Police are rioting, coast to coast, functioning not as protectors of the peace but as counterdemonstrators trying to beat down, often quite literally, those who would rein them in. Meanwhile, Trump is threatening to sic the military on demonstrators, a good percentage of us are living under curfew, and it’s really starting to seem, as Don Lemon of all people noted on CNN, like “we are teetering on the brink of dictatorship.”
So let’s have another open thread. No trolls.
–DF
This is just another one of those days where I’m convinced that we all died a long time ago and are now stuck in Hell for some incomprehensible reason.
@Anonymous
I was promised succubi, incubi, and symphonic metal.
Ahhh, hell. Sounds relaxing. I saw he apparently shouted at governors that the world is laughing at them (for not beating down protestors?). If I can speak for my tiny corner, there’s no laughing going on here. Not a bit of it. Just sadness on your behalf.
https://twitter.com/haymarketbooks/status/1267506913585102848?s=21
Way to go Dems. Congrats on being partly responsible for brutalities nationwide.
I have just gotten around to watching “The Good Place”. You may be right, and we are in the Bad Place.
The story of that church brutally evacuated by police for a Trump photo op is surreal.
Nah, this can’t be hell. Hell is where people are supposed to be punished for their crimes. Here is where rapists and murderers and grifters get off Scott free and live their lives in luxury and comfort while condemning the rest of us to brutal ends, from police violence or illnesses that aren’t managed and cost too much for treatment, from poverty, from poisons in our water dumped there to make a buck, from climate change, etc.
I almost feel like I’d prefer hell.
My partner and I have long felt that we were heading towards being a banana republic.
Looks like we have arrived. The only question now is – What are we going to do about it?
The phrase “military and civilian resources” seems particularly sinister to me.
@Bluecat
It also reminds me of “human capital stock.”
The Democrats are today where the Republican party was a couple of decades ago. In any other country, they would be considered right instead of left. And they are, and always have been, part of the entrenched power structure and invested in maintaining that structure. So no surprises there.
I am disappointed and disgusted in our mayor, for basically doing nothing while the cops conduct drive-by shootings on stopped cars, like gangsters armed with pepper balls. But not super surprised. He’s a Democrat but super into “law and order” and we all know what those code words mean.
So far there hasn’t been rioting in my state, but the Republican governor is not likely to respond lightly if there is rioting later.
I can’t really say anything that doesn’t violate the comments policy.
I know I don’t comment much, and lately I haven’t been reading often enough either, but I’m really glad you all are here in this time.
Last night my wife and I chased what were probably some white supremacists away from our local high school; they were almost certainly planning to go downtown in our mid-sized city and break things so it could be blamed on the mostly-black, mostly-peaceful protesters who have been out during the day. They’ve been doing that for the last few nights.
This is a block from our house.
Today I got up again, as for the last eleven weeks, and am working from the desk in our spare room. I have allergies, and this pandemic spring every sneeze is a sign of my impending doom.
I appreciate that you, David, and y’all in this group are here, looking at things that are horrid and discussing them.
This morning, working from my desk, I feel broken.
@Defiantcreatrix
Fellow allergies-haver here, can relate. For some reason this season it’s far worse than I’ve had it before.
Today I will be working in a city with riots, going out and delivering the mail while wondering if the businesses on my route are going to be attacked while I am out there. I don’t fear protesters, I fear those who are using the protests as an excuse.
Today I am scared for my colleagues who are black, who will also be going out to deliver the mail. I wonder if they are going to be attacked for working while black.
Today I am scared, in general.
https://youtu.be/coimBo8e_TM
There was another “officer involved shooting” in Louisville last night. But the mayor decided that because the cops’ body cams had not been switched on, the best course of action was to fire the chief of police. I think that’s an amazing degree of holding the institution responsible.
Not last night – it happened Sunday night/Monday morning. The man killed was a restaurant owner who made a habit of feeding cops for free. There was a party (not a riot, not even a protest, just a party) that was going on against corona social-distancing orders, far, far away from the protests. The logical thing to do, obviously, was to send in the National Guard to break up the party, and there was some kind of altercation. The police claim that shots were fired and so they just fired randomly into the crowd. Even if that is a true story, it is outrageous of course, but we have no way to know if it’s a true story because all the cops decided to shut off their body cams prior to engaging.
The police chief was going to retire at the end of June anyway, so don’t read much into him getting let go early. He’s not losing his pension or vacation time. Perish the thought. The cops themselves also didn’t like him very much and they had a vote of no confidence in him a couple of years ago.
I’ve heard stories that the local police response to last night’s protests was much less violent than the response to Sunday night’s protests.
I see Twitter accounts are getting hacked to dissuade protestors.
America really needs to fall, and have an entirely new system in place, one that should be free of European influence (since it’s largely responsible for this mess anyway), free of surveillance and strengthened against corporate lobbying.
People are beginning to look towards China as an alternative (especially with their more peaceful foreign policy) but they’re problematic too – they too exercise police brutality.
I’ve always wondered why this is an option. Yes I know that they could just cover them if there was no shut-off, but really… why is there a shut-off? There should be an automatic presumption of cop guilt if there is no body-cam footage, because it’s certainly a sign of intent to do bad shit if you don’t want a record of it.
@Big Titty Demon
They’re also covering badges. They know full well they’re in the wrong.
I mean, yeah, there should be. But isn’t it so convenient that the people responsible for investigating and punishing the police’s crimes are also the police?
It’s really pissing me off, but not surprising me that the media is still both sidesing this. And that Democratic leadership is still not acting like this is a crisis, as if they are still operating under the delusion that we will have free and fair election in November.
@SunnySombrero
Over here, we’re “the herd”.
It’s slightly better than the 18th century’s “The Swinish Multitude”, but not by much.
@WWTH:
Even after being shot in the eye and stuff.
Aaaand Ontario has (again) lost control of COVID-19, because of course it has. The active case count is back to growing by one to two hundred a day. 🙁
Why can’t Ontario (or Quebec) contain this fucking thing? The entire rest of Canada seems to be doing a decent job of it. Including BC, which has the 2nd biggest city in the country, so it’s not explainable as a big-dense-city thing.