highest level. No one can deny that," Dr. @CornelWest tells @andersoncooper of the death of George Floyd. "I thank God that we have people in the streets."

"Could you imagine this kind of lynching taking place and people were indifferent?" he asks. pic.twitter.com/r8iSUjJ3db

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) May 30, 2020